Juggernaut (outpost)

by Adam Baker

  ‘How long do you think we have?’

  ‘Couple of hours, tops. We better burn rubber.’

  ‘I don’t think I can make it,’ said Amanda.

  ‘Don’t even start with that shit.’

  ‘What if my leg gives out? How am I going to make it across the fucking desert? Are you going to carry me on your back?’

  ‘If that’s what it takes. I’ll get you home, babe. I lost everything. Toon. Huang. Voss. I’m not losing you.

  A Republican Guard stumbled along the track towards them, skin laced with metallic tendrils.

  ‘Give me the machete,’ said Lucy.

  She approached the soldier.

  An officer. Red beret and epaulettes. An AK strapped to his back. His flesh oozed metal.

  He snarled. He reached for Lucy’s throat. She stood her ground as he stumbled towards her. She hacked off his arm. He fell to his knees. She lopped through his neck.

  Lucy stood over the body.

  ‘I expected more of these fuckers. Guess they must have returned to the citadel. Hibernating, or something.’

  She unhitched the rifle. A Tabuk, with a folding stock. The crude AK47 clone manufactured for the Iraqi army. She worked the bolt. A poor action, but the weapon would fire.

  She took magazines from pouches strapped to the dead man’s chest.

  ‘Want to give me the pistol?’ asked Amanda.

  ‘Later,’ said Lucy. She worried Amanda might blow her brains out rather than become a fatal burden.

  They climbed on the quad and set off. The four-stroke engine echoed round tight canyon walls.

  They turned a bend in the ravine. Lucy brought the bike to a halt. The train was parked up ahead.

  ‘Why did they stop?’ asked Amanda. ‘Out of fuel already?’

  They got off the bike. Lucy chambered the AK. They crept along the valley wall. Lucy kept her rifle trained on empty carriage windows.

  ‘Give me a fucking gun,’ said Amanda.

  Lucy tossed the Makarov pistol.

  They crept the length of the train. They reached the locomotive. Lucy climbed the ladder. She pulled Amanda up onto the walkway.

  They flanked the cab door. Lucy pushed the slide door with her foot and ducked inside, rifle raised.

  Empty.

  ‘They took the key. We can’t start her up.’

  Lucy helped Amanda jump the coupling to the carriage.

  Rifles, but no magazines.

  Amanda kicked an empty backpack.

  ‘Looks like they took most of the ammo.’

  She slumped in a chair and massaged her wounded leg.

  ‘How much morphine have we got?’

  ‘Couple more shots,’ said Lucy. ‘Better save them. If that wound gets infected, you’ll be hurting for real.’

  ‘I could use a fucking drink.’

  Lucy offered her canteen.

  ‘A real drink. A beer. Can’t stop thinking about it. Ice cold. Condensation running down the glass.’

  Amanda flicked open her lock-knife and cut the crusted dressing from her leg. She unzipped Huang’s trauma kit. She unrolled fresh gauze round her thigh, and lashed the dressing in place with a combat tourniquet.

  ‘How’s it looking?’ asked Lucy.

  ‘A little fresh blood. Not much. It’ll be okay, long as it doesn’t get infected.’

  Amanda popped codeine from a blister strip and knocked them back with canteen water.

  ‘Take it easy with that shit, all right?

  Lucy kicked open the missile case.

  The Hellfire guidance cone. The solid-fuel rocket motor. A vacant scoop of foam where the virus cylinder used to sit.

  ‘Gaunt took the virus. He must be carrying it with him.’

  She wiped grime from a window and focused binoculars.

  ‘What can you see?’ asked Amanda. She fanned her Stetson.

  A couple of half-rotted soldiers stumbled and crawled from the ancient necropolis. They emerged from the great propylon gateway and dragged themselves across the valley floor towards the column of wrecked vehicles.

  ‘Two infected guys. They seem to be converging on the convoy.

  She surveyed the burned-out trucks and cars.

  ‘There. I see them.’

  ‘Gaunt?’

  ‘And Voss.’

  Gaunt and Voss arguing, gesticulating.

  ‘They’re checking out some kind of fuel truck.’

  ‘Voss is mine, all right?’ said Amanda. ‘I want to see the look on his face when I pull the trigger.’

  The Bomb

  Three hundred miles from target

  The plane. A silver Fairchild Provider. A twin-prop freighter in Red Cross livery.

  ‘Angel Flight, you are leaving our air. Maintain two-eight-five, at fifteen thousand. Good luck.’

  ‘Roger that, QTAC Centre. Maintaining two-eight-five at fifteen thousand. Have a good day.’

  Jakub took off his headphones. He wiped sweat from his neck and brow with a do-rag. He checked heading and altitude.

  Jakub: a fat guy in a Motörhead shirt.

  He looked out the cockpit window. The blur of the starboard propeller. Baghdad to their north. A bombed-out sprawl. Minarets and shanty squalor.

  A thread of black smoke rose from the old quarter. A car bomb or garbage fire.

  ‘Fucking shithole. Giant fucking latrine. Dust and donkey turds. You know, I bet half the wars round here would stop in an instant if they got some decent TV channels. All they have is those fucking brain-rot Egyptian soaps. Nothing in their lives. No hope. No booze. No nothing. Bunch of rabid junkyard dogs, ripping out each other’s throats.’

  Tomasz checked the map. A big stretch of yellow. The Western Desert. No towns, no topographical features. A straight run to the target.

  Tomasz: a big guy with a moustache. Swastikas and Aryan Nation tatts down both arms.

  Both men were ex-GROM. Polish ‘thunderbolt’ special forces. Recruited by the CIA seven years ago. Training and indoctrination at the US Army School of the Americas, Fort Benning. Seven years’ billet in downtown Columbus. Part of a language immersion programme. Taught to speak American, think American. They were currently on retainer contracts running covert ops for the Office of Technical Services. Prisoner transports. Rendition flights. Hooded, hog-tied detainees flown to black interrogation centres in Eastern Europe and North Africa.

  Tomasz checked his watch.

  ‘How long to the objective?’

  ‘Hour. Hour and a half, maybe. Return journey will be quicker. Should gain about thirty knots, once we’ve dumped the payload.’

  There was a sat-com unit bolted to the flight control panel. A hi-tec addition to antique gauges and dials.

  A faint voice:

  ‘Incoming plane, do you copy, over? Angel Flight can you hear me?’

  Jakub put on headphones. He adjusted volume.

  ‘Angel Flight, do you copy, over?’

  ‘There they go again,’ said Jakub.

  ‘Same guy?’

  ‘No. He sounds South African. He’s using our channel, our encryption key. He must be for real.’

  ‘Angel Flight, this is fire support team Bravo Bravo Lima Two. There are men on the ground. Do you copy, over? Do not bomb this site. There are men on the ground requesting urgent assistance. We require immediate evacuation. Please respond.’

  ‘Maybe we should radio Koell,’ said Jakub. ‘Let him know there are people on site.’

  ‘He won’t give a shit.’

  ‘I think we should talk to him.’

  ‘Don’t be weak. You’ve got your orders. Just sit tight and fly the plane.’

  ‘I don’t like it,’ muttered Jakub. ‘Doesn’t seem right.’

  Tomasz unbuckled his harness.

  ‘I’m going to check on our passenger.’

  He ducked through the cabin door. He climbed down a short steel ladder into the hold. A wide cargo space ribbed with girders. A couple of overhead bulbs.

  He blinked, t
ried to adjust to windowless cave-dark.

  A huge object, a cylinder big as a van, beneath a canvas shroud.

  Tomasz swayed, like a sailor crossing a deck in high seas. He untied rope and began to pull back the tarp.

  ‘Time to do your thing, baby.’

  A giant thermobaric device. Twelve tons of high explosive.

  White paint on black metal:

  UNCHAINED MELODY

  Tomasz patted the steel hull of the bomb.

  ‘Let’s make sweet music.’

  The Gauntlet

  Republican Guard. A button-popping fat guy with no arms. He fell, and struggled to his feet. He wove between burned-out sedans.

  Voss shouldered his shotgun and braced his legs.

  ‘Gaan fok jouself,’ murmured Voss, as he lined up the shot.

  The fat guy’s head exploded. Brain-splash. He toppled to the ground, half his head ripped away. His legs pedalled like he was still trying to walk. He churned circles in the dirt.

  Gaunt checked his watch. He kicked the burned hubs of the fuel truck.

  ‘She’s got to be towed. Hitched to something big, and dragged to the locomotive.’

  Voss pointed at the sky.

  ‘What the fuck is that?’

  A distant, dove-grey plane circling like a vulture.

  ‘It’s the drone I told you about. Koell’s eye in the sky. We’re being surveilled. Watching us the whole time we’ve been out here.’

  Voss took off his jacket and waved it back and forth.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ asked Gaunt. ‘Koell isn’t going to send the cavalry. He’s going to tape your death and post it online.’

  Gaunt looked towards the Predator and flipped the bird.

  ‘Get that in infra-red, you fuck.’

  Lucy stood at the carriage window and watched the drone through binoculars. The ghost-grey airframe of a UAV. Rolls-Royce turbofan tail engine. Eyeless, bulbous head. The Predator slow-circled the valley at high altitude.

  ‘You think it’s been up there this whole time?’ asked Amanda. ‘How long can those things stay airborne? Think it’s been shadowing us this past couple of days?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘How much do you reckon it cost? A thing like that?’

  ‘Three-, four-million-dollar optics package. Doesn’t take much to run. Guy in a pilot van toggling a joystick, watching a screen.’

  ‘Shoot it.’

  ‘Too far out. Might as well throw rocks at the bastard.’

  Lucy lowered her binoculars and turned her attention back to the truck. She adjusted focus.

  ‘Come on, guys,’ murmured Lucy. ‘Get your shit together. Move the damn truck.’

  Gaunt opened the tool compartment above the rear fender. He found yellow canvas tow straps wound in a coil.

  ‘All right. Here’s the plan,’ said Gaunt. ‘We fire up the cash truck. Drive it from the temple. Use it to tow the tanker.’

  They jogged across sand towards the citadel entrance. They passed between the twin gate towers. The burned-out choppers still smouldered in the central courtyard. The air was still bitter with the taint of burnt plastic.

  They passed titanic ruins. Sinister silence. Domes, arches, colonnades. Courtyards and avenues half-choked with sand.

  They entered the shadow of the baleful colossi that flanked the temple entrance.

  The vast temple interior. Cool darkness.

  A gangrenous soldier shambled from the shadows. A frail, mummified creature. Skin like leather. Dendritic growths woven through flesh. Clothes hung in blood-smeared strips. He had no eyes. He stumbled. He bumped pillars. He advanced like he was tracking their scent. The soldier was barely alive, but still compelled to rip and tear. An unquenchable thirst for flesh. That final thought dying slow, like campfire embers.

  Gaunt kicked the creature. It stumbled and fell. He stamped on his head. Skull burst. He scuffed his boot on flagstones like he was scraping dog shit.‘Come on.’

  They ran to the truck.

  Voss reached into the fender well beneath the battery and tripped the starter solenoid.

  Ignition. Engine roar echoed round the vaulted interior of the temple. The single, intact head lamp flickered and glowed steady. The beam shafted through swirling dust motes.

  Half-dead soldiers lay sprawled over altar steps beneath the great, contemptuous bull god. They turned towards the sudden radiance, stirred slow and clumsy like they were waking from a long sleep.

  ‘Damn,’ said Voss. ‘Let’s go.’

  They ran to the cab. They reversed away from the altar, swung round, and headed for daylight shafting through the temple doorway

  A soldier crawled up the processional ramp to the temple entrance. Legs sheared at the thigh. Bone and ragged flesh. Tumorous tendrils trailed from each stump. He paused at the temple threshold, reached out like he was trying to grasp the approaching head beam. Tyres crushed his torso as the armoured truck rolled over his body and out into sunlight. His ribs crunched beneath the wheels. His skull crackled and splintered like glass ground under a heavy boot.

  The truck rolled down the temple ramp. Two rotted soldiers reached for the vehicle, arms outstretched. They were smashed by ram bars, pulped beneath the wheels.

  The cash truck rode over smooth flagstones, through ceremonial precincts and out the citadel gateway. It bounced over rock-strewn dirt.

  ‘Quarter of a tank,’ said Gaunt, checking the dash gauge. ‘If we can’t get the loco running, we use the truck to get out the valley. Throw some water and ammo in the back. Should help us cross a few miles of desert before we have to get out and walk.’

  They reached the convoy. Gaunt revved and rammed the column of vehicles. He bulldozed a passage between cars. Body panels shrieked. Doors ripped free. A Subaru tipped and rolled.

  They pulled up in front of the fuel truck. They lashed tow straps.

  ‘You got to walk me back to the train,’ said Gaunt. ‘Keep the fuckers off my back while I drive.’

  Gaunt gunned the throttle. The armoured car crept forward. The tow strap slapped taut and creaked at full tension. High revs. Gaunt pumped the throttle and rocked the fuel truck free.

  Voss stood guard. He climbed on the hood of a burned-out Lincoln. A row of automobiles, toe to tail. He jumped roof to roof. He kept pace with the lurching fuel truck as it rolled forward.

  He climbed across the blistered hull of an APC. A soldier squirmed from a turret hatch, face a mask of knotted malignancies. Voss delivered a vicious kick to the head. Neck snap. The creature fell limp and slid back into darkness.

  More grasping hands emerging from gaping hatchways, scrabbling like spiders. Snapping skull faces.

  Voss pulled the pin from a frag grenade and dropped it into the dark interior of the APC. He heard it clang and clatter. He jumped clear.

  Muffled blast. A jet of smoke from every vent and hatch. The hull resonated like a gong. The sound echoed round the high valley walls, and died slow.

  ‘How you doing?’ asked Lucy.

  ‘All right,’ said Amanda. She massaged her leg. ‘Riding the codeine wave.’

  The sun high over the valley walls. Merciless, lacerating light. The carriage was starting to bake.

  They watched the trucks lurch across wasteland towards the locomotive. They could hear the distant engine rev and labour. The vehicles kicked up a high dust plume.

  Amanda looked up at the drone.

  ‘They must know there are people alive down here. Someone in Baghdad is watching us close-up. Examining every hair follicle and skin pore. Toying with us, like a kid frying ants with a magnifying glass.’

  ‘They want us dead. We are a loose end. This whole operation is a bleed they want to tie off and cauterise. Soon as we get back to Baghdad, we switch to fake ID. Destroy dog tags, credit cards, anything with our names. Collect our shit from the Rasheed, then vanish.’

  ‘Damn,’ said Amanda. ‘Check it out. The citadel.’

  Lucy raised her binoculars. She f
ocused. Half-dead soldiers were staggering and crawling from the citadel gate. A wraith army, relentlessly dragging themselves across sun-blasted terrain.

  ‘Christ. Jabril’s battalion, coming out to play. Looks like they heard the trucks. Fifty, maybe sixty men. They’re heading this way. Moving slow, but they’ll hit us soon enough.’

  ‘How many rounds do we have?’

  ‘Five or six in the AK. Half a clip in the pistol.’

  ‘Let Gaunt and Voss hook up the fuel line,’ said Amanda. ‘We’ll pump some gas and get the hell out of here.’

  Hook-Up

  Faint radio crackle. The sat phone lay on a table.

  ‘Roger that. Climb and level at one-eight-zero. Heading hold.’

  Lucy picked up the handset.

  ‘Must be locked on a secure channel,’ said Amanda.

  ‘Hello? Hello? Can you hear us? This is Lucy Whyte. There are British and American citizens at your target site. Do you copy?’

  No response.

  ‘There are wounded personnel at your target site requesting urgent evacuation, over.’

  No response.

  ‘Hello? Incoming plane, do you copy?’

  ‘Reckon they can hear us?’ asked Amanda.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Unbelievable. They’re going to kill us. They know we are here. They’re going to drop the bomb anyway.’

  ‘It’s a pay cheque.’

  Lucy shielded her eyes from the sun. She watched the vehicles two hundred yards distant, slowly lurching over lunar terrain, kicking up a high dust plume. She could hear the cash truck strain and grind.

  She could see Gaunt in the cab, hunched over the wheel.

  Voss walking beside the bank truck, ghost-white with dust. He turned and delivered an efficient headshot to soldiers following the gouge-trench left by the damaged tanker.

  Lucy hooked the TASC earpiece to her lobe.

  ‘How’s it going, Voss?’

  ‘Jesus. Lucy.’

  He tried to work out her position. He checked out the locomotive and scanned the valley walls.

  ‘Bet you thought we got buried with Jabril.’