Grave Mercy

The Phoenix Force medic was also familiar with the kind of alchemy practiced by the “zombie lords” of the Caribbean, and thus would be able to direct the search for the kinds of atomic chains left behind in the blood samples. Fortunately, the blood hadn’t been kept so cold that ice crystals had formed in its water content, making separating it into test tubes easier.

James knew that he was in for the long haul, and looked forward to the intellectual challenge ahead. He blanked the origins of the blood sample from his mind, burying his emotions over the violence the berserkers committed so that he could focus on the biochemical mysteries in front of him.

Once he narrowed down the origins of the maniacal tourist murderers, then James would switch into Phoenix Force commando mode and assist the Executioner in bringing hot lead and righteous retribution down on the murderous manipulators.

For now, the lab machines would hum and do their job.

CHAPTER SIX

Fortescue handed over the folded bills to the informant. The man who’d been staying at the surf camp had been named Brandon Stone, and the informant had noted that a U.S. Navy helicopter had arrived to pick him up.

Morrot had been correct about the “professional soldier” description. One didn’t get a quick ride from a Navy bird off a beach in Jamaica without some pull within the military. Fortescue recalled the speed and skill with which the man had dispatched five machete-wielding attackers while never once going to the razor-sharp scuba knife that he’d worn on his calf. There wasn’t a military force on Earth that would have begrudged one of their own dealing with more heavily armed superior numbers with deadly force, even a club or picking up one of the fallen marauders’ machetes. It was telling that Stone charged against them and used only enough force to render them harmless. Sure, some of the injuries on the dead, drugged minions had been long term—spiral fractured arms would have never healed even if their hearts hadn’t exploded after they were rendered unconscious.

Fortescue remembered his hand-to-hand training, bought by his father and given to him at the hands of a former Spetsnaz commando. His reactions had been quick, his grace natural, strength remarkable, making the way of the empty hand easy to come by. The Russian had also taught him the use of the knife and skill with the gun, talents he’d honed as he’d worked long and hard for local crime gangs.

As such, Fortescue could tell the speed and power displayed by Stone was nothing short of elite, easily one of the most deadly human beings on the planet. Only one bit of extra force had been utilized, and that was on an attacker who had cut down a man in front of Stone’s eyes. The clothesline strike was the kind of move that could have shattered the neck of the strongest man, and the way the woman had flipped and smashed into the sand, never to rise again, it was an attack that had been fueled by anger.

The informant had left him, and Fortescue slouched in the booth, a frown crossing his features. The inclusion of Stone was a wild card that few could anticipate. Morrot had made plans that would deal with the intervention of MI-6 or any number of conventional intelligence and counterinsurgency agencies. But a one-man army who had naval aircraft at his beck and call and moved as if his limbs were quicksilver flowing under his tanned flesh was something else entirely.

“He’ll be tough,” Fortescue muttered. “But he bled. Maybe he won’t be so tough against more concentrated numbers.”

There was also the “vampire juice” that Morrot had whipped up. It was a chemical cocktail that duplicated the painkilling effects of his zombification drugs, but left a man with his full cognitive abilities. Such a man, immune to pain and exhaustion, would be able to fight harder. Fortescue was fully aware that most people only utilized a fraction of their physical potential, slowed by pain to prevent overexertion. Fortescue had tried the solution, and his faculties had remained clear. With it, he’d been able to bench press twice what he’d originally been able to—a full five hundred pounds. A sparring match against three of his best men had ended with all three floored, Fortescue’s assault far too quick for them to compensate. One had punched him, a blow that had left his cheek raw, as if it had been run across a cheese grater, and subsequent x-rays showed fractures on the cheekbone. The pain had kicked in only after Morrot’s concoction had warn off.

The broken bones had healed since then, the pain of the face-breaking impact having faded, as well.

Would that kind of advantage be enough against the “professional soldier” on the beach?

Fortescue smirked. He, too, was a trained, capable combatant. With the “vampire” blood racing through his veins, he’d be unbeatable.

And just to be certain, Fortescue would bring along half a dozen of his best men, also powered up by Morrot’s muscular jet fuel.

It might be enough.

MIKE CARMODY took another drag on his cigarette as he sat at the café table fifteen feet from Fortescue. The DEA agent was in Jamaica as part of the agency’s effort to curtail the flow of heroin through the island nation, but it might well have been dropping a cork in the ocean for the hopes of stopping its ebb and flow. He’d received a phone call, though, this morning from a high-up Justice Department contact who told him his assistance was needed to get some intel about some specialized illicit chemicals and toxins running through Kingston.

A North American of African American descent, Carmody was comfortably unnoticeable when out in the bright light of day, and when it came time to reach into the shadows for that hard, grimy information, he would play a role that kept him from being an obvious intruder in the Kingston underworld.

As such, he wore plenty of bling, chains and rings glimmering around his neck and fingers, a dark blue silk shirt open down to his sternum and sunglasses that would have been a bargain if bought for $1000. It was the look of a man who wanted to emulate the more well-groomed rappers of the east and west coasts. The style also happened to look at home in nightclubs that catered to those who bought entertainment for an evening along with a liquor bill running into the thousands of dollars and a closed-off VIP room where women debased themselves just to have the slightest brush with wealth and power, no matter the origin of the blood money.

Carmody may have been comfortable in the silk shirt and linen slacks and cream-white Italian leather shoes, but he wasn’t comfortable with the act he had to put on while doing “business” in Jamaica. He knew that the world would look at him as an exemplar of one of the worst stereotypes of black American organized crime. He fought to stifle that revulsion, and ninety-nine percent of the time, he succeeded quite well. His mission was to protect children and teenagers from the kind of slow death and mind rot that heroin addiction inflicted upon countless people.

He took another sip of chilled beer, watching a familiar face leave Fortescue’s table, pocketing some folded bills. It was Eric Rambeau, one of the men he regularly tapped for information, and he could see that the scrawny little snitch was in a hurry.

Carmody dropped a few twenties on the table and took off after Rambeau. If there was the chance to figure out what was going on, it lay with the informant. Rambeau’s head would be a good resource to tap. And if money didn’t do the job, Carmody didn’t mind.

If he had to get rougher to tap that brain, he’d tap it off a brick wall.

FORTESCUE WATCHED the American black man toss money onto his table and leave, obviously intent on following Rambeau as he left the outdoor café. It didn’t take too much imagination to recognize the man as either a narcotics agent or an East Coast dealer who wanted Rambeau’s take on the local underworld. The concept of narc seemed stronger here, as most of the dealers who wandered down to Jamaica to get their heroin leads weren’t the type to get up and go on their own after a man. They had entourages of bodyguards and yes-men. He caught a quick flash of a pistol in a shoulder holster, something that passed so quick anyone who wasn’t a professional would have missed it.

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