‘So this thing is harming the Ceph tech?’ Okobe asked. His deep rumbling voice often made people think he was slow. Amanda knew that the quiet Nigerian just preferred to think long and hard about things. He was not infected with the westerners’ love of hearing their own voices.
‘So it could be the Tinman, then?’ Alan said.
‘How?’ Hank asked. ‘This Alcatraz was a Jarine, another throwback with a gun, just like me. He was hell on wheels in a fight when he was in the armour and he could kill swift, silent and deadly with the best of them, but he sure as hell wasn’t no Apex-Predator, invisible serial killer.’
‘Tell that to Dominic Lockhart and his men. He murdered fucking hundreds of CELL contractors. People just like you and me…’ Alan said angrily.
‘Look buddy, I’m no fan of New York but what those CELL guys were doing…’
‘Enough,’ Amanda told them. ‘Forget about New York.’ She wished she could. ‘The fact is, it’s murdering our people. I don’t care whose side it thinks it’s on or what it may or may not have done in the past. It’s no friend to us. In the unlikely event we see it, we light it up.’
‘What do you want to do, boss?’ Safiya asked. Amanda could hear the fear in the other woman’s voice.
‘We bug out,’ Amanda said. ‘This is way above our pay grade. Even if we had K-Volts and Mikes, I wouldn’t want to fuck with this thing.’
‘Asher?’ Alan asked.
‘His career’s in the pan. He doesn’t want it to look like he’s fucking up this dig and he wants the glory if we catch or kill whatever this thing is. Hopefully he’s realised that this is beyond our collective capabilities, if not…’
‘I’ll handle the creepy fat fuck,’ Safiya said. The look of disgust overcame her obvious fear. ‘Anyone else noticed he smells of sour milk?’
‘If it comes down to a bullet I do it, you understand me? Nobody else, just me.’ There were grumblings around the circle. Nobody would meet her eyes. ‘I said just me. Understand?’ There were muttered assents. ‘Okay, let’s go and speak to him.’ Amanda made as if to get up. ‘No comms, understand me?’ she asked. They nodded and stood up. Amanda switched the magazine on her Jackal combat shotgun. Replacing the clip with the volt rounds she had been issued in New York. Each cartridge contained electrostatically-charged ball-bearings. She hadn’t used them. She was grateful for that now.
They were moving past the cave where they had stored the bodies when they heard the noise.
Alan had point, followed by Okobe, Amanda and Safiya, and Hank had the tail. They kept the flashlights off and moved as quietly as they could. They were relying on the light bleed from the main cavern for illumination. Amanda would have killed for even one pair of night vision goggles about now. The cave was wide and low. There were natural columns where stalactites and stalagmites had joined together.
Backlit by the lights of the main cave, they threw long shadows across the floor. Amanda cursed and switched on the flashlight attached to the side of her shotgun. The beam sliced through the darkness. The others were taking their cue from her and doing the same.
They moved to the side of the entrance, forming a line against the rock wall. Using the flashlight beams to check all around them.
Amanda played her flashlight over Daniels’ body. There was muttered cursing from the others.
‘Quiet,’ Amanda hissed. She noticed the beam of her flashlight was shaking again. She played the light over Coyle. Schmidt. Mikey. He had been her oldest friend on the team after Alan.
The crunching noise had probably been quite quiet. To Amanda it sounded deafening. She watched Mikey’s body jerk as if it had been nudged by someone trying to get past. It knows we’re here and it doesn’t give a shit, she thought.
It was almost an automatic response. Her finger curled around the shotgun’s trigger. She squeezed. Four rounds. The hammer hitting the cartridge. The charge in the cartridge exploding. The powder propelling electrostatically-charged ball-bearing down the barrel. A long tongue of flame from the barrel of the shotgun lit up the cave. The spent cartridge was expended from the weapon. The same thing happened three more times.
The electrostatically-charged ball-bearings filled the air over Mikey’s corpse. Amanda was tangentially aware of the ball-bearings blowing bits out of the body.
Lightning arced around a massive, powerfully built but human-shaped figure, standing over Mikey’s body. The illusion cloaking him flickered and then failed in sparks of electricity.
The figure was wearing a suit that, to Amanda, looked like it had been made from muscle-like metallic cables in an armoured exoskeleton. Its face was covered by mask and visor. The figure was looking between them, taking its time. Unhurried. Unworried.
‘Light it up!’ Alan shouted and started firing burst after burst from his Grendel assault rifle. Safiya and Okobe started firing as well. The multiple bullet impacts wreathed the armoured figure in sparks. Hank hesitated but opened fire with the Mk 60. He was firing the MMG from his shoulder. Tracers and armour piercing rounds impacted into the figure. Staggering it. The tracers were bouncing off the armour and arcing into the darkness of the cavern.
Darkness started to envelope the figure once more as it stood up. Amanda realised that it was trying to use the cloak again. She fired the three remaining volt rounds, dressing the figure in lightning and dropping the cloak.
There was a load popping noise as Okobe fired his grenade launcher. The grenade hit the figure, staggering it, and then exploded. The overpressure rammed them all into the wall. Amanda’s head was ringing as she staggered to her feet. She shouted that she was reloading, but couldn’t hear herself. She tried to pull herself together enough to eject the mag from the shotgun. The shotgun’s empty magazine fell to the ground while she clutched at her webbing for another one.
It came stalking out of the darkness, all pretence at stealth gone. Smoke pouring off it. The armour had changed. Flattened, somehow, into overlapping plates. It strode straight past her, ignoring her. Only Okobe had the presence of mind to fire. Amanda cried out as a ricochet from one of the Nigerian’s rounds caught her in the shoulder, spinning her around.
Amanda spun back just in time to see the armoured figure push a knife through Okobe’s body armour and then lift the tall Nigerian off the floor. The screaming stopped. Okobe went limp as he slid down the knife until the figure had his lower arm inside Okobe’s torso.
Her hearing returned. It took a moment for her to realise that the screaming in her ears was Asher demanding to know what was going on. Shaking fingers finally managed to ram a fresh magazine into the combat shotgun.
An enraged Alan jumped on the armoured figure’s back. The figure cast Okobe’s body aside casually, grabbed Alan easily from his back and threw him into the cave wall. Even through the ringing in her ears and Asher’s incessant babble, Amanda could hear the cracking noise and Alan’s scream.
Hank fired a long burst at nearly point-blank range. Sparks and ricocheting tracers lit up the cave. Safiya went down as one of the ricochets caught her.
‘Wait! Cease fire! Cease fire, goddamnit! Stop fucking shooting!’ Amanda screamed.
Hank ceased firing but rapidly backed away from the figure, which had turned to face him. Safiya, on the floor, scrambled away from the armoured figure as well. The French/Algerian woman grabbed her Grendel as she did so. Alan was groaning. That was good, Amanda thought, it meant he was alive.
‘Please! I know you can hear me,’ she shouted into the tac radio. ‘We’ll leave you the fuck alone, just please stop killing my people,’ she begged.