Saul of Sodom: The Last Prophet (10 page)

  
“We’re getting pushed back.  How are things on R3 and R4?”

  
“
So far so good.  Still laying down diversionary fire
.
  They’re not
on to us yet
.”

  
“That is about to change,” he warned, glancing over the bleeding corpses at his
feet.  “Be swift.  Report back ASAP.  We do not have much time.”

  
“
Roger that.  Breaching!
”  There was the loud explosion of the breach,
followed by more shots before Malachi’s signal disappeared.

  
“Celyn.”

  
“
What’s the update?
”

  
“Waiting on you.”

  
“
Got it.  We’re in position, drilling as we speak.  We’ll work as fast as we
can
…”

  
“
Couyon!
”  Duguay’s voice suddenly broke the airwaves.

  
“What now?”

 
 
“
Goons movin’ in off North Street!
”

  
“More company,” he murmured to his men.

  
They pressed up against the outer wall, hugging their guns to their chests, muzzles
barely scraping the light beams.

 
 A gentle tremor started beneath their feet.  The scar-faced overclass raised
his head and looked round.  “Tell me that’s not what I think it is…”

  
“
They’ve got heavies
,” the reply came not a second later.

  
“Shhh – ii – t – t!”

  
“How many?”

  
“
Two
.”

  
“…
I’ve got them on radar,
” said Celyn.
  “We’re ready for them
.
Let
them come.
”

  
“What about the civilians?”

  
“
The tunnel’s closed off.  No civvies down that path
.”

  
“Do not engage,” he instructed.  “Heads down.  Wait for my signal.”

  
“What’s the signal?”

  
“You will know when it comes.”

  
Pressing closely against their little grottos of gloom, they waited.  

  
Soon, the walls began to shudder, and instead of dissipating with the
shockwaves of the bomb blasts and gunshots, the vibrations were constant and
rose into a judder.  Dirt and flakes of rock splintered off the tunnel ceiling
as the screeching of the gas-guzzling turbines broke through the tumult,
splitting stone and smashing concrete.

  
“Hold,” he instructed with an open hand.

  
“
That’s it…
”

  
Two hulking tanks ploughed down the road like mammoth armadillos.  The first
shadows of the East Grid martials appeared, zipping across the inner walls;
first two, then dozens.  Their lights grazed the fresh corpses.  The seams of
the tunnel walls started to break.

  
“Hold.”

  
“
Little more…
”

  
The tanks passed over the sills, swallowing up the light from the alley, and
for a moment there was utter darkness and din, blotting out everything save for
the sulphurous fumes, the smell of the fresh blood rising from the bodies, the
deafening banshee-shrieking of the turbines and the sound of steel grating
against stone.

  
“
In three… two… one…
”

  
“DOWN!”

  
An almighty “
BANG!”
shook the earth like a falling bolide.  Three men
were thrown off their feet.  Then a second “
BANG!”
and a third and a
fourth in quick succession.  Concrete, tarmac shrapnel and torn flesh flew in
through the apertures and showered from above, hysteria railed through the
alley, aimless shots ricocheted off the walls and into the tunnel and the hail
of sniper fire started to rain down.

  
He found his footing and hauled one of the toppled soldiers to his feet.  “Building
4, now!”  All 20 of them raced through the cloud of dust and debris, bent over,
heads below the crossfire. Saul took point.  “I-S-4, I-S-3 – moving to phase 5!”

  
“
Roger that!  Breaching!
”

  
The explosion of the breach from the other side of the building was drowned out
by the outbreak of gunfire in the alley. Blood splashed in through the
apertures.  As they were speeding up the tunnel, bodies stumbled off the
streets and fell in their path, clutching their charred faces and writhing and
yelling frantically.  Barrels rose and fired, tearing their path clear.  One
after another, the bodies breasted the hail of bullets and fell; and they
pushed on fast, treading over bodies and mounds of fallen rock. 

  
When they came to the end of the tunnel intersection, Saul hauled the shutter door
aside and brought up the rear all the way to a dead end.

 
 “Hold.” 

  
He whipped his arm up in front of his chest and a section of the gear slid back
from over a bright screen.  He thumped his fist against an area of the tunnel
wall and felt for hollowness. 

  
“This is the section,” he said.  “Lay out the charges.”

  
Two men came forward and squared up to the wall, drawing out thick black strips
from their gear and laid them out like thick sections of duct tape in the shape
of a wide frame.  “Clear!”  They dispersed at once.  The masks on the headgear
came down.  “Breaching!”

  
The wall section vanished in a blast of smoke, rubble and ash. 

  
They rushed forward, hurdling through fog and leapt down from the fresh opening
in the tunnel wall onto the roofs of parked cars, then onto the basement floor. 
A symphony of blaring alarms wailed as the rest of the squads trailed in
formation through rows of parked automobiles. 

   
The stairwell door opened.

  
“Keep it silent.”  

 
They ascended floor by floor, rifles scoping up, down, left and right.  Their
pace slowed with each storey they ascended.  When they came to the 10th, he
held out one hand, palm facing the ground, slowly approaching the door to the 11th
floor hall.  Four men came up on either side, backs up against the walls.  He
pressed his ear against the door and tried to listen in through the war in the
backdrop.  The noise was distinct.  Voices 

  
“Movement.  Engage on my signal…”

  
Shouts were heard from the other side.   Shots fired. 

  
“GO LOUD!”

  
A bullet whizzed right past his head and salvos of shots started to tear
through the walls.  Bodies hurled down the stairway and there was a loud thud,
a growl and a moan.  He turned just in time to see the rounds tear crosswise
through two others, and sideways bursts of blood marked the line of fire.  They
fell and tumbled down the stairwell.

  
As quickly as the shots had started, they suddenly and inexplicably stopped. 

  
An uneasy calm ensued amid the distant bass of bomb blasts and the intermittent
trembling of the walls.  The wounded pressed up against the wall, growling
terribly as the blood poured from their wounds and dripped over the floor. 

  
Saul turned and gave the nod.  They rushed up the stairway and the doors burst
open.

  
“Hold fire!”  I-Squad 4 were standing on the other side, gun held high over
their heads, along with the bodies of some dozen fresh-killed East Griders,
strewn across the corridor floor.

  
“Clear.”

  
Saul signalled to the rest of his men, bringing an end to the phase.  “You were
supposed to wait for the signal,” he reproached, nudging the second squad
leader aside and issuing orders immediately.  “Assume positions for final
phase.  Stay clear of the light.”

  
The wounded suppressed growls of pain interspersed with passionate cursing as they
were lugged into the corridor.  The rest of them rushed in and the squads
merged, forming a firing line all along the length of the hall.  The last of
the barely surviving East Griders, squirming on the corridor floor, were swiftly
put out of their misery.  Fallen comrades were checked for signs of life, and
the corpses hauled aside. 

  
Saul lit a cigarette, cautiously approaching the nearest window. 

  
“They’re starting to break off onto the side streets,” said the squad leader,
coming up by his side.

  
“Good.”

  
“How is that good?”

  
“They do not know we are here.”

  
The whole middle section of North Street came into view.  All along the breadth
of the wide avenue, batteries of tanks were lined in waiting, infantry squads
racing back and forth and in and out of the adjoining streets to reinforce
their fronts of the firefights.  He counted 16 tanks dispersed in groups of
four at two main intersections -- R1 to the left, R2 to the right.  The whole
street was fortified and every adjoining road blocked off.  No civilians.

  
He raised his hand to his temple. 

  
“Phase 4 update.”  

  
“
Building 7 secured,
” said Malachi.
“
We have broadside on
South Street.
 
Assault teams are taking heavy fire.  We can’t delay this
much longer…
”

  
“We will not.  Phase 3…”

  
“
I hear you,
” Celyn broke in at once.
 
“
D-Squads 1 and 2 are
regrouping now.  We’re making the final drills on North Street.  A lot of
fireworks down here… There’s bound to be some collateral.  Better hold on
tight.
”

  
“Duguay.”

  
“
Ya
?”

  
“We are ready.”

  
“
D’accord.  Sortir!  Allez-allez!
”

  
The line cut out.    

  
“Torch,” he instructed, and was immediately handed a flashlight.  “Phase 5,” he
called over the transmission.  “I-squads show positions.”  He flashed torch
light three times in quick succession.  On multiple floors of the opposite
building, flashes of light were returned in response, then in the neighbouring
buildings, all along the other side of the street.  “Watch your fire,” he
instructed, and tossed the torch back.

 
With the final pieces in place, there remained only the tension of the
countdown.  His heart pounded in his chest, pumping a hard blend of fear and
elation into his veins.  The rush soared as the clock ticked down. 

  
“Phase 3…”

  
“
Done!
 
We’re outta here.  Linking up with A-squads now.”

  
“Move to final phase on my go.”  His eyes turned up, over the crimson lining of
the city skyline at the still, starlit sky, and the cosmic void seeped into
him, stilling his mind.  For what seemed an instant there was only the sound of
his breath and the surrounding mayhem reduced to whispers in the night before the
fateful words came over the airwaves.

  
“
We’re clear
,” said Celyn.
 
“
On your mark
”

  
He threw the cigarette aside.

  
“Do it.”

  
The lights went out and a trice of dead calm punctuated the echoes of his last
syllable before the shockwave bellowed up from deep beneath the ground.  The
earth ruptured.  High walls of smoke, fire and ash erupted from the fissures
and tall high-rises swayed like tree trunks in a hurricane.  The ground split,
the street caved in on either side and the tanks were swallowed into the
crevasses, bows and sterns in the air, dragging down bodies and big, reeling
chunks of rock. 

  
A second wave of explosions came soon afterward.  On either side of the main
streets, buildings came tumbling down in landslides, dividing the streets into
thirds with great heaps of rubble, closing the enemy into neatly divided
slaughter boxes.  The panicked shouts and roars rang across the district and
the enemy ranks broke up, stumbling around in darkness and disarray. 

  
“FULL ASSAULT!  GO LOUD!”

  
The windows along the corridor broke and burst outward in a shower of glass
shrapnel and full broadsides of gunfire rained down from above onto the
streets.  The corridor shuddered with the force of 10,000 discharging rounds a
minute; empty bullet cases and magazines clattering on the floor.  Bodies
collapsed into folded piles of ruin.  Shots were returned.  The walls
splintered.  The gun butt beat against his shoulder, crosshairs centring on
anything that moved. 

  
The tank guns startled to rotation and as they made to take aim straight lines
of light shot from high to low and burst in flashes of white and ripping holes
into their hulls.  The enemy started to break apart and retreat into the
alleys. 

  
“Stairwells!”

 
 “To the streets!”

  
“Move, move, move!”

   Heavy breaths, curses of triumph and
thrilled cackles punctuated the last shots before the squads broke into two and
rushed down the stairwells.   They emerged onto the main street just in time to
see the enemy in flight, and tumbling down hills of debris as the volleys of
gunshots cut them down.  The assault squads rushed in from the adjoining roads,
hurdling and bounding over the knolls of broken buildings.