Arisen : Nemesis (26 page)

But burnishing his reputation for badassery even more than the fearsomeness of the rifle was the fact that these things had only ever rolled out to U.S. special operators for review and testing. The rumors about how he had come by his didn’t take long to start, nor require much imagination.

Somewhere along the line, al-Sîf had dropped a
Shyatyn Allyl
– a night devil.

He had taken down an operator.

* * *

Now he stood over at Zack, who was down on the ground again scrabbling for an undamaged weapon, and firing smoothly over and around the ring of defenders that had circled the two of them. Dead were dropping all over. Luckily they all seemed to be walkers for the moment – the truck had led the local runners on a merry chase out toward the wire.

Zack found an AKS-74U – the stubby, pistol-grip version of the AK – plus a bandolier of mags, which he draped around his neck. He leaned in to al-Sîf and shouted over the percussive popping of the man’s 5.56 rounds: “We can’t stay here!"

Al-Sîf opened his mouth to agree, and also probably to add some smart-ass comment. But he never got it out. A black shape flew over the heads of the ring of defenders. It was impossible to see what it was, only to react autonomously. Zack flinched and dove right, al-Sîf left. Before either could pivot to defend themselves, it had – thank fuck – locked onto the back of one of the outside defenders and taken a huge dripping chunk out of his neck and shoulder with its teeth.

This thing was right in their ranks now, inches away, flailing manically, and al-Sîf let his rifle fall on its sling and drew his scimitar again, striking at the frenetic dead man’s neck. But it was already spinning to attack him and brought its arm up – the scimitar hit at an odd angle and wedged in the bone, stuck good. As he yanked at it with his right hand, the furious, raging corpse ignored this and instead made a half-screaming half-hissing noise and lunged, teeth-first, at al-Sîf’s face.

But it never got there.

His left hand drove up under its chin with his big sheath knife – embedding it so far the blade actually came out the top of its head. Al-Sîf decided to let it stay there. The disanimated body took it down to the ground with it.

He turned to Zack. “We can’t stay here.”

He did yank his scimitar free, but Zack didn’t watch this operation, because he was shooting himself now, trying to put controlled bursts into the ranks of dead who were coming through what was now a big gap in their line – not just from the guy who’d been bitten, and was now down on his knees screaming and using both hands to try to keep all his blood from pouring out his neck, but from the guys on either side of him, who had backed away smartly.

Their circular line was collapsing.

To his everlasting fame and credit, al-Sîf shouted, “
Waxaan ka soo jebin! Hadda!
” and then he led the breakout himself, sword first. He waded out the gap, whirling, pivoting, and flashing his blade like a giant’s meat cleaver, taking down or taking apart one, two, four of them, in seconds. Heads fell or split in two, the odd arm coming off just from having got in the way.

Dropping out his mag and fumblingly slotting a full one in, Zack spared a look for this swordplay masterclass, impressed. He knew al-Sîf had studied kendo. That sword wasn’t ornamental, or just for beheading tied-up journalists. It was for close combat.

And he used it that way now, slashing and hacking through the undead mob that was trying to extinguish them.

Zack wasn’t stupid, so he put himself right in al-Sîf’s back pocket, or just far enough behind not to get hit with the backstrokes. He could hear the others following behind – could hear them because they were all going cyclic, shooting like postal workers. The AK wasn’t known for its accuracy at the best of times, but you couldn’t blame them for getting as much lead in the air as fast as possible. They were now being swarmed by dozens or hundreds of the dead.

But then they had to reload. Pretty much all at once.

And now Zack knew they were back there because they were screaming.

He kept his eyes on al-Sîf’s Achilles-like, fast-moving, one-man rampage – and he kept moving, at all costs, no matter what. They had to get out of there and any delay, any jamming up, any loss of mobility, was going to be fatal. As a distant secondary matter, he took short controlled bursts on any dead who came in on their flanks. Ahead and behind were covered.

And he also tried to remember to keep breathing.

Later he would tell Baxter that this was the dodgiest shit he had ever been involved in, across the entire ZA. Then again, this record wouldn’t last long.

The front gate was coming up and into sight now, just a lighter patch of dark in the night. They’d parked right outside it, maybe fifty meters down the road, close to both the camp and Djibouti Town, probably because they were neither as clever nor as paranoid as the SF guys. There was still firing going on behind Zack, thank fuck. Just less of it.

Al-Sîf hurdled the barrier arm, and Zack limbo’d under it.

And suddenly they were clear, at least to the front, and both sprinting flat out. When they reached the crooked line of parked-up vehicles, Zack spun around to defend while al-Sîf leapt around to the driver’s side. He had the keys.

Zack did a tactical reload, dropping his current mag with whatever was left in it and getting a fresh one in, a bit more smoothly this time. He scanned the dark over the top of the AK’s iron sights. There was a growing crowd of stumbling figures spilling out the gates. But, as far as he could tell, not one of them was alive.

Every single one of their guys had fallen off the back of the train. He and al-Sîf were all that was left. They were it. And Zack was now tail-gunner Charlie.

One more casualty, and it would have been him.

And as he swallowed down something dry and heavy in his throat, he saw the shambling figures at the front of the approaching crowd being knocked aside to make way for… runners. And once clear of the crowd, they accelerated like a pack of pissed-off T-1000s.

Zack depressed his trigger and held it down as he swept his barrel from side to side, the night erupting before him in a giant sheet of muzzle flash, and the roar assaulting his ears. As the mag went empty, and he could hear the truck starting up behind him, some motion and noise to his right snapped his head around. More walkers – and more runners, a lot more – all coming in from Djibouti Town. The violent revving of the truck engine snapped him into action.

He opened the passenger door and threw himself, just behind his rifle, then pulled the door shut. Something smashed into the passenger-side window, a few inches from his cheek, spider-webbing the glass. It was a face.

And now Zack realized he had been wrong. One of those runners back there actually was alive.

It was one of the reserve force guys, and one Zack knew personally – a nice kid named Arbooshe. He was young, too young for al-Shabaab to have gotten their hooks into him. But at least he’d survived the Apocalypse – until now. As Zack looked into the youth’s pleading eyes, he could see deep raking wounds across his jaw and neck.

Zack pushed his elbow down on the door lock.

Al-Sîf shot a look over and saw what Zack did.

“
Xumahay, walaalkiis
,” he said, then popped the clutch, spun the back tires, smashed into a half-dozen figures who’d gotten in front of them – then jacked the wheel and put them into a shrieking one-eighty that sprayed dirt and body parts twelve feet in the air. Finally, he pointed their nose back down the road out of town and floored it.

Zack pulled his seatbelt across his chest, and looked over at the driver.

Even if he hadn’t grown up speaking Somali part-time, he could have translated al-Sîf’s last comment from his tone, sagging face, and body language alone.

It was: “Sorry, brother.”

Exalted in Might and Wise

The Stronghold - Outside the Front Gates

The crushingly long drive back to the Stronghold passed in silence. Al-Sîf was normally a happy warrior. He’d gone on a kill-crazy rampage to get him and Zack out of Lemonnier alive, but he’d done it with relish and verve, even in their most desperate moments.

But now Zack figured he’d had many hours to consider what was waiting for him back at the Stronghold, after he reported to Godane. He’d not only failed to kill the Americans, or take their weapons and supplies. He’d also lost three of the four vehicles, plus every fighter he’d led out on the mission.

All he was bringing back was Zack. Which there was absolutely no reason to suspect Godane would appreciate in the least.

The two of them had pushed on through the night and all of the next day, stopping only for fuel – most of the spare gas cans had been on the other trucks. So they’d had to siphon abandoned cars and one underground tank at a gas station. Al-Sîf made Zack do the hose-sucking while he pulled security.

“You suck better than you shoot, Zack,” was all he said about that.

Now it was night again as they rolled up to the giant log front gates, with the lights off and the engine idling low. As noted, al-Shabaab was neither smart enough nor paranoid enough to park their vehicles somewhere else. They had a dirt track that led right inside the compound. In fairness, the Stronghold was even more isolated than Camp Price.

Plus, if push came to shove, it was also a hell of a lot more defensible.

They waited in the dark for the two-ton gates to swing slowly open.

* * *

Zack got sent straight to his room while al-Sîf went to deliver the bad news to his eminence, the Emir – after first waking him up. Zack did not envy him that task, and guessed he’d got the better part of the deal. But he’d only just slipped inside their room, found Baxter asleep, woke him, and started to brief him – when the door opened again.

It was one of Godane’s Praetorians, as Baxter and Zack referred to them – the longer-surviving, more violent, and most loyal fighters, who Godane kept close. They were a bit like al-Sîf Lite. A lot of the al-Shabaab “fighters” who had originally made it to the Stronghold alive were goofballs, scrawny guys who looked like they were playing army when they picked up their AKs. But the Praetorians were serious, and most had proved that they were deadly.

Zack patted Baxter on the hip – as if to say,
Don’t worry
– but also to hand him something out of sight, something blocky and heavy, which Baxter was clued in enough to slip under the blanket. Then Zack rose and followed the guard. There was another outside. The two of them wordlessly frog-marched Zack through the dim tunnels, one before and one behind. When they entered Godane’s chamber, the atmosphere in there was so foul it would have turned Bordeaux to balsamic vinegar.

Ah, shit
, Zack thought.

He surveyed the scene as he walked forward. Godane was at his desk, al-Sîf standing to the side, his body armor stripped off now. Zack looked over his shoulder – the two goons did not exit to guard the hallway this time, but stood inside, to either side of the door. Zack approached the desk like he was a dead man walking, with not much prison corridor left to go.

He tortured his brain, knowing that whatever he came up with to say here was going to have a pretty serious impact on his future health and happiness. But Godane spoke before he could. The Emir wasn’t ranting for once. His manner was calm and ice-cold – and scarier for that reason.

“You will tell me why they spared you,” he said.

Zack stopped himself from saying, “What?” He didn’t need a replay of
Pulp Fiction
with Godane in the role of Jules: “I dare you, I double-dare you, motherfucker – say
what
one more goddamned time!”

“Emir,” he said, “it was the hand of al-Sîf that saved me.”

But even as he said this, he could read it on Godane’s face: twenty men go out to fight the Americans, two come back – and one of them is
Zack
? It didn’t add up, and not only because Zack didn’t particularly enjoy a reputation as a fearsome fighter.

Godane turned aside to al-Sîf and spoke to him in Arabic. Zack had to take care not to react in any visible way. He’d managed to conceal from Godane for a long time that he spoke Arabic. It was one of the very few aces up his sleeve.

Al-Sîf shrugged in response, and Godane turned back to Zack.

“The devils spared you,” he said. “It is the only explanation.”

And even as Zack opened his mouth to deny it… his face betrayed him again. Godane was right. He knew he was right. They
had
spared him. Not having NVGs, he hadn’t seen the IR laser dot dancing on his chest. But he had seen everybody else in the advance team drop like sacks of cement all around him. And then that truck had swerved around him with inches to spare – when they didn’t have to, and could have been forgiven for running him over. They’d had bigger problems.

Zack played a card, albeit not a great one. “Emir, they killed your men because they are very, very well trained in combat.”

He was careful not to phrase that last clause as
because they are super-skilled unflappable badass operators who make your spray-and-pray mafia look like shitty paintball players
.

“
Surely in your wisdom you can see that a war with them will not go well. You can still walk away with honor.”

But before these words were even out of his mouth, Zack knew how futile the effort had to be. Godane’s belly had a pre-existing load of bile for Triple Nickel – and that was yesterday. Today, they’d murdered the shit out of twenty of his fighters. It was already war, the first shots had been fired – and there wasn’t going to be any backing down, certainly not on this side. Watching him, Zack thought Godane pretended to not even hear what he’d just said, like it was a kindness to ignore it.

“If you are working with them, I will know it,” Godane said.

“Emir, I am not working with them,” Zack said.

Not yet.

* * *

“
As for the thief
,” Godane said, reciting now in that rhythmic monotone he reserved for passages of the Quran. “
As for the thief, the male and the female, amputate their hands in recompense for what they committed as a deterrent from Allah.
” He looked up. “
And Allah is Exalted in Might and Wise.
”