“Hey, Ali.” It was Juice, on the radio.
“Go ahead.” She squinted into the wind-blown raindrops, which at least were mostly blowing away from her. She was still facing the rear, belly-down on the wing, watching for more vehicles on this side – though Spetsnaz seemed to have learned their lesson on that one. She was also holding onto Pete, beside and behind her. He was now hanging half off the wing, leaning down into the open engine hatch, reaching out with the wire snippers on Ali’s multitool, trying to reach the hydraulic line that fed the jammed propeller brake.
“Yeah,” Juice said, “I’m monitoring the CentCom channel – and the freaking Spetsnaz commander just popped up. He’s asking for you.”
Jesus Christ, Ali thought. Oh, what the hell. She switched channels and said, “Yeah, go ahead.”
“I presume this is the new American commander.”
This guy sounded like a warthog in human form. “Affirmative.”
“Well, we have your old commander. He’s still alive. Throw Patient Zero out of the plane and we’ll leave your man on the tarmac. And then we can all go home.”
Ali didn’t know whether to believe this guy or not about Handon. She also didn’t care, because it didn’t matter. Without a word in response, which would have been wasted breath in her view, she just switched channels back to the squad net, then shouted to Pete.
“Hey, are you close, or what?”
* * *
Predator wasn’t on that channel, so he didn’t hear the exchange. And he also didn’t care. He simply unclipped his rifle, laid it down on the deck, then coiled his enormous thighs – and he leapt.
Straight out the hatch, across blasting open air, and into the back of the safari vehicle. His landing rocked the shocks of the truck so much it almost spun out, but the driver managed to keep control. And the other Russians in the vehicle couldn’t have been any more surprised if Conan the Destroyer had landed in their midst.
But they would have been a hell of a lot safer.
Pred grabbed the barrel of the mounted machine gun and gave it a wicked spin, slamming it into the face of the dude manning it, who got an arm up, but it didn’t matter. The pummeling force knocked him over backward like a bowling pin, and he tumbled over the railing and out, flapping and rolling on the tarmac behind, the hard surface breaking bones and tenderizing flesh.
The quarters were too close for any of the other Russians in the truck bed to realistically bring a rifle to bear. And Predator was simply too fast for anyone to get a pistol or knife into play. At nearly seven feet tall and 325 pounds, he looked nothing like it, but Pred was lightning fast – for a man of any size. For the three men sharing the open truck bed with him, it was more like being trapped in an enclosed space with an alien, rather than a Predator.
The one closest to him tried to knuckle-punch him in the throat – but he had to angle it up so much it had little force. Pred just absorbed the jab, then grabbed the top of the man’s hand and bent his arm all the way around, wrenching the shoulder out of its socket, and nearly pulling the arm off entirely. With his other hand, he grabbed him by his webbing belt, lifted the 190-pound man like a rag doll, and hurled him over the side, screaming.
Of the two others, one got a knife clear and the other his pistol in a lightning draw from a chest rig, keeping it held in tight to avoid being disarmed. That also didn’t matter. Even as he was brushing at the safety, Pred planted his back leg, leaned in, and simply shoved – but with the force of a wrecking ball. The man went over backward and flipped through the air, before hitting the ground headfirst, collapsing and rolling in a way that did not suggest an intact spine inside his body.
The other managed a knife strike, going for the left side of Pred’s neck, but Pred simply shrugged his shoulders and caught the blade in his left tricep. The Russian maintained his grip, so Pred wrapped his hand around it, pulled the knife free, and reversed it – snapping the man’s wrist – then plunged it into his throat. He collapsed and fell over the side on his own.
An AK barked twice, but both rounds slammed high into Pred’s rear plate – he went with steel rather than ceramic, because the weight didn’t bother him – and it stopped both. He spun to find the passenger pointing a rifle at him over the top of his seat, a look of panic in his eyes. He fired twice more, but they just bounced off the front plate – also high, but not quite high enough – and then Pred took it off him, snapping the clip on its sling, and dropped it in the bed.
The man got his pistol out, but Pred batted his hand, flinging the handgun into the head of the driver, who yelped and winced, causing the vehicle to swerve. The passenger’s knife came out next, and Pred backhanded that away, then lifted him out of the seat by the drag strap on his vest with one hand, grabbed the back of his belt with the other – and hurled him out, all the way over the tailgate.
It was a full four seconds before he hit the ground.
* * *
It also took Juice a good few seconds to wrap his head around what he’d seen. Yeah – his best friend had actually just leapt out of the hatch of an aircraft taxiing at 50mph.
Jesus, only Predator…
It took him another couple of seconds to clear his head and run to the rear hatch – both to see what the hell had happened to Pred, and to take over his post. “Oh, thank fuck,” he said out loud, his vision instantly going to the safari truck racing alongside.
But Pred was still standing facing the same direction he had first leapt – away. And Juice was fixated on his friend, and trying to figure out where he could make a shot to support him. So neither saw, until it was too late, Misha’s Humvee finally catch up with both the plane and the convoy, and slide in on the inside track between safari truck and aircraft, cruising up right beneath the rear hatch.
Grabbing the Runt’s hand, pulling it across, and putting it on the wheel, Misha climbed up and onto the roll bars. At this point, Juice could no longer miss him, and started to depress his rifle. But Misha was already leaping over and across.
He flew through the open hatch and slammed into Juice like a cement wall, knocking him back into the cabin, and down onto the deck.
* * *
Pred wasn’t surprised to start taking fire from the rear – specifically, the next vehicle back. It wasn’t right behind them, but it was sure close enough for effective rifle fire, even despite the high speed and rutted runway. A few rounds bounced off the truck around him, then another hit his body armor, then one creased his shoulder.
In less time than it takes to describe, he drew his high-capacity FN .45 from his chest rig, stuck it into the driver’s neck hard enough to bounce his head off the steering wheel, and shouted, “Drive, motherfucker!” Then with his left hand he snatched up the AK-100 he’d ripped off the passenger, thumbed the fire selector to full-auto, brought it to his shoulder, and held it rock steady with one hand as he poured the entire mag into the vehicle behind them. The windshield glass of the SUV spider-webbed, turning white and opaque, with a dozen and then two dozen holes in it. The driver and passenger bounced in their seats like electro-shock victims, and the truck swerved sharply and rolled over, sliding on its right side at high speed down the tarmac, shooting fifteen-foot sheets of sparks behind it.
There had been a guy leaning out from the right-side back window, firing from it. Pred didn’t like to think what had happened to him, but it probably involved getting ground down to a nubbin, all the way to his waist. The guy firing out the other side was now surfing.
Heh, Pred thought. Unexpected advantage of being out of the airplane. He could trade lead with people again. “Fire away, motherfuckers!”
But he had also been facing the rear for just a second too long, forgetting the caliber of opponent he was dealing with. The driver of the safari truck was Spetsnaz, and if Pred thought he was going to follow orders and drive him around just because he had a gun to his head…
Pred realized this when he felt an iron grip on his right wrist – which instantly turned into a
vicious yank that pulled him off balance and half into the front cab, bent at the waist over the partition. A commando knife in the man’s other hand instantly came at his face. This meant no one was steering for the moment.
Which was the least of anybody’s problems.
* * *
Pete was now well past his center of gravity, hanging off the bouncing and vibrating wing of the plane, trying to reach the hypertrophic hydraulic line – while Ali clutched at his pants leg with one hand to increase his odds of staying on the aircraft.
“Almost there!” he shouted. “Six more inches!”
Six more inches and you’ll be getting a pavement shave… not that this kid needs to shave. But she firmed up her grip and steeled herself for him to get heavier as he leaned farther out.
And then she heard incoming rotor noise.
Oh, holy mother of God.
A look up and to her left told the tale. It was the motherfucking Black Shark, it was hauling ass toward them, probably only about ten seconds out – and the left-side window was flipping up…
With the barrel of that fucking sniper rifle emerging from inside.
* * *
All the air left Juice’s lungs as he got brutally back-punched by the cabin floor. Worse, he had the full weight of a rampaging Russian warlord on his chest. For a second, Juice and Misha were eye to eye. And if Juice had the slightest doubt he was back, he could easily make out the МиШа tattoo on his neck, right where he’d first seen it. But now there was also an angry and unhealed wound, right down his cheek and across much of his neck.
And Juice had a bad feeling he’d given that to him.
“Hello, operator,” Misha growled. “Remember me?”
Before Juice or anyone else on board could react, Misha was back on his feet, also startlingly fast for a huge man, and hauling Juice up with him. In the half-second he had, trying to get his breath back, Juice could see two more Spetsnaz guys – and by no means the least badassed he’d ever seen – pulling themselves in the same hatch Misha had just come through.
It was now a full-blown invasion of their plane.
“Take the cockpit,” Misha said to the others. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
But then Juice felt himself picked up by his vest and hurled into the opposite bulkhead, the air slammed out of his lungs again, his body stunned…
And the entire aircraft cabin actually rocking.
* * *
“Hell, yeah!” Pete shouted, as he finally snipped the fat hydraulic line, with authority. “Got it, bitches!” He then looked up and smiled at Ali – as the whole plane rocked underneath them, dipping the right wing, and causing Pete to slide across the rain-splashed surface, his wet pant cuff tearing free from Ali’s hand.
He tumbled off the front of the wing to the tarmac below, then disappeared from sight.
With the prop brake disengaged, the engine screamed and the four-bladed propeller spun up, way too close to Ali’s boots, flinging rain at her with violence and verve. And she quickly realized it wasn’t the only one. Looking up, she could see the Black Shark helo diving at her and doing much the same. At about fifty yards out, it banked and went broadside, and Ali could see the rifle barrel inside tracking her out the open side window.
Vasily – back again. Truly the bane of her life.
She rolled on her back, thumbed her fire selector, and started shooting. Her goal was to do on her own what her whole team together had managed last time – namely put enough rounds into that window, bouncing off the armor glass and zinging around the cockpit, to convince them to close it again. No, scratch that – her goal was to bounce those rounds into pilot and sniper, killing or incapacitating one or both. And she knew she had better shoot fast, and perfectly.
There’d be time to mourn Pete, and his heroism, later.
Maybe.
Shovel to a Knife Fight
Dash 8 – Main Cabin
Noise’s first impulse had been to cut away Jake’s body armor so he could assess the worst wounds and get pressure on them. But now he hesitated. It looked more than a little like Jake’s body armor was the only thing holding him together. So instead, he got Kate to apply direct pressure, while he got a plasma drip in his arm.
But then, as he heard the right-side engine start up, and felt the rocking motion of the plane settle, he looked up to see a fight forming up in the rear of the cabin. And he knew his role of saint-healer was about to change again – back to Sant Sipahi.
Saint soldier.
* * *
Fick turned and squared up to the rear of the plane, where he could see a Russian the size of a horse tossing Juice around the cabin like a chew-toy. But before he could put his head down and charge, he found himself cut off – by two more Russian dudes climbing in the rear hatch, both turning his way, and both looking profoundly evil.
A rifle barrel appeared by Fick’s left ear, and he batted it away. Looking over, he saw it wasn’t al-Sif, who had been beside him a minute ago – but Wesley, who had rushed toward the front from his briefly occupied seat.
“You depressurize this cabin,” Fick said, “and we’ll be flying on the deck all the way to London. And that’s if we’re lucky and you only pierce the skin. This plane is barely flyable as it is.”
Wesley nodded, wide-eyed.
But then a shot sounded from behind them anyway.
That was al-Sif.
* * *
Juice got smashed in the back by the deck again, and then Misha landed on him again, his tree-trunk legs pinning Juice’s arms, his fingers wrapping around his throat.
Leaning down, only inches away, Misha whispered: “And now, vagina-face, you will become fender meat, dying slowly and in painality. As did my men, the Spetsnaza warriors you hit with their own IEDs in that warehouse.”
Juice croaked, “Hey, man – it’s not my fault if you don’t bother to encrypt your radio triggers.” He managed to yank an arm free, balled up his fist, and swung it with all his power into the side of Misha’s head. This had no visible effect.
But then Misha’s eyes darted left and he pushed himself up off Juice in a flash. An incoming round actually creased Juice’s beard. Juice had seen others try to take headshots on Misha before and fail.
The Russian’s reflexes were amazing.
* * *
After perforating Juice’s beard, al-Sif’s round ricocheted around the cabin before coming to rest in a fire extinguisher clipped to a bulkhead in back. Pressurized white powder sprayed out, giving everything nearby – which included the DNA sequencer, and Patient Zero – a Christmas-y dusting.
Fick looked back at al-Sif and grimaced. “And if somebody hits the goddamned electronics or hydraulics underneath the deck or in the bulkheads, never mind a fuel or oil line, then we’re all fucking dead in the water. Plus dead.” This aircraft had few redundancies and no spare parts – and as far as Fick was aware, there was no fallback air-extraction plan.
Al-Sif took the hint and retreated back to the seats.
Drawing his K-Bar knife, Fick faced forward while eying Wesley, to his side. “So – you here to film a recruiting commercial? Or actually use that thing?”
Wesley swallowed and drew his Marine sword.
The cabin was narrow enough that two men could block it. Right now, those two men were Fick and Wesley. And it was two men coming straight at them. The one on Wesley’s side looked a lot older, and wore a blank but lethal expression. He reached over his shoulder and produced a spade, but with a wickedly honed edge on it. The other, who looked like he might plausibly be only half Fick’s age, drew two knives in a blur, twirled them across the tops of hands and down again, then gave Fick a leering smile that said:
I’m really going to enjoy this.
Fick spat off to the side. Oh, no you’re not.
But to Wesley, he said: “Whatever happens, we cannot let these fuckheads get past us to the cockpit. You understand?”
Wesley nodded.
Fick hoped he did. B
ecause if Spetsnaz took the cockpit, they took the plane – and they stopped it.
And then they were all done.
* * *
“Goddammit,” Nina said over ICS, turning the stick and punching the throttle, which rolled the helo on its side and veered them away – with incoming rifle rounds still practically ricocheting around the cockpit.
“What?” Vasily said, pulling the window closed.
“You can play with your mouse later. Right now, we’ve got a job to do.” Nina meant they had to stop this plane before it could take off. She put their nose down and blasted toward the end of the runway – where the two aircraft, and everyone aboard both, would have another rendezvous soon enough.
Vasily could have his sniper duel then.
Nina was also wondering what the hell it was about this one target of his, and if Vasily was becoming obsessed – or unhinged. “Why do you keep missing that girl?”
She could hear the defensiveness in his voice when he answered. “The enemy always gets a vote.”
Still… Nina had never seen him miss before.
* * *
A body crashed into the front of the DNA sequencer, knocking the man hiding behind it to the deck. In his left hand, Dr. Park still held a syringe with a brand new first-stage virus sample, taken straight from Patient Zero. In his right, he had the crowbar he’d grabbed in the hangar.
Just on the other side of the sequencer, he could hear someone growling in Slavic-accented English, and at roughly the frequency of an earthquake. Stealing a peek around the side, he saw Juice down on the deck with a gigantic Russian on his chest.
He looked from the crowbar to the syringe, and back again.
His eye went up to the fire extinguisher clipped to the bulkhead above him. It had finally stopped dusting white powder over him, Patient Zero, the sequencer, and all his work. And all of which were his responsibility – to protect.
He tried to figure out if that responsibility entailed watching Juice die right in front of him.
* * *
Wesley still had little idea how to use a sword. Only now he wasn’t using it to shish-kebab the heads of brain-dead dead guys – but to actually try to spear a living one, an elite operator with superb strength, speed, and combat skills.
ARISEN, Book Twelve - Carnage Page 30