"Why would you do that?"
"So he'll be focused on the Brussels meeting in eight days instead of worrying about a hit on Gerstner in three. Even if he doesn't totally buy it, thinks it's a trap or something, it'll be a distraction. Remember, most of ICAP isn't in on the secret, and the UN sure as hell isn't, so it's not like he's got an army at his beck and call. That's why they tried to bonk you instead of killing you outright."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Certain?"
Dawkins put his head in his hands and spoke through is palms. "If we arrange the meet for eight days in Belgium and hit his Riviera house in three, it will minimize resistance. That I promise you."
"So we meet Garza's goons tomorrow, run surveillance Monday, and go in hot on Tuesday. That's the plan?"
Dawkins nodded. "That's the plan."
Chapter 18
The six scarred, muscled men that boarded the forward helicopter would have been intimidating even if they hadn’t been nine feet tall. Their leader, a blue-eyed monstrosity who called himself Goro, carried a Dillon Aero M134D-T. The titanium minigun with six rotating barrels had been designed for a helicopter mount. It topped out at three feet long, and the exoskeleton around the bonk's torso that helped him wield it made him look even bigger. That his lower jaw had been replaced with serrated metal didn't help him in the charm department, but it matched up with the body modifications of the others: dorsal blades, steel plates riveted to bone, razor-sharp steel teeth.
Garza had vouched not only for their reliability but also for their tactical acumen. Matt had a hard time buying it. These men—not true men anymore—knew they courted insanity and didn't care. Such short-sighted, for-the-moment self-destruction left Matt cold. He didn't understand that mentality. Even before they bonked, bonks weren't the slightest bit sane.
The mercenaries took off thirty seconds before Matt's group did, thundering over the Mediterranean in a blast of salty prop wash. With only Blossom, Dawkins, and Matt in the passenger compartment, the second chopper had plenty of room despite their equipment. Matt had a bandoleer of grenades, two kilos of C4, a kilo of det cord, an AA-12 with a backup drum of directional explosive rounds, and in his pocket, Monica's cross and an autoinjector loaded with level-six musculoskeletal enhancements. His gut clenched with more than the typical pre-action nerves, and his mind boiled with uncertainty.
They streamed across the black water under the light of a quarter moon, flying by eye less than twenty feet above the waves. The resort town dotted the hills with lights, but at three in the morning there were no crowds, and the cities of the Riviera offered little enough illumination. Recon had confirmed that Brian Frahm had gone to bed at midnight. There were no visible guards.
Matt suppressed the urge to kill Blossom. Enemy or not, they stood a better chance with her, and her motivation burned no weaker than theirs. She and Dawkins had argued over whether or not they had the right location; Brian's presence didn't guarantee Gerstner's. She didn't trust his precognition, and if they attacked the wrong place they'd tip their hand. In the end, she agreed to follow his lead, but her already taciturn personality had turned black.
On cue, nine seconds to touchdown, light blossomed under the stabilizers on the first helicopter. A pair of missiles fell, then streaked forward in a burst of blue and yellow flame, a second pair firing just behind them. They broke the sound barrier just before impact. As the explosions washed the hidden cavern in orange, the helicopters banked to avoid the updraft, and slowed.
The bonks didn't rappel—they leapt. Twenty feet in the air at thirty miles an hour made for an easy jump for the massive men, who rolled on impact and came up running. They fanned out to the sides as the rear chopper rocked, firing missiles of its own. Flame shot out of the tunnel, and they followed the backdraft in, relieving Matt's first worry: the tunnel hadn't collapsed, and the missiles had breached the giant steel door inside.
He watched their progress on his heads-up display, six tiny screens on the right side of his vision, one for each of Garza's bonks. Goro led the charge, his screen a continuous burst of light as the minigun shredded the survivors behind the door. A rocket-propelled grenade streaked out of the tunnel into the water, erupting in a harmless splash of salt and foam.
Matt's chopper hovered next to the second-floor balcony. He took three short steps and leapt. As his foot hit the iron rail he fired a burst into the plate-glass door. He flew through it in a spray of glass, HUD visor tracking for targets. Blossom blurred past him into the next room.
A brunette touched with gray pulled the blanket up around her neck and screamed. Matt pointed at her. "Don't move." Dawkins landed next to Matt and pulled the trigger on his AK-47. Tufts of feathers blasted into the air. The woman twitched and fell silent.
"Fuck!" Matt said, turning on Dawkins, ready to pounce.
In response Dawkins stepped to the bed, shoved an arm under the mattress, and pulled out an H&K assault rifle. "No one gets behind us."
An explosion boomed below them, and the house shuddered. One of the bonk's display had gone dark, and two more struggled in mortal combat against bonks every bit as massive. Something crashed in the next room. A man cried out. Matt stepped around the corner, weapon raised, and lowered it as he took in the scene.
Next to the upturned couch, Blossom held Brian by the hair. She had his body twisted in a cruel parody of boxers-clad Twister, back arched, one hand on the ground to take pressure off of his head. He clutched his right hand to his chest, three fingers bent at odd angles. A machine pistol lay at his feet.
Behind Matt, Dawkins spoke. "Where is she?"
"Fuck you," Brian said through a grimace of pain.
Dawkins approached, an autoinjector in his hand. "No need for theatrics. You tell us where she is, and I don't make you psychic."
A ragged, raw sound erupted from Brian's throat; a laugh. "If you succeed, that won't mean a thing."
Blossom and Matt exchanged glances. Brian's throwaway answer filled Matt with hope he hadn't felt in forever.
Below them, Goro had run out of ammo and used his minigun as a club, crushing men and bonks into oblivion with the titanium barrels. His squad held their own, and on their cameras Matt saw even the helmetless one still stood, battered and bloody and holding a blood-soaked axe. Another rocket streaked from the darkness.
Dawkins sighed, put away the injector, and drew a knife, smiling as the house shuddered again.
"Okay, theatrics then, you coward. You might not age, but you won't regenerate either. To keep you from stalling, every couple of seconds, if we're not making progress, you're going to have one less body part to enjoy in your immortality. I'll start small."
Brian's eyes didn't leave the knife. "Okay." He snuffled as tears sprang to his eyes. "If you promise you won't hurt me. . . .” He swallowed. “I'll . . . I'll show you the machine."
Dawkins nodded at Blossom, who pulled Brian to his feet and let him go. To his credit, he didn't try for the gun.
"Where?" Dawkins said. "And remember, each lie costs you something permanent."
"Basement."
Weapons fire from below accompanied them down the stairs, through a massive kitchen, to a plain white door. Two more HUDs had gone down, but at least one of Garza's bonks kept his feet—their resilience overshadowed that of their equipment. An explosion rocked the building.
"What are we up against?" Matt asked.
Brian shrugged. "There were two dozen augs inside when I went to bed, eight of them bonks." He opened the door. "None of them know this way, though."
Blossom took point down the mortar-and-stone steps, into the darkness. Matt followed, surprised at the thermocline; goose bumps rose on his arms, his breath frosted the air. Despite the cold, everything else seemed normal.
A water heater stood in the corner next to a dingy desalination system. A mop sink, a sump pump, and shelves cluttered with tools dominated the far wall. Brian nodded to a cast-iron wood-burning furnace. "Behind ther
e. Through the wall."
Matt inspected the mortar and stone. It looked solid to his eyes. "How do we get through?"
"Brute force," Brian said.
Matt turned to look at him, eyebrow raised. "Seriously?"
Dawkins grabbed Brian’s broken pinky finger, wrenched it to the side, and severed it with a smooth upward stroke of the knife.
Brian screamed and stumbled back, sweat breaking out on his forehead. "Please! No! It's that or fight your way through down there." Another blast from below punctuated his statement, and mortar dust rained from the walls. Dawkins shoved him to the ground and wiped the knife on the front of Brian's shirt.
"Better wrap your hand. It'd be a real shame if you bled out."
"You idiot," Brian sneered. "There are shaped charges on the far side in case I ever needed to get out in a hurry. I never dreamed having to get in that way."
Matt pulled out the det cord, and Dawkins grabbed his hand. "Save it. It's only a brick wall." While Blossom took a sledge hammer and shattered bricks, Matt grabbed a crowbar from a shelf to pry them out.
Goro's HUD vanished in a flash of white, then went to static. An inhuman roar echoed through the walls. Someone screamed, a high-pitched, desperate wail of hopeless agony.
"I think they made him mad," Dawkins said.
Brian sulked, his right hand oozing red around his left palm. "You said you wouldn't hurt me."
"I apologize for my overreaction," Dawkins deadpanned, as Matt revealed a steel wall behind the brick. "But that's the exact opposite of what I said. Now shut up unless I ask you question." He tossed Brian a handkerchief from a pocket. Brian picked it up from the floor, wiped his eyes, and pressed it to his bleeding stump.
After a few more minutes they'd cleared out what looked like a naval bulkhead, smooth steel panels connected with quarter-sized rivets. Matt looked back at the tool shelf for a suitable cutter, and Blossom punched the sledge through the wall in one fluid motion. The metal shrieked as she pulled it back. Stale fluorescent light spilled through the hole, along with the scent of nitroglycerine, gunpowder, and underneath them, the stink of blood and shit and death.
Gunfire echoed through the hole, and another roar that Matt recognized as Goro's. The last working HUD lay on the floor, unmoving, giving him a view of the carnage. Goro slammed a bonk into the ceiling, then, with the help of his exoskeleton, tore him in half. He turned, his face a bloody streak over an exposed skull, and laughed. Something flashed by on the camera, and Goro's head fell from his shoulders and rolled out of sight. The headless giant just stood there, held up by the exoskeleton, as the fight moved deeper into the basement and out of sight.
Blossom punched another hole near the first, then tore the hammer downward. The wooden handle shattered and the steel head fell to the floor inside. She reached through to her shoulder, picked it up, and used her hands to bash it through the thin strip of metal connecting the holes. Bloody lines where the steel had shredded her arm faded to pink as she worked.
Matt joined her with the crowbar, creating a mad pointillism of ruined steel before tearing through it with brute force. Once they'd done sufficient damage, they tore the metal door back and tossed it to the floor, the shriek and clatter deafening in the confined space.
"For the love of God, Montressor," Dawkins said behind them. "Where to?"
Brian's voice held a touch of petulance. "At the end of the hall. Go all the way down."
Matt grunted and stepped into the tiny corridor. The whispers tittered in anticipation. The claustrophobic, smoky hall led down to a spiral staircase that had to be a hundred years old, the wrought iron steps swaying with every footfall. The sounds of battle grew louder as he descended. Maybe halfway down—he'd counted forty-six steps—he encountered a bulkhead door like they used in World War II-era subs, twisted and mangled on the floor. Through the dark opening came screams of pain and panic, gunfire, and explosions. The iron stench of blood and shit emanated from within. He readied his weapon and crouched next to the entry.
Brian stopped next to him, opened his mouth, looked at Dawkins, and closed it. Then he tried again. "Keep going. She's all the way down."
Matt ducked past the entryway and ran down the rest of the stairs. He reached the bottom and jogged down a long hallway that had to put them under the water. He pushed through the steel door, Blossom at his heels, and blinked in surprise.
A dozen naked bulbs hung from the ceiling, bathing the gigantic, whirring, clockwork monstrosity in a tepid glow. Giant brass cogs whirled, steel gears spun, and pumps forced black fluid through stained stone channels. Glass tubes crackled with lightning, and a warren of hoses snaked into and out of an enormous steel platform.
Atop it, an emaciated cadaver lay surrounded by arcane machinery, the tubes protruding from her body leading to brass canisters emblazoned with swastikas and eagles. Shriveled breasts drooped on exposed ribs too thin to belong to a living being, but they rose and fell with the rhythm of breath. Someone had carved a crude glyph on her forehead, an old bloody scab wrought by crude hands: the Ul. Withered lips couldn't cover the skeletal remains of blackened, rotten teeth. Spiked iron manacles pierced the body's wrists, ankles, and head, holding her arms outstretched and her ankles crossed in a barbaric parody of Christ.
Beneath the platform, throbbing, jade-colored tentacles pushed through cracks in the concrete like the roots of an ancient, gnarled tree. Energy pulsed along these roots, flowing from the table into the ground. Matt kneeled and pulled the C4 from his satchel. Two kilos in a confined space would make a hell of a mess, but he pulled out the det cord just in case.
"Hostiles," Dawkins said. A sulfuric stench filled the air.
Matt raised his head just in time to dive out of the way of a tendril of thorny smoke. His head rang with the realization that the whispers hadn't warned him. He choked up his AA-12 and fired. The microexplosive projectile tore a chunk off of the humanoid mass of green-gray haze even as twisted black thorns sprang from its solidifying body. Gunpowder joined the stink of sulfur.
He fired again as it closed, and it stumbled sideways. Two more rushed him. He cracked one in the head with the butt of the gun, snap kicked the other in the torso. He grunted in surprise as his foot sank in and the ribs became a mouth with gnashing, barbed teeth. He placed the barrel against the thing's chest a foot above his ankle and pulled the trigger. Bone shredded and meat exploded. As it staggered back, he yanked his boot free in a gooey string of mucus-like fluid. Bits of shrapnel and sticky blood steamed on the torn leather, but his foot didn't hurt.
He grunted in pain as his first assailant wrapped his right arm with ropy, tentacle-like appendages, its thorns stabbing into his muscle. He lost his balance on his slippery left foot and fell, the creature collapsing on top of him. Blood filled his vision as barbed teeth raked across his face. He snarled and jammed his fingers into its single, vacant eye. It shifted, giving him enough leverage to throw with his legs, and he slammed it into the wall.
Blossom decapitated it on her way by and stabbed the second assailant a dozen times before Matt had a chance to recover. Despite her speed and regenerates, her shredded Kevlar vest hung in tatters over blood-slicked skin. He sidestepped a punch from another thorn-thing, wrapped his arm around its neck, and twisted. He felt the crunch even as thorns stabbed his arms and chest, then grunted in surprise as it dissipated in a sulfurous fog.
Blossom held her own against two more, and Dawkins fought three. Brian sobbed on his knees, trying to push slimy coils of intestine back through a tear in his abdomen. Matt pulled a grenade from his bandoleer, pulled the pin, and tossed it toward the table.
A smoky form materialized, grabbed the grenade with thorny tentacles full of teeth, and burst as it went off. He threw two more. Each was swallowed by demonic forms without damaging the machine. Dawkins screamed, a guttural, choking yell that cut off in a gurgle. Matt whirled.
His throat a gaping ruin, Dawkins still fought. Blood streamed from severed arteries even as he punched
a combat knife straight through the creature that had ravaged his neck. The wound grew teeth and closed on his arm, shredding muscle and bone. The knife fell to the ground. His forearm followed.
Matt fired three rounds from his shotgun. All three creatures exploded in wisps of vapor. Dawkins fell to the floor, the blood gushing from his neck and arm slowing, but maybe not fast enough. Matt turned around to help Blossom, just in time to see another creature vanish as she cut out its heart.
"We can't keep this up," she gasped.
As eight more shapes emerged from the darkness. The whispers chuckled in dark anticipation.
Matt swore. With no time to reload, he grabbed the injector in his pocket, jammed the needle into his thigh.
I'm sorry, Monica. I love you.
He pulled the trigger, flooding his system with eldritch augmentation. He gasped as power like he'd never felt consumed him.
His arms bulged as the first two reached him. He screamed as muscle layered over muscle, as bones stretched and thickened. He grabbed them and slammed his fists together, pulping their heads in a spray of blood and mist. Three more followed, but he rushed forward and knocked them aside even as they wrapped him with thorny tendrils. He screamed as agony wracked his body, not from the attack but from the walls of inhuman strength that twisted through him. The whispers screamed with him as layer upon layer of muscle wrapped thickening bones. He gloried in the slaughter.
He tore at them with his bare hands, rending flesh and snapping bone with every grasp. Tentacles wrapped him; he flexed and shredded them. Thorns pierced his skin, and he laughed at their insignificance. More came—he didn't know how many—and as they advanced he destroyed them. His fists crushed bone through the floor, blasted rib cages apart, shattered heads. He grabbed two forms and slammed them together. They disintegrated. He stepped forward into a cloud of sulfuric, bloody mist, and snarled at the lack of opponents.
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