Arisen, Book Eight - Empire of the Dead Read online

  And, just like that – there he was.

  She already knew it wasn’t the Russian minigun that had disarmed their crew chief. And now Ali got her first look at who had actually done it. All she really saw was a yawning black muzzle and a glinting optic.

  She pulled her eye from her scope, as her safety harness grabbed her and yanked – due to the Seahawk banking again, to the right this time. This caused Ali to lose visual contact with the Orca.

  And in a split-second, just like that – he was gone.

  Whoever he was, he had been well hunkered down and covered up. And now Ali knew beyond any doubt: she had a counterpart. A sniper in the Russian helo.

  And he was fucking good.

  End Him Now

  JFK - Bridge

  Drake clenched his jaw in frustration. Abrams had been able to convince him that sending their Predator drone to overfly the Admiral Nakhimov was a non-starter. But nothing had changed as far as the lines drawn on the game board. The Kennedy still absolutely had to stay at least 200km away from the battlecruiser – the range of its devastating Shipwreck anti-ship missiles. And to do that, they had to know where the damned thing was, at all times. Which meant they had to keep their Predator UAV where it was, acting as a radar station and high-altitude video relay.

  Drake had an idea. “Can we send up the UCAV?” This was their bigger, much more modern stealth drone.

  Abrams sighed. “Negative. No jet fuel.”

  “What?” Drake sounded alarmed. He was. He knew they were desperately low. But out?

  “We’re literally down to the bottom of the barrel. We topped the tanks on both the CAG’s and Tom-o’s birds before sending them up.” He didn’t have to belabor what had happened to the fuel in those tanks. It had flash combusted. “We’d actually have to siphon the tanks of the one F-35 on deck now to launch another jet aircraft.”

  “Jesus Christ…” Drake muttered.

  What a pass they had come to. And the one aircraft they really couldn’t steal fuel from was the only one they had left to defend them in the event the Admiral Nakhimov came back. “The Fire Scout, then,” he said, meaning their little helicopter UAV. “That toy runs on avgas.”

  Abrams frowned. “It’s also the only air support for the shore mission. And their only eyes on their AO. We’re not even sure what their status is right now. At best, Campbell would be extremely displeased to lose her air coverage of that shore mission.”

  Drake frowned. “At a certain point, we may not have any choice. Paul will be at our throats, and Peter will just have to pay up.”

  Abrams didn’t argue with this.

  * * *

  More than 200 feet below the Kennedy’s bridge, a lone SEAL dodged and parried incoming knife strikes from an enemy combat diver. But none of these attacks were committed. The dude was just jabbing, like a boxer, keeping Homer from getting his feet under him – because he knew time was on his side. Soon, Homer would be running low on blood.

  And then the Russian could dispatch him at leisure.

  Homer got his first real look at his attacker now, though there wasn’t much to see. He looked pretty much like Homer did – black wetsuit with hood, mask, rebreather, and buoyancy compensator. A few pouches on his rig, some bigger than others.

  But also a very mean, cold, dead look in his eyes, like a Gaboon viper.

  He continued jabbing – fast, shallow stabs and slashes that Homer had to parry, but which didn’t give him any real opening to counter-punch. One of them cut the lanyard on his dive lamp, which fell away into the gloom below. Homer really hoped he wasn’t going to need that later. Then again, he had much bigger problems right now.

  Such as living long enough to see later.

  He knew perfectly well this guy’s strategy – waiting for him to weaken from blood loss. And this meant he had no choice but to gamble. He retreated, paddling backward, until his back was again up against the cold steel hull. Normally, backed up against a wall was a truly shitty place to be in a knife fight. But Homer had no choice. He had to pretend to be on the ropes. Even if he really was.

  He let his eyelids droop, as a come-on. The Russian hesitated, then went for the bait, coming in with a more serious underhanded lunge.

  Homer let his own knife go, dropping it into the depths below right behind his lamp, then pivoted out of the way of the attack – while at the same time reaching out with both hands for the incoming knife. If he was lucky, he’d latch on somewhere up past the blade. If he wasn’t, he’d get cut.

  Either way, this might work.

  He got hold of the wrist – and yanked like hell, adding to the Russian’s forward momentum, pulling him into his body. The incoming blade slid across his ribs on the left, slicing through wetsuit and flesh, then clanging on steel hull.

  But by then Homer was nose to nose with the man, which was all he needed. Still clinging to that wrist with his left hand, he pivoted his right forearm up and around. The protruding blade of the guy’s own knife, still sticking out of his arm, flashed by the Russian’s dive mask.

  His eyes went wide.

  Then the arm and blade were gone.

  Homer watched the man’s eyes go even wider as he got his first mouthful of seawater, and belatedly worked out what the hell had just happened.

  His airline had been cut.

  An old trick, and a dirty one. But effective.

  Homer pressed his back up against the hull, brought his legs up into his stomach again – and gave a mighty two-fin shove. The Russian squirted out to a safer distance. His eyes were still saucer-wide, and he looked around frantically for his dive buddies. There still weren’t any.

  And now Homer could take it easy and simply watch his attacker drown.

  At leisure.

  * * *

  The next fat, hot, deadly, incoming .338 Lapua Magnum round impacted the Seahawk’s door frame twelve inches from Ali’s right cheek, shattering on impact – and sending bullet fragments into her face and neck. She flinched and ducked reflexively, then rolled her shoulder and ground her teeth.

  Because now she was pissed.

  She could already tell her wounds were superficial – or maybe they weren’t, and it was just the hot washes of adrenaline and cortisol flooding her system, making her insensible to the pain.

  As long as the blood stays out of my right fucking eye, she thought.

  She was fairly certain she could identify the opposing shooter’s weapon as a Russian SV-338 sniper rifle, chambered for the formidable .338 Lapua Magnum cartridge. That would validate her theory about the bullet that had almost just ended her, not to mention explain why it had taken the crew chief’s arm clean off. She also upgraded her assessment of this sniper: he wasn’t fucking good.

  He was seriously fucking good.

  The range between them wasn’t much, but with at least one helicopter moving erratically and fast as hell, the ballistic calculations were complex. They were both essentially having to do calculus in their heads, in real time.

  On the other hand, the fucker had missed her. And Ali had no intention of giving him another go.

  It had been a hell of a long time since she’d had a real sniping job – never mind a counter-sniping mission. She’d certainly been in sniper duels before. But she couldn’t remember actually conducting one while airborne, in two opposing helicopters. Never mind swooping around over the south Atlantic, on a CSAR mission in the middle of the goddamned zombie apocalypse.

  She thought: Funny old thing, life.

  She dropped to the deck to quickly check on their casualty, the crew chief who had previously been manning their own minigun. The floor was awash with his blood, rolling in little waves with each bank and spin of the helo. It had all come out of him in the last few seconds. The rescue swimmer had already jumped down there and gotten Ali’s tourniquet on his stump, and was now cinching it tight.

  The crew chief was a critical casualty.

  But he was going to make it.

  That is – u
ntil he got shot in the top of the head. The divot that opened in his scalp was big and obvious, and his panicked breathing stopped instantly.

  Oh, you sons of BITCHES…

  Ali looked up. The shot had come in the left-side door, which still stood open, as they briefly showed that side of the airframe to the Russians.

  Ali half rose, reached out, and hauled it shut. The thin skin of the door wouldn’t remotely stop those huge high-velocity .338 rounds. But if she couldn’t have cover, concealment would do. That Russian bastard couldn’t glass what he couldn’t see.

  Adjusting the chin mic of her headset, Ali shouted at the pilot: “Bring us back around on the starboard side! And steady it the fuck out! I need another look!”

  “Negative, negative! I cann—”

  But the rest of this was drowned out as the rescue swimmer, having climbed to his feet, got on the minigun and spun it back up. Its roar and whine were now added to the shrieking of the helo’s rotors and engines, and the groaning of the airframe from the pilot’s wild evasive maneuvers.

  Ali could sense revenge on the swimmer’s mind. He was clearly no expert on that weapon. But, equally obviously, he’d had enough of this shit.

  Brave son of a bitch, Ali thought.

  He was also about to be a dead one.

  She reached up, put her left hand on his shoulder, and pressed hard. His feet, already unsteady in the rollicking blood bath below, went out from under him, and he dropped to the deck – a quarter-second before another .338 round cracked over his head. That one definitely had his name on it. They were taking seriously accurate fire from this sharpshooting motherfucker.

  Ali had to end him – now.

  Emergency Ascent

  Open Water, Beneath the JFK

  It turned out the Spetsnaz diver with the severed airline wasn’t all that enthusiastic about just floating there and drowning to death while Homer looked on. He knew he had another option. Homer knew it, too.

  Visibly fighting panic – he probably already had some seawater in his lungs from that first breath after the line was cut – he dropped his weight belt with a one-handed twist of the buckle, hit the dump valve on his buoyancy compensator (BC), and kicked madly for the surface, in an emergency ascent. He was probably close enough to survive this. He even had the presence of mind to slip his second knife back in its leg sheath.

  And Homer was happy to let him go.

  He knew Pred and Henno would be waiting up top. They’d be a little nonplussed when a half-drowned Russian frogman burst into open air, but of course they’d adjust and react – and secure the enemy swimmer.

  And then the Kennedy would also have a prisoner to interrogate. And maybe they’d be able to learn something about what the Russians had in mind – something that might keep them alive and afloat. This, a capture rather than a kill, was also less corrosive to Homer’s soul than simply topping the man. It seemed to be a good outcome.

  But, then… as Homer watched the Russian sheath his knife, kick out, and start breaststroking with both hands…

  Something tickled at the corner of his brain – something he’d seen, but not registered. He squinted, leaned forward, and zoomed in… and there it was: a radio pouch on the Russian’s rig, its rubberized antenna sticking out. And Homer knew that after the guy reached the surface, but before he allowed himself to be taken prisoner, he’d radio back to the Admiral Nakhimov – that their swimmer team and their sabotage op had been compromised.

  And that would be the last Homer would see of these guys – until much later, probably when they weren’t expecting them again.

  And he simply couldn’t let that happen. Because there was another fact he knew, that was permanently resident in his brain: his kids were on that ship up over their heads.

  In a flash, he rapid-filled his own BC with air from his tank and, suddenly buoyant, took off after the Spetsnaz diver, kicking and stroking like the aquatic creature he was, albeit with a knife still sticking out of one arm.

  The Russian had the advantage of a better incentive to reach the surface. But Homer had air, plus had reacted quickly, and also was an insanely strong swimmer, even wounded. In four strokes and two seconds, he had caught up and was able to reach out and grab the Russian around the ankles. He then evacuated the compensator, causing his own buoyancy to go negative – aided by the weights in the vest.

  And now Homer had the presence of mind to reach up and draw that second knife back out of his leg sheath, before the Russian could go for it himself. Homer just had to pray the dude didn’t have a third one on him somewhere. He would by no means put it past him.

  No longer rising toward the surface, still with no access to air, and facing full-on panic now, the Russian special operator flailed and kicked, twisting and battling against Homer’s death grip on his legs. But he stayed locked on tight. The pain in his right forearm – as the knife wiggled around on three axes – made his vision go bright white. The pain was spectacular, and he feared for a moment he might pass out.

  But as long as that didn’t happen, all he had to do was hang on, and wait for the doomed man above him to stop kicking and go limp.

  Whatever badass training these Naval Spetsnaz guys got… it evidently didn’t include the “drownproofing” that SEAL candidates were subjected to in BUD/S at Coronado.

  Score one for United States Naval Special Warfare.

  * * *

  More than 200 feet above Homer’s head, Commander Drake was struggling to take all the current tactical information on board – never mind really process it. What he mainly needed to do was work it into some kind of strategic picture. And that was hardest of all.

  “The CSAR mission,” he said. “What’s their status?”

  Abrams said, “Last update we had was they were approaching the CAG’s transponder signal.”

  Drake nodded. Things seemed to be in hand there at least. Until they weren’t. At almost that exact moment, LT Campbell spoke aloud into the air of the bridge. She usually only used an open channel when shit was serious.

  “Bridge, CIC, be advised. We have now also lost comms with Jesus Two Zero. Repeat, comms with the CSAR mission are black.”

  Abrams stood and spoke before Drake could react. “How long?”

  “It’s been about two minutes.”

  Drake jumped in, his voice a hard edge. “What does that mean? Did the Russian SAMs take them out?”

  “Negative, negative. We still have contact with our aircraft on radar. But they’re flying erratically. And, while they’re still out of range of the battlecruiser, they are well within range of the guns on that Russian helo.”

  Abrams and Drake looked at each other, their faces hanging. They were both starting to feel like the last two characters in an Agatha Christie novel, the others disappearing into the night all around them.

  Maybe this would only end when everyone was dead.

  * * *

  With his attacker finally dispatched, Homer finally had time to bleed – to adapt another locally famous and very popular movie line. But, more to the point, he had time to stop bleeding. He just had to improvise a little to do it. He pulled in the floating body, and then with the man’s own knife started cutting away a long strip of wetsuit, from shoulder to knee.

  He felt like he was skinning an animal, some exotic and impressive big game he had felled. But he didn’t much like it.

  He hadn’t enjoyed killing this man. But, then again, the dude had swum up and said hi by trying to stab him in the neck – plus had succeeded in stabbing him in three other places. Killing people had always been a pretty significant part of a SEAL’s job description, which was awkward for a devout Christian.

  But Homer dealt with it.

  He knew God would reach his own conclusions, when his time came to be judged. As surely it would.

  Finally getting the long strip of neoprene free, he let the body go. It floated peacefully toward the surface, rising up into the light. That man’s problems in this world were over
now. And he would faithfully perform one last service, making an excellent buoy – a signal to Homer’s teammates that all was not well under the sea.

  As wounded as Homer was, a case could be made for him surfacing himself. But this job wasn’t done. And, as usual, there was no one else to do it.

  Now – this next bit was gonna hurt, not least because of the serrations on the back of the Russian knife. Homer tried putting the second one in his own leg sheath; it went in halfway, which was good enough. He then cast his eyes along the big blade of the one protruding from his arm.

  He recognized it as a dive knife from Melita-K, a Russian manufacturer beloved by Spetsnaz. He even knew the model – the Kasatka (“whale killer”). Homer had actually always wanted one. Now that he had two, he rather wished he didn’t, given the circumstances.

  Okay, he thought. No point putting this off.

  He took a deep breath, spat out his regulator, stuck one end of the wetsuit strip in his mouth, and bit down hard. Finally, he gripped the hard textured plastic of the protruding knife handle.

  And he yanked, just once, for all he was worth.

  The murky dimness around him went bright white again – and then black, for a good few seconds. After looping this knife’s lanyard around his wrist – he didn’t want to give up either trophy, not least since he might yet need them – he used the cut-away strip of wetsuit to wrap up his skewered arm, tight, and then tied it off with one hand and his teeth, before finally putting his regulator back in.

  He was already breathing raggedly from the pain.

  Now he checked out the chest wound, and found that it was shallow, and had pretty much stopped bleeding on its own. Which was good, because he would have had the devil’s time wrapping that up.

  He was good to go.

  A hand touched his elbow from behind.

  Soup Sandwich

  Jesus Two Zero - CSAR Mission, Over the South Atlantic

  There was a terrible and perilous asymmetry to the aerial gunnery contest taking place in the air above the CAG’s ditch site in the south Atlantic. Because the Russian Orca was static, holding hover, it made a much more stable firing platform for the shooters firing from it. But because it was static, it also should have been an easier target for the shooters on the Seahawk.