Fifteen years ago, the Newborn Initiative seized control of the world, vowing to replace "Oldborns" with genetically "improved" humans. Brue Carnell—a pitiless technocrat—orchestrates this transformation with chilling precision.
In the Appalachian hills, insurgency is born. Daniel, once a father, now a killer, hunts Newborn Operatives. Ten years ago, he suffered a loss that sent him spiraling into the depths of violence. Deep in the wilderness, he orchestrates a silent war, launching ambushes and vanishing before the smoke clears.
When his daughter, Maggie, stashed away in the underground resistance for her safety, returns, everything changes.
But the war is escalating. The Initiative's Special Operators relentlessly hunt the resistance. A mission to stop Carnell sets off a chain reaction of bloodshed that could wipe out what’s left of the insurgency.
--
Phillip Lawrence’s Sons of Man is a military dystopian thriller packed with guerrilla warfare, shadow networks, and the silent war between engineered perfection and human defiance.
2037
The gunsight settled on the target’s head. Rhett’s finger, outside the trigger guard, tapped the lower receiver—soft and drumming. He imagined the head popping, the body slumping. He shifted his weight, crossed his legs, and leaned forward. He’d been in the hide site for what felt like a week but, in reality, was only two days. Dense, woven creeper vines buried him in the high thicket—blending him into the valley’s wall. The blending of Rhett into anything was quite a task. The man was large. At six feet five, he blotted out what little sun managed to trickle into the observation post. Carved into the steep bank, covered in heat-reflective blankets, the entrance was shrouded with area greenery.
They were a good ways up the hillside. The target he’d observed throughout the night was maybe three-hundred-fifty yards away. He guessed out loud, “It’s about three-forty-two.” He lifted the digital reticle to his eyes. Readouts scrolled at the top right corner. The distance read: 351 yards. Placing the reticle on his lap, he smiled. His dirty face seemed to crack. “Glass says three-fifty-one.” There was no response from the dark space behind him. “You hear me, Daniel?”
“I heard ya.”
Rhett’s eyes dipped in consideration; he felt ignored. “I guessed three-forty-two. The glass said three-fifty-one.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, that’s a pretty good guess, I’d say.”
“You’d say? You say all kinds a’ stuff. You never stop sayin’ stuff. Every once in a while you’re gonna get somethin’ close to right.”
Rhett nodded. It made sense. “Whatcha reckon it’s been doin’ down there?”
“Just how in God’s name am I s’posed to know that?”
Rhett cocked his head and eyed the target as he’d been doing since they dropped it on the road two days ago. “It’s blind, ain’t it?”
Daniel sighed.
Rhett said, “I’m just askin’.” He softened his tone to deflect some of Daniel’s surliness. “’Cause it ain’t moved. It’s just been sittin’ there. All night.”
Daniel said, “It doesn’t matter if it’s blind or not; its brain wasn’t done cookin’ when we got ahold of it. It wouldn’t know where to go, even if it knew that it needed to go somewhere.”
Rhett considered the thing deeply—the Skin. He asked, “You think it believes it’s a person—I mean that it’s alive?”
Daniel slipped up beside his large friend. He pulled the reticle from him and motioned to the back of the hide. Rhett slid past him, agile for a man his size.
Daniel put the glass to his face. “Skins ain’t alive—none of ’em. Even the ones that think they are.”
****
The Newborn sat naked in the dirt, legs crossed. His back ramrod straight, arms rested on his knees. His face, the skin of it, gleamed chemically. A mixture clung to the developing dermis, allowing his pigment to culminate. His current tone: bloodless. He sat, covered in the stuff, on the edge of the road.
Having just been upgraded from the tanks, his flesh had attained the third phase of growth. He existed that way for a brief time, outside the tank, stashed in a cold, metal folder. His skin, in the early stages of stratification, still maintained its sleek, waxy appearance.
He’d experienced very little in the way of stimuli until the event which unfolded two days ago. After lifting him from the culture on forks, still wet from the cellular stew, the techs had wrapped him in a stereostatic cocoon; his body had been bombarded with a mixture of buffering agents and antibiotics.
By that point, his internals—brain, liver, and lungs—were capable of supporting his functions. He understood these things, even though he’d never spoken a word or had had a word spoken to him. It all seemed to sit inside his skull: imprinted knowledge. He was in the early stages of the actualization process—when psycho-resilience stressors were to be applied.
He’d been on a transport, or as the Oldborn techs called it: A body haul. Something catastrophic had occurred. There was a loud clap on the truck’s outer shell. A concussive wave rolled through the hauler, crippling the storage system responsible for life support. His oxygen supply plummeted; loud, sharp explosions erupted all around. The screaming voices of the Oldborns filled the gaps.
The doors were wrenched apart, and he was pulled from his bag. He felt, for the first time, dirt on his skin. Unfiltered air in his lungs. Dragged and tossed into a rough, metal compartment, he rumbled about for hours and then was stiffly deposited where he sat.
Blind, yet the fibers, muscles, and nerves of his eyes functioned. The optic pathway, due to developmental priorities, was slow-baked over several weeks. This was scheduled to transpire within his buffering bag. But as a result of the catastrophe that had befallen him—for which he had no frame of reference—he was outside his cozy envelope, sitting on what he understood from overheard conversations to be a thing called Virginia.
He didn’t trouble about it, though; he had no notion of troubling. He had no concept of the future and, as such, was unperturbed despite the violent disruption.
As each developmental milestone passed, the explanation of it unlocked itself inside his mind—a dissociated scavenger hunt of sorts. And as each of these “unlockings” occurred, his disposition became ever so slightly more clear in his mind.
Trepidation was not in his nature. Although, while sitting on what he took to be Virginia, he felt as if nothing more would reveal itself. Throughout those dark, uncomfortable hours, an inkling had grown within him. Things had gone awry. The process had been disrupted to the point that, short of a dramatic correction, he would learn nothing new. Had he the capacity for expectation, he might well have felt lonely, or disappointed. But as an incomplete being—non-actualized—he felt neither.
And, of course, he had no idea that someone was coming for him. And that was, in fact, the reason he sat in the dirt—to bring them to that spot of earth.
****
Daniel reviewed his preparations. The burn bombs were in place. Simple things—he didn’t nerd out over demolitions. He liked them to be easy and reliable. This rig was just that: backup fuel cells, taken from first-gen hovercraft—pretty easy to get your hands on, stockyards were full of them, lined up, unguarded, about fifteen minutes’ worth of work would get them loose. There were three of them—a triangle of death as arranged—daisy-chained together, set to go off at the initiation of the main. The wire-operated trigger consisted of a line that ran from the initiator to his hide site. It terminated in a booger knot tied around a sawed-off Sweetgum branch.
Rhett stirred from his nap, rustled for a minute, and asked, “Why are you so particular about using those burn bombs?”
Daniel stared at the Skin, rigid and unmoving on the roadside. “Because fuck them.”
Rhett stretched his arms as far as he could in the cramped space, yawned. “That checks out. How long we gonna sit here, wait on this guy to show up?”
Daniel said, “We’ll give it another twenty-four. If he don’t show by then, we’ll cook this’n and take off.”
“Sounds good. You think—”
“You think maybe you could internalize a thought here or there?”
Rhett chuckled. “What, you didn’t get breakfast today, old man?”
Old man.
Daniel opened his mouth to take a jab at his partner but shut it as the hover slid over the top of their position. The gravidic propulsion modules dotting the skids just above the treetops—the thing flew in fast and low. It dropped down into the valley, disrupting the hardwoods; leaves were shredded loose, came down in showers.
Daniel said, “Pack it up. It’s just about go-time.”
Rhett hurried, gathering the packs and stuffing away what little gear lay outside them.
Daniel lifted the branch connected to the tripwire with a light touch. He held it in his hand, the other sliding forward over it, denting the line from the tension, playing with it… waiting for the right moment…
He held his eyes even, his breath the same. As Rhett behind him scrambled, emitting nerves, Daniel saw the scene with cold eyes, gallium-filled veins. He barely raised a hair at the knowledge of what he was about to do.
The hover didn’t dance about. It ripped once around, scanning, just above the level of the hide site. Once done, it dropped out of the sky on its extended legs, settling hard. The clear blast door slid back and the ramp dropped.
Daniel narrowed his eyes. Rhett came forward, his bearded head looming over Daniel’s shoulder. Without a trace of irritation, like ice, Daniel said, “Get off me.” Rhett backed away but managed to keep the hover in sight.
The Special Forces team came down the ramp. Daniel lifted the reticle. He scanned the operators as they disembarked, fanned out and formed a perimeter around the slick, naked Skin. They wore the latest skeins, optical headsets synched over a command net—fancy guys with fancy gear. He studied them—moving where he thought they would, acting within their operating procedures, and aligning themselves near perfectly with his predictions. As each operator fell on the perimeter, he emitted a simple grunt of satisfaction.
Then, he saw him. “There he is.”
The man walked down the ramp, in command. He consulted his heads-up display and spoke into a radio. He pointed, gave directions, and the perimeter tightened up.
Rhett said, “He is a persistent sumbitch. I’ll give him that.”
They sat in silence and watched their subject step off the ramp into the trap.
Rhett said, “Good ole Tommy boy—been waitin’ a while for this.”
Tommy approached the Skin, stopped in front of it, studying it. Attempting to communicate, he waved his hand in the Skin’s face. He scanned up and around the valley. His posture shifted; agitation crawled into his spine. A creeping suspicion worked its way in there, inside his eyes. He pulled a couple of his men from the perimeter, gave them anxious directions, grabbed his radio, and started talking.
Daniel said, “He’s gettin’ the heebs. Startin’ to dance a little.”
“Stop wastin’ time. Burn ’em.”
Daniel didn’t need much more convincing. The whole detachment of operators sat inside his kill zone. He yanked the branch over his shoulder, reaching as far back as possible. His free hand slid the length of the line, snatched it and he grunted as he jerked it past his hip.
What followed was the overwhelming sound of nothing. The Skin, the operators, Tommy, all of them went about their business in the kill zone.
“What the fuck?” Rhett’s voice had an edge. “Yank it again.”
Daniel dropped the line. “It’s compromised—caught on a stump or somethin’.”
The perimeter began to collapse with several of the operators moving to the ramp. Two of them had the Skin in their hands, lifting it, dragging it. Tommy’s eyes were birdlike, darting black dots. Daniel knew how he felt, realizing you’d walked your guys into a trap; it was overwhelming, threatened to unmoor you from your instincts.
They were moving fast, escaping the kill zone in an orderly fashion. The hover began to hum as it came online.
Daniel said, “Hit the clacker.”
Every plan has contingencies. The alternate initiation process was a radio frequency detonation. Most Special Forces commanders carried body-bound RF disruptors. If Tommy had his switched on, the clacker wouldn’t work.
Rhett grabbed the thing from the ground. “Prob’ly jammed.” He hit the lever—again, nothing. The prey continued to escape, a couple of guys on the ramp now, looking up into the valley wall, guns up.
The third contingency required a level of exposure. Daniel grunted and plucked his rifle from the wall of the hide site. “If this don’t work, you know what to do.” He slid out from under the heat reflective blanket, understanding the signature that he created on the hillside.
The question here—as it always seemed to be—was who’s gonna see who first? Well aware of the sensor platforms on assault carriers, Daniel knew he’d have several moments before the scanner would pick up his presence. Once detected, the belly gunner would receive notification. It was a simple matter of execution at that point—traverse, aim, shoot.
Daniel slid on his stomach down the sharp incline, in a wallowed-out path that led to his designated point. From there he had a clear site line to the primary fuel cell. Marked with a small piece of orange cellophane, it was no more than fifteen feet away when the belly gunner opened up on him. The rounds traced over his head, slapping the hillside, splintering the tangled roots.
No choice but to continue, he buried his face in the muck and snaked forward, reaching the tape. Behind him, from the hide site, he heard a rocket blast and caught the smoky tail as it sliced down toward the hover. He propped his rifle into a Y-shaped branch. The rocket burst, harmless as a gnat, against the armored hull. The belly gun swung away toward the hide site.
He placed the aimpoint of his rifle on the fuel cell. He took a breath as he settled into the shot. The belly gun warmed up, getting ready to hose Rhett.
His finger produced six pounds of pressure.
The entire valley floor bleeped out of existence for a moment in a blast so glaring it clipped the sound. The tripped fuel cells unleashed hundreds of thousands of pounds of pressurized flame, charring everything in a white-hot eruption. The air in the valley sucked down toward the hell of it, the treetops yielding. Half inside the zone of fire, the hover’s landing gear collapsed under the shifting weight of its melting frame.
The conflagration lasted about ten seconds, then burned out, and the charred spot of earth was blackened to chalk. The operators, the Skin, and Tommy were all gone—intermingled, indiscernible ash. The trees along the hillside burned: the heat had relocated their molecules outside their bodies, spontaneously igniting. Half the valley wall was either burning or thinking about it.
Daniel took a deep breath, looked over his shoulder at Rhett. He yelled above the roaring fire, “You ready?”
Rhett smiled like a boy. “We should prob’ly get.”
Daniel jumped up, ran back to the hide site. “Leave the shit bucket, let it burn.”
Rhett nodded. They slipped into the rising smoke. Daniel led them over the spine of the ridge, stopped, and looked back. “They’ll be comin’ for us now.”
Rhett hadn’t stopped smiling. “Let ’em come.”
Daniel peered through a break in the smoke. The hover, wholly plagued by flame—nothing down there but the ash of all those men and that one thing.
He looked at Rhett. “You say that now. Wait till they find us. See how you feel about it then.”
They disappeared into the wilderness.
The White Room
The memory faded around the edges, scarred onto the white wall. Years of trauma and drug-induced hallucinations spoiled the edges of it. The center of the picture—the moving part—lived for him as often as he wished to see it.
Lori lay before him again, in his mind, on the ground. The tall grass sloped away from him. They pointed toward her but did not look into his eyes, because they knew what he’d find. It would be too much for him.
He moved to her. The wind came down, stirred the grass, then the leaves. Her hand reached for him.
Her body had been stripped of clothes, the cuts and burns worked into her skin. Drained of life, the juice of her gone, leaving this violated thing. It was not her. It did not sit proud, as she had.
It was not her.
He touched her hand and it was cold like meat. The eyes sat open, two beads staring into the unflinching sun.
What must she have thought of him toward the end of it? Had she waited for him to arrive and save her?
She didn’t deserve this.
He painted this place on the white wall and visited it many times. He spoke to her but she never answered, always the sun beating into those still, glass beads.
He fell to his knees over and again, begging a God who didn’t care. He begged a God invisible to him.
Now the white seeped through, threatening to spoil the memory.
The goddamned white.
He stood ashamed in the face of his failure. He imagined her struggle. Had she forgiven him? The state of her body encouraged dark imagining, and so he did. His mind worked through the possibilities, the endless debasements. How long did she tolerate it?
Then, the same cold blackness opened beneath his feet and he felt hell below him. His chest shuddered, and it was fair and right for him to go down into it.
Something moved near him, off to his left. It tugged at his awareness, vague and distant, yet waiting. No matter how often he told himself he deserved death and hell and every other thing, he always ran from it.
The movement near him was subtle. He could feel the person, or the thing waiting for him to pull his eyes from the wall, to rejoin his body and be present along with it. So, he did. He left her in the grass in her pale, naked body. She’d be there for him when he returned.
ONE
2041
The cloak of earth covered my Master
I then parted with my torment
The seas, the trees, the roll of the rivers
could not answer it, the seeking heart.
—The Dawnbringer’s Chronicle
The patrol left out two days before. The temperature wavered, hot in the day and cold at night—October in the mountains. The terrain billowed like giant, green waves across the endless Appalachians. The low ground was dark, filled with the claiming things. Every vine equipped with spikes: some straight, others barbed. Hidden until the skin dragged the stem and the million needles drew blood. The grapplers flourished in the soft soil, clustering upon them, delaying them, sapping them.
They labored to make the high ground where the trees grew sparse and the ground was rocky, less fruitful. A man could walk upright and take a breath. The sun on his face for a few minutes, all the while, the whispering maw waited beneath him. He stumbled into its teeth again and climbed out. This he repeated until the thorns engraved his arms and his lungs burned with the smell of sweet vines in the mountain air.
Through this, Daniel led the patrol—his patrol. He was accurate and on time, as was his custom. He knelt on a ridgetop, somewhere in the hills of Virginia. His lean face carried a layer of sweat in the midday sun. He scanned the area with his hard, close-set eyes.
There were no roads, no buildings for miles, only the green angles and ridges of the hills. Spinal processes etched eternally in the crawling mist. They expanded before him, disappearing in the afternoon haze.
He compared the distant landmarks to the lines on his map. He knew where he stood. He understood the truth of the world—every hill and crevice served as a waypoint. He traipsed across it like he owned it. He carried himself on stout legs. Yet the grinding from his knees had grown in volume over the years.
He would have a last day, a final patrol, but not today. Someday his body would refuse. It would quit on him, but not today. Today he would see to his business. The world within his reach would again smell the metallic tang of revenge and soak in the sulfur of his hatred.
****
Daniel had developed a philosophy of war, and he ensured his junior leaders were indoctrinated. His words echoed in their ears during the quiet, painful moments on patrol.
When it comes to killin’ men who don’t wanna be killed, preparation is well over half the gig. Maybe, fellas, it’s the whole shebang.
On his back, the heavy rucksack stood. It sat on his spine and wicked away his essence like a giant, green tick. Over his shoulder, a long gun hung, taped and camouflaged, ready to be put into play.
Above him, in a crux of limbs, a man peered at the valley through his digital reticles. He locked eyes with Daniel. The two exchanged a series of hand signals, intricate and silent. Daniel nodded and waved him down.
His patrol knelt in positions alongside the trail. They were young, teens and early twenties. They shifted to and fro, gritting under the weight of their patrol rucks. They were vigilant, looking for signs of trouble. They were good boys.
For instance, if the men you wanna kill should happen to be a great distance away, you might need a level of endurance appropriate for the task. This doesn’t happen overnight. Killin’ men as a routine matter necessitates consideration. There are the bullets, which must be lugged. There is whatever food and water is needed to sustain the effort. But there is, foremost to all other considerations, the mind of the man tasked with the job. Never assume he is ready to kill. You won’t know his mind until you see him act.
Daniel stowed his map and gazed at the young men, most of them not old enough to have lived a life of their own. The wars had chewed up their families. Many of them had grown up under his guidance. He knew most of their fathers—most of their fathers, now dead. They were old friends who lived like ghosts among the trees. He could hear their voices sometimes when it got rough and the green tick was working him over.
The proper leverage must be found and applied. The appropriate grievance, skillfully kindled. The button, so to speak, must be pushed.
The lookout in the tree slid the last ten feet to the trail. A thin, fit young man, twenty years Daniel’s junior. His name was Carl. The point man on the patrol, he possessed an unusual ability for land navigation.
“We’re good, boss. The road is about a klick, straight down there. Half-hour to the rally point.”
“Alright.” The boy’s waited, obedient in the afternoon sun.
This vulnerability, one that all men have, has gotta be cultivated particular to each man. It requires attentiveness. It requires empathy. It requires love, and it’s better if that love is genuine. Let him know that killin’ for you is killin’ on his own behalf. Convince him that killin’ for you is the only answer to his personal injury. That’s why you’ve taken him in, a lost soul, and taught him, and fed him and loved him. So that you could stand beside him and watch as your shared demons are burnt to dust.
They waited for his orders, commitment written in their eyes. He’d earned that by walking them to the door of death. They came out on the right side of it more often than not. His talent in the hot moments and the ease with which he made quick decisions endeared them to his leadership.
War was not fought with machines. It was fought with the minds of men, and Daniel didn’t lie about it to himself or anyone else. He cultivated this creature for over a decade—the monster in the woods.
A man expected to endure hardships in the cause of hunting other men, must be ready to do so when the moment arises. It should not be debated at the time of the doing.
Most of his fighters had lost their families during the early atrocities. They were in search of a reckoning, and Daniel brought them to the place with regularity. He never raised an eyebrow at the brutality of it all, and he was well aware of the impact this had on his men. They spoke of him in secret. He was their icon of retribution. It was as natural as breathing for him. His thirst to drag the enemy down like a wild animal, bleed him, and drain him of life was unmatched in their eyes.
Daniel lived as a vengeful revenant. He called them forward into battle, to wash their hands in fountains of blood, born from the veins of their tormentors.
This issue of whether or not he will kill must become an afterthought. If you’ve done it right, this last, little piece will be just that, an afterthought. You would in fact prefer it that way… It being the only thing better to think of after.
The heads of the patrol turned to him. It was a quiet, expectant moment, and it reminded him of a truth: This savagery would eventually kill them all. No amount of skill would save them, even the best of them.
“When we get set in, make sure everything is right on the assault line. Everybody’s eyes are open, doin’ their job.”
Carl nodded.
“Haven’t lost anybody in a while and I don’t wanna start tonight.”
Carl nodded again. Daniel knew his point man. He understood his mind. Carl was already considering the movement to the rally point, from which the two would reconnoiter the objective.
“Pick up your guys. Lead us out.” Daniel patted his shoulder.
Carl shuffled away, waving his hands as he moved through the formation. The men stood and relieved their aching knees. They bent over and cinched their straps.
Daniel pulled his canteen, held it to his lips, and scanned the rear of his formation. There, on the sun-beamed trail, sat his gun team.
Selection for the gun team on a combat patrol was an honor nobody wanted. Heavy and relentless, the gun was the deadliest weapon system on patrol. It would remind the gunner of that fact through a ceaseless application of pain.
Curtis, a man of nineteen years, knelt behind the thing referred to as the Beast or the Pig. An ancient device, placed into service a hundred years ago, the Beast had two characteristics: loud and heavy. A short belt of ammunition hung from the chamber.
The worn-out, sweat-soaked gunner viewed the world through dark eyes. The only thing he can remember is that he is not yet finished and that he has many more miles to go. With every step, the Pig reminds him to feel honored.
Maggie stood next to Curtis; she was his ammo bearer. She hunched under the weight of a ruck bulging with linked 7.62-millimeter rounds. The heavy tripod for the machine gun sat on top. Having languished under the ruck for days, she patrolled without fear or tactical awareness. The straps burned into her shoulders, and the weight compressed her spine. She didn’t care about anything but her own misery. As if she’d discovered a torment novel in its nature.
Daniel narrowed his eyes and spit. He delivered a short, sharp whistle. Curtis lifted his head. Maggie didn’t bother.
Daniel motioned them forward, and Curtis stood with a grunt. He lifted the gun across his shoulder and moved out. Maggie followed like a suffering mouse, legs trembling. She negotiated the uneven terrain with weary steps.
****
It had been a decade since he’d seen the girl. She was six years old when he’d shut her into a smuggling compartment in the bed of a plumbing truck. Her eyes were ripe with tears as she clung to his arm. Fear creased her face as she recognized his betrayal.
Inside Daniel, all the normal machinery was done for, the gears stripped and useless. He couldn’t see her in front of him, the need of the girl. He lost the capability of caring. He’d made a tactical decision.
Maggie would be safe where she was going. She’d grow up in a world of safety and predictability. The girl would sleep in beds, ride in cars, go to school, and make friends.
There was no place for her where he was going. What he planned was retribution, ruthless and inhuman. He did not bother about dying in the pursuit of it. It would claim every piece of him. There was no time for the girl. There was no place for the girl. Yet, once the sun had fallen on the hills, she sat before him, having returned from her careful exile.
She stayed busy, arranging and rearranging the belts of ammunition. She cleared debris, twigs, and pine needles from the links. She organized them so the beast could be fed when the time came. She did this with a nervousness that annoyed Daniel. “How long you gonna do that?” His voice was low and grumbling, out of the darkness behind her.
“I just want to make sure it’s right.”
“It’s right. Stop fuckin’ with it.”
Curtis smiled and shook his head. He sat behind the gun, mounted on the tripod, and surveyed the land below him. A steep slope led to a paved road that ran toward his gun and then bent at ninety degrees to the right, one hundred meters below. “What’s your left limit?” Daniel asked him.
“The funky tree off that rock.” Curtis pointed to illustrate.
Daniel agreed. “When this thing kicks off, make sure you lean into it. Just like you been taught. That pig’ll jump up on ya.”
“Yes sir.”
“Watch your rounds. Make ’em count.”
“Yes sir.”
Daniel’s tone was laid back and easy, as if he were giving directions to a grocery store.
Maggie said, “Will we be able to hit them all from here?”
Curtis shook his head again and chuckled. He kept to minding his own business with the gun.
“Why in the hell would we set up here, if we couldn’t hit ’em all?” Daniel was losing patience with the girl.
Maggie’s voice grew tight with strain. “Alright. After it’s over—”
“You should know the plan. Why don’t you work on bein’ quiet?”
Maggie turned her head and stared at the ground. Her shoulders shot high with tension, noticeable even in the darkening day.
It had been two weeks since she showed up with a supply run, orders in hand from Command. She had been assigned to Daniel’s group. After he’d attempted to persuade her to return to her civilian life and she refused, he’d taken advantage of every opportunity to isolate and aggravate the girl. She would regret her decision. He’d made a bet with himself that he could break her.
Her frustration radiated in the darkness and he was satisfied with his progress.
****
After a slow and silent time, the groaning of a 6.7-liter turbo diesel engine filled the valley, interrupting the stillness of the deep, bright night. The moon was in its first quarter waxing; the growing white hump of it splashed the road with light enough to distinguish individual rocks alongside it.
During the mission’s planning phase, they analyzed and considered the level of illumination, the size and weight of the lead vehicle, and the gradient of the hill. The truck would struggle to maintain its patrol speed while dealing with the incline and sharp turns of the road. This placed the convoy in a precarious position, making it vulnerable to attack.
Daniel sat up and moved to Curtis. They did not speak. The engine grew louder, and its echo bounced around the valley. Daniel lifted a handheld radio to his mouth and pressed a button. “On me.”
“Roger.” Carl acknowledged the order.
The plan called for the gun to initiate the ambush. Daniel would study the advancing convoy, determine if the target was viable, and when it reached its most vulnerable position within the kill zone.
Vehicles rounded the corner some two hundred meters away. Daniel viewed them in night vision mode through his digitized reticles. In a bath of green light, the device distinguished the type, the distance, and the speed.
A large, armored truck was in the lead. A man sat behind a mounted pulse gun in a turret. Following, two armored SUVs. They were running “lights out” under their night vision systems. A defensive posture to prevent the enemy from seeing their headlamps—on a night with a nearly full moon, it was a waste of time.
Daniel studied the vehicles. His intel had been correct. It was a small, nearly undefended convoy of a low-command element. He spoke into the radio again, “This is a go. I’ll kick it off. Have Mushy hit the lead vic with the rocket.”
“Roger,” Carl flatly responded.
The loud, bulky truck continued to approach. Curtis leaned into the butt stock, steadied his breathing. Maggie stuffed cotton balls into her ears. She picked up the belt of ammunition with trembling hands.
A few more feet and Daniel was satisfied. The armored vehicle was short of the bend in the road. He squeezed Curtis’ shoulder. He shouted, “Now!”
Curtis opened up, unleashing a furiously loud series of explosions that shocked the valley walls. Orange flame spewed from the muzzle, and the tracers strung out and down toward the convoy. Every sixth round was illuminated—a combination of strontium and magnesium created a dotted, orange line. The trace lifted over the top of the lead vehicle.
Daniel leaned in. “Get ’em down! Get ’em down!”
Curtis adjusted, ushering another strand onto the armored truck. This burst found its mark. The rounds splashed across the truck’s top, exploding in sparks and dismantling the man behind the gun.
There was a crack of light, followed by the smoke-white trace of a rocket from the ambush line. The warhead smashed into the armored vehicle, penetrating the hull. The flames flashed throughout the truck’s cabin, which rolled to a stop within a few feet.
“Shift fire to the SUVs!” Daniel screamed at Curtis.
Little flickers of orange and white crackled as the ambush line fired on the SUVs. Their armored bodies spangled with impacts, resisting the onslaught.
Several men spilled from the middle truck, a desperate miscalculation. This must have been the command element, overwhelmed and making stupid decisions, unaccustomed to the heat of enemy fire. They tried to flee the kill zone on foot and found themselves in the bright, naked night.
“Traverse right!”
Daniel pointed, but Curtis had already unspooled his flailing, orange rope into their midst. Some of the men fell and crawled. He dropped clusters of steel into them, methodical as an accountant balancing transactions. Once short of moving targets, he raked the fallen again, as he was taught. A gunner suffers under the Beast and so becomes one as allowed—payment for his efforts.
The killing unfolded, as orchestrated, before Daniel. His face was a tangle of twitching fury. As each man fell, he leaned forward, almost groaning. He had spent an eternity of days and nights in this war, buoyed by hate. These moments were sanctifying.
He still awoke, remembering the horror of finding his wife in the grass—what they had done to her. With every breath, he sought vengeance. This is what you get, motherfuckers.
Another rocket fired from the assault line, into the last SUV, splitting it in half. Shards of metal and glass ripped the sky in all directions. The heavy chassis flipped in separate parts into the opposing ditch. The fuel tank erupted and soaked the chert rock bank with persistent fire.
Daniel lifted his radio. “Cease fire. Cease fire.”
Along the ambush line, Carl echoed his order. “Cease fire!”
Daniel allowed the world to be silent for a moment. The suffering on the road beneath lilted up to his ears.
Carl interrupted. “Mags!”
The fighters on the ambush line reloaded their weapons. Carl moved among the men and collected information. He yelled to Daniel, “We’re up.”
Daniel stood and raised the radio. He spoke with a quiet calm. “Assault.”
Carl echoed the command with a yell, and his men stood and maneuvered toward the kill zone. They moved orderly and stayed online, conscious of each other’s location and careful with their weapons. They were well-trained boys.
Daniel tapped Curtis’s shoulder and pointed away from the trucks toward the road as it continued past the curve. “Move the gun. Cover that road. Anybody approaches, light ’em the fuck up.”
“Yes sir.” Curtis did as he was told.
Maggie fumbled with the ammunition belts, but Daniel grabbed her. He said, “You’re with me.” His voice like a bag of rocks. He grabbed his pack and slid down the slope.
She picked up her long gun and stumbled after him. The angle was steep but negotiable. Maggie sat on her rear and did as her father did. She slid behind him, approaching the road.