He looked for a way down the opposite side of the wall, but it was too far for him to drop down to the ground without risking injury.
Then he saw a small structure toward the northeast corner. It was close enough to the wall that he might be able to get down safely.
Throwing all his energy into a mad sprint, he dodged and hissed at the humans who were hurling themselves over the top of the wall to the other side. With one final leap, he landed on the handrail for the ramp that led to the small building.
A series of tremendous explosions erupted somewhere behind him, startling him. When he reached the end of the rail, he jumped to the ground.
Without looking back, he left the wall behind him.
To the north was a street, thick with humans fleeing in the direction of the water scent. There was no going that way. But to his south was a smaller, empty street along which stood a group of tall human dwellings. There, perhaps, he might find sanctuary.
Folding his ears back and keeping his body low to the ground, he ran.
***
“Alexander!” Jack’s anguished shout was lost in the cacophony of terror around him and the cannon fire from the Apaches. He caught a glimpse of the big tuxedo-coated cat off to his left and veered in his direction. “Alexander!”
“Let him go!” Hathcock grabbed Jack’s arm and hauled him back in the direction Terje and Melissa were heading. “He’s gone!”
“Fuck!” With one last look toward where he had last seen the cat, Jack ran to catch up to Terje and Melissa. The cat wasn’t the only friend he’d lost in this war, and he wouldn’t be the last. “Hathcock! Get to the wall and boost Terje over!”
“I’m on it.” Hathcock dashed forward to the wall and bent over, lacing his fingers together in a stirrup. Barely missing a step, Terje put a foot into Hathcock’s hands and with his help vaulted up to the top of the wall. Pivoting on his stomach, he dropped down on the other side.
“Melissa, your turn!” Jack steadied her as she stepped into Hathcock’s hands and jumped up. Following Terje’s example, she pivoted on her stomach to point her feet toward the other side, but stopped as she saw what was happening behind them. “Don’t look!” Jack shouted. “Just go!”
With a gulp, she pushed herself clear of the wall, disappearing down the other side.
“Okay, sir…”
Jack stepped into Hathcock’s hands and jumped up, then straddled the wall. Leaning down, he took hold of one of Hathcock’s hands and hauled him up just before the mob reached them.
People begged to be lifted up to the top with frantic cries of “Help me! Please, help me!” while the harvesters butchered those unlucky enough to be caught at the rear of the mob.
“Come on, sir!” Hathcock shouted. “There’s nothing we can do for them!”
With one final look at the carnage, Jack jumped to the temporary safety of the other side.
***
Alexander paused to rest in some shrubs behind a low black metal fence alongside one of the human dwellings. He was at an intersection of the smaller street down which he had fled and another one that would, had he chosen to follow it, take him back up to the larger street filled with screaming humans.
He panted, his chest heaving with every breath as he fought to recover his strength. The pads of his feet, unaccustomed to running on rough surfaces, were sore. He licked them, but his rough tongue only made the pain worse. He mewled in discomfort and fear. Predator though he was, now he was the hunted, the prey.
He continued down the street, alternately dashing and stopping to listen, to sniff the air. He soon came to a cross street that was much wider than the one he had been following. Pausing at the corner beside a building of white stone with enormous pillars along the front, he stared across the expanse of asphalt. He whined with indecision. He would be exposed, out in the open, if he crossed.
Footsteps and shouts were close behind him now. He had no more time to consider. Taking a deep breath, he sprinted across the street, running as fast as his sore feet could carry him.
Once on the other side, he found that the continuation of the street he had been following was no longer a street, but a concrete walkway lined with grass and trees, along with tables and chairs for humans. The patches of grass were much easier on his feet, and the large concrete planters provided some cover as he moved.
The strange street-park soon gave way to a neighborhood of large single dwellings with well kept yards. Alexander kept moving, following the scent of the water, which was growing ever stronger. So, too, was the scent and sound of people. If there were thousands behind him, there must be tens of thousands, perhaps more, ahead of him.
Then he smelled something else. His own kind, a great many of them, somewhere between where he was and the water. He would normally never have considered joining a host of other felines, for to gather in such fashion was not their way. But these were not normal times.
Wary, he continued on, looking for his kin.
***
After crossing the train tracks that ran along the west wall of the cemetery, Jack and the others made their way east along 69th Street, which was deserted and eerily quiet. To the north and south, 67th and 71st Streets were clogged with people fleeing toward Lake Michigan.
Melissa was soon exhausted, and Jack picked her up and kept running. Terje was ahead while Hathcock was covering their rear, turning around every few paces to make sure nothing inhuman was following them.
“Melissa,” Jack panted, “hold the button down on my radio. See it, there?” She did as he told her, keying his mic. He couldn’t do it while carrying her in both arms. “Foxtrot Romeo One Eight,” Jack called to the Apache lead, “this is Alpha Yankee Nine Seven. What are we looking at when we come to the end of this street?”
Jack nodded at Melissa to let go the mic. There was a long pause before the pilot answered. “Alpha Yankee Nine Seven, all I can see east of South Shore Drive and north of 67th Street is people. They’re packed in so tight the ones on the lakeshore are being driven into the water.”
Melissa keyed the mic for him. “I need an evac, goddammit!” Jack shouted.
“Understood, sir. We’re trying to get one in, but command and control has gone to shit. Recommend that you turn north onto Oglesby Avenue. In half a block after that you’ll come to a big fenced-in building. That’s the 68th Street Pumping Station, where sector headquarters is located. I’m not sure what they’ll be able to do for you until we can get an evac bird in, but at least you’ll be in a secured area.”
“Roger that. We’re on our way.” To Terje, he said, “Take a left at the second street up there!”
Terje nodded and continued on.
“I’m sorry I’m so heavy,” Melissa said, holding tight with her arms wrapped around Jack’s neck.
“You’re light as a feather,” he told her, which was almost true. Melissa was thin to the point of being malnourished. “I’m just…out of shape.”
“Oh, bloody hell!” Hathcock shouted. “They’re coming out of the sewers!”
Jack turned at Hathcock’s exclamation. Half a dozen harvesters emerged from a manhole about fifty meters behind them. Hathcock blasted the first two before the others were turned into flaming grease and chunks of exoskeleton by cannon fire from one of the Apaches.
His lungs were burning and his legs felt like jelly as they made it to Oglesby and turned left. Ahead of them on the right, beyond the southern half of Hasan Park, was a large red brick building, two stories tall, with a metal roof. It was surrounded by a black wrought iron fence that had been topped with concertina wire. Claymore directional mines were set at close intervals inside the fence line, angled up to blast anyone, or anything, vaulting over the wire. In the windows on the second floor, soldiers with machine guns stared out. More soldiers guarded the fence, their hard eyes staring through the black wrought iron.
“Shit,” Jack wheezed as he staggered to a halt. “We’ll never get through that mob.”
The bu
ilding was surrounded by people, clamoring to be allowed inside.
“The hell we won’t.” Hathcock stepped forward, raised his rifle over his head, and fired off a dozen rounds into the air. The people nearest them drew away in fear. He fired a few more rounds and began to press his way forward. “You there!” He shouted to the soldiers guarding the gate that led onto the southern parking area of the building. “Let us through!”
Staying close to Hathcock, with Terje right behind, Jack shoved through the temporary gap in the crowd. He saw that the soldiers weren’t keeping the people out, but were running them past a pair of cats to make sure none were harvesters, then sending them down a taped-off path that led in the direction of the beach.
“I’m Major Jack Dawson,” he said to the second lieutenant who came forward to see what was going on. Jack passed Melissa to Terje before reaching into his tunic and pulling out the crumpled written copy of his orders and shoving them into the lieutenant’s hand. “Let us in. Now.”
The lieutenant took a quick look at the orders. “If you’ll step this way, sir.” He gestured to where a pair of soldiers stood with cats in canvas carriers.
The crowd surged forward as the soldiers began to open the gate, but drew back when one of the men fired a machine-gun over their heads. “People,” he shouted, “wait until we pass you through! If you try to run past the checkpoint you’ll be shot!” He threw Jack a look of utter helplessness.
“I hope this place holds out longer than the cemetery did,” Hathcock said as they made their way toward the building.
“I think they have a surprise planned for the bugs,” Jack told him, nodding toward a semi fuel tanker parked near the south side of the building. Pipes led away from it toward the fences.
“Sir,” the lieutenant told him, “I’m not sure what we can do for you. We don’t have any vehicles, and trying to get a helicopter in here to lift you out is going to be, well, pretty much impossible…”
“Because command and control has gone to shit,” Jack finished for him. “Yeah, I know. But we’ve got to do what we can to keep her,” he nodded toward Melissa, “safe. That just became your number one mission, lieutenant. Now if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to see your CO.”
“Yes, sir. That would be Major Baird. She’s inside. If you’ll follow me.”
Jack, with Melissa behind him, flanked by Terje and Hathcock, turned to follow.
Then he stopped in his tracks. In the grass between the building and the fence on the west side of the compound were cats, a hundred, if not more. They were all staring to the west, like silent sphinxes that could see beyond the buildings that blocked their sight.
As one, their hackles rose and they began to growl.
CHECKPOINT
“I can’t believe we came all this way for nothing.”
Al Ferris turned to look at Naomi, who sat in the copilot’s seat beside him, then shook his head. “This was a goat rope from the start, girl,” he told her. “Just be glad nobody’s put a bunch of tracer rounds up our collective ass.” He snorted. “So far.”
They were flying in a plush Bell 430 executive helicopter, which was a joy for Ferris to fly, other than his fear that someone would start shooting at them as they neared the border between Turkey and Iran.
The flight from Nebraska in the Boeing 727 that he had first flown during Naomi’s escape from Los Angeles had been long and tiring. The plane wasn’t designed for international flights, and he’d been forced to make refueling stops in Halifax, Reykjavik, and then Traviso in Italy before finally reaching the airport at Van, Turkey, where the helicopter had been waiting for them, courtesy of Howard Morgan. The justification on the flight plan that Howard Morgan had filed for Ferris was to bring medical supplies to eastern Turkey, where casualties were mounting among civilians from recent cross-border artillery duels.
Medical supplies. That was the cover story, and a relatively easy one for Morgan to sell to the various bureaucrats, military chieftains, and politicos whose go-aheads were required for any non-military air travel. Every aircraft that left the ground from the dwindling number of major airports and military air bases did so with a specific purpose and clear authorization. Most were evacuating people from areas where the harvesters had overwhelmed the local defenders, or were bringing in troops from somewhere else. Some did other things, like deliver relief supplies.
Ferris glanced at Naomi again. “You know,” he said, trying to break the tension that gripped them as they swept closer to the town of Damlacik to wait for the harvesters to contact them, “if I was about thirty years younger, I think I’d ask you to marry me.”
She laughed. “Come on, Al. It would have to be more like forty years.”
He winced. “God, you’re such a punk.” Returning to the business at hand, he said, “Are you getting anything on the radio?” His was tuned to the military GUARD frequency, while she was monitoring the second receiver, set to the same prearranged frequency Jack had used on his trip here.
“No, nothing.”
“Uh, oh,” Ferris said as they came over a rise west of the town. “That’s not good.” Up ahead, plumes of flame and smoke were rising from Damlacik. “The Iranians are pasting the place with artillery.” Above, a dozen contrails weaving tight patterns through the sky. One of them flared into a bright orange cloud that rapidly faded into black smoke and flaming chunks of debris. “Christ, the flyboys are at it up there. Naomi, if we have to cross the border, we’re going to be completely fucked. This thing’s not an F-22, and the only countermeasure I’ve got is my middle finger.”
The town was reeling under a heavy barrage. People running through the streets were cut down by devastating air bursts.
“Dear God,” Naomi whispered.
“Yeah.” Ferris slowed their approach. “What’s the word, chief?”
“Can we orbit here, out of the line of fire?”
He turned to stare at her for a moment. “Orbit? Around here? Didn’t I just tell you there’s a dogfight going on over our heads? This is the last place a frigging flying cadillac like this should be.”
“We can’t just leave! If the harvesters…wait…” She reached for the radio, turning up the volume. “I thought I heard something…”
***
The creature that had masqueraded as Vijay Chidambaram before sending Kiran to deliver his message to Naomi Perrault wore a different face now. He was a middle-aged man, a nondescript villager, who blended perfectly into the countless people trapped on the Iranian side of the Khoy-Qator-Razi border checkpoint, filling the valley like water behind a dam. Most of the people fleeing the effects of the devastation wrought by the Russians on Armenia and Azerbaijan headed south, deeper into Iran. But many in the three northernmost provinces of East and West Azerbaijan and Ardebil chose to flee to the west into Turkey, which itself was suffering terribly from the collateral damage of the nuclear strikes against Armenia and Georgia. Some of the refugees hoped to link up with extended family across the border. Others hoped to finally escape the oppression of the government. But most chose that route to escape simply because it was the nearest way out.
Not surprisingly, Turkey had not been keen on throwing open the gates to what would surely amount to hundreds of thousands of Iranian refugees, especially when they were trying to come to grips with what was happening in the northeastern part of their own country. Tensions along the border had escalated, stoked by the incursion of the Americans who had come to retrieve Kiran, and things quickly got out of hand. Artillery duels were being waged all along the border, and more than once patrolling fighters had let fly with missiles or fired guns on those of the opposing side. There had been no official declaration of war, but there was not likely to be: both governments were collapsing as the feral harvesters and larvae spread in the capital cities.
The creature and its associates had been forced to flee the lair where they had taken Kiran because of the fallout. When faced with the necessity of moving, they had tried several gambits t
hat had proven either unsuccessful or impractical. There was no way for them, even in natural form, to dash across the border, which had become a war zone in all but name, with army troops and air force aircraft and helicopters swarming everywhere. They had lost contact with their kin in the defense ministry who had orchestrated the shoot-down of Vijay Chidambaram’s plane, and with that their military identities had become more of a liability than an asset. The thing did not believe in fate, but it had spent a great deal of time contemplating the concept in the course of their failed escape attempts.
At last, they had made their way south, donning the guises of humble villagers and joining the trickle of humanity that grew into a great tide as it reached the road that led to the Khoy-Qator-Razi checkpoint, roughly twenty miles southwest of where they had allowed Kiran to be picked up by the Americans.
Now they waited. They had papers, thanks to the victims whose identities they had stolen and whose lives they had taken. While the word that had come back through the crowd was that the Turks had closed the checkpoint, they must still have been letting some people through, for the crowd very slowly shuffled forward. Or, perhaps, the thing thought dispassionately, the humans behind were simply grinding those ahead of them into the ground. In any case, it and its siblings were close enough now that they could see the checkpoint’s buildings, painted a dark yellow-gold with terra cotta colored roofs.
Above, on a hill rising from the south side of the road in Turkey, squatted a military compound with a stout green watchtower. The thing could see, even from this distance, that the defensive emplacements along the facility’s walls were manned with soldiers, the muzzles of machine guns aimed down at the checkpoint. On the hillside just below, made with beds of white stones, were a star and crescent, the symbols on the Turkish flag, at least twenty meters tall, below which was the word Türkiye, similarly sized.
The crowd of humans was like a school of fish, reacting en masse to the distant sounds of artillery and machine gun fire that came from both north and south, and the thing mimicked their reactions. They looked with worried expressions one way or the other, and gasped and cried out when the firing sounded closer.
Reaping The Harvest (Harvest Trilogy, Book 3) Page 14