Man's World Issue 1

'Move those maps if you need to, I’m clear on the
situation, for now.'
'No need,' said John. Sitting, he put his glass on the
nearest map. It showed the upper course of the Ural
River, where assumed guerrilla positions had been
penciled in, then erased, then penciled in again a
dozen times or more in a neat hand. He looked at the
colonel. Did the fiend want something connected to
the fearsome Yaik Tigers?
'Look, Nurlan,' he said. 'I did some mercenary jobs in
the past, but no longer. And I don't fondly recall
fighting at your side.'
'Yes, we have our history, you and I,' said Nurlan.
'But I am willing to forget, and it’s not fighting that I
want from you. There is something only a man of
your talents can help me get.'
'Here,' the old soldier tossed Cold a notebook with a
dark, metallic cover. 'Tell me what you think of that.'
Inside, on plastic pages, scribbles scrawled in Cyrillic
script. Some uncertain, rheumatic hand made the
cursive nearly undecipherable. Yet there was
something else. Among them, there were drawings,
angry and fast things: A metameteoric compound?
Dervish somatoma? And coordinates. A whole series
of them, marking a path down to the south.
John’s eyes gleamed.
'I see you’ll take this job,' concluded the colonel.
'These might be just hallucinations of a feverish
traveler. But if it proves right and you bring me this
machine' - he put his finger on one of the images - 'all
will be forgotten, our old business. And you’ll be
rewarded handsomely.'
his men around them, not counting the jackals and
whores who squatted against the stronghold’s walls.
Both categories would gladly slit John’s throat if he
made a move against their master. Why, there were
two men hidden behind the tarp separating the room in
half.
Yet precisely for the reason he had placed them there,
the colonel’s eyes lingered on the harsh, cold features of
John’s face. He knew the man too well.
'John, be reasonable. With this somatoma, we could
bring peace to the land,' pleaded the commander.
'I know how you and yours brought peace to Yamalia. I
was there, remember?'
Colonel Nurlan paused for a moment. 'So you’ve gotten
sentimental with age. Fine. Don’t wanna do it? Leave the
notebook on my desk and get the fuck out of here.'
'I don’t think so. I’m leaving with it.'
'Like hell you are. Men!'
John sprung forward like lightning, his left hand
extended. He grasped the colonel’s hair, pulling his head
back towards him - and down on the desk. Thud.
He kicked the chair next, with a powerful flex. The kick
sent it flying into the faces of men emerging from behind
the curtain. They ducked, fumbling with the cloth.
Click.
John held his gun to Nurlan’s temple. Sudden sweat
trickled down the soldier's face.
'Don’t shoot!' shouted the commander. 'You win, John,
you win. Man, they don’t call you ‘Cold’ for nothing.'
'Why don’t you do it yourself?' retorted John. 'It
wouldn’t be the first time in history that a border
warlord went off searching for treasure in the
jungle.'
'The air raids. I can’t spare the men. And anyway, a
large column would be surely spotted by the damn
Tigers. Take the job.'
'No.' John finished his drink, stood up casually, the
steel-bound notebook in hand. 'But I’ll take this and
keep it for myself, you dog.' He cracked his neck,
grinning.
To be continued...
The full book can be bought now from
Amazon. Parts two and three of the John
Cold saga, '...and the Pirates of Alaska' and
'At the Court of the Neon Tsar', will be
available soon.
The colonel’s face froze in a half-formed smile. He
was trying to guess if this wiry bravo standing in
front of him was making a joke, mad, or both. One
never knew with John. They were in the middle of a
fort the colonel controlled, well over four hundred of
MAN'S WORLD