Dirk Ramm: Suited and Booted Page 7

  ‘Devil!’ he screamed, as he leaned over the jeep door and rattled off a hail of gunfire.

  Bullets zipped by Ramm. Some tugged at his outer clothing, but he suffered no direct hit this time. He stood a moment, sucking in lungful’s of air. He took a step forward and found that his limbs were steady beneath him. He took another step, and another, gaining momentum.

  The Taliban leader cried out, throwing the assault rifle down so that he could turn on the jeep’s ignition. In his haste he missed the key the first time. He looked frantically from Ramm to the key, then back to Ramm again, who was now approaching at speed. The engine barked, and the Taliban man hit the gas. He didn’t think escape was a possibility, so he took the fight to his adversary. He gunned the engine and the jeep lurched forward. A war howl broke from him as he pushed the heavy vehicle directly at Ramm.

  Ramm didn’t pause. He ran at the oncoming vehicle, then pounced, landing on the hood. His heels dug in, but the momentum took him over the windshield, and it took a dramatic twist of his body to settle him in the seat behind the driver. The Iranian twisted to get a bead on him, but Ramm moved, leaning over his opposite shoulder and he plucked the keys out of the ignition. The jeep swerved in a slow semi-circle, the tyres digging into the grit. Unlike the helicopter, Ramm was pleased that this vehicle didn’t end in a fiery explosion. He glanced down at the large brown case on the backseat alongside him. Then his attention was all on the terrorist. The man scrambled to get away, but Ramm grabbed a handful of the man’s jacket. He tugged the man in the air, as he stepped out of the vehicle to the ground. The man grunted as he was slammed to the earth.

  For good measure he gave the man a couple of pile driving punches to the gut that set him juddering, while Ramm took one last look at the brown case. He shook his head slowly as he turned to peer down on the Taliban fighter. The term was a misnomer as all fight had left him. Shaking from the after-effects of the shock, he squirmed across the ground on his back, arms reaching to fend Ramm off, while he jabbered hysterically in Arabic. The words were lost on Ramm, but he guessed the man was pleading for mercy.

  ‘You planned to detonate a dirty bomb,’ Ramm said. ‘Had you any pity for the thousands of innocent men, women and children you would have killed?’

  The man screeched out a sentence, and from the rapid fire delivery Ramm caught only one word: jihad.

  Holy War, he’d heard the term meant.

  ‘You hypocritical piece of shit.’ Ramm wasn’t sure to whom he directed the words. It wasn’t as if Ramm’s war against the Red Mafia could be as clearly defined. He was driven by rage, by vengeance, by feelings of inadequacy for those he’d failed to save. He reached, grabbed the man by the front of his jacket and hauled him up to meet him eye to eye. ‘There’s no excuse for what you had in mind. None.’

  Defiance suddenly lit up the Taliban man’s features. His eyes grew feverish. He spat full in Ramm’s face. He was preparing to die. But he had one last act in mind before that. He dug into his jacket and came out with a curved blade that he jabbed into Ramm’s gut. Ramm’s eyelids pinched as the Iranian grinned in victory.

  Perhaps he had come to the conclusion that Ramm was wearing a bulletproof vest, and that was why the guns had been ineffective against him. Though some antiballistic jackets could withstand a bullet, they couldn’t contend with a piercing weapon like his dagger. Still held aloft, he twisted the blade, hoping to open Ramm up.

  ‘You shouldn’t have spat on me,’ Ramm growled. ‘I don’t like spitting. It’s a foul habit. To be expected from the likes of you.’

  The terrorist blinked in confusion. He tried again to saw open a hole in Ramm’s guts. It was as if a clamp had been fixed to the blade holding it in place, then despite pressing all his strength into one final push, the knife resisted him, as if expelled by some magical force.

  ‘Are you done?’ Ramm demanded. ‘Actually, you are.’

  Ramm head-butted him, even as he released his hold on the man’s jacket. The Taliban leader stumbled away, blood gouting from his smashed nose. His voice cords rebelled and all that came from him was a noise like steam escaping a ruptured boiler. Ramm booted him between the legs, doubling him over, making the turbaned head a perfect target for his knee. The blow brought him back to his tiptoes, but there was no lucidity in his eyes. That should have been it, but the would-be bomber had misplaced Ramm’s rage from the dead Russians: it had been a bomb that had ripped the lives from Ramm’s loved ones. Ramm clamped a palm both side of the man’s head, and twisted harshly.

  Ramm hurled the man from him.

  He somersaulted away, his arms and legs pinwheeling until he landed in a heap alongside the jeep. He lay there in a broken pile of twisted limbs, his neck at a wholly unnatural angle, eyes glazed in death. Ramm ignored him. He plucked out the dagger and checked for an incision in his guts. Grateful for the nanocomposite anti-ballistic/stab suit he wore beneath his outer clothing, he found that the knife had barely found its way to his skin, but had instead punctured one of the nano-gel inserts that had held it firmly from his body. The Israeli techs that originally designed it deserved kudos for developing his armour, because this had proved a successful field-testing of their experimental suit.

  He walked back across the desert towards where the fuselage of the helicopter was a blazing husk. Oily smoke tarred the heavens. It would be a beacon to others. He found the attaché case where it had fallen when he leaped from the crashing helicopter. It weighed little, but carried the fate of dozens within: if it had been allowed to fall into those wrong hands. It contained the identities of CIA and MI6 assets working deep cover within the Russian organised crime syndicates, one of whom had been responsible for alerting Ramm that the Red Mafia was willing to give up one of their suitcase bombs in return for the information. The Red Mafia would have savagely murder every man and woman on that list, not to mention their nearest and dearest in warning to anyone else thinking to infiltrate their ranks or to betray them from within.

  After fetching his kit from the trench, Ramm returned to the jeep and fed the liberated key into the ignition. As an afterthought he dragged the brown case over onto the passenger seat alongside him. Both cases appeared innocuous; both would have been the slaughter of many, but not now. He started the jeep and spun the wheel. Thirty miles north, a CIA Special Activities Division exfiltration team waited, with them a SOG agent called Virginia Holladay, Ramm’s current commanding officer and clandestine lover. He took a glance in the dusty rear-view mirror. The bullet stroke to his cheek was vivid, bleeding, as was the graze on his chin. But he knew from experience that Virginia liked a bit of rough. Some girls preferred their lovers to romance them with chocolates, roses or poetry: Ramm knew Virginia would far appreciate the dirty bomb and death list. Tonight would be their final night together, he’d decided, and he wished to make it special. In the morning he’d be gone. He wondered if anyone would miss the tactical suit he intended taking with him in lieu of severance pay.

  BIO:

  Matt Hilton quit his career as a police officer with Cumbria Constabulary to pursue his love of writing tight, cinematic American-style thrillers. He is the author of the high-octane Joe Hunter thriller series, including his most recent novel ‘The Lawless Kind’, published in January 2014 by Hodder and Stoughton. His first book, Dead Men’s Dust, was shortlisted for the International Thriller Writers’ Debut Book of 2009 Award. Available as eBooks, Matt published ‘Dominion’ and ‘Darkest Hour’ – best described as horror/thrillers - while Hodder and Stoughton published ‘Joe Hunter: Six of the Best’, a short story collection featuring Matt’s best known fictional creation, and standalone Joe Hunter shorts ‘Dead Fall’ and ‘Red Stripes’. Matt has also had short stories published in a number of other collections, anthologies and print magazines. Matt edits and collects the Action: Pulse Pounding Tales series and has produced a collection of his more outlandish tales in ‘One twisted Voice’.

  Matt is a high-ranking martial artist and has been a detective
and private security specialist, all of which lend an authenticity to the action scenes in his books.

  All of Matt Hilton’s books are available from his author pages at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in hardback, paperback and Kindle eBook.

  Joe Hunter Thrillers:

  Dead Men’s Dust

  Judgement And Wrath

  Slash And Burn

  Cut And Run

  Blood And Ashes

  Dead Men’s Harvest

  No Going Back

  Rules Of Honour

  The Lawless Kind

  Joe Hunter Ebook only:

  Six Of The Best

  Dead Fall

  Red Stripes

  Novels:

  Dominion (Horror)

  Darkest Hour (Horror)

  Mark Darrow and the Stealer of Souls (Young Adult)

  Matt Hilton collection:

  One Twisted Voice – traversing genres

  Collections:

  Action: Pulse Pounding Tales Vol 1

  Action: Pulse Pounding Tales Vol 2

  Even More Tonto Short Stories

  Holiday of the Dead

  Uncommon Assassins

  Off The Record 2 – At The Movies

  Grand Central Noir

  True Brit Grit

  Death Toll 2: Hard Targets

  Booze and Ooze (A Roman Dalton Yarn)