Eden Plague - Latest Edition (40 page)

“Execute.” Zeke pushed the door smoothly open, and Larry crossed the thirty feet or so to the unlocked door where Spooky had been so recently. We followed right behind, and he opened the door quickly, drawing it out of our way so all we had to do was go straight in.

We entered in two-man tactical stack. That meant Zeke was in front, me slightly crouched right behind him with my left upper arm firmly pressed into his back, so he knew where I was. I held my M4 to the right and down, covering the right side. My eyes swept the hallway automatically, center-up-right-down and back to center in a fraction of a second, the barrel of my weapon following in a tight circle. Zeke did the same on his left, and I heard the click of the door behind us as Larry closed and locked it from the inside, then took a knee.

We needed to get out of the hallway as fast as possible, to let Larry dominate it with his street-sweeper, and to give him a covered position. We took the first door on the left as planned.

I stayed stacked behind Zeke as he reached out with his left hand to try the door. It opened into a tiny closet with cleaning supplies. I turned and waved Larry forward. This would be his best position, allowing a right-handed shooter like him to keep good cover and still lash the hallway with heavy fire.

The plan was to stay to the left side of the hallway. We might find doors between rooms, and we wanted to avoid causing confusion if Larry had to start firing. Crossing and recrossing the hallway unnecessarily to opposite doors was bad technique. So we moved along the left side of the hallway to the next door on the left, passing a solid steel door on the right. Larry would have to cover that.

Zeke tried the handle. It was locked. We could call Spooky in to try to pick the lock, or we could break in.

Sticking to the plan, Zeke decided to break in as quietly as possible. The building was filled with the low rumble of the generator and the rushing sound of the air system, so there was a good chance we could get away with it.

Zeke pulled a crowbar out of the small of his back, where he had had it taped. He fit it between the door handle and the jamb, leaning his weight on it slowly until it popped with a muffled clang. He immediately shoved the door open and swept the left side of the room.

I followed him in and swept the right. Each of us moved to our sides, out of the death funnel of the doorway.

A dark figure on the lower bunk of two rolled heavily out, tangled in blankets. “Wha-“ I heard before Zeke stepped forward and gave him a left-handed whack on the head with the crowbar. The man dropped to the thin-carpeted floor like a sack of potatoes.

The room was lit only by the dimness of the corridor and the green numbers of a clock-radio on a night table. It read 3:17. Perfect.

I poked the upper bunk with the barrel of my weapon, finding nothing and no one there but bedding.

Zeke whipped out zip cuffs and hog-tied the fallen man, then taped his mouth shut. He popped a pillowcase over the man’s head then taped that loosely around his neck.

I checked his pulse. Good and strong. Zeke knew his club work.

“One hostile neutralized,” Zeke reported over the net. “Still quiet.”

I hoped that was true, and I hoped it stayed that way. I rolled the man under the bunk bed, out of the way. If he was smart, he would stay there until it was all over.

There was a door with a mirror on it in the wall to the right. Logically that would be a bathroom or closet. Zeke reported quietly, “Interior door. Opening.” It was a closet, with some security uniforms and civvies in it. The wall at the back seemed solid, made of the same thin industrial steel construction as the rest of the building. Too bad. If it had been drywall we might have tried to breach it through to the next room.

“Emerging left,” Zeke called, and we moved back into the corridor. It was going to get harder fast, because the next door on the right had a big square window in the top half, with wire mesh inside, the kind designed to let people look into the room before entering. Or vice versa. But this window was dark, and I hoped that meant unoccupied. The next one up on the right was lit.

Our door to the left was not going to be as simple as the last one. There was an external deadbolt fitted, like an afterthought. Maybe it was meant to keep something in, not out. We retreated back to the room we were in before, and spoke in low tones.

“That must be Elise’s cell,” I offered.

“Maybe. What if it’s a berserk gorilla with the XH in it they are keeping for experimentation?”

“Ugh,” I said. “Yeah, point taken. We can’t be sure. All we know is it’s built to keep something in, not out.”

“Jury-rigged for that, anyway. So we clear the rest of the building and tackle that door last, with more information.” Zeke’s tone brooked no argument.

I nodded in agreement.

Zeke called softly, “Zeke to Larry. We’re changing to the right side of the corridor. Emerging left.”

We moved out into the corridor and Larry moved behind us up to the open door of the bunkroom. We went back to the windowless door on the right side of the corridor. It turned out to be a half-full storeroom with lab supplies and machinery in it, unlocked. We came back out.

Zeke and I edged up the right side and he looked in the dark window for a long moment. He shook his head, unable to see anything. He reached over to test the door handle. It turned. He pressed it gently inward, and it opened a tiny bit. He nodded, then gave me a three count with his fingers; one-two-three and in we went.

Murphy always wins, they say. Nothing ever goes smooth. All hell seemed to break loose inside that room. Screeching sounds, zoo sounds, howls and a clattering of metal together. Something soft and smelly spattered on the wall next to me, and it was only lack of targets in the dark that kept me from firing.

I flipped on the light.

Monkeys. Apes, animal figures in cages stacked along the far wall, and a never-ending racket.

“We’re blown,” Zeke spoke into his mike. “Execute Bravo.” That was plan B. Always good to have one of those, because Plan A never survived contact with the enemy, or even with Murphy.

Zeke led the way back into the corridor, fast. We hugged the right wall to the lighted-window door and he dove across the doorway to the other side, low, below line of sight. From there he reached up to the door handle, gave us a quick three-count and went in low from that side, flowing around to the left.

I went in right and higher, trusting to my helmet, vest and XH. I was the biggest target, and an alert enemy would have had ten seconds to prepare.

Elise was standing inside, her mouth agape, getting ready to yell. I held up my left index finger to my lips in an emphatic gesture for silence. I closed with her quickly, crossing the big laboratory in two seconds, still holding the finger to my lips.

She backed up in alarm, but not fast enough, and I let my M4 fall to my side on its retractable sling to free up my hands, making the “shush” sign the whole time. Funny how most people obey emphatic, familiar signals.

I gently tackled her in a modified martial arts move I dredged out of my subconscious, which ended up with us both on the ground out of sight behind a big heavy lab bench. I covered her mouth with my hand and said into her ear, “Stay down, don’t interfere. This is a rescue.”

She nodded, her eyes wide. Big blue eyes, a splash of freckles across her nose, straight brown hair, and a delicate scent that made my mouth dry up like a lovestruck teenager. I started to get dizzy.

Oh God please no. Not now.
I had the weirdest feeling, like I had known her all my life and she had known me too, déjà vu times two. With an effort of will I pushed her and the feelings away and went back to the job. As I was turning back toward the door, gunfire exploded in the corridor.

I saw Larry, framed in the doorway, open up with his AA-12. Shots roared out as he walked the gun from floor to ceiling, shooting at something down the corridor to the right. The recoil kept the barrel climbing up, up and then all the way over with his hand spasm-locked on the trigger.

Time seemed to slow down with my adrenaline surge, and I saw pieces of Larry’s armor blowing off in chunks as he got slammed by return fire. It was something big and heavy and deadly, because I saw his back plate lifted off his body and flap like a sail as something went all the way through him from the front.

My whole being launched forward like a Border Collie bolting for a frisbee, every reason for my existence condensed into one pure moment, driving for the goal.
That Others May Live
thundered in my head as I sprinted for the doorway.

Larry’s automatic shotgun stopped firing and fell out of his hands, and then he was on his knees, going down slow and heavy.

Before he hit the floor I threw my body into the kill zone, between him and the shooter. I wrapped my hands behind his neck, grabbing the carrying handle of his armor between his shoulder blades. I felt a hot tearing burn in my thigh and then in my side below my ribs as bullets ripped through me. One round hit the SAPI plate in the center of my back and punched like a fist into my spine, but the armor held. At least they weren’t hitting Larry. I ignored everything but the job.

As soon as I had a grip I put up a foot against the opposite wall, pushing off of it like a gymnast. I threw my whole weight back through the doorway into the lab, dragging my wounded teammate with it and out of the line of fire. I screamed with effort and pain. My leg was filled with liquid fire and my muscles burned. I scrabbled on the floor, dragging him backward like I was in a strongman competition. I frantically hauled and lifted and jerked almost four hundred pounds of gear and bloody dying man back behind a heavy lab bench. I dropped him, popped the quick-release on my ruck and pulled out my aid bag; I went to work, ignoring my own wounds and my suddenly acute need for food.

Zeke took the door position and yelled on the net, “Hostile, hostile, southwest corner room. Man down, man down. Skull, put a few rounds through the corner of the building.”

I immediately heard heavy, measured popping sounds begin, metallic and deadly, 7.62 rounds punching through the thin lab walls. I hoped he knew where he was aiming.

I glanced up over the bleeding mess to meet Elise’s eyes, kneeling there. She looked horrified.

I pulled out Gramps’ blade and she shrank back, but I ignored her and cut the body armor off of Larry. The knife sliced through the armor’s straps and seams and in ten seconds I had his shell off in pieces. My hands moved with the practiced speed of my younger days as I slid the pig-sticker back into its sheath and ran my hands over his body, searching for the trauma in his flesh. I would have to let the other three deal with the hostile if I was going to save Larry’s life.

The worst injury was a sucking chest wound, front and back penetration. It looked like a large-caliber full metal jacket round, maybe coated with something to defeat armor, .50 caliber or .44 magnum. I cursed all fans of big-bore handguns as I grabbed Elise’s bare hand and put it against the bloody hole in his chest.

“Pressure, hard, HERE.”

I rolled him onto his side to keep the fluid buildup in his lungs under control. Air wheezed in and out of the puncture in his back as his body struggled for breath. I needed to seal that up.

By this time Zeke was squeezing off single shots left-handed in the doorway, firing down the corridor to the right, suppressing the hostile. With part of my mind I heard the electric-chainsaw sound of Spooky’s P90, slim 5.7mm rounds shredding in short bursts like hail drumming on a steel rooftop. Then I heard a flash-bang go off, and Zeke moved out into the corridor. He and Spooky assaulted the shooter.

I had unrolled my aid bag and was reaching for the tools of my trade when Elise leaned over and planted her mouth full on Larry’s.

No time for smooching
and
no need for mouth-to-mouth
ran through my head unbidden. My fingers slowed down as my disbelieving brain watched her lay the mother of all French kisses on Larry, like a drunk chick at a Saturday night meet-market. The uncomprehending part of me was suddenly jealous. I heard the snake giggle from somewhere deep inside.

She lifted her head, coughing and retching, and I saw her expression, a mixture of horror and hope, as she wiped her mouth out with the sleeve of her lab coat and stared down at Larry.

Was this an attempt to transfer the XH to Larry? It was the only thing that made sense.

I had to put that question on hold along with many others as a tall cabinet in the corner behind her swung inward. It had hidden a door from the next room. A man stood thus revealed, a scarred man with a very, very large handgun in a shooter’s grip. He fired two more quick shots back into the room he was leaving and then turned toward us.

I dropped my right hand to my thigh where my trusty XD was holstered, drew and fired, double tap. Unfortunately the hard rubber bullets I had loaded with stung him but didn’t put him down. My experiment had betrayed me, and I frantically pulled the trigger over and over, peppering him with nonlethal rounds at close range. I saw one hit his face and tear a hole in his cheek, but the ones that bounced off his arms and chest did little but annoy him.

The XD’s slide locked open and I was out of ammo.

The gunman, who had been shielding his face with his raised arms, began to bring his weapon back to shooting position. I released my pistol, snapped my hand to the blade on my calf. I drew the knife with my fingertips and in one motion extended my hand with a flip of the wrist. It was poor technique but he was very close, less than ten feet away. Gramps’ legacy turned end for end once. The razor-sharp tip of the blade punched right through the meaty part of his left forearm, between the radius and ulna.

Unfortunately he was right-handed. He gritted his teeth and his right hand kept swinging that hand cannon in our direction, and I knew this was going to hurt. I prayed for God to save me and the XH to save me and surged to my feet to rush him.

But it was neither God nor XH, it was my own angel that saved me. Elise was closer and wasn’t carrying a load of gear. She bounced up and stepped in front of that damned murdering gunman and I saw the explosion as the first round blasted through her shoulder upward, a spray of red that covered me in a fine mist. The bullet, slowed, thumped off my kevlar helmet, staggering me.