by Myke Cole
“I don’t want to tell you guys how to do your job, and I know we’re guests here, sir . . .” Reeves began.
Nalren turned to stare at him, and Ghaznavi leaned over and punched him in the arm. “What?” Reeves looked pained.
“Just make your point,” Desmarais said. “I know you’re guests, but it’s one team, one fight.”
“Well”—Reeves recovered his composure—“it’s just that we’re coming out here loaded for bear. We’re ready to hit the ground guns up. You say this sheriff is a lifelong public servant and willing to cooperate. So, why aren’t we picking up a phone and calling her instead of showing up on her doorstep ready for a fight?”
“Fort Resolution is even more remote than Yellowknife,” Desmarais answered. “To call it the edge of civilization would be charitable. Less than five hundred people live in that town; most of them make their living in traditional trades like trapping or fishing. These people are practically off the grid already. They’re not easy to get in touch with at the best of times.”
“Surely, they’ve got something,” Reeves said. “Satphones? VHF? Something? They’re not in tents out there, are they? I mean, if the town’s got a sheriff, it’s gotta be at least partly civilized.”
“They’ve got all those comms channels,” Desmarais answered, “and none of them work.”
“So, shouldn’t you be sending an engineer to—” Reeves began.
“You’re not following me, Mr. Reeves,” Desmarais interrupted him. “No comms channels are responding. They’re completely dark.”
“Could a storm do that?” Ghaznavi asked.
“A bad one, maybe,” Desmarais replied, “but we’ve been in touch with Environment Canada. There’s no storm, and there hasn’t been one in the past month. We’ve tasked satellites to get us some overhead imagery, but it’s going to take a while.”
“The Director,” Ghaznavi said. “He beat us there.”
“Maybe,” Desmarais said, “probably. We have to assume the worst.”
“So, call in the Canadian Army,” Reeves said, “the RCMP, surround the place.”
Desmarais shook his head. “This has to be small, and it has to be quiet.”
“Why?” Reeves asked. “Since we’re speaking plainly.”
“For the same reasons it has to be small and quiet for you. You didn’t have the Army hit that facility in Colchester. We’re not dropping the Army on Fort Resolution.”
Reeves went silent.
“We keep this quiet. We get the town secured and we convince Sheriff Plante to take us to her grandfather. Once we know we have him secure, we can take the fight to the Director. All right.” He brought up a map of the town. “We know the country, so it’s our stick on point. I want you to—”
The plane shook. Schweitzer heard the distinctive pop of chaff firing, saw the red-yellow flashes just off the plane’s wing.
“Taking fire!” the pilot shouted back to them. “Strap in!”
Desmarais shut the laptop and slid into his seat, slinging the buckle across his chest until it clicked. The rest of the team followed suit.
“Any idea where—” Ghaznavi began, but stopped at a gesture from Desmarais.
“They’ll get us down,” he said. “We can figure the rest out then.”
“This might be a little uncomfortable,” the pilot shouted, and the plane lurched, the nose dropping at a sickening angle, the frame groaning in protest. The engines roared, whined. The floor slid and the team sagged in their harnesses.
There was another boom, and the plane shook again. Schweitzer heard a dull pattering of some kind of crew-served gun. Whoever was firing on them definitely had them dialed in, and Schweitzer didn’t like their chances of making it down in one piece. The Twin Otter was a propeller-driven cargo plane, not designed for evasive maneuvers against a determined foe. It would come down to the skill of the pilots. He hoped Nalren was right about them.
Schweitzer had landed in fixed-wing aircraft under fire before. He would never forget his first trip into the “VIP” strip at Baghdad’s airport. The plane then had been a C-130, a massive tub of a transport plane at least four times as large as the Twin Otter. They’d ordered the windows covered, so there was no way to see the angle of descent, but Schweitzer had felt it, a churning sickness in his living stomach as the pilot had thrown the plane into a corkscrewing dive, so tight and fast and Schweitzer thought for sure that he’d overcommitted, that he couldn’t possibly pull such a large and heavy plane up in time, that at any minute, he would hear the bang of the nose impacting the tarmac, and then he would know no more. When the bang came, Schweitzer jumped, but he wasn’t dead. The horizon had suddenly righted, and the plane was taxiing on its landing gear, safe behind the flight line’s barricade walls.
The Canadian pilots performed the same corkscrewing dive, the same speed, the same insane angle. Schweitzer watched out the window now, seeing the lake and the sky swap places again and again. The chaff fired again, the yellow sparks spiraling up and out of view.
The plane shook once more and Schweitzer saw flames shooting out from somewhere just behind his window. Smoke filled the cabin as the horizon finally righted and the pilots got the pontoons under them. “Going to be bumpy!” one shouted.
The plane hit the water like a meteor. Schweitzer could see the waves splashing up, sheeting down the windows. A chunk of gray ice the size of a bus sped by, missing the wingtip by inches. The team lurched in their harnesses, a few smacking their heads on the ceiling despite the straps. Schweitzer heard the engines roar as the pilots desperately tried to shed speed. The plane shuddered again, and Schweitzer could tell by the crunching sound that they had struck ice. That meant that whoever was firing on them had lost their sight picture, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t regain it. This wasn’t Baghdad and they didn’t have barricade walls to cover them here.
Schweitzer slapped the release on his harness and stood, crossing to the plane’s door. The plane was still racing along, shaking, lurching from side to side. The team stared at him wide-eyed. He should have been thrown from his feet, rattled like a marble in the aisle between the seats. But Schweitzer’s magical strength tensed the right muscles at precisely the right moment, locking and unlocking in perfect synchronicity with the pitching craft. He moved like a man walking a boat’s gently rocking deck, crossing to the door, yanking the handle down.
“What the hell are you doing!?” Ghaznavi shouted to him.
“Setting up a firing position,” he answered. “Did you think they’d just stop shooting at us because we landed?”
The wind ripped the door open the moment the latch released, banging it against the side of the fuselage. He could see the gray water rushing by, churned to white froth by the plane’s pontoon. Slush and chunks of ice the size of baseballs slammed against it, chipping paint and spinning off into the boiling lake. The shore was a good way off but growing closer each second. Whatever braking the pilots had managed, Schweitzer didn’t think it was going to be enough.
They confirmed his suspicions a moment later. “We’re going to have to beach!”
“Sit down!” Nalren called to him. “Jack, you gotta strap in!”
Schweitzer squinted at the leaping shore. He could see gray figures moving among the rocks. It was possible they were locals running to help. It was also possible they were the shooters running to intercept. Schweitzer knew which one he would be betting on.
“Gun!” He turned to Nalren, motioning to the holster strapped to her thigh.
She stared at him, uncomprehending. There was no way he would make a shot from this kind of bouncing platform. It was insane to try.
“Give it to me, damn it!” he shouted, and Nalren released her death grip from the harness, slumping against the broad nylon strap. She reached down and thumbed the holster’s release, looked at him again, eyebrow arched.
“I’ll catch it. Trust me.”
She yanked the pistol out and tossed it in one movement. It was a crazy throw, her arm shaking like everything else in the plane. The weapon flew sideways, and the rest of the team shouted at the sight of a loaded gun sailing through the air. Schweitzer let go of the doorframe and leaned, snagging it out of the air as easily as if it had been thrown straight to him. In an instant, he had it nestled in his hand, a wooden-handled .45 FN, the old Belgian pattern, unchanged since World War Two. He knelt in the doorway, shrugging off the parka, freeing his buzz-saw arm. He brought it across his chest, braced the pistol against his elbow, wedged himself into the doorframe.
The figures were still moving along the shore. Even his augmented eyes couldn’t pick out their clothing at this distance, not through the mix of lake fog, spraying water, and the constant staccato interruption of the towering bergs of ice as they whipped past. He could see only the silhouettes, long streaks held at their waists. Guns, big ones. Hunters might have guns. Heck, out here in the sticks, everyone probably had them. Make the call. Wait much longer and they’ll get another shot on you.
He squinted at the guns, long, thick. Heavy-looking. It was possible that some gun nut was out hunting with a .50 cal BMG, but he wouldn’t count on it. He sighted in, fired.
In life, Schweitzer was renowned for his ability to make impossible shots. On the last op he’d run before he’d died, he’d taken down a crewman on the pitching deck of a freighter in complete darkness, two hundred yards out.
Death only made him better. His senses were his to command, all distractions set aside, dead muscles responding exactly as instructed. He had become a machine, in complete control over every aspect of his physical form. It was as if time had slowed, making all things plain. He could see the distance the figures would travel at their current pace, could feel the bullet’s trajectory as it left the gun, calculate the stirring of the wind.
The gun popped, but there was no recoil. His hands were far too strong. The gun moved no more than it would have in a block of cement. One of the figures stumbled, his weapon flying from his hands, and disappeared behind the rocks. The other stopped running, crouching for cover. There were more figures coming now, farther down the shoreline, but Schweitzer knew he’d bought them some time.
He turned back to the team and saw that every eye was fixed on him, wide and disbelieving. “Bought us maybe a minute, so make sure you clear the craft the moment we get . . .”
“Impact!” the pilots shouted.
For a moment they were flying again, the nose rising and the white-gray of the sky showing through the windows. Then, the pontoons struck ground, first groaning, then screaming, and finally shearing off entirely, sending the fuselage rumbling onto the rocky shore. Schweitzer felt the plane try to roll, the engine housing and wing keeping it upright, dragging it in a lazy circle, the propeller blades snapping off. One slammed into the fuselage, driving through the metal, leaving a piece of quivering steel in the cabin. The nose caught, crumpled. Schweitzer could hear the roar of flames as the electrical systems caught fire, burning brightly despite the water pouring into the cabin. The team was hammered between their harnesses and their seats, but Schweitzer needed only a firm grip on the doorframe to keep himself from being thrown.
The plane’s shrieks began to subside back to groans as it sketched another lazy circle, finally shuddering to a stop. The smoke in the cabin was nearly blinding now.
Schweitzer looked down at the sloshing water. It was mostly free of ice here, with shoulders of rock forcing their way through the surface, the waves white around the edges. Schweitzer couldn’t be sure that it was shallow enough to stand up in, but there was only one way to find out. He would have liked more time to make an informed decision, but he knew the first rule of an ambush: if you were not moving, you were right where the enemy wanted you. Get off the X.
“Everybody out!” Schweitzer shouted, and jumped.
The freezing water embraced him, so cold that he could feel the temperature of the glycerol in his veins plummet instantly. The water was up to his chest by the time his boots hit the rocky bottom, a steep slope that forced him to jog a few steps to stay upright. He kept the pistol above the water and trained on the shore but didn’t shake the cover off the buzz saw. He didn’t need it yet, and there was no need to freak the Canadians out any more than they already were.
He could see the plane out of the corner of his eye, aground but still partially submerged. The fuselage was bent around a spine of ice-encrusted rock, the waves slapping it mercilessly. It wouldn’t take long to break it apart. Nalren appeared at the open door, her carbine at the low ready; she glanced dubiously at the water, up at Schweitzer, back down.
Schweitzer knew what she was thinking. The team wouldn’t last more than a few minutes in this water. He had to keep the fire off of them so they could get to dry land. One of the enemy was already up from behind the rocks, moving their way closer. More were coming behind. All carried weapons, which was good. It meant they weren’t Golds. This close, Schweitzer could make out the military parkas, the tactical harness. Not locals, then. He’d made the right call in deciding to fire.
Nalren was shouting to Fitzgerald, motioning to the water as the first of the enemy reached the rocks and sighted in. Schweitzer saw the dull green of a warhead, the flanges covering the shooter’s face.
“RPG!” Schweitzer shouted, fired.
The FN fired a .45 cal round, heavy and thick, but it was still less than a half-inch in diameter. The distance was at least one hundred yards, skirting the edge of the weapon’s effective range. He could see the shooter getting his sights, could see the RPG steady as he prepared to pull the trigger. There was no time for the slow, steady pull that Schweitzer preferred. He slapped the trigger, felt the weapon jerk in response.
The bullet cut through the frothing waves, and Schweitzer smiled inwardly, knowing it would strike its target the moment it left the muzzle. Right on the piezoelectric trigger.
Schweitzer didn’t see the weapon explode, incinerating the shooter with it, but he heard the dull whump as he turned back to the airplane, shouted to Nalren, “Forget the boat! There’s no time! Get in the damn water!”
He turned back to the shore as the first splash sounded behind him, heard the sharp intake of breath as Nalren felt the shock of the cold. To the uninitiated, a sudden submersion in freezing water could make the muscles seize, turning a person into a brick at the very moment that they most needed to be moving. The SEALs trained for this, spending hour after hour in the freezing waters off Kodiak, skirting the edges of hypothermia. He wasn’t sure how the Canadians trained. They were one of the few special operations corps he’d never run a joint op with, but he prayed they were up to the same standard. He heard Nalren begin sloshing her way toward shore, her weapon held high over her head, not bothering to sight in at this distance.
The enemy didn’t have to worry about water. The first of them had reached the rocks lining the shore, and Schweitzer could hear the echoing report of their ranging shots, plinking against the rock outcropping as they estimated elevation and windage. They were good, very good. The team didn’t have more than a few seconds before those rounds started drilling home.
Schweitzer squatted, the freezing water rising up to his neck, and pushed off, easily clearing the water and landing on a ridge of rock breaking the surface. “Get to shore!” he shouted to Nalren, took a running jump to the next peak of stone rearing high enough to clear the crashing waves. He fired as he went, not bothering to aim, seeking only to draw the enemy’s attention, to let them know a threat was approaching fast.
And he was approaching fast. The magic that animated Schweitzer gave him the balance of a mountain goat, the strength of a Thoroughbred. He leapt from rock to rock, his feet touching down on slick stone barely bigger than his boot sole.
There was a report, and he felt the stirring air as a round
shrieked past his head. Good, they were shooting at him. As he closed the distance, he could finally make out the enemy’s faces, could begin to smell the stink of adrenaline in their blood, the sweet tang of the rising sugar as it dawned on them what they were facing. These were Cell operators. They knew what the undead could do.
At last, he came down on a broken boulder close enough to make the leap to the shore. He put as much power into the jump as he could, sailing up and over the cluster of enemy, shaking the cover off his buzz saw, tensing the muscles that set the blade spinning. He came down in the middle of them, four men with carbines, a fifth with a .50 caliber sniper rifle that would be all but useless at this close range. Schweitzer shot him anyway, simply because he was closest, snapping his head back and spraying his brains out the back of his hood onto his comrade. Schweitzer followed with a sweep of the buzz saw that sheared off the top of the next man’s skull before he could even raise his weapon.
Schweitzer felt a hammerblow on his back, the cells in his armor activating to repel a high-powered round. It drove him forward a step, and he let the momentum carry him into one of the other operators. The man had given in to his fear, was backpedaling madly, firing from the hip, in no danger of hitting anyone. Schweitzer cut him down anyway, because men who had lost their courage could find it again, and besides, if he’d wanted to live, he shouldn’t have shot down Schweitzer’s plane.
Schweitzer pivoted around the strike, letting the momentum turn him even as the enemy body collapsed. He got back on his sights, letting his focus shift to the front sight post. The world beyond became a gray-white blur, two darker blotches sketching the outline of the enemy. The man who’d shot him was advancing, fearless, sighted in now. His carbine barked, and Schweitzer felt the cells around his shoulder hammered, the arm suddenly heavy under the hardened liquid. But Schweitzer also had his sights dialed in, and with his unnatural steadiness, accuracy was a foregone conclusion. The enemy dropped with a hole through his right eye, and the other’s nerve finally broke. The man turned and ran, heedless, carbine swinging in its sling.