Arisen : Genesis (11 page)

The problem with urban combat was that it was always 360.

While the SEALs covered the group, Zack and Baxter hefted the stretcher, straining and adjusting their grips, and carried it out into the street. Moving in the open, Zack felt incredibly vulnerable. He was taking baby steps, and his grip threatened to fail at any second. The weight of an unconscious body was horrendous. Evidently, Baxter was both stronger and surer of grip.

Basically, he was younger.

But they managed to cross the distance and get the casualty into the back of the truck, and then followed it in. Dugan and Bob piled in front, started the engine without gunning it, and quietly rolled out.

On the four-minute drive to Edna Adan Hospital, they didn’t see any action. More than a couple of times, frightened people, in ones and twos, ran out across the path of the truck. Gunfire still rang in the distance, and a single stray round even pinged off the truck body. Down cross streets they could see more fires, abandoned vehicles – and, several times, what looked like hand-to-hand fighting. Once, they made out what looked like a milling crowd of dazed people. They kept their heads down and got through the drive without incident.

“Emergency room?” Dugan asked.

“Negative,” Zack said from behind. "The quarantine tent is there. Take us straight up to the front door.”

Dugan complied, rolling them down the wide dirt road that passed in front, and then through the open gate in the stone mosaic wall that surrounded it. A couple of large trees shaded the parking lot – Dugan swung wide around them, everyone in the truck eyes peeled. There were maybe a dozen other cars in the parking lot, but no people in evidence. Dugan backed it into a space near the entrance.

“Recce first?” Dugan asked of Bob, beside him.

“No. This man has little time. Let’s get him in there.”

“Hang on,” Zack said. And he passed around a cardboard box of latex gloves, and another of face shields. “Everybody glove up. Hospitals around here aren’t healthy places at the best of times.”

With prophylaxis in place, Zack and Baxter went back on security duty, keeping their guns holstered, but their hands on the guns. They held open the glass doors as the bigger, stronger SEALs carried the wounded man inside. As they did so, he woke up.

“What?” the man rasped, his mouth and throat clearly dry as paper. “Where’s Dan?” He rocked on the stretcher, threatening to roll off it.

“Easy, dude,” Bob said, as they quickly lowered the stretcher to the floor, just inside the front door. “Lay still. You’re being cared for.”

The man pinned Bob with wild eyes. He was mid-thirties, with short brown side-parted hair, handsome features, and the general cut and demeanor of a military or law enforcement type. He winced and groaned, seeming suddenly aware of his wound. He reached under him for his lower back, arched and spasmed with pain – and passed out again.

Bob checked his vitals. “Still with us. And probably better off unconscious.”

“Uh, guys?” This was Baxter, standing inside the reception area, at a wide, high desk. The others looked at him, then looked around. He didn’t have to say anything else.

There was absolutely no one in sight.

* * *

“You want me to scout ahead?” Baxter asked.

“No,” Dugan said. “We stay together. Come on.”

“Should be at least one doctor somewhere,” Bob said, hefting his half of the stretcher. “Even in a Somali hospital…”

The two stretcher-bearing shooters followed the two with handguns past the desk and into the initial wide hallway that led to the interior. Zack punched a big button on the wall, but the double-wide doors ahead of them didn’t open. Instead, he and Baxter forced them.

Inside, it was dimmer. The lobby had a lot of exterior glass, but now they realized that the power was out, and the only light was leaking in from windows in rooms off the corridor. It also suddenly struck them all that the place was nearly totally silent. This was a damned eerie state for a hospital, which was normally a bustling kind of place. There wasn’t even any background electrical hum.

Zack looked back at the SEALs. Bob shrugged. “It’s his only chance,” he said. “It’s this or we try to casevac him to Lemonnier.”

They pushed forward. At each room, Zack or Baxter stuck their heads in. At each cross hallway, they peered in both directions, into deeper darkness. Zack felt like somebody should be calling out for help, as they did have an urgent casualty. But their throats seemed stoppered.

When they were about 100 meters deep in the hospital, and had still not encountered a soul, they heard something ahead, and all stopped in their tracks. Zack looked behind him, then went forward alone to check it out. The noise was coming from behind a door to the right. Some kind of scrabbling, wet sound.
Fuck it
, Zack thought, and drew his handgun with his left hand, put his right on the door handle.

A centimeter at a time, he turned the handle. It moved silently, but then clicked at the end of its range of movement. The noise behind the door stopped. Zack froze dead. He looked behind him again at the others. Their eyes shone at him in the dim light. He shook his head to clear it.

I really am going to buy it in this fucking place
, he thought
.
There was no escape.
Well, might as well get on with it…

He pressed the door open, eying the space behind it, gun held down by thigh. When there was enough room for his head, he slid it inside, and peered around the edge of the door. And the others saw him suddenly convulse, and begin to double over. He stumbled back, pulling the door shut. His head jerked forward twice, then he clawed at his mask, turned away, and expelled the contents of his stomach with a series of coughing noises.

Baxter ran to his side and put his arm on Zack’s shoulder. Zack pointed behind him, still half bent over. “Watch the door.” Baxter moved to comply. Zack wiped his mouth on his sleeve, straightened up, and said two words to the others.

“We’re leaving.”

There was nothing but death here. He knew it.

From deeper inside the hospital came some kind of growling sound. It seemed to be human, or rather coming from at least a few humans… but totally inhuman at the same time. They turned and Zack led the retreat. But he didn’t let himself get far ahead of the others.

He was so scared, he worried he might drop his gun. The outside light through the glass front doors shone like a beacon. It seemed to recede as they fast-walked toward it.

It was the longest 100 meters of Zack’s life.

The Tipping Point

“Hey, if we lived here, we’d be home now!” Bob shouted jovially, hoisting himself out the passenger window and taking aim at two running figures carrying AKs a block and a half ahead.

Dugan was no longer driving cautiously, and the gunmen were coming up fast. They’d already taken a couple of potshots at the Tahoe, which was all Bob needed to know. He started firing – quick, evenly spaced, mechanical shots, expertly placed, and rolling with the motion of the vehicle. Both of the AK guys sprawled out in the middle of an intersection.

As the Tahoe flashed by, Zack thought he could see other figures, coming from the cross street, descend on the shot guys. One of them was still alive, and shrieked as an attacker fell on him. Then they were past it. Zack swallowed a huge bolus of something, fear probably, in his throat.
Gotta keep my cool here… gotta be cool.
Even if he was sure he was going to buy it, he still had a job to do. And he had a sacred responsibility to the men he served with.

Whatever calm had descended when they went out, it had proven temporary. The gunfire was back with a vengeance, there was much more smoke in the air – and they could all now clearly see the fucked-up people, in ones, twos, and crowds, stumbling from place to place. They seemed to give chase to the Tahoe as it roared by.

Maybe they need help
, Zack thought.
But they’re sure as hell not getting it from us…

He was in absolutely no mood for charity at this point.

He looked across at Baxter, as a stray round cracked into the bulletproof glass, causing them both to reflexively duck. They both fell to the side and into each other, as Dugan swerved around something, or someone, in the middle of the road. And right then, for no reason he could work out, it suddenly seemed very important to Zack that he keep Baxter from dying today. The rest of them were grizzled sons of bitches, all of whom had known what they were getting into.

But Baxter was like some kid on a school trip gone wro—

As the Tahoe peeled around a corner, it ran over something with a sickening bump. Dugan didn’t even slow down. Ten seconds later, they were at the safehouse. Dugan twisted the wheel violently as he braked, then threw it in reverse and backed up to the gate with a jerk. Bob jumped out and covered the street, while Zack and Baxter got the gate open. They barely had time to jump out of the way as Dugan lurched it back in. Bob pulled the gate closed behind him, at which the analysts hefted the stretcher out of the truck.

As Bob got the side door open and they entered, Zack was second from the rear, but he stopped as he heard something behind him. His halt nearly jerked the other end of the stretcher out of Baxter’s hands. But stop Zack did, and he squatted down and peered under the Tahoe, where the noise came from.

“Oh my fucking God,” he said, literally not believing what he was seeing. Someone was actually wrapped around the undercarriage and axle. And that someone, or what was left of him, was still fucking alive.

“Go, go, go,” Bob said, picking up the rear of the stretcher and pushing them all inside. Dugan was still out there. And as they climbed the stairs, they heard a pair of .45 pistol shots behind them.

Then the door slammed shut.

* * *

Zack scrubbed his hands raw in the bathroom sink. When he’d done it three times, he looked up into the mirror in front of him. He looked whiter than usual. And he could swear his half-kinky hair had been scared straighter. Mainly what he saw was the absence of his mask. The Rushmore one, that he had worn through every crisis and clusterfuck and emergency over a long and taxing and high-stakes career. He knew it was vitally important that he get it back in place. A few deep breaths, and a minute gathering himself, and the job was done. He marched back into the TOC ready to be effective again.

Or at least look like he was.

Baxter sat at his station, evidently too freaked out to make small talk. But he still did his job, giving a sitrep, speaking dully. “I’ve checked voice, text, and dropbox messages since we went out. There’s not much – and virtually nothing local. It’s all from DC or overseas.”

“That’s weird,” Zack said, settling in to his station. “I’d expect there to be a shit-ton of chatter right about now. Okay. Let’s start by briefing the Langley desk. We’ll do a spot verbal, then we can tag-team on an initial structured report. Okay?”

Baxter nodded vigorously.

The SEALs were upstairs with the casualty again, who had been coming into and out of consciousness. Bob was doing what he could for him, but now popped his head back in the TOC.

“Zack. Hey, Plan B has got to be some kind of a medevac, or at least casevac, for this guy. It might be too late by the time they get a bird here. But we’ve got to try to get him to Lemonnier. What can you get flying?”

“Check,” Zack said. “On it.”

Bob turned to go, but then turned back. "Hey."

"Yeah?"

"What was in that room?” No answer. “In the hospital."

Zack didn’t look up. "Not even talking about that."

Bob nodded and withdrew again.

Zack hailed Lemonnier. They were an inexplicably long time picking up. When they did, the guy on the other end sounded like he was panting.

After identifying himself and his station, Zack said, “We have a litter-urgent casualty, and are requesting priority dust-off for a medevac, how copy?”

“Copy that, Shotgun. Be advised that we have no medevac available at this time.”

“Okay, casevac, then. Just send us a bird of some description. He’s stable now, and we’ll just carry him on.”

“We have no rotary-wing assets available at this time, over.”

Zack’s eyebrows went north. He cleared his throat. He wanted to say,
What the fuck is up with that?
but limited himself to, “What is your situation there, over?”

Another pause.
“We have multiple units in contact outside the wire. There’s also disorder in Djibouti town, and the civil authorities have requested troops from us to assist with that. Finally, we’ve got sick and injured personnel we’re having to casevac back in from those engagements, over.”

Zack felt something sink inside him. His face was truly blank now. He keyed his transmit bar. “That’s received, with thanks. Please advise soonest when medevac becomes available. Out.”

He sat then in silence, staring at nothing for a full minute. And he could feel it coming in on him again, like a weather front.

He was never going to get out of there alive.

A woman’s scream, from outside, tore into his dark reverie.

In the Head

He crashed into Maximum Bob and Dugan on the stairwell, him trying to run up as they ran down, rifles in hand. They won. “Make way!” Bob growled, and Zack backed all the way down to the landing and into the hall. As those two continued down, he ran up to the top floor and stuck his head out one of the opened-up window holes.

On the street below, almost directly out front, was a woman in traditional Somali garb, a long billowing dress and headscarf. She was carrying something. She was also limping, moving as quickly as she could, and looking back fearfully over her shoulder. Behind her were a half-dozen people, pretty obviously the sick ones. And there could be no doubt what they were doing – they were chasing her.

This was the best look Zack had got of any of them. The skin of their faces seemed to be covered with sores, or maybe scabs, and was an unnatural color. At least a couple had clearly been wounded in some way, with visible gashes on their arms and faces, or just blood on their clothes. Two were in hospital gowns. The main thing was how they moved: in a daze, inhuman motions, blind instinct, pursuing – in this case pursuing the terrified young woman.