Brainrush 03 - Beyond Judgment (50 page)

Grid Countdown: 0h:42m:00s and Holding

The Island
7:10 a.m.

“S
TAND BY,
” T
ONY
said into his tactical headset. He sat in a swivel chair on the megayacht’s compass bridge. He flexed his injured leg out and back, preparing himself for what was to come. The ship’s captain and first officer sat beside him. The navigation and control console stretched in front of them.

The ship was at maximum speed. Steep cliff walls rushed along either side of them—so close that Tony figured he could’ve spit on ’em. Three seconds later, the bow pushed through the inlet and into the lagoon. The towering mountains, the storybook village and structures, the expansive body of water with its rows of parked boats and yachts—it was all much grander than it had appeared from the overhead UAV images.

He couldn’t care less.

“Jammers now!” he ordered, happy to be throwing in some of their own electronic interference for a change.

Marshall was in the control room down below with Kenny and Timmy. They were in charge of communications and the drones. “Jamming commenced,” Marshall’s voice reported over the intercom.

“
Mother Ship Two
away,” Kenny added.

Tony wished Kenny had brought a dozen of the little
Mother
s along. The first one had saved his ass.
Mother Two
was the only one left. She would have to do.

Tony lifted the binoculars. The dock was one thousand meters ahead. A good-size bay cruiser and a hundred-foot yacht were tied off alongside. They were in the way. “That’s where we gotta go,” he said to the captain, pointing to the dock.

The uniformed officer narrowed his eyes on the scene. He knew what was at stake. There was a joystick in front of him. He ignored it. Instead, he used the padded steering wheel to change the ship’s angle of approach. “It’s going to be messy,” he said, scratching his gray beard. “But I’ll make it happen.”

Tony turned his attention to the bow of the ship, where several operators crouched beneath the front rail. Each of them carried a Spike shoulder-launched missile system, equipped with heat-seeking and GPS fire-and-forget guidance. They were loaded with thermobaric “fuel-air” rounds—capable of creating a superheated inferno and blast wave that would bring down structures and incinerate anything within a ten-meter radius of impact. They were ideal for taking out gun positions.

Additional operators were hidden in sniper positions above deck. The remainder waited by the gangway.

“Hostile targets identified,” Kenny reported.

The central monitor was linked to the imagery streaming from Kenny’s drones. Tony saw at least a hundred individual targets moving within the trees and village. More streamed from the mouth of the blast doors. They all wore the blue uniforms that Tony had seen on the other side of the island. On the screen, each one was encased in a red square.

Ignoring them for the moment, he focused on the stationary targets along the ridgeline. Those were the fixed emplacements. And even though their sensors were being jammed by one of the
drones, they still could shoot line of sight. They had to be dealt with first.

Kenny was all over it. “Stationary emplacements designated targets one through eight,” he reported.

There was a rush of movement among the operators at the bow. Launchers were propped on the railing. A beat later, Sergeant Major Abercrombie reported, “Locked on targets one through eight.”

“Open fire!” Tony ordered.

Hollow whoops sounded as each of the missiles left its tube, followed an instant later by the deep-throated roar of the ignition of solid fuel rockets. Eight trails of smoke arced into the sky, seeming to disappear at their apex. Two seconds later, a series of massive explosions thundered across the ridgelines.

“Launch boats!” Tony ordered. He glanced at the wall of video monitors embedded above the windscreen. The first of the two high-speed Special Operations Craft Riverines—SOC-Rs—slid down the yacht’s aft launching ramp. The thirty-three-foot-long low-profile boat bristled with tripod-mounted armament, including two M134 Miniguns that could spew out 7.62mm bullets at a rate of six thousand rounds per minute. There were six operators onboard the first SOC-R, hungry for action. It splashed into the water and sped out of view. The second boat hit the water a moment later.

The two boats whipped past either side of the yacht like it was standing still. They raced toward the shoreline. The distinctive high-pitched buzz of their Miniguns battled with the rumble of their four-hundred-forty-horsepower diesel engines. Fire flashed from the barrels of their guns. Tracers arced across the water.

The initial volley must have stunned the island’s forces.

But only for a moment.

All at once, return fire erupted from positions along the shoreline. Staccato cracks echoed across the water. RPG smoke trails burst from windows in the village. Spouts of water exploded
around the Riverines. Heavy machine-gun fire spit from the trees, and white phosphorus tracers snaked wavy arcs in the air as shooters adjusted their aim at the dodging and weaving boats.

The ship’s captain didn’t waver. He motioned to the first officer. “Time to get below, Scott. I’ll be right behind you.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” the first officer said. He disappeared down a spiral staircase at the back of the room.

The captain sat forward in his chair, maneuvering the ship so as to angle into the dock from behind the two parked boats. His plan was simple: keep his speed up and shove ’em out of the way. Tony appreciated the straightforward approach. But it sure looked to him like they were moving way too fast.

Most of the gunfire from the shore was directed at the fast movers. But as the megayacht neared the dock, Tony saw a string of tracers swerve in their direction.

“Down!” Tony shouted. He grabbed the captain’s arm and yanked him to the deck. The windshield exploded above them. Heavy rounds slugged through the chairs and into the rear walls of the room.

“Time to steer this thing from below!” Tony said.

The wide-eyed captain didn’t argue. He smacked Tony on the shoulder as a quick gesture of thanks. “Godspeed,” he said, before scrambling on all fours to the spiral staircase. There was a duplicate control station in the watertight compartment beneath them. The first officer would’ve taken control by now. As long as the exterior cameras didn’t get blown to shreds, they’d be able to park the ship from there.

Tony exited the bridge in a crouch. Waves of pain shot up his injured thigh as he hobbled down two flights of stairs to the main deck. Twin RPG explosions sounded overhead, and the compass bridge exploded in a ball of fire. Debris cascaded around him. He moved toward the gangway, where a score of operators already waited.

“Brace for impact,” the captain’s voice sounded over the comm net.

Tony slid next to the Aussie sergeant major. The soldier had a broad grin on his face. “Into the breach!” he said.

Both men placed their backs against the sidewall. Tony reached over his shoulder and grabbed hold of the rail.

“Five seconds!” the captain said.

The lurching impact threw Tony forward. His grip on the rail didn’t give way, but he winced when his body twisted and his leg slapped the sidewall. The bow seemed to lift into the air in slow motion. There was an awful crunching sound, and Tony imagined the cruiser being crushed like a melon under an elephant’s foot. The bow dropped, and then there was a second impact. This time, the nose of the ship jerked to the left toward the dock. Tony figured it must have wedged between the stern of the second ship and the pier. The yacht shuddered as its tonnage ripped through the dock’s timber planks and pilings, causing an explosion of wood slivers that rained down on Tony and the operators.

After an extended, ear-piercing scraping sound, the yacht lurched to a stop.

The gangway was down faster than Tony could take his next breath. Operators charged onto the shredded pier, dodging around an upheaval of timber. Tony trotted after them, favoring his leg. He could almost feel Kenny’s eyes on him through
Mother Ship
’s cameras. By now the kid would have identified the proximity targets and was probably itchin’ to throw the switch.

“Clear us a path to the door, Kenny,” Tony ordered.

“
Mother Ship
, go native,” Kenny said over the comm net.

“
Confirm
go native
command
,” the computer’s sultry voice said.

“
Go native
confirmed!” Kenny said.

Tony skirted the last bit of rubble and hobble-skipped forward. Operators charged past either side of him. One of them went down, and a medic slid to his side.

“Incoming!” Tony shouted, going down to one knee and returning fire. The rest of the raiding party did the same. They knew the drill.

An instant later, the tree line on either side of the cobbled path lit up. Blinding flashes of white phosphorus were followed by shrieks of pain. As the last of
Mother
’s swarm delivered its deadly cargo, squads of operators peeled left and right. They disappeared into the trees to clean up any leftovers and establish a perimeter.

The blast doors were fifty meters ahead. They started to close.

Tony, the sergeant major, and a dozen more raced toward it.

Grid Countdown: 0h:42m:00s and Holding

The Island
7:15 a.m.

T
HE FIGHTING OUTSIDE
had reached a crescendo. Jake pressed his ear to the door and tightened his grip on the MP7. Becker and his team were stacked up behind him—weapons ready, game faces on. They’d go first. This was familiar territory for the highly skilled operators. Jake held a hand in the air.

“There are still too many of them,” he whispered, listening to the shouts and heavy footfalls beyond the door. Becker had relayed what he had learned by eavesdropping on the Order’s radio chatter. There was a major battle taking place in the lagoon. Tony and the rest of them had waltzed through the inlet just as bold as you please. Spittin’ fire.

Victor’s defenders were taking heavy losses. They were trying to buy enough time for the engineers to rewire one of the backup generators in order to shut the blast doors.

The stairwell lights flashed on, and Jake felt a surge of adrenaline. They had to move. “Wait three seconds,” he whispered urgently. “I’ll draw their fire!”

He pushed through the door and bumped into a crowd of Victor’s soldiers. His blue uniform bought him the precious
seconds he needed to shoulder through them. He shouted with the angry authority of a general leading a charge, “There’s a saboteur at the door!” He ran toward the exit tunnel. The soldiers followed.

Two seconds later, Jake heard the suppressed spits of the Aussies’ weapons. Blood splattered, men yelped, and the solders around him flopped to the floor. One man rolled, coming to his knees with his submachine gun tucked to his shoulder. Twin holes blossomed in his forehead, and he was thrown back.

It was over in three heartbeats. Becker, Sergeant Fletcher, and Jonesy rushed forward in a choreographed pattern that covered all angles of the lobby. Two of the bodies moved, and they received extra spits from the operators’ weapons. Sam watched their backs.

“Get ’em moving!” Becker said into his headset.

The stairwell door popped open, and Sam waved the group forward. Ahmed and Lacey were the first out the door.

“I’ve got comm with the ship!” Jonesy reported.

“Fill ’em in, lad,” Becker said, switching frequencies so he could listen in.

Jake tuned out Jonesy’s response when he heard a deep thrum from within the tunnel. He knew that it had to be the blast door mechanisms. He sprinted forward, and Becker and Sergeant Fletcher followed in his wake.

The inward-hinged blast doors swung slowly toward one another. Three men in jumpsuits and hard hats stood this side of it. They faced a wall-mounted control panel. One of them had his hand on a button. Two soldiers stood beside them.

“Wait!” Jake shouted, rushing to get to them before the door was sealed. The soldiers spun around at the sound of Jake’s voice. But Jake’s blue uniform didn’t help him this time around, as one of the guards apparently recognized him. The man raised his assault rifle and squeezed the trigger.

Becker’s linebacker shove drove Jake to one side, careening him into the wall. Bullets ricocheted off the floor. There was a series of spits behind him, and the three hard hats and soldiers went down. But the doors continued to close, narrowing the gap to the outside world. Jake dashed to the control panel, nearly slipping in the widening pool of blood around the bodies. He smashed his palm on the red
EMERGENCY STOP
button.

The mechanism responded, and the doors stopped moving. There was an eighteen-inch opening between them.

Jake flinched when Tony stuck his head into the gap. “Need a lift?” the big man asked, turning sideways to step inside. He clasped Jake’s hand. “Seems like I’m always cleaning up your mess.”

Several operators followed Tony inside. They ran down the tunnel.