He nodded, turning with her toward the door. “But let it not be this night, O Lord.”
36
They called him simply Alpha. He was the point man, the de facto leader of this group of men wrapped around and above, guarding the warehouse. The building was a squat little thing, about half a city block. Isolated in the northern New Jersey countryside, it attracted little attention, was not easily accessed, and unregistered in any business directories. It was a ghost.
Like they were. All their real names were scrubbed. They adopted spy thriller handles. Former soldiers and contractors, all of them, hired secretively by a company many in his team began to suspect was involved in some of the attacks occurring around the country. That suspicion led some to leave. But most stayed. The company had done its homework. Like Alpha, most of them would point the gun for whoever paid them the most.
But tensions had escalated dramatically. Five additional guards had been added bringing the total to fifteen. Powers that be were getting rattled about what was inside the metallic walls of the structure. Alpha didn't know what was in there, and he didn't want to know. A few times each month, a small convoy of trucks would show up and pull into what he presumed was an enclosed loading dock, the doors closing and sealing off everything from view. Shortly afterward, the trucks would drive off, whether having unloaded or loaded a mystery that was not part of his job description. A job that paid ridiculous money for guard duty in the states. Iraq had been one thing, but Jersey? Retirement gig.
Until things started blowing up. Until more and more trucks had come. Until more former soldiers had been brought on to fortify a rural building like something in the green zone. Just the presence of that many guns raised the temperature.
"Main gate, clear," came a voice through static on his headset.
"Roger that."
It was Delta. There was only one way by vehicle into the building, through a gate lodged in the electrified fence, then down a broad, truck-friendly road to the loading dock. Three guards patrolled the gate, two at the dock entrance, four moving about the perimeter fence. Six took to the roof, four at the corners and two on the longer sides of the building. Those on the roof were trained snipers. Alpha was one of them, positioned at the front on the right-hand side facing the gate.
"Perimeter report."
Several voices spoke in order of established protocol. The roof snipers followed suit. The space was clear. As it was half an hour ago. As it was at dusk. As it was every night for the last six months that he had worked this job.
That's why when he spotted the headlights at the top of the hill in front of the gate, he didn't quite believe his eyes.
"Delta, check scheduled arrivals."
It looked like a smaller delivery truck, not the massive eighteen wheelers that they tended to get. He zoomed his night-vision goggles. The truck was nondescript, no insignia, the plate damaged and unreadable. The windows seemed opaque or blacked out. Something was wrong.
The vehicle began to accelerate down the hill. Alpha didn't hear the telltale sounds of torque in the engine, the changing pitch as the rpms increased. The steering was odd. His alarm bells were ringing
"Log's empty, Alpha. Nothing due until tomorrow afternoon."
He powered up his scope and set his transmission signal to maximum. "Unidentified vehicle approaching from the road. Treat as hostile. Repeat, treat as hostile!”
Automatic gunfire erupted from the gate. The flashes lit the dark night, strobing the gatehouse, glinting off the chainlinks in the fence, reflecting back from the glass in the truck that was now barrelling down the hill. The windshield of the truck exploded, glass spraying inwards, the metal of the hood pocketed with bullet holes. It only accelerated.
"Perimeter guards move forward to engage. Anyone up top with a view take a shot if you have one. Gamma and Omega, hold the dock!”
The maniacs! Whatever crazed assault this was, it was only going to end one way, and that was with the occupants filled with holes. A foregone conclusion that didn’t give him any comfort — madmen always maimed and killed. How many men would he lose tonight?
He settled into a crouch on the roof's ledge, stabilizing his rifle, knowing that the snipers around him were doing the same. The night-vision scope zoomed in on the rushing vehicle. Alpha focused on the cabin, determined to take out the driver himself.
The cabin was empty.
Shit! "Delta, all crews, break off! Repeat, break off!"
But it was too late. His eyes were seared by a bright light and a blast of air that nearly knocked him backwards. Stunned, he shielded his eyes as an orange fireball climbed into the sky, quickly darkening in a blanket of smoke and falling embers. The screams hit him now. Just like he remembered. Just like in Mosul when the trucks came and the bombs blew and men and pieces of men lay strewn in the street.
The afterimage of the blast partially blinded him, but he strained to see the gate below. It was gone. The metal ripped and melted like cotton candy, flaming chucks of truck and gatehouse scattered radially around the scene of destruction. Only those bodies that were not close to the explosion were visible, but all of the men he had sent to converge on the intruders were now corpses, or as good as. Three at the gate, four wrecked forms from the perimeter guards. It was a slaughter.
“Roof report.” His voice was strained and husked.
Silence.
He spun around the roof top, dropping the goggles over his eyes again. Motionless forms were draped in various positions across the asphalt. They were all dead. Sniped themselves while distracted by the commotion and chaos at the gate.
Alpha stood up fully now, heedless of the danger, removing his goggles. It was just a matter of time now. Light flickered from the burning debris behind him. He stared up into the sky, looking for some heavenly object, the moon, even a single star to glimpse before the final darkness came.
But it came without mercy. His head snapped backward, a bullet tearing through the soft flesh of his face, a clean hit to the brain stem that unplugged his basic physiological functions in an instant. For a second, his eyes empty, he stood staring stupidly forward. Then the electrochemical signals ceased completely, and he dropped straight to the rooftop with a thud.
Then, only silence.
37
Lopez and Houston entered the burning compound. Their forms wrapped in black, packs strapped to their backs, and pistols in their hands as they jogged cautiously among the scrap and human remains scattered before them. They paused over several bodies, checked them, and moved on toward the compound’s entrance.
With weapons raised they approached, stairs on either side leading to a loading platform in front of the enormous roll-up shutter door. Two bodies lay on either side of the stairway, blood pooling underneath them. Houston sprinted up the right-hand steps and examined the large locks barring entrance. Lopez continuously scanned around them with his weapon raised.
“Francisco, it’s no good!” she cried. “We’re going to have to blow it.”
“I counted fifteen. They can’t have had more, could they?”
Houston sprinted down the steps, unstrapping her pack. “I don’t know. Paranoid as all fuck, so I won’t put anything past them. We need the charges from your pack.”
Lopez slung his bag to the ground and removed several gray blocks with detonators. He handed them to Houston who returned to the door as he resumed his scanning. Placing the explosive on the locks, she set the charge and sprinted down the steps. They grabbed their bags and rounded the corner of the building, constantly alert for hostile movements or sounds. Houston raised a controller.