Apocalypse Burning (39 page)

Dropper, Maxim, RayRay, and Bones fell in with them, all of them racing for the receiving door that led out into the alley. They didn’t stop until they reached the Cadillac.

Joey slammed into the Cadillac and nearly fell over. Then the nausea swirled up inside him and he stayed bent over, throwing up so hard that he got lightheaded. Spots spun in his vision.

Bones cursed, breathing hard from running. “What happened?” he demanded.

Zero stood there with the .357 Magnum in his fist. “I killed a guy in there. Had to. He was going to blow these two jerks away.”

“You killed somebody?” RayRay asked in disbelief. “The police are going to be looking for all of us. We’ve got to get out of here.”

“You didn’t have to kill him,” Joey said, somehow finding the strength and conviction to stand and face Zero. “He didn’t shoot Derrick or me.” Joey was angry and scared, and he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Everything that had happened was so unfair. “I don’t think he was going to shoot us.”

Zero stepped up into Joey’s face. “I say you’re wrong. I say I saved your life.” He cursed and called Joey names. Without warning, he slapped the pistol across Joey’s face hard enough to knock him to the ground.

Blinded by the pain, almost knocked out, Joey pushed himself up to his hands and knees. He sucked in a breath and tried to block the agony. Before he could recover, Zero kicked him in the ribs and knocked the breath out of him, then reached down and took the 9mm from Joey’s jacket pocket.

“You’re stupid, Joey,” Zero said, holding up the gun for display. “You didn’t even try to use this on me. You don’t have what it takes to survive. You had a gun when that man ‘fronted you in the store, too. You should have blown that guy away, not waited on me to come save you. When the aliens get here, they’re not going to want a weakling like you as their ambassador.” He stomped Joey mercilessly.

Joey felt two of his fingers break as he tried to protect his head during the vicious beating. He rolled onto his side and pulled into a fetal position.

Finally, exhausted or maybe realizing the police might arrive at any second, Zero stopped. He breathed loudly, cursed some more, then ordered Dropper and Bones to put Joey into the Cadillac’s trunk.

Joey tried to fight back, but Zero pointed the .357 at him.

“You’re going in the trunk for now,” Zero said. “Maybe later I’ll let you beg for your life. Or maybe you can figure out how you’re going to convince me you won’t rat us out.” He spoke louder, for the benefit of all the others. “If anyone finds out that we were here tonight and that I shot that guy in the mall, we’ll all be tried for murder.”

The others didn’t say anything. Not even Derrick.

“So we all stay together,” Zero said. “When we get back to the house, we’ll figure out what to do with Joey.”

Dropper and Bones threw Joey into the trunk and closed it.

Hurting and out of breath, Joey lay still for a while and tried to recover. He knew once they returned to the house where they were currently crashing, he was dead. He’d seen that in Zero’s eyes. The others wouldn’t stop Zero from killing him because they were afraid of Zero and they were afraid of getting charged with murder.

Desperate, Joey pushed aside the pain and took out his flashlight. He knew several luxury edition cars had trunk releases built into them. Shining the light around, he located the release on the left, waited till the car slowed. Then he popped the release, shoved the trunk lid up, and rolled out.

He fell, tripped up by the car’s forward momentum. But he pushed himself back to his feet and started to run toward an alley to his right. Brake lights flared ruby red behind him.

Pistol shots rang out. Bullets ricocheted from the street near his feet, then from the alley wall as he ran inside. Sparks jerked into motion, then flared out and died.

Joey ran, ignoring the tearing pain in his side, knowing if he stopped even for a second they would catch him and kill him. His friends weren’t his friends, and he was in more trouble than he’d ever imagined in his life. All he wanted was for everything to be normal again.

But it seemed like the whole world was against him.

Rubber shrieked behind him, letting him know someone had turned the car around or they’d taken off. Joey didn’t know which. He didn’t look. He just ran.

13

GAP International Airport
Sanliurfa, Turkey
Local Time 0606 Hours

They didn’t call it a suicide mission. None of them talked about the fact that many of them—maybe all of them, if the op really turned sour—wouldn’t come back. They were Rangers of the twenty-first century, some of the best fighting men the United States of America had ever turned out.

More than that, they were the team of professional soldiers First Sergeant Samuel Adams Gander had chosen for the op behind enemy lines. Sixty men strong, they’d been bloodied in wars and conflicts long before the current action that ran from the Turkish-Syrian border to Sanliurfa.

As he stood watching them load into two CH-47D Chinook helicopters, Goose felt proud and scared. He’d handpicked the men for the mission, disagreeing with Captain Remington’s calls for the team only occasionally because he had more information regarding the men’s current physical health than Remington did. And Goose had had that edge only because the captain hadn’t yet called for or received his morning report.

After Goose reached the command center thirty minutes ago, Remington had ordered him to the airfield with the briefing to follow later. By the time Goose reached the airfield, thirty of the men he and Remington had agreed on were already there.

Remington’s investment in this mission was considerable. The 75th had originally fielded roughly six hundred men for the peacekeeping mission that had turned into a war. Those men had been divided along the front line and fallback positions before the border skirmish had escalated into war. Two hundred and eight of those men had vanished across the board just days ago, leaving behind their empty uniforms and dropped weapons. Another hundred and seventeen were casualties, either dead or too wounded to stand a post. The unit had a lot of walking wounded, too. The Rangers had been taking hits ever since the initial battle along the border, and they’d had major damage from the last attack two days ago. Remington had assigned sixty of the healthiest men to Goose’s mission.

The Rangers stood in the rain, their ponchos covering them and the seventy-pound packs they carried. All of them had stripped their gear down to water, light rations, ammo, and medkits. If the op went as planned, they’d be away from the city for fourteen hours. Of course, they all knew that ops never went as planned.

More Rangers arrived by jeep, RSOV, and cargo truck as Goose clambered out of the Hummer he’d been assigned. He walked to the back of the vehicle and took out his own pack. He secured the heavy weight across his back and shoulders and fastened it to his LCE, then checked the headset communications.

The op was set up through Remington’s new access to whatever satellite array he was currently using. Goose knew the array wasn’t the standard mil-sat set they were assigned to use. Having to depend on an outside source for communications unnerved Goose, especially when he remembered the way Nicolae Carpathia had so quickly and callously rescinded the satellite access he’d given Remington during the confusion immediately following the Rapture.

The Rapture, not “the vanishings” or “the disappearances.” Goose realized that was now how he thought of the event. The Rapture.
You have come a long way in your thinking,
he told himself.

But maybe not in his beliefs, he knew. Goose still had doubts there, about whether God really knew him or God cared. About whether a weary soldier could ever figure out how he was supposed to get closer to God. He wasn’t sure if he even showed up on God’s radar, or if God’s radar—like Remington’s—so often seemed to be focused more on the big picture than on one worn-out, noncom on the front line of a shooting war.

He wondered how Danielle Vinchenzo was getting on with Corporal Baker. During his last brief headset communication with his men, he’d made sure that Baker was standing down at the moment and could meet with her, though he hadn’t mentioned her by name. Baker had known Goose was spending time with her, and Baker knew whom he was referring to. It was hard keeping secrets from his unit.

And it was harder still keeping secrets from Remington. The whole time they’d handled the prelim brief, Goose felt that Remington knew something was up. But if he did have an inkling of what was going on, the captain had never asked. When it came to a mission—especially a mission the captain had put together—Remington was all about the mission.

But Goose knew that Remington was hiding secrets of his own. He’d seen the weight of them bearing down on his friend. Some of it, Goose had known, was from sending his troops into battle against superior Syrian forces.

That’s not all of it, though,
Goose told himself. After years of serving together, they knew each other pretty well. The parts they didn’t know were the parts they had tacitly agreed were off-limits.

Limping only slightly, feeling the rain in his face, Goose approached the group, immediately spotting the soldier he was looking for. “Lieutenant Keller,” Goose called, raising his voice to speak over the noisy throb of the rotors.

Lieutenant Charlie Keller turned instantly. He was trim and fit, and he had enough experience under his belt to be useful in a tight spot. “Yes, First Sergeant,” Keller responded.

“First Sergeant Gander reporting, sir,” Goose said, firing off a quick salute. He hitched his thumb in his rifle sling to make it more comfortable against his shoulder. “I’m designated to Alpha Detail. Your detail, Lieutenant.”

“Glad to have you, Sergeant.” Keller looked out over the two teams still loading into the helicopters. “You checked the troop manifests?” “Yes, sir.”

“I’m glad to know that.” Keller glanced at Goose. “No offense to the captain intended, Sergeant. The captain is good at what he does, but I’m glad to know you had a chance to eyeball the personnel. Never hurts to double-check.”

“Yes, sir.” Goose knew that statement was meant neither as a putdown to Captain Remington or as praise for him. As first sergeant, Goose served as Remington’s ranking NCO. He was the man who made sure that everything the captain wanted or needed was where it was supposed to be when it was supposed to be there.

“Nasty bit of business ahead of us, Goose,” Keller commented.

“Yes, sir.”

“Did the captain give this op a name?”

“Alpha’s part of the op is called Run Dry.”

Keller smiled a little. “Not exactly the weather for an op called Run Dry, is it?”

“No, sir.” Goose stared through the drizzle falling from the brim of Keller’s helmet.

“Who’s Bravo’s lieutenant?”

“Lieutenant Matt York, sir.”

Keller gave a satisfied nod. “York’s a good man.”

“Yes, sir,” Goose said. “When the time comes and we need him, he’ll stand tall.”

“We’re going to need him.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Who’s our radio operator?”

“Corporal Tommy Brass, Lieutenant.”

“Get him up and running, First Sergeant. I want to make sure we’re operational.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We’ve got thirty men to our unit, First Sergeant. You’re heading up Alpha One and will be designated Alpha Leader. Who are our other sergeants?”

“Sergeants Crosby and Foley, sir.”

“Crosby is Alpha Two. Foley will be Alpha Three. I will be Alpha Prime. Make it so.”

“Yes, sir.” Goose saluted again. Turning away, he trotted toward the first helicopter that Alpha Detail would use and opened the headset channel. “Corporal Tommy Brass.”

“First Sergeant,” the young man quickly replied.

Goose kept moving across the airfield toward the waiting helicopters. “Corporal Brass, your first orders are to find me.”

“Yes, First Sergeant. On my way, First Sergeant.”

Goose kept moving, feeling the eyes of the men around him. All of them were tense and nervous, but they were ready too. Each one of the men he’d selected for this mission knew he’d trained for what they were about to do.

The two Chinooks stood waiting, their engines idling and their rotors turning in the darkness maintained over the airfield. First developed in 1961 by Boeing after that company bought out the design and Vertol, a helicopter manufacturer in Philadelphia, the Chinook remained one of the best troop and cargo helos in the business of war.

Many soldiers referred to the helicopter design as banana-shaped because of the way the two propellers were placed in tandem, one at either end of the fifty-one-foot-long aircraft. The rear of the helos had cargo hatches that stood open now, receiving troops and equipment.

The closer Goose got to the Chinook, the more the rotorwash slapped the rain from the airport pavement across him. He was drenched in seconds. The Rangers around him wearing ponchos didn’t fare much better, and several of them had ripe comments to offer about the weather conditions.

Corporal Tommy Brass met Goose at the helo’s rear hatch. He was young and earnest, a tech head who’d originally intended to use his army experience to land a job in the new Silicon Valley shaping up in Seattle, Washington, his hometown. Instead, he’d gotten caught up in the Ranger lifestyle and had stuck around. In addition to being a tech head, he was also an extreme-sports enthusiast, everything from motorcycles to rock climbing, and he had the scars to prove it.