Juggernaut

by Adam Baker

  ‘Jesus,’ said Lucy. ‘I watched you die.’

  Gaunt smiled.

  ‘Not dead. Transfigured.’

  He held up the virus cylinder. The glass had cracked, frosted opaque by a fine web of fissures. The cylinder glowed ethereal blue.

  ‘Behold, I am alive for evermore, and have the keys of hell and of death.’ Flame licked at the window frames. The wreckage of Saddam’s salon lit flickering orange. Thick smoke rose between floorboards. The interior of the carriage seared carbon-black. Delicate marquetry panels destroyed by blow-torch heat.

  ‘Give me the virus,’ said Lucy. ‘The money is no good to you now.’

  ‘Been taking it up the ass my whole damn life. Used. Shut out. Maybe I don’t want to be the good guy. Maybe I want some fucking payback.’

  ‘You’re dying. But you could make a difference. Destroy the virus. Save the entire human race. No one will remember your name. But you could do something heroic. Vindicate your life.’

  Gaunt thought it over. He stared into the blue glowing liquid.

  ‘Yeah. I’m dying. But I’ll live long enough to make it back to Baghdad. All I have to do is make it through the doors of the conference centre. Smuggle the cylinder under my jacket. Delegates of fifty nations carving up reconstruction contracts. Smash the flask on the chamber floor and the virus will spread round the globe in hours.’

  ‘Scream Allahu Akbar as you do it?’

  ‘New York. Moscow. Tokyo. Panic in the streets. The world wiped clean in a matter of weeks. A silent earth. Peaceful. Pure.’

  ‘You’re out of your fucking mind.’

  Gaunt got to his feet. He placed the virus cylinder on the floor.

  ‘Don’t you want to be part of a new breed?’

  Lucy grabbed a broken chair and threw at Gaunt. He snatched it out the air and dashed it against the wall.

  Lucy unsheathed her bayonet and lunged. She aimed for his neck. Gaunt deflected the blow. The knife imbedded in the carriage wall.

  He punched Lucy in the face.

  She reeled. Blood sprayed from her nose.

  She drove her fist into Gaunt’s chest, delivered a deathblow that should have stopped his heart. He snarled and kicked her across the carriage. She skidded across the floor and slammed into the wall.

  Lucy tried to clear her head. She crouched against the carriage wall. She blinked, struggled to clear her vision. The floor beneath her smouldered, hot to the touch.

  Gaunt tugged the knife from the wall. He examined the blade, his blurred reflection. The strange disease had begun to transform his senses. The interior of the carriage danced with weak luminescence from the virus cylinder.

  Lucy crouched in the corner of the carriage, panting with fear.

  He smiled. He stood over Lucy. He grabbed her by the collar, pulled her upright and pinned her to the wall.

  He wondered how best to kill her. He decided to drive the knife through her eye. He positioned the knife tip and braced to strike.

  Lucy had a broken chair leg in her hand. She jammed the jagged shaft into his hip wound. He grunted. She twisted the chair leg. Pus and blood bubbled from blackened, infected flesh. He cried in pain and released his grip. He staggered backwards and pulled the wooden shaft from the wound.

  Lucy threw all her weight into a throat punch. Her fist slammed into his neck. He staggered backward, clutching his throat, gagging and gulping. He toppled, scattering cartridge cases as he hit the floor.

  Gaunt lay in the middle of the carriage. He arched his back as he tried to draw air through a crushed larynx.

  Lucy picked Voss’s shotgun from the floor. She stood over Gaunt. She gripped the barrel of the weapon and lifted it over her head.

  He bared his teeth, like he was trying to say ‘fuck you’ but couldn’t find the breath.

  ‘Go to hell.’

  She brought the shotgun down in a sweeping arc. The impact split his face and shattered his skull. She pounded his head with the butt. She pulped his brain.

  Fire spread through the carriage. Burning roof panels curled and fell, setting carpets ablaze.

  The virus cylinder rolled across smouldering floorboards. Blue liquid wept from hairline cracks in the glass. Lucy kicked the cylinder into flames.

  She flipped latches on the missile case. The disassembled Hellfire. She took the solid-fuel rocket motor from its foam bed. A grey cylinder with fins, a batch-plate and NO LIFT stencil. She hurled it across the carriage. The rear section of the missile clattered and came to rest beside Gaunt’s body. It began to smoke and cook.

  Lucy ran from the carriage.

  She jumped the coupling to the rear platform of the locomotive. Darkness lit by flickering flames. Stonework and concrete buttresses blurred past.

  She lay face-down on steel deck plate, and seized the release lever of the carriage coupling. She gripped it and wrenched with all her strength. Rust-shriek. The lever snapped up, the knuckle-coupling unclenched and the carriage released. Pneumatic brake hose ruptured and whipped compressed air. A loop of power cable pulled taut, sparked, and broke.

  Lucy stood on the rear platform of the locomotive. She watched the blazing carriage decelerate and recede. Tunnel walls lit by flickering flame-light. Mahogany coachwork consumed by fire.

  Lucy hurried to reach the cab and shelter from the coming blast.

  The Western Hills. High crags and rubble. Bleak and barren, like the surface of Mars.

  Twin colossi flanked the rail tunnel entrance. Gargantuan Akkadian kings carved at the dawn of humanity. Austere, blank-eyed sentinels staring out across the desert.

  The dull thud of detonation. A jet of flame from the tunnel mouth. The locomotive burst from the portal riding a wave of fire, like it was tearing out of hell.

  The engine charged headlong into the desert. The scorched and scoured juggernaut jetted black diesel fumes. Bodywork burned carbon black. Windows blown out. Nose lamp shattered. Access doors buckled and ripped away.

  The locomotive ploughed through dunes, tore down a track that stretched across desolate terrain and merged with rippling heat-haze at the distant horizon.

  Amanda sat slumped in the engineer’s chair. She gazed out the smashed windshield at high sun and open desert. She drowsed, nodding out, pale and sick.

  Lucy put a hand on her shoulder.

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘The sun is getting high,’ said Amanda. ‘No water. We’re going to get cooked in here.’

  ‘We’ll find some shade.’

  ‘How long will it take to cross this fucking desert?’

  ‘At this speed? Ten or twelve hours, if the fuel holds out.’

  ‘Christ.’

  ‘We’ll make it, babe. We’ll make it.’

  Cleansweep

  IBN Sina Hospital, Baghdad.

  Lucy lay in her hospital bed. She struggled to stay conscious. Her mind was fogged by Amytal.

  Street noise from an open window.

  The crackle and squeak of bio-suit rubber as Colonel Drew loaded a hypodermic gun.

  ‘Are you going to kill me?’ she murmured.

  ‘Taking care of loose ends,’ he said, voice muffled by his face plate. ‘It’s nothing personal.’

  Lucy let her arm droop over the side of the mattress. She snagged the wrist strap of her Rolex on the metal bed-frame and discreetly released the clasp. She shook the metal bracelet down her hand and gripped it like a knuckle-duster.

  Drew leant over her.

  ‘Try to relax. It will be quick. It won’t hurt.’

  He picked up her right arm. He positioned the needle, ready to prick skin.

  Lucy punched his faceplate with an armoured fist. Lexan cracked. His nose broke against the visor. He spritzed the safety glass with blood and spit.

  She rolled off the bed and pinned Drew to the tiled floor. She sat on his chest. She could see herself reflected in the crack visor. A wide-eyed crazy woman.

  She pulled off his hood. Another blow to the head. The diamond bezel of her
Rolex cut open his cheek. He coughed blood and spat a tooth.

  She shook off the wristwatch and threw it aside. She snatched up the hypodermic gun.

  ‘Please,’ croaked Drew.

  ‘Fuck you.’

  Lucy punched the needle into his right eye and pulled the trigger. Gas-cartridge hiss. His eye inflated and burst, spilling clear liquid.

  He convulsed. He arched his back. Blood leaked from his nose and ears.

  Lucy stood back. Drew gripped her bare ankle. She jerked her leg free.

  She watched him thrash and slowly die.

  She patted him down, slid her hands over the heavy rubber in case he had a holstered pistol beneath his suit.

  Nothing.

  Her clothes lay in a heap in the corner. She bent and picked them up. Amytal head rush. She swayed like a drunk.

  The clothes had been cut from her body, reduced to rags.

  Her prairie coat was still in one piece. She threw it over her shoulder.

  She stepped into the corridor, bare feet padding silently on floor tiles. She stumbled down the passageway, leaning against the wall for support.

  Amanda lay in her hospital bed, drowsed with morphine.

  Koell stood at a side table, loading a hypodermic gun. She listened to the creak of his Tyvek hazmat suit. She was lulled by the electric hum of his backpack respirator. Air sucked through charcoal virus filters.

  ‘Don’t kill me,’ she murmured.

  He stood over the bed. He lifted her arm and positioned the hypo gun.

  ‘I read your MI profile. Spoilt little rich girl. Trust-fund junkie. All that promise. All that potential. The person you could have been.’

  He lifted her arm and positioned the hypo gun.

  ‘You and your friends. No country. No code. No high ideal. Nothing but the tawdry pursuit of money. And look where it got you. A miserable death. Utterly alone.’

  Lucy’s voice:

  ‘Hey, Koell.’

  Koell turned. The base of a drip stand struck him in the face. His rubber overboots slipped on the tiled floor and he fell on his back. A second blow smashed the hazmat faceplate.

  Lucy threw Amanda a hospital gown and her Stetson.

  ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  Lucy sat on Koell’s chest. She tore off his hood, grabbed the hypodermic gun from the floor and jabbed the needle into his neck.

  ‘Don’t,’ he whispered. ‘Please. Don’t.’

  ‘Where did you suit up? You and the other guy.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your clothes. Where are your clothes?’

  The underground parking level of the Al Rasheed.

  Koell’s Lincoln Navigator sat in shadow. Koell at the wheel, Lucy by his side. She kept him covered with the Sig P226 she found in the glove box.

  Lucy wore Colonel Drew’s oversized fatigues. Koell wore Lucy’s ripped trousers, her laceless boots.

  ‘You won’t get far,’ said Koell.

  ‘Shut the fuck up. Keep your hands on the wheel.’

  They watched Amanda check out their battered, shot-up Suburban. She wore Koell’s shirt, slacks and brogues.

  She peered through cracked windows. She crouched and checked beneath the vehicle. She climbed in, dropped keys from the sun visor, and gunned the engine.

  Thumbs up.

  ‘Okay,’ said Lucy. ‘Get out.’

  They climbed out of the Navigator. Lucy could see the red dot of an active CCTV camera in corner shadows. She hid the pistol in her jacket pocket.

  ‘Act casual.’

  They crossed the empty parking structure. Footfalls echoed in the cavernous space.

  Koell limped.

  ‘Walk properly.’

  ‘Boots are about six sizes too small.’

  ‘Walk.’

  They reached the Suburban.

  ‘Get in.’

  Amanda shifted seats. Koell took the wheel. Lucy got in the rear.

  ‘Drive.’

  ‘Where are we headed?

  ‘Across town. QRF Indigo. The Canadian staging base on Route Irish.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just drive the fucking car.’

  They pulled out, and took the up-ramp into blinding sunlight.

  The old quarter. Trash fires, feral dogs. Suspicious locals watched the Suburban speed past.

  Lucy unzipped a holdall on the back seat. Fresh clothes. She changed. She strapped on a tac vest. She clipped a black nylon belt and dropped a HK 9mm into the drop holster.

  She threw her dog tags from the window.

  Koell watched her in the rear-view.

  ‘You and your girlfriend were going to skip out on your buddies. Was that the plan all along? Load the gold and run?’

  Lucy examined the crumpled gang photo. Lucy, Amanda, Toon, Huang and Voss. Hanging out in the Riv, laughing, toasting the camera.

  ‘None of your damned business.’

  They pulled over. Lucy and Amanda switched seats. Koell drove while Lucy kept him covered. Amanda sat on the back seat and dressed.

  ‘Why Indigo?’ asked Koell. ‘What do you think the Canucks are going to do for you?’

  ‘We’re going to hitch a ride on a supply flight back to Germany.’

  She opened the glove box and shook out an envelope. Canadian passports. A wad of dollars. Bribe money had secured an amendment of provisional records. A handful of key strokes summoned two freelance journalists into existence. New names, birth dates, press accreditation and social insurance numbers.

  ‘We’ll be leaving our old names behind.’

  ‘And what about me?’ said Koell.

  ‘Pull over.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Stop the fucking car.’

  Koell pulled the battered SUV to the side of the road. He parked outside a bombed-out restaurant. He shut off the engine. The chill blast of air-conditioning dwindled and died.

  He anxiously looked around. A deserted street. Shanty squalor.

  ‘Why here?’

  ‘Shut up.’

  Lucy took plastic tuff-ties and lashed Koell’s wrists to the wheel.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Koell started to sweat.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Lucy. ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’

  Amanda climbed out and shouldered the holdall.

  ‘Don’t,’ said Koell. ‘Don’t leave me here.’

  Lucy reached round the steering column and turned the ignition key to ACC.

  ‘Relax, said Lucy. ‘Listen to some music.’

  She turned Cypress Hill up full volume and climbed out of the car.

  ‘Let’s go,’ she said.

  A last glance at Koell.

  ‘Please,’ he mouthed through the windshield.

  Lucy and Amanda hurried down the deserted street, ‘Ain’t Going Out Like That’ blasting from the battered Suburban. The song mingling with the mournful, city-wide call to prayer.

  Koell struggled to snaps the cuffs. Deafening, jackhammer bass-beat.

  He twisted his hands, stretched his fingers to reach the ignition. Plastic cut deep into his wrists.

  He kicked off a boot, raised his foot and tried to press the CD off switch with his toe.

  A beat-up Mercedes pulled to the kerb behind the Suburban. Koell checked the rear-view. Five Iraqis in tracksuits got out the car. One of them carried an AK and yammered into a cellphone. The group lit cigarettes.

  Koell leant down and butted the door handle until he engaged central locking.

  The men circled the Suburban.

  Stubble. Cruel eyes. Local militia.

  The lead guy hammered at the cracked side window with the butt of his AK. Cracked ballistic glass began to bow inward.

  Koell sobbed with fear. He tried to chew his way through the plastic cuffs.

  The window broke. Koell closed his eyes and whimpered as a clawing hand reached inside and popped locks.

  They cut Koell’s restraints and hauled him from the SUV. He clung to the wheel. He clung
to his seat.

  ‘No,’ he sobbed, as they prised his fingers free and dragged him from the vehicle.

  He lay in the street. He lost bladder control.

  ‘I’m important,’ he croaked. ‘I’m worth money.’

  The leader crouched beside Koell. He smelled of cigarettes and talc.

  ‘You should not have come here, my friend.’

  Lucy and Amanda ran down the deserted street. They could see sangar gun towers above the roof tops. A maple pennant hung from an antenna.

  Garbage in the road. A stinking sewer trench. Locked doors and shuttered windows, like the locals were braced for a storm.

  Amanda sagged with exhaustion.

  ‘Come on. Keep moving,’ said Lucy

  She wrapped her arm round Amanda’s waist and helped her run.

  They turned a corner. The QRF compound up ahead. High walls and guard towers. Entrance gate flanked by Hesco barriers and concrete bollards.

  The gates pulled back. An armoured patrol rolled out in a haze of dust and diesel. Two Humvees and a Stryker eight-wheeled APC setting out on some kind of snatch operation.

  Lucy blocked the street and flagged her arms. The vehicles braked. The turret .50 cal on the lead Humvee swivelled and took aim.

  Troops ran from the APC. They took cover behind the lead Humvee, assault rifles trained on Lucy and Amanda.

  Loud-hailer:

  ‘Stay where you are.’

  Lucy tossed the pistol. Amanda dropped the bag.

  They stood, hands raised.

  ‘We’re civilians,’ shouted Lucy.

  ‘Take off the coat. Lose the hat. Lift your shirts.’

  Lucy shrugged off her prairie coat. Amanda threw her Stetson aside. They lifted their shirts and turned full circle. No suicide vest.

  Lucy held up passports.

  ‘We are Canadian citizens. We got carjacked. My friend is hurt. She’s been shot in the leg. She needs medical attention.’

  ‘Kneel. Keep your hands where we can see them.’

  They knelt, hands on heads.

  Amanda sagged with exhaustion.