Arisen, Book Nine - Cataclysm (38 page)

“And are you currently linked in with other units to your flanks?”

“Negative. We are not linked in, and have no visual contact with any other elements.”

“Okay. Be advised. We are currently mobilizing all our construction and engineering resources in that sector.”

Bhardwaj glanced up toward the top of what remained of the Wall. Both he and Elliott could already hear the voices and activity on the other side, and see the tops of cranes moving around.

“They’re going to try to get that Wall rebuilt – somehow. And we’re going to try to get you reinforcements. But it’s all going to take time. And you are going to have to hold that position – NO MATTER WHAT. Defend that gap. Move for nothing. Don’t bend, don’t break. Your men die in place – and senior officers die with their men.”

Elliott seemed to remember Churchill saying something like that, before the fall of Singapore, from one of his military history classes.

Bhardwaj covered his mouthpiece. “That’s easy, then. No bloody officers left.”

“Be further advised. We are currently seeing massive, rapid movements of the enemy – all around the ZPW.”

“Copy that, sir. But movements where?”

Pause.
“Not just closing with the Wall in the south. Also circling around the periphery of it, in both directions, heading north – directly toward your position.”

Elliott and Bhardwaj exchanged disbelieving looks. They were both thinking the same two things: One, the entire defense of the south must have now fallen. And, two,
the dead had HEARD the Wall come down.
It had been atrociously, crushingly loud. Still, this couldn’t be happening. Things just kept getting worse – every time they thought they’d hit rock bottom, they took another tumble.

“Your orders are simple. Two Para holds in place until relieved…

“Or until you’re all dead.”

* * *

“So much for resting up in a quiet sector,” Elliott muttered.

He and Bhardwaj were just taking a minute to gather themselves, sitting in the dark, dusty, and depopulated circle of BHQ. From the look on his face, the staff sergeant obviously knew that what he did in the next minutes and hours would define his entire military career.

If not the fate of the world.

“We’ve got to get the surviving leadership together,” he finally said. “Section leaders, assistant section leaders – whoever the hell’s left. We’ve got to pass down these orders, and start putting together new defensive positions.” Bhardwaj took a couple of quick sharp breaths, as if steeling himself for what he had to do now.

Elliott breathed deeply, steeling himself as well. There was no discussion about whether they could do this – as banged up as they were, as exhausted as they all felt, with fifty percent casualties, with no officers and only a handful of NCOs, and with previous orders to rest and refit. None of that mattered. It was time to dig down, find it in themselves, and go do their duty – and perhaps face their destiny.

They had their orders, anyway. So there was really no choice.

And it occurred to Elliott that maybe this was exactly what he had been wishing for – to stand among his brothers, all of them defending one another to the last.

And if it proved to be a last stand…

Well, then they’d all go down fighting.

But they’d do it side by side.

* * *

Back in the CentCom JOC, Jameson stood peering disbelievingly at a bank of monitors driven by Lieutenant Miller – looking at a large section of previously vertical wall lying all over the ground.

“So this is by Security Station South…” Jameson muttered. His affectless voice said:
It’s over. We’ve lost.

“No, sir. This is in the north.”

“You told me the Wall was crumbling in the south.”

“It was. Things are tough all over. But it’s at least still standing in the south.”

Jameson appeared to start breathing again. London wasn’t going to fall, and everyone be eaten, in the next hour. “Who is that guarding the rubble?”

“Two Para, sir.”

Miller had once again taken it upon himself to issue the orders that needed to be given. Until just now, Jameson had still been caught up in dealing with the fallout and knock-on effects of the explosion and helo crash, while also trying to do his regular job running the whole war.

And, anyway, Miller wasn’t sure Jameson had the heart to tell the Paras what had to be done, that they had to die in place, to the last man, if necessary. The Royal Marine officer was simply too close to the men on the ground – hell, he was a ground-pounder himself. But running the war from the JOC was not combat, it was chess. And it was impossible to win without sacrificing pieces.

But now Jameson had to be briefed on the collapse of that section of Wall – and the collapse of the defense overall. This was a pretty simple operation, as the displays at Miller’s station all showed live video either from cameras actually on the ZPW or from drones overflying it.

And it was worse than just the collapse. Because the fact was, with the defense itself falling apart, the dead had now reached the outskirts of London, beginning in the southern sector – but not ending there. In at least half of the video windows, there were either dead milling around the Wall, racing toward it – or already piling up against it. Or, perhaps worst of all, running around it toward the north. There were still combat effective units in the field. But they no longer made up anything like a defensive line.

Jameson’s expression sagged and he looked down at Miller. “Is there
any
sector of the Wall left they haven’t reached yet?”

“Here and there,” Miller said. “But the only big contiguous stretch is in the north. And the fast ones are going to start reaching that within in a few hours. Basically, we’re surrounded.”

Jameson shook his head in disbelief. “Jesus, that happened fast.”

“It might be over even faster when they get to that collapsed section.”

Jameson just shook his head. And he prayed the Paras were as tough as they liked to make themselves out to be.

The imagery on the screens before them was unmistakable. London, the capital, was now officially a beleaguered island floating in a sea of dead. The tide was rising – and now it was only a matter of time before it flooded in.

The Siege of London had begun.

Even Death May Die

In the MRAP - On the Airport Tarmac

“So much for topping up on ammo before leaving camp,” Brady said. Having started shooting first, he’d been doing it longest. And now his mag pouches were empty. Looking around, he could see the others weren’t much better off.

The back of the MRAP, which had seemed pretty big at first, was now like a sardine can full of tooled-up and battle-weary commandos, the vehicle full to capacity, as it rattled across the airport tarmac. Everyone was thigh to thigh, elbows jostling, rifles held between knees and pointed at the deck.

“Not a problem,” Fick said, climbing back from the front. “We’ll have the Seahawk bring us an ammo top-up when it picks up this dead bastard.” He gestured toward the bagged-up Zulu in the corner.

“What’s the plan?” Reyes asked.

Fick nodded. “We’re heading back to the beach, where we’ll establish an HLZ, bring the helo in, and get this thing out of here.” He nodded again toward the preserved dead guy. “Then we head to Hargeisa to try and get a better one.”

“Hey, Fick,” Graybeard said. “I don’t think your American Zulu is moving.”

Fick belatedly looked back and saw the bag wasn’t in fact wiggling anymore.

“What the hell?” he said, shoving his way through the cabin. Pulling the body bag and its contents back up onto a seat, he zipped it down over the face – and it just stared up at him with dead eyes, its mouth hanging open slackly. It had been destroyed – somehow.

“Son of a bitch!” Fick cast around the cabin. “How the hell did this happen?”

Handon stuck his head back there. “How’d what happen?”

Fick held up the unanimated head by its hair.

“Goddammit.” Handon shook his head. He turned back toward Brady. “Stop the vehicle.” Climbing all the way in back, where there really wasn’t room for him, he said, “Okay. What the hell happened?”

Fick glanced at the side hatch, which had been left open during the fight for the JOC. “Ricochet, maybe?”

“The Law of Perversity of Physical Objects,” Pred said. He gestured up toward the turret. “Also applies to heavy machine guns.”

“Yeah, I got creased by a ricochet,” Graybeard said, pulling a rip in his sleeve to reveal a red slash across his upper arm.

Handon looked around, his eye settling on Zorn, who wasn’t saying anything. There was something wrong – he wasn’t cable-tied to that shelving unit anymore. Handon tromped up to him and grabbed his flex-cuffed hands. Then he saw a vertical rod was missing from between two of the shelves. Zorn had disassembled it and freed himself. But, worse than that… reaching down to Zorn’s feet, Handon picked up the long thin segment of steel.

It was covered in black gunk at one end. This was what had killed their Zulu. Zorn must have stuck it into its head through the PVC.

Handon slugged Zorn in the jaw, hard – and in the same spot Henno got him.

When Zorn raised his head again, he said, “The dead bastard bit me. There’s a price to be paid.”

“You dumb son of a bitch,” Handon said. “Don’t you know what that was
for
?”

“Nope. I didn’t meet your goddamned OPSEC threshold, so you didn’t read me in.”

Handon shook his head and ground his jaw. And when he looked up again, his gaze was magnetically drawn to Henno – who looked like he was well beyond
I told you so
. His expression said that Handon was now beneath contempt. Like an idiot child who just kept screwing up, and whom there was no point in scolding anymore.

Predator said, “Hey, at least it was the dead guy who got killed.”

Handon gave him a look. Pred got it: that was the worst possible person to get killed – the point of their whole operation. Their mission objective.

And it had been Handon’s decision to keep Zorn alive that had trashed it.

* * *

What a debacle
.

Handon just stood where he was, staring at the wall and marveling that the whole first day of their final, critical, do-or-die mission had gone so completely to shit. They’d gotten deceived, descended into infighting, and had their asses kicked at every turn. They’d lost their boat and supplies, and expended most of their ammo. They’d lost Camp Lemonnier completely. And the one dead guy they’d managed to capture, who was a half-measure anyway, they couldn’t even keep alive for twenty minutes.

What a joke…

Handon continued to stand there, just staring at the inside wall of the truck – seemingly unaware that the whole team was looking at him, waiting for him to command. Instead, he was thinking back to his assessment of the team from that briefing on the carrier.

Maybe we DON’T have anything left in the tank
, he thought. Maybe they were too banged up and exhausted – and actually weren’t going to get this done. Maybe this was, at last, the mission it really was impossible to complete.

No, that’s not it
, he thought. It was just
him
who didn’t have enough left – and maybe his judgment as a combat leader was shot. He certainly seemed to be making every possible wrong call so far today. He wondered if he was too tired – or, more likely, too damned distracted.

There had been all that drama with Sarah back on the carrier, which hadn’t gotten resolved, and which he was afraid he’d taken along with him into the field. And, not totally unrelatedly, there was his simmering cold war with Henno, which was taking a larger and larger share of his mental resources to manage – and because of his failure to resolve it, was threatening to tear the team apart.

Whatever the cause, it was blowing up and falling apart on all sides of him.

Finally Fick broke the silence and snapped him back. “Okay – so what now?”

Handon considered taking the MARSOC leader outside for a one-on-one. But, as usual at the Tier-1 level, there was little point in excluding people. The most junior guy was as likely to have good ideas as the commander, or he wouldn’t be there in the first place. Never mind that the commander seemed to be all out of good ideas, or even decent ones, at this stage…

So Handon opened up the hatch, to let in some air and increase their prospects for breathing. Then he just looked around, his usual invitation.

“Okay,” Pred said. “So we go back and snatch another one. There’s no lack of those things running around that camp.”

Handon said, “Top cover reports the perimeter’s been breached. We’ll be fighting through the whole town to get to the garrison in the center.”

“Going back is more risk,” Juice said. “But if we have to do it, we do it.”

“Yeah,” Pred said. “Fighting is kind of in our job description.”

“That’s just it, though,” Henno said. “It’s not ultimately our mission. A sample from here is just an intermediate step, a hedge – not the real prize.” He meant that an undead soldier would be an early-stage victim – but not from the very beginning.

“Hargeisa,” Ali said – whose home town that happened to be. “One from ground zero, right at the start. That’s what we really need anyway.”

“Aye,” Henno said.
Which also means
, he thought but didn’t take the time to say,
this whole stop and all its risk and burnt time was a complete and total waste…

Fick said, “What do you think? Just push on to Hargeisa? Double down?”

Handon nodded. He had to admit Henno and the others were right. “Park said the farther away from the original victim we get, the higher the odds his vaccine won’t work. And getting killed or jammed up here doesn’t help us. So maybe we go for the gold.”

“We were going there anyway,” Fick said. “Now the stakes are just higher.”

“All or nothing,” Predator grunted. “Do or die. I like it.”