Prodigal (8 page)

“Twenty meters,” Lea heard Pallas say. She looked past the numbers on her visor to see Tiernan staring at her grimly from across the small compartment. So quickly that she almost thought she imagined it, he flashed her a cryptic wink before slipping his own helmet on.

What that implied, Lea could only guess.

She strapped herself back into the passenger seat, listening with the others as Pallas counted the distance until landing. She rubbed her gloved hands together, unable to wipe the sweat from her palms or slow the urging of her heart, both of which made her feel alive and restrained at the same time.

“Contact,” the hammerjack said.

There was a horrendous jolt when they touched down. The driver instantly threw the APC into gear, bouncing everyone around as the vehicle lurched down the landing ramp and into the open air. The hulking outline of the transport filled the narrow slats of the forward windows, but only for a moment; as soon as the APC rolled away, the transport lifted off again and was gone. When the roar of the turbines faded, all that was left was a cloud of settling dust.

And a lonely highway that stretched into forever.

“Move out,” Lea said.

Trees swayed in the dim afterglow of the headlights, assuming illusory life in a steady wind that blew from the northeast. The APC stayed at the center of the road, where radiation from the surrounding woods was the least potent, proceeding at a painfully slow speed. Lea kept her eyes glued to the mission feed, increasingly restless as the image faded in and out on the dashboard monitor. As the static grew heavier, the driver slowed even more, until the signal disappeared altogether and the APC ground to a halt.

“That’s it,” the driver said.

“How far out are we?” Lea asked.

“One klick, give or take. It’s impossible to be precise without that patch from the CIC.”

“What about backup GPS?”

The driver tapped his monitor, in the vain hope it would do some good.

“Dead and gone, Skipper. Nothing getting in or out.” He turned back to her. “We can keep going, if you want.”

Lea considered it briefly. The approach was risky enough with Pallas keeping precise track of their coordinates—but without that information, they were driving blind. Rumbling too close to town in the APC was an open invitation for
Inru
snipers to pick them off.

“Keep it here,” she said, climbing out of her seat. “We’ll go the rest of the way on foot.”

In back, the advance team was already on the move. All it took was a single nod from Lea, and Tiernan popped the hatch. A blast of frigid air flooded the compartment, raw and utterly clean, but with an ionized element that everybody seemed to notice. It was their first taste of Chernobyl, which settled quickly at the back of Lea’s throat.

“Go,” she ordered.

Seconds later, the entire team had boots on the ground. Lea was the last person out, but jogged past the others to join Tiernan at the head of the column. They exchanged a brief glance, then looked back at the troops—a collection of otherworldly figures, at one with the primordial dark. Their breaths fogged the air in eager anticipation.

The team moved as a single entity, pulse rifles constantly sweeping the edges of the road as a defense against some
Inru
surprise. Tiernan kept a lookout for heat signatures in the icy forest, while Lea closely watched for radiation. Her sensors held at forty microroentgens, with occasional variations depending on the wind. As the team neared the top of a small hill, a sudden jump in the readings caused her to halt.

Everyone immediately crouched into defensive positions. Lea and Tiernan went a few steps farther, stopping at the highest point. The lieutenant leaned in close to her, keeping his gaze leveled at the area out in front of them. Lea did the same, holding her breath until her dosimeter leveled off again.

“Almost a hundred microroentgens,” she said.

“Yeah,” the lieutenant agreed. “Welcome home.”

Down below, shimmering in the ethereal glow of the infrared, lay the ghost town of Chernobyl. Heat still emanated from the entombed reactors, casting a dirty light that coursed through the streets and wrapped itself around the adjacent structures—poisonous wisps invisible to the naked eye. Matted in white silhouette, the façades of old apartment buildings reached defiantly into the night sky, but only as sagging shadows of their former selves. The souls who had once called this place home were ancient memories now, though the traces of their lives froze the city forever in time. Disaster had immortalized Chernobyl, and inoculated it against the progress that changed the rest of the planet.

“Looks inviting,” Tiernan observed.

Lea nodded grimly.

“Any biologicals down there?” she asked.

“Not that I can detect. But our sensors aren’t working, and the plume off those reactors effectively masks body heat signatures.”

“Doesn’t sound promising, Tiernan.”

“It’s not all bad,” he said, pointing toward the tallest building. “Our target should offer us some cover, as well as the radiation—once we get close enough. If we make it that far, they’ll be as blind as we are.”

“Confidence. I like that in a man.”

“I wouldn’t bet a bottle of scotch on it, Major,” Tiernan warned, “but it’s the best we got.”

Lea nodded in agreement. She zoomed in on the direction of their approach: a stretch of open road that went about fifty meters and ended at a guard gate that used to block the entrance into town. There was no cover between, which made it a dangerous run. If they were going to get made, that would be the place.

“So who gets to go first?” the lieutenant asked.

“No guts, no glory,” Lea replied, rising to her feet but keeping her head down. “Once I’m there, give me a few minutes to make sure I’m clear. If nothing happens, send down one person at a time.”

“What if something happens?”

“Then you get the hell out of here and call in an air strike.” She flipped up her visor. “I
mean
it, Eric. Nobody leaves—even if that means cracking that reactor wide open. Promise me that.”

Tiernan hesitated, but only for a moment.

“I got your back,” he said, then slipped away to join the others.

Alone now, Lea stepped out into the open, scanning the horizon for any signs of movement. Dead leaves blew across the cracked pavement of the road, while a door on the guard booth swung open and shut, urged on by the same wind.

She ran.

Powered by adrenaline and instinct, she went as fast as she could. With body armor weighing her down, that wasn’t nearly fast enough. She darted from side to side to make herself a harder target, all the while searching the nearby rooftops for snipers. Meanwhile, the entry gate loomed in front of her, tantalizingly close and impossibly far.

She hit the ground just short of the guard booth.

Lea rolled the rest of the way, dragging herself into the ramshackle hut and pulling the door shut. She stayed on the floor for a time, waiting for her breath to slow. Painstakingly, she inched herself back toward the door, opening it just enough to get a look into the heart of town. The small towers stared down at her, their empty windows like black, vacuous eyes, revealing nothing within.

Minutes passed. Lea stood absolutely still. Eventually, she heard the frantic pattern of approaching footsteps. Looking back up the road, she saw Tiernan closing in. He ducked behind the other side of the booth, then shuffled over to join her.

“Glad you could make it,” Lea said.

“Hell of a spot,” the lieutenant replied, sighting his pulse rifle on the skyline. “Next time,
I
get to pick where we go on vacation.”

“You got yourself a deal.” She pointed down the street, which was flanked by a number of alleyways that snaked between the buildings. “We’ve got to go through there. I’m thinking two-by-two sweeps, one block at a time.”

“That’s why they pay you the big bucks.” Tiernan studied the approach as other members of the team arrived, frowning at what he saw. “Cross fire could turn this into a real meat grinder. I hope the
Inru
aren’t as smart as we think they are.”

“We’re about to find out.”

Everyone crowded in and around the guard booth, using the shadows to conceal their positions. Lea conveyed her plan to them using hand signals, then headed into the street with Tiernan. The two of them sprinted toward a nearby building, then inched along with their backs against the wall, staying in the shadows as much as possible. When they reached the first alley, Lea tried to use her sensors to peek around the corner, but thermal interference rendered them useless. Tiernan tapped the side of his visor and made a slashing motion across his throat, indicating that he had the same problem.

Looks like we’re doing this the old-fashioned way,
Lea thought, and poked her head past the edge of the wall. When nothing jumped out at her, she leaned into the alleyway and pointed her rifle into that narrow gauntlet. Tiernan leaped to the other side and did the same. Lea’s visor cut the opaque darkness, revealing a scattered array of latent heat and random shapes—dumping bins mostly, along with other assorted junk, most of it collapsing under the weight of ancient rust. She probed the alley while Tiernan covered her, just long enough to be sure it was free of
Inru jihadis
and the booby traps they liked to leave behind.

Lea turned back toward Tiernan and gave him the all clear.

Tiernan did the same for the next pair, who advanced farther down the street and swept the next danger zone. The team picked up the pace as they went along, jumping from alley to alley with increased confidence. Within minutes, they reached the end of the block and found themselves staring down a clear path to their target.

The apartment building dominated the meager cityscape, a cement-gray edifice, long since leached of paint, that rose sixteen floors into the sky. Not far beyond that, the slim outline of a cooling tower gave them their first close-up glimpse of the nuclear plant. A halo of invisible light hovered there, bathing the immediate area in an infrared glow.

“Nice and peaceful,” Lea said to Tiernan as they studied their objective.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “That’s what scares me.”

Lea grimaced. Her senses prickled as well, mostly because they had advanced so quickly. Getting this deep and finding nothing to shoot at was enough to put everyone on edge. On top of that, there were no signs that anyone had even been here lately—no tire marks, no disturbed wreckage, not a single clue that pointed to any recent activity. Either the
Inru
had done an incredible job covering their tracks…

Or Avalon is leading me into a trap.

“Keep it tight,” Lea said.

She took point with Tiernan again, while the others clustered together and followed closely behind. Everyone held rifles at the ready, their sights continuously searching for any potential threat. Tiernan moved ahead to check the corroded remains of an old fire truck, one of many abandoned vehicles that lined the street. Lea directed half of her people to fan out and inspect the others, while she and the rest of the team focused on the adjacent buildings. Some of them had collected intense pockets of radiation, which beat against closed doors and crumbling bricks, causing Lea’s dosimeter to jump whenever she got too close.

Up ahead, Tiernan signaled. The block was secure. Nothing stood in their way.

They marched toward the target.