Adam Baker - Juggernaut

‘How long do you think we have?’

‘Couple of hours, tops. We better burn rubber.’

‘I don’t think I can make it,’ said Amanda.

‘Don’t even start with that shit.’

‘What if my leg gives out? How am I going to make it across the fucking desert? Are you going to carry me on your back?’

‘If that’s what it takes. I’ll get you home, babe. I lost everything. Toon. Huang. Voss. I’m not losing you.

A Republican Guard stumbled along the track towards them, skin laced with metallic tendrils.

‘Give me the machete,’ said Lucy.

She approached the soldier.

An officer. Red beret and epaulettes. An AK strapped to his back. His flesh oozed metal.

He snarled. He reached for Lucy’s throat. She stood her ground as he stumbled towards her. She hacked off his arm. He fell to his knees. She lopped through his neck.

Lucy stood over the body.

‘I expected more of these fuckers. Guess they must have returned to the citadel. Hibernating, or something.’

She unhitched the rifle. A Tabuk, with a folding stock. The crude AK47 clone manufactured for the Iraqi army. She worked the bolt. A poor action, but the weapon would fire.

She took magazines from pouches strapped to the dead man’s chest.

‘Want to give me the pistol?’ asked Amanda.

‘Later,’ said Lucy. She worried Amanda might blow her brains out rather than become a fatal burden.

They climbed on the quad and set off. The four-stroke engine echoed round tight canyon walls.

They turned a bend in the ravine. Lucy brought the bike to a halt. The train was parked up ahead.

‘Why did they stop?’ asked Amanda. ‘Out of fuel already?’

They got off the bike. Lucy chambered the AK. They crept along the valley wall. Lucy kept her rifle trained on empty carriage windows.

‘Give me a fucking gun,’ said Amanda.

Lucy tossed the Makarov pistol.

They crept the length of the train. They reached the locomotive. Lucy climbed the ladder. She pulled Amanda up onto the walkway.

They flanked the cab door. Lucy pushed the slide door with her foot and ducked inside, rifle raised.

Empty.

‘They took the key. We can’t start her up.’

Lucy helped Amanda jump the coupling to the carriage.

Rifles, but no magazines.

Amanda kicked an empty backpack.

‘Looks like they took most of the ammo.’

She slumped in a chair and massaged her wounded leg.

‘How much morphine have we got?’

‘Couple more shots,’ said Lucy. ‘Better save them. If that wound gets infected, you’ll be hurting for real.’

‘I could use a fucking drink.’

Lucy offered her canteen.

‘A real drink. A beer. Can’t stop thinking about it. Ice cold. Condensation running down the glass.’

Amanda flicked open her lock-knife and cut the crusted dressing from her leg. She unzipped Huang’s trauma kit. She unrolled fresh gauze round her thigh, and lashed the dressing in place with a combat tourniquet.

‘How’s it looking?’ asked Lucy.

‘A little fresh blood. Not much. It’ll be okay, long as it doesn’t get infected.’

Amanda popped codeine from a blister strip and knocked them back with canteen water.

‘Take it easy with that shit, all right?

Lucy kicked open the missile case.

The Hellfire guidance cone. The solid-fuel rocket motor. A vacant scoop of foam where the virus cylinder used to sit.

‘Gaunt took the virus. He must be carrying it with him.’

She wiped grime from a window and focused binoculars.

‘What can you see?’ asked Amanda. She fanned her Stetson.

A couple of half-rotted soldiers stumbled and crawled from the ancient necropolis. They emerged from the great propylon gateway and dragged themselves across the valley floor towards the column of wrecked vehicles.

‘Two infected guys. They seem to be converging on the convoy.

She surveyed the burned-out trucks and cars.

‘There. I see them.’

‘Gaunt?’

‘And Voss.’

Gaunt and Voss arguing, gesticulating.

‘They’re checking out some kind of fuel truck.’

‘Voss is mine, all right?’ said Amanda. ‘I want to see the look on his face when I pull the trigger.’

The plane. A silver Fairchild Provider. A twin-prop freighter in Red Cross livery.

‘ Angel Flight, you are leaving our air. Maintain two-eight-five, at fifteen thousand. Good luck .’

‘Roger that, QTAC Centre. Maintaining two-eight-five at fifteen thousand. Have a good day.’

Jakub took off his headphones. He wiped sweat from his neck and brow with a do-rag. He checked heading and altitude.

Jakub: a fat guy in a Motörhead shirt.

He looked out the cockpit window. The blur of the starboard propeller. Baghdad to their north. A bombed-out sprawl. Minarets and shanty squalor.

A thread of black smoke rose from the old quarter. A car bomb or garbage fire.

‘Fucking shithole. Giant fucking latrine. Dust and donkey turds. You know, I bet half the wars round here would stop in an instant if they got some decent TV channels. All they have is those fucking brain-rot Egyptian soaps. Nothing in their lives. No hope. No booze. No nothing. Bunch of rabid junkyard dogs, ripping out each other’s throats.’

Tomasz checked the map. A big stretch of yellow. The Western Desert. No towns, no topographical features. A straight run to the target.

Tomasz: a big guy with a moustache. Swastikas and Aryan Nation tatts down both arms.

Both men were ex-GROM. Polish ‘thunderbolt’ special forces. Recruited by the CIA seven years ago. Training and indoctrination at the US Army School of the Americas, Fort Benning. Seven years’ billet in downtown Columbus. Part of a language immersion programme. Taught to speak American, think American. They were currently on retainer contracts running covert ops for the Office of Technical Services. Prisoner transports. Rendition flights. Hooded, hog-tied detainees flown to black interrogation centres in Eastern Europe and North Africa.

Tomasz checked his watch.

‘How long to the objective?’

‘Hour. Hour and a half, maybe. Return journey will be quicker. Should gain about thirty knots, once we’ve dumped the payload.’

There was a sat-com unit bolted to the flight control panel. A hi-tec addition to antique gauges and dials.

A faint voice:

‘ Incoming plane, do you copy, over? Angel Flight can you hear me? ’

Jakub put on headphones. He adjusted volume.

‘ Angel Flight, do you copy, over? ’

‘There they go again,’ said Jakub.

‘Same guy?’

‘No. He sounds South African. He’s using our channel, our encryption key. He must be for real.’

‘ Angel Flight, this is fire support team Bravo Bravo Lima Two. There are men on the ground. Do you copy, over? Do not bomb this site. There are men on the ground requesting urgent assistance. We require immediate evacuation. Please respond. ’

‘Maybe we should radio Koell,’ said Jakub. ‘Let him know there are people on site.’

‘He won’t give a shit.’

‘I think we should talk to him.’

‘Don’t be weak. You’ve got your orders. Just sit tight and fly the plane.’

‘I don’t like it,’ muttered Jakub. ‘Doesn’t seem right.’

Tomasz unbuckled his harness.

‘I’m going to check on our passenger.’

He ducked through the cabin door. He climbed down a short steel ladder into the hold. A wide cargo space ribbed with girders. A couple of overhead bulbs.

He blinked, tried to adjust to windowless cave-dark.

A huge object, a cylinder big as a van, beneath a canvas shroud.