Kilo-29 (Damned of the 2/19th, Book 15)

Part 52

Site Kilo-29
Winter-1993
Blast Deflection Tunnel
Day Seven - Morning

The snow was tiny flakes, drifting down the ceiling that was lost in the gloom above use. I tilted my head up, enjoying the feeling of the cool kiss of the tiny snowflakes hitting my skin. I was burning up, feeling more like I was back in Kuwait than standing in a frozen tunnel under a mountain in the winter. Martin ooked fearfully and tried to burrow closer, reminding me that winter was still dangerous, that Biship, Tandy, whatever he was was still out there, and he was recruiting friends from the dead.

"Get on the line, get on the line!" The Major yelled, turning away from where I was sitting up on the tailgate of the Gypsy Wagon. I stroked Martin's head as I swung my legs off the tailgate. The motion made my arm light up with fire and I groaned as I bent over it, cradling it against my stomach.

Someone fired up one of the vehicles, and the lights came on, the white of the snow reflected and dazzled the lights, the dusting turning the tunnel into a sparkling winter wonderland.

"You broke something in there, silly boy." Nancy told me, her fingers sinking through my Kevlar shoulderpad and my uniform. Her fingers were warn against my bare skin. "You'll need surgery, but I don't think that broken pin has sliced the artery yet." Her fingers caressed the painful tight swelling that had become my shoulder joint. "You ruined all that careful work, silly boy."

"I'm sorry." I said, letting my head hang down. I saw the Major's boots twist as he turned slightly toward me. "I'm sorry, Nancy."

"He's just hallucinating, he'll be OK." Donaldson said from somewhere outside of my vision.

"Don't be, silly boy." Nancy said. Her fingers trailed warm fire across my skin as she slid her hand down my back and cupped my right buttock. "I thought I was going to lose you when we carried you up those stairs with that bayonet sticking out of you and you survived that."

"Uh-huh." I said, blinking slowly.

"Donaldson, open the door, right now!" The Major shouted.

"Negative, sir. Not until Kincaid and his crew are back or they are three hours overdue." Donaldson answered.

"You got stabbed a half dozen times during that whole thing, and you're still alive." Heather said, her legs appearing on either side of mine as she slid up behind my and pressed against my back. I felt her kiss the back of my neck, her lips burning hot, then she slid her arms around my waist and rested her cheek against my back. "You can pull through this. You won't leave me and the babies alone."

"Donaldson, I'm giving you a direct order to open that door." The Major yelled.

"It's go time, brother." Bomber said. Heather sighed and let me go and Nancy let go of my ass.

"Go time." I repeated, mumbling as I struggled and began standing up. The weight of the pistol in my left hand made me tilt slightly to the side as I came to almost my full height.

"Major, I'm telling you, until Kincaid is back or overdue this door does not open." Donaldson said.

The Major was stepping toward Donaldson, the pistol I'd given him in his hand and raising up toward Donaldson, who stood there with his arms crossed. I could faintly hear heavy diesel engines but ignored them, stepping up behind the Major. My left leg didn't respond right, dragging slightly behind me so I moved with a lurch-thump-scrape as I walked through the fairy dusting of snowflakes. Donaldson saw me and his smile turned harsh, his former babyface tight and skull-like, his eyes dark holes in his face. The gashes in his face, that he'd closed himself with butterfly stitches, were savage dark lines on his face.

"I will give you one chance, Private, open that..." The Major's words suddenly stopped as I pushed the barrel of my pistol under the rear lip of his helmet and against the base of his skull.

"That door stays closed." I said, and I could hear the ragged hoarse tone of my voice.

...all the screaming...

"Sergeant?" The Major said.

"We give Kincaid two hours." I told him, pressing slightly with the pistol. "This is a Class C Biological Incident, and right now I'm willing to let you retain command, but if you endanger three hundred million people by ordering that door opened, I'll blow your face all over the front of your flack vest." I coughed and tasted blood. I pulled the pistol back. "Turn around, sir, and keep your hands out at your sides."

When he turned around his eyes widened and he took a step back. "Jesus." He said.

"Yeah, that's pretty startling, isn't it?" Donaldson chuckled from where he was leaning next to the code box.

"Is it..." The Major said, taking another step back toward Donaldson.

Donaldson chuckled again. "No, it isn't the infection. The pressure on his brain pushed blood and cerebral fluid through his tear ducts."

I coughed again, not covering my mouth, and the bitter copper taste of blood filled my mouth again.

"Sergeant, you might want to sit down, you look like shit." The Major said. He was keeping his pistol at the side, completely unaware that Donaldson had moved his hands down and held his rifle tightly, his finger on the trigger where the Major was keeping trigger discipline and had his trigger finger along the bottom of the slide.

"I'm just wounded." I said, shaking my head slightly.

"We're all wounded." Donaldson said, imitating me. He smiled, and a trickle of blood leaked down the side of his head. "We've all lost a lot of blood the last two days."

"Explain to me, Sergeant, what is a Class C Biological Incident." The Major asked. He seemed obsessed with the bloody tears I could feel tracking down my face. I felt another warm drop slide down my neck.

I went to blink, but my eyes didn't respond. They were dry and itchy even through the faint red tinge everything had.

"It's when there has been a release of an unknown infectious disease with an unknown vector, incubation time, and communication vector." I told him. "The CIA infected these people with an unknown disease, an infectious disease, and we don't know what it is." I swayed slightly but managed to catch my balance. "I checked my cards, and I can't ID it."

He licked his lips glancing down at his sleeve where I knew one of the infected had bitten him.

"Yeah." I told him, nodding.

"You aren't worried about being infected?" He asked me, then looked a mixture of confused and insulted when I laughed.

"I've got an inoculation and immunization list that's three of those little folders you have in your POM packet." I told him. "I've been given shots against shit that doesn't even have a fucking name." I stopped laughing and started at him. "And it doesn't matter if I'm infected or not, I have my duty."

He nodded slowly, his face paling as he began to understand what I was saying.

"Flamethrower. Fuck yeah." Donaldson said softly.

It probably made the Major's hair stand up on the back of his neck. God knew it made mine stand up when I'd first learned what I was expected to do if it moved to Class B on me and there was a risk of the soldiers around me transmitting it to a civilian population center.

Flamethrower.

Fuck yeah.

Three hundred and some odd million civilians against the Major, his men, my crew, and me?

No goddamn contest.

We got to die.

"Major! Major! There's vehicles coming!" Someone shouted.

Donaldson's face relaxed, making him instantly look younger.

"Open the door, Donaldson." I said, smiling. Donaldson looked unsure for a moment then turned to the codebox and held down the enter key to power the system up. I saw the lights blink and turned away, shielding my eyes from the light. I wobbled and almost went down, but the Major grabbed my left arm and hauled it over his shoulders, keeping me on my feet. I closed my eyes from the lights of the trucks already parked and the ones I could hear rumbling toward us.

"Could it be that bad?" He said just loud enough to hear.

"We might all be already dead." I told him. "I'm sorry I put..."

"Don't. I would have done the same if I'd understood and the positions were reversed." He told me. "Christ, if we live through this, I don't ever want to see you again." He chuckled. "No offense."

"None taken." I told him. I tried to laugh and ended up groaning in pain and spitting to get the blood taste out of my head.

Everything went dark.

"I'm blind again, sir." I told him quietly. "It might pass, it might not."

"Blind?" He asked. "Are you serious?"

My vision had sparkles in it and static. I relaxed slightly, my vision would be back in a few moments.

"Donaldson said I have a skull fracture that he had to drill, the pressure makes me go blind until..." A warm drop ran down the back of my neck that turned into a trickle that lasted for a few heartbeats.

My vision came back with a liquid snap that made me retch.

"Easy, soldier." The Major said, steadying me. "You're really dying, aren't you?"

"Maybe." I admitted. "Maybe not."

Several of the vehicles cut out, but the lights stayed on, bathing us all in harsh white light. I saw that there was three vehicles, a fuel HEMMIT and a pair of 5-tons without the canvas covers on the back. The driver's side doors opened all at once and I saw men jump out of the vehicles.

None of them were too bulky.

I opened my mouth to ask a question when alarms cut on. Metal plates slid back and red lights popped out on the boxes hidden inside. The lights cut on, adding a reddish tinge to the whole area. Well, more of a reddish tinge than I was seeing already.

"WARNING! PRIMARY FACILITY ACCESS IS BEING OPENED!" A woman's voice sounded out, her conversational tone amplified to the voice of doom, to the voice of Gabriel sounding out the end of times. "QUICK REACTION FORCES TO READY STATIONS! PRIMARY FACILITY ACCESS IS BEING OPENED! WARNING!"

The sound hammered at me, echoing and reoching through the tunnel, the timbre bowel loosening at the same time as it hammered on the ears and pressed on the eyes. If the Major hadn't held me up, I wouldn't have went down. As it was my vision tunneled down and part of my brain wondered if what I was seeing was what a bird of prey saw.

"You'll be OK, Ant." Bomber said. I turned my head slightly and saw him sitting in the snow, in an AJ Suit, the hood dropped forward, a cigarette in his mouth. He was red, his hair matted with sweat, and he looked like death warmed over, the nine days in the suit having melted all the weight off of him and the lack of sleep making him look like a madman. He grinned at me, waved a cigarette at me. "Remember that girl? That one that even Tandy avoided?"

"Don't say her name, Bomber." I whispered.

"Are you fucking high? I have nightmares she's stalking me, in the club I'm in, or outside my room, or under my bed." Bomber said. "Christ, I didn't believe you that the bitch wasn't human." He took a long drag off the cigarette.

The woman bellowed like an angry goddess, but it was just noise to me.

"Remember her?" Bomber asked.

"How could I forget?" I asked. "I tried to warn you."

"Remember when Tandy pressed against the CQ airlock glass and she stepped up and kissed the glass, saying "My beloved"?" Bomber laughed. "I think that's the only time I've ever seen him afraid."

Thumping started. It wasn't pistons, it wasn't an engine, it was tectonic plates shifting, it was the heartbeat of the world.

It was the shock absorber moving out of the way. Scores, hundreds of tons of hydraulic fluid, steel, concrete, and God knew what else being rotated out the way so that the first set of doors could be opened up, the vehicle showers turned on, and the outer door opened.

"It was the first time I ever saw you terrified, Ant." Bomber said, taking another drag. "I'd never seen you hide before, and the sight of you, drunk and afraid, begging Nancy and me to save you from her was creepy." He laughed, amusement at something that hadn't been funny at the time. "Not as creepy as it got."

Whoever had a hold of me let go and I ended up sitting down next to Bomber. I dug in my pocket and came up with my pack of cigarettes. I looked down and opened it, digging out a half of a cigarette. With a sigh I lit what was left of my last cigarette and threw the pack to the side.

"Do you ever wonder what happened to her, Ant?" Bomber asked me.

We'd had this conversation before, and I could almost smell the strange rotting/living smell of the jungle around me, mixed with the harsh smell of cordite and the rich sickening smell of the flamethrowers fuel after it burnt off.

"I try not to think of her." I admitted. "She still scares me."

The woman's voice sounded again, but I ignored her, talking to Bomber, or the memory of Bomber from an operation I'd pushed back into my memories.

"You think we've got it?" Bomber asked me. I nodded. "Shit, fucking figures, and I was short." I laughed at that. "Seriously, man, I was going to tell them to take that reenlistment offer and pound it up their ass."

"Like you got anywhere else to go." I told him. The sirens were still going. He glared at me.

"Seriously, I was gonna go back to my parents farm. Fuck NBC Warfare, fuck shit like this, and the Cold War is over." He shook his head. "I'm done, Ant. I can't do shit like this any more, man. It isn't right."

"Who else you gonna trust, brother?" I asked him. "We had three suicides just on this operation, six other guys dropped on request."

I heard a gunshot in the distance and Bomber looked up suddenly at me.

"And that was the Colonel." I said. Bomber dropped his head and shook it. "Yeah. He figures he was infected and didn't want to go like all these people did."

"We gonna die, Ant?" Bomber asked.

The snow thickened, blowing around us, but I didn't feel cold. It was hot as hell, sitting in the snow, and even with the cool water seeping into my pants, I was still overheating. I reached up and went to pull my helmet off, but someone's hand stopped me.

"No, Bomber. We were still there when our backup arrived." I told him. He grinned at me.

"Sergeant, keep your helmet on." Donaldson's voice was audible over the pounding of the machinery that was moving the shock absorber. "Please listen to me."

"Listen to your boy, Ant." Bomber told me. He waved his cigarette at where Donaldson was standing behind me. "He'll get you through this."

"I trust Donaldson, Bomber. Him and Kincaid both." I said.

"K-Bar did something stupid, Ant." Nancy said, squatting down next to me. She put her hand on my leg, her skin hot against mine as her hand sunk through my pant-leg to touch me skin to skin. "You'll find out in a minute, honey."

"What, Nancy, what did K-Bar do?" I asked her.

"Sergeant? Tell me what Nancy's saying, Sergeant." Donaldson said. I could hear him behind me, and he squatted down next to me, opposite of Nancy, blocking my view of Bomber.

"He went to take on Tandy." Nancy said.

"Oh, God." I said.

"What, Sergeant? What did she say?" Donaldson's voice was urgent.

I looked him in the face, struggling to stand up.

"K-Bar went to take on Tandy." I told him.

"Aw, shit." Donaldson answered.

The shock absorber thudded into place, and I could hear the hydraulics of the door fire up.

"PRIMARY ACCESS OPENING! WARNING, PRIMARY ACCESS OPENING!" Rang out.

"Kincaid's on his own." I said, making the decision.

"Ant, no." Nancy said. "Don't leave him in here."

"You know what has to be done, Ant, there's no way he's coming back." Bomber told me. "You've got to save these guys, call in the incident, you know that this time the mission takes precedence."

"Help me up, Donaldson." I said. Donaldson nodded, and heaved me to my feet by my LBE.

The Major was moving up to me, with Michaels next to him. Michaels had a pressure dressing on his arm and his sleeve was dark with what had to be blood. They stopped in front in front me.

"Kincaid supervised them loading the trucks, then took off on his own after telling them to come back here." The Major said. "Do you know what he's doing?"

"He's buying us time to escape." I told the Major. "Let's not waste it."

Nancy put her face in her hands and began to cry.