Opposing Force: Book 01 - The God Particle (24 page)

In fact, he wondered why he felt the urge to send Twiste down against Gant's orders. It made no sense. The hall was secure, but the floor below could be full of danger. That was why the scout team needed to go first … but it made perfect sense for Twiste to go now. For some reason … he could not quite understand.

"Captain Campion, what is your status?"

I honestly don't know, sir.

"Movement!"

Franco's shout focused Campion's mind as his training—instinct, actually—took over.

"Biggy! What have you got?"

"Five meters ahead on the left. In one of those offices."

Campion looked in that direction. His eyes struggled with the contrast between the darkness and a cone of brightness emanating from a half-broken security light. Still, he saw something just inside the door of one of the offices. Someone or something about four to four and a half feet tall. Just a silhouette; an outline of dark standing in a room of dark.

He raised his MP5 and swung both the laser targeting beam and the tactical light toward the door. Whatever hid in there retreated deeper into the room before he could get a better view. His attention, however, went elsewhere.

"Movement behind!"

"Multiple targets!"

Turning around, he saw Galati back away from the stairs and Wells retreat down the hall toward the elevator.

Campion heard the attackers a moment before actually seeing them: the jingle of equipment and the
thump-thump-thump
of jackboots fast-marching up the hall. Then they took form out of the darkness: coal scuttle helmets and field gray tunics.

Soldiers of the German Wehrmacht armed with rifles (Campion's mind immediately identified them as Gwehr 41s) but they approached as if intent on striking with their bayonets.

Biggy's shotgun went off and then other members of the team opened fire. Campion did the same, putting three rounds from his MP5 directly in the chest of one of the faceless infantrymen bearing down on his position. His target jerked and stumbled backwards, slipping to one knee, then rose to his feet again to renew his charge.

Galati stood at the captain's side, firing his G36, but Campion remained focused on his own targets, although careful not to hit Moss, who stood amongst the mob, scanning the area as if he could not see the Germans.

They must have blinded him,
he thought.

The captain hit another enemy soldier, this time in the top of his head. Strangely enough, the man—the thing—reacted in exactly the same manner as the one he had hit in the chest; stumbling backwards, slipping to one knee, then standing again. The bullet to the head should have at least knocked the man's (creature’s?) helmet free.

That was odd enough, but Wells—standing in front of Richard Campion not far from the stairs from which Wehrmacht soldiers marched out—screamed in horror and fired his assault rifle into the ground, seemingly at the boots—
the boots?—
of one of the attackers.

Even in the midst of the firefight, Campion disapproved. Wells was a professional soldier. He should be finding targets and hitting them at center mass or even in the head. Instead, he looked like a panicked old lady squaring off against a mouse or house spider.

A voice shouted, "No targets! I've got no targets!"

It was Moss, and he, like Wells, was acting in an incomprehensible manner, drifting across the battlefield with his eye fixed to his infrared scope, swinging it about as if he could not see the German soldiers all around him.

Sensing a threat, Campion fired his MP5 at another of the attackers, hitting him somewhere in the shoulder, but again the enemy staggered, knelt, and then returned to his feet.

He turned back just in time to see Franco shoot Moss at nearly point-blank range. The sergeant drilled the soldier with three blasts from his automatic shotgun, obliterating Moss's body armor and turning everything between the man's shoulders and his waistline into a cavity of gore. Franco kept on firing away with little regard for aim.

He has gone crazy.

Just as Captain Campion made that realization, he watched Biggy turn and face Pearson, who, from what he could see, was sort of standing around in a state of total confusion, much like Moss had acted before Franco murdered him. And apparently, Franco intended to do the same to Pearson. Biggy crossed the hall with his shotgun raised.

"Die, you fucking bastard!"

Campion tried to intervene, shouting then taking aim and pulling the trigger but his magazine had run dry. With no time to reload, he reached for his sidearm.

Too late. Franco blasted away at Pearson, who screamed and fell against the wall, narrowly avoiding falling down the elevator shaft. Instead, he dropped to the ground and writhed from the shotgun pellets peppering his side from his neck to his knee.

Franco saw the captain approach and yelled, "I got this one, get the fuck out of my way."

Campion saw no alternative. He fired his pistol at Franco just as the sergeant fired at Pearson one last time.

Both men hit their mark.

Franco dropped his weapon and staggered, a bullet wound in his shoulder.

Pearson, fortunately, still lived, thanks to instinctively turning away from the shotgun. Unfortunately, that meant Biggy's blast hit the ancient flamethrower on Pearson's back. The pellets ruptured the gas tank, venting highly flammable fumes … which ignited when they reached the pilot light on the weapon's wand.

The blast sent Campion tumbling. His right arm caught fire, but he used the momentum of his fall to roll and snuff those flames. At the same time, a ball of fire erupted across the ceiling and along the wall.

He ignored the sting of something sharp in his cheek, the smell of singed flesh from his arm, and the ache from a now-twisted ankle, focusing on the changing tactical situation.

Galati and Wells lived; he saw them stagger to their feet.

Their attackers—the German soldiers wearing World War Two uniforms and sporting 1940s-era weapons—seemed to have withdrawn, perhaps scared off by the explosion. No doubt they would regroup and renew their attack.

Franco was down, dead or dying, but given that he had murdered two of the men, Campion was no longer concerned with the sergeant's status. In fact, if Franco tried to get up, he might have to put another bullet in him for the sake of the team.

Pearson was dead, incinerated by the explosion and fireball. A line of burning fuel and debris covered a stretch of wall including the open elevator doors. In fact, the fire seemed to burn the brightest near that opening. Smoke pooled overhead.

You can't go that way. It's blocked. No way you can follow Gant or Twiste.

That left one option; moving forward on this level, hopefully finding the second stairwell and rendezvousing with the major at the Red Lab two floors below.

"Move! We have to move out of here!"

His shout rallied Galati and Wells, whom he led away from the burning battle scene, away from the stairs leading up, and across sublevel 6, separated from Major Gant and Brandon Twiste and leaving behind two dead comrades as well as Sergeant Benjamin Franco.
 

Gant and Twiste walked for several minutes at a slow pace. The major kept checking behind, worried there might be some pursuit; he simply was not optimistic enough to think the rest of the unit might catch up to them.

That particular stretch of sublevel 7 felt less like a research facility and more like an industrial complex. They saw dormant incinerators, tanks and pumps devoted to waste water treatment, and a rather large room focused on electricity and power distribution.

Each of those areas appeared old and neglected … although not as old and neglected as Thom would have expected. He saw pools of water on the pump room floor and relatively new wiring in at least one of the circuit boxes.

They did not, however, stop for a complete investigation. He kept them moving through featureless gray halls lit by the occasional red exit light and the even more occasional emergency light. Progress remained slow due to Brandon's limp.

"You okay?"

Captain Twiste still held one palm against the side of his head. He mumbled an answer Gant could not hear, but his tone and accompanying body language strongly suggested "no."

"Well, you are the doctor and it does not really matter how you are feeling. We have to keep moving."

Twiste held up a hand, dropped his duffel bag, and slid down to a sitting position against the wall beneath a decal reading "SUBLEVEL 7 MAINTENANCE SECTION." He undid one boot, rolled down the sock, and examined his ankle.

"Is it broken?"

This time Twiste removed his hand so he could be clearly heard.

"No, maybe sprained. Thanks for pushing me down the hatch, buddy."

Of course he did not sound mad but Gant felt guilty enough to explain for the third time, "A ball of fire was filling the shaft, probably burning fuel. If I had not pushed you down the hatch, you would have third-degree burns, not merely a bump on the cheek and a sore foot."

"This isn't just a bump on the cheek," he objected, but his tone softened as he admitted, "I sort of bit the inside of my mouth and I've got a loose tooth."

"Clearly we need to find the infirmary."

"Speaking of that, besides the obvious—" Twiste waved at the decal above his head—"where are we?"

Gant’s immediate answer was
up shit’s creek
. He decided that actually saying as much would be counterproductive.

"We’re on level 7, searching for a way down to the Red Lab on level 8. According to the map on my computer . . ." he tapped the wrist-mounted unit ". . . we should find several options for doing just that, but they are all further along this level."

"Elevators and stairs that go only one floor at a time, spread out across levels the size of football fields, full of hallways that feel like they go in circles. Your federal government at work."

"You are pouting again, Doctor." Gant tried to muster good humor, but came up dry. Truth was, his unit might be wiped out by an enemy he still did not know.

A sound like something metal rattling as if knocked over echoed through the maze. Gant could not discern from which direction it had come; there were several side passages not far behind and more ahead. It was even more difficult to gauge proximity. He guessed it was not too close … but why take chances?

"Come on, Captain, we need to get moving."

Twiste did not protest. He accepted assistance from Gant in getting to his feet, grabbed his bag, and limped forward. Thom stayed a pace ahead with both hands on his MP5, using the tactical light to help steer their way.

They came to a large four-way intersection with a SECURITY SUB STATION kiosk in one corner. To their left and right the passages disappeared into complete darkness; no lighting whatsoever. Ahead of them, however, about a third of the fluorescent lights worked, albeit with a constant flickering that produced a strobe light effect.

"Why do I not feel good about this," Twiste asked, eying the better-lit corridor like a fish that had grown wise to worms.

Gant consulted his map, looked ahead, consulted the map again, pointed forward and in an unsure voice said, "According to the blueprints, that direction would be our best option."

Twiste opened his mouth, most likely to say something witty, but a groaning noise drifted into the corridor, stopping him short.

Gant glanced behind. He saw only the darkness from which they had come, but he felt sure the noise originated from that direction. Still some distance away, but closer than the rattling metal sound they had heard a minute before.

The two men stood still for several seconds, very much like deer caught in oncoming headlights.

Footsteps. Or something very much like footsteps. Not boots, more of a shuffling sound, and not consistent as would be expected from a man walking. No, this sounded lazy and haphazard and as such had an animal quality about it.

Gant threw his arm around Twiste’s shoulder and moved them at a fast clip. Brandon bit his lip in pain but made no noise. Still, the footsteps sounded louder and Gant realized the extra light in the corridor made them much more visible.

He risked a glance behind. The flickering strobe lights provided vision all the way back to the intersection, but no further. He saw nothing.

"Turn here," Twiste said, shifting his weight to the left and moving them off the main corridor and down a different stretch, this one with no lights other than the bouncing fluorescents seeping in from the main passage.

More noise, this time a grunt. The source of the sounds had at least reached the security substation, maybe twenty yards behind. Considering Twiste's limp, they were not going to outrun the threat and the major was well aware that he had lost contact with his team after they had been attacked, which raised the possibility that bullets might not be capable of dispatching whatever it was that haunted them in this dungeon.

That left one option, and when he spied a metal door with a small window he took it, grasping the dusty, cold latch and turning. For a moment he feared it would be locked or that it would open with the same type of blood-curdling screech the elevator hatch had emitted.