ARISEN, Book Twelve - Carnage (24 page)

And he was going to make sure it got done.

He looked up to see the lip of the flight deck descending at his face. He was on the inside edge of the platform, only far enough back to leave room for the tube of his AT-4. And just like that, the deck passed in front of him, and they emerged into the open, out and exposed. Meyer put his sight on the observation deck outside the fourth level of the island, the bridge. There was an enemy sentry standing on it.

He fired. The missile zipped off on its trail of smoke.

The observation platform exploded.

Then, dropping the launcher and bringing his rifle up, Meyer could see the warheads from the other two AT-4s, launched by his two Marines, from just behind and to either side of him, blasting up and hitting two different parts of the island.

And as he raised his weapon and led the charge across the deck, he realized he could actually see the enemy sentry. He was about two hundred feet in the air – and an equivalent distance off the starboard side – but falling fast. And Meyer couldn’t resist laughing out loud as he saw the flailing figure fall toward the ocean below and out of sight.

Frank Sinatra played in his head:
Fly me to the moon…

He elevated his aim and fired as he ran.

* * *

Captain Leonov stepped up to the port-side screens of the bridge – at the same time as rather impressively controlled small-arms fire started banging into the outside of it. The glass was blast-proof, though he wasn’t sure it would have stopped the rockets they launched up here. But he presumed they hadn’t wanted to destroy their own bridge. Still, he had to credit the lead Marine with marksmanship, particularly on the run. His rounds were hitting right in front of his face, and it was mesmerizing. Cradling his own rifle, Leonov assessed the force rushing at the island across the open expanse of flight deck. And he chuckled.

The idiots are assaulting. We’re elevated, protected, and dug in. The attackers will all die on these walls trying to get in.

And Leonov felt confident what he was seeing was a big chunk of their remaining serious combatants. And some of them didn’t even look that serious. He could see three MARSOC Marines out front, leading and protecting their feckless and untrained sailors. If this was their big push to retake the island, it left much to be desired.

And it was going to fall disastrously short.

He hit his radio and said, “All Team One elements. Counter-assault coming from the flight deck, in squad strength. Redeploy six men from the interior strongpoints. Three to the outside ladder, and three onto the flight deck – to envelop, and cut them down from the flanks. Out.”

Leonov felt around on his vest for grenades. It would be fun to go out and drop a few on the attackers’ heads.

* * *

By the time Meyer slammed into the hard steel of the island, he had clocked three shooters emerging onto the outside ladder, on each of three levels. And looking back toward the elevator, he could see they had already taken their first casualties – two sailors laid out on the deck, one crawling, one still.

He nodded at Graves and Commiskey, who stepped away from the cover of the island, radically elevated their weapons, and started engaging. He knew the grenades would be coming next. But when they started taking fire from deck level, that’s when he knew they were getting it done.

He hit his radio. “Commander, it’s Meyer – go, go, go!”

* * *

Lovell scanned the empty compartment as Patrick, last out of the lab, came through the breached bulkhead. His initial plan had been to breach through to the next compartment, to get farther away from the hospital before they risked the passageway outside. But now that whole idea seemed pretty stupid. There was no time.

“Come on,” he said, raising his rifle and advancing on the outside hatch. He could already feel the burn in his legs from the massive weight he was carrying. He just had to hope the adrenaline sustained him long enough to get them out of there.

He pushed open the hatch and then, dreading what he would see, but needing to see it, looked back down the hall to the right. Sure enough, there was a Spetsnaz shooter standing outside the hospital. And the man was switched on – simultaneously bringing his weapon up and barking into his radio.

Fuck.

Lovell took cover behind the outward-opening hatch as rounds started cranking into it from the other side. But before he could plan his next move, Patrick limped past him, lay down on the deck, leaned around the hatch – and returned fire.

“Get Park the hell out of here,” Patrick said, his voice somehow still vigorous, his SCAR chugging steadily. He obviously intended to hold the line here. And there was absolutely no time to argue.

“Go well, brother,” Lovell called over his shoulder as he shoved Sarah and Park out in front of him and down the passageway, hugging the left bulkhead, covered by the steel of the hatch and the lead from Patrick’s rifle.

And by a MARSOC Marine with five holes in him.

* * *

“Not happening –
sir
.” This was Corporal Dunham, shoving Commander Drake out of the way at the last second, and leading the assault into the inside ladder of the island. Drake bowed to his courage and good sense. With only a pistol, and no body armor, Drake probably wasn’t the best choice to lead the charge.

When they got inside, it was immediately obvious the diversion had worked. There were only two defenders in there, and the Marines managed to take them both down, with only one light casualty – Witek got shot in the forearm. But when Dunham led them one level up to CIC, they quickly realized Spetsnaz didn’t go down that easy – and they were fucking dangerous even when they did. A grenade clattered down the metal stairs. Drake figured the guy above had let it go when he expired. But it didn’t matter.

Because they were all in a tightly enclosed space – all of it solid steel – with a live grenade. They were all about to die.

Dunham fell on the grenade.

It thumped and his body bounced three feet.

Drake felt stinging on his right side – a little of the blast had escaped and caught him. No one else seemed hurt. Corporal Dunham was a bloody mess. And he was gone.

No greater love.
Drake didn’t even have a hat to take off.

While the two surviving Marines covered up the stairwell, and the rest of the force faced back and down, he hammered on the hatch to CIC with the butt of his pistol as he yelled: “Open the fuck up! Friendlies outside! Open up!”

Light fell on his face as the hatch swung open.

Drake staggered in, his breath ragged. Campbell was right there, side arm drawn, staring at him, wordless. Drake turned and saw most of the others still outside. “Come on!” he shouted. Two faces turned in to face him – both female. It was Armour and Hester. Both looked calm and resolved.

“We’ll stay out here and defend CIC,” Armour said.

“Don’t be stupid,” Campbell said, reaching around Drake to yank them inside. “You’ll just die with your backs to that door.” She didn’t take time to explain that it was impenetrable. The others scrambled in, and several shoulders heaved the hatch closed again.

When Campbell turned around, she saw Drake had already shoved an ensign away from his station and taken his place at the console, typing madly.

“Thank God,” he muttered.

“What?” Campbell said, moving to his side.

“My damned login credentials still work…”

The Narrow Corner

Off Red Square – One Troop’s Strongpoint

Jameson peered out of an unbroken window on the second floor of the building they had occupied – and in which they were now trapped – while trying to ignore the deep and painful throbbing in his right upper arm. He never felt the bullet wing him, in all the chaos and adrenaline of the firefight around the crash site.

Sometimes that happened – guys could be mortally wounded, and not know it, insisting they felt fine for fifteen minutes afterward, until someone noticed them leaving a blood trail. Now, he’d gotten an adhesive gauze pad on the creasing bullet wound, and it wasn’t bleeding, but it seemed to have its own powerful heartbeat.

It was also a sharp little reminder that, under the armor, and outside the steely resolve of a small-unit commander, he was still just vulnerable flesh and blood. He could be gunned down, blown up, or infected, in a single very bad heartbeat. If just one tiny round tore through the femoral artery in his leg, he could bleed out and die in two minutes. He could fall anytime – leaving his Marines to carry on alone in this fallen world. Leaving his mission uncompleted.

And his homeland naked before the undead tide.

And he also knew they were now facing, for the first time, not just human opponents. They were facing an enemy of unprecedented and nearly unrivaled skill, viciousness, and resolve. Jameson figured it was a damned miracle any of them were still alive. The Marines’ tactics had been brash to the point of recklessness – eleven men assaulting into an underground bunker with God only knew how many Spetsnaz Alfa operators in it – hundreds? On reflection, it was almost certainly only their aggression and sheer balls that had kept them alive this long.

Jameson didn’t figure it could last much longer. Still, he made a mental note not to fuck with success. Maybe sheer balls would get them through this, or even get them out of there alive and with their mission objective – the MZ, the only thing that might save London now.

From his second-floor window, Jameson couldn’t see the Russians, but that was probably because Red Square was flooded with hundreds of dead now, their moans and frenzy drawing more, from what looked like every entrance to the square. It was like the best music festival of the summer, with the headliners coming up, and the crowd rocking.

Whatever small chance they’d had of fighting their way to the helicopter and retrieving the MZ five minutes ago was diminishing by the second. And it was fast approaching zero.

Jameson sensed two bodies approaching him from behind. “Any idea where the Russians went?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Sergeant Croucher said, stepping up on his left. “As soon as we broke contact, they started their own withdrawal – hauling ass to the opposite side of the square.”

Eli, on his right, spat in the dark. “I’m pretty sure I saw them bust into the building directly opposite us. Reckon they’re strongpointing there, just like we are here.”

Jameson exhaled. “So it’s a stand-off.”

Eli nodded at the legions of dead outside. “Siege, more like.”

* * *

Down in the ravaged elevator lobby of the Alfa bunker, there were now medical personnel trying to treat the wounded – while also trying to stay out of the way of the rubble-clearing operation. Akela was supervising all of this, determined to get the stairs clear so they could send men up and out of there, while also fielding reports and issuing orders through his all-ruling headset. Now a voice from the TOC came through.

“Viper One for you.”

He touched his ear. “Put her through. Go ahead.” And then he listened for a good minute, his expression not brightening any. “So no scientist… And no pathogen… You can’t reach the helo but neither can they? Okay. Continue to strongpoint there, and stand by.”

Touching the headset to close the channel, he took a deep breath while squaring his broad shoulders and opening up his chest, all the while thinking through it.

“Okay, fuck this,” he said, either to himself or to no one. Brushing cement dust off his hands, he strode powerfully down the hallway. Regaining the TOC, he squeezed the radio op’s shoulder, probably painfully, and said, “Start hailing on the following frequencies…”

“What encryption protocol?”

“None. In the clear.”

* * *

When the three Royal Marine leaders emerged back onto the dark and cold rooftop, Jameson moved first to check on the wounded Younis, who was laid out on the ground with Yap checking and tightening his bandages – but he could already see Simmonds urgently waving him over, radio handset to his ear.

“What is it?” Jameson said.

“Incoming transmission – on an unencrypted channel.”

Striding over to where Simmonds knelt with his radio, Jameson took the handset. “Go ahead.”

There was a distinct pause, before a voice answered. It was in heavily accented English, but intelligible. It was also low and gravelly, with a definite undertone of menace. But there was some other quality about it… not quite refined, Jameson thought, but confident. A man who knew what he was about, knew what he was doing – and knew what had to be done.

“Am I speaking to the commander of the invading British force?”

Jameson didn’t respond, mind racing through possibilities.

“The one who turned my elevator into a mining tunnel – and my stairwell into a mine collapse?”

Jameson exhaled. “Speaking.” Then he actually laughed at himself – at how, whatever the circumstances, the English always got more English on the phone. Being a British officer was a strange thing.

“I am the commander of the local garrison of Spetsnaz Alfa Group. You and I have now bloodied each other’s noses. But I want you to know that your situation is not what you think it is. I’m going to suggest you contact your pilot. I will stand by while you do so.”

Jameson’s eyes narrowed. He covered the mouthpiece and looked down at Simmonds. “Air mission channel.”

Simmonds complied.

“Gibson, One Troop Actual, message, over.”

With very little delay, Group Captain Gibson answered. But now the characteristically jaunty voice of the man who had flown them in there, and been left back with the plane, sounded strained and exhausted – and maybe even scared.
“Gibson here, Major. But list—”
He was cut off mid-syllable, and then another voice came on, also Russian-accented.

“Hello, citizen!”

“Shit,” Jameson said out loud.

Gibson came back on. Jameson could hear his labored breathing, though his choice of words tried to belie it. “Afraid so, old chum. The blighters have got me.”