Barricade
Page 30
‘How…’
‘It’s not just stone and mortar,’ Dyogtin sighed, looking like a proud father as he stroked the parapet.
The countryside was erupting, smaller explosions blowing north and south of the Barricade, the scent of burned earth thick in the air. The heat melted the snow trying to fall and drenched them in a thick mist of warm spray as they hurried back to the main tower.
Dyogtin slammed into the main tower, leaving the door open for Jett and marched immediately to a switch over the maps table. As soon as he flicked it a deafening siren blanketed the district. Jett couldn’t even hear the explosions anymore. A moment later another siren trumpeted to life in the distance. Then another. The call to arms.
The Barricade changed from a silent, ready sentinel to a living, breathing defendant with the flick of a plastic switch. The simplicity of it was numbing.
Dyogtin went downstairs into the living space just as the fourth member of his team was rushing up the stairs.
‘Doors held just fine, there’s no breach,’ the man said before Dyogtin could question him. Jett realised they had been expecting this when he arrived. They had the gunning station prepared and a man watching the gates and had just been waiting.
‘How long have you known this was going to happen?’
‘Since Kirkov told me he dropped a kid called Ioane off at Six-Six-Six,’ Dyogtin assured him. Jett stood in the middle of their living room, his head pounding from the siren, body shaking with the aftershocks still thrumming through the tower and he thanked whatever god responsible that he hadn’t been assigned to Six-Seven-Zero. They were insane.
‘Keep watch downstairs. Lebedev and Nikotaev are up top and will help if you need it.’ The man was gone as quickly as he appeared and Jett was alone with Dyogtin. The man looked him up and down, frowning. ‘So much trouble for such a scrawny kid.’
Ouch.
They went down to the radio room and Dyogtin reported the explosion and the course of action he was taking. Jett couldn’t help but notice he didn’t postulate a reason for the town people’s actions, just explained the Barricade had been bombed and they were taking defensive action.
Then Dyogtin suggested an airstrike to level the town, leaving Jett cold and gob smacked. Whether Moscow took note of his advice remained to be seen, but it was still terrifying how easy it had been. Pick up radio, make recommendation to maybe destroy town and kill hundreds of people. Hang up radio.
‘Don’t look so surprised,’ Dyogtin shoved him back out the door and upstairs. ‘They just bombed the Barricade, it’s the expected response. If we didn’t ask Moscow for an air strike they would think we were up to something.’
‘We’re up to something?’ Other than destroying the town?
‘We’re making a vaccine to a virus our own people have used to control us for generations,’ Dyogtin reminded him. ‘Of course we’re up to something. If the town has to be a scapegoat, I’m good with that. It’s not like you didn’t give them a choice.’
Dyogtin grabbed a bag from his top floor war room and thrust it into Jett’s arms, then tossed another on his back and a rifle and headed out onto the Barricade on the west side. In the distance Jett could make out the swirling lights of the Six-Six-Nine’s lighthouse, lost in the rain and muddy debris from the explosions wafting across the northern fields and the town. The storm had arrived, turning the dust to sludge and flinging it in all directions until the rain fell in thorny black pellets of icy hail.
Dyogtin thrust his hands into the pack on Jett’s back and pulled out a grenade. Before Jett could say anything he’d pulled the pin and launched it onto the path that led to their gates below. The world briefly shook again, and the darkness scattered in a spray of red and yellow but regrouped and swallowed the smoking debris whole.
‘Hurry up, this mess is only going to get worse,’ Dyogtin growled close to his ear, hauling Jett into the air and propelling him forward. He didn’t need to be told twice. The pack wasn’t that heavy, so Jett fell into an easy jog, hesitant to run in the heavy rain because the last thing he needed was to break a leg in the dark while the Barricade heaved and shuddered.
Ahead the night once again erupted in colour, a series of explosions stripping through the warehouse districts, one after another firing spouts of light and heat in all directions. The line of dying buildings ripped a straight line to the gates of Six-Six-Nine, a wave of fire rolling up against the stone of the Barricade and lighting the steel doors a rich bronze.
‘Shit!’
‘It’ll hold,’ Dyogtin assured him, keeping pace at his side though he was breathing hard and his moustache billowed out with each breath and dripped black sludge over his chin with every inhale.
There was movement on the north side of the wall and Dyogtin took another grenade from Jett’s pack and tossed it over, exposing an old truck rambling alongside, heading for the northern gates of Six-Seven-Zero.
‘Should we go back?’
‘No, there’s no way they’re getting in. Keep going.’
It wasn’t the most terrifying run of his life, but it was close. All around them the night was torn asunder by a series of explosions and gunfire that shook the foundations of the Barricade while the storm tried to blow them over the parapets in wild gusts. Thunder clapped overhead, making it hard to tell what was the storm and what was an attack, and lightning started streaking through the black sky, mimicking the light show below.
The siren muffled other sounds, drilling into the inner ear, drowning him in the cacophony. He felt sick with the strange combination of heat and cold and nauseous from the scents choking the air.
The lighthouse loomed ahead, beacon hidden in a cloud momentarily so that Jett almost ran face first into the door, catching himself at the last minute. He wrenched it open and charged inside, looking around but only finding Anishin at the rifle.
‘They went downstairs,’ he bellowed over the noise and Jett didn’t wait for more, pushing through the other door and racing for the tower.
It was a shock, going in to the heated tower after running through the tempest outside, but Jett left his coat on and rushed down the stairs, past the empty living room and down through the levels to the ground floor, where the gates screeched and rattled on their hinges, but held.
Sasha was there and Jett launched himself at him from the bottom step, caught mid-air in strong arms that crushed him to the man’s chest and buried his face in the familiar scent and feel of the man. After the chaos outside, it was essential.
‘Well, that makes more sense,’ Dyogtin’s voice came from the stairs and when Jett looked up from Sasha’s shoulder the man was standing there, looking amused for the first time since he’d met him as he took in the pair of them.
‘Dyogtin,’ Sasha blushed but didn’t let Jett go.
‘Yeah, no, I can see that,’ Dyogtin nodded to himself while Sasha spluttered. Jett just smiled because nothing the man said would surprise him anymore. Jett was certain the Dyogtin was actually crazy.
‘It’s cute, right?’ Kuznetsov agreed from where he was welding a bracket into place against the south side doors.
‘I cannot believe this,’ Sasha looked mortified, but he still didn’t loosen his hold.
‘Never thought I’d get to see the day,’ Dyogtin agreed, clapping Sasha on the back so hard Jett felt it in his chest. ‘Course, that’s because you’re not supposed to sleep with your subordinates, but you’re certainly not the first and you’re not going to be the last. Just promise me this whole mess isn’t because you two were screwing around.’
‘No!’ Sasha protested, sounding so affronted Jett couldn’t help but laugh at him. ‘Those idiots just wouldn’t accept what was offered. I’m not giving them one of my men!’
‘Okay, okay,’ Kuznetsov chuckled at him when he finished the weld, putting the welder down and going over to shake Dyogtin’s hand. ‘It’s good to see you. That was a pretty bold move, blowing the mines.’
‘Had no effect,’ Dyogtin
shrugged, as if he’d known it wouldn’t. ‘Maybe a few cracks to seal up in the next few days. Lebedev did a good job shifting the bombs where we needed them. Once it all settles we should have a nice moat out front that’ll funnel folks back toward the river in the future.’
‘You saw the warehouses go?’
‘Yeah, we were running on top, quite the light show! Blanter did good shifting the bombs back into their storehouses!’
They were definitely crazy. Jett listened to them talk about the attacks like they had been watching fireworks and wondered what they had been like in their younger days, when they were too stupid to know any better.
‘Vasiliev and the boys got the dam done, right?’
‘Yup. Should be ready to blow any minute now.’
‘I thought they fixed the dam?’ Sasha cut in, his frown dark and brooding. He didn’t like being lied to, Jett knew.
‘Oh they did,’ Kuznetsov grinned, leading the way back upstairs. ‘They fixed it so the redirection was sealed. It’s been building up water all week. All we have to do is blow the charges they put in and the river will go back to its original route from a few hundred years ago.’
‘You’re going to flood the valley,’ Jett realised, stunned. Sasha was holding his hand and squeezed it gently, trying to reassure him that everything was going to be okay. It was cute, but unnecessary. ‘You thought this would happen a week ago?’
‘No, we suspected there was a tunnel several weeks ago and figured the best way to get rid of it was to drown it,’ Dyogtin corrected.
That made sense. They hurried upstairs but Sasha pulled him back before the living room and pinned him to the wall, running his shaking hands up and down Jett’s torso. Jett closed his hands over Sasha’s and pulled them to his mouth, kissing his fingertips.
‘Shhh, I’m okay, I swear. I’m not hurt, nothing happened.’
‘When the mine blew,’ Sasha exhaled all the fear and took a deep, shuddering breath. He leaned in and kissed Jett hard, tongue demanding entry and Jett let him have whatever he needed.
‘Okay?’ He asked when Sasha seemed steadier and he received a nod in return. They rushed to catch up with the others, finding them on the top floor, heading out onto the top of the Barricade.
The rain had worsened, hammering the Barricade in a roar that threatened to overpower even the sirens. Sasha stuck close to Jett’s side as they were led out into the deluge. Kuznetsov lit a flare and waved it high over his head in the direction of the next lighthouse. There was no corresponding flare but south of the town a new explosion split the night and a gentle thrum reverberated off the Barricade.
The river seemed to suddenly boil, its roiling mass sloughing over the decaying wreckage of the dam wall and following ancient lines in the earth to fill dry riverbeds and valleys. It would take days to fully flood all of the mines in the area but it couldn’t be undone now the process had begun.
People were scattering in the town below, small figures fleeing fire or water or the quaking earth, but they were eerily quiet, their screams inaudible over the sirens and storm. Even as they ran they stumbled and fell and Jett tried not to contemplate the men stationed in their sniper towers, just doing their jobs. He tried to convince himself it was simply a swifter death than the alternatives, but he knew life was a better option and that stupid decisions had stripped innocent people of the choice to live. That was irreconcilable in his thoughts.
As most of the dangers were in the east, there was a distinct change in the direction of movement as people headed west instead and in the distance Jett could see people gathering in District Six-Six-Seven. When he looked over the northern wall he saw vehicle lights also heading east.
‘Sasha, they’re heading for home,’ he pointed furiously at the lights.
‘Enzo and Matti know what they’re doing,’ Sasha reassured him. ‘But we should head that way.’
‘I’m coming with you,’ Dyogtin bellowed through the storm and they didn’t bother to try and argue.
The rain made travel slow but Dyogtin used the time to his advantage, tossing grenades into the town, cutting up the earth at the base of the Barricade to make it unpassable for those below. It hindered them but didn’t stop them. People milled through the town, using the buildings as cover as they fled the inundation of the river and the explosions still rocking the warehouse district. They were gathering west and there were too many to fight off, even if they sat on the Barricade and shot all night. More were gathering on the northern side, lights blinking sporadically through the rain and Jett knew they couldn’t fight on two fronts. The Barricade wasn’t going to fall and it all seemed incredibly pointless unless they had a plan to crack open the gates. He knew the others had to be fearing the same thing as they rushed through District Six-Six-Seven, congratulating Vasiliev on a job well done, but not stopping.
A series of explosions crashed in the distance at the base of the Barricade and Jett knew immediately it was Six-Six-Six, more from the sharp intake of Sasha’s breath than anything visible. The lights had gathered on either side of the Barricade there and a loud clamouring could be heard over the shrill sirens.
‘They’re really trying everything,’ Dyogtin came to an abrupt halt, leaning over the parapet to get a better look. He seemed to give up all at once and Jett came to a stop nearby, looking to Sasha for help but Sasha was looking north, slack jawed and pale under the filth and grime.
He hadn’t heard it over the hammering of the town but suddenly it was all he could hear. Over the tree line came three sleek shadows that lit silver in the lightning and vanished into the night with a boom of thunder. They sat low, just high enough to skim the wall. A blink of an eye and he would have missed them, but not the roar that followed in their wake, spine tingling and final.
The town disappeared. Sasha slammed Jett down behind the parapet and covered him as a wave of heat billowed over them, the light blinding. All Jett could feel was the water soaking through his clothes to his chill skin in stark contrast to the heat wave blowing over Sasha’s back. Jett watched over Sasha’s shoulder as the planes looped back around, screaming back to the north before a second wall of heat and horror bathed them.
He struggled for breath. Sasha’s weight was nothing to the ache that blossomed in his chest. He closed his eyes and waited for the ground to stop shaking and the world to stop screaming. He couldn’t feel the rain through his tears.
Сверхсекретный
Report: 21741215-DS-NREBUD670
Asset: Request assistance
Officer: C-SGTM-21450043
Diagnosis: Breach of Barricade imminent, town insurgency underway. D670 and D669 to blow dam, flood regional areas south of NREB. Tunnel found, explosive charges laid, demolition underway.
Relocation: Request air strike.
APPROVED-IMMEDIATE ACTION
23
C-SGT-NREBUD666-21651666
The computer screen was the only light in the dark, windowless room. He’d locked the door even though he didn’t need to. The others wouldn’t leave their rooms, and even if they did they had no interest in what he was doing. He stared at the report. It would be on permanent record. On his record. They would store it in a file somewhere and pull it out to examine when they wanted to question his capabilities and they would decide they knew him intimately when they knew nothing at all.
As if it mattered. Ines was dead. Sasha sent the report. He sat in the dark, staring at the sent notification. No-one ever replied. No aid ever came. It wasn’t a conversation, it was a one way stream of data and he was just a number on the other end. With a tap of the enter key Ines was reduced to a series of ones and zeros.
Sasha hadn’t expected them to send bombs. They never sent bombs. Once, he had heard, they sent a helicopter just to check things out with a few extra soldiers but only once and it had been over in the west of the Ukraine. They were so convinced the Barricade couldn’t be breached they saw no need for bombs.
That had changed.
Even Dyogtin looked shaken, sitting on the edge and watching the world he’d spent his life overseeing burn, melt and crumble.
To the north the lights of the trucks that had been poised to attack were fleeing into the trees.
There was a silent consensus as they stood and observed, witnessing the death of multitudes and knowing they bore some of the responsibility. Sasha absorbed it slowly, allowing it to become a part of himself and finding it wasn’t as difficult as he would have supposed when he wrapped his arms around Jett and pulled him back in against his chest.
‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured in Jett’s ear, because he’d lost a father he’d barely found.
‘Such stupid choices,’ Jett hissed, his tone a mix of anger and sadness. Sasha knew he wasn’t just talking about his father, but all of the people there. They’d spent their lives searching for something, found it, decided they didn’t like the packaging and tried to steal it instead.
There were only so many times you could say sorry for something that wasn’t really your fault before it rang hollow, so Sasha just held Jett and let his presence say all the things he couldn’t.
When the flames were starting to splutter and sizzle in the rain, one of the sirens clicked off. And then another, and another, until only the slow rumble of crashing ruins echoed off the Barricade walls.
‘I really didn’t think they would send the bombers,’ Dyogtin slumped and took a deep breath before standing and brushing himself off, as if there was any way to brush off the amount of filth they were carrying.