“FAE coming in!” Sharon’s voice was calm and crisp over their headsets above the gunfire as Cecil continued pouring rounds into the hole. Another vampire emerged, its skin and clothes and hair smoldering from the grenade blast. Cecil consolidated his fire on it for a moment, driving it back into the darkness. The 5.56 millimeter rounds blasted its left arm and shoulder into shreds.
Acheson took up his shotgun again and shouldered Cecil aside as the abomination thrashed its way back to the surface, howling and spitting. He fired burst after burst into it, the AA-12 jerking in his hands, driving it back down into the hole. It howled with every shot, losing ground to the force of the shotgun’s onslaught, until finally it fell backwards into the roiling smoke.
The AA-12’s trigger locked—it was empty. Acheson dropped it again and tore his MP-5 from its carry rig. Cecil resumed firing into the darkness, the reports of his SAW echoing throughout the shaft.
“FAE comin through!” Nacho yelled from behind them. “Acheson, toss a grenade, man!”
Acheson pulled another grenade from his belt, armed it, and tossed it into the hole. It would hold them at bay long enough for the team to make its escape... or so he hoped.
“Fire in the hole!”
THOOMP! The mineshaft shuddered again, and more foul-smelling smoke roiled out of the hole. Cecil continued firing, his lips moving soundlessly, the sweat trickling from his bald head, rolling down his cheeks and onto the casing of his NVGs. The tracers disappeared into the smoke like comets into a black hole.
Acheson felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Sharon, who along with Julia carried the fifty-pound fuel air explosive that would put the vampires below to sleep for eternity.
Acheson emptied his MP-5 into the hole before he stepped aside. Sharon and Julia dumped the FAE into the pit. It was already armed, its timer winding down from 20 seconds.
“Fall back!” Acheson shouted.
The team retreated from the mineshaft, with Cecil as rear guard, firing at yet another demonic abomination as it scrabbled out of the hole. It scurried after them, mindless of the bullets that tore at it, blasting away fragments of its anatomy. Cecil’s M249 ran empty, and the big man had no choice but to run as fast as he could. Pausing to rearm would bring certain death.
“Hey, a little help here!” he shouted when he felt the vampire’s claws rake his back.
Acheson dropped back, drawing his last firearm, a SigArms P220. He emptied the entire magazine of .45 caliber rounds into the creature, catching it with a neat grouping that would have made even the most seasoned Delta Force trooper proud. The assault merely slowed down the vampire, but gave Cecil time to bolt past Acheson with his spent M249 SAW hanging from his shoulder by its patrol strap.
“Thanks,” the big black man gasped while running like hell. Acheson was right behind him. The mouth of the mineshaft loomed closer, and as the two men bore down on it, a figure stepped into the gloom. It was Ellenshaw.
“Ellenshaw, get the fuck out of here!” Acheson yelled. He could hear the vampire snarling, only milliseconds behind him. No time to reload, no time to fight, but plenty of time for Acheson to die thirty feet from the safety of bright sunlight.
Ellenshaw raised his weapon, an M4 carbine equipped with an M203 grenade launcher mounted beneath the barrel. Ellenshaw squared himself and firmed his grip on the M203’s trigger.
“Mark, move to your right!” he shouted as Cecil passed him.
Acheson did as he was told, his right shoulder contacting one of the wooden supports that held up the mine’s ceiling. At the same time, a dull thump reached his ears as the M203 spat out its 40-millimeter round in an explosion of sparks. The projectile zoomed past Acheson like a freight train hurtling along at 250 feet per second. There was a startled choke behind Acheson as the round impacted its target, followed by frantic screaming as light flared. Ellenshaw had hit the vampire with a phosphorous round.
Acheson grabbed Ellenshaw’s shoulder, dragging the older man with him as he ran into the brassy, late-afternoon sunlight. From the mineshaft, the burning vampire shrieked like a banshee. Acheson yanked his NVGs off his face.
“Gud damn it!” Cecil howled, tearing the ammo box off the SAW. His NVGs were pushed up on his head. “I almost crapped my pants!” he said as Acheson dragged Ellenshaw away from the mineshaft.
“Did you drop the FAE?” Ellenshaw asked, stumbling along.
“Damn right,” Acheson panted. “Cover, everyone!” He pushed the older man to the ground behind a cluster of rocks, then landed on top of him. Acheson clasped his hands behind his head and hunkered down, making himself as small as possible. Beside him, Sharon did the same.
God smote the earth with a hammer.
The ground undulated beneath them as the FAE exploded, sending seismic energy radiating through the desert with the force of a tsunami, dislodging rock and dust. The entire hillside surrounding the mineshaft rose up a few feet, then slammed downwards like an abandoned building during a demolition, spewing dust and rock amidst a sound like a thunderclap. Fissures opened in the earth around the mine, including one good-sized sink hole that had lain dormant for ages. Acheson squirmed as pebbles and rocks and even a few small boulders rained down around them.
Eventually the thunder died away, leaving in its wake a dissipating cloud of filth and the sounds of settling earth.
Acheson coughed and pushed himself off of Ellenshaw. His NVGs were destroyed, the tubes smashed. He tossed them aside and shook Ellenshaw’s shoulder.
“Robert? You okay?”
Ellenshaw groaned and turned over. Blood welled from a cut in the center of his forehead. Acheson helped him into a sitting position with one hand, the other going for the first aid kit in his knapsack. At the same time, he looked for the rest of his team.
“Everyone all right? Sound off!”
Through the settling dust came coughing replies. “A fuckin boulder landed on my weapon,” Cecil reported. “Barrel’s twisted like a pretzel!”
“Too bad it wasn’t your head,” Nacho said, clambering to his feet. He inspected his MP-5 for damage.
Acheson pulled a bandage from his medical kit and pressed it against Ellenshaw’s forehead.
“Hold that here,” he said. “You’re bleeding.” With that, he pushed to his feet and trotted back toward the mine.
The hillside was a sunken, misshapen mass riddled with fissures. A fuel air explosive was the most powerful non-nuclear weapon made, ideal for blasting a landing strip in a dense jungle or collapsing an underground bunker. They were dangerous weapons to employ, but the nature of the team’s work sometimes left them with few options. Anything in the blast would be instantly immolated. Which was exactly the point.
Still... Doubt was something Acheson had learned to live with, but the nagging worry in the back of his mind was strong enough to give birth to a new breed of caution.
“Let’s take a look around and make sure we’re good to go,” he said.
“I agree,” Ellenshaw added. “This is too important to just walk away from with nothing to show for it but high hopes.”
Acheson sighed, irritated by Ellenshaw’s presence even more now that the action was over.
They spent the next thirty minutes poking around the area, looking for hidden entrances, exits, or hide sites. The lack of a search dog made it more difficult—Acheson felt another twinge of regret at the loss of Zeke—but the humans were no less apt at ferreting out the telltale clues using methods other than scent. Communication with the TOC was fruitless, and Helena offered nothing substantive. Acheson regarded the collapsed mineshaft, mindful of the fading daylight. He felt worry squirming about in his gut, but there was nothing to validate it.
“It’s never easy, is it?”
Acheson turned around. A few feet behind him stood Ellenshaw, his hands on his hips, the bloodied bandage crumpled in one fist. He also surveyed the flattened hillock before them, his expression a rueful one.
“I used to do this, before you came on board
. Not as artfully, and never with such great skill, but I’ve sent a few of these... things... back to Hell on occasion. And I always had a hard time believing a mission was truly complete.”
“You ever blow one?”
Ellenshaw studied him for a moment. “A containment operation? No... never, thank God. Though there were times when I was certain I had.”
Acheson motioned toward what remained of the mine. “I halfway want to dig everything up and make sure.”
Ellenshaw nodded slowly. “I understand the feeling.”
Sharon approached. She held her MP-5 in both hands, a combat stance that communicated to Acheson her uneasiness as clearly as a flashing neon sign advertised the location of a roadside diner.
“Area is secure,” she reported. “No fortified exits or hide sites, no evidence of foot or vehicular traffic that didn’t originate with us.”
Acheson checked his watch. “Okay... let’s boogie. Follow-on attack is scheduled to commence in a little over an hour. We need to be way clear before then.” The follow-on attack would be conducted by U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle fighter-bombers carrying Longrod Penetrators, a munition that had been introduced during the 1991 Gulf War. An effective weapon, it had decimated scores of deeply buried Iraqi bunkers. On paper, their combat effectiveness stood at nearly 100%.
“Let’s saddle up, people!” Sharon said over the radio net. “We’re done here!”
The team retreated to the Humvees.
CHAPTER 3
The sun touched the peaks of the mountains to the west, bathing them in a halo of fiery orange. While Cecil drove, Acheson regarded the mountaintops from behind his sunglasses as the Humvee bounced across the desert, retracing its path to the TOC. No one spoke; there was nothing to be said. The job was done until they heard otherwise. The only thing left now was for them to get comfortable with it and perhaps celebrate the fact they had survived it. Acheson rubbed his face with one hand. Gritty sand clung to it. He had tried to scrub it off, but with no success.
“Fast movers on the left,” Cecil noted.
Acheson leaned forward and looked through the windshield, catching a glimpse of the two F-15E Strike Eagles as they slid past at 15,000 feet, their tapered noses pointed in the direction from which the two Humvees had come. Acheson had no idea what arrangements the group had made with the Air Force. More than likely, the Air Force was given a cover story, just like everyone else. Maybe they’d been told Al Qaeda had an underground hideout in the Arizona desert. Whatever worked. Acheson leaned back in his seat.
His radio headset crackled to life.
“Six, this is TOC. Steel on target,” George Sanders said over the radio. “Strike flight reports steel on target.”
“TOC, this is Six. Roger that. It’s a wrap. Start packing up. We’ll be onsite in ten minutes, over.”
“Roger that, Six. TOC, out.”
Acheson closed his eyes for a moment as the vehicle continued to hurtle across the desert at a good forty-five miles an hour. He felt the tension slowly draining out of him, leaving in its wake a jittery kind of exhaustion. He yearned to be back in Los Angeles, and the feeling made him smile. One of the most violent cities in the world, and Acheson felt safe there.
“Hey, Nacho.” Acheson looked over his shoulder. Nacho Delgado sat in the left rear bucket seat. “Zeke was tops, man. You did a fantastic job with that dog, and he went out doing exactly what you taught him. I’ve got to thank you for that. Without your dogs, some of us might be tits-up back there.”
“Thanks, man.”
“But one thing—stop getting attached to them.” Acheson nudged his sunglasses up on his nose. “Easy say, hard do, but that’s what’s got to happen. You started freaking back there, and I don’t want to see that again. Dogs I’m willing to part with. People I’m not. You reading me on this, Nacho?”
“I hear you, man,” Nacho responded softly.
Acheson pulled his SigArms P220 from its holster. He made sure there was a round in the pipe and that the hammer had been decocked. Just busywork. Something to keep his mind off the forlornness in Nacho Delgado’s voice.
Ten minutes later, the Winnebago RV came into view. It lay in deep shadow, as the sun was only a fiery afterglow on the horizon.
“TOC, this is Six. Crank it up and turn around, we’re getting out of Dodge. Over.” There was no response, and the RV did not move as instructed. Acheson frowned. What the hell, were the radios fritzed now?
“TOC, this is Six. You copy my last? Over.”
Cecil slowed the Humvee. “What the fuck?”
Acheson leaned forward. The door to the RV stood wide open, sagging on its torn hinges.
“Guns, guns, guns!” Acheson said over the radio. “Shake at the TOC!”
Cecil accelerated again and cranked the Humvee’s steering wheel hard to the left, sending up a cloud of dust as he veered away from the RV.
“Muthafuck!” he snarled. “We was almost gone!”
“Go around back,” Acheson told him. Over the radio: “Five, this is Six. You guys take the front, we’re coming in from the rear, over.”
Sharon’s reply was terse. “Roger that.”
From the back seat came the sounds of metal-on-metal as safeties were clicked off and weapons were cycled. Nacho and Julia were ready. Acheson pulled his MP-5 from its tactical carry harness and charged it up. Cecil flipped on the Humvee’s lights as he charged past the RV and fishtailed to a halt thirty feet behind it. Acheson, Julia, and Nacho bailed out immediately.
“Cecil, stay with the vehicle!” Acheson ordered the instant his boots hit the ground. “Keep an eye out!”
“Damn straight,” Cecil shot back. He already had his two-tone Colt 10mm in his right hand.
“Five, dismount and take up overwatch positions while we go in. Leave Ellenshaw in the Humvee, over.”
The second Humvee slid to a halt, kicking up another cloud of dust. Its doors flew open, and before Sharon Thomas could respond, Robert Ellenshaw flung himself out of the vehicle and ran toward the RV as fast as he could. Behind him, Chiho Hara struggled to chase him down. Acheson swore to himself as he ran.
He got to the RV first and flattened against the side of the vehicle next to the door. Ellenshaw pounded up and did the same, his jaw set, breathing hard and fast. The two men regarded each other for a moment before Acheson held up a hand and signaled that he would go in first. Ellenshaw nodded and shouldered his M4.
Acheson sprung into the doorway, his MP-5 at the ready. The disemboweled remains of George Sanders lay draped across the threshold, his eyes wide and staring and full of dust. His neck had been torn open, the hallmark of feeding ghouls. Acheson stepped on the body—there was no other way—and hurled himself into the RV. Two other bodies in similar condition lay inside. Their blood was splattered across the expensive radio consoles and the rubber-matted floor. Heather Jensen and Philip Mack had been happy people in life. They had departed it anything but.
Acheson checked the small bathroom and found it empty. The sleeping area was also vacant, the twin-sized bed unrumpled. No one had been attacked back here. Everything had gone down out in the RV’s salon.
“Where is she?”
Ellenshaw stood in the salon near the radios, and Acheson could tell his panic was cresting. Julia crept in behind him, all business. She looked over George’s body first, then at Heather and Philip. She pulled the Beretta 92F pistol from Philip’s right hand and sniffed it, then toed a single cartridge with her right foot.
“One round from Phil,” she said. “George and Heather’s weapons are still holstered.”
“Where is she?” Ellenshaw asked again, louder this time. “Where’s Helena?”
“She might’ve escaped,” Julia said. “She might be hiding nearby—”
Ellenshaw pushed past her, almost knocking Julia on her ass as he bolted out the door. “Helena! Helena!”
Julia straightened her gear and looked at Acheson, her lips compressed into a tight line. Acheson nodded.
If the TOC team had gotten off only one round, then the chances Helena Rubenstein had somehow escaped the carnage and made it to safety were on the high side of astronomical.
“Five, this is Six.”
“Go ahead, Six.”
“TOC team is dead, Rubenstein is missing. Your team’s with Ellenshaw, but don’t go too far. Over.”
A pause. “Roger that, Six. Breaking station, over.”
“Roger. Six out.”
Julia watched Acheson as he headed for the door. “What’s the plan?”
“We stick to procedure. We clean up and get out of here.”
“We’re just going to...” Julia shrugged her shoulders after a moment, and Acheson reached out and touched her arm.
“The ROE’s clear on this, Jules. Help me with Sanders.”
The two of them lugged the corpse into the RV. When they were finished, Acheson stepped outside and hurried to Cecil’s Humvee. Ellenshaw, Sharon, and Chiho were a hundred yards away. The older man was still calling out for Helena.
“What’s the deal?” Cecil asked when Acheson walked up. “Rubenstein’s gone?”
Acheson opened the right rear door and pulled out a box from beneath the seat. It held six body bags. He opened it and counted out three, then closed the box and put it back.
“Stay sharp. We’ll be leaving in about ten minutes.” Acheson scooped up the body bags and slammed the door shut.
“What about Rubenstein?” Cecil called after him.
Acheson didn’t answer. He loped back to the RV, body bags under one arm, MP-5 in his free hand.
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