Element 42

by Seeley James

  Headlight beams swung into the mist hovering over the water, then disappeared. One more bend and they’d see the Jag. My heart doubled the music’s beat, keeping time. Then it tripled. I lifted the MP5 and lined up the infrared scope to the road where they’d appear.

  The headlights broke the corner a couple seconds before the truck trundled into sight. The driver slammed on the brakes and shuddered to a stop halfway between Miguel and me. It was a Chinese knockoff of the Humvee called a Norinco. It had light armor and, lucky for us, no turret gun. For a full second, the guys inside scrutinized the unexpected Jaguar.

  We waited in silence. We needed them out of the vehicle.

  Mercury said, Act like a Roman. Lead a brave charge. Make it a heroic death. Courageous and bold to the end. If you want to be a real playah, go out valiant. Women love that shit.

  Sometimes gods have great ideas—if you’re immortal. I like living through my heroic deeds. Handing my gun to Emily, I stepped out from the building, zipping up and looking surprised. I blinked in the light with my mouth open and ran back around the corner.

  A spray of lead followed me as the Kazakhs opened fire.

  Emily stared at me, mouth open and eyes bulging out, on the verge of panic-screaming. I took my gun back and pressed my finger to her lips again.

  Turning back to the wall, I edged to the shredded corner and waited. I heard a door squeak open, then another. Boots dropped from the cab to the ground but were lost in Tania’s loud music.

  Then the music stopped, mid-refrain.

  “Six guys,” Miguel whispered on the comm link. “Four out, two in.”

  “I’ve got the driver,” Tania said.

  “Armored windshield?” I said.

  “It’s thick, but it’s still glass. At this range, I can get him right through it.”

  “On Tania’s shot then,” I said. “One … two …”

  Tania dropped the driver with a head shot. We lit up the night from four directions. The Kazakhs hit the dirt and fired blindly in all directions. I ducked back behind the wall and counted off seconds. The Kazakhs held their triggers down like amateurs. Three seconds later, they were scrambling to swap magazines.

  My team stepped into the open while the Kazakhs fumbled with their hardware. Miguel took his guy out with three to the chest. Nigel did the same. My guy rose on his knees, his hands up, but his AK-47 still in his right. I popped four rounds into him, one in each limb. He dropped the rifle and fell to the ground, writhing and crying out.

  “Out of practice, then?” the Englishman’s calm voice floated on the comm link.

  “Hold your position,” I said, my weapon aimed at the truck.

  Shadows were all we could see of the last two still in the car. They stirred, aiming out the doors, unsure of their best move. One of the shadows had a white bandage on the side of his head.

  “It’s OK, you can come out and aid your man before he bleeds out.”

  The wounded man screamed for help in Kazakh. Or maybe he cursed me.

  From inside the car came a feeble voice. “Is meaning, medic for safe passage, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  The shadow opposite me pushed his door open and stuck his empty hands out. He stepped out, slow and cautious, and made it a few feet before Nigel knocked him down with his rifle stock and hogtied him with plasticuffs in a split second.

  “You say safe passage,” he said with dirt in his mouth.

  “I lied.”

  The wounded man kept screaming.

  “Hey,” came the last voice, still in the truck, “is that you, Jacob?”

  “C’mon out, Kasey.”

  “I’m just the point man. There’s another fifty men—”

  I said, “Kasey, get out here and let me trim your ears.”

  He didn’t move.

  “You remember Tania Cooper?” I asked. “She’s on the roof with a scope. She can shoot you where you sit if you’d like.”

  He kicked his door open, pushed the Chinese version of the M4 out, scooted to the edge, and took a look around. Miguel stepped up behind him. I stepped into the light, my scope trained on his head. Emily followed me and racked a shell for effect.

  Kasey showed his hands first, then hopped to the ground and stretched out, facedown.

  Miguel disarmed him and bound him with plasticuffs. Nigel dragged the dead and wounded around the front.

  “Wounding a man and letting him scream for his mates is a terrorist trick,” the Englishman said. “You’re a right nasty bugger.”

  “Effective,” I said.

  He turned over a couple bodies, examined their faces. “Well, you have five Kazakhs and one American. How’d they get together?”

  “Not sure,” I said.

  Tania came steaming toward us, ready for another female-empowerment session. I pushed my arm out and brushed her back.

  “Kasey,” I said, “I’m going to ask some questions, you’re going to answer. Otherwise, I let Tania rip you to shreds.”

  “What’s her problem?” Kasey asked.

  Tania stuck her thumb in his eye and pressed. I waited a second, maybe two, before pulling her off.

  “Your boys killed a friend of ours.” I grabbed him by the shoulders and checked the damage. One eye was still working. That’s all I needed.

  “Have you been up the road before?” I asked.

  He gave me a blank expression. Dew glistened on his backlit bandage, reminding me we were losing the dark.

  “You can be useful or injured,” I said. “Your choice. But I need to know, do you know the security arrangements at Mokin’s compound?”

  Kasey remained the stoic prisoner.

  I said, “OK, Miguel, strap him to the hood. Let’s find out where the first shots come from.”

  CHAPTER 47

  Kasey declined the human shield option and pinpointed the lone checkpoint on my map. He claimed there were no radio communications due to the low budget. When I was satisfied he’d given up what he knew, I waved Miguel over. He hoisted Kasey onto the hood, uncuffed the boy, and spread his arms out. Tania tied one wrist to the passenger side while Miguel stretched the other wrist across the driver’s side.

  “Hey, now,” Kasey said. “I done told you the layout.”

  “You’re riding up front, Kasey. If you accidently misjudged the checkpoint’s location, and we end up driving into an ambush, you’ll be the first to know.” I patted his head and walked away.

  “Hold on.” Kasey’s words tumbled out fast. “No need to get hasty. Don’t wanna make no mistakes. Lemme see that map again.”

  I climbed on the hood and knelt next to him. I held the tablet out. “Show me the first checkpoint.”

  He remembered it had been relocated and pointed it out. We zoomed in. Two men, plainly visible from the air, lounged in a machinegun nest surrounded by camouflage. Tilting and turning the shot in near-3D, I spotted what I expected, a radio on the shelf. I tapped it in front of Kasey and he sighed.

  “OK,” he said, “you can cut me loose now. Fun’s over.”

  “Liars ride up front.” Miguel tapped him on the shoulder. “Enjoy the breeze.”

  While Kasey begged for relief, I hopped down and worked the map, looking through the local terrain. Miguel and Tania joined me. Wordlessly, we checked and double-checked. We had one road, one checkpoint, and one big compound. We studied the layout. One building had biohazard symbols on the two visible sides. The Element 42 bunker. The map’s metadata showed it was a week old. A lot can change in a week. But it was all we had, and the detail told us enough to form a weak plan. We’d been together a long time and communicated with nothing more than glances.

  Ahead lay our uncertain future. Somewhere in that dark, moonless forest, down that narrow, winding road, Anatoly Mokin sat on a biological nightmare with enough men and equipment to kill thousands of innocent people. Why didn’t matter; Mokin was the last person on Earth who should control such a destructive combination. We looked at each other and nodded with gri
m determination.

  We hid the Jag behind a retaining wall and stashed the dead and wounded inside the old restaurant.

  The Norinco was just like a Humvee only worse. It was louder, slower, clunkier, but had plenty of room. Five seats inside and a flatbed in back.

  Kasey kept begging and crying through the whole drive.

  We stopped well short of the checkpoint. Nigel and I went up the hill on foot through the moonlit woods. We slowed as we neared the checkpoint, going into silent mode. My fear-factor skyrocketed. Sneaking up on people is the work of special ops guys like Nigel. They’re small and lithe and sleek. I did plenty of special ops work but I was nobody’s first pick for a mission and I was never the point man. I’m a big farm boy who walks like a gorilla. I let Nigel lead and followed him, testing each footfall before putting weight on it.

  Twenty minutes later, I gave Miguel the signal, a birdcall via the comm link. He put the Norinco in gear, charged up the hill, and rounded the corner with Kasey screaming in Kazakh. Probably, “Don’t shoot me.”

  One Kazakh grabbed the .50 cal machinegun. The other reached for his radio. Nigel blew the radio out of his hands. I blew the shoulders off the machine gunner and we both opened up on the pair. The MP5’s suppressors worked like a charm, the sound was little more than pphhtt-pphhtt-pphhtt. I jumped down into the nest and checked the men.

  We disabled a couple radio handsets and checked the nest for anything useful. Nothing. We ran out of the nest and into Miguel’s path. He slowed enough for us to jump in the Norinco’s bed where we crouched behind the armored roof and shivered in the icy wind. Tania climbed out the back window to join us.

  Miguel turned out the lights, relying on night vision, mashed the pedal down around the last bend, and plowed through the chain-link gate.

  The three of us stood and picked off five stunned Kazakhs before the general alarm sounded. Lights went on in two barracks. Parking the truck where it would block the road, we bailed out and ran in all directions.

  From the hood of the truck, Kasey cried out. “Jacob, you can’t leave me here. Jacob!”

  Nigel rolled concussion grenades at the barracks. The explosions shook their corrugated roofs like paper in the wind. Kazakhs spilled out into the main pathway, armed to the teeth but only half dressed. Without body armor, the first wave fell like reaped wheat. Tania and I dropped back to the office shack and used its flimsy wood construction as a barrier. Not that the planks were thick enough to stop a BB gun, but it was all we had.

  The second wave of Kazakhs weren’t as willing to die for the cause. They split into pairs and ran between the buildings. Tania picked off two coming straight at us.

  Mercury said, Wolves attack from two sides, homie.

  I spun around and nailed the man sneaking up our backside. Tania tugged my sleeve and ran for a tent a little deeper in the trees. Being quicker, I passed her up and ran straight inside.

  Anatoly Mokin blinked at me, one foot in an unlaced boot, the other boot in his hand, and sleep still in his eyes. He threw the boot at me and tried to dive under the tent’s back corner.

  I pulled my Glock and darted his butt. I grabbed a coat from his wardrobe and tossed it to Tania. She helped hoist Mokin on my shoulder. I staggered outside where Tania dropped a Kazakh.

  We pushed into the woods to a concrete bunker, sturdy and new and sealed with a hurricane-proof door that featured a prominent sticker: biosafety level 4. We tied Mokin to a tree next to it, then ran back to the battle.

  The pace of shooting slowed. That’s not a good thing. It would be Darwinian combat from then on.

  I stepped around a windowless barrack made of plywood and navigated the weedy lane between the two shacks. Tania pressed her back against mine and walked backward. When I reached the front, the only thing I could see was the Norinco and three other empty buildings.

  Tania pointed to the barrack’s front door. I took the hint and tiptoed to it, nodding when I was ready. She tossed a rock that struck the back corner. Someone inside fired a blast through the wall. Which meant his back was to me.

  The door screeched when I threw it open. My victim turned his frightened face to me. I aimed and fired. He dropped, howling in pain. I put him out of his misery with a second shot.

  Darwinian combat.

  Behind me, Tania stitched a long line of lead into the neighboring building. A scream followed.

  As I stepped out, I caught a nod from Nigel. He held up a grenade and motioned for Tania. She opened the door and stepped aside. A blast of gunfire came from inside aimed straight out. The guy had figured out his buddy’s fate. Nigel lobbed the grenade in as he ran by. Given the thin walls, we dove for cover.

  Grenades have a time-release allowing the thrower to arm the device then heave it a good distance. The little bomb landed near our enemy and sat there for a few terrifying seconds before killing him. I know that’s what happened because I heard the guy say, “Oh shit…” in Kazakh. Not that I speak the language, but his tone was unmistakable.

  Mercury said, Yo, pay attention, far side of the shed.

  I heard boots crunching in dry autumn leaves behind me. I dropped and fired from a prone position but saw only empty space. I rolled sideways and crabbed a circle as round after round pumped through the wall I’d used for cover. I let out a howl and triangulated the shots back to a point on the far side. My first shot was low, hoping for a knee or leg. My second was higher, expecting a body shot. Instead, I heard him run away. I gave chase but never saw him.

  Shotguns are noisy beasts. Especially after the fairly quiet MP5s. I froze, listening for an indication of who won the gunfight. Nothing.

  I ran through some trees and found a path into the woods. Stopping to listen again, I heard groaning. I switched to thermal and saw two heat signatures deeper in the trees, one on the ground. I moved forward, creeping up behind the heat signatures.

  Between two trees, Emily stood with a body at her feet, her shotgun still smoking.

  On closer inspection, I found a Kazakh with a missing face. Air wheezed in and out of what remained of his air ducts. His pain was gut-wrenching, yet Emily stared with a blank expression.

  “You OK?” I asked.

  “Yeh.”

  I approached her slowly. “Scarier than you thought?”

  “Yeh.”

  “First guy?”

  “Yeh.”

  Her victim made a gurgling sound, then exhaled and died. A strange expression came over her. I couldn’t tell if she was going to spit on him or puke.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “Yeh.” She looked up at me for the first time. “Um. No.”

  Her hair fell away, revealing a snow-white face covered in a light sweat despite the chilly mountain air. Her skin shivered like a horse shaking off a fly.

  “No, not hurt?”

  “Yeh.”

  I pulled the deadman’s bloody coat off and draped it over Emily’s shoulder.

  Mercury said, Dude, look at something besides babes for once. Check out the trees on your left.

  Twenty yards away, a shadow caught my attention. I raised my rifle and took aim.

  Emily’s eyes followed where my barrel pointed.

  The shadow slipped behind a tree and tried to run. I stepped around Emily and opened up on him. Shooting between trees is tricky. At the last second the hostile decided to charge me instead. He screamed some kind of battle cry and fired as he ran. Battle-tested veterans take time to aim; it’s counterintuitive under the stress but much more effective. My attacker was not a veteran. He didn’t take time to raise his weapon and sight down the barrel. As a result, his rounds were low and left. I let him have several shots at us to maximize the adrenaline rush.

  Emily pumped a new round into the chamber, lifted her Remington to her shoulder, anticipated his speed, and fired.

  Her blast stopped our attacker cold, peppering him in the chest and right arm. It was a good shot but not lethal. He raised his rifle to his bleeding shoulder and took the
time to aim at Emily. I put a round in his forehead.

  Behind us, we heard Miguel’s voice calling “clear” answered by similar shouts from Tania and Nigel. I dragged Emily, who had lost any words beyond yeh and no, into a safety zone and helped the others clear the grounds. We piled the eight wounded in one barrack and the ten dead in another. Nigel rigged a grenade to go off should one of the wounded move around too much.

  We met back at the Norinco for a quick debrief.

  I took one look at Kasey, still strapped to the hood. “You’re alive?”

  “Passed out.” Miguel slapped the boy’s face. “Pee’d his pants, too.”

  “Let’s see what the office holds,” I said. “Then we grab Mokin and get the hell out of here.”

  “Any idea what this compound is for?” Nigel asked.

  We ignored him and headed for the office.

  Emily stepped into my path and stopped me. “Why don’t you trust this guy? He helped us every step of the way, gave us guns, and a car. What does he have to do to earn your respect? Hasn’t he killed enough of these bastards to get a simple answer?”

  I faced Nigel. “You ready to tell us what you know?”

  He shrugged.

  Emily yanked my arm, pulling me around to face her. Her eyes searched mine. The concept of trust means one thing to civilians, but it takes on a whole new meaning when you trust someone to keep you alive. She had earned an answer to what the rest of us already knew.

  “He’s a lieutenant colonel,” I said. “Back in the SAS, that meant he had up to a thousand Special Forces in his command. The best of the best. He’s an important guy. But her Majesty sent him to Guangzhou as a cultural attaché, a spy. That means he’s a damn good spy. And that means his assignment is important enough to drag him away from his command. In other words, an important guy was taken from an important command and sent on an even more important assignment. Then we come to town. Miguel asks him for a favor. All of a sudden, this important guy drops everything, arms us to the teeth, and comes along without complaining or asking too many questions. Does that strike you as unusual?”

  “He knew about this long before we did,” she said.