Aiden looked up in alarm, but Rico had a huge smile on his face, his excitement evident.
Suarez reached into his assault pack and pulled out a wallet, taking out two 20’s and a 10. “Here you go, my man. This is yours,” he said, handing the bills to Aiden.
“Hey, he wasn’t in on the bet,” Dontrell said.
“No matter. He beat all of us.”
“He’s right,” Rico said. “Kaas here, he won fair and square. He gets the mula.”
“But . . . I mean . . . ah, fuck. You’re right,” Dontrell said. “I’ll get you back at the SWA, 50 bucks, Kaas. I gotta say you don’t look like much, but you are one seriously badass motherfucker.”
He held up his hand, and Aiden automatically reached over to complete the high five. He had absolutely no idea what had happened or how it had happened, but he was going to relish it until he fell back into the real universe.
Chapter 6
Hozan swept the floor, keeping an eye on the four Marines as they gathered their things. He didn’t work there, but no one bothered to question an Iraqi with a broom. It was pretty lax security, but something that he would take advantage of. He’d come into the gym to watch Aiden Kaas, as he’d discovered the young Marine’s name, trying to determine just how far he was along. He needed to report this to the Council, but he wanted to make sure he had all the information first.
Kaas was not the most impressive Marine he’d seen at the camp. He was physically weak, and from what Hozan had been able to glean, he was somewhat of a coward. This did not portend well for the Tribe if the Marine survived the transformation. He didn’t have the personal characteristics to be a benefit to his kind.
It was evident, though, that the Seed had taken. The incident with the weights was proof of that. Hozan had hoped against hope that what he had smelled in the DFAC was the lingering scent of another of the Tribe, that no Seed was actually in the man’s body. That hope was quashed when the Marine had made the lift. The surprise on his face was a clear indication that this was a new ability, something brought on by the Seed.
Hozan had eyes only for this Aiden as the four Marines left. The young man was laughing, enjoying the company, but he had the air of a puppy, wanting to play but being fearful of being kicked again. In a way, that reminded him of his dead Zmnako, his son. Zmnako had been a quiet boy, someone without friends. Without Hozan arranging his marriage, Zmnako would probably never have found a wife, never had a family. But marriage had seemed to mature him, turn him into a strong, caring husband and father. Not that it mattered now, after Saddam had killed him.
Hozan wondered if the Seed could change the young man. He doubted the Marine would get the chance. Even if the Council decided to let him live, he probably would not survive the transformation, the tipping point when the Seed had to overcome the body’s built-in defenses. Only the strong survived it, and Aiden Kaas was not internally strong. The Seed was already changing him, making him physically stronger so he could lift barbells, for example. But when his white blood cells, particularly the T cells and phagocytes, finally recognized the threat and mustered up an army to attack the Seed, it took a strength of will to survive, something the Marine seemed to be lacking.
It was probably a moot point. It was doubtful that Aiden Kaas would even get that far. The Council would probably order Hozan to kill the man before the transformation even began.
Chapter 7
Aiden had broken his Cardinal Rule #1: never, never, ever volunteer. He’d no idea why he’d done it, and now, he was regretting opening up his big fat mouth. He peered ahead, looking for any sign of the enemy, any sign of an IED,[18] any sign of anything that could hurt him. Snake was so much better at this, so much more experienced. So why, after four months of hiding in the shadows, had he decided to go all macho, all GI Joe?
It had seemed so easy at the time. They’d gotten their op order, a fairly routine mission to check out a suspected mujahideen safe house. Second Squad was the support element and would lead the platoon to the objective while Third Squad would conduct the actual assault. His own First Fire Team led the movement to contact.
When Cpl Ruddy had started to tell them their order of march, Aiden surprised everyone, including himself, when he spoke up, saying, “I’ll take point.”
The entire squad looked at him in amazement. His one previous time on point ended when he had moved so slowly that he’d been replaced. That had been by design. He figured they’d just let him be, making Snake or Wilson point as a matter of routine, and he’d been right. So why did he volunteer to take his turn? It had been a sort of oorah moment when he’d said it, but now, he regretted that moment of bravado.
He stopped his movement. Was that a wire ahead of them, partially buried in the dirt? He motioned for Snake to come up.
“What d’ya got?” he asked Aiden.
“Right there, alongside the road. Is that an IED wire?” Aiden asked the more experienced Marine.
Right then, a gust of wind picked up the piece of trash, blowing down the street.
Snake rolled his eyes. “No, it’s a piece of plastic bag, and it’s gone. So let’s keep moving. We need to get there sometime before next year, Kaas,” he said, not even trying to keep the tone of exasperation out of his voice.
Aiden took a deep breath and started forward again. To him, every doorway held a hajji, every alley a mujahideen suicide bomber. A point man needed to be cautious, needed to be on the alert, but he knew he was taking it too far. Another couple of blocks though, and they would be at the objective and Third Squad would take over.
Aiden wondered what had come over him lately. He’d been more aggressive, like taking on Dontrell, even volunteering for point. He felt different, too. He knew he was stronger, but there was also an antsy feeling that he couldn’t pinpoint, almost like an itch he couldn’t scratch, but an itch covering his entire body. His senses were odd, too. He thought he was more sensitive to light, and he could swear his sense of smell was better.
There was a brief flicker of movement inside a window up ahead. He focused in on the window, but he couldn’t see anything. It had just been a tiny movement, almost too small to pick up. He looked back at Snake, wondering if he should call him up. After only a moment, he decided to forge on. He’d been bothered lately by little things. Any movement seemed to jump up at capture his attention. He vision was the same, best that he could tell, but he would zero in on any movement at all, no matter how small. He decided that this was probably just another manifestation of that.
He took a glance back at the rest of the platoon, at least at as much as was visible. He was still keyed up, still nervous, but at the same time, he felt a bit of pride. Here he was, Aiden Kaas, the proverbial fuck-up, leading almost 40 men into combat. He wondered what Teri would say to that.
Could the great Ben Souter do that? Hell no!
He imagined walking up to the two of them, then just casually dropping that bomb. Sure, he’d been in charge of 40 Marines, leading them into battle. He was their commander. Ben would drop his eyes when he heard that. Teri, though, she would look up at him in wonderment. And then Ben—
The machine gun opening up on them erased his thought of whatever Ben Souter would have done. Aiden had let his mind wander, and so he had never caught the signs of an impending attack. He’d failed in his mission.
When Marines were ambushed, the key was to get out of the kill zone. That might have meant charging the ambush or taking cover, if there was any. In this case, moving up an urban road, the choice was to vault over the walls of the homes lining the road, landing in the courtyards in front of the homes. Aiden, Snake, Wilson, and Cpl Ruddy all made it over into the same courtyard along with LCpl Mark Peterson, a Marine from Third Fire Team.
Snake immediately got back up from where he’d fallen, stood up on a small table, and fired a burst from his SAW back at the unseen machine gun. Other Marine weapons opened up as well, joining in the response.
“Kaas, cover our six!” Cpl Ru
ddy told him before joining Snake on the table so he could see what was going on.
Just because there was contact from in front of them didn’t mean there wasn’t anyone behind them. The occupants of the house might not take kindly to Marines in their courtyard, or combatants could be swinging around to come up their butts while the machine gun pinned them in position. Aiden switched his focus from Snake putting rounds downrange to the house not five meters from where he lay in the dust. He really wanted to stay down, hugging the ground, but that would not put him in position to do anything if anyone one did hit them. And as much as he normally preferred to stay out of any action, when it came down to it, if it was between a hajji and him, he would do what he had to do. He got off his stomach and came to his knees, M16 at the ready. Beside him, Wilson moved over the metal gate in the courtyard wall and started to fire out the small gap where the gate married up with the wall.
Cpl Ruddy was shouting with Sgt Rickman, who was with the rest of Third Fire Team in the adjoining courtyard, coordinating a response. The sergeant had comms with the rest of the platoon, and it sounded like Second Squad was on the other side of the street and maneuvering forward. The squad leader wanted max firepower going downrange, fixing the bad guys in place until Second could assault though. According to the plan, it should have been Third Squad doing the assault, but the best laid plans of mice and men. . .
Aiden thought he heard a shout inside the home, but with Snake’s SAW chattering away only a few feet from his left ear, it was hard to tell. He figured it was his overactive imagination. At least he hoped that was what it was. His neck was on a swivel as he scanned each window. Out beyond the courtyard, he was vaguely aware of the shouts of commands and of firing as other Marines maneuvered and fought. That was out there, though. Aiden’s battle consisted of the small, 10m X 5m courtyard, the wall at his back, and the three-story house in front of him.
Most of the windows in the house were open, curtains fluttering listlessly in the breeze. That made it harder for Aiden to pick up any sign of movement, but when something caught his attention at a second-story window, that was enough for his keyed-up nerves. He didn’t know what it was, whether it was a non-combatant merely trying to see what was going on or a trained Al Qaeda insurgent. Either way, Aiden fired a burst of three rounds inside the window, the first rounds he’d fired in anger in the country. He doubted that he had hit anything given the angle, but if there was someone up there, that should make him keep his head down.
“What d’ya got, Kaas?” Cpl Ruddy asked.
“I’m not sure. I thought I saw something.”
“‘Thought you saw’ or did see?” the team leader asked him.
“I don’t know. I think there was someone. Yeah, I’m pretty sure of that.”
“John, join Kaas. We could have bad guys trying to flank us,” he told Wilson.
The lance corporal pulled his barrel from the gap and swung around. He took a step towards Aiden when a shot rang out from inside the building. Wilson stumbled and fell.
Even after more than four months of combat, Second Squad hadn’t suffered a single casualty. The platoon had, the company had, and Aiden had attended the fallen Marines’ and the one Navy corpsman’s hero ceremonies, but he hadn’t been close to any of them. To be honest, he wasn’t close to anyone in his squad, either, but he lived with them shared berthing with them. That made a difference.
Aiden stared in shock at Wilson curled in a fetal ball on the ground not even four feet away, his bright red blood bringing a vivid contrast to the washed-out colors of the courtyard. Aiden could already smell the coppery tang of the blood.
Aiden was frozen for only a moment before a fire started burning inside of him. Aiden didn’t really like Wilson. The West Virginia Marine had never tried to hide his contempt for Aiden. But Wilson was one of them. The squad was Aiden’s family, his group, his pack, and to see him down brought forth feelings Aiden never thought were inside of him. An irresistible sense of anger exploded in his chest, expanding along the pathways of his nerves until it filled every cubic inch of his body. His skin burned, feeling like it was somehow constricting him. His mind jumped to a show he’d seen on Discovery about some sort of bug that lived underground for 17 years before it crawled out and split its skin to emerge as a different creature. A cicada, he remembered, that’s what it was. That was how Aiden felt. He needed to burst free from what he was.
Of course, a man couldn’t burst free from his skin like that, so action had to suffice. With a primeval shout, he got up and rushed the front door, smashing it with his shoulder, only dimly aware of Cpl Ruddy’s shout behind him.
Iraqi homes were shoddily constructed, as a rule, but the front doors tended to be pretty sturdy. There was no way Aiden should have been able to break in, but as he hit the door, the entire jamb broke free, the door crashing to the floor within.
Three men, dressed in the black that the mujahideen favored, were just to his right, a few feet back of the window through which one of them had probably shot Wilson. All three were armed, but the suddenness of Aiden’s entry confused them.
With a wordless roar, Aiden charged them, firing his M16 from the hip. Not one of his rounds hit home. If the mujahideen had been able to keep their composure, the three of them could have dropped Aiden. But there was something in men, perhaps encoded from when homo erectus first started spreading around the world and sat huddled around a fire at night that evoked fear when the howling of wolves reached out to them, when the chuffing of lions seemed to search for them in the dark. Instead of jumping into the fight, when this howling apparition came bursting in the house, two of the men took steps back as the fight-or-flight instinct swung decidedly to the flight end of the scale. Even the third man, someone made of sterner stuff, hesitated before trying to bring his AK47[19] to bear. That hesitation cost him his life.
It didn’t matter that Aiden’s rounds didn’t even come close. He came close, instead. He reached the insurgent who was trying to raise his weapon, knocking it down with one hand, and using his own M16 as a lance, he drove the muzzled smack into man’s face, forcing the barrel right through the man’s nose and out the back of his head. Blood gushed, covering Aiden. He held up the dead body for a moment before letting go of the weapon, the mujahideen falling into a heap on the floor. He turned around to look at the other two.
One of the other insurgents stood still, the way a rabbit might in order to avoid detection. Any degree of invisibility was spoiled by the dark, growing wetness staining his crotch. His eyes were wide, his mouth open.
The second man was making his own primeval sounds—not those of a hunter, though, but those of prey. He turned to run.
Aiden grabbed the fallen insurgent’s AK, and taking it by the barrel, jumped forward, swinging the weapon like an axe. The butt of the weapon hit the ceiling at the apex of the swing, but that didn’t stop its inexorable descent. The stock came down to crash into the juncture of the man’s neck and shoulder, crushing through the collar bone like it was silly putty. The wooden stock broke under the impact, a chunk flying off, but most of it was lodged in the man’s ribcage, his heart and left lung crushed. Aiden felt a thrill of power as the body went down, one leg kicking twice before going still.
In back of him, the third mujahideen let out a small whisper, more of a whimper, as he prayed for salvation. Aiden turned to look at the man. Somewhere deep inside of him, he felt pity for the man. There was even a hint of empathy in there. But that was quickly subsumed in a tsunami of anger. This man had killed one of Aiden’s own, one of his family.
Aiden reached out for the man whose eyes got wider as the hands closed around his neck. Only when he began to squeeze did the man begin to struggle. Aiden was shorter than the man by at least six inches, and with the floor slick with blood and urine, both of them slipped and went down. Without letting go, Aiden maneuvered himself up and astride the belly of the prone man. He brought the man’s head up and smashed it back down on the floor. Once, twice�
��the insurgent’s hands fell away. Aiden didn’t stop. He kept raising the man’s upper body and slamming it back down, each blow taking out chunks of the back of the man’s head. Aiden heard the neck snap, and the head, or what was left of it, flopped loosely.
Aiden was only peripherally aware of hands trying to pull him off. He was in a danger zone, violence spewing out, but even then, he knew the hands were good hands, part of this tribe, his pack. He smashed the head down several more times before he stopped, letting the others help him up.
He looked around at the others, blood dripping off of him. Outside, the firing had stopped. The insurgent machine gunners had either bugged out or had been taken. The fight was over. Looking out the window, he could see Doc Hainz working on Wilson, and that seemed to calm him, to bring him back down. Inside, five Marines were standing there, staring.
“You OK, Kaas?” Cpl Ruddy asked him in a numb-sounding voice.
“Yeah, sure, why?” he replied.
He looked around for his weapon before remembering where it was. He took a few steps over to the dead mujahideen, the first one he’d killed. The feeling of power that had infused his body was gone, and he had to tug a couple of times to free his M16 from the guy’s skull, shaking off bits of brain and bone matter. He held it up, and the bend in the vanadium steel barrel was evident.
“Uh, Cpl Ruddy, I think I need a new M16. Am I going to get in trouble for that?” he asked.
Chapter 8
From a rooftop across the street, Hozan sat down from where he’d been watching. Things were coming to a head, and a decision had to be made soon.
He hadn’t shown up for work today and had instead followed the patrol out to observe. It wasn’t necessarily the smartest thing to do. His kind had an ability to move unnoticed, but with a platoon of Marines in combat, with their heightened senses, he could just as easily have been spotted. He could have “bugged out,” as the Marines called it, if he had been spotted, but a lifetime of trying to remain unobserved made it difficult for him to purposely risk it.
The Werewolf of Marines Trilogy Page 4
