He had to get to the van, join Zelda and then get the others out of the compound. The mission was his first priority, and right now his team needed him.
TWENTY-SEVEN
King’s satisfaction at disrupting the macabre surgery was short-lived. As he returned to the main hallway, he heard the low rumble of footsteps in the nearby stairwell, a sure sign that trouble was approaching. Then, even that sound was drowned out, as the roar of engines coming to life sent a tremor through the entire building.
Rainer was getting away, and there wasn’t anything he could do about it.
Suddenly, the door to the stairwell burst open, and human shapes began rushing through. King had his MP5 up and ready to meet the attack, as did Tremblay and Silent Bob, but for a moment, all three were too stunned by what they beheld to pull a trigger.
Christ, they’re just kids, King thought.
Except they weren’t. They might once have been innocent children, but not anymore. In the hallway lighting, he could clearly see what Somers had only been able to glimpse—the sprouting tubes, the surgical scars and mismatched limbs and muscles bulging from artificial growth hormones. The children they had once been were as dead as the young man whose organs had been callously harvested, and in their place there were only these monsters.
In an instant, they swarmed over Silent Bob, who stood nearest to the stairwell. He scrambled back at the last second, swinging his submachine gun like a club, but then he was gone, buried under a wave of bodies. The unmistakable violence brought King out of his horror, and he squeezed the trigger, hurling lead soundlessly into the onrushing mass of human flesh. Some of the monsters flinched as the bullets tore into them, but driven by steroids and raw primal fury, they did not slow. Before he could even think about changing his tactics, the leading edge of the wave crashed into him.
Suddenly, King was yanked backward. He struggled for a moment before realizing that it was Tremblay who had seized hold of him, dragging him into one of the rooms that opened off the hallway. The Delta operator slammed the door shut and braced it with his back. A moment later, the entire wall shook as the attacking mob began hammering against the barrier.
Tremblay grimaced. “Any bright ideas, boss man?”
“Working on it.” King gave the room a quick look. It contained a few desks and chairs, but nothing that seemed to offer a way of holding off the attackers, much less an escape route. The door shook again, and a long dark line appeared in the wood as it began splitting in two. The walls rattled with the relentless pounding, and then even floor began to shake.
Okay, we can’t stay here and we can’t get out… What does that leave?
The flimsy construction gave King an idea, and in a rush of inspiration, he tipped one of the desks over and slid it toward Tremblay, positioning it so the desktop was facing away from him.
“I don’t think that will hold them for very long,” Tremblay said.
“It’s not supposed to.” King dipped a hand into a pouch on his vest and brought out a green-gray spherical object identical to the one Rainer had used to effect his escape.
Tremblay’s eyes went wide. “Oh, you’re not.”
King’s only answer was to pull the safety pin on the grenade. “Better get down.”
As Tremblay slid to the floor, seeking cover behind the desk, the top of the door split completely apart. King tossed the grenade underhanded, so it arced through the room to drop near the far wall, and then he threw himself down next to Tremblay, likewise bracing the door. Grasping arms slipped through the gap above their heads, trying to force the opening wider. It seemed inevitable that they would succeed.
And then the world exploded.
The detonation unleashed a storm of kinetic energy in all directions, compressing the air into a wall as hard as steel, which expanded outward in a millisecond. The overpressure wave superheated the air in the small room, and would have vaporized everyone inside if the walls had been made of stiffer stuff. Because the building was little more than plywood on a stick-built frame, the side of the structure was blasted open, relieving some of the pressure. The shockwave picked up loose furniture and hurled it away from the blast center. The walls bulged outward, as if the room was a balloon being inflated by a breath from a giant. The broken door was blasted off its hinges, which not only hurled the attacking mob back, but also caused King and Tremblay to fall backward. This proved fortuitous, because it helped protect them from a deadly spray of steel fragments that surfed the leading edge of the blast wave. The nearly molten metal shredded everything it touched, including several of the monstrosities massed in the hallway beyond. The desk caught some of the fragments that would have ripped into the Delta operators, but even as it did, the cheap wood was smashed apart by the blast, and the two men were pummeled by the broken pieces.
Although they had done everything they could to prepare for the blast, their survival was as much a matter of luck as it was forethought, and it took them a few seconds to recover their wits. King rolled over to find Tremblay also shaking off the effects. The blond soldier mumbled something—probably one of his trademark one-liners—but King couldn’t hear anything except a loud and steady high-pitched tone inside his head. He gave Tremblay a thumbs-up, and when the other man returned it, he gestured toward the gaping hole where the wall had been. The two men crawled forward, skirting along the edge of a newly created opening in the floor, and lowered themselves into the compound.
For a few seconds, they had only the dead for company. Several bodies—many of them Asian men dressed like wannabe hip-hop performers with AK-47s clutched in their dead hands—lay scattered about the courtyard, felled by sniper fire. King realized that he and Tremblay were now probably in someone’s scope, but with his ears still ringing, there was no way to make contact.
He chose the shortest path back to the gate and motioned for Tremblay to follow, but before they had gone fifty feet, a glimpse of movement revealed one of the living atrocities prowling the compound. The thin figure—a patchwork that was equal parts teenage girl and professional wrestler—just stared at them for a moment, and then she tilted her head back and opened her mouth, as if she was trying to catch a raindrop on her tongue. King didn’t need his faculty of hearing to know that she was sounding the alarm. The silent scream lasted only a few seconds, after which the thing lurched toward them.
Suddenly, monstrosities were all around them. They did not charge this time, perhaps having learned wariness, but they circled like a pack of wolves. King slapped a fresh magazine into his MP5 and started firing. A few went down, but the 9-millimeter rounds seemed to be more of an irritant than anything else; the pack pulled back and began to move faster, orbiting the Delta shooters like a cyclone.
Try as they might, King and Tremblay could not watch every approach, and before long, the things attempted to attack from their blind spot. King spied movement and whirled to find one of the things dead on the ground just a few feet away; the snipers were still watching out for them. Another of the monsters went down in a spray of red as a high-velocity rifle round tore the top off its head, but for every one that fell, two more crept out of the shadows to join the circle.
Then, without any warning and for no discernible reason, the circle began to close. It was if some kind of critical mass had been achieved. King fired out a magazine, and two of the monsters stumbled forward and died at his feet, but the rest engulfed him. He swung the MP5 wildly like a club, but a dozen grasping hands wrapped around his arm, arresting any further movement. They grabbed his other arm, and then his legs. Then they began to pull in opposite directions.
King howled, more in frustration than in pain, though there was plenty of the latter. He felt his joints grinding in their sockets, his tendons stretching like rubber-bands pulled to the breaking point… They were going to pull him apart like a wishbone from a Thanksgiving turkey.
And then, just as quickly as they had seized him, the fury of the attack began to wane. King twisted free of his assail
ants’ hands, and scrambled away, flailing his arms in an attempt to drive back any other would-be attackers.
There weren’t any. The only people still standing were himself, Tremblay and the hulking form of Erik Somers.
In the stillness that followed, he became aware of the van, idling about a hundred feet away, Zelda Baker behind the wheel. The front end of the vehicle showed scratches and dents, presumably from having plowed through the gate leading into the compound, but King also noted streaks of red on the fenders and bits of fabric caught in radiator grill.
Somers’s face was uncharacteristically animated, and it took King a moment to realize that the big man was shouting at him.
If we make it out of this alive, everyone is learning sign language, King decided. Executive decision, number one.
He pointed to his ear and shook his head. Somers shouted even louder and began gesturing wildly toward the van. King could just make out a few words this time; it was faint, as if Somers was shouting into a pillow. “We need to get the hell out of here!”
Oh. Well, obviously.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Can this night get any worse? Zelda Baker thought to herself as King, Tremblay and Somers climbed into the van. King shouted for her to drive, a bit louder than necessary, she thought, but she chalked it up to adrenaline. Things clearly had not gone well inside Building Two, and it did not escape her notice that they were short one man. She didn’t ask. If Silent Bob wasn’t with King, it meant he wasn’t coming back. Period. Full stop. End of story.
Zelda stomped the accelerator and cranked the steering wheel around. The van’s tires threw gravel as it carved out a wide U-turn and headed back toward the gates—or more precisely, the gateposts, since she’d flattened the actual moving parts of the perimeter defense a few moments earlier.
She spied movement in the rearview mirror. The things Somers had taken to calling ‘frankensteins’ were regrouping and giving chase, but even at a full run, they couldn’t hope to keep up with the van. By the time the vehicle crested the hilltop, the frankensteins had vanished into the night.
She was just about to allow herself to breathe a little easier when the radio came alive. “King, this is Roadrunner.”
‘Roadrunner’ was the callsign for Bellows, the man that had been left back at the gate. If he was calling in, it couldn’t be good news.
King didn’t reply, and after another half a minute, the voice repeated, but again the only answer was silence. Zelda glanced sidelong at the man in the passenger’s seat. “You gonna take that call?”
He was staring straight ahead, but after a moment seemed to realize that she was addressing him. He turned and shook his head. “I can’t hear you!”
His shout was loud enough to make her wince, and she could tell from his excessive volume that he wasn’t kidding. She craned her head around and saw Tremblay and Somers both scanning the darkness, oblivious to the radio message or anything that had been said.
She keyed her transmitter. “Roadrunner, this is Legend. Send your traffic for King.”
“Legend, be advised that two five-ton trucks just rolled past me, headed your way. If I had to guess, I’d say they’re military.”
Before Zelda could respond, the distorted voice of the mysterious Deep Blue broke in. “That’s affirmative. I’m now monitoring their army radio net. Rainer must have tipped them off. They’ve dispatched a company of infantry soldiers to investigate.”
Christ. It never rains… In her mind’s eye, she saw the trucks with their big wheels rolling effortlessly over obstacles that had slowed the van to a near crawl. There were no other roads, no places to turn off and let them pass. If they stayed on the road, they would run headlong into the army trucks. She’d dealt with the Burmese military a few times in the course of her posting here, and she knew that if they were caught, the best they could hope for would be a swift death. The alternative was an indefinite stay in Myanmar’s infamous Insein prison—the name said it all—where they would be subjected to brutal tortures, or worse, turned into propaganda puppets.
She turned to King. “More trouble! The Burmese army is headed our way!”
He shook his head and spread his hands helplessly.
Wonderful. For a moment, she wondered how she was going to make him understand the situation; should she try writing it down for him? Did she even have paper to write on?
“Oh, screw this.” She stomped on the brake and threw the van into a three-point turn.
She heard the immediate protests from the others, but since there was no way to explain herself to them, she ignored their shouts. There were more important things to do.
“Nighteyes, this is Legend, do you read me?”
Shin’s voice came back, sounding both concerned and relieved. “Loud and clear, Legend. Are you turning back?”
“You know it. There’s no way out of here except on foot. If we ditch the van in the compound, the army might not even know we were here.”
A new voice cut in. “Negative, Legend. The place is crawling with hostiles.” It was Irish—the guy leading the sniper teams and King’s acting First Sergeant.
Zelda felt the hairs on the back of her neck bristling. Was he actually trying to give her orders? She swallowed down her rising anger and with all the coolness she could muster, replied: “I guess it’s a good thing you guys are looking out for us, because unless someone can find me an exit, we’re doing this my way.”
To her surprise, Deep Blue cut in. “Irish, Nighteyes… The road is closed. You need to provide cover for the rest of the team. Rendezvous in the woods and proceed to the second vehicle as Legend recommends.”
The vindication was cold comfort. The truth of it was that they were now caught between a rock and a hard place. Somers had successfully beat the frankensteins off twice now, but this time there wouldn’t be a moving vehicle to come to the team’s rescue.
In seemingly no time at all, she found herself at the hilltop, staring down into the compound.
“Stop here,” King said.
His comment surprised her, and when she looked over, she saw him nodding his head. “I caught some of what you said,” he confessed. “My hearing’s coming back a little bit. You made the right call. But I have an idea.”
She glanced down into the compound where the massed frankensteins had noticed their return and were starting to move toward the gate. “I’m listening, but make it quick.”
“Everybody out!” This time, King’s shout was intentional. He leaned toward Zelda, and in a less strident tone, he added: “Leave it in neutral.”
At last, Zelda understood. She straightened the wheel, shifted the gear selector to ‘N’ and then applied the parking brake before sliding out of the driver’s seat. When everyone was out, she released the brake, whereupon Somers gave the van a hearty push and sent it careening down the hill.
Many of the monstrosities leapt out of the way, but nearly a dozen of them decided to meet the charge head-on—wild dogs facing down a charging elephant. Broken bodies went flying in every direction. The multiple impacts caused the vehicle to veer slightly to the right, and as it reached the compound, the front bumper crashed into one of the gateposts with a crunch that reached their ears a moment later.
“I guess we’re not getting our deposit back,” Tremblay said.
TWENTY-NINE
Shin watched the van crash into the gateposts, and then he lowered his eye once more to the rifle’s scope. Human forms flitted across his field of view, moving past the crosshairs, but they never lingered in one place long enough for him to take a shot.
The men with the Kalashnikovs—the ‘gangstas’—had been the first priority targets. They were armed, and to all appearances, they had acted as the leadership element. They were the head of the serpent, as it were—for the larger body of unarmed slave soldiers. Taking the leaders out had been easy enough. Even when their comrades in arms had begun to fall, they had done what men in combat always do; they sought cover and started loo
king for a place to direct their answering fire.
Unfortunately, cutting the head off the snake had not killed the snake. Shin realized that he had misinterpreted the relationship between the triad officers and the slave force. They were not leaders or shepherds, marshaling a force of unwilling conscripts; they were the leash restraining a pack of wild animals, and now that they were gone, the beasts were running wild. Deprived of intelligent leadership, they simply reacted to anything that moved. Right now, their collective attention seemed to be focused on the small group escaping into the woods surrounding the compound.
There was nothing more for him to do. “Time to go,” he announced.
‘Race’ Banion, acknowledged with a nod and stowed his spotter’s scope in his backpack, as Shin broke down his rifle and prepared to move out.
True to his callsign, Banion sprinted ahead, and Shin, still nursing a sore ankle, had to push himself just to keep the man in sight. Worse, the Delta sniper wasn’t following their original route, staying on the high ground where the terrain was more solid and there was less foliage, but he chose a direct route, bushwacking through the woods. Shin gave up trying to dog the man’s footsteps, and kept to the longer but more familiar path he had used earlier.
The noise of the helicopter, which had been steadily powering up for several minutes, abruptly changed in timber and pitch as the aircraft lifted off the roof of Building Two, and for a moment, the deafening thump of its rotors beating the air overwhelmed all other sounds. Then, just as quickly, the sound began to diminish. Shin glanced skyward and saw the running lights of the helicopter moving away to the southwest.
Just before the din of the departing craft vanished altogether, Shin heard a rustling noise in the undergrowth, from the general direction Banion had gone. He stopped for a second, craning his head to locate the source of the noise, but the woods had already gone silent again.
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