The Return Of Dog Team Read online

  She fired twice at him, at point-blank range. Both shots scored, tagging him high in the chest and torso. The impact was wrenching, unmanning. His sideways lunge became a fall. He hit the dirt.

  The men on the hill would have heard the shots. Somebody up there shouted something indistinguishable, the cry hanging in midair. Debbie Lynn knew she must act very quickly now. She started to come around the rear of the Humvee to finish off Prester. He lay sprawled on the ground but there was a gun in his hand, a flat, thin silvery palm-sized automatic. It looked like a toy, like a trick cigarette lighter disguised to look like a gun.

  He snapped a shot at her from close to the ground and hit her in the leg. She fell down, crying out. She wriggled along on the ground, trying to get away from him, out of the line of fire. He was shooting again, but the Humvee’s left rear tire stood between her and the bullets, and it caught them instead of her.

  She reached under the car without looking and fired some shots where she thought he must be. She heard bullets thudding into his flesh. He grunted, then groaned. The exchange had all taken place in a few seconds. All the while, she’d kept hold of the object that looked like a cell phone in her left hand. It was a remote-controlled detonator. She now pressed the red button, triggering the firing mechanism.

  An imperceptible pause, and then the hilltop blew its top. Literally. It erupted like a volcano, a ferocious blast that obliterated the pumphouse and geysered tons of debris and dirt skyward.

  Debbie Lynn could feel the shockwaves battering her. The sky darkened. Then came the rain of dirt and debris, a hailstorm of rocks pounding the earth, followed by dust and smoke clouds.

  Debbie Lynn lay prone, hugging the ground. She would have crawled under one of the Humvees for cover, but she didn’t know where they were. She was disoriented. She curled on her side in a fetal position, using her arms to protect her head from falling rocks.

  Stones pelted, then pounded the earth. Some of them were as big as cannon balls. The chaos tapered off, subsiding. Debbie Lynn took stock. She still had her gun. She’d been shot in the right leg, below the knee. She didn’t know how badly she was hit. The leg felt numb. She knew better than to risk putting weight on it at this time.

  Prester—was he dead or alive? Alive, he was a threat. He could hurt her. Hurt her worse than he already had.

  She knew that her shots had scored. But that was small comfort. He wore a flak jacket, as did she. But her gun was filled with armor-piercing teflon bullets, able to pierce such protective vests.

  She crawled around the rear of the vehicle, into the open. Clouds of brown dust and gray-black smoke wafted past her, obscuring the scene. A rent in the smoke allowed her to glimpse the hilltop. It was a smoldering mass, with crooked fingers of masonry marking where the pumphouse had stood. The structure was destroyed, a smoking crater, with spidery strands of fused metal beams and pipes wriggling from the top. Nothing lived, could have have lived, on that hill. Not a team member in sight. All had been obliterated.

  Gone. So was Prester. Not gone dead but just plain gone, vanished. He was nowhere around the Humvees. There were blood drops on the ground, but when she tried to see where they led, a cloud of chemical-laced smoke rolled over her, making her eyes burn and tear so that she could hardly see anything at all.

  Debbie Lynn tried to stand. Agony went through her, her wounded leg buckled, and she fell down. She had enough left to not fall down on the wounded leg, but that was about it for a while. If Prester had come upon her then, he’d have had her.

  When the worst of the pain had passed, she eyed the wound. A bullet had penetrated her calf muscle. It looked like it had pierced the flesh and come out the other side. An ugly wound, one that had torn flesh and muscle and drawn blood. But it had missed the bones and key blood vessels, and was by no means mortal.

  It bled, weakening her. She crawled to the far side of the vehicle and sat with her back propped up against the rear tire and began tearing and cutting strips of cloth from her blouse to bind up the wound. A difficult task, made twice as hard by her unwillingness to let go of her gun. But she managed.

  Sixteen

  Steve Ireland looked like hell. He felt worse. He couldn’t hear much out of one ear, and the other was afflicted with a constant ringing. He felt like he’d been worked over with a baseball bat. His bones ached. His joints ached. His teeth ached. His eyes ached. He was stunned and numb. He had trouble keeping his eyes in focus. The scene faded in and out.

  He shook his head to clear it and it felt like he was blowing his stack, just as the hilltop had done. His clothes were in tatters. Scorched tatters. He’d thought he’d smelled something burning. Now he knew what it was. Him.

  At that, he wasn’t too bad off. There didn’t seem to be any bones broken. His ribs ached. Maybe a couple were cracked.

  He’d survived a bomb blast. He knew that much, just from looking at what was left of the hilltop. It smoked like Vesuvius in one of its active phases. Vesuvius Lite, the vestpocket edition. Big enough to have almost done for him.

  That must’ve been one hell of an IED, he told himself. He wondered if any of the others had gotten out alive. He didn’t see any. No signs of life on that cone-topped hill and its surroundings.

  He still had two eyes and the normal complement of limbs that he’d started out with. That was something. Still, there could be internal injuries. He didn’t know. His think machine wasn’t working too good.

  The blast had swatted him off the ledge as casually as a giant hand flicking away a mosquito. By doing so, it had saved his life, hurling him away from the bomb site. He’d been flung far out over the marshland, but the mud and boggy ground had cushioned his fall. He was coated with the stuff: sticky, pastelike mud. It smelled bad. It stank. He hoped it was mud.

  He rose, standing on two feet, legs widespread for balance. He hoped he could stay there. He faced the north bank and started for it. The muck underfoot was thick and and claylike, reaching above his boot tops. It didn’t want to let him go. He had to fight to take every step. The mud released him with a wet, sucking sound.

  He looked around. The birds had quit the marshes. There had been hundreds of them among the tangled brush and thorn thickets. Thousands. But the bomb blast had scared them all off. Above, in the heights, flocks of birds could be seen wheeling around in great, shifting funnels.

  Steve Ireland was more than halfway to the north bank when he realized that he didn’t have his rifle. That was bad. That was a hell of a thing. His brains must have really gotten scrambled, not to realize a loss like that before now. If he ever needed a rifle, now was the time.

  The bomb meant enemy action. Those who’d triggered the blast might come around looking for survivors. He was a nice fat target, standing out her all alone in the mud. He might as well be wearing a sign that said SHOOT ME.

  He half turned, looking back. He saw his footprints stamped into the mud in a trail that led back to the place where he’d landed. He saw no sign of his rifle. No doubt the mud had swallowed it up. His communicator was missing, too, probably in the same place.

  He’d be a lot better off taking cover than staying out here in the open, looking for a weapon he wasn’t going to find. Fear gave him a fresh focus, lending energy and urgency to his steps. Time for him to start using his head. He scanned the wall of the embankment, looking for cover and the easiest way to the top. Maybe he could find a weapon up there.

  Maybe he had one on him. Remembering his knife, he reached for it, experiencing a rush of emotion when he found it in its usual place, strapped to the sheath on his side. It was a feeling like when you thought you’d lost your wallet, only to find it safely tucked in your pocket after all. Only better.

  Remarkable that the blast hadn’t stripped it from him when it had torn away so many other clothes and objects from his person. That was just the breaks; a blast was a fluke thing. Today sure was his day for luck. Surviving the blast and finding the knife. If I get any luckier, I’ll kill myself, he said to h
imself. If somebody else doesn’t beat me to it.

  He had to fight the urge to unfasten the safety snap, draw out the knife, and fill his hand with it. Caution took over. He was still plenty shaky and he didn’t trust himself not to drop the blade and lose it in the mud. No, he’d keep it where it was until he needed it. He hoped he wouldn’t need it.

  He noticed a cut in the bank to the left of him. It seemed to access the top of the shelf. He changed course in the mud, angling toward it. Nearing it, he saw that the cut had been caused by a partial collapse of the bank, opening up a seam shaped like an upside-down V.

  He reached the base of the bank and climbed inside the seam, fingers clawing at hardpacked dirt, scrabbling for a grip, grabbing bunches of exposed pale roots where they seemed strong enough to serve as handholds, and hoisting himself up. Nearing the top, he remembered he was in enemy territory and played it cagey, peeking over the edge to see if the coast was clear before pulling himself up.

  What met his eyes was a scene of megade-struction. The pumphouse had been well seeded with explosives. Plastic explosives, most likely, and plenty of them. The building was gone, virtually leveled. It had been blown to bits and the bits scattered to the four winds. A crater marked the place where it had been.

  This was no casual blow. This was a death trap. ODA 586 had been lured into it and blown into oblivion. The site was bare of all other life but himself, as far as he could see. The team had been wiped out, and only he remained. It was hard to process, but true all the same.

  McBane, Ervil, Niles, Donnicker, Virgil, Creedy, Tillotson, Calhoun, Paulus, Garza—all gone. All that energy, vitality, personality, life experience, all erased in an eyeblink.

  It was like losing an arm or a leg. One instant you’re whole, the next you’re not. They say that amputees can often sense the presence of the absent body part, like it’s still part of them. There was an even a name for it: phantom-limb syndrome. Steve Ireland could appreciate the sensation. That’s what he felt like. Only not the victim who’d lost a limb, but the limb itself. Does an amputated limb feel anything after it’s cut off? He’d been cut off from the others. He felt like a phantom, a living ghost. Eerie, unreal.

  Maybe he was getting ahead of himself. He’d survived. Maybe others had, too. He looked around. He didn’t see anybody else. Didn’t hear anyone, either. No calls, cries, shouts, shots, machine noises, nothing.

  The landscape was brown, gray and tan, with gold and bronze accents that were dry weeds and brush. The sky was gray-white except for a band in the southwest quadrant above the horizon. It was clear and a soft, milky sky blue.

  He watched and waited for a while. It was good not to move. He needed the rest. He was dog tired. Then he roused himself, pulling himself up to the top of the embankment and standing there in a half crouch. He didn’t want to show himself, and hid behind a pile of masonry that was part of a collapsed wall.

  A bird flew past. Steve’s nerves were so strained that the sound of the its wings beating the air made him jump.

  He started forward, skirting the crater where the pumphouse had been, picking his way through the rubble toward the far side of the hilltop. A section of stone wall jutted from the earth at an angle, blocking his way. He detoured around it. He came face to face with Albin Prester.

  Prester was about twelve feet away, sitting on the ground with his back propped up against a tilted slab of stone wall the size of a pool table. He had a gun in his hand, and it was pointing at Steve.

  “Maybe it’s not my day for luck after all,” Steve said.

  Prester said, “Remains to be seen.”

  That was the first that Steve realized that he’d spoken the statement aloud and not just thought it.

  Prester was hurt. His face was white, bloodless. It was easy to see where much of the blood had gone. His shirt front was soaked with it. Agony carved deep lines into his face. He sat with his right hand, his gun hand, resting on top of his thigh. He had enough left to point it at Steve Ireland. He held it steady, unwavering.

  Steve calculated his chances. Prester was too far away for him to rush. He thought of the knife on his hip. A knife wasn’t so hot against a gun, unless you were throwing it. His knife was flat bladed and balanced for throwing, but even so, a thrown knife is a gamble. Even if you can hit the target ninety-nine times out of a hundred, there’s always that hundredth time when it comes up short. Besides, Prester could put a bullet in him long before Steve could draw and throw the knife.

  Prester was badly wounded, perhaps even mortally wounded, but he was nobody’s fool. His narrow-eyed gaze didn’t didn’t miss much. Prester wiggled the gun barrel, motioning Steve forward. “Come here,” he rasped, his voice breathy and throaty. Bloody froth bubbled in the corner of his mouth.

  Steve obeyed, advancing, his steps clumsy and halting. When he was a body length away, Prester motioned for him to halt. “That’s close enough,” Prester said.

  Steve said, “What happened? Get caught in your own trap?”

  “We’re all caught in our own traps, but never mind the philosophy. Not now.” Prester’s words were clipped, as if he was biting them off. He said, “You think I’m responsible for this?” His free hand, the one not holding the gun, indicated the blasted surroundings.

  “It wasn’t any of my guys that did it,” Steve said.

  “In that case, I’ll have to get rid of you, too, won’t I? To make a clean sweep,” said Prester.

  Steve had nothing to say to that.

  Prester eyed him up and down. “Christ, you look like you fell through the outhouse floor. You smell that way, too. What a fragrant bouquet for me to go out on.”

  He chuckled. The chuckling turned into a cough that threatened to have serious repercussions. Prester’s face turned green around the edges, and fresh drops of cold sweat beaded on his forehead. He choked the cough off fast, stifling it before it could tear up whatever he had left that was keeping him going. The fit subsided. Prester looked scornful. “I felt so bad about setting your team up that I shot myself four times. Is that what you think happened? Use your head.”

  Steve shrugged. “Maybe your little blond accomplice crossed you. Or is she dead, too?”

  “Hardly,” he said dryly. “Unfortunately,” he added, a beat later.

  Prester released his grip on the pistol, turning it around and offering it to Steve Ireland butt first. He said, “Here. Take it.”

  Steve was mentally thrown. Whatever he’d been expecting, this wasn’t it.

  “Go on, take it,” Prester urged. “What’re you afraid of? If I wanted to shoot you, I would’ve done it by now.”

  Steve took the gun, weighing it in his hand.

  Prester said, “Feel better?”

  Steve unconsciously nodded. He did feel better. The feeling piqued his suspicions. What if Prester, for whatever devious reasons of his own, had passed him an unloaded gun?

  He checked the gun to make sure it was loaded. There was a round was in the chamber and more in the clip.

  “It’s loaded,” Prester said.

  Steve said offhandedly, “Just making sure.”

  “You’re not as dumb as you look. There may be hope for you yet.”

  “Thanks,” Steve said. He pointed the gun at Prester.

  The other’s smile was thin, wintry. “You can’t kill me. I’m already dead and just marking time until the Reaper comes. You’re the one who needs the gun. You’ll need it for Debbie Lynn—my ‘little blond accomplice’ as you called her.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s a killer. If you see her first, shoot. Don’t be fooled by that perky, all-American demeanor. Shoot her down like you’d shoot a rattlesnake.”

  Steve was skeptical. “She set the bomb? I don’t believe it.”

  “She didn’t set it, but she set it off. The bomb was planted here by others. But she’s the active agent of the conspiracy,” Prester said. “She sold out. She’s a traitor.”

  Steve demanded, “Who’d she sell out t
o?”

  Prester shook his head. “Don’t talk. Listen. There’s a lot to tell, and not much time to tell it in. You’re supposed to be dead, with the rest of your unit. But you’re not. She couldn’t have reckoned on that. It’s the unexpected, the X factor. We can make it work for us. There’s still a chance that something can be saved out of all this.

  “Not me, though. I’m done. The flak jacket slowed her bullets but didn’t stop them. It kept them from killing me right off, though. That and you’re being alive could mean a second chance.”

  Steve was frustrated, confused. “Talk sense, mister.”

  “I’ll talk,” Prester said. It was a promise. “The things I’m going to tell you are things you need to know. Somebody’s got to get the message through.”

  “What message? To who?”

  “Shut up. I don’t have the strength or the time to answer a lot of fool questions. But you must know this. You’ve got to contact Kilroy. Joe Kilroy, from Mercury Transit Systems. Kilroy, or Vang Bulo, his buddy, a big black guy.”

  Steve said, “I know who they are. I’ve seen them around.”

  Prester’s closed-lip smile was quirked at the corners. “You only think you know who they are. Remember, Kilroy or Vang Bulo. They’re okay. You can trust them. Nobody else. Tell them that Debbie Lynn Hawley is the traitor. They’ll know what to do. But you’ve got to tell them. Nothing is more important than that. It’s high priority. Higher than you know. The highest. Think you can handle that, hotshot?”

  Steve said, “Yes.”

  Prester raised himself up on an elbow, leaning forward. “And remember—if you see Debbie Lynn, shoot. Shoot first and shoot to kill, if you value your life.”

  Steve suddenly started to walk off.

  “Wait!” Prester said, throwing out a hand. “Where are you going?”

  “You’ve got me so spooked about Debbie Lynn that I want to make sure she’s not sneaking up on us,” Steve said.

  “Don’t take too long. My time is short.”

  Steve crossed to where a gap opened in freshly churned mounds of earth. The explosion had dug deep and the heaps of black soil had a rich, loamy smell. He hunkered down, peeking through through the gap at the landscape below. He could see down the slope into the hollow at the base of the hill. It was empty of human figures. No Debbie Lynn. No nobody.