Arisen, Book Nine - Cataclysm Read online

  They were learning to do without it.

  * * *

  Hailey banked her sleek bird around, looping back up the coast and then over the Gulf again, to keep that speck beneath her and in sight. With the high-powered optics, she could see them approaching shore now – a silent little oblong shape, with a bigger white wake out behind it.

  And with the increasing light, she could now also see other oblong shapes, lighter ones, gliding through the water all around them. The water was clear enough that the huge numbers of sharks that infested these waters were totally visible from above.

  Good thing they can’t see what I can, she thought. They might never have gone out in the first place. They’d certainly be keeping their hands and feet inside the ride at all times…

  And very soon they’d be on shore – with other creatures much more likely to try to eat them alive. They were brave sons of bitches, and Hailey wouldn’t want their jobs.

  Then again, she hadn’t much wanted her own, very recently, when it had looked like she was going to have to go out alone and attack that Russian battlecruiser. Thank God, and thanks to one enterprising SEAL, it was now at the bottom of Saldanha Bay, which made her world a hell of a lot easier – and everyone’s much safer.

  Then again, the ZA seemed to be very much an if-not-one-goddamned-thing-then-another sort of affair.

  She tried not to wonder what was coming next.

  * * *

  Juice couldn’t stop himself from looking over the side constantly now, and suddenly he was able to see a huge pale shape gliding by just below the surface. It had bright iridescent blue spots, and Juice didn’t know what the hell it was.

  “Jesus,” he said, “look at the size of that thing.”

  Ali spared a look over the side. “Don’t worry. It’s a whale shark. It’s the largest fish that swims, but they only eat plankton and algae.”

  “How big?”

  “I don’t know. Forty feet? Twenty tons? Unconfirmed reports of bigger ones.”

  “Fuck me,” Juice said. “There are a lot of them, too.”

  Ali shrugged. “They give birth in the warm waters around here. This is part of the African rift, the hottest part of the continent. The hatchlings feed on the abundant plankton here, then migrate down the coast, past the Seychelles and on to Australia.”

  “Oh, really?” Juice said. “How soon does that happen?”

  * * *

  Hailey banked it around once again. She’d be doing a lot of that, despite keeping her airspeed down close to her stall speed – both to save fuel, and to increase her linger time.

  She took a look at the sky around her. She knew that all of Africa’s hazards weren’t on the ground. Up above it, the number one aerial threat was flocks of pterodactyl-sized vultures that went blasting around like packs of airborne dogs. They wouldn’t be up this high, but she’d have to watch her ass if she got down below five thousand feet. And if, God forbid, she had to land anywhere down there, she knew she was likely to face zebras and wildebeest migrating across any airstrip.

  Basically, Africa had been dangerous to all known forms of life, never mind all forms of aviation, since long before the dead ruled – and long after the living stopped wielding RPGs and shoulder-fired missiles, which should in theory not be much of a threat to a last-generation stealth fighter like the F-35…

  But even as she thought that, her electronic warfare suite went red and noisy – she had just been painted with radar.

  What the hell?

  That was weird. There definitely shouldn’t be anyone down there operating any kind of radar any more, never mind the kind that could get a purchase on her very low-observable (VLO) integrated airframe, with its composite materials and internal weapons and fuel tank.

  But after a single second, it stopped again.

  Her hunch was this was some kind of electronics anomaly, rather than real hostile reconnaissance – just a ghost in a very complex machine, a result of maintenance standards, not to mention availability of spare parts, going to hell. Nonetheless, she needed to report it to CIC, and was about to do so—

  When she spared another look at the launch below.

  And all those oblong shapes were really close to it now…

  * * *

  Checking both his watch and the instrumentation, the sailor piloting the shore launch reached for the ignition switch to kill the engine.

  As his hand was a few inches away, suddenly the inboard engine, or maybe the rotors themselves protruding beneath the hull, made some kind of horrendous grinding and burbling noise.

  And then the stern of the boat dipped down toward the water, causing everyone to scramble and lean to stay where they were – and sending a fat wave of seawater washing over the rear gunwale and flooding the deck and the tops of eleven pairs of assault boots.

  A gigantic spotted fin breached the dark water behind them, followed by the whole twenty-foot-long tail underneath it, both terrible and ghostly in the dim light. Finally, most of twenty tons of whale shark came slapping back down on the surface of the water before rolling over, and sending a much bigger wave of salt water over everyone sitting in the launch.

  And this was only the first of them.

  Suddenly, the sea was coming alive all around them, submerged bulks bigger than the launch itself bashing into it from every side, as well as from underneath.

  Within seconds, they threatened to crush the boat and pull its whole crew beneath the waves, before they had even reached shore.

  They definitely hadn’t seen this one coming.

  Sausage Fest

  JFK Galley - 02 Deck

  [72 Hours Earlier]

  “I say we’ve got to insert by helo. There’s no time to drag our tired asses overland.”

  “There’s also no time to fuck it up. If the rotor noise draws a singularity, then that’s us fucked – for the duration.”

  “Okay, good point.”

  “And drone surveillance shows Hargeisa more crowded than your mom’s house on payday.”

  “Mom says hi, by the way.”

  “Ha. Tell her I’ll be by at eight. And I want those sheets washed for once.”

  Dr. Simon Park threaded through the galley, then sat down amid the roaring laughter at the long table colonized by the Tier-1 operators. He had no illusions that he was one of them. Then again, after all they had suffered and sacrificed to pull him out of that bunker in Chicago, which he’d had every reason to think would also be his tomb, he felt like he owed them something. For starters, whatever help and expertise he could offer. He needed to make sure he was available to them, and doing his part.

  That ethic had been etched into his soul now.

  As he sat down, the front of his tray bumped into Henno’s, opposite him. The British hard man looked up from shoveling sausages into his mouth, and his expression turned. He was looking at the visible bits of corn in Park’s veggie sausages. On his own plate, Henno had meat with meat, and meat sauce. Plus thick-cut fries. Potatoes were always going.

  Ali was sitting one spot over. She caught the visual exchange between Henno and Park, and asked “Where’d they get meat?”

  Henno tossed his head at Juice, farther up the table. “Saldanha. Juice’s handiwork. Tinned stuff, but not bad for all that.”

  “Ugh,” Ali said. “Canned meat.”

  Henno grunted. “I’ve been in the British Army since age sixteen.”

  “So?”

  “So you’ve obviously never had bully beef.” Henno looked at Park’s plate of rabbit food. “Filthy seed-eater,” he said, leavening the epithet with a slight grin. “You can be as vegetarian as you like, mate. You think the rest of the world will hesitate one second before devouring you? You’d better keep yourself at the top of the food chain. You won’t like the bottom.”

  Sarah Cameron, the only non-Alpha person there other than Park, sitting further up by Handon, leaned down the table and weighed in. “That’s absolutely right. I knew a lot of vegetarians in To
ronto. None of them are here now.”

  Park nodded thoughtfully, not taking offense. “No, I suppose that’s right. There’s little getting around that life exists by devouring other life. A plant may not have a nervous system – but it’s still made up of exactly the same amino acids. Me and this corn have a common ancestor. And now it’s going down so that I may live.”

  Still chewing, Henno looked up at Homer. “We missed a trick. Could have had fresh dolphin meat for brekkie.”

  Homer smiled but didn’t respond. Among those there, only Ali knew that he and Henno, when launching their undersea attack on the Admiral Nakhimov, had to evade military dolphins – which the Russian Navy had trained to locate and attack enemy divers. As had the U.S. Navy, for that matter.

  Ali sat toying with her food. “Chris Kyle said all real warriors were meat-eaters.” She was referring to the most lethal sniper in U.S. history – who had survived four deployments protecting Americans and Iraqis in the brutal fighting of Fallujah and Ramadi, only to die trying to help troubled veterans, when one turned his gun on him at a shooting range.

  Noise, one spot up on the other side, nodded. “Shaitan Ar-Ramadi. The Devil of Ramadi. Chief Kyle counted much crow.”

  “Oi,” Henno said, as he polished off his plate. “Aren’t you Sikhs supposed to have your dagger on you at all times?”

  Noise nodded politely. And pointed at his own head.

  “What, under your turban?” Henno pushed his chair back, big arms bulging. “Nice one. That might yet come in handy.”

  * * *

  Handon, sitting farther down beside Sarah, kept his own counsel, and listened to Sarah talk with Henno about hunting. He had shot grouse and pheasants back in the north of England. And Sarah had shot most everything that walked, ran, hopped, or flew in North America. She’d had to, to survive.

  Henno was smiling at Sarah and being a little too charming – and she seemed to be enjoying it. That was a little weird, as previously it had been Henno who seemed most to judge her for failing to save her husband and son back in Michigan. But whatever offense Sarah had taken at that, she seemed to have forgotten it now. Maybe she was attracted by Henno’s obvious unconcern for what she thought of him, his refusal to curry any favor. Maybe it was just his rough air of confidence and capability.

  She seemed to go for that sort of thing.

  Handon also couldn’t forget that Henno had been a renowned ladies’ man back in the world. With his witty banter, brooding self-confidence, and Sean Bean “bit of rough” good looks, he knew women went for him. Was he using his power now for evil? Just to get under Handon’s skin?

  Despite steeling himself not to react, he hated the two of them being so friendly, flirty even. And, much worse, he knew Henno could sense that he hated it – could probably even tell that he hated that he hated it.

  And it was possible he was taking pleasure in Handon’s discomfort.

  This was seriously pissing him off.

  The team had been trying to discuss operational matters, the damned mission parameters, before this extended digression. And they didn’t have time for distractions.

  “…it’s only a flashbang,” Homer said, deadpan.

  Handon only tuned in to the tail end of this comment, and only because of the way Sarah reacted to it, turning from Henno to Homer and laughing out loud. She was having a fine old time. Now Handon was reminded that the two of them had been alone together on their long overland journey across a third of undead North America. This was obviously some inside joke between them. Someday maybe they’d have time for Sarah to tell Handon the full story of that odyssey.

  For that matter, maybe one day he’d earn her trust enough for her to tell him what happened to her back in Toronto – the mysterious dark chapter of her life that led to her marrying a totally unsuitable husband. She wasn’t volunteering it so far. And Handon wasn’t going to push her. He figured he had to give her space.

  He just wasn’t thrilled with what she was doing with it right this second.

  But thinking about personal crap like this was definitely not the kind of distraction he needed. Hell, at this point, he didn’t need distractions of any kind.

  Checking his watch, he said, “It’s time.” As he stood up tall and erect, he radiated waves of authority. Chairs scraped floor and trays clanged.

  Henno rose last, his chest open as he pushed himself up with strong, tattooed forearms. And his fraction of a gaze that slid off Handon communicated why he wasn’t rushing to obey this order. It said:

  You’re only in charge of this team because the better man got killed.

  No Quit In Them

  JFK - 02 Deck Briefing Room

  When Alpha filed into the briefing room for the mission brief, Fick and his Marines were already on station. This was the same room in which they had all met three weeks and many lifetimes ago, briefing for the insertion into Chicago.

  “Well, we’re back in the car again,” Predator rumbled as he wedged himself into a seat. Both the seats and the rows of desk were made for human-sized people, not stone giants.

  “At least you’re out of the tree,” Reyes said, getting the movie reference, and reaching out to fist-bump the big Alpha man.

  Ever since the Marines had fought through hell to pull Alpha out of North America, the two teams had been brothers. There was always inter-service rivalry, and loyalty to unit was still written in blood. But, ultimately, it was, as they said: One team, one fight.

  Handon looked up as both Commander Abrams, acting skipper of the boat, and LT Campbell, who’d be quarterbacking the op from CIC, walked in on a wave of We’ve got a lot of shit to do, so you’d better make this good – and fast.

  Without preamble, Handon spoke, his voice filling the room. “This is the first briefing for what we’re now calling Op Primum Cadavere.” Amid light snickers, he frowned and added, “Not my idea for the mission name. And, no, I’m not telling you whose it was.”

  “Somebody who thinks Latin makes him sound smart,” Brady said.

  “Damnant quodnon intelligunt,” Ali said, sitting slumped back in her chair, chin on fist. She looked over at Brady, who seemed determined not to ask what that meant. She told him anyway: “They condemn what they do not understand.”

  “And now,” Fick said, leaning against the bulkhead beside Handon, “we all know who to blame for the mission name. Moving the fuck on.”

  Handon said, “Alpha is call sign Cadaver One, the MARSOC element Cadaver Two. Here’s the full order of battle…”

  * * *

  Reyes raised his hand and said, “I thought we still had two helos left.”

  Handon nodded. “Have, yes. But the one that slugged it out with the Russians is more Swiss cheese than aircraft.” He nodded at Ali, who was the only reason it had made it back at all. “The air wing maintenance guys have ruled it unflyable. They say they’ve got no idea how it stayed in the air as long as it did.”

  “And if we need it anyway?”

  Handon shook his head. “Getting killed in a helo crash is no help to anyone. Anyway, keeping rotary-wing aircraft and other giant noisemakers out of the AO is a feature, not a bug. If we need medevac, or fast extraction – or, best of all, if we actually achieve our mission objective – then we secure an HLZ and the one remaining Seahawk comes in and pulls us out.”

  Fick said, “I don’t know what you ladies are bitching about anyway. It’s only two hundred and fifty miles overland from Djibouti to Hargeisa. It’ll be a goddamned Sunday drive in the countryside.”

  Handon nodded. “And with a little luck, we can scavenge military transport from the base there.”

  Ali snorted. “What, no jingle bus?”

  “Sure,” Fick said. “You goddamned hippies can put NPR bumper stickers and a bobble-head Jesus on it if you want, just as long as we’re rolling. Now. Here’s what ISR says we’re looking at when we hit American soil…”

  * * *

  As Fick briefed on the outlook for Camp Lemonnier in
Djibouti, Handon tuned out and scanned the faces in the room. And what he found himself looking for was something deeper than any intel in the briefing.

  Simply, he was trying to judge what his guys had left in the tank.

  Everyone was exhausted, rubbed right down to the bone. Two years of frantic OPTEMPO and unrelenting missions had culminated in the bullet and Foxtrot festival that had been Chicago, followed by the heart-in-mouth street fight for that airstrip on Beaver Island, their WW2-vintage bomber only getting off the ground at the last possible second… and then all of them jumping out over the Stalingrad-style Battle of the JFK, where they’d somehow held off a surging tide of ten million dead, the whole mess unlike anything any of them had ever seen, or even had nightmares about…

  And then finding they’d escaped that, and gotten all the way across the Atlantic, only to be attacked out of a blue sky by the flagship battlecruiser of the entire Russian fleet, one of the most lethal ships that ever floated… then Juice and Ali and Homer all nearly buying it, slugging it out toe-to-toe on land, sea, and sky with hardman Spetsnaz killers who were almost as good as Alpha – and twice as brutal and remorseless…

  Basically, it had been a long damned deployment so far, to say the very least.

  Scanning faces, including the Marines, Handon saw that not one of them showed it – but he knew that virtually every part of them hurt. Even the areas of their bodies that weren’t wounded. Sure, they’d been shot, stabbed, blown up, swarm-attacked by packs of runners, and had Foxtrots jump on their heads. But they’d also HAHO jumped through a crashing storm into a knot of skyscrapers, fought a 360-degree street battle through thousands of dead, been dragged behind a speeding powerboat – or caught between it and a bigger one. They’d come down in crashing aircraft, had others crash down on their heads, dodged thermobaric missile strikes, chased mini-UAVs around the flight deck.

  Some of them had been peppered with bullet fragments by deadly Canadian and Russian snipers – guys who had killed hundreds, and knew how it was done. There’d been near-misses with anti-personnel IEDs, collapsing buildings, religious nutjob assassins, burning forests, exploding underground fuel tanks, that snaking trail of flaming aviation fuel that had nearly burned Gunny Fick to death. They’d been blown up by Zulu jihadis, winged by flaming Zulu machine gunners, stabbed, shot, and crossbowed by asshat wannabe pirates – not to mention lit up by their four-barreled 14.5mm anti-aircraft gun…