Page 7 of Scar

As soon as his neck was free of Scar’s hold, Alpha rolled. His expensive three-piece suit was no longer in pristine condition. He got to his feet faster than Scar could. He kicked out with his wingtip, but Scar, on his knees, caught it between his bound forearms and twisted. Alpha’s knee bent with an audiblepop.

Alpha yelled, tipping forward but did not fall. He was nearly to the door of the eight by eight room. The man hobbled and hopped his way to the stainless steel blockade.

Scar was about to stand, but noticed Alpha’s blade, a blue tip foldable Manix, on the floor next to his knee. He had a choice, attempt to stop Alpha from getting to the door and leave the blade behind or grab the blade and have a chance of survival if that door opened.

Scar dropped down onto his back and reached for the blade with his bound right hand through the fabric. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the blood on the white cotton pants from where the blade had sliced him. It wasn’t bad and not an artery, so he pushed the injury aside.

His fingers closed over the handle as Alpha reached the door. Through the fabric of his sleeve, Scar sliced blindly at the buckles at his back. He had to hand it to Alpha, the man knew how to keep his blades sharp. Unfortunately, Scar got skin more than he got the fabric surrounding the buckles.

As soon as the door was open and Alpha sounded the distress, all hell broke loose. Three men came charging into the medical room. They looked like hospital orderlies, wearing white scrubs and combat boots, but Scar knew them to be nothing more than hired muscle.

Scar gritted his teeth. Fine, he’d have to do this with his hands tied.

Keeping hold of the knife in case he needed it in the future, Scar got to his feet just as the three men surrounded him. One had a syringe in his hand. Scar pivoted, using neither his hands nor his feet to defend himself.

The art of capoeira was not used in the United States military, but it was a study Scar had taken upon himself when he discovered there was more to self-defense than physical combat. The versatile Brazilian martial art emphasized using lower body strength against greater odds and was often seen as a combat dance.

The needle came down in open air. Scar spun, his upper body bending low to give his right foot the momentum he needed. The syringe flew out of the mercenary’s hand and jabbed into the chest of the second man, who shouted in shock and pain.

Scar kept moving. In the single motion that had knocked the syringe out of the first man’s hand, he spun counterclockwise until his right foot landed back on the floor. Lifting his left, he slammed his heel down on the plunger. Whatever that syringe had been filled with was now in the bloodstream of the second man.

A heartbeat later, the man’s eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed to the floor in a heap.

The air shifted and Scar bent his hips backwards to force his bound upper body into a backbend. The third man’s hands grabbed onto nothing but air.

Scar continued downward, aware of the blade still in his right hand through the sleeve of the jacket. He rolled onto his upper back, his legs coming off of the ground and over his head as the first man’s booted foot came stomping down where Scar’s legs had been. He threw his bare feet forward, using his core muscles to lift himself back off the floor, and thrust his feet under him once more.

Scar was proficient at blocking or ignoring pain. He had to be. There was too much of it otherwise, but there was no faking being low on energy. If Alpha was to be believed, and he had no reason to lie, Scar had been in a medically induced coma for seventeen days after nearly dying of blood loss from a bullet wound to the chest. Regardless of the glucose he’d been fed intravenously, Scar’s stomach was still empty. His body was stiff after not moving for so many days.

He needed to end this fight and go after Alpha.

It had been eight years since he’d been in this building. If they hadn’t changed the layout, he was on the second floor on the north side. Which hallway could only be determined once he was outside of the room. Alpha’s office was on the twenty-third floor and faced the Capitol Building across the Potomac River.

The third man tried to tackle Scar like a linebacker, but Scar pivoted and the two mercenaries collided in a tangle of limbs and grunts. They landed on the floor. Scar was already heading for the still open door.

With his arms bound, he couldn’t close it. That was unfortunate, because he was fairly certain they couldn’t be opened from the inside. The RFID chip in Alpha’s wrist would have opened the door at his command. Scar didn’t know if the mercenaries had the same access, but Scar was what some might call a hot commodity. Alpha had been after him for years and believed that Scar owed him a large debt that could only be repaid by pointing Scar at an enemy and demanding ‘destroy’. There was a good chance Alpha would have secured Scar’s room so only he could open the door, but Scar would not get to test that theory because he couldn’t manage to get the door to close.

Once in the hall, his eyes landed on the large bay windows all the way at the end. Echoing shouts, both from around the corner from where he stood, as well as inside the room he’d just escaped, told him fate was not on his side. He would not get to Alpha.

Not today, at least.

He was too low on energy and his arms were still bound in this damn jacket. With a growl of frustration, Scar ran for the window.

He was going home.

CHAPTER2

ELEVEN YEARS AGO

“Hey, Solo! Did you hear? We got some new boots headed our way.”

Julian looked up at St. Nick from where he’d been checking his pack. PT was later this morning because of a scheduled meeting Julian had with their Commander. A meeting in which Julian was given the info on their newest team member.

Jamie Carpenter, twenty-two, E-4 linguist. According to his dossier, the new boot specialist spoke seven different languages and was fluent in three different sign languages.

After Bolt had turned in his packet andfinallygot his papers, Julian’s Delta Force team had been without an illustrious leader for a total of twelve minutes. Everyone thought Farmboy would get the bars. After a decade in the Agency, Sonny Draman had left the Dark Side and joined the Resistance. At least, that’s how he put it. He’d received a Jockstrap Medal after a joint operation between the CIA and the Army. The way Farmboy told it, they were shooting the shit one night and someone claimed that Draman wouldn’t be able to pass Operational Test Command, or OTC.

Farmboy had turned around and said,“Son, anything you can do, I can do better.”

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