“Get the Stingers ready,” he ordered. “But remember our orders. Only shoot if you’re sure that there are no Snakes in the craft.”
It wasn’t an order that made any sense, but he wasn’t going to disobey it unless there was a really good reason. Breaking the chain of command — such as it was, as his team were technically either deserters or dead — would have meant that they were nothing more than bandits, doomed to a slow collapse into barbarity. How long would it be before the locals made peace with the aliens and worked with them to hunt down the resistance if the resistance preyed on them? And they would, eventually. The stockpiled supplies wouldn’t last forever.
The three helicopters swept into view, brilliant spotlights shining down at the ground. Mathew allowed himself a tight smile, even as he prepped the Stinger and took aim at the lead helicopter. The collaborators clearly hadn’t spent any time in actual combat, outside the riots and protests that turned the cities into war zones for a few days or hours. It didn’t seem to have occurred to them that showing themselves to the enemy so blatantly was a bad idea. They could have hunted the SEALs using infrared sensors while drifting high overhead, or sent in one of the latest model of Predator drones to track them down and drop a Hellfire on their heads. Chances were that the CIA had taken them all out before the aliens landed, but who knew for sure? What remained of the US military was in absolute chaos.
He clicked the seeker on and the Stinger locked onto its target. A second later, he pulled the trigger, dumped the stock on the ground and started to run. If the enemy reacted fast enough… but they didn’t. Their reactions were too slow. The Stinger punched its way into the cockpit and detonated inside the helicopter. Moments later, the other two missiles hit and the helicopters exploded. Mathew whistled and the SEALs started to run. They’d meet up with higher authority, reload and then get back to the war.
As one, the SEALs ghosted into the night.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Washington DC
USA, Day 70
No one would have mistaken Mary Archer for a SF soldier, but that was something of the point. As a young woman, she had served in the army as a cultural expert, working with SF teams in the jungles of Latin America on a number of missions that had never been mentioned to the US public. She was fiercely proud of her service and of the number of tough violent men who’d respected her and treated her as one of their own. And there was no way she was going to allow an alien invasion to take her country without at least trying to strike back at the enemy.
Her first inclination had been to pose as a prostitute, but it hadn’t taken more than one look in the mirror to remind her that her youthful days were over. Besides, she had never been a beauty, even as a teenager. Instead, she donned a suit and sat in a wheelchair pushed by a limping man with a cane slung over his back. No one would have realised, just by watching, that the limp was feigned and the cane was heavy enough to serve as an offensive weapon. All they’d see would be a young grandson taking his grandma out for a walk. And they would see what they expected to see and walk onwards.
The collaborators had taken over a bar two blocks away from her house. Many of them had been young and foolish; they’d joined the Witnesses before anyone realised that the Galactic Federation wasn’t going to bring them a new world of peace, prosperity and total fairness. Some of the useful idiots — Mary had no truck with Marxism, if only because she’d seen its effects at first hand — had deserted when they’d realised what was truly being asked of them. Others had stayed, either because they still believed, they didn’t care or they were too scared to desert. Mary had no truck with them either. Being young wasn’t a sin, but stupidity — as her former CO had once pointed out — was inevitably punished by the universe. The collaborators had known what they were doing, once the Snakes had obliterated Tehran. Any that remained and worked for the aliens were fair game.
Her wheelchair squeaked as she was pushed up the steps and into the bar. The sound of loud music came from within, one of the deafening rackets that passed for music these days, rather than something that was actually catchy. Mary pursed her lips in disapproval before remembering that she was supposed to be a sweet old granny and managed to smile at one of the ladies sitting on the doorstep having a smoke. One of them — young Kathy Patron — almost made her heart break. Kathy had had excellent prospects before the economy had collapsed and her father had been taken away by the aliens for the dread crime of serving his country in the Gulf. Now, she was nothing more than a common prostitute. Mary almost whispered something to her before thinking better of it. It would only draw attention to her.
The interior of the bar was dim, with dozens of men and women dancing together, moving as best as they could to the irregular beat. None of them looked at Mary; none of them even considered why someone would bring his grandma to a bar intended for the young. Mary reached under the blanket and grasped the assault rifle she’d brought back from her military service. It had been totally unregistered, an ace in the hole in the event of any burglar deciding to burgle her house. As far as she was concerned, gun control laws — human or alien — didn’t apply to her.
She glanced up. Saul, the young would-be Marine who was playing her grandson, nodded back at her. Mary produced the weapon from under the blanket in one smooth motion and stood up. She didn’t need the wheelchair at all, even at seventy-five years old. But no one looked past a wheelchair. They thought a crippled person was helpless. Few considered just how much could be hidden under a wheelchair.
A handful of the dancers noticed her and opened their mouths, but Mary opened fire before they could say anything — or run for their lives. The assault rifle kicked more than she had expected, but the bullets tore into the crowd and sent them screaming to the floor, their bodies hitting the ground with chilling thuds. Blood flooded the slippery wooden pine they’d been using as a dance platform as they started to bleed to death. None of the bartenders appeared to be armed; Mary almost gunned them down before changing her mind. They’d only done what they had to do to survive — and besides, rumour had it that some of the serving staff had been poisoning the collaborators.
Behind her, Saul had produced a heavy pistol and had picked off the girls smoking outside the building. Mary felt bad about that, but she wasn’t going to bother complaining too loudly. Saul was a good lad and besides, the dead whores would convince others not to sleep with the collaborators. It was much better than tarring and feathering the sluts. Smiling grimly to herself, she turned, reloaded the assault rifle, and allowed Saul to precede her back out into the open. There was no sign of any police response, but Mary knew that the aliens would react. She had to be away before they arrived, or she’d be killed. And she had so many more collaborators to kill.
“This way,” Saul said. Mary was nowhere near as spray as she’d been while on active duty, but she could still move at a fairly respectable clip. They were well on their way, hiding the weapons in the bags Saul had carried in his coat, when two police cars roared past them in the other direction. “I think they’ve noticed us.”
Behind them, the C4 they’d left in the wheelchair exploded. Mary felt bad about the cops — unless it was one of the collaborators who had survived the hail of bullets — but they were serving the aliens, if only by trying to save the collaborators. Maybe they’d track her down, maybe not; unlike Saul, she was too old to go underground. Her heath wouldn’t survive roughing it any longer.