The Phoenix Variant: The Fifth Column 3 Read online

‘I lost my pistol in the water,’ Czarina said instantly.

  Sophia turned and started moving quickly across the catwalk. ‘Get us out of here,’ she said.

  Czarina skipped over the buckled section and followed Sophia. They moved inside a stable room. It wouldn’t be stable for long—it was already inch-deep in dirty water. Czarina moved past Sophia and increased her speed. She gave no expression, no sign of struggle or confusion. She just moved at the speed necessary to escape the flooding base.

  Sophia held onto the sword. She didn’t know how binding her commands were to an operative in slave mode. In fact, she hardly knew anything about slave mode. Leoncjusz died before he could tell her.

  This was a bad idea.

  Czarina moved from room to room—each as dark and barren as the last, some empty, others cluttered with moldy furniture and large CRT monitors from the eighties—yellowed and speckled in mold.

  Czarina found the stairs and started up them quickly. Sophia heard the roar of water behind them. She turned to see a wall of water punch through the doorway behind her. She broke into a sprint, catching up to Czarina on the second floor. Sophia hit the stairs at full speed. Water hit the stairs, the walls, kicked up and sprayed across her face.

  Sophia still gripped her sword tightly. She was wet and cold, as saturated as Czarina. She probably looked nightmarish with the smeared sugar-skull makeup across her face. Czarina, on the other hand, appeared somewhat more in control. Her hair didn’t interfere with her vision and even her cherry-red lipstick refused to smear across chestnut skin.

  Sophia noticed two dead Blue Berets on this level. Czarina continued up to the third level, retrieving a carbine from a Blue Beret. Sophia noticed the other Blue Beret was already relieved of his carbine. She hoped it was DC who’d liberated it and not Denton.

  Sophia didn’t bother going for the Berets’ pistols, but then she remembered her Glock. She padded around the vest pockets of the first Blue Beret, found nothing. She checked the second Blue Beret and found a magazine. Her Glock magazine. She held it in one hand and searched the pouches on his belt. She had to roll him over. Water washed over her hands. It was rising fast.

  Czarina paused on the next flight of stairs and looked down. She seemed to show no interest in turning the carbine against her new master. Sophia felt uncomfortable with a slave-mode operative carrying a carbine but let her for now. It was no use in her hands.

  Czarina didn’t say anything, just watched. Sophia didn’t want to test how long before Czarina warned her—or if she ever would. Sophia felt the pouch on the back of his belt. It was barely closed and she ran her fingers across a pistol-shaped bulge. She opened it and found her Glock.

  There you are.

  She loaded the magazine as she ran, racked the slide, moved up the stairs. The water flushed in behind her.

  Czarina’s knowledge of the base was useful. They changed stairs and moved across the complex, through a smaller interior courtyard and two more corridors before moving up another two flights of stairs. From there, Czarina twisted them through the edge of the base and out through the concrete foyer. Before they reached the sub-basement, Sophia stopped.

  ‘Is there another way out?’ Sophia said. ‘They’ll ambush us.’

  Czarina nodded and picked out another tunnel. It took them into a disused subway tunnel.

  Czarina checked both ends of the tunnel and then dropped to one knee. She stared carefully over the holographic sight on her carbine. Sophia moved near her and took a moment to slow her heart rate, careful not to lay the blade of her sword across the third rail and electrocute herself.

  ‘Your command,’ the operative said coldly.

  ‘Right.’ Sophia cleared her throat. ‘Take us to Grand Central through another tunnel; avoid being seen,’ she said. ‘Only engage if we have to,’ she added, mostly to herself.

  ‘Copy that.’ Czarina launched to both feet and started moving quickly, carbine half raised.

  Sophia had her Glock and four magazines, minus two rounds she’d fired in the elevator at those Roman soldiers. She had sixty-six rounds. She loaded her spare three mags from her ruck into the pouches along the left side of her belt.

  A pistol wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. She took comfort in Czarina wielding her SOPMOD carbine, even if she was in slave mode.

  Sophia held her sword in her left hand and the Glock in her right. She stayed ten feet behind Czarina at all times. The operative seemed to know the way back. They emerged short of a platform under Grand Central. She wasn’t sure which one but Czarina didn’t look concerned. Then again, in slave mode Czarina could be facing certain death and she wouldn’t look concerned.

  It occurred to Sophia that the woman might be playing along and leading her into a trap. But there were no waves of aggression and they would be hard to conceal. Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard the distant echo of gunfire from above.

  ‘That doesn’t sound good,’ she said to herself.

  ‘Blue Berets,’ Czarina said. ‘Hostile.’

  Sophia gripped her sword and looked at the platform ahead. ‘Additional allies: Nasira, Aviary—she has red hair.’

  ‘New allies confirmed,’ Czarina said. ‘Nasira, Aviary.’

  Denton could read her thoughts now. At least in close proximity. But he could only get at her conscious thoughts, not her memories, not her subconscious. If she ran into him again, she knew she would have to suppress any critical information from her conscious thoughts.

  She needed to start thinking garbage and let her subconscious do the work. Just as she’d been taught in Belize: to fight with her subconscious. The same fighting system she’d taught her team, and Nasira had in turn taught Damien and Jay. If she could apply this not just to her combut but to her own thoughts, it just might be the only way to defeat Denton.

  ‘Are you wearing an earpiece?’ Sophia said.

  ‘Yes,’ Czarina said.

  She cursed herself for not thinking of this sooner.

  ‘Can you hear Denton on that frequency?’ Sophia asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Give me your radio.’

  Czarina placed her SOPMOD carbine carefully on the ground and removed her earpiece. Sophia wiped and inserted it into her left ear. Now she had two earpieces running. One for her team, one for Denton’s team. Or at least she would until their next frequency switch. She needed to take advantage of that and close on Denton while she still could.

  She took Czarina’s radio, the mike cable unplugged. She didn’t want to use the throat mike and the attached cable, but she hung onto it just in case and stuffed it in one of her vest pockets. Her vest was soaked and it smelled strongly of salt and mold.

  Czarina was radio free now. She held her carbine in both hands again and stared down the tunnel at the platform ahead.

  Sophia slipped the radio unit into another pouch on her vest. The battery was three-quarters charged. It was communicating wirelessly with her earpiece, which was all she needed. So far, she’d heard only two Blue Beret commands. They were sparing and precise, transmitting only for as long as they needed to. It seemed they were moving into position on the upper concourse inside Grand Central terminal, but she didn’t know exactly where.

  Then she heard it.

  ‘Standby for detonation,’ Denton said in her ear. ‘Green squadron, hold your position on me—dining concourse, over.’

  Sophia pointed to Czarina’s carbine. ‘Can you disable the fingerprint on that so I can use it?’

  ‘Negative,’ Czarina said without so much as glancing at it. ‘I don’t have the authorization.’

  ‘Fuck me,’ Sophia said.

  ‘Is that your command?’ Czarina said.

  ‘No, I mean follow me,’ Sophia said.

  Chapter 30

  Damien gripped his lockpicks between bloodstained fingers and unlocked the apartment. Jay was leaning on him to remain upright, and he wasn’t exactly light. Damien called out twice as he entered, but the apartment—
like the building itself—had been evacuated, along with most of midtown. Damien had found this old three-story building above a Mexican Grill and helped Jay climb the stairs to the second floor. They had to stop on the second floor because Jay didn’t seem capable of going much farther.

  Damien carefully lowered him to the sofa of the second-level apartment, removing his tuxedo jacket first. He kept Jay’s feet on the floor but noticed the lower half of his shirt was stained red.

  Even with the meteorite in the ruck, which Damien kept on his back, and Blue Berets and operatives tracking them, he needed to attend to Jay’s injury now or he might bleed out before his Chimera vector-accelerated healing could do anything about it.

  Jay was still conscious, still breathing. Both good signs. There were minor signs of shock but he was keeping it together. Damien unbuttoned the dress shirt to check the wounds. The nine-millimeter round had entered through the back of Jay’s thigh, struck his femoral artery and exited through his abdomen. Damien could see the exit wound clearly. Normally that was the priority but in this case Damien needed to stop Jay’s artery bleeding out.

  He removed Jay’s belt and tightened it high on the affected thigh as a tourniquet. The bleeding stopped once Damien got the tension right. Now it was down to the exit wound in his stomach. Lacking QuickClot or Celox, Damien knew the only option was to apply pressure to Jay’s stomach to staunch the blood flow.

  Damien hunted for a clean towel in the bathroom and instead found a basic first-aid kit. OK, even better, he thought. Pinching a roll of gauze from the kit, he wrapped it firmly around Jay’s torso. He went through two layers before the exit wound stopped bleeding. Then he ran it a third time to finish the roll.

  Jay’s pulse was stronger now. Hopefully now the accelerated healing would deal with any internal damage from the round. The entry wound would heal too, without the need for stitches. Damien wasn’t sure about the exit wound, or how the Chimera vectors would fare with infection.

  He left Jay for a moment and peered out an open window next to the air conditioning unit. Lexington Avenue was dark. Streetlights flickered. The city was silent except for the soothing drum of rain. There was still some power in this part of midtown, although he didn’t know for how much longer. Opposite him, a monstrous glass building disappeared high into an uncertain atmosphere. Damien didn’t know truly how tall the building was, but it glistened in the storm.

  New York City was unnervingly quiet. A howl of wind gathered along the avenue. He checked his watch. 2206. The hurricane had made landfall and it would hit midtown in no time. He didn’t know how much worse it would get before it got better. But he knew it was a problem, and not his only one.

  He shut the window and returned to Jay on the sofa. Jay’s eyes were still open and a bit of warmth had returned to his skin. Damien checked for bleeding below his thigh and was glad to find it had stopped. He buttoned the shirt but Jay swatted him and fumbled with the buttons himself.

  ‘You have to move,’ Jay said. ‘They’ll be on us soon.’

  ‘We have to move,’ Damien said.

  Jay shook his head. ‘Do I look like I can outrun operatives and Special Forces? Right now I can’t even outrun a sausage dog,’ he said. ‘You know, I haven’t had a hot dog in a while.’

  Damien heard an engine and checked the window. Over the sound of rain he could hear a vehicle moving south along Lexington. It came into view, stopping a hundred feet short of the Mexican Grill.

  ‘You hear something?’ Jay whispered from the lounge.

  ‘Marauder,’ Damien said.

  Jay cursed softly.

  The Marauder was an armored fighting vehicle, retrofitted for domestic use. The desert colors on its double-skin monocoque hull had been given a black coat for this special occasion. To Damien it looked like a cross between a 4WD and a tank. It had an angry triangular front and rear, ports on the side of the ballistic resistant glass to shoot from, and a gunner platform in the roof with a mounted M2 .50 cal machine gun. Damien could see a masked Blue Beret manning the .50 cal.

  The Marauder was bad news.

  The rear opened and four masked Blue Berets spilled out. They moved in pairs, two approaching the front and the other moving into an alley, soon out of Damien’s view. One of the front Berets carried a mini battering ram in one hand, black and no larger than a fire hydrant.

  Damien adjusted the straps on his ruck and fetched Jay.

  ‘Looks like DC’s boss is on a slightly different page to him. We’re leaving,’ Damien said. ‘Now.’

  Jay winced as Damien hauled him to his feet. ‘I can’t move, you know that.’

  ‘Look, your arrow wound has already healed over,’ Damien said. ‘We can do this.’

  ‘Yeah, I have another hole now,’ Jay said. ‘And it’s less fun than the last one!’

  With Jay’s arm over his shoulder, Damien pulled him to the door, then changed his mind. He took him back to the window next to the air-conditioning unit.

  He watched the pair of Blue Berets move below them. He heard the steel ram hit the glass, their boots crunching as they stepped through.

  ‘Take the rock and run,’ Jay said. ‘Across the rooftops—whatever, you’re the only one who has a chance at getting away.’

  Damien levered the window open. ‘I’m not leaving you here so shut up.’

  ‘If you have the rock they’ll go after you,’ Jay said. ‘Won’t even know I was here.’

  ’Damien looked through the window and caught a glimpse of a figure silently following the Berets in.

  They weren’t on the same side.

  Jay held a finger to his lips.

  Gunfire cracked below.

  ‘Now,’ Damien said.

  He climbed out, careful not to bang his head on the frame, and helped a less-nimble Jay out. Their footsteps on the fire escape were loud. He was glad the rain—and the gunfire—masked them.

  ‘They’re dead,’ Jay said in his ear.

  He looked over to see the .50 cal operator slumped on the roof of the Marauder. The driver wasn’t visible.

  There were no stairs below their fire escape level, just the extendable ladder that dropped to the footpath. Damien pulled the latch to release the ladder but it wouldn’t budge. He tried with both hands.

  ‘Give it here,’ Jay said. He clamped both hands on the latch and winced.

  It was rusted in place.

  No time.

  Damien stepped over the handrail and onto the roof of the Mexican Grill. He landed neatly with both feet, knees bending to keep the noise low. He moved forward to give Jay room. The gap was three feet wide but Jay was another three feet above.

  He could see Jay struggle to duck under the handrail and jump. He didn’t make it.

  Damien dived forward as Jay’s hands reached the edge. He hung from the edge. One hand slipped. Damien grabbed the other. Used his other hand to brace and pull Jay up.

  Gunfire cracked from inside. The operatives were deeper in the foyer, fighting the masked Blue Berets.

  Rain poured through Damien’s hair, mixing with the styling wax Jay had made him use and running into his eyes. It stung and he could barely see Jay dangling right in front of the apartment block entrance.

  Damien crawled forward to check the distance. Under Jay there was another six feet or so to the pavement. Jay looked up and nodded. Damien released him. Jay landed roughly, not quite in a roll but more of a hand-plant to one side. Further downtown Damien noticed another vehicle emerge, headlights peering through the rain.

  Cheetah—a smaller, lighter armored vehicle.

  Damien moved across the Mexican Grill roof and jumped from the end, landing and rolling with his ruck on. He doubled back to snatch Jay and haul him to the Marauder. Its lights were still on and the engine running. He was well aware both Jay and himself were unarmed, and any stowed weapons inside the Marauder would be useless to them.

  Moving along the road, away from the pavement and the alleyways, he brought Jay to the rear, avo
iding the headlights so they stayed as concealed as possible.

  Along the way he saw the driver slumped sideways, motionless. The .50 cal operator was slumped, half dangling from the gunner platform in the roof. The Marauder’s rear cabin had seats on either side and was large enough to fit six people. The rear doors were open so Damien helped Jay up the metal steps. Jay could shut the doors himself; Damien didn’t have time.

  Another Marauder hit the intersection behind them, exposing Damien with its headlights. Reinforcements were here.

  Damien ran for the driver’s cabin, jumped on top of the driver and shut the door, meteorite and ruck still fastened snugly to his back. He released the handbrake and planted his foot on the gas.

  The heavy Marauder growled forward and he heard the dead .50 cal operator fall from the platform and tumble into the rear cabin. As long as he didn’t fall on Jay, Damien didn’t care. He used his spare hand to roll the dead driver onto the co-pilot seat, ignoring the slick of blood in his wake.

  Something landed on top of the Marauder, hard. Damien hoped it wasn’t some sort of explosively formed penetrator. The Marauder could handle most explosions except those designed to penetrate or fragment heavy armor.

  The Cheetah continued toward them, undeterred. Behind Damien and Jay, the second Marauder started to slow, only to speed up again as it realized what was happening. Something moved across their Marauder’s roof and in the mirror Damien noticed someone vault into the rear of the cabin, almost on top of Jay.

  Damien hit the brakes and the doors swung shut, knocking the imposter to the floor. The door, armored like the rest of the vehicle, opened slowly again. Jay slid toward the opening, hands slipping on the floor.

  Chapter 31

  ‘Close the fucking door!’ Nasira yelled.

  ‘I’m trying!’ Aviary screamed back.

  Nasira kept her pistol trained on the doorway to the MTA’s Operations Control Center. The big stupid metal door remained open and the only way to close it was remotely. Or electronically. Or Aviary-ly. And Nasira didn’t like that.