Myrmidon

CHAPTER TWENTY

“Get moving,” Belcher told his underlings. “Get these doors open.” Two-man teams spread out among the igloos, already kneading their lumps of plastic explosives in their hands. Belcher started to give more orders, but at that moment Charlie, the big, tattooed guy, came running up to bring some news.

“We’ve got helos coming in from the north, sir,” he said.

“Already?” Belcher asked. He checked his watch. “How many?”

“Just two so far,” Charlie said.

Belcher nodded. “Those are just doing recon. The main force is still on its way. We need to bring those two down—get men with Stingers up on the administrative buildings. Tell them not to fire until the helicopters are well within range. We can’t afford to waste any of those missiles.” He turned to look at Chapel. “I don’t want your friends just paving this place over with bombs. I need to discourage them from committing air support.” It seemed he wanted Chapel to know every detail of his plan. So, afterward, he could explain how it had gone down, of course. A witness was only as good as the things he saw or heard.

“A good bombardment on the igloos would be perfect for dispersing the gas,” he told Chapel. “But then I wouldn’t get as many infantry in my cloud. No, I need them to commit ground forces. If I shoot down enough helicopters, they’ll bring in the troops, if just to take out my missile positions.”

“They can do that with snipers, or artillery,” Chapel said, wishing it were true.

But Belcher had been in the army. He knew standard operating procedure. “Too much ground to cover, and they know what I have here. They can’t afford to put us under siege and wait us out—they’ll need to make a full assault.”

“Drone strikes. Hellfire missiles are pretty accurate,” Chapel countered.

Belcher smiled. “Are you actually giving me advice?”

“I’m trying to convince you this isn’t going to work,” Chapel said.

“Well, you can stop. I know the majority of the drone forces are already tasked overseas. What they could bring to bear here would be just a handful of old, first-generation Predators, and that would never be enough. I’m going to get my infantry attack, one way or another.”

He walked away from Chapel then to greet a line of men coming up with wheelbarrows. They were hauling hundreds of identical parcels, and when they came close enough, Chapel saw what gifts they bore. Each of the parcels was made of a small oil drum with a cheap cell phone duct-taped to it. Homemade bombs, probably stuffed full of diesel fuel and fertilizer. The cell phones would be wired to detonators—as soon as someone called their numbers, they would set off the explosives. They had hundreds of the bombs, enough to put one in each igloo. They weren’t very big, but they didn’t need to be. The shells stored in those igloos were all loaded with explosive warheads of their own. Once the bombs went off, they would trigger a chain reaction inside the igloos, cooking off the shells like strings of firecrackers. The igloos’ reinforced walls were designed to contain such a blast, but with the doors open, the shock waves of the repetitive explosions would only push the gas out faster, turning each igloo into a jet of dense mustard gas.

Another group of men came up pushing carts full of what looked like army uniforms, until Chapel saw the gloves and hoods attached to them. A neo-Nazi held one up by its shoulders to show Belcher, and Chapel got a good look at it and confirmed what he’d suspected. They were NBC suits—nuclear bacteriological chemical protective suits—designed to protect soldiers from the very sort of weapons stored at the depot. Chapel had trained in such a suit back in basic, years and years ago, and knew they were clunky and uncomfortable and got ridiculously hot, but they were far more flexible and tough than civilian hazmat suits. Like all the best army technology, they were heavily overdesigned. They were airtight, with an integrated rebreather system built into a backpack, so the wearer didn’t need to rely on outside air that might be tainted or full of radioactive dust. The suits inflated slightly when you put them on, giving them a positive internal pressure so even if they were pierced—say, by an enemy bullet—your air would leak out and the contaminated air outside wouldn’t leak in. The uniform parts were even lined with a thin sheet of lead to keep out ionizing radiation.

It made sense that a good supply of the suits would be on hand in one of the otherwise-empty warehouses back by the administrative buildings—if anyone was ever going to need them, it would be the guards who worked at the depot. Chapel was surprised, though, to see that Belcher had called for them.

“I thought you wanted to go down in a blaze of glory,” Chapel called out, trying to get Belcher’s attention.

The terrorist looked over at him with a grin. He didn’t answer—he didn’t need to. Instead, he took a combat knife from his belt and started slicing through the reinforced fabric of the suit his underling held. The suit was designed to resist punctures, and the lead lining would make it like trying to cut through a tin can. Belcher had to saw away for a while just to make a good hole in the suit, but when he was done, he held it up and showed it to all his gathered people. “When Cortez came to Mexico, when he knocked over the Aztecs, his men saw the odds against them,” he announced.

The neo-Nazis around him looked confused, but every eye stayed on Belcher, every ear strained for what he would say next.

“Cortez knew there could be no going back. So you know what he did? He went down to the ships that had brought his men to Mexico. And he set every one of them on fire. The message was clear. He was demanding nothing less than total commitment. That’s all I’m asking from you. There aren’t enough of these for all of us. So nobody gets one. Not even me!”

There was some cheering at that, though it wasn’t exactly the hooting and hollering Chapel had heard after the neo-Nazis first stormed the depot. Nobody complained or protested, though.

All these men were ready to die for their cause.