Designated (Book 1): Designated Infected (40 page)

Glancing down to the rifle cradled in Dieter's arms
Baker chuckled, the sound muffled and distorted as it forced its way
free from the confines of his gas mask.

'Snap.'

He chuckled again as he watched Dieter's eyes narrow
slightly as Baker hefted his own rifle, Dieter dropped his gaze,
locking onto the weapon clutched against Bakers chest. Dieter's eyes
creased at the corners the smile garnishing his features, danced in
his eyes as he nodded.

'Not bad, although you do have a few modified
attachments. We poor lowly soldiers have to make do with the basic
model.'

Baker snorted, a wry smile finding its way to his eyes
as he watched Dieter look at his weapon with undisguised envy. 'Yeah
mate, had our armourer fit picatinny rails to the fore grip, so it
can take an IR laser and halogen torch, also had the barrel threaded
to fit a suppressor.'

Holding out his rifle to Dieter, Baker chuckled as he
saw the man standing ridged, unsure of what exactly was transpiring.

'Take it, consider it a gesture of good faith and
friendship.'

Derek stared at Dieter as he patiently waited for the
man to take the proffered weapon; slowly and with a slightly
trembling grasp curled his hand around the forward grip and took the
rifle from Baker.

'Besides, I prefer a snub barrel to a long bore in
tunnels; easier to move; although that's a nine-inch barrel, in some
of these tunnels it gets extremely tight.'

Despite Derek's words Dieter knew that it was one more
step to cementing an extremely beneficial alliance between the two
counter biological warfare teams.

Baker reached behind him and pulled a silenced MP5K PDW
variant forwards, the snub silencer and front mounted pistol grip
made it versatile and quiet, which was a good commodity to have in
such enclosed confines. This was coupled with the folding stock that
if collapsed could reduce its dimension to a fraction of the original
size.

'Okay Fritz lets do this.'

Dieter laughed at the clichéd use of a tawdry
Hollywood misnomer as he pushed forwards, his newly acquired weapon
pulled tight to his shoulder. Baker edged towards the junction ahead
of them, the side mounted torch on his weapon casting a cone of white
light illuminating the path ahead.

A dead, solid wall of blackness bloomed out ahead as
Derek slowly began to work his way forwards; with a short wave of his
hand he sent three of his team scurrying ahead, their rapid movement
casting a dancing marionette show across the arched walls of the
tunnel as their hunched forms slowly sank into the black void.

Dieter looked around him, his night vision goggles
pushed back up onto his helmet. Tapping Derek on the shoulder, he
cast a hand off in the direction of a side tunnel and with a short
nod of acknowledgement from Baker set off down it, his men trailing
loosely behind him.

44

Etienne crouched low, the rippling tunnel water lapping
at his boots as it settled. He stared into the abyss, watching the
ever expanding circles radiating out from his passage through the
water. He watched as the iridescent beam of his rifles infra-red beam
dancing in the air before him.

A soft lapping drew his attention. Glancing down quickly
he watched as the water pushed up against his boots a small swell of
rolling waves washing against his laces, pushing through the heavy
fabric of his footwear, settling into the absorbent inner materials,
dragging his feet down deeper into the murky bowels of the tunnel.

Splashing assaulted the silence dashing against the
walls of the tunnel as its tempo increased, a rolling wall of sound
barrelling down on the French contingent. They moved into a tight
circle in the centre of the tunnel. Infra-red light danced around the
tunnel as they scanned every conceivable angle before them. François
glanced about him, his nerves winding ever tighter as he clutched his
rifle in a shaky grip. The thrashing intensified. The eight men
poised as shifting, twisted; amorphous shades slithered from the
curtain of darkness.

A croaking grating roar issued from the shapes before
them, then as one they charged.

'Infected! Fire at will!'

The eight men opened up as one, their sub-machine guns
chattered as they loosed a withering hail of fire. The UMP9s clutched
in their hands thumped into their shoulders as they fired round after
round. Brick work splintered, showering the Infected with a thick
carpet of shattered stone and dust. Their violent cascading assault
through the watery soup filled the air, drowning out the sound of the
Frenchmen’s fight for survival.

Bodies fell in droves as the crazed, hunger driven
Infected pushed forwards, their filth soaked forms squirmed and
thrashed as they climbed over the bodies of the dead. The emaciated
corpses formed a carpet of dead flesh as those behind began to force
their way over the mound.

Etienne looked at his feet; the thickening layer of
filth slowly creeping further up the lattice work of his boot laces,
the heavy scent of copper filling his nostrils as the water around
him turned red. A body slid through the muck, its matted filth laden
hair coming to rest against the toe of his boot. He shook his head
slightly at the emaciated body before him, the darkening signs of
degenerative melanomas and skin deformation showing up through the
torn and tattered remnants of the Infected's suit. Its limp almost
lifeless hand grasped at his ankle as it tried to pull itself
forwards. The poor wretch couldn't have been no more than a week
from the complete loss of all bodily functions and yet had still
managed to claw its way through the body strewn mess towards him.

Etienne lifted his foot, setting it onto the back of its
head, slowly pushing its weakly thrashing form deeper into the toxic
soup, small bubbles flickered and popped as the slowly dying wretch
struggled to breathe. He held his foot in place pushing it ever
deeper into the thick cloying molasses of excrement. Glancing down he
watched as its thrashing degenerated into limp child like slaps at
the surface of the sludge, then nothing. Limp and lifeless, the
corpse hung there suspended on the river of filth like a mosquito
caught in amber.

Etienne flinched slightly as sounds of gunfire erupted
behind him. Swivelling on the spot he spun and took aim over the
heads of his squad. As he locked his eye down the mil-dot tactical
scope attached to the weaver rail of his weapon, his vision went red.

Blood streamed down Etienne's mask, the cloying viscous
fluid seeping through the Nomex balaclava, adhering it to his skin
like glue on paper. He frantically wiped the face plate of his gas
mask, the blood smearing across the glass as he tried in vain to
clear the obstruction from his view.

A small glimmer of green light spilled through the hazy
film of blood as it slid around the lenses of his night vision
goggles. Frantically he cast his head around trying, with fear
widened eyes, to see the locations of his men. A deep gurgling growl
assaulted his ringing ears, the tinnitus hiss drowning out anything
but the closest of sounds.

Etienne's breath hitched in his throat as he turned, the
smeared blood still clinging to his mask's eye pieces the haze of red
and green casting his world in a sickening mirage of colour. His eyes
pushed aside the hazy barrier as he searched for the source of the
noise, sweat slowly began to trickle its salt laden way across his
brow and neck as he licked the collected moisture off his top lip.

A shift in the water made him turn, the slowly shuffling
footsteps drew his attention as he tried to glean what he could
through the haze of rapidly drying blood. The water rose higher
against his boots as the source of the noise drew closer, an
amorphous shape seeming to coalesce through the curtain of filth
adorning his mask.

Drawing his combat dagger he crouched low as the shade
drew ever closer, with a guttural growl he screamed as hard as he
could through the masks speech diaphragm, his words a harsh slightly
muffled buzzing curse.

'Venir sur vous chatte!'

He spat the words with vehemence as he dove forwards,
his knife arcing through the air, the matte blade glowing a dull
green as it passed buy his one unobstructed field of view, the
incandescent greens of goggles making his eyes ache as he drove the
knife forwards.

Etienne felt a firm yet slightly coarse grip ensnare his
wrist and twist the blade away; his hand opened as the over stressed
ligaments of his wrist and hand gave up fighting the forces being
thrust upon them. Etienne's only viable means of defence fell from
his open hand to land with a plop in the murky sludge beneath his
feet. The Frenchman closed his eyes waiting for the inevitable, he
braced himself for the feel of teeth tearing into his pale skin after
their hands breached the heavy fibres of his clothing.

He waited as the clasping hand pushed him into the wall.
He waited as his arm was twisted up behind him with enough force to
make him mutter a stifled cry of pain as his shoulder was all but
pulled from its socket.

He waited and yet nothing came, no tearing of cloth; no
rending of flesh, nothing; but silence.

Opening his eyes he stared out from behind the murky
russet red stain adorning his mask, a hand sliding in from his left
roughly washed away the worst of the smeared blood making him blink
as light once more flooded his vision, the night vision goggles
having long since been pushed up on the front of his helmet.

He
gazed at the silent monoliths surrounding him, the unreadable blank
expressions hidden behind the tinted lenses of respirator masks.

'You bit?' the words were muffled and chopped making it
hard for Etienne to hear them fully. Cocking his head to one side he
tapped the side of his head as he shrugged.

A stifled curse rolled out from behind the mask in front
of him as the monolith in black reached out and checked the radio
mounted behind Etienne's left shoulder. A muffled click, followed by
a burst of white static and the question was repeated once more and
the words tumbled into Etienne's ear.

'I said mate, are you bit?' This time Etienne grinned as
he recognised the voice bouncing around his ear canal. The bass tones
rolled through the microphone mounted on the inside of his respirator
as he struggled to hide the smile in his voice.

'Only if you brought that damned cocker spaniel with
you.'

45

Etienne sat in the water, his uniform soaked through.
His weapon was lying flat across his knees as the filthy pale brown
fluid flowed from the mouth of the pipe, washing over his legs in a
foetid disease ridden waterfall.

Kingsley trudged through the water, his boots casting a
rolling circular pattern of never ending ripples as he walked over
the two inch thick corrugated floor of the open sewer pipe.

'You okay?' He lowered himself over the edge, his knees
hooking the edge of the pipe as he sat down next to Etienne; the
Frenchman mutely watching their feet swing into the foaming deluge
that flowed around them.

'Not really. No.' The twenty-eight year old Lieutenant
sighed as he rolled an empty nine millimetre casing between his
fingers.

'I have lost a lot of friends to this place, I don't
understand how they could out manoeuvre us in here, we had the whole
tunnel covered and yet...' He trailed off leaving the sentence
unfinished as Kingsley sat in a patient silence, letting the young
Frenchman gather his thoughts.

Etienne let the casing slip from his fingers, watching
the small bevelled cylinder tumble away from him, glinting in the
newborn rays of the dawn sun that slowly began its graceful ascent
from the eastern horizon.

'How do you deal with it?'

Kingsley sat, his face a mask of impassive emotions as
he watched the rising sun As the warming rays of the new day kissed
his ebony skin, he raised his face; his dark chocolate brown eyes
sliding closed as he felt the warmth seep into him. Slowly as he let
his head slip back, the sun warming his dread-locked hair, he spoke.

'You don't, you soak it up; file it away, and push on,
you're always going to lose people. It's the nature of the beast we
call our profession. People get shot, blown to bits, stabbed, hung or
carved up by drugged up foreign nationals of the countries we're
forced into fighting.

'I've
seen friends, men I trained with, men who I owed my life too and vice
versa, get reduced to a p
âté
viscous enough to fill a mess tin. 'It never gets easier to deal
with. And before you ask, neither does telling the families of the
men and women under your command. It is the one reason I turned down
every promotion offered me.

'Why in the twenty years I've been with the British army
I have never risen above the rank of Sergeant. I couldn't deal with
the pain of telling a mother or father, wife or husband, son or
daughter, that their spouse or child or worse still their father or
mother is never coming home.

'What I do is hold their memory close to my heart and
soul and remember the good they left behind. I let that do the
grieving for me as I carry on doing the job I was trained for.