But deep down he knew the real reason was something else. By this point, two of “the enemy” had shown him mercy and spared him. Which was two more kindnesses than anyone in Spetsnaz had ever shown him. He had been fighting for people who despised and abused him. Worse, he had been fighting for a system that valued spite and abuse, that required the grinding down of any human feeling or compassion.
And he could no longer believe in such a system.
To his left, he could see the safari truck accelerating and pulling in front of them. The driver, collapsed over the wheel, must have had his foot on the accelerator. Now it was both passing…
And veering back in toward the plane.
* * *
“Hey!” Hailey shouted. “Army!” She was referring to Kate by service branch – the only identifier she had for her, because it was embroidered on the front of her baseball cap. She was also the only other person Hailey could see nearby, due to her being right behind the flight deck, blocking her view of the cabin.
“Yeah,” Kate said, half-turning.
Hailey just pointed out the cockpit glass – at the hovering helo now directly in their path – and arched her eyebrows.
Kate’s eyes went wide. “Well what the hell do you want me to do about it?”
Hailey just gritted her teeth and stabbed a finger at Kate’s rifle.
Kate shook her head and raised her own eyebrows. But then she squinted out ahead again. She had actually seen that helicopter before – and she had seen it from pretty damned close up. It was, without question, the one she had seen in the Stronghold battle. And the same one that had later attacked their convoy, and so grievously wounded Zack. But she also remembered what Zack had done to it first with the 50-cal minigun, before he fell.
And she said, “You know what, I might actually be able to do something about that…”
She jerked her handgun from its drop-leg holster, reversed it, and handed it to Hailey so she could defend herself. Hardly looking over, Hailey just jabbed a thumb at her own M9 in its shoulder holster.
Kate shrugged, holstered hers, spun, raised her rifle, and opened her mouth, intending to shout at the dude in the turban to get the hell out of her way so she could fire out the front hatch. But her mouth just hung open, wordless.
He was already gone.
Play in the Yard
Dash 8 – Main Cabin
By the time Noise had reloaded and hung himself back out the front hatch, he could see Pred standing in the bed of the open-top Humvee, the limp body gone, thank God for that. But now he was climbing up on the roll bars, with the evident intention of leaping back over to the plane.
Okay, that makes sense, Noise thought. But wait a second…
Who the hell was that driving the Humvee? It was clearly a Russian, and Noise took aim at him, but quickly realized that – whatever that guy’s story – killing him would be doing Pred no favors. And there was also still at least one other enemy vehicle out there. It was that same SUV, the one he’d marked with a 12-gauge viewport in the windshield, and it was coming up again, guys leaning out the windows to fire at Pred.
Who was now vulnerable as he tried to climb back across.
The SUV was coming up on the outside, and Pred was closer to the plane, meaning Noise didn’t have to shoot around his giant friend. So he went big again, holstering the pistol, bringing the AA12 up to his shoulder, and thumbing the selector back to full-auto. But by the time he’d done that, the SUV had swerved in again – too little margin for safety, and no time to switch weapons again. So once again Noise grabbed the left edge of the hatch, hung his ass way out in the breeze – and sighted in and unloaded, one-handed.
This time, under a full-auto assault, the SUV’s windshield went away entirely, and with the driver almost certainly dead, the steering went wobbly and the truck began to decelerate, falling back fast. Noise kept firing until his bolt locked back, and then nodded, content. That was his very last drum mag for the shotgun.
But he’d spent it well.
And Pred had disappeared inside the rear hatch – safe.
The plane lurched and bounced again, like it had just been kicked by Paul Bunyan. Noise’s grip failed.
And he tumbled out the hatch of the hurtling plane.
* * *
With the Russian driving, Pred had been able to heave Handon in through the rear hatch – and then climb up and across himself. He felt bad not thanking the driver, but then again not all that bad, and not for long. Because once back inside, he instantly saw his brother, Juice, down on the deck – with Misha straddling him and choking him out.
And his brother’s face was turning blue.
Stepping over Handon’s limp form, Pred hauled Misha to his feet and hurled the huge man into the opposite bulkhead.
The entire cabin shook from the impact – again.
* * *
Ali had managed to roll back onto her stomach and reload, after driving off the Black Shark – and also gotten herself a safe distance from the running engine and its newly spinning propeller blades. She was now devising the safest plan for getting back inside the aircraft, ideally before it left the ground…
When the whole plane jolted violently again, the wing dipped – and she slid across its rain-slick surface and over the edge. At the last second, she jammed the fingers of her left hand into the gap between wing and flap, arresting her descent. Still, she was now hanging off the wing by one hand, holding her rifle with the other. And from down here, she also had a view in through the cabin windows in back.
Inside, she could see two men – who together were the size of four or five men – hurling each other around the cabin like King Kong battling Godzilla. The shocks of this were still bouncing and vibrating the airframe, making Ali’s task of hauling herself back up even harder than it already was. Finally, she pulled herself back up, collapsed on her stomach, then hit her radio.
“Hey! Can you kids go play in the yard!?”
Looking up, she saw a Humvee with an open bed blast by underneath her and the wing, then swerve back in front of the plane’s nose. It was out of sight before she could raise her weapon to engage.
She was surprised to hear Pred answer: “Sorry. Over.”
* * *
Alone again on the flight deck, still accelerating like a suicidal maniac toward take-off, Hailey squinted at the attack helo that still blocked their path. The female soldier had left – but when she had been in here looking at it, Hailey would have sworn some light of recognition had flashed in her eyes.
Now it flashed in Hailey’s, too.
Because as they closed the distance, she could see that it was an attack helo – and ID it as a Kamov Ka-50 Black Shark. It was conceivable the Russians had two of these. But Hailey knew in her bones they didn’t. It was completely impossible, but it was also undeniable: this was the same sonofabitching Black Shark – and the same smart, deadly, unkillable pilot – that had shot her ass down just a few hours ago and a couple hundred miles southeast of there.
Only back then Hailey had been in a last-generation stealth jet fighter, going 400mph, and firing ASRAAM missiles. Now she was in an unarmed turbo-prop cargo plane galumphing along the ground. What the hell kind of chance did she have against it now?
This was not her idea of a rematch.
The Black Shark hovered there, fat and happy, pointing its menacing array of weapons – autocannon, Vikhr missiles, and rockets – straight at Hailey’s face, and at the totally vulnerable airplane around and behind her. And Hailey had already had a Vikhr explode in her face once today. Even if the Russian pilot chose not to turn the plane into flaming wreckage and kill everyone on board, there was no way they were taking off through it.
And there wasn’t a damned thing Hailey could do about it.
No, their only chance was ‘Army’ – the soldier she’d just sent out there to engage this thing with her individual weapon. The M4 would perhaps be more deadly than a smack across the belly with a wet mackerel
. But not a whole hell of a lot more.
Hailey figured they were pretty well doomed.
And then an open-bed Humvee swerved out directly in her path.
* * *
Fick had managed to knock one of Badger’s knives loose, by slamming it repeatedly into his own head – or helmet, rather. And he’d hung onto his own K-Bar. So it was something more like a fair fight.
Now each held the other’s knife hand with his free one, while their two bodies rolled and tumbled on the deck – into the bulkhead on one side, and the unmoving form of Wesley on the other, all while Baxter and Warchild circled and fought beside them.
Fick definitely had the advantage in upper-body strength. But the young Russian had speed, in spades, and he was slippery as a son of a bitch. He managed to dodge Fick’s head butts, then get his legs around Fick’s waist and pin him in a way that Brady no doubt would have approved of. But Brady wasn’t here, and Fick wasn’t impressed.
He had to get out from under this asshole.
* * *
“You,” Pred said, as Misha bounced off the bulkhead, pointing his finger at the giant, muscle-bound, tattooed, heavily bandaged, and now slightly stunned Russian. Misha nodded as he squared up, as if to agree.
Yep – just me and you.
Now, almost at the very back of the plane, it was a cage-match gorilla fight. After bouncing off the bulkhead, Misha managed to get a knife clear. But, once again, in the cage with a Predator, it was as if this was beside the point. Pred struck the outside of Misha’s hand so hard the knife flew halfway up the cabin. Then he stepped in and punched Misha so hard in the side of his head that his whole body bounced off the bulkhead again. It was a good thing he was contemptuous of pain, because he was suddenly getting to experience a great deal of it.
Misha lowered his head and came straight back again.
This time Pred planted his feet, drew himself up to his full height, and power-punched straight down into the top of Misha’s skull with his full weight and force, driving the Russian down into the deck like a hydraulic pile driver. But Misha got up again, smiling, each time rising up from under blows that would have put lesser men in the hospital – possibly never to come out again.
And it was starting to look as if Misha was neither going to lose consciousness nor give up – ever. And Pred was simply going to have to beat him to death with his bare hands. But stealing a glance at Handon down on the deck – still bound, pale, and unresponsive – and Juice, nearby, slowly coming back to life, struggling to breathe, and trying to regain his feet – Pred realized…
He was okay with that.
* * *
Once again, it didn’t take long for Fick to tire of Badger’s bullshit. Instead of finding a way out from under him, he simply powered back up to his feet, taking the wiry Russian up with him. Before Badger could decide whether to unwrap his legs from Fick’s waist, the Marine smashed him into the bulkhead, and he fell to the deck.
Fick stepped back to reset – which was all the time the speed-freak Russian needed to regain his feet, bring his one knife back up, produce a third one from somewhere, and come at Fick again.
Jesus, Fick thought, I’m really tired.
He stole a glance to his left, where it looked like Baxter was getting his ass kicked by a dude even older than he was – one with a salt-and-pepper crewcut, at any rate.
This helmet’s done its job, Fick thought, and now it’s just pissing me off. He unsnapped it, and as Badger charged, he hurled it at the eel-like Russian with all his force. It caught him full in the face, and stopped his charge dead.
And now Fick charged again – K-Bar first.
* * *
Baxter seriously doubted the muzzle strike trick was going to work again – ever – so he found himself retreating as Warchild advanced, serious and deadly as an Ebola outbreak. Baxter was worried about tripping over something, guessing correctly that he’d never recover from it. But instead he made the fatal error of glancing behind him.
That’s all it took.
He never even saw the strike, but merely felt a searing pain in his right upper arm. Warchild had just laid it open with the sharp edge of his entrenching tool. Now he was coming in from the other side, and Baxter desperately tried to get his rifle around to block the strike. He did, but Warchild just grabbed the rifle with his free hand and swung Baxter around him, the younger man stumbling and panicked – not least because he was suddenly no longer between the Russian and the cockpit, which was his whole job.
“Dude! You’re falling down on the job, bro.”
And as Baxter went by, a wicked swipe of the Russian’s shovel in close quarters laid open his cheek – and sliced his helmet strap clean in two. His helmet slid off as, half-dazed and blind with pain, he tripped on the unconscious form of Wesley, his feet tangling up. Warchild was still hanging onto his rifle barrel, but Baxter somehow managed to get his knife clear, and lunged. The blade went home – right into Warchild’s front ceramic plate, where it stopped dead. As Baxter wobbled, the grizzled Russian let the rifle go, then just stepped out of his way, as Baxter fell headfirst into a protruding panel on the bulkhead.
He bounced off it, dazed, and grabbed at the wall to hold himself up. But his vision was swimming, and he was already slumping to the deck. Warchild simply walked past him, and Baxter mustered his strength for a final knife strike – right into the Russian’s back ceramic plate, where it was again stopped dead.
His vision flashed white, then black, and Baxter collapsed in a bleeding pile of young, beaten, wannabe operator. Warchild paused and looked back at him for one second, but then turned forward.
He had better shit to do farther up the aircraft.
Holy Fucking Shit
Djibouti Airport – Runway
To his substantial surprise, Noise found himself alive after falling from the plane. He had landed not on a section of hard tarmac moving 80mph relative to him – but in the open bed of a vehicle moving the same speed. It was the safari truck, which a dead man had driven up underneath the hatch right next to him, without him ever looking down and seeing it.
Now all Noise had to do was get the dude with the boneless-chicken head out of the driver’s seat. This didn’t prove to be the safest task Noise had ever performed in his military career, nor the most pleasant. But it got done. Now he was in the driver’s seat, but also at a loss about how to get back on the plane. He couldn’t both drive and jump.
And then he saw what had to be the last operational Spetsnaz vehicle out here, an open-bed Humvee, roaring up from the opposite side of the plane and falling in directly in front. He knew their pilot now faced a bad choice. The 5,000-pound Humvee wouldn’t fare well in a fender-bender with a 50,000-pound Dash 8. But the prospects of the plane taking off with that thing under its wheels were dim at best.
Noise saw the brake lights of the Humvee come on. They were going to try to rodeo the plane to a stop. Noise also saw the 50-cal gunner in the bed turn around – and instantly spot him.
Shit. There was no time for thought, planning, or subtlety.
He jammed the accelerator into the floorboards, spun the wheel to the right with one hand, aimed his vehicle at theirs at the highest speed he could attain – and drew his side arm and fired over the windscreen at the 50-gunner, who was trying to turn, depress his barrel, and engage…
Noise’s safari truck crashed into the rear left wheel of the Humvee with enough mass and force to bring the back end around and spin it out. Even this heavy, low-slung truck, with its gigantic knobby tires, went skidding and screeching out of the path of the plane, with the safari truck pirouetting around it, two dancers sliding into eternity, or at least the right edge of the runway.
Noise fought the wheel with one hand, while he continued firing over the windscreen at the Russians in the Humvee, with which he was now joined at the hip. When the weapon went dry, he dropped the empty mag out, and managed to verify with his spinning vision that the plane had roared past them and was
now out of jeopardy.
Noise’s situation was a different matter. But it didn’t matter.
The others were away.
* * *
Hailey boggled at the high-speed highway crash happening right under the nose of the plane. So much for that Humvee, then – in the end, it had only been in her way for six seconds. Though the attack helo was still right there in their path, and coming up fast.
The hell with it. Hailey decided to go for broke. If they didn’t lift off, they were all dead anyway. She kept the throttle down and felt the nose start to lift.
This was it.
* * *
Just behind the flight deck, at the front hatch, Kate did her best Cartman impression: “Oh, you sons of bitches…” She had just realized she was going to have to shoot left-handed if she wanted to aim forward out a left-side hatch. She extended her sling, got the rifle into an unfamiliar grip – and tried to sight in. This basically made her already impossible shot whatever impossible squared was.
But she had to try.
Not only did they have no other choice, but she also knew something about this helo that might actually make it vulnerable to small-arms fire. She put her left eye to her ACOG 4x sight and struggled even to hold the helicopter in it. But as she smoothed out both her breathing and footing, the sight picture settled – and she could even see the pilot inside the cockpit.
And, yep, it was the same vicious bitch she had stupidly spared back at the Stronghold, when she so easily could have taken her out. The same one who later wounded Zack, perhaps mortally – making that Kate’s fault, her guilt and burden. And also making this, as unlikely as it was, their third encounter. Kate knew there was no chance of shooting through the armor glass, even cracked as it was. But when she panned down and left, she could see it was still there – the missile bent at the crazy angle, with its metal casing half peeled away.
She took a shot on it. Nothing.
Another – same result.
She took a deep breath. She released half of it. She felt the motion of the hurtling plane, becoming one with it.
ARISEN, Book Twelve - Carnage Page 32
