Juggernaut (outpost)

by Adam Baker

  ‘We got to wrap this shit up and get out of here,’ said Toon. ‘Hear what Huang said? Some kind of walking corpse.’

  ‘He doesn’t know what he saw.’

  ‘That wound in his neck is pretty fucking real.’

  Jabril savoured his cigarette.

  ‘I made no secret this region was poisoned. The army tested munitions in the desert. Tethered cattle. Fired artillery shells packed with chemical and biological payloads. There were dark rumours that they also conducted human trials. Sacrificed some of their own troops to help refine the weapons. Here, in a sheltered valley, a place of cool shadows, a weaponised virus might lie dormant for decades waiting for a host. You need to collect your prize then leave here as quickly as you can.’

  ‘Why the fuck did you pick this place to hide your shit?’

  ‘Because no one in their right mind would come here.’

  Lucy returned to Talon. She unstrapped a couple of aluminium planks from the bulkhead wall and wedged them against the cargo door frame. A ramp from the chopper to the ground.

  She unlaced ropes and pulled a tarp aside. A quad bike.

  She released the brakes. The bike rolled down the ramps into the courtyard. A Yamaha Grizzly in desert yellow. She hitched a trailer to the back of the bike and loaded up.

  Gaunt leant against the chopper and watched her work.

  ‘So what’s in the truck?’ he asked.

  ‘You must have heard the others talk.’

  ‘I want to hear it from you.’

  ‘Gold. Three tons. You get a cut. Raphael gets paid out of your share.’

  ‘So we fly back to Baghdad with the gold. Then what?’

  ‘I know a guy in the Tenth Airwing. He’ll take care of inspection paperwork. We stack the gold at the back of a couple of Conex containers. Label the boxes “engine parts” or some shit. Airlift to Turkey on a C130. Offload at Incirlik. Look for a buyer in Istanbul. We’ll take a twenty-five, thirty percent hit when we convert to cash. I can live with that.’

  Lucy straddled the bike. Key turn. She gunned the throttle and headed down the processional way towards the temple entrance.

  Gaunt watched her drive towards white halogen light shafting from the temple doorway. He looked around, made sure he was unobserved.

  He opened the Bad Moon pilot door and reached beneath the webbed seat. His daypack.

  He discreetly checked the silenced Sig Sauer. He twisted the suppressor, made sure it was locked tight. He re-seated the mag. Chambered. Safety off. He peeled Velcro and tucked the pistol beneath his ballistic vest.

  He touched the crucifix hung round his neck and said a silent prayer.

  The vast temple hall. Cavernous dark. The armoured car ringed by tripod lamps, an oasis of light in the centre of deep shadow.

  Lucy unloaded the quad bike. A portable generator: a four-stroke, forty-amp Cutmaster in a sound-suppressing case. A coil of cable, and the pistol-grip head of a plasma torch.

  Shuffling feet and grunts of exertion echoed round the vaulted chamber.

  She set the generator running and wired the cable.

  She stripped down to her T-shirt. She strapped herself into a leather welder’s jacket. She pulled on leather gauntlets and a welder’s mask, visor raised.

  She took a swig of water, fumbled the bottle cap with a gloved finger.

  She stood at the rear doors of the truck. She dropped the face plate and pulled the trigger of the hand unit. A shrill hiss, loud despite earplugs. An impossibly fierce cutting flame, brighter than the sun. She pressed the flame to the truck door. Blue arc-light reflected in the smoked visor of her helmet. Metal began to bubble, blister and drip.

  Amanda found Huang asleep in the shadow of a guard tower. He was sat on a pillar base, leaning against brickwork. He looked pale. His lips were tinged blue.

  She plucked an iPod bead from his ear. Faint hiss of drums. Jay Z. ‘99 Problems’.

  ‘Hey. Hey, you okay?’

  Huang woke and rubbed his eyes.

  ‘I feel fucked.’

  She squirmed her hands into surgical gloves, and carefully peeled the bloody dressing from his neck. The bandage was red with blood, yellow with pus.

  ‘How does it look?’

  Amanda took a survival pack from the utility pocket of her trousers. Fishing line. Flint. Compass. Signal mirror.

  Huang examined his neck wound in the mirror. A big, weeping bite. Veins surrounding the wound were inflamed. Infection creeping outward like tendrils.

  ‘Least the fucker missed your jugular,’ said Amanda.

  ‘It’s turning bad. Hurts to swallow. Hurts to talk. I can barely move my head.’

  ‘Anything we can use in the WALK?’

  ‘Yeah. You got to patch me up. I’ll talk you through it.’

  Huang’s backpack. The Warrior Aid and Litter Kit. A folded stretcher and trauma gear. Amanda unzipped the pockets and ripped open sterile plastic packets with her teeth.

  ‘Show me your neck.’

  She swabbed the wound with Betadine solution and sprinkled QuikClot on the torn flesh. She threaded suture through a needle. Huang bit down on the nylon strap of his rifle as she stitched his flesh. She wadded the gouge with rolls of Kerlix dressing and taped them down.

  ‘Done this before?’

  ‘They made us practise on animals,’ said Amanda. ‘The survival course at sniper school. We each had to shoot a goat in the flank with our sidearm, then patch the wound. Good way to learn. Try to help a living thing while it screams and squirms and shits itself.’

  ‘A good paramedic is a priest.’

  ‘Anything you want to confess?’ asked Amanda.

  ‘It breaks my heart you were born gay.’

  Huang took a hypodermic gun from the trauma kit. He loaded a tetracycline shot and fired into the crook of his elbow.

  ‘You got morphine?’ asked Amanda.

  ‘Plenty. But I don’t want to nod out. We need trigger men.’

  The arc-flame burned a deep, circular groove in the truck door. Metal dripped like incandescent tears.

  Lucy shut off the torch and lifted her visor. She pulled foam plugs from her ears. She jammed a screwdriver into the burn-groove and twisted like she was shucking an oyster. A circular chunk of steel plate flipped free and clattered on flagstones.

  ‘You plan to cut through the door? That might take a while.’

  Jabril stood in shadow, watching Lucy work.

  ‘I’m going to cut a couple of chunks out of this cobalt layer so I can reach the steel beneath. Then I’m going to drill the locks.’

  Lucy stripped out of her welder’s smock. She was soaked in sweat. She drank a litre of Highland Spring and tossed the bottle. She emptied a second bottle over her head. She shook water from her hair.

  ‘So I guess in a couple of hours we will know whether you are lying about the gold. My advice? If there is nothing beyond these doors but thin air, then you better take my gun and put a bullet in your head right now. The boys expect to fly home rich. They won’t care to hear excuses.’

  Lucy pulled on the leather welder’s jacket. She pulled on gauntlets.

  ‘There’s food in the choppers,’ she said. ‘Feed the guys. Make yourself useful.’

  She dropped her visor, triggered the plasma arc and began to cut.

  Jabril split open a couple of MRE pouches. He distributed crackers and tube cheese.

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ said Toon.

  ‘Eat,’ said Amanda. ‘You need salt.’

  ‘If I eat, then I’ll shit. And there is no fucking way I’m fumbling around in the dark trying to dig a straddle-trench. I’m not taking my hands off this fucking weapon until sunrise.’

  Amanda scanned the convoy through her nightscope. The darkness of the moonlit valley boosted bright as day. Cross-hairs roved over buckled hoods, blown-out tyres, seats burned down to springs. The junkyard wreckage glowed with residual heat from the day.

  A flicker of movement. Brief shadow beneath the fender of a
truck.

  ‘Reckon there are any snakes out here?’ asked Toon.

  ‘Coral snakes,’ said Voss. He took a pouch of Red Man from his pocket and folded a wad of tobacco into his mouth. ‘That’s what you have to look out for in a desert. Venomous as a motherfucker.’

  ‘Camel spiders. Ever seen one? Big as a dinner plate. Hate them.’

  Amanda refocused her sight. A leering skull-face glimpsed between cars.

  ‘Contact,’ she shouted. She opened fire.

  Toon swung the SAW and fired blind into the darkness. Huang and Raphael shouldered their rifles and let rip, full auto. Voss pumped his shotgun.

  The gatehouse walls were lit by flickering muzzle-flare. Smoke and roar. Tracer rounds streaked across the valley floor, slamming into corroded hulks with a shower of sparks.

  Huang took a 40mm pepper-pot grenade from his ammo pouch. Gold tip. High explosive. He slotted the shell into the barrel-launcher of his rifle and fired. Pop. Recoil. Vehicles flipped and burned.

  Into the Vault

  Lucy stood at the truck door, enveloped in smoke and the stink of hot metal. The brilliant needle-flame of the plasma arc blazed white. Cobalt liquefied and trickled like tears. Drips hit the granite flagstones between her boots and instantly solidified into a smooth mirror-sheet puddle.

  She blinked sweat. Perspiration trickled down her back, her legs. She ignored the discomfort and concentrated on the incandescent flame slicing metal.

  She completed a circular cut. A saucer disk of cobalt plate fell away from the door and clattered to the floor.

  She shut off the plasma arc and threw it aside. She tore off her mask and jacket. She plucked foam plugs from her ears.

  She poured water over her head and sluiced her eyes. She lifted the hem of her T-shirt and towelled her face.

  Distant gunfire. She snatched her radio from the floor.

  ‘Sitrep. What the fuck is going on, people?’

  Toon strafed the convoy. The SAW ejected a steady stream of chain-links and smoking brass. The machine gun spat bullets at two hundred rounds a minute. Every fifth round was tracer. A needle-fine streak of light. The corroded hulks of the convoy shrieked and sang as bullets punched through metal and kicked up a storm of frag, dust and debris.

  Amanda worked her rifle bolt. She fired at shadows.

  Huang slapped a clip into his AR-15 and emptied it in a sustained four-second burst.

  ‘Break contact,’ shouted Amanda. ‘Cease fire. Cease fucking fire.’

  Sudden silence.

  They crouched behind the rubble barricade, breathing cordite stink from the smouldering cartridges scattered at their feet.

  Toon opened a box of ammo and clipped a fresh belt into the receiver of the SAW. He cranked the charging handle. He sipped mineral water. He splashed Highland Spring over the red-hot gun barrel. Water fizzed and steamed like spit on a hot plate.

  Amanda loaded a fresh mag of .308 and scanned the wrecked convoy with her nightscope. Sedans peeled open by 40mm grenade detonations. Hot metal glowed luminescent green. Bullet holes burned like coals.

  Movement at the back of the convoy. Something broken and skeletal dragging itself between trucks.

  Amanda adjusted her grip on the rifle and lined up the shot. She whispered beneath her breath. First drill they taught her during basic, straight after they issued bedding and uniform:

  ‘This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My rifle is my best friend. Without me, my rifle is nothing. Without my rifle, I am nothing…’

  A snarling face, looking right at her. Cross-hairs centred at the bridge of its nose. Gun shot. Skull-burst. Cranium blown out. The thing flopped dead.

  Lucy’s voice over the radio:

  ‘Sitrep. What the fuck is going on, people?’

  Lucy and Amanda walked from the citadel. They crossed moonlit waste ground towards the convoy. Lucy shouldered her assault rifle. Amanda held her pistol in a double-grip.

  ‘How many did you see?’ asked Lucy.

  ‘Three, hiding under trucks. Better watch out. Might be a bunch more.’

  Lucy hit the pressel switch of her radio.

  ‘Hey. Huang.’

  ‘Yeah, boss.’

  ‘Give us some light.’

  A pyro streaked skyward. A star-shell launched from Huang’s rifle. It burned brilliant white. It cast crazy, shifting shadows.

  They walked between vehicles. A smouldering battle-space.

  They shone flashlights into burned-out cars. Seat springs and steering columns, twisted and carbonised. They inspected the underside of each vehicle.

  Amanda found a skeletal arm protruding from beneath a sedan.

  ‘First body count.’

  Lucy found a ribcage. She kicked it with her boot. Fragments of olive uniform smoked and burned.

  ‘Got the second guy.’

  Amanda found a third body slumped against the fender of a truck.

  ‘Hey,’ she shouted. ‘Third guy. Back here.’

  They stood over the body.

  An Iraqi soldier, entry wound between his eyes. His uniform hung around him in folds. His skin dried out like jerky.

  Lucy crouched. She trained her barrel light on his skeletal face.

  ‘Something in his mouth.’

  She unsheathed her push-knife, pressed the tip between yellow teeth and parted his jaws.

  A mouthful of metal spines like needles.

  ‘Christ.’

  ‘Look at his hand,’ said Amanda.

  Fine needles protruded from dry flesh.

  Lucy tapped a couple of spines with her knife.

  ‘Looks metal, but it seems to be anchored in bone, like some kind of growth.’

  ‘Radiation? Some kind of mutation? Weird-ass cancer?’

  ‘Jabril has been talking about bio-weapons. Anthrax. Stuff like that. But half the armour-piercing shells fired in this war were tipped with depleted uranium. The desert is full of dust from old fuel rods. I don’t know. Maybe these guys breathed it in.’

  ‘Blood,’ said Amanda. A crimson trickle from the bullet wound. It dripped from his chin. ‘Guy looks like he has been dead a long while, but there was a beating heart, a functioning brain in that skull.’

  Lucy wiped her knife on the dead man’s jacket.

  ‘Then I guess we did him a favour.’

  Gaunt and Raphael watched from the barricade. The star-shell drifted to earth and burned out. They watched the distant light-cone of Lucy’s torch move between vehicles.

  Raphael spoke low, so no one could overhear.

  ‘We have to think this through. Better if we don’t hit them all at once.’

  ‘Like I said, we wait until she opens the truck. They’ll start loading gold onto the choppers. They’ll split up, start moving around. We can take them one by one. They’ll be dead before they realise anything is going down.’

  ‘Cool.’

  ‘Just hold back,’ said Gaunt. ‘Use your knife, if you can. Soon as they catch a glimpse of gold their discipline will fly to hell. They’ll drop their guard. Start whooping and hollering. Big back-slapping frenzy. Whole thing will be over in seconds.’

  Gaunt turned up the collar of his leather jacket. A cold night breeze sighed through the monumental ruins.

  ‘We should spill some gas,’ said Raphael. ‘Burn the bodies. Hard to imagine a forensic team out here, dusting for prints, but you never know.’

  ‘Their sorry asses will not be missed.’

  ‘Amen.’

  Lucy beckoned Voss.

  ‘Give me a hand with the drill.’

  They each gripped a rope handle and hefted it from Talon, then dumped it in the quad trailer.

  Lucy rode the bike back to the temple at a walking pace. Voss strode beside her, shotgun at the ready. He turned and walked backward every few paces, squinting into the moonlit warren of forecourts and collapsed buildings that lined the processional way.

  Lucy drove into the temple and killed the engine.
/>   The truck door. A ragged, circular cut next to each combination lock.

  ‘I’ve burned through the first layer,’ explained Lucy. ‘Now we drill steel to access each lock drum.’

  She prised open the wooden crate with a screwdriver. A DeWalt magnetic drill press wrapped in a blanket. She hooked it to the four-stroke generator. Green power light.

  Lucy and Voss held the unit at head height and positioned it beside the upper combination lock. She engaged the magnets. Deep hum. Heavy clank as the drill clamped to the vault door.

  Lucy locked the diamond drill bit in place with a hex key. She filled the coolant reservoir from a plastic gallon bottle.

  ‘I’ll stay with you,’ said Voss. ‘Too much weird shit going down. Someone ought to watch your back.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Lucy pulled on gloves and goggles. She twisted foam plugs into her ears and wrapped her shemagh scarf over her mouth and nose.

  She pressed Start. Slow rotation. She turned the head wheel. The drill bit advanced and scoured steel. Metallic shriek. Coiled shavings. Mineral oil lubricant trickled down the vault door and pooled at her feet.

  Huang collapsed. He was talking to Amanda. He swigged water and said:

  ‘Maybe we should string a couple of grenades—’

  Then he dropped his canteen. His eyes rolled upward and his mouth fell open. He toppled backwards onto the flagstones and began to shake. He arched his spine. His boots danced. He pissed his pants. He whined and drooled. Amanda held him down and tried to check his airway.

  ‘Breathe. Come on. Breathe.’

  He stopped trembling and lay still.

  ‘Let’s get you to the chopper.’

  Toon helped lift Huang onto the stretcher. They laid him in Talon.

  Amanda shone a Maglite in Huang’s eyes. He blinked. Slow dilation. He turned his head.

  ‘Just chill, all right?’ said Amanda. ‘Lie still. We’ll get you home in no time.’

  She jabbed him in the thigh with a morphine auto-injector pen, and watched him pass out.