ARISEN, Book Eleven - Deathmatch (14 page)

Handon had found himself in a similar state of mind on their air insertion into Chicago, when of course things had gone to total shit. But they’d accomplished their mission anyway, and – mostly – gotten out alive. Today, they’d just have to do it one more time.

And finally finish this thing.

Looking over at Henno, Handon saw he was also dealing with this insertion the same way he had in Chicago.

Fast asleep.

Handon let him sleep until the cabin lights flashed two minutes.

* * *

As the undulating sea of dead came into view below, ringing the badly battered and roughly repaired walls of the Stronghold, Juice touched Handon’s sleeve. He had stayed head down in the radios, dealing with air, CIC, and their trailing ground convoy.

“CAS net, top. She wants talk-through.”

Handon switched his radio to that channel. The voice that came through was that of LT Hailey “Thunderchild” Wells, up at 10,000 feet in her F-35, the sole top cover for this operation.

“Thunderchild, Cadaver One Actual, go ahead.”

“Yeah, Cadaver, be advised. I am not the only aircraft in this airspace. I’m currently looking at a little buzzing lawnmower down at about four thousand – a Predator UAV. And we ain’t flying it.”

Handon sat up straight, looked around the cabin, rapped Baxter on his helmet, and shouted over the engine noise. “Hey! Is there a Predator drone you forgot to tell us about?”

“Shit. Yeah – sorry! It was an Air Force theater asset, under temporary Agency control. Zack and I had to give it to Godane in return for sanctuary.”

Handon blinked once. This wasn’t a terrific thing to forget to mention. “Is it likely to be
armed
?”

Baxter looked pained. “Yeah, possibly. They still had two Hellfires when Zack and I escaped.”

Great
, Handon thought. The Hellfire was a laser-guided missile designed to defeat tank armor. If someone put a laser marker on their Seahawk and walked one of those things on, there might not even be any debris or body parts left to hit the ground.

Baxter looked like he needed to say something reassuring. “But they really just use the Pred for ISR. If al-Sîf put it up, it’s because he wants eyes on us when this goes down. He’s tactically savvy.”

That
, Handon thought,
or he wants to murder us all
.

He switched channels to ICS and hailed the two helo pilots up front. He slightly knew them as Reich and Muralles, pilot and co-pilot/airborne tactical officer (ATO), and two of the last surviving and unhurt Seahawk flight crews. Everyone else had gone down fighting the dead in the Battle of the
JFK
, or fighting the Russians in the CSAR mission.

“Hey, guys, am I correct in thinking this aircraft is unarmed except for the minigun?” Handon knew the
JFK
’s Seahawks used to mount four Hellfires on their own stub wings – but he was pretty sure they had all been expended in the flight deck battle, and none found in the scavenging mission.

“Negative,”
Reich replied, initially filling Handon with hope.
“No ammo for the minigun – plus no minigunner.”

Handon shook his head. This just kept getting better. His silence must have sounded angry, because Reich came back on.

“Hey, we did it to save weight. You asked for maximum lift capability, plus max range and endurance.”

It was true, he had – and that was also why only half the normal crew was on board. But it wasn’t really what he wanted to hear right now.

He looked out and down as they passed the thickest part of the singularity, cresting and breaking against the high stockade walls of the forest fortress. It was a significant herd, and from above it seemed more like a dead sea, waves of arms and heads cresting, the occasional pair of legs flipping by. But the walls did look intact, and with a little luck the dead would stay on their side of it.

The pilots took them on a quick circuit around the perimeter, during which they could see the parapets of the walls bristling with al-Shabaab guys carrying AKs and RPGs. They were obviously waiting for them. The walls were also studded with a half-dozen guard towers – many of which looked like they had been rebuilt or reinforced with big steel plates. Basically, if they wanted to destroy the Seahawk and kill everyone on it, they weren’t going to need the Hellfires on that Predator to do it.

Handon looked over at Baxter and Kate, to see if things below looked as expected. Kate simply wore the stony poker face of a soldier getting her head in the game before a mission. But in Baxter all Handon saw was a young man trying to master his fear. From what he had been told, their last foray into this place had been beyond harrowing. Neither could be thrilled at having to come back again. But then again, they were both doing it.

And, despite his fear, even Baxter looked resolved to do his duty.

Handon looked out again as they began descending into the huge dirt courtyard, flaring in and lining up so the left side of the bird faced a small group of men standing in the open, about fifty feet away. Handon hauled open the cargo door even as the Seahawk’s three rubber tires settled into packed mud.

Handon leapt out, his assault boots doing the same.

* * *

Glancing behind him, he saw Baxter following right behind, which was good. But Henno was also crouching down to jump off.

“No,” Handon shouted to him over the engine noise. “If I go down, I need you to finish this thing.”

It was true, and Henno felt the truth of it. He nodded, moved to the rear of the cabin, pulled his rifle in to his shoulder, and started scanning over his reflex sight out the open hatch. Ali was already doing the same in the front of the cabin, on the other side of the hatch, while Kate was in the middle facing away, covering out the opposite side. Juice sat just behind the cockpit with the radios, rifle cradled in his lap.

As Handon faced forward again, he scanned and assessed the tactical picture. They’d landed not too far from the center of a very large dirt courtyard, dotted here and there with parked vehicles, corrugated sheds and outbuildings, what looked like a big diesel generator. He could also see a number of deep holes or slit trenches, presumably leading down to the underground areas Baxter had described.

Farther away, and apart from everything else, was a badly shot-up SF gun truck. Handon caught Baxter eyeing it, and guessed one or more of his friends had died there. But he needed him focused on his job.

“Baxter,” he said.

The kid faced forward, snapped to, and gripped his weapon.

In seconds, Handon had finished his survey. There were definitely a lot of hiding places, and a lot of hazards. Then again, the al-Shabaab guys didn’t seem to be hiding. Ringing the walls on all sides were what looked like most of the 200 defenders – all of them pointing weapons down at Handon and his team.

Directly ahead of them was a tall, lean, muscular Somali man, standing up straight and facing Handon without evident fear. From his manner, he had to be the one in charge: al-Sîf. With braided hair cinched behind his head, and muscular bare arms under his tactical vest, he also carried an unlikely weapon for an Islamist fighter – a SCAR Mk 20 Mod 0, one of the latest and best designated-marksman rifles (DMR). Even stranger was the stubby barrel poking over his shoulder, which appeared to be a Milkor six-shot grenade launcher. Finally, his namesake scimitar hung from his belt.

He looked to Handon like he intended to fight and win the zombie wars singlehandedly. Then again, Handon remembered Jake and how heavily strapped he went. Maybe Africa was just that kind of place. And, as strange as these weapons were to see on a militia fighter, that was the ZA. For fearless scavengers, all things were available.

Handon stepped forward.

One Millimeter Off the Ground

Stronghold – Courtyard

Baxter followed two paces behind, just to Handon’s left side, trying to keep his mind on his job. But from where he stood, he could see not only the gun truck – but could also, in his mind’s eye, see Todd firing its Mk 47 full-auto grenade launcher non-stop, blasting a hole out of there for the others, even as he was shot to death himself. Baxter could also see the building where they’d made their last stand, and from which Brandon had made his final heroic run. He could smell and taste the dirt from the section of tunnel that had collapsed on him and Kate.

And now, slung over the back of al-Sîf, he could see the Milkor grenade launcher that had belonged to Maximum Bob – former Team Six SEAL, CIA para… and friend. He had died saving Baxter and Zack, and even made sure they escaped with the Milkor, which Godane had taken off them when they got here.

Basically, there were too many ghosts swirling around him.

Al-Sîf looked exactly as he remembered, though more tooled up than usual. Two of his minions, al-Shabaab fighters who Baxter also slightly recognized, flanked and followed him, their fingers curled recklessly around the triggers of their AKs.

Baxter shook his head.
Still no damned trigger discipline
.

Almost smiling, al-Sîf tossed his head toward him and in English said, “Hello, white boy.”

“What’s up, gang banger,” Baxter answered.

Al-Sîf’s smile melted away and he looked back at Handon, then tossed his head toward the Seahawk. His meaning was clear: there had better be room on that thing for him. And now Baxter realized something else – none of the other al-Shabaab guys would know al-Sîf was abandoning them. A keen student of geopolitics, he knew it was generally like that for strongmen: as soon as you stopped being in charge, you’d better be gone. Or else you were dead.

Handon didn’t move, but just said, “Where’s Patient Zero?”

Al-Sîf shouted over his shoulder in Somali. A door banged open on a building abutting the outer wall, and two more fighters came out, AKs slung, carrying a black body bag, one at each end. And not all of its movement was due to it swinging between them. They crab-walked it forward and set it down ten feet behind al-Sîf.

It lay there, wiggling slowly on the ground.

Handon said, “How do I know it’s the right dead guy?”

Baxter stepped up to his shoulder. “I’ll recognize it.”

Handon motioned him to go check. As Baxter moved forward, the low sky above their heads opened and the rain started falling again. The spinning rotors of the Seahawk caught the drops before they hit the ground, slinging them off and lashing them into the faces of the men on the ground. Baxter could see Handon just letting the horizontal rain slap him, rivulets running off his body.

Baxter endeavored to do the same as he stepped up.

* * *

In the deep shade of the Seahawk cabin, Ali scanned the walls above and around them, acquiring and mentally marking targets. If this did kick off, for whatever reason, there were too many of them to take. Even for her, even with the help of Henno, Juice, and Kate. The four of them could put out some serious and effective fire.

You really just didn’t want to have to do it in 360 degrees.

Ali lamented the loss of the two minigunners the last time she had fought in one of these aircraft – wishing they were alive, and here. A couple of 5,000-round belts of 7.62 wouldn’t go amiss either. But hopefully neither would be needed.

If things did go south, Ali knew their best chance was to fly the hell out of there, as fast as possible. She spoke to Reich and Muralles through her headset. “Be ready to lift.”

“Hey, roger that. You know what, we’re actually still hovering right now – one millimeter off the ground.”

Ali could hear the smile in Reich’s voice. She figured you had to have a sense of humor to do his job. She had been there when the co-pilot in their sister Seahawk,
Jesus Two Zero
, had kept them all from crashing into the ocean, and kept cracking jokes, even as he was passing out from blood loss.

You had to love military aviators.

But then Ali realized she could hear something, beneath or behind the roar of the rotors and engines, and the rattling of the airframe around her. She wasn’t even sure, now, whether she heard it or felt it. She knew Reich had been exaggerating only slightly – he’d kept their rotors turning at a speed not much below dust-off. But there was something else, a hum or vibration in the airframe, or maybe just in the air around her. It was almost like some sense that was neither sound nor touch.

But it was real, and it made the hairs on Ali’s neck stand up.

Frowning with concern, she took her left hand from her foregrip and pulled an NVG monocle out of a pouch on her vest. She put it to her eye, started scanning… and immediately saw a green IR laser dancing on the back of Handon’s head.

Whipping around and squinting out the window on the other side, she could see another one, just visible in the dark and misty air, slashing down toward the back side of the helo.

“Contact right!” she shouted, through both her team radio and ICS. “Handon –
down!
Reich – dust off
now
!” The thought actually flashed through her mind to dive up on to the flight deck and yank on the collective herself. But the pilot was switched on, and reacted instantly. The engines screamed and whined as they left the muddy ground, and Ali moved back to the open hatch and took aim.

The first thing she saw was Handon – tensed, crouching, and bringing his weapon up. A few feet ahead of him, the al-Shabaab commander went over backward from the force of incoming rounds hitting his chest – and Ali felt sure they had been intended for the back of Handon’s head. He took off out of his crouch, dashing forward and left toward cover – but only made it one step before he jerked from the impact of rounds hitting him in the back, between the shoulder blades, and knocking him face down into the mud.

Ali, blasting into the sky at the Seahawk’s max climb rate of 1,650 feet per minute, never saw him hit the ground – mostly because the ground directly below them, in the spot the Seahawk had occupied two seconds ago, went up in a rippling, pummeling, fiery explosion. Ali could retrospectively feel and hear, but not see, the zipping approach of the incoming missile that tore apart the ground underneath their wheels – and which actually accelerated the Seahawk’s rate of climb, as super-heated air expanded violently beneath them.