ARISEN, Book Twelve - Carnage (20 page)

And every second counted now.

Henno settled down onto his stomach behind a fallen log, eased his rifle barrel out through the thick foliage, and verified that his field of fire and sight lines were perfect – offset about twenty degrees from the line of the bridge. The Spetsnaz shooters were not idiots – and appeared switched on as they crossed, using good tactical spacing. This meant the first man was nearly stepping off the end of the bridge, as the third stepped onto the start of it.

Twisting way out to the left, Henno shot the point man once in the side of the head, a single lethal whisper. Also without a sound, the man collapsed at his own feet, onto the intact stretch of bridge at the base. Henno then smoothly panned to the right and gave the same treatment to the second man, in the middle of the bridge – a tougher shot because that guy dropped down into a crouch the instant the man ahead fell. Still, down he went, and more satisfyingly – because he tumbled off the narrow girder and into the river below.

By the time Henno got his aiming dot on the third one, though, the man was hightailing it off the bridge and back under cover. When he looked up over his sight, Henno could see the entire team had already dispersed into the forest on the far side, or behind the parked vehicles. None of them had yet fired.

Because they don’t have a target
, Henno thought. That wasn’t good news, though. That meant these guys were methodical, disciplined – and unflappable.

And they would all be coming for him now.

But in his mind’s eye he imagined Aiden and Luke, Captain Ainsley’s boys, behind him in that forest now. Which in a very real sense they were, along with everyone else alive, everything Henno loved and revered. Everything he cared about and everything he believed in was back there.

With only him standing before them now.

Aye
, he thought.
You Spetsnaz slags are going to be some time digging me out of here. Count on it.

* * *

With Jake still leading them, Pred, Homer, Noise, Kate, and the badly wounded Zack all disappeared into the main terminal building. Behind them, out front, a half-dozen long-dead bodies littered the ground, all with little 4.6mm holes in their heads, courtesy of Jake’s MP7. A few others stumbled over them and banged on the glass, too dumb and dead to operate the doors.

Once inside, everyone paused. Ahead, at the end of about fifty feet of open space, a row of check-in desks stretched out to either side, all the way to both edges of the building. The space in front of them was big and airy. It was also dim, cool, dusty – and profoundly spooky.

“Keep moving,” Jake said. But he said it quietly. The group moved forward, angling off to the right.

Toward airport security.

* * *

Now that the fight had begun, Henno had to move positions twice in quick succession. He didn’t have long to prepare, and certainly didn’t have anything like a ghillie suit, so it only took Spetsnaz a minute or so to identify his position through a spotting scope. Then it took them about two seconds to start putting effective fire on him. Henno figured the heavy stuff was coming next – and it did, two RPGs streaking into the log he’d been behind ten seconds ago.

Now he hugged a thick tree, peering around it with half an eyeball. As he guessed they would, they didn’t wait to kill or incapacitate him before trying to cross again. They didn’t even wait to pin him down. No, they were doing everything all at once. While those in the rear tried to zero him with rifles and RPGs, others were already sprinting across the bridge, keeping low. Henno popped and snap-fired, tagging the leader, then ducked out of the way of a barrage of fire from the main force on the other bank. Worse, he realized, they were also sending guys down the slope to ford the river, underneath his angle of fire.

Henno nodded.
Well… they won’t be beneath grenades
.

He tossed two, one to either side of the bridge, hoping those might give them pause, if not actually inflict casualties. But he also knew another effect would be to send the river-crossers farther out on the flanks. They’d simply cross where he couldn’t see them, or bomb them. And once across, they’d move in on him from his own flanks.

And I might actually have real problems at that point…

* * *

Misha poured bodies into the fight, giving orders from behind his SUV. He was standing, but not to his full height. The distance across the river was too short, and the guys they were fighting too skilled, to give them a look at the back of his head. Misha was fearless and reckless. Not stupid, or suicidal. Then again, he didn’t have time for this horseshit. The enemy’s main force would be getting close to the airport – though they were in for a surprise when they got there.

And he honestly didn’t believe they were facing more than two or three of the sons of bitches on the other side of this bridge. It was obviously a delaying action.

“Move, move!” he shouted at his flank runners. “Be on
that
side of the fucking river, if you don’t want to get shot on this one!”

This hold-up was fucking annoying him.

* * *

The team led by Jake went straight through the terminal building because it was the quickest route to the tarmac and hangars beyond. But it was also turning into a pretty conspicuous choke point itself. Homer, weapon to shoulder, kept moving and scanned his sector through the dusty dimness. He was thinking that a post-Apocalyptic airport was less spooky than a hospital.

But not a whole lot less.

As the group started to bunch up, nearing the funnel of the security point, Kate held her fist up. The others stopped and looked to her. “Hey,” she whispered to Jake. “Remember when I first joined the team – and flew in through here?”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “Why?”

“Because it looked different then. That, for instance.” She pointed to a giant luggage X-ray machine, turned over on its side.

“So what?” Jake said. “Everything’s trashed.”

“Yes,” said Noise, padding up beside them, weapon also up. “But why would someone go to the trouble to tip over something that big and heavy? Unless…”

Homer, stepping up to their other side, finished the thought. “Unless to channel us into a killzone.” The overturned machine blocked the only exit from the security area – other than the path through the X-ray arches, the bottleneck itself.

Homer had only just gotten the last word out before he started shooting, slinging silenced lead across the security area. Out beyond it, a dozen dark spectral figures popped up or leaned out from concealed positions and started lighting them up – as the team dove for cover in any and every direction.

If they had passed through that funnel into the killzone beyond, they all would have been dead in seconds. As it was, they were outmatched and outgunned. But they were still on their feet. And it wasn’t going to take them too many guesses to work out who had just ambushed them.

Hunkering down and firing, Homer wondered how many Russians there actually were on this continent.

Because they definitely weren’t out of Africa yet.

Two Warriors

Somalia – Northwest River Valley

Henno’s empty mag flew into open air, due to him dropping it out while spinning in place. And this wasn’t a tactical reload – no, he was firing every mag all the way down to the follower and spring, shooting non-stop to stay alive, and in multiple directions. He was genuinely surprised at how quickly the Spetsnaz team had enveloped him. But he knew he shouldn’t be. These weren’t the kind of operators who nibbled at the edges of a fight.

No, they took the whole thing in one big bite.

Aggression – first, last, and always.

Henno got the next mag slotted as he dropped into a crouch and sighted in on the two-man team working in on his left flank – but they dropped out of view as he started firing. Most of this scrubby forest was concealment rather than cover, so Henno guessed which way they went and spread his bets, distributing fifteen fast rounds into the heavy bush in that sector.

But then he heard a collapsing air pocket a few inches off his cheek, and then felt a round rip through through the outside of his shoulder, so he dove to his left, rolled on the ground, then low-crawled another five meters to a position of cover. But even as he got set again, a live grenade landed practically in his lap. He snatched at it, wrist-flicked it away, and covered up.

He survived the explosion. But covering up allowed his attackers to work in closer. And he was unlikely to survive the next grenade.

Or the ones after that.

* * *

Handon, at the head of his team, saw the sky open above them as they reached the end of the forested river valley. They could all hear faint explosions, but not gunfire, coming from behind them. Slowing slightly, Handon hit his radio.

“Henno – sitrep.” Ali looked at him with concern. “Henno, how copy?” But he wasn’t hailing Henno out of concern for his welfare. He needed to know how long he thought he could hold. This was critical intel – how soon their pursuers were going to be right back on their asses.

But no response came back.

Handon stopped running and traded looks with Ali and Juice, the others scanning the treeline to the rear and looking alert – or spooked.

Handon decided in the next instant.

Looking at Juice, he said, “Keep the team moving. You know where to. And you know where you’re going.” Juice nodded. Handon looked around at the others. “I’ll try to rendezvous with you there. But you get in the air ASAP – and you do
not
wait for me. Got it?”

Fick stumbled up with humanity’s salvation thrown over his shoulder again, having taken it back from Reyes after a short breather. He opened his mouth, but was too winded to speak right away.

Handon beat him to it. “Take it home. Finish this thing.” He put out his hand, arm bent at the elbow. Fick clasped hands with him, one last warrior embrace.

Finally finding the breath, Fick said: “Go well – and get some.”

Handon turned and headed back the way they came, at a run.

And all alone.

* * *

Fuzzy light leaking in, swimming star flashes, pulsing pain. Henno battled his way back to consciousness. As his mind spooled back up, he knew it must have been the grenades, not the gunfire, that got him. But he had always known it was going to be the grenades. Fighting on his own, there was virtually no way to counter them.

And his enemies had known it, too.

He’d put up an excellent fight. And he’d held them off a long time – surely longer than anyone had expected. But now he’d gone down.

Though the fact that he could consider this at all meant he had at least survived – knocked out but not killed by the explosions. Still mostly blind, he felt around for his rifle, then his pistol, then his knife. But all his weapons had been taken off him. He spat dirt, and realized he was lying face down in the mud, in a clearing – it was the road through the forest, though he had no idea how he’d got there. His head spun with vertigo as something unyielding rolled him over. It was a steel-toed boot – the hard sole of which then pressed down on his throat.

He looked up at the sky and worked to breathe. Slowly, his visual field resolved into three dark vertical patches standing over him, weapons pointing down. His hearing worked better, and he listed to one of them on the radio – the one with his foot on his windpipe. He was speaking Russian, but it was basic enough for Henno to follow.

“He’s down. Yes. You want us to keep him that way? Consider it done. See you here shortly.”

The man’s face resolved more as he looked down into Henno’s, his expression emotionless. His pale eyes were a combination of cruelty and caginess. He switched to English as he pressed the cold steel of his rifle muzzle to Henno’s forehead.

“Sorry, mate,” he said.

But rather than Henno’s head opening up… instead a neat hole blossomed in the center of the Russian’s and he fell away out of Henno’s field of view, as did the other two, all in the next second – all three of them collapsing to the dirt in a pinwheel of dead Russians, of which Henno was the hub.

He blinked rapidly, then felt a strong hand reaching under him. It gripped the drag strap on his vest, and he was hauled on his back out of the road and into the cover of the forest. A dark shape moved away, and when it came back, it was Handon – and he had Henno’s weapons, all of which he returned to him. Mentally recreating the scene, Henno realized he must have come out of the forest at a run, dropping all three Russians with precision shooting on the hoof.

As Henno managed to sit up, and reached for his rifle, Handon squatted down beside him, grabbed his arm, and pushed his sleeve up, examining the “bite wound” more closely. He could see the little crescent of puncture wounds was too neat.

“Knife work,” he said. “I knew it.”

“More fool you,” Henno said, holstering his pistol, re-sheathing his knife, and pulling his rifle back in close. He took a deep breath and tried to get his senses and strength back. When he looked up, Handon was offering him a hand up. He took it, and together they hauled him to his feet.

Two warriors stood alone in a wood.

* * *

“Motherfucking cock fondlers!” Misha barked, retreating off the bridge and back under the cover of the vehicles. Just when they’d finally got this shit-show unstuck – there had only ever been a single defender, a dumbass holding action, and his guys had him down on the ground – here they were, still stuck on the wrong side of the fucking river, and being shot at again. He didn’t know what the hell kind of circle jerk was going on over there, but he wasn’t a huge fan.

And now, somehow, the defense had redoubled in intensity and tenacity, and then redoubled again. It had taken too damned long – and too much blood, if anyone was measuring that – to flank and envelop the one man. Now they were looking at having to do the same job all over again. Against a bigger threat. With fewer resources.

“Misha,” Kuznetsov said from beside him, both of them ducking down as incoming rounds smashed the windows of the vehicle over their heads, and showered them with glass shards and dust. “There’s another bridge upriver. We should simply go around.”