Jack Be Nimble: A Lion About to Roar Book 4

by Ben English

  He made as if to throw the pieces and the cable down in disgust, then regained control of himself.

  Steve addressed the refugees from the plane. “Can any of you help? Is anyone a civil engineer or a Boy Scout?” Two of the women raised their hands, as did one man. “I was an Eagle scout,” he said.

  Mack Tanner was near enough to hear. “Ain’t no such thing as a former Eagle scout,” he said. “You know what needs to be done.”

  They took the cables and components from Alonzo, who handed them over with exceeding delicacy. He seemed to move with great deliberation, and when he came near Steve saw Alonzo was trembling. His face was still covered in blood and gore. “Maybe you should—” he began.

  Then he noticed Alonzo’s expression as he looked over at the Major, and the words collapsed in his throat. Nothing but the blackest rage he’d ever seen in the mind of a man.

  His voice sounded normal. “The frequency of the incoming military aircraft, please.”

  *

  Steve handed him a microphone and activated an external speaker, and Alonzo tried to guess the best way to address the approaching aircraft. They needed to believe him. Were they Navy or Marines? He hoped Marines.

  Each branch of the military used coded communications systems from the same root source. Each used a specific assignment system for changing tactical frequencies and call signs. Alphanumeric call signs used by Marine ground troops changed daily. The system for changing the frequency assignments was provided to the Army and the Marines by the NSA. The Air Force and the Navy had their own restrictions—they did not use systems that changed the frequency assignments because of all the different communications platforms they used and the resulting compression of the electromagnetic spectrum.

  He’d have no luck at guessing the code words for the day. Bata’an was practically a different ship than the one Alonzo had been assigned to. He listened to the chatter for a few seconds, long enough to know they were Navy and not Marines. Sure enough, everything had changed.

  “Attention, incoming US military aircraft.” He paused to cough. “If you can hear me, do not approach the island. All vectors of the island but one are defended by surface-to-air weapons. Say again, all vectors but one are defended.”

  The response was immediate. A voice he “Who is this? Are you aware this is a military channel?”

  A voice in the background added, “Switching to alternate frequency now.”

  “No!” Alonzo leaned into the microphone. “This is Sparrowhawk, Sparrowhawk on the ground, formerly of Bata’an. I can guide you in.”

  Silence.

  At the far edge of the island, right where the land mass met the sea, several points of light burst into existence. They darted skyward like the spokes of a wheel, each appearing to grow at the tip of a gray pillar. As one, they angled in the sky and looped toward the horizon.

  Alonzo thumbed the microphone again. “Surface-to-air missiles inbound, six missiles fired from a battery on the northwest!” He hoped they were all surface-to-air, and not surface-to-surface. He’d seen Bata’an’s 20 millimeter Gatling guns defend herself against three incoming warheads at once, but six?

  Was anybody listening?

  He pictured himself in the cockpit, next to old Buck Harper, his fingers on the countermeasures as Buck danced the Osprey around antiaircraft burst and missile fire. He could practically feel the rhythm of the twin rotors. It must have been pure imagination, but he actually heard them.

  No. The cadence was all wrong. It was the Bell, the helicopter they’d come in on.

  Alonzo opened his eyes and saw it rise from the protected glade where he’d secured it. Couldn’t make out the interior, but whoever was inside flew with hesitation. Not a combat pilot.

  The Bell tilted forward and accelerated toward the beach. Alonzo’s heart dropped as it sped by.

  Their options for getting off the island were dwindling.

  “Alonzo. Al! Try this one.” Steve worked his computer, dialing up other frequencies.

  “Attention incoming aircraft. Mark the approach vector taken by the civilian aircraft. It’s a Bell 430, moving south-southwest away from the island. Use that approach to avoid the island defenses.”

  The only response was a series of staccato flashes on the horizon. Alonzo listened to the cries of mayday as helicopter crews burned in the air, and the microphone shook in his hands.

  “Steve, get me a direct line to Bata’an herself.”

  The other man shook his head. “Even if I could figure out what they’re broadcasting on and decrypt it, we’re out of time.” He pointed to a countdown clock on the screen and began to work the keyboard. “The window to send the signal is closing. I’ve got to try and reposition a satellite to keep it open. Where’s Jack?”

  Where was Jack?

  The amateur repair crew had reassembled the carbon fiber legs, but without an anchor it would not support weight. Could they lower the cable and let Jack climb up? No. The steel cable by itself was too smooth for Jack to climb without equipment; the only way anyone was getting up was by someone working the powered winch system at the cliff’s edge or the hand-crank winch on the scaffolding itself.

  He and Mercedes might very well make it to the cave mouth below, but there was no way for them to climb up. No way to get Raines’ computer connected to Steve’s.

  Absurdly, Alonzo found himself wishing for the clown costume he’d worn while storming the Illuminatus Tower. At least then he’d had a dozen helium balloons.

  The civilians were not reacting well to being fired on. The largest group of them were sheltering well back from the hill’s edge, crouched behind stones and fallen walls and such, but to hear them wail you would have thought the Boots of Hell were coming down out of the sky to grind them all into greasy bits.

  One of the women was still working on the tripod anchor. She looped the thick cable around the stone where it had been before the claymore shook everything to pieces, and it looked like everything would be fine until she attempted to hook it into the cable from the tripod. It didn’t reach.

  “It comes to this,” she said. “We can put the rest of it back together if the anchor line is hooked in.”

  The two cables came to within a handspan of each other, and no closer. She sobbed in frustration.

  “Here they come again!” shouted Mack. Increased gunfire from the edge of the hill pulled at his attention. One of the Tanners yelled for a reload and pulled his sidearm. That meant they were close.

  The wind brought a hot smell of gunpowder and sweat, and Alonzo reached for his H&K and then remembered he was low on ammunition for the pistol.

  Bless me, Father, for I’ve run out of bullets. And my friend is trapped in a cave.

  He tossed the weapon to the most capable-looking of the men and gestured for him to join the Tanners. The two cables looked long enough to touch. One had an iron hook; the other a clamped loop. Damn it, they looked close enough to meet. Alonzo held one in each hand and brought them together. Not quite. There was some give in the cables, but not much.

  A bead of dirty sweat ran into his eye. He wrapped the cables around each of his forearms and tried again to bring the hook to the loop. Again, he was shy by a good two inches. There simply wasn’t enough cable. Not a matter of wishing or prayer or karma—he steeled himself and willed his hands together.

  Might as well be pulling the island into the sky.

  A grenade spiraled over the crowd, bounced once near the cliff’s edge, and went over the edge, toward Jack’s position. It exploded before it reached the surf, but the sound was nearly swallowed by the crash of the sea.

  “Alonzo’s here,” the major was delirious. “All’s well. He’s a mighty . . . a mighty little man of war.”

  The Eagle Scout saw Alonzo was attempting to join the two anchor cables, and lent his strength and weight. Likewise, the two women pulled the other side of the cable. A few others joined them. Alonzo doubted they understood the reasoning behind their actions;
they just needed something to do. It didn’t matter. The cable wasn’t moving. He was as powerless as he’d ever been.

  He stood awash in a river of sound. Alonzo heard the sounds of the pilots dying across the open radio (just as), the sharp report of gunfire (powerless) and the screams of the people at his feet on the hill (as I’ve ever been), mingling with the Major’s coughing. There was blood on her lips.

  Powerless as I’ve always been, he thought. He screwed his eyes shut as Allison called his name. And Jack trapped down there in a crumbling cave. I’ve let them down.

  This thought suddenly filled him, drowned out all other noise, texture, thought. He lost himself in it, lost all sense of himself. His control faltered, and as Allison cried out he felt something inside him ignite.

  Berserk.

  He opened his eyes and chuckled. The world—the rules of the world—were gone.

  Fire, wind and fire. Crackling above and beneath all the glorious noises which made up the song of war.

  Something was holding his wrists, keeping his hands apart. He brought them together, hard, freeing himself. A fist-sized sphere came out of the sky towards him. It was hissing for some reason. Alonzo caught it and threw it back. It exploded, and he laughed.

  There was a fat man crouched over a computer, near enough to seize, close enough to kill, staring at him with terrific fear. They might have been friends in a previous life. Alonzo didn’t waste the effort to try and remember him, the fat man was not a threat. Where were those grenades coming from?

  Tools, he needed tools. His pockets held matching folding knives, and he opened them with his thumbs as he leaped over the tumbled stones at the brink of the hill.

  Men below, moving furtively from tree to tree. The wind pushed the grass into a riot, and he dove down into it.

  Alonzo slid through the wet grass on his chest, then reversed himself with a somersault. Feet first, slick and fast, he came upon the first man. He was in the act of slithering upward, concealed in the deep grass. Alonzo kicked him in the face, then drew a knife across his exposed throat. He was downhill before the sticky red fountain could touch him.

  The next man he came across had just pulled the pin on a grenade when Alonzo bowled him over. The grenade rose into the air far enough for Alonzo to cut its owner inside each elbow, armpit, cheek, and groin. Leaving the knives where they were for a moment, Alonzo grabbed the grenade out of the air and fit it neatly in the man’s mouth, stifling his scream.

  The three seconds hissed away and so did Alonzo. He was far enough past that the explosion propelled him all the way to the bottom of the hill, where he pushed one of his knives into a mercenary’s chest. It went in past the hilt into the ribcage, and the hilt caught. He lost his knife in the resulting gore, but came away with a pistol. Its grooves and planes fit his hand seamlessly.

  Tracers licked down from above, and men around him shouted. They were looking for him, shouting that an American had come down the hill. He stayed low, circling the base of the hill, and came upon two of them. One made the mistake of trying to sight him in a rifle scope; Alonzo threw his knife into his comrade’s chest and then rushed the rifleman. In one motion, he pushed the long barrel aside and tucked his new pistol right up underneath the man’s ribs. The sound of the three shots were muffled. The screaming was not.

  The jungle was beautiful. Deep and green and voluptuous. He fell back through the high grass, coming at another small group mustering behind some trees at the base of the hill, where they couldn’t be seen from above. Alonzo rolled two grenades at them, then stood and fired, backpedalling. They followed, right into the two explosions.

  The leaves swung in the hot wind.

  A figure twitched at him; Alonzo fired. He couldn’t even see the gun sights and didn’t bother lining them up—he knew exactly where they were because that’s where they always were. The other man fell. Alonzo slowed enough to take his weapons.

  They were angry now, so enraged they’d stopped swearing at him. He could feel their animal fear. No one approached the hill. Were they all dead? He should press forward, take as many of them as he could, the risk was nothing and death—death was inconsequential.

  Alonzo realized he was thinking again. Perhaps not clearly, but thinking, in the earthbound patterns of a rational man.

  This was his moment of balance. He still rode the edge of adrenaline, but the song of Achilles and Mars was a shade less intoxicating and undeniable. He could still dance to it, find someone else to kill, to crush, to destroy—but he’d regained enough control to stop, if he wanted.

  He looked at the gun in his hand. Nine millimeter. Peh. Didn’t anybody carry .45s anymore?

  Ahead of him, in the grass and low trees at the base of the hill, crept a figure in military fatigues. He was huge, almost a giant, with a great broad back and a shock of white, white hair. A glimpse was all he gave, but it was enough to galvanize Alonzo into movement.

  He cursed and darted after the other man. I killed you already, he thought furiously. After you shot Allison.

  It had to be him, the security chief. No one else on the field of battle had hair that white. There wasn’t a single mother’s son among the Colombians who had the fieldcraft necessary to evade Alonzo’s overlapping pattern back and forth through the jungle.

  He caught another flash of movement between the trees. Nimble, for an old guy. Alonzo followed.

  Further Up and Further In, Part 2

  The helicopter flashed out over the water, and Marduk felt himself start to breathe again. His assumptions were right; there was a hole in the island’s perimeter defenses big enough for the Bell to slip through. And now he had time to plan.

  There was no doubt Raines would find him, eventually. Once they discovered him gone, Raines would spare no expense to capture Marduk, if for no other reason than to control the contents of his mind and the application of all the dark secrets the two had discovered together over a lifetime of—

  Friendship.

  He shuddered, and caught himself. Wouldn’t do to have the pilot see weakness, not when he had to kill the man as soon as they landed. He was another tie back to Raines; he carried the nanodevices as well, and could therefore be tracked anywhere on the planet. Marduk would build a shielding device for himself—he was nearly done constructing it in his mind—but did not trust the pilot past the fact that a bullet through the spine and heart would happily make further trust unnecessary.

  The engine coughed.

  “What did you do?” asked Marduk.

  The pilot was very pale. “The other guy, the one—the one you shot,” he said. “He checked the fuel levels before, before you—”

  The engine coughed again.

  *

  Alonzo pursued the older man up the hill, surprised at how long it was taking to catch up. Alonzo never fully saw his opponent, only caught snatches of movement, shadows, and occasionally a glimpse of his rolling shoulders. The man’s forearms were enormous.

  The unexpected time and effort needed to overtake his target cost him. The knife’s edge of adrenaline was long spent, and Alonzo feared his body would give out before the white-haired man reached the crest of the hill.

  And that was another thing. The figure before him (was he waiting? Does he want me to catch him? Alonzo thought) had longer hair than the security chief. Not hippie-long, but not a military haircut, either. Military fatigues, but Alonzo couldn’t see a weapon.

  If only he could get a complete view. Seeing him in his entirety was suddenly more significant than killing him. Alonzo lengthened his stride.

  There. One last thicket of grass before the hilltop. The Tanners were on the far side of the clearing, firing sporadically. The titanic figure hesitated, and Alonzo saw his features clearly, just for a moment. He had great bushy eyebrows, and a young-old face. A sort of knowing smile. Santa Claus, Alonzo thought absently, and fought to close the distance between them before the older man stepped into the clearing.

  Alonzo pushed through after
him and stumbled out onto the hillside, a few yards from Steve.

  Steve looked up and saw him, then shrank back as Alonzo lifted his handgun and fired across the satellite array—

  At a swarthy, smallish mercenary just in the act of emerging from the grass. The Colombian choked and fell, leaking red.

  Alonzo stumbled, nearly dropping his gun. A breeze blew the grass behind him shut, with a sigh and a whisper. The old man was nowhere to be seen.

  The winch on the tripod made a clicking sound, then started to whirl like an actual, functioning mechanical device. “We’ve got it!” said someone. Eagle Scout.

  Fatigue washed over Alonzo, through his bones. He barely remembered hooking the cables together. “Get it over the edge and down to the tunnel. The only thing that matters is getting our people up here.” His vision swam.

  The radio was still on. “Sparrowhawk? Sparrowhawk, you there?” The voice sounded vaguely familiar.

  Steve eyed him closely a moment, watching his gun, then apparently came to a decision. “They’ve been calling for you since you went cra—since you went down the hill.”

  He took the microphone, and nearly dropped it. Damn thing was at least twice as heavy as before, and growing more difficult to grasp. How was that possible?

  “This is Alonzo Noel, formerly a lieutenant junior grade assigned to Bata’an.”

  “I knew it!” the voice came back. “Lieutenant, you won’t remember me, I was a member of your flight crew when you and Buck Harper flew together in the Gulf. Name’s Airth, sir. Have my own command now, an Osprey just like yours.”

  “Airth,” Alonzo had trouble remembering his own name, at the moment. “Sounds like a good name for a pilot. What’s your situation?”

  “Four aircraft down from full strength. We’re on the approach vector you recommended, heading in to the island now. You should have visual on us in five minutes.”