by Jack Colrain
When he had gone, Hammond dew Daniel aside. “West, you’ve got the local knowledge.”
“If you can call it that. I was in the area a couple of years ago, when it was still a church and open to the public. We didn’t go inside last time I was there; the whole point was to get my friend’s daughter outside of it.”
“It’s more than the rest of us have. I want you to prep infil and exfil routes through the streets.”
“I can do that.”
Hammond cracked a grin. “You weren’t tempted to join them in there? A lot of nice ladies did sign up.”
“A lot of not so nice ones, too, like my friend’s psycho ex.”
“West, seriously now, you going to be okay operating in an area where this psycho ex lives? If there’s going to be a problem, I’ll understand, but I’ll need to know it right now. I don’t want to find out that you’re in two minds when there are bullets flying.”
“It’s my friend Cody and his daughter that I cared about, Chief. I stopped worrying about Jill’s wellbeing the minute she joined up with that Kebbell fruit-loop.”
Hammond nodded. “Good. All right, everybody knows their jobs. We’ve been training hard, so, compared to that, this should be pretty straightforward. You’re all used to your own and your equipment’s capabilities, so that should make things easier.”
And then, Daniel suddenly heard Hope in his head, commenting on the chief's words as he mulled them over. ‘Easier, perhaps, but not easy. That’s one thing a soldier always knows the action is not going to be.’
Twenty-Four
For the pre-dawn operation, the twidgets who looked after the Exo-suits had managed to pipe through the images from the recon UAVs to the suits of the four squad leaders—Hammond, Daniel, Hope, and Rausch. For now, however, they gathered in front of a large monitor where they could pick out smaller details in the images that the technician who was piloting the UAV was switching in.
The First Church occupied a huge space in the center of a development of retail and office blocks. At first glance, it resembled something from the Italian Renaissance, with a columned entrance, a great central dome, and a smaller dome on each side. Only on second inspection did it show up as having been expanded and developed more gradually; the original 19th century church building was still just about visible, absorbed by the current and far larger building. Its angular form left some odd corners sticking out of the more modern curves, while a facing of its rectangular tower was snuggled warmly between the south wing’s dome and the main central dome.
The street facing the Greek temple-like main entrance was lined with upmarket shops and restaurants while the longer sides of the plaza were flanked by multi-story parking lots and business and office buildings with walls made of gleaming mirrored glass. The rear side of the space contained parkland, a cemetery and garden of remembrance, and some jogging paths leading down to the waterfront. Two tall residential apartment blocks rose at the corners of the plaza between the church and the parkland and waterfront, angled to give the best views of each depending on which side of the buildings an observer might be looking from.
“Who owns the two apartment blocks?” Daniel asked the FBI agent on hand to assist them. Agent Novak had apparently wanted law enforcement to take custody of Kebbell and the others, but the government had overruled the FBI and police both, fearing that they weren’t trained for so dangerous an operation, and that the National Guard’s weight of numbers might provoke a riot from non-Mozzarella residents.
“The church, we think. They’re on its land, and the ownership paper trails disappear into a mess of shell companies and holding companies. The same goes for some of the office blocks on the north side.”
“Let’s hope there aren’t any more that we don’t know about.”
Hammond grunted. “Let’s assume they all are, just to be on the safe side. An approach from the waterfront looks nice and tempting, but there’s no cover there, and those apartment blocks have great coverage of that approach.”
“And a killing ground between them, and out in front,” Hope said. “It’s a lure, not an approach.”
Daniel said, “There’s a parking structure that leads to a loading street behind the restaurants at the south end. From there, there’s sewer access, according to this map of the sewer.” He tapped one of the screens.
“Can you zoom into that apartment block?” Hammond asked the technician. In response, the image from the UAV zoomed in on the southern tower. Now they could see the armed guards patrolling the balconies, and the machine gun and stinger missile emplacements on the roof. It didn’t take long to check that there were similar precautions on the other tower, as well, and on the church building itself. “Sewers,” Hammond said thoughtfully.
Daniel West’s Exo-suit zoomed his vision as he looked down the street towards the sprawling church, four blocks away. It glowed a ghostly white in the moonlight. He carried an M27 rifle with an underslung grenade launcher, a Glock M007 pistol, and various grenades. He had retained one railgun for heavy support, just in case. Peters had a LAWs rocket launcher, as well, while Bailey had a Remington auto-shotgun in place of a rifle. Kinsella carried the Designated Marksman’s M110 rifle, with a suppressor fitted. Alpha Team—Hammond, Palmer, and Evans—were already in a parallel sewer to the east. Bravo team, consisting of Hope, Svoboda, and Buapeuak, would now be formed up ten blocks away, to the northwest. Delta Team—Rausch and Ebrahimi—were at a culvert to the northeast.
He bent at the knees and lifted a manhole cover out, pushing it to the side before he dropped down into the sewer below. For once, he could smell nothing, the suit protecting his senses from the toxicity of the sewer rather than enhancing them. The others followed, and together they advanced smoothly and quietly, without need of flashlights since the suits enhanced their vision.
After five minutes, according to the feed from the drones, they had passed safely under various cameras and IEDs that would have alerted the cultists to their approach if they’d been on the ground. They’d also taken a variety of turns in order to emerge onto the surface in an alley between a parking structure and the east wall of the compound, which separated it from the harbor’s waters. “Charlie Actual, Alpha Actual,” Hammond’s voice came over the comms. “Sit-rep.”
“Charlie Actual, in position.”
“Proceeding.”
In seconds, Charlie Team was on the surface, weapons locked and loaded. Daniel paused at the wall, raising his hand instinctively to make the pulled-fist gesture for a halt, even though the slightest whisper under his breath would have been transmitted from his Exo-suit to the rest of the fireteam.
Something was moving in his peripheral vision, and he squinted to try and make it out. Reading his eye movement, his suit focused on the moving object and magnified it. It was a man in gray camo moving along the ledge of a parking lot a couple hundred yards to the left. “What the hell?” Daniel breathed out.
“Sit-Rep?” Casey Peters’ voice asked in his earpiece. “Wait, I see him.” A chorus of confirmations came back immediately. “Your suit is transmitting the target flag to us. Nice.”
“Glad to oblige,” Daniel muttered.
“Two more,” Bailey’s voice came over as a pair of icons popped up in Daniel’s vision.
“They’re not regular Mozzarellas... and they’re watching our infil-point, specifically.” He opened a general channel to all of Team Hammond. “Charlie Actual. Hold position and check the high ground overlooking your infil-point.”
“Bravo Actual,” Hope replied, “I see them.”
“Alpha Actual, likewise.”
“Delta Actual,” Rausch said, “Roger that.”
“Focus,” Hammond said. “They know we’re coming. No other way they could be setting up an ambush at both infil-points.”
“How could they know?” Peters asked. Nobody bothered answering, as the answer was obvious; the church had sympathizers everywhere.
“They’re looking for uniforms,” Hammon
d reminded them. “Stay frosty; move slow and with focus.”
Daniel understood; the Exo-suits had stealth capability that a man or woman didn’t, and the cultists didn’t have the enhanced senses that the suits offered. He stepped out very slowly, keeping low, and keeping to cover where possible.
There was a bright moon, which didn’t help, but they had all trained for this. Daniel had suggested skirting the outside of the partial V-shape made by the apartment towers in the compound, because if they were both defended, getting between them would be a seriously bad idea. He scuttled along the wall that separated the street from the compound, keeping down to minimize the chances of anyone high in the tower spotting his movement. His troops did likewise, and at first he thought they were going to make it all the way to the gateway that led through to the old cemetery and churchyard behind it that flanked the more modern edifice.
He kept an eye on the guards who were in vision, kindly painted more brightly by the suit, to watch for any sign that they’d been spotted. Nothing happened until a sudden and distant crackle of gunfire woke up the streets.
“We’re lit up,” Rausch said calmly. “I think somebody noticed we displace water in the pool here.” Daniel remembered there was a shallow pool between the two residential buildings to the south.
“Get to cover,” Hammond instructed. “Maybe we can make them think they were shooting at shadows—”
A rustle drowned out the rest of the sentence as a discarded newspaper carried on the breeze hit Daniel. Immediately, one of the guards who had been watching saw that something strange was going on—paper wrapped around a blur of space—and Daniel could almost feel the guy aiming at him. He raised his M27 just as there was a sudden eruption of noise, and paint and glass exploded from the cars parked against the curb, dents punching into and through them. Splinters of sidewalk cement and dust flew among the juddering vehicles. Everyone in the team knew that sound, and its effects. “Fifty Cal!” Daniel yelled.
The source of the fire was obvious—long muzzle flares were flickering behind opposite corners of the parking garage’s middle level. In his ears, he could hear Hammond and his team encountering similar resistance, and a part of his consciousness registered Hope’s calm and focus as she suppressed her own fear in order to do her job.
Casey Peters was already aiming an M72-A7 LAW rocket at the nearest Fifty Cal. The rocket streaked across the distance in a moment and exploded against the side of the parking level. The fire from that machine gun stopped instantly, but the farther one kept up its hail of lead.
Cultists swarmed from both the old churchyard’s gate and the parking structure’s ramp, all in a rough mix of military-surplus survivalist gear and armed with assault rifles and bullpup-style PDWs. Daniel flipped his weapon’s fire-selector to three-round burst and started snapping off shots as his visor filled with target-discrimination icons. He ducked behind a pillar and looked for the highest-value targets, tagging them. “Charlie Team, take out the high-values.”
Their replies came in the form of the tagged hostiles dropping, their tags blinking out in his vision. Bullets snapped past his ears, sounding like someone’s knuckles cracking next to his head, and he fought an urge to squeeze further into cover. Two guys with AR-15s ran out between himself and Bailey and turned on him. Something thumped into his belly, but the suit solidified around it, and Daniel put the guy down while Bailey dropped the other.
Casey Peters dashed forward, covered by fire from Kinsella, and Daniel could see bullets spark off his suit without slowing him. Daniel reloaded and trotted towards the gate, keeping vehicles on the street between himself and the Fifty Cals, but not feeling a need to hide from the cultists’ rifles. More cultists in military surplus gear ran out the gate, guns blazing, and he could feel taps across his torso. He returned fire, trying not to laugh at how bizarrely like a videogame this experience was, but focusing enough to not waste ammo as he killed the Mozzarellas like he’d have killed maggots with a pan of boiling water. Something tensed at the back of his neck then, with that realization, and suddenly he wasn’t sure if what he was suppressing was laughter or tears.
An explosion sounded out near Daniel, and his head rang itself into silence. He pushed off from cover, weaving without thinking about it, not sure whether the Exo-suit was making him do it to keep him safe or if he was just off-balance from the pressure wave to his ears. The world was damned strange and unreal when you suddenly couldn’t hear it.
Peters drop-slid behind a rusting van whose right rear quadrant ripped apart under heavy fire. Daniel and Bailey were only halfway there when four guys vaulted the church wall, Aks raised. Daniel put down the cultists immediately. He didn’t think he was quite on target, but somehow he felt his forearms nudged just as he fired, and the target icon in his vision flashed and disappeared.
Kinsella, trying to catch up to Peters, stumbled and fell, blood spurting out onto the cement. The suit’s comms system muted Kinsella’s gasp. Daniel shot the last cultist and stepped out towards her position.
Bailey snatched him back by the collar just as the sidewalk ripped apart under the fifty-caliber rounds that hit where he’d been about to step. Kinsella suddenly sat bolt upright in the middle of the street, with a shout. She rolled up and scuttled across to Peters. “Wow,” she said. She picked up her weapons as Daniel and Bailey looked out towards them from behind cover. Daniel could no longer see the wound she had taken. “Sorry, L-T,” she gasped.
“Uh, yeah...” Daniel had no idea what to say to her. “I don’t think they can see you at this angle. They’re on the floor above you,” Daniel said. “We’ll draw that fifty’s fire; see if you can get up under them.”
Daniel and Bailey checked their weapons, and then started along the wall towards the machine gun’s position, pausing where cover presented itself just long enough to open fire on the gun’s position with three-round bursts. Daniel leaned back and switched to the M203 that had been slung underneath his rifle. Taking a deep breath, and trusting the suit to help with his aim, he popped back out and fired a 40mm grenade towards the gun. The round flew into the gap between floors and exploded somewhere behind the gun. There was a scream, and the firing stopped.
Shouts sounded out, and then the gun opened up again, tearing more holes in the van. “Haul ass into the churchyard,” Daniel called out. “The wall will give more cover than this van, and the Mozzarellas inside will have regular arms.”
“Copy,” Peters and Kinsella answered. Daniel could see them looking around to check their position, and then stepping onto the road.
Something flaming dropped out of the gun emplacement, and it burst on Casey Peters’ head. Liquid fire splashed over and down him as the Molotov bottle shattered, and this time the suit didn’t mute any of his yells and screaming. He fell, and Kinsella bolted for him while Daniel and Bailey gave covering fire. Kinsella rolled Peters on the ground, trying to put out the flames, but it did no good. He was howling even worse than Althaus had when he’d been killed. With sudden horror, Daniel realized that Peters might get caught in the same kind of loop as Althaus had, the suit permanently keeping him awake and conscious while the fire continually ate at him and injured him further.
Worse still, the fire burned bright, and the church’s guardians had the high ground in the surrounding buildings. Six or seven weapons opened up on Peters and Kinsella, forcing Kinsella to roll behind a thick steel dumpster. Daniel and Bailey returned fire, but too late. The rain of lead falling on Peters was allowing more burning accelerant into his wounds, under the suit, as well as consuming his clothing. Rounds in his ammo pouches began to cook off, their cracks and pops adding to the damage.
It was too much for the suit’s capabilities; Peters’ screams reached an appalling crescendo and then cut off with a rasping hiss.
Suddenly, Kinsella looked at her hand and stretched it out, opening her fingers wide towards the concrete wall protecting the machine gun’s position. Without warning, a cloud of black and silver fragmen
ts flowed along her arm, and up and out, splashing across the concrete like smoke or dry ice. Where the cloud touched concrete, it was joined by dust. Dark rebar appeared, stretching across, and then chunks of concrete were crumbling away from underneath it.
Daniel and Bailey both raised their weapons simultaneously and let rip. One of the men’s bodies fell with the concrete fragments, and the other rolled backward and lay just as still.
Peters was finally out, but no longer breathing or moving. Or screaming.
Twenty-Five
South of the firefight that Daniel had been in, a massive wave of superheated air slammed into Hope Ying, making her stagger an instant before the sound punched her in both eardrums, leaving her deaf but for a whine in her head.
She stumbled aside in the direction of a floral embankment southeast of the east tower, where she and her team had been attempting to flank the old church and breach through the sprawling building’s side door. Something hit her in the center of her back, below the shoulder blades; it felt like a stinging punch with a sharp slap in the very center, and she realized that it was a bullet. “Sniper!” she yelled, her own voice flattened and muffled in her ears. She’d never heard a shot, and she knew that she would have only heard it if it had missed. She barely heard a tinny crackle in her comms earpiece and knew the rest of the team would be asking if she was OK, and for more details about the sniper’s location. She flung herself over the embankment and looked back towards and past the east tower.
‘Where are you?’ she thought to Daniel, because thoughts were quicker than words, and she didn’t want to risk a nearby cultist overhearing and getting her position.