‘I like unarmed people,’ Chavez muttered. Barnes had to agree with her.
They were close to the spire now but still could not see the base of it.
‘Okay, lets move up and get eyes on,’ Barnes told them over the tac radio. He reckoned they would see the base of the spire around the next corner.
‘Jesus!’ T had said it quietly but Barnes had still heard his exclamation. Barnes looked across the road. There was a figure in the doorway of one of the frozen houses. T had let his M249 drop on its sling and was holding his Mk 23 in one hand and pushing the figure back with the other.
‘Earl cover our six, Chavez our twelve, keep shooting footage and eyes out all around,’ Barnes said and, glancing up and down the street to make sure that there was no-one in sight, he quickly crossed the road.
‘Ma’am, you need to go back into the house and lie down,’ T was telling the woman who kept on advancing on him. Barnes’ stomach churned as he caught a good look at her. She was clearly sick, very sick. She was repeating something in Spanish that he didn’t understand but it sounded similar to what they had all heard being chanted.
The woman looked old, but Barnes knew that it could be difficult to judge age in parts of the world where life was hard. She wore a long skirt and a filthy t-shirt. There were seeping growths around her nose, her mouth and her eyes, which were milky and blank. She was obviously blind. The growths looked like externalised tumours to Barnes.
‘Seriously, ma’am, you need to stay back,’ T said. The woman wasn’t listening. She kept on reaching for him as he pushed her back. Barnes saw that she had bleeding holes in her palms. They looked self-inflicted. He glanced down at her feet and saw that they were bloody as well. She was smearing her blood on T. The medic pushed her back hard and then brought his leg up and used that to gently kick her back even further into the house. Then he closed the door as far as he could with the ice covering it and held it there.
‘Did you see her lymph glands?’ T asked. Barnes shook his head. ‘They were swollen. They’d gone hyperbubonic.’
‘Disease?’ Barnes asked, his heart sinking. What the fuck have we been dropped into? Barnes thought, trying to suppress his anger at command.
‘Contagion,’ T said. Barnes could see the medic was fighting to control his fear.
‘Can you do anything for her?’ Barnes asked. The woman tried to wrench the door open. T had to yank it closed again. For someone old and sick she seemed very strong.
‘Give her something for the pain. Put her out of her misery.’
‘She didn’t look like she was miserable or in pain,’ Barnes said as he drew the Mk 23 and began screwing the suppressor on it. T watched him. Both of them knew that the woman would give away their position, compromise the patrol.
‘It is my medical opinion that there is nothing we could do for her and she attacked us,’ T said, letting Barnes know he had his back.
‘This is on me, understand?’ Barnes told the medic. Time to commit a war crime, he thought. ‘Open the door.’
T let go of the door handle and it was wrenched forward. The top of the diseased woman’s head came off as Barnes fired. For a moment both men thought that she wasn’t going to fall over. Finally she swayed and fell back. Barnes stepped into the house and put two rounds into her chest.
‘Watch our six,’ Barnes told T as he slung his M4. He wanted the suppressed pistol in case there were any more. T nodded, but Barnes knew the other man was worried about contact and infection.
‘LT,’ Chavez said over the tac radio. ‘You’re going to need to see this.’ Barnes glanced up and down the dirt track that passed for a street here. He saw a dog cross behind them but nothing else moved. Chavez was lying down by the bend in the road, using one of the ice-encased houses as cover. She was looking around the corner, the DV camera on her M4 shooting footage as she did so. Barnes made his way over to her and glanced around the corner.
‘Shit,’ Barnes said. The ground was broken and had then frozen over where the spire seemed to have pushed up out of the earth. It looked like it had partially destroyed some of the houses as it had risen from the ground. Around the base of the spire were people. Many of them looked like peasant farmers, but others had on the uniform of FARC guerrillas and others were better dressed, or didn’t look Hispanic, suggesting cartel gunmen and mercenaries. All of them showed signs of the external tumorous growths and many of them were bleeding from what Barnes suspected were self-inflicted wounds. They were chanting gibberish and bits of Spanish as they swayed backwards and forwards towards the strange spire. Barnes was beginning to wonder if the spire, which seemed somehow inert to him, was some kind of delivery device for a biological weapon. Though whose, he couldn’t even begin to imagine. Barnes ducked back behind the house.
‘Estimate?’ he asked Chavez.
‘There’s easily more that a thousand people there. They must have come from all over the local area. What’s wrong with them, LT?’
Barnes didn’t answer, instead he took the handset off the sat uplink on Chavez’s back.
‘Venom two-one to Broadsword actual, requesting an immediate medevac and quarantine, we have clear signs of a biological contagion here.’ Chavez turned around to look up him. She looked scared and angry.
‘Negative, Venom two-one. Make contact with the villagers. We need to know what’s happening.’ The voice giving the order was the same that had replaced Major Winterman’s when they’d been re-tasked, except the background noise was different. It was clear that whoever was giving them orders was no longer in the CP. He was obviously transmitting from a helicopter in flight.
‘I don’t think you understand the situation here on the ground, Broadsword actual, I cannot risk further exposure of my people to whatever this is.’
‘Venom two-one, one of the things about being a soldier is sometimes we have to risk death. One of the interesting things about orders, particularly ones like this, that come down from the Joint Chiefs like it had been written on stone by God almighty and handed to Charlton-fucking-Heston himself, is that they are non-fucking negotiable. You don’t do what I am telling you to do and I will not only have you and your men court martialed for disobeying a direct order but for cowardice as well and I will try very hard to make sure that the consequences are just as bad for you as if you’d caught the Black-fucking-Death itself. Do you understand me, soldier?’
Barnes tried to resist the urge to crush the handset.
‘Fucking asshole,’ Chavez muttered, having heard most of the conversation. ‘I think he’s going to have an accident if we get out of here.’
‘I don’t want to hear that, Chavez,’ Barnes told her, though he was having similar thoughts himself.
‘Fucking reluctant soldiers!’ Lockhart spat as he threw the radio handset on the ground. Asher was struggling into his NBC suit in the cramped confines of the Sikorsky S-92, a civilian derivate of the military’s Black Hawk helicopters. There were only two of the CELL military contractors with Lockhart in this chopper, not counting the door gunner. The rest of the personnel in the chopper were Asher’s scientists. The other two S-92s, however, were both carrying full squads of CELL soldiers.
‘How contagious is the virus?’ Lockhart asked Asher. The scientist was sweating heavily, which made it very unpleasant to be in an enclosed space like a helicopter with him. Lockhart was looking forward to Asher being fully encased by the protective NBC suit.
‘Unless they are caught in the initial sporeing they should be fine,’ Asher told him.
‘Then why the suits?’
‘In case this time it’s different. After all, we’ve only seen this once before and the resources to research the virus at the time were very rudimentary indeed.’
Lockhart gave this some thought and then continued putting on his NBC suit.
They had discussed it. Barnes had explained the order. If they just wanted to bug out he would understand and claim that he had given the order to hang back. It wasn’t an unpopular s
uggestion, he could tell, but they were soldiers.
Barnes had told them that he was prepared to try and make contact with the infected on his own.
T had told them that if the virus was airborne then they were all already infected. If not and it was from contact then he was probably infected, so it would be best if he made contact with them. Also he had the best medical training out of the four of them. The cowardly part of Barnes had wanted to let T do it.
Chavez had said that she was filming it anyway and command seemed to want intel. She had sworn a lot more, but that had been the crux of what she had said.
Earl had said nothing, just waiting for the others to make their decision.
That was how Barnes had found himself, flanked by Chavez and T, walking down the middle of the street trying not to slip on the now wet ice. They were walking towards a very large group of very sick people who seemed to be worshipping the strange spire. Earl was nowhere to be seen. He was watching over them through the scope on his M14. Barnes felt envy for the sniper, but conceded that Earl was where he could do the most good.
Barnes and T had their weapons slung diagonally across their front. They had their hands on them but weren’t pointing them at the sick people. Chavez’s M4 was pointed at them but only, she told herself, because of the camera.
Barnes had no real idea what he was supposed to be doing. T was looking all around but all the people seemed to be at the spire. The sick people were ignoring them. The closer they got the more they could see the horrible, seeping, tumorous growths. They were concentrated around orifices but some of the people were obviously more heavily infected and the growths covered a lot more of their visible skin. Many of the people present were also suffering from self-inflicted wounds. Often the wounds were on palms, feet or in the victim’s side. Barnes guessed they were supposed to represent stigmata.
‘What’ve we got, Earl?’ Barnes asked over the tac radio.
‘If there’s anyone else out here, I can’t see them,’ the sniper told him. It wasn’t the most reassuring way to phrase it, Barnes decided.
They were less than a hundred feet away from the mass of people. They had beatific expressions on their face. They were staring at the spire with unbridled religious adoration and awe. They couldn’t fail to notice the three soldiers stood out in the open, but were ignoring them.
‘Erm, excuse me?’ Barnes tried quietly. Chavez turned to look at him. It had been weak and he knew it. ‘Can I have your attention please? We are United States soldiers, we are here to help you! Is anyone in charge? Is there a doctor amongst you?’
A few of them turned around but then went back to worshipping the tower, though to Barnes their worship looked a little like gibbering and drooling.
‘Okay, now that we’ve tried to make contact can we leave?’ Chavez asked.
Good idea, Barnes thought.
‘Not until we get some intel,’ Barnes said. What fucking intel? he wondered angrily, these people are sick and mad. Chavez looked like she wanted to object but kept quiet. After all, she had agreed to come with them.
‘Are you the prophet?’ the question was asked in good, if slurred and heavily accented, English. The man wore hard-wearing jeans and work boots but the dog collar gave him away as a priest. The man’s throat looked swollen and there were growths all around his mouth, which explained the slurring, and the drooling. He had cuts all around his head. Barnes guessed it was supposed to suggest a crown of thorns.
‘What?’ Barnes was taken aback by the question. ‘No sir, I’m a United States soldier. We’re here to find out what’s happening and then report back so your government – with our help – can better respond to the situation here.’ Barnes cursed himself for mentioning their government. This area was controlled by FARC and there were FARC guerrillas amongst the congregation here.
‘I think you are the prophet,’ the priest said.
Well, this never happened in Iraq, Barnes thought.
‘Have they converted to Islam?’ Chavez asked.
‘Yes, that’s a Muslim mining drill they’re worshipping,’ T answered. The tension was apparently turning him sarcastic.
The priest started moving towards them. Other members of the strange congregation were starting to notice the three soldiers.
‘Father, what’s happening here?’ Barnes asked. ‘What is that thing?’
‘It is a herald,’ the priest told them. He was still advancing. Barnes found himself taking a step back and he noticed Chavez and T did the same thing. T slipped a little on the wet ice.
‘A herald of what?’ Barnes asked.
‘The god who brings the white flower. The winged serpent, Quetzalcoatl,’ the father told them. Barnes glanced at Chavez. She just shrugged.
‘I think it was one of the words they were chanting,’ she told him.
More of the strange congregation were getting up now and moving to join the priest.
‘Maybe the cartel is testing drugs on them?’ T suggested as his mind desperately grabbed for rational explanations. The priest, and now more of the congregation, were advancing on the three of them.
‘Okay Father, I need you and the rest of your people to stay back. You could be contagious,’ Barnes told them.
‘Just say the word,’ Earl all but whispered over the tac radio.
‘What we got, Earl?’ Barnes asked.
‘Clear behind, all X-rays are in front of you.’
‘I think you are the prophet. There is light in your flesh. We must follow the light.’ The priest was becoming more intense. Some of the people advancing on them were starting to gibber in tongues. Others were just repeating the word profeta over and over again.
‘Sir, I’m going to have to ask you and the others to stay back!’ Barnes repeated, putting every ounce of authority that had been drilled into him by military service into his voice. They kept coming.
‘Just say the word,’ Earl repeated.
‘Yes, you are the prophet and the light and the flesh is the way to Quetzalcoatl.’
‘Okay, get back now!’ Barnes lifted the M4 and pointed it at the priest. T brought his weapon to bear as well. ‘If you do not stop moving then we will fire!’
‘I have a clear shot on the priest,’ Earl told him. Barnes felt beads of sweat appear and then freeze on his forehead.
‘The flesh and the light of the prophet is a sacrament and must be consumed it is the way to . . .’
‘Now,’ Barnes whispered over the tac radio. Barnes actually felt the bullet go past. The priest’s face collapsed in on itself and turned red. The priest remained standing for a moment and then toppled to the ground. ‘Weapons free,’ Barnes told the others.
The diseased congregation charged. Barnes had a moment to register a moving wall of people running at him. He opened fire, long bursts, the muzzle flash flickering at the end of the M4’s barrel. They started going down, but not nearly enough of them. Those hit were carried along in the press of the charge or fell to the floor, tripping over others coming from behind them, but always another person took their place.
T was firing long bursts as well, playing them across the press of the diseased people who were charging the three soldiers. The M249 SAW was designed for suppressing crowds, but that didn’t work when the people you were trying to suppress had no sense of self-preservation, when all they wanted to do was turn you into one of them.
Earl was killing with every shot from his concealed position, but there were still too many of them.
Chavez emptied the clip from her M4 then turned and ran to the next fall-back point.
‘Reloading,’ she cried over the tac radio as she ejected the empty clip, rammed another one home, racked the slide, charged the weapon and then grabbed a grenade from her webbing.
Barnes’s M4 ran dry.
‘Danger close!’ He reached forward and squeezed the trigger on the underslung M203 grenade launcher, aiming it straight into the charging crowd that was nearly on him. He fired the grenade launch
er but didn’t stop to see the effects of the grenade. Barnes turned and sprinted towards the fall-back point. Earl was trying to say something over the tac radio as the fragmentation grenade exploded in the crowd. Bodies and limbs flew about the street. More of the diseased people went down as fragments flew through limbs and bodies at velocity. Barnes staggered as something sharp tore into his upper arm. Something wet hit his head, tearing his fleece hat off.
‘Say again!’ Barnes shouted as he sprinted, reloading the M4 and sliding another forty-millimetre grenade, a beehive round, into the grenade launcher.
‘Grenade!’ Chavez shouted as she threw a fragmentation grenade into the right flank of the charging diseased people, away from T on the left.
‘They’re flanking you, running behind the houses parallel with the street on both sides,’ Earl shouted over the tac radio.
Chavez’s grenade exploded amongst them, sending more flying, sending limbs spinning and cutting more of them down. Those that had been hit but not killed by fragments and bullets kept coming, limping, crawling or just pulling themselves along with their remaining fingers as others trampled them.
Barnes skidded to a halt by Chavez, turned and started firing. He saw T as he turned to run but they were on him, grabbing and tearing at him. He tried to break free but there were too many of them. Then those closest to T started dying. The top of the head of one came off. Another spun round as he got hit in the chest. Another went down, and then another, as Earl shot them from cover.
More of them were still running at Barnes and Chavez.
T broke free.
‘Reloading,’ Earl said over the tac radio. It sounded like a death sentence to Barnes. He reached forwards again and fired the M203. The beehive round filled the air with buckshot as if he’d just fired an enormous shotgun. A line of people directly in front of Barnes went down in a spray of red. He was trying to buy time for T.
They brought T down. The M249 was still firing and a few rounds impacted close to Barnes. Barnes shifted the M4 and started firing single shot at those around T. T was fighting like a demon. Barnes was horrified to see them trying to bite him, claw at him. He saw one of the diseased people, an old man covered in tumorous growths, tear T’s cheek open with his teeth. The medic was trying to crawl out from under them. The last Barnes saw of him T was reaching towards them, then he was dragged back and disappeared amongst the diseased crazies.
Crysis: Escalation Page 4