King made a preemptive dive to the side. Had he waited for the mantis to attack, he wouldn’t have even registered its strike until his body had been turned into a pincushion. Even with his fast action he didn’t fully escape the attack. The strike hit the rubber of his boot and nearly snapped his leg from the impact. It threw off his jump as well. He landed in a heap on the stairs, striking an elbow and knee hard.
But he didn’t let the pain slow him. The mantis was already retracting its forelimbs for a second strike. King took aim, this time for the head, and fired off three rounds. Each found its mark, entering the insect’s bulbous right eye and passing through the head. But the first two missed the tiny brain. Even with one eye destroyed and two holes in its head, all its vital functions remained intact. If not for the third round, which pierced the small brain, the creature would have continued happily. With its control center destroyed, the mantis twitched madly, falling down the stairs.
Once the danger of being struck by one of the shaking limbs passed, King wasted no time launching himself back up the stairs. This time, the two remaining mantises gave chase in earnest. He could hear the rapid-fire clicking of their limbs on the stone floor, and a barely perceivable squeaking, like mice.
Are they communicating? King wondered, but pushed the thought from his mind and focused on escape. The only spot he knew was close to the surface was where he fell in. But climbing back into the sand and out of the ruins would be impossible.
Unless I open it up. As his plan began to come together, he looked down and saw two snapping sets of beaklike mandibles rising up behind him. Both mantises had quickly closed the distance and were poised to strike. He jumped up, narrowly avoiding a dual amputation. The loud crack of mantis forelimbs on stone stairs sounded like gunshots. When he came down he wasted no time and jumped again, this time out and away from the insects.
King entered the long tunnel and broke into a sprint, keeping his eyes on the ceiling, looking for the crack that sucked him in and deposited him in this hellhole.
He saw it ahead.
After holstering his weapon, he took out a second grenade and prepared to pull the pin. His timing would have to be precise, and his luck monumental.
Twenty feet from the fissure, he pulled the pin.
As he passed beneath the crack, he leaped up as high as he could, shoved his fist into a sandy hole in the rock filled gap and deposited the grenade inside. After landing he ran for another thirty feet and then stopped.
He turned around and raised his light. The tunnel behind him was alive with movement. The mantises were still giving chase, though more slowly as they had to actually duck to fit into this tunnel. If the two mantises passed the fissure before the grenade detonated …
But they didn’t.
The grenade exploded with a deafening boom. King fell to one knee, dropping his flashlight and clasping his hands to his ears. He opened his eyes to see a cloud of dust and sand swirling in the tunnel. But it was the brightness that held his attention. It was like looking through a blizzard, but he could see a portion of the far ceiling had fallen in at an angle, spilling its sand into the tunnel. It formed a convenient exit ramp.
Then sand began to fall from his side of the tunnel. The ceiling shifted. The roof over his head was coming down as well and if it didn’t crush him outright, it would trap him on this side of the tunnel.
He ran for the exit.
The tunnel ceiling tilted under the weight of the earth it held, dumping a curtain of sand that blocked out the sun. King dove through the wall of falling sand and landed in sunlight.
The tunnel ceiling collapsed behind him, dropping down at an angle and spilling its sand around his legs. After kicking free from the sand, King crawled up the rise and caught his breath at the top. Sitting atop the hill he could see the base across the river. There were no running troops. No action at all. His battle beneath the sands had gone undetected.
Then the sand within the newly form pit shifted. A mound rose up and shifted toward him. A second followed.
The mantises had found a way through.
King stood and ran, headed downhill toward the river.
“Bowers! Start the engine!”
He saw Bowers stand up, his head appearing over the sand like a groundhog. He gaped at what he saw: King running down the hill with two giant insects emerging from the sand behind him. The cigarette in the man’s mouth fell free as one of the mantises swiveled its head in his direction, locking its hungry eyes on him.
SIXTY-NINE
Location Unknown
FIONA’S JOINTS THROBBED as she pulled herself off the floor. In fact, her whole body had begun to ache. But she heard voices again and needed to know what was happening. She was the next guinea pig in line and wanted to be prepared for whatever might come.
The deep voice returned. As did the wet voice. And a whimpering. Whoever they were experimenting on this time was not as strong-willed as the last. She could hear belt buckles being cinched tight, which brought the occasional high-pitched squeal, but not a word or protest.
“Cainan, are we recording?” the deep voice asked.
“Not yet, Alpha,” replied a new voice that sounded nearly identical to the first. Was he talking to himself? Or were there really two people? Alpha, the man with the deep voice who had been there all along, and Cainan, whose voice was so similar. Then there was the one with the wet voice. He had yet to speak, but always seemed to be at Alpha’s side.
“Recording,” Cainan said.
There was a shifting of light in front of the tunnel as someone walked past. Fiona strained to see, but her view was blocked by the narrow hallway.
There was no warning from Alpha, he simply launched into the strange language, speaking slowly, carefully enunciating. “Arzu Turan. Vish tracidor vim calee. Filash vor der wash. Vilad forsh.”
No one spoke or moved for ten seconds. During that time, Fiona repeated the words in her head, over and over, committing them to memory.
Then someone asked, “Did it work?”
“Remove the tape,” Alpha said.
The woman’s mouth was taped shut, Fiona thought. That’s why she hadn’t complained.
There was a sharp tear, but still no complaint from the woman.
“How are you feeling?” Alpha asked.
“Blessed,” the woman replied, her voice as heavily accented as the man killed earlier. If they were capturing locals, then she was being held someplace in the Middle East.
“Blessed?” Alpha said, his voice tinged with humor “How so?”
“To be in your presence.”
“And who am I?”
“The Lord God.”
Fiona couldn’t see the man, but she knew he must be smiling.
“I am.”
“My God, it worked,” said a farther-off voice that didn’t belong to Alpha or Cainan. How many of them were there?
“Was there ever any doubt?” Alpha replied. “Play back the recording.”
After a moment, a tinny version of Alpha’s voice repeated the phrase. “Arzu Turan. Vish tracidor vim calee. Filash vor der wash. Vilad forsh.”
Fiona followed along, making sure she had the phrase memorized correctly, but her train of thought was interrupted by a shrill scream, followed by a stream of curses in a language she couldn’t understand. Whatever had been done to the woman had been undone when the phrase was repeated.
The woman’s screams became frantic and high-pitched, her voice angry and then desperate. A gunshot blasted, echoing in the tunnels.
Fiona fell back, clutching her ears.
The woman was dead. Silence followed.
Fiona fought against her tears, picked up a stone, and crawled to the side wall of her cell. As her emotions sapped the last of her energy, she began scratching at the wall with the stone.
SEVENTY
Babylon, Iraq
BACK IN THE open air, King was more in his element, but the oversized mantises showed no signs of being slowed by
the sand. They not only skittered quickly over it, but they now moved in silence.
The loose sand of the desert shifted beneath King with every step, slowing him. But his course was straight and his legs fast. The river lay ahead, and the small black boat that would carry him across—if Bowers got his shit together and started it.
As though he’d seen the annoyance on King’s face, Bowers turned the key on the boat and it started with a roar. But he’d failed to notice that half the craft was still beached.
“Throw it in reverse,” King shouted. “Get it off the beach!”
Bowers responded quickly, putting the boat in reverse and slowly giving it gas. As the propeller blades dug into the river water faster and faster it became clear that it wasn’t going to be enough to get the craft in the water.
As Bowers stood to get out of the boat, King leaped over a mound of sand separating river from desert. He landed behind Bowers.
“I’ll push!” he shouted before throwing his weight into the front of the boat. King’s shove and the still churning propeller launched the boat into the river. King jumped onto the front of the boat, swung himself around the mounted machine gun, and stood behind it. Already looking for targets, he wrapped his finger around the trigger of the belt-fed M240 machine gun.
“Just keep it in reverse,” King said. They would reach the far side of the river a little slower, but moving in reverse would allow him to use the mantises for target practice.
As the insects emerged over the rise at the river’s edge, King opened fire. The rounds fired like bursts of thunder, perking up the ears of soldiers all around Camp Alpha. While gunfire wasn’t uncommon in the surrounding territories, it was relatively unheard of on base.
When the first round struck, a burst of guts shot out of the mantis’s side, but it moved quickly, darting backward and down. King strafed to the side, striking the insect only once more before it and its partner disappeared from sight.
They reached the base-side dock a moment later. But Bowers didn’t stop. He plowed the boat into the shoreline. The engine grinded as it chewed up sand. Neither man felt concern for the craft. They left it beached, jumping onto the shore and pounding up the incline that led to the base.
They paused ten feet from the water, looking back at the far shore.
“What the fuck were those things?” Bowers asked, his chest heaving more from adrenaline than actual physical exertion.
“Exactly what they looked like,” King said. “Giant mantises.”
“Okay. Seriously. Giant mantises?” Bowers shook his head, confused and excited.
King nodded as he scanned the far shore. “I think we’re in the clear.”
Bowers laughed. King turned to find him running up the hill toward base despite no sign of the mantises. “Bad news, buddy,” he said. “Mantises can fly.”
A string of curses filled King’s mind as a buzzing sound rolled over the river. The mantises shot up over the Euphrates and honed in on his position, barreling toward him like kamikaze pilots.
King’s mind raced for solutions. To their right were the main facilities of the base. Lots of buildings to get lost in. Lots of guns to fight back. And Bishop and Knight were somewhere in that direction. But the soldiers there had no experience dealing with this kind of freakish problem and there would likely be a lot of casualties, from the mandibles of the mantises and from panicked friendly fire. No good, King thought.
He needed Chess Team support, minus the regular soldiers.
The ruins.
Queen and Alexander were there, both armed with XM25s. The mazelike ruins would provide ample hiding spots and bottlenecks to make a stand. Of course, the brown stone would also make perfect camouflage for the mantises. But there was no choice. And no time.
“Stay with me,” King said.
“You don’t have to worry about that,” Bowers said, his voice shaking. “I’m sticking to you like a tick on a collie’s dick.”
Despite the circumstances, King grinned. Bowers’s colorful language reminded him of Rook. As they ran across the road and started up the hill that led past Saddam’s Babylon palace, King glanced back.
Mantises didn’t attack from the air, so the pair had to land and give chase. Given their slow and clumsy landing, King guessed these two had never landed, let alone flown before. The skill was instinctual though, and they would soon be cruising over the sand once again.
Bowers looked back as he ran up the hillside. The mantises were already gaining on them. “Oh damn. Oh damn!”
Not watching his step, Bowers tripped over some brush. He fell forward, striking his face hard on the loose soil, getting a mouthful of gritty dirt in the process. King took him by the shoulder, yanked him up, and shoved him forward.
“Move soldier!” King shouted. “I will not stop to pick you up again!”
Bowers charged up the hill. The mental spanking was exactly what he needed to keep his mind off the giant monsters trying to eat them alive. But King’s mind remained on both running and the mantises, because unlike Bowers, if he didn’t also figure out how to kill the monsters, they would both be dead.
SEVENTY-ONE
BEFORE KING EVER exited the sandy tomb, Knight and Bishop followed Rahim toward the river, walking at a quick pace. Knight had a pair of binoculars out and ready. When they cleared the base, Rahim pointed to a mound across the river. “Over there. Just above those ruins.”
Knight raised the binoculars to his eyes and looked. “He’s not there.” He scanned the area, eventually reaching the river. “Hold on. There’s a soldier in a patrol boat. Looks like he’s waiting for someone. But he’s calm.”
They headed closer, skirting the river.
As they walked, more than a few soldiers stopped to give them odd looks. None of them had ever been seen on base before. Two of them were of Arab descent, one in plainclothes and one of them was Korean. Knight did his best to offer reassuring smiles. He knew they looked like a mini Axis of Evil to the men posted here.
Knight’s honed senses suddenly picked up on a subtle pressure wave. He stopped and looked around. No one else had detected it, not even Bishop. Binoculars raised, he looked across the river again. A puff of sand rose up into the air above the mound. Then King appeared from within, unarmed and running. He could see him shouting at the man in the boat. Then something rose out of the sand behind King.
He could see two large creatures with spindly limbs, but as they climbed onto the sand, their brown color blended perfectly and hid them from view.
“What the…” He lowered the binoculars and spun around. They’d passed a security tower on their way to the river. The men inside would have a sniper rifle.
“Head for the river,” he said to Bishop, handing him the binoculars.
Bishop took a quick look through the binoculars, located King’s position, and took off running. Knight ran in the opposite direction, leaving a stunned Rahim standing alone in the middle of the road.
Knight reached the security tower and threw himself onto the ladder. He landed on the fourth rung up and then climbed it as deftly as a monkey. At the top, he launched himself over the sandbag wall and landed hard on the other side. The two soldiers sitting inside the small, windowed room atop the tower flinched and drew their weapons.
When Knight raised his hands, showing himself to be unarmed, one of the men said, “We could have killed you!”
The other, who was less concerned with Knight’s safety, said, “Who are you and what the hell are you doing up here?”
“I need your sniper rifle,” Knight said, looking at the weapon propped up in the corner next to the grumpy soldier. It was a standard-issue rifle with a day scope. It would be accurate, but its bolt action would slow him down as each round had to be chambered by hand.
The grumpy soldier scoffed. “No fucking way.”
“Do me a favor and take a look across the river,” Knight said. “Through the scope.”
Curiosity got the best of the grumpy soldie
r. He squinted at Knight as he picked up the weapon and pulled up the scope flaps. He set the weapon down on the railing and scanned the opposite shore. A moment later he stepped back quickly, standing tall. His skin, tanned from the Iraqi sun, went white.
“Right now your heart is pounding in your chest,” Knight said. “Your breathing is faster than a machine gun. You’re scared shitless, probably shaking, and couldn’t hit a target from ten feet. So you’re going to let me use this weapon and save those men.”
Rapid machine-gun fire broke out in the distance. Both men tensed. Knight moved. He reached in front of the stunned soldier and took his weapon. Neither man protested. Instead, they stood behind Knight and watched. In the distance, a security boat was backing across the river, a man on the machine gun firing at the far side.
Knight chambered a round and took aim. Through the powerful scope he watched the boat slam into the far shore. Then they were running up the hill toward the palace. But the giant creatures he’d seen before had disappeared.
Where did they go?
He got his answer a moment later as two massive insects—mantises—took to the sky, flew over the river, and landed behind King. He took aim and fired at the lead creature. The bullet crossed the half-mile distance and overshot the creature. He turned an annoyed glance on the grumpy soldier. “When was the last time this weapon was calibrated?”
The man offered a guilty shrug.
“Sonofabitch,” Knight grumbled as he chambered a second round and took aim again. The mantises were already charging up the hill, concealed by brush, trees, and perfect desert coloring. He could see them moving within, but didn’t want to waste rounds only to shoot something nonvital.
He scanned up the hill and saw King pause. “Don’t stop,” Knight said. “Don’t stop!”
The lead insect cleared the brush at the top of the hill and lunged into the air, its two forelimbs ready to strike. Knight held his breath as King turned around positioning his face right in front of the outstretching limbs.
* * *
AS KING AND Bowers reached the top of the hill, King stopped and told Bowers to head for the ruins. It was a straight shot, downhill. Bowers should have no trouble making it, King thought, unless he falls again.
Threshold Page 31
