Clarence looked at Bogdana. Had Margaret killed the man so she could slip away and join her kind?
The mission… the package… he had to focus on that. If he didn’t concentrate on saving Cooper Mitchell, on making all of this worthwhile, he knew he’d go insane.
Clarence grabbed his weapon, turned, and ran for the elevator.
COCKTAIL PARTY
Flames soared from cars, trucks, delivery vans and buses, destroying any night-vision capability. Heat from a dozen fires chased away the winter night’s chill. This wasn’t a couple of indigs hucking a bottle to pretend they could fight back against the oppressors: this was a concentrated, planned, sustained attack.
From the north, south, east and west, men called for backup.
Paulius had no backup to send.
The Converted stayed behind their cover of burned-out cars and trucks, providing few targets to hit. When heads did pop up, the SEALs and the Rangers took them out. His overwatch had mowed down most of the enemy’s high positions and were now picking off anything that moved.
The Molotov barrage had slowed since the attack began five minutes earlier, but still the bombs poured in, a constant symphony of breaking glass and billowing flame. The Converted had to be using a sling of some kind, something to hurl the gas-filled bottles farther than any man could possibly throw.
He clicked his “talk” button.
“This is Klimas, can anyone up top see what they’re using to launch those Molotovs?”
“Negative, Commander,” came back Roth’s voice. “The bad guys put burning tires in front of their perimeter wall, too much smoke to see what’s going on.”
Through the flames and the constant gunfire, Paulius heard the roar of approaching helicopters. Apaches, lining up an attack run — these local yokels were about to get a rude awakening courtesy of chain-gun music.
He peeked out under the bumper of a delivery truck, looked east along Chicago Avenue. Many Molotovs had fallen short and crashed into the pavement. The flickering flames made the air waver and warp. Through that, Paulius saw bits of movement about thirty meters out, heads peeking above cars, shadows sliding from vehicle to vehicle.
Heads… and something else, something smaller, lower to the ground.
Roth’s deep voice again: “This is East Overlook, we have large numbers of enemy infantry advancing on us from the east, on Chicago Avenue. Holy shit, boys, looks like thousands of them. Mixed units, people and those hatchling things.”
Klimas switched to the Ranger channel. “SEAL commander to Captain Dundee. SEAL commander to Captain Dundee.”
The Ranger commander answered instantly. “Dundee here, go.”
“We have a battalion-sized force of infantry attacking from the east.”
“Same from the north, south and west,” Dundee said. “Drone video confirms.”
“Weapons free,” Paulius said. “Shoot anything that isn’t us and maintain our perimeter.”
“Roger that, Dundee, out.”
Paulius switched back to the SEAL channel as a nearby Ranger opened up with a long burst from a 240.
“Weapons free, I repeat, weapons free. All but squad weapons use single fire. Make your shots count, boys — I don’t think we brought enough bullets.”
He clicked off, then leaned out past the front fender, just enough for the barrel of his M4 to aim down the street.
Three black hatchlings rushed toward him, running through the pools of fire rather than around them. Flames clung to their black pyramid bodies, curled around their tentacle-legs.
So fast… I’ve never seen anything that fast…
Paulius pulled the trigger twice, pop-pop; the middle hatchling went down hard. Another one dropped, either from a Ranger’s bullet or from one of his overwatch men up on the fifth floor. The creature’s forward momentum rolled it awkwardly beneath a burning car.
The third hatchling closed to within five meters.
Don’t fire till you see the blacks of their eyes flashed through Paulius’s mind right before he dropped it with another two-bullet burst.
The thunder of the Apaches’ rotors echoed through the city canyons. The tone suddenly became more raw, more real as the first helicopter came around a building into plain sight, just behind the oncoming wave of attackers. Paulius heard the sharp snare-drum sound of M230 chain guns opening up.
A Molotov landed ten feet to his left, forcing him away from the front fender. He scrambled to the rear fender, looked around it. Through the flickering flames and the shimmering air he saw the enemy rushing forward.
Hundreds of hatchlings, and behind them, an endless wave of people.
As fast as he could, Paulius yanked grenades from his webbing and threw them at the oncoming mob.
STREETS OF FIRE
Frank Sokolovsky wondered if there could be anywhere colder than where he stood. Besides the roof of the John Hancock Building, sixty stories up, in the dead of night, with a Chicago winter wind whipping in at twenty miles an hour? That was some cold shit right there.
He had worked his way through college on the GI Bill. He’d served most of one tour in Afghanistan before an IED blew his left foot clean off. Frank had considered himself lucky — not only had he lived, he’d been given a medical discharge and gone home to Hyde Park, to his job as a shipping manager, to his wife, Carol, and their daughter, Shelly.
Frank had felt God’s touch earlier than most. It came with pain, as did all things truly worth having. Carol knew something had changed. She knew even before Frank did, to be honest. He’d made some comment about disciplining Shelly. He still couldn’t remember exactly what he’d said, but when he woke up the next morning, Carol and Shelly were both gone. That was too bad, because from that morning on he’d known exactly what he would have done to them both.
Frank had left his house and just wandered. His first kill had been a mouthy old lady. Leave me alone, the bitch had said. Can you imagine? Please, no, she had said. The nerve of some people.
He discovered new friends. Together, they found humans, killed them. Then word came of a true leader, a leader asking for everyone with military experience. Emperor Stanton and General Brownstone gave him a wonderful responsibility — a Stinger missile.
For two days, Frank Sokolovsky had frozen his ass off atop the Hancock. People brought him food. Once they’d brought him a whole arm, already cooked. There was probably half of that left.
Finally, though, the waiting was over.
He stood still, mostly hidden from sight, the Stinger on his right shoulder, watching the Apache fly down Michigan Avenue about thirty feet below his rooftop elevation. The helicopter’s nose was tipped down, its 30-millimeter chain gun transforming the street below into a sparkling river of death.
The screaming war machine flew past.
Just before Frank pressed the “fire” button, he understood — without a doubt — that everything happened for a reason. He had needed money for college, so he joined the army. He’d served in Afghanistan, where he’d learned to fire this kind of weapon, where he’d suffered the injury that brought him home so he could become enlightened at just the right time. Anyone who considered that a coincidence was a fool. Frank knew the hand of God when he saw it, and for that guidance he whispered a fast prayer of thanks.