Someone grabbed his shoulder.
He gave a yelp and twisted around to meet this new threat, swinging the gun like a club, but through the ringing in his ears and the pounding of his heart, a female voice reached out to him. “Slow down, hero. I got him.”
Rook slowly unclenched, breathing heavily to damp down the deluge of adrenaline. He opened his eyes and saw Queen kneeling over him. “Which one?” he finally managed to say.
“Not Rainer.” There was a trace of disappointment in her voice.
“You saved the big fish for me? How thoughtful of you.”
“Fuck that. The asshole shot me, remember? He’s mine.”
Rook got to his feet and then flashed a grin. “Not if I see him first.”
With that, he wheeled around and sprinted headlong into the vineyard. It was a stupid, cocky thing to do, but so far, luck had played a more decisive role than caution in keeping him alive. Besides, Rainer was alone now.
In his peripheral vision, he glimpsed a flash of gold — Queen’s blonde locks, trailing behind her as she matched his pace in the next row over. He threw her a wink, and then reached down into his deepest reserves and put on an all-out burst of speed.
He spied movement ahead; Rainer had broken from the cover of the vines and was racing for the parking area where Parker’s rented Renault had been joined by two Volkswagen Eurovans.
Rook tried to get the fleeing man in his sights, but he couldn’t hold a bead while he was running, and if he stopped for a better shot, it might give Rainer the extra few seconds of lead time he needed to reach his van…
Rook saw that his quarry was going to make it to the vehicles anyway. He loosed a burst in the direction of he nearest van. It rocked a little under the impact of the 5.56-millimeter rounds and then lowered a few inches, as the air rushed from two of its tires.
Rainer threw up a hand in a reflexive, if futile, attempt to protect his head from bullets and flying debris, but he did not falter. He darted between the parked vans and disappeared from view.
Rook let his go of his XM8, allowing it to hang by the sling, and drew one of his pistols. Even if Rainer somehow got the other van rolling, one .50 caliber Action Express round would shut it down, and one more would shut him down. That was the great thing about the Desert Eagle — like with horseshoes and hand grenades, you didn’t have to score a direct hit to get the job done. The recoil was a son-of-a-bitch — he really needed to see about getting some kind of wrist brace — but it wasn’t nearly as bad as being on the other end when the trigger was pulled.
He expected to hear the van’s engine turn over at any second, but all was silent. He reached the parking lot, Queen still matching his full sprint, and charged toward the vehicles, the Desert Eagle thrust out ahead of him like a battering ram.
Something moved out from behind the furthest vehicle and Rook fired. The pistol bucked in his hands, and the round tore into flesh in a spray of red, but Rook kept his gaze steady on the target, waiting for Rainer’s dead body to hit the ground.
The shape did not fall.
It wasn’t Rainer.
With a howl of primal rage, the wounded creature stepped into full view. It was a frankenstein.
Rook skidded to a stop, not twenty feet away. His bullet had nearly taken the thing’s arm off; it would die eventually from shock and blood loss, but its rage would sustain it long enough for it to do some real damage.
Rook steadied the pistol in both hands, and fired again…and again. Beside him, Queen had likewise stopped, and she was emptying her carbine into the thing’s chest. The frankenstein pitched backward.
Then another one appeared to take its place…
And another…
And another…
FIFTY-TWO
Bishop wasn’t normally given to making loud, emotionally-charged utterances. Most soldiers believed it was a good thing to vent some of their pent up rage with outbursts of colorful language, but Bishop knew that even a small crack could weaken a dam, and if the dam holding back his anger ever failed… Well, he didn’t like to think about what might happen. The safer course was to meet every surprise, every disappointment, every reversal of fortune, the same way: with silence.
Once in a while, though, he would make an exception.
“What the—”
He had been looking away, watching the tree line for enemy activity, and so he had missed Sasha and Parker disappearing into the rock wall. He almost missed King’s exit as well; he turned just in time to see King plunge into the stone face as if it were merely a curtain stretched over an opening in the wall. For a few seconds, he told himself that was exactly what he had seen, but when he approached the cliff and extended his hand, his fingers immediately encountered solid rock.
No, that wasn’t quite right. It didn’t feel solid exactly; more like stiff clay. He pressed harder and his fingers went in up to the first knuckle, but then stopped abruptly as if he’d hit something harder.
The substance was warm to the touch, almost uncomfortably so, and when he pulled his fingers free, he discovered that even that little bit of plasticity was gone from the rock; it had hardened once more into brittle chalky limestone.
“—fuck?”
He keyed his mic. “King, this is Bishop. Do you copy?”
Nothing.
He glimpsed movement from behind and whirled to find Knight jogging toward him, the enormous Barrett cradled in his arms. Knight’s normally serene visage was twisted with concern; he had overheard Bishop’s transmission, and the distinctive silence that had followed. “What’s wrong?”
Bishop just gaped at the cliff face, silent mode re-engaged, but only because he didn’t have the words to explain what he had just seen.
“Where’s King?”
Bishop pointed at the wall. “He just…walked through it.”
“Walked through it?”
The big man nodded. “Like a ghost or something.”
“A ghost.” Knight’s forehead creased. “Bishop, you sound like my grandmother.”
Bishop had no reply, but continued to probe the wall with his hands.
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” Knight came over to stand beside him. “So, is there a secret passage or something?”
The noise of gunfire — distant, but still close enough to warrant keeping their heads down — curtailed further discussion. Rook and Queen had engaged Rainer and his men. Knight opened the bipod legs for his Barrett and got down behind the weapon, ready to meet any threat that came their way, but Bishop went back to studying the rock. He felt a growing anxiety that had nothing to do with bringing down the rogue Delta operators.
King was inside the rock. There had to be a cave or a hidden tunnel entrance, but damned if he could find it. Had King gone in willingly? Was he in danger right now?
“Shit!”
Knight’s rare expletive brought Bishop back to the moment. He wheeled around and saw the reason for his teammate’s oath. Two figures — Queen and Rook — had broken from the cover of the pines and were bolting across the clearing toward them.
His concern deepened. It wasn’t like those two to run from anything.
A frankenstein appeared behind them.
Why hadn’t Rook dropped it with a couple of shots from his hand cannons?
Two more of the monstrosities emerged on the heels of the first, and the situation became clearer to Bishop.
There were two more behind those, and then more. Suddenly, the clearing was filled with the lumbering once-human things, moving so fast that Bishop couldn’t accurately count them — at least ten, maybe a dozen, maybe more than that.