Chapter VIII

CHAPTER VIII
NATHANIEL LOGAN
IRAQ

Crackle. Crackle.
Captain Nathaniel Logan was losing the signal. Amidst all of the fighting and secret missions, now was not the time to lose contact with his right hand man: Lieutenant John “Sharkey” Garrison.
Logan pressed the button with haste. His teeth grated against each other, eventually whittling away at the dry skin upon his lower lip.
“John!” He gasped into the intercom. His silver earpiece rattled loose from his left ear once he saw what entered into his tent.
A strong fume swept over Logan’s base camp, penetrating his small collection of men. Logan was in the thick of his mid-life crisis at thirty-eight years old. He worked his way up the corporate ranks with grit and toughness. He was an imposing man of six feet five inches, with short trimmed brown hair and hazelnut eyes. His arms were fit for a bodybuilder, his strength was unmatched, unparalleled, and uncontested. Logan could kill a man with his huge hands, and he has under extreme circumstances.
But, this wasn’t how he was supposed to die. A cheapened retribution from some splintered Iraqi army, undoubtedly pissed off at the current American administration for wiping out their leader under a blanket of firepower and non-stop bombardments.
Logan watched his men drop to the ground in pain. His rapid deduction taught him to cover his mouth and nose and shield away the deadly nerve gas. A three-dimensional thinker, Logan darted for the light breaking through the tent’s flaps. He barreled straight through, knocking down several Iraqi soldiers like bowling pins.
Logan rolled along the sandy surface, fingers clenching his firearm tightly, ready for action. After a complete roll, Logan landed on his backside and cocked his weapon. A secure sweep of the area showed several confused and dazed Iraqi’s on the ground, wondering what just had hit them.
Logan’s fingers clicked the earpiece back into place. “John,” Logan whispered anxiously. “Can you hear me?”
An intermittent static sound reverberated back to Logan. The hot sunshine glared down upon him as he tried again to re-establish contact with his best friend and explosives expert.
“Captain Nathaniel Logan?” A strange musky voice addressed the Captain.
“Who is this?” Logan asked with a fiery tone, as he whipped around in a circle that offered him a steady defense.
“Come on, don’t play with me,” the voice engaged Logan in a barbed conversation.
“Where’s John Garrison?” Logan addressed the mystery man.
Where could this man be calling from? There was a straight patch of desert before the next town. John had a day’s head start, implementing a steadfast plan of C-4 and clay mines along the presidential headquarters. A total top-secret mission, only the President, Vice-President, Joint Chief of Staff and Logan knew the protocol. His men as they would later say in the debriefing are expendable. Well, fuck them. Logan wasn’t going to let his men die out there without a fight, and that’s what he was going to do for John Garrison.
“He’s begging for mercy.” The man’s voice became more agitated. “You picked the wrong man to fuck with Logan.” The line went dead, allowing a minimal window of opportunity for Logan to find the source.
“Damn it!” Logan squeezed off several rounds into the empty skies in a thrust of anger. His attention brought him to his Hummer on the other side of the tent. Logan started a brisk jog over to the vehicle and hopped in, closing the door behind him.
Logan quickly flipped on all the cool toys, activating the GPS locator. “That prick’s fucking with the wrong man.” Logan gazed down at the blinking red dot on his screen. “Hold on John.”
Logan slipped his blue tinted sunglasses over his face, cocked his neck, and clacked his jaw with a vengeance. He eagerly slammed the gear into first and pulled away in a cloud of sandy dust.
“What’s this?” the man boomed at the beaten John. “You’re
wired?”
John just managed a weak grin. He might’ve been on the short side, at five feet five inches, but this man had a reputation. In fact, behind the bald head, tightly trimmed black goatee, and arrogant attitude, John did have a sense of humanity. Just not right now. Logan hired him personally for this mission, and he wasn’t about to fail. John’s long tenure in the military also provided him with invaluable knowledge, that couldn’t be understood by this daunting asshole before him.
“Again,” the man bowled over with hate. “Someone knows you’re here, is that Captain of yours?”
John tried to move, but his hands were tied above his head to the railing above him. He just dangled there, awaiting another
punishing attack from the brutal man before him.
“Do you know, when you want to kill someone, especially someone of my political power, you don’t fail in your quest.”
“President Katar Quay?” John asked.
“In the flesh,” the disgraced president boasted.
“You survived?”
“I do have more options at my disposal then you do my friend.”
“You were captive in a secret prison for weeks,” John didn’t understand, unless the president was a decoy the first time.
“Do you get it yet?”
“The president we captured was a fake?”
“And you thought I would just let you punks waltz right in and kill me?” President Quay unloaded a harsh punch into John’s naked chest.
“Your country’s in ruins.”
“Indeed, but like my father used to tell me: you have to sacrifice in order to succeed in life.”
“Where do you think you will succeed?”
“I have many other options to retaliate against your putrid country and regain my lost empire.”
“Not if I can help it.” That voice rattled the president from his speech.
“Ah, Captain Nathaniel Logan,” he whirled around. “Please come in.”
Logan surveyed the area. Everything was perfectly in place inside the presidential palace. John was hanging from the low ceiling, while the president was standing perfectly in place, never walking around or using any aggressive movements. John was kept close to him, guarded within the six by six foot block, that the president also had resided in.
There were no signs of explosives anywhere, but perhaps they could be underneath the tiled floor, or worse strapped to John’s back. Logan wasn’t going to take any chances. He raised his weapon perpendicular to the president. Only a few feet separated the men.
“Now, that’s a dumb move.”
Logan’s mind scattered across all the options, until it was too late. John wasn’t the one triggered. It was Logan. He was standing either on or underneath a vast array of explosives.
“How’s that mind of yours working now?” President Quay mocked Logan. “I’ve done some reading on your unique abilities to find your way out anything, just by using that brain of yours.”
“It’s a family gift,” Logan barked back, as he noticed the fringed rope around John’s hands that held John in midair.
“Once a step off his weight pressurized plate,” the president explained. “It will trigger a line of explosive mines, and C-4 all around this building. So, you’ll get your wish by blowing up my palace, but you’ll sacrifice yourself in the process.”
“And you?” Logan directed at the president.
“I have my escape route all planned out.”
“As do I.” Logan grinned back, as he took of his sunglass and held his weapon firmly behind him.
“And how’s that?” The president tried to guess, as he started to move off his protected grid.
“I’m guessing you and John are the same weight?”
“I’m about one eighty-five,” John called out.
“I’m one seventy-five,” the disgraced President suddenly caught onto Logan’s plan, but it was too late. The bullet had already left Logan’s chamber and sliced through John’s rope, sending him landing down upon the president’s grid.
“What?” The president urgently reached for his gun, firing off a random shot towards Logan.
Sidestepping the oncoming attack, Logan unleashed a harsh round directly into the president’s chest, sending the leader
crashing to his knees.
John stepped off the grid and welcomed Logan with a hearty handshake.
The president writhed on the floor, clutching his fading heart, losing every breath he had left in his faltering body.
“You picked the wrong man to fuck with,” Logan addressed the dead president. “John, light this place up like a roman candle.”
Logan slid his sunglasses back on his face, while John pursued him, snatching up his black detonator box that was taken from him during the whole process. His stubby finger held down the red button with pleasure.
Both men exited out of the lavish palace, leaving behind a swirling column of smoke and fire escaping into the fierce Iraqi skies.