by Nick Cook
We pulled the pins on both grenades and lobbed them on to the edge of the plateau. I counted to three in my head as we both looked away and a blinding flash lit up the night sky. Then we turned back and sprayed bullets towards the helicopters, our muzzles popping with fire, shell casings emptying on to the jungle floor.
We were already running to the next grenades as the returning fire peppered the foliage behind us where we’d been just a moment before.
Once again we repeated the operation, but this time with smoke grenades. They quickly billowed across our side of the plateau and enveloped the Black Hawks behind a wall of smoke.
A crackle of fire shredded the trees with a hailstorm of bullets.
‘Fuck, they’re using one of those damned mini-guns on us,’ Jack said over the intercom.
‘At least we’ve got their attention now.’
‘Yeah, maybe a little bit too much.’
We sprinted away, repeating our guerilla action over and over, until we’d reached the last grenades in our line. By now tracer rounds were lancing out in every direction across the plateau. We lobbed our last flash bang and smoke grenades into the melee.
‘Good day at the office,’ Jack said as we raced away, circling back to our Zeros.
‘Now it’s down to Mike,’ I replied as mini-gun fire continued to shred the jungle on the far side of the Black Hawks.
When we reached our motorbikes, I opened my visor and raised the scope of the carbine to my eye. I saw brief glimpses of the guards fanned out and moving forward through the smoke.
‘Mike, how are you getting on?’ I whispered into my helmet’s mic.
‘Getting there,’ he replied.
I spotted a prone figure reaching up and placing something beneath the belly of one of the Black Hawks.
‘You can do it, buddy,’ Jack said as he peered through his own scope.
‘Just two more to go,’ Mike replied.
The next minute felt like an hour as we watched Mike creep towards the second Black Hawk and stick on the second C4 charge. But then, as part of me knew it would, Mike’s luck ran out.
Someone shouted a ceasefire order and the shooting immediately stopped. One of the soldiers heading back towards the Black Hawks froze, and it was easy to see why – he pointed his weapon towards the guy on his belly beneath a Black Hawk.
‘Fuck!’ Jack hissed.
I aimed and fired before I’d even had a chance to think about it. The soldier’s head sprayed with blood and he crumpled to the ground.
I swung my scope back to Mike. He was on his feet and running back to us.
Everything slowed down as I saw the other soldiers swarming around the helicopters. They’d spotted Mike too and started to shoot at him as he ducked and weaved, running back to us at a full sprint.
‘We’ve got to help him,’ Jack said.
‘Cover me!’ I lowered my visor and leapt on to my Zero. I twisted the throttle right back and raced out of the jungle with a surge of instant torque. I sped towards Mike as Jack’s covering fire hissed past me.
Through my visor’s night vision, I saw figures sprawling on the ground around the helicopters. I braked hard as I skidded to a stop next to Mike. ‘Get on!’
He leapt on to the back. ‘Shit, it’s good to see you.’
‘You too.’ I glanced back to see one the soldiers grab hold of the mini-gun in the doorway of the middle Black Hawk. ‘Hang on!’
I spun the bike round and raced back to Jack. The ground around the bike exploded with enemy bullets. I ducked down over the motorbike’s handlebars as Mike clung to me.
A bullet struck me and a white-hot needle of pain pierced my thigh. I jammed my jaw shut, trying to ignore the pain and keep control of the bike.
‘Mike, blow the charges!’ I shouted into my headset.
‘I can’t! All those people.’
‘You have to do this! Otherwise we’re going to die!’
‘Oh god…’ His hand holding the trigger rose into view.
I clamped my hand over his. ‘Together.’
‘Together…’
We squeezed the trigger and an orange ball of light lit up the plateau. Heat blazed across our backs as three explosions rocked the mountain. I glanced in my mirrors to see huge fireballs rolling into the sky as the Black Hawks were lifted up by the power of the blast, bodies flying through the air. A moment later burning metal started showering down. I skidded among the lumps as they hit the ground around us.
God only knew how the maelstrom of death missed us, but somehow I found a path through the metal meteor storm and we reached the jungle. We raced between the trees as ammo rounds began to detonate like hundreds of fireworks being let off at once. We slid the bike to a stop right next to Jack’s and Mike’s Zeros. Jack was already on his, shouldering his carbine, ready to ride out.
‘Holy crap, guys, that was close,’ Jack said.
‘Too close.’ Mike jumped off the back of my Zero and on to his own.
‘Now we need to get down off this mountain and contact Niki,’ I said.
Jack pointed upwards. ‘Don’t forget there’s still a Reaper up there looking for us. It’ll be safer if just one of us goes.’
I nodded. A spasm of pain passed through my leg and I clutched it.
Mike stared at my thigh. ‘Shit, you’ve been hit.’
‘A flesh wound. I’ll live. I’m going. This is my call.’
‘The hell you are,’ Mike said. ‘You need to get Jack to check your leg out. I’ll go instead.’
Jack stared past us down the mountain as he tore a medical pack out of his bag. ‘Seriously. Give us a break already.’
Mike and I followed Jack’s gaze – to a procession of headlights working their way up the mountain opposite.
I raised the night scope of the carbine to my visor. Four Overseers SUVs were parking up at the beginning of the trail.
‘Oh, great, just what we bloody needed, more reinforcements,’ I said. ‘This changes things.’
Mike shook his head. ‘The plan still stands. I’ll have to be extra careful. You stay up here and do what you can to hassle Alvarez and his mercs. Meanwhile, I’ll do everything I can to get past the new arrivals.’
‘But, Mike—’
‘Please trust me, Lauren.’
Before I could respond, Mike opened up the throttle on his Zero and raced away into the jungle.
Worry twisted my gut. ‘What the hell are you doing, Mike?’ I said over the intercom.
‘What needs to be done,’ Mike replied. ‘Anyway, please keep quiet. I’m trying to concentrate.’
Over the shouts of the mercs recovering boxes from the blazing Black Hawks, we heard the slap of leaves as Mike sped away from us. But he wasn’t making for the trail – a moment later I saw his motorbike reappear at the top of an impossible slope.
‘Mike, what are you doing? It’s too risky,’ I said.
‘I have to, Lauren. Just wish me luck.’
‘We have everything crossed here, buddy,’ Jack said.
And then his motorbike disappeared over the almost sheer edge with Mike skidding the bike sideways to control his rapid descent.
‘Shit, you have some serious guts,’ Jack said.
‘As long as you don’t see them spread across the mountain,’ Mike replied, his voice starting to break up with static.
Jack laughed but my heart was in my mouth as the minutes stretched on. I tracked Mike’s progress through my carbine’s scope. At least it helped distract me as Jack worked on my leg. He stabbed me with a shot of adrenaline, which took most of the edge off the pain. When he spread superglue over the flap of skin that had been opened up by the bullet and then pinched it together, I surprised even myself with the creativity of my swearing.
‘What is it with you and getting yourself shot?’
‘Must be my magnetic personality or something.’
Despite the odds against him, Mike was now a third of the way down the mountain.
But in a mom
ent everything changed.
A pulse of light came from the sky and something hurtled towards him. The Reaper drone!
‘Incoming missile, Mike!’ I shouted.
Only crackles and pops came back through my speakers as the projectile streaked down. My heart rose to my throat, sheet horror rolling through me. Mike’s bike burst with light as the missile hit. A plume of earth and stone erupted from the side of the mountain, obliterating the view. A slap of wind reached us, then a loud boom a split second later.
‘Mike, are you there?’ I whispered into my mic.
There was only silence as the rising pillar of light faded away. Just a smouldering crater in the mountainside remained. I looked towards Jack who shook his head.
And like that, Mike was gone, scrubbed out of existence. It was on me for letting him go.
Tears splintered my vision and a sob broke through my lips. A sense of utter emptiness rushed up and threatened to drown me.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Mike was gone. Dead. Snuffed out in less than a second.
‘Lauren,’ Jack said, his tone gentle as he pulled off his helmet.
If he hadn’t been so damned brave, he’d still be here…
‘Lauren,’ Jack repeated, gazing into my eyes.
And now we’re going to have to tell his family that he’s dead. Did he even have any family? I looked past Jack down at the fire. It spread out in a ring from the explosion through the dried grass.
Jack gently shook me. ‘Wherever you are in your head right now, I need you to return to me, as hard as it is. We need to come up with a new plan and quickly.’
My eyes focused on Jack’s for the first time.
‘There’ll be time to grieve later, but right now we need to make Mike’s death count for something.’
I could hear Jack’s words, but could barely process them.
The whack of rotor blades grew louder and over the opposite mountain ridge a police helicopter appeared.
‘Oh, shit, as if Alvarez needed more reinforcements,’ Jack said.
I managed a vague nod, still unable to speak. Even the abstract concept of saving the world didn’t seem important any more compared to the sheer agony of losing Mike.
Jack pulled me into him and I felt myself melt into his embrace, his warmth reaching into me, steadying me as a cyclone of grief spun through me. I took a shuddering breath. It seemed that I wasn’t the dispassionate soldier I’d come to think I was. But right now I needed to pull myself together. That was what leaders did when everything went to shit. And, like Jack had said, there would be time to grieve later.
I breathed through my nose as the small helicopter swept up over the hill and came to hover at the far end of the plateau. A squad of soldiers emerged from the jungle and formed a defensive circle round it as it landed as far as it could from the burning Black Hawks.
Watching it helped me to dodge the abyss of pain within about the loss of Mike. The dull sting in my leg from the bullet wound was also a welcome distraction.
I pulled away from Jack and his eyes searched mine. ‘Are you OK?’
‘I’ll have to be…to honour Mike’s memory if nothing else.’
‘I know this will sound like a cliché, but it’s what he would have wanted.’
‘You’re right…’ I felt my resolve harden, a determination to see this through reigniting inside. ‘OK, so it looks as if the Overseers will be able to airlift the micro mind out of here after all.’
But Jack was shaking his head. ‘They’re going to struggle with that craft – it’s only a Robinson R44 Raven. It hasn’t much in the way of lift. Throw in the thinner air of this altitude and it won’t carry the micro mind, since it weighs a good ton or so.’
‘OK, that’s better news at least.’
‘It is, but we’re still in the same situation. We’re alone without backup and Niki will be flying straight into a firefight. Not to mention the fact we’ll be running low on ammo soon. I’m down to my two last smoke grenades.’
‘I have one flash bang left.’
‘At least that’s something.’
The rotors of the helicopter were slowing as I raised the carbine’s scope to see what who was in it. I felt zero surprise when I saw Villca and the thin policeman who’d helped him abduct Cristina emerge from the cockpit.
‘They’ve arrived late to the party,’ Jack said, peering through his own scope.
‘Probably fleeing Machu Picchu to avoid being thrown into jail.’
Jack nodded. ‘So what’s our next play here, Lauren?’
There it was again – the chain of command. I was increasingly feeling out of my depth as leader, especially as I’d just lost someone on my watch.
I clutched my fresh resolve and looked into Jack’s eyes, trying to work out what to do. ‘Alvarez knows we’re out here and will be expecting another attack. And when those Overseers in SUVs get here, things will tip heavily in his favour. Our priority is still to reboot the micro mind. Do that and it can hopefully handle the rest.’
‘In that case, I think we have two options,’ Jack replied. ‘The first is that we take out the Raven too, but they’ll be expecting us to try that and it will almost certainly end up being a suicide mission.’
‘So what’s your second idea?’
‘We head back to the micro mind and seize it from Alvarez and the others.’
‘Jack, that also sounds like a suicide mission. Plus the micro mind is far too heavy to lift between us and carry off to somewhere safe.’
He scowled at me. ‘So we give up and Mike sacrificed his life for nothing?’
‘Bloody hell, don’t go off at the deep end with me. I’m not saying that. But you have given me an idea. Why don’t we let the Overseers do the heavy lifting for us?’
Jack’s expression softened. ‘How do you mean?’
‘Are you’re absolutely certain they can’t airlift it out?’
‘Not with that helicopter. Anything over a ton you’d need at least a Chinook for.’
‘So in that case, assuming that Alvarez already has something bigger on the way, how about this? When the helicopter appears, we let them load the micro mind on to it. Then we hijack the craft along with the pilot. We can then call Niki for backup and get as far away from the mountain as we can.’
‘Oh, you always make things sound so easy,’ Jack said.
‘Hey, don’t forget I am making this up as I go along.’
‘Another Lauren seat-of-your-pants plan in other words.’
‘Exactly. It’s so insane that it’ll be the last thing Alvarez would expect us to do.’
‘So how is this hijack going to work exactly?’
‘We’ll find a way.’
‘So there’s a liberal sprinkling of blind optimism seasoning on your plan too.’
‘With extra Parmesan.’ I almost managed to smile, despite my heart still breaking over Mike.
Over the next ten minutes, we watched events unfold down on the plateau.
A group led by Alvarez, with Cristina being escorted by one of the soldiers, soon emerged from the undergrowth. Two Overseers soldiers appeared to be carrying the micro mind easily between them.
‘How the hell are they able to do that?’ Jack asked.
My anxiety was on a spin cycle as I examined the crystal for any clues. I spotted a glowing circular device of polished steel attached to one of the crystal’s faceted sides like a limpet. It had a ring of blue lights round its circumference. There was something strangely familiar about it…
The memory surfaced from the depths of my mind.
‘That thing attached to the micro mind has to be some sort of antigravity device,’ I said.
‘You mean a scaled-down version of what Alice showed us in her lab?’
‘Yes, and you know what that means. They won’t have any problem airlifting the micro mind out on the Raven after all.’
‘Oh crap!’
The group had already reached the police helicopter and we
re connecting the micro mind to a harness.
‘It looks like we’re too late to stop this,’ I said.
Jack loaded his last clip into his carbine. ‘Over my dead body we’re not.’
I grabbed his arm. ‘I’m not losing you too, Jack. Mike was bad enough.’
‘And I’m not going to just watching them spirit the micro mind away after everything we’ve been through. The fate of the whole world is too big a price to pay.’
‘OK, but we still need to be smart here. Are you thinking that you’ll disable the Raven with a bullet through its engine?’
‘Not at this range. It would be a difficult shot even with a high-powered sniper rifle. But when the Raven takes off, it will have to fly more or less directly over us to avoid flying higher where the air is even thinner.’
‘So we’ll bring it down once it’s airborne?’
‘Yes. It’ll need one hell of a shot.’
‘What was all that firing-range training for if not for a moment like this?’
‘You’re right,’ Jack replied.
I peered through my binoculars again to see Alvarez boarding the helicopter alongside the pilot. My heart sank as Villca shoved Cristina into the rear passenger seat and sat next to her. ‘Shit, scrub that plan. We can’t risk shooting the Raven out of the sky with Cristina on board.’
‘But we haven’t got any other choice,’ Jack said.
I stared at him. ‘But she’s an innocent civilian. She didn’t ask for any of this.’
‘I know, but you need some perspective here. The fate of whole world is hanging in the balance based on what we decide to do in the next sixty seconds.’
The helicopter’s engine whined as the rotors whirred up to speed.
My mind locked up. Could I really shoot the helicopter out of the sky and kill Cristina? The memory of the missile strike taking out Mike flashed through my mind. No, I couldn’t risk Cristina’s life in this. There had to be another way.
I scanned the helicopter through my binoculars, desperately searching for an option. I was about to give up when the metal disc attached to the micro mind snagged my gaze.
‘That’s it!’ I said.
‘What is?’
‘We shoot the antigravity device and the pilot will be forced to land because of the sudden extra weight.’