Adam Baker - Juggernaut

‘Breathe. Come on. Breathe.’

He stopped trembling and lay still.

‘Let’s get you to the chopper.’

Toon helped lift Huang onto the stretcher. They laid him in Talon .

Amanda shone a Maglite in Huang’s eyes. He blinked. Slow dilation. He turned his head.

‘Just chill, all right?’ said Amanda. ‘Lie still. We’ll get you home in no time.’

She jabbed him in the thigh with a morphine auto-injector pen, and watched him pass out.

‘Go check the perimeter,’ she told Toon. ‘I don’t trust Gaunt to watch our backs.’

She pulled on a fresh pair of gloves and peeled back the wad of dressing taped to Huang’s neck. The wound had turned black. It stank of rotting flesh. Fine metal spines protruded from the putrid skin, like silver hairs. She took tweezers from the medical kit, pinched one of the spines and pulled.

‘You can’t help him.’

Jabril had quietly climbed in the chopper and sat on a bench seat.

‘What is this shit?’ asked Amanda.

‘A disease. It’s like rabies, in some respects. This sickness will progress. He will become demented and attack.’

Amanda redressed the wound. She loaded a fresh shot of tetracycline into the injector gun and fired it into Huang’s thigh.

‘How long has he got?’

‘Not long.’

‘We’ll get him back to Baghdad,’ said Amanda. ‘Get him to the combat ICU. That’s his best chance.’

‘You should restrain him.’

‘He’s my friend.’

‘It won’t make any difference. A few hours from now he won’t recognise your face. He will think of you as prey.’

‘Watch him,’ said Amanda. ‘I’m going to check on Toon.’

She peeled off latex gloves and left.

Huang moaned. His eyelids fluttered.

Jabril reached beneath the bench. He pulled out a holdall. He opened a wholesale carton of Salems. A cloth package hidden behind packs of cigarettes. A Soviet frag grenade. The case was chipped and rusted.

He pulled the prosthetic hook from the stump of his forearm and pushed the grenade into the hollow cup. He twisted the prosthetic back on to his stump and buttoned his sleeve.

Huang coughed and arched his back.

‘Don’t fight,’ murmured Jabril. ‘It will be over soon.’

He sat back and contemplated the white light shafting from the distant temple entrance.

Gaunt and Raphael stripped Bad Moon . They tossed seat cushions, fire extinguishers, life vests and a raft.

‘Unbolt the seat frames,’ said Gaunt. ‘Three tons of gold. We need space and lift.’

‘These fucks won’t be flying back with us. That’s a shitload of weight we won’t need to haul.’

Amanda’s voice over the com channel:

‘ Huang is pretty fucked up, boss. Not much I can do for him. We have to get him to a hospital. He needs specialist help. ’

Lucy’s voice:

‘ We’re minutes away from the gold. We’ll be airborne within the hour. Can he hold on? ’

‘ Maybe. If his condition deteriorates any further, we’ll need to haul ass no matter what. ’

Gaunt released the Velcro straps of his flak jacket and removed the silenced Sig tucked behind his chest plate. He rechecked the chamber, rechecked the mag.

‘Follow my lead, all right?’ he told Raphael. ‘Be ready for my signal.’

Toon ripped the lid from MRE teriyaki and speared chicken with a plastic fork. He gagged. The food tasted of mildew.

He walked to the edge of the courtyard, spat the food and tossed the bowl into shadows. He uncapped his canteen and rinsed his mouth.

He saw a tall silhouette.

‘Voss, baby. How’s it going?’ Toon rinsed his mouth again. ‘Fucking rancid. Must be the heat. Got any of that Red Man? I need to clear the taste.’

The figure stepped forward and was lit by moonlight. Toon glimpsed wild hair and ripped clothes. He backed away and fumbled for the Maglite in his pocket. The beam lit a decayed, skeletal thing, reaching for him with clawed fingers.

Toon dropped the flashlight and drew his Glock. Six shots, centre-of-mass. The thing staggered backward, strobed by muzzle-flash. Chunks blown out of its belly and chest. It fell and lay still.

Amanda came running.

Toon picked up his torch. They stood over the body. A withered skull face. A necrotic abomination, mouth open in a gaping yawn.

‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ muttered Amanda.

Strange metallic tendrils coiled through muscle and bone

The creature tried to sit. Broken spine. It rolled and tried to crawl, fingernails raking stone. Amanda and Toon backed away.

‘Ever see anything like that?’ asked Amanda.

‘No. Never.’

The creature looked up and hissed.

Amanda stared into jet-black eyes. She felt herself appraised by a strange, implacably hostile intelligence.

‘What the fuck are you?’ she murmured.

Toon shot the malignant creature in the face. He fired until the mag was dry. He pulverised its head.

They fetched a jerry can of fuel from the chopper and slopped gasoline.

Amanda took a blue fifty-dinar note from her pocket. She lit the note and tossed it. The creature burst into flame. Flesh crisped and crackled. The skeletal corpse slowly curled foetal as it burned.

‘It didn’t come from the convoy,’ said Toon. ‘It came from behind us, from the citadel. It was hiding in the ruins. Could be plenty more.’

‘We need a ring of light.’

Raphael and Gaunt grabbed boxes and benches thrown from the choppers and propped them in circle round both Hueys.

Toon and Amanda tore open a pack of cyalume sticks. They cracked the sticks and scattered them on flagstones. The chemical lights glowed blue, surrounding the helicopters in a ring of ethereal light.

Toon kept them covered.

They crouched by the choppers, weapons trained on deep shadows.

Raphael looked scared. Gaunt chewed gum.

Toon reached for the transmit button of his radio.

‘Boss? Boss, do you copy? We got to get moving. We’re starting to draw serious heat.’

Lucy leant against the drill as it cut steel with a shrill whine. The bit lurched forward as it broke through an air pocket within the vault door.

She shut off the drill and pulled foam beads from her ears.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘We’ve reached the locks.’

‘Yeah?’ said Voss.

‘Smile. We’re nearly done.’

She disengaged the magnets. She and Voss took the weight of the drill as it fell away from the truck door. They threw it aside.

‘We pile the equipment and set it alight before we leave all right? Water bottles, food wrappers, everything we touched. You can bet other senior Ba’ath officials knew about this stash. Probably behind wire in some internment camp right now, but soon as they bust free they’ll come looking for the gold. And then they’ll come looking for us. Chase us down, if they can. They won’t give up easy.’

Lucy opened a plastic case. A fibre-optic borescope in a foam bed.

She plugged the borescope into a Toughbook. She threaded the scope into the hole next to the upper combination lock. The probe slid down the narrow steel channel.

Camera view: the micro-lamp lit spiral drill-grooves, like the rifled barrel of a gun.

The wheel pack. The combination lock mechanism. Six titanium disks on a spindle.

Voss held the Toughbook. Lucy watched the screen and turned the dial. One by one the lock wheels aligned. Faint click as a bolt released.

Same procedure for the lower lock. She manipulated the combination drum. Clack of a retracting bolt.

She turned the crank handle and hauled the door wide.

She picked her TASC radio from the floor. She spoke into the throat-piece.

‘Okay, folks. We’re in.’