You have got to be f.u.c.king kidding me. "Listen to me. I got left behind. I"m alone, and I"m in trouble. Are you in touch with anybody?"
"Why are you broadcasting on an open channel? Everyone can hear you."
"My crypto s.h.i.t the bed, or my radio got f.u.c.ked up. I was in a truck crash. Listen, you need to tell somebody that I"m alive."
"Where are you? No wait, don"t tell me! The enemy could be listening!"
I sighed heavily. "Look, just tell Sword Three, or someone in that element, that I"m alive and I"m trying to get to them. I"m going radio silent after that, but I"ll be listening. Keep me updated, okay?"
"I don"t know where Sword Three is." Of course, we"d kept Lorenzo in the dark about the attack on the dam, but Reaper was just glad to help. "But okay. Good luck! Be careful!"
Be careful he says. "Roger, out." I shuffled out from under the pine tree and slid down the s...o...b..nk onto the road. Before I could even get going, the road ahead of me was illuminated by bright white headlights coming from behind. s.h.i.t. I ran back to the wreck of the Ural. There was nowhere else to hide.
s.h.i.t, s.h.i.t s.h.i.t! My heart was racing. My breath was ragged in the thin, cold air. I hadn"t yet regained my Calm. I was alone, scared, and was about to get caught. I huddled by the shattered windshield of the Ural truck, crouching in a dark spot by the snow bank where I had first crawled out. With my winter camouflage, they probably wouldn"t see me unless they walked right up on top of me. I readied my rifle, which was wrapped in white gauze, and tried to hold still.
There were two vehicles. I couldn"t tell what they were, but they weren"t big trucks. Probably 4x4s of some kind. One stopped about fifty yards down the hill, its headlights illuminating the rear end of the truck. The other slowly crept up the road, to the left of the crash.
They"re looking for survivors. I huddled even lower, hoping both trucks would just drive past. Mere seconds ticked by at an agonizingly slow pace. The lights of the approaching truck drew nearer and nearer, then stopped.
Oh h.e.l.l. I heard two car doors slam shut. Harsh voices in an unfamiliar language. There were two of them. They approached cautiously. I only caught glimpses of their movements as shadows in the truck"s headlights, but I knew they were going to find me.
A dark silhouette came into my view, stepping around the b.u.mper of the overturned truck. He had an AK-47. I was out of time.
I snapped off two shots. Crack! Crack! Heavy .308 rounds tore through the man"s chest. I jumped to my feet, weapon shouldered, and moved forward. The other man came around the truck suddenly and crashed right into me.
Our eyes met for a split second. I was more than a foot taller than him. His face was young. His eyes were black and empty. A strange character was branded into his cheek.
BOOM! Another gunshot rang out, surprising me. The young man"s stomach erupted in a horrific wound. My overwhites were splashed with blood. He grabbed his abdomen and crumpled to the ground, writhing in the pink snow.
I realized that my .44 was in my left hand. I"d fired from the hip. My rifle hung across my chest on its sling. I lowered my revolver and fired again, killing the young slave soldier, and holstered the big gun. I had no time. The other truck was still there.
Turning around, I struggled through the deep snow at the front of the wrecked truck. Lit up in the headlights of the second truck, I trudged out of the snow bank next to the truck"s bed. The huge KPV machine gun was still on its pintle, muzzle hanging down in the snow.
I squatted down and grabbed the machine gun"s heavy barrel. It was still warm. I pushed up, flipping the gun over so it was pointing to the rear. It took all of my strength to hold the heavy beast level. Grasping the gun sideways, I pointed it at the headlights down the road and mashed the trigger.
The gun roared and bucked in my hands. It immediately climbed up to my left, until it wouldn"t traverse anymore. I realigned it and fired another burst. Tracers lashed out into the night, each shot producing a blinding muzzle flash. The driver of the truck threw it into reverse and backed down the hill as fast as he could. I had no idea if I hit him or not.
It didn"t matter. I had my chance. The gun"s heavy barrel swung down and hissed as it contacted the snow. I bounded around the rear of the overturned Ural truck, then back up the hill. The 4x4 the first two soldiers had arrived in was still running. I threw open the driver"s door, climbed in, and put the truck in gear. It sputtered and rattled as I sped up the hill toward the dam. I had to rejoin the fight.
It only took me a few minutes to get to the top of the hill. Another guard shack sat on the west side of the dam. It had been shot to pieces, and two dead bodies lay in the snow next to it. Beyond that, I could see the two APCs and the remaining trucks on top of the dam. They"d all stopped near the superstructure. One of the APCs burned brightly in the night, sending thick black smoke curling into the frigid air. The other vehicles continued to fire on the barracks and utility buildings on the east side of the dam.
Exodus was still in the fight. I wasn"t going to risk getting my a.s.s shot off approaching in the truck. I put it in park and killed the engine and lights. I left the keys in it, thinking we might need it later.
On foot, I hustled across the road, digging into one of the pouches on my vest as I did so. I found an IR ChemLight, which can only be seen through night-vision goggles, and cracked it. With my left hand on the grip of my rifle, I held the chemlight in my right hand and waved it over my head as I jogged toward the Exodus convoy, wheezing as I went. The cold burned my lungs on every breath. My chest felt tight. I was already out of shape from my exile in North Gap and wasn"t close to acclimatized to the alt.i.tude. I just hoped to h.e.l.l Exodus wouldn"t shoot me down before I could reach them.
Between the amber lights along the top of the dam and the burning BTR, I could see Exodus personnel scurrying about. A group took cover behind the vehicles and sent fire back across the dam. Others, weapons slung, were hauling supplies from the back of one of the trucks down into the dam itself. In the confusion of battle and the dark of the night, I was able to get pretty close before they noticed me. Multiple weapons were raised at me.
I stopped dead in my tracks and let go of my rifle. "Friendly!" I gasped, struggling to catch my breath. I frantically waved the chem-light over my head, expecting to get shot at any moment. "Friendly!"
"Val?" someone asked. "Val!" It was Skunky. He waved the others off. "It"s Valentine, stand down! Stand down!" He jogged to me, his weapon held at the low ready.
"Holy s.h.i.t, Val!" he said excitedly. "What the h.e.l.l happened to you?"
"I got left," I panted. "At the truck crash. Left for dead."
"d.a.m.n. Sorry about that. I didn"t even know we lost one of the trucks until we were at the top of the hill. I was in one of the BTRs."
"You actually rode in that death trap?" I asked. "Man, Exodus really has got you over a barrel."
My friend cracked a smile. "C"mon, this way. I"m glad you made it."
"How"s it going up here?" I crouched slightly and moved toward the vehicles with him. Bullets snapped past high over our heads, but the gunfire was getting more sporadic.
"We caught them completely off guard," Skunky said. We stopped behind the intact APC. "Medic!" he shouted.
"I"m fine," I insisted, but he was having none of it.
"I just want to get you checked out real quick while I fill you in."
I looked down at myself. "Oh, yeah. Listen, this isn"t my blood. I"m okay." An Exodus medic, dressed in winter camouflage just like mine, appeared at my side despite my protests.
Skunky kept talking as the medic gave me a quick once-over. "We took the dam pretty easily. The garrison was almost all in the barracks over there to the east. We overran the guards on the dam itself and just poured suppressing fire on those buildings." He pointed. One of the indicated buildings was burning. "Yeah," Skunky continued, "we lit "em the h.e.l.l up. Rockets, machine guns, grenades, everything we had. I think we caught most of them in bed. They"re still over there, and they"ve tried to move on our position a couple of times, but we have them caught in a funnel. They"re disorganized as h.e.l.l, too. Like, ten minutes ago a dozen guys just tried to b.u.m rush the convoy. We shot "em all down before they got within a hundred yards."
"They"re fanatics," I said. "Where"s Ling?"
"She"s downstairs. We"ve more or less secured the dam. We"re placing the explosives now." A long burst of automatic weapons fire, followed by several shouts, then more gunshots, resonated from within the dam. Skunky shrugged. "More or less. Casualties have been light." Before I could say anything else, one of the Exodus operatives up by the intact APC shouted a warning to us. "s.h.i.t," Skunky said. "Here they come again. C"mon, get on line!"
I followed my friend around the side of the BTR-70. It was parked perpendicular to the dam so as to form the core of Exodus" improvised road block. The trucks were parked next to it. The burning BTR was farther to the east, blocking the top of the dam even more, and when an APC caught fire, they really burned. Any attackers coming from the east side had to run a serpentine of debris and vehicles in order to get to the convoy, while being covered the entire time by Exodus" heavy machine guns. It was no wonder they hadn"t had any success.
But d.a.m.ned if they weren"t determined to try. I took cover behind a concrete jersey barrier that looked like it had been sitting on top of that dam for sixty years, leveled my rifle, and steeled myself. Skunky huddled next to me. I"d fire around the left side, and he"d fire around the right. Exodus troops hurriedly took up positions on the line, pointing rifles and machine guns in the direction of the enemy.
Tortured, malevolent screams echoed from the smoke and darkness. It sounded like dozens of men, or boys. RAAAAH! they screamed. RAAAAH! again. RAAAAAAAH! On the third shout they charged. They fired wildly from the hip, their shots flying high and wide. There were a lot of them, bearing down on us full tilt. I"d never seen such a fanatical ma.s.s banzai charge before.
Before I could even get one in my scope the machine guns opened up. The 14.5mm on the BTR roared like the Wrath of G.o.d, with a chorus of lesser belt-fed angels backing Him up. I put my crosshair on one of Sala Jihan"s soldiers and snapped off a shot. He was ripped apart by machine gun fire before I could even tell if I"d hit him. I adjusted and kept rocking the trigger. Hot bra.s.s belched out of my rifle as I fired, a shot here, two shots there, laying rounds into anything that moved.
The enemy was cut down as they came into view. Their fire was inaccurate and largely ineffective. Few of their rounds even came close to us. There was nothing on top of the dam, except perhaps the burning BTR, that could stop the huge, armor-piercing bullets from the 14.5mm machine gun. They had no cover. h.e.l.l, they didn"t try to use cover. They just charged, screaming and firing as they ran.
"Reloading!" I shouted to Skunky. I"d gone through a twenty-round magazine just like that. I dropped it out of my rifle and ripped open the velcro on one of my magazine pouches.
"s.h.i.t, reloading!" Skunky said. He was out too. G.o.dd.a.m.n. He had open-topped magazine pouches, so he was a little quicker on the reload than me. We both sent our bolts forward at the same time, leveled our rifles around the concrete barrier, just as a screaming fanatic with a grenade in each hand bore down on us. We shot him down in hail of fire, shouting "Grenaaaade!"
We ducked. The double concussion was skull-rattling. Fragmentation buzzed angrily as it zipped overhead, and pockmarked the far side of our concrete barrier. A few more random shots and it was quiet. Skunky and I made eye contact briefly, then leaned out from behind cover to survey the carnage.
Bodies were strewn across the cracked, snow-dusted pavement. The APC still burned, black smoke blotting out the tepid moonlight, its firelight illuminating the carnage. Most of the enemy had been dressed in a mishmash of Russian and Chinese military gear, leathers, and rags. I estimated that we"d been charged by something like forty soldiers, and we"d killed them all.
"Jesus Christ," I muttered, standing up. My rifle was hot to the touch.
"There can"t be many more of them," Skunky hoped, spent bra.s.s rolling under his boots as he walked.
"I hope you"re right." Something golden glinted briefly in the moonlight. I noticed it as I took a long swig of water. I squinted, straining to make out what it was. A little statue or idol, made of gold (or something that looked like gold from a distance) was lying on the ground. It was on the end of a staff about five feet long. The staff was still clutched, in death, by the slave soldier that had been carrying it. His weapon was slung across his back, unused. The little idol gleamed in the light of the moon and the burning vehicle as it was slowly enveloped in a pool of blood.
"They"re insane," Skunky whispered. "What kind of man inspires that?"
LORENZO.
Sala Jihan"s Fortress March 25th "d.a.m.n them! Move Johan"s team to the south. Reinforce Nagano," Ibrahim ordered into his mike, one hand pressed against the speaker in his ear so he could still hear over the roar of the nearby machine gun, his other hand dangling with a G3K in it. He saw me coming and nodded. "Do it now! Sword One Actual out. h.e.l.lo, my friend. How goes it?"
"Not as good as we"d hoped, apparently," I said as I jogged up to him, my team right behind me. It had taken us awhile to make it to the LZ. There were a lot more troops stationed in the compound than we had expected. Anders ran for the second chopper. He needed to check in with his boss.
The two ma.s.sive Russian helicopters were parked in the snow. One of them was canted at a very awkward angle, its front end broken and smoking, its blades pointing at a drastic downward angle. It had caught an RPG on the way in, and the only reason anyone had walked away from the crash was because of how close it was to the ground when it had been hit. Katarina was probably going to be p.i.s.sed about the loss of such an expensive thing.
Ibrahim and a handful of Exodus operatives were cl.u.s.tered around the choppers calling the shots, while the remainder had formed a rough semi-circle around it. On the far edge of that circle was a bunch of really angry fanatics protecting a hole in the ground. On the opposite side was a bunch of other fanatics trying desperately to get to said hole. We were right in the middle. They were unloading explosives and tools from the choppers.
"We have to beat these soldiers back. Many of them protect the silo, and we"re having to dig them out like ticks," Ibrahim shouted over the noise. There was an oily explosion in the distance behind us as something else highly flammable detonated. Our plan relied on us to secure that d.a.m.n silo, because as long as Jihan was alive, we believed his slave soldiers would continue to fight, and fought they had, unexpectedly hard, and with suicidal ferocity.
We were behind schedule. It was only a matter of time before reinforcements arrived from the mines. And if they came before we took the silo, we would have to retreat. Luckily the Halos were so big we could easily fit everybody into one.
"Lorenzo, I need you to help eliminate the guards around that silo," Ibrahim ordered.
I shook my head. "I have to get to the prison."
"Then you will go by yourself," Ibrahim snapped. "Shen, Roland, Phillips, reinforce Solomon at the silo."
"Yes, sir!" shouted the two younger operatives. Shen looked at me, and nodded slightly. He was going to do his duty, no matter what. The three of them ran immediately in the direction of the most gunfire.
"d.a.m.n it!" I shouted. "My brother-"
"Your brother is as dead as the rest of us if we cannot kill Jihan!" Ibrahim spat back.
I bit my tongue. He was right, but that didn"t make it any easier. I glared at Ibrahim, then took off after the others.
We pa.s.sed the still-functioning chopper. In the dark, it was difficult for me to ascertain who was standing near its rear door, but as I drew closer, I recognized Anders" ma.s.sive bulk, and Katarina"s slender frame and almost silver hair. She finished telling him something, then slapped the big man on the shoulder. He turned to rejoin us.
"Lorenzo," Kat shouted over the noise. She had a familiar weapon in her hands, and she gestured for me to come toward her. I slowed up, the others quickly leaving me behind.
"What, Kat? I see you"ve still got Mr. Perkins."
"Yes. He is my favorite." She held up the M79. She had used that same old 40mm grenade launcher on quite a few jobs. It had been a little unnerving when she had given it a name, but she was an artist in its use. "I"m glad to see you made it."
"Thanks, look, I"ve got to go," I started walking. I didn"t have time for her bulls.h.i.t.
"I just wanted to tell you one thing." She grabbed my arm. I could see her white teeth glowing in the dim light as she smiled. "No matter what happens here tonight-"
Something impacted the sheet metal of the chopper over her head, showering both of us with metal fragments. I flinched down. Kat"s smile disappeared, and Mr. Perkins moved to her shoulder as she zeroed in on the muzzle flash from the sniper.
BLOOP.
A full three seconds later, there was a small explosion on a bunker"s roof and the sniper was permanently silenced. "No matter what happens tonight," she continued talking as she popped open the single-shot weapon to shove another huge sh.e.l.l in, as if nothing had happened. "I just want you to know that I"m really glad you showed up. It was good to see you again."
"Uh, yeah. Me too."
"It has helped me set some things straight, to reexamine my life, if you will." She suddenly leaned in and kissed me gently on the cheek. My face was so frozen that it almost burned. It was strange in that she actually seemed calm and in control. "Goodbye, Lorenzo."
Another bullet impacted near us as somebody opened up from the far wall with an AK. Katarina shrugged and aimed her 40mm. I used the opportunity to run after my team.
The warhead had screamed by so close I could have reached out and touched it.
"Son of a b.i.t.c.h!" I shouted as the RPG exploded fifty feet behind me. Anders rolled around cover and started shooting at the shadows where the rocket had come from. "Reaper!" I hit my mike and shouted "Come in Reaper!"
"You"ve got ten of them moving in a trench ten meters in front of you, and I saw at least one move into the elevator shaft." Reaper sounded relatively calm, but he should, since he was sitting in a truck miles from here. "You"ve got to remember that when they"re under a roof, I can"t see them on thermal-"
Yeah, whatever. I tuned out the technical explanation and refocused on the crazy people trying to kill me. I saw a man leap out of the trench and sprint for the elevator. I put the Aimpoint dot on him and started shooting. I must have hit him in the legs, as they flew out from under him and he sprawled in the snow. Somebody nearby with a larger caliber rifle finished him with a shot through his face.
"Phillips!" I shouted over the din. The remaining soldiers must have had a lot of ammo stashed, and they weren"t trying to save any of it. The young man looked up from the stock of his rifle. "Cover the elevator door. Somebody"s in there."
"Got it!"
There were two full teams of Exodus operatives converged on this spot when we had arrived. We had moved up right between them and hit the soldiers from a third angle. A few feet to my right was an Exodus sniper with a Sako bolt action. It took me a moment to recognize that it was Svetlana under that fur hood and tac gear. A soldier started out of the trench and she rocked under the recoil as she took the top of his skull off.
I had scrounged up several frags on our trip across the compound. There had been plenty of them just lying around, and the previous owners had been in no shape to argue with me about taking them. They were those nasty little Southeast Asian ones that were wrapped in pre-stressed wire. I yanked a pin and tossed one, waited just a second, then followed it with another. Amazingly enough, even as cold numbed as my hands were, I managed to land both of them in the trench, but I had gotten a lot of experience chucking grenades back in Africa.
The soldiers in the trench were on the ball though, because both of the grenades were tossed back out to explode harmlessly in the snow. Sure, I could have pulled the pin and waited a second before throwing them, but I had learned not to trust Third World grenade fuses.
The Exodus team leader to the right must have decided that they were out of time. With a ragged battle cry the entire group of them popped up and ran toward the trench. It was brave, and maybe suicidal, but no more suicidal than still being inside this compound when the reinforcements arrived from the mines.
The elevator door popped open, and a soldier with an RPG launcher stepped out, but Phillips had been doing exactly what I had asked him to do, and the soldier went down in a spray of arterial blood before he could launch the rocket.
Muzzle flashes erupted from the trench and some of the charging Exodus people went down, screaming as bullets tore through their flesh, spilling their blood into the snow. But some of them made it through, and I could see them silhouetted in the moonlight as they stood on the lip of trench, and fired downward into the remaining soldiers.
Finally, the gunfire stopped. The only sounds were the moans and screams from the wounded.
"Reaper?"
"They"re still warm, but they ain"t moving."
"Ibrahim. We"ve got the silo," I said quickly.
"Understood. a.s.sault element moving in," he said breathlessly.
I moved forward, my team right behind me. The young guys looked slightly shocked. These were their comrades that were in front of us bleeding and dying. They each moved to help one of the wounded. I saw Svetlana sitting in the snow at the lip of the trench. Her big Sako was in her lap, and she was staring stupidly at her hand.
I knelt at her side. She had pulled off her glove, and held her delicate left hand up to show me. Her smallest two fingers were missing, just jagged bone stumps sticking out of her palm. "I didn"t even feel it . . ." she said.
"Don"t worry. You will," I responded as I pulled a roll of bandages out of my pocket and started wrapping it tightly around her hand.
"Ooohh . . ." Her eyes rolled back into her head. "Yes, I believe you"re right."
"You"re going to be fine," I said rea.s.suringly. The only good thing about the cold was the blood flow to the extremities was slower than normal. "Your friend"s charge was stupid. You know that right?"