by Gary Hickman
Priest smirked, “Body slammed her into the closet, locked it, then kicked the shit out of the lieutenant. Kind of fucked his face up pretty bad, broke some ribs. His left arm looked a little wonky too. Oh, yeah… and fractured his collarbone.”
“Was she worth fighting over?”
“Ah, hell no. I wasn’t fighting over that bitch. I was just pissed that he was in my house, sweating on my sheets, eating my food and worst of all, drinking my good bourbon, mother fucker! Probably would be Sargent Major by now. You? Any eunuch’s out there courtesy of Ms. Dahan?”
She smiled, “No, nothing like that. I don’t have to deal with assholes like that. I’m a lesbian and my partner respects me better than that.”
Priest’s eyes went side, “Oh, sorry, I didn’t know.”
She watched him fumble for a couple of seconds, then burst out laughing, “Hahaha, just kidding.”
“Damn, you got my pressure all up,” he said with his hand on his chest.
She was still laughing, “Sorry. No, I have had a couple long relationships, and I also was engaged once. We had been together for three years and as soon as he put the engagement ring on my finger, he changed. Became controlling, losing his temper. We got into a pretty heated argument one time in which he put his hands on me.”
“Ooh, I bet that worked out well for him.”
“Yeah, his arm never really set right after that.”
“Damn!”
“Yeah, they had to wheel him out on a gurney.”
“Wow.” Priest was shaking his head. They both laughed and turned to check on the progress of the team.
Several minutes later, they were in the air, hooked up to the Humvee sling load and were on their way to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
CHAPTER 25
Based on the last tracking data Harwell had on the ISIS faction, they should arrive in Philly in approximately four hours. The team had calculated this after infill, three blocks away from the objective location.
Priest had the team assembled around him, “Ok, let’s go over the plan one more time. Lia, you’re in the building across the street to provide sniper support and overview. I will cover the back door; Shaw and Doc will breech the front door.”
Priest’s team was in place and sighted in on the target building. It was a dilapidated warehouse which covered half a city block, lengthwise. It was about 100 feet wide and wedged in by other buildings of the same condition. The area was one of older industrial areas in the city with rust covered metal surfaces and windows were near impossible to see through due to the dirt covering them.
The wind was blowing slightly which rattled loose roof tin, chains, wall panels and debris across the pavement. This made it hard to make out sounds they could associate with the targets. Again, here they were; shitty intel that they couldn’t completely trust, not enough time to survey the area to come up with an action plan and an incomplete team to execute. This situation pissed Priest off the most, but being what it was, he just needed to overcome and adapt.
Lia was in position on the roof of an adjacent warehouse. She had a 180-degree view on two sides of the building. They chose Shaw and Doc to breech, while Priest was covering the alternate entrance. Shaw, Doc and Priest were off the street and hiding in the shadows, waiting for targets to show. The team had been set for close to an hour.
“Father, this is Overwatch”. The Team voted to approve that callsign for Lia. They tossed a few others around, but Overwatch got the most votes.
“Copy Overwatch.”
“We have vehicles approaching and I’m not sure if they are coming to the target building, but will call out anyway. Four vehicles in single file, all Suburban’s windows are tinted black, so I can’t make out several occupants.”
“Copy. We will stay out of site in case things go sideways.”
“Ok, Father. They are coming to our target building.”
“Copy that.” “Cotton, give me a sit rep as soon as you make your assessments.”
“Copy, roll-up door is opening with three targets inside. All are packing MP5’s. Can’t see any farther into the building and still can’t see into any of the vehicles.”
“Ok, let’s assume they are full, meaning there is a lot of beef to wade through. We will have Overwatch take out targets before they enter the building. If not, we lose her support. Overwatch, you are cleared to engage as soon as you assess individual targets.”
“Shaw, Doc, as soon as she pops the targets, run in and eliminate as many as you can. I will see if I can breech this back door.”
The vehicles pulled up near the warehouse and stopped. Pop! The vehicle’s driver window shattered, and the driver slumped over the steering wheel with the left side of his face and head missing. The occupants screamed, and there was apparent movement from inside the vehicles.
Shaw answered their shouts with the indistinct repeating sound of his M48 sending .50 cal lead wrapped death into the vehicle. Priest could hear the sounds of destruction as he made his way to enter the backside of the warehouse. The pedestrian door was locked, so lowered his M4 and blew the doorknob off.
Lia witnessed Priest enter the warehouse as she fired on the front vehicle. Her shot went through the driver’s window, snapping his head to the side toward the passenger. Blood, brains and skull fragments peppered the passenger. He was in shock and was trying to wipe the gore off his face when a round entered his neck and took the right side of his jaw off. Blood spurted from his neck like an open fire hydrant on a sweltering day in New York City.
The occupants exited the vehicles to return fire. Half were dressed in suits and half were dressed in khaki fatigues with black shirts. They possessed higher end automatic weapons. Most were not the picture of ISIS seen on the news, but were dressed to better mingle around the US. They were exiting the opposite side from where Shaw was laying down fire, which put them in Doc’s line of fire.
“Frag out,” Doc yelled. The grenade exited his M203 and landed at the feet of the men scrambling out of the second truck in line. BOOM! The explosion drowned out the screams of the ISIS members as Priest entered the door into the darkened back of the warehouse. He could see the opened roll-up door with the light flooding in. Shaw saw the three men position themselves on either side of the door, taking cover. Four other men were coming out of an office from the right side, running to join the other three.
Priest thought this would be an excellent time to make his presence known. He loaded his M203 with a grape shot grenade. “Everyone down. Grape shot down range,” Priest yelled into his squad comms. Shaw and Doc took cover. Foomp! Priest launched the grenade then took cover behind an office wall built out of cinder block.
The grenade exploded, sending large metal ball bearings screaming into the combatants standing by the door. They met the several members who were running for cover inside the building with an explosion that took them off their feet. At virtually the same time, multiple projectiles slammed into their chests, face and legs. What splattered to the ground was mangled viscera, unrecognizable limbs and jutting bones. Priest searched the rest of the warehouse for additional ISIS members.
“Holee Shit,” Doc yelled. “That really fucked them up.” There were a few others who were caught by the blast, rolling on the ground, moaning. The third truck’s windows exploded out as the occupants began firing blindly, just trying to lie down enough suppressive fire to allow them to escape into the building.
Priest came over the comms, “Team, we need to snag some prisoners so we can interrogate these fucks!”
Shaw yelled, “Cease fire, cease fire. Ok you fucks, exit the vehicles with your hands up. Now!” Shaw repeated the commands in Farsi and Arabic. Priest made his way to the front of the warehouse as the
team had the trucks covered in all directions. There were yells from inside the vehicles in Farsi, “to not shoot”.
Shaw continued, “Throw out your weapons and then exit the vehicle (in Farsi.)”. A few MP5’s and pistols came flying out the window. “Exit the vehicle slowly, with your hands up and lay face down on the ground (Farsi.)” The doors on the last two trucks opened and four middle eastern men slowly got out of the vehicle. Two on the left side, two on the right. “I don’t see anyone left in those two vehicles, but I am seeing slight movement in the front one.”
“Lia, report.” Priest directed.
“I have the front vehicle covered and I see movement.”
Priest reloaded a grenade in his M203. “You in the front vehicle, get out now!” Priest yelled in Farsi. There was no movement to exit the vehicle. Priest thought he saw the occupants readying their weapons for an assault. “Times up!” he said.
Priest fired 5.56mm rounds into the windshield and it broke like a spider web with an enormous hole in the middle. He then launched a 40mm grenade into the vehicle through the front windshield. Men were screaming and the sounds of scrambling until…. BOOM! The remaining windows blew out followed by a shower of blood and viscera, ravaged body parts, intestines and the shredded torsos of the men hung out the shattered windows.
This immediately influenced those in the last two vehicles to exit with a renewed vigor. They all exited, threw out weapons and immediately dropped to the ground on their face with their hands behind their heads. Doc, Priest and Shaw closed in while maintaining cover on the men lying on the ground. One man made a quick move to the back of his waistband. He got his hand behind his back before a round entered through his right eye and removed the back of skull.
“You dumb fucks, we have a sniper trained on you. Make a move and die. Check them.” Priest covered the men while Shaw and Doc searched them. They found a few blades and a snub nose .357 magnum.
One man was bitching the entire time, so Priest kneeled down and spoke to him. He keyed his comms so the team could hear. “Hey goat fucker,” Priest slapped him a couple times to get his attention, “You know your piece of shit friend over there, the one with the back of his skull laying all over the ground? Well, I am sure you would be happy to know that the sniper that killed him is an Israeli. Actually, that sniper is an Israeli woman!”
The man struggled and spit on the ground. Priest knew this would really piss these guys off. The man who spat on the ground began calling Lia all kinds of derogatory names. Priest reached over and bounced the man’s face off the pavement, knocking out several teeth and breaking his nose.
Shaw and Doc had just finished cuffing the remaining men with zip ties, when Lia came over the comms. “Priest, we have infected coming our way. They must have heard all the fun. I got approximately two dozen, maybe a few more, about four blocks to the northwest. They are between us and our Humvee, so we lost our transport out of here.”
“Do you have a shot if we need you to buy us sometime?”
“I will in a few minutes.” Lia answered.
“Okay, we can’t wait for exfil. Shaw, check these vehicles and see if one is still operational.”
Priest kneeled down to one of the other men, “Who is in charge of your little glee club, here?” The man looked around. He slapped the man, “Who is running the show for you assholes?” The man looked over at the guy whose nose Priest just broke. “Excellent, we are only dealing with two of you.” Priest then pulled his Walther PPQ and shot the other five of the remaining men in the head.
“Sarge, we got one vehicle here in great shape,” Shaw yelled.
“Ok, great. Lia, come on down and let’s roll out.”
Priest and Doc loaded the two ISIS members in the truck as Lia came running over to them. “Where is the virus?” Priest barked at the leader. The guy just looked at him. Priest busted the guy in the mouth with the barrel of his pistol, knocking a couple more teeth out. The other squirrelly guy talked nervously and fast and told him it was in the second truck.
Priest ran over and pulled out a medium-sized hard-shell case. He ran back to the running truck just as Lia got there. She loaded her sniper rifle in the back as Priest dropped the case in. He looked at her, “You want to ride shotgun or you want babysitting duty?” She walked over to look in the back seat at the two ISIS members. They noticed her look at them and they glared back in disgust.
“Oh, I’ll take babysitting duty.”
“I thought you would say that.” They both laughed as they got in and the truck. Shaw pulled out of the warehouse area and headed southwest.
The ISIS leader seemed to have calmed down some. The woman sitting next to him with a pistol leveled against his temple seemed to have subdued him. Priest didn’t know which was deadlier, the gun pointed at him or the stare Lia had locked on him. He was laughing on the inside but didn’t let a smile come to his mouth as he was turned around looking at the leader.
“Where did you guys get the virus from?” The man didn’t answer. “Look, I don’t have time for your bullshit, so either answer my questions or I will fuck you up six ways to Sunday. It’s just that simple, so I will repeat. Where did you get the virus from?” He waited a couple minutes, and the man said nothing. Priest quickly pulled his combat knife and sliced the man’s knee deep into the joint cartilage just below the kneecap. The man screamed in pain, his eyes teared up and looked like he was getting dizzy.
Priest slapped him, “Don’t pass out on me. That cut I just gave you is extremely painful, but since I went into the joint cartilage there is almost no bleeding. That way, you suffer extreme pain, but you won’t bleed out. Cool, huh? Now, we can go at this for as long as you want, but I will get the information I want. Again, where did you get it the fucking virus?” Nothing. Priest drove the pommel of the knife in the middle of the man’s chest just enough to crack his sternum in half. The man screamed in agony.
“Whew, now I know that mother fucker seriously hurt…... hell, I can feel it over here. With that broken sternum, it will hurt to move, breathe, talk, sleep, you name it. You care to answer me now?”
The man tried to take a deep breath and winced in pain. “I give you nothing.” Priest shot his knife out and took out the man’s right eye.
He screamed, “Go ahead and kill me.”
Priest chuckled, “Oh no, I wouldn’t do that. That would be cruel.” He shot out and punched the man in his broken sternum. The man howled in pain, and Priest asked again. No answer.
“Stop the fucking car,” Priest commanded. He got out and Lia slid out. He pulled the man out and threw him on the ground. “You tell me where you got the virus and I’ll kill you quick and painless. If not, I will blind you right here and leave you for the infected.”
The man thought for a second, “Ok, ok. I tell you and you send me to Allah. We stole the virus from the lab in southeast Turkey.”
“Ok, what happened with all these people turning into monsters? I thought the virus was just supposed to make people able to control.”
“It was, but the collection of scientists that were working on it, changed the formula into effecting the basic impulses of the brain. The virus isolates the violent impulses and brings them to their consciousness. It blocks all other emotional receptors including fear, compassion, pain and others.” The man was struggling to talk with the pain he was in.
“How did it get released?”
“One canister was damaged on the journey from Turkey. When we took it on the plane and airports, it leaked out and spread the virus quickly to all parts of the world.”
“Was it your plan to decimate the entire planet?”
“No, things went wrong because the release was to be controlled.”
“Ye
ah, no shit.” Priest spit as he shot his blade out and took out the man’s other eye. The man screamed at the top of his lungs.
Priest kicked him in his face. He then turned and walked back to the truck.
“No, no. Where are you going?” The man screamed, “You are to kill me, you will do it now!”
Priest yelled over his shoulder, “You’re blind and there is nothing out here that can kill you, yet. The infected ‘ll find you and they’ll eat you alive or you will slowly die of starvation. One way or another, you will die a slow, painful death. So, have a delightful day and go fuck yourself.”
Lia spit in his face as she walked by to the truck. “You fucking whore. How dare you spit on me, you fucking Jewish pig!” The truck drove off with him screaming and cursing. As the engine drowned out the curses, Priest leaned back in his seat, closed his eyes and a smile crept over his face. An equally enormous smile crept on Lia’s face as she leaned back in her seat.
CHAPTER 26
Webb spoke into his helmet’s microphone to Doug and Allison. “Have you been able to raise anyone at the CDC compound?”
“Negative,” Allison responded. “How do we even know this place is still viable?”
“We don’t, but we still may be out of range.”
Doug added, “We are still 60 miles out.”
“Ok, keep trying.” “Doctor, what do you think you’ll find there?”
“I am hoping they have samples or maybe even an infected cadaver. If we can reverse engineer the virus, then hopefully that will allow us to produce an antidote. If Priest’s team can acquire the sample of the original viral strain, that would make it much easier and quicker.”
“Got it.”
“Captain,” Allison’s voice reached Webb through his helmet, “We have contacted the CDC compound and they are expecting the doctor and preparing to receive us.”