Juggernaut

A figure pushed through the crowd. Khaki camouflage gear streaked with blood and grime. A Sisters of Mercy tour shirt bulged tight over erupting carcinomas. Huang. His face was swollen and distended. Arms bristled with metallic spines.

Huang climbed onto the hood of the cash truck. He snarled and tried to punch through the windshield. He shattered his hand. He kept punching. Blood spattered the glass.

Voss cranked down the cab’s side window and squirmed out. Grasping hands tore at his clothes and rifle strap. He pulled himself free.

He climbed onto the cab. He walked across the roof.

He leapt and landed awkwardly on the hood of the fuel truck. Hands clawed for him. He climbed onto the Kraz cab, then walked the length of the fuel tank.

‘Come on, fuckers,’ he shouted.

He looked down at grasping, jostling soldiers surrounding the tanker. They reached up for him.

Voss wiped blood from his eyes with the back of his hand. He took a pouch of Red Man from his pocket and folded tobacco into his mouth.

A skeletal abomination gripped the ladder and began to haul itself rung over rung. Voss waited until the creature reached the tanker roof. He delivered a jaw-breaking kick to the head.

‘Fok jou.’

The soldier drooled teeth and toppled into the crowd.

Voss stamped on the green Start button of the fuel pump. The segmented transfer line convulsed and gulped diesel. Gasoline bubbled from the pipe, washed into the sand, soaked booted feet, turned the ground beneath the truck into a viscous quagmire.

Huang scaled the fuel truck. He climbed from the heavy fender onto the hood. He climbed the cab to the storage tank.

He stood facing Voss. A simian crouch, like he was preparing to attack.

‘How’s it going?’ asked Voss. He slotted the high-explosive round into the grenade launcher. He snapped the breach closed.

Huang emitted a low, stuttering snarl.

‘Yeah,’ said Voss. ‘Me too.’

He took a last look around at the world.

‘Been a long fucking day.’

He pointed the rifle between his feet and fired into the tanker hull. The world winked out.

The Bomb

Fifty miles from target

The cargo hold. Fuselage reverberating with the steady drone of Pratt and Whitney turboprops.

Tomasz conducted a last visual inspection of the bomb. He stroked riveted metal.

He checked the delivery frame. The massive thermobaric device sat on a scaffold bed. When the moment came to deploy, Jakub would pull back the joystick. The C123 would tilt and lift, Unchained Melody would be carried to the rear cargo door on greased runners and ejected from the plane. A hundred yards of tether would quickly play out and trip the drogue chutes. Jakub would bank the plane hard left and climb. Thirty seconds to fly clear before the primary barometric fuse initiated a Hiroshima-sized detonation wave, an expanding bubble of over-pressure that would smash the plane from the sky.

Tomasz checked the trigger panel.

Isolators to Off.

Master Safety to Off.

He slotted a final key into the primer console and switched from Safe to Enable. Amber indicators winked red. Weapon armed. The bomb began an insistent warning beep.

Tomasz replaced the cover panel and span lock nuts.

He cranked a wall lever. Whine of hydraulics. Typhoon roar as the loading ramp at the rear of the plane began to open. He gripped a wall strap for support. He saw blue sky. He saw desert, thousands of feet below.

He returned to the co-pilot seat.

‘Final confirmation?’ he asked.

‘Koell says green light.’

‘All right, then. Hot to trot, baby.’

He opened his backpack. Thermos flask. Cheetos. Hustler. He took out a video camera. He checked for charge and removed the lens cap.

‘What’s that for?’ asked Jakub.

‘Koell wants pictures. Says he wants to see the valley burn. Says he’s got to see it for himself. Jerk off over it, or something.’

‘What about the drone?’

‘Probably long gone. Landed, defuelled, broken down, trucked back to base. Koell doesn’t want those recon guys sitting in their downlink van, taping the big bang and mailing it to their buddies. Strictly eyes only.’

Tomasz unfolded the map. Blank desert. Empty grid. Rippling contour lines indicated northern hills. A crude red X marked the target site.

‘How far are we from the objective?’

‘About twenty-six miles,’ said Jakub. ‘Making good time.’

Tomasz looked out the cockpit at the hogback ridge of hills slowly emerging from the haze up ahead. A barren, biblical landscape.

‘There she is. Valley four-oh-three.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Jakub. A black smudge rising into the sky. ‘Smoke? There’s a smoke plume rising from the valley. Something is burning.’

‘Be burning for real in a couple of minutes.’

‘I can’t do it, bro,’ said Jakub. ‘There are people down there. Yanks, Brits, whatever. Our guys. White hats. We should give them time to get clear.’

‘Don’t fuck around. This is it. This is the bomb run. Just fly straight and hit the tail release. That’s all you have to do.’

‘I can’t. I can’t do it.’

‘Shit, let me have control. Film, all right? Take the camera and film.’