by Jack Murphy
“What the hell,” Pat cursed as he grabbed a railing for support. “At least things can't get any worse,” he said, smirking at Deckard.
Deckard eyed him angrily as the boat shook a second time.
Thirty Four
Frank knew they were getting close to something or someone.
The opposition had hit them with wave after wave of gunmen. The Serbian and American contractors had worked in tandem to thwart Samruk's movement into the upper levels of the ship, deploying heavy machine guns and even antipersonnel mines in the hallways and stairwells.
The corridors of the ship were running red with blood, the viscous liquid clotting and sticking to their boots as it congealed in the carpeting.
The Serbs charged forward. Having deployed thick bullet-resistant riot shields, they pushed forward almost in a phalanx down the hall, shooting and trampling over the Kazakhs in their way. Frank was nearly black on ammunition when one of the Samruk troopers recovered a PKM from one of their dead and began to turn the tables.
The belt-fed weapon sputtered, slamming shot after shot into the riot shields and knocking the Serbs off-balance as they strode forward. With the shields flailing in their grip, several of the Eastern European mercenaries exposed their flanks, an opening that Frank and the other survivors were quick to exploit.
Draining the AK-103, Frank let the rifle hang by its sling and transitioned to his Glock 19. Firing shot after shot, he aimed for exposed feet beneath the protective wall of the shields. Screams filled the hall, filling the random hiccups between gunshots.
One of the Serbs tripped over his dead comrade and fell down on top of his shield. Looking up he found himself looking down the barrel of a Glock. Frank drilled him between the eyes. The dead were piling up like cordwood.
Reloading on the move, he took point, treading over the dead on his way down the hall. Stopping at a T-intersection, he knew they were nearly at the penthouse. The Alpha Company men would never have even known it was there if they hadn't suddenly encountered such stiff opposition as they got closer.
At the end of the hall, yet another layer of protection was present. They lined themselves in front of the penthouse's double doors, creating a wall with their riot shields. Having gotten a quick glance, he was about to duck back behind cover when a bullet struck him in the shoulder.
Mendez ran forward to pull him back behind the corner of the wall when the Serbs rattled off a long burst. The submachine gun fire threatened to reduce the former mortar man into pulp, the shots puncturing his side, instantly deflating both lungs.
Richie was the next on deck. He stepped forward and sidearmed a claymore mine down the hall towards the Serbs. Kurt Jager grabbed Frank by the leg and pulled him behind cover just as the British demolitions expert depressed the clacker.
The mine ravaged the hallway and everyone left in it. Even with the riot shields in place, the blast's overpressure alone was enough to kill the Serbs in an enclosed space. The steel ball bearings did the rest, severing flesh from bone.
The Samruk men struggled to their feet, many with blood coming out of their ears.
The explosion made a breach into the penthouse unnecessary. The wooden doors had been torn right off their hinges and deposited a few dozen feet somewhere inside.
Kurt racked the charging handle on a fallen enemy's MP-5k sub-machine gun, his own weapons exhausted of ammunition. Somehow, he knew that in the smoking wreckage of the penthouse was one of the HVTs, preparing for a desperate last stand.
Kammler held his head in his hands.
“Leave me,” he bellowed. “Leave me!”
Half-naked children fled his bedroom. Their small feet padded away as quickly as legs would carry them.
Kammler had demanded a high price for a place in his new world.
Fellow members of the Council on Foreign Relations, The Trilateral Commission, and the Bilderberg Group, among others, had been brought in on parts of the conspiracy. They were key leaders in vital positions around the world, needed before, during, and in some cases, after the great cleansing. In exchange for inoculation to the trigger virus and safe passage on the super-liner during the crisis, Kammler had demanded their unflinching loyalty.
Not to mention their children whenever he felt the need to indulge himself.
He could not fathom how it could happen.
Guarantees had been made. Everything had been put in its proper place, and now it was falling apart. He was falling apart alongside what would have been his kingdom.
Gunfire grew near.
The outer circle of protection had been made up of Serbian mercenaries, veterans of the killing fields of Eastern Europe. He knew of their ruthlessness. He had seen it first hand as a child in Austria. His father had met his fate at the hands of such men in a war long since passed.
One of his bodyguards cracked open his door, looking in on him for a moment. The younger man's eyes were wide, pupils dilated. He closed the door on Kammler, seeing his resignation.
The inner circle was made up of the best men that his military-industrial complex could produce, or at least the ones who had been willing to compromise themselves in some manner. They were American and British. Ex-soldiers. They were the last line of defense.
The super-liner rocked, a wave pounding the decks.
Explosions sounded somewhere outside.
It was too real.
Enough was enough.
Check out.
Reaching inside his pocket he retrieved a small pill box. Flipping it open revealed a small white pill. It was fast acting, normally given to field operatives in case of capture.
Blinking absently, Kammler placed the pill in his mouth and swallowed.
In moments the room grew darker. Black walls were collapsing on both sides of his vision.
Gunshots and shouting seemed to close in from every direction. His vision growing hazy, he saw a large man kick open his bedroom door. Snow from the Bavarian mountains drifted in from between the soldier's feet.
Sliding with his back pressed against the foot of his bed, the old oligarch fell to his side.
Eyes fluttering closed one last time, he heard the familiar sound of his native tongue, almost as if the old gods were whispering in his ear, calling him away.
With drool dripping from the corner of his mouth, the voice came into focus.
“Scheisse,” the German voice said. “That's him.”
Deckard slammed home the breach on the M203 grenade launcher and let another HE round fly across the dining room. It exploded with a flash, creating a cloud of smoke. Screams of the dying sounded in between bursts of gunfire.
During a short tactical pause, he and his team had stripped dead enemy of weapons and equipment, including body armor and ammunition to replenish what they had expended. A hasty interrogation had netted them the information they needed before moving farther into the ship.
Once again, they were on the verge of being overrun.
Sliding the grenade launcher open, a smoking 40mm cartridge casing fell to the floor. Thumbing a fresh grenade into the chamber, he slammed the slide shut and took aim. The dining room would normally host formal dinners for the cruise's patrons. Now the dining room was converted into a war zone as Deckard's men were confronted by a few dozen triggermen, trying to prevent the mercenaries from reaching the Operations Center.
Hooking his finger through the trigger guard on his M4's under-barrel grenade launcher, Deckard was about to fire his next round at a trio of bad guys clustered behind a support beam on the other side of the dining room. Stumbling forward, the M203 discharged its round, as another wave rocked the ship. With his aim spoiled, the 40mm grenade went way low, skipping off the ground before slamming into the far wall and detonating.
The enemy gunmen were counting themselves as lucky, knowing the shot was meant for them as they took aim at Deckard. The next wave blasted everyone off their feet. Chairs and tables were sent tumbling across the floor. Anything that wasn't nailed down went ski
dding across the ground including the contents of the buffet.
Bracing himself against the wall, Deckard clung onto a decorative piece molded into the wall. It was with wide eyes that Deckard saw all three of the enemy contractors sliding across the deck amid a pile of furniture and loose silverware.
They were heading straight for him.
Chad slammed both fists down on the table. Wood splintered and the table hinged in the middle, sending a computer printer and a couple coffee mugs crashing to the floor.
Outsourced Indian technicians looked down at their toes as their security chief stomped across the room, throwing chairs and people out of his way. Muscles rippled under his shirt while his face had turned beet red.
They'd watched the entire assault on the wide screens, every detail captured by security cameras throughout the ship. It was now clear that his employers' plaything was coming back to haunt them. His ship was infested with the little Afghani-looking fuckers, not to mention their Western military advisers.
The group that was closing in on their Command and Control, or C2, node had interrogated one of his men in the shopping mall and apparently got an answer out of him. It was a good thing that they had finished him off afterwards, because he was definitely off Chad's Christmas card list. Currently they were holed up in the formal dining area, exchanging shots with his men.
There was no way shit was falling apart this quickly. He'd been throwing everything he had at his disposal at the problem. They were winning by attrition, but the question became whether they would exhaust Samruk before their command systems were overrun and destroyed.
They were closing in fast. Decks Seven and Four were both partially on fire. It was time to end this.
Picking up the phone, the ex-Delta man punched in one of the extensions.
“Get Maahir on the line right fucking now,” he growled at the operator.
Crewmen Danuj Vyapari winced as voices crackled over his headset.
The high tech Zumwalt-class destroyers flanked the super-liner like twin bodyguards, watching the horizon for threats. Now it seemed a Trojan Horse had sneaked right past them.
The storm that beat all three ships was bad enough, giving even veteran Indian crewmen on board a case of seasickness. Now the hulking cruise liner was on fire, smoke billowing from its port side while gunfire and explosions flashed.
The Zumwalt was outfitted primarily with twenty-four long-range cruise missiles, Danuj fulfilling his role as the gunner on the ship's single rail gun. Working his control toggles, he swung the gun turret from facing outboard to take aim at the ship they were supposed to be protecting.
It was a concept that he had studied as an engineering student. The rail gun consisted of two parallel conductive rails that when connected to a power source would send electrons racing up the negative rail across a projectile seated inside the gun and then back down the positive rail, creating an electro-magnetic force. The EM energy produced utilized the Lorentz force to fire the metal projectile down the rails at unprecedented speeds of up to twenty kilometers a second. Useful as long-range artillery or a missile defense shield, to his surprise he was now being ordered to use it as a short-range sniper rifle.
The gun captain was screaming in his ears, no doubt due to someone else screaming in his.
While a five inch gun on a modern naval ship was traditionally crewed by fifteen or so men, the rail gun system made use of various automated systems, narrowing the crew down to three. The gun captain, gunner, and one crewman to run the fire-control system.
There were no trajectories to account for and no computerized calculation to adjust for the Coriolis Effect. Just a simple order. Really, a waste of talent for a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology.
“Deck Five, mid-ship, third window from the left.”
“Roger,” Danuj acknowledged.
Someone was getting frustrated up there if they were firing on their own ship.
Originally, one of the Zumwalts had been crewed entirely by Indians and the other entirely by Pakistanis. Some white guy's logic was that it would prevent ethnic strife while on board. In a return to colonialism, both ships were captained by former British admirals, so no one was surprised at such a ridiculous idea. They had to be convinced that having two cutting-edge warships manned completely by two groups of opposing national, religious, and political ideologies would not end well.
Like the others, he was well-educated and recruited while still in college. All he had to do was sit in a simulator and play video games all day, making thousands of dollars a month, supposedly testing out some new software. Then they had been contracted to fulfill their positions for real, this time on a destroyer that had just slipped off a dry dock in South Korea a month before.
The autoloader slammed the metal cube projectile into the breach and locked into position.
What had held back the development of the rail gun for so long was the massive friction created every time it was fired. The projectile moved so fast that it created more muzzle flash than a conventional cannon. The metal alloy cube created so much friction as it moved along the rails that it burned up the surrounding oxygen, creating a massive plume of plasma in its wake. Alloys and coatings had been developed to make the rails much more durable, but they were still expected to be replaced every month or so, depending on frequency of use.
“Confirm target,” the FCS crewmen said, double-checking Danuj's targeting. “Fire when ready.”
The gunner's hand was slippery with sweat as he palmed the joystick and pulled the trigger.
Deckard moved his hand back off the M203 and took up the M4's pistol grip.
He walked a line of 5.56 rounds up the first gunman's sternum until he popped the grape at the top. With his back against the wall, he targeted the second gunman rolling across the floor as the ship rolled with the crash of each wave. He was still sliding and fumbling with his rifle when Deckard double-tapped him.
The third managed to get to his feet and slide right into Deckard before he could sweep his barrel in his direction. The two crashed to the ground amid the tables and chairs that slammed into the wall next to them.
The mercenary was straddled on Deckard's chest, his rifle pinned under his attacker. Drawing the pistol from the drop holster on his thigh, Deckard saw the crazed look in his attacker's eyes leaving no doubt in Deckard's mind that he meant to finish the job.
Both men cringed unexpectedly as one of the supporting columns behind them disappeared. It sounded as if an invisible herd of elephants was crashing through the dining room.
Deckard saw the opening and lunged.
The mercenary had been foolhardy enough to mount his combat blade upside down on his body armor. Maybe he thought he could draw it quicker from that position, maybe he had just been watching too many movies. The blade was perfectly positioned for an opponent to make use of while grappling.
Reaching up, Deckard tore the fighting knife from its sheath and sunk it deep into the mercenary's neck.
The contract killer gurgled on his own blood as Deckard pushed him to the side and got to his feet.
The second shot was deafening.
The buffet lines were taken out in a flash, spraying whatever was left all over the ceiling. A fist-sized hole was left smoking in the wall. Strangely he noted that the hole was in the shape of a perfect cube, when a third shot pulped one of his Kazakh troops.
The American mercenaries looked just as shocked as the Samruk men who struggled amid the tangle of furniture and clutter they were trapped in. The fourth shot slammed into one of them, severing him in half. Another was showered with his comrade's blood before Deckard finished him with his M4.
The next shot disintegrated a flat screen mounted on the wall behind him.
The former soldier wasn't entirely sure who or what was shooting at them but had an eerie feeling that it was him they were aiming for.
Deckard hit the floor as a super-heated blast passed just over his back and destroyed a grand
piano in the corner of the room.
“Everyone out,” he ordered to any of his men left alive. “We-”
His words were cut short as another wave crashed into the ship, sending him forward, face first. As they bounced off the hardwood floor, water surged down from the staircase in the center of the room in a quickly growing waterfall. The pop, pop, pop of a pistol continued to fire from somewhere. Another projectile flew through the room at blinding speed, taking out several chandeliers in its path.
Bits of glass dusted his hair as he shouldered the M4, sending a burst into an enemy desperately firing shot after shot from his pistol in a panic.
As the ship tilted from one side to the other, Deckard stopped fighting it and rolled away as autofire stitched across the floor off his flank.
Landing on one knee, he exhausted the rest of his magazine, punching down targets like bowling pins. Dropping an empty magazine, he thumbed his last round into the M203.
Thirty Five
A solid steel hatch slammed shut on the Kazakh assault team and locked shut with a clack-clack spin of a wheel.
Corporal Fedorchenko reached down and removed the night vision goggles from one of the dead American security contractors. Loosening the straps he slid the monocle over his left eye before tightening it in place.
Scanning the rest of his team, the Samruk mercenary smiled.
The AN/PSQ-20 Enhanced Night Vision goggles combined third-generation image-intensification technology with a scanner that read the infrared heat produced by the human body. You could see at night while also pinpointing targets by their thermal signature.
The corporal barked at Ospanov and the other four men in his team. Shifting through blood and spent brass, they recovered the PSQ-20s off the remaining bodies. Somewhere between decks Seven and Eight things had gotten ugly. For all he knew, they were the only survivors from Bravo Company. Whether they were all that were left or not, the Kazakhs intended to go down fighting.