Juggernaut

‘I understand. You want to get help. You want to fly your friend back to Baghdad and get medical attention. Dose him with antivirals, antibiotics. It won’t do any good. And you must understand the danger. If this pathogen reaches a major city nothing short of a nuclear strike would halt its progress. What is the name of that military hospital in the Green Zone?’

‘Twenty-eighth CASH.’

‘Picture it. All those people. Doctors, nurses, wounded soldiers lying in the corridor waiting for treatment. Huang thrashing, biting, spraying blood. It’s a military trauma unit. They treat gunshots, blast wounds. They aren’t equipped to quarantine a serious pathogen. The disease would soon be carried to NATO airbases in Europe and out into the world. Paris, London, New York, Tokyo. Millions would die.’

‘Well, that’s certainly something to think about,’ said Lucy. She removed her thumb from the transmit button clipped to her webbing and turned to Voss.

‘We have to get in there and waste this fuck.’

‘Forget it.’

‘We could force the door. We’ve got a little C4. We could rig a breaching charge. And there are vents in the roof. I think there was a can of CS in one of the choppers. We could gas him out.’

‘He has a grenade. We’d have to bust our way in and extract Mandy in four, five seconds. Can’t be done. We have to talk him out.’

‘Go back to the choppers,’ said Lucy. ‘See what you can find. Don’t leave weapons or ammo lying around. I don’t want Gaunt re-armed.’

‘How about you?’

‘I’m going to cover those roof vents with my coat. Body heat will build up pretty quick. I want this guy to cook.’

Amanda lit a cigarette and placed it between Jabril’s lips.

‘Thanks. Sorry about the smoke.’

‘Lucy and Huang go way back,’ said Amanda. ‘She’s known him longer than me. She’s shared a foxhole with the guy plenty of times. He’s family. She’s not going to blow his brains out, just on your say-so.’

‘She’ll kill him. She’ll do it as a mercy. You’ve don’t understand this disease. You can’t imagine the horror. Your friend will rot before your eyes. And then he will attack. You saw those creatures out there in the valley. That is what he will become.’

‘We can get him to Baghdad. Get him a doctor.’

Jabril shook his head.

‘Too dangerous. If this virus reaches a major population centre the consequences are unimaginable. He must be shot in the head. And his body must be burned. Here, in this valley.’

‘So how long are we stuck in this fucking truck?’

‘Until Lucy listens to reason. You and your friends can take the gold and fly home. But Huang must stay behind.’

‘What’s in the case?’

Jabril held the grenade between his knees. He plucked the key from around his neck and threw it to Amanda. She released the padlock, flipped the hasps and opened the lid. Bundles of documents. NSA intercepts, eyes-only collations, embassy cables, Agency briefings. She leafed through papers. Photographs. Men chained to examination tables. Graphs and X-rays charted the course of infection.

‘US intel,’ she murmured. ‘This shit gets deeper by the minute.’

Something else in the case. Two lengths of thick pipe lying in a foam bed. Rivets. Fins.

‘A Hellfire missile. Stored in two sections. The lower part is the propulsion unit. A solid fuel rocket motor. The top part is the warhead. Laser optics in the nose. Payload compartment in the midsection.’

A glass cylinder lay alongside the two missile sections. It glowed blue.

Amanda reached for the cylinder.

‘Don’t touch it.’

‘What is it?’

‘The virus. Refined. Weaponised. That’s why I brought you here. You and your friends. I needed your help to open the truck.’

‘So what are you going to do with this stuff?’

‘Burn it. Incinerate every last trace.’

Voss rode the quad bike back to the wrecked choppers.

The temperature continued to drop. Each exhalation produced broiling plumes of vapour.

He scanned the shadows. No movement. Lucy’s voice:

‘You okay out there?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Grab what we need and head back. Don’t hang around.’