Misha heard Kuznetsov speak from behind him. “Smart. The heat and smoke will kill the living. But unless the brainstem is burnt to charcoal, Patient Zero should be fine.”
Misha grunted as he splashed the last of the gas in his can. “They’ll have to come out before that anyway. Be ready.”
Shots rang out and holes blossomed in the hangar walls.
* * *
The sound of the splashing and the acrid stench of gasoline made it pretty clear, pretty quickly, what exactly the hell was going on outside – and what was about to happen to everyone inside. A few of those near the front started taking shots wherever they heard the splashes hit. They were rewarded with a grunt of pain in one spot, and the thunk of a gas can hitting the tarmac in another.
But they could only harass this process. They couldn’t stop it.
Homer looked at Ali. “We can’t stay here.”
“We can’t go, either. They’ll just disable the plane when we roll out.”
“No – I don’t think they will.” Homer and Ali turned toward this new voice. It was Baxter, still blood-smeared from his surgical apprenticeship. “I heard their commander on the radio earlier. I don’t know how, but I did – I swear it.”
Juice said, “It’s true.” What he didn’t say was how it had happened. But he was pretty sure he knew – it was Handon again, holding his radio channel open. His last gift to them. Or, hell, maybe not even last. There’s probably more to come…
Baxter went on. “And he issued his men clear instructions to capture any aircraft of ours, and not to damage it.”
Ali looked skeptical. “Huh. I heard they already destroyed one, the Beechcraft, on the carrier.”
Now Wesley, standing his post nearby, heard this, and perked up. “No,” he said. “I was there. It was an accident that it rolled off the flight deck. They were trying to take it intact, I think.”
“Huh,” Ali said again, considering.
With that, a great whooshing sound erupted outside – and the temperature started climbing fast. They were now all inside the slow cooker. And the air was already getting dodgy.
Ali looked back to Homer. They had little choice but to believe Baxter and Wesley – because they were all dead if they stayed there. She turned to face the room and raised her voice to a shout, carrying even over the running engine.
“Everyone saddle up! Anybody who wants to go home, kindly get on this majestic aircraft – now, now, now…!”
She turned again and looked up at the giant roll-up doors.
And she tried to remember who had been assigned to hump breaching charges on this epic, globe-straddling, aeon-spanning, dumbass mission…
Let’s Make Ourselves Useful
Djibouti Airport – UN Hangar
When Ali had finished delegating the task of placing the charges, she turned around to see Homer shrugging into his insertion ruck, and picking up his helmet. With his other hand he touched her arm.
“Ali,” he said. “I’m not coming.”
“What?” But she only had to think about this for two seconds before she understood it. “Back to the boat,” she said. It wasn’t a question. Homer’s kids were still on the JFK.
Of course he wasn’t coming.
Ali shook her head. Homer was going back to save his children – again. And, whatever the state of play on the carrier, however bad the situation with the Spetsnaz boarders… he was probably going to single-handedly recover that, too. Ali wouldn’t want to be the Spetsnaz naval brigade that got between Homer and his kids.
Fick all but crashed into them. “Who’s got a body bag?”
Ali looked down to her belt – the ZPW kit was still there. As she dug into it, she said, “What’s your intent?”
“A distraction – to cover our withdrawal.”
“Nice.” She didn’t ask what. She didn’t need to know. “How soon?”
“Ready to roll in five.”
Ali looked around the hangar as she handed over the rolled-up bag. “Us, too, I think. Alert me before you go.”
Fick nodded and turned – but paused and looked back at Homer. “Hey, did I hear you say you’re going back to the carrier?”
Homer nodded.
“Lovell left a raiding craft on the beach. Should still be intact – inflated, and mostly fueled.”
“Thanks, Master Guns.”
“Godspeed, Master Chief.”
Then Fick scurried off again.
* * *
It had been when Fick was getting Park set up to work in the back of the plane that the idea hit him. As predicted, they found a power outlet – and as soon as Ali started that first engine, a live one – so they were able to get the DNA sequencer plugged in and booting up. As Fick had been pulling Patient Zero to the safest possible position, out of the way in the very back, he stopped and just stared at the wiggling for a few seconds.
Now he was back at the side door, kneeling by the body of Sergeant Lovell. Quickly but reverently he got him out of his body armor and webbing belt, then started maneuvering him inside the body bag. He looked up to see Reyes kneeling down on the opposite side of their dead friend – kneeling with difficulty, due to his one previously blown-up leg and his more recently shot one. Nonetheless, he reached in to help with strong hands.
It helped that they were low to the deck, as smoke was starting to build up at the top of the hangar from the fire burning outside. Once they’d zipped up the bag, Fick said, “Gimme a hand,” and Reyes complied – until Fick got Lovell over his shoulder and faced the outside door. Suddenly Reyes got it.
“Oh, no, Master Guns. No fucking way.” He gave Fick a shove to throw him off balance, then relieved him of the body, heaving it onto his own shoulder. “I’ve carried heavier bail jumpers than this,” he said. And he had – big biker dudes with full leathers and chains, in his bounty hunter days in LA. “And you’ve got to get the real Patient Zero back. You’ve got to finish this. See it through to the end. It’s just your destiny, dog.”
Fick seriously considered arguing, or even fighting Reyes for the job. But, like Brady before him, Reyes appeared totally resolved – and was also bigger than him. And, like before, they simply had no time. The mission was too close to success – and also too close to failure.
Finally, Fick was unable to speak, again. Here he was, it seemed, still living through his worst nightmare, only in waking life. But he couldn’t escape the reality that this was what duty required of him – that he sacrifice everyone under his command, in service of the mission. All he could think was, after all this pain and loss, somebody had damned well better finish the job. To make all the sacrifice somehow worth it.
He nodded once at Reyes, and put his hand on the door handle.
He hit his radio. “Ali, we’re ready.”
“Stand by.”
* * *
In the frantic bustle of loading and preparations, two men in overalls approached Homer and Ali. It was the two aircraft mechanics, Chief Davis and Pete. Both were covering their mouths and coughing from the CO2 fast building up in there. Everyone had also stepped away from the walls, which were now radiating heat like stove-tops.
Davis lowered his arm from his mouth, looked at Homer and said, “Did we hear you say there was a boat going back to the Kennedy?” Word got around fast. When Homer nodded, Davis looked at Ali and said, “Well, then we’ve got a decision to make. Or you do, I guess, if you’re in charge now.”
Ali took a breath through wet cloth and considered.
While she did so, Davis said, “We’re both willing to fly out with you. In case something goes wrong with the plane along the way. But I’ve also got a responsibility to the air wing, back on the flattop.” Half under his breath, thinking of Hailey, their runaway fighter jock, he added, “Whether there are any planes and pilots left or not…”
Ali looked at Davis’s bandaged arm, and she decided. “You’re wounded, Chief. Return to your station.”
But even as Davis nodded, Pete step
ped forward. “I’ll stay.” The others gave him a look. “Something could still go wrong – it could!”
Davis put his arm around the young man’s shoulders and pulled him aside for last-minute instructions. “Okay. You need to keep a close eye on nose-wheel steering and hydraulic pressure, not to mention listen for engine compressor surges…”
Even as they stepped away, the two NSF guys, Wesley and Burns, trotted up. Wesley said, “Did we hear some people are going back to the carrier?”
Jesus, Ali thought.
Homer, strapping his helmet on, nodded.
When Wesley looked to Ali, she said, “I’d say it’s your call if you want to go back, LT. You’ve done your job here.”
Wesley looked over at Burns, his eyes wide.
Burns said, “All my people are back on that boat.”
Wesley almost grinned. “The bank robbers.”
“Bank robbers – and associates. But they’re all my responsibility.”
Wesley nodded. “All of my people are there, too – everyone in NSF.” It went without saying they were his responsibility.
Burns shrugged. “Derwin can take care of the team – he was doing it long before you showed up. But you’ve been here since the beginning, Wes – since the breach of the Channel Tunnel. I think you should see it through – all the way to the end. Also, that French girl is back in Britain, waiting for you.”
Still conflicted, Wesley looked again at Ali.
She shrugged. “You’re probably going to get killed either way. But I wouldn’t say no to another shooter when we bust out of here.”
Wesley looked shocked to hear that word used to describe him. It had been a very long journey for him. In the end, it was the face of Amarie that decided it for him.
“Okay,” he said. “I’m coming. I’ll help get you back to Britain.”
“Fine,” Homer said, hefting his rifle. He kissed Ali on the cheek. “See you when I see you. You two on me…”
And, with Davis and Burns in tow, he walked away from her – again.
* * *
And just like that… she’d lost him all over again.
Ali’s eyes felt strange, and she wondered if it was the after-effects of the tear gas, or else the smoke, which was thickening now. Then she realized she was crying. Looking up at Homer’s back as he walked away, she took two steps after him…
And felt a hand on her arm. It was Juice. He pulled his gas mask aside and she looked across into his lovely fuzzy face. He shook his head. “You can’t go with him, Ali. You know that.”
Now her eyes went wide. Was she that transparent? Or was Juice just playing the role of spooky, mystical, passed-through-death-to-the-other-side guy – who could see into people’s souls?
“We need you flying the plane. And we also need you shooting. That means we need two of you. So we definitely can’t get by with none.”
Ali nodded, wiped away two tears – then turned, leapt up the front stairs to the plane, turned left onto the flight deck, and poured herself into the left-hand seat. After ten seconds of rifling she found a printed pre-flight checklist, and got into it fast.
Brakes, directional gyro, artificial horizon…
She found it similar to the checks of a smaller prop plane, so she was able to do the checks fairly mindlessly – which allowed her to get into her own head. The crying thing had been very weird. Was it simply because she was losing Homer all over again? No, it had to be… because they’d also lost Handon? She knew he was never coming back from his last holding action with Henno. Neither of them were. Maybe that was what was under her emotional hood. Or maybe it was both things – losing both Handon and Homer at once.
Everyone was going away. And none of them were coming back – probably ever.
…avionics master switch, idle gate lever, prop brake…
And now she realized something else: breaking up with Homer hadn’t made his loss any less painful. Briefly, when she’d made the decision to sacrifice him to the mission – by reserving that one Hellfire missile for themselves, and leaving him and Pred to face the Black Shark on their own – she felt she’d been validated in her repudiation of love. That retreating from love had been the right choice. Because it had allowed her to make the hard operational decision.
But now she was forced to admit it: she could make the hard decisions no matter the state of her heart. That was her job. No, her original choice to leave Homer hadn’t really been about operational efficiency. It had been about her fear of losing him. About the pain of that loss. And about the risk of giving her humanity, the love she felt for him, free rein. And the devastating emotional risk that carried in the ZA.
…engine start selection switch, heading indicator/altimeter…
But now she finally knew the truth – it wasn’t finding a way to protect her heart that she needed. No, what she needed was to find a way to protect Homer. To be with him, to never let him out of her sight again. And that’s what she’d been doing with those two steps she took: she had decided to follow him – to the carrier, to wherever his duty took him, to the ends of the earth. She just hadn’t known it.
Which meant Juice had read her mind – before SHE even knew what she was thinking. And that really was spooky.
In any case, it just hadn’t been possible. Homer had his mission, and she had hers. Maybe, if they both succeeded, and both survived, and if she ever saw him again, things would be different. She knew she would be.
Ali stood, leaned across the cockpit, and took a look down and to the left. Nobody was actually touching the propellers on that side.
She started the other engine.
* * *
Fick heard Ali on his radio: “This is it. Do what you’re gonna do.”
“C’mon, buddy,” Reyes said to the bag over his shoulder, the one with Sergeant Lovell in it. “Let’s make ourselves useful.”
Fick started to open the door.
“No, wait,” Reyes said, turning and feeling Fick up. “Gimme these. Okay, now.”
Finally, Fick yanked open the door. Immediately, and once again, Noise rolled out and turned left, pouring a raging storm of double-ought buckshot before him. Fick went right, firing in that direction.
And Reyes blasted out behind them, also firing his weapon one-handed as he ran, emerging from the whipping flames that now engulfed the hangar.
Like a glorious, dying phoenix.
* * *
Misha monitored the burning building, waiting for the rats inside to scurry out. He spared a glance for the two men wrapping up wounds, after having been shot in the gas-pouring operation. If shooting blind was off-limits for his men, it had worked out pretty well for the enemy.
He looked up again as he heard firing and commotion at the left-side door. When he saw a figure run away down the alley and disappear behind the hangar to the left, he tracked until it reappeared again, running up the next alley and into the open.
None of his men fired, and it was easy to see why – the man was carrying a bagged-up body over his shoulder. Nobody wanted to be the asshole who had to face Misha after shooting the Index Case.
Misha squinted and paused a half-second, then raised his rifle, flipped the fire selector switch to full-auto, tracked the running man – and opened up with a long, rolling, suppressed burst. Rounds poured into both the running man and the dead man on his shoulder, and the pair collapsed in a heap behind a stack of truck tires.
Misha felt Kuznetsov’s eyes on him, and looked over.
Flipping his fire selector back, he said, “The bag wasn’t wiggling. Also too big.”
But when he looked back to the hangar, it suddenly hit him – what the end-zone run with the fake Index Case was. What it had to be – a fucking diversion. They were about to make a breakout. The crescendoing of engine and propeller noise from the hangar verified this. He looked over at the parked vehicles, a hangar and a half away – and realized he’d missed a trick.
“Assholes!” he shouted, taking off at a r
un. “Move the damned vehicles! Block the hangar doors!”
* * *
Reyes shrugged out from under Lovell, and pulled himself up into a sitting position, with his back to the stacks of tires. At least he was under cover. But much good would it do him. He checked himself out, but couldn’t even really identify everywhere he’d been shot, due to blood being everywhere – as was the pain, and growing numbness.
“Damn, I’m all fucked up,” he said with a laugh.
He twisted at the waist, peeked through a gap in the tires, and saw Russians running toward their parked vehicles behind him. Carefully noting the locations of the trucks, he started arming grenades – including all of the ones he’d taken off Fick at the last second – and started giving them high, strong tosses over his shoulder, one after another… right into and around the trucks.
As he listened to panicked shouting and explosions erupt behind him, he gathered his strength, grabbed a lungful of air, then shouted at the top of his voice:
“You always were an asshole, Gorman!”
* * *
Misha recoiled from an exploding grenade like another man might from a light bulb popping out, ignoring the blast wave and few bits of shrapnel that peppered him. His men were nearly as fearless as him, but the unexpected grenade volley was still making it difficult, impossible, or lethal to get to their goddamned vehicles.
Even before the last grenade crumped off, Misha straightened up and heard another, bigger explosion – this one from the front of the hangar. He looked over as both roll-up doors came free in violent expulsions of smoke, and then crashed down onto the tarmac.
Behind them was a big turbo-prop plane, facing out – with both engines wound up and screaming. It popped its brakes and lurched out of the hangar, turned left, and lumbered out onto the runway.
And it started heading away down the tarmac, picking up speed.
We’re All Going Home, Brother
Djibouti Airport – Tractor Shed
From her hiding place in the dark corner of one of the outbuildings, Hailey heard the explosions – then the sound of turbo-prop engines, getting louder fast. Deciding in an instant, she ducked out the front door, handgun out and up this time, and charged out onto the tarmac, running flat out.
ARISEN, Book Twelve - Carnage Page 26