“Do it-tttt!” Casey screamed the words up at the giant.
The log came down.
CHAPTER 48
Alex launched himself from the tree line to appear before the colossal soldier, so fast it probably seemed he simply materialized. He caught the huge stump in mid-drop and stood, legs spread over Casey.
“Yeah!” Rinofsky yelled, straining at his bonds.
Alex had never seen a human being so large, and the strength in the giant’s arms was insanely strong. Casey groaned underneath him, and the giant tried to wrench the log free, obviously wanting to continue the job of crushing the downed soldier.
Alex took it all in: his captured HAWCs, Casey broken at his feet, and Aimee pale and bound. He looked back at the giant, the man’s wide-spaced eyes moved from surprise to glaring with anger. He bared huge yellow teeth, and then jerked hard on the log, trying to tear it from Alex’s grip.
Casey groaned beneath him, and Alex felt the urge to do more than just disarm the man, and there was nothing now constraining him. He wrenched the log from the soldier’s hands, and smashed it into the large head, once, twice, and then three times, the third blow splitting his face from brow to chin.
The giant blinked in confusion as the gash ran red. Alex held the log in one hand, and grabbed the huge soldier’s collar, pulling his face down and close to his own. He stared into the wide spaced eyes, almost nose to nose, and Alex had no words for him, just a low growl. Alex could see something deep in the man’s black eyes, pain, confusion… and fear.
Behind Alex, someone was yelling orders, and one of the other PLA ran at them. Alex heard the sound of a blade coming free of a sheath, and Alex spun, throwing the log at the man with enough force to knock him backwards; the sound of cracking and splintering came from inside the man’s body, not the wood.
Alex then turned back to the giant, his hands gripping the front of his uniform. The soldier had reached up to encircle Alex’s neck with hands that fully wrapped around his throat. His forearms bulged with the pressure he exerted, and his gap-toothed grin appeared once again, but this time his huge mouth was full of blood from his facial wounds.
The huge man’s powerful arms and hands strained, as he dragged Alex closer. His bloody mouth began to open, and Alex guessed he planned to take a piece from his face, probably his nose. In close quarters combat, debilitating the bridge of the nose, around the upper septum, made the eyes water uncontrollably — it would blind him.
The bloody mouth opened wider as the giant dragged Alex closer. Alex straightened his arms, pushing the big man back, one inch, two, a foot, and then he paused momentarily to grin into the broad face, before yanking him forward, fast, headbutting him so hard the huge soldier fell back like a tree trunk, out cold before he even hit the ground.
Alex looked down at Casey. The female HAWC was barely conscious. “On your feet, soldier!”
Panicked orders were screamed from all around him, and he turned to see a senior officer looking bewildered and Aimee, Aimee Weir, staring, and sinking down to be in a sitting position on the ground, her face white.
The senior Chinese officer reacted fast, pulling his revolver and firing. The bullet struck Alex’s shoulder, knocking him to the ground. The PLA captain then moved quickly, dragging Aimee to her feet, and grinding the muzzle of his gun into her temple.
But instead of rising, Alex stayed down, and he turned to the near impenetrable mad tangle of plant life. He stared just beyond the hanging foliage, beyond the physical wall of the jungle, and he knew it was too late, it was coming. He could sense its approach like the feeling of static in the air when a huge storm front is building.
He couldn’t see it yet, but he followed his instincts until he came to a darker alcove among the hanging fronds. A figure silently appeared.
Blake also stared for several seconds. “I don’t fucking believe it.” His voice sounded incredulous. “Hagel… fucking Hagel. That’s impossible.”
To the group it looked like the young HAWC — same uniform, height, and features. Just a hint of a wet sheen glistened over his face and body. But Alex saw past the camouflage. He saw the deadness emanating from it — there was no mammalian warmth, just the coldness of a creature that belonged deep in an ocean trench or even deeper in his nightmares.
Alex spoke without turning. “Franks, when I give the word, get the others free. For now, don’t, move, a muscle.”
Casey nodded slowly, her eyes fixed on Hagel. Blood covered her face, and her wounds probably stung like a bitch, but she remained calm and immobile. Alex just hoped the bindings of his team would also keep them in place, because he knew the one sure thing to trigger an attack was movement.
The PLA captain let go of Aimee and began to scream orders to his giant soldier, Mungoi. The huge man got groggily to his feet, as guns came up, but it was like the silence of the strange jungle became more intense, building energy, as if they had all been dropped into the eye of a cyclone.
“Oh, god, no.” Aimee started to back away from the figure that stood motionless in the dark. Soong reached out to grab her, and used a small knife to slit the bonds at her wrists.
The Chinese captain raised his gun again and fired twice into the Hagel figure. There was no response, or even any apparent wounds. To the senior soldier, he couldn’t have been sure if he missed, or whether the greasy looking HAWC had body armor. He turned and yelled at his huge warrior, and urged the man on.
Mungoi spat blood, and then wiped one arm up and down over his split face. His glare went momentarily to Alex, who he really wanted to rain hell on, and then back to Hagel. He grunted, his unnaturally large jaw jutting. He staggered forward, his bear like arms outstretched and fingers flexing. When he had only taken a few steps, Hagel shot forward — not leaping forward, or running or diving, but instead it was if he were on a spring, a projectile being fired at the huge soldier.
Hagel smacked into Mungoi, knocking him back a few feet. The dull, wet thud was loud in the small clearing. The huge soldier didn’t go down, Alex knew he couldn’t have if he tried. He seemed glued to the figure. Mungoi brought one arm up and put it between himself and Hagel, and pushed. His split face went from shock to horror, as up close, he must have realized what he was really attached to.
Mungoi strained with all his colossal strength, but sticky strands of the substance the creature exuded engulfed his arm as well. The pretense of the Hagel figure was dropped as the creature’s attacking club revealed itself. The human shape dissolved into a six-foot pad covered in baseball-sized suckers. Mungoi struggled even harder, his expression bordering on madness, but then his face went momentarily slack, before he began to howl in pain.
Alex knew exactly what was happening — the second part of the snare was now being used. Hook-like tusks emerged from the center of the suckers that appeared over the front of the pad. Mungoi thrashed in agony, as the eight-inch daggers entered his body, and the curved hook held his flesh tight. Now that he was locked tight to the pad, he began to move forward.
Mungoi braced his colossal legs, but Alex could now see the fleshy column trailing from the back of the once Hagel-like figure, and into the jungle behind them. This appendage was one of two tentacle clubs of a monstrous creature. Its long tentacles now flexed impossible muscle that the insignificant Mungoi had no hope of resisting. In the next second, the huge Chinese PLA soldier was yanked off his feet and into the foliage.