The best-laid plans don’t always go as planned . . .
All hell broke loose the next afternoon. It was a full-out battle between the special forces and Boko Haram, and between the vangels and the Lucipires. Caught in between were the staff and students of the Global School.
Two rickety old school buses had pulled to a screeching stop out front. That was probably how the terrorists had managed to arrive, undetected. Lying low in the vehicles, the tangos would have been hidden. No one would have questioned empty school buses traveling down the road toward the school. Now the buses sat, still running, awaiting the captives they would presumably carry away.
When the buses arrived, the tangos had streamed out, screaming “Allah be praised,” “Kill the infidels,” “Be Muslim or die!” And there were shouts in some local dialects, as well.
At the same time, an explosion went off near the outdoor pool where some girls were swimming under the supervision of a teacher and a security guard. Plus a fire burst into flames at a back entrance, allowing the masked militants to storm the school from three other sides. There was the sound of the school alarm going off, girls screaming, men yelling orders, gunfire, and mayhem in general.
All this Camille saw from an upper dorm window, but she was soon rushing down the stairs, calling for girls to follow her to safety.
How had the terrorists managed to get past all the special forces flanking the school? The numbers were more than could have been crammed into the two buses. They had to have come on foot from the jungle as well. Had there been a firefight? No, she would have heard something. A silent ambush? Yes, that would be more likely. Did that mean casualties . . . lots of casualties? Fatalities? What about Harek? Camille couldn’t think about that now.
According to a preset Deadly Wind plan, Camille herded as many of the girls as she could into a basement storage area to hide. There were about two dozen of them, all crying and asking questions way too loud. One of them wet her pants, and another was puking her guts out into an empty coffee can.
Above, they could hear the slamming of doors, yelling, and occasional gunshots. She didn’t know who was doing the firing. Sly and Donita were certainly armed. Omar, too.
“Money? Where’s money?” one terrorist kept demanding shrilly in the room above them, which would be the front office.
A male voice yelled, “Up my ass?”
A single gunshot followed, then silence.
It was impossible to tell who had been killed.
The girls began to cry even louder.
Camille kept trying to shush them, but none of them listened until she finally hissed out, “Shut the fuck up. All of you, idiots! Do you want to be taken captive? Do you want to be raped? Do you want to see your parents ever again? Then be quiet as if your life depends on it, because, dammit, it does.”
They stared at her like they didn’t know her. Which they didn’t. Especially with a Sig Sauer in one hand and a KA-BAR knife in the other. The rubber band holding her ponytail had come undone, and her hair probably looked like a flaming bush. Her breast binder felt like it was about to rip apart with her heavy breathing. Her knee socks were bagged at the ankles. Into a wireless mike attached to her blouse, she kept repeating, “Mayday, Mayday. Red Bird to Mockingbird. Do you read me?”
There was nothing but a crackling sound. That figured.
“Okay, here’s the deal, kiddos. I want you all to move back to the last row of shelves, behind those reams of paper. And Chandra, take that can of puke with you. The smell alone will alert anyone opening the door that someone’s here.”
The girls followed her instructions, even Cora, whose zits were standing out like Red Hots on her pale face.
“You all need to be quiet. No talking. No crying. Help is on the way, but you need to do your part. There’s a good chance these numbnuts won’t find you, if you’re careful.”
“What’s a numbnuts?” one little girl asked.
“Bad guys,” her friend said.
“Is it Boko Haram?” another student asked. They all knew about the native girls who had been kidnapped by this notorious group over the years. The mere name Boko Haram engendered terror, but thus far it had only been native schools that had been targeted. They had felt relatively safe here. No longer.
“Yes,” Camille said. “But U.S. special forces and Nigerian military troops are out there. You’ll be safe.” I hope.
“Who are you?” one of the older girls asked Camille. It was Ruth Morgan, daughter of two TV evangelists who did missionary work in Nigeria. Camille probably looked like a wild woman, not a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl.
“U.S. Navy WEALS, honey. Will you watch over the girls while I go upstairs and see if I can round up more of your classmates?”
Ruth nodded, even though she was as scared as the others.
Camille had no sooner crept up the concrete steps and opened the door onto the first floor than she was confronted by three men carrying AK–47s, their faces hidden by long scarves wrapped around their heads and their lower faces. The air reeked of gunpowder residue. The men reeked of perspiration.
She saw two bodies lying on the floor down the hall. Caucasians. A man and a woman. Not Donita, Sly, or Omar, then. Possibly the principal and his secretary. Blood surrounded them.
“Aha, what have we here?” one of the tangos, whose bright red, oddly clean scarf was a sharp contrast to the dark skin exposed on his upper face, asked in heavily accented English. “Since when do schoolgirls carry weapons, eh?”
She aimed for his forehead and shot. Unfortunately, he jumped aside and the bullet just grazed his head, putting a neat furrow in his head scarf. She managed to take down one of his cohorts, though, a Nigerian-speaking man who had been spitting out what were no doubt expletives at her.
“What? How could . . . No, no, no!” Red Scarf said, putting a hand to the cloth on his head and coming away dripping blood. “You will suffer for that, bitch.”
She raised her pistol again. He raised his rifle. But she’d forgotten the third man who’d somehow eased behind her. Last she knew, a heavy object, probably the butt of a rifle, came down on her head, hard.
In slow motion, she felt, rather heard, her knife and gun clank to the floor, and she fell forward. No one broke her fall. Her wrist, which had bent under her, was either broken or severely sprained. At the taste of blood, she wondered if she’d broken her nose, too. No more Miss Beauty Queen, she joked to herself. Oh Lord! What about the girls in the basement? Please let them be safe.
Then she lost consciousness.
Win some, lose some . . .
Harek and his team members fought skillfully against the Boko Haram soldiers who’d managed to surprise them in their jungle hideout. In Deadly Wind’s defense, this was BK’s home territory, and they probably knew every nook and cranny of the dense forest. Years ago, every moveable object had been removed by the marauders from the tourist lodges that had been built when Sambisa Forest was intended to be a nature preserve. That included the buildings themselves, dismantled piece by piece. Any tourist who ventured here now had to have a death wish, or be a special forces operative. Same thing. Sort of.
He had to admit that these Navy SEALs were something else in battle. One of them could easily handle three to five of the terrorists, each, almost as good as a vangel. Henry and Brad weren’t too shabby, either.
Once Harek ascertained that the other six team members were able to handle the dozen or so terrorists still standing, he slipped away to help his brothers concentrate on the Lucipires in the vicinity. He found them soon enough, and there was a whole damn nest of the demon vampires who had been holed up in a burrowed underground tunnel previously used for stockpiling ammunition and arms. They were mostly imps and hordlings and a few mungs, all in demonoid form . . . red eyes, massive fangs, scaly skin, tails. Vikar and Trond were standing back letting some of their less experienced vangels handle this crew. Now, if there were more mungs, or even one haakai, they wouldn’t take the risk.
Already there were pools of sulfurous slime about, the result of being pierced through the heart by either a sharp blade or bullet treated with the symbolic blood of Christ. Although there were guns in evidence, the weapon of choice appeared to be broadswords today. Even as they watched, one new vangel, a massive former NFL football player (a Minnesota Viking, of course), swung his sword in a wide arc and lopped off a mung’s head.
“Holy shit!” Harek turned to his brothers, who were also wide-eyed with amazement.
“That boy has potential,” Vikar said.
“Hah! More like a Genghis Khan attitude,” Trond remarked.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing. Good job, boy!” Vikar was still giving his young vangel an admiring look as the “boy”—who was older than he was in human years, at thirty-five—followed through with a blade through the heart. If he had merely cut off the Lucie’s head, it would have died, but it would have come back again in demon vampire form. This way, it was destined to the lower levels of Hell for eternity. A Lucipire disgrace!
“Where’s Cnut?” Harek asked Vikar.
“He and his vangels have a contingent of Lucies cornered in a clearing north of here,” Vikar said.
“Should I go help him?”
“No. They’re picking them off easily, one by one. Afterward, we’ll spread out and do a sweep to catch any strays.”
“Then I need to get back to my SEAL group or answer why I’ve gone missing,” Trond put in.
Harek was in the same situation. He should rejoin his Team Yellow, once the Lucipire situation was under control. “Any sign of Jasper?”
Both Vikar and Trond shook their heads.
“He’s probably back home soaking off his scales in a hot tub,” Trond said, with a bit of envy. “The beast wouldn’t want to dirty his claws in an actual fight.”
“Hard to tell, though. He could be here. There are clusters of Boko Haram spread throughout this damn forest, and where they are, Lucies seem to be following.” Vikar rubbed his chin contemplatively. “I’m beginning to think this is not a one-day operation. Yes, safety of the schoolgirls is the mission for the SEALs today, while ours is destruction of the Lucies. But Boko Haram isn’t going to be wiped out in one day, and that means the Lucies will consider this a prime feeding ground.”
Trond groaned. “Does that mean we’re going to have to stick around in this stinkin’ jungle?”
“Maybe not you,” Vikar replied with a shake of his head. Everyone knew Trond was still lazy and enjoyed his creature comforts. “You’ll have to return to Coronado with your teammates. But Cnut and I will stay. And, you, Harek, once you tie things up with the SEALs.”
Just then, they heard an explosion in the distance to the south, followed by rapid gunfire. Then more explosions. It had to be more than a mile away.
Harek and his brothers glanced in that direction and said at the same time, “The school!”
“Camille!” Harek exclaimed. “I have to go.”
Vikar took him by the upper arm in a vise-like grip and said, “No, Harek, you do not. Your responsibility is here.”
Harek was about to argue, but then he realized that Vikar wasn’t even looking at him. He was staring at something behind him with an odd mixture of horror and anticipation.
It was Jasper, Haroun al Rashid, and a bunch of burly warrior Lucipires . . . at least ten in all. Mung drooled from their fangs. Blood dripped from their swords and claws. Their nostrils flared and their eyes were so red and bulging they resembled fireballs. Scales covered every inch of their skin. So much for descaling in a hot tub!
Jasper looked with disgust at the vast amount of slime about and muttered something about imps and hordlings being more trouble than a herd of hellcats.
“Oh boy!” Trond said under his breath as he took in the powerful beasts before them.
Vikar let loose with a shrill whistle, a signal to all the other vangels in the area to come at once. Jasper was in the house, so to speak. Within seconds, two dozen vangels were aligned behind them, swords and guns ready. That was in addition to the vangels who were already here, having dispatched the Lucies in the cave.
“Vikar! We meet again.” Jasper’s long tongue came out and licked away some bloody drool.
“Lucky me!” Vikar quipped, even as he adjusted his body and his sword to a battle stance.
“I’ll have to build another cross for your torture, unless you want to join our ranks willingly.” Jasper smiled, and it was not a pretty sight. Vikar had told them all of the torment the Lucie king had inflicted on him while hanging from a cross that one time he’d been captured. It had taken Michael himself to rescue Vikar, in the end. That was the first time Vikar had been given wings and what a sight that had been as he’d returned triumphantly to the castle in Transylvania, sideswiping a few trees and electric wires along the way.
“Harek,” Haroun said, raising his short sword in salute to Harek. “I have wanted you to join my ranks for centuries now. We are going to be such comrades once you become accustomed to Torment. That is the name of the lavish tent city I hold in Afghanistan. I might even share some slaves with you.”
“Thanks for the invitation, Roonie, but I have other plans for today.”
Haroun bristled at the nickname, as Harek had known he would. High haakai like Haroun had inflated opinions of their importance, and having a silly nickname was considered beneath their dignity.
“More important things, like defragging my computer, or clipping my toenails.”
Haroun roared his outrage at the insult. Lucipires had a distinctive roar, halfway between that of a bear and a lion. In fact, from deep in the jungle, a wild animal roared back, as if it were a mating call. That’s all they needed. Tigers, or elephants, or some such joining the fray.
Then there was no time for thinking.
This was full-out war between the vangels and the Lucipires. Swords clanking, guns firing, growls and grunts, expletives, and death cries. There were more dead or dying Lucies on the ground than vangels, but Harek was concerned about Karl Mortensen, one of their vangels who was being picked up off the ground by Trond; the Vietnam vet had a sword wound to his shoulder so severe it appeared as if the arm was almost severed through. And him a recent newlywed, too.
“I need to get him back to the castle where Sig can treat him,” Trond said, and disappeared into thin air. Thank God for teletransport.
Sig, their physician brother would probably be back at the castle before Trond got there.
If Karl’s wound had even a touch of Lucie venom in it, he would be struggling for survival, just as Harek had done a few years back when he’d been near death for days from the poisonous lacerations to his body. A vangel’s wound, no matter how severe, could heal; a Lucie taint in the blood could not, leastways not on its own.
One of the things that had helped Harek was having his brothers, one at a time, suck small amounts of the toxic mung from his body, then spit it out, before giving him some of their own purer blood in return, a primitive form of blood transfusion. Unfortunately, there had been no time for that here in the kill zone. Hopefully, that was already being taken care of back in Transylvania. This was one case where Fake-O wouldn’t suffice. The real deal, or nothing.
Vikar was going blow to blow with Jasper while Harek was equally matched with Haroun, and, frankly, he was getting really pissed at being hounded by this particular Lucie. Enough with the slave trading already! As if he wasn’t hearing enough about it from Camille!
Raising his broadsword up and to the right, he made as if he was going to attempt a head lopping, but at the last second, he raised the heavy blade high with both hands and cleaved the demon from head to gut, severing the heart on the way.
Haroun’s eyes went even redder and his mouth opened wide in a scream. Then he fell to the ground and began to writhe as his body dissolved into a puddle of slime.
Jasper surveyed the scene where there were still vangels and Lucies fighting and he noticed that his high haakai Haroun was no more. With a bellow of outrage, he gave an impressive karate kick to Vikar’s groin, then called out to the remaining Lucies, “Away! Away! Another day!” Jasper’s karate move and his speed were impressive considering his huge size. Came from years and years as a minion of Satan, Harek supposed.
Vikar was rolling on the ground, cupping his genitals and groaning. “I’ll never have sex again. Oooh, oooh, oooh! Will you look and see if it’s broken?”
“No, I will not look at it,” Harek said with a laugh. “Stop being such a baby.”
“I’ll give you baby,” Vikar said, but he was already jumping to his feet, exhilaration setting in over a hard-won battle. No, they didn’t get Jasper, but a high haakai lord, that was nothing to easily dismiss. This was the second of Jasper’s command council they had destroyed, the first being Dominique a few years back. Only a few more of his top commanders to go, if you included Zeb.
Harek and Vikar assessed the perimeter for remaining Lucies and to determine their own damages. Vikar estimated that a total of twenty Lucies had been killed, including Haroun, who counted as a huge coup for Harek. None of the vangels had been killed, although there were lots of injuries, the most serious of which were Karl’s.
“We’ll troll the forest for any remaining Lucies. You know that Jasper will be long gone. For now, anyhow. The coward!” Trond said. “You go off to the school. I know you’re anxious to check on Camille’s status. Plus you’ll need to report back to the SEAL teams and tell them that Trond will be back shortly.”
Harek jogged through the jungle, having to pause only once when he literally ran into a snake the size of a telephone pole, hanging from a tree. A little exaggeration, but not much. It was a big bugger and took two swipes of his broadsword before he was able to decapitate it. Yeech!
He stopped in his tracks when he got to the clearing behind the school. His heart began to race wildly as he viewed the inferno that enveloped the school. Please, God, don’t let Camille be inside.
There were fire trucks, but they didn’t seem to be making much headway. The fire was too out of control. There were also ambulances and medical personnel carrying gurneys with both injured and dead bodies. Not a lot, which made Harek wonder where the students and staff were.
He saw Brad being treated for a broken arm. When he went up to him, he could tell that the news was not good. “Henry didn’t make it. The bastards slit his throat. Everyone else on our team survived, though, except for some minor injuries like mine. Some of the other teams have injuries, as well, but no fatalities. BK set fire to the school with a couple explosions, intending to burn all the staff inside, but Sly, Donita, and Omar managed to get most of them out.”
“And Boko Haram?”
“Wiped out. Well, almost all of them who were here. Close to a hundred.”
“Then the mission was a success?”
“Not exactly.” He winced as the medical technician tightened the splint on his arm. “They got away with some of the students. Hell, they got away with a lot of the students. Close to fifty.”
“Camille?”
Brad nodded.
“Crap! Where are Geek and the other SEALs?” He needed to find Camille before BK shipped the girls out of the area. Then it would be almost impossible to find them.
“They’ve set up operations in that garage over there.”
He headed in that direction and wasn’t surprised to discover that the SEALs and government operatives had already set up a command center. Buses and other motor vehicles had been removed and were parked outside. A porta-potty was located near the back door. Inside, folding tables and chairs had been brought in. Computers and communications equipment were arranged around the room, where men and a few women gathered to gain information and give opinions. There was even a coffeemaker perking away, with Styrofoam cups and napkins arrayed with condiments. Some prisoners sat on the floor at the far end of the large garage, being interrogated by Omar and an FBI agent proficient in Nigerian dialects.
“Where you been, buddy?” Slick asked him, then glanced down at his bloody sword. “Never mind. You’ve heard that Camo was taken with the other students?”
He nodded, unable to speak at first over the lump in his throat. “How did that happen?”
“Only a handful of the girls managed to escape. They’d been hiding in a basement storage room, under Camo’s direction. Apparently, she’d gone off to rescue some other girls when she got caught.”
Of course she did, Harek thought. It was an asinine thing to do, to take such a personal risk, but he knew very well that Camille would have told him it was her job.
“I want to be involved in the rescue mission,” Harek said. “When do you start?” There was no doubt in his mind that the SEALs would go after the girls, especially with a Navy WEALS among those kidnapped. No man (or woman) left behind was their motto.
“It will be a couple of hours. We’re putting together teams right now, and Omar hopes to get some intel from the captives so we have credible maps to go on, instead of chasing our tails in this fucking jungle.”
“Hours! They’ll be long gone by then,” Harek complained.
“Not necessarily. The two rickety buses they shoved the girls in were seen heading inland, and I imagine the vehicles can only go so far in that dense foliage. I imagine they’ll have to stop and move them on foot to . . . wherever. Can you imagine all those screaming, crying girls? They have to slow the tangos down, I imagine.”
“There are a whole lot of imagines in there, Slick.”
“It is what it is.”
“I hate that expression. By the way, Trond had to take one of the fallen Wings operatives to a hospital. He should be back here shortly.”
Slick nodded, although he had to wonder about the protocol of a SEAL taking off on his own, without prior permission. While some of the SEALs knew of the vangels’ existence, Slick was not one of them.
“It was Karl Mortensen,” Harek elaborated. “I think you know him. He was in BUD/S with Trond at one time.”
“Yeah, I do. Good man! Is he okay?”
“He’s in pretty bad shape.”
“Oh shit!”
At least that drew Slick’s attention away from Trond’s breach of Navy procedures.
Slick turned to a newcomer to the scene, a Nigerian military officer. While Slick went off to greet him, Harek walked back to the area where the captives were being held. “Any news?” he asked Omar. At the moment, Omar was alone with about eight male captives, bound with plastic cuffs at the wrists and ankles. A few of them looked pretty banged up with wounds seeping blood. Nothing fatal. Omar’s fellow interrogator, the FBI agent, had gone over to one of the computers and was typing away.
“Not much. In the old days, we could have tortured information from a prisoner. A little waterboarding and they’d squeal like stuck pigs.”
Harek wasn’t sure if Omar was kidding or not. Still, he offered, “I could take one or two behind the building and torture them for you. I’m not military. They can’t court-martial me.”
“Yeah, but they could put you in prison.” Omar laughed, figuring Harek wasn’t serious. He was. “Thanks, but no thanks, buddy. Listen, I’ve gotta hit the head. Been drinking coffee for the past hour. Can you stand watch ’til I get back?” He eyed Harek’s bloody sword and advised, “You might want to hide that thing. Raises lots of questions.”
“Go ahead,” Harek said. He wasn’t about to give up his sword yet. He saw the way the prisoners eyed it with trepidation. Guns were to be feared, but a bigass sword gave images of head loppings to this crowd.
For a brief moment, his eyes connected with one of the captive’s . . . an odd shade of green. Not a native Nigerian, he would suspect. Harek knew instinctively that this was his opportunity. With a speed that had all the BKs gazing at him in shock, he was behind Green Eyes, yanking him to his feet, with one arm around his neck, under his chin. The other arm still held the sword.
“Hold on tight, buddy,” he whispered into the guy’s ear—he was a head shorter than Harek, but built like a bull. With a whoosh, he teletransported them both outside and to the edge of the woods.
Setting the prisoner on the ground, he cut the leg manacles with a swing of his sword. The man closed his eyes, probably figuring that Harek was going to chop off his legs, or something. When he realized that he was free, except for the hand restraints, he stood awkwardly.
“Do you speak English?” Harek asked.
The man nodded, clearly confused by his new situation.
“This is your lucky day, pal. If you cooperate with me, no one is going to get hurt. I need you to take me to your leader.”
“No, no, no. They kill me.”
“Not if you pretend that I’m your prisoner.”
“Huh?”
“Show me the way. When we get near the camp, I’ll cut your cuff and hand over my sword.”
“Why? Why you do this?”
“I need to rescue the girl I . . .” He was about to say “love,” and there was no longer any “think” about. He cleared his throat and said, “I need to rescue my daughter.” He supposed he was old enough to have a teenaged daughter, just barely.
The man smiled knowingly and patted his chest. “Two daughters.”
“You understand then?”
Green Eyes nodded. “I take you.”