Adam Baker - Juggernaut

Tomasz swayed, like a sailor crossing a deck in high seas. He untied rope and began to pull back the tarp.

‘Time to do your thing, baby.’

A giant thermobaric device. Twelve tons of high explosive.

White paint on black metal:

Tomasz patted the steel hull of the bomb.

‘Let’s make sweet music.’

Republican Guard. A button-popping fat guy with no arms. He fell, and struggled to his feet. He wove between burned-out sedans.

Voss shouldered his shotgun and braced his legs.

‘ Gaan fok jouself ,’ murmured Voss, as he lined up the shot.

The fat guy’s head exploded. Brain-splash. He toppled to the ground, half his head ripped away. His legs pedalled like he was still trying to walk. He churned circles in the dirt.

Gaunt checked his watch. He kicked the burned hubs of the fuel truck.

‘She’s got to be towed. Hitched to something big, and dragged to the locomotive.’

Voss pointed at the sky.

‘What the fuck is that?’

A distant, dove-grey plane circling like a vulture.

‘It’s the drone I told you about. Koell’s eye in the sky. We’re being surveilled. Watching us the whole time we’ve been out here.’

Voss took off his jacket and waved it back and forth.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ asked Gaunt. ‘Koell isn’t going to send the cavalry. He’s going to tape your death and post it online.’

Gaunt looked towards the Predator and flipped the bird.

‘Get that in infra-red, you fuck.’

Lucy stood at the carriage window and watched the drone through binoculars. The ghost-grey airframe of a UAV. Rolls-Royce turbofan tail engine. Eyeless, bulbous head. The Predator slow-circled the valley at high altitude.

‘You think it’s been up there this whole time?’ asked Amanda. ‘How long can those things stay airborne? Think it’s been shadowing us this past couple of days?’

‘Maybe.’

‘How much do you reckon it cost? A thing like that?’

‘Three-, four-million-dollar optics package. Doesn’t take much to run. Guy in a pilot van toggling a joystick, watching a screen.’

‘Shoot it.’

‘Too far out. Might as well throw rocks at the bastard.’

Lucy lowered her binoculars and turned her attention back to the truck. She adjusted focus.

‘Come on, guys,’ murmured Lucy. ‘Get your shit together. Move the damn truck.’

Gaunt opened the tool compartment above the rear fender. He found yellow canvas tow straps wound in a coil.

‘All right. Here’s the plan,’ said Gaunt. ‘We fire up the cash truck. Drive it from the temple. Use it to tow the tanker.’

They jogged across sand towards the citadel entrance. They passed between the twin gate towers. The burned-out choppers still smouldered in the central courtyard. The air was still bitter with the taint of burnt plastic.

They passed titanic ruins. Sinister silence. Domes, arches, colonnades. Courtyards and avenues half-choked with sand.

They entered the shadow of the baleful colossi that flanked the temple entrance.

The vast temple interior. Cool darkness.

A gangrenous soldier shambled from the shadows. A frail, mummified creature. Skin like leather. Dendritic growths woven through flesh. Clothes hung in blood-smeared strips. He had no eyes. He stumbled. He bumped pillars. He advanced like he was tracking their scent. The soldier was barely alive, but still compelled to rip and tear. An unquenchable thirst for flesh. That final thought dying slow, like campfire embers.

Gaunt kicked the creature. It stumbled and fell. He stamped on his head. Skull burst. He scuffed his boot on flagstones like he was scraping dog shit.‘Come on.’

They ran to the truck.

Voss reached into the fender well beneath the battery and tripped the starter solenoid.

Ignition. Engine roar echoed round the vaulted interior of the temple. The single, intact head lamp flickered and glowed steady. The beam shafted through swirling dust motes.

Half-dead soldiers lay sprawled over altar steps beneath the great, contemptuous bull god. They turned towards the sudden radiance, stirred slow and clumsy like they were waking from a long sleep.

‘Damn,’ said Voss. ‘Let’s go.’

They ran to the cab. They reversed away from the altar, swung round, and headed for daylight shafting through the temple doorway

A soldier crawled up the processional ramp to the temple entrance. Legs sheared at the thigh. Bone and ragged flesh. Tumorous tendrils trailed from each stump. He paused at the temple threshold, reached out like he was trying to grasp the approaching head beam. Tyres crushed his torso as the armoured truck rolled over his body and out into sunlight. His ribs crunched beneath the wheels. His skull crackled and splintered like glass ground under a heavy boot.

The truck rolled down the temple ramp. Two rotted soldiers reached for the vehicle, arms outstretched. They were smashed by ram bars, pulped beneath the wheels.

The cash truck rode over smooth flagstones, through ceremonial precincts and out the citadel gateway. It bounced over rock-strewn dirt.

‘Quarter of a tank,’ said Gaunt, checking the dash gauge. ‘If we can’t get the loco running, we use the truck to get out the valley. Throw some water and ammo in the back. Should help us cross a few miles of desert before we have to get out and walk.’

They reached the convoy. Gaunt revved and rammed the column of vehicles. He bulldozed a passage between cars. Body panels shrieked. Doors ripped free. A Subaru tipped and rolled.

They pulled up in front of the fuel truck. They lashed tow straps.

‘You got to walk me back to the train,’ said Gaunt. ‘Keep the fuckers off my back while I drive.’

Gaunt gunned the throttle. The armoured car crept forward. The tow strap slapped taut and creaked at full tension. High revs. Gaunt pumped the throttle and rocked the fuel truck free.

Voss stood guard. He climbed on the hood of a burned-out Lincoln. A row of automobiles, toe to tail. He jumped roof to roof. He kept pace with the lurching fuel truck as it rolled forward.

He climbed across the blistered hull of an APC. A soldier squirmed from a turret hatch, face a mask of knotted malignancies. Voss delivered a vicious kick to the head. Neck snap. The creature fell limp and slid back into darkness.

More grasping hands emerging from gaping hatchways, scrabbling like spiders. Snapping skull faces.

Voss pulled the pin from a frag grenade and dropped it into the dark interior of the APC. He heard it clang and clatter. He jumped clear.

Muffled blast. A jet of smoke from every vent and hatch. The hull resonated like a gong. The sound echoed round the high valley walls, and died slow.

‘How you doing?’ asked Lucy.

‘All right,’ said Amanda. She massaged her leg. ‘Riding the codeine wave.’

The sun high over the valley walls. Merciless, lacerating light. The carriage was starting to bake.

They watched the trucks lurch across wasteland towards the locomotive. They could hear the distant engine rev and labour. The vehicles kicked up a high dust plume.

Amanda looked up at the drone.

‘They must know there are people alive down here. Someone in Baghdad is watching us close-up. Examining every hair follicle and skin pore. Toying with us, like a kid frying ants with a magnifying glass.’

‘They want us dead. We are a loose end. This whole operation is a bleed they want to tie off and cauterise. Soon as we get back to Baghdad, we switch to fake ID. Destroy dog tags, credit cards, anything with our names. Collect our shit from the Rasheed, then vanish.’

‘Damn,’ said Amanda. ‘Check it out. The citadel.’