Legion: V Plague Book 19

by Dirk Patton

  We both leaned forward for a better look at the aircraft as it climbed rapidly and banked hard, presumably setting up for another pass.

  “That’s an Osprey,” Gonzales said, recognizing it before I did.

  “Doesn’t mean it’s friendly.”

  “We’re fucking sitting ducks,” he growled.

  I glanced at Rachel when she put her hand on my shoulder, noting the worried expression on her face.

  “What do we do?” she asked.

  “Not much we can,” I said. “Can’t hide or outrun it and don’t have anything to shoot it down.”

  The Osprey had climbed out of view and I hurried to a side window. Lowering it, I stuck my head out and spotted the aircraft lined up for another pass. As it drew closer, the engine nacelles transitioned from horizontal to vertical flight position as it streaked over us. A quarter of a mile ahead, it went into a stable hover and landed on the freeway in a huge swirl of dust.

  I didn’t have to tell Gonzales to stop. He was already on the brakes which squealed loud enough to vibrate the fillings in my teeth. We came to a halt with a couple of hundred yards between us and the Osprey.

  “They didn’t start shooting. That’s a good sign, right?” Rachel asked breathlessly.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  I traded a glance with Gonzales. We both knew that just because we hadn’t already been strafed didn’t mean we were safe. But I was hopeful. The Russians hadn’t made a habit of operating American aircraft, so maybe there were friendlies aboard. Maybe.

  “Wanna open the door, Master Chief?”

  He pushed the lever that folded the doors open and sat looking at the idling aircraft.

  “What are you doing?” Rachel protested. “You were just unconscious!”

  “Feeling much better,” I said, kissing her on the cheek. “Besides, they could have wiped us out without hardly trying if they wanted to. Someone wants to talk.”

  “Got movement.”

  I turned away from Rachel when Gonzales called the warning and watched as two figures appeared at the back of the Osprey, having exited down the rear ramp.

  “Should’ve known the way it was being flown,” I said with a grin and stepped out of the bus.

  Rachel was right behind me, Gonzales bringing up the rear as I led the way toward the new arrivals.

  57

  Igor stood in a darkened corridor, waiting for the jail’s exterior door to be opened. He had shattered the overhead banks of fluorescent tubes by whipping the chain at the end of his wrist. The manacle had further cut into his already raw flesh, but he ignored the injury.

  He was frustrated and surprised that none of the guards he’d killed had been carrying a key that would unlock the exit. It didn’t make sense to him that they were locked inside, but it wasn’t something he spent any time trying to figure out. Someone would be coming, and the door would open.

  Maybe it would be a shift change and he’d be facing four new guards. Perhaps the inquisitor would walk through the door. While he intended to kill whomever it was, he hoped it was the man who’d made him watch Irina being tortured, raped and killed. But that would only be the beginning.

  A rage boiled through Igor’s body. It was so far beyond anger that there was no comparison. All of that emotion was directed at the Russian government and the senior military officers who were nothing more than Barinov’s bootlicks.

  The men he blamed for Irina’s death were no longer secure behind the high walls of the Kremlin or deep inside a heavily fortified military base. They were in a captured American city, living a life of unimaginable luxury in the homes of wealthy Americans who were their victims. Homes that could never be made as safe as how they’d lived in Russia.

  Igor was going to kill every last one of them. To remove the stain of their very existence. He had no reservations about destroying anyone who tried to stop him. Irina would be avenged with their blood. Once that was done, he didn’t care what became of him.

  More than an hour later, he hadn’t moved. While not a patient man by nature, he could and would wait silently for hours or even days when necessary to achieve his goals. He’d done it on the frozen tundra of his native Russia and in steaming Asian jungles. This was a walk in the park.

  Another hour passed before there was the scrape of a key from the outside of the heavy steel door. There were some muted bangs and additional noises as someone apparently struggled to turn the latch. Other than his eyes, Igor didn’t move. He remained silent, patiently waiting to strike.

  The lock finally released with a rough scrape, then the door swung open with a groan of dry hinges. Several male voices were suddenly audible. The men were grumbling about having to relieve the ones on guard duty. This told Igor he was most likely facing four of them. He was undeterred.

  The door closed with a solid boom, then more scraping of a key until the heavy locking bolt shot home. Boots scuffed on the scarred floor and Igor raised his arm as he stepped around the corner. Whipping it forward, the chain unfurled from the loop around his hand and the last foot of iron links shattered the skull of the first guard to come into view.

  He instantly dropped and didn’t move as blood poured onto the floor. Pulling the chain back into his fist, Igor charged, delivering a devastating blow to the chest of the next jailer, crushing his breast bone and destroying his heart.

  The two remaining men were momentarily frozen by the sudden violence, gaping at the horrific apparition that had killed their companions in less than two seconds. Then, with shouts of terror, they tried to back away but came up hard against the locked door.

  Igor slashed with the chain, breaking the leg of one of them and sending him crashing into the other. Both tumbled to the floor and he loomed over them, unfazed by the pleas for mercy. Chain wrapped around his fist, he bent and delivered two lightning fast blows that pulverized both of their faces, then dropped to his knees and pounded until their heads were nothing more than pulp splattered across the floor.

  Breathing deeply, he stood and slowly coiled the bloody chain into a loose loop hanging from his right hand. He stared at the four men he’d just killed in the blink of an eye and wished there had been more. Scooping up the key, he turned and moved deeper back into the jail.

  Entering Irina’s cell, he paused, staring in grief at her sheet covered body. It had taken time, but using the guards’ keys, he’d searched until he found a small storage room that held linens. Removing Irina’s bonds, he’d used several of their bottles of water to wash the blood from her hair, face and body before tightly wrapping her in a rough sheet. Gently lifting the body, he put her over his shoulder and walked out of the cell.

  Stepping carefully over the corpses of the men he’d killed, he unlocked the exit and pulled the door open, surprising the interrogator and his assistant. They stood at the threshold, key in hand and stared at him. Igor was instantly in motion, before either man’s mind could process the deadly threat they were facing.

  The chain lashed out, whipping itself into a noose around the torturer’s neck. Igor pulled him off his feet and he fell across the door’s threshold. Surging forward, he kicked the assistant in the stomach without losing control of the burden of Irina’s body. The man spun away and fell to the ground, his breathing paralyzed by the force of the assault.

  Igor looked at the interrogator. He writhed at his feet, eyes bulging and face turning purple as he clawed at the chain constricting his throat. Placing his foot on the man’s chest, he sharply jerked the chain. There was a loud crack as his vertebrae snapped, then Igor raised his foot into the air before driving it straight down and crushing his skull.

  Working the chain in short swirls with his arm, he pulled it free of the corpse and moved to stand over the terrified assistant. The man was still on the ground, finally able to draw a breath and try to scramble away. When Igor loomed and raised the chain, he held up both hands in supplication.

  “Wait! I left the chains lose so you could escape. It was all I could do
to help!”

  Igor hesitated, glaring down at him. Unspeaking.

  “I am sorry! I could not stop it!”

  For several long seconds, Igor stared into the man’s eyes. Then, without a word, he lowered his arm and turned away. Walked to the street and looked around, then crossed to a small park on the opposite side.

  The grass was dead without benefit of regular watering, but a dozen tall palm trees swayed gently in the breeze. Two of them grew together, their long slender trunks forming a shallow V. Gently, he knelt and lowered Irina’s body to the ground, then began tearing at the dirt at the base of the trees with his bare hands. He worked silently, making slow progress in the almost rock-hard soil.

  Several minutes passed, then there was the sound of a sturdy vehicle door being closed from behind. Igor didn’t stop or bother glancing over his shoulder. Not until a shadow fell across him.

  It was the assistant, who held a small, folding shovel he’d taken from the American Humvee he had arrived in with the torturer. He was obviously terrified of Igor, but he stood his ground and met his eyes. Without speaking a word, Igor took the tool from his hands and drove it into the dirt.

  Two hours passed in which Igor never stopped digging. The shovel rose and fell with mechanical regularity, the chunk of the blade cutting into the hard soil the only sound.

  Finally, he was done. Lifting Irina’s body, he cradled her against his chest for a moment before gently placing her into the grave. Closing his eyes, he remembered the woman he loved. Her smile. Her laugh. The light in her eyes when he held her close. The feel of her skin against his.

  Releasing a shuddering breath, Igor opened his eyes and filled the hole. When his task was complete and he stood, the sun had set. It was almost dark, only a faint blue twilight still illuminating the city. Looking around, he wasn’t surprised that the assistant was nowhere to be seen.

  Igor shook the chain out, then slowly coiled it into a fat loop and grasped it tightly. As he did this, he scanned the horizon. To the northeast was a faint glow of electric lights that marked the location of the men he intended to kill. Without a backward glance at Irina’s final resting place, he began walking toward the light.

  58

  “How’d you find us?” I asked Martinez as I put her back on her feet and stepped out of the hug.

  Before she could answer, Rachel pushed past and they embraced, leaving me to give the man that had arrived with her in the Osprey a once over. He was almost as tall as me but with a swimmer’s build. Long legs and arms that are a lot stronger than they look.

  “You’re Colonel Chase!” he blurted in surprise.

  “Who’re you?”

  “Sorry, sir. Chief Petty Officer Strickland. I wasn’t expecting... well, not you.”

  He stepped forward and extended his hand. The lack of a salute wasn’t being disrespectful, it was prudent. When in a combat zone, which all of North America now was, you don’t do anything to help an enemy watcher easily identify an officer. That’s a great way to get your leadership targeted and killed.

  “SEAL?” I guessed, shaking the offered hand.

  “Yes, sir.”

  My head was still a little sluggish and it took a moment before I connected the dots.

  “You’ve got the file they need in Hawaii!”

  “Yes, sir,” he nodded.

  I turned and looked at Martinez with a raised brow.

  “Working on it,” she said. “We were on our way to Phoenix and the Chief was fiddling with the radio. Picked up a transmission from Commander Vance on the guard channel. He’s on the ground in Yuma and he’s stuck. Infected have the aircraft surrounded and he’s worried about sucking bodies in and damaging the engines if he starts them.”

  “So, how’d you know it was us in the bus?”

  “Good optics,” she said, gesturing at the Osprey and grinning. “Could see you standing up front from a couple miles away.”

  I nodded in understanding.

  “You came in from the west. Joe and Dog are missing. See anything?”

  “Russian Hind in a patrol pattern,” Martinez said frowning. “Gave them a wide berth. How the hell’d you lose Joe and Dog?”

  I didn’t miss the surprised look on Strickland’s face when Martinez spoke to me like that.

  “Long story. Think you could take that Hind with the minigun?”

  I tilted my head at the Osprey which had a belly mounted weapon. Martinez’s eyebrows shot up in response to my question.

  “Are you kidding? That’s not for aerial combat and that Russian bastard is a whole lot better armed. I’m good, but nobody’s that good. Besides, the second he sees me he’s going to be on the radio and that’ll bring a whole lot of shit down on our heads.”

  I knew Martinez well enough to not question her assessment. She’d never shied away from a fight, even one with long odds. If she said it was a bad idea to go toe to toe with an attack helicopter, I wasn’t going to second-guess her.

  “Okay, then how many infected is Nutcracker dealing with?”

  “He described it as a shit-ton, sir,” Strickland said.

  “Sounds like him,” I said, shaking my head, then remembered something Martinez had said. “Why were you going to Phoenix?”

  “Igor and Irina.”

  I involuntarily traded a look with Rachel that Martinez didn’t miss.

  “What?” she asked, looking back and forth at us.

  “Just a stupid vision I had.”

  This didn’t seem to satisfy her, but she didn’t press.

  “Alright. Let’s go get Vance’s ass out of the fire. He can have the Chief delivered to Hawaii in an hour.”

  “I’m not going to Hawaii,” Strickland said. “Sir.”

  My head swiveled and I locked eyes with him. I was aware that Martinez had also turned to face him with an “uh-oh” look on her face.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” he said quickly. “That came out wrong. But I was on my way to get Irina and Igor, and I’m not giving up on them. We’ve been through hell together and I don’t leave my friends behind.”

  “You were on the team that went into Siberia with them,” I said, understanding.

  “Yes, sir, I was. And as far as I’m concerned, that mission isn’t over. If this pilot we’ve got to rescue can get to Hawaii, he can take the file. They don’t need me. I’m just a dumb squid.”

  The younger man held my gaze without flinching. Most officers would have torn him a new asshole at this point but in my book, he’d just gone up several notches. I’m not most officers.

  “Sound like anyone you know?” Martinez asked with a smart-ass tone in her voice.

  I shot her a glare and she just smiled back at me with an innocent expression.

  “Fine, Chief. The Captain’s right. I’d be making the same argument and would probably disobey orders if I had to.”

  “Heard that about you, sir,” he said.

  I sighed and shook my head.

  “Okay. Mount up and let’s go pull Nutcracker’s acorns out of the fire. Again.”

  Gonzales followed Martinez and Strickland to the Osprey while Rachel and I went to get Mavis.

  “They’re a couple,” she said softly.

  “What? No.”

  “Trust me. I’m good with body language.”

  By now we were in the bus and I was relieved to see Mavis sitting up. But my throat constricted with emotion when she looked at me and I saw the red eyes.

  “How you feeling?” I asked, trying to smile.

  Rachel brushed past and bent over her with a hand on her forehead.

  “Strange,” Mavis answered.

  “Fever’s broken,” Rachel said, straightening and looking at me.

  “Strange, how?” I asked Mavis.

  “Dunno. Just... different.”

  “It’s the virus,” I said, understanding what she was experiencing. “It’s going to be weird for a little bit, then you get used to it. Now, can you walk? Martinez is here and we’ve gotta go.�
��

  “Jen is here?”

  Mavis leaned to the side to see around me and through the bus’s big windshield. Spotting the Osprey, she jumped to her feet, slipped past and raced outside to see her friend.

  “Guess that answers that,” I said with a relieved grin. “She seems okay.”

  I took Rachel’s hand and led her out of the bus. She didn’t comment and I could feel the tension in her as we walked to the waiting aircraft.

  59

  I had bumped Strickland out of the cockpit and was seated next to Martinez when we overflew the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma and went into an orbit above the flight line. The sun had set and the hypersonic transport’s adaptive camouflage was doing its job, rendering the huge aircraft invisible to the human eye. But the few hundred infected who swarmed over and around it spoiled things.

  Wherever one of them came in contact with the exterior skin, a small area would react to their touch and change its color to match. The result was a constant ripple of colors appearing and vanishing in the outline of the plane. It was about the weirdest, yet coolest thing I’d ever seen.

  “Took your sweet-ass time,” Vance grumbled when I got him on the radio.

  “You’d bitch if you were hung with a new rope, Nutcracker,” I shot back.

  “Well, hurry it up already. Without the engines running, it’s hotter than hell in here. I’m sweatin’ my balls off.”

  “You still got balls?” I asked, motioning for Martinez to widen our orbit around the area.

  “Bigger than yours,” he said, laughing loudly.

  I was busy watching the thermal imaging screen in the cockpit as Martinez continued to slowly expand our survey. Not knowing this, Vance was still going, and I told him to shut up and sit tight. I wasn’t seeing any heat sources other than the females bunched around the transport.

  “Looking good,” Martinez said.

  “Got a new worry.”

  “The children?” she asked, glancing at me.

  “You know about them?”

  “Saw them. Don’t want to see them again. They’re here, too?”