ARISEN, Book Eleven - Deathmatch (43 page)

The pilot saw the reason in this. Facing forward, he pulled pitch and the helo lifted off the deck, but only five feet. Then, equally quickly, bullets still plunking into its skin, the bird tilted to the right, slid over the edge of the deck – and dropped like a stone, sending five stomachs into mouths, but also putting them and the whole aircraft under defilade, down below the level of the flight deck. They were now covered by the great gray body of the carrier itself.

As Wesley tried to keep the contents of his stomach in place, the pilot put their nose down and blasted off. And, just like that, they were away, heading through open air, over open water, toward shore. Breath still magicked away, but exhilarated to be alive, Wesley checked on his team. Everyone was okay, though he wasn’t the only one who couldn’t get his breath back.

Then his mind went to all his other team members – all the NSF personnel stuck back on that floating shoot house, with a marauding enemy force they still knew almost nothing about.

His hand went to his radio, but he stopped himself – once again intuitively grasping the essentials of leadership. He’d handed over command to his senior chief – and, having delegated, he had to leave him alone to get on with it. If Derwin needed Wesley’s input, he’d call. Otherwise, he didn’t need micromanagement, never mind henpecking. Plus Wesley had plenty of his own problems – and felt certain he was about to have many more.

Right now the best he could do was hope like hell that Derwin, and the rest of the team, and everyone on board, would be okay.

He felt something tapping on his body armor – and saw it was Burns handing him an ICS headset. By the time he got his helmet off and the headset on, the pilot was already yelling at him.
“Listen, whoever the hell you are, I’ve got to offload you! I’m going to need every inch of space and every ounce of lift for Team Cadaver!”

“Fine,” Wesley said. “Drop us at Djibouti Airport.”

“Sorry, I’m not going that way, buddy. My mission is in support of the shore team – on direct orders from their ground commander!”

Wesley just sighed and slumped on the deck, his back pressing up against what he now realized was at least a dozen stacked ammo cans, and squinted into the wind as the coast of Somalia swelled on the horizon. “Us, too, mate,” he said, his voice serene. “Us, too.”

Ahead of them, the great dark body of Africa loomed.

The End of Everything

Nugal Valley, North of the River

But the riverbank battle wasn’t over – not for everyone.

For Marine Staff Sergeant Brady, it was merely the beginning of the end. But he was pretty sure the end it was going to be – the end of an elite military career, the end of martial arts championships, the end of everything… his whole time on this wet spinning rock.

Even the end of coffee.

And that part made him sadder than anything.

Wounded and bleeding, he was hunkered down in the mud and underbrush fifty yards from the road, where the convoy now inched along toward the river, scanning the bush and trying to spot the fleeing Marines. But Brady didn’t need them inching.

He needed them stopped.

As the lead vehicle came into view through the trees, he fired the RPG-32 from his prone position. It zipped through the forest, inches from the heads of two dismounts approaching through the bush, and straight into the side of the big SUV. It punched through the armor and exploded, killing everyone in the back seat and blowing them out the other side and into the forest.

Now the convoy was stopped.

Ha ha, bitches
, Brady thought, nearly laughing out loud.

He pushed away the expended launcher tube, pulled in the unsuppressed M4 he’d been carrying since Camp Lemonnier, and started lighting up the survivors. Instantly, the remaining five vehicles disgorged more heavily armed shooters to counter-assault into the ambush.

What they didn’t know was that it was a one-man ambush – and really only a delaying action. Behind Brady, Fick and Reyes were hauling ass away, but also describing a big loop and circling back to the road where it met the bridge – and the rope line the Russians had strung across the river.

Between them and Spetsnaz was only Brady. But he intended to hold that position until to his last round, his last breath, the last second he had on this Earth.

Ha ha, bitches.

* * *

On the other side of the river, Handon met Ali, Henno, and Baxter at the wood line. They were doing a walk-through of the devastated Spetsnaz positions, turning over charred bodies with their boot toes.

“I don’t see Misha,” Handon said.

“Who?” Henno asked.

“The Spetsnaz commander.”

Ali walked up, cradling her rifle with its big optic. “And I don’t see that jack-rabbit sonofabitch sniper. Vasily.”

The looks the two of them traded made it clear this left them both uneasy. Then again, they were alive. And they held the riverbank. And, much more importantly, Fick had reported by radio that they now – finally, after every conceivable setback – had Patient Zero.

They’d done it. Finally achieved their mission objective.

Now they just had to get it, and themselves, the hell out of there.

But they could also hear short bursts of unsuppressed full-auto fire across the river. Handon was just about to hail Fick for a sitrep when he heard him shouting at him directly, from across the river. When he looked up, he saw the Marines had gotten the Russians’ lashed-together raft back in the water, and were rapidly hand-over-handing themselves across on the rope line.

Fick pointed at his feet, at which lay a body bag. And he gave Handon a thumbs-up. But there were only two Marines on the raft.

“Set security,” Handon said. “I’ll be back.”

And he headed down the riverbank.

To see if Misha’s body had been washed downstream.

* * *

Major Kuznetsov, commander of Team 2 and one of Misha’s more or less trusted lieutenants, looked over the top of his rifle, which lay on the hood of one of the vehicles in the convoy he’d just arrived in. He spared a glance at the burning lead vehicle, and lamented the stupid loss. Unlike his boss, he actually preferred to keep his men alive when possible.

By radio, he instructed his men to probe the enemy’s flanks. He had a funny feeling they weren’t going to find any. This felt to him like a delaying or holding action – maybe only a one- or two-man one at that.

He spotted a muzzle flash through the bush and dialed in with the optic on his own rifle. And what he saw wasn’t the shooter… but a black body bag laid out on the ground in front of it. And it was wiggling.

He jammed his radio button. “Watch your fire, check fire! You’re shooting at the damned mission objective!”

* * *

Brady grinned as the incoming fire slacked off. He’d already been hit twice more, just creases really, but the additional blood loss wasn’t going to extend his lifespan any. He saw a Russian raise his head up and peer into the bush, spotting instead of shooting.

Brady put one into his right eye and he went down again.

Then he winged another guy who showed too much arm.

After that, when more careful and measured rounds started coming in on him, he reached over, grabbed a fistful of body bag, and rolled the whole thing up on to his own back. The occupant of the bag didn’t seem to like this much, making muffled grunting noises and kicking.

“Just you and me, buddy,” Brady said. “Lie still, dammit!”

Then, peering out from under it, still grinning despite the pain, he changed mags and resumed firing.

In short, controlled bursts.

* * *

Handon followed the river up to a tiny cove he hadn’t seen before. And, sure enough, there was a body in it – lying half in and half out of the water. But as soon as he approached, he could see it was way too small to be Misha.

But it was a Spetsnaz guy. And he wasn’t dead.

Half-drowned, only half-conscious – but alive. Cheek in the mud, the fair-skinned young soldier managed to lever his eyes open, and looked up at Handon like a drowned rat. He didn’t even have the strength to raise his head.

Handon put his aiming dot on the man’s forehead. But he couldn’t make himself do it. They’d all done enough killing for one day. And they’d be long gone before this guy could recover enough to become a threat. If he’d had a rifle, it was gone now, so Handon reached to the guy’s chest rig, removed his pistol, and chucked it in the river. The young man closed his eyes again.

Handon turned and jogged back up the bank.

* * *

Brady only stopped firing when a boot came down on his weapon from behind, pushing it into the mud. Then the bagged body was pulled off the top of him. Finally, he felt a muzzle press into the back of his skull – hard.

Mustering the last of his ebbing strength, he grabbed the leg, applied leverage in a direction the knee didn’t want to go, and took its owner down to the ground. In another two seconds he had flipped around, got his legs wrapped around the man’s waist, and pinned him.

“Ha!” he said, from his position of control. “BJJ forever, muthafuckas!”

What looked like an entrenching tool entered his visual field from out of sight, completing a wide swing into his face. As he collapsed, his vision going black, the last thing he could hear was a Slavic-accented voice saying in English: “Your whore mother forever – muthafucka.”

Then blackness.

* * *

When Handon got back to the foot of the bridge, the raft with Fick, Reyes, and their elusive and hard-won prize was just grounding into the muddy bank. He and Fick locked eyes, then clasped hands, elbows bent, just as they had at their last reunion on Beaver Island.

“Brady?” Handon asked.

Fick just shook his head.

Handon put one boot on the raft and leaned over to pick up the bagged body, but Fick waved him off. He looked exhausted, but determined – and he hefted it over his own shoulder again, adjusted the weight, then looked to Handon.

“So what’s our plan for getting the hell out of Dodge?”

“Follow me.” Handon turned and led the reunited but degraded teams back into the forest to the south.

Right back the way they came.

* * *

Major Kuznetsov’s convoy now consisted of six vehicles – two had been destroyed by strafing from the air, and the one hit just now by RPG fire no longer had a back seat, or the men who had been sitting in it, but the fire had been put out and it still ran. This convoy now rolled up to the river’s edge a few seconds too late to see Alpha and the Marines disappear into the forest on the opposite bank.

But they were in time to see Misha and Vasily appear from out of the bush, both soaked to the skin. To Kuznetsov, it looked like they had both just swum the river. Until this second, he’d mainly been worried about explaining to Misha how he planned to get both teams out of there in only six vehicles. But it looked like this was it.

The rest of Team 1 was dead.

Kuznetsov figured the good news, from Misha’s perspective, ought to be that his convoy held another twenty-four fresh shooters – fully supplied, healthy and rested, and ready to roll.

Misha had been massively reinforced.

But as he stalked up to the convoy, leaving muddy footprints behind him, he asked only one question, his rumbling basso chilling Kuznetsov’s soul as it did no matter how many times he heard it.

“Where is it? Where the fuck is the Index Case?”

“We recovered it,” Kuznetsov said, pointing to a wiggling body bag in the open bed of the vehicle. Misha saw it lying next to a bound and bleeding U.S. Marine. He ignored the prisoner and yanked open the zipper of the bag.

Inside was a Spetsnaz Team 2 guy – one who Kuznetsov hadn’t even realized was MIA. He was badly wounded, only half-conscious, and flex-cuffed at his wrists and ankles, with a wide strip of tape over his mouth.

“Sons of cunts,” Misha said.

Then when he looked over at the Marine, he saw he was also half dead – but grinning like he’d just fucked Misha’s sister. “Very clever, Jarhead,” Misha said, in English. He pulled his mammoth Desert Eagle and pointed it at the grin. “Any last requests?”

Brady’s head lolled. “Wouldn’t say no to a coffee.”

Misha squinted, admiring the bravado of this warrior, in his last minute on Earth. He snapped his fingers. “Runt! Coffee!” But then he remembered the Runt was gone, swept away into the ocean. He looked at Kuznetsov. The major shrugged, leaned into the front of his vehicle, produced a thermos, poured some in the cap, and put it to the lips of the prisoner.

Brady took a sip, then swallowed with effort. “This is shit.”

Misha shrugged. “Sorry.”

“Oh, well,” Brady said.

“Oh, well,” Misha echoed.

A single thundering pistol shot cracked through the valley.

The Truth Hits Everyone

Nugal River Valley, Near the South Edge

Handon had to give Fick credit. The guy was two years older than even him, but there he was, keeping up with the column of younger guys on a loaded run – in his case, loaded with a body. Then Handon remembered an old joke: A friend will help you move. A good friend will help you move a body.

Correction
, Handon thought. Fick wasn’t just running with a body. He actually had the salvation of the world on his back. And Handon couldn’t think of anyone he’d sooner trust with that duty.

Fick would bring it home.

While everyone was sucking wind, at least they were sticking to the dirt road this time, and not having to fight through the bush. Their objective was simple. Get out from under the forest – the forbidding canopy that spread over the narrow mud track, dripping water on their heads from the day’s endless on-and-off rain.

Sooner than they expected, the road emerged from the treeline, the forest opened to the thin gray light above – and also to the sight of an incoming helicopter, looking as if it would hit its mark within seconds of the shore team’s arrival. Slowing to a trot, Ali looked up at the familiar profile of the shot-to-shit Seahawk – and, sure enough, with the light behind it, she figured she could just about read a newspaper through it.