Read Doomsday Exam [BUREAU 13 Book Two] Online
Authors: Nick Pollotta
"The currents go this way!” Raul shouted, and we happily ran away. Discretion and valor, yep, that's us.
The dim lights worked for us, making it difficult for the warplanes to spot their targets, at least for the older planes. The Harrier and the Ashanti helicopter had chemical & thermal scanners and infrared viewers better than what we had in our van. If the planes thought of using their sonic guidance systems, they'd have us in a minute.
Just then, a small red missile on a column of flame and smoke shot by the end of the corridor we were in. A moment later, another turned to curve into our passageway. Holy Hannah, a heat seeker!
From the waist, I fired my 40mm shell hoping for a lucky shot and Donaher triggered his flamethrower attempting to prematurely detonate the warhead. Frantically, Raul threw a fistful of coins and a steel wall appeared directly in front of us. Mike cut the flames. One second later, the wall violently exploded, the concussion hurling us brutally to the floor. Flames cooked the air from our lungs and shrapnel pounded us mercilessly.
Lying limp on the deck, I ached in every part of my body. But I was alive, at least technically. My clothes were black with blood, the stains spreading. Frightened, I grabbed my neck but apparently my anti-vampire collar had deflected most of the impromtive flechettes.
Crawling on hands and knees, Katrina gathered some blood from everybody on a strip torn from her uniform. Then neatly tearing the cloth into eight pieces, she breathed heavily upon them and stared with visible force.
"Go!” Katrina bellowed in a Voice of Command. “Rise and run until you die!"
Obediently, the drops of our blood stood tall and exact duplicates of the team dashed away down the far corridor. A barrage of yammering machine guns, rapid-fire cannons and explosions greeted their appearance. Gradually, the sound of battle faded into the distance.
"Nice move,” Raul moaned, using the wand staff to lever himself erect.
"Thanks,” she croaked. “You also."
Assisting each other to stand, we shambled along, still following the current. En route, the team affected repairs as best we could. Looking weary, Jessica dropped some of her combat armor to lessen her weight load. Lithe and beautiful, my wife was not a muscle-bound samurai like Mindy and had limits.
Going up a dark staircase, we moved silent as possible along a main access corridor, then took a branch hallway and went north. The ethereal flow was becoming thicker, almost visibly dense. Tendrils and streamers of wispy fireworks flowing swiftly onward, ever forward.
At an intersection, we hid in a Map Room as a lumbering French Saber interceptor moved by. It was so close, I could read the serial numbers stenciled on the missiles tucked under the clipped delta wings, and the museum plate attached to the white striped fuselage. The brass square detailed the noble craft's history, evolution and attributes. Unfortunately, the plate did not list any known weaknesses. An oversight, surely.
There was nobody in the pilot, or co-pilot's seat. Where were the guards? In a silent gesture, George proffered his Masterson, but I shook my head vehemently no. Not yet.
Whether by alchemy, or the magic of the Aztec book, these planes were fueled and brimming with armament. When one died, they would let the whole world know. At a range of two feet, the resulting blast could make us go permanently deaf.
Try again, bucko
, Jess sent petulantly.
They'd be mopping us off the walls with a sponge.
True, but I'm an optimist
.
The river of magic took us further into the great ship and eventually we had to loop our belts through those of the mages to keep them from being physically hauled into the air by the powerful eddies of concentrated magic.
Tagging along after our human kites, we were pulled past a corner only to find half a dozen warplanes waiting for us. Even as the team frantically scampered back round the corner, the massed fighters opened with gun and cannon. With propellers spinning, it was like staring into the mouth of an angry garbage disposal full of firecrackers.
"We must be close to LaRue,” Father Donaher reasoned, peeking past the edge of the metal wall and triggering a burning arc of jellied gasoline towards the airships.
As both of the Masterson cannons were speaking, I withheld comment. Reaching over my shoulder, I grabbed a plastic tube with no fluted ends, and gave them a LAW. Streaking in between a Corsair and the Harrier, a Curtis Helldiver was hit and went to its namesake. Damn, I had been aiming for the Harrier.
Advancing from behind the burning wreck of the old Grumman antique was a state-of-the-art F18 SuperHornet, one of the finest fighting planes in existence. Jumping Jesus! That thing used a Harrier for target practice! What the bloody freaking hell was a line-ship such as the Hornet doing in a goddamn Navy museum? An exhibition?
"Trouble with a capital T,” George sang, as a .50 round banged off his helmet knocking him askew. The muzzle of his weapon went wild for a second, the armor-piercing shells chewing paths of destruction in decks and bulkheads.
"Do you have a clever plan, Mr. Alvarez?” Ken asked calmly, triggering controlled bursts of caseless HE rounds.
I sure did. “Don't die and win!"
"Good plan, sir."
"Thanks. Got it off a gum wrapper."
Our weapons kept a constant barrage going and it was not a problem hitting the planes. This was easy as shooting ducks in a barrel. Only these ducks shot back, more, and better.
Holding onto a stanchion with both hands, Katrina exclaimed something in Russian and the secret language of magic.
"Will that work?” Jessica asked, as always our universal translator.
Feet braced against a hatchway, Raul strained to hold on. “How do I know? Nobody was ever dumb enough to try before!"
"So we do!” Katrina cried, radiating a fine Muscovite fury.
Stretching from their precarious positions, the two mages managed to grab hands as racing lines of ethereal power poured straight through them. In unison, they began to chant, and the majority of streamers now arced around the pair, and the few glowing ribbons that went in, didn't come out the other side.
Firing off another 40mm shell of thermite, I nearly did a dance. Holy mother of pearl, the two were retaining snatches of the limitless energy flowing past them. Recharging themselves to who-knew-what level of magic. The closer we get to the nexus, the more ethereal power would pour into them. It wouldn't work against LaRue, he'd only absorb the energy, but it might save our butts in this particular instance.
"Kill those planes!” Katrina commanded, internally glowing from the endless power passing through her trembling form.
Pausing for a split second, George and Sanders gave a start, then boldly charged towards the amassed fighter and interceptors.
Bullets bounced off their adamantine bodies, missiles impacted and only crumpled their warheads with no explosions. Repaired and backed by the quintessential, concentrated, river of magic, the two indestructible soldiers waded forward, their Masterson Assault Cannons firing non-stop. Over 4,000 rounds a minute of armor piercing, high explosive, caseless rounds spewing from the pitted maws of the deadly weapons.
The oncoming missiles were shredded, the explosion and shrapnel forced back towards the Harrier, Saber, SuperHornet and Delta Dagger. The jets cut loose with everything they had, missiles, rockets, 40mm shells, .50 rounds, .75 depleted uranium slugs, and blinding magnesium flares. The determined planes dropped their payloads of bombs onto the deck beneath them, the tons of high explosive, thermite and napalm blockbusters only adding to the general destruction.
Boldly marching, the two soldiers took it all and gave it back, compound with interest, their bulky coffers of ammunition refilled the microsecond the packs were exhausted.
Indomitable as professional wrestlers on national TV, the pair of soldiers advanced upon the clustered million dollar jet fighters. As each machine was drained of ammo, it was destroyed. The Saber was torn to bits under the horizontal rain of 20mm rounds, its fuselage split apart and the fuel tanks exploded into a strident fireball. The Hellcat and the Corsair were slammed against the bulkheads burst into kindling. Ripping free from their mountings, the great motors bounded along the corridor as insane things, the spinning propellers smacking into the deck and bulkheads, throwing the roaring engines hither and yon, with no rhythm or reason.
Nimble as a gymnast, Ken ducked under a ton of spinning metal, and George tracked the other engine's wild flight, peppering the motor with caseless HE rounds motor until it jammed and burst. The Delta Dagger died next, then the MiG, and the Harrier. A chunk of canopy went skidding along the deck and I saluted the tiny American flag painted on the Armorlite windshield as it passed by. So I'm a patriot. Sue me.
Incredibly, the SuperHornet turned tail, shoved its wings into a pair of opposite hatchways and throttled up both engines.
"Oh shit!” George cried, backing away.
"What?” I shouted, banging away with my .357 Magnum.
"Know the difference between a flamethrower and a jet engine?” George said, licking dry lips.
"
Nyet
!"
"A flamethrower doesn't have as much hard thrust!"
Uh-oh. Time to fry.
The twin turbo-engines seemed to disintegrate into a boiling wave of reddish flame that completely filled the corridor, as the F18 SuperHornet blew hundreds of gallons of half burned fuel out its turbines in a last great effort to toast us alive.
The very force of the flames served to deflect the 20mm rounds from the Masterson cannons. Desperately, Raul and Katrina upped their chanting and George and Ken dug their heels into the metal deck. Step by step, meter-by-meter, they charged straight into those yawning pits of hell and forcibly shoved the stuttering muzzles of their dire weapons straight into the thundering engines!
There immediately followed a quite spectacular explosion.
When I could see and hear again, only a steaming hole in the twisted metal deck remained of the rogue defenders. The SuperHornet was totally destroyed, plane and simple.
Ugh!
sent Jessica.
Sorry, it had to be said
.
No, it didn't.
Gathering ourselves together, we grabbed a hold of the mages, and the team levitated over the jagged gap to land on the smooth undamaged deck beyond. Ahead of us was a set of double doors large enough to comfortably pass a cargo plane, and on the wall a neatly stenciled sign told why.
"Vehicle Storage?” Mindy asked, brushing a bit of fuselage off her blade.
Exasperated, Father Donaher rolled his Irish green eyes. They weren't smiling. “Saints preserve us!” he muttered. “This is where they park the squadrons of extra planes. Hundreds of them!"
Panting from the constant exertion of keeping the two mages in tow, I thumbed my last round 40mm round into the breech of the grenade launcher. It was a special shell that I had been reserving for Mr. LaRue; a low-yield explosive canister of an outstandingly virulent military nerve gas outlawed by the UN Security Council as inhumanly painful and deadly. If this didn't kill Wild Willy, then he deserved to rule the earth. Or at least six feet of it, positioned directly over his pointy head.
"Screw the planes!” I snarled, clicking the breech shut. “Let's take the bastard!"
The doors were thick, veined steel, but two satchel charges and a LAW did the trick, and we stormed into the acrid smoke just as the ethereal winds died.
Utilizing fully half of the carrier's middle deck, the vast place was mostly empty, with only a poor Navy jeep carrying a .50 machine gun waiting for us. That trifle hardly even slowed us.
Standing brazen in a sketchy pentagram was Wilson LaRue, three times human size and glowing as if he was florescent, torrents of scintillating mystical energy pouring into him from every direction, and sprawled about him were the guards.
Or rather what remained of them. Lying on the deck, the humans were physically linked to form a pentagram about the mad alchemist, their hands fused together into an unbroken circle of flesh. Bits of guards were missing, eyes from a woman, hair from another, the chest of a third. Lacking critical ingredients from his laboratory, LaRue must have made do with live human beings for his hellish diagram.
But not everyone was dead. Scattered about in the five pointed star, a few still moaned or screamed in their torment. Living links in the corpse chain.
His hated visage filled my sight and even as I raised my gun, god help me, I paused for a moment, desperately fighting the swirling emotions within. LaRue had to die, would die, but it meant killing more civilians. I could have gunned down my beloved Jessica without a qualm if it got Wilson also. That was our job. But we were sworn to die if it meant saving innocent life.
It took me, the whole group of us, a full second to overcome that oath of allegiance. Which was all LaRue needed.
Even as we fired, a last wisp of visible magic snaked across the hangar to enter his body. Suddenly, Raul and Katrina slumped to the deck unconscious, my sunglasses went dark, Mindy's sword ceased its rainbow display, my body armor became fantastically heavy and a copper bracelet fell off George's wrist,
"Yes,” LaRue said, watching the lightning play between his fingers with mad eyes. “Success! SUCCESS!"
It was over. The spell was done, and Wilson LaRue possessed every last drop of magic on Earth. We had lost.
We had lost the battle, but not the damn war. Ruthlessly, I pumped the nerve gas grenade at LaRue. Not even looking in my direction, he caught the projectile and tossed it into his mouth, munching on the 40mm shell as if it was a gumdrop. Wisps of vapor spurted from round his lips as I smacked myself in the head. Chemical weapons against an alchemist? Alvarez, you putz!
Aiming so as not to kill, Father Donaher hosed the legs of the mage with flame, and both of the Masterson cannons cut loose spewing a fusillade of explosions to pepper the kimono wearing spacesuit. Not much damage was done to either.