The Stronghold - North Gun Truck
Amid the sorrow, loss, peril, and confusion, there were two things to be thankful for – both of which Jake and Brendan could see on the drone video.
First, with those three guys no longer leading them straight there, the dead that had spilled in over the wall were now racing out into the main courtyard. There were lots of tasty al-Shabaab guys there – many wounded or recently dead on the ground, the rest now running and fighting for their lives.
Fighting against the dead this time.
Secondly, the lower two-thirds of the wall had held. So while there was now a steady flow of Zulus coming in over the top, it was not a tsunami. At least for now, the dyke was degraded – not destroyed.
None of this meant they had time to burn.
Jake stepped up to Bren, who was reloading and checking his mags and secondary weapon. His voice was dead, like a husk, his cheeks still wet. He didn’t bother to wipe them. “Elijah?” he asked.
Bren shook his head: No. Then he looked up and said, “He was the mole, Jake.”
Jake nodded, not surprised. “Who got him? You or Godane?”
“Bit of both.”
“Okay,” Jake said. “Let’s saddle up. And extract.” From his tone, you’d have thought he’d just suggested slitting his own throat. When Brendan didn’t respond, he said, “Kate’s gone. And we’ve gotta go.”
“Yeah, I know,” Brendan said, tugging at the last couple of cinches that would square him away to get back in the fight. “But we’re not going yet.”
“What? Why?”
“I’m going back,” Brendan said, looking Jake in the eye through his yellow-tinted and now badly scratched shooting glasses. “For Zulu Zero.”
Jake was gobsmacked. “The hell you are.”
Brendan took a deep breath. He looked strangely peaceful, not least for a twenty-something kid who was wounded in multiple places and was about to walk out into near certain death.
Jake said, “I assumed you never found it.”
“No, I found it. And I carried it most of the way here. It’s above ground, anyway.”
“Where?”
Brendan pointed to the far eastern side of the courtyard. “Out there. My last position before I moved to you in that crater.”
Jake shook his head but his voice softened as he leaned in close. “Bren, one goddamned ancient Zulu, more or less, isn’t worth anyone else getting killed over. We’ve lost too many already.”
Inexplicably, Brendan smiled at him. He said, “Suppose we do make it out of here alive. You and me and these two. What do we have to go back to? What’s left? What’s the point?”
Jake absorbed this. He was still incredulous.
“Look,” Brendan said. “Things have gotten worse than they’ve ever been – and they haven’t been good in a long time. But maybe, if there was some real hope of a cure, a vaccine… that would be something we could work toward. Something worthy of our talents, our dedication. Something more than just keeping ourselves alive. Just surviving.”
Jake got it. People, he knew, had to have a goal – not to mention some hope for the future. And Special Forces guys needed useful work to do. A mission. Brendan had sold everyone on this during the planning. And he wasn’t changing his tune – not just because things had gotten hard, and people had gotten hurt.
Jake got it now. “Okay,” he said. “I’m coming with you.”
“No,” Brendan said. “I need you to hold this position – and keep these two safe. If I don’t come back, Zack at least knows all about the origin of the virus. And you have to get him out.” He looked down. “Plus you’re a gimp. You’ll only slow me down.”
Jake was obviously having none of it. “Captain Davis. You’re not going out there alone. End of.” He turned around to grab his rifle, which was propped against the truck – thanks to al-Sîf cutting its sling. Still unsteady on his feet, he braced himself with his left hand on the swivel-arm-mounted M240.
He felt something tighten around his wrist and spun back around.
He had just been flexcuffed to the machine gun.
Instinctively, he reached out to Brendan, but he was already stepping away.
“You son of a bitch.” Jake grabbed for his Yarborough knife to cut himself free. It wasn’t there. Al-Sîf had broken that, too.
Brendan said, “I’m sorry you won’t get to keep your promise.”
He meant the one from the night before – that if Kate fell, if others on the team did… then Jake would already be dead.
Brendan turned and headed out. His last look back to Jake said:
It’s okay, brother. We’ll get it right next time.
* * *
“Somebody get me a goddamned knife,” Jake shouted at Baxter and Zack. Meanwhile, he got the 240 up to cover Brendan. He could only guess that was what he intended, lashing him to it and all.
By this point Zack had reloaded, so the minigun was back up.
Baxter was still in the rear, making sure they didn’t get taken from behind.
And Jake was thinking: Well, I guess the Captain’s come a long way. This was one big, momentous, and probably irrevocable decision – and he’d made it in a heartbeat, with no debate or doubt. And now Jake realized this might be his only chance to tell him that. He got on his radio.
“Bren, Jake.”
“Go ahead.”
“Hey, Captain… I guess you know I’ve had my doubts about you in the past. And I just want you to know – I don’t think you’re weak. Or indecisive, or irresolute. Not now.”
“Copy that. I still think you’re reckless and domineering. But you’re also the best soldier I’ve ever served with. And the bravest man I know.”
Neither signed off.
Brendan just kept on running, picking up speed.
And Jake started firing full out.
Trying to support his captain.
* * *
Brendan now took cover inside a cloud of the dead.
His first idea had been to use the buildings by the north wall for cover and circle back around to the east, where he’d left that very special body. But the dead pouring over the top of the ruptured section of north wall made that impossible.
But another thing it made impossible was al-Shabaab picking out one individual in the crowded chaos that was engulfing the courtyard. In his initial run across, Bren had been like a black rabbit trying to cross a snowfield, surrounded on all sides by hunters. But this time there were at least a hundred other black rabbits swarming around him – and they were all chasing down and chomping on the hunters, like Monty Python’s killer bunny.
There were still probably a hundred ways for Brendan to get killed now. But if he could stay on his feet, he might just make it.
He put his eye on the building nearest to where he knew the body was buried. He only took shots on the living or dead who were coming directly at him.
Otherwise, he just put his head down and charged.
* * *
Jake fired the 240 until Brendan was out of sight, firing non-stop and mowing the grass to either side of him. He didn’t let anybody get close.
Then he pulled out Zack’s phone and zoomed in on Bren with the drone video. After a brief and frantic search, he was able to ID him. He was already nearly across the courtyard.
Then he saw him stagger and stumble. He’d taken a hit of some kind.
But he was recovering, straightening up and moving out again – when the video view spun twice in place. Something had just gone wiggy with the quadcopter. And Jake was afraid he knew what it was. In another second, as the ground of the courtyard rushed up at the camera, he was sure. Someone had spotted it in the air.
And shot it down.
The ground raced up and then the screen went black.
Fuck. He was now totally blind. He had no idea what was happening to Brendan out there.
He got on the radio. “Baxter. Get up here. Bring a damned knife.”
* * *
Baxter was in the fight of his life – which wasn’t saying all that much.
He’d not experienced a ton of gunplay in either his pre- or post-Apocalypse careers. Now he was tasked with defending their whole rear sector – both from surviving al-Shabaab guys and from the increasing numbers of dead wandering in. So far he was staying alive and getting it done. But with every minute he stayed here, with every shot he had to take, he felt like it was pushing his luck to the wall.
So he was relieved when Jake called him forward.
He ran back to the truck, pulled his Gerber multitool from its pouch, and cut Jake free.
“Saddle up,” the team sergeant said. “We’re going out.”
Baxter looked skeptical. He’d heard Brendan tell Jake why they needed to stay here and didn’t understand why they would leave the relative safety of this position. Jake caught his look, and indulged him – for four seconds.
“These are the end days, kid. It’s time to go. Bren’s almost across the courtyard. If he gets the Zulu, we pick up both of them. If it’s just him, we pick him up.”
Baxter hesitated. “And if he’s already dead?”
Jake’s eyes narrowed. “Alive, dead, dying, or infected, I don’t give a shit. We’re bringing Brendan home. Saddle up – now. You drive.”
Baxter looked down at Jake’s right leg, which looked like a maypole. There was probably no way he was working the pedals with that. He got in the driver’s seat.
Jake got in the passenger seat, and aligned the swing-arm with the 240.
Baxter spared a look for Zack who was standing up in the turret – good to go. And he turned over the engine and put it in gear.
And now they were really going – out there.
Baxter shook his head and briefly questioned his sanity – coming back to this fell place after having escaped it by a hair’s breadth. But he also had a job to do now.
And it would be his honor to do it.
The final outcome didn’t matter. All that mattered was what he did right now.
He gunned it and the truck lurched out of the building – and into the storm.
Crash Test Dummy
The Stronghold - Middle of the Courtyard
In all the chaos, and as focused as Bren was on his field-length touchdown run, something caught his eye – something plummeting out of the sky. It took only a second for him to clock it as their quadcopter. Someone had shot it down – and it was going in hard. This made the hair rise on the back of his neck.
Arms and legs still pumping, he did a quick scan of the parapets and blown-out guard towers in the north-east quarter. And, sure enough, he locked onto a rifle… and it was a telltale tan color, and it had a big-ass scope on top.
No…
And behind it was a huge and familiar-looking Somali fighter.
And the big suppressor on the end of the barrel was tracking him.
He was almost to the eastern wall.
* * *
SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY! Zack thought in his head, as the gun truck rocked out of its building carapace and into the courtyard. This really was turning into some monster-car-crushing shit. The already not real level mud and dirt of the courtyard was now littered with bodies, carpeted with shell casings, and riven with craters from RPG and 40mm grenade blasts.
Sticking up stiffly in the turret, Zack felt like nothing so much as a crash test dummy. With each wild lurch and buck of the hurtling truck, he was sure he was going to be thrown out the peeled-away side of the turret and hit the dirt head first.
And then he’d be out in the madhouse of running and fighting dead.
And, not that he had a lot of time to think about it, but he was now reconsidering his bravado from the early part of the battle. And he realized now – a firefight was not a cool thing to be involved in. This was not fun. He had been idolizing these guys for doing difficult, dangerous, and necessary work. But he wasn’t the one who ought to be doing it. He was totally unqualified to do it.
And now he had absolutely no desire to.
People had gotten hurt – for real. Todd and Kate were gone – and so was Kwon, if Zack was even understanding the radio traffic correctly.
All he wanted now – and he wanted it down to the marrow of his bones – was for those of them who were left alive to get the hell out of there. Fuck Zulu Zero. Fuck getting revenge on Godane – and fuck this pointless war between Triple Nickel and al-Shabaab. The only thing that mattered now were these people, his friends – including and particularly Baxter, who had stood by him every day, through every difficulty, danger, and horror.
But right now Baxter was still accelerating, and Zack guessed he still had a job to do. But with the truck rocking and ramping over obstacles, it was getting harder for him to acquire targets. Or even keep his hands on the minigun.
But something told him that if he didn’t keep shooting… none of them were getting out of there alive.
Every cell of Zack’s body wanted to teleport to someplace very far away. But he knew the job wasn’t done and the others were counting on him. He wasn’t real enthusiastic about having to drive the length of this house of horrors before they hit the road.
Then again, he knew he didn’t have to like it.
He just had to do it.
* * *
Jake held the stock of the 240 in tight to his shoulder. And he triggered off long but controlled bursts at every threat in his sector. And speaking of sectors…
“Zack! Left-front sector! Left front!”
“Copy! I’m trying…”
Jake just let him get on with it and kept his own weapon online and engaging. With the floorboards bouncing two feet at a time, the pain in his wounded leg was atrocious. He ignored the pain – he had to. But the wound was also bleeding again and he was starting to feel very light-headed. He could bull through that for a while. But eventually he was going to lose consciousness.
He’d just have to fight it off.
He triggered a rolling twelve-round burst. Then fifteen. Then six.
There were figures running in all directions – alive, dead, being pulled down and eaten, being infected and turned. Here and there one of the new manic ones leaping across twenty feet of open ground to pull down a panicked al-Shabaab guy.
There were rounds still flecking off the truck body, the occasional streaking RPG. The odd explosion on the ground, or on the walls, with no obvious cause.
Through all the madness and chaos, Jake kept firing. And he kept scanning to the front. And, finally, there he was – Brendan. Still on his feet and running.
But now he was looking up toward one of the guard towers.
His whole body convulsed as he took a hit of some kind.
And Brendan went down like a falling sandbag.
Jake stared open-mouthed over his sight.
And he willed the truck to go faster.
* * *
As they reached Brendan, face-down in the mud, Baxter braked them into a sliding, dirt-spraying stop and Jake raced out to recover him.
Baxter stayed at the wheel, hunched over, hearing and feeling incoming rounds all over the place, staring forward through slitted eyes. And that’s when he saw it.
“Jake! Twelve o’clock!”
He felt more than saw Jake straighten up and follow his gaze. Fifty meters ahead, in front of a building that abutted the eastern wall, a knot of jihadis was bursting out the door, laying down covering fire in all directions.
They pushed out and two of them raced down into some kind of depression – and lifted out what looked to Baxter like a very familiar PVC body bag. And, as they each hefted an end, it was wriggling.
This was where Brendan had been heading. But they had been beaten to the prize.
“Zack!” he heard Jake shout. “Minigun! Twelve o’clock!”
But they could all hear the minigun was down.
“I’m out! Changing cans!”
In peripheral, Baxter could see Jake swing back around and get
on the 240. He opened up at the group retreating with Zulu Zero, and he went cyclic, firing full out and non-stop. He took down two covering the rear.
But it was too late. The two pall bearers with their undead burden dropped down into one of those damned spider holes, disappearing into the subterranean bowels of this cursed place.
Along with Zulu Zero.
They’d been so damned close – and now it was gone. Their prize was back down inside that sprawling warren again, probably good and deep. And there was now no way of getting it out again. Not with what was left of them, not in the shape they were in.
The remainder of the jihadis retreated back to the above-ground door. And the last thing Baxter saw in there before it shut… was a flash of Godane in his black robes, directing the whole operation. Somehow he got the sense that the Emir had been hurt, maybe shot.
But the son of a bitch was alive, on his feet – and still in command.
* * *
Hauling for all he was worth on what looked like the very last can of ammo for the minigun, Zack saw Jake pull Brendan into the back seat by his elbows.
The team captain wasn’t moving.
Zack moved to help – but Jake shouted at him. “Get the fucking fifty up!”
Zack complied. As he leveled out the weapon, the first thing he saw was the closed front door of the building to their front, fifty yards out. It suddenly cracked open and a bearded face peeked out. Zack couldn't even believe it. It was fucking Godane.
The two locked gazes across the open expanse. As each recognized the other, both men’s eyes went wide.
The door instantly slammed shut again. Zack laughed out loud as he spun up the minigun and engaged. The door, the doorway around it, whatever was behind it, and probably a wide tunnel all the way to the back of the building – all of it turned to sparking mulch as Zack unleashed his longest burst of the entire battle, putting more than ten kilograms of lead, all of it moving at nearly three thousand feet per second, straight into Godane’s face.
He was still laughing as the truck spun out and took off again.
But with the whole world still shooting at them.
Zack suddenly realized he had no idea where they were going. They were completely enclosed by a twenty-foot wall – and a giant timber gate that he doubted anyone was going to be real anxious to open again for them to drive out of.
Arisen : Nemesis Page 40
