The Assault (7 page)

“How does that feel?” she asked, gently touching his calf. “Was that you, or did I just get stung by a bee?” he asked. “Grit your teeth,” she said, which didn’t sound promising. He gritted.

She pressed firmly on the back of his thigh with what felt like a sharp knife, heated white-hot—but when he looked, it was only her fingers.

“Hematoma,” she said. “I’d better have a look at your back.”

She helped him again with the body armor and removed the battle tunic for him when he had trouble twisting his
shoulders around to do it. From her drawing in of breath, it was clear his back was worse than his legs.

“Will I live?” he asked.

“If we could preserve this, it could be an exhibit in a museum of modern art,” she said. “Very psychedelic. Any doctor would confine you to a week in the hospital.”

“Just as well you’re not a doctor,” Chisnall said.

“You’re in no shape to continue this mission,” she said.

He was quiet for a moment, knowing she was probably right. “I wish I had that choice,” he said eventually.

“You’ve taken some painkillers?”

“Yep.”

“Working?”

“Nope.”

“I’ll put some topical analgesic on it for you,” Brogan said. “At least you might be able to sleep.”

“Thanks,” Chisnall said.

She disappeared to get it out of her backpack and was back a moment later, pulling on rubber gloves. Then she squeezed the ointment onto her hands, warming it for a moment.

“You’re sure this stuff works on humans?” Chisnall asked. All their equipment and supplies were Bzadian army issue.

“That’s what they tell us,” Brogan said. She spread it softly on his skin, starting with his calves and working her way up. The mere touch of her hands was like fire but she kneaded his flesh gently, massaging in the cream. Slowly, the pain in his legs softened to a dull ache.

“What are you two doing in there?” Price called.

“Playing doctor,” Brogan said.

“Why do officers get all the fun?” Hunter said.

“Yeah, this is real fun,” Chisnall said. It felt as though Brogan were sandpapering the skin off his shoulders and rubbing salt in the raw, bloodied flesh beneath. He held his breath to stop from crying out, until the painkiller took effect and his shoulders returned to something near normal.

She finished, stripped off the gloves, and lay down on her back next to him. For a moment they really were just two teenagers on a camping trip, not two soldiers behind enemy lines on a vital and deadly mission. He felt like kissing her.

“Ryan, what’s really going on? Something tells me there’s more to this mission than meets the eye.”

The fabric of the bivouac moved a little. Perhaps it was just a brief puff of breeze, but something told him otherwise. Brogan opened her mouth to continue, but Chisnall held a finger to his lips. He cocked his head, listening. There! Was that just the slightest shuffle of a footstep outside?

He nodded to Brogan, who caught his meaning instantly. She reached down, gripped the edge of the camo sheet, and flung it back.

Hunter was squatting just outside. He looked awkward and embarrassed.

“Shouldn’t you be on watch?” Brogan asked.

“Just wanting a word with the skipper,” Hunter said.

“Go ahead,” Chisnall said.

“It can wait,” Hunter said. “It was just … Nah, I’ll talk to you later.”

He walked away, down to the riverbed. Chisnall watched him go. How long had he been standing there, listening to their conversation? Did he really have something to say, or was that just an excuse?

Brogan closed the flap again. “We’re in-country now,” she said. “About time you filled me in.”

“Can’t do that, soldier,” Chisnall said.

“What’s the reason for all the secrecy?” Brogan asked.

“I have very specific orders,” Chisnall replied.

“Back at Fort Carson, you weren’t a strict follower of orders,” Brogan said, and the side of her leg brushed against his. He moved his leg away. This was not the time, nor the place.

“We’re not back at Fort Carson,” Chisnall said.

“Who picked the team?” Brogan asked.

“I had some say in it.”

“What jerk picked Wilton?” she asked. “Every time he opens his mouth, you just don’t know what’s going to come out of it. I’m terrified that he’s going to give the game away to the Pukes once we get inside the base.”

“This jerk picked him,” Chisnall said. “Wilton’s a little loose. But who else do you know who could shoot the eye out of a fast-moving eagle at five hundred meters, and do it three times in a row?”

“He’s got that,” Brogan admitted. “But it’s not going to be much help if we’re sitting in a Puke jail cell or blindfolded and lined up against a wall.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“Now Price I understand. If we’d left it up to the Kiwi Phantom, she’d have been inside that rock and back out by now and the Pukes would never know she’d been there. But what about Monster? He’s not exactly the quiet, stealthy type.”

Chisnall laughed. “True. But if it really hits the fan, is there anyone else you’d rather have on your side?”

“Another slow mover heading our way,” Hunter’s voice said in his ear.

Chisnall flicked his mike on. “Copy that. All Angels remain in cover.”

He flicked the mike off again and moved his eye back to one of the pinholes. The menacing, rounded shape of an enemy rotorcraft appeared low over the riverbed.

It was quartering the desert. This was not just a regular patrol.

“They’re searching for something,” he said.

“For us?” Brogan asked. “Why would they be searching for us?”

“I don’t know. I don’t see how they’d know about us. Maybe they’re just being careful.”

He watched the saucerlike shape for a few moments until it moved off to the south.

“How does it feel to be back?” he asked.

“In Australia” was the unfinished end of the sentence.

Brogan shook her head. “It was ten years ago. I was just a kid. And I grew up in Sydney. The outback is just as foreign to me as it is to you.”

“I know,” Chisnall said. “But it’s still your country. Don’t you feel some sense of belonging? Of ownership?”

“A little,” she said. “More a feeling of injustice.”

“It must have been hard to leave,” Chisnall said.

“You could say that,” Brogan said. “That was the night my parents were killed.”

“I didn’t know that. I’m sorry,” Chisnall said.

“That last night …” Brogan paused.

Chisnall said nothing, giving her some space.

“We were trying to get out,” Brogan said. “Part of the Darwin evacuation. My dad was government, so we were on the Pukes’ restricted list. But we had false identities, disguises, the whole works. We were actually on the ship and it was heading out to sea when the Bzadians found out. They …”

“It’s okay,” Chisnall said. “You don’t have to talk about it.”

“They sank the ship. The whole bloody ship.”

“Oh my God. You were on the
Campbelltown
! You never told me that.”

The sinking of the
Campbelltown
, a passenger liner full of civilians, was one of the worst atrocities of the evacuation of Australia.

“They sank it because my parents were on it. Only a handful of us survived.”

He looked at her. Tears were freely flowing down her cheeks, although she made no sound. Chisnall put out a hesitant hand and touched her on the shoulder. She moved closer and he put his arm around her shoulders, holding her.
His tortured back screamed fire, despite the painkillers, but still he drew her close.

After a few moments, she let out one tense, constricted sob and then was silent.

“You’d better get some sleep,” he said.

“We all had,” Brogan said, making no attempt to move.

“Better find your own spot,” Chisnall said after a moment. “We don’t want to give the others the wrong idea.”

“That could be a little awkward,” Brogan agreed. She sat up.

He found himself wishing she would stay. But the focus had to be the mission. He couldn’t afford any distractions. Brogan dismantled the bivouac and spread his camo sheet back out over him. He watched her as she strode back toward the river.

I can’t afford any distractions
.

He held that thought for a while. Then, as the sun rose higher and the day heated up, and despite his best intentions, he slept.

Later, the wind came again, bringing the desert with it. This time the sandstorm was longer but not as ferocious. Chisnall hunkered down under his camo sheet and knew that the others would be doing the same. The storm lessened, then gradually dissipated, growling up in sporadic bursts until it finally died away altogether. He didn’t mind the daytime sandstorms. They gave them good cover from the Bzadians and blocked some of the heat of the sun.

It didn’t occur to him till later that they also blocked the
view of the satellites that were monitoring them, nor that that might suit the purposes of one particular member of the team.

Night falls slowly in the desert. As the sun sank below the horizon, it was as if a painter had taken an airbrush to the western sky, creating a work of art in rich orange and red hues, streaked with violet.

A small yellowish brown lizard, its body covered with a netlike pattern, camped on a rock just in front of Chisnall’s nose, completely oblivious to the soldier under the camo sheet just a few inches away.

Chisnall stirred, and the lizard, startled at the rock coming to life, darted under a clump of porcupine grass.

Chisnall awoke with a strange feeling.

Something is wrong
.

He felt cold, but not physically. The shivering was much deeper than that. He’d asked his mother about the feeling once when he was younger, and she’d said it came from his soul. He wasn’t so sure about that, but he did know that each time the strangeness came, it always meant bad things. Like the night the army men, in their bright, shiny dress uniforms and white gloves, had knocked on the door in the middle of the night to give them the news about his father. Chisnall sat up. His muscles seemed to have turned into cold chewing gum while he slept, and he tried to twist and stretch to get some movement back into them. He crawled out from under
his camo sheet and painfully stood up, scanning around them for any sign of danger.

Monster was on watch.

“Anything on the scope?” Chisnall asked.

Monster shook his head. “Plenty of air mobiles up north, but here is quiet. Thought I picked up some foot mobiles one hour ago, but is turn out to be kangaroos.”

They were clear. Yet the shivering of his soul was not diminishing. He shrugged it off. They were in the heart of New Bzadia. Everything around them, everybody, was a danger. Perhaps it was just nerves.

“Get ’em up,” Chisnall said.

Monster grinned and called out, “Okay, my dudes, up, up, up. Is beautiful evening in Camp Chisnall, and we have lots fun activities for you.”

There was a chorus of groans.

“What’s for breakfast?” Wilton asked, emerging from under his sheet.

“Green toothpaste,” Chisnall replied cheerfully. “Smells like vomit, tastes like phlegm, and gives you the most colorful poop.”

“Do Pukes really eat this stuff?” Wilton grumbled.

“It’s their army rations,” Brogan said. “They probably hate it as much as we hate our MREs.”

Meals ready to eat had been the bane of the combat soldier’s life since forever.

“I’d give my right arm for an MRE right about now,” Wilton said.

“Just eat your greens or you can’t have pudding,” Brogan said.

Chisnall laughed and looked around. “Somebody go wake Hunter. Tell him he can’t sleep all day and all night too.”

“LT!” There was something in Price’s voice.

Chisnall’s primary weapon was in his hands before he even had time to think. He was on his feet, scanning the horizon.

“Over here,” Price said, her voice coming in gulps between short breaths. She had peeled back a corner of Hunter’s camo sheet.

Specialist Stephen Huntington was dead.

His face was contorted and red, as if he had been fighting for breath. There was froth around his mouth and a dribble of vomit down his cheek. His eyes were fixed, wide and staring.

“Drop the camo,” Chisnall said. “Move back slowly.” He was conscious of the others crowding around. “Get back, all of you.”

“What the—” Wilton started.

“Brogan, if he can’t be quiet, shut him up for me,” Chisnall said.

He extended the long snout of his weapon and lifted the sheet, flicking it up and away down the rock. Hunter was still in his sleeping bag, but his body was not relaxed. It was distorted in hideous contortions, his arms and legs locked at strange angles beneath the inflated padding of the sleeping bag that was pulled tight around his neck.

Chisnall took a step closer and used his weapon to loosen the top of the sleeping bag. There was a sudden chafing noise, like two pieces of fabric rubbing together. He lifted it higher and an olive-green snake with black checkered scales appeared at the mouth of the bag, raising its head as if to attack before slithering quickly over the rocks and down toward the river.

The hard man of the refugee camps had been no match for a creature of the Australian desert.

“Damn! Inland taipan,” Brogan said. “Deadliest snake in the world.”

“Unlucky dude,” Wilton said.

“You think?” Price said.

“From now on, everybody check your sleeping bags before you crawl into them,” Brogan said. “We don’t want anyone else to get unlucky.”

There was a murmur of agreement from the others.

Unlucky was right, Chisnall thought. But not for the reason that they thought. Seven of the deadliest snakes in the world live in Australia. But this was too much of a coincidence, especially after the sabotaged half-pipe. And the inland taipan might be the deadliest snake in the world, but it was also one of the shyest. It did not attack unless threatened, and the chances of one crawling into Hunter’s sleeping bag were slim. And why hadn’t Hunter cried out? A taipan’s bite was deadly, but death was not instantaneous. The only reason Chisnall could think of was that Hunter had already been unconscious when he had been bitten.