GRIDER

 

Wednesday January 15 - 0204 PST

Twenty six minutes until Turbocharger activates

 

The lights going out was my first clue that we were about to get ambushed.

Going into the Stadium's storehouse had gotten us out from under the gun of the helicopter flying overhead. We could still hear it circling around waiting to snipe us if we dared to venture out into the open. But within the chilled confines of the drive-in storage locker we weren't exactly safe. There were other soldiers out there looking to take us down. And they'd just cut the lights.

Calmly I reached up and flipped down my NODs. The world went neon green around me and I could see the rest of my guys putting their goggles on too. Priestley and his two guys in Shadow did likewise. Even Adam was bright enough to follow suit. I'm glad he did because that one time I caught him running around at night without them freaked me out. No man can see in the dark like a predator, and neither should he.

Everyone took a knee or a crouch behind something thick and bullet resistant. All of it was done silently, like disciplined soldiers. Without a word they got ready for the inevitable ambush. But instead of a swarm of bullets we got a crackling in the warehouse's PA system.

"Hello David. Do you hear me?" The accented voice of Kuzmin echoed across the shipping containers that littered the interior of the loading dock. "I know you are there. Who else is with you? Is Mister Priestley there as well?"

Jake looked around cautiously at the mention of his name. Like me he wasn't keen on being called out by our foe. Especially not when we'd spent the last several months on the same team. Or at least we pretended we did.

Finally, Priestley looked over at me with twin night vision tubes covering the apprehension in his eyes. But I could certainly see it in the rest of his body language. I shook my head at his silent question. We weren't going to respond to Kuzmin. As long as we stayed hidden and quiet we could prepare an ambush for the ambushers.

"Very well." Kuzmin's voice crackled on the speakers. "If you don't talk, then I will. Let us begin with Mister Priestley's affair with young Prime."

I could see Jake go rigid again at the mention of his name and his romance with the red head Prime. This could only go to bad places because no one liked to have their private matters aired out publicly. And this one was a doozy. I knew him and the red head should never have gotten involved. Not only are workplace romances a bad idea on their own merit but this one was with something that would eventually turn bad. Of course no man would say anything to Priestley because it would look like jealousy. This girl, Carlie, was a looker, and telling a young guy like Priestley to lay off would look like something a jealous loser would say. But something deep down told me it would come back to bite him one day. And it looked like today was that day.

Kuzmin continued when he got tired of the silence. "This Prime is very pretty girl much like the kind I see often at home. Perhaps she has Russian ancestors. We will not know because once procedure is complete something else will be in control of body." Priestley went stone still at those words. "Oh, you did not know? All this talk of upgrade was big lie. Is really a summoning of very powerful demons and we have made deal with them. Four Prime bodies for them to wear like suit. Then they help us to get rich. Mister Priestley, your girlfriend will be like passenger in car. Can only watch but not drive. And our new friends will let her watch many terrible things."

J.T., my team sergeant, put a hand on Priestley's shoulder. Not just to calm him but to get a hold on him in case he decided to be stupid and run forward. We knew Kuzmin's ploy was to keep us distracted while his men moved in. The worst thing we could do was leave our defended position and walk into his trap.

My heart was telling me to move forward and shoot this bastard before he could get Jake Priestley any more wound up. But I had to ignore that urge and listen to my experience. I barely caught the echo of soft foot steps over Kuzmin's cackling. Someone else was moving in the dark. "Oh David. I would not think of leaving you out of party. I have secret to share with you too. Do you remember Cheyenne?"

Cheyenne? I wasn't sure what he was getting at. I had never been to…

"I will give you point there, David. That was first time you reached exotic site before my people. It was also first time we met. But you did not know it was me. My feelings very hurt you did not say hello."

That's when it hit me like a punch in the gut. I had been there. It was right after we found Adam. We'd flown out to some little farm house out in the plains south of Cheyenne, Wyoming. There was nothing out there but miles of flat nothing and this little house of horrors. Some exo had tried to eat Gary, but that wasn't new. What was new was the highly trained, highly geared soldiers that tried to storm the house with us still in it. Hazard Black is what we had called them because we didn't know their true name. We had come within an inch of being overrun. And all the while these last few months we'd been walking alongside them oblivious to who they were. Then we gave them the keys to our kingdom.

They'd walked right into our home, worked alongside us, and then stabbed us in the back. Kuzmin's words simply twisted that cold knife around in my gut. Rage, anger, betrayal, embarrassment. None of those words could describe how I felt on their own but it was something like all of them put together.

Someone shouted back at Kuzmin. "I bet it felt even worse when we put your guys in body bags!"

I looked around to see who had broken cover and given away our position. But all I found were several sets of NODs all looking at me. It had been me.

All that time I was worried Priestley would lose his cool and give us away. I thought he was young and naive, easily manipulated by Kuzmin's words. Then I went and blew it all by letting the guy get under my skin.

J.T. shifted his position ever so slightly to adjust the aim point of his rifle at something out in the darkness. Then his rifle barked angry fury.

BANG-BANG!

All I heard in response was the clatter of a dropped rifle followed by the potato sack sound of a collapsing body. Then the fight was on.

Star bursts of light flickered all around us as the Praetorians lit us up. My NVGs went nuts as a dozen separate guns fired off in bursts. Some were suppressed and barely visible. Others were super novas of light and sound. Even with hearing protection on it was like being in the front row of a hard rock concert.

Someone was running an entire belt's worth of tracer ammo through a machine gun right through the middle of our defensive circle. It looked like a stream of green laser bolts through the intensifying effect of my goggles. But it was the invisible rounds that had me worried. They whip cracked through the air around me and ricocheted off the support pillar I was using for cover.

My animal instincts screamed at me to curl up into a ball behind that sturdy pillar. But my soldier instincts waggled a disapproving finger back at them. Our enemies wanted us to hunker down and weather down the storm of fire. With us suppressed like that they could maneuver around us and cut us down with flanking fire. It was soldiering 101 and I wasn't going to fall for it. Even if it meant putting my body at risk.

I pushed my head out around the side of the pillar, just enough to get one eye behind the ACOG sight and took aim at the nearest source of muzzle flashes. Something smacked the pillar above me raining down splintered remnants of plaster all over my helmet, but I didn't flinch or retreat. As long as it wasn't a bullet hitting my head I would be fine.

Then I gently pulled the trigger as my illuminated reticle settled on the shadow behind the muzzle flashes.

BANG!

There was a gentle rocking against my shoulder—because 5.56 kicks more like an infant than a mule—and the shadow fell away. The muzzle flashes stopped too. We weren't out of the woods by any stretch, but at least we were one step closer to home.