Raven's Eye

By Nathan Best

The City of Bradfield has been terrorised by a serial killer for the past ten years. On a stormy night a top secret military exercise goes catastrophically wrong, unleashing a new terror on the people of Walton Island. Marsu and Joseph are in the fight of their lives, racing against the clock to save the people around them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nathan Best Publishing
• Release date: Aug 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9798721143731

Nathan Best

Nathan Best is a 30 year veteran of the Royal Australian Air Force as a communicator. Deployed to the Middle East operations in Iraq and Kuwait as part of the Australian commitment to the War on Terror Nathan has gathered unique and credible experiences to add realism and authenticity to his writing. Nathan currently serves as a reservist with the Royal Australian Air Force’s Combat Survival Training School. Nathan holds a Master’s degree in Business and when not writing, works in the marine industry and calls Far Northern Queensland home with his partner and three dogs.

Book preview

Raven’s Eye is dedicated to my wonderful children, Tahlija and Kayleb. I am eternally grateful for the light and joy you have brought to my life.

For, Tahlija and Kayleb.

For, Steph always.

Glossary

Aircraft

Lockheed Martin, F -22A Raptor – single seat, twin-engine, all-weather stealth air superiority fighter. Crew – 1.

Mitsubishi, F-15J Eagle – single seat, twin-engine, all-weather air superiority fighter based on the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle. Crew -1.

Boeing, E-3D Sentry – airborne early warning and control aircraft derived from the Boeing 707. Provides all weather surveillance, command, control, and communications. Distinguished by a distinctive rotating radar dome above the fuselage. Crew – up to 23.

McDonnell Douglas/Boeing, C-17A Globemaster III – large, four engine, military transport aircraft. Used for tactical and strategic airlift, troop transport and cargo, medical evacuation, and airdrops. Crew – 3.

Sikorsky, CH-53E Super Stallion – heavy-lift helicopter developed from the CH-53 Sea Stallion. Crew – 5.

McDonnell Douglas Helicopter Systems, MD 500 Defender – lightweight multi-role military helicopter based on the MD 500 light unity helicopter and OH-6 Cayuse light observation helicopter. Crew – 2.

Vehicles

Israeli Military Industries, Merkava IV – Main Battle Tank. Mounts 120mm MG253 smoothbore tank gun. Crew 4 - plus infantry passengers.

Rheinmetall, Boxer Combat Reconnaissance Vehicle — eight-wheel, multi role, armoured fighting vehicle. Mounts Rheinmetall Defence Lance modular turret system (MTS) fitted with a MK30-2/ABM cannon. Crew - 3.

Mercedes-Benz G-Class, G-Wagon (Geländewagen) – mid size four-wheel drive, manufactured by Magna Steyr. Characterised by boxy styling and body on frame construction. Crew – 1.

Suzuki GSX-R 1100 K1 – 4-cylinder, sports motorcycle. Crew – 1.

Electronics

TACAN (Tactical Air Navigation System) – military air navigation system which gives range and bearing to a ground station.

ILS (Instrument Landing System) – air navigation system which provides aircraft with horizontal and vertical guidance during landing.

Weapons

Rifles

Heckler & Koch, G36C – 5.56 x 45mm, sub-carbine, integrated MIL-STD-1913 Picatinny rail and rail mounted detachable iron sights. 30 round detachable magazine.

FN Herstal, SCAR-H – 7.62 x 51mm NATO, Special Operations Forces Combat Assault Rifle. 20 round detachable magazine.

Remington, M21 Precision Sniper Rifle – 7.62 x 51mm NATO, 10 round detachable magazine. 

Pistols

Sig Sauer, P320 M17- 9 x 19mm Parabellum, 21 round detachable magazine.

Glock Ges.m.b.H, Glock 19 – 9 x 19mm Parabellum, compact, 17 round detachable magazine.

Colt Manufacturing Company, Python - .357, six-inch barrel, 6 round revolver.

Israeli Military Industries, Desert Eagle - .50 Action Express, 7 round detachable magazine.

Minigun and Rotary Cannon

General Dynamics, Vulcan M61A2 – 20 x 102mm, hydraulically, electrically, or pneumatically driven, six-barrel air cooled, electrically fired Gatling style rotary cannon. Rate of fire – 6000 rounds per minute.

General Dynamics, M165 Vulcan Air Defense System (VADS) – 20 x 102mm, radar guided, hydraulically, electrically, or pneumatically driven, six-barrel air cooled, electrically fired Gatling style rotary cannon. Non M113 mounted in Raven’s Eye. Rate of fire – 3000 rounds per minute.

General Electric, M134 Minigun – 7.62 x 51mm NATO. Electrically operated, six-barrel, Gatling style rotary machine gun. Rate of fire – 2000 – 6000 rounds per minute.

Missiles

Lockheed Martin, AGM158D JASSM (Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile) – low observable stealth air launched cruise missile. Adapted in Raven’s Eye to deliver a nuclear warhead.

SAAB Bofors Dynamics, AT4 – 84mm unguided, portable, single shot recoilless, smoothbore anti-tank weapon. 

General Dynamics, FIM-92J Stinger (man-portable air-defense system, MANPADS) – infrared homing surface to air missile (SAM).

Source – Wikipedia. Supporting open sourced and referenced encyclopaedic information.

Chapter One

Isgar Flagg

‘S ee how Father glints , shines, so cold as he stares down at you? See the hard, oh, so sharp edge of Father’s blade? Would you like to feel his kiss?’ invited Isgar quietly. His breath was sweet with desire as he twisted the blade of the knife, so it caught the light filtering through the window.

Isgar felt the woman buck and struggle against his muscular arm, which pushed her into the seat. A sharp popping sound snapped through the air as he drove the thick bladed knife through her skin and sliced deeply into her abdomen. Her back arched and her eyes stretched wide. An involuntary shudder of horror tore through the woman’s body.

‘Easy there, let Father do its delicate job. I can’t make it last very long and too soon it will be over. Too soon for me, but I suspect not quick enough for you,’ smirked Isgar as the first rivulet of blood flowed over his right arm where it pinned her to the seat. The metallic scent of the blood, a beautiful aroma to his nose. He breathed a deep satisfying lungful of tainted air.

A gurgling sound erupted deep inside the woman as blood rushed to escape her sliced stomach. It surged up her throat and into her mouth, choking away any scream she might attempt to make.

‘You must know that I’m a twisted and corrupt street and I will lie to get what I ultimately want. I suspect you realise that now. Not one word out of my mouth is true. Don’t hold it against me,’ chuckled Isgar.

The whisper of the cruel blade cutting and slicing its way up the centre of the woman’s body echoed in the tight, confined space of the car. Isgar grunted in annoyance as the blade came to a stop against the hard edge of her sternum. With renewed effort he flipped Father over to use the notched edge on its back and began to saw away at the ribs along the woman’s right side. Blood fountained into the air and sprayed the roof lining. Isgar began to laugh to himself. Confusion tinged with a look of abject distress washed over the woman’s face as she bucked against Isgar one last time before collapsing along the length of the car’s rear seat.

As the woman ceased to be part of this world, her body, blood streaming to the floor, relaxed into stillness.

‘No more fight? No more life to give me?’ asked Isgar smiling through a mask of blood.

Chapter Two

One month later, 2130 hours

Warrant Officer Robert Dunn

Chief Loadmaster

Falcon Two

C-17A Globemaster III

Urban mixed cargo carrier

‘G et these filthy fucking things loaded,’ shouted Dunn at the serviceman driving the forklift. He was twenty minutes behind schedule already and it was not helped by the reluctance of everyone to load the cargo. The rear of the Globemaster was filled all the way forward on both sides with individual, thick barred cages. Adding to the mission’s complexity, Dunn needed to stack the cages at night with the cargo bay blacked out and only the chief loadmaster of each aircraft being permitted to oversee the process. Everyone was wearing night vision to achieve the goal and it slowed everything down. Shaking his head, Dunn gave the cage on the forklift a wide berth as he strode up to the driver. Before he could get there, the man started waving his arms around and yelling at him in frustration.

‘I can’t go any faster! These damned things don’t want to be loaded,’ cried the man. His face was a mask of fear and worry as he peered at Dunn.

‘Just get the cage into its slot and locked down, you only have six more to go. Are the other aircraft loaded?’

‘Closing their ramps now. Yours is the last one,’ yelled the driver above the rising whine of jet engines. Outside squatted a small fleet of Globemasters, all blacked out and menacing, the compressor blades of their jet engines slowly starting to spool up as they prepared for departure.

‘Get a move on, the jet jockey’s will be overhead soon,’ finished Dunn as he stepped off the ramp and onto the apron. He looked around in disgust. He hated being the last one to get cargo stowed and the bird in the air. He would catch hell for it from the aircraft commander. There was no leeway for dropping behind schedule with this cargo, none at all. Strict parameters were being enforced to ensure all staff followed the rules and that secrecy was maintained. The cargo was bound for a secured exercise area in a remote part of the Pacific Ocean. The contents had already been programmed for the live fire, proof of concept, which would take place in the coming days. If the Russians found out what was going on there would be hell to pay. If the rest of the world found out there would be outrage! Dunn was not going to be the cause of either happening.

The driver nosed the forklift slowly down the centre of the aircraft, his sense of depth and distance severely limited by the night vision goggles he wore. Sighting where the cage needed to go and conscious of the chief loadmaster’s annoyance, he swung the forklift around to the left quickly. A loud clang echoed through the fuselage as the cage on the forklift crashed into the side of the one next to it. For a second the driver stopped and held his breath. Aside from a restless shifting in the cages around him nothing happened. He twisted to look over his shoulder to see if anyone had noticed the noise or had seen what he had done. The cargo deck was empty. Dropping the cage into its slot and engaging the locks, the driver reversed out of the Globemaster and returned to the hangar to collect the next one.

Isgar

‘No!’

‘Be quiet!’ shouted Isgar, as he crashed a massive fist into her face. The skin above her left eye split open. Isgar’s fist tracked across and smashed her nose flat against her once pretty face, her lips were shredded on the metal braces she wore on her top teeth. The girl’s head snapped back, smashing into the window of the driver’s door. A shallow groan rose from her throat as the young woman sagged against the door. The boyfriend sat sprawled across the front passenger seat, his face covered in blood. Each time he exhaled a ragged shuddering sound escaped, bringing a grimace to his girlfriend’s face, before Isgar had punched her.

Exactly a month had passed since Isgar had sliced open the woman on the mountain road, his favourite hunting spot. Never before had his lust to kill returned so quickly or with such ferocity, it was almost blinding.

‘Better, much better, you just lie there and be quiet and let me do my work. You’re such a nice young lad picking up a lonely man on this mountain road so late at night. Not the best decision you’ve ever made though. There are dangerous men on this road. Well one really, and that’s me. I’ll be slow. I want to get inside your body and hear the snap and pop as you become a carcass,’ pronounced Isgar as he angled his body inside the passenger door to look at the boyfriend.

The car was parked in a layby halfway up the twisting road. Ten minutes earlier Isgar had flagged the couple down as he had stood watching for his next victim. He had been very pleased to see a clean couple in the car as it rolled to a stop near where he stood. If they had introduced themselves, Isgar could not recall, he had discarded the memory just after they had spoken to him. Isgar had politely mentioned how good of the boy it was to let the girlfriend drive the car, very modern way to be, as he climbed into the back seat. Isgar happily engaged in the banter as they angled the car back onto the road and climbed higher into the mountain range. Without warning, Isgar had crashed the pommel of Father into the back of boy’s head stunning him and then forced the girl to pull over into the layby, well off the main road. As the boy swooned in his seat, Isgar had forced the girl to strip away her boyfriend’s clothes and throw them from the car. Next, he indicated for her to do the same. Unable to struggle out of her jeans behind the steering wheel, she had slowly climbed out of the car and her clothes. Tears streamed down her face and her hands trembled as she tried to cover herself. Smirking indifferently, Isgar had motioned her back into the driver’s seat, pulling the door closed behind her.

The grin slipped from Isgar’s face as he lifted Father’s blade and held it high. Flinching in fear, the boy snapped his eyes back and forth from Isgar’s face to the knife. He did not move.

‘This is Father, and he is going to carve through your body, lad, and then after a little fun, he will snuff out your life. Shall we begin?’ asked Isgar pointing the tip of the blade at the boy’s stomach, a questioning look on his face. He was pleased and amused that the lad had not tried to fight for his life or needed to be restrained. The boy terrified, had pressed himself back into the passenger’s seat and rigidly looked up at Isgar. There was no worry of a rash act of chivalry from this one.

Frozen in terror, the boy stared back, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down and his throat releasing only a hiss of hot air.

‘Humph,’ sighed Isgar and slowly pushed the knife against the naked flesh of the boy’s abdomen. A thrill of pleasure thrummed through his body.

Before he could plunge Father into the boy’s stomach, Isgar caught a hint of motion in his right eye. He was halfway turned towards the girl when she launched herself at him. Frowning curiously for a moment he watched her arms reaching out for his neck, hands open and searching.

She never saw the glint of light reflected off Father as it rushed up and punched between her ribs, slicing into her heart. She gagged as crimson blood flecked her spittle and she slumped back against the driver’s door. Her body rolled off the seat to lay crumpled and lifeless in the foot well under the dash, her torso drenched in blood.

‘Damn it! Too fast! Too fast! Damn it and damn you girl!’ shouted Isgar, shaking a meaty fist at the girlfriend’s body, flicking blood over the dash and windscreen from the blade. In frustration and anger, he leaned over the boy and thumped his fist into the top of the girl’s lifeless head. Breathing heavily, he hauled himself back up to look at the boy. Still, he had not moved, and his wide terrified eyes followed Isgar.

Isgar dragged him from the passenger seat, through the gravel of the layby, pulled open the rear door and dropped him into the rear seat. Leaning forward over his shuddering body, Isgar went to work. Fifteen minutes passed before the boy drew his last breath, his body sliced from pelvis to chin. The boy’s corpse was laid open and the scent of blood and death filled the car, souring the air. Breathing deeply, Isgar wiped the blood from his face and looked down at his work.

Nodding, Isgar climbed over the centre console and dropped into the front passenger seat and paused for a moment to slow his heart rate. He felt a stinging sense of sorrow knowing once he had left the car it would be all over. Isgar pushed open the passenger’s door and climbed out into the cool night air. Reaching into the car he grabbed a long coat he had seen when he had been sitting in the back. It was a heavy navy style peacoat, one he had always wanted, and it was just the right size.

The cleansing scent of pine trees and dust filled his nose as he took a breath and grimaced in annoyance. He preferred the cloying scent of blood. Over the roof of the car and far below, he could see the twinkling lights, which marked the small City of Bradfield to the East. Walton Airbase stretched out to the West before the land gave way to the ocean and the darkness beyond.

This was his ground, high up here where the highway snaked its way from the mountain range down to the city. For ten years he had hunted and killed successfully. Isgar had been careful not to take more than one a year. Now the urge, the need, had rapidly grown stronger. Never had he killed so boldly or so often. The police were looking for him, though to be honest they always had been. He enjoyed how they followed the false leads he had left. Isgar had always been proud of his ability to leave little evidence behind. He considered himself a professional. But now, because he was having difficulty controlling himself, Isgar had killed four times in the past year. He was sure the police would pick up his trail now.

Isgar was not ready to be caught yet, in time, but not yet. He had to reach the goal which had formed slowly in his mind as a child and then solidified when he had reached his teens. It had taken him another fifteen years to make his first kill and ever since he had chased the addictive adrenaline rush. Now, turning forty, Isgar was in the prime of his life and was committed to the killing which brought him a deep sense of happiness.

Taking a few steps away from the car he stopped and turned. Staring back at the dim outline of it, he smiled.

Turning away from the slaughterhouse of the car, Isgar jogged quickly over the highway and up into the forest. He enjoyed the soft spongy feel of the fallen pine needles, which carpeted the forest floor, beneath his boots. As he surged along Isgar lifted his head to the sky, stopped and turned to look out towards the ocean.

Maybe, there was time tonight for one more kill, one more spike of joy. Maybe, just one more. The darkness swallowed Isgar’s retreating figure and a steady peel of laughter streamed out behind him, chilling the night birds into silence.

Chapter Three

0100 hours

Walton Airbase

The Pacific

‘I ’m just gonna duck out for a smoke,’ announced Corporal Malcolm Whitehall, as he stood up from his radar console. Arching his long back, Malcolm looked every bit the Texan that he claimed ancestry to. He was bored and though the base had prepared for the arrival of Falcon Flight, it really did not change his current disinterested attitude.

‘You looking to see an Urban tonight?’ asked Sergeant Marsu Lane, leaning back to look at Malcolm, as he made for the door. Marsu was almost the direct opposite of Malcolm. Short, stocky, and not quite good looking enough to pull any of the girls that Malcolm seemed to find so easy to do. A smirk was on Marsu’s lips because he already knew the answer. No one wanted to see an Urban, at least if you were not behind thick glass and a good ten kilometres away watching a live feed on a camera. Even then the damned things would find you if they had been programmed to seek out your DNA. They were terrifying.

‘Is that what’s coming in tonight?’ queried Malcolm, screwing up his face in disgust. He hated Urbans and they scared the hell out of him. It was not common to be told what cargo was coming in on a flight, unless it was Urbans, then everyone was told, and they all prepared for the worst. If it were Malcolm’s choice, he would have preferred a cargo of Woods to be coming in. At least if anything went wrong, he knew he had at least a slim chance of survival. Woods were not the stuff of nightmares like the Urbans.

The mission details, which Marsu had read only minutes earlier, outlined the training exercise planned to test the Urbans in simulated combat. Too dangerous in case of an accident, Urbans were always transited through Walton Airbase from the mainland. Once they were safely unloaded, trucks would take them to the research compound on the other side of the mountain range where they would be outfitted for the mission. From there they would be taken to the seaport and loaded into waiting ships and hovercraft for transport to nearby Sheridan Island where they would be