Juggernaut

Basic training, Fort Leonardwood, Missouri. Instructors hard-schooled by Vietnamese jungle terrain. Their advice: collude with the landscape. String tripwires across easy routes. Natural paths, forest clearings, river banks. Help your enemy betray themselves out of habit and lethargy.

‘Quit whining,’ said Huang.

‘Fuck that. Regular army wouldn’t set foot in this fucking place until a bomb crew gave the all-clear. They’d send robots, they’d do a mine sweep.’

‘Why do you think we are all walking behind you?’

Lucy got to her feet.

‘Okay. Let’s get going.’

Toon walked next to Jabril.

‘Hey. Jabril. How come we never see you pray to Mecca? Not the religious type?’

‘I don’t think God wants to hear from me.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Amanda.

Something on the ground up ahead. A skeletal figure face down on the railroad track.

Lucy crouched over the body.

‘Western clothes. Lowa boots. Fresh tread. A year’s wages for a guy round here. How about it, Jabril? This guy sure as shit isn’t Republican Guard.’

‘I’ve no idea who he might be.’

‘Couple of bullet holes in his jacket. Old blood. Walking wounded. And no flashlight. He stumbled through this tunnel in pitch dark then bled out. Poor fucker.’

A shrivelled scalp. Skin like leather. Mummified fingers dug into sleeper ballast.

‘Jesus,’ muttered Toon. ‘This whole desert is an ocean of bone. Anyone comes out here gets eaten up.’

Lucy rolled the corpse. The body was a dried husk. Empty eye sockets. Rictus grin.

‘Miserable place to croak,’ she said.

‘Does it make a difference?’ asked Jabril. ‘When the time comes?’

‘I want to die in a bed,’ said Toon. ‘I want the last thing I see to be a smiling face. I don’t want to die screaming in the dark.’

Lucy searched the man’s pockets.

‘Give me some light.’

Toon stood over her with a torch.

She found a crumpled pack of cigarettes. Sobranie. Premium Russian. She found a cheap lighter.

‘No phone. No wallet.’

She took a black automatic pistol from the dead man’s jacket pocket.

‘Makarov.’

She ejected a cartridge. She held it in the beam of the flashlight and examined the stamp.

7,62

9×39УС

‘That’s a Spetsnaz round. Russian black ops. US. “Umenshennaya Skorost”. Low velocity. Silenced for wetwork. Sure you don’t know anything about this, Jabril? Looks like we’re not the first bunch of contractors to make the trip.’

‘No.’

‘My gut is telling me to turn tail right now. What’s a Tier One Muscovite doing out here? This guy is a long way from home.’

Toon crouched by the cadaver.

‘A dead Russian doesn’t bother me.’

‘No?’

‘I’m more concerned about the thing he was running from.’ Toon examined the Makarov pistol. He examined the corpse. ‘Look at his hands. See those tattoos? This goon has been through the fucking gulags. You know what these Russian mobsters are like. Hardcore. Meanest motherfuckers on God’s green earth. So why was he running in terror?’

‘Fuck it,’ said Lucy. She got to her feet. ‘We’re badder than anything we are likely to meet. Let’s keep going.’

A pinprick of daylight in the far distance. Lucy switched off her flashlight and blinked. A glimmer like a distant star.

‘Have we reached the end of the tunnel?’ asked Amanda.

‘Feels like we’ve been walking forever,’ said Toon. ‘There better be gold at the end of this fucking rainbow, Jabril. Don’t put me through this for nothing.’

They kept walking. The tunnel mouth. Dazzling light.

‘This is it, said Jabril. ‘Our destination. We’ve reached the valley.’

They walked out of darkness into fierce sunlight. Cool tunnel air suddenly replaced by intense oven heat.

They shielded their eyes from the sudden glare.

Voss lazed in the doorway of Talon. He pulled down the brim of his cap and lay the shotgun across his lap.

Gaunt and Raphael sat in the doorway of Bad Moon. They had stripped out of Nomex flight suits and dressed in camo gear. They sipped lukewarm bottled water.

‘Reckon he’s sleeping?’ asked Gaunt.

‘No. He’s wide awake. He’s watching us. Been watching the whole time.’

Gaunt fanned himself with his boonie hat. He dabbed sweat from his face with a handkerchief.

Raphael swilled and spat.

‘The man is a stone killer,’ said Raphael. ‘I can see it in his face. See that shotgun? See that big-ass knife? He’s a farm boy. Used to gutting. Used to slaughter. Butcher you up real good. Wouldn’t think twice.’

‘He won’t be a problem,’ said Gaunt. ‘Just have to pick our moment.’

‘You okay with this? You were in the corps. But did you ever whack a guy? Do it up close and for real?’

‘Don’t worry about me. My hand is steady.’

‘So how do you want to work this?’

‘Might as well wait for them to find the gold,’ said Gaunt. ‘Do the grunt work. Locate the truck and crack it open. Then we hit them fast. Don’t give them time to react.’

‘How do you know Koell won’t pull the same shit soon as we get back to Baghdad? Pop a cap in our ass soon as we deliver the goods?’

‘He jumped us once. I’m not going to let him jump us again. Next time we meet, he’ll be the fuck with a gun pressed to his balls.’

‘Damn,’ said Lucy.

Toon crossed himself.