by Mark Henwick
Pia concerned me. I stopped in front of her and she flinched.
“Being Athanate doesn’t mean I’m not afraid,” she whispered, looking down and fiddling with her P90.
I lifted her face gently until she was looking at me. “Being scared doesn’t mean you’re not brave. You’ll do fine.”
She took a deep breath and nodded.
I stepped back. “In the rigging, please.”
As I had specified, Alex’s truck had webbing, like the netting on a climbing wall, fastened down the middle. Everyone except Paul wriggled their arms in and got ready to brace. Instant crash protection. Paul just sat on the back, ready for his first task.
I pulled on my old army harness, checked that all my weapons were secure. I had the MP5 strapped to my right thigh. On the left thigh was my Tactical Assault Weapon, the brutal cannon we called the BFG in Ops 4-10.
I couldn’t believe the harness had come with Top’s parting gift of weapons, but there it was. It still had the Mike 6 designation inked on a strap.
I climbed into the driver’s seat and drove down the road towards the gatehouse. The mission was green to go. It was too close to the deadline, but it hadn’t been possible to get everything organized quicker.
Something felt unfinished, unready.
My hand strayed over my harness straps. Old familiar catches and Velcro, all fastened. And a little pocket, right there. My fingers slipped inside. My tin of camo paint was still there.
Something I’d kept chained woke in me, wanting to howl. I stabbed fingers into the tin and smeared savage lines across my face. This wasn’t to hide. War paint. Let them see me coming. Let them know death’s eyes were looking for them.
I was ready now.
It had gotten darker and the rain didn’t help, but it was still light enough as I turned in for the guard to recognize Alex’s truck livery. He came out of the gatehouse, but the gate stayed down. That was fine; all I wanted was for him to be away from any alarm buttons. He was probably swearing, once at the mix-up that sent a delivery too late to be accepted, and twice that he had to get out into the rain to send me back. He raised his arm for me to stop.
Paul had jumped off as we turned.
I kept the pedal down.
The guard’s eyes went wide with panic and he stumbled back towards the gatehouse, then he jerked and fell as I swept past him. Paul had seen to it that he wouldn’t be getting up.
The truck brushed aside the plastic gate and I lined up with the warehouse’s delivery doors. The huge steel rollers were down. Normally, they’d roll them open for a delivery. I didn’t think we’d get them to do that tonight, so I used the alternative, Amber Farrell, way of opening them.
The truck slammed into them, ripping the light steel panels like ribbons while I floored the brake and kept the rig straight. There were a couple of guards sitting smoking in the main delivery area. That was unlucky for them. Guards, chairs and tables disappeared under the truck’s huge grill front.
I deliberately hadn’t had the truck flat out, but the brakes still weren’t good enough to stop all that momentum. I leaped from the cab and the truck smashed straight into a couple of large box vans, folding them like paper.
I rolled and came up with the HK machine gun. This wasn’t my task, but I sent a couple of short bursts into a small group of bewildered Matlal troops standing by racks of guns. That caught their attention just long enough for Group 2 to untangle from the webbing and take over their task.
I left them, sprinting up the open-frame, zigzag staircase for the top floor.
At the first turn, I could see the half-dozen Matlal troops in the warehouse were down.
At the second turn, Pia had the first of Alex’s industrial packing foam dispensers vomiting its contents over the racked guns. It would get down the barrels and into the trigger mechanisms. No one was going to use them in a hurry. That was her task well on the way to completion and David and Alex were on the stairs behind me. Bian and Group 1 had disappeared towards the factory where the bulk of Matlal’s men were. That was their task. Mine was ahead.
The left-hand office was connected to the warehouse by a walkway on the top floor, the third floor. If they were alerted, that’s where they would be watching or that’s where they would come through. Although we had been quick enough to prevent any alarms being pressed yet, they had to have heard the sound of the truck breaking into the warehouse and the shots afterwards. If they ran along the passageway, they would have David and Alex shooting at them from cover. I needed to get ahead of all that, so I got out onto the roof and ran quietly along the top of the walkway and from there onto the top of the office building.
Spurred on by adrenaline and elethesine, I hit my zone. My actions became quicker and more accurate. I secured a rappel line on the roof and passed it though my brake links, estimating the length I needed, and locked the brakes.
Up here, I could hear nothing more from the warehouse. With luck, the people inside the office below me would be looking to the walkway to see what all the noise had been about. I had seconds before someone thought about Jen or realized that they were under attack.
I retrieved the BFG from the holster down my thigh harness and set the choke for wide dispersal. I pulled the pin of a stun grenade, counted two seconds and jumped off the side of the building, legs splayed wide. The rope jerked taut and I swung towards a window. Just before my boots hit the lower sill, I fired the BFG, angling it upwards.
Shatterproof glass is strong, but the BFG was designed to take out stuff like this. The expanding mass of metal particles exploded through the glass, carrying it in a ball of flame and noise right across the ceiling of the room. Behind the expanding cloud of debris was the stun grenade. It went off as I kicked the remaining glass out of the way.
I had counted down. I was expecting the noise and had my eyes screwed shut against the light at the moment it exploded, and it was still a shock. The people in the room didn’t have the warning or the training and as I vaulted in, those on their feet were stumbling around, confused, blind and deaf. Most were dazed, sitting or lying on the floor.
I had the stubby HK MP5 machine gun out as well now. I sprayed bullets at the ones who seemed closest to recovery. I wanted to kill every last one of them, but I didn’t have time. I’d have to deal with them on the way back.
The important thing for me was that Jen wasn’t in this room. I shot those directly in my way as I ran for the doors leading to the next office.
I launched myself at the door and it burst open. I saw armed men and I rolled to one side as I brought the MP5 to bear. We all fired. After the stun grenade, it all sounded like popguns, but the bullets did what they always did. I felt a smack of one hitting my shoulder at an angle and twisting me around, but the vest took the worst of it. I’d pay for it later. The man who fired it at me paid for it now.
There had been three of them clustered around a door. All dead now. I took that as the most likely place for Jen and kicked at the lock with all my weight behind it. It was a standard office door and it splintered.
Jen was in the room, lying on the floor, naked and handcuffed. There was a man near her, struggling to get his clothes back on. He died, more cleanly than he deserved, three shots: in his groin, in his gut and through his brain.
I knelt down beside her in despair and knew I was too late.
She was covered in blood, and they had ripped her beautiful face, slashing her cheeks. I put the guns down and felt for her pulse. My hand was trembling and my vision seemed to lock down, but I felt the faintest answering pressure against my fingers.
Her eyelids moved and my heart stuttered as she became aware of me. I got out the bolt cutters that Alex had brought me from my backpack. They sheared through the handcuffs. I gently lifted her head up.
“Oh, Jen, I’m sorry.”
There was nothing outside of our bubble. Her broken lips stretched in a ghost of a smile and she whispered something.
The round caught me in my b
ack, just over my heart.
Chapter 47
The vest held the bullet, but passed on all the force of it. I fell over Jen, rolled to get away from her, struggling to clear my head and regain my breath. It felt as if I’d been hit with a sledgehammer. My left arm wasn’t working. The whole shoulder was in agony. And my guns were lying on the floor on the other side of Jen.
Hoben stood in the ruined doorway, covering me with his pistol. He must have been in the walkway when I’d come through. A couple of his men stood behind him, firing rifles back at the walkway.
“You!” Hoben shouted, as he recognized me. “Shit, I win the bet. Matlal said you’d show up at Cherry Creek.”
He walked in. “Makes no difference. He’s got enough people for two traps. They’ll wrap up whoever you’ve got here in two minutes. Then we can get to know you, while we wait for Matlal.”
“You’re getting ahead of yourself, Hoben. You haven’t wrapped us up yet. Matlal’s not going to be happy with you.” My voice came out almost as raspy as his. I had to keep it going.
“He’ll be happy as soon as I hand you over, whore.”
He was close, just a few more steps.
“He hasn’t got those guns in the factory anymore. They’re all set in builder’s foam. What’s he going to use for his attack, Hoben, bad language?”
“Fucking bitch,” he screamed at me. “You’ll pay for that. You’ve screwed me over for the last time.”
One more step. Just one.
Everything happened at the same time. Jen rolled to one side. He turned and fired at her. I saw his bullet hit her in the stomach. I launched myself at him. Jen came up with the BFG and fired back at him. The kickback tore it out of her hands. But the expanding mass of lead shot didn’t care about that. It had swollen to an area about two feet across. It hit Hoben in the middle of his chest, and his body disintegrated into hamburger.
I landed on his tattered corpse.
The pain in my shoulder grayed out my vision. I fought it down, grunting in frustration as I wrenched the pistol from his hand. Too slow. His men would be turning, firing at us.
There were screams, shots and then with an awful finality, the wet crunch that cartilage makes when it’s crushed.
I staggered to my feet. One of Hoben’s men was convulsing on the floor, his life-blood gushing from the wreck of his throat. The other was face down, his head against the floor, the enormous wolf slowly releasing the death grip on the back of his neck.
“Alex,” I gasped. He snarled and his head jerked. There was blood on his flanks, but he moved easily, turning to stare at the rest of the room.
I scrambled back to Jen’s side. There is almost nowhere in the human body where you can be hit with a bullet without a risk. The shot to her stomach could have ruptured arteries or organs. There didn’t appear to be immediate major blood loss, but I needed to get her to a hospital right now.
I’d completely lost the zone and had trouble thinking about the best way to do things.
Someone was calling my name as I struggled to gather Jen up and keep hold of my guns. My left arm didn’t cooperate—my shoulder was burning in agony. I nearly dropped her when Alex reached around and took her from me. He was stark naked, of course.
“Amber, where are you hit?” I realized he’d asked me a couple of times and just shook my head and pointed urgently back the way he’d come.
“Jen. Hospital,” I said, trying not to cough. My back and chest felt like they were in a vise.
“Come on then,” he said, running back to where the walkway came in from the warehouse. I jammed my left arm into my harness to keep it still, then I slid the BFG back into the holster, picked up the MP5, and ran after him. Any more of Hoben’s men that looked like regaining their feet I shot without a second thought.
In the warehouse, David took off down the stairs and reached the ground floor first. He started up a forklift truck that had escaped the carnage. Alex and Jen got on board and David raced it out the shattered doors and back up past the gatehouse.
“Pia!” I tossed her Alex’s clothes from the stairs. “Go! Make sure they’re all right,” I yelled.
I sprinted across the warehouse, nearly slipping on spreading pools of gas and diesel, down the passage to the factory. At the end was Paul. He was backstop, there to stay in touch with the others in Group 1 and hold their escape route open.
I slid to a halt beside him. “This is a trap. We’ve got Jen. Get them back, now.”
He touched the comms unit in his ear. “They heard that, they’re coming,” he replied. As he spoke, Jason appeared, shuffling backwards and limping, his gun wavering, but covering routes that an attack might come down. Beyond him I could see Bian, carrying an unconscious Tom, running back to us.
I shoved Jason and Paul back towards the warehouse with my good elbow. Jason’s front was slick with blood, and I knew it was bad.
“I’ve got it here,” I said. “Go. Go. Go.”
Men emerged behind Bian and I fired the MP5 on full automatic at them, one handed, not bothering to aim. Bullets ricocheted off the factory machines. A few found their targets. One magazine empty, I held the gun between my knees, ripped the magazine out and slammed the next in, my last one. Bian passed me and I backpedaled after her.
More of them were coming. My tactic had worked. Being attacked from the warehouse, they simply forgot that they could get out and surround us. It worked, but I had a big problem now. I needed to disengage and get the hell out without them being right behind me.
I ran into the warehouse and waited at the end of the passage, just out of sight. All the rest of the team were clear of the warehouse now. Soon, they’d be driving back towards the turnoff. It would all go perfectly; I would run out and leap aboard and we would drive away.
Never works like that.
I slung the MP5 over my shoulder. Time to change tactics. When the first of Matlal’s men were about halfway down the passage, heart-stoppingly close, I tossed a fragmentation grenade in among them. With the explosion concentrated in the confined spaces of the passage, the results were appalling, but I didn’t stop to see. I fired the BFG blindly down the passage and ran.
As I cleared the gatehouse I could see that some of them had figured out what they should be doing. They were coming out of the factory. But then they made the mistake of running straight across the parking lot at me.
They had no cover and, even one-handed, I can fire an MP5 accurately enough.
But I couldn’t keep that going. I was nearly out of ammunition and some of them would eventually figure out they should be going around the containers and outflanking me. Even without that, in another minute they’d all come boiling out and swarm me.
Pia and Paul and Bian had to be at the van by now, but it was too late for me. My breath rasped in my throat and my left arm and shoulder felt as if they were on fire. I couldn’t run. It was over. At least Matlal’s men would concentrate on me and the rest would get away.
I held the MP5 more firmly and scanned for the first of Matlal’s troops to break cover. I’d take a bunch of them with me.
It was dark and the rain was falling heavily now, so she was able to walk up to me without my noticing.
“Tullah,” I shouted when I finally realized she was there. “Get out of here! Get to the van.”
She stood there, ignoring me and the rain cascading down her face, her eyes focused on the warehouse.
“I’ll hold them. Go! Go!” I yelled, my voice fading.
She didn’t move, except to frown. Then her hands, clenched in fists, lifted straight out from her sides. The night writhed above her, spiraling, slick and huge and reaching up into the clouds.
I sprayed shots across at the factory doors. A group was gathering there, working themselves up to race across that deadly open space again.
My hair streamed upwards. Tullah and I were standing at the heart of a miniature tornado. Winds buffeted us, screeching and gibbering, trying to lift us off our feet. A tho
usand gleaming scales shimmered above our heads, coiling and turning. We glowed a strange electric blue, and by its light, I could see Tullah’s face panicking. Whatever it was she thought she was doing with her freaking dragon, it wasn’t working.
Bian’s van was coming. The Ford was following.
“Kaothos!” I shouted. “Stop it.”
I reached out to push Tullah away towards the road.
Like pushing my arm into a bees’ nest.
I touched her.
My shoulders were on fire, my skin felt as if it was rippling. Tullah’s eyes went wide and staring like a madwoman. Fat hissing bolts of brilliant blue lightning crackled and stung. And she opened her hands.
The buildings exploded.
As far away as we were, we were still lifted right off our feet and thrown into the road.
The van squealed to a halt, and David dragged us into the back.
I looked up. All three buildings were gone. There was no sign of anyone alive down there.
Of course, we had run riot through the place, firing guns and tossing grenades around. The Mack truck’s fuel tank had split. So had those box vans’. Something must have started burning and it had cooked the ammunition we’d covered in builder’s foam. That must have been what caused the explosion. Or maybe a lightning strike, I told myself.
The back of the van was painfully bright and Alex was using the emergency medical equipment. Seeing Jen, Tom and Jason lying there cleared my mind of the fog of the last few minutes, and I knelt down to see if I could help, shucking my equipment off and making the guns safe.
Alex was examining Jen, his hands sure and gentle with experience. I understood what he was doing and didn’t want to interrupt, so I turned to the other two.
Bian was attending to Tom, in her Athanate style, head bent over him. He’d been hit several times in the leg and arm, but there wasn’t enough blood to indicate any artery damage. It could have been a different story if he’d been shot with one of the assault rifles that we’d destroyed. The shock of the bullets passing through his body could have destroyed vital organs. As it was, I guessed he would live, and with Athanate healing, he’d be as good as new.