Fallout

From the driver and passenger sides of the truck he heard the cab doors open, then slam shut. Footsteps crunched on gravel.

Fisher lowered himself to the ground and rolled out.

49

He came up in a crouch, plucked a pair of flashbang grenades from his web harness, pulled the pins, and tossed them through the truck’s canvas flaps. Also known as M84s, flashbangs contained no shrapnel, but upon explosion gave off a million-candela flash of white light and overlapping 180-decibel crashes.

Even as the grenades thunked off the steel bed inside, Fisher drew the SC-20 from its back holster, crab-stepped left, and brought the barrel up.

The major, evidently having heard the thump of the grenades and recognizing the sound for what it was, had already turned and was sprinting back to the cab. The flashbangs detonated. A wave of blinding light and sound blasted out the back of the canvas flaps.

Fisher fired. The bullet caught the major high on the right shoulder blade, shoving him forward. Fisher adjusted his aim, curled his finger on the trigger—

“Bastard!”

To his right, out of the corner of his eye, he saw something rushing toward him: slight figure, pale oval face, short black hair. Fisher started to turn, but too late. Carmen Hayes, her face drawn back into a rictus, arms windmilling, and hands clutched into talons, dove onto his back, screaming and scratching and biting.

Fisher stumbled sideways. He dropped his right shoulder, cocked his elbow, and slammed it into the center of Carmen’s face. Her nose shattered with a wet crunch. Blood gushed over her mouth and chin, but still she held on, fingernails clawing at his face. Fisher straightened up and ran backward, slamming her into the cave wall. Carmen grunted, held on.

The truck’s engine roared to life.

Now shouting in Kyrgyz came from inside the truck.

Fisher thought absently, Flashbangs wearing off.

Again he slammed Carmen against the wall, then again, then once more. She went limp and slid off his back. He spun, thumbed the SC-20’s selector to COTTONBALL. Afraid that with Carmen’s shattered nose a full dose would jeopardize her, he punched the ball into the ground beside her waist, then thumbed the selector back to the 2- SHOT, and turned to the truck. The white backup lights were on.

The truck started moving, accelerating down the hill toward the river.

The truck’s tailgate banged open, the canvas flaps flew back, followed by two, then three, then four soldiers leaping to the ground. Fisher took them as they came out and before they could get their guns up, double-tapping each one with a pair of bullets: torso… head… torso… head… torso… head. One by one they went down and rolled down the hill and into the water.

In his peripheral vision Fisher saw a hand appear out of the canvas flap and toss something toward him — baseball-size, oval-shaped. Fragmentation grenade. It landed with a thud in the gravel a few feet to his front and right. Shifting the SC-20 to his left hand and plucking a CS gas grenade from his harness with his right, he charged toward the grenade — a Russian RDG-5, he now saw — kicked it into the water, and side-armed the CS through the flaps.

Fwoomp!

The RDG-5 exploded. A geyser erupted from the river. A second later the CS grenade went off, and white gas gushed from the truck’s canvas folds. Inside, the soldiers began coughing and shouting.

Fisher kept running toward the back of the truck. He adjusted his aim and fired a burst into the rear tire, shifted aim, fired another burst into the next tire forward. With a whoosh-hiss, the tires exploded. The truck kept rolling, half skidding toward the right, yawing on its deflated tires.

Fisher leapt onto the step bumper, threw the flap back. The remaining four soldiers were sprawled around the inside of the bed, retching. One of them saw Fisher, shouted something in Kyrgyz, and brought his AK up. Fisher shot him in the throat, then shifted, fired again, killing the second, then again.

The truck jolted to a stop. Fisher fired, but he was already falling backward, so the shot went high and right, missing the last man. Fisher landed flat on his back on the gravel, head underwater. He jerked upright and shook his head to clear it. As his vision returned, he saw a broad, white oval shape sliding toward him, thought, Tank, and rolled left as it screeched off the tailgate and crashed onto the ground. It bounced once on its runners, tipped sideways, then righted itself and started sliding into the water.

The truck’s white backing lights went off. The truck ground up the hill a few feet, stopped. The backing lights came back on, and it rolled back down the slope. The bumper slammed into the tank, shoving the forward third of it into the water, the brownish fluid inside sloshing wildly. The truck’s wheels started spinning, the shredded right rear tires churning up mud and gravel.

In the truck bed, the last soldier stumbled onto the tailgate. He raised his AK across his chest, glanced at Fisher, then turned his attention to the tank. He jerked the rifle to his shoulder, finger curling on the trigger.

Fisher lifted the SC-20 and snapped off three quick shots. One went wide; the second drilled into the man’s ribs, the third into his forehead just above his eye. The man stumbled sideways and slumped back into the truck.

He rose to his knees and charged toward the cab, where he could see the major pounding the wheel, his teeth bared as he shouted what Fisher assumed were curses. Fisher glanced over his shoulder. The truck’s wheels were spitting a rooster tail of muddy water and gravel that peppered the cavern’s ceiling like hail. The tank was almost halfway into the water now, partially floating, rocking in the current.

Fisher took three bounding steps and skidded to a stop alongside the cab door. The major saw him in the corner of his eye. He stopped moving. He glanced at Fisher, hesitated, then turned back to the wheel and gunned the engine. Fisher fired a two-round burst, both bullets slamming into the man’s ear. He toppled sideways and disappeared from view.

Fisher sprinted forward, jerked the door open, shoved the major’s body across the seat onto the passenger- side floorboards, and looked around. Where is it, where is it? He gripped the parking brake handle, jerked it up into the locked position. He turned off the ignition and climbed down.

“Stop!” a female voice said.

Fisher froze. He swiveled his head right. Standing at the rear of the truck, AK-47 raised and leveled with Fisher’s chest, was Carmen Hayes.

Not enough Cottonball, Fisher thought. “Carmen—”

“Shut up! Do you know what you’ve done? Do you know?”

Her eyes glinted wildly in the dim light, but it was a vacuous intensity. Fisher had seen it before: the dead stare of a conditioned prisoner. Conditioned or not, he had no doubt she’d shoot him dead.

He lowered the SC-20 to his waist, the barrel slightly off her center, and raised his left hand in surrender.

“Carmen, I found your message,” Fisher said calmly.

She took a lurching step toward him. “Shut up! What? What message?”

“From your shoe. The insole. The message to your parents. They’ve been looking for you.”

Carmen stared at him for a long ten seconds. “No. I don’t know what—”

She started backing up, past the truck’s bumper. Her right heel bumped into the tank, which was resting, half on the gravel, half in the water. She sidestepped to the left half a foot and started backing down the side of the tank.

“Carmen, don’t—”

“I said, shut up!” she screeched.

One shove, Fisher thought. One shove, and it goes in the river.

“This is the only way,” Carmen said. She jerked her chin toward the tank. “This is the only way to stop it.”