Logan glanced that way for a second. A red oval on his HUD showed the object Desoto’s suit had detected. His own suit’s sensors showed nothing that way, but he was more than ten metres from the object, and the ground-penetrating radar wouldn’t normally read that far.
“Desoto, back away,” Bairamov said. “McCoy, hit it with the grenade launcher. I don’t like sitting around out here with a stationary truck.”
Logan backed away and unslung the launcher as Desoto took slow steps back toward the truck. Logan selected HEDP grenades, aimed at the spot Desoto had flagged, and fired one.
Then flinched as the ground erupted into a ten-metre-tall cloud of dirt and debris.
The cloud spread above the road as it fell back toward the ground, and dirt, stones and chunks of shrapnel tapped on the skin of Logan’s suit. Then it was gone, leaving just a five-metre wide crater in the road where the IED had been.
The truck was built to protect the crew against radiation, and the hull might, perhaps, be tough enough for the men inside to survive an explosion like that. But it wouldn’t have been going anywhere in a hurry afterwards. If ever.
“Good find, Desoto,” Bairamov said. “Move on, and keep your eyes open. Truck, move up slow. Let’s get out of here.”
Logan switched back to his rifle, and swung it toward the woods as Desoto jogged onward. Then he followed, keeping a safe distance between them, and staying far over on his side of the road. The truck’s tracks clunked behind them as it began to move again.
CHAPTER 19
Another hour, with another IED buried in the road, and yet another hidden at the treeline. Both spotted early by Logan and Desoto’s suits, and detonated before they could damage the truck or Legionnaires. If the Compagnie had been equipped with suits with as many sensors as the Legion’s, they’d have had no problem getting the trucks along this road so far.
Logan jogged on along the dirt road, as he had for what seemed like eternity. The road they were following was slowly rising toward the grey, snow-capped mountains at the end of the valley.
The land on the right of the road had dropped away until it was now just a narrow strip of bushes and trees that ended at a dark cliff falling thirty metres or more to the river at the bottom of the valley. The woods on the left had thinned out over the last hour and a half as they climbed out of the valley, as the road rose away from the river, and the water that kept the plants alive. The trees were now thinner and shorter, with fewer leaves. That meant less cover for insurgent attacks, but the rocky hillside above them partially made up for it.
“They’re just fucking with us,” Desoto said. “If no-one’s been up this road for months, they probably buried a few IEDs before they found somewhere else to go and take potshots at the Compagnie.”
“You can complain to Poulin when we get back,” Bairamov said. “But, if you don’t keep your eyes open, you’re not going to get back. And Volkov will give me shit if I lose another man. So stay focused. We’re almost there.”
The map on Logan’s HUD showed the twisting road ahead rising into the hills until it reached the mine. At the rate they were moving, it was still half an hour away.
Probably more, if the truck continued to slow every time the gradient of the road increased as it climbed toward the mountains. They were lucky the trailers were empty going in this direction, because it surely wouldn’t be climbing the hill fast with tons of ore piled in them. But, only a kilometre or two ahead, was the village of Saint Jean.
On the map, it looked to be balanced precariously on the side of the cliff. Logan could barely see it up the hill, not so much by the dirt-covered buildings as the glittering waterfall where the stream that ran through the village tumbled over the edge of the cliff and broke into a spray of water droplets as it fell toward the river.
The suit’s external mikes could just make out the crash of the water smashing into the rocks at the edge of the cliff, the hissing as it poured down through the air, and the splashes as it joined the river down below them.
The village grew clearer as they jogged closer.
The buildings were almost the same colour as the dirt around them, but the blue sunlight reflected from the windows in the side walls. But no-one was moving in the streets, and no smoke rose from the chimneys in the curved roofs.
The fields beyond them, which must have been rough at the best of times in this poor soil, were little but a mass of knee-high grass and scraggly Earth trees whose branches had twisted into shapes he’d never seen back home. They curved and wrapped around each other as though the radiation had turned them into cannibal monsters devouring each others’ flesh.
An antenna rose a few metres above the roof of one of the buildings. Probably the village comms centre. But Alice wasn’t picking up any signal from it. At least, none she could decipher.
“Sir,” he said, “the village looks deserted. Like no-one’s been there for some time. Months, maybe.”
“Halt,” Bairamov said.
The truck wobbled on its shock absorbers as it came to a halt with the trailers twisting slightly in the dirt behind it. The Compagnie men stared out warily, with their rifles ready.
Desoto jogged to a rock at the side of the road, and crouched behind it. Logan dropped prone in the dirt, then studied the village through his rifle sight.
From the road, he could see little of the village. The road ahead followed the curve of the cliff around to the left, with only a metre or two of grass and bushes on the right. One screwup by the driver, and the truck would be tumbling down into the valley.
The rounded sides of the dirt-covered buildings were lined up in a single row along the side of the road furthest from the cliff. Beyond them, a wooden bridge constructed from thick tree trunks was laid across the river. It barely looked strong enough to hold the truck, but it must have supported plenty of ore trailers over the years.
“No-one’s answering from the village or mine,” Bairamov said. “Comms have been getting worse the further we go into the mountains. Even the relay in the drone can’t reach anyone any more.”
The longer Logan studied the village, the more the sight made his skin crawl.
No-one had been here in quite some time. The insurgents could have had their run of the area, if they wanted to. This could be another Petit Tolouse, for all they knew.
At least he couldn’t see any heads on spikes.
So far.
“It’s a trap, sir. It’s got to be.”
“There’s no way for the truck to drive around the village on the cliff side. We either roll straight through, or head up the hill to put enough distance between us and the village to be safe.”
“Do you think the truck can do that?” Gallo said.
“I’d rather it got stuck than roll over an IED.”
Logan tilted one of the drone’s cameras for a moment, using it to follow the stream up the hillside. The water twisted and turned between the rocks on the hill as it tumbled down from the mountains. The stream was at least a couple of metres across, and dropped through a series of rapids on the way.
“I don’t see any way over that stream, aside from the bridge. Can the truck ford it?”
Bairamov was silent for a moment. “Driver says the truck could, but not the trailers.”
“So, who wants to bet there’s an IED under the bridge?” Desoto said. “We can’t blow that one up. And they know that.”
Bairamov didn’t respond for a while.
“We’ve got a job to do. Every minute the truck is stationary out here is another minute it makes a great target. The Legion is gonna get up this damn road, or die trying. Otherwise, Poulin will be pissed.”
The faint buzzing of the drone faded as the motor slowed and it descended, then the buzzing grew louder again as it moved ahead of them, scouting out the village. Logan scanned the hillside for insurgents, then brought up the drone’s cameras on his HUD.