Lilith

by Toby Tate

  They walked along for another few hundred yards as the darkness closed in like a black hole trying to envelope them. Hunter suddenly felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up just as Jason held up a hand, indicating the group should stop. Everyone stood stock-still and held their breath as Jason gazed over at the far side of the tracks. Lilith stopped as well, eyeing the group from her place at the front of the line.

  Automatic fire suddenly rang out from the opposite side of the tunnel, and Hunter, Lisa and the entire team dove off the walkway onto the tracks below.

  CHAPTER 85

  Jason ordered everyone to douse their flashlights and use the night scopes on the rifles in an attempt to locate where the shots had come from.

  “Was anybody hit?” he asked

  The Dragon Skin vests had done their jobs—both Harrison and Phillips had taken hits but were only bruised from the impact of the bullets. Jason saw Phillips holding a hand over his chest, trying to get his breath back. He knew from experience that even through a vest, a bullet could knock the breath out of you or sometimes break a rib.

  “Sounds like they’re using AK’s and pistols, Jason,” Anderson whispered over the Android phone.

  “Yeah, and whoever it is has been trained in military tactics” Jason said. “I don’t like this. They got the jump on us and I didn’t even see it coming. Hunter, do you still have the egg?”

  “Affirmative,” Hunter said, breathing rapidly over the headset.

  “Good. Keep a hold on that thing. If you lose it we have no leverage and we’re up a creek.”

  Then somebody spoke from the other side of the track.

  “Throw down your weapons and nobody gets hurt—we have you covered,” a male voice said.

  “That ain’t gonna happen, my friend,” Jason shouted.

  No answer.

  “Jason, I saw one of them poke their head up over a concrete barrier,” Mac whispered. “I have an idea. Be ready to hit the strobes on your flashlights when I give the signal. Cover me.”

  Although uncertain of exactly what Mac had in mind, Jason raised his MK16 and sighted back and forth with the carbine along the concrete barriers. He could see a couple of heads poking over the top like ducks in a shooting gallery, but decided to shoot over their heads instead of at them. The rounds did the trick and they fell back behind the barrier. He figured whoever these people were, they didn’t have night vision scopes or they would have been firing by now.

  Luckily, the team had managed to crowd in behind one of the cinderblock walls. They were safe for now. He swept to the right and saw Mac in his scope register yellow against a blue background. Mac was moving toward the concrete barrier as if he had no problem seeing in the dark without the aid of night vision goggles.

  Jason’s jaw dropped when he saw Mac reach down over the barrier, grab one of the men and fling him out onto the track like a sack of dirty laundry. The man yelped and thudded to the ground with a grunt as Mac grabbed the next man and did the same, continuing quickly down the row until five men lay on the tracks.

  “Now!” Mac yelled, and all of the SOG team members flicked on their flashlights in the strobe position. The ensuing flashes of light were so bright it made Mac shield his eyes. Most of the men hadn’t even picked themselves up off the tracks before Jason, Harrison, Anderson, Blakely and Gabe had jumped over and disarmed all five, locking their wrists in flexi cuffs behind their backs. The flashlights dangled on their lanyards as they were switched to fifty percent power to conserve battery energy.

  The five men were hauled to their feet just as Lilith appeared from nowhere, and with a howl of fury, leapt at her brother.

  * * *

  Mac couldn’t believe his little sister was inside the body of this mammoth white beast that now had him pinned to the ground. Her hot breath smelled like rotten carrion, and her jagged teeth dripped with saliva, ready to rip his throat out. Even with his great strength he didn’t know how long he could hold her back. The silver eyes inside her massive, fur covered head almost seemed to burn though him. Her paws were as big as dinner plates and the long, curved claws could disembowel him with one swipe. A low rumbling growl came from deep inside her. Rather than fear, all Mac felt was rage.

  “Go ahead and kill me, Lilith. It’s what you’ve always wanted to do, isn’t it?” he said, the great weight of the beast causing him to gasp for breath.

  Hunter suddenly ran toward the two, holding up his backpack and waving it like a prize. “Hey, Snow White! Come and get it!”

  “Hunter, what are you doing?” Lisa screamed.

  Lilith turned and leapt through the air, launching herself toward Hunter and her young like a two-thousand-pound projectile.

  Before she had even gotten halfway, Mac saw Jason set the sights of his MK16’s night vision scope on Lilith’s massive chest and fire, sending a grenade through her and out the other side, then into the roof of the subway tunnel, where it exploded on impact. Covering his ears against the deafening explosion, MacIntyre scrambled away, barely avoiding the concrete and debris raining down around him.

  Lilith lay in a heap in the middle of the subway tracks, her breathing labored, blood pooling beneath her like a dark, red lake. A hole the size of a watermelon gaped from her back, the fur around it was matted with gore.

  Mac walked back down the tracks toward the group, eyeing Lilith as she lay sprawled on the ground. He knelt down, stroked her head, then exchanged sorrowful glances with Hunter and Jason.

  “I’m sorry,” Hunter said softly.

  Nodding, Mac turned his attention back to what remained of his sister. “Me too.”

  CHAPTER 86

  The prisoners were men ranging in ages from early-twenties to mid-fifties, and all of them wore urban camouflage. They looked like a team of commandos and probably wouldn’t be easy to crack. Jason knew they were running out of time, though, so he’d have to make one of them talk, and soon. He gave the men a once-over as they sat in the dirt next to the tracks and decided which man he was going to break from the group—the one that looked like the easiest to interrogate. They all stared back at him with steely-eyed defiance, except for a young man with frightened eyes and sandy blonde hair who looked like he was in over his head. The second Jason looked at him, the man averted his eyes.

  “Grab that one,” he said to Harrison.

  Harrison stepped over to the young militant and hauled him up on his feet. The young man didn’t make a sound or ask any questions, but the guy next to him, an older man with a weathered face and a deep scowl, said, “Don’t tell these fuckers nothin’, you got me?”

  “Shut-up, asshole,” Harrison said. “You’re next.”

  The young man remained silent, eyes forward and face expressionless as Harrison and Jason dragged him off into the darkness.

  * * *

  Lilith was barely breathing and losing blood by the gallons, but Hunter was helpless to do anything. Not that he really cared, but Mac was not taking it well.

  Suddenly, from somewhere beyond their line of sight, the young prisoner screamed like a victim in a medieval torture chamber. It reverberated through the subway tunnel and finally subsided.

  Hunter’s blood froze as he made a move in that direction, but Blakely grabbed him by the collar and shook his head no. Hunter understood as he stared back out at the darkness.

  CHAPTER 87

  After what seemed like hours, but was actually only minutes, Jason came strolling into view with Harrison, who was helping the prisoner walk. The young man looked like hell, stumbling along as he went.

  As they got closer, Hunter noticed a red smear on one leg of Harrison’s pants. It looked as if he’d wiped blood from the blade of a knife on them. He glanced at the hand that was draped over Harrison’s shoulder and noticed that the forefinger was wrapped in a blood-soaked piece of torn fabric. But Hunter didn’t ask any questions.

  Jason waved everyone over.

  “These assholes are mercenaries. Mostly ex-military looking to make a
few extra dollars, or from what little Davey here told us, a whole lot of extra dollars. The bad part is they were hired by somebody in the government. If what that kid told me is true, this shit reaches all the way to the top, or at least close to it. But our concern right now is finding that nuke and keeping it from going boom. The kid said they just finished setting it up when we got here, so we still have some time, but not much. It just so happens that he’s also the one who set up the nuke and knows the code to disarm it. I suggest we get moving as soon as possible.”

  * * *

  The two men had seen the entire firefight and subsequent capture of their comrades from behind a wall in an adjoining access tunnel. Luckily, they had missed being shot themselves, but just barely. There were rust holes and now bullet holes spaced periodically along the wall that allowed them to view everything without being seen. They couldn’t risk turning on their own flashlights, but could make out what was happening in the other tunnel fairly well.

  Minutes later, they heard Dave Jenkins screaming in pain and knew he was being interrogated and would probably talk. Now they watched as the SOG team leader spoke to his group. Though they couldn’t quite make out what he was saying, they knew that disarming the nuke would be their next move. They had to act soon or the whole mission would be totally screwed and they could kiss half a million dollars goodbye.

  The commander of the assault team turned to his subordinate and whispered, “We’ve got to get them out of there. Wait until the team moves off down the tunnel. I’m pretty sure they’re going to leave our guys behind with maybe one guard. We should be able to take him. Then we’ll set our guys free and go after Dave. If we have to, we’ll take him out.”

  The other man nodded grimly and the pair turned and moved off down the passageway in the opposite direction.

  CHAPTER 88

  They walked for miles under the streets of New York, a billion tons of concrete and steel pressing down on them. The darkness was an all-encompassing force that even the ultra-bright flashlights barely penetrated. Lisa felt as if she was being smothered. There was also the nuke. But if she thought about it too much she would panic, and she really didn’t need that right now, especially for the sake of the others in the group. Hunter and Gabe gave her the strength she needed to go on.

  Gabe and Hunter had been alone together for quite a while and Lisa had thought about that. But she knew Hunter was a one-woman man, so she was never worried. In fact, she had been more worried about Lilith than she had been about Gabe. She still seethed with rage when she thought about Lilith. Lisa wished she could have had the chance to put a bullet in her, but Jason had done it for her. At least someone had done it, she thought. But Lisa realized that hate was not a healthy thing and knew she would have to rid herself of it.

  Eventually.

  Lisa saw there was an opening up ahead and the space suddenly grew wider. They were in another subway station, not quite as big as the one at Times Square, but big nonetheless. An old, rusted sign on one of the walls said 34th Street. They were below Penn Station and Madison Square Garden.

  Was this where the nuke was?

  Wasn’t Madison Square Garden one of the designated emergency shelters for Manhattan during Hurricane Alex? The capacity of that place was about eighty-thousand people.

  Lisa suddenly felt ill as she realized Lilith had calculated exactly where to plant the bomb to cause the maximum number of casualties.

  * * *

  The two mercenaries found the opening in the wall that they were looking for and turned into it. They would have to walk the tracks in darkness much of the way to avoid detection.

  “When we get to where our guys are, disarm that CIA spook first, then we’ll get our team and go after Dave,” he said. “Once we catch up to him, we’ll assess the situation and see whether we’ll have to take Dave out or not. It may be the only option.”

  As the two men made their way along the tracks, the leader thought he heard movement from behind and quickly turned off his flashlight and stopped. The other man stopped, as well. The two stood frozen on the tracks, listening.

  Nothing.

  “Must have been rats,” the commander said, switching his light back on and continuing to walk.

  After a few hundred yards, they heard voices and once again switched off the light.

  “That’s them,” the commander whispered. “Alright, nice and easy.”

  He motioned for the other man to move forward and raised his AK47 in the firing position. They walked along the rails until they saw the light from the SOG team member’s flashlight. As they drew closer, they could hear one of their own men speaking and saw a large, black man in dark civilian clothes holding an M4A1 and pacing slowly back and forth. They stopped and waited.

  The black man stopped pacing and was facing away from them, down the other end of the tunnel, as if looking for someone, probably his own team. That’s when the two mercenaries made their move. They walked quickly, avoiding running since it might alert the man to their presence.

  They were within fifty yards when Samson turned and saw them, but it was too late. They both had their AK47s trained on him and he knew he would be dead before he raised his own carbine.

  “Drop the weapon,” the man in charge said.

  “No, you drop your weapon, asshole,” a voice from behind said.

  The two men slowly turned their heads around and saw two grenade launchers pointed at their backs. It was Slater and Chin, Jason’s ace in the hole.

  “Thanks, guys,” Samson said. “I’m glad you showed up when you did. But we have another problem.”

  “What’s that?” Slater said as Chin took the weapons from the two mercenaries.

  Samson pointed to a pool of drying blood inside the pile of debris near the subway tracks.

  “Lilith is gone.”

  CHAPTER 89

  Hunter could see that the young mercenary, who they were calling Dave, was in pain, holding his right hand tightly with his left. Hunter wasn’t big on torture, but he didn’t have a lot of sympathy for a man who would trade innocent lives for money.

  As the group was moving through the abandoned station Hunter spotted several rats, lots of graffiti on the walls and cheap wine bottles scattered around the floor. The stench of urine and feces mixed with stale air was making him a little nauseous. Where did these people come from? There must have been a million places to slip into the underbelly of New York and maybe never come out again.

  They came to a room that looked like a utility closet, but was actually an elevator shaft. The doors were open but the elevator itself was gone, along with all the pumps and motors that drive the elevator. Dave jumped down inside the shaft. Jason turned to the group.

  “Everyone wait here. Harrison, come with me,” he said.

  The two men slid off their weapons and backpacks then followed Dave down into the shaft.

  There in the middle of the floor of the elevator shaft, Hunter could see a large, green backpack that looked like something someone would take on a camping trip. Harrison pushed the elevator cables aside and carefully unzipped the backpack as the other two men and everyone outside the shaft watched. Hunter realized he was holding his breath and slowly exhaled as the backpack fell open to reveal a large, polished metal cylinder, a couple of smaller cylinders, a battery and a digital timer all connected with a dozen wires. It looked simple enough, but it was unnerving to think that much destructive power could be transported so easily.

  Harrison knelt and looked the device over. “Looks similar to the old MK54 SADM backpack nuke, but a lot more compact and a lot more powerful. Someone had to have some serious connections to get hold of this.”

  “Can we disarm it?” Jason asked.

  Harrison shrugged. “The timer was set to give these bastards enough time to get off the island, but we’ve already spent most of that trying to find it.”

  Jason gave the young mercenary, who was busy nursing a severed fingertip, a kick in the shin.

&nb
sp; “Alright, dipshit, shut this thing down or we’ll cut something else off,” he said.

  Jenkins’ black-rimmed eyes were hollow and vacant from pain and terror, like someone who had just escaped a serial killer.

  “I can’t remember the exact code,” he said.

  Jason looked dumb-struck. “What do you mean you can’t remember the exact code?”

  Jenkins shrank away, as if he was trying to crawl into the cinderblock wall of the elevator shaft.

  “I mean the timer doesn’t allow for any mistakes. If you put in the wrong number, it goes off automatically.”

  Jason put a hand on top of his head. “Okay, so you’re telling me you’re not sure what the code is?”

  Jenkins simply nodded, whimpering like a frightened animal in a cage.

  Jason stood for a moment, as if considering his options. He looked down at the timer—if it was right, Hunter could see they had less than two minutes to clear out and get back to the ship. They wouldn’t even make it a block in that amount of time. He knew Jenkins was probably yanking their chain, thinking they would leave and take him along. But that wasn’t going to happen, either.