The Days Before: A Prequel to the Five Roads to Texas series (A Five Roads to Texas Novel Book 8)

by Brian Parker

  The roar of the engines changed pitch and he heard the C-130 take off from the airfield. Grady pulled the IFAK pouch, his individual first aid kit, from his vest and opened it up. Inside, he had several QuickClot bandages. He fumbled to get his shirt open so he could apply the dressing.

  “Here,” Bazan said. “Let me help you. The tangos are down.”

  Grady gritted his teeth as Baz roughly opened his shirt and ripped the undershirt open. “You won’t be winning any awards for your bedside manner, buddy.”

  “Stop bitching,” the Iraqi said as he tore open the bandage’s sealed package.

  Grady keyed his throat mic. “Alex, what about that hardened case?”

  “I hit the green case. It’s lying on the ground outside the building. But the man who was holding it made it back inside.”

  Grady nodded his head in approval, then asked, “What about the guards?”

  “Everyone that we saw before we moved in are down—or they retreated back inside,” Bazan replied. There was more pressure as the man tightened the bandage. “You’re good to go.”

  He glanced at Bazan’s handiwork. The bandage was in place and looked like he’d tied it well enough that it wasn’t in danger of coming off anytime soon. “Thanks.”

  Grady stood unsteadily and a wave of nausea hit him, traveling from his stomach to his head, then back down to his stomach once more. He willed away the feeling and tightened his grip on the heavy SCAR rifle. “Alright, everybody. This facility is still our primary target, so that’s where I want you guys to focus. Alex, kill anyone who comes outside. Chris and Hannah, stay in the support by fire position and watch our backs. Baz and I are gonna track down those men who were trying to get on that plane.”

  “Grady, you’ve been shot. Wouldn’t—”

  “Can it, Hannah. I’m fine. Those men were important somehow. I know it.”

  He checked with Bazan and then they moved around the corner of the building. They passed three dead guards and another whose legs kicked at the concrete as he tried to move out of their way. Grady slowed and tapped him with a single shot to the forehead. The men were a mixture of Middle Easterners and Asians, which confirmed they were in the right place.

  “There’s the case,” Bazan said as they moved quickly past the entry to the loading docks.

  “Grab it,” Grady ordered. “Which way did those guys go, Alex?”

  “There’s a trail going into the jungle about a hundred and fifty meters, almost directly on line with your current direction.”

  “Got it. Thanks,” Grady said as he saw the small opening in the foliage ahead. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as they rushed by the building. His intuition was telling him to be careful. Did they have sniper positions of their own?

  “Alex, keep an eye on the building. Something’s creeping me out.”

  “Will do.”

  Baz and Grady rushed past the building and into the jungle. The darkness swallowed them once more. “Any idea where this trail goes?” he asked.

  “No idea,” Bazan replied. “But right now, away from that facility feels like a good thing.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  * * *

  BRAZILIAN HIGHLANDS RAINFOREST, BRAZIL

  MARCH 24TH

  They went quickly down the jungle path. The four men from their target building had several minutes’ head start on them, but they were carrying a wounded comrade, whereas the two operators were completely unhindered with anything besides their personal kit and weapons. Grady knew they had to be getting close.

  “Hold up,” Bazan said.

  Grady stopped instantly. “What is it?”

  “Village up ahead.”

  He tried to look through the trees, but it was still too thick for him to see anything. “I can’t see shit, Baz.”

  “It’s there. I saw it when the wind shifted the leaves a second ago.”

  They crept cautiously forward for another three hundred meters until the jungle ended as abruptly as it had back at the facility. Bazan was right, there was a village of ramshackle huts and a couple larger community buildings. There had to be less than two hundred structures crammed into the small clearing. People milled about in the late afternoon, warily looking toward them, while several children kicked a couple of soccer balls along the grass.

  “What are we doing, boss?” Bazan asked. If they went any further into the village, any chance they had of keeping the operation a secret was gone.

  “Dammit,” he grumbled.

  Activity near the far side of the clearing caught Grady’s eye. A crowd of twenty or so villagers made their way to one of the larger pavilions. They escorted three men and carried a fourth. “That’s them.”

  The group made their way quickly to the pavilion and more people from the village streamed into the structure. Grady brought up his rifle to look through the optics. The four men were forced to their knees as women beat at them with sticks and brooms.

  “This is going to get ugly,” Bazan observed.

  Grady watched as another woman, much older than most of the people he’d observed, slapped one of the Iranians across the face with her bare hands. Even from this distance, he could hear her shouts of anger.

  “The villagers are pissed about something,” Bazan said. “I bet it has to do with that facility.”

  The crowd parted for a man wearing mud-stained pants and a long sleeved shirt, despite the heat. He didn’t say anything that the two observers could hear. Instead, he lifted his arm, leveling a pistol at the injured Korean’s head. The shot echoed across the clearing.

  “Fuck. Go!” Grady shouted, surging to his feet. Beside him, Bazan stood as well, holding the case awkwardly under one arm.

  They ran into the clearing, shouting to get the villagers’ attention and stop the executions that were sure to continue. Another shot rang out before the villagers noticed them. The man who’d shot the prisoners fired in their direction.

  “Shit!” Grady said, diving to the ground. There was no cover. The man fired wildly in their direction, forcing Grady’s hand. He rolled onto his stomach and sighted down the rifle. He watched as the man crumpled, blood spreading across his gut.

  Bazan had been quicker.

  The two men rushed the remaining distance to the pavilion. There were only two prisoners left, but a whole lot of villagers. The people pushed back from where the men stepped onto the dirt floor. Bazan walked over to the man he’d shot and pulled an ancient revolver from his grip. The women began shouting at them in whatever language they spoke.

  “Harper, something’s happening at the facility,” the sniper in overwatch far behind them stated.

  “Kinda busy here,” Grady grunted as he got back to his feet.

  “There’s a group of people coming out—” The radio cut off.

  Grady glanced at Bazan, who shook his head. “I didn’t’ catch it,” he said.

  Several gunshots rang out in quick succession from the direction they’d come from. “Say again?” Grady asked.

  “Alex is busy,” Rob Carmike replied. “You’re about to have company.”

  The sounds of automatic gunfire echoed across the jungle as Chris began firing again. “Shit. Status?” Grady demanded.

  “Grady!” Hannah replied, the heavy staccato of machine gun fire nearby. “They released the infected. Hundreds of them.”

  His stomach dropped out. He hadn’t been expecting that. The defenders at the facility had unleashed a literal hell upon the earth. Inhuman screams, the same as the men had made in the tunnel complex in Korea came from the jungle path. Rob had said they were about to have company.

  “Hannah, hold tight. Baz and I are coming back.”

  He turned and used the buttstock of his rifle to knock the two remaining men out with savage blows to the temple. The force of the blow jarred his shoulder injury, making him gasp in pain. Incapacitating the prisoners wouldn’t last long, but they had much more pressing matters to attend to. “Go!” he said.

 
Bazan began running toward the path and Grady followed suit. When they reached it, they heard the sounds of many feet slapping against the dirt in between the ragged shrieks.

  “Hide!” Baz said, diving toward the dense underbrush. Grady hesitated for a moment, then jumped off the trail beside the demolitions man, bringing up his rifle. “Don’t,” the engineer cautioned.

  Grady shook his head hard. He wasn’t going to let a threat pass him by and attack the village. “Too many,” Bazan whispered. “No protection.”

  Then the trail was alive with a flourish of activity as bloody men and women passed by them. They had the same dark skin tone and jet black hair as the people of the village. It clicked in Grady’s mind that the mob of villagers had been so pissed at the four men they captured because the Iranians at the facility had kidnapped their friends and family.

  They watched the infected pass by as their screams became frenzied when they saw the gathering of villagers. It was madness as the infected swept out of the jungle. At first, the villagers thought their loved ones had returned to them, but too late, they realized that the things were no longer who they used to be. The infected hit the mass of villagers like a wave upon the rocks. They tore at the exposed flesh of men, women, and children. Blood soaked the streets in a matter of seconds.

  “Dammit,” Bazan cursed. “The case.”

  Grady turned his attention away from the carnage to where the prisoners lay. The green Pelican case, along with whatever it held, was sitting beside the villager who’d been shot in the stomach.

  “Fuck it,” Grady hissed. “Gotta go help our team. We’ll try to recover it later.”

  Bazan nodded in agreement and they slid from the jungle as quietly as possible. “Status?” Grady asked into the radio.

  “Alex and me are pouring the hate,” Rob said. “But they’re coming faster than we can keep up.”

  “We’re on our way,” he assured his teammate. “Hannah, Chris, status?”

  Silence met his question. Then, he realized that they hadn’t heard McCormick’s machine gun in a while.

  “Hannah, Chris, do you copy?”

  Grady increased his pace, willing them to answer. A woman, fully nude and covered with dried blood dove at him as he emerged from the jungle. He instinctively threw up his hands and she tore into the fleshy part of his palm with her teeth. White hot, searing pain exploded into him

  “Shit!” Rob yelled into the radio.

  Grady brought up his rifle and fired into the woman’s stomach to no effect. She continued to tear into his flesh. Baz placed the villager’s old revolver against her head and pulled the trigger.

  The side of her head exploded outward as the large caliber bullet tore through bone and brain. She went limp immediately, dragging Grady forward. He had to pry the dead thing’s mouth open to release his hand.

  “Thanks,” he mumbled. One of those things bit Ralph Alcock and he turned when he was in the hospital in Japan. Grady knew he was a goner, but he had to help Hannah. He had time to get her to safety.

  His mind raced while the world around him seemed to slow down. Creatures roamed the clearing around the facility looking for their next victim. He knelt and his body went into automatic as he and Bazan fired back-to-back, killing the infected by the scores.

  Calls over the radio went unheeded. There was no time. Everyone was in an individual life or death fight. Dimly aware, he heard Rob Carmike say that Alex was dead, that one of those fuckers had torn his throat out and Rob was attempting to EXFIL back toward the place where the Brazilian Army trucks had dropped them off.

  Everything was a blur of target acquisition, elimination, and repeat. He changed magazines frequently, but he didn’t bother to keep track of how many times. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was eliminating the threat.

  A hand slapped him hard on his injured shoulder. “I’m out,” Bazan yelled. His voice came to Grady through the fog of his bloodlust.

  He reached down to retrieve a magazine to hand to his friend, but he realized that he’d blown through all of his ammo as well. Empty magazines littered the ground around his knee where it rested on the ground. “I’m out too,” he replied.

  Bazan slid his fighting knife from its sheath. “Wetwork it is then.”

  Grady drew his pistol and stood. He picked his targets carefully, waiting until they were twenty-five meters or less from them. Anything farther would be a waste of ammo.

  “Grady! Grady, stop,” Bazan said. “We need to EXFIL.”

  “We haven’t—”

  “Fuck the mission, man. If we don’t go now, then we aren’t making it out of here. You need medical attention or you’re gonna end up like Ralph.”

  His words stung. They were the words of a career Special Forces veteran who knew when a goal was simply unattainable and that it was time to call it quits. The mission was over. The Iranians had beaten them through sheer numbers.

  “You’re right,” he answered. “We can make it back to the trucks and get reinforcements.”

  “Yeah, man. We’ll get help,” Bazan agreed.

  It was a lie. They both knew that the Brazilians weren’t there. In fact, they’d likely been the ones to alert the facility about the raid. Telling themselves that reinforcements lay on the other side of the jungle was just a way of motivating each other to leave the engagement area when they hadn’t accomplished the mission.

  They’d put a major dent in the number of infected, but still had to fight their way past the facility in order to make it to where they’d came out of the jungle. “This way,” Grady said, pointing toward the front of the building, away from the loading docks and runway.

  They ran, killing anything that got close to them. They had no way of stopping a large group with only Grady’s pistol and Bazan’s knife, but they didn’t encounter too many more of the creatures in the front of the building. Their feet ate up the distance quickly as they made their way toward the spot where he’d left Hannah and Chris in overwatch. Several infected milled about the edge of the trees and Grady shot them.

  Then he found the M-240 machine gun. McCormick’s weapon lay on its side, the half-empty belt of ammunition extending from the weapon’s feed tray. Discarded links and expended brass littered the ground. Bodies of the infected lay unmoving all around the scene. Blood covered everything, but there wasn’t any sign of his teammates. Dozens of smaller 5.56 shell casings glittered in the dirt. Hannah had been firing her M4 in defense of the big man.

  “Hannah!” he yelled into to jungle. “Hannah, it’s Grady and Baz. Where are you?”

  The jungle underbrush rustled in response. “Hey, boss. We’ve got issues.”

  He turned to see more of the infected screeching toward them across the area in front of the facility. Grady bent and picked up the M-240. The damn thing was incredibly heavy. There was no way he’d be able to fire it from the hip the way so many action movie heroes did.

  You’re no hero, his mind reminded him. You just led your entire team into a trap. Now they’re all either dead or missing.

  Grady knelt down, then placed the weapon’s bipod on the ground. He began rocking the machine gun, cutting the creatures down at head height by the dozens. His eardrums went numb and he felt detached from the world around him. Dimly, he was aware of Bazan falling beside him and a wetness covering his face that wasn’t his own sweat. Then, the machine gun ran out of ammo.

  “We got ‘em, Baz!” he said, turning to his friend.

  The demo man lay only a foot from him, his eyes open, unblinking. The body of an infected lay on top of him, Bazan’s fighting knife buried in its neck.

  “Baz!” he shouted. “Baz! Talk to me, brother.”

  He scrambled toward the man and reached out to feel for a pulse along his neck. His fingers plunged inside Bazan’s neck where his carotid should have been. His throat had been ripped open by the creature he killed.

  His world went dark. He’d lost his entire team. “Hannah,” he croaked into the throat mic. “Chr
is. Rob. Anyone?”

  No one answered his call. He was completely alone.

  Grady Harper pushed himself to his feet, the pain in his hand and shoulder forgotten. He slid Bazan’s knife free from its resting place and staggered toward the facility. This had to end. It couldn’t have all been for nothing.

  He had no ammo for any of his weapons, so he dropped them and slit the throats of any infected that were still alive, crawling toward him as he walked. He was covered chest-to-boot with their blood by the time he made it to the large building in the center of the jungle clearing. His team had killed them all. Despite the overwhelming odds, they’d killed every one of the fucking creatures that the Iranians had unleashed on them.

  He allowed himself a momentary feeling of pride in his team’s abilities. Then it all came crashing back to him as he remembered the village. They hadn’t stopped the infected from attacking the villagers. There would just be more of the infected by the next day.

  He turned into the maintenance bay, intent on killing every motherfucker inside the facility with just Bazan’s knife if he didn’t find something else along the way. As he passed under the large garage doors, a giant cargo net fell on top of him, slamming him to the ground.

  “Ung!” he grunted, feeling the pressure in his injured shoulder. He began to saw with the knife to free himself from the trap.

  “We can’t have that,” a man said in English with a heavy accent. His body went rigid as thousands of volts of electricity coursed through him from a Taser. He fell, unable to support himself. “Good. Good. Congratulations, Mr. American. You will be the first of our new stock. We had to release them all to stop your men, but don’t worry. We’ll make more.”

  The man hit him with the Taser again and Grady Harper’s world went black.

  TWENTY-SIX

  * * *

  GEORGETOWN, WASHINGTON, DC