ARISEN, Book Eleven - Deathmatch (26 page)

But he wouldn’t have to survive long to do so.

Moreover, he needed Kate, to connect him to the others – and to get out of Africa. He held his palms outward placatingly, then nodded at the heaving door against his back. “You can kill me,” he said, “but I do not think you will last long after that.”

Kate shook her head, lowered her rifle, looked around – then grabbed what was left of the GCS, mainly the bottom of its case, and wedged it diagonally between the door handle and the floor. Al-Sîf took his weight off it. It looked like it would hold, at least for a little while.

“So now what?” Kate said. They were basically trapped in the crow’s nest of a sinking ship. Every level below them was submerged under the rising tide of dead. She scanned the courtyard and walls behind her. No Americans, no Russians, and no more living Somalis that she could see. Sections of wall were still burning, and the one big downed section opposite them still admitting more dead.

And the courtyard was still a mosh pit, with the entire zombie audience now trying to bum-rush the stage. They were racing into interior entrances all around the perimeter, the sounds of moaning and shrieking competing with the roar of the flames.

“The escape tunnel,” al-Sîf said, pointing over the wall. “Look, the exit is clear.” And it was true – the suddenly opened plug of the Stronghold had drained the forest of much of the surrounding singularity. The perimeter was now in closer than the “secret” exit, which Kate had used once before.

But she just pointed at the heaving door behind them, and then the heaving courtyard below, and made an annoyed face.

Al-Sîf got it. Trying to fight their way down to the tunnel would be worse than the problem it solved. “Wait,” he said, leaning out and peering over the outside wall. The area below them was relatively clear. The dead had mostly been sucked around to either side to reach the big gap, directly opposite. There were still a few close by, in ones and twos, those too stupid to figure out how to go around, or too freethinking to follow the herd.

Kate looked. It was doable. They could probably make it.

“And from there?” she asked. You didn’t jump into the fire without a plan to get out again.

Al-Sîf raised his arm and pointed – to the jauntily colored jingle bus still parked beside the airstrip. The area around it was also relatively clear, as was the route there. The wooden beams of the door behind them cracked as the weight and fury of dead bodies behind it increased. The pressure was building fast.

“Rope?” Kate asked, scanning around.

Shaking his head, al-Sîf just held out his hands again.

Kate took them.

* * *

A twenty-foot drop wasn’t terrible, particularly with the Somali lowering her by the wrists to take eight or so feet out of it.

Then again
, Kate thought balefully,
this is how it all goes wrong
. She’d seen enough zombie movies and TV shows to know that sprained ankles were the number-one cause of death.
Hell
,
in a world without sprained ankles, the ZA would probably be no more than a nuisance…

Well, nothing for it. She nodded, they both let go, and she dropped down to the mud. Then she spun and brought her rifle up, instantly engaging the half-dozen or so dead in the immediate vicinity, spitting out rounds carefully and cautiously. Only the last couple even realized she was there before they were destroyed and on the ground.

Kate pushed out a few steps and covered the area so al-Sîf could follow her down. But she also stretched out both ankles to check their range of motion, looking down gratefully at the ankle support of her Hanwag Special Forces GTX boots.

Yeah
, she thought.
Never skimp on boots.

She glanced up in time to see him finally climb out of the tower, finger-hang, and drop down beside her.

Straightening up, he aimed his rifle –
Kwan’s fucking rifle
, Kate amended – and led them out at a run toward their ride. There was still a scattering of dead here and there, but perhaps because they were in frenzy over the al-Shabaab hot buffet inside, none locked onto them – no runners or Foxtrots did, anyway.

They reached the bus alive, al-Sîf leading, head down, Kate scanning through all angles over her rifle behind him. He pushed open the door, climbed up the stairs, then dropped down in the driver’s seat – while Kate got the door closed, then swung herself into the first bench seat behind him.

He reached for the keys, which were in the ignition.

“Wait,” she said, grabbing his arm. “Where are we going?”

“We need to follow your helicopter. So it can get us the hell out of here. Out of Africa.” He paused. “Where is it going?”

Kate considered. “It’ll be following the Russian helo, I think. But I can find out exactly where. Or maybe even get us picked up.” She keyed her radio and hailed the team. But it didn’t even squelch. She reached over her shoulder to the long radio pouch on the back of her MOLLE vest, where she wore it to keep it out of the way.

When she brought it around, it had an ugly bullet hole in it. “Goddammit,” she said.

Al-Sîf started the engine. “I saw them go northeast.” And he rumbled them out of the muddy ruts beside the landing strip and started driving that way. And he couldn’t keep himself from smiling as he did. Because not only was he still alive, he was out of that goddamned Stronghold.

At least he wasn’t going to die down in there.

Kate looked forward as scattered but fat drops of water from low clouds fell on the windshield, beneath the row of colorful fringe and baubles that hung from the ceiling. She wasn’t smiling. It wasn’t that she was ungrateful to be out of the Stronghold. It was that she was now sharing the ZA with perhaps the very last man on Earth she would have chosen. But she exhaled and shrugged. At least she was alive. And she could always kill him later.

The moaning, screams, and flames receded behind them.

Hubris

Nugal River Valley, Karkaar Region, Somalia

As usual, Misha was first out, spilling out of the downed Orca almost before it had finished crash-landing, leading from the front. He stomped around the periphery of the clearing and secured the crash site – no dead in evidence, never mind living Americans – then set perimeter security. Finally, he went back inside to supervise the unloading of men and materiel.

He also put Vasily up on top of the wrecked bird itself, on overwatch. Otherwise, he knew that crazy son of a bitch would want to go climb some damned fifty-foot tree, and they’d be all day getting him down. And Misha didn’t plan on staying here that long. Because losing the helicopter sure as hell wasn’t going to stop the progress of their mission. Maybe slow them a little.

Captain Gromov had managed to put them down in something like a clearing. But the landing had been faster than it was soft – perhaps because of the delay with Misha pointing his pistol at his head. They’d clipped some branches on the way in and come down pretty hard and messy.

Now, it looked like there were two casualties. One soldier in back had wrecked his back, compressed vertebrae probably, and couldn’t walk. The other was Gromov himself. His abdomen had been traumatized by his own flight instruments, and he was now probably bleeding internally. That bothered Misha less. Without the aircraft around him, he was of little value to Spetsnaz.

While both men were laid out on the wet ground, Misha led the others in tearing through their combat load-out, barking at them to load up on ammo for their personal weapons and the squad machine gun. They didn’t need food or water, as they wouldn’t be out long – also, because Spetsnaz were expected to operate for long stretches without either. Plus they were in a damned river valley. Water they could find.

He also had them take a few RPGs – the good ones, the RPG-32s. These were only a few years old, and were awesome at destroying everything from modern main battle tanks and APCs to bunkers and troops in defilade or in the open. It didn’t hurt that they had four types of warheads, including – unfortunately for troops in the open – a thermobaric one with enhanced fragmentation effect. They set the very air on fire.

At the last second, Misha also unloaded a pair of 9K38
Igla
surface-to-air missiles (SAMs). These were also totally modern – with a Friend or Foe ID system to prevent firing on friendly aircraft, automatic lead and elevation to simplify shooting and reduce minimum firing range, and a guidance system that was effective against fast and maneuverable targets. They also had improved lethality on target from delayed-impact fuzing, terminal maneuver to hit the fuselage rather than the jet nozzle, and an additional charge to set off the motherfucking remaining rocket fuel on impact. It also had improved resistance to countermeasures, both decoy flares and jamming emitters. It actually had two detectors – one for the target and another for decoy flares, the built-in logic determining which was which. For all these reasons, it had a hit probability of 0.8–0.9, compared to something like 0.4 for the American Stinger.

Igla
was “needle” in Russian, but Misha knew the NATO reporting name was “Grinch” – and he much preferred that. He used a lot of English in general. He yelled now for the Runt, who already looked overloaded humping ammo for their squad machine gunner. “Runt! Hump my Grinches, biznatcha!” The unusually normal-sized young man hastened to comply. Though with the difficulty he now had even standing up, it wasn’t clear how he was going to keep up with the marching column.

But not really Misha’s problem.

Finally he grabbed his RTO to make some calls. With the first, he learned that the American helo was on a direct intercept course with them, and only a few minutes out.
They will be like the dog who catches the car
, he thought, surveying his remaining team of ten hard pipe-hitters.
Let them intercept.

Nonetheless, he also contacted Team Two on the coast, sent them new grid coordinates – and instructed them to come pick their asses up in the vehicles. Misha only cared to do so much humping through the boonies on foot. But now, with the Americans crowding them from behind, and their ride a ways out, they needed to get moving.

He threw Patient Zero over his own shoulder.

And he stalked off into the forest without a word – real leaders didn’t have to tell anyone to follow. But at the last second he spotted the pilot and the other injured man laid out in the mud. He stopped the man beside him, removed all his grenades, and dropped them among the two wounded men.

“You gimps are on rear ambush. Slow and degrade them.”

Correction – he dropped all but one, a thermite grenade. This he armed and tossed into the open side cargo door of the helo, amid the ammo and gear they’d been forced to abandon.

“Cover up,” he said to the wounded men on the ground. Then he looked up at Vasily and whistled for him to get his ass down. And
then
he stalked off.

Without a backward glance.

* * *

Handon watched the bush spread out below them. They were now only a few minutes from where the Orca had crash-landed. He was about to issue final instructions to the team when Juice rose and grabbed him.

“Hey, top, the replacement F-35 has come on station. You want talk-through?”

“Has this guy got our encryption key?”

“Afraid not.”

“Why?”

“Never met the dude. He wasn’t in our briefings. And I couldn’t tell the Air Boss how to run his comms.”

Handon keyed his radio anyway. “Firecrotch, this is Cadaver Actual.”

“Go ahead, Cadaver.”
Morris had that cool-pilot manner of speech, but his voice was a little reedy.

Handon couldn’t resist. “How’d you get that call sign?”

“Oh, sure, like I’m telling you. Let’s just say it involved a girl of questionable moral probity, warming lube, and hair trimmers.”

“Okay, Firecrotch, be advised. We have reason to believe our comms may be compromised. I don’t want you putting out anything on this net you don’t want in wide broadcast. Got that?”

Slight pause. This would no doubt be disconcerting.
“Roger that, and wilco, Cadaver.”

“Okay, Firecrotch, what I need from you is to keep eyes on the Russian team on the ground. Hailey gave you an airspace handover brief?”

“Affirmative. She said she put their helo on its ass.”

“Yeah. Now I need to know everything the passengers and crew are doing – and if they move, I need to know where.”

“Way ahead of you, Cadaver. I’m already visual with the crash site and it looks deserted at this time.”

Handon grimaced. He didn’t like this dude taking a bunch of initiative. He needed to control the pieces on the board. “Firecrotch, be advised – the Russians are known to have Starstreak SAMs. They used one to take out a drone from the
Kennedy
. And I really need you to not get shot down right now.”

“Copy that, Cadaver. CIC already advised. And I’m right there with you. But no problem. Starstreaks are laser-guided – and I’m so low and fast, they’ll never get a laser on me, never mind keep it there. I’m honestly more worried about that Black Shark – as a threat to you guys in your Seahawk.”

“Copy that. And we’re counting on you to keep it off us. But your urgent tasking is to find that enemy force on the ground.”

“Roger that, Cadaver. The bush down there is pretty heavy – but it opens up in places. And if they’re continuing north, they’ll have to emerge at the river eventually. I’m going to get down and do some close passes and see if I can fix them for you. Stand by.”

Handon tried to breathe. It wouldn’t matter if the Russians knew they were tracking them.

They had to know that anyway.

* * *

That Black Shark was in fact out there – way down on the deck, following the outside edge of this riverine forest, using ground clutter to stay off radar. The forest blurred by on the right, the flat muddy floor of Somalia stretching out to the horizon to the left. And they had just been informed by their
Akula
that there was another F-35 back in their airspace.