Valhalla Virus by Nick Harrow (best management books of all time TXT) 📕

Not your problem. Gunnar heard his father’s voice in his ear. Save your girl.

The woman screamed again and clawed at the hands grabbing her. The men laughed in a way that told Gunnar exactly how horrible their victim’s last minutes would be.

“Damnit,” he growled and grabbed the H&K off the dash. “Get behind the wheel. Be ready to get us out of here.”

“Gunnar—” she began, but the bodyguard had already thrown the car into park and bolted out of the driver’s seat.

The pack of five crazed men surrounded the tall woman, their eyes rimmed with red, snot leaking from their nostrils in sticky strings. There was something feral and unnatural in their posture, as if their bodies were ill-fitting costumes worn by animals walking on two legs. They barked and snapped at her, hounds harrying their prey.

Not that their target was going down without a fight. A long shock of pure white hair rose from the crown of her head in a high ponytail that whipped back and forth like a big cat’s tail as she tried to keep an eye on all her attackers at once. She flailed at them with tattooed arms in a futile attempt to drive them back. Her tiki print tank top and cargo shorts were torn and smeared with blood, and Gunnar knew it wouldn’t be long before her attackers took her down.

He knew stopping to help this woman was a bad idea. Every second of delay gave Arthur and his goons a chance to catch up to him and Ray. But Gunnar also knew if he turned his back on this woman and fled for safety, she’d haunt his dreams for the rest of his life. He couldn’t save everyone, but he also couldn’t turn his back on those he could help.

“Get away from her!” Gunnar shouted and fired a warning shot into the garage’s concrete ceiling. He doubted he could reason with these assholes, but he wouldn’t gun a man down without giving him a chance to back off.

“She’s ours,” the nearest lunatic growled, ropes of saliva drooling from the corners of his mouth. “Find your own.”

For the moment, though, the assholes had forgotten all about their victim. They’d turned their eyes to Gunnar, murder glinting in their black pupils. Low, rumbling growls emanated from the pack, and their eyes had gone the flat black of a shark’s. There was something deeply, weirdly wrong with these men.

A switch flipped in the bodyguard’s mind. He wasn’t getting out of here without a fight, and these men would kill him if he didn’t do unto them first.

“Get to the Accord,” Gunnar barked at the white-haired woman. “I’ve got this.”

She took off like a shot, her chunky high heels clattering against the concrete in a rapid staccato rhythm as her heavily inked arms pumped the air with every step. Two of the men tried to chase after her, and Gunnar pumped a round into each of their chests before they could pass him. A third man, his hair greased into a messy pompadour like an Elvis impersonator on his way to the stage, jabbed a knife toward the bodyguard’s ribs. The fourth and fifth attackers, tourists with matching Cubs jerseys, came on with fists windmilling the air like a couple of kids in their first schoolyard brawl.

Gunnar jumped back to avoid the knife, dropping his leather-clad left arm down to defend his midsection in case Stabby Elvis had a longer reach than he’d guessed. The move saved him from being gutted but left Gunnar open to a sloppy rain of blows from the Cubs twins. Their untrained attacks pushed Gunnar back from the casino’s doors, and his boots slipped on the blood-slick concrete underfoot.

Without hesitation, Gunnar caught his balance with a hand on the neck of the nearest Cubs fan. He rammed the man’s face down into his knee and fired two shots over his back into fake Elvis’s chest. With an angry shout, he shoved the dazed tourist into the last man standing, then blasted two more rounds through the pair of them before they could regain their balance and attack him again. The bodyguard turned to run for the stolen car, only to find the Accord idling right behind him, the passenger side door open.

“Nice work,” Ray said. “Now let’s get out of here.”

Chapter 3

RAY HANDLED THE ACCORD like a pro. She kept her head on a swivel and watched for threats as she pushed the rattletrap down the corkscrew garage exit ramp as hard as she dared. The bald back tires screeched around corners, leaving smears of sticky rubber in their wake. The stench of burning oil competed with the greasy French fry reek of the car’s interior, and empty soda cans rattled across the floorboards with every turn.

“What was that?” the statuesque woman with the blond ponytail asked.

“Bad shit,” Gunnar said, his voice faintly raspy. He coughed into the crook of his elbow and rolled down the window to gulp in fresh air. “You okay?”

“You didn’t have to kill them,” she said, her voice quiet.

“Yes,” Gunnar said, “I certainly did. Their brains were seriously out of alignment, in case you didn’t notice.”

Ray winced at the painful rasp in Gunnar’s voice. Her mind raced through all the details in the files she’d stolen to hand over to DHS. Fever. Sore throat. Violent outbursts. Kyrolina’s Valhalla Virus had sounded bad on paper, but seeing it up close and personal was an entirely different order of nightmare magnitude.

But it didn’t make any sense. The files had said there’d be no tests for at least another month.

“Did they hurt you?” Ray asked with a quick glance in the rearview mirror. “My name’s Ray, and my copilot is Gunnar. Sorry for the rough ride. It’s the best we could do with such short notice.”

The blond woman raked fingers through her hair and nodded to Ray in the mirror. “I’m Bridget. I’m okay, just shaken up.