Arisen : Nemesis (43 page)

Todd was reminded of Easy Company’s badass Lieutenant (later Captain) Speirs, running straight through the middle of that German-held village in
Band of Brothers
. Todd only hoped Jake had the good sense not to do the return trip.

Who am I kidding?
That was exactly what Jake would do.

And he was very quickly made aware of the price he was going to pay for Jake’s run at the tower and al-Sîf: he no longer had someone on the ground to keep jihadis on foot from sneaking up on him while buttoned up in his vehicle.

By a small miracle, he caught motion in peripheral and spun around to see three guys in man-jammies with AKs coming around from behind the building to his left – sneaking up between the structure and the wall. There were just too damned many potential holes in the dyke, and not enough Triple Nickel guys to plug them all.

Oh well, fuck it
, Todd thought.
The only thing excuses are good for is epitaphs.

He drew his side arm from his chest rig, jammed it in the tiny seam between minigun and turret shield, and emptied the whole mag into the attackers. He got one and drove the other two back under cover, around behind the building. And that was just fine by him.

He dropped down into the truck, opened the rear door on that side, and heaved two grenades out – bouncing them both off the wall and into the narrow area behind the building. The resulting explosions were nicely intensified and channeled in the small space.

He nodded once in satisfaction, climbed back up into the turret – and went back to work. There were a lot of heads popping up out in that courtyard.

And they were all in need of 40mm haircuts.

* * *

When Zack was able to uncurl from his fetus impression down in the footwell of the truck, he figured that meant he was still alive. And if he was alive, he had to get back on his gun.

But when he crawled back up into the turret, he found that just about the only part of the Mk 47 that was still intact was the blood-smeared controls inside. Everything outside the turret was twisted and smoking metal. That last volley of incoming RPGs, nearly lethally on target, had all but melted it down.

Those six rounds he’d fired from it were the beginning and end of its service.

The RPGs had also peeled away most of the turret panels on that side. He was now exposed to the open air, and to enemy fire, from one side.

A voice in his ear cut through the ringing and his general dazedness. It was Todd.
“Great job, dude! Everyone in that guard tower is smoky barbecue.”

Zack looked up and out and saw that it was so. He guessed Todd had an even better view of the carnage from the quadcopter up above. But even from down here, he could see the formerly armored structure had been peeled open like a matchstick house with an M-80 set off inside.

“Now get your minigun back up and clean up the survivors.”
Brief pause.
“You’ve got squirters, dude.”

Zack looked beneath the ruined tower and did see guys moving around.

As some of them were still smoking, he guessed they were in fact survivors of the pack of Hellhounds he had sent in after them.

“Roger that.”

He braced himself to spin the turret back around again and get back in the fight – but then noticed something different out front. The Predator GCS, which had been strapped to the roof just in front of him, was gone. Just no sign of it. Being as those last RPGs had seemed to be on an intercept course with his face, he wasn’t that surprised.

So much for keeping me protected
, he thought with a snort. It hadn’t done a hell of a lot of that. Then again, so much for Godane ever using it again. The case it lived in was pretty tough, but he didn’t see it surviving that.

He decided the squirters could wait a minute while he got the plexiglas shard out of his shoulder and got his bleeding fingers wrapped up again. He dropped down, sprawled out, and with his good hand dug out the vehicle first aid kit from under the driver’s seat.

When he was good to go again, and climbed back up, he saw a bunch of dead armed guys lying in the dirt, worryingly close to his position. He’d never even seen them approaching, blind as he was down inside.

He hadn’t seen them get shot, either, but at least they had.

He gripped the handles of the minigun and started looking for targets.

* * *

“
Which one?
” Brendan asked. He was looking at Kate intently.

“Which one what?”

“Which cell has got the Zulu in it?”

Kate looked nonplussed. She didn’t get it.

Brendan blinked once. “I’ll explain later. Suffice it to say it’s a very important zombie. Which cell?”

She started to understand – she knew the one he was talking about. “It’s not here.”

“What? Where is it?”

“It’s with Godane, in his, I don’t know, chamber. Chained to the wall. I saw it when I was being interrogated there.”

Brendan looked to Baxter.

“Yeah,” Baxter said. “I can totally imagine him keeping it close right now.”

“Shit.” Brendan clenched his jaw and considered, but not for long. “Which way is it from here?”

“Come on,” Baxter said. “I can lead us. It’s not far.”

“No,” Brendan said. “Just tell me where. You’re escorting Kate out of here. Secondary exfil path – got it?”

“Check.”

“Wait – who says I’m leaving?” said Kate.

For one second, Brendan considered saying that rescuing her was the whole point of this operation – and if she didn’t get out, they may as well not have come. But he instantly knew that wouldn’t hold any water with her. Instead, he pointed at Baxter and said, “I need you to get him out of here. He knows the way. But you have to do the shooting.”

Kate cocked her head, suspicious. “When I was last in Godane’s chamber, there were also a number of big-ass, seriously mean guys in there.”

“Godane’s Praetorians,” Baxter said. “His personal guard.”

Brendan didn’t look cowed. He checked his watch, then his radio. Its light was blinking red. They were too far underground for a signal. “When you get up top, tell Jake that Eli and I are going for Zulu Zero. We may be a little behind schedule.”

He looked around at the other three, who looked ready to go.

“Also tell him we may get to kill Godane.” He figured that would go down better.

Listening to this, Elijah showed some expression Brendan couldn’t quite place.

But he also didn’t give a shit – didn’t have time to give a shit.

They were already moving out.

* * *

Brendan moved forward, weapon up and on a hair trigger, stepping smoothly heel-toe, and waiting for the next opponent to lurch at him from out of nowhere. CQB was simply like that – though CQB in an underground labyrinth, outnumbered hundreds to one, was a bit worse.

He just took it one room, one fight, at a time.

Elijah was still right behind him, and still hadn’t had to engage. Brendan was operating as a one-man room-clearing machine.

And if he’d gotten Baxter’s directions right, they were only one more turn away from Godane’s inner sanctum. Brendan took a deep breath and whistled it out. He was hopeful he might yet catch them unawares. He’d had to do some shooting to get here, but it was all suppressed. And no one else down there had gotten a shot off at him, not since they left the cells.

He reached the door he believed to be the one, looked over his shoulder, made an
on me
sign to Elijah – then kicked it open and charged in.

Inside were four big al-Shabaab guys, a mostly rotted Zulu chained to a wall – and Godane sitting at a desk, listening to radio traffic on a small desk set. Two of the four guards tried to get their weapons up and into play – Brendan put them each down with two to the chest. The other two raised their hands.

Godane stood up, moving slowly, his hands in sight, looking enraged.

Brendan walked smoothly four steps into the room.

“Well, hello, Rage Boy,” he said, with a slight smile.

He now actually had Sheik Ali Rage Godane in his power.

This was outstanding. Even now, even all this time later. It was impossible for him not to savor it. And he suddenly looked extremely boyish with half a grin on his face. Like a kid dressed up in his father’s uniform, playing soldier.

And then he felt the cold steel of a muzzle pressing into the back of his neck.

“Lower your weapon, Cap.”

Elijah
.

Dalmar

Camp Price - Team Room
[Two Days Earlier]

They were all in the team room, having returned from the mission to Lemonnier. From everything Elijah gathered, it had not gone like clockwork. But after patching up the wounded, he was zoning out of the discussion. As usual, it was about trivial, worldly matters – the team trying to operate, to be effective, in what was clearly some kind of purgatory, and which they’d never be able to operate their way out of.

Elijah perked back up slightly when the discussion between Brendan and Jake started to grow heated. Brendan said, “Killing Godane’s entire team wasn’t exactly calculated to make him less likely to come after us. You didn’t have to provoke him.”

Jake said, “Wrong. Nothing we do or don’t do is going to make that son of a bitch any less of a threat. Our existence will be a provocation. You don’t know him like I do. Some people just need killing.”

Elijah bit his tongue. He did a lot of that, keeping his own counsel. He didn’t think the others gave a damn what he had to say. But right now he also had to do additional work to keep the righteous rage off his face. Who the hell did Jake think he was? So he was an unstoppable warrior, and had the power to kill. Did he think that also gave him the right? That his power made his actions right, or justifiable?

The end of the world hadn’t changed Jake one bit. It was just like when he had gunned down those dozens of sick people outside Camp Lemonnier and Djibouti Town. Like they were so much meat to him. And then when Pete had committed that horrible act of self-destruction – Jake had all but applauded.

And he had even told Elijah to his face that everything he believed in was wrong. “Fuck God.” He’d actually said that. “There is no God.” The words still burned in Elijah’s ears, eighteen months later. He’d never forgotten.

And he’d never forgiven. Only God could do that, anyway.

The leadership feud was escalating. Brendan said, “There was still a chance we could have gotten out of there without a fight, without all the extra risk. You didn’t have to kill all those guys.”

Jake wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, I did. And you know why?”

“Why?”

“
Because you didn’t.
”

* * *

Shortly after, Elijah was in the TOC, on his own again, alone with his thoughts – and alone with the radio set. Not for the first time, nor for the last.

He thought again about the dead boy, Dalmar and his whole tribe taken with him. Why would God do this? He’d asked himself that over and over. Why could they not protect even the handful of innocent people right on their doorstep? He thought Triple Nickel must have done something terribly wrong.

And now, when they learned that Godane and hundreds of al-Shabaab fighters had survived, all this way into the ZA…

Maybe it was our godlessness,
Elijah thought.
Maybe Godane and al-Shabaab were somehow right all along.

Maybe Elijah was alive for some purpose. Maybe he was supposed to act.

He had never thought Triple Nickel would make it this far – he’d thought he could just bide his time until he went to his final reward. But now that it was war, he didn’t imagine Triple Nickel had a chance, or could last a week. And maybe that was the best thing.

At least Godane and al-Shabaab were godly. They were incredibly devout Muslims. And because of the contacts among them he had made treating them in his clinic, Elijah knew their radio frequencies. And he knew men who were still alive there.

Back before the fall, they had talked to him of Islam, and the
Ummah
, and the words of the Prophet. And one thing he had never been able to doubt was their sincerity. His whole life, he’d always believed he had it right, that Christ was the son of God and his messenger… and that they had it wrong, that Mohammed was not the true Prophet. But now…

Surely the old anti-Islamist wars didn’t matter anymore – and Elijah didn’t know if he hadn’t been on the wrong side all along. Maybe by staying where he was, with the ungodly, and now actually fighting against the devout… Well, maybe he had fallen from grace, maybe he was doing the devil’s work. He certainly wasn’t doing God’s anymore.

Elijah stood and walked the perimeter of the TOC, checked out all the windows – then drew all the blinds.

And he sat down at the radio set alone.

For the second time.

The Walking Dead

The Stronghold - Godane’s Chamber

Brendan took his hands off his weapon.

And he turned around to face him – Elijah, his erstwhile junior medical sergeant, and teammate. Brendan’s face was expressionless, serious, as usual.

“Why?” he said finally.

Still pointing his rifle at his commander’s chest, Elijah shrugged. “You were never going to win this war. And Jake was going to get everyone killed trying.” Now any compassion fled Elijah’s face. “And you abandoned God. All of you. Especially Jake. So God abandoned us.”

Brendan shook his head minutely. He was aware that, behind him, Godane and his two surviving Praetorians were watching this little Shakespearean drama of betrayal play out. It was unlike Godane not to be the center of attention. But he was holding his tongue for the moment.

Brendan slightly tossed his head behind him. “You think they’d even let you worship your God? Just because you hand us over to them?”

Elijah’s expression betrayed his doubts. “I don’t know. Maybe I could have gotten them to come around to Christ. Or some of them. Or maybe… maybe they would have convinced me of the truth of the words of the Prophet… maybe I was wrong. Maybe these men were right all along. Maybe they survived for a reason.”