Juggernaut

Movement from waste ground in front of the convoy. The sand crust began to ripple and bulge. Skeletal hands broke from the dirt. Dozens of naked, half-dissected creatures squirmed upward into daylight.

‘My God,’ murmured Lucy. ‘Must be some kind of mass grave.’

The vivisected soldiers climbed to their feet, trailing shroud-sheets. Skin half-melted by caustic lime. Their chest cavities were wired open. Their scalps were peeled back. Their skulls were drilled.

The skeletal army began to stagger and crawl towards the locomotive.

‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ murmured Amanda.

Lucy aimed her rifle. Amanda pressed the butt of the SAW to her shoulder. They both opened fire. Muzzle roar and flame.

The Bomb

One hundred miles from target

Tomasz descended the cockpit ladder to the cargo bay.

Ribbed girders. The bullet-pocked skin of the plane patched like the sail fabric of an old ship.

The exterior fuselage still bore the insignia of 302 Tactical Airlift Wing. Paint had been scoured from the side door, but the aluminium retained a shadow impression like a fading tattoo. A relic of the plane’s glory years. Fresh out the Fairchild plant, shipped to Bien Hoa to fly defoliation missions along the banks of the Mekong. Skimming the treeline, taking small-arm dings as it vented Agent Orange into the jungle canopy.

This would be the plane’s last mission. As soon as the Provider returned to the staging base at Sharjah it would be issued with a fresh tail number and fresh registration. It would be flown to Thailand or the Philippines. It would be discreetly gutted and scrapped. Or maybe parked, strung with speakers and lights, and finish its days as a beach bar.

Unchained Melody.

A big, black cylinder. Riveted plate, like a ship’s boiler.

Tomasz used a wrench to unscrew lock-nuts and remove a side panel.

He flicked a couple of toggle switches. Batt Test Green power light.

He pulled a high-impact Peli case from beneath a bench seat. Four rods packed in foam. The fuses. High-explosive cores.

He removed safety caps and slotted each of the igniters into the primer panel. He screwed them in place. Quadruple failsafe: baro switch, radar proximity, hydrostatic pressure, interval timer. A button above each fuse. Test. He got green Go lights from each arming circuit.

He adjusted the mechanical altimeter. Set for airburst at nine hundred feet.

He took three brown envelopes from the lid pocket of the case, and tore them open. Three numbered keys. He inserted the keys into the fire panel. PALs. Permissive Action Links. Three safing lock-outs to prevented premature detonation of the weapon.

A final visual inspection of the drogue chutes packed in a canvas sling at the nose of the bomb. Rip-cord clipped to a hundred-metre tether.

He returned to the cockpit.

‘All set?’ asked Jakub.

‘Flick the switch and we are ready to rock and roll.’

A voice from the sat com. A woman. Tired, desperate.

‘Hello? Hello? Can you hear us? This is Lucy Whyte. There are British and American citizens at your target site. Do you copy?’

‘I don’t like it,’ said Jakub. ‘She’s English. No fucking camel jockey, that’s for sure.’

‘There are wounded personnel at your target site requesting urgent evacuation, over.’

‘Mercs,’ said Tomasz. ‘Stateless scum blocking a lawful military target.’

‘Hello? Incoming plane, do you copy?’

‘Put it from your mind. Fly straight and do your fucking job.’

Fallback

Lucy dropped the spent clip from her rifle and slapped home a fresh magazine. She gulped from her canteen. She poured water over her head.

Two soldiers, a hundred yards distant. She fired. She missed.

‘Fuck.’

She wiped sweat from her eyes. She took aim and fired again.

Amanda clipped a fresh ammunition belt into the smoking breach of the SAW and slammed the receiver closed.

The window was framed by a shredded, muzzle-scorched velvet curtain. She tore it loose and stamped out embers.

‘Got any more Codeine?’ she asked.

Lucy passed her a foil blister-strip.

Amanda knocked back a pill. She swigged mineral water and sprayed a mouthful over the SAW barrel. Droplets steamed and fizzled, like spit on a hot plate.

She chewed balls of paper, moulded them into plugs and twisted them into her ears.

She gripped the SAW. Burst fire. She trembled with fierce recoil.

A line of advancing soldiers hurled backward by heavy. 50 cal rounds. Five men, chests ripped open, spines broken, heads split.

Some lay dead, clothes burning. Some struggled to stand. They trailed viscera. They dragged useless legs.

A second sweep of machine-gunfire shattered skulls and reduced the soldiers to rags and splintered, bloody bone.

Amanda pulled off Nomex gloves and wrapped surgical tape round her red-raw trigger finger.

A thud. She pulled the plugs from her ears. A second thud.