Джозеф Нассис - SNAFU - Heroes [An Anthology of Military Horror]

Edited by Geoff Brown and Amanda J Spedding

Cohesion Press

Bendigo (Australia), www.cohesionpress.com

The body lay unmoving in the middle of the street, partially covered by the inch or so of snow that had been falling since the sun set half an hour before. The lights of the SUV made it easy to see that the body was that of an adult male in dark clothing. The shadows looming over it, however, never mind the snow, made it difficult to make out any further details.

Knight Commander Cade Williams, the man in charge of that evening’s operation, slowly brought the vehicle to a halt a couple of car lengths away from the corpse. He stared through the windshield at the lightly falling snow on the body, then turned his attention to the two-storey buildings looming on either side of the street.

In the seat beside him, his executive officer, Master Sergeant Matthew Riley, was doing the same.

“What do you think?” Riley said, his usually deep and boisterous voice oddly hushed in the still confines of the car, almost as if he were afraid someone, or something, might overhear them.

Cade didn’t blame him; he’d started getting the creeps the minute they’d driven into town.

“Can’t just leave him there,” he said, his attention still on the buildings around them, watching for movement or some other tell-tale sign that they were occupied. “He might not be dead, just injured.” Besides, there isn’t any room to drive around him, even if I wanted to.

The village streets were narrow enough as they were; never mind with a body in the middle of them. There was no way to get around the body unless they moved it.

Which might be just what those who put the body there are counting on .

“Look alive. We don’t know what’s out there waiting for us...” he said, as he opened the door and cautiously stepped out. The others followed suit.

All four were members of the Holy Order of the Poor Knights of Christ of the Temple of Solomon, also known as the Knights Templar. Contrary to popular belief, the Order had not been destroyed at the hands of the king of France when he’d burned Grand Master Jacques de Molay at the stake in 1314, but instead had gone underground, hidden away, its members biding their time and waiting for the right opportunity. Resurrected as a secret combat arm of the Vatican in the closing days of World War One, the Order’s primary purpose was to protect mankind from supernatural threats and enemies. There were thousands of members worldwide, organized into local commanderies and led by a Preceptor that reported to the Seneschal at the Order’s ancestral home in Rosslyn, Scotland. Despite its size, the Order operated in secret, preferring to carry out its mission from the shadows themselves; fighting the darkness with nothing more than their wits, their skill, and their faith to protect them.

Cade was head of the Echo Team, the most elite of the Templar combat units, and the three men with him – Sean Duncan, Nick Olsen, and Matthew Riley – made up the command squad of his unit. While Olsen and Riley were seasoned combat veterans, having worked with Williams for several years, Duncan was a relative newcomer to the group, having transferred to the team from the Preceptor’s security detail a few months before. So far, though, despite his occasional need to be a stickler over the rules, he’d proven his worth to the unit and Cade was glad to have him.

The men had been at the Order’s headquarters in Rosslyn, Scotland, training a new class of recruits, when they’d been summoned to action. Reports of strange creatures and unusual behavior had been occurring for about a week near the remote village of Durbandorf, in the northern Black Forest region of Germany. The local parish priest had finally had enough and made a formal report to his bishop, noting that he, himself, had seen things he couldn’t fully explain. Such reports were monitored as a matter of course by the Order and the decision had been made to send a team to check things out.

Normally Cade would have assigned one of the local squads to handle it, but after two weeks he’d had his fill of training exercises. He was itching to get back into the field and this provided the perfect excuse for him and his team to do so. Forty-five minutes after the order had been handed down, the foursome was on a plane bound for Baden-Baden, Germany. They’d picked up a rental SUV at the airport and then driven north, into the heart of the Black Forest.

Durbandorf sat at the end of a long road surrounded by forest, a small isolated outpost with a population of just over three hundred in the midst of primeval territory. At least it seemed that way to Cade; the ancient pines looming over the road made it feel more like a rite of passage than a byway that saw regular use.

The feeling hadn’t dissipated when they’d arrived in town, either. In fact, it had gotten worse. The streets were narrow, with barely enough room for the big SUV alone, never mind two vehicles going in opposite directions. The buildings were tucked in close, not only to the edge of the street but to each other as well, giving them a sense of malevolence rather than welcome, as if they were crowding in upon a visitor with claustrophobic abandon.

They’d entered the village less than ten minutes ago and already they had a body to contend with. It wasn’t a good sign, by anyone’s reckoning.

Cade had a hunch things were going to get significantly worse before they got better.

He gently shut the car door behind him and paused to pull his HK Mark 23 from the holster he wore beneath his heavy coat. The .45 caliber pistol had enough stopping power to drop a bear dead in its tracks. Cade really hoped he wasn’t going to need it.

The buildings around them were silent and, for the most part, dark. A few lights shone here and there down the length of the street, but there were far fewer of them than he would have expected. It was only shortly after dinner time; the place should still be humming along like a well-oiled machine instead of being dark and seemingly deserted.

Where was everyone?

Beside him, Riley racked a shell into the Mossberg combat shotgun he was carrying. The sound seemed unusually loud in the surrounding silence. When Cade glanced over, the big master sergeant met his gaze and nodded grimly. Apparently he was feeling the strangeness of the place, too.

Cade stepped forward and the others fell into position behind him, with Riley standing watch at his back and the other two facing outward toward the buildings around them with their HK MP5 submachine guns at the ready.

Wanting to blend in with the populace once they arrived on site, the team had dressed down for the mission, forgoing their usual SWAT-styled uniforms in favor of heavy pea coats worn over jeans and sweaters, the latter big enough to hide the ballistics vests they wore underneath. The swords each man habitually carried, given to them on the night of their investiture into the Order, were still in the vehicle for the time being. They’d retrieve them if and when necessary.

Cade knelt beside the body and knew immediately that the man was dead. The exit wound in the back of the man’s skull was all the proof he needed.

He brushed the snow off the man’s back with one gloved hand, uncovering the fact that, whoever he was, he was clad only in a long-sleeved shirt and blue jeans. He had no sweater, no coat; nothing to ward off the cold that had settled about the town like a thick winter cloak.