ARISEN, Book Twelve - Carnage (48 page)

“What?” he asked. “What is it?”

“Our mission objective, I think.”

Kuznetsov snorted with laughter. If he was right, and this really was a virus sample from Patient Zero… then, even in death, Misha had completed the mission.

They had gotten what they came for.

“Where do we go now?” Aleksis asked, as they approached the end of the runway.

Kuznetsov blinked into the wind.

Where, indeed…?

Alpha team will return in
ARISEN, BOOK THIRTEEN – THE SIEGE

(And then again in
ARISEN, BOOK FOURTEEN – END DAYS
and then… that’s it, folks.)

Come back and live through the beginning of the end of the world in
ARISEN : GENESIS
, the pulse-pounding and bestselling first ARISEN prequel.

And then live through it again, except harder and faster, with the SF soldiers of Triple Nickel.
ARISEN : NEMESIS
.

Salvation. Vengeance. Vanity.
NEMESIS

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A portion of the earnings from this book will be donated to the Special Operations Warrior Foundation – which provides full college scholarships to the children of all special-operations personnel killed in missions or training accidents. As you probably know, our special operators train like professional athletes, perform like minor gods, and lay it all on the line every day in the defense of freedom and decency. They have also trained and deployed constantly – and suffered disproportionately high casualties – since 9/11. Let’s send the children of their fallen to school. It’s the very, very least we can do. Tax-deductible donations to this foundation can be made at
www.specialops.org
.

Note from the Author

Loyal readers (and I love you guys perhaps more than you can know), may recall the
Author’s Note from Book Five
, in which I described the process of writing that one as the “Dark Night of the Soul,” and “All is Lost Moment,” of the Writer’s Journey.
Well, let me tell you – I had
no freaking idea
.
Toward the beginning of 2016, I more or less blew up my life – leaving a relationship of almost nine years (with the most wonderful gal I know), leaving the city and neighbourhood I’d lived in for twelve, and jetting off to the south coast of Spain to find myself. (Or something.) Even as I did it, I knew this was a huge and stupid risk: here I was, within grasping distance of the conclusion of a surprisingly successful series of books, with me actually finally making it as a jobbing fiction writer after all these years. And all this unlikely success had been built on a bullet-proof routine: my safe home space, my unbelievably supportive and motivating girlfriend, my well-worn running trails in the Royal Parks where I kept my head straight and generated all the story ideas, the perfectly tended writing spaces where I bashed them out into prose every day.
So what did I do in the home stretch? I changed all of it. Overnight.
And it turned out even worse than I’d feared. I was crushed with grief and guilt over the end of the relationship, disoriented by the complete change of surroundings and people, which felt like exile. My head was all over the place. It quickly started to look like I’d depended on my routine even more than I knew. Despite the beautiful surroundings I was in, despite the amazing people I met on the trail, every day become a huge emotional struggle just to stay afloat – and an even bigger struggle to write. As I got close to the end of Book Eleven, I looked back at what I’d written and decided it had all gone horribly wrong. The book was a wreck. And it was all my own stupid fault. I’d had everything anyone could ask for – but it wasn’t enough, and so I’d pissed it all away.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the Forum – or, rather, a funny thing happens every time I write a book. Somewhere between about the 85% mark, and just after finishing, I become absolutely convinced the book is a disaster. (It’s well known that every writer is insane on the topic of just completed work.) I truly believe that the book is not only terrible – but irretrievably so, unfixable. And that I’ve mislaid whatever talent I had, that I’ve failed, that I’m finally blowing it. But the
really
weird thing is that not only does this happen every time – but every time I also develop
total amnesia
about it. So, two or three times a year, the wonderful gal would come home from work and find me lying on the floor, and she’d say, “What’s wrong, baby?” and I’d sputter “The book’s a total disaster!” and she’d check her watch and go, “Ah, so it’s that stage already, is it?” And I’d look totally baffled, and say, “…What do you mean?” And she’d say, “You can’t
possibly
not remember that you go through this
every time
?” But I don’t remember. Maybe it’s like childbirth – if you remembered how painful it was, you’d never do it again.
But, anyway,
this
time around, with no wonderful gal to pull me back – and, moreover, having changed
everything
in my life overnight – I became convinced not just that the book was broken… but that the writer was. I was sure I’d never produce any decent material, ever again. And soon after that the money would run out. And then I would literally be out on the street. A failure. Broken. Homeless. And totally alone. It was all over. I was screwed. And I’d done it to myself.
Talk about an “All is Lost” moment! (Like I said – the earlier episode had been
nothing
.)
So what did I do? What
could
I do? Nothing but follow the lesson of the special operators once again. I just had to dig down and find a way through – somehow. At first, I just spent a good couple of days drinking and crying. Seriously – just drinking and crying. (I can at least be proud of the huge boost I gave to Jack Daniels and Diet Coke sales in Andalucia.) Then I spent a couple of days trying to pull it together. I said to myself: “Okay. I have
absolutely no idea
how to fix this. I only know that I have to. Because if I don’t, I’m dead. Pretty much literally.” And then, after that, I spent a couple of days going back and forcing myself to look at the material so far, trying to figure out what the problems actually were. And guess what? Eventually they started to look manageable. I began to figure it out. And I screwed my head back on straight, 1/64th of a twist at a time. I battled my way back.
Anyway, if it’s true that art requires suffering, then this book should be very good indeed. I don’t think anyone can ever say I didn’t bleed for it. (To get a sense of what that long dark tunnel was like, minute to minute, check out the
Twittorial History of Books 11 & 12
.)
I will add only that the climax of these two books – roughly the last quarter of the one you hold in your hands – was, by a very comfortable margin, the most complex, difficult, and ambitious material I’ve ever tried to execute. That it seemed to work in the end is still a matter of fairly major amazement to me. As always, of course, you guys will be the final judge. Which is how it ought to be.
Also as always, thank you for taking the journey with me (and with the heroes of ARISEN). It means everything.
Michael
26 August 2016

Thanks & Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank the unbelievably generous, talented, and indispensable people who make up the ARISEN beta-reading team: Mark George Pitely, Amanda Jo Moore, Dave Fairfax, and Ron Purugganan (aka Nil Ate). Super extra thanks and special recognition to Electronics Technician Chief Petty Officer Mark D. Wiggins, USCG (ret). If you liked Books Eleven and Twelve better than Nine and Ten, you can in no small measure thank him. To a significant extent, he fixed the direction of the series. (Oh – also if you like the fact that Handon’s still alive. 8^)

Thanks as always to the amazing Editrice ([email protected]), for making ARISEN bulletproof. (And, on these two, for saving me from a self-inflicted ellipsis menace.)

Thanks also and forever to Anna K. Brooksbank, Sara Natalie Fuchs, Richard S. Fuchs, Virginia Ann Sayers-King, Valerie Sayers, Alexander M. Heublein, Matthew David Grabowy, and Michael and Jayne Barnard, for their indispensable support. Also, Bruce, Wanda, Alec, and Brendan Fyfe for their service and sacrifice. Eternal thanks to Glynn James for coming up with
Arisen
.

Special thanks to novelist, nomad, and new media guru AJ Silvers – for buoying me up when I was dead in the water and sinking fast, kicking me in the ass when I needed it (not least with beach HIIT training), and throwing me his spare Mac to finish the fight when mine were going down and littering the battlefield.

The wonderful cover image for this book was created by the always amazing Tom Weber at
MILPICTURES
.

Regarding Marine SGT Lovell’s line when SGT Patrick gets shot and laughs it off:

That’s Navy Cross Recipient
Sergeant Major Bradley Kasal
. Read
his story
.

The Hollenbaugh Shot is from the book
Modern American Snipers: From The Legend to The Reaper—on the Battlefield with Special Operations Snipers
, by Chris Martin with SOFREP.COM - specifically the account of Delta Master Sergeant Don Hollenbaugh’s single-handed defense of that Fallujah rooftop, for which he was awarded the Silver Star.

“Happy birthday – you’re about to get shot in the face, bitch[acho]” is from CPL Chaffin in
Generation Kill
(
book
and
miniseries
– both of which you should have already devoured by now! don’t you listen? 8^).