“… Closing on your po … tion, Charlie … you must…”
“Say again, base. Over.”
Micah was gritting his teeth so hard his jaw had started to ache. The smoke glowed neon green. Ahead, a huge glassy lump sprawled across the dune to his left. It resembled an emerald spider with too many legs. As he ran by, he understood. The lee side of the dune had been heated to such extreme temperatures it had literally become glass: a cliff of green obsidian with malignant veins snaking out.
Luke stopped dead in his tracks. “It is Beter and Gembane, Captain. I see them. Oh, God.”
Micah said, “Base, we have located Beter and Gembane. Over.”
“Do … approach! Repeat, do not…”
The brilliant aura of smoke seemed to open like a doorway. Through it, Beter staggered, dragging Gembane with one hand. Micah stiffened when he saw that Beter’s other hand was gone. The entire arm had been torn off at the shoulder. Flesh dangled from the stump like a bizarre leather fringe.
“These are my men, base,” Micah called. “Confirmed ID. Two men down. Repeat, two men down. Over.”
Crackling. No response.
Luke ran for Beter, calling, “Beter, goddamn you, talk to me! What happened?”
Micah followed with slow precision, scanning the smoke and hills. Whoever had done this was close. Two years ago they’d been dispatched to Pakistan to rescue four captured Army rangers being held by the Haqqani. The rangers’ tongues had been cut out so they couldn’t cry for help. Is that why Beter and Gembane weren’t talking? They’d been engaged in a hell of a fight. A fight he and Ranken had neither heard nor seen on their equipment. How was that possible?
“Base,” he called. “We need evac for two men. Repeat, two men down. Over.”
“Charlie Two, do not…”
Luke reached Beter, and Beter silently staggered into his arms like a man who couldn’t take one more step. His weight almost toppled Luke. Grunting sounded in Micah’s earpiece. “Oh, Captain, my God, look at Gembane.”
As Micah approached, the sight stunned him. Gembane couldn’t possibly be alive. His body resembled crystalline pulp, as though he’d been skinned alive and his muscles bleached of blood.
Far back in his mind, he was repeating, fire and ice, fire and ice …
Luke gently lowered Beter to the ground, then he leaned over the flayed carcass of Gembane. “John? It’s Luke. Stay still, buddy. We got you. We got you both.”
Micah knelt at Luke’s side, watching as he frantically ripped off one glove and tried to find Gembane’s pulse, pressing the bloody twitching muscles of the man’s throat, then his wrists. As a last resort, Luke reached up and touched Gembane’s lidless eyes.
“He’s gone, Captain. Jesus! Where are the bastards who did this? Why don’t we see them? Did they attack and retreat? Is that why they haven’t hit us?”
Micah slowly rose to his feet. Almost below his hearing, an unearthly sound echoed through the dunes. Musicians called it tremolo, the quavering effect of many voices singing in unison. But in this case, it was not voices. The variation in amplitude was rising to a terrible crescendo as the engines spooled up. “Get Beter on his feet. We’re heading for the rendezvous.”
“We’re aborting?”
“Affirmative.” He called, “Base, do you read? We are aborting mission. Two men down. We require immediate assistance. Over.”
“… breaking up. Say … aborting mission?”
“Affirmative, base. Two men down. We’ve got them and are heading for rendezvous Echo Sierra. Do you copy?”
Bowen shouted, “No, no … do not…”
Micah ordered, “Luke, get Beter on his feet!”
Ranken leaped to obey. As he struggled to drag Beter’s one arm over his shoulder, Beter weakly tried to help him, clinging to Luke as best he could. That’s when Micah got a good look at his mouth. Chemical burns? The flesh appeared to have been melted. His lungs must be toast. Had he failed to get his mask on in time? Could liquid nitrogen do that?
Micah jammed the tracker down the front of his suit, slung his rifle, and wrapped an arm around Beter’s back on the armless side.
“Let’s move.” He drew his pistol and they headed due south through the moonlit shadows.
In his ear, Luke’s breathing was coming in ragged gasps, whispering, “Oh, God, oh, God. Where are they?”
“Keep moving. Ten minutes, and we’ll be home free.”
“Charlie Two … you … contam … On General … I am … ap…”
“Ap as in Apache?” Luke asked. “They’re sending us gunships?”
“Probably.”
Or an unknown general had just ordered Logan to approve some action. It was the word “contam…” that bothered Micah. They were contaminated?
Beter suddenly spasmed in their arms, his back arching so violently, they couldn’t hold him. “Put him down!”
Once on the ground, Beter continued to writhe and flop in that bizarre inhuman silence.
“What’s happening?” Luke cried. He had tears in his eyes.
The smoke shifted, this time spinning around them in asymmetric patterns. Animate. Human. Almost as an afterthought, Micah shoved his hand down his suit and jerked out the tracker. The instant he saw the screen … he knew they were in trouble. He shoved it back down the front of his combat suit, unslung his rifle, and shouted, “Luke, they’re coming in from the south.”
“Where? I don’t…”
The words died in his throat.
They appeared in the eddying smoke like shimmering statues. Ghostly silver. Too pale to be real. They moved to surround Micah and Luke.
He shook his head, denying what he saw with his own eyes.
Whump, whump, whump. The familiar sound barely drew his attention.
When it registered, Micah’s gaze shot upward. The two Cobras hovered in the distance like giant birds. One hung much farther away, as though covering a different position. Behind the choppers, colors spun, lasers shredding the smoke. The moment was straight out of Revelation. The guns made no sound when they opened up. The ground churned, and the dunes literally evaporated. The air became metal-flavored sand. Then the roar struck and almost knocked Micah off his feet.
“Luke, run!”
Micah charged blindly through the strobing barrage of flashes that fractured the world, flashes too numerous and brilliant to survive, and he knew it.