Arisen, Book Nine - Cataclysm (20 page)

“Okay,” Handon said. “Let’s get moving. The clock hasn’t stopped.”

Zulu Rodeo

Camp Lemonnier - Joint Operations Center (JOC)

“I want everyone wearing their face shields,” Fick said.

Both teams were now gathered in the Lemonnier JOC, sitting at various stations in the center of the sunken ops pit, mainly because it was big enough to hold everyone. Or out of habit, maybe. They’d all sat through countless briefings in an awful lot of TOCs and JOCs all over the globe.

Fick continued. “I know you all packed face shields because I made you do it while I watched. And I don’t want to lose Marines, or even other types of people, to stupid-ass avoidable infection.”

Handon didn’t disagree. They’d all gotten a little slack about face shields through the middle sections of this never-ending mission set – mainly because they’d been battling to stay alive, as well as to keep the world from blowing up, pretty much every second of the day. And also because they were incompatible with NVGs. But now it was back to solid fundamentals.

It was too late in the day for fuck-ups.

“Listen to the Jarhead and do it,” Predator rumbled from another seat he was too big for. “Unless you like the idea of getting splashed in the face – then manhandled by Handon, and piddled on with gasoline. Though some of you may like that kind of thing. No judgment.”

Handon spoke over the quiet laughter. “We’ve been conscripted into clearing this base. But we’re still here for the reason we’re here. You come across any Zulu in American uniform, you capture it, restrain it – and keep it intact.” Despite what Zorn had told him, Handon wasn’t quite ready to believe the only dead left on the base would be North Africans who had walked 2,000 miles to get there. “And, speaking of that, can anyone here tell a Somali from an Algerian?”

Ali nodded. She knew her people, even if she’d left them a long way behind.

Juice raised his hand. “Probably,” he said. Handon remembered Juice had been based in the Horn of Africa for a couple of tours. “After two years of wear and tear, though, a dead North African might look an awful lot like a dead East African.”

“Do your best,” Handon. “You think you’ve got a Somali, bag it up.”

Fick jumped back in. “Zorn has got the uncleared part of the base sealed off into three discrete segments, all of them fenced off. We clear a section, close the gate behind us, then sweep forward. So you should have some kind of a wall to your backs at all times.”

Henno said, “Aye. But we’ll also be cut off and on our own, with an unknown number of dead bastards in there with us – and of unknown type.”

Handon said, “You can handle it. And this is worth the stretch. We get this done and we’ve got transport and a local guide all the way to Hargeisa.”

Fick said, “All right. Melee weapons – if you’re happy using them.”

Handon said, “But nobody get hurt trying to avoid shooting. Every weapon is suppressed and the outer wire is intact so we can’t really draw more. And we can top up ammo before we leave here.”

Fick nodded and jumped in again. “We clear in pairs. Here are the teams. It’s me and Graybeard. Brady and Reyes.”

Handon said, “Pred with Juice. Homer and Ali.”

He paused and saw those two turn their heads and look at each other. He’d been tempted to split them up, since they’d recently split up themselves. But he’d learned in Chicago it was pointless – if one of them needed help, they’d just shit-can the orders and go to the other’s aid anyway.

Handon paused. “And me and Henno.” Neither looked at the other.

Fick said, “Noise stays with CSM Zorn in the guard tower. They’ll control opening and closing the gates from there.”

Handon looked around the room and closed out the briefing. “Two critical mission parameters: We need to do this fast. But we need to do it safely.”

“But we need to do it fast,” Fick added, not looking like he was trying to be funny.

“Get it done,” Handon said.

* * *

As they geared up and paired off outside the JOC, Graybeard button-holed Handon and Fick. “What’s that big circus tent-looking building?”

“Thunderdome,” Fick said. “It used to be a briefing and activities area. Zorn used it as a holding pen – collecting the dead there before ejecting them from the base. But it’s empty now. He’s cleared the chamber. So don’t worry about that one.”

Juice stepped over from nearby and said, “Hey, guys. Last time I was here, Thunderdome was covered on top – but open at the sides. Like a concert pavilion.” They could all see that its sides were now made up of solid walls of HESCO barrier.

Handon shrugged. “He’d have had to plug it up to use it as a holding pen. Don’t go in there, and don’t worry about it.”

As everyone was stepping off, Fick button-holed Reyes and Brady. “Why don’t you two hang back a little. Don’t be the pointy end of the spear today.” He was still worried about their injuries – and how little time they’d had to recover from them. Neither was moving at full speed yet.

Brady looked dismissive. “We’re fine, dude. And the sooner we get this shit done, the sooner we get this shit done.”

Fick exhaled. “Okay.” Now he was also thinking:
They’re going to have to mix it up sooner or later.
He may as well find out now if they were up to it.

“Be careful,” he said.

* * *

The little electric motor at ground level hummed quietly, and the long chain rattled as it pulled the section of twelve-foot-high heavy-gauge chain-link fence, topped by thick coils of razor wire, out of the way before them. Fick stole a look over his left shoulder, at the elevated guard tower where Noise and Zorn were overseeing the op and controlling the gates.

He took a breath, cradled his weapon, and traded a look with Graybeard.

And the pair moved out, the others stepping off behind them.

Behind them, Predator flipped his face shield down, and announced: “On with the Zulu Rodeo. Yee-hah!”

Fick and Graybeard chuckled at this, but didn’t turn around, instead heading off into the warren of the camp. Like the others, they knew their assigned sector from the briefing and moved toward it quickly but carefully. As they separated from the others and made their way, Fick said, “Stay close.”

Graybeard grinned, the corners of his eyes crinkling deeply. “Bet your ass I will.”

“Don’t worry,” Fick said. “I promise not to send you off on your own for jerrycans full of goddamned aviation fuel.”

“And I promise not to go if you ask me. I have absolutely no intention of leaping from another moving vehicle onto an airplane that’s already taking off…”

Fick laughed. That episode on Beaver Island had truly proven Graybeard was unkillable – if there’d been any doubt.
The one thing you know about a dude that age who’s still operational
, Fick thought,
is that he’s a survivor
. Suddenly he wondered if he should have paired Graybeard with one of his wounded guys, and kept an eye on the other one himself.

Oh well. Too damned late now.

They came to the closed door of the first structure they needed to clear.

They nodded to each other as Graybeard put his hand on the knob – then turned it slowly, pushed the door open, and got out of the way as Fick powered himself inside, clearing right. Graybeard followed him in, clearing left.

And, after that, it was just going to be a solid couple of hours of room and area clearing. Fick kept both eyes and ears on the next corner, the next doorway, the next building… but the physical movements of CQB were so ingrained, so much a matter of muscle memory, that he found himself doing what he would have kicked his Marines’ asses for.

Letting his mind wander.

* * *

From the elevated perspective of the guard tower, Noise and Zorn could see the five pairs of operators dispersing out into the warren that was the northwest quadrant of the camp. It was a little like looking down from an aerial drone view – which they’d actually considered doing, getting the
JFK
to task either a drone or the F-35 already on station, then piping the video into the JOC.

Finally, they’d rejected the idea, mainly just to move fast and get it done. Though Noise slightly suspected that neither Handon nor Fick were wild about telling the commanders on the carrier about the little side-mission they’d gotten roped into.

As the last pair entered the enclosure, Zorn pressed a button on his control station and the gate closed smoothly behind them.

“So you’ve got generator power,” Noise said.

“Some,” Zorn said. “There’s a shit-ton of fuel on the airbase next door. Only trouble is moving it back here.”

Noise stood carefully off to the side, and also slightly behind Zorn. He was well aware of being on double duty. One, overwatch. And, two, prisoner watch.

But with a little luck, they’d all be out of there by noon.

* * *

Fick held his weapon to his shoulder now, aiming over Graybeard’s as they both ascended a stairwell. This was one of the bigger, more permanent, multi-story structures on base, and took a little more time and attention to clear.

As they reached the top of the stairs, Graybeard went left again, Fick right. He saw only empty corridor and began moving down it, but then heard Graybeard say, in a normal speaking voice, “Contact left.”

By the time Fick turned and quick-walked back, there was a single Zulu on the floor at Graybeard’s feet – and he was withdrawing his K-Bar knife from its head. Graybeard was probably the last MARSOC Marine to actually carry an old-school K-Bar. Then again, they all seemed to be kicking it old school today.

Perfect for a couple of old-ass guys like us
, Fick thought, clapping his Marine on the shoulder. Leaning around him, he could see the Zulu wasn’t in anything like a military uniform. And what skin it had left was light-colored. Fick guessed that meant it was North African. In any case, it was destroyed now, so he turned around and went back to his side of the floor.

The next room proved empty, and the one after that, and Fick’s mind started wandering again, thinking of Reyes and Brady out there on their own. And he wondered if he was ultimately going to be able to keep the promise he made to himself when their lieutenant died – when the young Marine officer sacrificed himself, allowing Fick and the others to escape, on that scavenging mission in Australia gone horribly wrong. The promise that he would be better at leading the Marines than the LT had been.

That he would do whatever it took to keep them alive.

The problem was… Fick was balefully aware that wasn’t really his job anymore. Because the mission was now a hell of a lot more important than any one Marine, or even all of them. Fick was self-aware enough to know what he was so afraid of: losing his Marines, having to watch them go down one at a time, while he carried on with the dwindling survivors… until there was no one left but him. That terrifying dream he’d had in the bomber, flying from Beaver Island back to the carrier, was still with him. The one where he’d had to watch his Marines get taken down one by one – knowing he was powerless to stop it, that nothing could stop it…

And that he was doomed to be the last man standing.

Hell, that dream – literally his worst nightmare – had almost caused him to panic at a critical moment, when the plane got hit and he ran up and down the cabin, practically pushing his team out the jump door so they wouldn’t go down with the aircraft. He got his shit together in the end…

But the dream had never left him.

In truth, this fear of his wasn’t very far removed from Handon’s secret terror that he wouldn’t have the wisdom to know when to spend his operators’ lives for the sake of the mission – and when to safeguard them.

But that was why it was a secret fear.

As much as Fick and Handon had been bonded in the crucible of combat, they never talked about that kind of thing. Admitting fear or vulnerability would have been an intimacy too far. You saved that kind of stuff for your wife – and, generally, not even her. They had been long conditioned to keep some things under wraps – always.

And if this was simply fear he was feeling, Fick knew he’d damned well better get over it. If he lost Marines on this mission, he lost them. All that mattered, all that could be allowed to matter, was the mission.

Everything was on the line now.

Fick cleared the last room at the end of the corridor and started making his way back to the stairwell to link up with Graybeard.

As he backtracked, he thought again of Reyes and Brady – both of whom had raised their hand for the big mission, then again for this sideshow. He’d seen enough war movies to know it was always the guys who volunteered to go forward when they didn’t have to who ended up getting killed.

And he wasn’t sure he could face it.

He only knew that he had to.

The weak human part of him still insisted there had to be some way around it. That he could work harder, be smarter, both get the job done and bring all his people home.
Fuck this destiny I’m so afraid of
, that part of him said,
and fuck fear
. But the more sober, resigned part of him knew that this was gut-check time. And completing this mission, seeing it home, might require that he lose everyone on his team – one by one, or maybe all at once.

This was the end game. This was
it
.

And everything Fick himself had was on the table, and in jeopardy, as well.

The Downward Spiral

CentCom HQ - Outside the Gates

Hackworth stood in the second rank of the Tunnelers outside the gate. He’d figured it was best if the woman with the access card, Rebecca, did the talking. But he could see which way this was going, in less than a minute.

He knew it. Almost from the minute they escaped the Channel Tunnel, the officials had been letting them down. They’d left them in quarantine in that terrible tenement in Canterbury – as the whole city fell to the dead, and they then carpet-bombed the place, nearly taking all of them out with it. Hell, they’d knocked their building over before the Tunnelers were even out of it.