by Jon Land
“I’m the one watching the live feed from the drones, son. How the fuck you know that?”
“Because you sound nervous, and you only smoke when you’re nervous.”
“You keep those scientists alive and kicking, maybe I won’t have as much to be nervous about anymore. You hearing me?”
“Loud and clear, Admiral.”
“Apaches are already staged at a forward operating base ten miles from your destination. We’ll have F-16s airborne and circling, as soon as you touch down. Keep you as safe and snug as a good warm blanket.”
“That’s what I’m hoping, sir.”
“I’m going to order the experts airborne now,” Darby told him. “Give you the head start you need to secure the territory.”
* * *
The increasing winds and diminished visibility at ground level had already kept the Apache gunships from taking off from their forward operating position to offer further protection. Those same winds could render moot the response capability of the F-16s already on station overhead, in the event a force was spotted advancing on El Mady. The best Max and his men could give the scientists, under such conditions, was ninety minutes from the time they landed.
His orders were to rendezvous with a Dr. Tanoury from the World Health Organization. But Max delegated that duty to Griffon and busied himself with erecting a strategic perimeter to secure the abandoned town that was more expansive than photo arrays indicated.
True to all available intel, and the testimony of a refugee aboard the George H. W. Bush, El Mady was, by all appearances, deserted. Motion scans by drones circling overhead before they set down had revealed no movement of any kind in the structures. Still, Max wouldn’t feel satisfied until the SEALs completed their building-by-building search to make sure no harm befell the members of the scientific team soon to be landing.
Minutes later, he watched a single Sikorsky carrying that scientific team land uneasily in the buffeting winds on a flat patch of land adjacent to the SEALs’ Black Hawks. The scientists had dispersed by the time he returned to the primary staging area, approaching a scientist garbed in a biohazard suit taking ground samples by plunging a collecting rod at various intervals.
“Excuse me,” Max said, and raised the goggles that protected his eyes from the blowing sand. “I’m looking for Dr. Tanoury.”
“I saw her heading toward the mosque,” the man said, pointing toward a rectangular, flat-roofed building formed of sunbaked, sand-colored brick.
“She?” Max raised.
* * *
Vicky had left scrutiny of the local mosque to herself. The mosque was the village’s largest building and central gathering point, the place to which villagers were most likely to flee in an emergency. Thus, it could provide a treasure trove of evidence that would help her determine the sequence of exactly what had transpired here after the infection began its spread. Even more to the point, the building featured a back room where water was stored in fifty-gallon drums, containing a wealth of anecdotal data that could prove crucial to her investigation.
This village had no running water, drawing their entire supply from either an adjoining river when the bed was full, or the storage drums in dry times when it rained. The plan was for CDC personnel to take samples from as many of the homes as possible to ascertain both the state of the victims’ DNA and the state of any remaining water samples, toward isolating the Medusa strain which was the first step toward coming up with a vaccine or a cure.
Through the mosque windows, she spotted uniformed men, armed to the teeth, continuing to fan out through the village streets, but still made no move to greet them herself. The faces of the SEALs were camouflaged by goggles set over their eyes and kerchiefs strung round their mouths to protect from all the sand and dirt blowing about. So far she’d lifted samples from eight of the drums leaving around twenty left to go, hoping these troops would provide her the time she needed.
* * *
Max approached the mosque, rotating his gaze about the buildings and hills surrounding El Mady for any signs of movement or flashes of reflections off sniper sights. He could feel the tiny grains of sand peppering his face, leaving it tingly in some spots and painful in others. Then he realized his hand bearing the identical mark as his father was hurting again, unsure whether that was a bad omen or a good one. But the looming sand storm was definitely bad, certain to obscure view from above by drones and reconnaissance satellites.
Max was almost to the mosque when Grif’s voice called out to him across the village square, instead of bothering with a walkie-talkie.
“Get back here, Pope!” he shouted, after Max had swung round. “On the double! We got ourselves a problem.”
* * *
An eighth of a mile away, Mohammed al-Qadir stood with two hundred of his best fighters in the brushy cover provided by a thick grove. Experience had shown that so long as they didn’t move into the open en masse, their presence was effectively masked from the drones and satellites the Americans were certain to have in place overhead. At present, though, that was hardly a concern, given the thick swirls of dust forming miniature funnel clouds that whipped about the surface, strong enough in some instances to nearly topple his men from their feet.
Al-Qadir had already heard from his spotter that the American medical team had set down with somewhere around thirty American soldiers—Navy SEALs, by all indications. Formidable opposition to be sure, albeit severely reduced by the current conditions that precluded any close air support. He understood exactly how they operated because a long time ago, in his previous life in the guise of Cambridge, he’d been part of a comparable force.
Al-Qadir knew from his call with the man God had delivered unto him in Nigeria, that he was standing on the precipice of a great and blessed awakening. He believed the literal End of Days was being visited upon the world, due more to fortune than design, a fate set into motion by God Himself the moment al-Qadir, then Cambridge, had snatched up the samples taken from the meteor strike that had left no evidence of a meteor.
He scratched at his left arm through the flesh-colored sleeve that kept it hidden from even his closest associates. No point in showing them a mark that could be interpreted as weakness, when al-Qadir knew it to be a sign of strength, in fact, blessing the day all those years ago in Nigeria when his final transformation had begun.
Al-Qadir checked the watch he’d taken from a Western journalist before having him beheaded, then returned to the NLF officers who would be commanding his two-hundred-fighter force to tell them it was time to move on El Mady.
* * *
After completing the task of drawing samples from the steel drums stored in the rear of the mosque, Vicky turned her attention to taking samples from the mosque floor, prayer rugs, and prayer books. Anything a worshipper might’ve come into contact with that might still hold their DNA. All across the village, CDC personnel were doing the very same thing, the collective goal being to gauge the spread and relative saturation of Medusa. There were still any number of variables that needed to be factored in to their final analysis from response to temperature, to the infection’s life expectancy once isolated, to the pace of its ability to gestate and reproduce.
Listening to the winds picking up outside, Vicky set about collecting her next series of samples in the mosque proper.
* * *
Grif handed Max the handset of the radio currently strapped to another SEAL’s back.
“This is Borgia.”
“We got a change in plans, son,” came the slightly garbled voice of Admiral Darby. “A sand storm bigger than the tornado that swept Dorothy to Oz sprang out of nowhere and is headed your way, and that’s not the worst of it: We got ground intel assets reporting a New Islamic force less than a few klicks from your western flank when we lost sight of them in the muck.”
“Shit!”
“That was my thought too, Commander. Mission parameters have changed. We’re in full evac mode now. Get it done. Get everyone loaded an
d headed for home, while those birds can still fly.”
“Roger that, Admiral,” Max said, his hand really starting to throb now.
* * *
Max ordered the SEALs on patrol to round up the dozen members of the scientific team, while the remainder of the force would remain in place guarding the perimeter until the last possible moment. Max assigned himself to get the leader, Dr. Tanoury, in order to explain personally to her what was going on.
The mosque door was closed and stuck to its hinges when he tried to open it. So Max threw his shoulder into it and felt the wood crack slightly when it finally swung open.
Max froze, because he thought he recognized this place, but couldn’t say from where. Just an illusion, he figured, until the lighting, layout, and size became suddenly familiar to him.
From the nightmare he’d had on the plane! Shadowy figures surrounding a beautiful woman, naked except for a black mask worn over her face. So clear in his mind and memory, that it felt exactly like he’d been here before.
And then, off to the side in the shadows, a woman, Dr. Tanoury, swung toward him, freezing as soon as their eyes met.
Vicky.
* * *
She couldn’t believe her eyes, thought the dim lighting was playing a trick on her, a vision conjured up by the incredible stress she’d been under.
It couldn’t be Max. Max had long hair, like some rock star he always got mistaken for. Max wore shapeless jeans under his boots and a motorcycle jacket he’d distressed all on his own. Max was always smiling, always holding a mischievous look in his eyes.
But this Navy SEAL’s eyes were the same. Max’s eyes.
Because it was him.
“Max,” Vicky said, the clog in her throat blocking the rest of whatever she was going to say.
* * *
“We can’t talk,” Max said, finding his voice, wishing he were holding Vicky instead of his M4. “We’re on the clock here. Full evac, as of right now. We need to move.”
“But—”
“Save the buts; we got a storm and enemy fighters incoming at the same time.” He moved forward, shrinking the gulf between them and taking her by the arm. “We need to move now!”
Vicky held her ground. “I can’t leave yet. I need ten more minutes, five at least. It’s vital.”
Max looked at his watch, then at the padded sample case lying at her feet. “Ten minutes to load the rest of your team. I need you at the chopper then. Don’t make me come back for you myself.”
She forced a smile. “It’s been ten years. I think I can wait a little longer to catch up.”
* * *
The first chopper had just lifted off when Max reached the flat stretch of land adjacent to the village. The sand storm was picking up to a steady swirl in the air. No way any chopper would take off under such conditions in ordinary circumstances, but these were anything but that.
“You forget something, Pope?” Griffon asked him, raising his voice over the wind sounds and rotor wash.
And that’s when an RPG took out the first chopper.
SEVENTY
George H. W. Bush
“Goddammit!” Admiral Darby exclaimed, the fire burst still evident on the reconnaissance drone’s view of the scene below through the swirling sand that clouded the picture. “What the hell’s happening down there?”
“The sand storm’s playing hell with our communications, Admiral,” a com-tech called out from his monitoring station. “We’ve lost contact for now.”
“Get it back, son, ’cause now’s all we’ve got.”
Western Iraq
The chopper turned onto its side in a ball of flame and then came crashing down a hundred feet away. The SEALs took the remaining scientists down under them to avoid the spray of shrapnel from rotor blades turned into deadly segmented shards. In the next instant, exchanges of gunfire cut through the thick air, the enemy having reached the outskirts of the village and the perimeter manned by the SEALs.
“Where are my eyes in the sky?” Max said out loud, trying to raise Admiral Darby. “We’re blind down here!”
The gunfire intensified, Max’s battle-seasoned ear telling him the enemy force was attacking in overwhelming numbers.
Clearly, the initial wave of New Islamic Front fighters had been much closer than available intelligence and recon had indicated. Now, under the circumstances, even if the SEALs were able to somehow secure the area, no other choppers would be leaving, the sand storm having now swallowed the world. Visibility reduced to the hand in front of your face. Max had been on enough rough deployments in the Middle East to know his way around battling the elements, along with the enemy. But he’d never experienced anything like this, a sand storm that left no pockets or even slivers of sight to peer through. The sand caked up on his goggles and flooded his mouth, forcing him more and more to raise his kerchief to spit it out.
Max joined Grif behind the cover of a boulder at the edge of the flat stretch of land.
“We got hostiles everywhere, Pope, coming in from every angle of the village,” he reported. He tried for a smile that didn’t come. “Looks like we’re gonna need some of that heavenly intervention of yours.”
“I’m not sure it works in hell, Grif,” Max said, clearing his goggles yet again.
Just in time to watch one of their Black Hawks perish in a huge fireball, followed almost immediately by the second.
George H. W. Bush
“Get me something!” Admiral Darby ordered. “Anything! Try going to thermal!”
“Negative!” his chief com-tech reported. “Sensors can’t penetrate the sand!”
“They were designed to penetrate any goddamn muck.”
“Not muck this thick, sir.”
Darby moved right behind the chief and grasped the back of his chair. “Son, I don’t care if you’ve got to switch on the biggest pair of windshield wipers in the world, get me goddamn eyes on what’s happening down there!”
Western Iraq
Gunfire poured through the village in a now constant din, as the fighters’ shots were matched by the SEALs left to guard El Mady’s rear flank until the evacuation was complete.
That evacuation had ended when the first chopper had been hit, meaning they were stuck here with no help coming in these conditions. The best they could hope for was for enough improvement to allow the Apaches to stream in, but the sand sticking to the air seemed to be getting thicker, the storm showing no signs at all of abating.
“We got one stray still in the field,” Max said into Grif’s ear. “I’m going to make a pickup.”
* * *
Vicky kept herself low and clear of the mosque’s windows, the battle raging beyond like a fireworks show that never abated. The intensity of the sand storm that had sprung up without warning, stole view of anything through the glass anyway. And then much of that glass had been shattered by explosions that blazed orange in the sky beyond, bright enough to cut through the blowing sand. A pair of explosions that followed had rocked the building, seeming to tilt it one way, then back the other. She worked to secure the samples she’d already taken, while bullets peppered the building’s walls, sending slivers of the storm inside through the holes and remnants of the windows.
Vicky pictured Max bursting through the mosque door, scooping her up in his arms and carrying her away. Realized in that crazed moment she was grateful for the danger and horror that had brought him back to her, that she’d never stopped loving him, even as she’d forced him from her memory, as she prepared to marry Thomas. For a brief moment, that brought all the baggage from the past back; how romantic it had been when she and Max had run away together, how much she hated her father, what a mess her life was at the time. Max had been the single constant, the only one who stood by her always, her one friend before he became much more than that on their night together in the Adirondacks.
Her gaze turned toward the door, certain he’d come bursting through it at any moment to save her.
Again.
* * *
The clamor of gunfire around Max was constant, and he could hear men screaming out instructions to each other in Arabic. Impossible to tell in these conditions how many fighters had invaded the village or where they were concentrated. But they were good, far more professional than he’d experienced before and far better equipped as well.
A fireball erupted just down the street, followed by an airburst and shock wave. Then a building exploded just fifty feet from him. Max could feel the center of the battle tugging at him like a magnet. He crouched lower to reduce his target, identifying enemy fighter after enemy fighter. He clacked off single shots, rotating with sprays of automatic fire, and three-shot bursts. The whole scene like one of those video training exercises where no matter how many you kill, more waves of gunmen keep coming.
And so they came, Max and the other SEALs dropping all they managed to claim in their sights without any hesitation whatsoever. But the hordes of enemy fighters stormed the village in overwhelming numbers, anything but the kind of hit-and-run tactics that was the normal terrorist strategy.
“We’re taking casualties, Pope,” he heard Griffon say in his earpiece. “More than a dozen men down and that’s just for starters.”
“Goddamnit!”
“Whoever heard of a gunfight in the middle of a sand storm? I swallowed what feels like the whole Jersey Shore already. If you ask me—”
A burst of static blared, so piercing Max wanted to strip out his earpiece. He thought he heard a wet, wheezing sound followed by the thud of a body hitting the ground, and now Griffon …
“Grif, do you read me? Grif, do you copy?”
… was gone.
Max continued to advance into the sandblasted air still thickening around him. He couldn’t even see the tip of his M4’s barrel anymore, but still didn’t risk firing purely at shapes, at motion, since a measure of the surviving SEALs would’ve been forced into the streets at this point. Max swiped a sleeve across his goggles to clear them of the layer of pasty sand, but a fresh coat covered the lenses almost immediately. His mouth felt chalky, so much grit blowing into him that his kerchief was powerless to keep all of it out. It felt like he was chewing sand, fighting against the urge to retch, every time he reflexively tried to swallow it down.