Extinction Evolution (The Extinction Cycle Book 4) (12 page)

“
Ogaf bmkanek la tetharek
!” Fitz shouted. He had no idea if they were the right Arabic words, but they were supposed to mean
Stop where you are.

“
Ogaf bmkanek la tetharek
!” Fitz repeated.

The children ran to the man, hiding behind him and peering out from behind his brown robe.

“On the ground!” Garland shouted. He kept motioning for the family to get down, but they simply stared at him. The elderly man finally lowered his voice and dropped his hands to his sides. He raised them again when footfalls echoed from the hallway.

“It’s okay,” Fitz said. He turned and shouted, “All clear here,” hoping that Walters and Duffy heard him before entering the room. The two Marines stopped in the entrance, weapons lowered toward the floor.

“Pat this guy down, Walters. Duffy, you hold security here. Garland, let’s set up shop across the hall.”

Fitz eyed the elderly man one last time. His brown eyes were visible now. There was no anger there, only fear. The kids knelt by his side, both of them shaking and sobbing.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Fitz said to Duffy on the way out.

The crack of heavy gunfire continued outside, reverberating through the guts of the building. Fitz hurried over to the final room with Garland. Opening a door in hostile territory was always nerve racking. The moments leading up came in slow motion, but this time it was different. Fitz didn’t fear what was on the other side; he feared every second that he wasted. More Marines were dying as they waited.

“Execute,” Fitz said. 

Garland put a boot into the wood, and the door swung open with a crack. Sunlight poured into the hallway as Fitz swept the room and moved inside, taking up position on the right. A pair of wood chairs lined the wall, and a filthy rug was partially rolled up in the center of the room. The bathroom smelled of cigarettes, and the toilet was covered in what could have passed for blood.

“Clear,” Fitz said. He pulled his scarf back over his nose and hurried to the window.

Below, two Humvees were pinned down in the middle of a street. The Bradleys were stuck behind them, their 25 mm chain guns roving for targets. Marines fired from prone positions at a pair of buildings at the north end of the street. Automatic gunfire rained down on the platoon from all directions.

“Holy fuck,” Garland whispered.

Fitz holstered his sidearm and got his rifle ready while Garland called into the platoon sergeant. “Golf four-one, Golf four-four. We are in position.”

“Golf four-four, get that damn sniper,” came the reply. “He’s already hit three Marines.” The comm went dead, and Fitz cursed. He checked he had a round chambered and ground his back teeth. Reaching up, he pulled the curtain halfway across the open window. Then he shouldered his rifle and stood in the shadows for cover.

“Find me that sniper, Garland,” Fitz whispered.

The spotter hurried over to the other window facing the street. He rested his rifle against the wall and centered his binos on the battle. There was no curtain to pull across, and Garland kept to the side.

The Bradleys opened up a moment later. Rounds lanced into the buildings at the north end of the street. Pockmarks the size of pumpkins spread across the walls. An insurgent fell from a window on the fourth floor, splattering on the pavement below. The crack was louder than the gunfire as his bones shattered on the asphalt.

Fitz raked his muzzle back and forth, searching the rooftops and windows of adjacent buildings for any sign of the second sniper. Truth was, it would likely take another shot—and another dead Marine—before Fitz spotted him.

Or her.

The flash came a moment later from a building three down, but this time there was no transmission stating another Marine had died. There was no transmission at all, only a muffled screech from the window beside him.

Fitz lowered his rifle and glanced to his right just as Garland crashed to the rolled up carpet. The right side of his face fell off, a ruptured eyeball sliding across the ground like the yoke of an egg.

“No!” Fitz screamed. He pivoted away from the window. Garland’s body was twitching, but the muscle spasms were involuntary. There was a complicated grumbling sound, and his body drained of fluids, the stench of death filling the room.

“Medic!” Fitz yelled. He raised his rifle, knowing Garland was gone. He was just a kid, a fucking kid with as many pimples as he had freckles. Fitz stood completely still in the shadow and zoomed in on the six-story building two streets over. He centered his cross-hairs on the window the shot had come from, his trigger finger itching for revenge. He held in a breath that smelled like shit. Before he could pull the trigger, a torrent of flashes fired in his direction. The rounds bit into the frame of his window, piercing the curtain and grazing the side of his helmet.

Walters rushed into the room and dropped to the deck as another volley of shots peppered the exterior of their building.

“Stay down!” Fitz yelled.

Fitz crawled back to the wall. He glanced over at Garland’s ruined body. It lay twisted on the floor at an odd angle, like a pretzel dipped in blood. Walter looked away and met Fitz’s gaze.

“Listen carefully, Walters. I want you to stay low and fire out the other window. I’ll take the sniper out.”

“You’re crazy, man!”

“More Marines are going to die unless we stop that bastard.”

Walters looked over at Garland’s corpse again. “They blew his fucking face off.”

“Snap out of it, Private! You’re a goddamn Marine!” Fitz shouted. 

Trembling, Walters managed a nod, then crawled over to the wall.

Fitz looked back to the hallway. The old man was sitting on the floor across the way, the boy and girl curled up against him. Duffy had his rifle angled down at them.

“What the hell’s going on?” Duffy shouted when he saw Fitz looking.

“Stay put!” Fitz yelled back.

Goddammit. Stay frosty, Fitz. Stay. Fucking. Frosty.

Duffy’s rifle was shaking in his hands. With Garland dead, the platoon under fire, and a sniper on the loose, Fitz wasn’t sure what the Marine would do. He turned back to Walters, who was clutching his rifle against his chest like it was a baby blanket.

“On three,” Fitz said.

Walters swallowed. Another flurry of shots plastered the wall a beat later, sending both men back to their stomachs. Fitz pushed himself back up and said, “1 ... 2 ... 3!”

There was screaming now from the other room, but Fitz didn’t have time to see what the hell had happened. He was only going to get one shot at this. It was luck, and luck alone, that the sniper hadn’t killed him the first time.

As soon as Walters opened fire, Fitz held in a breath, stood, squared his shoulders and aimed at the window two streets away. He pulled the trigger, once, then twice, and finally a third time. The 7.62 mm shells discharged from his gun in slow motion, and he watched the sniper’s body slump out the window and plummet to the ground.

Fitz pivoted away from the window and sat with his back to the wall. Chest heaving, he looked across the hallway. The old man was lying on the ground across the floor, blood pooling around his body. But he wasn’t the only one. Both kids and Duffy were on the floor too.

“Fuck!” Fitz shouted. “Walters, on me!” Ears ringing, he pushed at the ground, but his equilibrium was off and he stumbled. He braced himself when he got to the doorway and staggered across the hall into the other room.

Duffy was gasping for air and squirming on the ground. Blood gushed from his right arm and left leg, but he didn’t appear to have sustained any mortal wounds.

“Help Duffy,” Fitz said as Walters burst into the room. Fitz rushed over to the old man. He stared at the ceiling, his eyes vacant. The boy was gone too; a bullet had hit him square in the chest. Fitz sucked in a breath and reached for the girl. She was still alive, somehow, although Fitz wasn’t sure for how long. Blood blossomed around two holes in her shirt. He put his hands over the wounds and applied pressure. She let out a low gasp, her lips opening and closing like a fish struggling for air.

“It’s okay,” Fitz whispered, wishing he knew how to say it in Arabic. Shit, why hadn’t he paid more attention to the translator? He flicked his headset to open with a finger covered in blood. “Golf four-one, Golf four-four. Sniper is down. I have one man down. Another dead. And a civilian that needs immediate medical support.”

“How bad is your man?” came the LT’s voice.

“He’ll live,” Fitz said.

“Good. We can’t spare any medics right now. I’ll send a squad your way when I can. Send us your coordinates and hunker down. Over.”

Fitz glared at Duffy, his blood boiling. “What the
hell
happened?”

Duffy was breathing steadily now. He sat up with one hand clutched over his leg while Walters wrapped his arm.

“I shot them,” Duffy whimpered. “I didn’t mean to.”

Fitz’s hands were slimy and warm with blood. He looked back down at the girl. Her brown eyes were wide and panicky, her lips still trembling as she struggled to speak.

“I got hit, and I ...” Duffy said. He lowered his head, grimacing in pain.

“What,” Fitz said. “You what?”

“I shot them,” Duffy said. “I shot all of them. I didn’t know who shot me, man.”

The girl’s eyes rolled up into her head and she died, Fitz’s hands still pushing down on her small belly. His earpiece crackled again, and a new voice hissed into his ear.

“Tower 4, Command. Please report. Over.”

Fitz jerked awake. He opened his eyes to a view of Plum Island, not Fallujah. Instead of feeling relief at waking from the nightmare, he felt the stab of panic. It wasn’t just a dream. It was a memory, one he always woke from at the last minute. Right before he beat Duffy’s face to a pulp.

“Shit,” Fitz muttered. He rose to his feet and raised his MK11 to scan the beach. It was the first time he had ever fallen asleep on duty. The anger from the dream and at himself for falling asleep raced through him. He just wanted to be a good Marine.

The best Marine.

“You idiot, Fitz, you fucking idiot,” he mumbled. Flicking his comm to his lips, he said, “Command, Tower 4. All clear out here, over.”

In the distance, past the domed buildings and the water, arms of smoke reached into the sky over New York. Somewhere out there, the Variants were hunting and killing human survivors. The young, the old, it didn’t matter.

He shook the nightmare of Fallujah away. He would rather be back there, in all that fucking sand, than fighting monsters in this new world.

P
resident Mitchell sat in the back seat of the Humvee, staring at the top of Lieutenant Stanton’s helmet. Command had sealed the blast doors a few seconds before the convoy was supposed to leave the mountain. A drone had discovered unusual heat signature readings outside. After several hours trapped in the dimly lit tunnel, Mitchell was starting to get claustrophobic.

“Got an update, Lieutenant?” he asked. 

Stanton looked up in the rear view mirror. “We’re just taking extra precautions, sir. Air assets are finishing a second sweep of the area for heat signatures. We should be clear in a few minutes.”

Mitchell twisted to Olson. “Any news on Central Command?”

“Not yet, sir. I just put the request in a few hours ago.”

“You got your satellite phone?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Find out the status and tell them we’re on our way to the
GW
Strike Group.”

Olson reached into his backpack and pulled a long black phone. He punched in a number and cradled the phone between his shoulder and ear.

“Lieutenant Colonel Kramer, this is President Mitchell’s Chief of Staff, Brian Olson.”

“Got a green light, sir,” Stanton said. He looked to the Marine in the passenger seat. “Reno, keep your eyes peeled once we get outside.”

“Yes, sir,” Reno said.

Mitchell rested his head on the back of the seat as the convoy rolled down the roadway toward the final blast door. It was already opening, and the first natural light Mitchell had seen in weeks flooded into the tunnel. The moonlight was mesmerizing and terrifying. Fear stabbed at his gut, his bowels grumbling and his heart rate amplifying as the Humvees sped through the opening. Beams from the trucks cut through the night, penetrating the thin fog crawling across the road. Barbed wire fences lined both sides of the road, but the industrial light poles above them were off. Stanton had kept the entrance to the mountain as discreet as possible.

“Yes, sir,” Olson said, still on his phone. “We’re on our way. What’s the status of Central Command?”

The convoy passed the first guard station and raced onto the main road. Mitchell twisted in his seat for one last view of Cheyenne Mountain Complex. The blast door was almost closed.

Mitchell drew in a breath and did what he always did when nervous. He thought of the hundreds of quotes he’d memorized during his decades in politics. This time the words of John F. Kennedy came to mind
: We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world or to make it the last.

The President looked out the rear window just as the blast doors to Cheyenne Mountain sealed shut. Those twenty-five tons were supposed to hold back the blast from a nuclear warhead. Americans had prepared for the apocalypse since the creation of the United States, but in the end, places like Cheyenne Mountain couldn’t save them. The best generation of mankind was most certainly behind them now, and he feared this would be their last. His stamp on history would be short—and quickly forgotten.

The screech of tires pulled Mitchell from his thoughts. Headlights from the convoy illuminated the Ponderosa pines lining the rocky hills. A low and dense fog drifted through the forest on both sides of the road.

“Excellent,” Olson said into his phone. “We’re about to board Marine One and will see you in a few hours.”

Mitchell pulled his gaze from the window, anxious for a report.

“Good news, sir. That was Lieutenant Colonel Kramer. Our request to move Central Command to the
GW
Strike Group was approved. They are currently sailing north from the Keys.”