The Last Survivor (A Wilde/Chase Short Story) (12 page)

‘We’ll walk if we have to,’ said Rosemont, ‘but let’s worry about staying alive first.’ He glanced towards Kerim’s position. ‘We’ve still got two LAWs over there. We might be able to bring down that chopper.’

Arnold was not convinced. ‘It’d take a miracle.’

‘God’s on our side,’ said Cross, unshakeable conviction in his voice. He held up the angel. ‘We found this for a reason. The Lord won’t let us die now.’

‘We need firepower, not faith!’ said Rosemont. ‘Leave that damn thing here – we’ve got to get those rockets.’ Cross gave him an affronted look, then reluctantly placed the angel at the foot of the pillar. ‘Okay, Gabe, find Kerim. Cross, with me.’

The agents set off at a run. Rosemont searched for the Hind over the dark water, but saw nothing. He could tell from the changing pitch of its engine note that it was turning around, though – another attack could come at any moment—

More fire in the sky – and dusty geysers erupted as cannon fire ripped across the shoreline. The gunner had spotted the Ma’dan and opened up as the Mi-24 swept in. The Marsh Arabs returned fire, muzzle flashes bursting from the reeds, but the AKs were useless against the Hind’s thick armour. Tracer rounds homed in on the gunmen and hit home, screams rising over the helicopter’s clamour as bodies were shredded by a storm of explosive shells.

Cross and Rosemont dived to the ground. The gunship roared over the shore, then vanished into the blackness once again. Kalashnikovs crackled after it in futile rage.

Rosemont raised his head. ‘Jesus Christ!’ He felt Cross bristle at the blasphemy, but had no time or inclination to consider anyone’s religious sensitivities. ‘We’ve got to get those LAWs before these bastards cut us to pieces.’

They ran again, men racing past them in the other direction; fear of whatever haunted the temple had been overpowered by an instinctive urge to seek cover behind solid stone. The two agents vaulted the torn remains of several Ma’dan. ‘There!’ said Cross, spotting the campfire’s still-glowing embers.

Rosemont picked out the two crates in the moonlight. ‘We only get one chance at this.’

‘We’ll do it.’ Cross snatched up the LAW from the open case as Rosemont retrieved the second weapon from the other. Both tugged out the pins to release their launchers’ rear covers, then pulled hard to extend the firing tubes—

‘
Incoming!
’ Arnold cried.

The agents dropped again as the Hind swept in along the lake’s edge. Rockets lanced from its wing pods, explosions ripping down the shore. More screams, some abruptly cut off as another fusillade scattered mangled bodies.

‘
No!
’ Cross cried as the line of detonations reached the ruins—

The saw-toothed pillar disintegrated in a flash of flame. More rockets hammered what remained of the temple into rubble, then the Mi-24 veered back out over the lake.

Rosemont jumped up, raising the LAW to his shoulder. He peered through the sight, fingers resting on the rubber trigger bar. ‘Cross! It’s coming back around – get ready!’

But the other man was staring in horror towards the ruins. ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘The angel can’t have been destroyed. It
can’t
!’

‘Worry about your damn angel later. We’ve got—’ Rosemont broke off as a new sight was picked out by the flickering light of burning reeds.

Something was swelling on the shore, a dirty mustard-yellow mass. It took a moment for the CIA leader to realise that it was a
cloud
, some sort of gas boiling up from the edge of the ruins. But it was like nothing he had ever seen before; far thicker and heavier than the smoke from the vegetation, almost like a liquid as it churned and spread outwards.

It reached a dazed Ma’dan, roiled around him – and the man screamed. Clutching at his face, he tried to run, but could only manage a drunken stagger before collapsing. The still-expanding cloud swallowed him, and his cries became a gurgling wail of agony before abruptly falling silent. Other men nearby joined the terrifying chorus as the gas reached them.

Rosemont’s eyes widened in fear. ‘Holy shit, they’re using
chemical weapons
! MOPP gear – suit up!
Suit up!
’

The United States had long accused Saddam’s regime of possessing weapons of mass destruction, and now it appeared that the proof was rolling towards them as the deadly cloud kept growing. The CIA agents had come prepared, their webbing holding a pack containing Mission-Oriented Protective Posture clothing – an oversuit, gloves and mask to protect against nuclear, chemical and biological agents – but they had not expected to need them.

Panic rose in both men as they dropped the LAWs, shrugged off their gear and tore open the pouches. More sounds of terror and death reached them as the sulphurous fog spread, swamping the fleeing tribesmen. Cross worked his arms into the thick nylon overalls and tugged them up over his shoulders, then hurriedly pulled on the gas mask before zipping up the garment and drawing the hood over his head. Rosemont sealed his own outer covering a few seconds later, closing the hood tightly around his mask before starting to don his gloves. He looked back down the shore—

‘Gabe!’ he cried, seeing a familiar figure in the firelight.

Arnold was thirty metres away, desperately trying to secure his gas mask as he ran. Its straps were twisted, costing valuable seconds as he tried to straighten them. At last he managed it and raised the hood, but his hands were still uncovered.

He pulled on one glove, fumbling with the other as the cloud reached him—

Contact with exposed skin was enough to kill, Rosemont saw with horror. Arnold suddenly grabbed at his unprotected hand, clawing it as if being bitten by a million insects. His shriek was clearly audible even through the mask. Then he dropped, writhing in the sand before the yellow haze consumed him.

The Marsh Arabs all suffered the same fate as the wind carried the cloud along the lake’s edge. Kerim was among the last to fall, firing his AK-47 into the malevolent yellow mass in a final act of defiance before he too succumbed.

His second glove secured, Rosemont was about to run from the approaching miasma when he remembered that there were still other threats to deal with. The Hind’s roar grew louder. ‘The rockets!’ he yelled to the fully suited Cross. ‘Get the rockets!’

They retrieved the LAWs. There was nothing to aim at in the black sky, and with their thickly lined hoods up, it was hard to pinpoint the source of the noise. Rosemont took his best guess and stared down the sights, the mask’s eyepiece smearing his vision. ‘Wait for it,’ he told his companion. ‘Wait …’

Staccato bursts of flame as the Mil’s cannon fired—

‘
Now!
’

Rosemont squeezed the trigger bar. The rocket shot from the launcher with a loud bang, the back-blast smacking up a rooster tail of dust behind him.

But Cross hadn’t moved. ‘Fire,
now
!’ Rosemont shouted, watching the orange spot of the rocket’s motor race towards the gunship—

The Hind suddenly banked hard. The pilot had seen the incoming missile and was taking evasive action. Rosemont cursed as he realised his shot was going to miss …

Cross finally fired – and Rosemont realised why he had hesitated for a crucial moment. The Hind had swerved away from the first missile … but would fly right into the path of the second.

The cannon fire ceased, the Hind disappearing against the black sky. The first rocket continued pointlessly along its course, but the second was still angling to meet the aircraft. The engine note changed, the pilot applying full power as he tried to climb away from the incoming missile—

A flash – and for a split-second the Hind was fully illuminated as the LAW struck home.

It exploding against the helicopter’s tail boom. The Mil’s heaviest armour was concentrated around the cockpit and engines, but even if it had covered the entire fuselage it would not have been enough to stop a dedicated anti-tank round. The warhead ripped a jagged hole through the chopper’s flank, severing the mechanical linkage to the tail rotor.

The result was instantaneous.

Without the smaller rotor to counteract the enormous torque of the main blades, the Hind was hurled into an uncontrollable spin. Engines screaming, the helicopter cartwheeled overhead, Cross and Rosemont both ducking as it hurtled past. It smashed into the ground barely fifty metres beyond them, the mangled remains tumbling through the sand in a searing ball of flaming aviation fuel.

Rosemont lifted his head, heart pounding at the close call – only to freeze in fear as the yellow cloud rolled over the two men.

Everything went dark. He didn’t dare move, or even breathe, terrified that doing so would open up a gap in his hastily donned protective gear and let in the poisonous fog …

Seconds passed. No pain. He risked a breath. The mysterious chemical agent had not found a way to his lungs. ‘Cross!’ he gasped. ‘Are you okay?’

No reply. Worry rose at the thought of being trapped far behind enemy lines, alone, then he heard a voice. ‘Yeah. I’m fine.’

Another gasp, this time of relief. ‘That was a hell of a shot.’

‘I was a championship hunter before I joined the Marines. I hit what I aim at.’

‘Good to know. Your suit’s holding?’

‘So far.’

‘Whatever this stuff is, MOPP-1 can resist it.’ He carefully moved in the direction of the other man’s voice until his fingertips made contact with Cross’s suit. ‘I guess we’ve got our smoking gun. Saddam
has
got chemical weapons, and is willing to use them. We have to call this in.’ He reached for his radio before remembering that it had been attached to his discarded webbing.

‘I don’t think this was anything to do with Saddam,’ said Cross thoughtfully.

‘What do you mean? You saw it – one of that ’copter’s rockets blew up and released it.’

‘No, it blew up, but the gas came from something else.’ Cross suddenly gripped his wrist. ‘It came from the angel! We’ve got to find it.’

‘If it got hit by a rocket, there won’t be anything left bigger than your pinky,’ Rosemont pointed out. He made out the other man’s shape as visibility started to return. ‘Help me find the radio.’

‘This is more important. Don’t you see? Revelation chapter nine, verse two – “And there arose a smoke out of the pit—”’

‘I don’t give a damn what the Book of Revelations says!’ Rosemont barked. ‘This isn’t Sunday school; this is a Special Activities Division operation. You’re an agent, not a preacher; now shut the hell up and carry out the mission!’

Cross regarded him for a moment, his face unreadable behind the mask, then he turned away. ‘Don’t you walk away from – Son of a bitch!’ Rosemont yelled after him. ‘You’re finished, you hear me?’

Cross ignored Rosemont’s angry shouts as he jogged back towards the ruins. The wind had shifted, wafting the yellow mass off the shore and out over the lake. The fires from the crashed helicopter and the burning reed beds cast a hellish glow across the landscape.

Appropriate, he thought. From the moment he first saw the angel inside the temple, he was absolutely sure, more than he had ever been about anything, that he knew what he had found – and what it meant.

But there had been only one angel. According to the Book of Revelation, there were three more. So where were they?

He approached the spot where the broken pillar had stood. The only thing there now was a rubble-strewn crater.

From which the gas was still rising.

He reached the edge of the gouge in the earth. A shallow pool of dark water was at the bottom. Amongst the debris around it, his light picked out a shape that was clearly not natural. Part of the statue. One of its wings was still attached, but the embossed metal that had been wrapped around the angel’s body was now twisted and torn where the figure had been smashed by the explosion, exposing a darker core hidden inside.

The strange gas was belching from this black stone. The wind was enough to blow it clear, though he resisted the temptation to remove his mask for a better look. The sight put him in mind of a smoke grenade, but …

‘Where’s it all coming from?’ he whispered. Smoke grenades contained enough chemicals to produce a screen for ninety seconds at most, but this was pumping out a colossal volume, and showed no signs of stopping.

He stepped down cautiously into the pit. A sound became audible even through his hood’s charcoal-impregnated lining, a sizzling like fatty bacon on a grill. The dark material at the statue’s heart almost appeared to be boiling, blistering with countless tiny bubbles, each releasing more gas as it burst.

Another wisp of the gas to one side caught his eye. A chunk of the broken statue, smaller than his little finger, had landed at the very edge of the pool. He crouched to examine it. There was a sliver of the dark material embedded in the cracked ceramic shell, partially beneath the water’s surface. The exposed section was burning away just like its larger counterpart, consuming itself in some reaction with the air. As he watched, the top of the splinter spat and bubbled to nothingness … and the thin line of yellow smoke died away.

Intrigued, Cross gently lifted the fragment from the water. It was warm, even through his glove. After a moment, the strange substance fizzed and puffed a new strand of yellow fumes into the wind. He dipped it back into the puddle. The reaction stopped.

A light swept over him. ‘Cross!’ called Rosemont from the crater’s lip. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

‘I found the angel,’ Cross replied, climbing out to meet him and indicating the larger hunk of the statue. ‘That’s where the smoke’s coming from. It wasn’t a chemical weapon; it was here all along, hidden in the temple. Waiting for us to find it. Waiting for
me
to find it.’

Rosemont shone his flashlight over the broken figure. It was still belching out its seemingly endless plume of oily yellow gas. ‘Damn. What the hell
is
that?’

‘It’s a messenger from God. Look.’ Cross illuminated the little pool. The dark water was revealed as a bloody red, the discoloration spreading outwards from the fragment like ink across damp paper. ‘“And the third part of the sea became blood …”’