The Pressure of Darkness Read online

  "You're a sick fuck, you know that?"

  "Oh, yeah."

  Top indicates everything is clear. They back out of the filthy room and close the wooden slatted door behind them. They turn and the new formation puts Doc on point. He jogs to the second, slightly larger building, ducks under a darkened window patched with cardboard. Doc moves up the steps; blows his wind out like a tired horse and tries the door. It is locked.

  Doc Washington steps up onto the porch and takes aim at the lock and suddenly someone inside fires WHAM and Doc takes a round in the side of the stomach. The Kevlar vest stops it but the impact punches his waist and he spins all the way around. WHAM again as another round hits him in the lower back and this one goes through. The young medic rolls down the steps, in shock. He is in agony, but has yet to make a sound.

  Emergency flood lights come on. The team has been caught wearing NV gear. They blink rapidly, now vulnerable and virtually blind for around ten seconds. They all rip off the goggles, leaving them to dangle from chin straps, and seek cover wherever they can find it. The entire compound explodes into gunfire. Top tries to make sense of the situation. He finally identifies two gunmen. The one who fired through the door is using what sounds like a Kalishnikov. The other man, at the window, seems terrifyingly efficient with an Uzi. The team is now pinned down, and they are already running out of time.

  Doc, sitting flat at the foot of the steps with his legs extended, clutches himself and begins to wheeze/whisper in a high, eerie voice 'oh fuck I'm shot' and 'I can't feel my legs' over and over again. Burke starts toward him but Top waves NO and orders Red to slip around to flank the man at the window. Scotty starts firing at the door and then rolling, firing again, giving the impression of being more than one man. Top ignores the voice in his head that keeps screaming to abort and tries to make the guy in the window nervous.

  "Doc, how is it?"

  Doc repeats that he can't feel his legs but his belly hurts.

  Burke jogs around the back of the dirty building, where the sounds suddenly seem farther away. The lights are not on. Burke passes a white kitchen door, locked from the inside. He sneaks a peek through the broken window, head up and then down again. There are two men in the building and they are sitting in the living room, in the dark, firing out into the light.

  Burke slips the night-vision goggles back over his eyes and moves rapidly up the steps to the back door. It is also locked. He moves to one side, carefully fires at the lock. He waits until the man inside whirls and reflexively puts two through the door, just like he did when he nailed Doc. Burke wants to catch the ragtop trying to reload.

  "Aw, shit!" someone screaming, out in the yard. One of the terrorists has scored a second hit. Angry, the Burke kicks in the door and goes for the one at the window first, a thin Arab in a long white sleeping shirt. Burke walks a line of fire along the floor and stitches the bastard from nuts to nose. The guy at the door has nearly reloaded when Burke turns the gun his way and hesitates. It is their target, Dahoumed. He surprises Burke by dropping the gun and ammunition and fleeing. The leader escapes through the kitchen door and out into the back.

  Cursing, Burke follows recklessly, an invisible clock ticking away in his mind. Time is running out. He sees Dahoumed dart back into the guard's quarters, probably hoping to find some protection. From inside, Burke hears an insane giggle start up. The sound makes the hair on his arms rise. He charges into the room.

  A figure sits on the now stinking pile of bloody human and animal corpses, holding some long feathers and a primitive wooden icon from the altar. He is rocking and laughing and hugging himself like a child seeing a circus for the very first time. Some of the human and animal skulls beneath him seem to be grinning, their wide, piano-key teeth stained and yellow. Severed limbs pulse while hands and fingers clench at thin air and point, mockingly, at the young soldier in the doorway. This is senseless, appalling, a charnel house; nothing but mindless butchery.

  Jack "Red" Burke feels real fear in that moment, a terror more atavistic and overwhelming than any he has known before. This is bloodlust gone berserk. Dahoumed seems like a force of nature, evil personified. The room reeks of gore and the stench of entrails and raw meat. This camp has become the last stop at the edge of the world, where madness begins. The fugitive has smeared himself with the blood of the sacrificed, both animals and his own dead followers. He stops laughing and stands up. In person, Yousef Dahoumed is a squat, fat, unattractive man in a ragged wife-beater tee shirt and stained boxer shorts. He drops his empty rifle and surrenders. Burke steps closer and peers right into his face. He needs to be certain.

  The maniac smiles warmly at him, says, "You take me to America?"

  Burke smiles back, articulates carefully. "No, I send you to hell."

  The man's smile fades, fear dilates his pupils. Burke opens up on Dahoumed, firing right into that chubby stomach. The burst flings the man against the wall and sunflowers his guts down over his bare feet. Now he fits right in with the rest of the décor.

  "Clear inside!" Red Burke calls. "Target eliminated."

  After a few seconds, he hears Scotty respond with a note of panic in his voice. "Clear outside! They got Top too, man. I can hear more bad guys on the way. We'd best get the fuck out of here."

  Burke rattles down the steps, legs rubbery from adrenaline. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Scotty giving Doc an injection, but most of his attention is focused on Top, who now lies on his back in the dirt with his knees up and spread, like a woman giving bloody birth. Somehow he's been shot in the lower groin, despite the body armor. Burke approaches, noting the smell of excrement; already reaching to the medical kit at his belt but even before he kneels he knows it is too late. Top begins gagging and clutching at his throat, where he has also taken a round. His larynx has been shattered and he can barely breathe. Burke considers an emergency tracheotomy, but Doc is grievously wounded and in pain and he doesn't trust himself to pull it off.

  "Go," Top grunts hoarsely, "just go."

  "Don't you fucking die." Burke begins to weep. He is instantly ashamed of his weakness, but the sight before him is ignoble, ugly and unredeemable, so devoid of dignity that it breaks his heart. He looks at his weapon. "Top, should I . . . ?"

  Top's chest begins to heave. He strangles and something in his neck tears wide open. One long, thin gout of blood shoots straight up and arcs away to splatter like urine in the dirt. Top gurgles. His eyes go flat and empty and it is over.

  Burke forces himself to move. He pats Top down, triple checks that there are no dog tags and all pockets are empty. He opens a waxed package of C4, pulls the pins from two grenades, and carefully places the explosives beside Top's body. He closes his friend's eyes, rolls him over onto the booby trap.

  "Let's boogie." Bowden, calling with a razor edge to his voice, and now Burke hears the distant sound of men shouting in Arabic and vehicles heading their way. He looks up. Scotty has Doc over his shoulders and is already a good thirty yards off, heading for the extraction point. Burke tries to think of something to say but comes up empty. He pats Top on the head and jogs low to the ground, weaving back and forth for safety. Then the men run for all they are worth as the noise grows behind them. They shut down their minds and just make time.

  But when they arrive at the drop zone again, the chopper is gone.

  Burke checks his watch. They are just over three minutes late. The observer has apparently bolted. Burke understands why. He knows that the spooks will have given Cary Ryan and the bird strict orders not to wait. They are on their own.

  Red Burke sinks to his knees, shaking and panting, trying not to panic. Nearby, Scotty is also fighting for air. "That fucking Ryan split, man!" Doc is in agony and now stoned out of his mind. "The cracker motherfucker left us here to die."

  "Yeah." Burke shakes his head, sadly. "I really didn't think he'd do that."

  "Well, he did," Scotty calls. "So what do we do?"

  "Give me a minute."

  "We don't ha
ve one, and if you have any brilliant ideas how to stay alive, now's the time to let us in on them."

  Burke's mind whirls in circles. He considers deliberately overdosing Doc and booby-trapping his corpse as well, but doubts he could bring himself to go through with that. Abandoning him is also out of the question. But a suicidal firefight against the fanatics seems just as pointless. Jesus, what now?

  And then Scotty grabs his arm. "Listen!"

  They hear vehicles moving closer, men shouting in a foreign tongue. Burke puts the enemy maybe half a mile away and closing. He comes to a decision. "We stand and fight. Let's dig in." He frees his entrenching tool, but then hears something else—a low thumping sound.

  The Black Hawk! Ryan has ordered the bird to come back for them. Burke grins and Scotty grins and they hoist Doc up between them and stumble into the prop wash as the bird returns for one last pass. And again breaking the rules, the pilot fully touches down to extract the wounded man. In the doorway, Cary Ryan is stressed and pale but seems determined. He drags the men up off the ramp and into the craft, even manages to handle Doc somewhat gracefully. Meanwhile, pinpoints of light sparkle on the far dunes as enemy fighters begin to fire upon the helicopter with a sound like hail hitting a tin roof.

  "Let's move!" Ryan calls to the pilot, "Now, before somebody fires an RPG." They hustle higher. The chopper roars up and takes evasive action and the sporadic gunfire is soon far below them. They are quickly out of range. The bird turns rapidly, soars away.

  "Cary," Burke shouts over the clatter, "thanks."

  The spook nods, mouths brothers.

  And as the beautiful Black Hawk takes them home, Jack "Red" Burke sits near the open doorway and looks back down toward the distant compound. He sees tiny headlights and floodlights everywhere, the sparks that show men firing into the air from rage and frustration. He thinks about Top, for the first time examines the relentless ugliness of death and senses the constant pressure of eternal darkness. He tries to clear his mind, but cannot seem to erase the nightmare image of that blood-drenched terrorist laughing and rocking on the pile of bodies like some demon from the netherworld, a dark priest performing pagan rites Burke should never have witnessed. He hears rapid gunfire in mental echo and his buddy Doc shrieking in pain, sees Top lying still, guts strewn about on the ground and open throat pulsing blood, dear brothers, maimed and dead.

  Come and get some, you bastards . . .

  Burke grunts with primitive satisfaction when he sees the small, far-away twin explosions that turn Top's body and anyone near it into red mist and hamburger meat. He turns his face away from death, toward the rest of his life from now on.

  ONE

  Los Angeles, California

  Present Day

  SUNDAY

  "You look tired."

  The patient lay prone and still on the crisp sheets, hands folded. Her visitor was a large and muscular man in his late thirties, modestly dressed in torn blue jeans, running shoes without socks, and a plain gray NFL pullover with a Raider's logo. He dragged a folding chair along the floor, indifferent to the annoying shriek of the dented metal as it scraped the linoleum, and planted himself close to the open window. He leaned back and looked at some afternoon clouds. After a moment he turned and spoke softly, so that no one else would hear.

  "I've been working too hard."

  Her dark, sleepy eyes accused him. Mildly embarrassed, he looked away. "I know, but we really do need the money."

  Moments passed. He took a deep breath and looked down into the crowded courtyard. The sky was a darkening blue. It had been sunny and warm all afternoon, a beautiful and remarkably smog-free Los Angeles day. The temperature was still in the low eighties. Pretty women in tight clothing seemed to be everywhere.

  "I'm whipped. I'm not getting enough exercise." The man rubbed his eyes. "I brought a book with me, though. I thought maybe you'd like me to read to you." He pulled a thin paperback from his back pocket, The Red Pony by Steinbeck. The big man was a clumsy reader, but earnest intensity kept him going. He paused occasionally to take a sip of water from a plastic bottle. The pages turned noisily and time plodded by. Someone called someone on the intercom and the man finally become distracted enough to quit. He set down the book, yawned. "I was a lousy cop, but I wouldn't make much of an actor either, would I?"

  "No."

  The man smiled in a minor key. He stared out the window again. The sunset was a smear of pale orange and red on the western hills. Shadows elongated to embrace the fiery ball. Down below a beautiful young woman in a white top and shorts, perhaps a student at nearby USC, called out to a friend and waved hello. Pigeons cooed and burbled near the small Greek fountain in the courtyard. The man silently wondered, not for the first time, why God seemed to make gorgeous women younger every year. Eventually he looked up, the fading light accentuating the graying copper in his hair. He studied the braided contrail of a passing aircraft, its engines all but inaudible.

  "I started praying again." He spoke so softly he felt compelled to repeat himself. "I've been praying. I think I may go back to that Zen center in the Valley. There was a Roshi there who made a lot of sense."

  "Why?"

  "You know why. Because I think it helps me with my anger."

  "You need to work on acceptance."

  "Yes."

  The man leaned forward in the chair, dropped his head into cupped palms. He closed his eyes and breathed slowly, deeply. He repeated the focused breath, again and again. Darkness crawled effortlessly down the side of the building until it triggered exterior lighting. The yard stilled and the hospital room grew silent. After a few long moments the man fell asleep; head in hands, hands on knees.

  "You have to leave now."

  He was on his feet in one fluid motion, fingers spread, reddened eyes searching the room. A stern nurse stood in the doorway, clear plastic clipboard raised high, like a gladiator's shield. She was a toasty-brown Hispanic woman of indeterminate age. Glasses enlarged her dark, wary eyes. Her face was fixed. It was kind, but firm.

  "Sorry, but visiting hours were over an hour ago, Mr. Burke. You'll have to say goodbye."

  Burke felt irritated in a dull way. He wanted to argue but couldn't quite summon the energy. He nodded to the nurse, hoping she would be satisfied. She remained there, clipboard clutched in one hand and fat fountain pen in the other, determined to check him off as evicted from the premises. Burke walked to the bed, bent at the waist like a mime and kissed the sleeping woman on the forehead.

  "Good night sweetie," he whispered. "I'll try to stop by tomorrow."

  The nurse looked away quickly, as if surprised by deep emotion. She ushered him out and closed the door once he'd gone.

  Burke walked down a long, hollow corridor where footsteps boomed. The walls were a pale green in this section. They soaked up all light and shade, reflected nothing back. The effect was subtly disturbing; everything emptiness and echo, as if he were the last living thing. He shook away a familiar feeling of despair and picked up the pace, mind already beginning to focus on work.

  Outside, he paused in the driveway as if to smell the night air and looked around. The lot was nearly deserted, except for a few automobiles in the private-parking area and what appeared to be a yawning, empty ambulance. His eyes efficiently searched corners and doorways, seeking the orange glow of a cigarette or the shape of a loitering stranger, anything that might seem out of place. The sprinklers hissed on and began to twirl mist in sensual circles, moistening the fresh, green grass. Burke yawned and turned to face the glass doors, stretched and rolled his broad shoulders. The movement allowed him to look behind. He had not been followed.

  Satisfied, he turned back again. In one sharp burst he sprinted through the sprinklers, almost playfully; ran across the damp grass and into the adjoining lot. Burke looked around one last time and then slid into a used, nondescript white Toyota. He drove away, into the Saturday night traffic, which was minimal, except for the frustrated Hollywood Bowl customers waiting in
long, twin lines on Highland.

  The 101 Freeway was an awesome tongue of spider-webbed concrete that stretched from one end of the city to the other. It extended from the gleaming gold of downtown, where tall buildings menaced the huddled poverty of Skid Row, out through the multi-cultural San Fernando Valley, then roared past the gaudy, over-priced homes of Calabasas all the way out into Agoura and the edge of Ventura County. And Burke, though not from Los Angeles, had settled here. He now knew every inch of the territory as well as he did the deserts of Nevada.

  He exited at Lankershim Boulevard and turned north, toward the towering, black structures of the legendary Universal Studios. The concert there, a country music spectacle, had already begun. As Burke drove by the entrance he suddenly swerved to the left, ignored the chorus of annoyed honks, and pulled an illegal U-turn. He started back the other way, one sharp eye on the furious people he'd left behind. Then he turned right, along the sloping ramp that would take him over to Ventura Boulevard and away from the studio and theme park. He watched his rearview mirror carefully until satisfied.

  Burke traveled up Vineland, passed the used car businesses and sagging apartment buildings that packed the area, stopped again at the conjunction of Lankershim, Vineland, Riverside, and Camarillo Streets. This intersection, a maze of confusing right, left, and straight-ahead lanes, was a death-trap for the unwary and the frequent site of fatal accidents. He turned onto Riverside Drive. Fredo, the Italian restaurant he wanted, was a few blocks back, toward Tujunga. Burke parked on a side street, walked quickly through a darkened alley, and entered through the back door.

  The restaurant was decorated in Italian Cliché. Burke saw red and white checkered tablecloths, small vases with drooping dried flowers, condiments and geriatric bottles of olive oil containing sprigs of herb and pepper. A balding, rotund man waited in a booth near the back. He had a notebook in his pocket and a pencil behind one ear and was tapping furiously on a worn laptop. He looked up with a dyspeptic grimace.