Chapter 22
Occam
Villa Cyranno , Venezuela
“Flamethrower, over here! Now!” came the yell. Hannah jumped and came out of her reverie. Sergeant Wooderson grabbed a flamethrower and the two of them ran over to the sound of the call, Chung’s voice from the sound of it.
Stood near a small hut was Specialist Storm, his P-90 machine-gun smoking. To his left were Lt Chung and Specialist Newman, the engineer. Newman looked pale and shocked. Chung waved his arms and pointed.
“There, there. Burn it!” he shouted. Hannah raised her P-90 sub-machine gun and aimed at the target. She felt her breath catch in her throat.
“It’s Hunter?” asked Wooderson in a strangled voice.
“It was, fuckin’ burn it!” yelled Storm.
A writhing body lay on the floor, its arms reaching forward, its legs flattened out below it. There was blood everywhere. The face was now unrecognizable, it’s eyes and mouth had vanished under a storm of blood.
“Good God in heaven,” said Hannah to herself.
“Burn the fucker!” shouted Storm.
Wooderson finally came to life, he triggered the flamethrower but his aim was slightly off. A jet of burning fuel coursed across the legs and lower body of what had once been Lyle Hunter. There was a terrible low howling sound from it.
Hannah moved towards Chung, keeping her weapon on it as it burned.
“What happened?” she asked. Chung’s face became a capital O of surprise.
“Fuck me,” exclaimed Storm. She saw Storm feed a fresh magazine into his P-90. She turned to look at the burning creature and felt her stomach heave.
At first there had just been a strange sound, something leathery being twisted. Then there were a series of quick, cracking sounds like an old branch being broken. Hannah looked at what had once been Lyle Hunter, a quiet kid from Oklahoma
There was a terrible ripping, cracking, rending sound as the upper body separated itself, with a twist from the lower half. The arms, bent bizarrely at the elbows, now functioned as legs and walked the upper body away from the burning lower body.
“Oh God!” cried Newman and took a huge step backwards.
“Wood!” shouted Storm at Sergeant Wooderson. “Burn it, burn it now!”
“It’s still moving,” said Chung, a look of horror and wonder mixing on his face.
Wooderson, a veteran air force man, finally broke out of his shock. He leant into the flame-thrower and fired. The flames roared and the upper half of Hunter caught fire too. It crawled, ran and fell with a terrible high pitched shriek.
“Don’t put it out, let it burn,” said Hannah, finally able to speak.
“It’d be quite something to dissect one of those things,” Said Chung.
“Good luck with that one el-tee,” said Storm.
“Hunter was one of them?” asked Wooderson. “How did you know?”
Storm looked at Wooderson and the others, a long careful look. Hannah noticed his grey eyes, smart eyes. She’d never really thought about Storm’s intelligence before.
“Nothin’ personal Sarge, but how do I know you aint one of em either?” said Storm.
“What? I just burned that one didn’t I?” replied Wooderson, his indignation standing out clearly.
“Yeah that don’t mean much to me,” said Storm, slowly.
“He’s right, if I was one of them, I’d burn another one to make myself seem like a normal person, to gain acceptance,” said Chung. “It’s a classic albino alligator move,”
Hannah shivered briefly.
Hannah walked away. She tried to focus on what was happening but there was an inherent problem with what was going on, they didn’t know who was human and who wasn’t anymore.
“Someone needs to get in touch with Major Dalton,” she said. She took out her radio-mic and opened up a channel to the helicopter.
“This is McPherson, give me Ostrow,” she said.
“This is Dalton
“Major, what’s the sit-rep there?” she asked.
“Jones and Harrison are dead. We secured the situation,” came the reply.
“Jesus, Sergeant Harrison?” she said, stunned. The veteran Sergeant had seemed invulnerable.
“Do you have the situation locked down there?” he asked her.
“Yes sir, yes we do. Spec Hunter is dead; he was one of the infiltrators. We burned him,” A hand appeared on Hannah’s shoulder, she spun around.
It was Lt Chung.
“Careful what you tell him,” he said quietly.
“Why?” she asked. But she already knew why.
“Lieutenant, repeat your last,” he said.
“Major, we really need you here to brief us and take command and control,” she said back.
“Negative, I’ve been requested back at Sat-Com. Captain Dietz will take command now,”
“Sir, we really need you here,” she said again.
“Negative Lieutenant. This is Dalton
“What do you think?” asked Chung.
“Why should I tell you? For all I know, you’re one of them too,” she said bitterly.
Sat-Com, Somewhere in Virginia
Major General Tom Petersen was back in his office again. He took a bottle of Glen Moran from his desk draw and poured himself a glass. He knocked it back in one go. The pain in his arms and knees was bad today, the worst it had been since he was first diagnosed.
He looked up at the wall, letters of commendation were framed, along with his presentation medal for his Silver Star. He’d earned that one in blood, he’d been one lucky SOB to survive that ambush. But compared to the VC, his new enemy was even more insidious. They were in the same uniform as his men.
The phone rang and Petersen picked it up.
“Petersen,” he barked.
“General, I’ve got Brigadier General Blackburn on the line here,” came a voice.
“Put him through,” said the General.
“General, what do you need?” came the voice.
“Todd, how are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m good thank you General. All ready to roll, I just need to know what’s going on,”
“I’m going to cut to the fucking desert course Todd, we’ve got a possible infiltration situation here,”
“That sounds very cold war sir,” came the reply. Punk Kid, thought Petersen.
“Listen carefully son, someone in the chain of command is going into business for themselves and I need to flush them out. You’re old man was a reliable guy, a fucking hard man. What about you?” There was a moment or two of silence.
“Do you have orders from the President?” came the reply.
“Yes I do,” Said Petersen.
“Then I’m in sir. Show me who we need to bust up and I’ll bust em.”
“That’s the spirit. There’s a base operating illegally on US
“Yes sir,” came the reply. Solid, the kid was solid.
“Get it done, I’m sending the co-ordinates over a secure link to you now. Don’t follow any other orders unless they come from me, the Secretary of Defense or the Commander in Chief,”
“Yes sir. Blackburn out,”
Petersen poured himself another glass.
“Well, we’re in this now,” he said to no one.
Villa Escobar , Venezuela
There was a fierce fire-fight going on, Marines and US
Lt Rush leant back against a wall, rounds zipping overhead like little hornets. Rush remembered the old line from basic;
“A snap means its close, a hiss means you need to get down,”
Rush took out his radio microphone.
“This is Lieutenant Price here, I need reinforcments at phase-line green, urgent. We’re about to be overrun,”
A reassuring female voice came over the radio.
“Black Two, please repeat your sit-rep here, I’ve got the general on the line,”
“This is Black-Two, I’m under severe attack from Red forces, US army personnel. We’re being overrun. I request urgen support at phase-line green. This is urgen,”
“You’re being overrun?” came the question, this time it was a man’s voice.
“Yes sir.” Repeated Rush.
“Okay son, you sit tight and I’ll do what I can. You understand what I mean?”
“I guess so sir, we’ll hold on if we can,” said Rush. Rush hung up the phone and raised a rifle.
Satcom, Somewhere in Virginia
“Okay that’s official then.” Said General Petersen. “Mark it,”
A tech-sergeant marked the board and the small symbol at Infected Zone Two changed.
“Get me Angel,” said the General.
“Angel is on the line sir, “said a very young Lieutenant
“Angel, this is General Petersen. Execute “Troy ”, repeat “Troy
There was a moment of crackling silence. Then a muffled synthetic voice replied.
“Yes sir, Troy
Villa Escobar , Venezuela
Rush ducked and then aimed up and fired again. US army troops were all over the perimeter. Odell dropped in alongside him, reloading his SAW machinegun as he went.
“We’re being overrun el-tee, what do we do?” he asked.
“I don’t know, do your best Odell,” replied Rush.
Odell nodded, cleared his magazine and then opened fire again. Rush heard the engines of a plane above.
“Spooky?” asked Odell briefly, over a lull in fire.
“Maybe,” Rush thought it did sound like a Specter Gunship. The huge twin prop plane was a gunship and a half. If it was coming in to help, maybe, just maybe, they would have enough firepower to at least withdraw, if not hold off this assault.
There was a sudden blinding light and then a rush of air, Rush felt his lungs empty and his eyes seemed to roll back in their head. Then there was a searing heat and Villa Escobar was “secured”.
A huge plume of smoke began to rise where the village had been, an AC-160 Gunship wheeled away.
The breakdown of trust is a vicious thing!
ReplyDeleteHow does Peterson know the coordinates of the renegade commander?
Did Peterson order a nuclear strike? That would seem to be a bit excessive!