by Dirk Patton
We looked over our shoulders at the sound of more tires protesting a sudden maneuver. A large panel truck, painted with the scheme of the Sydney police, had just turned into the Emergency entrance. The SWAT team had arrived. I took a moment to try and spot Rachel, but failed. Cop cars were everywhere, blocking my view, then men wearing body armor and carrying rifles boiled out of the truck that had just arrived.
“She’ll be fine,” Lucas said, reading my mind. “No one’s going to look twice at her in that white lab coat.”
I nodded and kept walking, hoping he was right.
“Wanna tell me what’s going on?” he asked.
“What do you mean? That bullet give you amnesia?”
“I meant the abos in the hospital, asshole,” he said.
“Beats me.”
I wasn’t ready to try and explain how Rachel and I had been saved from death by a time traveler. Despite everything, even the conversation with Admiral Packard, I still wasn’t sure I bought into the story. But, truth be told, I was a little spooked after my encounter with the two aborigines.
“You’re gonna think I’m crazy,” Lucas said. “But don’t dismiss what an abo tells you.”
I glanced at him, then over my shoulder again. The SWAT team had disappeared into the hospital.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“Worked with a few of them, and known a few. They’re… different. Not like us.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“I don’t mean the obvious,” Lucas said. “I’m talking about them. As a people. They’re connected to the world differently than we are. No one wants to admit it, because that might be racist, but I’ve seen it. They know things. Can see and feel things we can’t. They’re scary good in the bush, even the ones that grew up in a city.”
“Did that bullet scramble what little brains you had?”
“I’m serious,” he said, ignoring my barb. “I’ve read stories about American Indians. How some are more attuned to nature and what they call the spirit world. Well, the abos I’ve known are the same way. They just see and feel things the rest of us can’t.”
“You’re losing it, mate,” I said.
I wasn’t so sure I didn’t believe him, but if I accepted what he was trying to tell me that meant the frightened man in the kitchen really had seen something when he looked at me and Rachel. He’d said we were from some place that was the island of the dead. Contemplating that there might be even a grain of truth to what he’d said and what Lucas was telling me… well, it gave me a serious case of the willies.
“You okay?” Lucas asked, peering at my face.
I nodded, but shoved the thoughts of time travel, mystical aborigines and islands of the dead out of my mind. We were getting close to the gas station and needed to be paying more attention to our surroundings. I didn’t understand why there hadn’t been any police cars approach from our front, but wasn’t about to question our good fortune.
“That her?”
We were less than a hundred feet from the gas station entrance. Stopping, I turned and looked back down the road. Two vehicles were coming our direction. I squinted my one good eye, trying to get a better sense of what was approaching. The one in the lead had wide set lights, lower to the ground. Had to be a car. The second one, following, had older style, round lights that were higher up and closer together.
“I think the second one,” I said. “We’re driving an older Rover.”
Both vehicles slowed as they passed the Emergency entrance. It was lighter at that point, but still too far away for me to be able to make out details. Turning back, I followed Lucas the final few steps into the brilliant lights of the filling station.
There were four islands with modern pumps beneath a large canopy, but none were currently in use. The convenience store was tightly locked up and dark inside. A large sign advertised that petrol was available around the clock for credit card customers. Happy there wasn’t an attendant to see and take note of us, I turned to look at the approaching vehicles.
Lucas and I were both in the light, clearly visible. I watched the lead car for a moment, standing in the open, frowning when its engine roared and the headlights suddenly leapt forward. This wasn’t good. Looking around quickly for some cover, I cursed when none was immediately visible. The far wall of the store was tight against the adjacent building and there was nowhere to get out of the light.
“Russians?” Lucas asked, drawing his weapon.
“Probably.”
I glanced down at a heavy, metal box that held a stack of free newspapers. Lifting it off the ground, I swung it sideways and released my grip at the farthest point of the arc. It crashed through the safety-glass door of the store and I reached through the hole, releasing the deadbolt and yanking it open.
43
I led the way inside with Lucas tight on my heels. We had just made it out of the open when there was the sound of a roaring engine from the road. Glancing back, I saw a four door BMW slide to a stop in front of the store. Three doors popped open and the surviving Russians from the hospital stepped out warily. Each was armed, but this time it was rifles, not pistols.
“Find a back door!” I shouted to Lucas as I ducked behind a shelf full of snacks.
He raced for the back and I raised my pistol and fired three fast shots at the man standing next to the driver’s door. One of them punched into his shoulder and he dropped out of sight behind the car, but I knew he wasn’t down. The other two took cover behind their doors, weapons coming onto target.
I flattened myself on the floor and scrambled for a new position as they began firing. Their rifles were suppressed and the reports weren’t loud, but the shelf where I’d fired from was quickly shredded. Popping up at a different spot, I fired two more shots and dropped again as return fire blasted into the store.
Crawling laterally, I risked a glance at them in time to see the passenger side of the BMW suddenly light up. The men turned in surprise, one of them shouting something in Russian as they all tried to scramble clear. An instant later, the Rover slammed into the side of the car with enough force to shove it twenty feet across the smooth concrete apron.
Both men at the point of impact were crushed between the two vehicles. The wounded driver was knocked back before the car was pushed on top of him, grinding his body into a bloody pulp. I stared in relieved surprise for a second before leaping to my feet.
“Lucas! Let’s go!” I shouted, dashing through the shattered door and to the side of the Rover.
The window was down and Dog shoved his head out to greet me. I pushed him back, tore the door open and jumped in an instant before Lucas leapt into the back seat. Rachel, focused on the task at hand, threw the transmission into reverse, backed up enough to clear the wrecked BMW, then steered around it and bounced into the street.
“Where to?” she shouted over the racing engine.
“Safe house,” I said, turning to face Lucas. “Weapons behind your seat. Get us ready!”
He hitched around and leaned into the back, sorting through and distributing pistol magazines first.
“Where is it?” Rachel asked, checking the mirror and slowing slightly.
I paused for a beat, then pulled out the iPhone. We’d used the built-in map to get us to the hospital and all I had to do was tell the app to reverse our course. It thought about things for a few seconds, then drew a route and announced the first turn we needed to make.
“That was risky as hell, but good thinking,” I said to Rachel as Lucas passed a rifle to me.
She glanced at me and smiled as a loaded vest was chucked over the back of my seat. I leaned forward and worked it over my upper body.
“What’s this safe house?”
I turned around when Lucas spoke. He was donning a vest of his own and had a rifle on its sling in place, ready to go.
“Even longer story,” I said. “Can you contact your guys? Get them to meet us?”
He shook his head, loo
king distinctly unhappy.
“Remember that goddamn Brigadier that showed up at the training compound?”
I nodded.
“Bastard came to see me right after they took me to the hospital. Wanted to talk to me before he’d even let them X-ray my head to see if my skull was cracked. Told me he’d swept up all the traitors in Sydney and that troops had moved into position around my property to arrest my men.”
“Fuck me,” I said. “You need to call Ziggy!”
“Want to, but if I do, they’ll intercept and trace us. Know right where we are.”
“Will Smyth and the boys put up a fight?”
“Probably. Most of ‘em are right crazy bastards and won’t take kindly to the ADF showing up and trying to tell ‘em what to do.”
I took a deep breath and nodded. My money was on Lucas’s men kicking the ass of any troops that tried to come in and take over. Turning, I started to reach for the iPhone, intending to call Jessica and have her check in with Ziggy. We were crossing an intersection on a green light and blinding headlights suddenly lit up the inside of the Rover. Snapping my head around, I saw the grill of a car bearing down on us.
Rachel had already seen it and was steering away, flooring the gas pedal. Her reaction saved us from being broadsided, but didn’t completely avoid the collision. There was a rending crash from the rear of our vehicle, then the world whirled as we were spun violently, coming to rest with one set of tires against the curb on the opposite side of the street.
For a beat, I was stunned, body refusing to obey the commands from my sluggish mind. Then clarity returned with a rush and I kicked the door open and stepped out, rifle already coming up and seeking a target. Lucas was slower to recover, probably because of having had a bullet bounced off his skull earlier in the evening. I shouted at Rachel to stay behind the wheel and keep the engine running.
Stepping to the back, I saw a large BMW that had hit us, sitting sideways across the street. Steam poured from beneath the buckled hood, then movement on the far side of the car caught my attention. Two men with machine pistols, one of them leaning over the trunk and sending a long burst of fire in our direction.
Lucas and I dove in opposite directions, each of us returning fire that chewed up the exposed side of the car, but didn’t reach our attackers. More fire came my way as I scrambled for the protection of a bus stop bench, several rounds sparking off the concrete sidewalk. I cut loose with several short bursts, just to keep their heads down as I dove into cover.
“Pull back!” I shouted at Rachel.
The Rover groaned as she pressed on the throttle to open some room and I dumped an entire magazine into the BMW to keep their heads down while she was escaping the area. Tires screamed and at first I thought it was her, but the bad guys had reinforcements. Another BMW slid to a stop beyond the first one, disgorging three more men. They ran toward their comrades in a crouch.
After a fast magazine change, I laid down more fire, trying to figure out where Lucas was and ignore the bullets pinging off the bus stop all around me. One of the new arrivals flopped to the ground and lay still, but the other two kept coming. I emptied another magazine at them as they dove into cover, then had to duck as a hail of bullets tore into the shelter. Where the fuck was Lucas?
Dropping the magazine and slapping in a new one, I slithered to the opposite end of the bench and popped up, finger already pulling the trigger to send a stream of lead downrange. A flash of movement to the side pulled my attention for an instant and I saw Lucas step out from behind a small van. In one, fluid motion, like he was bowling, he swept his arm forward and sent a small, round object skittering across the asphalt.
The Russians saw him at the same instant, two of them spinning and sending a volley of full-auto fire in his direction. I fired twice, putting a round through the neck of the one who was most exposed as Lucas twisted away and threw himself to the sidewalk. A beat later, the grenade rolled beneath the BMW the enemy was sheltering behind and detonated.
The car shuddered from the blast which immediately threw up a cloud of pulverized asphalt, then the fuel tank ruptured and added its fury to the party. A massive ball of orange flame consumed the vehicle and the men behind it, the shockwave shattering windows up and down both sides of the street.
I’d ducked back into cover briefly, now poking my head up to see if there had been any survivors that needed to be shot. A roiling fireball ascended from the BMW in seeming slow motion. There was no way anyone survived that.
Lucas was on his feet already, running toward me. I began backing away, turning and charging down the street when he reached my position. A block away, the Rover lurched away from the curb, running dark and coming to pick us up. Rachel swung it sideways across the street, tires chattering as she slid to a stop. We piled in and she pulled away, covering another block before turning the headlights on.
All of us were breathing hard from the adrenaline and Dog was standing on the rear seat with his ears at full mast. He understood we were under attack and was ready to fight.
“How the hell did they find us?” Rachel asked, whipping through a turn onto a new street.
I looked at her, glanced around at the interior of the vehicle, then quickly turned to Lucas.
“Your clothes!”
He stared back at me for a second before his eyes widened in understanding. Without a word, he began stripping, continuing until he had removed everything other than the scrub top Rachel had given him. Cranking his window down, he tossed everything into the night.
“You’d better be right about them having planted a transponder on me,” he said, slowly closing the window. “Promised Ziggy a long time ago that I was done with running around Sydney at night with my willie hanging out.”
“No worries,” I said. “Nobody’s gonna notice that little thing.”
Rachel rolled her eyes and turned again where instructed by the iPhone.
44
“Conn, Sonar. Intermittent contact, bearing one-four-zero!”
The muted report from the sonar room galvanized Adrienne who had been making herself stay alert by mentally recreating the maze of plumbing that kept the North Carolina’s reactor cooled and operating properly. It took a second for the information to process in her mind, then she leapt to her feet and snatched a sound powered phone off its cradle.
“Sonar, Conn. Distance?”
She had to force herself to speak calmly. Three days of silent operations, deep in the Tasman Sea, had worn on her and the crew. And the Captain’s condition had worsened. Less than an hour ago, she’d spoken with Doc and been informed that the skipper likely had less than three or four hours to live unless they were able to deliver him to advanced medical care that was unavailable on the submarine.
“Contact is too faint, ma’am,” came the response. “I got a few seconds of a transient noise in the water. Not a screw. More like something mechanical.”
“All stop!” Adrienne ordered.
The command was relayed instantly and the nine-thousand-ton submarine drifted to a stop. Replacing the handset, she hurried the short distance to the sonar room and stepped into the cramped space.
“Like what mechanical?” she asked the Chief Petty Officer seated at the console.
He had both hands up, pressing the cups of a pair of headphones tight around his ears. Despite her anxiousness for an answer, the XO knew enough to remain quiet and wait for the man to listen to whatever sound the sensitive electronics had detected. After nearly a minute, he flipped a switch and swiveled to look up at her.
“Ma’am, it was definitely metal on metal. Not reactor or hydraulic noises. I’d guess someone in their boat dropped something heavy on the deck. Maybe a tool, or could be something in the galley.”
“Has it repeated?”
“No, ma’am. For a second, I thought I heard a low speed screw, like they were just creeping along at minimal steerageway, but I lost it.”
“If I get you closer, think you know what to l
isten for?” she asked, hiding the excitement that was pulsing through her.
“Yes, ma’am,” the Chief said with total confidence.
“Good. Best guess on a distance to target?”
The Chief swiveled around and manipulated controls for a few moments, analyzing a recording that had been made at the moment he’d heard the sound.
“Greater than ten-thousand yards is the best I can do, ma’am,” he said. “The sound was sharp, but it had lost a lot of energy by the time it reached us.”
“Got it, Chief. Good work!”
Adrienne dashed back to the control room and issued orders to get them moving and turned to the new heading supplied by the sonar operator. She knew the North Carolina like the back of her hand and had practically memorized every report generated during its sea trials, as well as drills and exercises. Because of this, she was confident the boat could be pushed to a speed of nine knots and remain all but undetectable unless an adversary was in their baffles, directly behind them.
As the sub came about to its new course and gently accelerated, she issued another order. Torpedoes had already been loaded into their firing tubes, but she wanted the semi-circular outer doors opened in preparation for firing. Their movement generated a small degree of mechanical noise which could potentially alert an enemy to their position before she was ready to announce their presence by firing the weapons.
Knowledge that neither America nor any of its allies were operating in the area allowed her a greater degree of freedom than was normal. Instead of having to achieve a positive identification of a target, she intended to launch torpedoes the instant the North Carolina’s computers had calculated a firing solution.
Lifting the sound powered phone, she spoke with the torpedo room, ensuring the men, equipment and weapons were ready to go at a moment’s notice. Satisfied with their response, she left the acting XO in command and headed out for a quick tour of the boat. Passing Commander Talbot’s quarters, she paused and looked back when the hatch opened. Doc stepped into the passageway, closing and securing the hatch before removing a surgical mask and latex gloves.