Rachel smiled. “Hell, Charlie, take two. Whatever you need, it’s yours. Anyone objects, you have them talk to me. We need to talk to the bunker ASAFP. Got it?”
“Yes, ma’am.” She walked over to the row of shelving with the radios and called for MacPherson to come help.
For the first time in days, Rachel felt the slightest spark of hope.
It took three hours in the end, almost four, but Charlie made a connection with Bunker Eight, at least on an intermittent basis. The signal wasn’t great, and sometimes it dropped out altogether. Rachel was glad that it was there at all. She frowned at having to transmit on an insecure frequency, but they had no choice.
“Say again, Bunker, say again,” she said into the walkie talkie. She stood on the rooftop, looking east into the rising sun with one hand to her brow for shade. The desert got cool at night, and the heat wouldn’t start for an hour or so.
“. . . received. Help… way. ETA… hours. Can you hold?”
“We don’t have much choice in the matter, do we?” she said with a sigh. “We’ll be—”
She got cut off by the whine of a ricochet as it pinged off of a defunct air conditioner. The sound of the gunshot came half a moment later.
“Take cover!” Rachel yelled, but the few of them on the roof had already done so. She turned back to the improvised walkie-talkie-radio. “We’re taking fire, Bunker. Will call again when we can. Get here fast!” She dropped the radio and crawled to the edge of the roof, trying to gauge where the shot had come from.
It didn’t make any sense. There wasn’t anything nearby to get them high enough to see her on the roof. Not where she’d been standing, anyway. Where had they gotten—
Another shot pinged off the roof’s edge, and she ducked back down. That one had been much closer. Either the zealots were getting better, her luck had run out, or both. She pulled a small square mirror from her pocket and held it over the wall, trying to see where the shots were coming from. There was nothing even close that would work, except… “No fucking way,” she said. “No fucking way they have someone that good.”
The rooftop was about half a mile away, she estimated. The building was three stories tall, some sort of small hotel maybe. Rows of broken windows and peeling paint lent the building a creepy aspect, and it looked like it might collapse at any moment. The Church obviously wanted to get a sight-line on the AEGIS forces bad enough to take the chance of the whole thing coming down.
Rachel activated her shoulder mic. “All units, fall back inside. No one else is dying today.”
Her team acknowledged the order and crawled back to the roof hatch. Rachel made sure the improvised radio was tucked safe in her pants pocket and joined them at the roof ladder. Once they were all inside, she reported to Sergeant Carson, who was awake and demanding to know just what in the hell was going on.
“We made contact with the bunker, sir,” she said. “Reinforcements are en route. ETA unknown, but at least eight or nine hours, estimated, sir.”
“Unknown?” the sergeant asked.
“Well, not entirely unknown, sir, but the signal was intermittent, and it kept breaking up.”
Carson grunted and looked over at Charlie. “Good job, Charlie. Knew you could do it.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“It’ll take at least eight hours with the roads the way they are. Well, that and the speed of the Strykers that I’m sure they’ll be bringing with them. Can we hold for that long?”
Rachel shrugged. “Unknown. Now they’ve got a sniper on an old hotel half a mile away. The building is falling out from underneath them. But while it’s still standing, they’ve got coverage of most of the roof. All the parts that haven’t crumbled through, anyway.” She looked up at the patchwork of holes showing daylight. Another day under the blistering sun was going to heat their big metal box, turning it into an oven.
“Do we have anyone good enough to take him out from here?”
Rachel shook her head. “Maybe Denali could’ve done it, but we lost him in that first test skirmish two days ago.”
“Shit.”
“Yes, sir.”
Carson sighed. He swung his legs over the side of the table and tested his weight on the injured leg. The sweat that broke out on his brow and the obvious pain in his expression told that story.
“Sir, back on the table,” Rachel said.
“I’ll be fine, Lieutenant,” he said. “I’m going to the Stryker with or without your help.” He waited, one eyebrow raised.
It was Rachel’s turn to sigh as she offered her shoulder to lean on. “What’s so important in the Stryker, sir?” she asked as they trekked over to the big vehicle.
“We’ve got eight hours before any hope of rescue or reinforcement. Do you really expect those assholes out there to leave us alone for that length of time?”
“No, sir.”
“Then we’d better be ready for them, hadn’t we?”
“Sir, we’ve got patrols covering the entrances—”
“That’s not what I’m talking about. They’re going to come at us and come at us hard. We need to protect those at all costs.” He pointed at the trucks that had just fit inside the warehouse. They carried the prion treatment for Bunker Eight.
As the duo reached the Stryker, Carson was breathing hard and sat on the rear vehicle step for a rest. “Here’s what I want to do. Get as many guys as you can and find a way to use these big shelving units to block some doors. All but the two we came in and one at the back big enough to get the trucks out. Even if they do ram the doors with whatever they can find, I want them stopped cold. Better still, if you could find a way to pile them up or weld them to each other or… Well, I’ll leave that to you. I just don’t want them coming in any of these other doors.”
“I’ll take care of it, sir. What about you?”
Carson patted the back of the big Stryker. “I’m going to see if we can’t turn the tables on them for once. Get Charlie over here.” Carson turned and hit the button to open the Stryker.
“Yes, sir.” Rachel turned and yelled toward the radio tech. “Charlie, front and center!”
Charlie ran up, and Rachel jerked her thumb over her shoulder at the Stryker. “Sergeant wants to see ya.”
“Yes, ma’am,” she said and clambered up inside the Stryker.
Rachel didn’t follow, just watched from the bottom of the ramp as Carson spoke.
“I know that they’ve been listening in to our transmissions, at least since you got the radios working,” he said.
Charlie objected. “Sir, I have no way to encrypt—”
Carson shook his head. “I know that. You did what you could. But that also means that the nutballs know we’ve got people on the way. Our people know that they know, so they’ll be prepared, but we’ve gotta help out however we can.” Carson rubbed his chin, covered with the stubble of a week or more without shaving. “They’re gonna hit us hard, but maybe we can take ‘em down a peg or two.”
“How?”
“Can you spoof the origin of a signal? Make ‘em think it’s coming from somewhere else? Like, say, Abilene?”
Charlie shook her head. “Not with this equipment, sir. We can broadcast in the blind, but there’s no way to make them think it’s coming from far away or anything. It’s all just radio.” She waved her hands around her head. “It goes out omni-directionally from the point of origin.”
“Well, shit. Okay, scratch that idea. But I’ve got another one that might work.” Carson swiveled his seat to face Rachel. “Get cracking on those doors. Take Charlie with you. Send Mac over instead.”
“Yes, sir,” Rachel said. She waited for Charlie to disembark the vehicle before moving off to find MacPherson. She finally located him. “Mac, Sergeant wants to see you. He’s got an idea.”
The other soldier snorted. “This oughta be good.” He walked in the direction of the Stryker, and Rachel rallied the rest of the men.
“All right, guys and gals, we need to block
off all these other doors but one big one. Let’s get started.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Level Two
Bunker Four
Charlotte, Iowa
“Everyone get ready. Arrival at the main level in five.” Marquez’s voice didn’t betray any of the nervousness Eden knew he had to be feeling, and she was glad of that. Because she was a wreck inside and worried for all her men. Command was a burden she’d thought she might one day be ready for, but now she was certain she wanted no part of it.
The bunker’s forces fired as soon as the concrete-and-steel elevator surface had cleared the ceiling. Bullets ricocheted, but no one got hit. They fired at nothing, since there was no angle at which they could see anyone—by design, of course. One didn’t assault a well-defended position like this without a plan, without thinking ahead. And General Anderson was one of the best tacticians in AEGIS. He knew what he was doing, but there was a risk of loss in every plan, as he would say.
Eden watched the monitors and noted the moment when the restricted downward arc of the Stryker’s REAPER cannons was able to come to bear on the defended positions of the bunker’s forces. Those soldiers had set up large barricades of whatever they could find: crates, barrels, vehicles wedged sideways into hallways that shouldn’t have fit but somehow did. She wondered how they’d managed to do that, then realized that it didn’t matter. The REAPRs would take care of them. And with the surprise attack, the bunker hadn’t been able to marshal its own heavy weaponry to bear on the attackers.
“Activate REAPR,” Marquez said, and the Stryker technician reached over to punch a button. Eden hoped everyone in her team had followed orders and made sure that their armbands were active. Celero had hacked the systems to be able to distinguish between bunker IDs so the system could track and fire on some humans without killing those controlling it—a necessary distinction.
The noise was deafening in the small space. The .50-caliber rounds tore through concrete and steel as easily as flesh and bone, and there was no accounting for the difference.
Eden wished that they hadn’t had to do this, but Dagger had left them no choice, wherever he might be.
Round after round exploded through the makeshift barriers. The screams of the dying reached everyone in the Stryker, even through their hearing protection and the thick armored walls. The men and women of the bunker fought hard, continuing to fire even as their lines and protection were decimated. One soldier darted out from behind the protection of a thick concrete wall to toss a grenade toward them. It arced upward, falling with precision aim between two of the attacking Humvees. Eden admired the skill of the throw and winced as the explosion hammered the vehicles. She hoped that the extra armor they’d added would protect the men inside. She wished she knew if it was her men or one of the other teams.
There would be no way to tell until it was all over and the raucous noise had subsided. She couldn’t hear anything from her earpiece anyway.
The massive elevator ground to a halt, and the fighting slackened. The REAPR had pounded the defensive positions to dust. The few soldiers stupid enough to poke their heads up were forced back down or risked losing them.
When it was clear that the cannons weren’t finding enough targets, Marquez triggered his radio once more. “REAPR to defense mode. Strike teams fire at will. Prepare to move.”
The guns stopped firing and shifted to defending friendly forces instead. Eden shook her head to clear it. “Alpha, take positions,” she said. She could see her men, all in one Humvee, fire as they saw targets.
Marquez looked over the soldiers in the Stryker and nodded. “Good to go?”
“Hooah!” they replied.
Marquez opened the hatch and stepped out, firing as he went to lay down cover for those coming out behind him.
As Eden stepped out, she lay down cover fire for the few left inside. She got her first real look at the situation, since there was only so much even those monitors could show her. The room was cavernous, with the ceiling forty feet over their heads. Passages led to either side, which put the attacking forces in the untenable position in the middle. Half the strike teams were set up to move to their left, and half were set to move to the right. Her team was one of the ones moving to the right, which was the command center side and the most well defended.
She glanced back at the REAPRs, spinning atop the Stryker and firing every so often. As the attacking forces piled out of their vehicles, the fighting renewed, with her people tossing flashbangs and grenades to clear entrenched foes. Her team had moved to the end of the hallway leading to the command center. Marquez was on the other side and issuing orders.
“Elevator secure. All teams move out. Remember, people, disable where you can.”
Eden didn’t think that was likely, but she passed the word on to her men. The strong smell of cordite and gunfire filled the air, and she coughed as she passed through a cloud of concrete dust from exploded walls and barricades. She tried to ignore the blood and brains that painted the walls, and she took her position. The florescent lights had taken damage and flickered in sporadic bursts, and the bunker’s soldiers fired down the hallway from their fortified positions. This was the worst tactical position to be in, fighting a dug-in foe, but there were no other options.
Lieutenant Celero’s voice came over their earpieces. “I’ve locked the armory. They’re not going to be resupplying anytime soon.” At least there was that. They were on a more equal footing, with both sides having a finite supply of weapons.
“Grenade!” Foretti yelled and spun her back around the corner, tackling her to the ground in the process. This throw wasn’t as accurate and exploded between two of the other vehicles. Foretti checked to make sure they were clear, then helped her up.
“I have had enough of this shit,” Eden said and pulled a flashbang from her belt. “Form up, fellas. Prep for flash.” She reached up and touched the temple of her eyepiece, turning the shade to its darkest setting. The others readied their weapons and did the same. When she saw they were ready, she subvocalized. “Move!”
She pulled the pin on the flashbang and threw it around the corner, then followed it, along with the other men beside and behind her. She rushed forward in a low crouch on point, which gave Foretti and Giuliani behind her a clear line of fire. The flashbang exploded, loud even through her earplugs. The flash was still bright through her shades, but it wasn’t incapacitating as it was for the defenders.
Eden’s team worked their way forward and fired disabling shots into the legs of the defenders where they could. A couple took more lethal shots to the torso—and one to the head—for being difficult, but they reached the secured command center door.
“Hunter One, Alpha Four,” she said. “Command hallway is secure.”
“Roger, Four,” Marquez replied. “Uniform, reinforce. Celero, get to it.”
“Acknowledged, Hunter One.” The other team that had been at the entrance to the hallway moved up, and Eden saw Celero at their head. He would be the one to crack the command center’s encrypted door lock.
A moment later, Anderson’s voice came over the earpiece.
“Main floor secure. Good work, people. Hunter One, move on the command center.”
Marquez and his team appeared at the entrance to the hallway and rushed to Celero’s side. “How’s it look?”
“Good, sir,” Celero replied. “Almost through already. Looks like they left a lot of the default protocols in place. Surprising, really.”
“I’ll take what I can get. Any chance we can get a look inside?”
“I’ll have Evans pipe that through for you, sir,” he said. He motioned to one of his men, who pulled out a portable video monitor and held it for Marquez to view. “He hacked the feed on the way down.”
Marquez looked at the screen and grunted. “Good job. Actual, Hunter One.”
“Go ahead.”
“Sir, it appears only a handful of tangos in the command center. Caught them with their pants down.�
��
“Good. Take ‘em down. I’m on my way.”
“Yes, sir.” Marquez looked over at Celero. “Well?”
“And got it,” the chief replied, drawing out the words. The panel next to the door clicked green, and Eden thought she heard the ka-chunk as the restraining bolts retracted.
Marquez looked down at the monitor in Evans’s hand and smirked. “That got their attention. Everybody back. They’re gearing up for an assault. Let’s try something different.”
Eden and her team moved back down the hallway about ten feet, and Marquez stood to one side of the door. He reached over and gave it a shove, sliding it open a few inches, maybe a foot from what she could see. Shots rang out, and at least one cry of pain came from inside the room, along with a shout of “Cease fire! Cease fire!”
It was Marquez’s turn to shout. “Surrender and you won’t be harmed!”
“Just you fucking try and make us, you trait—” A return shout cut off with what sounded to Eden like a slap.
“Look, fellas,” Marquez said. “You’re not in a great position here. You can’t get us, but we could rush you or just toss enough flashbangs in there to make you deaf and blind forever. Sure, you might take one or two of us out, but you’d all end up in bags, and you know it.”
There was no response but no more shots either. Marquez motioned to Evans, who crept up and handed over the monitor before moving back to his position, where he covered the door with the others.
“We can see you, guys,” Marquez continued. “We’ve hacked your systems. We know there’s three of you in there, and one of you is wounded because you were dumb enough to fire your weapon in an enclosed space.”
Eden glanced up as a pair of ACU-clad legs walked past her crouched position. Anderson strolled down the hallway. Marquez saw him coming too and snorted.
The Dying of the Light (Book 3): Beginning Page 31
