“You abandoned us out here,” he said. “My people have survived on our own, and we aren’t giving you shit.”
Dohi wanted to curse, but remained calm. “Look, we’ll give you whatever you want.”
“We want to be left alone,” the man snarled. “You’re better off leaving and pretending you never set foot here.”
Dohi kept the knife at the guy’s throat, trying to figure out what to do.
“Who’s in charge here?” Dohi asked. “Maybe he’ll—”
Muzzle flashes suddenly lit up the night, and bullets plunged into the tree behind him, sending a shower of bark over his back.
Mendez squeezed off a burst of return fire.
The captive held Dohi’s gaze, eyes burning with rage. Dohi knew if he took the knife away the man would try to kill him.
But he wasn’t about to execute the guy in cold blood either. Instead, he gripped the man’s neck with his free hand, taking him in a sleeper chokehold. The man soon fell unconscious.
Dohi got up and set off with Mendez the way they had come. Rounds chipped at the bark and whistled by their retreat. Keeping low and running fast, they made it back to the Wolfhounds unscathed.
Martin stood suddenly, pointing his barrel at Dohi.
“Friendly!” Dohi hissed.
“What the hell is happening?” Martin said, lowering his rifle.
“Talking with those assholes didn’t work,” Mendez said.
“We need to fall back to the rally point,” Dohi said.
“All the way back to the freeway?” Martin asked.
“Yes,” Dohi said. “Now go!”
Mendez still looked like he wanted to stand and fight, but Dohi knew very little about the enemy numbers. They already had entrenched positions in the buildings. The last thing he wanted to do was be flooded by a veritable army with the ground advantage and cut off from the rest of their team without radio contact.
He led his team away from the trees around the warehouses, charging back toward the rally point. They ran through areas that had taken them a couple hours to infiltrate when they’d been sneaking through.
Now Dohi didn’t care about stealth. Just about keeping the team alive. The only way to do that was retreat as fast as possible.
A cacophony of curses and hollers rose behind them. Gunfire lanced into trees and lit up the darkness like fireflies.
The group broke from the cover of the trees and dashed across an open field. Then they passed along a road that took them another half-mile to the parking lots filled with vehicles, apartments, and other buildings they had first seen when approaching the laboratories. They finally made it to a street that would take them another fifty yards to the freeway.
One of the Wolfhounds went down and slid across the asphalt.
Dohi stopped and went back to check the guy, but he was gone, his forehead destroyed by an exit wound. More rounds bit into the ground, and Dohi rolled away, keeping low behind a few cars parked along the street.
On his feet again, he bolted for the highway, hoping Fitz and his team would be ready for them.
Mendez and the others made it to the freeway and started across. They crossed the first few lanes, then dove over the concrete wall of the center median.
“Friendly!” shouted a familiar voice on the other side. Fitz.
The crack of gunfire continued.
A second Wolfhound dropped to his knees, clutching his throat.
“Find cover!” Dohi yelled.
Half the team had made it across the center median and into the ditch where Fitz and Singh were waiting. Fitz’s team provided covering fire, and Dohi used it to cross the road, keeping low as possible. Martin and the other half of the Wolfhounds were still crossing the freeway.
Muzzle flashes sparked from some of the vehicles in the parking lots and from the windows of the apartments and buildings adjacent to the freeway where a second group of hostiles had set up firing positions.
The Wolfhounds stuck on the road were in the middle of an open killing field. Dohi was right there with them, crouched next to Martin against the center median wall.
“Over here!” Martin yelled.
Another Wolfhound made a run for their position but was cut down. Dohi moved out to help drag him, but rounds peppered the pavement around the man’s body.
“Come on!” Dohi said to Martin.
Dohi and Martin climbed over the center median just as a flurry of rounds slammed into the other side. He hit the ground. Ace was standing in a ditch in front of him.
“Run, Dohi!” he shouted.
Martin ran for cover but tripped and went down.
“Shit,” Dohi grumbled. He hunched down and went back to help him up.
“Grenade!” someone yelled.
Dohi had just enough time to help Martin to his feet when a fiery blast threw chunks of hot asphalt into them. The concussive force sent him flying forward, and Martin tumbling into a ditch.
Ears ringing, Dohi pushed himself up, engulfed by a cloud of dust. He and Martin scrambled into the ditch. One of the Wolfhounds lay on the slope, chunks of shrapnel jutting from his face.
Ace was sprawled at the bottom of the ditch, coughing. Blood streamed from his nostrils. Rico ran to the older operator, and he threw his arm around her shoulder, limping away.
Martin turned and drained his magazine into the distance.
“Fuck you, assholes!” he shouted.
Dohi grabbed him and yanked him down. The rest of the team was retreating into the woods, helping the injured get away. Fitz remained there, waving.
“Let’s move!” he shouted.
Dohi and Martin hurried after. But the Wolfhounds were moving too fast, and he could hardly keep up.
A body suddenly flung into the air up ahead, dangling by a rope. He screamed for help but was silenced by a sniper’s round to his chest. He spun, limp, and dead.
“Watch out for the traps!” Dohi yelled.
Having fallen back to help Martin, he couldn’t guide the group through the forest. Most of the Wolfhounds started to slow, ducking low as the gunfire blasted into tree trunks, but most kept running.
A scream rang out, fading as a pit swallowed the man.
Dohi barreled ahead, surveying the place for traps as fast as he could, yelling at the Wolfhounds to fall in line. The gunfire soon quieted, and Dohi looked back, expecting to see their ambushers flooding across the freeway.
But instead, only a high-pitched chanting followed them.
Screams, like victorious war cries.
As the team faded back into the forest, terror filled Dohi to his very core. This enemy was more dangerous than the Variants. They were organized, knew the terrain, and were well armed. And they were standing in the way of the SDS equipment that could help prevent the entire Allied States from collapse.
One way or another, Team Ghost would have to make it onto that campus again.
***
Timothy sat on the bench inside his cell, rubbing his neck where Nick had implanted a chip under his skin. The tracking device, along with the collar around his neck made it pretty much impossible for him to escape.
That meant it would be even more difficult to bring this place down and kill the collaborators. From what he had seen over the past few days, he doubted even the president knew just how well prepared these people and the monsters were for war.
He had to expose this place and these people.
He couldn’t do it alone. He needed help.
Not from people like Beckham and Horn though. They had abandoned him and let his dad die.
What Timothy needed were people who were dependable and brave.
“Hey…” mumbled a female voice.
Timothy got off the bench he was sitting on. He went to the bars of his holding cell. The woman who Nick had drugged earlier was standing on shaking legs and looking at him from the opposite cell.
“Hey,” Timothy said back. “What’s your name?”
“Lilly,” she s
aid.
Her sickly pallor was set off by a face that looked like it had once been pretty before the collaborators had gotten here. He feared that was why they’d kept her prisoner.
A frightening thought wormed through his mind. He wondered what the collaborators would do with Tasha if they’d captured her like they had this poor woman.
“Why are you here?” he asked.
She looked down the hall but didn’t respond.
“How long have you been in there?” he tried.
She looked at the ground, and then shook her head.
“You don’t know?” he asked.
“No, only that it’s been a very long time.”
Timothy figured that meant at least a few months.
“You have to help me get out of here,” she said.
Now he said nothing. This wasn’t part of his plan.
Her dark eyes pleaded for help. “I can’t live another day like this.”
She seemed sincere, but he didn’t want to blow his cover. Didn’t want to reveal his false allegiance to the collaborators. This could be another test from Pete, Nick, and Alfred.
“I can’t,” Timothy said. He sat down again and looked away. “I’m sorry.”
“Please,” she begged, gripping the bars. “They do awful things. They use me like…”
Timothy swallowed hard as he listened.
Everything that he suspected in the back of his mind was true.
But he knew conspiring with her would get them both killed and ruin any chance of carrying out his plan of bringing down the entire organization. That was the only way to truly help her. Until this place was discovered, and shut down, her nightmares wouldn’t end.
He focused on coming up with his next steps as the poor woman sobbed.
Pete said Timothy was going to get them into Outpost Portland. Again, he would have to watch, listen, and learn once he was out there. Then maybe he would find an opportunity to fight back or escape.
First, he needed to figure out where this base was located. Then he could tell someone when he was in Portland.
A growling voice snapped him from his thoughts.
“Shut up!” yelled a guard.
The man marched between the cells and hit the bars of Lilly’s cell with a baseball bat. She jumped away and then hurried back to her bed, where she squeezed her legs against her chest and hid behind her knees.
“Stupid bitch,” growled the man. “You’re too damn loud.”
Timothy wanted to say something… no, he wanted to take a knife and stick it in the man’s neck.
But instead he just sat there, biding his time. Listening to the helpless woman whimper. It was one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do.
The only thing holding him back from yelling at the guard was his thirst for revenge.
Finally, the guard retreated to the other room.
An hour or so later the door to the brig opened and more footsteps echoed. Pete was the first man Timothy saw. Nick and Alfred followed, all three dressed in fatigues, armored vests, and duty belts with holstered pistols, sheathed knives, and extra magazines.
They stopped outside his cell.
“You ready to prove yourself?” Pete asked.
“Yeah, it’s about fucking time,” Timothy said.
Pete nodded to Alfred, who unlocked the cell.
“Come on,” Nick said.
Timothy stepped out and followed the men away from the cells. Lilly gazed up and locked eyes with him, but he didn’t give her anything. Not a wink, or a friendly smile, or a nod. Nothing but pity.
Pete took them down a wing of the bunker Timothy hadn’t seen before. Most of the paint had flecked away on the walls that were now covered in grime.
Two more men waited at the end of the next corridor armed with M-16 rifles and dressed in fatigues. It took both men to pull open the steel door at the end.
Beyond the door, a mezzanine stretched across a chamber illuminated by lights built into the walls of another silo. Nick went first, his boots clicking on the metal surface. Alfred and Pete escorted Timothy next. He froze in his tracks halfway across, his eyes locked on something below that couldn’t possibly be real.
“Move it, fuck head,” said one of the guards behind him.
Timothy felt the cold touch of a gun barrel prodding his back, but he didn’t move. Even in the dim lighting there was no mistaking the massive missile below the walkway.
Nick twisted back to face him with a wry grin.
“What?” he asked. “Never seen a ballistic missile before?”
“The government lied about a lot of things before the war,” Nick said. “The world thought the only nuclear missile silos were in North Dakota and Wyoming.”
The butt of a gun slammed Timothy in the back, forcing him forward. He followed Nick to another steel door that the group opened to a narrow metal stairwell.
His mind spun with questions each step up.
Did the missile work?
Were there more?
Was this part of their plan?
The implications nearly took his breath, but he kept his composure. None of that mattered if he screwed up now, and this gave him even more reason to find a way to expose this place.
Alfred opened the door at the top of the stairs, letting in moonlight. This was the first Timothy had seen in days. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness until he could make out a field of knee-high weeds rustling in the cold wind.
The men set off across the clearing toward warehouse-style buildings tucked away in a wooded area.
Timothy covertly studied his surroundings, trying to identify the location. But he didn’t recognize this place and had no idea where they might be.
“Eyes ahead,” said a guard. He gave Timothy the butt of his rifle again.
Timothy winced.
Heat rose to his face but he couldn’t let himself lose control now.
“You don’t like that, do you?” the man said. He rammed the rifle butt into Timothy’s back again.
This time Timothy couldn’t help it. He turned and glared, teeth gritted.
“You better fucking look forward or I’m going to break your face,” the man growled.
“Keep walking and don’t do anything stupid,” Alfred said.
Timothy hesitated just long enough to memorize the man’s face. He was going on the list of collaborators he would kill first.
They continued until they got to the warehouses. A tall canopy of trees, some still with their leaves, protected the buildings from a bird’s eye view. Camo tarps also helped disguise vehicles and equipment outside.
The double doors to the first warehouse were wide open, revealing another small fleet of vehicles. Pickups, mostly, but a few military-style trucks and a Humvee. There was also a black muscle car.
The collaborators Timothy had seen in the briefing were working inside. Others had joined them. All wore fatigues and body armor with slung rifles and holsters on their hips.
The only man not armed was another guy wearing a collar like Timothy’s.
He was on both knees next to a pickup truck, his gaze on the floor. Timothy was brought over to him and instructed to sit.
The collaborators loaded gear and weapons into their vehicles over the next hour. By the time they had finished, ominous storm clouds rolled over the sky, masking the stars and moon. The first clap of thunder sounded, rattling the metal walls of the warehouse.
“All right, listen up,” Pete said.
The collaborators clustered around him.
“We’re headed back to Outpost Portland to finish the job,” Pete said. “We’ve softened their defenses, and now our job is to blow holes through what they have left so the beasts can get in.”
Several hollers broke out.
“Burn it to the fucking ground,” one of the men said.
“The heretics deserve to die,” said another.
Pete raised a hand, and the space quieted.
“Once Portland i
s gone, we will all be rewarded with a visit from our master,” Pete said. “No more mistakes. Our time is almost here, and once this is complete, we will be headed into the final reckoning.”
The men’s features transformed from excitement to fear, shadows playing over them with each distant strike of lightning.
“This has been a long time coming,” Pete said. “Years of planning have led to this. And we’re not the only ones. All across the Land of the New Gods, our brothers and sisters are rising up.”
The hollers and hoots came again, their voices rivaling the rolling thunder.
Pete motioned for Nick who walked over to a side door. He opened it and stepped back. Guttural barking sounded outside.
A man wearing what looked like a riot suit entered holding a chain and a club with barbwire wrapped around the shaft. The slack in the chain straightened out, rattling from whatever it was attached to.
The guard yanked on it and in came a muscular beast with a maw covered by a muzzle. It was another freak dog like the one Timothy had seen earlier. Only this one had a collar around its neck.
The creature growled, spine going rigid and hairs spiked like arrow quivers. Saliva dripped out of the muzzle onto the ground.
“It’s time to unleash our new weapons,” Pete said.
A second guard in riot gear followed the beast into the room. Muffled barks escaped from the muzzle until the man clicked on a remote, zapping the dog into submission. Several more genetically modified canines were brought in and loaded into cages in the backs of pickup trucks.
“Mount up,” Nick called out. “We move out soon.’
The men fanned out into vehicles while Nick walked over to Timothy.
“You, my pimple-faced friend, are going to help us get inside the command post,” he said.
The man who had hit Timothy with his gun barrel withdrew a black bag and pulled it over Timothy’s face. A hand grabbed him and pushed him into a truck. Motors growled to life.
Over the noise came the barking of the dogs in the back of the pickup trucks.
They sounded nothing like Ginger and Spark, even when the dogs were angry. These canines were starving, anxious to feast on flesh.
Timothy’s stomach curdled with the thought of just whose flesh they would be dining on tonight.
Extinction Cycle: Dark Age Box Set | Books 1-4 Page 57
