For Anastasia

By Ross Lloyd

The much anticipated final instalment of the "As Darkness Descends" trilogy - The key to our future is buried in our past...

To stave off Armageddon and the destruction of humanity, a desperate plan was hatched to change the course of history. If successful, it would prevent the followers of the followers of the doctrine of infinite evil from gaining their catastrophic influence over all nations.

It was all made possible through the work of a brilliant young scientist, following the lead of others before him. In the end success would depend upon the efforts of the most vicious creature in all existence, but one driven by an unshakable dedication to the ideals of chivalry and a compulsive desire to save the innocent.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ross Lloyd
• Release date: May 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310223570

Ross Lloyd

Author of "Soul Saviour" 2012, "Get Emily" 2013 and "For Anastasia" 2015. Formerly a career Commonwealth of Australia Public Servant. Other written works have previously spanned everything from Cabinet submissions and legislative drafting instructions to Ministerial speeches and Prime Ministerial correspondence. Published articles include "Savage Saviour" and "Echoes of Thermopylae" published in WARTIME Magazine, the official magazine of the Australian War Memorial.Born in Sydney 1957, schooled in Canberra. Junior ACT Judo Champion before switching to Olympic Weightlifting. Eleven times ACT Weightlifting Champion and 94kg Class Australian Masters Champion 2002 and 2012. Oceania Masters Champion 2012.

Book preview

FOR ANASTASIA

Ross A Lloyd

The key to our future is buried in our past…

Part Three of the As Darkness Descends Trilogy

Prologue

As this is written the world lurches towards a precipice, threatening to plunge into a dark age the likes of which it has never before known. Fanatical Islamic forces have become nuclear capable and the lauded age of enlightenment and sensitivity now draws to a close. The era of hatred, persecution and true terror is about to begin, unless…

Chapter 1

Cover Fire

No sooner had the chopper set down than Ryan popped up from his position, took aim with an M-16 and nailed three of the enemy in the street below on the west side. One manning the 50 calibre on the southern end of the street and two he spotted running for the front entrance of the building beneath him. He sprayed more bullets around sending many others scrambling for cover. Then bending down and grabbing hold of Emily tight around the waist, he pulled the brave girl along with him away from near the forward ledge, rushing her towards the waiting craft. Emily huddled close to Ryan as they went, with her left arm wrapped tightly around his waist, not wanting to ever let go of her rescuer.

Once at the chopper Ryan quickly helped Emily up and into the hands of two of the soldiers onboard and said, ‘no need to get out guys.’ As soon as Emily was safely on board he turned and shouted through the door to the pilot. ‘They have a number of RPG’s and you therefore have no chance of clearing the area unless they are taken out.’ Looking directly at Emily’s beautiful face, but still speaking to the pilot, Ryan shouted out, ‘give me twenty seconds then lift off, then head due east, then cut and run for home when you clear the outskirts of the city. The buildings will give you enough cover for long enough if I’m successful.’

The pilot nodded his acknowledgement, gleaning an inkling of what the crazy Aussie had in mind.

With that said, Ryan turned to the commando nearest him and said, ‘mind if I borrow these?’ and quickly relieved him of two grenades. Having slung the machine gun, Ryan walked around to the front of the chopper, pulled the pins on both grenades and flung them straight out over the eastern balustrade of the building. That done now for a smorgasbord of evil bastards, a target rich environment if there ever was one, he thought as he turned and dashed ten paces and just leapt up onto the balustrade ledge, before dropping straight off the roof on the southern side of the building, weapon now in hand, firing at targets below almost immediately.

Ryan’s task as he saw it was to take the enemy’s fire away from the chopper and to kill as many of them as he could. Beyond that he had no aspirations at all. Once Emily and the Israelis were clear, his job was done and that was it as he saw it.

While plummeting towards the throng of terrorists below, mentally targeting their upturned faces as he did, Ryan suddenly pictured his head-to-head competition many years earlier with his old friend and Queen’s Prize rifle champion Bobby, using M16’s in a jungle warfare simulator. Ryan had scored 29 kills to Bobby’s 28 on that occasion. That in itself was no mean feat. However, Ryan had fired more than twice as many rounds as his friend Bobby. Ryan always figured that if you want to kill the enemy, make damn sure of it. He was going to apply the same rule here, plus he wasn’t paying for the ammunition, so he felt no compunction to penny-pinch on it. Yay freebies! Must use them all up he thought quite frivolously on the way down.

Survival was not a consideration or even an outside option in Ryan’s mind, but failure to cover the withdrawal of the brave men taking Emily to safety was inconceivable. He knew he had to stay alive and kicking until the chopper was clear, and that meant keeping the enemy really busy. Got to kill as many of the bastards as possible he reminded himself. God I hate these pricks with a passion he thought.

Before hitting the ground, Ryan mentally disciplined himself to have his muscles flexed, knees bent, feet down and angled downward and tight. He also kept up rapid fire at his astounded targets, hitting four out of the twenty odd men before they even contemplated returning fire, such was their surprise at Ryan’s evident suicide attempt. Suicide however, was the furthest thing from Ryan’s mind at this juncture. This was an all you can kill slaughter-fest and Ryan was going to get his money’s worth before his time was finally up. He was going to take as many, if not all of the bastards with him to Hell. If hatred was a measurable form of energy, Ryan therefore, was a fully operational nuclear power station.

Ryan’s first victim in his latest onslaught was a hefty looking thug with a full bushy beard almost directly underneath him. As good a place as any to land Ryan thought. He had nailed the fellow with his first shot down through the right eye as the jihadi had looked up at Ryan. Landing immediately in front of the man, ankles and steel spring-like leg muscles absorbing the impact perfectly, Ryan caught his victim before he fell and not a moment too soon, briefly using the man’s body as a shield while he sprayed bullets at the remaining seventeen men currently in the broad alleyway immediately in front of him.

Initially shocked at seeing an infidel jump off the roof of a three story apartment building, the jihadis had been very slow to react, and then found the plummeting target difficult to lock on to. The devilishly cunning Aussie had gambled on the initial success of his bold move, confident that the grenades he had flung out over the eastern side of the building would have both neutralized the opposition from that end, and made those on the southern and western sides more than a little cautious.

After nailing the last jihadi in the alley with the machine gun, and thus being confident that all were deceased, Ryan dropped the empty weapon, trading it for the M16 formerly belonging to his chubby human shield. Letting the corpse finally slump to the ground, Ryan then pivoted and sprinted back to the southeast corner of the building, brashly running around it to head northward, hoping that the numbers of the enemy would still be negligible on that side following the grenade blasts. Phew, so far so good he thought, noticing three corpses strewn around in the back alley and just one severely wounded jihadi struggling along in the middle of the passage on his hands and knees. An almost supersonic swinging rifle butt put the terrorist out of his misery with a blow to the back of the head, before the fellow could voice any sound as Ryan sprinted past him. Stopping at the north-eastern corner of the dwelling, Ryan took a quick look around the corner, and as he anticipated, saw two scumbags creeping in his direction. He took aim and shot both of them in their chests almost simultaneously. Then wasting no time, he continued his sprint across the narrow back alley past the place next door and trusting his luck, rounded the north eastern corner of that dwelling, heading west towards the main street.

Ryan intended to rush the survivors in the street in a surprise last ditch charge. He was nothing if not audacious. In fact Ryan held the word "audacious’ in high esteem. The word was inscribed on Ryan’s favourite stained glass window in the Tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, right beneath the image of an Australian Light Horseman. Therefore, with total disregard for his own personal safety, Ryan was going to do everything humanly possible to ensure that the chopper he could now hear taking off from the building he had just left seconds earlier, would be able to do so safely.

In the brief moments he had spent ushering Emily to safety, the ever sensitive Ryan had formed an emotional attachment to the girl that bordered on obsession. Whether it was love at first sight, or a snowballing feeling of responsibility for the safety of a defenceless girl that would have commenced from the instant he had learned of her plight, he could never actually know himself. Certainly such a burden of responsibility would have been heightened by Ryan’s overwhelming need to redeem himself in his own eyes for failing miserably to save Lana’s precious life. Either way, he absolutely would not lie down and die until he knew that Emily and her Israeli rescuers were clear and safely on their way out of danger.

Bursting out from around the corner of the building two blocks up the street, Ryan scoped one middle-eastern jihadi, a terror cell leader known as Asif firing up in the air towards the roof from where the helicopter was now rising. Ryan shot him in the throat from a range of about forty metres. Then took aim at the second of the militants who was in the process of targeting the chopper with a shoulder mounted rocket propelled grenade. Ryan sprayed half the M16’s clip at the bastard, cutting him down and causing the grenade itself to fire off down towards the front door of the landing pad dwelling, killing two remaining jihadis, both of whom had trained their weapons on Ryan and had opened fire. Ryan dropped to the ground as he saw the grenade launch, but not before he felt searing heat along his left side. He knew full-well that he had at least been grazed by a bullet or two. Like a freak he simply blocked the pain receptors from that region of his body mentally and rolled to his feet to survey the street for signs of remaining life. Feeling unnecessarily exposed, Ryan leapt to the western side of the street to continue his assessment of the situation from behind the smouldering wreck of the green wagon that had crashed there earlier.

All onboard the rescue helicopter had heard the sounds of heavy explosions and gunfire coming from the street down below, but no bullets seemed to be coming up anywhere near the roof, and therefore nowhere near the helicopter.

After what seemed like the longest twenty seconds of her life had expired, Emily felt the helicopter lift off without Ryan and gather speed as it climbed steadily straight up above the building and turn east. Everyone on board braced for enemy fire from down below, but miraculously almost none came. Emily was now simply beside herself with anguish, imagining all sorts of harm now coming to the man who had come from the other side of the world and had ended her ordeal, dealing just punishment to a large number of those who had done her, and no doubt also many, many others, harm. Now feeling like her heart was literally breaking, realising deep down that she would never see Ryan again, she finally broke down completely and wept inconsolably.

Ryan looked up and down the street for enemy reinforcements, but none had yet appeared. He was satisfied that he had taken out the other RPG along with the men in the southern alley. Somewhat pleased with his handiwork, Ryan watched through the smoke haze as the chopper bearing Emily lifted off safely before spearing off rapidly towards the east. Thank God he thought, I pray they are all unscathed. Lord please let Emily get home OK. Ryan had never been much of a church goer, but had long since suspected that his destiny may in fact not be of his own design or choosing. Not surprisingly, he had resigned himself to accept that revelation and so just went with the flow in a manner of speaking.

‘Well I guess that job’s done’ he mumbled to himself, suddenly feeling very alone and conscious of the fact that he now missed Emily something fierce. After a brief moment Ryan suddenly snapped himself out of his clinically diagnosable lovesick haze with a rough shake of his head. OK, total fluke or divine providence, either way time for implementing plan B he thought.

******

As the helicopter reached cruising altitude and headed east, Emily, sobbing uncontrollably with her head on her arms, felt like her heart would surely burst. She was full of conflicting emotions, a cocktail mix of emotions that also muddled her brain and made her stomach turn over and over in painful knots. The stranger, Ryan, a man who had travelled half way around the world just for her, had simply thrown himself off the roof a minute ago to buy time for her and for the brave soldiers who had also put their lives on the line for her to aid their escape. She felt an overwhelming burden of guilt at having put them all in danger through her ill-advised holiday that had led to her kidnapping many days earlier. That was combined with the guilt of feeling a sense of relief at now leaving the scene of her torture, while the one who had saved her faced certain death alone down below. There was more to her sorrow than guilt though, much more. Deep in her soul she knew what it was.

Chapter 2

Now to get the hell out of here

While the events of the past few months were unfolding the world meanwhile was in the throes of lurching towards a precipice, threatening to plunge into a dark age the likes of which it had never before known. Fanatical Islamic forces were now nuclear capable and thus the lauded age of enlightenment and sensitivity was about to draw to a close. The era of hatred, persecution and true terror was about to commence, unless…

******

The latest news was not well received over the phone in the Advisor’s office. ‘The bird has flown the coop.’

‘What!’ the Advisor exclaimed.

‘She was rescued by someone, and is now with the Israelis’ the unhappy Advisor was told.

‘He will not be happy at all!’ the Advisor said gruffly and slammed the phone down hard. This was no good. This was no good at all he thought. What are we going to do now?

******

‘What do you mean you lost him?’ the neatly dressed merchant banker enquired in an accusatory tone, while seated comfortably in his tenth story office in London’s central business district.

‘He popped up briefly at New York Airport, then boarded a flight to London, but took a connection to Istanbul straight after that. We don’t have anyone in Turkey at the moment. Not since the trouble started over there. We did not need anyone there,’ was the response from the tall, slim and attractive brunette in her late twenties sitting in a high backed leather chair on the opposite side of a large, uncluttered, mahogany desk.

‘Until now,’ the solid, black haired man almost spat out in an accusatory, mocking tone at the young woman.

The woman blushed visibly. She was acutely aware of her team’s failure and was both embarrassed by it and fearful of receiving punishment as a result.

‘Do you have any idea why he went there?’ the banker asked.

‘None, I’m sorry to say. None of our contacts had any ideas,’ the woman replied.

Leaning back in his executive chair, the man, obviously in charge, possessing the look and bearing of a senior partner in his mid to late forties, stated ‘there is nothing for it then but to wait until the accursed nuisance surfaces again.’

He unconsciously rubbed his right cheek while remembering the fear he felt when he was struck in the face by a flying chair the night that particular nuisance had single-handedly thwarted years of meticulous planning. He had barely escaped with his own life that night, and the ferocity of the mad biker had instilled a deep seated fear in him. ‘Make sure you have all the major airports covered and have all contacts at immigration checkpoints alerted. He must be found. Nothing can be left to chance. Do you understand?’

‘Yes Excellency,’ the brunette answered.

‘Then see to it!’ the man directed in an irritated tone of voice, combined with the addition of a dismissive wave of his left hand, feigning calm resolution. If he had a choice he would never wish to see the figure of the biker ever again, but killing or capturing the man was now a necessity and the fear of failure was even greater.

Accepting that her audience was at an end, the woman turned and left the room quickly. She stopped to take a deep breath and utter a sigh of relief once she had closed the door behind her. She never enjoyed audiences with the new head of the order.

******

Ryan’s intention now was to loop back around to the northeast of the town to where he had left the trusty old Yammy V-twin. Then, assuming he could scoot away safely clear of the city first towards the east, then arcing around to the north, Ryan intended to then blast his way as rapidly as he could westwards, making a break for the Golan Heights and hopefully some friendly faces.

First things first, Ryan ran over to the jihadi, Asif, coughing out his last breath or two in the middle of the street, and while kneeling on the heavily bearded fanatic’s bloody throat, relieved him of two ammunition clips. Ryan kept a keen eye out at the same time for any signs of movement elsewhere as he pocketed the clips. If Ryan had known exactly who it was he knelt on, it would have not fared well for the former terrorist leader. More than likely, Ryan would have tried to keep Emily’s torturer and serial rapist alive for as long as possible, so he could inflict many hours of punishment on him. However, lacking that insight and with clips now in his possession, Ryan left the freshly choked corpse of the jihadi and sprinted off to the east side of the street, quickly rounding the corner from whence he had come barely a minute earlier. Once near the back of the two-story dwelling on the southern side of the narrow alleyway, he crouched down and swapped the M16’s empty clip for one of the new ones and transferred the other full clip to his black leather pouch. Once again armed and more than just a wee bit dangerous, the vicious killing machine slunk off along the back alley heading north for several blocks unhindered before cutting east towards the outskirts of the God-forsaken place and the location of his ride. Odd not seeing any signs of life around here now other than the mongrels I’ve just been playing with. But I guess the sound of gunfire etc. is enough to make any surviving local civilians keep their heads well and truly down Ryan surmised.

Ryan was now acutely aware that he, a Caucasian, must certainly stand out like a shining beacon in broad daylight in the streets and alleyways of Al Suweida, dressed as he was in just blue jeans and black gym singlet. He had been relatively fortunate up to this point, essentially being able to dictate the timing and sites for his skirmishes with the enemy. That good fortune ended quite abruptly while