—
‘Hunter, you still with us?’
Alex’s eyes snapped open. Bronson frowned.
‘Focus,’ he grunted. ‘You and Stozer get out at point. We need to pick up speed and it’s getting a bit crowded.’ Since daybreak, the huge corridors of sunlight that streamed through the trees had closed in around them as the forest became denser. Having to check too many places for concealment would slow them down.
Alex nodded and turned to Stozer.
‘Fifty out front: double time.’ He started forward.
‘Yo.’ She followed him. They ran ten feet apart, slowing when they were fifty feet ahead of the other HAWCs.
She shot him a playful look. ‘Not getting any younger, Alex.’
‘I didn’t realize you were pacing yourself. You want to move faster?’
‘I was going to ask you the same thing.’ He could hear the smile in her voice. ‘If you’re ever going to buy me that drink, you’d better hurry; I’m fighting them off back home.’
He grinned. ‘You fight them off because you like to fight.’
‘And maybe you’re one of those guys who likes a woman to take control. I can do that too, you know.’
Alex laughed softly. ‘I’m sure you could. Right now, I’ve still got some stuff to shake off, but…’
She groaned. ‘Oh boy, still hung up on that kewpie doll, are you? What was her name, Angie? Wish someone carried a torch for me like that.’ Momentarily disappointed, she then seemed to grab another thought from the air.
‘Hey, jarhead, I’m still up for a drink. I’m betting one date with me, and anyone else will be history.’
He looked at her for a moment. The suit she wore, dappled in different shades of the forest, hugged her athletic figure; the woman looked formidable, strong, attractive. He might like that drink after all. Not like he was being unfaithful.
‘Maybe just one, then.’
‘Sure, to start.’ She grinned — then froze. ‘Company.’
Crouching, Alex held up his fist, and then flattened his hand — the HAWCs behind dropped out of sight. Holding his breath, he listened: there it was, the whisper of a word or two, the soft sound of a gun being handled, the lid of a food tin being slowly peeled back.
He turned to Bronson, held fingers to his eyes, and then pointed to the positions of the concealed soldiers. He then pointed at himself and Stozer, nominating their respective targets. He’d take the end team, the hardest to hit, having to pass the crossfire team to get to them.
Bronson nodded and made a downward stabbing motion with his fingers: no guns — knives only.
Getting down on his belly, Alex inched his way forward, slipping under logs, through the trees, his suit changing with the colors of the earth, leaves and wood around him. Stozer followed, keeping close. Alex knew that they wouldn’t be able to make it all the way to the ambush zone without being detected, but they didn’t need to. He just needed to get close enough to surprise and frighten the shit out of them.
He slowed when he was within forty feet. The soft murmur of voices continued. He reached down and pulled free his longest blade, the tanto edge K-bar — night-black and laser sharpened — it was more a cutting tool than a stabbing weapon, but with enough force it could be pushed through just about anything — and flesh and bone was easy.
Alex pulled one leg forward, tensing the huge muscle in his thigh, and counted down in his mind:
He passed by the crossfire team on his left before they were even aware their perimeter had been breached. As Alex expected, once they got over their initial surprise, they brought their guns around on him. But Alex moved fast, and made a difficult target. Most importantly, he’d got their attention.
Before him, he saw two more barrels aiming at his chest — he had arrived at his own target group. Alex launched himself into the air as Stozer broke cover.
He landed hard, crushing one man flat, and swept his blade across the fallen man’s throat, cutting it to the bones in his neck. Before the blood had time to spurt, he had already lunged at the remaining soldier who, whether by skill or good fortune, managed to fire off a round into Alex’s upper body.
The sun burst through the trees. Everything went white.
Hammerson’s voice yelled in his head, louder than the bloom of red pain he felt in his chest:
The Kevlar armor had taken the impact and diffused it across his torso. He probably had cracked ribs, but it was better than being dead.
If it had been luck the first time, the soldier had used up his quota. As he struggled to unjam his gun, Alex came back hard at him. The blackened knife, shining with blood, flashed upward and buried itself in the soft meat at the base of the soldier’s throat. It went in to the hilt. The man gurgled wetly as he sunk to his knees.
Alex took no pleasure in the kill; these men had been nothing but in the way. As he watched, the soldier’s eyes became glassy and clouded. He ripped the blade free and wiped it on the dead man’s jacket.
Stozer was using leaves to wipe blood from her chest and arms. Two bodies lay at her feet. She nodded to Alex. ‘We make a good team.’
Alex looked at the slashed bodies. ‘A bit untidy.’
Bronson brought the team forward.
‘We need to pick it up — if you two have finished gossiping, that is.’ He looked down at the circular burst on the front of Alex’s armor. It stayed black; the dappling mechanics built into the weave no longer worked around the impact area. ‘Medium caliber, and slowed down a little by the muffler. Still, that’s one of your nine lives gone, Hunter.’ He looked Alex in the eye and his own narrowed momentarily. ‘Lift your game — no one comes back from the dead.’
Alex grinned. ‘Only hurts when I laugh, boss.’
Bronson raised an eyebrow. ‘You laugh? I’ve never seen it.’ He pointed with his thumb along the trail. ‘Take us out again; I got the Doc.’
Alex nodded and turned, building quickly to a jog once again. Sam Stozer ran beside him.
CHAPTER 8
‘Shut up, you fool!’
Millinov’s mouth snapped shut and he almost dropped the phone.
‘I, I…’ He swallowed. ‘I just need to know what to do, Mr. President.’ Millinov glanced anxiously back at the video screen.
Once again one of the gray-looking blobs lumped at its center, its darker yolk-like core splitting into two in some sort of strange alien mitosis. Already the dozen or so that had dropped from the capsule had multiplied to five times their original number.
He had tried venting chlorine gas into the chamber. After it had cleared, the blobs still inched across every surface of the sealed room and Anatoly and Yelena were no more dead than before; instead, he discovered them vigorously piling alien blobs up against the chamber door.
‘Describe
Millinov licked his lips. Fear was making his stomach roil, and he suspected he would need to use the bathroom soon. He cleared the phlegm from his throat.
‘I think… I think they are using the creatures to dissolve the blast doors.’ While he watched, telltale wisps of
