They reached the staircase at the end of the hall. Aleks covered the stairs to the next floor. An AK fired blindly from the upper landing and Aleks responded with a burst of his own.

  “I’ll hold them off, you go get the girl.”

  Kurtz pushed open the cellar door with his boot. A volley of fire greeted him. He waited as the rounds thudded into the heavy wood. One of the bullets struck the side of his helmet, snapping his head back.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  “You all good?” asked Aleks as he unleashed another burst of fire into the landing above.

  The answer came as Kurtz lobbed a distraction grenade into the cellar. The gunmen fired blindly for a moment, then Kurtz stormed down the stairs, firing his KRISS as he went. A torrent of 230-grain projectiles tore through an upturned table, leaving the two gunmen crouched behind it ripped to shreds.

  When Kurtz reached the bottom of the staircase a flash of white light overwhelmed his goggles. Something smashed into his weapon, sending it flying across the room. Another blow slammed his NVGs into his eye sockets.

  Kurtz desperately raised an arm to protect himself as his master hand reached for the pistol on his hip.

  It was too late. Gusztáv was already on top of him. The Hungarian used the heavy metal flashlight like a club, swinging it wildly in the darkness. He smashed it into the PRIMAL operative’s shoulder and Kurtz roared in pain, his hand numbed by the blow. Encouraged by his opponent’s anguish, Gusztáv swung again, hitting the other arm.

  That was his undoing. The built-in Taser activated, sending a high-voltage blast through the metal flashlight and into his body. Kurtz reeled as a residual charge grounded through him.

  “Kurtz, you OK?” called Aleks, still covering the stairs to the upper level.

  “No,” Kurtz moaned. “I Tasered myself!” He pushed Gusztáv’s limp body onto the floor of the cellar and secured his hands with a set of plasticuffs.

  “And they call me the clumsy one. Is the girl there?”

  Kurtz tilted his NVGs up, activated the light on the side of his helmet, and scanned the room. The beam fell on the naked flesh of a woman lying on the ground, tied to a chair that had been tipped over. Kurtz dashed across the room. She appeared unconscious and barely recognizable.

  “Aurelia!” He pulled out a pair of medical shears, sliced through the rope on the chair, and laid her naked body gently on the side. Aurelia’s face was a bloodied mess. A rubber tie remained wrapped around her arm and a syringe lay next to her. He shone the helmet light directly into her eyes: The pupils were fixed and dilated. Her breathing was almost nonexistent, a flutter, her heartbeat the same. He ripped his medical kit from the pouch on his belt. “Stay with me, Aurelia, stay with me.” He stuck a miniature heart rate sensor to her chest, synching it with the iPRIMAL on his wrist.

  It started beeping angrily. She was flatlining. He pulled an auto-injector from the med pouch and punched it directly into her chest.

  The sensor didn’t change.

  He waited, hoping for a beat as the life-saving chemical stimulated her heart muscles.

  Five seconds passed—nothing.

  Then ten.

  It was too late; the flatline on his combat interface never even flickered. She died on the cold stone floor, clearly a victim of a forced overdose.

  Kurtz reacted calmly, taking off his glove and closing her eyes with a gentle hand. He picked his gun off the ground, inserted a new magazine, and slung it on his vest.

  Gusztáv regained consciousness when Kurtz’s helmet light shone directly into his face. Blood ran down his face into his beard.

  “Where are the girls?” Kurtz demanded as he forced the Hungarian up onto his knees.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Gusztáv responded in accented English as he squinted into the bright light.

  “Where are the girls?” Kurtz repeated himself, his voice devoid of emotion.

  “Gone. There’s no one here.”

  Kurtz lifted Gusztáv up and slammed him into the cellar wall. “You’re fucking lying. Where’s the wounded girl?”

  “Dog-food girl?” He grunted. “She’s as good as dead.” He squinted into the bright helmet light. “Look, if you’re police, you’re going to get into shit for this. My boss is a big deal around here.”

  “I’m going to ask you one last time, where are the girls?” Kurtz’s voice was hoarse.

  “You’re already dead, pig. You don’t know it yet, but you’ve fucked with the wrong people. You’re going to end up deader than that bitch over there.” He spat in the direction of Aurelia’s corpse.

  Kurtz stared directly into the man’s face for a long moment. Then he snapped.

  His forefinger went through the handle loop of his Benchmade dagger and he drew it from its sheath behind the pouches on his chest. His other hand reached out and grabbed the flesh-trader by the face.

  He punched the knife into Gusztáv’s throat, stabbing furiously, driving the blade in and out again and again. The cold steel severed all his major arteries, the point hacking into his spinal cord. Kurtz rammed the blade home one last time, all the way through his spine and out the back of his neck. He wrenched it free and let the body collapse onto the floor.

  Gusztáv flopped around on his side like a dying fish. Blood gurgled from his mouth as his legs spasmed. Kurtz left him there in the darkness, dying alongside Aurelia’s body.

  “Did you find her?” Aleks asked when he returned to the top of the stairs. “Where is she?”

  Kurtz continued up the stairs to the second floor. “They killed her,” was all he said.

  Working as a pair, it took them another ten minutes to clear the upper floor. Kurtz moved like a machine. Devoid of emotion, he executed a wounded man and shot another down as he ran. It was clear he had no intention of leaving any of them alive.

  A small group of gunmen had holed up in the barn behind the manor. They were firing randomly, peppering the building with gunfire. The PRIMAL operatives had surveyed them from the top floor, standing well back in the rooms to avoid any chance of being spotted. Exiting through the front door of the residence, they hugged the building, working around to the flank.

  “We could set fire to the barn…that would sort them out,” suggested Aleks as they crouched in the darkness.

  “No,” Kurtz snapped. “There’s probably a girl in there. Aurelia had been looking after one who was bitten by a dog.”

  “Then we need to get her out. We could use one of those cars…”

  A line of vehicles was parked alongside the manor, a battered old Mercedes and two four-wheel drives. They snuck up to a four-wheel drive, its shot-out windows confirming it was the one used to abduct Aurelia. Aleks tried the door. Locked. He reached in through the shattered window and unlocked it. A single suppressed pistol round ensured the interior light wouldn’t come on as he opened it.

  Another burst of AK fire slammed into the upper story of the manor as the remaining criminals fired at shadows. Kurtz lobbed a distraction onto the roof. It bounced on the slate tiles and exploded, drawing even more fire.

  Aleks tore the wiring out of the Toyota SUV and jury-rigged an ignition circuit. It started with a cough, the diesel engine running rough in the cold air. He reached in, placed one hand on the brake, and dropped it into reverse. Then he gave the accelerator a jab and jumped back from the vehicle. The truck reversed slowly toward the barn, gaining more speed on the slight decline. Aleks and Kurtz jogged behind it, using the car as cover.

  One of the criminals spotted the vehicle and shouted a warning to his comrades. They opened up with their guns, punching the rear of the car full of holes as it rolled toward them. It crunched through the double doors and smashed into a row of dormitory-style beds, finally grinding to a stop in the debris pile it created.

  The PRIMAL operatives peeled out from either side of the vehicle and unleashed a savage volley of suppressed gunfire on the remaining hostiles.

  Alert for any others, they cleared the main dormitory room.

  “Lots of beds here, Kurtz. At least twenty girls at a time.” Aleks strode deeper into the barn.

  “Imagine how many girls these Schweine have sold into slavery.” Kurtz moved through a door at the back into a short hallway with small rooms on either side. It was the remnants of the stalls where the horses had once lived, the spaces still containing discarded equestrian equipment. Kurtz checked them one by one.

  “We need to get out of here. If we stay longer, the police will be on us.” Aleks was waiting in the dorm, alert for any more of Gusztáv’s men.

  “Ja, one more room.” Kurtz swung the door inward and found a small stretcher covered in tattered blankets. He had turned to leave when he heard a faint moan coming from the pile of rags. He pulled back a blanket and exposed the deathly white face of a beautiful young woman.

  “Aleks, I’ve found her.”

  She moaned in pain as he checked the bandages on her arm and leg. Aurelia had done a good job dressing the wounds but the smell of dead flesh told him they were infected.

  “It’s going to be OK,” Kurtz whispered. The girl moaned as Kurtz wrapped her in a blanket and picked her up.

  “Aleks, we need transport and we need it yesterday.”

  “We’ll take her with us, da?”

  Kurtz carried her into the dormitory, where Aleks was waiting. “She needs antibiotics badly. I need to clean and close her wounds.”

  “Then let’s go. We should be able to use that old Merc.” Aleks took the lead, his 417 in his shoulder, protecting Kurtz, who carried the girl in his arms. Once they reached the battered old Mercedes, he checked the door. Unlocked. Kurtz laid the girl on the backseat and hopped in next to her. In the front Aleks used a knife to lever off the dash. He was about to rip out the wiring when he thought better of it. He flipped down the sun visor and the keys dropped onto his lap. He turned to see if Kurtz was watching but he was busy with the girl.

  The diesel sedan started up with a clatter and Aleks drove it down the gravel driveway toward the front gates. Using his goggles to guide him in the darkness, he gunned the engine and hit the front gates at speed. They sprang open as the bumper smashed into them, and he spun the wheel sideways, sending the car sliding onto the asphalt road.

  Within minutes they were back to where they had hidden their Audi. Quickly, Kurtz transferred the wounded girl from the Mercedes. Aleks rigged an IV bag to the back of the passenger seat and pulled a sleeping bag from the trunk. Kurtz had already laid out the medical kit and quickly rebandaged her wounds. They hooked her up to the IV drip, made her as comfortable as they could in the backseat, and started off on the road toward Budapest.

  They drove in silence, the rescue of the girl doing nothing to dampen the sense of failure that both men felt. Aurelia was dead and no amount of criminal blood would change that.

  Kurtz had been driving for half an hour when his phone rang through on the hands-free. It was PRIMAL headquarters.

  “Kurtz, it’s Vance. How’re you guys tracking?”

  Kurtz gave Aleks a sidelong look. “We had a slight holdup but we are on the move now.” His voice was flat, emotionless.

  “Holdup?”

  “Ja, a problem with the car. We ran over some nails. This scheisse Audi doesn’t even have a spare.”

  There was a pause. “But everything’s OK now?”

  “Ja, ja, Aleks fixed it. We’re almost in Budapest. We’ll go straight to the safe house.”

  “All right. I just wanted to give you a heads-up on movements from this end. Chua’s Blade has come through. He’s hooked Bishop and Saneh into the network. They’re airborne as we speak and heading for the Ukraine. They’ll hang there till they get the invite and then run a covert op in Hungary to find out who’s in charge of these sex-trafficking scumbags.”

  “What about us?”

  “You guys are backup for Saneh and Bishop. Once they confirm the target we’ll push you forward. I’ll give you a full brief when you hit the safe house.”

  “Understood.”

  “Safe driving, and try to stay away from the ‘nails’ this time.” Vance terminated the call.

  “I think he knows.” Aleks looked concerned.

  “Without a doubt.”

  “You think we’re going to be in trouble?”

  “Nein, but we would be if one of us got killed. Vance isn’t stupid. He knows we joined PRIMAL to help people, and if he has a problem with it, then he’s not the man I thought he was.”

  Aleks nodded and they drove in silence for a minute before he spoke again. “I am sorry you lost her.”

  Kurtz stared at the road, then glanced at the girl on the backseat. She was asleep. “I just hope this hasn’t ruined any chance to rescue the others.”

  CHAPTER 8

  UKRAINIAN AIRSPACE, EASTERN EUROPE

  “Lady and gentleman, we’re about thirty minutes from wheels down.” The pilot’s British accent filled the aircraft’s luxurious cabin.

  Bishop keyed the intercom built into his armrest. “No worries, Mitch. We’re going to check in with the Bunker. Let us know when we’re five out.”

  “Wilco, mate.”

  Bishop and his companion were the only passengers on the business jet. The pair of covert operatives made quite the couple. Bishop was medium height with an athletic build. The former Australian Army officer looked like the type of rugged, mischievous, good-looking man that women often fell for but seldom dated.

  Saneh, a former Iranian intelligence officer, was as deadly as she was beautiful. From her Persian ancestors she had inherited movie-star looks: long brown hair, high cheekbones, green eyes, and a figure that caught the eye of every man she encountered. Where Bishop was more of a sledgehammer, perfect for demolishing targets, Saneh was a scalpel, a deadly mix of subterfuge and manipulation.

  Bishop activated a button that lowered an LED screen from the ceiling of the aircraft. He took a tablet from the pocket on the side of his chair and used it to establish a communications link with PRIMAL headquarters, the aircraft’s point of departure.

  Saneh adjusted her chair, returning it to the upright position. Like Bishop, she was dressed in comfortable pants and a T-shirt. Clothing more suited to their mission was packed in their luggage.

  “Bishop, Saneh, how’s the flight?” Chen Chua, PRIMAL’s American head of intelligence, appeared on the flat-screen.

  “Luxurious and smooth as a baby’s bottom,” replied Saneh. “Mitch may love his warbirds but he flies this jet like a dream.”

  The pilot, Mitch Freeman, also captained PRIMAL’s combat aircraft.

  “I’m glad you got some rest because things are going to get hectic once you hit the ground.”

  “Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Bishop said.

  “You’re going to love this one. While you were in Sudan, Aleks and Kurtz did some great fieldwork on a sex-trafficking network based in Hungary. For now we’re calling it ‘the Syndicate.’”

  “Creative,” Saneh deadpanned.

  “Your job is to penetrate that organization and gather more intel.”

  “What’s the cover?”

  “Ivan spun them a story regarding Yuri wanting to branch out to selling commodities other than weapons in the Middle East.” Yuri was an arms dealer who worked for PRIMAL, less by choice and more out of a healthy respect for an organization he didn’t want to cross.

  “It’s the old team again.” Bishop had been working with Ivan on the mission that had resulted in Yuri’s boss being killed and also led to Saneh’s recruitment into PRIMAL. Ivan was Chua’s top undercover intelligence operative. He worked behind the scenes on PRIMAL operations, recruiting agents and gaining access to organizations and individuals.

  “Yuri’s still under our control?” Saneh asked.

  “Very much so; we’re his best customer. He also still thinks he’s working for the CIA. The man is ruthless, but he’s got morals. Jumped at the opportunity to take down a bunch of sex traffickers.”

  “So what’s the plan?” Bishop asked.

  “We’re waiting for a call back from the Syndicate with the time and location of the auction. Mitch will organize transport; Mirza and the CAT are already on the ground and will provide a ready reaction force if required. Aleks and Kurtz are in Budapest and will support with ground surveillance if you need it.”

  “Do we know exactly where the meet will occur?” asked Saneh.

  “Not at this stage but it will be somewhere in Hungary. Now, are you both clear on the cover story?”

  “Of course,” Saneh replied curtly.

  “I think I’ve got it.” Bishop grinned. “If I remember right, I’m the arms dealer and Saneh is my assistant.”

  “That’s correct. We’ve built you up to be a bit of an entrepreneur of the illegal markets. Filthy rich from selling arms to the Middle East, you’ve decided to branch out into the flesh trade. Saneh is your assistant, mistress, and madam. She’s coming along to confirm the quality of the product.”

  “All right, all right.” Saneh sighed. “Now what about the leads in Japan?”

  “Nothing as yet. We’re not even sure that’s where the pipeline leads. My informant in their police force thinks this might even have a Korean link.”

  “A tangled web of networks. It’s never straightforward, is it?” said Saneh.

  “No it’s not, and as Aleks and Kurtz have already found out, these people are well armed and capable.”

  The aircraft’s intercom interrupted the call. “Touching down in five minutes, chap and chapette!”

  “That’s my cue, team.” Chua wrapped up the conversation. “Good luck. Oh, and Saneh, try to keep Bishop out of trouble.” He terminated the call.

  Saneh got up and put her backpack away into a storage compartment, preparing for landing. Bishop watched her with a grin. “Already getting into the role, I see.”

 

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