47 Echo (5 page)

Though the Cougar was designed to roll on broken terrain, it was a hell of a lot of fun to drive on the roads. Nick’s enjoyment of the huge truck’s power was short-lived though, at least for the moment, as he only had to drive it to the airport to be picked up for the next leg of 47 Echo’s journey.

Irkutsk—formerly Area November—was several days’ drive away across the vast unknown of Siberia, and the bosses wanted the Aero found fast. Nick and his crew would be hitching a ride on an old CH-47 Chinook helicopter, which would wing them a couple hundred miles to the Southeast at an impressive one hundred ninety-five miles an hour. Then, fifty miles north of the city they’d recently escaped, the Chinook would drop them off. If 47 Echo found anything worth saving, the Chinook would be back to pick them up. If not…well, Nick figured, he’d have plenty of time to get to know his unit on the long drive back.

“Raise the chopper on the radio, Chris. Let ‘em know we’re on the way,” Nick said to Christopher, who was riding shotgun.

“Right on. Phantom 1-1, this is Cougar 4-7 Echo.”

“We copy, 4-7 Echo. You fellas need a lift?”

Nick saw the rotors on the huge chopper spinning up as the Cougar crested a small hill. “If you’re going our way, 1-1 Phantom.”

“Roger that, 4-7 Echo. Give us one minute, and we’ll be happy to let you tag along.”

“We copy,” Christopher said as he terminated the connection.

Through the front windshield of the Cougar, Christopher and Nick saw the Chinook take off.

“Wait. Weren’t they supposed to take us with them?” Peter asked from his position behind Christopher’s chair.

As 47 Echo watched, some heavy-duty straps fell from the bottom of the chopper. From a small shed, four convict-uniformed Army soldiers walked out under the hovering chopper. One of them waved the Cougar forward.

“Um…I don’t think we’re riding
in
the chopper, guys,” Nick said as he put the Cougar back into gear and drove where the ground crew directed him. Nick stopped the Cougar when indicated and turned off the engine.

“You don’t mean…” Peter stammered.

“Yeah, I think they do mean exactly that,” Nick nodded as the four-man ground crew started crawling all over the exterior of the Cougar. A few minutes later, one of them pounded on the hood of the truck and gave Nick the thumbs-up. Nick returned the gesture.

“Everybody, I suggest you sit down and hold on to something,” Nick warned.

He could hear his crew scrambling behind him, quickly grabbing onto anything that looked solid. A couple of seconds later, the men of 47 Echo felt the Cougar’s wheels slowly leave the ground. Out the window, they saw the ground start to fall away as the Chinook lifted them into the air.

Nick quickly adjusted to the slight bobbing and swaying of the tow-hitched Cougar, but a couple members of his team weren’t so lucky. One of the new guys, a thin, pale guy named Reggie, was already turning green. Nick really hoped none of them puked—they’d be in the Cougar for a while, and it wasn’t as if they could just crack a window.

“Anthony!” Nick called, turning around in his seat.

“Yeah, boss?”

“Check around, see if we have any water in the truck. Sixteen fifty-nine’s looking a little pale.”

“Sure thing.”

“Reggie? You gonna be all right, newbie? You gonna throw up?” Christopher asked.

Reggie waved his hand. “I’m alright,” he croaked.

“Found some water, boss!” Anthony yelled from the back of the truck.

“Pass it around. Small sips, everyone. We could be living in this truck for days, so let’s conserve as much as possible,” Nick told them.

“Tell you straight, Nick, I’m not loving the hell out of this flight, either,” Christopher said in a low voice. “You sure this is safe?”

“Safe enough for Mecho, I suppose,” Nick said, biting his lower lip. “And at least safe enough for the pilots, who I’m guessing are ‘real’ Army. Unless they’re training convicts that get assigned to Army units a whole lot better than they’re training us.”

Christopher chuckled. “Um…they are. The lower you get on the food chain, the less they train you, and the more dangerous your missions. Guys in the chopper are probably whatever Army’s version of Alpha is.”

“That’s depressing. I think we’ll be fine, though. They’ve done lifts like this thousands of times, and these Chinooks have been around in one form or another since Vietnam.”

“Great. So we’re strapped to a fifty-year-old chopper staffed by convicts. I feel better already.”

Nick tried to ignore the thoughts Christopher had just put into his head as he turned around and addressed his men. “We’ll hit the landing zone in about three hours. If any of you can get some sleep with the noise and the motion, I’d suggest that now’s the time to do so.”

Then Nick himself put his head back against his seat and closed his eyes. In three short breaths, he was out—but he made sure before he fell asleep that the radio in his helmet was switched on.

***

“But I don’t understand why Daddy won’t be home for six months.” Nick pouted. He was four years old, and his mother had just told him that his father, Alex, wouldn’t be able to take him to his first day of school like he’d promised.

“Daddy has a very important job, Nick,” his mother told him. “He’s in the Navy. He’s a SEAL.”

“Daddy’s not a seal. He’s a person.”

He saw the confusion on his mother’s face, saw her holding in laughter while trying to figure out how to explain what his father did for a living.

“Your daddy travels all over the world to help people, Nick. He doesn’t get to choose when he goes, but he always comes back home to us.”

“Okay. But he’s not a seal.”

“All right, honey.”

***

“Phantom 1-1 to Cougar 4-7 Echo,” the radio crackled in his ear.

“Go for 4-7 Echo,” Nick said, waking from his dream instantly but coughing slightly.

“We are now zero-five minutes from the landing zone.”

“Okay.”

“Say again?”

“Sorry. I, uh, copy.”

“Callback for retrieval will be at 0530 local. That gives you four hours, 4-7 Echo.”

“Right. Thanks for the ride, gents.”

“Our pleasure.”

A few moments later, the Cougar’s wheels hit the ground. Nick sent Michael and Peter outside to release the straps and told them to remember what they’d done in case they needed to hook it back up again. It took them less than two minutes to clear the straps, and the Chinook lifted back into the air and vanished into the night.

“All right, guys. Time for a quick drive. Chris, you got the locator on the Aero?” Nick asked as Michael and Peter got back into the truck.

“Yep. Still transmitting. Coordinates are in the nav system.”

“Look alive, folks. I have no idea what we might run into out here, but I’d like not to get killed by it.”

A series of mumbled and grunted affirmatives came from the back of the truck, and Nick started up the engine and headed where the navigation system told him to.

“Hey. You read the manual on this thing, right?” Christopher asked after a few minutes.

“Yeah.”

“I’m not going to blow anything up if I smoke in here, am I?”

“Nah, you’re fine. Light me one while you’re at it.”

Christopher lit two cigarettes and handed one over to Nick. Nick pushed the Cougar up to fifty miles an hour—just shy of the vehicle’s maximum operational speed, but he knew the thing could take it. It could probably hammer up to sixty-five in a pinch, but Nick hoped he didn’t have to test that out. The road was smooth and clear under the Cougar’s wheels, and just for a moment, Nick imagined he was driving a nice, new hydrogen-powered SUV down the Santa Monica Freeway, rather than an armored vehicle full of convicts to God-knew-what.

It only took twenty minutes to reach the Aero’s coordinates. Nick stopped the truck when the nav system told him to. He could see the white UAV about two hundred feet ahead, nose dug into the ground and missing a wing.

“All right, kids. We’re here. I want everyone to load up. I’m assuming most of you know how to shoot a gun. If you don’t, speak up now.”

No one said a word.

“Right, then. Let’s get out there, pull the recorders from the Aero, and get the fuck out of here.”

Gabriel opened up the back doors, and 47 Echo poured out of the truck. Nick opened his door, as well, taking the M4 that Christopher handed down to him.

“You stay here on the radio. Watch the screens for anything that could be, you know, coming to kill us,” Nick said.

Christopher nodded.

“Good luck out there, boss.”

It was seconds after Christopher said those words that automatic gunfire ripped through the air.

“Get down! Cover! Cover!” Nick yelled into his helmet radio. In front of him, he saw his men scatter toward the side of the road, ducking down behind a broken-down Lada Kalina. The eight Mechoes crowded behind the small sedan, which was quickly getting torn up by gunfire. “Chris! Can you see who’s shooting at us?”

“They’re half a klik to the south. I have ‘em on screens now. Six men on foot.”

“Half a kilometer? How the hell are they hitting from that far away?” Nick fired a spray of bullets to the south as he ran to join his men behind the Lada.

“Chinks have some damn good tech. Computer-aided telescopic sights, I think. I’m pulling the Cougar around in front of the UAV—should cover you long enough to yank the memory and the optics.”

The huge armored truck shot past the Lada, spinning to a stop so that its passenger side was facing south. Bullets started pinging off the side of the Cougar.

Nick motioned his men forward. “Quick as you can, guys. I think we have about a minute until they get here.”

Reggie pulled the bottom hatch off the Aero, and Nick saw the inside—jammed with 10-terrabyte hard drives and 500-gigabyte flash memory modules.

“Those, those, and those. Yank ‘em straight out. Don’t worry about ripping any wires loose,” Nick said, pointing to the drives and the flash memory. “Anthony, you’re with me. We’re pulling the optics out of the tail. Ones in the nose were probably smashed when the thing crashed.”

Anthony nodded and followed Nick around to the side of the UAV. The tail was a good eight feet above them.

“See the camera?” Nick yelled over the gunfire bouncing off the nearby Cougar.

“Yep.”

“You’re going to get on my shoulders, then rip it out any way you can.”

“Got it.”

As Anthony climbed onto Nick’s back, then stepped up on his shoulders, Nick radioed back to the Cougar. “How’s the truck holding up, Chris?”

“It could take small-arms fire all day. And these cats are just in range of the big gun up top. Let’s see how they like this,” Christopher radioed back.

Nick heard the M240 on the top of the Cougar swivel right, then start throwing rounds.

“Got two of them,” Christopher said. “Tracking the other four, but they’re splitting up.”

“Range?”

“A hundred meters.”

“Reggie! Mike! Pete! Cover behind the Cougar and start taking out some enemy fire!” Nick yelled down to his men.

The three Mechoes took up positions to the front and rear of the vehicle and started firing.

Anthony hopped down from Nick’s shoulders, the camera in one hand. Gabriel and Kenneth were just stuffing the last of the drives into their packs.

“Um, Nick—hurry.” Christopher’s voice sounded tight.

“Almost there.”

“Get there faster. We have three CDMs inbound, and inbound fast. Forty seconds until they’re in weapons range.”

“CDMs? What the fuck are CDMs?”

“Chinese Death Machines. Remember that mission only I came back from? That was one CDM. We have three. I say again. Hurry the fuck up, boss.”

“Load up! Now!” Nick yelled, throwing open the Cougar’s back door and jumping inside the vehicle. He stuck his arm out to Wes, one of the new convicts, and helped him into the truck. His crew quickly poured into the vehicle. In half a minute, everyone was aboard except Reggie, and Nick held his arm out to the kid. Reggie grabbed it.

Nick barely even heard the noise, a loud high-toned rattle, before Reggie just disintegrated in front of his eyes. Nick fell back into the truck, holding the charred remains of Reggie’s forearm. Kenneth quickly slammed the door shut behind him.

“Chris! Drive this thing!” Nick yelled, tossing the forearm to the floor and running to the command module. Trying not to think about what he’d just seen—a man ripped to nothing by gunfire—he jumped into the passenger seat as Christopher hit the gas. Nick could smell poor Reggie’s blood on his uniform. He shook his head hard and looked straight ahead out the window.
Not the time to fall apart, Nick
.
Hold it together.

Bullets were slamming into the Cougar so fast that it sounded like a torrential thunderstorm on corrugated tin. Christopher slammed the accelerator to the floor, and the Cougar jumped up past sixty.

“How long do you think we can take these bullets?” Nick shouted over the deafening impacts.

“I’d say not long. I think we’re faster than they are, though. Let’s just hope they don’t shred the tires before we can prove that,” Christopher yelled back.

Nick toggled the Cougar’s rear cameras. He needed to see what kind of machine was trying to disintegrate the Cougar as easily as it had vaporized Reggie. The screen flickered to life, and between hits to the bulletproof glass covering the camera lens, Nick caught a glimpse of three dark green vehicles, each about half the size of the Cougar, firing from quadruple GAU-8-style gatling guns mounted to the front. Thanks to the thousands of huge rounds slamming into the back of the Cougar every second, Nick couldn’t get a very clear look, but it did appear that the chase vehicles were falling behind.

“Boss! We got denting back here!” Anthony yelled.

Nick turned around to look at the back of the truck, and saw that the rear door was starting to buckle. “Shit. Everyone, as close to the front of the vehicle as you can get. Chris, if you can push this motherfucker any faster, do it.”

Nick took control of the M240 and spun it around to face the pursuing CDMs. He aimed for the center vehicle and toggled the “fire” switch. He was greeted immediately by a flashing “weapon malfunction” message.

“Gun’s not working,” Nick told Christopher.

“I’d be surprised if it’s still there.” Christopher shrugged.

The bullet impacts slowed a bit, then stopped altogether.

“We’re out of range of their guns, anyway.” Nick sighed.

“Yeah. Now all we have to worry about is rockets,” Christopher said.

“This thing was designed to survive explosions. I hope it’ll still hold up with all the damage we’ve taken.”

“We’re about to find out. Missiles inbound,” Christopher replied as warning sirens blared throughout the truck.

“Everybody hold on to something!” Nick yelled.

The first rocket shot by within inches of the Cougar’s passenger side. The flame from the rocket’s jets lit up the inside of the truck for a half-second as the projectile sailed harmlessly by. He felt the heat of the rocket even through the triple-thick bulletproof window.

“They missed,” Michael breathed.

“They’re more than a half-mile away,” Christopher told them. “Out of visual range. They’re firing on instruments.”

“Then how are they not hitting us? They were tearing the shit out of us on instruments back at the Aero,” Anthony asked.

“They’re shooting at where their instruments predict we’ll be. Pretty tough at sixty-four miles an hour,” Nick said.

“So we’re okay?” Pete asked.

Christopher shook his head. “Those CDMs aren’t short on rockets. Even if they miss with ninety-nine percent of them, we’re still getting hit a couple of times. And I doubt this thing can take even one now that those guns have softened it up.”

“Agreed,” Nick said. “Juke this motherfucker like you’re driving drunk, Chris. Make it as hard for them as possible. The rest of you, get your gear on. We may have to bail out and do it quick.”

“Can’t we just call the helicopter to come get us?” Gabriel asked.

“Nope. We’ve still got more than three hours until they’re in radio range. ‘Sides, those CDMs could rip our ride straight out of the air in half a second. We’ve gotta lose ‘em somehow and get to the extraction point.”

“Talking of, I’m not heading that way anymore. No use leading them to our way out,” Christopher said.

“Good thinking. Where’s the nearest town? Maybe we can lose them in some buildings,” Nick said.

“According to our maps, six miles to the east.”

“Inhabited?”

Christopher shook his head. “Evacuated a month ago.”

“That’s where we’re going, then. Fast as you can manage.”

“Roger that. Um…shit.”

“What?”

“We have a new problem. I’ve got incoming contacts. Ground vehicles. At least ten, coming right at us.”

“Fuck. Looks like we go left or right, then,” Nick said.

“These things are moving fast. We won’t be able to outrun them, too,” Christopher said.

“Outstanding.”

“Wait—we’re getting a message.” Christopher toggled the truck’s comm system.

“RF friendlies, coming through. Repeat, RF friendlies, coming through,” the speakers crackled. The voice on the other end was deep and heavily accented.

“RF friendlies? What the fuck does that mean?” Peter asked.

“Russian Federation, I think,” Nick said, nodding to Christopher. “Put me on with them.”

Christopher toggled the comm system and nodded back to Nick.

“RF friendly incoming, this is Cougar 4-7 Echo.”

“Greetings, 4-7 Echo. Looks like you have some stalkers on you. Do you need a hand?”

“We’d appreciate it.” Nick smiled.

“Head to our position. We’re sending a unit to deal with your problem,” the voice came back.

“Do it, Chris.”

Christopher headed toward the source of the transmission, and in less than a minute, the Cougar crew saw ten Russian TX-47s rumbling toward them. The lead vehicle stopped in front of the Cougar while the other nine tanks raced past it. All of them had the same words painted in Cyrillic on their olive-drab bodies in red paint.

“What’s that say?” Michael asked.

Owen, the last of the new convicts and who hadn’t spoken a word up to that point, piped up. “It’s in Russian. It means ‘Invaders Must Die.’“

Nick toggled the rear cameras, and his crew crowded around to watch the monitors. The nine Russian tanks formed a line across the road, completely blocking off the Cougar from the approaching CDMs. As the three Chinese vehicles crested the hill, all nine Russian tanks opened fire, their massive front cannons lighting up the night. They kept firing as quickly as their crews could reload, spraying bullets from their front-mounted machine guns between salvos.

The lead CDM took a direct hit front and center, and two of its gatlings peeled away from the frame. The other two CDMs quickly turned around and drove the other direction, and the Russian tanks concentrated their fire on the immobile lead CDM.

It was all over in a few seconds, and the last remaining CDM was a smoking black shell.

“I think we got him,” the voice on the radio said. “Come on out and say hello.”

Nick nodded to Gabriel, who put his hand on the latch to the Cougar’s back door. Before he could turn the latch all the way, the back door fell off of its hinges and clanged to the road below. Nick couldn’t help chuckling as he led his men out of the Cougar. He stopped chuckling as he stepped over what was left of Reggie’s arm.

“Hey! American friends!” Nick heard the voice from the radio outside the Cougar. It belonged to a tall, thin man in a dark green uniform. Nick didn’t know Russian ranks, but he guessed the man was at least a Colonel from the way he carried himself.

“Nick Morrow, 47 Echo Second-in-Command,” Nick said, sticking out his hand.

“Andrevich Petkov, Russian Federation fourteenth Armored Division Commander.” The thin man smiled, shaking Nick’s hand enthusiastically.

“Thanks for the assist, Andrevich.”

“Always glad to help, my American friend. Shall we go take a look at your stalker?”

Nick nodded and followed Andrevich’s lead. As they walked past his tank unit, Nick saw that the men inside were now sitting on top of their tanks, smoking cigarettes. Nick lit one up himself as he and the Russian tank commander approached the motionless CDM.

The smell was horrible, like rotted meat and burned hair. Andrevich put on a pair of thick gloves and opened the hatch at the back of the CDM. Nick and the Russian commander were greeted first by a huge cloud of smoke, accompanied by the smell of what Nick could only guess was burned flesh.

He was right. As the smoke cleared, Nick could see that the inside of the vehicle was relatively undamaged, but its pilot had been cooked into his chair. He’d apparently tried to turn and let himself out of the vehicle when the shells had started hitting, but he obviously hadn’t made it—all he’d done was ensure that his charred death mask, frozen in mid-scream, was staring at Nick and Andrevich when the smoke cleared.

“Well…that’s about the most awful thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” Nick said, resisting the urge to turn and vomit.

If Andrevich was bothered by the corpse at all, he certainly didn’t show it. He grabbed the corpse by the shoulder with one gloved hand and pulled it from the seat, the body’s melted polyester uniform peeling away as Andrevich tossed the body out onto the road.

“Look at the inside of this thing. My, my. So many fancy toys.” Andrevich smirked.

Nick had to admit that Andrevich was correct, and looking at the inside of the CDM was the easiest way to avoid staring at the barbecued corpse on the asphalt behind them. There was, unfortunately, no way to ignore the smell.

The pilot’s cabin was small, just enough room to turn the chair around, and mounted at the very back of the vehicle. Every available surface was crowded with flatscreens, buttons, and lights. An assault rifle was strapped to the cabin’s low ceiling, and Nick took it down.

“The Chinamen, they have nice guns, eh?” Andrevich chuckled.

“That they do.”

“Where are you stationed, Second-in-Command Morrow?”

“We’re out of Justice at the moment.”

“There’s a friend of mine at Justice. A Major Harrison, used to work in Intelligence. You think he’d be able to do something with this?”

“I’m sure he’d like to try.”

“Then I suggest you take as much of it back as you can carry.”

“Agreed. Anthony! Kenneth! I want you two to tear as much of the tech out of this thing as you can! You’ve got one hour, so work fast. The rest of you, we’re going over the Cougar to see how bad the damage is.”

“We’ll stick here to help you out. Anything we can do, you just ask.” Andrevich grinned.

“Thanks, sir. I’m sure we’ll take you up on it.”

Christopher and the rest of the Echoes started to walk around the Cougar, inspecting the damage. With a passing nod to Andrevich, Nick joined the rest of his crew at the Cougar. He walked up to Christopher and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Chris. The Russians. Do what you do,” Nick muttered.

“On it, boss.” Christopher smirked.

Peter walked up next to Nick as they checked out the passenger side of the Cougar, which looked like a dented tin can. Nick paused over the rear tire on the passenger side. It was completely shredded.

“Hey, Nick,” Peter started.

“Yeah?”

“I thought we were fighting the Russians, man.”

“Some of ‘em. When the Chinese declared war, about half of the Russian Army decided to side with them. The other half decided not to.” Nick shrugged. “So in addition to fighting the Chinese and the North Koreans, we’re in the middle of a Russian civil war.”

“Why would the Russians want to side with the Chinks?”

“Look at your history, kiddo. Russia was Communist for a long time, and there are still a lot of hard-liners around. They’d jump at the chance to go Commie again.”

“So how can we be sure
these
Russians are on our side?”

“I’d say the fact that they toasted that CDM puts them in our camp.” Nick lowered his voice. “But don’t worry. We’re keeping an eye on them.”

Peter looked over at the Russian tank crews, who were laughing with Christopher over by their parked vehicles. A quick count showed that the Russians outnumbered the Echoes four to one. He shook his head. “Man, I sure hope so.”