Zaid checked his watch — four more hours to go of his shift. The sun was high, and a small mercy of working on the bridge over the river meant a constant cool breeze; he knew there could be a lot worse places to be stationed.
On his rotation he had five shift partners, and they were currently spread along the long watchtower’s platform. Three chatted quietly together, one watched the boats moving on the river with a powerful pair of field glasses, and the last, his friend Hajii Mahmoud, watched the road, his neck straining.
Hajii pulled the glasses away from his face momentarily before going back to staring, his brows knitting together. From the roadway there came the sound of car horns blaring.
“Hey…” he said. “Hey, Zaid, come look at this.” He was grinning now. “Looks like some oaf has decided to bring their washing.”
Zaid turned and squinted at the rows of cars. One lane of the approaching traffic was being held up, slowed by a figure walking ponderously down the center of the road with what looked like a huge sack over his shoulders.
“Pretty big for a washerwoman.” He clicked his fingers at one of the other men. “Hey, get the ASVs on the line; get us a visual.”
All the five guards now strained to see the approaching figure. Zaid frowned. “Looks like they’re wearing a niqab, but… I think it must be a man, or the biggest woman in the world.”
Hajii still grinned as he lowered his field glasses. “It is a washerwoman. See, she brings her washing machine with her.” He guffawed.
Jamal Barzani, their superior officer on watch, joined them. He motioned with his head. “Someone better get down there and get that fool off the road. The traffic is backing up.”
Horns blared, and the lanes still open became sluggish as drivers slowed to stare or yell abuse at the slow moving man. But on he came, one foot after the other, bent forward, his deep shawl hanging loosely, totally covering his face. The giant man never looked left or right, just walked on as if the world around him didn’t exist.
Zaid heard Jamal call his name and he turned to his officer. “You’ve notified the ASVs?”
Zaid nodded.
“Good.” Jamal leaned on the railing. “Go down there, take Hajii, and be careful. Could be a diversion.” He went to turn away, but paused then spun back. “Call it in to HQ. Just in case.”
Zaid and Hajii both groaned, but nonetheless shouldered their automatic weapons, went to the end of the tower platform, and descended the steps to the street. Shoulder to shoulder they jogged down the roadway.
“By all the prophets.” Hajii slowed. “It is a giant.”
Zaid also slowed. “Still think it’s the local washerwoman?”
Even hunched forward, the figure was taller than both men; straightened, he would have stood nearly seven feet tall.
“Cover me.” Zaid walked forward while Hajii, who was cradling his rifle in his arms, brought the barrel around in the direction of the huge figure.
Zaid held up a hand. “Hey, you there, stop.”
The giant ignored him, or didn’t hear him.
“Hey, you. I said, halt!”
The huge person lumbered on, neither looking one way nor the other. Zaid turned to shrug at his colleague. In turn, Hajii shook his head and then pointed his gun in the air. He fired twice, the reports loud even over the sounds of the traffic.
The being stopped, and there was an almost imperceptible lifting of his head, as though checking on his whereabouts. He was now over the river and only a half mile from the direct center of the Zone.
“Identification papers.” Zaid came forward, feeling his heart race in his chest. There was a strange smell surrounding the figure, like old meat left out in the sun. Zaid kept his hand on his gun. Even though the person’s head had lifted slightly, he still had no hope of seeing the face underneath the folds of the long cowl.
The man suddenly shrugged off the large pack, and let it slide to the ground. Chips of road pavement flicked out, and Zaid felt the thump of the impact through the soles of his feet. Whatever it is, it must have enormous weight, he thought.
The huge hands came around to the pack, and Zaid saw they were ripped and scored with raw scars in the shape of some sort of unintelligible Arabic script. The fingers worked slowly and methodically to unstrap the pack, and flip the top open. Zaid leaned forward, his eyes suddenly going wide.
“Bomb!”
The single shout seemed to freeze time and space for a fraction of a second. In a city once wracked with shootings, kidnappings, and sectarian tension, this one word was the most feared. It was like yelling shark at a crowded beach.
People screamed and ran, cars sped away or tried to futilely back up. Zaid and Hajii raised their weapons, screaming orders, their training taking over, and the ASV machine gun turrets swung around.
With the pack now open, the man straightened, flipped back his cowl, and looked skyward, revealing his dead gaze, and a patchwork of scars and differing hued flesh, as though the huge, monstrous being was a human quilt sewn together. On his carved face, his lips opened, as if the thing wanted to speak, but could not.
Zaid fired first, immediately followed by Hajii. Their M16A4s each had thirty round clips, and both were set to full automatic. Two streams of 62-grain rounds smacked into the massive body at close range. The giant being’s clothing dappled and jumped from the strikes, but the man didn’t go down. Instead, he simply bent back to the drum-sized package.
The two Guardian Armored Security Vehicles opened up with their turret mounted M2HB Browning machine guns. The heavy caliber weapons chewed up the road surface as they traced a line toward the figure, at last belting into him. One of his trunk-like arms was nearly blown from his shoulder, and fist-sized chunks of flesh exploded from his neck and trunk. But if the thing felt pain, if he heard or sensed anything, he didn’t show it.
Finally, he reached into the pack with his remaining good arm, and then pressed down hard on something. The world turned white-hot.
“It’s all gone.” Five-star General Marcus “Chili” Chilton threw the folder onto the desk. “The International Zone is gone; even the surrounding land will be uninhabitable for the next decade, and that’s only if we get scrubbers in there.”
He sat down heavily. “Sixty thousand dead. That’ll end up more like a hundred thousand once the critically injured die. And that included a helluva lot of our people.” He sighed. “Greg Swan and his family were in there. Good people, all vaporized.”
Chilton turned to Jim Harker, his staff sergeant. “Thirty fucking kilotons, Jim. Bigger than Nagasaki and Hiroshima combined, and the first goddamn thermonuclear device to be set off in a major city for over seventy years.” He clasped one fist in another. “A big tactical weapon, a city killer, brought right to our front door.”
“Walked to our front door,” Harker said softly. “Jack Hammerson is calling them Travelers; he’s sent us some images you should see.” He called up the data on his tablet and handed it to Chilton. “It’s just like Soran.”
Chilton stared at the small screen for a moment. “Yeah, just like Soran.” He snorted softly as he watched the satellite trace track backwards in time. “And emanating from Mosul again.”
Harker nodded.
Chilton laid down the tablet and sat back. “We burned through a lot of blood and treasure in Iraq, we’re pulled out for less than a year, and already its cities are being overrun by medieval barbarians. They’re beheading, burying alive, butchering, and raping their way across the countryside. Many can’t even read or write, and now they suddenly get access to nukes? This is not a good picture being painted here.”