The Day After Never - Covenant (Post-Apocalyptic Dystopian Thriller - Book 3) (31 page)

“This is Brett from the canyon end point. The Crew’s in retreat back down the canyon. No more than fifty left, but they wiped out our guys. Send more fighters. Repeat, they’re in retreat, but we need more fighters with NV gear. I can’t hear anything – ears are damaged. Over.”

Brett fell back, the stars overhead pinwheeling when he closed his eyes, deaf to the acknowledgement message that blared from the handheld and numb to the pain in his ears and the wounds from ricochets.

More fighters arrived ten minutes later, but by then Brett was dead, his life drained from him onto the rocks beneath, a serene expression on his youthful face. Their leader smoothed his eyes shut with a gloved hand and then adjusted the NV goggles strapped to his head before turning to his men.

“You heard him,” he said. “They’re trying to escape. Let’s make this the most difficult trip of their miserable lives.”

The gunmen nodded in unison. The sight of the hundreds of dead Crew glowing in their goggles gave proof that they’d prevailed, and now they would finish the battle for good. The leader made his way down a trail that ran along the crest, the satchel of grenades hanging from his shoulder and the M4 in his hands ready for what was to come. The men followed in silent determination, the only sound their boots on the dirt and the hiss of their breathing, NV goggles lighting the way.

Chapter 55

Lucas was preparing to unleash his final bursts when shooting erupted from his left. A scream from one of the guards carried from the road, and then a grenade exploded by the Browning and it fell silent. The gunmen shifted their focus to the new threat and a vicious firefight ensued, muzzle flashes lighting the night. Lucas held his fire, conserving his few precious rounds of ammo, and only after it became obvious that nobody was shooting at him any longer did he dare peer over the rocks.

The command tent opened and four gunmen emerged, Kalashnikovs at the ready, a mammoth of a man in their midst. One of them ran toward the river and called over his shoulder, “Magnus! This way. Hurry!”

Lucas raised his M4 and tried to sight on Magnus, but the Crew leader was moving too erratically, so Lucas settled for the nearest bodyguard. A three-round burst sent the man reeling backward, firing his rifle into the air, and Lucas shot him again to put him down hard.

More shooting drove Lucas back behind the rocks, and then a figure appeared out of the darkness behind him, firing as he ran to him. The gunman threw himself down as rounds snapped overhead, and Lucas rolled away and brought his M4 to bear on the new arrival.

“If I wanted you dead, you would be,” Arnold said, and rattled another burst at the Crew shooters.

“Thought you left,” Lucas said.

“I came back.”

“Just in time.”

“Better late than never, right?”

They both fired at a gunman who was using the corner of one of the buses for cover. Lucas aimed below it, trying for his legs. The man screamed, confirming that at least one of the slugs had done some damage. Lucas leaned toward Arnold. “Magnus is getting away.”

“What? Where?”

“He took off down the river.” Lucas exhaled loudly. “Lay down some cover fire for me, and I’ll go after him.”

“I don’t know where all the shooters are.”

“Do your best. He’s got three bodyguards with him.” Lucas paused. “You got any spare ammo?”

“I’m on my last mag.”

“Damn. All right. Toss another grenade at that bus, and when it goes, I’ll make for the river.”

“Got a few more of those left,” Arnold said, and extracted one from the pouch on the front of his flak jacket. He worked the pin loose and lobbed it high into the air. They waited for it to explode, and when it did, Lucas leapt up and ran for the river, the dirt around him geysering as shots narrowly missed him.

Once at the water, he slowed and swept the bank with his scope, searching for a sign of Magnus or his men. He spied motion downriver and stuck to the brush line as he followed the water, wincing at the sound of each footfall on the loose gravel. He stopped periodically and surveyed the way ahead in the green glow of the eyepiece, determined that the source of his misery not escape.

~ ~ ~

Magnus had been in the command tent with his security detail, listening in disbelief to the panicked radio report about his force’s rout from one of his surviving lieutenants. He was shaking his head as though he wasn’t hearing correctly and interrupted the man’s transmission with a growled threat not to return without Eve’s head.

Magnus had thrown the radio to the ground in disgust, his chest heaving beneath the bandoliers of grenades over his flak jacket, and glared at his men as though daring them to say anything.

An explosion rocked the tent, and everyone but Magnus hit the ground. He glowered at the entryway and stormed to it as his guards rose. “What was that?” he demanded, but was interrupted by gunfire from nearby. “Who’s shooting?” he yelled, and one of the guards poked his head out of the tent to see.

“Our men. They’re firing at the howitzer. The explosion was from there.”

“Why are they shooting at their own people? That’s insane.”

“I didn’t see anybody.”

More shooting erupted, and soon the sound of at least six AK-47s filled the air, answered by a higher pitched rifle from the artillery position. The gun battle intensified, and then the M2 came into the mix, its bass boom as distinctive as a fingerprint.

The explosion of a grenade rocked the bus beside the tent. The .50-cal stopped firing, and assault rifles joined the fray from the east. Magnus’s guards exchanged worried looks, and Magnus yelled at them, “Get me out of here!”

The head of the detail nodded and pushed from the entry, and the rest of the bodyguards surrounded Magnus, shielding him with their lives. The leader sprinted down the bank and called to him as he stepped from the tent. Magnus hesitated for a split second and then zigzagged toward the leader as one of the guards behind him went down shooting.

There was just enough starlight to make out the bank, the moon still low in the night sky, and Magnus trotted after his man as his other two gunmen guarded his rear. He had no idea how everything had gone so wrong so quickly, but he vowed he’d return with an even larger force and raze the earth. Visions of retribution filled his mind as he neared the river, and then shooting rattled from behind him, and one of his men screamed in agony.

~ ~ ~

Lucas spotted a Crew bodyguard and dropped into a crouch, steadying his aim as he fired a burst. The guard jerked as bullets shattered his front ceramic plate, and Lucas fired another three-round volley to ensure he was neutralized. Another bodyguard returned fire and Lucas dove to the side; the man obviously was equipped with a night scope, judging by how narrowly the shots missed. That changed everything – it was now three against one, and at least two hostiles with NV gear.

He debated whether to continue, and then the leaves beside him shredded from a full-auto burst, making the choice for him. He rolled into the brush with his rifle in front of him and glued the scope to his right eye, waiting for either a muzzle flash or movement. His patience was rewarded after fifteen seconds when another long burst rattled in his direction, and he stitched the area where the shooting had come from with three bursts of his own.

A body fell onto the bank, and Lucas nodded grimly. One down, two to go. Those odds he could deal with, after all he’d been through. Lucas scanned his surroundings and spotted a faint trail that paralleled the river. He moved cautiously onto it, staying low, finger on his trigger guard as he crept along the bank.

Lucas heard a rustle ahead and saw a pair of men disappear around a bend. He increased his speed and followed the curve…and barely escaped being shot when the surviving bodyguard opened up at him from behind a tree.

Lucas tucked and rolled, angry at himself for his overconfidence. That had been a mistake made in the heat of pursuit – one that had almost gotten him killed. He remained motionless, the bushes so thick he could barely make out anything, and thanked Providence that the bodyguard would have the same success seeing him.

More shooting missed him by several yards, and Lucas emptied the remainder of his magazine in methodically grouped bursts at the source, imagining a grid as he did so. He freed his Kimber and waited for more shooting and, when none occurred, pushed to his feet, shouldering the M4 sling and reaching for the monocle in his flak jacket pouch.

He didn’t see anything but empty bank, but his nerves were sounding a shrill warning as he made his way along the track. Assuming the bodyguard had bought the farm, that still left Magnus, who’d been carrying a pistol, nothing more. But Lucas didn’t want to assume he’d hit the bodyguard – the man might, even as Lucas moved forward, be lining up the reticule of a scope on his head.

Two minutes went by, and when Lucas was still alive and had advanced past the point from which the bodyguard had been firing, he stopped and regarded the bank. Magnus couldn’t disappear into thin air, and he couldn’t fly and didn’t appear to have much stealth or physical grace, so if he was moving, Lucas was confident he would see him eventually.

The game of cat and mouse came to an end when the snap of a twig no more than fifty yards up the bank echoed off the water. Lucas was instantly in motion and spied Magnus’s bulk running toward the nearby hill. Lucas slipped the monocle into his pouch and assumed a two-handed military stance to squeeze off five rounds from the Kimber. None hit Magnus, who twisted as he ran and fired back at Lucas. His aim went wild, the bullets missing by a wide margin.

Hitting a stationary object at fifty yards with a pistol was difficult at night, even if man-sized. A body in motion was nearly impossible, Lucas knew, but that wasn’t going to stop him from trying. He fired again and again, trying to anticipate the Crew boss’s movements, but in vain – the big man was more agile than he looked, and the gloom was working in his favor.

Lucas ejected a spent magazine and inserted a spare. He gave chase, but slowed as he neared a dense clump of the tall brush that dotted the hillside. Magnus could be behind any of the bushes, waiting to blow Lucas’s head off.

Lucas dropped to the ground in order to present as slim a target as possible and slid the monocle from his plate carrier. All he saw was scrub and rock, the side of the hill scored with small gullies. He waited, breathing heavily from the run, and then the earth near him sprayed into the air as more shots blasted from up the hill – these no more than thirty yards away. Lucas returned fire but didn’t hit anything.

Magnus was already on the move again, and Lucas pushed himself to his feet and gave chase, firing as he ran. Magnus emptied his pistol trying to hit him, and Lucas increased his speed as the warlord veered left and leapt across a six-foot gully before vanishing around an eroded rock formation.

Lucas slowed as he rounded the stones, but not in time to avoid a sledgehammer blow to his gun hand that knocked the Kimber from his grip. Magnus had jumped Lucas from a depression in the formation, leaving him with only his Bowie knife and a numb arm. The big man followed with a kick to Lucas’s solar plexus that his ceramic body armor absorbed most of, but the force knocked the wind from him and doubled him over. Lucas was reaching for his knife when Magnus’s knee caught him in the jaw, knocking him backward in a staggering fall, the pain blinding.

Magnus grinned in the dim moonlight, the occult symbols on his face lending him the appearance of a devil. He clenched and unclenched his hands as he neared, grunting like a wild beast. Lucas freed the knife with his left hand, but another kick whacked it from his grasp, and a spike of agony radiated from his wrist.

“I’m going to tear you apart, punkass,” Magnus growled, and rushed Lucas before he’d recovered. Magnus’s tree trunk arms wrapped around Lucas’s chest, crushing his ribs with viselike force. Lucas struggled for breath, but his lungs couldn’t expand, and he began to tremble as he fought for air, Magnus’s foul breath against his face. The warlord bounced Lucas like a rag doll, and the only thing that prevented all his ribs from cracking instantly was his body armor.

Magnus’s eyes gleamed at Lucas’s agony. Lucas tried to head butt him, but it had no effect but to amuse the madman, who tightened his grip even more. Magnus whispered in his ear, his voice a hiss. “You like that? Still wanna play? Do you?”

A snapping sound stopped Magnus cold, and Lucas drove a steel pin through Magnus’s eye. The warlord roared in agony and released Lucas, clawing at his eye, and then pawed at his bandolier in a panic as he realized where the pin had come from. Lucas dropped to the ground and dragged himself to the edge of the gully, tumbling into the wash as Magnus howled like a wounded beast.

The grenade blasted fire and stone in every direction, washing over the ground and sucking the oxygen from Lucas’s lungs at the bottom of the gulch, six feet below where Magnus had been atomized. The concussion of the explosion left Lucas dazed but alive, every muscle in his body aching from the mauling. Gagging at the stink of incinerated flesh from above, he probed his ribs beneath the flak jacket and was amazed that none appeared to be fractured.

A minute later, he emerged from the far end of the gully, lacking the energy to crawl back up the slope, and began trekking along the river to where silence had descended over the riparian expanse.

Chapter 56

Fewer than a third of the inhabitants remained alive and unwounded when the sun rose over Shangri-La, and another twenty-eight were suffering from injuries that varied from life-threatening to flesh wounds. The shelling had devastated the infrastructure, although the underground structures had mercifully remained intact, and most of the buildings above had sustained damage of one kind or another.

Elliot had been one of the lucky ones, but Michael had been injured during the shelling, suffering a broken arm and several deep lacerations along with a mild concussion. He stood beside Elliot with his arm in a sling and stitches crowning his head where he’d almost been brained when blown through the air by an exploding shell.