Zoe West had slowed down a little after running over the two zombies in the road. It had shaken her up a bit, but she quickly recovered and put on her game face. The Australian had been a member of the Special Air Services before a Blackhawk crash took both her legs. She found she could get on better now with the prosthetic legs, but the SAS retired her anyway. The sergeant wasn't ready to stop being a soldier, so she found herself a gun-for-hire job. It wasn't the same, but it was something.
She liked working for Strategic Securities, the company that Matol Industries had hired for this mission. She'd worked with Hale before and thought the major was a decent enough commander. The rest of this lot was pretty decent too.
"Who do you think the other team is?" West asked Hale.
"Russians. Looks like their handiwork. Probably some cut-rate crew."
"Hate Russians," she said. "Never 'ad a good experience with them."
"Me either." He nodded. "I'm hoping we can get ahead of them."
"What the fuck?" Mac yelled from the rear of the Hummer.
"Holy crap!" Hale sat up in his seat.
About a hundred yards ahead, a deader stumbled out onto the road. It was a black male and was butt naked except for the most beautiful pair of red lace panties, which were pulled over his face. West wished she had a pair like that back in her kit. The panty-blinded deader stumbled across the road and into the jungle.
"Did you see that?" Diamond said from behind Hale. "Did you fucking see that? What the hell was between his legs? Was that a freaking baseball bat?"
"Ay, what do ya feed somethin' like that?" West said.
"Well, I hope that poor fucker got to finish his business," Mac chuckled. "Looks like he's got a damned third leg!"
"That deader’s got a whole lot going on up and down!" Hale laughed.
"Nice panties," West smiled. She swerved a bit as she watched the deader stumble deeper into the brush. Her little movement caused them to barely miss the buried IED.
"Maybe we can go back and grab those for you, Sergeant." Hale watched the zombie disappear into the jungle.
"Eww." She shook her head. "No thanks, Major. I prefer mine from a shop and deader-free."
Another few hundred feet ahead, a deader without legs pulled itself out onto the roadway. With dull eyes, it looked towards the two vehicles and slowly crawled in the direction of the small convoy. Hale saw the body moving in the road.
"Sergeant," he pointed.
"See it, sir."
As the deader pulled itself along the road, it crawled over a second Russian IED. A huge explosion rocked the roadway.
Captain Brooks yawned as she watched the yacht through the binoculars. There wasn't a whole lot going on aboard the vessel. She was just waiting on word from Hale to put a rocket through the hull of those assholes’ boat. In a few minutes, Wu and Brooks were going to blow the shit out of it. An explosion shook her from thoughts of blowing up the yacht.
"What the ...?" Wu scrambled to his feet, slinging his rifle and turning back to the parked bikes. Brooks was already on the run and trying to speak into her headset mic.
"Team one, this is two … Team one …" She threw the sergeant a worried look as she climbed onto her bike. "Hale. Wickham. Anyone, talk to me." Silence. Brooks started her bike and headed back down through the jungle.
"Captain?" Wu said in her ear piece.
"I don't know. Can't be good though!" she shouted into her mic as she tore off towards the road.
"Aw, crap!" Wu cursed, following behind her. So much for an easy pay day.
The explosion was music to Arkady's ears. He gave a hand signal for the others to halt as the blast shook the ground around them. Only Kata, Nico, Dimitry, and Arkady hadn’t dove to the floor at the sound of the IED's detonation. The mercenary commander shook his head in disgust as he eyed the others, who hugged the dirt. This younger breed of soldiers was soft. All talk and vodka.
"Get up!" Arkady said. "Get up. It's only the sound of Americans dying." He put a hand to his ear. "Can't you hear the screams? Beautiful." He chuckled. "Get up, you pussies!"
"Cossacks!" Dimitry grumbled. "Get your asses up. We have money to make."
"Is no money on ground," Kata smirked as she slung her AK and extended a hand to Yuri, who was still prone. "Up, Yuri. I won't tell your mother."
"Thank you, Kata," Yuri said as she helped him up.
"Is nothing." Kata smiled then slugged him hard in the jaw. The younger Russian stumbled backwards. "Just because you're my cousin doesn’t mean I will look the other way. You man up now, or I will be spending your share and telling your mother how sad it is you did not make it home. Understand?"
"Y-yes, Kata. Yes." Yuri nodded, rubbing his jaw.
"Good cousin." She looked at her bruised knuckles and grinned.
"Let's move," Arkady told them. "It is getting late. Since we don't have a truck that runs anymore, we need to move it!"
"Arkady." Gavril struggled to his feet. "Can't we please stop? The Americans are done. I'm not doing well."
"No, we need to go." He looked sternly at the bitten mercenary. Gavril was white as a sheet and drenched in sweat. "We have the upper hand, so we need to exploit it!"
"Ignat and I are both sick." He waved over to the other infected Russian. Ignat nodded weakly as he tried to stand.
"That is unfortunate for both of you." He patted Gavril on a damp shoulder. "Dimitry, shoot them."
"Wha— No!"
Dimitry fired the American-made .45 twice. Gavril toppled over, a surprised look frozen on what was left of his face. Ignat's forehead exploded, his mouth agape. His body collapsed like a sack of wet cement. Nico and Alexi were quickly on the fresh corpses, taking anything that was worth money. The rest of the mercenaries were staring at Dimitry as he reholstered the handgun.
"Anybody else infected?" Arkady asked. Silence. "No? Good. Now, let us get a move on."
"Should we set up another ambush, Commander?" Grigory, another new recruit, asked.
"Nico." Arkady looked over at the jittery explosives expert. "You think the Americans will be following us?"
"No, Arkady. Not after that explosion. I assure you, the only way they could follow us is crawling on their bloody stumps!" He laughed then started a fit of coughing.
"See?" Arkady smiled at the newbie. "All good, Grigory. Nico has assured us the Americans are splattered all over the jungle. Now, let us proceed with finishing this job."
"Here, Arkady." Alexi tossed the commander a blood-stained pack of cigarettes from Gavril's vest pocket. "Didn't know he smoked."
"He doesn't." Arkady chuckled. "American cigarettes? Bah. Shit." He shoved the pack into a pocket on his tactical vest. "Thank you, Alexi."
Alexi shrugged as he stood up and shoved a handful of bills into a leg pocket. "Tell Gavril thank you. He was kind enough to share."
Arkady bent down over Gavril's bloody body and nudged it with his booted foot. "Thank you, Gavril." The commander straightened up. "Enough stalling. Let us go finish this job!"
CHAPTER 20: PREMATURE DETONATION
If the Russian mercenary Nico hadn't been high on amphetamines and hung over, his IED would have shredded both vehicles and their occupants. Instead, the only thing shredded was a crawling deader. A fine mist of blood and guts splattered both vehicles. There was a loud bang but a very small destructive explosion. Both transports quickly came to a halt. The gun ports on the sides of the Pit Bull slid open as Newman climbed up into the roof turret. Aboard the Hummer, Mac manned the makeshift gun turret while the others opened the smaller vehicle’s gun ports.
"What the fuck?" Clarke glanced out the Pit Bull's blood-smeared windshield. "What the fuck?" He looked over at Wickham, who was busy on the radio with Hale.
"Hold position!" Hale's voice came across their truck's radio. "Guns up, and stay in the Pit Bull. You see something move, shoot it. I'll get back to you in a minute."
"Yes, sir." Wickham clicked off the handset and stared out his window. "Just hold up, Sergeant."
"I ain't movin', L-tee!" Clarke had popped open his gunport and stuck the barrel of his mini-14 out of it.
"Hear that?" Wickham shouted to the others in the rear of the truck.
"We got it!" Sergeant Winger yelled back. “Alby's up top!"
"What's going on, Lieutenant?" Jefferson asked as he moved forward to the front.
"Looks like a deader got itself blown up by an IED."
"That's what all this shit is," Gonzo said, watching several small pieces of flesh slide down his black-streaked window.
"IEDs." Washington shook his head. "I hate IEDs!"
"Shit!" Newman shook his head as he stood up in the Pit Bull’s roof hatch. Blood, guts, and flesh were splattered across the rooftop. The smell was horrible. "They don't pay us enough," the sergeant said to himself as he scanned the area around them with his mini-14. Mac gave him a shit-eating grin from the bloody turret of the Hummer. Both men shook their heads in unison. Deep inside, Newman thought God had been on their side at that moment. The sergeant said a quick prayer as he watched for a possible ambush.
Inside the Hummer, Zoe West sat with one hand on the wheel and the other on her rifle. Diamond was frantically looking side to side, watching for any bad guys. Major Hale was flipping through his small map book. He turned several pages until he found what he wanted. Hale grabbed up the radio mic and clicked it on.
"Okay, Lieutenant, I have us an alternate route to the lab. It's a small horse trail that'll put us behind the target. Follow West out."
"Right, sir."
Hale hung up the mic and glanced over at West. "You okay, Sergeant?"
"Yes, sir," she said quietly. "Now they know we're coming."
"Hopefully, they think this stopped us." He turned around in his seat. "You okay, Diamond?"
"I think something has come between me and my jockeys."
"I thought you always smelled like that, Diamond," Mac yelled down.
"We're all alive, and that's good. The bad guys seem a little inept, so that's even better." Hale showed the map book to West. "I have another route to the lab." He patted his mini-14 and smiled mischievously. "We find these fuckers, we kill them, right?"
"Right." West smirked.
"Right." Diamond nodded.
"I hear something!" Mac shouted from above.
The roar of two small engines quickly approaching put Newman on edge. He turned his weapon towards the direction of the oncoming vehicles. He clicked on his headset and spoke to the others.
"We have incoming. Three o'clock." The soldiers tensed, weapons ready, then …
"Stand down! Stand down!" Newman shouted as he saw Brooks and Wu drive their motorcycles out of the jungle and onto the roadway. "It's the captain!"
"Stand down! Stand down!"
Brooks slid her bike up to Hale’s Humvee, spraying dirt across the deader splooge on the vehicle. The captain killed the engine and set the cycle down. Pulling up her goggles, she unslung her rifle and looked around cautiously as she approached Hale's window. Wu pulled up next to the passenger side of the Pit Bull.
"Major?"
"IEDs!" Hale opened his door and looked around. "Apparently, it was a dud. Lotta noise and deader guts, but we're okay."
"We heard the blast and thought the worst." Brooks looked back towards the small crater. "I guess explosives aren't their strong points. Everyone good?"
"Yeah. Couple pairs of shitty drawers, but everyone is okay."
"Should have seen the captain tear out," Wu said, weapon ready and watching his surroundings. "She was like Evel Knievel!"
“Thanks for the quick response, you two. There wasn't an ambush, so I guess they figured the IED would take us out."
"They were pretty confident about that," Brooks said, turning back to Hale, "which means whoever planted that fucked up, but why?"
"I don't know. Maybe God was watching over us this time."
"We could use some of that."
"Uh huh. I've got us an alternate route. This road is probably thick with IEDs. None of the vehicles or any of us would survive contact.” He wiped some sweat from his brow then nodded at Brooks. “Go back. Blow the fuck out of their transport. If they have some kind of dinghy beached, take that out too. Hightail it back to the plane when you’re done, and make sure our ride home stays safe."
"Rollie, you could use our guns on the target," Brooks said hopefully.
"We need our plane secure more. We take out their boat. The plane's the only way off this rock. Take Sergeant Wu with you." He squeezed her shoulder lightly. "We get in over our heads, I'll call you."
"Alright." She walked over to her bike. "Let's go, Sarge."
"Thank you, Captain." Hale climbed back into the Humvee as Brooks and Wu roared off. He clicked on his headset. "Wickham, slowly back up the way we came until I say otherwise. Let's move it!"