RECCE II (The Union Series Book 5) (7 page)

‘Stay down, you bell end!’ Leaman grunted, kneeling
heavily on the prisoner’s chest. The Guardsman’s arms still flailed around as
he tried to escape.

Wildgoose looked up at me. ‘Andy . . . he’s an
officer!’

I hurried across to him, eager to see for myself. If
we had indeed miraculously captured the enemy commander, then we would have
gained access to a wealth of information. He would know where the hostages
were, or maybe the location of the secret anti-orbital missile stockpile. He
might even be able to shed light on who was giving them their orders, both in
Edo and in our own Province of Paraiso.

I recognised the Guard officer as soon as I caught a
glimpse of his face in the dim flicker of a nearby fire, and the sight of him
caused my lip to curl.

‘You!’ I snarled. I crouched over him, lowering my
rifle and pressing the cutting edge of my bayonet against his throat.

It was Captain Mori, one of One Company’s platoon
commanders. His company had been tasked with assisting the FEA in holding
Cellini, but in the end it was their own retreat that had caused mass panic,
and led to the loss of the village.

‘Where’s our platoon commander?’ I demanded through
bared teeth, leaning down toward him. My visor pressed against his. ‘Where is
he?!’

Mori smiled. ‘He is long gone. You have wasted your
time looking here, earthling!’

‘Where is he, you prick?’ I raged. ‘Tell me now, or
I swear I’ll cut you from ear to ear!’

‘Kill me,’ the Guard officer taunted. ‘You won’t get
anything from me, Union scum! Reinforcements will arrive soon. We have been
tasked to secure our headquarters until then–’

‘Reinforcements?’ I spat. ‘From who? The Militia?’

I then felt a hand pushing me gently to one side,
and realised that Rusakov was behind me, flanked by several FEA soldiers. They
had followed the platoon into the chamber, and no doubt they now wanted to take
charge. This was their warren, after all, and they needed to take control of it
before a far more dangerous enemy took advantage of the chaos underground.

I withdrew my bayonet from Mori’s throat and stood
up. Wildgoose and Leaman followed suit, stepping back so the FEA could get to
him. As soon as we moved out of the way they took our place around the Guard
officer, gripping him by his body armour and pulling him to his feet. The Guard
officer winced in pain as his burnt skin was stretched, then the pained
expression turned to one of agony as one of the FEA punched him in the gut.

‘The FEA will deal with the prisoners,’ Rusakov
assured me as Mori was dragged away. ‘They must find out what the traitors have
done to the warren communication network so it can be repaired. Otherwise all
is lost.’

‘And the hostages . . .?’

‘We will find out where they are,’ he said.

I gestured toward Mori. ‘What if he doesn’t talk?’

The Guard NCO’s lips curled into a cruel smile. ‘He
will talk.’

Whilst the FEA took control of the headquarters, the
sergeant major ordered us to search for our comrades. It turned out that there
were tens of hostages, perhaps even a hundred of them, all kept in the various
adjoining chambers. Our sections had bypassed them as they battled against the
rogue Guardsmen, but now that the headquarters had been captured we were free
to search them.

My fire team were ordered into one of the chambers,
where we found at least twenty hostages. They had been made to sit facing the
walls with their hands bound behind their backs and hoods pulled over their
respirators. In the middle of the room was a pile of bodies, thrown on top of
each other like discarded waste.

‘Jesus . . . ’I breathed, a lump forming in my
throat.

I flashed my rifle torch over the bodies,
desperately hoping not to find our comrades amongst them. I recognised Guard
uniforms, FEA uniforms and civilian clothing. Fortunately, there was no distinctive
green Union camouflage amongst the sorry mound of victims.

‘Tell me none of our lads are in that?’ Myers
pleaded, having finished his scan of the live prisoners.

‘No,’ I said.

He sighed, sharing my relief.

I swept my gaze around the chamber, searching for
any sign of a familiar uniform. ‘What about this lot?’

‘Doesn’t look like the boss is here,’ Weatherall
replied.

‘Check them,’ I ordered. ‘Lift their hoods and have
a look, just in case they’ve had a change of clothes.’

We had to be thorough in our search for our
comrades. For all we knew, the rogue Guardsmen might have stripped them of
their uniform so that they could smuggle them out of the warren.

Myers hesitated. ‘Do you want us to release the ones
we check?’

I considered the question. ‘No. Not if we don’t
recognise them. Some could be captured Militia for all we know. We’ll let the
FEA deal with them when they’re ready.’

‘Roger.’

As I looked across the row of prisoners, I noticed
that one of them was wearing a bloodstained blue jumpsuit. My heart jumped as I
recognised the outfit, and I walked across the chamber and snatched the hood
from the prisoner’s head.

‘Fancy seeing you here,’ I said, staring down at a
familiar face.

Yulia blinked up at me, startled, until she realised
it was me. The corners of her mouth twitched in a brief flash of relief before
hardening back into the expressionless mask I was used to.

‘You have come back for your friends,’ she said
cynically.

‘And you,’ I added. I crouched behind her, removing
my bayonet from my rifle and using it to saw through the plastic cuffs binding
her wrists. They were the same cuffs my comrades had used to restrain her after
our chase through the tunnels, I noticed.

Yulia rubbed her wrists once I had removed the
cuffs. ‘You want the missiles.’

‘Yeah,’ I answered honestly. ‘A company of Union
troopers are on the surface. I told their OC you knew where they were–’

A long, agonised scream filled the chamber, stopping
me mid-sentence. Somewhere within the captured headquarters the torture of
Captain Mori and his men had begun. I couldn’t imagine what awful pain the FEA
would inflict upon them in order to extract the information they needed. They
were determined to restore communications to the warren, and would do whatever
was necessary to find out how. If they couldn’t work out how to fix the warren
network, then the rogue Guardsmen would probably die horrifically disfigured.

I looked back down at Yulia. ‘
Do
you know
where the missiles are?’

She regarded me for a moment, as if deciding whether
I could be trusted. ‘Yes.’

‘How?’

‘I was based in this warren,’ she explained, ‘before
the Loyalists invaded. The missiles were hidden so Union spies could not find
them. Only some of us knew where they were.’

‘Can you take us to them?’

‘Yes. But I think that we may be too late. The
missiles are probably already being moved.’

I flicked my head toward the pile of bodies. ‘Did
some of these talk?’

Yulia followed my eyes, then shook her head. ‘I
don’t know. I heard them being dragged in, but they were already dead, I think.
Bhasin already knew where the missiles were, but he needed to know how to get
them out of the warren.’

It took a couple of seconds for the familiar name to
sink in. My eyebrows raised in surprise as I remembered the shady man who had helped
to orchestrate the massacre at Dakar. He had sent his own son to kill me and my
men - a son who I had killed instead. ‘Bhasin?’

She nodded slowly. ‘Yes. Bhasin.’

4

Tactical Questioning

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It was hard to think straight whilst listening to
the constant shrieking of Captain Mori and the other unfortunate rogue Guard
survivors. Nobody dared to venture near to the small storage chamber from which
their tormented screams emanated. Instead every trooper remained rooted to the
spot, unsure how to respond. God only knew what the FEA were doing to their
prisoners in order to extract the information they needed, and to be honest we
didn’t want to know. There were no rules of war out in the Bosque, and even if
there were, nobody was going to follow them.

I helped Yulia to turn around so that she could rest
her back against the chamber wall. I flicked my torch over her jumpsuit to
inspect for injuries, but it was hard to tell if she had been hurt since her
outfit was already stained with the blood of another rogue Guardsman she had
killed in Cellini a few hours before.

‘Are you hurt?’ I asked.

‘No,’ she replied. ‘I have been left alone since I
was brought here. My hood was placed on as soon as I was brought into the
warren, so nobody recognised me–’

Our conversation was cut short as the sergeant major
emerged within the chamber entrance. ‘Don’t release anyone! Not unless they’re
wearing a trooper’s uniform!’

‘Yes, sir!’ my men chorused in response, stepping
away from the hooded prisoners as if to prove their innocence.

The sergeant major swept his gaze across the room,
scanning for our missing comrades. Eventually his eyes fell upon me and Yulia,
and he frowned deeply. ‘You found your mate, then?’ he asked, a hint of scorn
in his voice.

‘Yeah,’ I replied, ignoring his disdain.

He jutted a finger at her. ‘You watch her like a
hawk . . . understand?’

‘Understood.’

Yulia watched stone-faced as the sergeant major
disappeared back into the smoke. ‘He does not want you to rescue me,’ she
observed.

‘He doesn’t think you can help us find the missiles,’
I admitted with a sigh. ‘He’s only interested in finding our platoon commander
and getting out of the warren.’

Yulia proffered a hand to me and I took it, helping
to lift her back to her feet. She looked around the chamber, seeing where she
had been held captive for the first time. I doubted she could see much, though,
since her civilian respirator didn’t come with the same image enhancing
technology that our visors provided. The only light came from the small
flickering fires that burned in the command chamber, and the intermittent
flashing of FEA torches.

‘Your platoon commander is not here,’ she told me.

I frowned, suspicious of the certainty in her voice.
‘How do you know?’

‘Bhasin wouldn’t leave him here,’ she said. ‘A Union
trooper would be useful to him . . . and an officer would be more useful still.
Your platoon commander must have information that could help their cause . . .’

‘Handing the missiles over to the Militia,’ I
finished.

‘To Helstrom,’ she corrected. ‘But that . . .’ She
swept her arms across the chamber, as if encompassing the entire battlefield
around us ‘. . . this . . . is only part of their plan.’

I decided to test her knowledge. ‘Well, what’s the
next part?’

‘We aren’t sure. They must use the missiles to anger
the Russians somehow. This is the only way to prevent the pact being formed
between the Union and the Alliance, because the Union will never ally with the
Alliance if they will upset their greater ally - the Russians.’

My mouth worked, but no words came out as I
struggled to think of what to ask her next. Clearly she knew about the planned
annexation of her province, but how? Who was providing her with information?
Who had sent her and her men into Cellini to stop Bhasin and his company of
rogue Guardsmen? My mind was awash with questions, but I knew that I needed to
focus my questioning onto the immediate situation. Our platoon commander was
still missing, and the Militia were still threatening to overrun the FEA if
they didn’t manage to fix the warren network.

‘Did you see what they did to the Guard Commanding
Officer?’ I asked, changing the subject.

The entire Guard headquarters had been in the
command chamber, controlling the battle from the heart of the warren. If their
commanding officer could be found and communications restored, then perhaps he
could take the reins and lead his countrymen once more. More importantly,
fixing the network would allow us to communicate with B Company on the surface.
As it stood, we were working on a deadline. Their OC had given us only three
hours to return to the surface, and that time was swiftly running out.

Yulia shook her head. ‘I never saw the commanding officer,
or any of the original Guard commanders. We were hooded from the beginning and taken
straight into this chamber. There was much shouting, and gunfire.’ She nodded
toward the bodies. ‘Perhaps he is there . . .’

I followed her gaze to the sorry heap of human
remains. There were many Guard uniforms amongst the murdered hostages. If the
intention of the rogue Guardsmen was to break unit cohesion and allow the
Militia to re-take Cellini, then killing the commanding officer and his staff
would be the simplest way to achieve that effect.

My eyes hung over the bodies for a moment, and then
I breathed an exasperated sigh. ‘This is madness! The Militia are out there,
and you lot are all busy fighting yourselves.’

Yulia stared silently back at me.

I realised that I had probably touched a nerve, and
relented. ‘Sorry,’ I said, quickly.

‘You do not need to apologise,’ she replied with a
hint of sadness in her voice. ‘You are right. There is a poison within the
Guard now. I am angry that that it has taken me so long to see it.’

The cries of pain intensified suddenly, sending a chill
down my spine.

‘Jesus Christ . . .’ Myers exclaimed, staring back
out into the command chamber. ‘What the hell are the FEA doing to them lot?’

‘The traitors are getting what they deserve,’ Yulia
told him harshly. ‘They have done more harm to our people than the Loyalists
ever could. Do not spare them your pity.’

‘You lot are all fucking animals,’ the young trooper
uttered under his breath.

Ignoring his comment, I turned back to Yulia. ‘How
do you know Bhasin was here, anyway, if you were hooded all the time?’

‘I heard him,’ she answered. ‘I have worked with him
before. I would know his voice anywhere.’

I considered her response. It made sense, since the
first time I met her she was indeed working close to Bhasin - presumably under
his command. ‘So . . . he survived Dakar.’

She nodded. ‘He was in charge of the company you
directed artillery onto, but he did not die with his men.’

My jaw tightened. It wasn’t that surprising that
Bhasin had survived the bombardment I had called in at Dakar. I had called the
fire mission onto the Guard’s frontline soldiers, with the railgun shells
landing only a few hundred metres from our own position. Bhasin wasn’t keen on
getting too close to the fighting, he liked to command from the rear, like a
puppet master pulling strings whilst hiding in the shadows.

‘Is he in charge of these rogue Guardsmen, or is
there somebody above him giving the orders?’

Yulia shrugged. ‘I think that he is in command. I
only heard his voice for a few seconds, but he was speaking like he was controlling
the others. Somebody called him “Colonel”.’

‘Colonel?’ I repeated disbelievingly.

‘He has been promoted.’

‘For what?’ I blurted. I could think of nobody less
deserving of a promotion. I had only ever spoken to Bhasin briefly, but I had
learnt to hate him more than I had hated anybody in my life. He embodied
everything that was wrong with the people in power across the Bosque, a cold-blooded
fascist who cared nothing for the people that suffered at his hands.

‘The president must have promoted him for Dakar,’ Yulia
said, almost ashamedly.

I shook my head, disgusted. Bhasin was a murderer who
had waited with his army of zombies until Dakar had been captured, before
turning them against his own people. What kind of man could reward somebody for
killing innocent civilians?

Another long, shrill wail echoed through the warren,
cutting through my soul like a knife, and causing me to judder. Even though the
rogue Guardsmen were twisted, monstrous people, the sound of their torment was
almost too much to bear.

Yulia looked through the chamber entrance, toward
the source of the screaming. ‘What are the FEA trying to do?’

I explained how the seizure of the underground headquarters
had successfully caused chaos amongst the two battalions of FEA and single
Guard battalion defending Hill Kilo, and how the FEA were trying to restore the
communication network so that they could fight back against the Militia.

‘Bhasin and Helstrom are using the Militia as a veil
to distract you,’ Yulia said. ‘They are hiding the extraction of the missiles.
It is unlikely the Militia will attempt to capture the warren itself.’

‘They tried . . .’ I said. Several of our troopers
had been injured attempting to stop the Militia from taking control of Hill
Kilo, and my section had fought a bitter battle to push them out of the upper
warren tunnels.

‘Only to stop the FEA regrouping,’ she argued. ‘They
have drawn all our eyes away from the tunnels at the bottom of the warren, which
is where Bhasin and his men are escaping, along with your friends.’

I raised an eyebrow. ‘There’s a way out from the
bottom of the warren?’

‘Of course.’

‘Come on,’ I said, placing a hand on her shoulder to
guide her through the dark. ‘We need to talk to the sergeant major, before it’s
too late . . .’

We found the sergeant major and his signaller waiting
outside the storage chamber where the prisoners were being tortured, like
relatives waiting outside some hellish operating theatre from the dark ages. He
didn’t even flinch as desperate voices pleaded and begged for mercy somewhere
behind him, but as I shared Yulia’s information, his face contorted into a
cynical scowl.

‘So what exactly do you propose we do, Corporal
Moralee?’ he asked scornfully. ‘Shall we take the platoon right to the bottom
of the warren, with no comms or support, all on the hunch of some woman we
barely know?’ He nodded toward Yulia, who I had left with Myers in the middle
of the command chamber. ‘We have no idea who she works for, or what she’s
capable of.’

‘If she’s right, we don’t have long before Bhasin
gets away,’ I warned.

‘If she’s wrong,’ he countered, ‘we’ll risk the
lives of all our men for nothing. Are you willing to put these troopers’ lives
on the table?’

I swept my arm across the chamber, taking in the
troopers scattered amongst the wrecked computer equipment. ‘Don’t you think
they would want to know you would come for them if
they
were captured?’

His eyes blazed. ‘I will, so long as I don’t end up
condemning the rest of the platoon in the process. I’m not happy trusting this
woman until–’

I cut in. ‘I wouldn’t be either, if I was the one
who’d condemned her to death . . .’

He exploded, causing his signaller to jump as he
swung his rifle to his side and stepped toward me with fists clenched. ‘Who the
hell do you think you are, you little shit?’

‘Who am I?’ I pointed at Yulia. ‘I’m the only one
here with a solution to finding the boss, and the missiles! You may not trust
her, but I do!’

‘What part of you trusts her? Your head, or your pipe?’
the sergeant major spat. ‘You dare gob off at me again, Moralee, and I will
burst your fucking bubble - do you understand me?’

The commotion of the chamber seemed to freeze for a
moment as everyone stopped to witness our standoff. Even the screaming of the
tortured Guardsmen seemed to subside for a moment. The sergeant major’s eyes
burned into mine with furious intensity.