by Chuck Dixon
Staggering, Chaz dropped Hammond to the floor. Dwayne and Jimbo took up positions at the foot of the ramp and trained weapons into the Tube.
“Renzi!” Dwayne called into the mist. “What’s going on?” Tauber said. “You left someone behind?”
“We were on the run, Mo,” Caroline said. “It all went wrong out there.”
A figure was moving swiftly out of the mist in the Tube field. Tauber stood frozen to stare at a squat man who raced from the fog. He was swinging some kind of stone-bladed ax over his head. His body was smeared in red, and his face painted white. A roar rose from his wide-open mouth and filled the Tube chamber. The animal sound was drowned out by rapid explosions from Dwayne’s rifle. Jimbo joined in as three more naked men leaped into view out of nothingness. Their lifeless bodies tumbled to the foot of the walkway, spraying blood.
“Renzi!” Dwayne took a step forward, and Jimbo grabbed his arm to stop him. “We have to go back! We can’t leave him!”
A rock sailed from the mist to bounce down the walkway. More followed it, making a metallic racket on the floor plates and railings. Dwayne and Jimbo fired into the Tube field on full auto. Chaz joined them with the Minimi and the barrage of stones died away.
“They overran him!” Jimbo held Dwayne’s arm and turned him so their eyes met. “We’d walk back into a shitstorm and die back there with him!”
Dwayne stared wild-eyed at Jimbo. His mouth worked, but nothing came out.
“Priority one—hold our ground!” Jimbo shouted and increased the pressure on Dwayne’s arm. “Ricky bought us time! We have to use it!”
Stones and spears began flying from the bone-chilling fog again. More humped figures came into view shrouded in the vapor pouring from the coils, bare feet pounding forward on the plates.
The Rangers opened up, pouring fire into the mist, murdering any shape that made itself visible in the narrow confines of the Tube. A heap of bodies grew within the field. Hot blood struck the ice-rimed coils and boiled away. The men kept up the continuous fire, pausing only to slap in fresh magazines.
The deep hum of machinery died away, and the giant fans in the walls and ceiling activated to pull the cold air from the room. The mist dissipated to reveal a pile of bullet-riddled bodies lying whole and in pieces on the frost-covered walkway. All of them were skinnies. The back wall of the chamber was punched full of holes from the Ranger’s final volleys as the Tube shut down and the gateway to the past vanished.
Dwayne dropped to the floor to sit where he was, the last stores of will and the dregs of the amphetamine rush drained from every muscle. In contrast, Jimbo stood pumping his rifle in the air and letting loose a wolf howl that echoed around the big room. Chaz leaned on the railing on the walkway and grinned.
They hadn’t forgotten the man they’d left behind. They just surrendered to the heady elation of having survived despite shitty odds. Exhaustion, fear, and blood loss took their toll. They were left helpless to their own animal physiology. There was plenty of time for guilt and recrimination later if they could still feel those things. For now, there was no room for anything but joy.
They were the baddest motherfuckers in the valley and, damn, it felt good.
Caroline stood and returned her big brother’s hug. The tears came. The harder she cried, the harder she held him to her, as if afraid he might vanish and she would open her eyes to find herself back in that horrible cave.
Six showers later her skin still felt gritty even though she had scrubbed her skin red. Her hair was still stiff though most of the lime had been washed away. For a fleeting instant, she considered shaving her head.
Morris met her as she exited her bathroom wrapped in a thick robe. Her brother sat on the edge of her bunk and held out a cold bottle of Fiji and a paper cup filled with capsules and tablets.
“You need to take these,” he said.
“Mo…” she moaned and shooed him from the bunk so she could lie back, propped on pillows.
“It’s your own protocol, Carrie,” he said and handed her the cup. “Antibiotics, antifungals, antiparasitics, minerals, vitamins, and a strong laxative.”
“Ick,” she said, then popped the pills and sipped water.
“I thought I’d lost you,” he said.
“You worry too much,” she said and washed down pills.
“Actually, I knew I lost you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean, Mo?”
He told his sister of finding the cave and, with Parviz’s and Quebat’s help, uncovering a skull that was undeniably hers—a skull with a bullet-sized hole in it.
She shivered and took a long pull of Fiji. “I’m just too damned tired to get my brain around that right now,” she said and laid back. The pill cup was empty.
“It could be a confirmation of string theory,” Morris said. “If we could publish about it. Which we can’t.”
“That doesn’t mean we can’t explore it further. I can already think of some simple experiments.” She allowed herself the luxury of closing her eyes for a few seconds.
“Yeah. It does mean that, Carrie. They’re shutting us down,” he said.
“Who? What did you say?” She sat up. “They’re coming tomorrow. Some corporate hard case named Martin. He says Sir Neal wants us gone. I nearly fried the system getting it powered up this last time to get you all back here before the deadline.”
“This work is mine. Yours. They can’t just take it.”
“Same old story, Sis.” He frowned. “Our work. Their money. We signed agreements. We were both so fixated on seeing your theories realized that—”
“We’ll build our own Tube,” she insisted. “I already have ideas for improvements, ways to make it work more efficiently.”
“Well, unless you’re holding a winning lottery ticket…”
“Where are my clothes?” she asked emphatically and pointed at a trash bag tied shut by the door of her room. “There! Tear that open.”
She stood over Morris as he worked at untying the bag. Caroline grabbed the bag, pried her fingers through the plastic, and ripped it open to dump the stinking mess on the floor. She dug through the sweat-soaked and bloodstained t-shirt and came up with the necklace Old Mother had put around her neck back in that forgotten time.
She held the necklace of black claws up to Morris, and he recoiled at the musky odor of it.
“See that?” she held between her fingers a dull yellow bead set on the necklace thong between the claws.
“That looks like gold,” he said and removed his glasses to squint at it.
“How far back in that cave did you dig, bro?” A broad grin wrinkled her nose.
Men trotted out to meet the helo as it landed. They were big men. Their suits were expertly tailored but could not hide their nature. These were soldiers and moved with the assured confidence of men used to standing their ground when others fled for cover.
“They’ve vacated, sir,” the tallest of them said as Gus Martin stepped from the copter. He changed to cross-trainers on the ride from Vegas. The last trip out here had ruined the custom loafers he bought in Parma last winter.
“Really, Bohrs?” Martin said in mild surprise. “I thought they might stay behind and make me listen to more of their wretched pleading.”
“There are a few unexpected items we found in our initial inventory,” Bohrs said and walked beside Martin down to the compound with a pair of Martin’s aides following behind.
“I hope there’s nothing that will complicate our deal with the Chinese,” Martin said. “They’re coming tomorrow for an inspection of the property and a brief demonstration.”
“There was a considerable amount of spent brass on the floor in the main building,” Bohrs said. “And some minimal damage to the structure, but the mechanism appears to be intact.”
“Brass?”
“Ammunition shell casings, sir. Lots of them. And quite a bit of blood evidence, which led us to the grave.”
“Grave.” Martin felt a migra
ine building behind his eyes.
“A mass grave with multiple bodies,” Bohrs said. “They used a backhoe. We partially uncovered the remains.”
They reached the compound area and the three black Suburbans that had brought the Gallant security men there that morning. No other vehicles were here, but there were broad, deep tire tracks in the sand.
“A semi-tractor trailer, sir,” Bohrs said as Martin stopped to look at the fresh ruts that led away from the huts down to the service road.
“They didn’t have a truck the last time I was here,” Martin said.
“We think they used it haul the reactor away,” Bohrs said.
Martin turned to the reactor hut and noticed for the first time the ten-foot-wide hole roughly cut through its steel outer wall. He snapped his fingers, and an aide handed him a satellite phone. Martin punched a series of numbers and held the phone to his ear.
“Sir Neal, if you please,” Martin said blandly.
A pause as a voice replied.
“Then, you’d better damned well wake him up,” Martin’s voice dropped to a chilling rumble. “He insists on good news fast and bad news faster.”
Blood Red Tide
The story continues with Blood Red Tide, book two in the Bad Times story from Chuck Dixon.
Treasure is when you find it.
The Rangers have returned from the prehistoric past to find themselves in an even more dangerous time---the present.
Being on the run takes money. On the run from the richest man in the world takes millions.
From a forgotten cave in the Nevada desert to the pirate-infested seas of the ancient world, the Rangers hunt for treasure lost to time. The travelers to the past find once again that history is not what it seems and the future is always in doubt.
Available now at Amazon and through Kindle Unlimited.
Levon Cade: The Complete Series Omnibus
FROM BEST-SELLING AUTHOR, CHUCK DIXON, COMES THE LEVON CADE SERIES – A CAN’T-PUT-IT-DOWN VIGILANTE JUSTICE SERIES.
Levon Cade left his profession behind to work construction. He just wants to live an anonymous life and be a good dad to his daughter. But when a local girl vanishes, he’s asked to return to the skills that made him a mythic figure in the shadowy world of counterterrorism.
Follow Levon and his daughter while they go on the run from the feds and a growing army of enemies that Levon makes along the way.
“Levon is bad ass. Makes Jack Reacher seem like crossing guard.”
Available Now at Amazon and Kindle Unlimited
From Chuck Dixon and our friends at Wolfpack Publishing
Author Notes
June 2, 2019
Thanks for picking up this series.
The origin of these stories begins on the living room floor of the house I grew up in. The very first stories I created were with toy soldiers and sometimes I'd have to mix historical periods in order to create battle scenarios. A few times plastic dinosaurs joined the melee! And that's really where Bad Times began. When I went to create a brand new set of stories I decided to indulge those adventure fantasies of my childhood in a time travel epic featuring a cast of the toughest, most resourceful soldiers I could think of. I hope you enjoyed these novels and are looking forward to future (or past) trips into the Tauber Tube.
Chuck Dixon
About the Author
Chuck Dixon is the prolific author of thousands of comic book scripts for Batman and Robin, the Punisher, Nightwing, Conan the Barbarian, Airboy, the Simpsons, Alien Legion, and countless other titles.
Together with Graham Nolan, Chuck created the now iconic Batman villain Bane. He also wrote the international bestselling graphic novel adaptation of J.R.R Tolkien’s The Hobbit.
His first foray into prose, the SEAL Team 6 novels from Dynamite Entertainment, have become an ebook sensation. He currently scripts GI Joe Special Missions for IDW publishing as well as the Pellucidar weekly comic strip for ERB Inc.
He calls Florida home these days.
You can connect with Chuck here:
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https://www.facebook.com/chuck.dixon.779
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http://dixonverse.blogspot.com/
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Chuck-Dixon/e/B001HOL26O
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