“There’s someone out in the forest – and they’ve got eyes on us.”
“Who?”
Ali knew who it was. She just couldn’t prove it. “Unknown at this time. Unknown numbers and disposition.” She paused before tacking on editorial commentary. “But we only know one other force that’s been poking around Africa lately. And, whoever it is, there’s definitely someone out there looking at us. We’re not as safe here as we thought. So whatever play we’re going to run, I suggest we do it fast.”
“On me,” Handon said to Ali. Turning to the others, he said, “Get to work on the assault plan. I’ll be back in fifteen.”
* * *
Four minutes later, the two of them were up on the crown of the mountain, laid out by Ali’s rifle. She pointed out to Handon where she saw whatever she’d seen in the forest below.
“Okay, got it,” he said. “But that’s not why I came up here.”
Ali nodded. She’d figured, and figured he’d get to it.
Now he filled her in on everything she’d missed that morning, from the impossible and discarded plans for assaulting the Stronghold to their one potentially viable plan – including its one inconceivable option: using the Warsangali children as an expendable diversionary force. And finally to the prospect of just calling up and asking if they could have Patient Zero.
“Yeah, that’s a tough one,” she said when he finished. She was mainly glad this wasn’t her decision. But she also knew Handon had come to rely on her, and more importantly, to trust her judgement. She figured he was confiding in her now because he knew with her he didn’t have to be utterly resolved, and free of doubt, as he did around the rest of the team.
He said, “We’ve gotten burned too many times.”
She knew what he meant: by trusting other people. Trying to help those girls on the pirate boat, for instance. But that made her think of Emily, the girl they had rescued – and also her sister, the one they hadn’t. And some part of Ali, one she didn’t totally trust, wanted to tell Handon to have faith in humanity, to trust, just one more time.
She looked across at him, draped in his heavy mantle of leadership and loneliness. And she herself felt the burden of whatever she was going to say next – because she knew he would probably listen to her. And whatever they did next was going to have eternal consequences, and not just for everyone on the two teams.
For everyone left alive.
* * *
“Make the call,” Handon said, striding back into the team tent, which also held Triple Nickel’s set radio. For better and worse, the tent was occupied by Jake, Baxter – and Henno.
Henno stood up to his full height, opened up his chest, and angled his head toward Handon. “We can’t trust these fucking al-Shabaab guys,” he said. “Fuck sake, we can’t even trust these guys.” He nodded at Jake. “No offense.”
“None taken,” Jake said. Then he also stepped toward Handon. “Because you’re right. Trusting al-Sîf would be a huge mistake. That son of a bitch has got a lot of blood on his hands. Including my teammates – and some of my closest friends.”
Handon understood that. He really did. But he also knew Jake’s history with al-Sîf, and his emotions about it, couldn’t be the basis for this decision. He looked back and forth between Jake and Henno, who were both in his face now.
“This is an operational decision,” he said. “I have operational command and authority. And I’m making this decision based on operational and tactical considerations. Even assuming we distract the singularity long enough to get in, a frontal assault on that Stronghold is likely to fail. Which means the mission fails. That makes this a better option. And a risk worth taking.”
He turned to Baxter and said it again.
“Make the call.”
Islamist Asshats
The Al-Shabaab Stronghold, Galmudug, Central Somalia
Al-Sîf pushed a pile of papers away from him across the desk. He never would have taken this job if he knew paperwork was involved. He could read and write well enough – unlike most of the Islamist asshats who made up the rank-and-file of al-Shabaab. But, then again, he didn’t really care to spend the rest of his days doing it.
And, especially lately, the days seemed to pass very slowly. Ever since he had inherited Sheik Godane’s empire, the long hours of the post-Apocalypse had hung heavy upon him. It didn’t help that they were penned inside by the dead, and couldn’t go anywhere or do anything, for the last six months.
Al-Sîf was trapped in this horrible place, in this shitty job, leading these brain-dead religious nutjobs.
He had been part of al-Shabaab for a long time, steadily rising in its ranks, all the way to his current perch at the top of what was left of the movement. But he had never been a believer – not in jihad, not in the restoration of the Caliphate… not even in God, for that matter. No, al-Sîf was not really a Muslim, of any kind – radical, violent, moderate, peaceful.
He knew religion was all bullshit.
But an Islamist insurgency, lavishly funded by the Saudis and al-Qaeda, had simply been the best way for him – a fierce and skilled fighter, and a savvy thinker – to get ahead. Somalia hadn’t been overflowing with economic opportunities for young men.
After Sheik Ali Rage Godane finally died – a long, slow, painful death, failing to recover after having his body riddled with large-caliber bullets – al-Sîf had imagined he could perhaps reshape the operation along more rational lines. But every time he tried to make anyone around here do anything, they invariably replied, “Insh’allah.” And every time he suggested an innovative new practice or technique, they always said, “It is not in the Q’uran, so there is no need for it.”
On such occasions, al-Sîf had cursed inside his head: Okay, I’ve had it with this. Screw these prayer-monkeys – I’m out of here.
But of course he wasn’t out of there – because there was nowhere else to go. And no way to get there. There was really only one other place left in the world – Britain. And it may as well have been the moon, for all the likelihood of al-Sîf getting there. Actually, he had been to Britain once, to visit his cousins in Bradford, in West Yorkshire. And he had spent long enough to know that Britain was a rational place, run along rational lines. And he ardently wished he was there now. He knew he had more in common with the British than with his Somali troops here.
Hell, he had more in common with the American special operators than he did with his own guys. Those ones in Special Forces, and in the more elite units, those were his natural allies – strong, smart, and clear-eyed. They knew how to fight, and they knew how to survive. He’d always respected them, even as he fought them.
Now al-Sîf looked across the dim room, filled with the smell of must, dirt, and damp, over to the table with the American military radio they had taken from the destroyed truck Triple Nickel abandoned inside their walls. It sat beside a team radio they’d pulled off one of the dead soldiers. Two others were being used by sentries up in the guard towers, high above this underground prison.
Al-Sîf decided to go up and walk the walls.
* * *
After climbing several flights of mildewy stairs, he emerged into the light and open air of the southeast guard tower, where the rain had scrubbed everything clean. Well, everything but the thousands of dead pressed up against their walls. They never got clean – the rain just speeded their decomposition. But it did at least suppress the stench they gave off, for a while.
Yes, they were surrounded on all sides by thousands of heaving dead. And yet, for some reason, they still kept a single dead man captive inside – the first undead man, locked up in his basement cell. After getting it back from the invading Americans, but before expiring, Godane had seen to that.
Al-Sîf looked around. This guard tower was the one that held the Ground Control Station (GCS) for their Predator drone – which Baxter had always called “the air traffic control tower.” Al-Sîf realized he missed Baxter. The young American had been just about the onl
y other rational human being inside these walls, the only one al-Sîf could have a more-or-less sane conversation with.
He ran his hand over the scraped and dinged cover of the closed GCS. They almost never put the drone up anymore, mainly due to lack of fuel. On those rare occasions when they did launch it, they did so from a long dirt strip inside the walls. The old landing strip outside had obviously become a no-go. And, anyway, there was really nothing out there to look down on from the sky anymore. It was just a whole lot of dead guys and a whole lot of wasteland, in every direction, stretching to both horizons.
Though, al-Sîf also knew, the day might yet come when the drone would save their asses. It was still powerful mojo – not least because of the two Hellfire missiles on its wing-mounted weapons rails. Sheik Godane had considered the Predator to be another one of his superpowers.
As al-Sîf looked out toward the overrun airfield, he also saw the abandoned vehicle that sat alongside it – one of their scavenged jingle buses, which at the time they’d decided was too big and too ugly to park inside the walls. Now it was lost to them forever – like everything outside. Which was particularly annoying, because al-Sîf knew it had a full tank of gas. He’d always kept all the vehicles fully fueled. Because, in the ZA, you had to be ready. The others in al-Shabaab thought things happened because of God’s will. Al-Sîf knew things happened because he took care of them.
No, he had never been one for God, nor superpowers, nor angels or demons – or any notion of good or evil, for that matter. Al-Sîf believed in the decisive actions of the strong. He believed in his personal survival, and advancement. He believed in allying himself with those who were strong and who could survive.
And, mainly: he believed in himself.
Snapping him back to reality, a factotum came running up the stairs calling his name.
“What?”
“There is a call on the radio for you.”
“What? From who?”
“I think it’s the Americans.”
Al-Sîf knew at least a couple of the Triple Nickels had survived, disappearing into the forests in the north, after their ill-fated assault on the Stronghold. Al-Sîf wasn’t surprised that, having survived all that, some of them survived still. But he did find it hard to imagine what they would be calling him about.
Still, he tromped back downstairs, picked up the radio handset, and spoke into it in English. “Who is this?”
His eyes went wide at the answer.
And then he listened for the better part of a minute, only squinting more deeply in thought as he did. Finally he said:
“Yes. I will do it. But here is what you will do for me…”
Then he looked up, covered the mouthpiece, and spoke to the three lackeys still in the room. “Waa fogtahay. Haatan!” The three ducked out, pulling the door closed behind them. He uncovered the receiver again.
“As I say. Here is what you will do for me.”
* * *
An hour after this conversation, al-Sîf stepped out of his private chamber, which used to be Godane’s private chamber. And he was fully kitted up now – more so than ever before.
He carried the beautiful SCAR Mk 20 Mod 0 sniper support rifle he had recovered from the Triple Nickel sniper, who had been blasted out of a tree at his direction with RPGs. Over his back, he had slung the Milkor multi-grenade launcher that Zack and Baxter had brought in with them, two years ago, and which he had been keeping in reserve for a rainy day. He also had his namesake sword hanging from his belt. And, above that, he wore his tactical vest, stuffed with magazines.
Also, inside the vest was his heavy steel armor plate, which he tapped once. He didn’t usually go out with the plate in – it was damned heavy, and didn’t do anything to help him move quietly, as one had to among the dead. But he had a funny feeling about today – that he was going to need it. But he was also hopeful.
That today would be his freedom day.
Crazy Bastards
Moscow – Spetsnaz Alfa Group Bunker
A half-hour after his short but punchy conversation with Mirovye Lohi’s commander, Akela handed over command in the TOC, returned to his private office, and logged in to his laptop.
Warlords, it turned out, also had paperwork these days.
Now, he looked up at the sound of a knock on the edge of his door frame. Standing in it was a man in a white coat – a bit dingier and more frayed than it had been two years ago. The man was Chumakov, their chief scientist and the man heading up the Russian vaccine development effort.
“What is it?” Akela asked, looking up from his screen.
“I wonder if there is any progress on the Index Case?”
Akela exhaled. He knew their efforts to develop a vaccine against Hargeisa were close – frustratingly so. They had better be, after the enormous effort and expense of relocating an entire biomedical technology complex to a bunker 100 feet below the frozen earth of Moscow. And he knew Chumakov believed this last piece could solve the puzzle. All he needed was a virus sample from a very early-stage victim – or, even better, from the Index Case itself, the very first undead man.
“Soon,” Akela said. “Events are in motion.” That was all he had for him. Misha, the commander of the ground team in Africa, had sounded confident, like success was imminent. But that was operational intelligence and need-to-know.
After getting the scientist out of his doorway, Akela paused, tapped his fingers on the edge of his keyboard, and considered. Once they and the other Russian survivors were immune, they could start rebuilding the Empire – on the ruins of the rest of the world. They would have all eternity for the project. And once they had immunity, the blood of the Motherland would be immortal. On the other hand, if the Brits or Americans developed a vaccine first, things might play out differently.
Another body broke the plane of his doorway – this one on a wave of urgency. “Boss! Fixed-wing aircraft on approach.”
Akela leaned back. “On approach to what?”
“To right here. It’s on a vector with us.”
That made absolutely no sense. Anything flying was unusual, but the only possible explanation for someone flying in to Moscow was the Kazakh’s distress call. It strained belief, but it looked like the Brits had actually launched a rescue mission to come and get him. This told Akela something – that the Kazakh was important.
He rose and quick-walked back to the TOC. Seating his headset, he saw they already had a radar view up on the big display. Whatever the aircraft was, it was heading for downtown Moscow, already overflying the outskirts of the city. And it was shedding altitude. It looked like it was on approach.
But on approach to what?
Akela pulled the same radar imagery down to the small screen on the station before him and traced his finger, extrapolating out from their current path. And he couldn’t deny the conclusion. He looked up to the officer of the watch.
“I think these crazy bastards are going to try to land on Tsverskaya Street.”
“Impossible – but perhaps true,” the officer said. “It’s the only thing that makes any sense.”
Akela hailed Lyudmila and re-tasked her. “I need you to haul ass to the southeast end of Tsverskaya Street, just outside the Square.”
“Received. And once there?”
“Set ambush. And make it fast. We’ll get you exact coords and updates. Meanwhile, haul ass.”
* * *
Group Captain Gibson of the Royal Air Force reached down and switched his headset mic to the recessed speakers in the cabin behind him. “Kindly extinguish all smoking materials and ensure seats and tray tables are locked and in the full upright position.” From the cockpit, he could hear the groans from the Royal Marines in back. Somebody threw an empty water bottle at him, which bounced off the back of his seat.
Gibson smiled. As an RAF pilot who mainly flew small prop planes, he had done a lot of inserting of grunts and special operators into denied areas. He’d always liked them. In this case, though, the hu
mor might have been a mask for the fear and tension – about what they were about to attempt. Dry humor had gotten British military men through dark times since at least Dunkirk, and probably going back much further.
“Okay, old joke – sorry, lads. But as you can see, we are now on final approach to Moscow’s… well, just to Moscow, actually, some random wide street we’re so barmy as to imagine we can land a plane on. So do me a favor and put your seat belts on, before some power lines we didn’t see put us on the deck sooner than planned.”
When he looked over his shoulder, though, Gibson could see the Royal Marines’ commander, Major Jameson, had done the opposite – standing up and facing the cabin. He was giving final instructions to his Marines.
Jameson’s voice was deep, unwavering, and serious. He said, “This is not an air assault – but it is an insertion on to hostile and overrun ground, and we have no idea what we’re facing down there. I want everyone locked and loaded, cinched and squared away, and ready to deplane and disperse – before we stop rolling. You all know your roles. Don’t be the weakest link – and definitely don’t be the hold-up. Tie your fucking boot laces now.”
A few seconds later, Gibson felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Jameson. “How’s it looking?” he asked.
By now the black expanse of what used to be Moscow was rising up on all sides as if to envelop them. There was just enough moon and starlight to make out the grand boulevard – their improvised landing strip – rolling out beneath them, fully fifteen lanes wide and over a kilometer long. Gibson had his night-vision goggles seated. If there were power lines across any part of the street, the NVGs weren’t good enough to make them out. He was slightly optimistic about their odds in a Beechcraft versus power line contest.
Anyway, they had no choice.
And they’d know in a second. Gibson extended the landing gear as the buildings on both sides of the street rose up on either side of them. As always, it was strange coming into a major city in the dead of night – and seeing not a single light anywhere.
ARISEN, Book Eleven - Deathmatch Page 7
