ARISEN, Book Twelve - Carnage (19 page)

From absolutely everywhere.

Kill and Eat Everyone

Red Square

“
Watch the helo!
” Aliyev shouted, trying to be heard over the chaos of the close-quarters grenade battle, even as he tried to melt into the cracks between cobblestones. “Don’t hit the damned MZ!”

But with the explosions and moaning, he couldn’t be heard.

A few feet over from him, Jameson knew they had to get the hell out of there. A grenade exploded twenty feet to his left and rear – way too close to him, and closer yet to at least one of his men, who yelped and then groaned in response. Someone was hit.

And more would be soon.

Jameson reflexively curled his body and covered up against the explosion, feeling the cold stone against his cheek. When he looked up again, he immediately saw a grenade arc in, hit the cobblestones ten feet in front of his face, then take a weird bounce. Swiveling his head to try and follow its path, he saw Sergeant Croucher, demonstrating outrageous reflexes, not to mention hand–eye coordination, rise up on one arm and snatch the flying object out of the air with the other, hurling it back in almost the same motion. It exploded harmlessly beside the helicopter.

Then Jameson remembered the MZ was in the helicopter.
Shit
.

He saw their own outgoing grenades arc over or around the helo, and they looked like they’d been well placed. It had to be because of cricket, he figured. English lads could throw. It was said the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.
These Russian bastards probably all grew up playing ice hockey…

But while coming in first in a grenade fight definitely beat coming in second, it still wasn’t good, and it wasn’t enough. Because the dead were now stumbling into their lines – and they didn’t even have any lines, their position strung across a large and irregular area. Jameson took his sights off the enemy and took six shots to drop two dead running at him from the front left… but turning that far, he could see others coming in from the back left – and then also from behind.

They were coming from everywhere.

And the Marines were already shooting more at the attacking dead than at the attacking living. There were definitely more than had started out in the square – they were coming in from somewhere else. Raising himself up enough to survey the scene through the cone of his NVGs, Jameson could sense more than see them flooding in from all four corners of the square, which were open to the surrounding streets.

And they were all converging on the helicopter, and the two beleaguered forces shooting and chucking grenades around it. Worse, Jameson’s Royal Marines were all down on the deck, flat on their stomachs – not a great posture from which to fend off the dead.

Jameson knew if they didn’t get out of there in the next minute, they were never leaving. He took several deep breaths and squinted deeply at that helicopter. There were already significant numbers of dead between him and it – never mind that standing up and closing half the distance to the Russians would seriously invite a bullet in the face.

As tantalizingly close as they were, getting to the helo and retrieving the pathogen, at least in this moment, was simply not going to happen. Even though everything hung on it, Jameson knew if he and his men got hold of it, but were all shot to death or devoured in the next minute, that helped absolutely no one.

They had to go –
now
.

* * *

Jameson flipped onto his back, now shooting almost exclusively to defend himself from the ranks of staggering dead lurching into their lines, which were still nothing like lines. One Troop was a big clusterfuck, a soup sandwich. But twisting his head back to steal a look at the enemy patrol, he could sense they were basically in the same straits. The relative lack of incoming rounds or grenades told the tale. They were fighting for their lives, too. Basically, the Red Army dead didn’t give a shit that Spetsnaz were the home team.

They were here to fight everyone. To kill and eat everyone.

That was probably frustrating for the Russians, but the One Troop commander definitely didn’t give a shit about that. What he did give a shit about was breaking contact, which they had to do, and do fast. A minute ago, with no cover, whichever side stood up first was probably going to die. But now both sides were distracted fighting for their lives. And Jameson knew this was their moment, and their only chance.

He got on his radio. “One Troop! Leapfrogging withdrawal, back to the strongpoint! Three covers to start, then one covers at the halfway point!”

It wasn’t easy ordering complex infantry maneuvers while the dead were dropping on their heads, bullets flying, and shit still occasionally exploding. But both the training and combat experience made it possible for them to organize and be effective even in the extreme chaos of battle.

Mainly, they’d all performed this drill many times in training, and more than once in combat. Fire team three would put down covering fire while one and two turned and ran for it. Halfway to safety, one would stop and turn to cover three, who would break contact and run through one’s lines. By then, two should have reached the building, and would shoot to protect the others, with one bringing it in last. That was the theory, anyway. Three was Croucher’s team, and two was Eli’s. Jameson would be last man out.

He spotted Eli lying ten feet to his right. “You take the Kazakh!” he shouted.

“Got it!”

“On my signal! Covering fire!”

Jameson knew they weren’t physically organized by fire teams anymore, as the men had dropped wherever they stopped running. Virtual organization would have to do. He saw Croucher slap in a new mag and open up, with Yap and Simmonds presumably following suit.

“One and two – displace! One bounding!”

“Two bounding!”

Jameson rose to his feet, spun to the rear, and led the mad dash of five Marines and one civilian back across the endless expanse of open ground toward the edge of the square. Eli covered Aliyev with his body and shoved him forward, while Younis had his arm around Nicks’s shoulder, running with a limp so severe he was lurching like the dead himself.

With each long stride, each ragged inhalation of breath, Jameson’s every nerve braced for a bullet in the back. But he could only shoot and shove at the dead between them and that building front. When his rifle went dry, he brought the stock around and caved in a head lurching right into his face, mouth open and teeth bared.

Dodging around the falling body, he figured they were halfway back, so he shouted, “One set! Three displace!” – then stopped, turned, knelt, reloaded in a flash, and started shooting. Sanders and Halldon followed suit to his left and right, while Eli kept hauling ass toward the building along with Nicks and the hobbled Younis, all three of them still sheltering and shoving Aliyev.

“Three bounding!”

Up ahead, Croucher’s team rose, turned, and hauled ass, running straight through Jameson’s line, he and his fire team shooting through the gaps at the Russians – but with Sanders and Halldon quickly turning to the flanks to drop runners angling in on them.

When Jameson heard,
“Two set!”
and, five long seconds later,
“Three set!”
, he yelled “One bounding!” – then rose up again and led his last two men to safety. They hurtled through the open doorway, two Marines shooting out either side and only clearing out for them at the last second.

“One set,” he said quietly, and to no one. He was kind of just convincing himself he was still alive.

The door slammed shut behind them.

“Casualty assessment,” Jameson said, raising his voice enough to be heard. In the next minute, he, Eli, and Croucher determined that there were a bunch of minor shrapnel wounds – though two of them were on Eli and Croucher themselves, and Jameson had been creased in the arm by a bullet. But Younis was much more seriously wounded. He’d had a chunk of his outer thigh removed by grenade blast, along with some smaller chunks of his upper arm. He was in a lot of pain, but once they got the bleeding stopped and the wounds wrapped up, he claimed to be able to walk and to fight.

And they were all alive – all of them who were left.

Which was something. It just wasn’t enough.

They still didn’t have what they came for.

Two Paths

Northwest Somalia – Across the River

As the group of Seahawk survivors ran and stumbled down the overgrown path that claimed to be the road on the other side of the river, Handon did finally think of something. He had brought up the rear himself on the crossing – and as he stepped across the section of bridge that was a two-foot-wide steel girder, he thought:

Hell of a choke point.

But he wasn’t the only one who thought it – and Henno said something first. Turning and letting the others pass, he grabbed Handon and looked into his face from a few inches away. When Henno stared at you like that it was hard to look away.

“I’m going back,” he said. “Hold them off at the river.”

Handon’s face was blank, but his mind raced. “On your own.”

“I’ll have cover in the forest and they’ll have nought on the bridge. And it’s a perfect choke point. Now get the team moving.”

“No,” Handon said. “We stick together. If we have to turn and fight, we’ll need everyone.”

“If we turn and fight, we’re fucking dead. Now get gone!”

Handon knew Henno was right – again.

Looking over his shoulder, he could see the others had also stopped. Fick still had Patient Zero over his shoulder, but he was fighting for breath, and finally relented, too exhausted to resist, when Reyes relieved him of it. Handon knew this wasn’t good. They had to keep moving. Though he wasn’t sure how much longer they were going to be able to. There wasn’t much left in the tank.

He opened his mouth to protest one more time – when Henno leaned in even closer and rolled up his sleeve. There was a small but nasty arc of puncture wounds on the inside of his arm, which Henno only revealed for a second before letting the sleeve drop.

“Dead bastard took a chunk out of me at the fight in the forest.”

Handon closed his mouth. There was nothing left to be said, then. That settled it.

Henno reached over his shoulder and drew his cricket bat from his pack, then tossed it over Handon’s head – to Noise. “Get this back to Blighty for me. And give it to Captain Ainsley’s lads.”

Noise nodded, his face solemn.

And without another word, Henno hefted his rifle, turned, and took off at a run. The others turned and ran in the opposite direction. And so their two paths diverged in a wood.

Almost certainly forever.

* * *

The terrain didn’t change much when the survivors from the gun truck and SUV crossed into Djibouti – it was more semi-arid brown wasteland, albeit a little redder due to the nearby coast and beach, both just within sight to their right.

But there was a general sigh of relief as they finally got the hell out of Somalia, ground zero of the fall of man. Then again, they were now within sight of Camp Lemonnier – the fall of which was a raw memory for the Triple Nickel guys. Zack, badly torn up, battled to keep trotting, with his arms draped over Kate and Homer on opposite sides of him.

But they were almost there.

The good news was that the airport, adjacent to Lemonnier, was on the near side of it. The group had been keeping to the main road, as it was going their way. But up ahead a side road led off to the right, toward the main terminal building. They cut the corner off and angled toward it. Behind the terminal were the tarmacs, runway, and aircraft hangars.

Leading the way, Jake looked back over his shoulder, and belatedly asked the question of the hour. “Okay, I’ll bite. What the hell is waiting for us at the airport? An incoming flight from the UK?”

Bringing up the rear, his big rifle looking small cradled in his arms, Predator said: “Hey, you just gotta trust me, and keep moving.”

Jake ground his teeth. “No offense, man, but I don’t know you.”

Pred squinted at Jake and thought for a second. “Okay, then – trust Juice. This is straight from him.”

Jake took a breath, nodded, and carried on. Pred had nailed it – Jake had known Juice a long time. But, anyway, he had little choice but to trust him. And they all had to focus and stay switched on now. They were too close – to escape and mission success, but also to failure and annihilation.

Not least because, as they headed up the passenger drop-off road out front, they were now back in a formerly populated area. And some of the former population were on hand to greet them. People who had perhaps been waiting here two years – waiting to greet air travelers who would never come.

Jake rested his Beowulf on its sling and drew his MP-7 from its leg holster. He extended the collapsible stock, brought it to his shoulder, and started taking silenced single shots on figures that stumbled toward them.

And he hoped Predator knew what the hell he was talking about.

* * *

By the time Henno got back to the foot of the bridge, the Spetsnaz convoy had reached the other end – and were piling out of their vehicles and forming up. They were in such nice pretty ranks that Henno had to fight the temptation to knock a few of them down right away. Not least since there looked to be more than twenty of them.

No, he needed to wait until they were out on that single girder span – where there was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. Henno had taken care not to emerge from the forest, and so hadn’t been spotted yet. He didn’t have much time to hunker down and prepare a fighting position. But he had a little.

And he was going to need more than one. Because once he was engaged with a tactically proficient enemy, who vastly outnumbered him, he’d get dug out of one spot very fucking fast. He picked his first position mainly for concealment, rather than hard cover. He wanted them confused, if not spooked – that was unlikely – and which would keep them from putting out effective fire for much of the first minute.