Hammer of God: Alex Hunter 5.5 (7 page)

“Opens outward,” he whispered. “You’ll wake up half of Mosul.” He reached forward and took the handle, bracing his other hand against the metal frame, and began to pull. After a few seconds, there came a popping sound and then the screech of complaining steel, before the metal locking plate flicked out of the frame and clattered to the ground.

Alex turned and winked at Sam. “Brought my own key.”

Eli looked at Moshe and pointed at the fallen grate, raising his eyebrows. Adira nudged him. “Must have been rusted. Focus, gentlemen.”

Alex entered; inside it was tomb-dark and they switched to night vision. Jon-Pierre placed a hand on the shoulder of Moshe and stumbled after them.

Alex went first up a set of decrepit steps, sensing the sleeping bodies behind each door. On a landing there was a threadbare cat, watching the huge human beings with indifferent eyes, as if it had seen the same thing a thousand times before.

The door to the roof opened with a squeal of rusted hinges, and Alex held up a hand to the group. He went out a few paces and crouched. There was no one on the roof, or any movement close by. He called them out.

Each Special Forces soldier stayed low and took a position up at the small rampart at the building’s edge. They used sensors and scopes to scan the other rooftops, looking for snipers. In the distance they could see a few anti gun batteries, but there was no one manning them. They would only fly into action if their radar picked up an approaching solid object. Alex doubted they’d be focused on their own rooftops even if they were awake.

He motioned with a flat hand toward the target building, and they moved quickly, but carefully – the ancient rooftops were scoured by years of harsh weather. One wrong footfall and they could end up in someone’s bedroom.

Alex leaped across the first divide between the buildings, then the second, and then ran over to their target building. This one had a new roof, and looked to have been recently reinforced. He called Adira over and pointed to some marks on the concrete.

“What do you think? Looks like the skids of a chopper, wide, possibly a SeaCobra.”

She bobbed her head from side to side. “Close; but I think it is more likely to be a Toufan. They’re direct copies of your SeaCobra but are developed by the Iranian Aviation Industries.”

“Iran? What are they doing here?”

“Why not? It makes perfect sense. They want the world to believe that, like the rest of us, they are fighting the Hezar-Jihadi. But they will covertly back anyone who makes life difficult for the west.” She looked around. “We need to be cautious. The Toufan helicopters are used primarily by the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution, or
Sepāh
.” She turned to Alex. “You know them as the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.”

“Great.” Alex exhaled, and called the team in close. “Heads up; we might have IRG on the ground.”

“Here? I thought those guys were really only active inside Iran, and just used more as financial muscle outside their borders,” Sam said.

Adira shook her head. “You underestimate them, Sam Reid. The
Sepāh
now have over a hundred twenty thousand military personnel in all type of forces – land, sea and air. They also control the paramilitary Basij militia, which has another ninety thousand active personnel. And you’re right, they do use their financial muscle, because they have a lot of it – they are now a multibillion-dollar business empire.”

Alex knew she was right. During his own research he’d found that the Iranian IRG were like a state within a state, and had a finger in everything. These days they were already a more dominant force then even the Shia clerical system.

“Damned nightmare,” he said. “Iran and Hezar-Jihadi cuddling up. But it would sure answer a lot of questions about how these militia jihadis get their funding, intelligence, and advanced weaponry.” Alex grunted. “Hammerson is going to be real interested in this.” He looked around, seeking his egress, but there was no visible door or skylight. “Franks, those guys from the chopper must have got in somewhere, find me where. Sam, take some readings. Let’s see if there’s more heavy particle trace below us.”

Casey moved off like a bloodhound, searching the rooftop, looking at the smallest edge or crack until she eventually stopped and crouched. She raised a hand, and clicked her fingers once. Alex joined her. There was a three-foot square cut into the roof, flush with its surroundings – a trapdoor. Alex ran a hand over it.

“Steel, solid.” A single tiny hole was near one end. There’d be no breaking this door or its lock without alerting everyone within a mile.

Sam finished his reading. “Traces of HRE, higher than background normal, but non lethal … as long as we don’t spend the night down there.” He looked up. “This is the place.”

“Good.” Alex pointed. “That’s a locking mech. Cut us in.”

Sam immediately kneeled at the trapdoor. He pulled something like a thick pen from a pouch on his leg, which he then pointed at the lock. A wire-thin red beam shot out, and the smell of burning steel and oil filled the air. Something popped from inside the lock, and then the door sprang up half an inch, still dripping molten steel.

Sam gripped it with his armored glove and lifted. He stuck his head inside, and then eased back. “Clear.”

They moved in fast. The stairs were metal and new, but the rest of the building was mired in dust and the grease from a thousand cigarettes. There were footprints everywhere, proving recent high activity. Alex motioned with one hand.

“Spread.”

The group sprinted off, searched the rooms, and then came back quickly. There was nothing to report.

“Let’s head down to the ground floor.” Alex led them on.

“Down where all the crazy squiggles are,” Casey whispered.

“Ancient Arabic, and I’m betting it’s incantations.” Sam responded.

Casey snorted. “Yeah, and maybe this is Hogwarts.”

Alex turned to glare, and the silence returned. As they eased down an older flight of stairs, staying close to the wall, Alex felt the tingle of a warning on his neck. He couldn’t sense life, or the feeling he got when there was an enemy combatant concealed close by. This time it was more a sensation of something not being right.

“Stay alert. Something’s down there.”

They came off the stairs on the ground floor, and found themselves in a single large room. It seemed most of the inside walls had been knocked down, and save for a few support pylons, it was a dark, warehouse-type open space. Even the windows were bordered over.

“There was someone in here; we saw movement. Be ready,” Alex spoke quietly as he turned. The huge room was strewn with debris, building materials like stacked cinder blocks and flat iron girders were piled everywhere, indicating ongoing construction work. Against one wall stood a small forklift truck. Other than that the room would have been completely empty if not for the line of five long crates – each around ten feet in length – pushed up against a wall. All were open except for one. There was a table near the long boxes, strewn with paper.

“Give me a count.” Alex swung to Sam, nodding to the crates. He wasn’t sure if there was any form of high energy particle waves coming off the boxes, but he could sense something strange had been in them as keenly as if there was light showing at their edges.

Sam finished at the boxes, and moved around the floor, stopping at the forklift. “This thing is registering a spike – it sure lifted something contaminated.” He half turned. “The nukes?”

“Maybe,” Alex said. “Franks, Moshe, Eli, do a perimeter search.” The three took off in different directions. “Sam, Adira, Jon-Pierre, let’s take a look at what they left us.”

Sam and Jon-Pierre headed toward the crates, and Alex and Adira approached the table. There were scraps of paper, strips of cloth, and maps strewn everywhere. Alex took the maps and Adira lifted the papers, frowning as she tried to read the ancient words.

“Doesn’t make sense. It’s all jumbled phrases and lists of items.” She shook her head. “It looks like a recipe.” She lifted a strip of cloth with more of the ancient Arabic calligraphy on it in red. “
Al-Rûm.”
She frowned, looking up at Alex. “That’s the ancient name for Rome. Is that where this came from?”

“No,” Alex said, spreading out some of the maps. “Soran, Baghdad, Israel – the Sea of Galilee.”

“What?” Adira came over and looked at the map. Her jaw clenched. “So, this is what they were attempting to do – cross the Gaza Strip and explode their bomb near the Sea of Galilee. It is the largest freshwater lake in Israel – sixty-five square miles of water that Israel needs to survive.”

“I think these are targets, destinations.
Look
.” Alex turned one of the maps to her. It showed both the northern edge of Libya, and the southern tip of Italy. “Misrata.” Alex pointed. “Seems they start here, and travel here.” The map circled Pachino, in southern Italy.

Adira exhaled, her eyes narrowing. “The Hezar-Jihadi are almost in total control of Libya, then it’s just a few hundred miles of uninterrupted Mediterranean Sea to Italy. Takes less than a day by boat. Pachino was ruled by the Arabs a thousand years ago – they never forget.”

Alex grunted. “Seems they’re expanding out of the Middle East.” Alex looked at the crate, still feeling the tingle down his spine. “Wait.” He held up a hand to stop Sam, who was just bending toward the unopened box. “Let’s
all
see what’s behind door number one.”

Jon-Pierre stood back as Alex went to one end of the crate and Sam the other. The rest of the team stood watching, curious but alert, guns ready. Both the HAWCs drew K-Bar blades and jammed their chisel ends in to lever up the nails holding the top down tight.

The lid lifted with the sound of groaning wood as it tried to hang onto the metal spikes. It popped free, and they slid it to the side.

“
Mon dieu!
” Jon-Pierre grimaced, walking backwards.

“Jesus Christ; that is fucking gross.” Casey eased her gun around, her eyes wide.

There was a body lying inside the box, dressed in a flowing shawl. But the figure was far from normal. It was enormous – even spread flat they could see it would have been over seven feet tall.

“What the hell did they do to this guy?” Sam moved slightly to the side of the crate and leaned closer.

The body was heavily scarified, with swirls and script carved straight into the flesh. The wounds were still open.

“Fresh cuts, but no blood.” Adira said. “I think this mutilation was done after death.” She touched the skin and pulled her hand back, rubbing thumb and forefinger together. “Feels like wax.”

“A Traveler,” Alex said. “Just like the thing that strolled into the International Zone.”

“Big fucker. This one must have died before it got its orders.” Casey grimaced as Alex reached into the crate, turning the massive head one way, then the next. Then he grabbed the shawl and ripped it away.

The flowing script was covering its body, but that wasn’t what riveted them. Zippering the body were masses of surgical scars knitting together a patchwork of different skin types. There was darker olive skin sewn to fair, and one huge hairy pectoral, not matching the smooth dark one on the other side of the chest, and a third in the center.

“Notice anything missing?”

“Besides my sanity?” Casey immediately responded. She pointed with her gun. “No belly button.”

“Keep going,” Adira said.

Casey scoffed. “Holy shit, where’s the freaking cock?” She craned her head. “There’s nothing down there. Hey, maybe its not a man after all.”

“What the hell is going on here?” Sam couldn’t hide the disgust in his voice.

Alex reached into the crate to turn the head again. “It’s not a man, not a woman, not an anything. Mary Shelley, eat your heart out.” He felt an odd sensation under his fingertips. “No pulse, but there’s … something.”

Adira held up a strip of material she had kept from the table. “This cloth, I believe it’s a headband. Terrorists carry a prayer, or a plea to enter paradise when about to go into battle. Perhaps this,
this thing
, was meant to carry the name of its target –
Al-Rûm
.”

“Giant pack mules. The damned Iranians are loading them up here, and then setting them loose. But …” Sam rubbed a hand up through his hair. “But this one is dead, if it ever was alive.”

Adira turned the strip of material over. “More words.” She frowned, trying to make sense of the ancient script. She spoke them softly, halting and starting again until she had the translation right.

Alex felt a tingle run up his spine to his scalp, as if static electricity had filled the room. “Jesus.” The lump of flesh beneath his hand quivered, and the thing’s eyes opened. Alex went to jump back, but one huge hand shot up to grab him by the throat.

Alex gagged as the large hand compressed. He used both his own hands to tear at the huge fingers, but he had never felt such power from another human being in his life. As the fingers started to close together, the thing sat up, its expression as slack and indifferent as if it were waking up, simply rising from bed.

Sam and Jon-Pierre rushed forward, grabbing at the hand, then forearm, without any effect.

“Feels—like—iron—
get back
!
” Sam let go of the thing’s arm as it started to rise up. He then raised one huge boot, intending to use the MECH assisted framework to stomp down on it with pile-driver force.

In one rapid movement, the being swung Alex’s body like a baseball bat into Sam and Jon-Pierre, knocking them both to the ground, and then flung Alex into a far wall with enough force that some of the bricks shifted in their mortar.

Alex looked broken, and the French pilot and Sam lay still.

*

The thing then rose to its full height, and towered over all of them, its face slack. As it went to step from the crate, Casey braced her legs.

“Fuck you –
fire!
”

Casey, Adira, Eli, and Moshe opened up, dozens of silenced rounds smacking into the dead flesh with a sound more like that of a paddle on a side of beef.

Where the flesh was exposed, they could see holes puncturing the flesh, but no blood flowed. The being reached down to grab the ten-foot crate it had risen from and flung it at Casey, who had to dive fast to avoid the massive projectile.