The man nodded and left the room, leaving Zahn staring at the empty doorway. They must have somehow tracked down his old NAFTA transport plane. He shook his head and pushed it out of his mind. It didn’t really matter how; he had known this was one of the possibilities. It just happened faster than he thought. Either way, this would be their only chance. The Stux 2.0 attack was well underway. There wouldn’t be enough time for a second attack; this was it.
Paratroopers were very tough, and Zahn had a big surprise for them. What he hadn’t noticed was Christine furtively loosening the rope’s knot located below her chair.
The large red and green jump lights lit up next to the plane’s large, metal door as it opened into the howling wind outside. The door continued turning outward and locked into place, becoming a shield for the paratroopers when jumping into 180-mph winds.
The Jumpmaster moved next to the door and yelled again. “Inboard personnel stand up!” Instantly the line of men closest to him stood. “Outboard personnel stand up!” The rest of the men on the far side of fuselage stood. “Check equipment!”
All of the paratroopers checked the front of their equipment and the back of the equipment of the man before them.
Near the front of the plane, Clausen watched Bazes struggle to help keep Rand on his feet and run through the checks they had been shown. Rand gritted his teeth and gripped the overhead strap tight.
“Hook up!” yelled the Jumpmaster. All of the paratroopers reached up and hooked their static lines to the overhead cable, then pushed the cotter pin through with the other hand to secure it.
Bazes did the same at the front and then reached for Rand’s line but couldn’t find it. He tried to keep himself steady with one hand and checked around Rand’s leg for the strap.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” growled Clausen watching them. Keeping a hand pushed against the ceiling, he quickly crossed over to them and pushed both of their hands out of the way. He reached around the right side of Rand’s leg and immediately brought his hand forward with the strap.
“Three minutes!” yelled the Jumpmaster.
Clausen immediately reached up and attached Rand’s clip to the cable, closing it with the cotter pin. He then checked Rand’s gear, both front and back, to make sure it was secure. Like the rest of the paratroopers, these two men were jumping with full rucksacks too.
When Clausen finished checking Bazes, he leaned in close and yelled in his ear, “You go last!”
Bazes nodded his head.
“We’re all out of here in 35 seconds! Understood?”
Bazes and Rand both gave a thumbs up.
Zahn picked up the phone again and held the receiver to his ear, waiting. After a few moments, he spoke. “Get the MANPAD’s ready and get them as close as you can to the path and direction of the object your radar spotted. Don’t forget those planes are flying low and fast which means they’re going to fly past you and your men in the blink of an eye. As soon as you hear them, fire the missiles immediately. If you wait for a visual, it will be too late. And save half for the second plane.”
Zahn hung up and stood calmly thinking. His first surprise was going to deal the paratroopers a terrible blow.
It was not unlike the blow that Zahn was too distracted to see coming from behind him, when an untied Christine raised her chair up and smashed it over his head with everything she had.
58
Bazes noticed that the shaking in Rand’s arms and legs was getting worse. He leaned in and yelled to him, “How are you?”
Rand winced. “Never better.”
Bazes smiled back. That was as far from the truth as it could be. Still, Rand was stronger than when they left, and Bazes was not entirely sure how, but he wasn’t about to start asking questions. “Are you going to be able to make this?” he yelled.
Rand opened his mouth to reply when they were interrupted by Clausen. He was standing in the open doorway, facing out, and yelling at the top of his lungs. “Let’s take it to the barn, men!”
Next to him, the Jumpmaster smiled and called out, “Stand in the door!” The line of men shuffled calmly and quickly to the door.
Clausen peered out in the howling darkness and gave one last look over his shoulder. “Let’s go get these bastards!”
With that, the Jumpmaster yelled “Go!” and Clausen was gone. Immediately behind him, the paratroopers surged forward, pushing out the door as fast as the Jumpmaster could repeat his command.
Nearly half of the men had disappeared into the darkness when an explosion suddenly rocked the airplane. It was immediately followed by a second explosion which ripped a giant hole in the tail and demolished its fins and rudder. The hole became enormous as a chunk of the fuselage dislodged and fell away.
The plane’s yaw and pitch were instantly lost without a working hydraulic system, and the nose of the plane pitched up wildly.
The unexpected jolt caused the remaining paratroopers to lose their balance, and the heavy weight of their packs pulled them back toward the damaged tail. The overhead cable came apart at the ceiling, and over a dozen of the men tumbled backward out of control, right out the rear of the plane. Without their static lines, their chutes did not deploy and they fell straight down, hitting the ground at full force.
Those still inside, including Rand and Bazes, grasped for something to hold onto as the plane’s nose quickly changed direction and began to turn into a dive.
The rest of the paratroopers were already pushing forward in a desperate attempt to exit the doorway, and the Jumpmaster began grabbing each man and throwing him out as fast as he could. Under normal circumstances, they would have fifteen seconds before they hit the ground. Now, the urgency was to get out while they still had time and the control to deploy their chutes, and that window was closing quickly.
Rand and Bazes struggled to get their clips off of the second overhead cable. Other paratroopers took the faster way out, and instead they unclipped, wrapped their lines in their hands and threw themselves out the back. Better to make it out with enough altitude and try to manually deploy their chutes than to make it out when it was simply too low to matter.
Rand unclipped his line and turned to Bazes who was struggling. His line was stuck, blocked by a protruding bulkhead support beam that had dislodged in the explosion. Over Bazes’ head, the cable was taut against the beam, pinching his large metal clip. Rand tried to pry it out, but the clip did not move. He pried his own shaking fingers between the clip and cable and tried to twist it, but it still wouldn’t budge.
The nose of the plane dropped further, heading into a terminal dive.
With only seconds left, Bazes grabbed Rand’s shaking hand and pulled it away. Bazes pushed him hard backwards, yelling over the screeching and shaking of the plane. “GET OUT!”
Christine swung the chair hard a second time, but Zahn twisted and grabbed it in mid-air. His eyes flared as he yanked it from her hands. He threw the chair across the room, glaring at her as he touched the side of his head and pulled it back to reveal a palm full of blood.
She did not cower as he would have expected. Instead, even without a weapon, she stood her ground. In fact, she looked like she was about to attack again. “You’re quite the fighter,” he said, taking a step closer.
Christine glanced past him at the monitor showing Sarah sitting all alone. She snarled at Zahn. “I’m not afraid of you!”
“Oh, yes you are,” smiled Zahn. “And you should be.”
Christine gritted her teeth. “I’m not going to let you do this, and I’m not going to let you hurt her!”
Zahn looked at her with a fleeting glimpse of admiration, and then it was gone. In one sudden movement, too fast for her to even see, he struck Christine hard in the face, sending her several feet back and into the stone wall. Her body crumpled to the floor like a rag doll.
Sarat stood high up the mountain dressed in his black fatigues. He watched through his binoculars as the distant fireballs rose high above the jungle canopy, th
e smoke and flames slowly curling under to form bright, yellow mushroom clouds. Both transport planes had taken direct hits by the surface-to-air missiles and crashed into the ground in less than a minute.
Just minutes later, Sarat could see the bouncing headlights of his three Humvee’s heading back uphill through the thick terrain. He had told them to get out quickly. The place for engagement was not there. It was higher up where they had the advantage.
The question he was wondering now was, how many survived?
59
The lights were blinding. She painfully rolled onto her side and tried to shield her eyes from the overhead lights. Her face felt like it was on fire. Christine worked her hand down and touched her jaw. The swelling felt immense which meant it was likely even worse.
She groaned and peered through her tight eyelids, watching the grey concrete floor slowly come into view. The outside edges in her vision were still fuzzy when she saw a set of boots walk across the floor toward her. She remembered they were Zahn’s just before he swung a boot and kicked her hard in the face again.
Blackness.
60
Clausen had lost nearly half his men. Most were either unable to get off the C17s before they exploded or never had enough altitude for their chutes to open. It was the greatest single loss of paratroopers ever.
But those who did survive reached the ground and still had the area secured within minutes. The enemy withdrew immediately which allowed them to search for all survivors, but those who were still alive were in no condition to fight.
Clausen left four men to protect the survivors while the rest prepared to advance. They were losing time and had a long way to go. His men instinctively slung the heavy packs on their backs and checked gas masks on their left side. After the remaining checks, they pulled their night vision goggles down over their eyes and leveled their M4 assault rifles forward. Payback would be unmerciful.
Clausen and his men moved steadily and silently, managing to cover the distance in record time. At two kilometers out, they stopped and scanned the open field in front of them with their Bi-Ocular FLIR goggles. Using infrared, the paratroopers could see any object with a heat signature for almost a quarter mile, which meant anything with a respiratory system. The field ahead was black, showing only a few white shapes of tiny animals scurrying away. When Zahn’s men did appear, the paratroopers would see them as clear as day.
But what Clausen didn’t know was that Zahn’s men were expecting them, and their fatigues were invisible to the paratrooper’s FLIR goggles. Each pair of black fatigues was designed with a mylar-aluminum prototype liner that created a perfect and complete seal around the wearer. Along with a flexible hood and special face mask, Zahn’s men gave no external heat signature at all, allowing them to appear as black to infrared as the bushes they lay in.
Sarah jumped when she heard the gunfire outside. Her small lips quivered and she cringed at the loud, constant bursts which quickly grew louder and longer. She heard yelling outside and several minutes later the door opened behind her and closed again.
She heard footsteps cross the room behind her and knew immediately who it was. As he stepped in front of her, she looked up into the dark and deadly face of Kia Sarat.
“You’re coming with me,” he said and bent down to untie the rope around her tiny legs.
“W-where are we going?” she asked quietly.
“A long way from here,” he answered, raising his voice over the shooting outside. “Where you can show me, and some others, what it is that makes you so special.”
“W-what about Christine?”
Sarat paused with the rope in his hand and looked at her. He continued without a word, unraveling the line from her body. He had just stood up and grasped her arm in his giant hand when the door was suddenly ripped off its hinges from the outside.
Sarat instantly reached for his gun, but it was too late, Rand was already in the room pointing a rifle at him. Covered in mud, bruises and blood, he aimed the gun at Sarat. “She’s not going anywhere.”
Sarah screamed when Sarat picked her up and held her in front of him as a shield. “I know you want her; don’t be stupid,” he said, peering past her ear at Rand.
“The only way out is through me.” Rand leveled his sights. “If you hurt her, you’ll die right here.”
Sarat said nothing. He stared at Rand, thinking. He looked closely and noticed that the barrel of the gun was shaking. Yet, it wasn’t the gun that was shaking, it was Rand. He smiled and wrapped his hand around Sarah’s tiny neck. “Drop the gun or I squeeze.”
“If you hurt her, I’ll kill you.” Rand’s face turned to steel. “Then I’ll track down everyone you know and I’ll kill them, parents, brothers, cousins, everyone. And when I’m done, I’ll find every person who has ever known you or talked to you.”
“You’re lying!”
Rand shook his head again and tried to control the shaking. “I don’t lie. You hurt her and everyone you have ever known dies; that’s a promise. And believe me, I’ll have plenty of time to do it.”
Sarat looked at Rand nervously. He kept watching as Rand’s shaking grew steadily worse, and the barrel increased its bouncing back and forth. He can’t even aim. Sarat slowly passed Sarah to his left hand and dropped his right down next to his holster.
Sarat glanced down to make sure his gun was still there. When his head came back up, Rand was no longer looking at him. Instead, Rand was looking at Sarah who was staring right back at him. Before Sarat understood what was happening, Rand gave Sarah a tiny nod.
Immediately, she closed her eyes tight, and Rand shot Sarat in his right leg. He howled in pain and dropped Sarah onto the floor just before Rand fired another round into his chest. Sarat’s body fell backwards and lifeless onto the floor.
Rand let his gun drop and looked at Sarah who still had her eyes closed. When she opened them, she saw Rand and ran forward, jumping into his arms and burying herself in his neck. She hugged him tightly, and Rand wrapped his muscular arms around her little frame.
She leaned back and rubbed her eyes. “I knew you would come.”
“No matter what,” Rand smiled back. And for that moment, he felt no pain at all.
With Sarah still in his arms, Rand turned away from Sarat’s body. He walked to the overhead camera and yanked the power cord out of the wall.
Several minutes later, Rand peeked around the corner of the small brick house where Sarah had been kept. Walking behind him, she held Rand’s hand and tried to look out from under his legs. Rand raised his FLIR goggles and looked out over the open area. The firefight had stopped momentarily, and he could see paratroopers lying in the tall grass. But there were no white shapes for Zahn’s men further up the slope. Where were they?
What Rand could see was the entrance to some kind of bunker, but there was nowhere to hide between him and it; it was all open field. They could go around, but it would take far too long, even without a six-year-old girl. He looked back up to the bunker. There was only one way.
Without warning, Sarah gasped loudly behind him. Rand whirled around to see her astonishment and dropped down onto his knee.
“What is it, Sarah?”
She stood there with her mouth open. “You have a shadow!” Sarah watched as a faint shadow began to envelop Rand, finally covering his entire body. It slowly brightened until it became a bright yellow. “It’s yellow!” she cried.
Rand felt a strong, warm sensation deep within his chest. As it grew, it became warmer and warmer and expanded out from his torso down to his arms and legs, all the way to his fingers and toes. Then, all at once, his shaking stopped. He was whole.
Rand hugged Sarah again before looking back up at the dark hill. “We have to get Christine.”
Sarah stood before him, still grinning from ear to ear, but her excitement faded almost immediately. Rand’s shadow became yellow, but it didn’t stop. It continued to change, quickly turning to pink, orange, red and finally black.
&nbs
p; 61
Christine awoke and gasped through the cold water being thrown on her head. She wiped it from her face and coughed violently, spitting blood onto the wet floor. In a panic and blinded again, she protected her face with her right hand and scooted back against the wall.
“Wake up, you’re missing the fun,” Zahn’s voice echoed from somewhere in front of her.
Christine spit again, not sure whether it was more blood or water this time. “What?”
“Your rescue team has arrived,” Zahn replied dryly. “But sadly, they’re not doing too well.”
She shook her head and peered up at his silhouette. “I don’t want to see it.”
“Of course you do,” he snapped. He reached down, grabbed a fistful of her hair, and pulled her to her feet.
Christine yelled in pain and stood up.
Zahn pulled her across the room and shoved her face toward the wall of monitors. They all showed the outside perimeter now and from different angles. Random muzzle flashes could be seen everywhere as the fight raged. Zahn leaned forward and whispered into her ear.
“These men are your only hope. And they’re all dying. How does that feel?”
It felt sickening. She wanted to throw up over what was happening. Christine stumbled to maintain her balance when Zahn pushed her head forward even more.
“Do you still believe?” he hissed. “Do you still think this can be stopped? It can’t, and you’re going to watch it all happen, with me.”
Christine rolled her eyes weakly, trying to look away from the monitors. She fought hard against Zahn’s tight grip and managed to turn just enough…when she saw it. She saw it and her eyes opened wide in shock. Sarah was gone! “What did you do?!” she screamed.
Amid the Shadows Page 25