Tidal Rage by David Evans (bill gates books to read txt) 📕

believe what he saw as he appeared over the ridge. There was a man overlooking what looked like a dead, bloodied hairless woman. Sebastian had scalped her to enjoy his present at length. Ned shook his head. Was his mind playing tricks, or was this for real? Nevertheless, he ran towards the man.

Ned was now forty-nine years old. He had been ultra-fit in his day and close combat trained, but that had been thirty years ago. He had kept some semblance of fitness, and the fighting skills never really go away, but the reactions and strength diminish with time.

Sebastian heard Ned running at the last moment, as the peat dulled the sound of the pounding boots. Sebastian swung his knife arm around towards the noise and was completely surprised that the thrust was blocked, and the blade knocked out of his hand.

There was a thirty-pound weight difference between Ned and Sebastian, and that extra ballast assisted Ned as he landed on top of Sebastian and started to pound each fist into both sides of Sebastian’s skull.

Stunned and bloodied, Sebastian dug out the long-ago learned martial arts skills. He managed to get his hand out from under the hulk above him and pinch down on a nerve at the side of the neck, enough to make Ned yelp and lose the dominant position on top of the assailant.

Sebastian stood erect for a moment to gather his wits and strength. Almost immediately, Ned sprang back up and attempted to grab Sebastian by the arm to pull him in closer. Ned was going to try a bear hug to suck the strength from the lighter man. Sebastian was too fast, and he swerved one hundred eighty degrees on his right foot, thus making Ned lean forward, slightly unbalanced. Sebastian had his left fist up by his shoulder. He grabbed Ned’s arm with his right hand and brought down the left elbow straight on Ned’s forearm, snapping it immediately. Ned registered the pain, but adrenaline assisted him in carrying on with what started as an attack and was now a matter of defence.

Sebastian threw out his left hand in a classic karate chop; it was aimed at the bridge of Ned’s nose. Ned managed to block the attack with his good left arm and immediately tried to pull up his right to guard his throat and right side of his face, but the right arm would not work. Instantaneously he felt the searing jab to his Adam’s apple, and his knees crumpled under him.

Ned gasped for air, but none came. Sebastian knew it would take several minutes for the man to die. Never once did he consider putting Ned out of his misery; he just watched the man expire, slowly.

Finally, Mount Tumbledown had claimed back what it thought was hers thirty years prior.

A quick search of the body revealed car keys and Ned’s wallet and passport. Sebastian moved both bodies under a rocky outcrop, leaving them hidden from view. He retraced Ned’s steps, which were not easy to follow in the peat, and after thirty minutes he found Ned’s gear. A further ten-minute trek found the black SUV.

The sight of the four-by-four was the first thing to go right all day. There was no one to be seen for miles as Sebastian eased the vehicle up over the hill towards the bodies. He stopped at Ned’s camp and stowed all the gear into the rear compartment, and then completed the drive to the corpses. He placed Mona in the rear section and the man’s heavier body across the back seat. Sebastian was pleased to see that the tracks of the vehicle had almost disappeared as the peat sprang back, helped by the massive amounts of water encased below. He backtracked to where he had left the moped and, after checking the road, which he could see in both directions, lifted the moped-on top of the camping gear with some considerable effort.

Sebastian had travelled less than two miles before he came across the area he wanted. To the right, between the road and the sea was a minefield, depicted in pictures and words on signs and two small road barriers on either side.

Again, checking the road for several miles in each direction, he stopped a little short of the minefield. Quickly he removed the moped and two helmets from the back. It took several minutes to move Ned’s corpse into the front driver seat and place the foot on the gas.

Sebastian leaned through the open passenger’s door. The car was an automatic, and after setting the steering wheel in the right direction, he checked that the car was in the park. He leaned across and started the engine. Half-hanging out of the car, he placed the gear lever in drive and released the handbrake.

The car went at speed as Sebastian exited and had sufficient force and power to break through the flimsy fence surrounding the minefield. The car had travelled less than fifty yards into the field before small anti-personnel mine exploded, which destroyed the door of the car but did not stop the car’s forward movement. Then it hit the real thing, not anti-personnel that would blow a soldier’s foot right off, but the dug-in mines that would stop a tank.

The explosion was heard back in Stanley, and then the second after the car was flipped over and did a full three-hundred-sixty-degree turn in the air, it landed on another tank buster. Diesel takes a lot to ignite, but what was left of the car and surrounding peat were blazing away in the middle of the field.

Sebastian had not accounted for the noise of the detonation being so loud, never mind a second one. He looked in the mirror of the moped. His face was a mess from the pounding under Ned’s fists, and his clothes were a mess from the fight and exiting the moving car. There