Chimera

CHAPTER 41

Between Cave 1 and Cave 2

Bulatt and Achara were both crouched down against the protective mass of the huge granite boulder that had started out as a refuge from the devastating 50-caliber bullets; but had now become a snow-covered trap, because they realized they couldn’t leave it without exposing themselves to another barrage.

“Okay,” Bulatt said as he reached into his tunic pocket and pulled out his compass, “I think we can assume they’re on to us. It’s about time we called in the cavalry.” He took the compass in both hands, wrenched top and bottom in different directions, and then reached up and set it on top of the boulder.

“What’s it doing?” Achara asked.

“Ideally, it’s sending a distress signal up to a satellite and then down to Mike Takahara, along with our GPS position that tells him where to find us,” Bulatt said. “All we have to do is — ”

The incoming. 50-caliber round exploded into the top of the boulder, vaporizing several ounces of granite along with the GPS-transmitting compass, and sending Bulatt and Achara diving to the icy ground again.

“Are you okay?” Bulatt asked, winching as he rubbed at his ears.

“Yes, I’m fine, just frightened and angry,” Achara responded, blinking and shaking her head from the ear-ringing effects of the nearby concussive impact. “I don’t understand. How can they see us this far away, and in this storm?”

The big clumps of snowflakes were falling all around them now.

“They can’t, at least not clearly,” Bulatt said. “They’ve got some means of zeroing that one-oh-seven rifle in on transmitter signals — the walkie-talkies and apparently our emergency beacons as well. We’re not transmitting any more, but they still know our rough location. If we try to make a run for it, and they spot the movement, they’ll just start firing rounds in our general location, and keep it up until we run out of rocks to hide behind. Which, reminds me,” he said, reaching into his tunic pocket and coming out with two sets of ear plugs wrapped in cellophane packets, one of which he tossed to Achara. “Better put those in before we get deafened.”

“So what do we do, just stay here?” Achara demanded as she pulled out the sponge-like plugs and inserted them into her ears.

“No, we can’t; or, at least, I can’t. That Emerson character is moving in on Hateley right now. They must have realized he’s our critical witness. We lose Hateley, we lose the connection to Thailand.” As he was talking, Bulatt brushed the snow away from the M14’s rear sight, and then carefully turned the elevation knob six clicks.

“What are we going to do?”

“Who said anything about ‘we’?” Bulatt asked as he pulled the action rod back and then released it, sending a 7.62mm round into the M14’s chamber.

“You told me I had two choices if they started shooting, remember? I could either duck and run, or join you in fighting back? Well, I’m going to fight back.”

“Okay, fair enough,” Bulatt said as he slid over to the far side of the boulder, stuck the rifle barrel through a small gap between the massive granite rock and a smaller adjoining boulder, aimed, fired three rounds in the direction of the base camp, pulled the rifle back out of the gap, handed it to Achara, and began to unzip the white-cammo assault vest. As he did so, a pair of. 50-caliber rounds slammed into the back-side of the larger bounder, sending more vaporized rock flying in the air.

“Much better with the ear-plugs in,” Bulatt commented as he slid out of the heavy vest and set it down next to Achara.

“Do we have any chance at all of hitting them at this distance without a telescopic sight?” she asked.

“Highly unlikely,” Bulatt said, “but I could see the sniper post well enough with these goggles to line up on it; and you can too,” he added, gently tapping the M14 with his gloved hand. “This thing kicks a lot more that the rifles you’re used to, but you can handle it; especially if you brace the front stock in the gap between those rocks. I set the sights for seven hundred yards, which is probably a good guess, based on Lanyard’s map; doesn’t really matter as long as you’re firing high enough to keep them ducking. You’ve got seventeen more rounds in the rifle, and eight twenty-round mags in reserve.” He gestured at the assault vest. “If you can send a couple of rounds their way every minute or so, and keep your head down in the process, it may keep them distracted enough that they’ll forget about me for a while. Can you do that?”

“Of course I can,” Achara said, “but what are you going to do?”

“Get to Hateley before Emerson does,” Bulatt said as he drew the. 44 Magnum revolver from the shoulder holster under his tunic. “After that, we’ll work things out from there.”

Landing Zone, Cave 3

It was the thunderous pounding of huge feet on the cold, icy ground that caused Lanyard to turn his head, take one wide-eyed look, curse reflexively, and then run desperately for the helicopter.

The copilot, seeing Lanyard start to run out of the corner of his eye, also looked around, saw the on-coming beast, and grabbed for the throttles and controls.

The Blackhawk’s rotors were still coming up to speed, the copilot staring wide-eyed past Lanyard’s shoulder as the ex-SASR commando dove into the open cargo door. Lanyard looked back, realized that the charging beast was too close, scrambled out the opposite side door, and kept on running.

The pilots, desperately working to get the Blackhawk airborne, never had a chance.

The Blackhawk was just starting to lift off when the charging beast drove its thicker and straighter tusk through the metal skin of the helicopter and then yanked upward, sending the heavy rescue aircraft lurching sideways… and then exploding into hundreds of sharp fragments as the rotors disintegrated against the dirt and stone floor of the Maze.

The explosion sent Lanyard tumbling to the ground.

Stunned by the concussion of the helicopter’s exploding fuel tanks, and blinded by the glare of the roaring flames, it took the ex-SASR commando a good thirty seconds to regain awareness of his situation.

Pulling the now-useless night-vision goggles off his head, he tried to stand up, gasped at the sudden sensation of pain, looked down, and discovered that he’d been hit by one of the flying metal fragments from the shattered Blackhawk. He stared at the jagged edge of metal protruding from his right thigh for a long moment, started to pull it out; and only then became aware that he was not alone.

Less than a dozen feet away, a huge misshapen beast stood — highlighted in the glare of the helicopter flames and staring down at him — blood gushing from the stump of its once-too-long trunk.

Quince Lanyard had a moment to wonder why such a creature would have two tusks so differently shaped, and how such an odd twist of nature could possibly have occurred.

Then, stepping forward with the last impulse of its massive but suddenly-empty heart, the huge animal lurched forward to the ground, the momentum of its fall driving its one mammoth-like tusk through Lanyard’s upper torso and into the frozen ground.

Sniper Post, Base Camp

The unexpected flashes from the boulder he’d been shooting at, and the all-too-familiar sound of 7.62mm NATO rounds whistling over his head, sent Jack Gavin diving to the floor of the sniper post. In doing so, his knee slammed into the laptop, knocking it to the ground.

Gavin cursed as he fumbled for the small computer, set it back up on its sandbag table, and then blinked in dismay at the now-blank screen. He tried several keys, including the power button. Nothing.

“Oh bloody hell,” he whispered, and then ducked down again as three more rounds whipped past the sniper post.

Cursing savagely now, Gavin scrambled over to the platform-mounted rifle, reached up, pressed a button on the side of the mechanical mount to manually fire off two. 50-caliber rounds, and then looked around for the walkie-talkie that he’d dropped in the process of taking cover.

He finally found it behind one of the rifle cases, pressed the TALK button with the intent of calling Quince Lanyard to find out how to get the laptop back on again.

At that moment, a billowing ball of fire — followed by a loud, echoing explosion — erupted from the area of Bait Pile 3.

“Gecko-Three to Gecko-Two,” he yelled into the walkie-talkie, “do you copy?”

Silence.

“Gecko-Three to Gecko-Two, do you copy?” Gavin repeated after a moment, feeling a dull ache in his stomach.

Still nothing.

“Gecko-Three to — ” Gavin started to call again, and then remembered Wallis’ order.

Cursing, Gavin scrambled over to the platform-mounted sniper rifle. Working quickly, he disengaged the servo unit; set his right hand over the protruding metal stock of the rifle and his right eye up against the rubberized eyepiece of the night-scope; swung the cross-hairs slightly up and to the left; spotted a light-green-tunic-covered figure; instinctively pressed the manual-fire button to send a round streaking out into the darkness that missed high; started to steady the cross-hairs on the target… and then twisted away to the floor of the sniper post again when a second flurry of bullets — at least eight or nine this time — suddenly began whistling around his position.

One bullet punched a hole in the over-head tarp, and a second ripped through a sandbag above Gavin’s head, sending a stream of sand and snow pouring onto his head. The rest of the bullets streaked through the snow-filled air, disappearing into the darkness without seeming to impact anything close by.

“Bloody hell, Quince, what do I do now?” Gavin whispered, staring down at the apparently dead laptop.

As if in response, Gavin’s walkie-talkie suddenly squawked.

“Gecko-One to Gecko-Three, was that the chopper?”

Wallis.

Gavin raised the walkie-talkie to his mouth. “I think so.”

“Did you hear anything from Gecko-Two after the explosion?”

“Negative. Two tries, no response.”

“Stay focused, lad,” Wallis said calmly. “Have you still got the Gunny and the lass pinned down?”

“Negative,” Gavin said. “One of them started popping off rounds in my direction while the other one took off toward Cave-One again. The computer took a spill and won’t come back on, so I had to switch the one-oh-seven over to manual.”

“Probably the lass on the M14,” Wallis replied after a moment. “Don’t spend much time worrying about her; she’s too far out for anything but a lucky shot. Try to get the Gunny pinned down again. I need more time; up to my arse in this bloody snow. Gecko-One, out.”

Muttering to himself, Gavin unscrewed the cables from the M107’s digital night scope, unclamped and removed the rifle from the platform mount, settled it into one of the sandbags, brought the eyepiece of the scope up to his eye again, and began sweeping the area where he’d last seen the scrambling figure; trying to find open patches in the huge expanse of falling snow where he could actually see a rock or tree.

For three minutes… four… then five, Gavin continued to scan his target area with the patience of a man who had done this sort of thing many times before, and knew he had every advantage. It was only a matter of time.

A pale-green-tunic-covered figure suddenly flicked into view for a brief moment. Gavin fired instinctively; saw the impact point against a rock at the upper left portion of the scope’s field; realized he’d led his target a little too much; shifted his aim; started to squeeze on the trigger again; and then lunged backwards as a third barrage of bullets began hitting all around the sniper post.

Stunned by the suddenly-increased accuracy of the incoming bullets, Gavin shoved the heavy M107 rifle aside, grabbed the nearby M4 carbine, thumbed the selector switch to full auto, held it up over the sandbag barrier, and sent a stream of 5.56mm bullets flying out into the darkness.