As Good as Dead

by O. J. Anderson

Chapter 2:

The Maltese Islands
St. Paul’s Bay
2230 hours

“It’s called a slide,” Jack Creed says. “Teflon-coated brain cells. Information just slides right off. People usually look away and make a face. That’s how you recognize it. Whenever someone hears something that they’ve been programmed not to accept, a slide occurs.”

The man sitting across from Jack, Brian Robertson from Indiana, nods. Sounds plausible. “Sure, sure,” he says.

His wife Linda is busy working on her fourth martini of the hour. She and her husband are on their twentieth anniversary vacation. However, they seem to have run out of things to say to each other. They’d been sitting at the next table over on the patio of the hotel restaurant, silently, Mrs. Robertson guzzling martinis by the fist.

Then Brian turned and said hello to Jack and Rivers. They began talking, introduced themselves, then asked if they could join the two rugged-looking men, both eager for a respite from having to make conversation with one another.

“I know exactly what you mean,” Brian says.

“People’s perceptions are largely determined by what big media programs into them,” Jack says. He is wearing a red and white Hawaiian shirt, khaki cargo shorts, hiking boots, a Panama hat, and a new set of ballistic sunglasses with night vision capability. So he doesn’t really fit in with the high-style chic of St. Paul’s, but he doesn’t much care to, either. Tucked into the waistband at the small of his back is a Sig Sauer 9mm (with an extra-large 20-round magazine. High-powered hollow points filled with hi-ex gelatin and capped).

Rivers: “That’s why it’s called programming.”

“Yeah,” Brian says. “I have a good friend back home who teaches high school math. He’s always telling me kids watch too much TV. But I do too, y’know. It’s like... what else is there to do? After work I just need to relax for a while.”

Jack Creed hasn’t watched TV in over thirty-eight years.

“This helps too.” Brian holds up his cocktail and smiles. His wife giggles.

“Right.” Jack is having orange juice; he’s on the job tonight.

“And speaking of relaxing,” Brian says, “how long are you guys here for?”

“We’ll probably be heading out tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, that’s too bad.” He frowns and nods knowingly. “But everyone’s got to go back to work sometime, I guess.”

“Actually,” Jack says, “we’re here on business.”

“Really. Well, if your work brings you to Malta... I guess things could be worse, right?” Mr. Robertson smiles and sips his drink, then asks, “So, what are you here for?”

Jack tells him. “There’s a Druidic death cult attempting to re-animate the four-hundred year old corpse of someone once known as the Butcher of Malta. We’re here to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

The Robertsons go bug-eyed, simultaneously, in that way that only married people do. Linda seems to have sobered some. They wait for Jack Creed to say “just kidding” or smile. But he doesn’t, and he isn’t going to. He’s serious.

Brian Robertson looks at his wife and says, “Uh, honey... it’s getting late. Maybe we should head back to the room.” He stands quickly, grabs his wife by the arm and pulls her away. Off the patio and across the grass as fast as they can go without running.

Neither Jack nor Rivers says anything. Just wait.

A few minutes later, Jack receives the message.

Jones comes over the earpiece: “Target acquired.”

“Got it,” Jack tells Rivers. The recon team has located the ceremonial site. The re-animation will take place at midnight — Druids are punctual like that. But the pre-game show should be starting any minute: a lot of chanting, moaning and suchlike. It takes a while to summon a four-hundred year old evil entity. Everyone who’s attending will be present by now.

The two men get up and walk quickly off the patio toward the black van parked behind the hotel.

A few tables across the dining area sits a man by himself. He looks up as Jack and Rivers hurry away; and when they’re gone, he opens his cellphone and makes a call. All he says is: “They’re on the move.”

* * *

Jack pulls open the van’s rear doors. He and Rivers throw on their assault vests and sling silenced MP-5k submachine guns over their shoulders. Once Jack is geared up he turns away from the van and backs in toward it. He shrugs into the shoulder straps of the jet pack. Hoists it up onto his back and steps away from the van to finish strapping in. Rivers does the same.

When they’re all set to go, Jack frisbee-tosses the Panama hat into the van and swings the doors shut.

Both men flick on the ignitions with their thumbs. The jet motors whir to life.

The Avenir Skyhawk has only one control stalk; it is flown with one hand, which allows the pilot to keep the other hand free for other activities: firing a weapon, throwing grenades, patching a wound, things like that. It’s good for an altitude of over a thousand feet and has a range of thirty miles.

The green light on Jack’s collective control blinks rapidly, then turns solid. Good to go. Rivers gives him a thumbs-up.

The recon team has sent the grid coordinates to the objective; the numbers appear on Jack’s GPS wristwatch. A brief check of the map. He flips open the compass on his chest harness. Checks the azimuth. He works the distance and direction figures in his head. Nods to his partner.

They blast off. Like bottle rockets over the trees.

Jack on point. Rivers trailing in the flank. They glide down to the beach and continue generally northwest for nearly six kilometers. Approximately ten feet above ground level the two Skyhawks etch shallow troughs in the wet, salty sand, like two big invisible fingers dragging behind them.

There’s a good moon out tonight, and the stars are twinkling brightly — as they do — which gives the night-vision sunglasses plenty to work with. A bright greenish hue. Nice contrast. They zip along the waterfront swiftly. Like bats. At two kilometers out, Jack holds up his left arm; the two men flick their Skyhawks into whisper mode, which decreases their speed significantly, but they’re getting close. Creeping up.

They land aft of a rocky alcove. Stash the jet packs in the woodline, camo them up a bit. Then, with weapons at the ready, Jack Creed and Rivers hoof it over the rocks and continue up the beech for another three hundred meters. After they hit their distance mark, the team doglegs left into the trees on a new azimuth. A clearing should be within ten minute’s hustle time.

There’s little deadfall or leaves. The two men move silently through the wooded area.

Within minutes they see torches up ahead through the trees. Many. Yellowish flickering flames. Too much light for the night-vision glasses; both men take them off. As they sneak up closer, Jack can tell that the torches are placed around the perimeter of the ceremonial site. Good news for them, as internal lighting blocks outward vision at night. They can approach the site under a cloak of surrounding blackness.

They stop a hundred meters away. Kneel. Listen.

The re-animation of the Butcher of Malta is possible mainly because of a chrysoberyl dagger known as the Tooth of Canaan. That, and a lot of obligatory chanting. The eight-inch crystal blade will be plunged into the Butcher’s fourth chakra area at midnight. But that won’t be happening tonight. No one’s getting re-animated on Jack’s watch.

Through the trees Jack can see a stone altar. He touches a button on his comm unit; signals to his crew that he and Rivers are in place.

There comes a procession of hooded fellows from the south. Heads bowed ceremoniously. Somber. They are all wearing heavy brown robes. Moving slowly, in lock step. “Ohmm.” None of their faces are showing, but that hardly matters to Jack. They wait and watch.

The procession splits and forms into a half-moon shape facing north, at the base of a stone pathway leading up a slight incline. The path lined with torches, approximately ten feet apart, all the way up to a stone altar. It’s hard to see from their position, but there seems to be a symbol carved into the stone facing wall at the rear of the altar. Jack shifts his position slightly to get a better look through the trees. It’s an owl. A large owl with its body pointing to the left, but its head turned facing the stone path — as though it were going somewhere but stopped to look at something.

There are now about fifty hooded cult members standing at the base of the path. They turn inward, toward the walkway, the two halves of the cult facing each other. The strength of the chanting increases.

Next come the pallbearers. These members wearing black robes. The casket hoisted up onto their shoulders. They march slowly up the stone path and place the casket on the altar. Once the Butcher is in position, the six men in black robes move to the rear and stand next to the owl wall, three on each side. Like evil groomsmen at the world’s creepiest wedding.

The promenade of Druids finally comes to an end with a red-robed figure holding a black box — the dagger, presumably. This guy walks up the path, stops, and turns around to address the rest of the Druidic death cult, who have turned and faced the altar. He begins in a language unrecognizable to Jack: “Ohm... mlak kish tona hass sree tikik...”

Jack and Rivers are now situated about fifty meters from the edge of the clearing. When they make contact, they will be halfway between the main body of the cult members and the altar area. They begin sneaking forward. A deadly pair of party crashers. Though their weapons are at the high ready position, they don’t plan on firing a single round.

When they exit the woods the chanting stops. Everyone turns toward the two intruders. The priest stops talking. He also turns.

After a moment, he bellows, “You must be Jack Creed.” He doesn’t appear surprised to see the two men standing there. None of the cult members is.

Jack: “Right.”

“And you are here to stop us.” The priest’s accent is peculiar: maybe a Frenchman who learned English in Australia.

“Right.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“Listen up, ace,” Jack says. “We can do this the hard way, or the really hard way.”

“Oh, really?” The head Druid laughs, deep and heartily, like someone just told him the one about the priest, the rabbi, and the one-eyed sheriff who walked into a bar. He then throws his arms to the side. Shouts: “Mola hana teeka ado! We choose the really hard way!”

The entire death cult standing at the base of the path throws off their robes. Underneath are nickel-plated .357 revolvers. Pearl handles. A pair each, in shoulder rigs. The priest laughs harder now.

Jack and Rivers aren’t amused.

The priest: “We’ve been expecting you, Creed. One of our spies has been following you since the day you arrived. Now, what were you saying about the options? I suddenly forgot.”

“We were onto your man from the beginning,” Jack tells him. “He’s not that good.”

The cult members are forced at this point to make note of the fact that the two intruders are hardly worried about the tables having been turned on them. The two men look casual about what’s happening, flippant even.

What the cult has yet to learn is that it is impossible to trick, deceive, mislead, bamboozle, play a fast one, hoodwink, connive, outsmart, outwit, outmaneuver, outflank, or outgun Jack Creed. You just can’t do it.

The trees begin rustling. Bending under a stiff wind.

There’s something in the air.

Everyone spins and looks upward as a black helicopter gunship glides over the trees. Only slightly visible over the glow of the torches. It’s the squad AH-64d Apache Longbow. As a full-spectrum weapons-delivery platform, the Apache carries one M230 30mm auto-cannon with 1,200 rounds, eight AGM-114 Hellfire missiles, and thirty-eight Hydra-70 2.75 inch folding-fin aerial rockets. Got enough weaponry here to turn the entire cult into a low-fat frappe.

Printed in white lettering on the tail are the words: DEUS EX MACHINA. The chopper hovers almost silently in stealth mode, the rustling of the trees actually louder than the turbine engines themselves.

“What?” Jack says. “You didn’t know about this part?”

The priest isn’t laughing anymore. Doesn’t say anything either.

“Right.”

Stealth mode being no longer necessary, the pilot turns the capability off. The air suddenly bursts into a high-pitched whine. It’s like a fluorescent light being flicked on; the Druids scattering like cockroaches. They’re not up for this kind of fight.

The chopper opens up with the 30mm. A staccato burst from the cannon as it rips up the stone pathway, right up to the altar. The black robes run for it. The priest grabs the box containing the dagger.

Jack doesn’t care about the Druids. He only wants the Tooth of Canaan. He sprints up the incline. And because he is wearing an infrared indicator unit attached to his assault vest, the gunship’s sighting system will redirect fire around him; so he can run all over the objective without worry of getting shot.

Rivers stays back by the woodline, covering the rear. The mob of cult members are still tripping over each other trying to escape. It’s like a bomb scare at a night club: the faster everyone tries to leave the slower it gets. Rivers just kneels by a tree, ready to drop any of the Druids who try to use their piece. He watches as an overweight cult member — who clearly hasn’t run in a very long time, if ever — slams face-first into a tree and knocks himself unconscious.

The gunship co-pilot sends a couple Hydras back into the woodline to block that avenue of escape. They hiss over the ceremonial site and blow a hundred meters behind the owl. The 30mm also continues pulverizing the altar area, now vacant, except for the Butcher of Malta, whose casket and corpse are now being chopped up like a pound of chuck at a crappy cheese steak joint in South Philly. He has clear instructions not to damage the dagger; so, as Jack disappears into the right side woodline, the co-pilot checks his fire at that location.

Up ahead, Jack can see the priest: ducking and weaving through the trees as best he can. He has no idea where he’s going, just running for it. The priest is getting tired and slowing. Jack will have no trouble catching this clown. All he has to do is run up and hog pile him.

Jack lowers his MP-5 down to his side, then pushes it back to his oblique. Ready for a tackle now, he runs ahead. Gets to within a couple feet and dives at the priest — now hunched over, hobbling along and nearly hyperventilating.

Getting his arms around the priest’s neck, Jack muckles on and takes him down. Hard. Really hard. The two men slam into the base of a thick tree, the priest’s head absorbing most of the impact.

Jack rolls away and jumps up, ready to issue a boot to the face. The same can’t be said for the priest; he isn’t moving at all. Jack isn’t too concerned about him though. Only the dagger. He sees it; it rolled a few feet away after the priest fumbled it.

After recovering the box, Jack removes the crystal Tooth of Canaan and drops the box. It’s heavier than he expected. Running his thumb along the blade, he notices that it’s sharp, the tip especially so. Could probably be used in actually combat; he wonders if this were ever the case. The most prominent and interesting feature of the dagger is the butt: a large golf-ball sized hyper-dimensional orb.

The orb is intricately cut with dozens of tetrahedrons. There is also an octagonal star at the end — the end that would be facing straight up had it been sunken into the chest area of the corpse on the altar. From what Jack knows of this device, this octagonal star is a stargate for spirits, and never good ones, based on his experience.

The stargate leads into the hyper-dimensional orb, passes through the prism-like blade, splits, then basically jumpstarts the corpse. Thereby allowing demons and suchlike to cross through and have physical access to our world. It takes up the form — paraphysical embodyment — and a former spirit walks and talks freely on earth.

Jack tucks the dagger into his vest. Nothing passing through it tonight. Not tonight, not ever.

* * *

Proceed to Chapter 3...