The Genesis Plague

12

Jason used his binoculars to survey the approaching military convoy. With all the dust being kicked up, he wondered why they even bothered painting the vehicles in desert camouflage paint.

The lead vehicle was a six-wheeled, twenty-ton behemoth with a V-hull — a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected armoured transport, or MRAP. Affixed to its front end was a huge mine roller that scraped the ground to pre-detonate any pressure-triggered improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, that might be buried in the roadway. To Jason, the apparatus looked more like a colossal paint roller or something that might be used to flatten asphalt. On the MRAP’s roof, he could make out a telescoping optics mast — infrared, heat sensors, the works. He suspected it had been retrofitted with metal detectors and radio frequency jamming equipment too.

Trailing like ducklings behind the MRAP were five flat-bellied Humvees.

He spied the Blackhawk again. Its side doors were open. Besides the pilot and copilot, he spied six marines inside the fuselage.

A conservative tabulation meant that twenty-five to thirty jar-heads would be arriving in the next five minutes. Marines weren’t always keen on cooperating with contractors. But circumstance dictated that a team effort would be critical to getting into that cave … and fast. Play nice, an inner voice told Jason.

‘Hey, Meat,’ Jason called out.

‘Yo.’

‘Print out those pictures, pronto. I need to send Hazo on a field trip.’

‘I’m on it.’

Hazo came over with a nervous look on his face. ‘Field trip?’

‘You know the locals,’ Jason explained. ‘I want you to take those pictures with you, show them around, figure out what those images on the wall can tell us. And I want you to see if anyone knows this woman whose ID we found melted to that door. No way she was here alone.’

Tentative, Hazo nodded. ‘I understand.’

‘Good. And don’t be long. I’m going to need your help here.’

‘But how will I get to the city?’

‘You’ll fly, of course.’ Jason pointed to the chopper.

While the twenty-eight light infantry troops of the 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Division Expeditionary Force, busily pitched camp, Jason convened with Colonel Bryce Crawford in the makeshift Bedouin command tent. Before he set out to brief the colonel on what had transpired, Jason requested Crawford to loan out his chopper for a critical fact-finding mission. It took some convincing, but Jason was a consummate diplomat. Jason then summoned Hazo inside.

‘Make it fast,’ Crawford warned Hazo. ‘No goofing around out there.’

Jason could tell that the forty-something, no-nonsense Texan — nothing but muscle dressed in crisp fatigues and a soft cap — intimidated Hazo. The Kurd cowered from the colonel’s tough, grey eyes and jutting square cleft chin.

‘Yes Colonel,’ Hazo replied sheepishly. ‘I promise to work quickly.’

‘Then why are you still standing here? Get moving!’ Crawford barked.

Jason watched Hazo scramble out from the tent, down the hill to the chopper.

‘A Kurd?’ Crawford grumbled, shaking his head with severe incredulity. ‘You sure he’s on our side, Sergeant?’

‘Hazo’s been thoroughly vetted. We’d be dead in the water without him.’

‘You guys really do march to a different drummer. If he fucks up, it’s on your head, Yaeger. Not mine. Got it?’

Jason nodded.

Crawford pummelled agitatedly to the Blackhawk pilot that the request had been granted.

They watched as the copilot helped Hazo into the fuselage jumpseat and secure his flight helmet. Then the copilot took his place in the cockpit. The rotors wound up and the chopper lifted into the air, spinning sand in its wash.

The colonel frowned as he scanned the inside of the tent. ‘Christ. How long you been living like this?’

‘Six months, give or take.’

‘Shit, cavemen had it better.’

‘We specialize in dirty work,’ Jason subtly reminded him.

‘Don’t play the martyr, Yaeger,’ he warned. ‘We’re all in the trenches in this shithole.’

Jason let the comment roll.

‘So tell me what we’ve got. I see a lot of blood and meat out there. Any of it ours?’

Jason shook his head. ‘No, sir. Four kills on the hill, eight more on the road. Five more holed up in that cave.’ Then he took a breath and dropped the bomb: ‘And we suspect that Fahim Al-Zahrani is in there with them.’

Crawford’s eyebrows tipped up. ‘Is that right,’ he said with a sardonic grin. ‘You expect me to believe that?’

‘See for yourself,’ Jason said, moving over to Meat’s laptop and bringing up the side-by-side pictures. ‘Took these myself. Ran facial rec on them. Perfect match.’

Crawford sat rigidly in the chair and gave each image a critical, dismantling stare, his sharp chin protruding outward. Finally, he said, ‘Well fuck my mother. This raghead is supposed to be in Afghanistan.’

‘They were trying to move him through the mountains.’

‘Sure they were. Slippery bastards are probably trying to bring him over the border to his buddies in Iran. Shit.’ He exhaled heavily. ‘Heard you called in an air strike. You sure some of that gunk smeared over those rocks isn’t him?’

‘Negative. Called off the strike on his position. I saw Al-Zahrani run into the cave. I’ve got video of that too.’

‘And he’s not buried under all that stone?’

‘Already pushed a Snake through the rubble. All clear on the other side. So far, we’ve seen no blood or bodies. And one of the hostiles managed to smash the camera. We’re pretty sure they’re all still trapped in there.’

Crawford nodded. ‘All right, Yaeger.’ His covetous eyes stayed glued to Al-Zahrani’s digital portrait. ‘I need this fucker alive.’

And there it was, thought Jason — the colonel’s subtle jockeying for claiming the prize as his own.

Then in the reflection of the computer monitor, Jason caught Crawford staring sideways at the cracked-open ID badge casing and its extracted chip which Meat had left beside the laptop. He swore he saw the colonel’s eyes go wide with alarm. It lasted only a fraction of a second.

‘You should know that that’s no ordinary cave up there,’ Jason said.

Crawford stood up, squared his shoulders and crossed his arms tight across his chest. ‘How so?’

Jason told him about the blown-out security door and the strange images carved into the entry tunnel’s wall. For now, he refrained from telling him about the ID badge they’d found — a calculated, risky move.

Crawford took fifteen seconds to mull the facts. Then he said, ‘All right, Yaeger. I get it. So what do you say we go ahead and plunge this toilet?’