ARISEN, Book Twelve - Carnage (17 page)

He was alive because of it.

And to repay him, he’d left his ass behind – racing up the bank faster than the SEAL could follow. He knew Homer wouldn’t like it, wouldn’t appreciate the unilateral solo attack. But he didn’t have to like it. Because it was happening.

When Predator powered over the crest of the bank onto level ground around the base of the bridge, the hovering Black Shark was directly ahead of him, no more than twenty-five feet away. And it was still facing away.

Awesome
, Pred thought.
This might even work.

As he rounded the tail boom and ducked under the left stabilizer, he instantly felt the exhaust from the left-side jet engine warming his river-chilled skin, and then scorching it. But he carried on into it, pushing off and leaping into the air like a Foxtrot – or the zombie of Michael Fucking Jordan, with a forty-eight-inch vertical leap. With his free left hand he reached up and grabbed the left stub wing, using his ridiculous arm and upper-body strength, plus his momentum, to pull himself up and over it, his whole body sliding across its horizontal surface. That wing protruded from the base of the engine, which had two openings in it – exhaust port in the rear, intake port on the front.

And as Pred slid by, he slam-dunked one of the grenades into the exhaust port, and the other into the intake. And then he slid off the front of the wing. Which took him right by the left side of the cockpit.

As he flew by, he stuck one finger out and jammed it into the cockpit glass. He didn’t guess they’d miss that. He hit the mud just in front of the helicopter, then tumbled and rolled, coming to rest in a sitting position. He spun around, because he wanted to see this next bit.

The pilot and gunner were both looking down at him like he had four heads and six penises, all of them on fire.

The two grenades exploded, shooting flame and metal debris out both sides of the engine, and it screamed like a stricken dinosaur.

Eyes still wide like saucers, the pilot used the power she had left to back them away from the forest, climb a few dozen feet – like it was the hardest altitude any aircraft ever gained – and then finally disappear, smoking, shrieking, and shaking, over the top of the forest on the far side of the river.

Pred looked up over his left shoulder when he heard a gravelly voice speaking to him deadpan. “Yeah, I remember the first time I took out an attack helo by myself with grenades.”

It was Jake. He reached down to help him up.

Kate and Noise were also walking up, weapons slung, and jaws on their chests. Amazed to be alive. Utterly gobsmacked at how it had happened. Not at all sure they’d just seen what they just saw.

Noise said, “‘While you are alive, conquer death, and you shall have no regrets in the end.’ Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji. Truly, Predator… you have conquered death.”

Looking up into Pred’s eyes, Kate had only two words.

“
GodDAMN
, dude.”

Out of Africa

Northwest Somalia – Jingle Bus

“Yeah,” Juice said to Handon, both of them plus Henno gathered around Baxter and the glowing mini-GCS at the back of the jingle bus, as it hurtled toward the river, the border, and possibly salvation. “I saw Misha get in the second vehicle this time.”

“You’re sure?” Handon said.

“The dude’s the size of Predator. Who else could it be?”

On the little screen, the Spetsnaz convoy, now reduced to four vehicles, was still blasting across the Somalian wasteland. And everyone on the jingle bus knew that very soon they would be able to see them out the back window, no optics required. Their only hope of stopping it now was Handon’s plan of crashing the Predator right into it.

“You’ve got to take them from behind,” Handon said.

Baxter looked up, while Juice spoke for him. “That’ll take time. The drone and convoy are coming right at each other now.”

“If Misha sees it coming, this guy will find a way to escape. Loop around behind them – as fast as you can.”

Baxter started to comply. But the others could see he was also gaining altitude. Before they asked, he explained. “The engine on this thing is extremely rackety. If we dive-bomb from higher up, he’ll have less time to react. Plus we’ll go in faster with more energy.”

“Okay,” Handon said. “Do it.”

* * *

“
Polkóvnik
!” the RTO said. “Urgent transmission from the
Akula
! Enemy air contact has popped up on their radar buoy!”

Looking over at Kuznetsov, Misha said, “Think it’s the same dick-fondlers who just hit us?”

Kuznetsov just shrugged. Probably, but it didn’t matter. He looked back at the RTO. “Position?”

“Wait – they report it just disappeared from radar again. It’s descending, and has dropped under coverage.”

“Last range and bearing.”

“Bearing one-eighty, less than a mile out – and closing.”

“Shit,” said Kuznetsov. “It’s taking us from behind.”

“Just like I did with your mother!” Misha roared. “Here, steer, motherfucker.” If Misha had any awareness of the irony of those two sentences said back to back, he didn’t betray it. He engaged the cruise control and let go of the wheel. Kuznetsov hastened to reach over and grab it. They were already way too close to a rollover, pegging the speedometer in an SUV on this terrain.

Misha twisted at the waist, stuck much of his huge body through the seat gap into the rear, and pulled one of the missile tubes out from behind the RTO. He then opened the sunroof, maneuvered the missile out – it was one of the Grinches, the same advanced man-portable SAM that had taken down an F-35 earlier today – then maneuvered his own torso out. His shoulders only made it through when he twisted them diagonally, and then only barely. He powered up the weapon, popped the sights, and aimed it up and to the rear.

He realized he could hear the drone’s lawnmower-like buzzing at the same time he spotted it. Both the noise and its characteristic blind-bat visage made it obvious to Misha what they were dealing with – an ancient MQ-1 Predator. It was diving straight down toward them from their rear – and Misha was pretty sure it was coming not at any other vehicle in the convoy but directly at theirs.

He laughed his gorilla laugh again, “
Ha, ha, ha, ha!
”, which vibrated down into the truck below over the wind, the engine, the drone, and everything else. Killing was Misha’s favorite pastime.

But destruction was good fun, too.

* * *

“Ah, shit,” Handon said. Everyone watching the GCS screen in the back of the bus deflated. They could all see the human-gorilla hybrid emerge from inside the truck with a missile tube.

“Abort, abort attack run,” Juice said. “Break off – now.”

Baxter complied, pulling up and banking away to the right. The convoy disappeared from the screen – but not too soon to see the missile launch with a whoosh of smoke. Baxter tried to go evasive, but the underpowered first-generation flying lawnmower was capable of very little in the way of aerial acrobatics. Hell, it had almost been designed to be disposable.

Two seconds later, the screen simply went black.

“How the hell did he know we were coming?” Baxter said, slamming the lid of the GCS, which was no longer needed. That was it. They were all out of aircraft.

Juice said, “Radar, maybe – on some asset we haven’t seen yet?”

But Handon had already turned away and stepped down the aisle, to look out the window in back – and he was just in time to see the tail end of the explosion, the smoke cloud, and even some of the larger chunks of falling debris.

And it was way too close behind them.

“God, I hate that fucking guy,” Handon said.

“You and me both, mate.” Henno had stepped up behind him, also to watch the fireworks show. “I have a bad feeling we’re gonna have to slot him before this is over. And we’re going to have to do it up close and personal. Ourselves. No air strikes. Just us. Right to his face.”

Handon hoped Henno was wrong. But one of the main reasons Henno was a pain in his ass was that he was usually right. Looking forward again, he could see they were descending a gentle slope.

The last river valley before Djibouti was in sight.

* * *

Zack was alive.

Kate and the others found him collapsed down in the bottom of the ravaged gun truck. He had dropped down there to grab another ammo can – at just the right moment to avoid getting his head, or rather his whole torso, taken off along with the turret.

But he was in a very bad way.

As Homer and Jake got him laid out on the ground, it looked like he had a lot of cuts, bruises, and abrasions – and had been knocked silly by the rockets exploding basically right over his head.

Pred was already checking his vitals and feeling him up for more serious injuries. “Let’s get these bleeders wrapped up,” he said, then paused and looked concerned.

“What?” Kate said, as she got bandages going on various parts of Zack’s body.

“I’m worried about internal injuries. Dude was way too close to way too much boom. And we can’t properly diagnose him here.”

Noise came around from the front of the truck. Jake looked up at him, and he shook his head. “I am afraid it is a write-off.” The armor-piercing rounds from the Black Shark’s autocannon had chewed through half the engine block. On the upside, it had probably saved the lives of everyone behind it. “This truck will not run again.”

Zack moaned as he started to regain consciousness, at the same time as all their radios went. It was Handon. Jake straightened up and stepped away to take it.

“This is Cadaver Three, go ahead.”

“You guys still alive?”

“A little bit. By some miracle.”

“The Black Shark?”

“Your man Predator took it out – with his bare hands.”

“Copy that.”
If Handon was surprised to hear this, he didn’t let on.
“What’s your status?”

“One casualty, litter priority – no, belay that.” As he looked on, Zack climbed to his feet, helped by Kate and Pred. He was wobbly, and a quarter-covered in badges, but he actually looked like he could walk. “One casualty, walking. But both our vehicles are disabled.”

“Okay, no problem. We’ll pick you up in a minute.”

“Negative.” Jake took a few steps up the road toward what was left of the bridge. With the attack helo gone, and the smoke blown away, he could see it clearly now – all that was left of the middle section of bridge was a single steel girder on the left side. “The bridge here is out. Repeat – this road bridge is now a foot bridge, at best. You’re about to be on foot, too.”

The beat of silence on the other end felt to Jake like Handon was cursing under his breath – no doubt for the thousandth time on this mission. Jake said, “Look, Handon – we’ll wait for you here, rendezvous both teams, and then exfil together.”

“Negative. Enemy convoy is right behind us. You need to proceed to the next objective and secure it.”

Jake wrinkled his brow. Handon was speaking in code again, or at least being vague. Their team radios had been updated with Juice’s new keys, so this transmission should be secure. Or was it? Maybe he just wasn’t taking any chances.

He said, “Handon, be advised. If that convoy catches you, surely you’re going to need our guns in the fight?” And that was Jake – gunfighter down to his boot soles. “We can make a stand here at the river, with the bridge as a natural choke point.”

“Negative. The last thing we need is to get bogged down in another engagement. Anything could happen, especially with these guys – and we can’t risk the mission objective. We need to get it out of here. And if someone doesn’t secure that next position, none of us are getting out of here anyway.”

“Roger that, Handon. We will comply. Cadaver Three out.”

Jake turned back to the group. “Gather ammo, all you can carry. Nothing else.”

Predator squared up to Zack, who was on his feet and reasonably alert now, though he definitely looked like he had seen more relaxing afternoons. “Can you walk?”

Zack nodded, his face sheened with sweat. “Where we going?”

“We’re all getting out of here.”

“Out of Africa?”

“Yeah. God willing.”

“Then hell yeah, I can walk.”

Ten minutes later the six of them – two Alpha, two Triple Nickel, one Sikh, and one badly wounded Agency analyst – were all running and stumbling across the border into Djibouti.

Out of Somalia, at last.

And into the final act.

* * *

“He fucking what?” Misha was on the radio again, making Kuznetsov jittery again. “I don’t give three explosive shits if he was as big as me. Was he bigger than your motherfucking aircraft? Okay, fuck off now before you make me angry – but keep me posted.”

He threw the handset over his shoulder, hitting the RTO in the face – who clasped his hand over his eye, but swallowed his shout of pain.

“What?” Kuznetsov said.

“The motherfucking Black Shark is down – again.”

But then Misha demanded a call through to Team 3. The RTO passed the handset back over.

“Tell me you’re in fucking position at the airport… Okay.” He threw the handset over his shoulder again.

This time the RTO ducked.

* * *

Hailey came awake with a jolt and a gasp inside her ravaged cockpit. Outside, the bird’s nose was buried so deep in the mud of Somalia that she was sitting practically at ground level.

As her consciousness slowly spooled back up, she realized she had managed to bring her fatally wounded bird down into something slightly more like a landing than a crash – thanks in part to the reliable flatness of Somalia. Nonetheless, as she now remembered, her nose gear had snapped off, plunging the nose of her F-35 into the mud, leaving a furrow a quarter-mile long – and leaving her unconscious again. For how long she didn’t know.

And now, when she woke, she was alone – utterly.

Unstrapping herself from the non-ejection seat, she gave thanks that at least the canopy was gone, and dragged her battered bones over the lip of the cockpit, then tumbled down onto the dirt. It was totally silent – and no one, alive or dead, could be seen in any direction. When she got her radio out of her survival vest and fired it up… no one responded, on any frequency she tried.