The Bomb
Tomasz descended the cockpit ladder to the cargo bay.
Ribbed girders. The bullet-pocked skin of the plane patched like the sail fabric of an old ship.
The exterior fuselage still bore the insignia of 302 Tactical Airlift Wing. Paint had been scoured from the side door, but the aluminium retained a shadow impression like a fading tattoo. A relic of the plane’s glory years. Fresh out the Fairchild plant, shipped to Bien Hoa to fly defoliation missions along the banks of the Mekong. Skimming the treeline, taking small-arm dings as it vented Agent Orange into the jungle canopy.
This would be the plane’s last mission. As soon as the Provider returned to the staging base at Sharjah it would be issued with a fresh tail number and fresh registration. It would be flown to Thailand or the Philippines. It would be discreetly gutted and scrapped. Or maybe parked, strung with speakers and lights, and finish its days as a beach bar.
Unchained Melody.
A big, black cylinder. Riveted plate, like a ship’s boiler.
Tomasz used a wrench to unscrew lock-nuts and remove a side panel.
He flicked a couple of toggle switches. Batt Test Green power light.
He pulled a high-impact Peli case from beneath a bench seat. Four rods packed in foam. The fuses. High-explosive cores.
He removed safety caps and slotted each of the igniters into the primer panel. He screwed them in place. Quadruple failsafe: baro switch, radar proximity, hydrostatic pressure, interval timer. A button above each fuse. Test. He got green Go lights from each arming circuit.
He adjusted the mechanical altimeter. Set for airburst at nine hundred feet.
He took three brown envelopes from the lid pocket of the case, and tore them open. Three numbered keys. He inserted the keys into the fire panel. PALs. Permissive Action Links. Three safing lock-outs to prevented premature detonation of the weapon.
A final visual inspection of the drogue chutes packed in a canvas sling at the nose of the bomb. Rip-cord clipped to a hundred-metre tether.
He returned to the cockpit.
‘All set?’ asked Jakub.
‘Flick the switch and we are ready to rock and roll.’
A voice from the sat com. A woman. Tired, desperate.
‘Hello? Hello? Can you hear us? This is Lucy Whyte. There are British and American citizens at your target site. Do you copy?’
‘I don’t like it,’ said Jakub. ‘She’s English. No fucking camel jockey, that’s for sure.’
‘There are wounded personnel at your target site requesting urgent evacuation, over.’
‘Mercs,’ said Tomasz. ‘Stateless scum blocking a lawful military target.’
‘Hello? Incoming plane, do you copy?’
‘Put it from your mind. Fly straight and do your fucking job.’
Fallback
Lucy dropped the spent clip from her rifle and slapped home a fresh magazine. She gulped from her canteen. She poured water over her head.
Two soldiers, a hundred yards distant. She fired. She missed.
‘Fuck.’
She wiped sweat from her eyes. She took aim and fired again.
Amanda clipped a fresh ammunition belt into the smoking breach of the SAW and slammed the receiver closed.
The window was framed by a shredded, muzzle-scorched velvet curtain. She tore it loose and stamped out embers.
‘Got any more Codeine?’ she asked.
Lucy passed her a foil blister-strip.
Amanda knocked back a pill. She swigged mineral water and sprayed a mouthful over the SAW barrel. Droplets steamed and fizzled, like spit on a hot plate.
She chewed balls of paper, moulded them into plugs and twisted them into her ears.
She gripped the SAW. Burst fire. She trembled with fierce recoil.
A line of advancing soldiers hurled backward by heavy. 50 cal rounds. Five men, chests ripped open, spines broken, heads split.
Some lay dead, clothes burning. Some struggled to stand. They trailed viscera. They dragged useless legs.
A second sweep of machine-gunfire shattered skulls and reduced the soldiers to rags and splintered, bloody bone.
Amanda pulled off Nomex gloves and wrapped surgical tape round her red-raw trigger finger.
A thud. She pulled the plugs from her ears. A second thud.
‘Shit. They’re hitting us from all sides. I think they’re under the train.’
A cadaverous figure gripped the sill and tried to pull himself inside. Skull face. Gleaming chrome erupting through flesh.
Amanda unsheathed the knife from her webbing and stabbed the deformed soldier through the eye. She twisted the blade. The creature released its grip, toppled backward and fell dead in the dirt.
Voss crouched on the carriage roof. Steady fire. The killing ground between the convoy and locomotive littered with bodies like a battlefield.
He exhausted six mags of tungsten carbide penetrators. He shook cramp from his trigger hand. He flexed his shoulder.
Skeletal creatures stumbled between burned-out vehicles. Seething movement.
Lucy’s voice:
‘Swarming like bugs.’
A couple of soldiers crawled along the Pullman roof towards Voss.
‘Chrome motherfuckers flanked us. Circled our fire avenue and reached the train. Still got some residual smarts.’
He took aim. Neat headshots. The skeletal creatures fell dead, slid from the carriage roof and landed in the dirt.
‘Time to get radical.’
He climbed down the ladder and jumped to the ground. He opened the carriage door and climbed inside.
‘How you doing?’ he asked.
‘Sweet,’ said Amanda. ‘Don’t worry about us.’
Voss snatched a bandolier of rifle grenades. He slung the belt over his shoulder: 40mm pepper-pot rounds in leather loops, like elephantine shotgun shells.
He jumped from the carriage. He ran across open ground towards the convoy.
Lucy and Amanda on over-watch. Soldiers lumbered towards Voss. They cut them down. Skull-shattering impacts.
Voss pushed a grenade from a belt loop. Gold tip, high explosive. He slotted the grenade into the breach of the launcher slung beneath his rifle and snapped it shut.
Voss aimed the launcher and fired. Thud. Whistle-whine. Rotted troops blasted to fragments. It rained rocks and scraps of flesh.
He advanced. He stepped over cratered ground and smoking limbs. He could see soldiers massing among the wrecked vehicles of the convoy.
Voss grew up in Bloemfontein. A dilapidated house. A pile of wrecked furniture in the backyard. ‘Put a match to it,’ his father said. Voss slopped gasoline and threw a burning rag. Rats streamed from the woodpile as smashed cupboards and chairs started to smoke and burn.
He thought of rats as he watched rotted soldiers swarm and teem among burned-out vehicles.
He slotted a fresh grenade into the launcher and fired. Thud. Streak of efflux. Thunderous concussion. Eruption of sand and smoke. Trucks rolled. Sedans flipped and burned.
Amanda fed a fresh belt into the SAW. She locked the receiver closed.
‘This is it. Last chain. Two hundred rounds, then she’s done.’
‘Make them count,’ said Lucy.
Two half-dissolved Republican Guard stumbled towards Voss. Skin hung in strips. They tried to flank him from the right as he fragged the convoy. Amanda cut them down. The SAW spat brass. The soldiers were ripped apart.
Nearby sound of smashing glass. Amanda pulled plugs from her ears.
‘Shit. They hit us from the rear. They got in.’
She opened the connecting door to the second carriage. The dining car. A banquet table. Upturned chairs. Cobwebbed dereliction.