Gorgon

CHAPTER 21

Alex and Sam led Corporal Barclay Jackson, Casey Franks, and HAWCs Ben Rogers and Steve ‘DK’ Dankirk, to the secure elevator that would take them down to the R&D facility several stories below the USSTRATCOM base. Even though the elevator could operationally accommodate ten, it would be filled by the bulk of these six.

‘Form up,’ Alex ordered, and they came to attention. Alex walked along the line, looking each soldier in the face. He stopped in front of Casey Franks — he knew and trusted her, and had been in the field with her before. She’d leap into a furnace if he asked her to. At five nine, she was half a head smaller than most HAWCs but he knew that under her suit she was all gristle, corded muscle, and tattoos. And she could fight like the devil itself.

Alex nodded to her. ‘Franks.’

‘Sir.’ Her eyes slid briefly to meet his. There might have been a small smile too, but it was quickly replaced by a hint of suspicion. It was hard to tell with the scar on her cheek pulling her face up on one side.

He moved on to Rogers and Dankirk — two blocky mid-westerners, both Sam’s choice. Alex had read their charts — both had good histories in the Rangers and SEALS. They had the right experience and excelled out in the field.

‘Rogers, Dankirk. You know where we’re going?’ Alex asked.

‘Hell and back, sir,’ they responded in unison.

It was the standard HAWC response. Basically it didn’t matter which hellhole or meat grinder they were dropped into; they’d enter, win, and then vanish like smoke. Leave with a smile and a shoeshine, as Hammerson always said.

Alex nodded, and moved on to Barclay Jackson. The SAS man stood a couple inches taller than him. He had scars on his cheek that ran down underneath his chin — evidence of a brutal life.

‘Jackson, I don’t know you yet, or what you can do,’ Alex said. ‘The moment we step on that plane, we cease to exist on paper — we’re effectively dead. But if you fuck up in the field, then you might get us all dead, real dead. I’m not going to let that happen. Understand?’

The man’s eyes never wavered. ‘I’ll keep up.’

‘Damn right you will.’

Once again, the technician, Walter Gray, met them as they exited the elevator.

He rubbed his hands together when he saw Sam. ‘Lieutenant Reid, good to see you again.’ He smiled briefly at the others, and then looked at Alex, who nodded, then continued down the sterile white tunnel. The others fell in behind him.

Gray walked fast to keep up. ‘Er, Lieutenant Reid … Sam, how’s the combat harness?’

Sam didn’t slow, but looked down. ‘Good. Fair bit of weight, but manageable.’

Gray was walking in a crouch, peering at Sam’s lower half. He reached out to touch Sam’s leg, but Sam batted his hand away, then grabbed the man’s shoulder. ‘Easy there, Doc, I already had my physical.’

Barclay Jackson grinned. ‘I think he was hoping to do a quick prostate check. You’re not a young man any more, Reid.’

Sam glared at Jackson. ‘You and me are gonna have at it before long.’

‘Don’t mind him,’ Franks said, jerking a thumb at Jackson. ‘Him and me don’t have to worry about getting ours checked — I hear it’s really only a problem if you have balls.’

Jackson threw his head back and laughed. ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours, Franks.’

She snorted. ‘You’re not my type — too girly.’

Walter Gray cleared his throat. ‘Very good everyone.’ He turned to Sam again. ‘I have the new power packs if you’re interested. Might lighten your load a bit.’

‘What you got?’

‘You’re using the standard Mark V, right?’ Gray asked.

Sam nodded.

‘Thought so — gives 5000 watts of power for ninety-six hours, or twenty-four in a maximum activity burst. But they’re heavy cells. With the Mark VI, we’re using degraded plutonium sheeting — it’s smaller, lighter, and will last a month, even at high activity.’

Sam nodded, impressed. ‘Any radiation or heat signature?’

Gray smiled. ‘No more than normal background trace.’

Sam grunted. ‘Sign me up.’

The HAWCs went from room to room, stocking up on the gear they needed — knives, explosives, and handguns. They selected some wireless assault projectiles, or WASPS: mini over-the-horizon missiles with enough smarts built into the tiny launcher that you could pick a target several miles away, and then let it go and do its job. The blast radius and impact was equivalent to a fragmentation grenade — a small delivery package with a big punch.

In the close-quarters room, Gray looked over his glasses at Alex. ‘Cartridges for your HKs — I’m assuming 9mm parabellums?’

Alex shrugged. ‘Sure. They get the job done.’

‘Sure do … for standard kit. But I want you to see something else.’

Gray pushed a stud and a door slid back into the wall to reveal a long narrow corridor with a target dummy at one end. On one wall hung a row of guns and other weapons, many of which Alex had never seen before. The HAWCs and Jackson crowded around, and Gray looked delighted with the sudden interest and attention. He took a pistol from the wall, selected some ammunition from a red box, and loaded a single bullet, also red-coated, into the chamber. He handed the pistol to Alex, then nodded to the dummy.

In one smooth motion Alex spun and fired, hitting the dummy in the center of its chest. Almost immediately a red spot appeared between the pectorals and bloomed outwards. Even from a hundred feet away Alex could feel the heat, and as he watched, the dummy melted from the inside out. Jets of halon gas whooshed down on the mess, suppressing but not fully dousing the flames.

‘Bam!’ Franks clapped. ‘I like it.’

Alex sniffed the barrel, then handed the gun back to Gray. ‘Thermite?’

Gray nodded. ‘Aluminum oxide thermite packed into a standard shell. Safe and stable until the projectile’s impact friction delivers enough heat to start the exothermic reaction. Burns at 4000 degrees, wet or dry.’ He grinned. ‘Makes for some great fun in the dark, and sure to get your adversary’s attention.’

Alex couldn’t help smiling at the scientist’s boyish enthusiasm for the deadly ammunition. ‘Pack a box … for each of us.’

‘Yeah!’ Casey Franks high-fived Ben Rogers.

Next stop was the combat body armor room.

‘It’s like Christmas, isn’t it?’ Gray chortled, rubbing his hands together.

Alex grinned. ‘Okay, Santa. The biological body armor — I want it for the entire team, and we need it processed now.’

Gray nodded. ‘We can do that. I can get the design programs started immediately, as soon as we’ve got the morphology measurements.’ He motioned the team into the room. ‘Lady and gentlemen.’

Alex hung back, and stopped Gray following them in. ‘The laser prototype.’

Gray nodded. ‘Yes, yes, the KBELT — klystron beam emitted-light technology. We’ve perfected the miniaturization, and added a pistol to the range. You have experience with them?’

Alex nodded, remembering the rifle he’d used on the Dark Rising mission in Iran. No stock, held like a sawn-off pump action, with a square casing over the trigger. There were two settings for the laser — high and low energy pulse. High energy cut a pencil-sized hole through anything; low energy gave about the same result as a hundred pounds of TNT delivered in a single, focused, explosive punch.

‘Did you overcome the short battery life?’ he asked.

Gray nodded, and took a step closer to Alex, his voice dropping. ‘It’s still highly classified. Only one man below the rank of general knows about it — Colonel Jack Hammerson. And now you.’ He looked up into Alex’s face, studying his features. His eyebrows came together. ‘You sure we’ve never met?’

‘Yes.’ Alex put his hand on Gray’s shoulder. ‘Now show me the KBELT pistol.’

Hammerson stood with his two teams on the runway. Alex, Sam, and their unit would leave first; with Reece Thompson, Matt Kearns, and Rebecca Watchorn boarding the second aircraft to Crete. The HAWCs’ suits, with the inbuilt synthetic biological armor plating, made them look like dark segmented insects.

Their rides, Lockheed SR-71 Blackbirds, were supposed to have been retired around 1996; however, the long-range reconnaissance aircraft were far too valuable to mothball, and were still in use for special payloads — Spec-Op teams that needed to be somewhere, fast. Each looked like a missile with its short wings and two huge muscular thrusters in close to the night-dark body painted with radar-reflecting paint. With a J58-P4 engine that could produce a static thrust of 32,000 pounds, the Blackbirds could cruise at Mach 3.2 — fast and near invisible. And if they were detected, at high altitude they could outrun a surface-to-air missile. Both planes had no insignia, and their pilots were also off the books. Once they crossed out of US airspace, they stopped existing.

Hammerson knew too well the burden this anonymity placed on the HAWCs, and on him. Too many young men and women lay in shallow unmarked graves around the world — Alex Hunter’s father being one of them. Hammerson gazed at Alex. The young man’s gray-blue eyes were clear; no hint of anything other than eagerness, intelligence, and explosive energy. He hoped the thing lurking somewhere within his mind remained chained behind whatever barrier Alex had created for it. If not … Hammerson didn’t want to think about the Other One taking control of his protégé in the field.

He looked around the group — no tension; just eagerness to get underway. Time for the talk, he thought.

‘The impossible jobs are ours,’ he said, and looked hard at his two senior soldiers. ‘Win or lose, no one knows but us — this is our lot. We are the HAWCs, the first line, the strongest line, and the last line. When we go in, others stand aside, or they die. Clear?’

‘HUA,’ the HAWCs said in unison, their eyes blazing.

Hammerson placed his hands on his hips. ‘Commander Kemel Baykal of the Turkish SF Kommandos went down to this thing. One hundred Special Forces soldiers, all lost. They threw everything at their target, but Magera went through them like they weren’t there. General Chilton has authorized a small HAWC unit intervention.’ He stepped in closer to the two big men. ‘So, goddamn intervene. I want to know what this thing really is. We know line of sight is high risk, and even viewing it remotely can be hazardous. We’re working on some tech to get around those limitations, but for now, use caution. As a minimum we want to know if it has a physical form. If it does, we can destroy it. And watch your backs — Borshov is on the ground there somewhere.’

He stood back and saluted. ‘HAWCs, it’s our turn now — make it count. Good luck and God speed.’

Alex saluted, then turned to his team. ‘Load ’em up, people.’

The HAWCs and the SAS man piled into the first Blackbird. Alex was last, and he turned and nodded to Hammerson before following his team onto the plane.

Hammerson’s face was grim. Magera, Borshov, and the Arcadian all in the same place at the same time, he thought. Hell on earth.

Uli Borshov and his six Spetsnaz left the truck several miles outside the town. It was still dark, with dawn several hours away. The communication intercepts had informed him of the fate of the Turkish Special Forces team, and he had to guess the Americans were here by now, or on their way. Whoever or whatever was wielding the weapon that had been decimating the Turkish population must be taken, alive or dead. The value of such power to Russia was incalculable.

Borshov knew he had a head start on the Americans, and he would use it to prepare a little surprise party. Obtaining the weapon was his priority order, but to him it was secondary to his personal objective. If he got to tear Alex Hunter’s head from his body, then he would be happy. He had fought HAWCS before and obliterated them. And he had killed Alex Hunter … or so he’d thought. This time, he would make sure. This time he would take a trophy; cut the head clean from his body, or slice his beating heart from his chest. No coming back from the dead this time, he thought grimly.

From his position overlooking the city, he saw that at its center the buildings were fairly modern, but on the outskirts the dwellings were more modest — single- and double-story homes, some looking well over a hundred years old, with smoke curling from their chimneys. It was if the further away from the center of Turgutlu you went, the farther back in time you traveled.

Borshov split his team into three units, with himself as a fourth. They would find dwellings to hide out in, and wait — for either the mysterious weapon to arrive or the HAWCs. He circled his finger in the air and the groups split and jogged toward the houses. If there were occupants, they would be subdued or killed.