Matthew Reilly: Hell Island

Worse, the new French-made Signet-5 radio-wave decoder—sold by the French to Russia, Iran, North Korea, Syria and other fine upstanding global citizens—was specifically designed to seek out and locate the American AN/PRC-119 tactical radio when it was broadcasting, the very radio their four teams were using today. No one had yet thought to ask the French why they had built a locater whose only use was to pinpoint American tactical radios.

Schofield switched to his team’s private channel. “Marines. Switch off your tac radios. Listening mode only. Go to short-wave UHF if you want to talk to me.”

A few of his Marines hesitated before obeying, but obey they did. They flicked off their radios.

The four clusters of parachutists plummeted through the storm toward the world, zeroing in on the Nimitz, until a thousand feet above it, they yanked on their ripcords and their chutes opened.

Their superfast falls were abruptly arrested and they now floated in toward the carrier. The Delta team landed on the island itself, while the other three teams touched down lightly and gracefully on the flight deck of the supercarrier right in their assigned positions—fore, mid and aft—guns up.

They had just arrived in Hell.

RAIN HAMMERED down on the flight deck.

Schofield’s team landed one after the other, unclipping their chutes before the great mushroom-shaped canopies had even hit the ground. The chutes were whipped away by the wind, leaving the ten Marines standing in the slashing rain on the flight deck, holding their MP-7s pointed outwards.

One after the other, they ripped off their face-masks, scanned the deck warily.

Schofield shucked his facemask and donned his signature silver wraparound glasses, masking his eyes. He beheld the deck around them.

The entire flight deck was deserted.

Except for the other teams that had just landed on it, not a soul could be seen. A few planes sat parked on the runways, some Tomcats and Hornets, and one chunky CH-53 Super Stallion helicopter.

There were star-shaped blood splatters on all of them, and also on the deck itself. But no bodies. Not one.

“Mother,” Schofield said to his number two, “what do you think?”

“What do I think?” the bulky female Marine to his right replied. “I think this is seriously fucked up. I was planning on spending this weekend watching David Hasselhoff DVDs. No one takes me away from the Hoff.”

Gena Newman was her real name, Gunnery Sergeant was her rank, but “Mother” was her call-sign and it didn’t relate to any overtly maternal traits. It was short for a slightly longer word starting with “Mother.”

At six-feet-two, 200 pounds, and with a fully-shaven head, Mother cut a mean figure. Tough, no-nonsense and fiercely loyal, she had accompanied Schofield on many missions, including the bad ones. She was also arguably the best Gunny in the Corps—once she had even been offered her pick of assignments outside Schofield’s command. She’d looked the Commandant of the Marine Corps in the eye and said, “I’m staying with the Scarecrow, sir.”

Mother gazed at the blood splatters on a nearby plane. “No, this was way suspect from the start. I mean, why are we here with D-boys, Airbornes and slithery SEALs? I’d rather just work with swordsmen.”

Swordsman was her word for a Marine: a reference to the swords they wore with their full-dress uniforms.

“Marines,” Schofield called, “the tower. Let’s move.”

Since they’d been assigned the mid-section of the supercarrier, Schofield’s Marines had the task of investigating the carrier’s six-story-high command tower, known as “the Island.” But since this mission also involved a real island, it was being referred to today as “the tower.”

They moved quickly through the rain, crossed the wide flight deck, arrived at the base of the tower—to find the main door there covered in blood and about a million bullet holes. It hung askew, its hinges blasted.

Looking up, Schofield saw that every single antenna and radar array atop the command tower had been broken or destroyed. The main antenna mast was broken in the middle and now lay tilted over.

“What in God’s name happened here?” one of Schofield’s Marines asked softly. He was a big guy, broad-shouldered, with a super solid footballer’s neck. His name: Corporal Harold “Hulk” Hogan.

“Not a tsunami, that’s for sure,” Sergeant Paulo “Pancho” Sanchez said. Older and more senior than Hulk, he was a sly sarcastic type. “Tsunamis don’t shoot you in the head.”

The voice of the SEAL leader came through their earpieces: “All units, this is Gator, Starboard Elevator Three has been disabled. We’re taking the stairs, heading for the main hangar bay below the flight deck.”

“This is Condor,” the Airborne leader called in. “I got evidence of a firefight in the SAM launcher bay up at the bow. Lot of blood, but not a single body…”

“Delta Six here. We’re on the island proper. No sign of anything yet…”

Schofield didn’t send out any report.

“Sir,” Sanchez said to him. “You gonna call in?”

“No.”

Sanchez exchanged a quick look with the Marine next to him, a tall guy named Bigfoot. Sanchez was one of the men who’d been dubious about Schofield’s mental state and his ability to lead this mission.

“Not even to tell the others where we are?”

“No.”

“But what about—”

“Sergeant,” Schofield said sharply, “did you ask your previous commander to explain everything to you?”

“No, sir.”

“So don’t start doing it now. Focus on the mission at hand.”

Sanchez bit his lip and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Now, if no one else has anything to say, let’s take this tower. Move.”

Hurdling the twisted steel door, they charged into the darkness of the supercarrier’s command tower.

UP A series of tight ladders that formed the spine of the command tower, moving quickly. Blood on the rungs.

Still no bodies.

Schofield’s team came to the bridge, the middle of three glass-enclosed lookout levels on the tower.

They were granted a superb view of the flight deck outside… albeit through cracked and smashed wraparound windows.

Nearly every window overlooking the flight deck had been destroyed. Blood dripped off what glass remained. Thousands of spent rounds littered the floor. Also, a few guns lay about: mainly M-16s, plus a few M-4 Colt Commandos, the short-barreled version of the M-16 used by special forces teams worldwide.

Mother led a sub-team upstairs, to the uppermost bridge: the flight control bridge. She returned a few minutes later.

“Same deal,” she reported. “Bucketloads of blood, no bodies. All windows smashed, and an armory’s worth of spent ammo left on the floor. A hell of a firefight took place here, Scarecrow.”

“A firefight that was cleaned up afterward,” Schofield said.

Just then, something caught his eye: one of the abandoned rifles on the floor, one of the M-4s.

He picked it up, examined it.

From a distance it looked like a regular M-4, but it wasn’t. It had been modified slightly.