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"Chaos" was the only word Jake Scarberry could think of to describe his situation. The panicked screams of civilians running for their lives echoed all along the expressway. A bit further away, the symphony of screams melded with the honking of unsuspecting commuters stuck in a logjam of traffic. Jake stood alone on the bridge, the heat already seeping through his thin-soled boots. Black smoke, trapped beneath low-hanging clouds, filled his lungs and nostrils. It was five p.m., but today everything seemed darker than normal.
Despite the explosion, the bridge connecting the boroughs of Queens and the Bronx remained standing and Jake was glad about that. He certainly had no interest in experiencing the long drop into the East River if the bridge were to collapse. He couldn't remember the name of the bridge, but that was the least of his concerns at the moment. The important thing was surviving a battle that obviously wasn't over yet, not with the pair of determined and psychotic dark blue eyes staring at him through the haze.
The man, smaller and years younger, inched his way forward, sidestepping abandoned cars with a single-minded focus. At one juncture he disappeared in a cloud of smoke. When it cleared, he gripped a tire iron like a spear in his right hand. In his left, he still held the small black detonator box.
"If I'm going down," the man shouted, "then so are you. This is not over!"
Was another charge about to detonate? Had he mistakenly assumed this to be a diversion so the rest of his group could escape? Jake guessed it didn't matter right now.
Keeping his eyes on the man, he used one hand to remove the burnt and still smoking Kevlar vest. Smokewafted from his adversary too, yet no pain showed on the man's face. Was he a good actor or had he somehow remained uninjured in the horrifying blast?
Jake clenched his fists and prepared for what could quite possibly be both their final battles--the assassin because he'd been paid to do a job, Jake because he'd been hired to stop this group called "The Duke Organization."
First he had to go through this man. He stood fifteen feet away now.
Jake's head spun. His throat and lungs burned with the acrid smoke. His knees wobbled like jelly--instinct screamed to grab hold of something solid. But that would show weakness to his adversary.
Ten feet away. How much longer could he keep from passing out? He had no weapon save his fists. What defense would they be against the tire iron?
Six feet. The blue eyes burned with hate. And something else--victory.
Not yet! Jake managed to keep himself from shouting.
Through the cloud, three soldiers in full military gear appeared. One aimed a pistol and fired a shot to the back of the man's head. With an expression of surprise, he collapsed in a heap. The detonator flew from his fingers. It bounced twice. Jake braced himself for another explosion.
None came. A fog crossed in front of his brain and he felt himself falling.
* * * *Jake struggled to open his eyes, defying their insistence on remaining closed. No longer on the bridge ... that was obvious. The smell had changed from acrid to the sharp pungency of ammonia. But more than that, the hard bridge pavement was now soft, yielding. At last he squinted his eyes open enough to see white, lots of it. "Hospital," his brain whispered. Something moved. It was white also, and closer. And it had breasts. "Nurse."
Jake tried to sit up. The same time the nurse said, "Stay on your back or you'll be sick," nausea struck. Like a train it roared over him, smashing and splattering in its wake. The nurse shoved something under his chin. For a long time he dry-heaved. He swallowed the last of the bile that seemed to burn more going down than it had coming up. She shoved a damp cloth into his palm. He scrubbed it across his mouth, looking down so he wouldn't have to see the pity on her face. Shit, he'd never barfed in front of a woman before.
He fell back on the bed, eyes closed to the humiliation. The blanket shifted over him. "You're doing pretty good considerin' the beatin' you took."
"Beat..." Then he remembered. The bridge. The explosion. The Duke Organization. His employers, the United States government, hired him to stop a fellow group of mercenaries from accomplishing their mission. "How long..."
"Almost a week."
Damn. The Duke Organization must be in shambles by now. Little by little his vision cleared. The nurse finished hanging a plastic bag of something clear. He followed the length of tubing to the connector in the back of his hand. She tucked the covers once more, bending low. The name tag said Donna. The cleavage said deep...
"You have a visitor." She gestured over her shoulder.
Jake turned his head, slow so his stomach wouldn't erupt again. An obese gray-haired man stood on the right hand side of the bed. He wore a general's uniform with three stars along the right side of the collar. What was he doing here?
"Straker."
"General Straker," he corrected.
"What are you doing here?"
"Your mission is over, Mister Scarberry. We won't be in need of your services any longer." The man shifted from one foot to the other. "Needless to say, I am not entirely pleased with the results you achieved."
