Reckoning by James Byron Huggins Read Free Book Online Page A

passing wildly over Gage, descending, stabbing again and again, and Gage was there as fire erupted between them, over them, Gage not knowing how or why and then they crashed to the first floor landing, and the big man came down on top of him, knife still in his hand, crushing Gage to the tiles.
    A second passed and Gage gasped wildly for breath, struggling to reach out and trap the man's knife hand. Panting and enraged, he struggled for several moments before he realized he could not reach the blade. Before he realized that the man was not moving. Dead weight on top of him.
    Not understanding what had happened or why, Gage twisted, squirming, to get out from beneath the man. He pushed the massive body off of him, and the man rolled limply to the side.
    Blood. Shot through the chest.
    Dead.
    Gasping, Gage struggled up, looking down.
    He held the Hi-Power in his right hand.
    He stared dumbly at the pistol, as if he had never seen one before. He did not remember drawing it in the chaotic battle down the stairs, did not remember aiming or firing the desperate shot. But he knew what had happened: In the terrifying descent down the stairs, in the frantic arena of kill or be killed, when he had been completely overpowered, his training had done for him what he could not do for himself—it had killed his enemy.
    In a moment when his mind was totally overcome, when fear and rage had separated the mental from the physical, his body had done what it had done a hundred thousand times before, no, a million times before. It had finished the fight, adapting and adjusting and reflexively escalating force from level to level until it had found a way to destroy his enemy.
    Exactly as it was trained to do …
    Exactly as he was trained to do.
    A hundred million dollars’ worth of military training had driven it into him, long ago replacing simple human instinct with lethal fighting skills. His reactions were more than instinct; he had not been born with the ability to kill so perfectly. Nor was it mere reflex; it was far too pure a reaction. Rather, it was as if his natural killer instinct had somehow melded to sophisticated fighting skills, creating an internal essence that was more than either would be alone. And they could never be separated again because the conditioning that had forged them had also altered them, changed them, so that they could never be what they were in the beginning, before the training had fused them into one.
    Gasping, choking, Gage reeled and leaned back against a counter. He shook sweat from his head, recovering, gathering, breathing deep, slowing it all down until he could think again.
    Unable yet to determine whether he was wounded, he leaned over and grimaced, trying not to think. But one thought could not be denied.
    "Oh, God," he whispered, closing his eyes. "Not again ... "
    With a moan he bowed his head.
    The Hi-Power was heavy in his hand. Still breathing hard, he looked up the stairs, into the darkness. It had been too long, and his mind wasn't handling the stress adequately. He felt his emotions spiraling off, too fired, too hot with the blood. He tried to find balance, to focus, but felt only rage and regret.
    He needed a minute to figure this out, to find his place in it but he didn't have time. The dead men wore headsets, which transmitted automatically. The thudding sound of the MP5, the screams, and even his chaotic descent on the stairs had certainly carried to the sentries outside.
    Gage leaned over the dead man, staring. Quickly Gage determined that he wore no ballistic vest. Gage nodded, steadily slowing his breath. Good. The ones outside probably wouldn't be wearing vests either.
    Finally gathering himself, Gage checked for wounds, found blood on his hand, forearm. In the darkness he felt his right arm and located a jagged wound near his elbow. But there was no pain, no feeling at all. It seemed to be a bullet graze with a slight powder burn.
    He closed his eyes to concentrate.
    Had the man with