ARISEN, Book Twelve - Carnage (26 page)

It was all pretty damned cognitively taxing, not to mention anxiety-producing. And Charlotte was already exhausted from the long solo flight all the way across Europe. Basically, this gig was a hell of a lot less fun than her day job, in her regular ride, the Apache helicopter gunship. If flying the Apache was like “riding the dragon,” then jockeying a Chinook was like flogging a Brontosaurus. But she was at least aware that, basically, the job remained the same: to support the men on the ground. To keep them alive.

And make it possible for them to complete their mission.

Finally the buildings of Moscow rose up ahead of her in night-vision green and black. She’d already input her target grid coords, and the spot was lit up on her moving map display – and would also shine in her heads-up display as soon as she was visual with it. Surprisingly quickly she was above Red Square – and couldn’t fail to miss the sprawling sea of dead that filled it.

Jameson conveniently failed to mention the singularity…
It looked like they’d been having a real party down there without her.

Casting around, she could see the overlaid location marker on one of the sections of rooftop. This was going to be the tricky bit. She descended, then flared in heavily and clumsily, trying to keep the overloaded bird level, finally just kissing the four fat tires on the rooftop – while keeping her power up and most of the weight held by the two giant four-bladed rotors. Her hand moved to lower the back ramp. But she couldn’t see Jameson on the rooftop, or anyone for that matter…

Until suddenly she did. Soldiers with rifles to their shoulders appeared from all around the edges of the building. But something was wrong. First of all, they were aiming the rifles at her. But, even without that, she could instantly tell they weren’t her boys. They were dressed wrong, armed wrong, and most of all they moved wrong.

And, even in the dark, they dripped menace.

A shouted voice penetrated through the cockpit glass and over the rotor and engine noise.
“Bring your engines offline and exit the aircraft. Do not attempt to lift off, or you will be shot down. Bring your engines offline NOW.”

Adrenaline flooding her system, eyes like saucers, senses hyper-alert… still Charlotte hesitated. One of the soldiers, smaller than the others, approached the right-side cockpit glass, muzzle first. Charlotte realized with a start that it was a woman. She tried to decide whether to take these guys at their word. Her hand hovered over the control to bring the engines down.

Then Jameson’s voice popped up in her ear. It said:

“Charlotte – PULL PITCH, NOW!”

Jameson, she trusted.

* * *

Lyudmila walked smoothly forward, heel-toe, weapon to shoulder, panning and sweeping the helo and shadows at the corners of the rooftop. Her team had cleared the area and been surprised not to find the enemy ground force, but had presumed they were out of sight, waiting to see if their aircraft would set down safely before coming out. It hadn’t, and it wasn’t going to.

But now that they had captured both of the enemy aircraft, plane and helo, those guys weren’t going anywhere. And Akela would have the main force dug out of the bunker in only a few more minutes. At which point they could mop up the invaders at their leisure.

As she approached the cockpit, and peered inside over her sight, Lyudmila locked eyes with the pilot – and saw it was another woman, just as Akela had said. She moved to tap the end of her barrel against the cockpit glass – but before she could, the engines screamed as they wound up to full power. Lyudmila aimed at the pilot and started to squeeze her trigger.

Explosions rippled beneath her feet, and on all sides.

The ground shifted and buckled and then went away, and she found herself falling through black, nearly empty space. She landed on her back with a crash, the air instantly evacuated from her lungs.

She tried to roll away as heavy debris fell on her face.

* * *

Jameson dropped the remote detonator and leapt the wall that separated their rooftop from the next one over – the one the Chinook was already rising above. No audible signal was necessary to get One Troop assaulting. The explosive charges going off on the top floor of the neighboring building, collapsing most of its roof, was sign enough.

As he landed on the narrow ledge – all that was left of the collapsed rooftop next door – and as the giant looming Chinook powered up into the sky over his head, and whipped the air into a frenzy, Jameson could sense as much as see the other half of the team coming over the wall on the opposite side, from the third building over. In seconds, they were all in position, aiming their weapons down into the suddenly open-air top floor of the neighboring building.

And as the Russian survivors of the collapse climbed unsteadily to their feet, or pushed hunks of masonry off their battered bodies, or rolled around trying to assess their injuries…

The Royal Marines opened fire.

It was a circular firing squad, from an elevated position. And, as tough and skilled as the Alfa operators were, they all fell down again, stopped moving – and never got up again.

Even the most badass among them – even Lyudmila.

Mogadishu Mile

Djibouti – Outside the Airport

The rains from earlier in the day had stopped, but the sky was still low, heavy, and gray as the Seahawk survivors – now reduced to Ali, Juice, Fick, Reyes, Baxter, and al-Sif, as well as Patient Zero – drew within sight of Djibouti Airport. Almost immediately, they could see the short sharp flashes of grenade blasts lighting up the glass front of the terminal building, followed by the muted whumps of the explosions a few seconds later.

And they knew their brothers on the split team were in there – fighting for the lives against a Spetsnaz ambush.

Ali, still in the lead, got on the radio. “Cadaver Three, this is One, inbound your location. What’s your status?” She recognized Jake’s deep and serious but relaxed voice coming back – on top of what sounded like another suppressed firefight.

“This is Three, in heavy contact inside the terminal building. We’re a little bit pinned down right now.”

“Copy that, Three,” Ali said, picking up her pace – the others, also on the same net, rushing to keep up. “What’s your position, orientation, and enemy disposition?”

“We are at airport security, five-zero meters inside the terminal, facing the rear of the structure. We are engaged with approx one-zero enemy shooters, head on. They are facing the front, over.”

“Copy that. We’ll circle around and come in from behind, making a dynamic entry. Will attempt to hit enemy force from their four o’clock or eight o’clock, how copy?”

“All received. Give us a heads-up when you’re in position for your attack and we’ll check fire.”

“Wilco, out.”

Al-Sif whispered to Baxter, “There is a plane for us here?”

“Dude, you’re asking the wrong guy. I have no freaking idea.”

But then he had to heft his rifle and rush to keep up. Because Ali was already leading the team around the outside of the terminal. It wasn’t huge as airports went, but it wasn’t small either, and they needed to get all the way around it – fast. Ideally while their friends on the other team were still alive.

But as they ran, Juice dropped back to fall in beside Baxter. He touched the young man on the elbow and said, “Hey, am I going crazy or did I hear spoken Russian on our squad net a few minutes ago?”

“Yeah, I actually did hear that,” Baxter said. “Crossed frequencies or something?”

Juice shook his head. “I don’t think so. Could you make out what was said?”

“Yeah, I think I did,” Baxter said. He recited his translation.

Juice nodded. Baxter had understood the words. But Juice had recognized the voice. And there was no mistaking that.

It was Misha.

* * *

When they reached the back of the terminal, they found a series of a half-dozen double doors, outside of the departure gates, and out of which fliers would have exited and crossed the tarmac to board planes via rolling passenger-loading stairs. Ali was prepared to breach, but the first door she tried was open. And at that point, she revisited her dynamic entry plan. Going in stealthy seemed better.

Turning to the others, she issued orders. “Juice and Reyes on me for the assault. Fick guards P-Zero, with Baxter and… dreadlock guy, whoever the hell you are.” She hadn’t heard Juice’s explanation to Handon about al-Sif, but presumed someone had brought him to the party, for some reason that made some kind of sense.

She then turned, pulled open the door, raised her rifle, hunched her body over and around it, and led the way in. It was even darker in the terminal than in the thin early-evening light of the stormy day outside, but it wasn’t too hard to find the fight. She followed the whispered chorus of silenced rounds – and, more easily, the shouts in English and Russian and occasional grenade blasts – away from the departure lounge, and down a short corridor toward the back side of airport security.

She made a hand signal for cover, and behind her, Juice and Reyes complied. Squinting ahead, trying to work out the tactical picture, she knew something wasn’t right. When she thought she’d figured it out, she turned and made a hold gesture – then rose out of her crouch and slipped forward, disappearing into the shadows, alone.

She swung left, around the back side of the Russian force, and soon the back of the first shooter was visible, conspicuously foreign in his slate-gray fatigues, and only meters away. Silently, she angled a little further around until she had a look at the second one, farther on and to her left. Then she raised her rifle and shot the first in the back of the head – then pivoted and shot the second in the side of his head. They dropped within a second of each other.

She hit her radio. “Juice and Reyes, bring it up. Cadaver Three, this is Cadaver One – friendlies coming in from your twelve.”

She rose and walked up to the security station, beside the conveyer belt of the X-ray machine, and then through the metal detector. On the other side, there to greet her, was Homer. After a brief pause, they lowered their weapons, stepped forward, and embraced – but also briefly.

When she pulled away, she said: “Jesus, you let yourselves get pinned down by two guys?”

Homer looked beyond her at the two bodies. “Swear on my soul there were more of them.”

Jake stepped out from under cover. “They must have slipped away during the fight.”

Homer said, “The question is why. And where to–”

“Never mind for now,” Ali said. “We’ve gotta go.”

She looked up to see Juice and Reyes had arrived, and the rest of the other team had come out from under cover. And they looked pretty dinged up. Noise had a red-splotched white bandage wrapped around his upper arm. And, Jesus, was that Zack? As he hobbled up, Ali went to him, they locked eyes – and she hugged him, as well. No one reacted to this, though Ali knew everyone had to be wondering.

And a few feet away, wordlessly, Juice and Predator also embraced, enthusiastically man-patting each other’s broad backs with blows that would stun lesser men.

“Hey, lovebirds,” Ali said. “That’s sweet, but get a room – later.”

Finally, she turned and led them all at a trot back to the departure gates, and out back to where the rest of her group waited – and where more reunions commenced. When Baxter saw the state Zack was in, he said, “Holy shit, dude,” and hastened to take over holding up one side of him, while Kate stayed on the other.

“Big man!” Noise said to Predator.

“Hey, dude,” Pred said, smiling at him before turning toward Fick. “Hey, Master Guns,” he said, obviously pleased to see the grizzled Marine Master Gunnery Sergeant, and see that he was still alive. “That what I think it is?” he asked, pointing to the body bag over his shoulder. But when Fick didn’t have the wind to answer, but just nodded wearily, Pred said, “Oh, for God’s sake, give me that.” He lifted Patient Zero off Fick’s shoulder with one hand and just held it by his side.

While all this was happening, Jake was walking forward in silence, his brow lowering and expression growing dark. “Mother
fucker
,” he said, approaching al-Sif. Jake looked like he couldn’t have been any more surprised – or displeased – if the zombie of Osama bin Laden had turned up with the other team.

And then Jake saw the SCAR sniper rifle al-Sif was carrying – the one that had belonged to Kwan – and his knife flashed in his hand. His voice a lethal rasp, he said, “You make a real habit of taking weapons from better men than yourself—”

“Not the time – not here, not now.” This was Ali, giving Jake a not-to-be-ignored shove in his shoulder. “Settle your score later. Right now, I need everyone alive and shooting.”

When Jake paused and looked over, Baxter said, “He helped us fight Spetsnaz, and he drove us here. He’s with us now.”

Jake clearly didn’t believe that, and he certainly didn’t like it, if he even really heard it. But he sheathed his knife and stepped away. He obviously couldn’t stand to even look at that man.

As this was going on, Predator had been scanning the group – and now that the conflict between Jake and al-Sif was defused, he looked at Juice and Ali. “Hey – where the fuck are Handon and Henno?”

Juice shook his head slowly.

“
What?
” Pred looked like he’d had his testicles squeezed.

Quietly, Juice said, “Holding action.”

“And you just
left
them?”

“Yeah,” Ali said, rounding on him. “We did. And that’s why the rest of us are here now – if those two hadn’t gone back to delay and harass twenty-plus Spetsnaz, we’d all be face down in the desert, dead. So let’s not fuck it up now. Come on – get moving.”

And everyone there knew full well, anyway: Tier-1 guys were never dead until you saw a body – and saw it being lowered into the ground in a flag-draped coffin.

Still, Pred exhaled numbly, his expression shell-shocked. But, like the rest of them, he knew he had to remain operational – for every second this mission was still on. He tossed Patient Zero over his shoulder like a rag doll, and hefted his rifle one-handed with the other.