From his vantage point, Simmo stared down in grim silence, watching the raging battle.
The timing has to be right, he thought.
Growling, he dropped the HTank into the darkness ...
Shells were booming through the halogen-illuminated rain, which swept down in great dark sheets. Fire belched from huge gun barrels as they thudded back in recoil. More tanks were pulverised, sent hurtling skywards in unfolding veils of purple and violet. Exploding gases and billowing bursts of fire seemed to envelop the whole world ...
‘There.’
The HTank fired. The shell hit the TK79 target, spun it round and sent it tumbling through the LVA camp. Machine-gun fire rattled, ricocheting by chance from the HTank’s camouflaged armour.
The TK79s were converging now, pursuing the Spiral tanks to the centre of the site. There were more Nex tanks than the Spiral men had at first thought, perhaps seventy or eighty, and they seemed to be unstoppable.
Simmo’s HTank squatted at the base of the steep rocky tree-clad slope. He watched as the outgunned and outnumbered Spiral SP57s turned, engines screaming, and started a hasty retreat through the mud and crushed trees.
The TK79s pursued them.
Simmo watched impassively from the safety of his camouflage as he realigned the HTank’s superior gun and waited for the right moment...
Another LVA tank had been smashed by a well-placed shell. LVA soaked into the glistening mud. The SP57s recreated, crushing a barracks as they apparently fled the enemy in a sudden panic - and the Nex tanks formed into a fighting unit with their guns facing forward. They slowed to manoeuvre through the bottleneck leading from the LVA depot—
Simmo smiled, sighted, and hit the launch key.
Six programmed K-TF8 guided missiles were loosed from the HTank’s camouflaged and electronically invisible hull. Rockets trailing blue jets of fire sped out, seeking the massive containers of LVA premium-grade fuel...
Simmo and Oz hunkered down inside the HTank and prayed.
Engines howling, the SP57s fled from the LVA-depot basin, the site of their supposed ambush ...
Missile warheads detonated.
LVA ignited.
And the night was suddenly lit with an unfurling of gas and fire which seemed at first to creep into the sky, consuming vegetation as it went, tracers spinning around the ever-expanding cloud of destruction—
Then came a roar of infinite devastation.
Followed by the sounds of nearly a hundred TK79s being smashed together, superheated and fused into a single solid lump of steel and alloy. Melted Nex briefly ran like candle-wax fat and were then vaporised in the sudden apocalypse. Barracks were kicked into oblivion, the LVA containers disintegrated into shards of twisted steel which then melted and rained fiery droplets from the now-contracting fireball—
A deep rumbling followed.
The very earth shook.
Simmo, panting, waited for the noise to subside. He checked his scanners - and learned that the SP57s had followed their orders precisely, forming a huge wall in their apparently chaotic but well-timed ‘flight’ and flinging up combined protective shields against the fury they knew was about to engulf the camp.
Simmo flung open the hatch, which clanged against the HTank’s hull as he climbed up into the rain. All was darkness and shadows, lit by a million scattered small fires at the edges of the blast zone - the perimeter of the titanic combined missile and LVA explosion. Simmo could smell gas and the stench of burning vegetation. The whole LVA depot had been disintegrated, vaporised -destroyed.
Simmo jumped down onto the hard-baked mud. He strode forward with his Sig in his fist towards the twisted, fused block of steel and iron, its shape almost organic in its sculpted curves and waves.
Oz joined him.
Rain poured down on them.
‘Good plan, Sarge,’ Oz said. ‘We sure nuked the fuck out of those bastards. Good job the lead tanks had no crew, eh? Did
we
lose many in the rest of the battle?’
‘We always lose too many,’ growled Sergeant Simmo. ‘But no - we lose only four men this time. Four good men. But at major loss to enemy! Go get me a sitrep from the rest of the TankSquad. And get some scouts out, do some ECube scans, see if there are any other fuckers waiting for us ... and get the fucking shields recharged.’
‘Aye aye, cap’n’ said Oz, grinning.
‘And Oz?’
‘Hm?’
‘You
ever
speak to me like a Trekkie again, and I will shoot you in throat without trial.’
Oz gulped. ‘OK, Sarge.’
Simmo sat on the HTank’s hull, watching the fires that still lit the jungle through the rain. ECube scans had revealed no organic traces of Kattenheim in the massive tank wreckage, nor organic slivers in the rubble of the barracks and the surrounding destroyed LVA storage tanks. What remained of the derrick and pump were nothing more than tiny blackened stumps, broken fingers poking forlornly into the tropical downpour.
Rogowski approached with Mo, who was carrying his usual huge mug of tea. Simmo watched the curls of steam from the Pakistani’s massive container of sweet brew for a moment, then transferred his gaze to the two men’s worried faces.
‘Anything?’
Rogowski made his report. ‘Another squad of Nex tanks has been alerted. They’re at some sort of refinery twenty klicks down the river. We reckon about sixty machines in all, TK79s again with a few TK82s thrown in for good measure and bang-per-buck firepower. There’s still no sign of Kattenheim, although that doesn’t mean he escaped.’
‘You sure are a mean motherfucker, Sarge,’ said Mo, dark brown eyes gleaming. He sipped from his huge mug of tea, grimacing as he burnt his tongue. ‘That was a very clever manoeuvre, getting them to chase us and line up with the LVA tankers ...
nasty.
I wouldn’t like to be on the opposite side to
you
in a war.’
Simmo scratched at the weeping red line on his skull, where his head had been stapled back together again after Kattenheim’s heavy blow. He smiled a dangerous smile as he surveyed the fused work of art. ‘Better fucking believe it,’ he growled, and lit a cigar. Puffing out huge grey clouds of tobacco smoke, he muttered, ‘A refinery, you say? It not appear on our Spiral scout maps?’
‘They must have missed it. Or it was too well camouflaged to be spotted from the air,’ said Mo, glancing around nervously at the flickering shadows. Raindrops sent concentric ripples across his lake of tea and the huge Pakistani soldier tried to shelter his precious brew.
‘You gonna send an ECube blip? Let Spiral know what went down here?’
‘Yes.’ Simmo nodded. ‘But only after we pay this LVA refinery a visit. Don’t want to spoil our fun, do we?’
‘So we’re a private army now, are we?’ said Oz softly, meeting Simmo’s gaze.
‘No - we just carrying out orders
before
they been issued. You trust The Sarge on this. The Sarge never been wrong in battle.
Never.
We just taken on and destroyed a force more than double our own ... and you still here sipping your tea. Now we go visit refinery and see how this new Nex tank threat measure up. You with me, lads?’
‘We’re with you, all right,’ said Oz, eyes glinting in the light of the fires of the burning LVA site.
‘Sure, we’d follow you to Hell and back,’ said Rogowski.
‘Not wise offer to make,’ said Simmo, drawing heavily on his cigar and still constantly scanning the periphery of the destroyed LVA refinery. ‘Because before this thing over, Sarge think you may have to do just that.’
Carter paused on the steps, his body screaming in raw agony, and glanced further down the stone spiral to where Mongrel stood, legs braced, chest heaving and a look of pain and nausea on his broad face.
‘Come
on!’
‘I’m shagged. You go on without me!’
‘I’ll put a fucking bullet in your head if you don’t shift your arse.’
Suddenly, Carter’s Browning lifted and there was a deafening series of shots as five bullets spat from the barrel, skimmed Mongrel’s shoulder and took a pursuing Nex in the face. Its body flipped backwards and toppled down the narrow stairwell.
‘Looks like the rest have realised that we’re here.’
Mongrel grunted something incomprehensible, and started to sprint up the steep stairs after Carter. The two men ran, their bodies throbbing with pain, sweat coursing down their faces.
A cold breeze blew from above and they suddenly emerged—
Into the Egyptian night. A short walkway led around the side of the temple from the small hole - Durell’s escape tunnel - where the two Spiral operatives had appeared; it was paved with black marble and led to the—
‘Helicopters.’
‘They’re on the move,’ muttered Carter. ‘Come on.’
‘Should we not go back for Comanche?’
‘
Why?’
‘It ours. It Spiral’s. It fucking expensive. I don’t want
that
deducted from monthly salary payment, that for sure. I want to retire as fat old man, happy with pension, not paying for damn stupid mistake in desert with billion-dollar combat helicopter.’
‘God,’ said Carter, ‘it’s like being on a fucking mission with my wife. Stop fucking nagging.’
They crept around the outskirts of the temple and could see further squads of Nex in the street outside. But none inside the compound. Quickly but cautiously they edged towards the four remaining black helicopters—
As machine-gun hell broke loose from behind them ...
Bullets, some of them tracer, flew all around. Carter sprinted for the nearest chopper as Mongrel shoved his shoulder against the temple wall and opened fire. Carter dropped to one knee beside the machine and opened fire, allowing Mongrel time to retreat to his side and change mags. Then Carter leapt into the cockpit as a line of bullets slammed into the alloy beside his head. He flicked the controls, set the rotors spinning and palmed his Browning, holding it double-handed and taking careful aim—
Tracer lit the sky.
Carter shot the Nex in the face.
Silence reigned for a few moments. Then engines whined, the rotors started to spin and Mongrel clambered up beside Carter.
No alarm sounded, and there were no shouts of distress or warning. But suddenly a huge swarm of Nex came out of the darkness. Carter hurled the small black helicopter up into the night with Mongrel shooting furiously from the doorway, his face lit by muzzle flash, his few remaining teeth clenched in concentration and grim determination.
The temple and small town fell away. A few rounds of tracer spun past them up into the darkness and were lost as Carter armed the chopper’s machine guns.
‘What you doing?’
‘Hold on.’
The helicopter, engines screaming, suddenly levelled and then dropped nose first from the heavens, plummeting towards the temple, the valley and the three remaining helicopters. Bullets blasted from the on-board heavy machine guns, cutting lines of sparks across the three remaining choppers.
There was an explosion and Carter lifted the helicopter higher on a cloud of flames that reached out with a yellow fist to smash the Nex into oblivion. Fire raged across the helicopter landing yard, scorching the ancient walls of the temple, followed by the clatter of falling metal panels, twisted and blackened.
Carter and Mongrel cruised through the darkness.
The blue glow from the ECube lit their faces.
‘Where they going?’ Mongrel was breathless, sweat staining his brow.
Carter frowned. ‘It looks like Cairo.’
‘I thought Gol said they go to Austria?’
‘Who fucking knows? But they have the Avelach and the QuakeHub, and we must stop them.’
‘I just think it strange they off course.’
‘Maybe they’re avoiding SAM sites we know nothing about.’
Mongrel shrugged.
Carter pushed the helicopter hard, crossing the desert over Gebel al-Galala al-Qibliya, heading towards Cairo. Engines howling, it took them a little over two hours and as the dawn light started to creep over the horizon so the scatter of buildings below began to increase in number as they approached the Nile.
‘We’re gaining on it,’ said Mongrel.
‘Good,’ snapped Carter, eyes weary, hands gripped tight on the helicopter’s controls.
‘No - wait.’
‘What?’
‘It’s stopped.’
‘
What
?’
‘No ... no, I’ve lost it.’
Carter glanced at Mongrel. ‘How can you fucking
lose
it? The ECube is never wrong.’
‘I fucking tell you Carter, I lost damn thing! It not on ECube scanners, and it... oh.’
‘What now?’
Mongrel shook the ECube, and Carter met his gaze, scowling. Digits flickered, then died. Mongrel’s expression grew puzzled and he placed his finger against his lips.
‘I’m thinking ...’
‘Don’t just fucking think,’ snapped Carter, peering through the helicopter’s cockpit at the dawn-bathed city below them. ‘Sort it!’ He cruised closer, reducing his speed as the towers, apartment blocks, statues and minarets came gradually into view. They passed the Nile, and the Tahrir Bridge. Even at this early dawn hour the city of Cairo was heaving, a bustling hive of activity. Faces turned up towards them as they buzzed overhead.