The Aztec Prophecy

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Jack Camacho strapped himself into the front of the chopper as Kim Taylor, Scarlet Sloane, and the others piled in the back. Seconds later the pilot lifted the collective and the Venom powered up into the air. Thanks to the possibility of accidentally detonating the cobalt bomb, President Grant had refused to authorize an air-strike on the island, and instead instructed Jack Brooke to order a helicopter assault followed by an incursion on the ground. Despite his strong protests, Jack Brooke himself had been rushed by his Secret Service detail back to his plane and flown to DC as soon as the nature of the threat had been learned. He never even knew Alex was in California.

Now, Camacho smacked the magazine into the housing of his submachine gun and breathed out slowly to calm himself as his eyes drifted over San Francisco’s evening skyline. Market Street was buzzing as usual, and then they were over California Street and Broadway. The peninsula sloped down at Russian Hill to reveal the Marina District and beyond it the famous Palace of Fine Arts Theater and the Presidio. All those people, he thought, shaking his head with disbelief at just how much shit could hit the fan tonight if they failed to retake Alcatraz and stop Wade’s Hummingbird.

But he had no time to dwell on it. At less than two miles from the mainland, they were approaching the notorious prison island before they knew it. If there were any doubts about Wade’s commitment to destroy the city they were wiped out when several of the Sixth Sun cultists opened fire on the Venoms with an RPG. The pilot jerked the chopper hard to the right and Camacho whistled as the grenade shot past them and arced down into the gray water of the bay.

Ahead of them now, Alcatraz Island rose up out of San Francisco Bay. From this distance it looked peaceful enough in the hour or so before sunset. The island was world-famous for its isolation, and although there were some controversial escape claims, the official story was that no one had ever escaped from Alcatraz. The same thing that made it impossible to escape from also made it so difficult to attack.

“What if they just set the damned thing off?” he said, almost to himself.

“Unlikely,” Alex said. “This is a cult, remember. These people are brainwashed to believe anything Wade tells them, and he’s made it clear the bomb is to go off at a precise time — when the sun sets in Mexico.”

“Unlikely?” Lexi said. “That’s just the sort of reassurance I would need if I ever had to storm a prison island full of insane cultists about to set off a nuclear bomb.” She turned to face Alex. “Oh, wait… I do.”

An accompanying Viper covered the two Venoms as they descended over the southern section of the island and the teams prepared to exit and start their assault.

Camacho and the rest of his squad jumped from the choppers. Their boots crunched on the broken asphalt of the old parade ground to the south of the island’s main complex. They sprinted through the rotorwash toward the safety of the cliffs and their rides spun around and headed back to the peninsula, but before they could get away the Sixth Sun blew one of them out of the sky with an RPG. What ten seconds ago had been a fully-functioning US Army Bell Venom was now a gnarled heap of useless metal which streaked out of the sky leaving a grim trail of flames and black smoke in its wake.

The shockwave of the explosion blasted over them but Camacho never flinched. He craned his neck up and saw the targets gathering in strength in front of the Warden’s house, and some had even broken into the lighthouse and were setting up an M2 on the gallery deck.

“It’s nearly six o’clock, Jack!” Kim shouted. “That means nearly sunset in Mexico!”

Camacho nodded grimly. Wade had chosen sunset as the time for his ritual slaughter of the eight million people in the Bay Area. “Exact time?”

Scarlet glanced at her watch and frowned. “Five forty-five, Jackie Boy. We have fifteen minutes to save the world.”

Camacho heard the words and visualized San Francisco and the rest of the Bay Area getting nuked. Not on his watch, he thought.

Then Aurora Soto ripped the pin from a grenade and tossed it down the ridge. It exploded yards from Alex Reeve on the left flank to the north of the island. She flew through the air and landed with a heavy smack on the broken tarmac of the parade ground. She cried out as the jagged asphalt dug into her back but knew she had only seconds to get to cover. She rolled over and staggered to her feet, joining Camacho and the rest of the team at the guard block.

The grenade explosion had blasted a massive hole in the dirt wall of the cliff and killed two of the SWAT guys. She reloaded her gun and gave Camacho the signal that she was good to go, but there was that pain again, like a lightning bolt in her legs, and a strange numb feeling a second later.

Not now, damn it! she cried out.

But then it happened. Alex Reeve’s legs gave way and she fell to the floor like a marionette puppet with its strings cut.

“Jesus, no!” Scarlet said, running over to her. “Are you okay, Alex?”

The former SAS woman grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her into the cover of the ridge. Bullets and dirt danced around them like fireflies.

“No!” she wailed in agony. “I can’t move my legs.”

“Shit — seriously?”

Alex nodded her head, tears of pain running from her eyes.

Scarlet said nothing, but heaved her up over her shoulder. “Well if you think you’re going to get out of fighting that way you can think again you lazy cow.”

Even with the pain, Alex gave half a smile as Scarlet pounded across the gravel and got the two of them to safety. Empty shell-casings from the GPMGs rained down on their helmets. The short recoil-operated Browning M2s were a good choice by Wade, and now they were spitting .50 BMGs into the dirt and concrete all around them.

“The place is defended like Omaha Beach!” Kim yelled.

“I’ll buy that for a dollar!” Camacho screamed, and loosed a savage volley of fire from his weapon. Cultists tumbled over the edge of the ridge and crashed down behind them, but above their heads, the Sixth Sun members were still crawling all over the top of the ridge, almost playing with them. On the eastern slope of the island Camacho saw one of the SWAT teams had broken through a line of the cult’s defenses in the old residential building.

“This way!” he screamed, and they began to file up to the top past the residential building. The fighting grew less fierce as they gradually overwhelmed the cult and pushed inside the old prison building.

Inside was a vast cavernous space lined with cells stretching up several storeys, but the target destination was obvious. On the next floor of the west wing were the last survivors of the Order, including Aurora Soto, Jorge Mendoza and Juana Diaz. They were guarding the last frontier — a decrepit prison cell which now housed Morton Wade’s Hummingbird, the cobalt bomb capable of hundreds of times more destruction than any bomb ever detonated in history.

“Bastards are on the next floor!” Camacho yelled, reloading a fresh mag and giving more orders through the comms.

“How the hell did they get it up there?” Scarlet asked, gasping with the effort of running while holding Alex. She lowered her to the floor. “Just give me a second.”

“Leave me here…” Alex said.

“Are you kidding?” Camacho said. “This island is crawling with these crazies. You’re coming with us.” He heaved her over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift.

“Otis Traction freight elevator,” Kim said. “Saw it when I was a kid.”

“Huh?” Camacho said.

“They got the bomb to the next floor on an elevator.”

“Well, we’re going up the old-fashioned way,” Camacho said.

They moved to the next floor on the south side of the building while the SWAT team fanned out and climbed the northern staircase. A burst of savage fighting saw the two teams cut through the last remaining members of the Order until they could see only Jorge Mendoza and Juana Diaz defending the cobalt bomb.

“Where’s that mad bitch, Soto?” Scarlet asked.

Camacho shrugged his broad shoulders. “Gone AWOL.”

“Give it up, Jorge!” Jackson shouted through a megaphone. “It’s over.”

Jorge grabbed Diaz and pulled her inside the cell with a gun at her head. Now he seemed to be striking the side of the bomb with his gun.

“What’s he doing?” Alex asked.

“I think he’s trying to set the thing off early,” Kim said.

“Not possible,” Camacho said. “I think.”

Scarlet gave him an incredulous look. “You’ve reassured me, thanks.”

Across the other side of the cavernous prison, Jackson raised his submachine gun and fired, but in the chaos he missed. Jorge dived for cover, and dropped his gun as he scrambled under the bunk.

Scarlet watched as Juana Diaz picked up his gun and pulled the slider to push a round in the chamber.

“Put the gun down!” Jackson yelled.

Juana ignored him, and instead pointed the gun at Jorge.

He shielded his panicky eyes with sweaty, greasy hands. The same hands he had beaten her with a thousand times. “No! Espera! Por favor!”

But the girl with the black eye didn’t wait. With a look of pure hatred on her tortured face she fired the gun at Jorge, point blank, brutally unloading the entire magazine into the monster under the bed. When she was finished, all that was left was a smoking gun and the echo of gunfire fading into the evening.

Knowing the gun was now empty Jackson and his men rushed her and a second later she was on the concrete floor of the cell with half a dozen SWAT men on her, pulling her hands into a pair of cuffs and dragging her from the cell.

“All yours,” Jackson said, staring at the monstrous device sitting inside the cell.

Jack Camacho stuffed his gun in his holster and ran a shovel-like hand over the stubble on his head. One yard in front of him was the most dangerous bomb on the planet, and the timer said they had less than ten minutes to live.