Adam Baker - Juggernaut

Isolators to Off.

Master Safety to Off.

He slotted a final key into the primer console and switched from Safe to Enable. Amber indicators winked red. Weapon armed. The bomb began an insistent warning beep.

Tomasz replaced the cover panel and span lock nuts.

He cranked a wall lever. Whine of hydraulics. Typhoon roar as the loading ramp at the rear of the plane began to open. He gripped a wall strap for support. He saw blue sky. He saw desert, thousands of feet below.

He returned to the co-pilot seat.

‘Final confirmation?’ he asked.

‘Koell says green light.’

‘All right, then. Hot to trot, baby.’

He opened his backpack. Thermos flask. Cheetos. Hustler. He took out a video camera. He checked for charge and removed the lens cap.

‘What’s that for?’ asked Jakub.

‘Koell wants pictures. Says he wants to see the valley burn. Says he’s got to see it for himself. Jerk off over it, or something.’

‘What about the drone?’

‘Probably long gone. Landed, defuelled, broken down, trucked back to base. Koell doesn’t want those recon guys sitting in their downlink van, taping the big bang and mailing it to their buddies. Strictly eyes only.’

Tomasz unfolded the map. Blank desert. Empty grid. Rippling contour lines indicated northern hills. A crude red X marked the target site.

‘How far are we from the objective?’

‘About twenty-six miles,’ said Jakub. ‘Making good time.’

Tomasz looked out the cockpit at the hogback ridge of hills slowly emerging from the haze up ahead. A barren, biblical landscape.

‘There she is. Valley four-oh-three.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Jakub. A black smudge rising into the sky. ‘Smoke? There’s a smoke plume rising from the valley. Something is burning.’

‘Be burning for real in a couple of minutes.’

‘I can’t do it, bro,’ said Jakub. ‘There are people down there. Yanks, Brits, whatever. Our guys. White hats. We should give them time to get clear.’

‘Don’t fuck around. This is it. This is the bomb run. Just fly straight and hit the tail release. That’s all you have to do.’

‘I can’t. I can’t do it.’

‘Shit, let me have control. Film, all right? Take the camera and film.’

Tomasz buckled and took the joystick. He checked airspeed and altitude. He pulled back the collective. He reduced thrust. The plane began a steady deceleration, a steady descent.

A woman’s voice from the sat com. She sounded tired and desperate.

‘ Angel Flight, do you copy, over? Angel Flight, do you read?… ’

Tomasz took the handset from its charge shoe. He hit the off switch and threw it behind him. The unit clattered on the deck.

‘Okay. Here we go. Descending to five thousand. Eighty knots. Love from above, baby. This is going to be a big one. This is going to light up the fucking sky.’

‘We’ve got to get to the engine,’ said Lucy.’ This is turning into the fucking Alamo.’

They unchained the door at the head of the carriage. Amanda pulled the door wide. Two Republican Guard tumbled into the coach. Lucy shouldered her rifle and fired. Neat drill holes between the eyes. The back of their heads blew apart. She kicked the bodies aside.

Lucy jumped the knuckle-coupling and landed on the rear platform of the locomotive. Soldiers jostled, reached up for her.

A rotted infantryman gripped the guard rail and began to haul himself up onto the platform. Lucy delivered a vicious kick to his head. He toppled from the train.

More soldiers crowded round the coupling. Lucy delivered headshots.

‘Jump,’ she shouted.

Amanda jumped. She landed, screamed, and clutched her injured leg. Lucy helped Amanda limp along the narrow walkway.

Lucy knelt and capped the fuel tank.

A skeletal revenant sat on the locomotive roof above the slide door, crouched like a vulture. He leaned down. He leered and hissed. Lucy shot him through the mouth. A streak of red tracer. His jaw flew off. The back of his skull blew out in a shower of sparks. He hung dead.

Lucy grabbed the lifeless man by the collar and threw him from the train.

The cab slide door was open. A rotted infantryman inside, lurking in shadow. Amanda split his head with the machete. They dragged him from the cab and toppled him over the walkway guard rail.

Soldiers climbed up onto the walkway. Lucy delivered swift headshots. The rifle clicked dry.

‘I’m out.’

She tossed the weapon.

They sealed themselves inside the cab. More soldiers on the walkway. Lucy struggled to hold the slide door closed. Bloody hands slapped and pawed glass.

Lucy squinted through the blood-spattered window. Black smoke rose from the mangled, smoking chassis of the fuel truck. A distant dot approaching from the south, cresting the valley ridge. Something big. Something silver. An incoming plane. A heavy twin-prop cargo lifter.

She was overcome by a strength-sapping wave of failure. She led her guys into the desert. Promised them gold. They died, one by one, in this god-forsaken shithole. Couldn’t even get her boys home alive.

‘We’re fucked.’

Amanda stood at the engine’s console.

A cadaverous figure crouched on the hood of the locomotive. He stared through the windshield, spat and snarled. He punched plate glass until his hand was a bloody pulp.

Amanda tried to put the sound from her mind. The thump and smear of knuckles mashed against the windshield. The muffled mewing of Republican Guards out on the walkway, clawing at windows, hungry for flesh.

She struggled to clear her head and concentrate on the control panel in front of her. She tried to decipher the ignition sequence.

She checked the breaker panel. Every circuit switch set to On. Rows of green lights.

You’re going to die, said an insidious voice in her head. You are about to be consumed by searing fire. These are your last moments. Watching your hands flick switches and turn dials.

Fuck that shit, said a counter-voice. Don’t give into bullshit fatalism. Fight to live.

She felt drunk with exhaustion. She rubbed her eyes. She checked controls.

Brake released.

Reverser to Forward.

Throttle from Idle to Run 1.

Roar of turbocharged motive power. A jolt. The locomotive began to inch forward.

Throttle to Run 2.

Amp needles jumped. The engine began to accelerate. Gathering speed.

Amanda sagged and fell. She examined her leg. Fresh blood bubbled through the surgical dressing. She dug in her chest pouch for the last morphine syrette.

Lucy struggled to keep the cab door closed. Monstrously malformed soldiers massed on the walkway outside. She kicked open a tool box and used a wrench to jam the latch.

She looked out the window. She craned to see the sky.

She took the sat phone from her pocket.

‘Angel Flight. Incoming plane, do you copy? There are people on the ground. Do not drop the bomb. Please, do not drop the bomb. There are British and American personnel in need of rescue, do you copy, over?’

Amanda struggled to her feet. She limped across the cab and stood by Lucy’s side. They wiped dust from the glass, and watched the incoming plane reduce speed, reduce altitude. The cargo ramp was extended.

‘Angel Flight, do you copy? Can you hear me? Come on, guys.’

The plane climbed and banked.

‘Thank God,’ said Amanda. ‘They called off the drop.’

Something black fell from the tail of the plane. A cylinder, big as a van. Three candy-stripe drogue chutes unfurled and blossomed.

The bomb began a slow descent into the valley.

Lucy put her arm round Amanda.

‘Sorry, babe. I’m so sorry.’