by Stuart Slade
“Straight whisky for me, whatever type you’ve got.” The man seemed to be suffering much less than most. Beside him, his wife panting hard while stroking a puppy she’d taken from one of the cages. Most of the tables seemed to have at least one adopted pet.
“You look like you’re doing fine Sir.” Fantasia managed to get the words out between breaths.
“Well, I got this pacemaker see. It’s doing most of the work for me.” Her customer smiled then looked at her with concern. Her skin was graying and there were shadows under her eyes. “You’re welcome to sit with us and rest for a while if you want.”
“Well, that’s kind Sir. But I got my customers to serve.” That was what was keeping her going, just the need to make sure that her tables were kept supplied and her customers happy. One trip from the bar to the tables and back at a time.
Mevaseret Tsiyon, Israel
The monster was horrible to behold. More than two hundred feet tall, brilliant scarlet that glowed in the moonlight, a huge misshapen head with seven faces scattered across it and ten horns sticking out. Giant bears paws for feet. And riding on its back, a stunningly beautiful angel, clad in red and purple robes. The Scarlet Beast leapt through the portal that had opened on the hills east of Jerusalem and stared at the city spread out before it. In its eyes was nothing but the lust for destruction. It took a couple of paces forward, towards the city where the warning sirens were wailing, then stopped. It crouched slightly and then left a giant steaming pile on the ground behind it. Nobody had ever house-trained the Scarlet Beast.
Ravseren Daniel Orlevaw had his section of Romach 175mm guns dug in just north of Mevaseret Tsiyon and that gave him a direct line of sight to the great beast that had emerged above Jerusalem. His gunners were already loading rounds into the breeches of the three guns in his position. He should have had four but one gun was away for repairs and the forces in Hell had top priority for spares and support. His fourth gun had been away for more than three months and he doubted very much whether he would see it again for another three at least.
There was one good thing at least. Before the Israeli army had pulled back from that particular area, they had pre-measured the ranges to every spot on it. With GPS telling him exactly where his own guns were, it was a simple matter to work out the firing solutions that would put his 175mm rounds on top of the Beast’s head. It took but a moment and the three guns crashed almost simultaneously, the muzzle flash tearing the sky apart. Orlevaw watched the target through his binoculars and cursed as the rounds exploded on the hillside far behind the Beast. He’d allowed for it moving at normal animal speeds but this creature was capable of far more than that. While his guns reloaded, Orlevaw watched helplessly as the Beast tore into one of the small townships east of Jerusalem.
al Za’im, West Bank
“Leave your homes! Run for your lives! The Scarlet Beast Attacks!”
The jeeps raced through al Za’im, broadcasting their message as they went. The message was dire and there was little time. This was not a Uriel attack, the Israeli Army knew that Uriel was half a world away, assaulting Los Angeles, this was the Scarlet Beast and the Whore of Babylon. They were making their attack on the city of Jerusalem itself and anything that got in its way. Hiding was not an option, taking cover under metal foil and riding out the attack was not an option. The only way to survive was to run far and fast.
Husni al-Sohl, once a dedicated member of Hamas and a key member in one of its undercover cells, heard the message and knew what he had to do. The warnings were for civilians, for women and children and those without courage for a fight. These days there might be an uneasy truce between Israeli and Palestinian but when a greater enemy attacked, even uneasy and untrusting allies were well advised to stand together. And al-Sohl had an ace card in this battle, one that he knew the Israeli Army would badly need. Most of its soldiers and all of its new equipment were fighting in Hell. The troops here, on the roadblocks and in the general area were all reservists of the lowest category with old, time-expired equipment. Uzi 9mm machine pistols and 5.56mm rifles. Neither of them were much use against daemons and against the Scarlet Beast they were mere toys.
Al-Sohl had something that was not a toy. It was a pick-up truck, a Toyota Tundra to be precise, and it was packed with explosives. The stories had been told across the West Bank, of how the Americans at the Battle of Hit had been losing, their troops forced back, torn apart and eaten by the invading daemons. How they had been pushed to the last line of defense, their backs to the river, when the martyrs in their explosive-filled trucks had saved the day. How they had driven their trucks into the daemon formations, exploding them and taking the daemons to Hell with them. They had broken the daemon attack and that had allowed the Americans to regroup and bring up their helicopters to finish the job. And the stories were true for even the Americans had admitted the martyrs in their bomb-loaded trucks had played a vital part in that great battle.
He hustled his wife forward, pushing her towards another truck that was already filling up with people from the street. “Go, go!” He shouted at her. She looked at him and knew what he was planning. With a brief, heartbreaking nod, she boarded the truck and it rolled out, leaving him standing in the dust.
Husni al-Sohl walked back to the garage next to his house. It was much smaller than it had appeared from the outside but that was quickly corrected with a crowbar and hammer blows to the right places. The back wall collapsed and the truck was exposed. al-Sohl climbed into the driving seat and turned the key in the ignition. To his relief, the engine turned over and ran smoothly. He left the garage and turned left. There was no doubt where he had to go, the great figure of the Scarlet Beast already towered over al Za’im
Over Jerusalem, Israel.
The A-4 Skyhawk was old and it had already been grounded once as a result of a maintenance scandal. But, needs must when the devil drives and that expression was never more apt than during the Salvation War. The old aircraft had been pulled out of storage, hastily refurbished and issued to pilots that had already been retired themselves. Also for maintenance issues as the pilots wryly referred to their various medical conditions. But, in their hearts, they were still pilots and Menachem Gerev felt at home in the cramped cockpit in a way he felt nowhere else. Once again, the old Skyhawks were riding to the rescue the way they had back in ‘73. Gerev had fought in that war and still remembered the first day when more than 30 Skyhawks had failed to return from their strikes over the Suez Canal.
Still, he could see his target, the great Scarlet Beast that was moving through the ridges east of Jerusalem. His aircraft was armed with retarded 500 kilogram bombs fitted with fuze extenders. The reports from Hell Had been very clear. It was hard to kill the daemons and angels but massive damage and bleeding out would do the trick. With a little luck, his six bombs would do that. If they didn’t, there were four more Skyhawks behind him who would take their turn. They were taking off as fast as they could be armed, each pilot desperate to get to the scene in time to save the city.
Gerev rolled out of level flight and started the long dive down towards the Scarlet Beast in front of him. Looking more carefully, he could see that the Beast had an angel on its back, her red and purple robes streaming back as her mount loped along. Well, that made things more interesting. He kept his Skyhawk under careful control, she was an old lady and had already reached the end of her years. Pushing her too hard would be a terminal mistake and this wasn’t the time to make such errors.
As a matter of fact, it didn’t matter. The Skyhawk was too old and too slow for the job it was being asked to do. Making its bomb-run at subsonic speeds, the scream of its engine could be heard well before it was within drop range of its target. Sitting on the back of the Scarlet Beast, Dumah heard the noise and saw the jet approaching. Her mind focussed on it and she summoned her strength to emit a trumpet blast that rocked the clouds and shook the dust in the cracks of the rocks.
The old Skyhawk couldn’t take the shock. T
he trumpet blast crushed its structure as thoroughly as any mechanical scrapping equipment could have done. It folded up and disintegrated in mid-air, trapping Gerev in his cockpit. He was still there when the wreckage plowed into the ground just outside Jerusalem.
Triumph joined the exhilaration that came from riding the Scarlet Beast. Dumah reached forward and scratched it between some of its ears. “Well done Fluffy. We’ll show them how humans should be treated, right?”
Then Dumah looked ahead of her. A small group of humans had formed up around some green vehicles and they were firing on her. She lifted her golden goblet to her lips and blew hard, sending a stream of dust-like smoke towards their positions. The men vanished under it and by the time it cleared, they were dead. sprawled out on the ground. As Fluffy galloped over the scene, one of his paws crushed the vehicle into fragments. Ahead of them, Jerusalem was wide open.
Chapter Thirty Nine
Over Los Angeles, California
“Just where the blazes is he?” Commander Mike Wong pulled his F-18H around, allowing its radar to scan the volume over Los Angeles. An older radar would have been swamped with returns, so many aircraft were crowding into the airspace over the City. But, the AESA radar could cope with the workload and, in any case, they had a E-3 AWACs up controlling the air battle. Or what would be the air battle if they could find somebody to battle against.
“Not up here, Squid.” The voice on the radio was gently mocking. An Air Force pilot taking the opportunity to goad his naval equivalent.
“Cut the unnecessary chatter.” The controller in the AWACs bird snapped the order out. “We’ve got enough to do making sure you hot-shots don’t fly into each other.”
“Say again, Coronet, he’s not up here. All contacts are accounted for. He’s got to be on the ground. Unless he’s already made a run for it.”
“Negative on that Dolphin-One. Ground reports the attack is still continuing, First deaths are being reported now.”
Wong’s mouth twisted as he pulled his F-18 into another turn. The theory was that the deaths from a Uriel attack would be exponential, a mere scattered handful at first but picking up numbers quickly as people’s strength gave out. “If he is on the ground, he could be anywhere. We’ve got a real problem here.”
Aboard E-3G “Coronet”, Over Los Angeles
It was lucky Coronet had just arrived from the upgrade facility with her new displays and data processing computers. She’d been sent to Edwards for testing before the rest of her kind were pulled in for similar upgrades. Now, even the advanced data handling capability was being strained as far as it would go.
“The Squid is right, Sir. He just isn’t up here. He’s got to be on the ground somewhere.” Captain John Lacrosse stared at the displays showing the aircraft orbiting Los Angeles. He had a strange feeling that he was looking at Uriel’s location right then, but he just lacked the insight to dig the answer out of the data. “Colonel, let’s assume he is on the ground right?”
“We can take that as being pretty definitive.”
“Well, he usually flies over the target but he’s learned that’s just too unhealthy for him. So, he’s going to do the next best thing. Find himself some high ground and look down from there.”
Colonel Findel thought that one over. “Do we know Uriel’s capability is line-of-sight?”
“Do we know it isn’t?”
“The DIMO(N) network location on the portal just said Los Angeles, it wasn’t specific as to where. I don’t think its accurate enough for that. Uriel’s down there somewhere. Even on the roof of a building.”
“Doubt that Sir. Everybody with a heavy-caliber hunting rifle would be shooting at him. What we need is a display that shows us where the effects of the attack are being felt. That’ll give us an idea. Problem is, we can’t do it. Our equipment isn’t set up that way. Now if we had a JSTARS here it could be different. They’re built to give land pictures.”
Findel stared at the displays of the fighters circling the city, then glanced down at the brilliant lights of the city below. Finally, the penny dropped. “We have got a display, we’ve got the biggest one ever built.”
The communications center was a few feet further forward from where he was standing. He took the few paces needed and patched through to the emergency control center on the ground.
“Report center? We need help up here. Uriel’s grounded and we can’t find him. We need to know what parts of the city are under attack and which ones are not … … . Yes, killing the lights in the unaffected part of the city will do fine. Just a minute or two should do it.”
Down below, the lights covering more than half the city winked out. The E3Gs electro-optical system recorded the picture and by the time the lights came on again, the image was displayed in the airborne command center. The computers had superimposed a map on the image. Findel looked at it. Everything north of a line from Pico Rivera to Culver City was blacked out. So was everything east of a line from La Habra to Huntington Beach.
“So it is line of sight.” Captain Lacrosse was relieved that his guess had been right. “And the only place that can give us that pattern is here, Hacienda Heights. If he was on Beverly Hills, he’d be hitting the whole coastline, not just this segment of it. And if he was south by lake Irvine, we’d have more coverage east. It has to be Hacienda Heights. All we need is to flush him out.”
“We can do that. If we assume he’s in an unpopulated bit, it has to be around here, by Turnbull Canyon. Get those two Bones on the line. We won’t flush him out, we’ll blast him out.
Harvelles Blues Club, 4th Street, Santa Monica, Los Angeles, California
People were weakening, slowly but surely. Fantasia could see it and feel it within herself. The animals weren’t doing so well, a tank of fish had already died and were floating on the surface of their aquarium. The reptiles were doing just as badly, the snakes and lizards were dead or dying. Looking around, she could see the dogs were doing best but even they were in grave distress, drooling helplessly and whimpering. There was a distinct pattern, the animals that bonded best with humans were surviving, those that did not were dying. As her drinks tray was refilled, Fantasia had a flash of insight, was the time-honored alliance of man and dog a relic of the time when both had sheltered together against the fury of a Uriel attack?
She was suddenly aware that her vision had almost dimmed out completely and she was on the verge of fainting. That would be certain death. She forced herself to breath deeply, sucking oxygen into her lungs and echoing the beating of her heart in her mind. Up on the stage the band was still playing but the drummer had peeled away from the score and was now tapping his drums in a fair simulation of a heartbeat. Fantasia focussed upon the sound and imagined her heart beating in time to it. The fuzzy gray from her vision cleared slightly.
“You OK Fanny?” The barkeep’s face was a waxy white-gray with sweat beading his forehead and lips.
“Yeah, think so, just slipped for a moment there.”
“Well, don’t do it again.” The mock severity was as near as anybody could get to being funny. “Your customers are getting thirsty out there.”
She was halfway across the floor when the whole room seemed to shudder. That’s all we needed. An earthquake. But, the rolling thunder wasn’t like any earthquake she’d heard. In fact, it wasn’t like anything any American city had ever heard.
Israeli Army Road Block, al Za’im, West Bank
“Turn back, can’t you see the Scarlet Beast is down there?”
The Israeli sergeant commanding at the road block tried to wave the truck down. His men were setting up their machine gun to stage a last-ditch defense of this point against the beast that was now barely a kilometer away. Husni al-Sohl brought the truck to a halt and wound down his window/.
“Let me throught. I am of Hamas and this truck is loaded with explosives. I can hurt that abomination much more than you.”
The sergeant did a double take at the words. Not so long ago, the words
would have caused the truck to be raked by machine gun fire. “You’ll never get close enough.”
“I will. Just put my foot down hard. I have the explosives on a simple dead man’s switch, It’ll work. And Sergeant, there are two RPG-7s in the back and a dozen rockets. Your men will need them.”
Al-Sohl felt the truck rock as the soldiers scrambled into the truck bed and unloaded the rocket launchers. He heard on of them whistling. “Just how much explosive is in the back of this thing?’
“Six hundred kilos of the best anfo Hamas can make. And another two hundred kilos of nails. Iron nails.
“Be careful you could damage the suspension carrying that lot.” The sergeant grinned at al-Sohl then snapped out something almost unknown in the Israeli Army, a reasonable approximation of a decent salute. He and his men held it as the truck drove through their checkpoint.
The Scarlet Beast had moved some more and was across the highway that led east from Jerusalem. Al Sohn floored his accelerator and headed straight down the road at the great monster that was carving a swathe of destruction through the valley leading up to the city. He had his windows up tight and the air conditioning turned off, hoping that the seal would be enough to keep the strange dust the Whore was using to wipe out those who stood against her. The truck was shaking and shimmying on the rough road surfaces, for all Toyota’s efforts, their pick-up trucks just didn’t have the strength and stability of the Dodge and Chevvy rivals. The speedometer continued to click upwards and by the time the Beast and its rider responded, it was too late for them to stop the manned missile that was being aimed at them.
Dumah blew her stream of smoke at the racing truck and al-Sohl lost sight of his target as the gray fog enveloped his cab. He felt his lungs seizing up as the poison took hold, but he was close enough now and his last conscious act was to release the dead man’s switch in his hand. Around him, the picture of the inside of his truck shrank to nothing, a tiny white dot in the center of his vision.
