Patriot by M.A. Rothman (summer reading list TXT) 📗

Connor jerked around, yanking hard on his attacker’s wrists and raking his fingers on the back of the man’s gun hand. It fired again, this time putting rounds into the floor inches from Connor’s feet. He grabbed the silencer, warm to the touch, and twisted hard. There was an audible snap of a bone and the man screamed in pain, dropping to one knee. Connor ripped the gun free. The man lunged forward, driving his shoulder into Connor’s chest, slamming him into the wall. He gasped as the impact forced the air from his lungs.

The man’s attack had pinned Connor’s arms against his chest. He rotated, slamming the back of his elbow into his attacker’s ear. The blow didn’t seem to faze the man, who began to pummel Connor’s sides with rapid-fire punches. Connor brought a knee up into the man’s stomach, once, twice, a third time. He repeated his elbow strike, this time drawing blood. Finally the attacker staggered back a step, momentarily dazed.

Without hesitation, Connor drove his boot hard into the man’s sternum, knocking him back. At the same time, he spun the pistol around, taking the grip in his shooting hand and bringing it up to fire.

The man’s boot came out of nowhere, connecting with Connor’s hand. Pain shot through his fingers as the gun flew from his grip. The man was still rotating, and the foot he’d just kicked Connor with hadn’t even touched the floor before the other came around, aiming high for Connor’s face.

Connor ducked, and the man’s leg swept through the air where his head has just been. Then Connor threw himself forward, launching the man into the doorframe. Wood cracked, and the man gasped in pain.

Connor backed away, eyes darting around the room, searching for the gun. He spotted it on the carpet and lunged for it, hoping to get his hands on it before his attacker regained his footing. His fingers wrapped around the handle and he stood, turning to fire.

But the man was already rushing Connor, his eyes wide with fury and anger, and Connor didn’t have time to raise the weapon and fire. Instead he used all the power of his runner’s legs to propel his shoulder into the charging man’s stomach. He felt several ribs snap as he caught the man in mid-air. The man landed on his back, the back of his skull cracking against the hard carpet.

“That’s enough,” Connor said, leveling the pistol. “Don’t move, asshole.”

The man scrambled to his feet, one hand reaching to the small of his back.

“Don’t!” Connor repeated.

The man shouted something in Japanese that Connor didn’t catch, and the hand reappeared, a nine-inch blade in its white-knuckled grip.

Connor squeezed the trigger twice, putting two rounds into the man’s chest. The man cried out, grimacing in pain as he staggered and then fell back to the floor. He dropped the knife and grabbed his chest, bringing away bloody fingers. He tried to talk but only managed to have bloody spittle bubble around his lips.

Connor took a step forward, keeping the gun trained on his target. “Why?”

Fury and anger still burned in the man’s eyes. He gritted his teeth against obvious pain, his hand patting the floor next to him, searching for the knife.

Connor shook his head. “It’s over.”

The man’s fingers found the handle of the knife and grasped it.

“Leave it,” Connor warned.

The man shuddered, and almost certainly not because of the tone of Connor’s voice. He was dying, and it was only now beginning to register with his body. Blood was pouring from his two bullet wounds in rhythmic gushes—a sure sign Connor had hit at least one major blood vessel, if not the heart itself. It was only a matter of time.

Hoping to gain at least something from the encounter, Connor asked, “Who sent you?”

The man swung his knife hand up. But his attack had almost no force behind it at all. Connor grabbed the man’s wrist with his free hand, twisted it back, and wrenched the knife away. It fell to the carpet and Connor kicked it away.

“Who sent you?” he repeated, leaning in close.

The man spit blood.

Connor pulled back, narrowly missing the phlegm and blood. He shook his head.

The man’s eyes started to flutter. His lips opened and closed, but no words came out. After a few seconds of inaudible murmuring, he fell silent, his head rolling to the side, blood streaming from his lips onto the carpet.

Connor stood for a long moment, considering the dead man. “Son of a bitch. Now what?”

Chapter Ten

“What the hell do you think this is, Mission Impossible?” Pennington practically leapt out of his chair as Connor entered his office. “You’re a goddamn analyst, not James-motherfucking-Bond!”

Connor had the urge to respond with some choice words, but suppressed it. The deputy director’s face was flushed with anger, and a vein pulsed in his neck. Connor had never seen the man this furious before.

Pennington crossed the office and jabbed a finger at Connor. “You were supposed to be on vacation, Connor! How in the hell did you end up in a Japanese hotel with a gun in your hand, standing over a dead body?”

“It’s not that simple,” Connor said. “There’s a lot more to it than that.”

Pennington stood with his nose practically touching Connor’s. Connor could feel the man’s hot breath on his face. “Not that simple? You killed a civilian on foreign soil! ‘A lot more to it’ doesn’t even begin to explain what you did!”

Having spent ten years in the army, Connor was no stranger to wall-to-wall counseling, and despite what the top brass in the Pentagon liked to suggest, corporal discipline was still very much alive and well, especially in the more exclusive units. While the basic training recruits received “stress cards,” the instructors at the Special Forces Qualification Course still kicked, punched, and strangled. In the teams, he’d seen one or two operators receive beatdowns from their sergeants after failing to comply. Of course,