Nelson finds the tool and is about to move it closer to the technician when he hears a strange noise, coming from one of the storage vaults. It is muted but sounds like stones rumbling. “What was that?”
“Something’s wrong, sir?”
“Both of you, on me!”
Sharing a frown, Boxkicker and Bockman climb out from under the Humvee. Nelson’s ears detect the muted rumble once more. It is louder now.
The Lieutenant unholsters his M1911 and whistles to the fighter in the supply vault. The three men follow Nelson to the vault where the rumble is coming from.
“Bauer, come in,” Nelson speaks on his radio.
“Bauer here.”
“Something weird’s going on in storage vault Bravo Five. Send down a team immediately.”
“Roger.”
Nelson waves to the fighter. He is a Hazara boy, armed with an M4. With Nelson only having his sidearm on him and the two technicians completely unarmed, the carbine is the only rifle they have. Nelson can only hope that Bauer’s guard team will arrive soon. But then, what danger could have been expected here in the vaults? And is it a danger at all?
Once in the vault, he hears knocking from the other side of the wall where nothing is supposed to be but stones and earth. If Lieutenant Nelson doubted if the noise signifies danger or not, now he knows that the knocking means nothing good.
“Nelson here. Something is trying to breach into the vault. I repeat, breach detected at Bravo Five!”
Lieutenant Bauer’s voice becomes anxious.
“Jesus Christ, you mean someone’s trying to infiltrate the vaults?”
“Don’t know, but I always thought Santa Claus would come through the chimney. Means this definitely ain’t him. Better raise the alarm!”
“Roger. Sending Jackson down with a squad, over.”
A siren begins to scream in the living quarters.
“Bockman, Boxkicker, stay back and wait for Jackson’s team to arrive,” Nelson commands, then gives the young fighter an encouraging wink. “You and me, we’ll stay and welcome whoever is coming through. Take cover behind those strongboxes!”
The two unarmed men hurry away as Nelson and the fighter take up position, aiming their weapons at the section of the wall that is now trembling from heavy blows.
Fucking caves, Nelson thinks. This whole cursed land is full of them. Damned ragheads or scavengers must have found a way through. But how was that possible?
The wall crumbles and two humanoid but immensely strong hands appear.
Lieutenants of the Tribe are not supposed to get shocked. However, the face appearing in the breech makes Nelson’s skin creep. The ugliest mutant’s snout wouldn’t look to him as scary as this horribly distorted human face that appears to grin under its dark hood.
“Fire!”
The creature growls as the bullets fired from the M1911 and the carbine hit it. It sounds more like anger than pain. Nelson feels his vision blur—or is it just the air undulating between the mole-like hands? He has no time to think. His shock makes way to near panic when he sees the bullets being reflected by an unseen shield. All Nelson can do is to bark the only command making sense.
“Fall back, fall back!”
Several blows shatter the wall. Rocks crumble and in the wide hole an even more frightening sight appears.
“Smiter! Run, run!”
Firing one more desperate burst from his M4, the fighter makes a dash toward the maintenance hall where the guard team should have arrived by now. Nelson empties his magazine into the torso of the mutant appearing through the hole, reloads, then sees that if he wants to live, he too had better run—following the first, more bulky mutants come through the breach and what is perhaps even more alarming, grinning Talib faces appear behind them.
Where in the hell is Jackson and his men?, the Lieutenant desperately asks himself as he turns and runs. Bullets whizz and ricochet from the walls. Then a shockwave hits him from behind and Nelson feels as if his stamina had been just sucked from his body. A bullet from a Kalashnikov hits his limb, then another one his back. Surviving, running, falling, then getting up and crawling away would require super-human strength.
The Lieutenant has it. Even if his exposure to the power beneath the City of Screams has been just a fraction of what had created the smiters, his strength is beyond that of any hardened warrior. If Nelson would only wear his combat exoskeleton and have a weapon more powerful on him than the simple pistol, he could make a stand until the reinforcements arrive.
And they come—a dozen heavily armed fighters appear from the tunnel leading to the Alamo, yet Nelson knows they are too late.
“Get out!” he screams. “They’re gonna overrun you!”
He must make it to the vault where the rest of the ammunition is stored. All Nelson can do is to set a claymore mine or C4 charge, let the section of the vault collapse and bury the intruders — with himself.
The relief squad’s M16s open fire. Nelson sees the two technicians run into the tunnel. The young fighter lies dead in his blood pooling from three gunshot wounds on his back. Nelson grabs his weapon and can fire a short burst backwards before the magazine is empty.
Triumphant howls and shouts come from the attackers’ direction when Jackson’s team falls back. Nelson knows that they will attempt to hold the intruders back until more men arrive from above with heavier weapons. Taking cover behind the Humvee that was being repaired just a few minutes ago, he screams a warning through his radio.
“The vault’s been breached! Get out of the tunnel, get out! I’m gonna blow it!”
Using smiters for cover, dozens of Taliban push forward. Only a few steps separate Lieutenant Nelson from the ammunition vault. He takes a deep breath and darts out. He needs three leaps to get there. Two. One.
Another shockwave hits him. Depleted of stamina, Nelson falls but keeps dragging himself forward. Only a half meter to go.
A huge foot steps on his back and pins him to the floor. Nelson gasps and spits blood. Without seeing it, he knows it’s a smiter.
“Hello Lieutenant,” a hoarse voice says. “As the old saying goes—nothing’s worse than having an itch you can’t scratch, right?”
The voice belongs to a triumphantly grinning half-mutant wearing ragged Stalker armor. He pats Nelson on the back and steps away, joining the Taliban who by now have overrun the vault. Then he steps away and nods to the smiter pinning the Lieutenant down. Horrendous pain and suffocation are the last things Nelson feels as the mutant raises his massive foot once more and then crushes his spine.
46
Standing in the courtyard of Cordon Base, Maksimenko watches the helicopter approaching from the west. His eye sparkles with satisfaction.
“Is it the renegade’s dumbness or our luck that’s beyond measure, Vlasov?” he asks the Spetsnaz sergeant standing at his side.
“Both, I’d say. You’ll bring him to Kiev as soon as possible, I guess?”
“Guessing is no part of your job description, Sergeant. No, we let him boil a little in his own gravy… to soften him up, if know what I mean.”
“You mean—interrogating him?”
“I said: to soften him up. Then I’ll do the interrogation myself.” The Captain thumps his right fist into his open palm. “Oh yes, I’ll do that. And what’s even better: Agent Fedorka will interrogate the female Stalker he had been with. Dunno what he was thinking. Female bodyguards didn’t help Gaddhafi either.”
Sergeant Vlasov obediently laughs with his superior.
The Hind gunship, call sign Osprey One, hovers over the Base with an ear-splitting whoosh and descends to the concrete helipad. It has barely touched down when the hatch swings open and Sergeant Shumenko appears, followed by Tarasov and Nooria. Both are handcuffed but two commandos still hold them by the arms.