GRIDER

 

Friday January 10 - 2214 PST

Five days until Turbocharger activates

 

A rattle of gunfire cut the night air above us on the second floor. It was small caliber stuff, not the .50 caliber anti-material rifle that Adam carried. So I knew it wasn't him going off half-cocked, but he was still our only asset up there. I clicked on my radio.

"Who's firing?"

Adam's voiced crackled back. "I can't see who it is. But I can hear people screaming. And…my sparkler is green."

Good news was that our pet monster wasn't killing civilians. Bad news was that someone or something else was. The seriously bad news was that green sparklers meant a Category 4 was on the prowl. And we were still stuck outside because of an excessively stubborn pair of doors. The cool ocean breeze and California climate was pleasant and all, but there were people inside that needed our help an hour ago. We had to hurry up.

"Adam, hold your position and pop anything that's not human." I didn't wait for his acknowledgment before turning my attention to my team's demolition's expert, Gary. Gary wasn't the oldest of us, but he sure looked the part. The stress of our job had made his hair go gray prematurely. But that didn't slow him down. He constantly cracked jokes and had no problem keeping up even with the younger guys like me and Jay. Gary liked to say there wasn't a problem he couldn't solve with det cord.

Persistent weeds, loud neighbors, or a crazy ex. Ain't nothin' I can't solve with det cord.

There wasn't a door built he couldn't breach. And he was working his magic on our current problem. Gary had a length of detonation cord in a s-pattern held against a water filled IV bag by coiled duct tape. He called it a water impulse charge. The improvised explosive worked by using the water to channel the explosive force toward a targeted area. In this case, the lock and bolt of the double doors. A spider web of duct tape held the jury rigged device in place. He was ready to blow the door.

Gary waved at us to take cover. "Fire in the hole!"

We didn't need his warning to know that cover was a good idea. I'd seen door breaches enough times to know how fast splinters can travel. Catching a finger sized chunk of wood in my face wasn't my idea of a good time.

The explosion wasn't the thumping boom you typically expect from heavy explosives. It was more of a sharp crack. But it was enough. Gary's magic worked. The thick, white double doors swung inward missing a circular chunk through the middle where the locks used to be.

We stormed in all formed-up in a tactical stack with Rob in the lead. After a breach you didn't take your time unless you wanted to be nice to your adversaries and give them a moment to regain their composure after the shock of the blast.

The entry hall was pitch black except for two circles of light where emergency lighting had kicked in. Our hostage takers had done a real number on the power lines. It would be hours before power would be restored. So the NODs went back on and the blackness gave way to a world of green.

To our immediate left was another set of double doors. They had the polished oak look of interior doors but the thickness of exterior fixtures. Too thick to kick open. Glowing red lights under the handles told me they had electronic locks. If the whole house was locked down like that we'd have to breach every single one. That would take time. Time the hostages didn't have.

We lucked out this time. Though the red light meant the lock was engaged, the right side door wasn't completely shut. I didn't see what held it open until I looked down: a hand going pale with pallor mortis. It belonged to one of Gibbs's security men. I could tell by the ID lanyard that was laying on the floor beside the body. The ID read Praetorian Executive Services, the same as the contractors that ran security for us back at Dugway. The lanyard's cord had been severed by whatever had taken the guy's head off.

That made me instinctively look up. This guy had been caught by surprise when he entered the room and I didn't want to make the same mistake. Thankfully nothing was on the ceiling above us in the palatial ballroom they'd been using for the party.

Quietly I thanked the dead guard for sacrificing his life to keep that door open for us.

The ballroom was simply huge, and scattered with dead bodies. It was all white walls, glass dividers, and a big fountain built into the floor. The fountain wasn't the usual kind with a round porcelain tub and statue spouting water in the center. This one was squared off and sunk into the floor. At its middle most point was a crystal half-wall that would have been dribbling water down its sides like a waterfall had there been power.

This place wasn't so much a home as it was a high brow shopping mall without the stores.

More gunfire from upstairs grabbed my attention. Admiring the sheer cost of this mansion would have to wait. There was a set of stairs going up from the fountain to a mezzanine deck above us. That was our way up to the action. But before I could climb the stairs a hand tapped my shoulder. It was Gary.

"Sir, you need to look at this."

Gary's IR illuminator danced up and down the ruined remains of some statue. I couldn't tell what it had been before. All that remained was its rectangular base and four carved hooves.

"What am I lookin' at Gary?" I tried to keep the irritation out of my voice. But now wasn't the time for Gary to be sightseeing. Things got broken during attacks. We all knew that and moved on.

Then Gary's illuminator played over the statue on the other side of the hallway we'd come through. There was an identical set of stone hooves and a complete statue. It was the undamaged twin of the one whose shattered remains carpeted the room.

"If I hadn't seen all the crazy shit we've seen I would think that statue was just collateral damage. But there ain't enough pieces on the ground for something this big…and I know better."

Gary was right. The fragments of stone that went crunch under my boots weren't enough to fill out the broken statue. The undamaged one was ten feet tall and just about as long. You could fill a small bus with that much rock, but it was just pebbles on the ground. And there was the even more disturbing fact that the four remaining hooves on the statue were hollow, like they'd been left that way to make room for something inside.

"Something inside busted its way out."

I found myself backing away from the intact statue. It looked like a monster with the body of a horse but with the head of a bearded man wearing some ridiculously tall hat. Giant bird wings ran down its long body like sails. Was that what had broken free of its prison and was now going on a killing spree? Would our weapons even have an effect on something that large?

At least we had a fighter jet loaded with bombs this time. We'd sort this out eventually. The only question remaining is how many people would die in the process. I didn't want to drop ordnance on top of civilians. But if it was the only way, I would do it.

"J.T." I called out to my team sergeant. "Get the digital camera. We need to send a picture of this to Iron Shack. Maybe they can clue us in on how to fight it."

Once he snapped the picture it would take a few minutes to upload it via the satellite uplink. But the sooner we got it to the eggheads back at Dugway the faster we would get our answer.

I trained my M4 on the top of the stairs and began the ascent. "We're going up. The only way this is gonna end well is if we find that thing before it finds us."

And with that we went up, and into uncertainty.