The Tide:

Dry Gallows

(The Tide Series Volume 9)

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Anthony J Melchiorri

April, 2019

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Table of Contents

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Also by Anthony J Melchiorri

About the Author

Books by Anthony J Melchiorri

The Tide Series

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The Tide (Book 1)

Breakwater (Book 2)

Salvage (Book 3)

Deadrise (Book 4)

Iron Wind (Book 5)

Dead Ashore (Book 6)

Ghost Fleet (Book 7)

Devil to Pay (Book 8)

Dry Gallows (Book 9)

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The Eternal Frontier

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Eternal Frontier (Book 1)

Edge of War (Book 2)

Shattered Dawn (Book 3)

Rebel World (Book 4)

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Black Market DNA

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Enhancement (Book 1)

Malignant (Book 2)

Variant (Book 3)

Fatal Injection

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Other Books

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The God Organ

The Human Forged

Darkness Evolved

The Tide: Dry Gallows

Copyright © 2019 by Anthony J. Melchiorri. All rights reserved.

First Edition: April 2019

http://AnthonyJMelchiorri.com

Cover Design: Eloise Knapp Design

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

-1-

Atlantic Ocean near the Azores Islands, Portugal

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The chirp and hum of medical equipment accompanied the low thrum of the Huntress’s engines. Brendon O’Neil lay in a patient bed, his long, bony claws resting atop the sheet. Slowly, the white fabric rose and fell like the waves rocking the Huntress. His breath hissed from the slitted nostrils in his mask of bone, his eyes remaining closed.

Dominic Holland sat by O’Neil’s bed. He could never have imagined letting a monster like this on his ship. But O’Neil was no ordinary Hybrid. He was also a Navy SEAL, and he had proven to be an exceedingly capable member of Dom’s team. And now he might not wake up.

The tap of boots against the deck announced Miguel Ruiz’s arrival. O’Neil didn’t stir.

“When this guy sleeps, he sleeps,” Miguel said.

Dom let out a huff of agreement. O’Neil wasn’t really sleeping. He had been in a coma since their mission in Helsinki.

As a Hybrid, he could pump out pheromones and other biochemical factors to influence Oni Agent monsters. But his ability to control them was limited. From what Dom could tell, it was a little like pushing a boulder down a mountain. You could get the boulder to start rolling in the right direction to smash your enemies, but trying to steer it or stop it was out of the question.

Useful, but not perfect.

That was how O’Neil’s powers worked on the lower-level creatures, like the Skulls, and even against other Hybrids. With Titans, however, things seemed much different. The enormous monstrosities they’d first discovered in the Congo had been genetically engineered so that Hybrids had a much tighter connection to the Titans. Dom had watched O’Neil pilot a Titan like it was a living war machine. It had come at a steep cost. O’Neil had pushed himself to his limits controlling a Titan to save the rest of the Hunters. He’d driven himself until he was an unconscious, bleeding mess.

“I hope Sleeping Beauty wakes up eventually.” Dom glanced at Miguel and smirked. “Maybe he needs a kiss from a prince.”

“Trust me, Chief,” Miguel said. “I’ve already tried.”

That wasn’t the answer Dom had expected. The shock must’ve been clear on his face because Miguel roared with laughter.

“Hey, we gotta try everything,” Miguel said. “We need this guy back in action.”

The door to the med bay’s laboratory opened. Dr. Peter Mikos, the chief surgeon on the ship, strolled out, mopping at his brow with a paper towel. Dark bags hung under his eyes. His beard had grown in, giving him the look of a disheveled, tweed-jacket-wearing academic.

“Any updates?” Dom asked.

“We are doing everything we can.” Peter threw the paper towel away. “But in cases like these, there is often little we can do but wait. So I am trying to hurry up and wait as fast as I can.”

Divya Karnak exited the lab next. The indents from where her goggles had been pressed against her eyes still showed, giving her an almost comical look if not for the serious expression she wore as she approached.

“Every biological assay we run, every attempt to find some drug to counteract the Heikegani Agent...” She shook her head, unable to finish the thought. “It’s too much. I’m afraid we’ll never find a way to control the agent like the Halo pills.”

Dom swallowed hard. He had heard it before. In Estonia, they had discovered the FGL was using some kind of drug to control Hybrids. The Halo pills, as the prisoners they’d rescued in Tallin had called them, stopped the bony growths caused by the Heikegani Agent, alleviating the intense pain that went along with it. Dom wasn’t sure whether the FGL had laced the Halo pills with something addictive, or if the mere control of the Hybrids’ pain was addictive enough. But by controlling the supply of Halo pills, the FGL could effectively beat down their captives’ spirits and enlist them to help their terrible cause, as they’d been doing in their makeshift Estonian factories.

“What about for the pain?” Dom asked, gesturing to O’Neil.

“Nothing for that, either,” Peter said. “We can fill him up with morphine, but that’s not going to be a permanent solution.”

Peter and Divya had suggested that O’Neil might still be vaguely aware of his surroundings. He might even be listening to this very conversation although his body wouldn’t cooperate with his mind. Whether O’Neil could hear them, Dom wasn’t sure. But whatever the case, a constant grimace remained painted across O’Neil’s face. It might be an artifact of the bony mask. Or it might be a sign of the intense pain coursing through O’Neil’s Heikegani Agent–riddled body.

Dom prayed it wasn’t the latter. He could not imagine being a prisoner in his own body. And not just imprisoned, but also tortured.

“So no progress on anything to control the Heikegani Agent,” Dom said. “What about figuring out how O’Neil could control a Titan?”

Miguel rubbed his knuckles, his jaw clenched. “If we had that kind of technology, we’d show the FGL a thing or two, Chief.”

Divya let out a long sigh. “Nothing, unfortunately. We have precious little intel on the physiological underpinnings of the Titans. Without a better biomolecular roadmap, the best thing we could do is come up with wild theories.”

“And none of those theories held up against laboratory tests,” Peter said.

“Understood,” Dom replied, veiling his disappointment.

“I wish we could figure this out,” Divya said, “but we’re desperately short on resources.”

From the flash of sorrow in Divya’s brown eyes, Dom knew she wasn’t just talking about cell media and chemical reagents. They were operating on a dearth of intel and severely understaffed. Only Divya, Peter, and Sean McConnelly, their resident epidemiologist, were left on board the Huntress.

Back when Dom’s girls were young enough that they’d hold his hands everywhere they went, he’d taken them to the State Fair. They had seen a dozen ponies chained up in a dusty stall with kids squealing and crying as they rode the poor animals. The girls had asked if they could ride the ponies, but Dom felt too bad for the overworked animals.

That’s how the science team looked now.

Exhausted. Overworked.

It was a harsh reminder of how much they’d lost. Dr. Lauren Winters should have been in the lab right now, overseeing her team. And her protégé Navid Ghasemi should have been right beside her. Instead, the FGL had infiltrated the pharmaceutical laboratory in Frankfurt where Lauren and Navid had been working.

The whole place had been burned to the ground with everyone in it.

The world had seemed so dark, so hopeless, since then. Those Frankfurt plants were supposed to manufacture the Phoenix Compound, the vaccine and cure for the Oni Agent. The production lines could’ve provided enough for all of Europe. From what Dom had learned, they had also been making some of the most potent weapons in NATO’s arsenal against the FGL, including the Skull-calming Pacifist Fog and the new Tenth Plague, which ripped apart Skulls’ bony formations at a molecular level.

Despair waited at the back of Dom’s thoughts like a trapdoor spider. He could tell it was there, and if he let himself slip up, it would pounce, sucking his mind into that dark hole of depression.

But he couldn’t lose faith in himself, in his people, or in the allied countries across the world that were determined to fight back. If he did, then what else was there but to curl up and let the FGL win?

Peter spoke again, almost as if he’d been reading Dom’s thoughts. “It is all so much.” The man looked at O’Neil’s skeletal face. “We are stretched beyond our limits, and I’m not sure how much longer he can cope with this.”

“We’ll find something,” Dom said finally. “And if we don’t find it in the lab, we’ll find it in the field. If we have to, we’ll steal it from the goddamn FGL.”

***

Kara Holland clenched her mouthpiece between her teeth. Her fist hovered above her face, just like Meredith Webb had taught her.

“No, no, not quite like that,” Meredith said, facing off with her on the sparring mat.

“Like what?” Kara asked.

Instead of answering with her words, Meredith swung a nasty left hook that stopped just short of busting Kara’s jaw. She felt the slight brush of the boxing gloves over her skin, but thankfully that was it.

“Your right hand is too low,” Meredith said, keeping her chin tucked against her neck. “You’re leaving yourself wide open.”

“Damn,” Kara said.

“Watch your mouth!” a shrill voice called. Her little sister was holding their golden retriever, Maggie, at the edge of the mat. Maggie let out a bark as if to emphasize Sadie’s point.

“Shut it, Sadie,” Kara said.

Kara had heard once that only cockroaches would survive the apocalypse. She was sure that was wrong. Sadie would survive, too, if only to annoy her. Her sister had made a game of trying to distract her during these training sessions.

At first, she’d been angry. She had wanted to ban Sadie and Maggie from the room. But Meredith had said they could teach Sadie a thing or two about defending herself. And that distractions were good.

Well, they weren’t good good.

But it was good for Kara to learn how to tune them out, to focus on the task at hand. Real combat didn’t take place in a quiet gym with a soft mat underfoot.

She slowly circled the mat, eyeing Meredith, thinking about her next move. Before Kara could make a decision, Meredith took a single, pronounced step forward. Kara knew what that meant. She brought her knee up immediately. Meredith’s shin slammed against Kara’s calf. The impact resonated deep into Kara’s muscles and bone. It hurt. But it would’ve hurt a lot worse had the devastating kick connected with her ribs.

She didn’t gloat over her successful block. Instead she twisted and struck with a kick of her own that forced Meredith back. Kara took a step forward as if she were going in for another kick.

Instead, she lashed out with a left-right-left flurry of punches that caught Meredith off guard. Each punch hit Meredith’s sparring helmet, bursting past her gloves.

Meredith jumped back and whistled, signaling the end of the fight. They offered each other a wai—a bow with palms pressed together—that Meredith had taught Kara.

“I like the fake projection,” Meredith said. “Very good.”

“I’m getting the hang of this Muay Thai stuff,” Kara said, taking off her padded helmet. She spit her mouthguard into her palm. A rope of saliva went with it.

“Gross!” Sadie trotted toward them, tossing each of them a towel. “You’re going to need this.”

Maggie shot ahead and wound her way between Kara’s legs, whining, her tail thrashing violently. The dog’s tongue whipped out all over Kara’s face when she bent to calm the retriever.

Kara laughed. “She’s gotten better at holding her anxiety in until we’re done.”

The first time Sadie had brought Maggie into the gym to watch a sparring match, the dog had constantly whined and barked, pulling against her lead. She had seemed frantic to break up the fight. Eventually, with Sadie’s reassurances, the dog grew used to the sight of Meredith and Kara trading blows or taking each other down in headlocks. But without fail, after every match was over, Maggie greeted her like this, as if she was glad Kara had survived.

Maggie rolled over to reveal her belly and let both Meredith and Kara give her a healthy belly rub.

“How’s your practice going?” Meredith asked, looking up at Sadie.

Sadie started shadowboxing, her skinny arms shooting out like a plastic Rock ’em Sock ’em Robot. She didn’t have bad form, but Kara wondered how much power could actually be behind the girl’s punches.

“Very good,” Meredith said.

Kara’s little sister flexed comically. “Hitting the bags every day, like you said.”

Kara smiled, but she hated seeing Sadie like this. If she and Sadie ever had to employ the self-defense moves they had learned from Meredith, it would be because someone had invaded the Huntress.

God save us if that happens, Kara thought. She and Sadie weren’t soldiers. Not like the Hunters or the Hybrids and all those people who worked for the FGL. These fighting techniques were a last resort. Kara feared that if they needed to use Muay Thai or Brazilian jiujitsu or any of the other self-defense styles Meredith had taught them, it would already be too late.

A shiver snuck down her spine.

“You okay?” Meredith asked.

Kara blinked and stood, her feet pressing into the mat. “Just spaced out there for a second.”

Meredith looked ready to press Kara further, but a soft buzzing sound grabbed their attention. It was coming from Kara’s duffel bag. She loped over to it and pulled out the comm link. Alden Jorgenson, chief engineer of the Huntress, needed her down in the engine bay.

Saved by the buzzer, Kara thought.

“I got to go see Alden,” she said, pointing to the comm link. “Engine room stuff.”

She jogged out of the gym and down into the belly of the ship. There, she would dive into the sweltering heat of the engine room. At least when she was working on repairs and routine maintenance with Alden, she had to remain intensely focused. She couldn’t let her mind wander. Specifically, she wouldn’t be able to think about what had happened to Navid in Frankfurt.

Down there, her life was much simpler. She just had to focus on the machinery, working through one problem at a time.

If Kara could just stay busy enough, maybe she wouldn’t have to think at all.

-2-

After her early-morning sparring match with Kara, Meredith planted herself at a desk in the electronics workshop. Those brief moments of physical activity helped break up the long days spent scrutinizing potential intel. She glanced at the clock at the corner of her computer monitor and blinked in surprise. She’d been working for the last six hours straight.

She massaged the bridge of her nose. The tingling of a headache began to take root behind her eyes. That was usually a sign that she’d been staring at a computer screen too long, perusing reports. When she had been at Langley, long before anyone had dreamed anything like the Oni Agent could even exist, these were the moments she would force herself to get away from her work. Grab a cup of coffee. Maybe go for a short run.

Breaks were easier to justify back then. She could only work herself so hard before burning out, and the Agency had respected that. Most intelligence officers knew when to call it quits. Rest and relaxation were absolutely necessary to ensure that when they were in the game, they were operating at full capacity.

Now the stakes were so much higher. Instead of hunting down nascent terrorist cells, she was tracking a ruthless global organization. The intel work Meredith toiled over in the electronics workshop of the Huntress mattered more than anything she’d faced her entire life. The FGL was a hydra. For every head of the operation they cut off, two more sprouted, more fearsome and dangerous than the last.

The computer screen was now full of intercepted transmissions between FGL units. She looked away for a moment and picked up one of the plastic Watchmen figures on her desk, rotating it. The toys didn’t belong to her, but rather to another communications specialist on Dom’s team who had lost his life. So much had happened since then; it sometimes seemed like years had passed since Adam’s death. Meredith had inherited his desk and never once considered clearing it off. She’d grown to like the little figures and had gotten interested enough in their story to thumb through the graphic novel Adam had stashed in the desk.

One phrase in particular had stuck in her mind: Who watches the Watchmen?

She couldn’t help but think of Pyotr Spitkovsky, the leader of the FGL. Supervillains didn’t start out committing evil for evil’s sake, right? Maybe there had been a point in his career where he thought he was doing the right thing. Thought he was protecting his comrades, his people, by developing his bioweapons in the service of the Soviet Union then later Russia. But he had grown too powerful. Nobody had watched him closely enough, and his ego had led them all into this apocalyptic new reality.

“Earth to Mere,” a voice said, snapping Meredith out of her thoughts. “Found anything exciting?”

Samantha Hamlin turned in her seat to face Meredith. She pulled her headphones off her ears and let them rest around her neck. A sweeping brass overture soared from them, a far cry from the heavy metal she used to enjoy. Samantha claimed she couldn’t listen to her metal without her energy drinks. Apparently, she could only listen to classical music now that she was reduced to drinking tea and coffee like an ordinary person.

“I feel like a miner forced to work in a compost heap,” Meredith said. “Not a single diamond, much less a scrap of aluminum.”

“We’re getting nowhere.” Bathed in blue light, Chao Li sat at a bank of monitors near the front of the workshop. He stretched his arms out then cracked his knuckles and stood. “The FGL did a great job of covering their tracks. For all we know, Tallinn and Helsinki weren’t even connected to the rest of the FGL. They might’ve been running independent operations.”

“You actually believe that shit you’re spewing?” Samantha asked, brow raised.

Chao shook his head. “Speaking metaphorically. Or figuratively. Whatever. I don’t know. Can hardly think straight right now. Too much screen time.”

Meredith couldn’t disagree.

She considered what Chao had said. They’d retrieved corrupted FGL files in Helsinki and Tallinn. Both facilities had been almost completely destroyed, and Meredith feared so too was the key to unlocking what the FGL was up to now.

“I hope someone finds something,” Meredith said.

“Was that a passive-aggressive swipe at me?” Samantha asked.

“You should know me better than that. I don’t do passive-aggressive. Just aggressive. You can ask the Skulls if you don’t believe me.”

“Fine,” Samantha said, still sounding irritated.

“I’m talking about our friends back on land. I know there are some bright people left in the CIA. People who should be good at cracking stuff like this.” Meredith stared at a map of the world glowing on one of Chao’s screens. Dozens of green dots showed the active locations of their allies, including cities secured and hosting military units. Outnumbering them were hundreds of red dots showing cities that they’d lost contact with or whose governments had been utterly dismantled. “Then again, even the best intelligence officer can’t do much without resources or connections.”

Chao brushed a hand through his dark hair, leaving it to rest on the back of his neck. “I think—” He paused and leaned in closer to one of his screens. A red circle blinked on one of his open applications. “Ah, speak of the devil. Call coming in from Detrick.”

Meredith’s heart beat faster. Maybe this was what they’d been waiting for. One of their closest allies in the United States, Colonel Jacob Shepherd, was based there.

“Huntress here,” Chao answered. After a brief pause, he hit a button on his console to engage the speakers. “You’ve got Samantha, Meredith, and Chao on the line.”

Shepherd’s voice boomed throughout the workshop. “I trust you all are staying out of trouble.”

“For the time being,” Meredith replied, standing from her seat. She began to pace in front of her desk. “But we’re never far from it.”

“I still haven’t figured out if it’s you who causes the trouble or if it always just happens to find you.”

“A little bit of this, a little bit of that,” Meredith said. “But I’m guessing you’re not calling to exchange pleasantries.”

“Hardly much pleasant nowadays,” Shepherd replied, his voice crackling slightly. His voice took on a somber tone that Meredith didn’t like. “We’ve fallen desperately behind on the production of the Phoenix Compound. With Frankfurt out of the picture, we’re years behind where we hoped to be.”

“Christ,” Meredith said. There was so little they could do without that compound to quell the spread of the Oni Agent. “Are you bringing any other plants online?”

“We’re working on it,” Shepherd said.

“That’s vague enough.”

“Vague is all I’ve got. All the potential sites are infested with Skulls. It’s been hell trying to squash the hordes and establish secure areas around them. Not to mention, the more we try to take back from the Oni Agent, the thinner our forces are spread.”

“Makes sense,” Meredith said. “Lots of territory to defend.”

“I’m not talking about just taking territory. I’m talking about rescuing civilians. We’re finding pockets of them all over. People who have only just managed to hang on to their lives. We can’t abandon them when they’re the ones we’re trying to produce the Phoenix Compound for.”

Meredith was silent, picturing the thousands upon thousands of people out there who were riding out the Oni Agent storm. It was horrifying enough to face Skulls with a team of trained mercenaries by her side. But for the average civilian, even if they had access to a stock of weapons?

She shivered.

Shepherd sighed audibly. “And it gets worse.”

Samantha gave Meredith a hard look, shaking her head. There went all their hopes of getting the magical keys to the FGL’s gate.

“We can handle it,” Meredith said.

“There’s been a new development. I didn’t believe it at first.” There was a pause. “I’m sending you an image. Chao, you should see it shortly.”

Chao clicked on his keyboard, and a picture appeared on one of the workshop’s monitors.

A pair of guard towers stood on either side of the image. Between them lay an open set of gates through which people were being ushered in long lines. Meredith recognized the gates from her brief time at Fort Detrick. They’d been reinforced since she’d been there. She spotted new machine gun nests and lines of barricades. But as she stared at the image longer, studying the refugees filing into the base, her stomach twisted.

Dread hit her like a blizzard in the middle of summer.

Dirt and grime covered many of the people. For most of them, their clothes hung off their frames, baggy and torn. They had evidently spent a long time outside the realm of running water and readily available food. But that wasn’t the most alarming thing about their appearance.

Bones jutted out at their elbows. Claws stuck out of their fingers. Their noses appeared flat and skeletal, and their brows were knitted with bumps and even horns. Their faces were full of fear and exhaustion. They looked more like jack-o’-lanterns than humans, with their fanged teeth.

They were Hybrids.

American Hybrids... so many more than she could’ve ever imagined. The rumors were true.

“One of our recon teams first discovered a group of Hybrids in a biotech company,” Shepherd said. “Originally we thought that had been some kind of anomaly. Maybe something to do with the biotech facility itself. But then more civilian Hybrids started popping up.”

“How many are there?” Meredith asked, afraid of the answer.

“We’ve been uncovering pockets of them nearly every day,” Shepherd replied. “Sometimes it’s just a family or two. Sometimes it’s a whole town.”

“That’s insane,” Samantha said, eyes wide, still staring at the image. “I thought the whole visit to Helsinki was to stop this exact scenario.”

Their mission in Helsinki had been to eliminate the manufacturing plant for the airborne Heikegani Agent. They had stopped an enormous freighter full of the substance from going out, and as far as they’d known, there had been no prior shipments of the agent from Helsinki.

“If we stopped them in Helsinki, how did this happen?” Meredith asked.

“We were wrong,” Shepherd said. Meredith had never hated three words as much as she did now. “I don’t know where the Agent came from. I don’t know how it got to America. But we were wrong about everything.”

Meredith’s silence spoke for her.

“I know that’s not the news you wanted to hear,” Shepherd said. “We’ve been on the defensive for so long I think it’s been grating on our morale here, too. And to discover this is happening to our people and we’re powerless to stop it...” He let the words dangle in the air for a moment. “Well, we’re tired of it. General Kinsey is tired of it. The president is tired of it. Our allies are tired of it.

“So, for this next part, I think it’s best you bring in Captain Holland to our conversation. Because we’ve got a plan. And if this works, we will make the FGL—and Spitkovsky—pay for every man, woman, and child that has been turned into one of these monsters.”

-3-

All the lights in the Huntress’s cargo bay couldn’t dispel the shadows haunting the place. Stacks of crates secured to the bulkhead and deck loomed over the Zodiac hidden beneath its protective covering. Each crate was a reminder of the allies they had around the world. Allies that had provided them with everything from ammunition to fresh fatigues and food. It was those alliances that literally and figuratively kept the Huntress afloat.

Most of the time, they relied on their allies in the States and Europe to provide them support. A couple of times, they directly engaged the enemy with NATO by their sides. But throughout most of the Huntress’s illustrious career, they had worked on their own.

Dom usually preferred it that way.

Never had they entered into an operation with a plan as ambitious as General Kinsey’s Operation Thunderbolt. And never had they willingly entered an arena of combat with so much raw firepower. Shepherd had said Kinsey’s plan was supposed to end the war against the FGL for good. It didn’t matter what Dom thought of the plan. If he refused to join this operation, Kinsey would see that as a sign of Dom’s dereliction of duty and possible treason.

Technically, he wasn’t an official part of the United States government in any form or fashion. He didn’t have a duty to derelict. But the last thing he needed was more enemies.

“What’s the big secret, Chief?” Miguel asked, seated on a crate in front of Dom.

Behind Dom was a large projector screen with a map of Russia. He sometimes held briefings down in the bay when they needed more room than the workshop provided. This time he had simply chosen the cargo bay to get out of Samantha and Chao’s way.

A clang sounded from the top of the ladders as second-in-command Thomas Hampton entered the hatch. Thomas crossed the rest of the bay and grabbed one of the folding chairs propped against another stack of crates. He set the chair by Miguel and dropped into it. Then he plucked out his unlit cigar from his pocket and rolled it between his fingers.

The rest of the Hunters were already there and waiting: Glenn Walsh, former Green Beret, his large form nearly dwarfing Miguel’s. Jenna Reed next to him, a steely look in her blue eyes as she studied the projector screen. Andris Jansons with his arms crossed as he leaned back in a folding chair. And finally, Meredith beside him, looking every bit as if she’d been a member of the team since its inception.

“We’re doing things a little differently this time,” Dom said.

“Different in a good way?” Andris asked, his Latvian accent thick.

“Different is fine when you’re eating at a new restaurant or looking for a new place to vacation,” Jenna said. “But it’s not super great when it comes to tried-and-true strategies against the Skulls.”

Glenn harrumphed in agreement but didn’t say anything. Usually the man was meticulously clean-shaven, but now scruff shadowed his face. He looked at Dom as if he was paying attention, but Dom made a mental note to talk to him later. The medical team weren’t the only ones missing Lauren.

“This time we’re not going out into the field alone,” Dom said.

Jenna’s face scrunched up. “Like I said... different isn’t great. I like it when we do things our way. Add too many variables into the mix and it throws off my rhythm.”

“At least if we’re making new friends, they better be good at what they do.” Miguel leaned forward on his crate. “We talking a SEAL team or something?”

“Not exactly,” Dom said.

“Just tell ’em, Dom,” Thomas said with a rough guffaw. “A single SEAL team, I could get behind. But this...” He shook his head. “This is something else.”

“Very descriptive,” Jenna said dourly. “Can we cut the suspense, Captain?”

“Kinsey is launching an all-out assault on the FGL with the help of NATO,” Dom said, “and we’re part of it.”

“Target?” Jenna asked.

“Two of them,” Dom said. “Baghdad and Moscow.”

Andris’s eyes widened as he nearly slipped from his seat. “We are joining an attack like this willingly?”

“Willingly is a strong word in this case.” Dom paced in front of the map of Russia. “It’s Kinsey’s idea, and our best and only option is joining in on the fun.”

Thomas chewed his cigar. “Can’t believe I’m going to miss all that fun, stuck on the ship.”

“Sounds like this one’s going to be a regular party,” Miguel said.

“Every day is a party when you are around,” Andris said.

“Captain, what the hell is Kinsey thinking?” Jenna asked. “We’re not equipped for an invasion.”

Dom grabbed a small remote from his pocket and clicked a button. The map of Russian expanded to include Iraq. A rash of arrows spread, pointing at Moscow from the west. Another set of arrows came at Baghdad from the east. A lone arrow from the west shone blue.

“This is us,” Dom said, pointing to the blue arrow. “We’ll be working alongside two teams of Green Berets in intel operations.” He glanced at Glenn, hoping to see some spark of anticipation at working alongside his old brothers-in-arms. But Glenn continued staring ahead blankly at the map. Dom upgraded his mental note to speak with the man directly before the mission. They couldn’t risk going into the field with him so distracted.

“We aren’t going to be part of the main invasion of Thunderbolt,” Meredith said, nodding.

“If we do our job right, this will be a quick grab and run,” Dom continued. “A while back, Samantha and Chao located the Russia-Syria-Iran-Iraq coalition, along with their Joint Information Center in Baghdad. If you recall, communications were being routed through Baghdad and the facility we discovered in the Congo. Kinsey strongly advised against any incursions into Iraq at the time. The whole region was a shit show.”

Jenna straightened on her crate. “So does Kinsey think Iraq’s in a better place now?”

“Not in the slightest,” Dom said. “In fact, it’s probably worse. Recon indicates a twofold increase in active Skulls, dozens of Goliath sightings, and Titan tracks.”

“Then why’d he pick now to go in?” Miguel asked.

“Kinsey thinks we have no other choice,” Dom said, “and I’m inclined to think he’s right. With the civilian Hybrids all over the United States and Europe, we know something bad is going on. The only way to stop it is to strike down the FGL. It’s not enough to go after their remote bases and labs anymore. We’ve got to strike the heart of the organization.”

Miguel used his prosthetic hand to crack the knuckles on his biological one. “Are those your thoughts or Kinsey’s?”

“At this point, does it matter?” Dom asked. “We have to stop the FGL somehow. The current plan is to use brute force. Our NATO allies are charging in with everything from the Pacifist Fog to good old-fashioned bullets and drones.”

“What about the Tenth Plague?” Andris asked. “I am most interested in seeing that in action.”

“Tenth Plague production is way behind,” Dom said. “Shepherd said they’re playing catch-up since Frankfurt went offline.”

“Damn,” Miguel said. “I was hoping we’d have some new toys.”

“Maybe we’ll find something we can borrow from the FGL,” Dom said. “Kinsey wants to occupy the cities if possible. Take over any available resources. Delve for intel. But if we can’t have it, Kinsey doesn’t want Spitkovsky to have it either. If the invasion goes south, then they’re going to level Baghdad.”

“Invasion ain’t going to go south if we’re there,” Miguel said.

“I like your optimism,” Dom said. “Thing is, before all this happens, we’re going into Baghdad first.”

“With those two Green Beret teams,” Jenna said.

“Right,” Dom replied. “We’ll be in and out before Operation Thunderbolt really begins. The other military units are going to be our distraction. While Spitkovsky’s people are focused on the giants barging into their city, they won’t see the ants stealing away their food under their feet.”

“Can’t you use another analogy?” Jenna asked. “Ants get squashed too easily.”

“Replace ants with whatever makes you feel good. Point is, their invasion is our diversion.”

“If they know an invading army is rolling up on their doorstep, how are we getting through their figurative gates?” Meredith asked.

“Haven’t been told yet,” Dom said. “But I was assured we’ll be getting a backstage pass straight to the JIC.”

“If the goal of Operation Thunderbolt is to decimate the FGL,” Jenna said, “then why are we being sent into the JIC in a concurrent stealth op?”

“According to Shepherd, we—that means our team and the Green Berets—are not there to take down the FGL. We’re there to take down the Heikegani Agent. None of the NATO science teams have been able to replicate whatever compound or drug the FGL is giving Hybrids to control their bone growth and pain. We’re being sent in specifically because of our expertise in retrieving bioweapon samples and data. Shepherd says that Kinsey has good reason to believe the key to the Heikegani Agent research is at the Baghdad JIC.”

Dom paced in front of the screen. “You all remember Estonia. You know how the FGL is trying to raise an army from civilian Hybrids. We can stop them and save innocent lives.”

“Baghdad it is, then,” Miguel said, pushing back so his folding chair was balanced on two legs. “Can’t say I’ve missed the place, but I can’t say I wouldn’t like to return if it meant kicking some FGL ass.”

“Count me in,” Jenna said. “I heard Baghdad is lovely at this time of year. Although the wildlife leaves much to be desired.”

“Count you in?” Andris laughed. “I believe we already are all counted in. But I am glad to see the enthusiasm. I, for one, look forward to getting more practice with my C4.”

Thomas clapped his hands together. “I’ll be looking forward to spending some time on the deck of the Huntress, working on my tan while you all bake your asses off in the desert.”

“Ah, don’t hide your jealousy, old man,” Jenna said. She patted her stomach. “A little hike through the desert could do you some good.”

“Hopefully our little hike through the desert does the whole world a great deal of good,” Dom said. “For now, stay focused, because things are only going to get harder. The more Spitkovsky feels himself backed into a corner, the more the Russian dog is going to bite.”

Dom hated to ruin the group’s good comradery with a bucket of cold water over their heads, but it couldn’t be helped. This might very well be the most challenging mission the Hunters had ever undertaken.

And as much as he wanted the mission to succeed, he wanted something else.

He wanted them all to survive.

***

Normally, days spent on the sea brought Dom a kind of peace he could find nowhere else. Each blue wave cresting and splashing against the hull of his ship was like the reverberating note of a monk’s meditation bowl. He hated to admit it, but the sea was more home to him than the house where he’d once lived with his ex-wife and their girls in Maryland. There was a quiet serenity in the rush of air over his face and the caress of warm sunlight.

But the oceans of turmoil crashing inside him were anything but peaceful. The Huntress was a few days out from the Arabian Sea. There, they would rendezvous with a US carrier strike group in the Persian Gulf. Kinsey wouldn’t tell them where exactly they were supposed to join the group or what ships were part of it until they were closer. Those thoughts didn’t bother him as much as the knowledge of what came next. Knowing the fresh hell they would soon enter after the rendezvous cast dark, ominous clouds over his mind.

And he wasn’t the only one within whom dark clouds brooded.

Dom followed the gunwale, wind whipping over him, tugging at his shirt. A misty spray cooled his face as the sun boiled the humidity around him. Toward the bow sat another figure, his broad back pressed against a coil of chains on the forecastle.

Glenn.

The usually clean-shaven man had let his beard grow out, and the bags under his eyes had grown darker, more pronounced. His fingers flipped through the pages of a thin, dog-eared book. Dom eyed the cover. Buddhism Plain and Simple. Glenn stared at the book as if he were reading, but his eyes were fixed in one place, even as he turned the pages.

Dom sidled up next to him and turned to watch the layers of blue over the horizon. He had tried to give Glenn his space and respect the man’s wishes. When Dom had asked, Glenn had told him that he was fine; he would deal with the loss of Lauren on his own.

It was entirely clear that Glenn was not fine. Instead of mourning with the rest of the crew, he had seemed to shrink within himself, as if he were spiraling into his own personal black hole. It wouldn’t be long before Glenn would be needed in the field. They couldn’t do an intel grab like this without his language skills and keen intelligence.

But Dom also couldn’t risk bringing a man who had collapsed in on himself. The reality was that grieving had become a luxury. One they simply didn’t have time for.

“How are you doing?” Dom asked, breaking the silence.

“Okay,” Glenn said.

Dom shook his head. “No, brother, I know you’re not okay. None of us are okay. So again, how are you doing?”

“I feel like shit, Captain,” Glenn said after a long pause. He didn’t look up, his gaze still drilling a hole through the center of his book.

“Studying Buddhism now?” Dom asked.

Glenn blinked and looked at the book for a second as if he’d forgotten that it was in his hands. “Studying anything.” He closed the book. “Trying to find solace.” He tapped the cover of the book. “Been searching for it wherever I can, but I keep coming back to this.”

“You like the mysticism?” Dom was no psychologist. Navigating shit like this was about as easy as walking through the streets of Bangkok blindfolded. But he had to try. After all, it wasn’t like they had a shrink on board. For now, the best he could do was keep Glenn talking.

Glenn shook his head. “It’s not about the mysticism. It’s about being present, living in this moment. Knowing that the only thing permanent is change. Knowing that there doesn’t have to be a purpose to everything, and accepting that it’s okay.”

“Is it helping you?” Dom asked. It didn’t look to him like it was.

“I don’t know about helping me,” Glenn said. “But I think they’ve got it right. The struggle is applying it to my life.” He let out a long exhale as he stuffed the thin book into one of his pockets. “It got me thinking about how there is no greater purpose to the Oni Agent spreading. This isn’t part of anyone’s plan except for the FGL’s. I’m trying to be present in the now, to think about where I am on this boat. The fact that despite the Oni Agent, the ocean is just as beautiful as it always was. Animals and plants still thrive in all the corners of the Earth. Someday, the Oni Agent will pass, the dead will be absorbed into the dirt, and life will go on.”

Dom nodded along. It didn’t matter if he agreed with Glenn’s philosophy, just that the man felt heard. That much Dom could offer.

The muscles in Glenn’s jaw tightened as he opened his mouth to speak then stopped. A few more seconds passed before he seemed to muster the words on his mind. “I can’t believe she’s gone. We’ve lost so many people. But Lauren?” A pause. “God, man, if one of us was going to die, I always thought it would be me. She’s a scientist. It shouldn’t have been her. Never her.” Glenn pressed his knuckles into his forehead and pressed his eyes closed.

Dom had always seen him as a pillar of strength, a hulking soldier with a brain as expansive as his muscles. Now he looked frighteningly small.

“They haven’t even found a body,” Glenn said. “It’s selfish of me, but I wanted at least that much. To at least say goodbye.” He tapped the book in his pocket. “I keep trying to tell myself it’s the moments we spent together that mattered. Those are what is important. But every time we lose someone, it’s been like a knife twisting inside me. And this time... it’s the guillotine.”

Dom studied Glenn for a moment. On another day, he might’ve promised him revenge. He might have told Glenn that Lauren was in a better place or there was some ephemeral chance that she was still out there, that she escaped from the massacre at Frankfurt. He could have promised Glenn that the pain would pass.

He knew better now.

Anything he said would be like throwing a bucket of water on a forest fire. Vague reassurances and promises of a better tomorrow would be no good to quench the flames raging through Glenn.

Long ago, Dom had vowed never to lie to his team. Never to tell them something he didn’t believe in himself. So he didn’t.

“I cannot promise you there is redemption in what we’re going to do,” Dom said. “I can’t promise you that the mission in Iraq will give you new purpose. What I can say is that we all miss Lauren. Immensely. And still, I can’t pretend to know the hurt you’re feeling.

“But there is something I can tell you with absolute certainty.” He twisted to face Glenn and waited until the man looked him in the eyes. “We want our brother back. Hell, we’re going to need you out there. I know it probably sounds like I’m trying to guilt you into something, but I’m just stating facts. Because if we do strike this blow against the FGL, there is one promise I’m willing to make.” He paused. “Our success will help make sure that someday—maybe not in the near future, but someday—no one will go through the pain you’re experiencing because of the FGL. We’ll put a stop to them, and they won’t hurt anyone else again.”

With that, Dom clapped Glenn on the shoulder and stood. He nodded a goodbye, leaving the soldier in peace. He couldn’t be sure his words had penetrated the gloom strangling Glenn’s mind. But he prayed for Glenn’s sake—for his team’s sake—that they had.

-4-

Water dripped somewhere. A slow, methodical splatter that was a torture all its own. It was accompanied by the low buzz of equipment humming through the scratchy fabric hood over Navid Ghasemi’s head. A dull pain throbbed at the back of his skull. He wanted to reach up to massage the spot, but ropes bound his wrists behind his back.

He hadn’t been able to feel his fingers since... God, he didn’t even know how much time had passed. His cracked lips were dry, and his tongue was bloated in his mouth. It felt like a thing that didn’t belong there. He tried to conjure up a bit of saliva but couldn’t.

The sound of that dripping water called to him. He wanted so desperately to be free of his shackles and open his mouth under it. He didn’t care if it was dripping from some rusted pipe or if it was runoff from a factory churning carcinogenic chemicals into a polluted, muddy stream awash with fish carcasses. He was so goddamn thirsty.

The hood clung to his skin, matted down by the blood that had dried there. Each time he tried to shift in the chair, he felt his bones ache. The bruises across his body undulated like boiling water. He was so lost in his misery that he almost missed the sound when it came.

Footsteps pattered across the room.

Not just any footsteps. The clack-clack-clack of Hybrid talons against concrete. Ice spread through his blood vessels. He cowered, yearning for a hole to fall into. Maybe he could hold his breath and force himself to pass into unconsciousness before the monster beat him into it.

How many of those beatings could he take before his skull fractured and his brain oozed out of his head?

Everything he’d done, all the choices he had made, had landed him here in some unknown place. God, why had he ever left Boston? Why had he thought he could help Captain Holland and Doctor Winters do anything to stop the Oni Agent?

He had no idea why he was here or what would stop the bastards from torturing him. The only thing he knew was that he wanted a way out. Any way out.

If he died of dehydration in a few days, it wouldn’t be soon enough.

No, Navid thought. I can’t go out there like this.

He pictured Kara back on the Huntress. Through the devastation and chaos that had landed them together, something else had sparked. And as long as there was still an ember of hope smoldering somewhere, he could endure this—whatever it was. Maybe there was something to live for.

The clacking of the claws grew louder. Closer.

He heard heavy breathing. The respiration didn’t sound like a Hybrid. It sounded like him. Like someone else struggling to suck air through a burlap sack.

Another human?

The click of the Hybrid’s claws tapped away again, apparently leaving Navid alone with this new prisoner. He listened to the other person breathe, each inhalation raspy, as if the person was sucking air through a broken nose, like him.

He wanted so desperately to reach out, to say something. But he imagined the slash of a Hybrid’s claw across his cheek or kick into his chest again.

Seconds ticked by as Navid counted his own breaths. Each time his lungs expanded, a lightning bolt of pain branched through his chest. His curiosity grew despite the pain. Finally, he could wait no more.

He tried to ask a simple question: Who’s there?

The words crumbled like sand. His mouth felt gritty, and it had been so long since he had said anything other than grunts or yells of pain.

Navid tried again. “Who... is... there?”

He was sure the words came out better this time. Clearer.

“Navid?” the voice whispered back, sounding as parched as his own. “That... you?”

All his pain vanished for a moment. “Lauren!”

“They’ll come, Navid,” she managed to croak out. “They will.”

He didn’t have to ask who she meant. But he didn’t believe her, either. How in God’s name would the Hunters find them? They were capable covert operatives, sure. But they weren’t miracle workers.

“Hope... you’re right,” Navid said.

The clack of talons against concrete returned. A booming voice admonished him in Russian. He winced as soon as he felt the air move around him. Something heavy hit the side of his head. The force threw his body sideways. Concrete slammed against his side. Fresh pain cut through his body.

He flinched as he heard the Hybrid move toward him again.

Claws wrapped around his shoulders. They picked him up, and he wondered if he was about to be thrown across the room. It wouldn’t be the first time. Instead he was shoved back down, upright in his seat.

Then something unexpected happened. The hood was whipped off his head. Light stabbed into his eyes. He blinked, letting his pupils adjust. Blurred shapes around him gradually morphed into Hybrids.

Beside him sat Lauren. Dried blood covered her chin and lips. A black eye swelled one side of her face, and her nose looked crooked.

Around them lay a familiar setting. Microscopes, lab benches, polymerase chain reaction machines, and DNA analyzers. A laboratory.

The lead Hybrid bent down to look at Navid, yellow eyes glaring behind a bony mask. His rank breath rolled over Navid as he said, “You work for us now.”

***

With a sigh, Meredith finished the last drop of coffee from her cup. Soon they would go back to their preparations for the upcoming mission. For now, Meredith, Andris, Miguel, and Jenna had a chance to savor those few and far between moments they could spend together when they weren’t wearing fatigues and lugging around weapons.

“I will tell you one thing,” Andris said, continuing their conversation around the mess hall table. “I am not looking forward to working with these other people. I like to do things alone.”

“Trust me, bro, we wish you’d do more things alone,” Miguel said, gesturing at the plate in front of Andris. “The way you chew makes me think you think we’re trying to take it from your mouth. I promise you, once those grubby fingers of yours touch that garbage, we aren’t interested.”

Andris ripped a piece of bread from a loaf and stuffed it into his mouth, making a show of chewing with his mouth wide open, gnashing his teeth together.

“Just like little kids,” Jenna said, looking at Meredith. “I don’t know how we deal with them.”

Meredith laughed. Inside, she glowed. Meredith had always felt like an outsider with the Hunters, wondering if she would be accepted into their ranks when she first boarded the ship. She had felt like her relationship with them was tenuous since transitioning from her role as their handler right into the trenches beside them. It didn’t help that she was romantically involved with their captain.

So when Jenna said “we,” it felt good to be included. Much more than the Hunter probably realized.

“We’re adaptable,” Meredith said.

“Ah, come on. We’re not that bad,” Miguel said. He twisted his prosthetic arm off and scratched his back with the now-frozen fingers. “You know, I lost the real arm last time I was in Iraq. Think I’ll find it when we go back?”

The group shared a chorus of laughter.

Yep, Meredith definitely was part of the crew now. Of course, that also meant she had a job to do.

“As much as I’ve enjoyed this enlightening conversation, it’s back to work for me,” she said. She picked up her utensils and dishes then dumped them into the sink in the galley. Miguel told another joke as she left, and laughter followed Meredith out into the passages of the ships.

After following the ladders and corridors to the upper decks, Meredith pushed through the hatch into the bridge. Dom’s pensive face split into a brief smile when he saw her, and Meredith’s heart gave a little flutter. Damn it, they weren’t teenagers anymore. Her pulse shouldn’t be pounding like this.

Meredith stood next to Dom, and his arm slipped around her waist, settling like it belonged there. She smiled up at him—a quick, fox-like grin—and then turned to find Thomas staring at them with a raised eyebrow.

Dom’s second-in-command shook his head. “What a darling couple.”

“Darling?” Meredith asked.

“Your age is showing, old man,” Dom said.

Thomas laughed and went back to studying the map on the chart table. He traced his finger over their course. “We’re just about through the Gulf of Oman.”

“Almost to the Strait of Hormuz, then,” Dom said.

“It shouldn’t be long before Kinsey contacts us,” Meredith said.

“Good, because I’m getting tired of waiting on that old bastard,” Thomas said. “I don’t want to keep sailing until we ground ourselves in Kuwait.”

“I trust he has his reasons,” Dom said.

“Yeah, he still doesn’t trust us,” Thomas said.

“He doesn’t trust our communications,” Meredith said. “Every plan we’ve thought was secure has turned out to be anything but. I’m going to give the man the benefit of the doubt on this one.”

Thomas looked up from the chart table and shot Dom a look as if to say, Can you believe this chick?

It didn’t faze Meredith. She was accustomed to the old sailor’s attitude.

“I’m inclined to believe the CIA intelligence officer,” Dom said. “She knows a thing or two about trust.”

“I’d say at this point, it’s beyond just trust,” Meredith said. “Look, we’ve got civilians turning into Hybrids. We’ve got the FGL bases cropping up all over the damn place. And the FGL has preempted our moves at every turn.”

She turned to face the bridge’s bank of windows. They had arrived at the strait just in time for the setting sun to fill the sky with slowly dying fire. The water was beginning to darken as the sun disappeared, looking more like black ink every second.

“We can’t be too careful,” she said.

“Speaking of being careful,” Thomas said, pointing at several large dots on the radar display, “we’ve got some strange signals. Can’t quite make heads or tails of them.”

“They look stationary,” Dom said. “Too large to be a single ship, right?”

Thomas nodded, circling his finger around one. “Right. Haven’t moved. But they’re clearly in the water.”

“Maybe it’s the carrier strike group Kinsey promised us,” Meredith said.

“Maybe,” Thomas said. “Weird that they would let us get so close without saying anything.”

“Are we in visual range?” Meredith asked, scooping up a pair of binoculars.

“Should be soon,” Thomas replied.

Meredith brought the binos to her eyes and scouted out the spot in the distance where the first suspicious object on their radar would appear.

Soon she saw it—or rather them. Something sharp moved in her gut, and she inhaled sharply. “Dom,” she said, trying to remain calm. “You’re going to want to take a look at this.”

-5-

Dom took the binoculars from Meredith and scanned the horizon. The last rays of sunlight bled over the sea, illuminating the jagged shapes that had drawn her attention.

“Don’t tell me this is the strike group,” Dom said.

He studied the clot of ships corresponding to the shapes they’d seen on the radar. Long chains and ropes draped between them. Makeshift gangplanks connected the ships, made from what looked to be chunks of bulkhead welded into bridges between the vessels.

The ships were swarming with Skulls.

They lurched over the decks and climbed the superstructures. Some wore the soiled uniforms of sailors; others, the remnants of civilian clothes. A few even had bright-orange life jackets tangled on their spikes. Everywhere he scoped the decks of those ships, he found Skulls.

He forced himself past his initial shock and studied the ships themselves next. There seemed to be all manner of vessels in these strange manmade islands. Transport freighters, fishing ships, ferries, a cruise ship or two, and many, many smaller vessels. Fortunately, he didn’t see anything that looked like it belonged to the United States Navy.

“Never mind,” Dom said, lowering the binoculars. “Looks to me like we found some floating civilian sanctuaries.”

“Not what I’d call sanctuaries anymore,” Meredith said.

Dom’s mind turned back to the refuge they had helped create back in Maryland on Kent Island. They had believed that establishing an island for refugees to escape to would be the best way to defend the population from the Oni Agent. But no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t escape the Skulls forever.

No one could.

“I didn’t see any people,” Meredith said, her hand pressed against the window.

“Just Skulls,” Dom agreed.

“For Christ’s sake,” Thomas said, “these goddamn Skulls are worse than a wart on my ass.”

“Damn shame,” Dom said. “It doesn’t look like there’s much that can be done for them. Stay full ahead, but give us some healthy distance between the Huntress and those ships.”

“Aye, Captain,” Thomas said, taking hold of the wheel.

“There were just the three of them, right?” Meredith asked.

Thomas jerked his chin at the display. “Nothing else is cropping up on the radar.”

“Good,” Dom said. He picked the binos back up and studied the three drifting junkyards. As long as they stayed far away, it would be no problem to avoid the mindless monsters wandering about the ships.

All the same, the sight of the ships lashed together filled Dom with a cold dread. Surprises involving Skulls had taught him to prepare for the worst.

“Thomas, call everyone to battle stations,” Dom said. “Meredith, make sure the Hunters are ready in case any of those bastards know how to swim.”

“You got it,” she said before disappearing out the hatch.

“We should be far enough away those bastards can’t jump aboard,” Thomas said once he relayed Dom’s message over the ship’s comm system.

The Huntress glided through the water past the first huge artificial island.

“See?” Thomas asked. “We’re good. Skulls probably don’t even see us.”

“It’s not the Skulls I’m worried about,” Dom said. “It’s whatever else might be out there with them.”

They’d seen enough strange adaptations of the Oni Agent–riddled monsters, from Imps to Droolers, to know making decisions based on old data wasn’t smart.

Shadows moved across the Huntress’s deck as some of the crew got into place, bearing their rifles. One of the mini-gun turrets jutted up from its hiding spot underneath a hatch. The other nearby turret was out of commission, still requiring repairs from other scrapes they’d survived. Dom didn’t like being down a gun. Something hovered over his mind like a shadow on a day without a sun. Something he couldn’t quite explain but he knew was wrong.

He studied the fleet of smashed-together ships, watching for something out of the ordinary. Skulls, Skulls, and more Skulls. The monsters swarmed around the deck. They looked like they were in a feeding frenzy, running about in circles and slashing the air. There didn’t seem to be anyone aboard the vessels though that would warrant that kind of attention.

“Something’s going on over there,” Dom said. “Skulls are acting like they can smell us.”

“Maybe they can smell you, but I showered today,” Thomas said. Despite the joke, Dom had worked beside Thomas long enough to sense his second-in-command was nervous.

“Why would they be so worked up?” Dom wondered aloud. “With the sun going down, they can’t really see us, and even with the damage in our hull, I doubt they can hear us.”

Dom lowered the binoculars. They were far enough away he could no longer see what was going on aboard the ships. A sinking feeling began to pull at his insides. His body knew what he was thinking before his mind grasped the implications.

“Shit,” he spat. “Thomas, look for any signs of weapons being launched. If we’ve been spotted, it might not have been the Skulls. Could be Hybrids on board.”

“Aye, Captain. There—” Thomas stopped as an alarm buzzed from his station. “We’ve got movement!”

An alarm sounded from their console. On the radar, a storm of small green dots burst from the nearest island of ships. They appeared small—maybe a flotilla of speed boats and attack craft. Then something else grabbed his eyes. He saw a flash of golden light illuminating a plume of smoke.

It took his brain a fraction of a second to catch up to what that meant. The Vulcan gun on deck spurred to life, throwing a wall of rounds through the air.

“Missile incoming!” Dom shouted.

***

An explosion reverberated somewhere deep in the blackness. Then came the staccato of automatic gunfire. He thought he could even hear the voices of his new squad. But all the sounds were slow and muffled, as if his head was submerged in oil. He tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids wouldn’t respond. His fingers wouldn’t respond either, and every time he willed himself to sit upright, his body did not so much as twitch.

Brendon O’Neil was paralyzed, trapped in his own body. And though his senses were skewed and his muscles remained locked, the pain was all too intense. Every nerve of his body sparked in concert as the bones wormed their way between his muscle fibers and pierced his skin. Millions of growing cells sprouted all over his body like a cancer with some kind of artificial intelligence. The constant drip of painkillers was not enough.

The explosions continued, and the desperate yells grew louder. Something was happening to the ship, the crew, and there was nothing he could do about it. He was stuck here, helpless and unable to help them.

He was useless.

The sounds of battle continued. And then...

A surge of energy rocketed through his body. The agony didn’t quite disappear, but it was eclipsed by a wave of anger and an insatiable hunger.

He had felt this before.

Hybrids.

They wanted to kill anything and anyone that stood in their way. And their influence was surging through his body. His fingers curled, tearing into fabric, and his legs twitched. He gasped for breath.

Then there was light. Blinding white light. The sounds of the gunfire pounded against his eardrums, and the chirp of medical equipment sounded like sirens blaring.

He jolted upward. A primal roar exploded out of his mouth.

“You’re awake!” a high-pitched voice said.

O’Neil twisted to his left. His body tensed in preparation for an attack, his mind still under the influence of the other Hybrids.

You’re safe, he reminded himself. You cannot hurt Divya.

The young doctor rushed to O’Neil’s side. “Careful, careful, careful.” She tried to push him back into bed. “You’re still weak.”

“No!” O’Neil said. His vision flashed red. He wanted to slash at her. His muscles quivered as he held back.

Divya recoiled. “You good?”

“I’m sorry,” he said, gritting his teeth. “The Hybrids.”

“We’re under attack,” Divya said. “But you’re safe down here. We’re just prepping the med bay for possible casualties.”

O’Neil willed his breathing to slow. His vision started to return to normal. He saw Peter and Sean setting down whatever medical supplies were in their hands. They started to approach him. He saw the look in their eyes. The apprehension. They looked at him as if he were an animal loose from its cage at the zoo.

“I’m going to help,” he finally said, hoping his voice sounded less frantic than before. “I’ve got to.”

“You just woke up from a coma,” Divya said as she tried to make him lie back. “You can’t.”

“No, really,” he said. “I’m fine. Trust me.”

Divya glanced at the monitors by his bed then looked into his eyes. “You can’t be fine. Not after what you’ve gone through.”

“I’ve had worse,” he said, “and if the Hybrids brought me out of it, then I need to thank them.”

He pushed himself up out of bed. His legs almost gave out, but the pull from the other Hybrids kept him upright. And as long as he could still stand, he could fight.

O’Neil was back.

***

Meredith sprinted down the corridor to the upper deck. Malicious red lights flashed around her as Klaxons wailed. She could barely hear Thomas’s voice calling everyone to their battle stations. She made it to a hatch and opened it, but as she did so, a hand reached toward her.

Instinctively, she brought her SCAR-H up as a dark shape loomed over the open hatchway.

“Meredith, it is me!” a familiar, heavily accented voice said.

“Jesus, Andris. You scared the shit out of me.”

He held out the hand again to help her through the hatch. Meredith smirked at him and climbed up on her own. Before they could say anything else, the ripsaw roar of the Vulcan Gatling gun churned again. Orange tracer runs seared through the darkening sky. A moment later, fire erupted above the water.

Meredith stumbled as a blast of air pummeled them. Andris grabbed her upper arm as he braced himself on the gunwale. Bits of smoking and burning wreckage splashed into the water, and even from here, Meredith could hear the sizzle as they hit.

“Holy shit!” Andris yelled. “What kind of firepower do they have hidden over there?”

Before Meredith could answer his question, there was another flash of light from the nearest jumble of hobbled-together ships. It illuminated an expanding cloud of smoke. A moment later, the Vulcan roared to life again. The chainsaw rip of its spinning barrels preceded another explosion that lit up the ship’s deck like lightning.

That’s when Meredith noticed it wasn’t just missiles headed their way. An armada of smaller rigid-hulled inflatable craft like the Hunters’ Zodiacs were zipping across the water’s surface. They were barely discernible in the darkness and waves around them.

“We’ve got contacts incoming!” Meredith yelled over the comm link. “Counted maybe eight on the starboard beam!”

“Copy that,” Miguel replied. “Jenna and I are near the starboard bow. Glenn’s on his way.”

“We’ll take the beam,” Andris said, sliding down a set of ladders.

Meredith followed as gunfire sparked all around them. The mechanized whir of the functional grenade launcher on the Huntress’s deck began to spew rounds into the sea. Water geysered in bursts around the small craft as they neared the ship.

No more missiles launched from the makeshift island. Meredith guessed they’d merely been used to provide cover from the radar-guided Gatling gun. The distraction was enough for the small craft to close in on the Huntress.

“You think this is FGL?” Andris asked, shouldering his rifle as they reached the gunwale. “Or free Hybrids, like we saw in Greece?”

“I don’t know who it is, but they want this ship.” Meredith brought her rifle up. “And there’s no way I’m going to let them have it.”

Dom’s voice broke over the comm link. “Fire whenever they’re in range.”

“Aye, Captain,” Andris replied.

Meredith sighted up the nearest boat. She let her aiming reticule drift over the first few targets. Not unexpectedly, the passengers were all Hybrids. They wore fatigues, although they were stained and torn. Their horns and claws grew wildly, with no sign that they’d bothered to manicure them or taken any Halo to slow their growth.

That wasn’t good. These Hybrids looked feral. If they’d been cut off from their normal supply lines, they likely didn’t have access to the FGL’s wonder drug. They would be in pain, ravenously hungry, and desperate.

The ship’s grenade launcher continued to pump rounds into the small boats’ paths, but the vessels mostly avoided them. In the craft Meredith was watching, a Hybrid leaned over the bow. The Hybrid carried a cord with a grappling hook in one clawed hand and an AKM rifle in the other. Attached to the rifle of the AKM was a GP-25 grenade launcher.

“Damn,” Meredith said. “They’re packing. We can’t let them on.”

“When those bastards get close,” Dom said over the comms, “we’ll turn all our spotlights on them. Blind ’em, then fire on ’em.”

Meredith moved her finger from her trigger guard and onto the cold steel of the trigger, waiting.

White light blasted from the Huntress. The Hybrids on the smaller craft squinted and held their hands up to block it out. Meredith squeezed the trigger. Red splashed from the chest of the Hybrid she had in her sights. He dropped the rope with the grappling hook and his rifle. Both fell over the side of the craft as he clutched at his chest, blood pouring between his bony fingers. Meredith finished him with another three-round burst. His body crumpled over the gunwale and slipped into the oily water, pulled into the dark depths by the weight of his gear and the dense armor growing from his body.

Andris and Meredith sprayed fire into the ranks of the Hybrids. Their targets pressed themselves flat against the bottom of the craft, trying to hide beneath the benches and steering console, but with Meredith and Andris’s vantage point, that didn’t do much good. Soon, the dark blood of the Hybrids sloshed across the boat’s deck.

But it wasn’t enough.

Somehow, a few were still alive. They used the corpses of their brethren to shield themselves from the incoming rounds as they raced straight toward the Huntress. Meredith and Andris continued to fire, but the corpses absorbed most of the shots.

As the smaller craft reached the ship, a sudden whoomph sounded from below. Then a grenade exploded against the gunwale only five meters from Andris’s position. The blast knocked him backward, sending his rifle skittering along the deck beside him.

“Andris!” Meredith yelled.

She pulled back from the gunwale as another grenade exploded against the Huntress’s hull. Scrambling to get away from the incoming explosives, she saw the same scene play out at the bow, where Miguel and the others were stationed. Then a grappling hook flew over the gunwale, pinging against the deck with a metallic clang. It drew back until it snagged around a stanchion.

Andris pushed himself to his knees, pressing one hand against the side of his head as he blinked, opening and closing his mouth as if trying to relieve built-up pressure in his ears.

“You okay?” Meredith asked.

“I think so!” Andris yelled a bit too loudly.

Meredith started toward the gunwale, but another explosion kept her back. Then a second grappling hook snagged on the handrail. She raised her rifle as a third hook found its home.

Her chest heaved as sweat trickled down her forehead, threatening to drip into her eyes. She refused to let her aim drop for fear that a Hybrid would pop over the gunwale at any moment. Then she saw them: the bony claws fighting for purchase, pulling over the half-man, half-monster behind them.

The Hybrid shot up onto the deck. Meredith fired. Her shots went wide, and bullets sparked against metal. The Hybrid launched himself into the air, coming at Meredith like a pouncing tiger. Time seemed to slow as adrenaline barreled through her blood vessels, pouring into her muscles and nerves. Her whole world became the Hybrid as his claws stretched for her.

The Hybrid hit her hard, square in the chest, as she struggled to parry its blows with her rifle. The force knocked her backward, and she skidded across the deck. She heard someone shouting over the comm link, but she couldn’t make it out, as pain muddled her hearing.

Gunfire cut into the night beside her as Andris lashed out at another Hybrid. The beast grabbed his rifle, tearing it away from him even as he squeezed the trigger. Bullets sprayed the deck, hitting dangerously close to Meredith. She rolled away and brought herself up to her knees, then brought her rifle back up.

“Hold back, hold back!” Dom yelled over the comms.

The Hybrid clawed at Meredith. She didn’t know what Dom wanted her to hold back from, but she definitely wasn’t holding back from this bastard. His mouth opened as he raised a handful of claws. Saliva sprayed in viscous strings from his fangs. She brought her rifle up, firing into the monster as she did, catching the Hybrid under his ribs. Hot blood from the Hybrid sprayed over her face and arms.

Instead of falling back in pain, the Hybrid slashed out at the rifle, knocking it from Meredith’s hands. The force of the rifle catching on its strap tugged at her, and she had to throw a hand out to prevent herself from falling. Blood trickled from between the Hybrid’s teeth as it staggered after her, clutching its abdomen with one hand and slashing at her with the other.

She pulled herself backward, slipping in blood and water, still struggling to push herself up to her feet. The Hybrid let out a long growl as his legs coiled, ready to throw himself through the air again. Meredith knew he expected her to retreat farther, to run like prey. She was weak, a fragile sack of flesh. He was stronger, more frightening, a predator honed to kill.

So she did exactly the opposite.

She launched forward. As the Hybrid flew over her, she grabbed at his ankles. Their collision broke the momentum carrying the Hybrid and yanked Meredith upward. She steadied herself as the Hybrid slammed hard against the deck. The bone along his chin cracked, spewing pieces of his organic armor.

Meredith didn’t pause to think. Her body knew what to do before her mind did. Her fingers grasped the handle of her knife. The blade tore through the air, propelled by Meredith’s adrenaline-fueled strength. She jammed it into the back of the Hybrid’s neck. The blade pushed past the jointed armor plates there, finding flesh and nerves as Meredith twisted it.

The Hybrid’s limbs shot out, fingers shaking wildly. For a second, she thought he might buck her off.

But then he went still, without so much as a curse, his breath whooshing out of him. Meredith twisted on her heels and grabbed her rifle again. Her aim roved to the first flash of movement she saw. A Hybrid was charging Andris. She fired into his flank, and the Hybrid stumbled over his feet, carried toward the Hunter by momentum alone.

Andris gave her a nod of thanks as he pressed himself against the bottom of the superstructure, making sure his back wasn’t exposed to any surprise attacks. Meredith saw gunfire flash at the front of the ship again as Miguel finished off the last of the Hybrids there.

Was that it? Had they won?

Soon the blast of launched grenades crashing against the side of the Huntress answered her question.

No, it wasn’t over. The Hybrids still wanted the ship.

“Am I too late?” a gruff voice asked from behind her. She turned to see another Hybrid. Surprise didn’t begin to explain Meredith’s reaction. In fact, she almost shot him before she recognized this particular Hybrid.

“O’Neil,” she said. “What are you doing?”

“Same as you,” he said. “Hybrids woke me up. They need to pay.”

“Good to have you back, brother,” Andris said.

They ducked when another volley of grenades blasted against the ship. And between those blasts, Meredith heard something else. The churn of rotor blades.

Three helicopters were bearing down on them, guns already blazing. She hadn’t expected this from the floating islands of Skulls and Hybrids.

Shit, Meredith thought. They really, really want this ship.

-6-

Dom watched from the bridge, wishing he could leave his post and join his Hunters. He’d just gotten word O’Neil had broken out of his coma and surged straight to the front lines. A small miracle in itself.

But the responsibility of leading them meant that he was the one to bear the guilt of assuming this position. There was no one to relieve him or Thomas of their posts as they worked the Huntress’s weapons to defend against the onslaught. Still, he hated seeing each spark of gunfire, wondering whose flesh the bullets had found.

And then the helicopters came. Three MH-60 Seahawks, to be exact.

The thrum of the twin turboshaft engines and the roar of the M240 announced their arrival. Orange tracer rounds shot like hot embers from the choppers across their targets below.

The trio of Seahawks swooped over the Huntress’s deck then banked over the remaining five attack boats. Rounds smashed through the Hybrids. A few tried to launch grenades, but without any kind of tracking mechanism, the “dumb” grenades eventually plummeted back into the water harmlessly. A shock of sparks from small arms fire flew from the choppers. But nothing did any significant damage as far as Dom could see.

The same could not be said for the Hybrids and their boats. Spotlights from the Huntress still illuminated the ghastly images of Hybrids collapsing to their knees, clutching at their necks and chests as blood and bone flecks sprayed from their wounds. One of the boats erupted in a rising ball of fire when a bullet hit a fuel line or a store of explosives.

“Looks like the cavalry made it after all,” Dom said.

“Could’ve come a bit sooner,” Thomas said. He put the unlit cigar he’d been clutching nervously back into his pocket then slumped into a chair. With his sleeve, he mopped his brow. “At least we found the strike group.”

Dom nodded then called over the comms, “Sitrep?”

“All accounted for,” Meredith called back. “What in the hell was that?”

“Reinforcements,” Miguel replied. “Didn’t you hear the chief?”

“I was a little busy,” Meredith said.

Dom could see the shapes of the Hunters on the deck. Flames flickered from a couple of the Hybrids’ boats as the Huntress continued past the burning flotsam.

“Huntress, this is Lieutenant James Aberdeen,” a voice called over the radio. “We’re in the bird at your bow.”

Two of the Seahawks had surged ahead, racing back to wherever they had come from. One remained behind, flying just ahead of the Huntress as Lieutenant Aberdeen had indicated.

“Copy. Captain Dominic Holland here. Glad to see you boys.”

“The feeling is mutual,” Aberdeen replied. “We were promised you were out here, and it took longer than I would’ve liked to find you.”

Thomas laughed. “No shit, Sherlock. This is a goddamn stealth ship. Ain’t going to find her unless we tell you where she is.”

Dom shook his head, raising a brow at the old seadog. It was a damn good thing he hadn’t said that over the radio. “That’s the way we like it,” Dom answered Aberdeen. “You planning on leading us to the strike group?”

“Not quite, Captain,” Aberdeen replied. “I’ve got two souls on board that need a place to land. They want to talk. Only problem I see is that you’ve got a nest that can fit only one bird, and I see one already making its home there. We’re going to need you to move that.”

“Seriously?” Thomas asked, once again electing not to say anything over the radio. “They got the Queen of England on that chopper?”

Dom sighed and thought for a second about telling Aberdeen it would be a waste of fuel. If someone on that Seahawk wanted to meet with them, they could wait until they made it to the carrier strike group.

But he held his tongue, reminding himself he was still trying to get on the US military’s good side.

“How long do you need our bird off that pad?” Dom asked.

“I’ll make a deal with you,” Aberdeen said. “Give me one minute to drop these individuals off, and I’ll be on my way. By the time they’re done with business, I’ll give you all the honor of transporting them back to the USS John C. Stennis.”

Dom made a mental note of the aircraft carrier. Thomas was already looking it up on one of the bridge terminals, checking out the archived naval data they had on hand.

“She’s a big one,” Thomas said. “Nuclear-powered Nimitz-class, of course.”

Dom picked up the intraship comms. “Bridge, requesting Frank Battaglia.”

He waited a few moments. The Seahawk continued to fly just above the bow, maintaining a perfectly synchronous flight pattern with the ship. Across the deck, the Hunters were throwing the bodies of the Hybrids over the side.

Finally, a voice answered back over the comm link. “So, Captain, I heard there was trouble and the only thing that could save us was a handsome, debonair pilot?”

“Handsome?” Dom asked. “I don’t remember using that word. Maybe I got the wrong guy.”

“One hundred percent that’s what you meant, Captain,” Frank Battaglia’s smooth voice crooned back. “What can I do you for?”

“Going to need you to move your chopper so the bird waiting at our bow can drop off a couple of VIPs.”

“Seriously? I would fly straight into the heart of darkness and pick up Kurtz by myself if you asked me. But instead I’m a mere valet boy in the sky, wasting my enormous talent to move a chopper a few feet so we can make room for some bossy chopper pilot.”

“Wait,” Thomas said over the comm link, “I got a little confused as to who the arrogant, bossy pilot is. For a second, I thought you were talking about the guy already in the sky. Now I’m not so sure.”

“I bid you both adieu,” Frank said with an exaggerated sigh. “I’ve got to teach a bird to fly.”

“Aberdeen, Holland here,” Dom replied. “You’ll be clear soon.”

A minute later Frank’s chopper was in the air and peeling away from the Huntress to make room for the other chopper.

“Opened a parking spot up just for you, Your Highness,” Frank said over an open channel.

Dom scrubbed his hand over his face. He was as annoyed as Frank and Thomas, but he had wanted to start this relationship with these people off on a better note. Frank was going to get an earful later.

“Hey, man,” Aberdeen called back. “We just saved your asses.”

“Eh, we’ve been through worse,” Frank said.

Two men ducked under the rotor wash from Aberdeen’s chopper. They ran toward where the rest of the Hunters had assembled to wait for them. Once they were clear, Aberdeen took off.

“Not sure I like these guys,” Frank called as he brought his Seahawk back onto its helipad. “Do I really have to fly them back?”

“I don’t think the US military looks kindly on us taking their people prisoner,” Dom said. “But hey, maybe the Hybrids left an extra boat for them.”

“Now you’re talking!”

Frank’s laughter filled the channel as Dom prepared to meet their new guests.

***

Meredith used the cuff of her fatigues to wipe the blood from her face. Judging by the stains on her jacket, she doubted it had made a difference. She strode toward the two figures walking across the deck toward them.

One was a man with a scruffy red beard and a broad chest. He was the type of guy who looked like he enjoyed hoppy craft beers and tattoos, albeit he was in better shape. Beside him was a tall, lanky man with piercing blue eyes and a long scar tracing his clean-shaven jawline.

The man with the beard stretched his hand out to meet Meredith’s and said in a booming baritone, “Captain Robert Lang, Special Forces.”

“Meredith Webb,” she replied.

Next, the man with the scar greeted her. “Captain Jack Craw, Special Forces.”

The other Hunters introduced themselves to the two new arrivals. Each was covered in the grime, blood, and sweat of their previous battle, but to their credit, neither of the two newcomers so much as flinched. They didn’t even give O’Neil a second glance, though Craw did say that he’d heard the Hunters had one of “those” working with them.

“Looks like we showed up just in time,” Craw said, surveying the deck still slick with blood.

“Maybe we do not agree on the definition of ‘just in time,’” Andris said, eyes narrowed.

“Hey,” Lang said, shrugging his big shoulders, “to our credit, we thought those Hybrid creeps had all been eradicated.”

Craw kicked a chunk of bone across the deck, and the jagged piece flew over the side of the ship. “They hassled a few of the smaller ships coming to join us in the Gulf. We dealt with them last time, but it looks like they’re still angling for a ship to get them out of here. They’ve got a couple of broken-down Russian frigates,” Craw said. “But they’re not going anywhere. The weapons still work, though.”

“We sent a few choppers over to shoot the bastards up,” Lang said. “But it seems like they’re worse than roaches.”

“Why not just sink the whole damn roped-together flotilla?” Meredith asked.

“We sank a few of them,” Craw said. “Took more effort than the admirals wanted to admit, and in times like these, when it’s hard to get a resupply, I think they want to conserve as much of the big stuff as possible.”

Meredith nodded. The mission ahead was far more important than a few roving bands of Hybrids turned desperate pirates. Squabbling over whether they should have done more to eliminate the rogue Skulls was pointless now, anyway.

“I take it you all didn’t join us here just to chat,” Meredith said. “Shall we?” She nodded to the nearest hatch.

The group passed into the warm air of the Huntress. Inside, the crew was rushing back to their stations.

“Dom,” Meredith called over the comm link. “Where do you want to meet?”

“Mess,” Dom said.

At once, Meredith understood his intent. She had briefly wondered why Lang and Craw had been dropped off on the ship. But it didn’t take someone with her intelligence training and background to understand why. A wall of distrust still stood between the US military and the Hunters, even if her team was about to become an important part of the upcoming battle. They needed to tear down that wall before moving forward.

She guided Craw and Lang into the mess. Dom soon joined and introduced himself as they all sat down around one of the tables.

“Is this everyone?” Craw asked, looking at the group. “I would’ve thought there’d be more of you.”

“There were more of us,” Miguel said bitterly.

“Shit, sorry, brother,” Lang said. “This war is devouring us. My twelve-man ODA has never remained twelve strong for long since the start of this thing.” His gaze became distant for a moment. Then he tugged at his beard as if physically pulling himself together. He looked between Dom and Meredith. “Look, we don’t have long, so I’ll cut to the chase. You already know the main goal of Thunderbolt is to steamroll the FGL’s operations in Moscow and Baghdad. General Kinsey wants to knock ’em on their asses.”

A few pieces of dried blood flaked off Meredith’s hands when she pressed them flat on the table, trying to stay calm at the mention of Kinsey’s name. “But as you pointed out, we’re not exactly your people if a blitzkrieg is what you want.”

Craw placed a hand over his chest. “We don’t want that.”

“And we’re in the same boat you are,” Lang said. He laughed and then added, “Literally! We’re not aiming to be part of the main offensive. Our mission is relatively straightforward. From what I heard, you all identified the JIC base long before Thunderbolt was even a twinkle in Kinsey’s eye. Our job is to get you there so you can do your thing.”

Okay, Meredith thought. Maybe working with these people won’t be so bad.

Craw scratched at his scar. “The higher-ups think you all are particularly well suited for a smash-and-grab. We want to get in there before the invasion starts and get out well before it ends. Pray we won’t be there if they have to drop any bombs.”

“Are we looking for anything specific?” Dom asked.

“They said you specialize in bioweapons specimens and data collection, and we have reason to suspect that we’re going to find both at the JIC,” Craw replied.

“Data I can see,” Meredith said. “But specimens? What exactly did you people have in mind?”

“We believe the JIC might be more than just a comms center,” Craw said. “We think it houses an FGL bioweapon manufacturing site. I’m told we’re likely to find the pharmaceuticals they’re using to control the Hybrids.”

“We’ll help a lot of people if that’s true,” Dom said.

“Yeah,” Craw said, “which is why they’re sending in only the best to retrieve it.”

“We won’t let you down, bro,” Miguel said.

Lang laughed. “He wasn’t talking about you guys. He was talking about us.” He laughed at Miguel’s look of outrage, but his expression grew serious again. “Look, our job is to get you in and out. Your job is to stay out of our way while you get whatever samples or data you’re supposed to grab. That’s it. No heroics. Just follow our orders.”

Meredith pressed her knuckles into her palm, flaking off more of the dried blood and grime. Now it all made sense.

These Special Forces soldiers were here because Kinsey still didn’t trust the Hunters. They were going into Baghdad with babysitters. Judging by the looks shared between Dom and the others, they felt the same as Meredith about this revelation.

They were used to operating alone. Working within a large group—especially as part of a much larger mission—was not something they were accustomed to. And finding out they weren’t just following a complex hierarchical command structure, but they were also going to be micromanaged the whole damn mission?

Not optimal.

To his credit, Dom remained calm. “Let’s go over the plan, gentlemen. What do we need to know?”

“Easy enough,” Lang said. “We both lead MFF ODAs.”

MFF? Meredith had to think for a second. Then a pit of dread opened in her stomach. She saw a look on Andris’s face that mirrored her own. He’d evidently just remembered what MFF stood for as well.

Military Freefall.

“Well,” Meredith said, “I guess that also answers how we’re getting into Baghdad.”

***

Lauren’s stomach twisted, yearning for something more substantial than the broth the Hybrids occasionally forced down her throat. Her muscles ached with starvation as her body started to eat itself to survive. She didn’t need another glance at Navid to know his cheekbones stuck out near as much as a Skull’s, and his dark beard had become tangled and matted. His skin hung over his bones like a T-shirt draped over a drying rack.

They had been beaten enough times that Lauren wondered if the pain would eventually stop. But the FGL Hybrids were skilled soldiers, especially in the field of torture. Her body never seemed to learn its lesson, experiencing the full spectrum of pain every time.

But not once had the Hybrids tried to get any information from them. At this point, she had to assume that the Hybrids just enjoyed beating their captives.

She tried desperately to hold onto images of the Huntress. Of the crew. Her lab on the ship and all they’d accomplished there. Her home.

And Glenn.

Ever since Frankfurt, she’d repeated his name in her head like a mantra. She pictured the way Glenn always had a book in his hand or the way he held her as they fell asleep together. She thought having something to look forward to would give her the strength to make it through this until she could make it back to the ship.

She’d thought those memories of home would be her lifeline, the rope she had to hold onto in order not to drown in despair. Now, even the image of Glenn’s face was nothing but the thinnest of threads, far too weak to keep her afloat in the darkness surrounding her.

Lauren was ready to die.

Across the lab stood the lead Hybrid. He had been in here with them ever since their hoods had come off. Now he stalked over to where Lauren sat and bent so that his yellowed eyes were level with hers. Rancid breath washed over her as his nostrils flared. His discolored sclera and the halitosis hinted something was wrong with him and the Heikegani Agent. Even the way his belly was slightly distended made her think he was suffering from some kind of infection. His blood vessels pushed up against his flesh, blue-and-purple snakes under a blanket of gray.

“What the hell do you want from us?” Lauren asked, meeting his stare.

The Hybrid didn’t answer. Instead he raised a claw in the air.

She did not flinch or close her eyes. She didn’t beg, refusing to give him the satisfaction.

Instead, she watched the claw come down. It sliced through the air, and she heard a snap.

There was no blood, no new gash in her flesh. Instead, she felt a prickling sensation in her hands. She moved her fingers, encouraging the blood flow as the ropes fell away.

Another slash from the Hybrid shredded the cords tying her ankles together.

She tried to stand. The Hybrid didn’t stop her. In fact, he took a step backward to give her more room. She pushed herself up, her joints popping as she moved them after being locked in place so long.

The Hybrid grinned, his claws clicking at his sides.

“Lauren?” Navid said, still tied to his own seat.

She motioned to him to be quiet. Whatever was happening, she needed all of her concentration.

“What are you going to do now, eh?” the Hybrid asked with a stiff Russian accent.

All the hopelessness inside her suddenly ignited. She surged forward toward the Hybrid. The bastard was sick and maybe dying; she was fueled by pure anger and desperation. She could do this. She could—

Her legs gave out, and she sprawled across the cold tile floor. Pain shook through her wrists and into her arms.

The Hybrid laughed. “Careful.” He bent, grabbing her arm. “Let me help you.”

She tried to shirk his grip and push herself up but found she couldn’t. Lack of food and water and all that pain had rendered her body a shaking mess.

The Hybrid deposited her back into the chair. This time she didn’t try to get back up. The Hybrid moved to Navid and cut his bonds with the same flourish of slashing claws.

“Do not try to stand,” he said. “You are both supposed to be smart scientists. You already know what will happen.”

Lauren stared at the Hybrid. His chest expanded in heaving gasps as if he was struggling to breathe. He leaned against a lab bench. Sweat coursed between the horns on his forehead and over the rivulets in his bony mask.

“This is all for you.” He used a claw to indicate the lab benches and microscopes and cell culture hoods. Toward the back of the lab, Lauren saw what appeared to be a BSL4 lab separated from this one by a sterilization chamber. Everything here looked surprisingly clean and almost brand new.

“We have everything you will need in this lab,” the Hybrid said.

“What we need is food,” Lauren said, a throbbing pain still haunting her from her fall.

“And you will eat that here,” the Hybrid said.

Despite her condition, Lauren nearly recoiled at the thought. The first thing a newbie student learned was that food did not belong in a laboratory. She could not imagine having her meals in here, surrounded by what she could only presume to be wildly dangerous viruses, bacteria, chemicals, and biological weapons.

“You do not like this idea,” the Hybrid said. “I understand what you think.”

Lauren had a hard time believing an average FGL goon like this would know anything about lab safety. She opened her mouth to tell him so, but the Hybrid spoke again.

“But you will eat here... or you will not eat at all.”

The Hybrid pushed a cart toward them. On top of it were two plastic containers. He peeled the lids off each, and a salty aroma of cooked meat and potatoes drifted from them.

Lauren salivated like one of Pavlov’s dogs, and all at once, all thoughts of lab protocol fled. Unable to stop herself, she reached out toward the food and grabbed one of the containers. She felt like an animal, giving in to her hunger, shoveling in the mushy boiled potatoes and some kind of gray meat that fell apart between her fingers. But she didn’t care. Food had never tasted so good in her life.

“Good, good,” the Hybrid said. “Now I will tell you what you will do for me.”

Lauren wiped her mouth with the back of her wrist. “We won’t do anything for you,” Lauren said.

“Ah, but you will,” the Hybrid said, clicking his claws together. His chest expanded and deflated more rapidly, almost as if talking had winded him. “We have our ways. And our ways are very, very good.”

-7-

Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait

––––––––

Since touching down at the freshly secured Ali Al Salem Air Base in Saudi Arabia, Dom and the Hunters had run drill after drill. Tonight, they would see if their preparations paid off.

“You ready?” Meredith asked Dom. She had a pack across her chest and her parachutes on her back as they strode through the airbase.

“Just like I’ve been ready for everything else we’ve faced,” Dom said.

Miguel jogged to catch up to them. “I know what you mean. Always feel like we’re flying by the seat of our pants.”

Dom started to smirk. “And this time—”

“No dad jokes, Chief,” Miguel said. “I get it. I get it. This time we really will be flying by the seat of our pants.”

“You completely botched the delivery,” Dom said. He could already feel the adrenaline kicking, ready to be released like a racehorse from its stall. He was about to drop from the sky into a city full of Skulls and the FGL. Not even Miguel’s relentless good humor could distract him from that.

“And let’s hope that’s the only delivery that gets botched tonight,” Miguel said.

“Little dark, don’t you think?” Meredith asked.

Dom let out a slight laugh. “He’s got a point. This isn’t going to be a rainbow-and-pony show.”

“I don’t know what that is, but it sounds fun,” Miguel said.

They joined the line of other Hunters and teams Wraith and Talon as they made their way to the airfield. A pair of basketball hoops stood at either end of a dusty court that had been turned into another staging area. Brown dirt and sand covered the crates of weapons stacked there. A group of men and women unloaded the crates, taking out barrel-sized metal cylinders and smaller packages full of grenade-shaped canisters. The teams entering Baghdad would be equipped with these canisters of Pacifist Fog. The biochemical weapon was also loaded in both artillery shells and bombs to drop over the city.

“We don’t have time for one more burger, do we?” another voice rumbled as they marched down the gravel paths between sand-colored buildings.

Dom looked over his shoulder to see Glenn trailing Jenna and Andris. He’d finally taken a razor to his overgrown beard. Remnants of dark bags under his eyes hung on, artifacts of his sleepless nights, but at least the Hunter appeared to be back in the game.

“Whoa, look at you,” Miguel said. “Did you lose some weight?”

Glenn stroked his clean-shaven jaw. “Feels like it.”

“About those burgers,” Andris said, pointing to their right.

A cracked yellow M standing on a steel pole showed where a McDonald’s had once been. Beside it was a long, rectangular building with a green Subway sign that had lost some of its letters. A neon “Open” sign still hung in the window, though the broken glass and doors swinging off the hinge suggested that no sandwiches had been made at either of those places in a very long time.

They passed a series of white picnic tables full of other troops making their last-minute preparations before loading up into aircraft for their own insertions. The majority of Operation Thunderbolt’s forces weren’t actually here, though. They were staged southeast of Baghdad, ready to hit the city on the ground from Forward Operating Base Bravo-66. Frank Battaglia had shipped there with the rest of the helicopter crews to provide evac and aerial support.

“I would kill for a burger,” O’Neil said. He looked healthy—for a Hybrid, anyway.

“Maybe when the dust settles, we’ll grill out on the Huntress’s deck,” Dom said. “I’m sure we can scrounge up some ground beef somewhere.”

Meredith raised a skeptical brow. “When was the last time you saw a cow, Dom?”

The overpowering roar of the C-130 Hercules’ engines blasted over the tarmac, putting an end to their conversation. Figures rushed between the lines of aircraft, preparing for the upcoming assault.

Dom searched the crowd to find their new allies. Lang stood out with his thick red beard and tall stature. Dom waved at him and waded through the others rushing back and forth between planes.

Lang offered his hand, grabbing Dom’s and clapping his back with the other. “Brother, I hope to God you’re ready.”

Lang’s grin peeked from beneath his beard, but there wasn’t any real humor in it. Behind every half-joke, there was a half-truth hidden behind Lang’s good-natured mask. Teams Wraith and Talon did not fully trust the Hunters.

At least, the men leading the teams did not.

Not everyone shared their mistrust. A shorter man with a ruddy complexion gave O’Neil a fist bump. The officers called the man “Rabbit,” though they hadn’t been willing to tell Dom or anyone else where the name came from. “Can’t wait to see you in action, O’Neil,” he said with an exaggerated Texas drawl. “Glad to finally have one of y’all on our side.”

The Hunters and the Special Forces began loading into the back of the C-130H waiting for them. Dom let his men and women load up first, standing beside Craw and Lang near the ramp.

Another C-130 took off down the airstrip. A pair of planes climbed into the sky, quickly followed by a second duo. The sky was starting to burn an orange that mirrored the desert around them. Hot air blasted over Dom. Sweat had already wormed its way across his flesh under his fatigues.

“This is it,” Craw said, stepping into the open bay of the C-130.

Lang’s serious expression morphed back into a smirk. He leaned in toward Dom. “I know you guys think you’re hot shit, but don’t fuck this up. Just do what I say, and make sure your people follow.”

Dom stared hard at Lang, trying not to lash out at the guy. Lang and Craw’s men had many lifetimes of experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, from immersing themselves in the local Pashtu tribal cultures to training national security forces and embarking on intelligence grabs. They had a reason to be cocky, and Dom supposed they had a reason to be suspicious of Dom and his company of mercenaries.

He didn’t like tension before they dove into a mission like this. The last thing he wanted to do was throw gasoline on that fire. Still, he couldn’t let a statement like that go unanswered.

“Lang, I think you’ll see that we’re more than capable once we get down there,” Dom said in a measured voice. “Don’t worry about us. Worry about the Skulls and the Goliaths and the Hybrids. Those are your enemies. Those are our enemies. And if you’ve got any doubts about us, wait until the first time we save your asses from the Skulls.”

***

Colonel Ronaldo hadn’t seen Captain Holland in far too long, though he had personally ensured the Portuguese Air Force supported the Hunters’ missions as much as they could. When the invitation had come for the squadron he had cobbled together and kept alive at Lajes to join the NATO mission, he had gladly accepted.

He sat behind the booth of the two enlisted scanners as they surveyed the landscape beneath them for incoming threats. For now, Ronaldo was acting as the fire team control officer, resurrecting a role he hadn’t played in years. Behind him were the navigations and the electronic warfare officers. The gunners sat anxiously behind them, ready to keep the twin M61 Vulcan Cannons and the M102 howitzer spewing hellfire down on any unlucky FGL goons or Skulls below.

He supposed it should’ve felt unnatural for him to sit in this seat again, looking at the monitor before him and hearing the radio chatter between the other planes in the fleet and theirs. But he felt more at home here than he ever had at his office and quarters at Lajes after the Skulls had started devouring the inhabitants of the Azores Islands.

The fuselage of the plane vibrated as they hit turbulence, crawling through the air. Soon they would be over the border to Russia and, shortly after that, Moscow.

Throughout their journey, they saw relatively little activity on the ground. No lights sparkled along the veins of roadways and clusters of cities and towns like they had once.

Nothing but darkness below.

A certain kind of darkness, more than the simple absence of light, had engulfed the world. But tonight, they would fight back against that darkness. They would destroy the FGL in one fell swoop.

“Maintaining altitude and position,” the pilot said over their headsets. “Waiting for NATO command to give the go-ahead.”

For several minutes they circled. Other planes were in the sky around them, circling just like them, a flock of vultures looking for carrion. Ronaldo’s eyes studied the monitor before him and found a bleak green-and-white landscape illuminated by infrared.

He stole a glance at the two men serving as scanners. They never took their eyes off their own monitors. It was their job to look for antiaircraft fire. If they were lucky, the FGL wouldn’t be prepared for such a concentrated and powerful attack. The NATO forces would be able to sweep over the city, destroying defensive sites as ground forces surged into the bases, relieving them of their technological secrets.

“We’re cleared,” the pilot finally reported. “Operation Thunderbolt is a go.”

A murmur of excitement passed through the crew. The plane leveled out and accelerated toward Moscow. Ronaldo found himself gripping the joystick tightly as he stared into the monitor.

Soon Moscow appeared in their sights. The city looked almost as dark as the rest of the landscape—no signs that there was any life down there at all. Ronaldo wondered if maybe their intel was wrong. Maybe the FGL wasn’t here, and it had all been a feint.

Then came the burst of piercing light.

“Incoming fire!” one of the scanners yelled, tapping on his keyboard. “We’ve got incoming fire!”

-8-

“Engagement with the enemy in Moscow has been initiated,” a voice said over Meredith’s comm link. It was one of the many comm operators at Ali Al Salem. “Heavy antiaircraft fire and ground resistance is being reported.”

She looked around at the others aboard the C-130H. The plane bucked, and Meredith caught more than a few winces from the Special Forces operators. They had heard the same report. If the FGL was fighting back in Moscow, that was bad news for Thunderbolt.

In just a few minutes, they would be over Baghdad. She wondered if the FGL would be rolling out the welcome party for them here.

This C-130H and a few others would hit Baghdad first. They weren’t gunships like the ones engaging the FGL in Moscow right now. Instead, these aircraft would let loose teams of Special Forces on intel grab missions. The rest of the NATO forces wouldn’t strike Baghdad until several hours after the special ops groups moved through the city to secure their objectives.

She prayed that Kinsey and the powers that be knew what they were doing. Hopefully, the FGL would be keeping their eyes on the main contingent of air and ground forces heading in from the east, and these stealth teams could swoop in mostly unnoticed.

It was a lot to hope for, but there was little else she could do besides waiting and hoping right now.

“Approaching target,” the pilot’s voice sounded over Meredith’s comm link.

She looked across the bay at Dom. He wore a steely look and gave her a simple nod back. The gesture was a small reassurance, but she knew that it spoke volumes. In the field, Dom had to treat her like one of his Hunters. Neither of them could allow personal feelings to cloud the mission.

Still, she’d rather be holding his hand right now instead of exchanging nods across a crowded troop hold.

One of the crew members walked to the back of the bay. He waited for the hand signal from an officer on the opposite end. At that signal, the man activated the hydraulics on the ramp. Wind rushed over the open bay and tugged on the drab olive fabric covering the bulkhead.

This was it.

The men on teams Wraith and Talon stood with the Hunters. They lined up, hands gripping the cable above their heads as they made their way toward the open ramp. Somewhere beneath them was Baghdad. A few specks of light showed across the blanket of black.

Suddenly, orange fires blossomed over several of those spots. Meredith had known to expect the drone strikes prior to their insertion, but they still surprised her. Each blast was an antiaircraft gun or some other defensive target being eliminated. Strikes like this had been going on for days leading up to Operation Thunderbolt to soften up their targets.

“Get ready!” one of the C-130’s officers’ voices boomed over the comm link.

Meredith sucked in a deep breath, ready to follow the others out the back of the plane. She and Dom had experience skydiving back when they were more active intelligence officers in the CIA, and she’d practiced a few times before this mission. But the nerves of an impending jump never completely went away, no matter how many times she dropped thousands of feet through the air with nothing but a piece of fabric to control her descent.

“Now!” the voice said.

The crew member at the back of the plane ushered the first few men off. They tumbled over the edge, quickly disappearing into the black. Meredith engaged her night vision so she could see their infrared tags blinking back at her. Those first few men would establish the landing site for the rest of them, securing the area and laying down an IR tag so the rest knew where to land.

More men from Wraith and Talon filed out. They’d staggered each team into two groups, with the Hunters sandwiched in the middle. Meredith figured the unorthodox departure order had been designed to contain the Hunters. Just another way for both Lang and Craw to keep control of the group.

Jenna was the first of the Hunters to make it to the ramp. She held onto the cable as she approached her turn. With a wave, she let herself tumble out of the back of the plane. The night quickly swallowed her, and Glenn soon followed.

Andris stepped toward the ramp next, clutching his straps. Meredith was right behind him. The wind tugged at her, and her fatigues rippled, cool air rushing over her.

Then a sudden explosion of light caused her to recoil from the open ramp. She shielded her eyes with her glove. A steady roar of explosives burst in the air around them. The plane’s crew began yelling frantically at each other as the incoming antiaircraft fire intensified.

Puffs of bright orange filled the sky as dark smoke and flack spread between the planes. The crew member helping them make their jumps signaled for her and Andris to stop.

“What about the others?” Meredith yelled.

“They’re on their own right now,” the crew member responded.

Already their IR tags had gotten lost in the flashes of AA fire littering the sky.

“Are we aborting?” Dom asked, pulling himself toward the ramp.

“Negative,” the crew member said. “We’re going to get you guys out of the—”

The entire plane shook as though a Titan had snatched it out of the air. The crew member fell, saved only by the clip on his harness holding him as the wind and turbulence did their best to yank him from the vibrating plane. Meredith stumbled into O’Neil, her hand catching on the cable above her. She grabbed O’Neil’s arm when it looked as if he might fall.

A red light flashed from the front of the bay. Tendrils of smoke trailed the plane.

They had been hit.

***

Andris loved explosions. He loved everything about them. The fire. The debris flying through the air. The tang of smoke and the taste of singed wood and plastic that lingered in the air.

But he did not like being on the receiving end of those explosions. That was not the way things were supposed to be. Andris should have been making the FGL hurt in a variety of creative ways right now. He was useless up here, just a sack of meat caught in a blender of antiaircraft fire.

“Where the hell did my people go?” Dom roared from behind Andris. “We’re not just letting them fall!”

The crew member at the door tried to wave Dom back. But behind him, Craw and Lang were demanding answers.

“Just let us get the fuck off!” Craw said.

“We’ve got to let things clear up and make another run!” the crew member said, clearly just relaying orders.

“Shit isn’t going to clear up!” Lang said. “This is already fucked. We’ve got to get down there!”

More black smoke filled the air behind them, forming a ghoulish silhouette against the star-studded sky. It glowed orange with each explosion.

Andris shook his head as he watched the rapid flare of cannons from the ground. This was not how the mission was supposed to go. They had already gotten off to a terrible start. He would’ve been fine if they had aborted the insertion and turned this plane back around for Saudi Arabia. Well, except for one important detail.

In his mind’s eye, he still saw Jenna and Glenn diving toward the Earth. They couldn’t abandon them now.

The plane started to bank hard to their right, curving back toward where they’d come from. Another round exploded close enough to the plane that Andris felt the heat. From the left side of the fuselage, he heard a series of pops and the high-pitched screech of tearing metal.

“Hold on!” Miguel yelled.

But he need not have wasted his breath. Andris and everyone else were already grabbing handholds wherever they could.

“This is not good,” Andris said to Meredith.

“No shit,” Meredith said grimly.

A huge boom followed, and the sky filled with brilliant light, as though a comet were tearing into the atmosphere. One of the neighboring planes had been hit. Violent tongues of orange consumed its engines and spread through its fuselage, venting out of the ramp. The plane’s nose tipped up. Bodies tumbled out of the back, spiraling out of control. Some of them were on fire.

Something else inside the plane exploded. Chunks of metal burst from its side. The plane lurched sideways, nose now pointed down, and began to dive.

Andris lost track of the people who had jumped from the plane.

“We got to get out of here!” one of the Special Forces operators bellowed from behind Dom. “We gotta bail, man, we gotta bail!”

He started to move toward the ramp.

Then another blast cut through the fuselage of their plane, heat sizzling through the air. Something cleaved through the man, and his body disintegrated in a spray of red, pieces of flesh splattering against the fuselage. Two new holes in the fuselage showed where a round had pierced the plane.

People were screaming, ducking as if it would do any good. The plane shuddered. Something slammed into the plane’s tail, and a concussive force blew Andris backward into Meredith and O’Neil. A piece of the ramp flapped then fell away as chunks of the plane’s tail broke apart. The hydraulics holding the remnants of the ramp started to fail then gave way completely when another round slammed into the back of the plane.

The ramp twisted away, and the crew member standing there was pulled off, disappearing from sight.

Andris knew these planes were built tough, but there was no way this thing was making it all the way back to Saudi Arabia. When another volley of rounds punched into the fuselage, ending the lives of two more operators, he knew he couldn’t remain.

“I am going,” Andris said. “We must find Glenn and Jenna.”

Andris looked between Dom and the cockpit. Smoke was starting to fill the cabin. Something else was wrong inside the plane. If it was coming from where the scanners were, there was a good chance that the crew was already gone. Without the scanners, they would be even more vulnerable than before.

“Go,” Dom said. “Go, go, go!”

Andris sprinted and jumped out of the plane. He tumbled through the air. Explosions burst around him. Jumping into a sky filled with flak was suicidal, and he knew it. But so was staying on a plane that was soon going to crash into the desert outside Baghdad.

At least this way, he made an attempt to save his life. And if he lived, he could help the others.

He waited to let out his chute. Pulling too early would keep him in the area of danger far too long. The longer he delayed, the less likely it was that someone on the ground would see him, too.

So he positioned himself as he fell, letting the air rush past his body. He made careful adjustments with his legs and arms so he could turn back to see the plane, wanting desperately to see if Meredith, Dom, and O’Neil had come after him.

Three more shapes dove out of the plane. He was too far away to make them out, but he assumed it was the rest of the Hunters. More shapes piled out after them.

Then something bright slammed into the plane. A growing sphere of orange and white devoured it. The sound and heat hit Andris, pounding against his eardrums and sending him off-kilter. Pieces of metal cut through the air past him, thrown from the blast. He lost sight of the others who had bailed from the plane as he fought to control his own descent.

Yes, Andris loved explosions.

Just not these.

But if he landed, if he made it into Baghdad, he would ensure the FGL knew just how much he loved explosions.

-9-

Dom reached out for Meredith as he fell through the air. He saw her mouth open. The force of the plane bursting behind them sent them both spiraling away. Lights and explosions, the ground and the sky—it all became a kaleidoscopic blur. Dom fell in an uncontrolled descent. Meredith was gone.

Pain sliced through his arm. He yelled, but his voice was sucked away by the onrush of air. Fighting the pain, he stretched out his arms, desperate to right himself. Air beat against his limbs. His muscles strained. Finally, he stopped flipping and spinning.

The drum of the antiaircraft fire continued, though he wasn’t sure what there was left in the sky for the FGL to hit. Maybe they’d spotted the few hapless free-fall specialists who had survived the planes. Or maybe they were just hoping for a lucky strike.

Either way, the Hunters’ cover had been blown, and he did not look forward to what lay in wait for him below.

If he made it to the ground.

He spread his arms wide while his legs remained bent slightly at the knee. The maneuver slowed him just enough for him to get his bearings. IR signals blinked below. Friendly signals. Maybe one of them was Meredith.

God, he hoped so.

He brought his arms closer to his sides and nosedived.

The ground was now rising to meet him, a sea of greens and whites and blacks. Already, the shapes of buildings and roads began to coalesce. The streets bore the scars of war. Entire blocks had been leveled, with only piles of rubble remaining. Calling Baghdad a peaceful city before the outbreak would’ve been overly generous, but Dom knew it hadn’t looked like this.

This destruction was new. The FGL and their hordes of Skulls were responsible.

And now he was headed right into it.

With a yank on his cord, his parachute uncoiled behind him, catching in the air. His harness snagged him, the cords taut as he rapidly decelerated.

Far below, from somewhere atop the buildings, he saw the rapid flash of light before he heard it.

Gunfire.

Bullets zipped through the air and tore into his chute. He was defenseless in the air. He twisted, trying to make himself a smaller target. Another bullet found his chute. There was only one thing he could do now, but Dom really didn’t want to do it.

He pulled the breakaway handle on his right hip. The main parachute tore away, and he accelerated under gravity’s pull once more. The bullets continued to fly, but now he was much harder to hit. He checked the altimeter on his watch.

The main chute had broken away at fifteen hundred feet. Now he was at twelve hundred feet and closing. Apartment buildings, gouged and torn by combat, loomed toward him. He saw the lines of cars on the road, doomed never to escape the city. He saw an office building, half-destroyed, rubble and furniture spilling from it like dirt from a broken flower pot.

Nine hundred feet now.

Still, the flash of muzzle fire cracked through the night like miniature lightning strikes. If he pulled the second handle of the reserve chute now, he would be no safer than before. In fact, it’d be even worse. At this distance, they would surely cut him out of the sky with their gunfire.

He prayed the others had had better luck than him. Now at eight hundred feet, he pulled his hands close to his sides, twisted his ankles slightly, and curved hard to the right. His body rocketed downward as he aimed away from the gunfire, desperate to distance himself from the FGL bastards firing at him.

Then, when he could delay no longer, he pulled hard on the reserve chute handle. The fabric spewed from his pack. The chute plumed behind him, and his harness pulled hard on his chest and under his arms.

He kept his eyes glued to the ground below, searching for more gunfire. So far, no bullets ripped through his reserve chute.

But he also didn’t see the telltale IR signals from any of his people.

Wind rippled over him as he descended. He pulled hard on the chute to aim toward one of the open streets below. The hulking skeleton of a charred transport truck clotted one of the roads. Vehicles lined up behind it, permanently trapped behind the truck. Enough to provide him some cover. A dusty, empty lot nearby offered a decent landing site.

As he drew closer, he saw the tangles of power lines in his path. There was no easy way to skirt around them, and he’d already committed himself to the lot.

Come on, come on.

He tried to steer himself between the power lines, toward the trash-strewn street. His body made it around one of the poles, but seven feet before his feet touched the ground, his harness grabbed at him, pulling him back as the chute snagged.

The sound of distant and not-so-distant gunfire rattled over the city. He heard voices booming down the street. Russian voices.

Shit, shit, shit.

Dom tried to loosen himself from his parachute cords, but everything was so tangled up from the rough landing. The voices grew louder. He tore his knife from its sheath and sawed at the cords. Sweat soaked through his clothes as, one by one, each cord snapped free.

More voices. Louder. They must have seen him fall and sent a search party.

As soon as they saw his chute...

He had to move. His pulse raced as the cords whipped away.

Then a final snap. His body was free. Gravity tugged him the rest of the way to the ground, and he landed hard, rolling forward as he did his best not to pulverize his ankles. His arms flew out in front of him, stopping his roll, and his left hand slammed into a glass bottle.

The bottle broke, shards of glass cutting through his glove and into his palm. He bit the inside of his cheek to prevent himself from yelling out then pushed himself up. Stealing a glance behind him, he sprinted down the street. The FGL wasn’t here yet. But he heard them yelling as he wound between the cars, heading down the first alley he found.

Then he heard something else. The shuffle of talons crunching over glass and metal and plastic. A breeze carried the smell of carrion along the street and down the alley where Dom hid.

Dom held his breath, listening hard for a moment. This wasn’t just a squad of FGL soldiers or even Hybrids. They had Skulls with them. And judging by the pungent odor surrounding him, there was a shit-ton of them.

He had to keep moving.

As quietly as he could, he pressed down the alley, skirting between busted crates and long-forgotten trash bags. Tooth-marked skeletons looked up at him as he passed. A Skull howled, its high-pitched shriek filling the night air, underscoring the punch of gunfire. He followed the piles of bricks to another street and then ducked into a shop filled with heaps of textiles. The once-colorful materials were now a uniform shade of dusty gray.

Dom pressed himself into the corner of the shop, hoping for a chance to catch his breath and figure out his next move. The stench of the Skulls followed. He prayed they weren’t close enough to hear his thudding heart. The pain in his hand throbbed in time with his pulse. He examined his palm and found the glove wet with blood. A couple of glass shards still stuck out of it, glimmering in the low light. He plucked them, one by one, wincing. Blood soaked his sleeve where shrapnel from the plane had struck him during his botched skydive. He used a bandage to wrap the wound, hoping that would be enough.

He rotated his wrist again to examine his smartwatch. Each of the Hunters had a GPS tracking unit. Dom’s breath hitched as he waited for the display to show him who had survived.

Just a couple blocks away, he saw the closest Hunter was Miguel.

“Sitrep, everyone,” Dom whispered. The seconds it took to receive an answer twisted his insides into a mess of dread and pain.

“Alone but alive,” Meredith said. “Going to rendezvous with O’Neil.”

“Copy,” O’Neil said. “See you soon.”

“Glenn here. Jenna and I are still together. Rough drop, but we survived.”

“Andris, headed to Glenn and Jenna.”

Dom waited for the last Hunter, holding his breath. All he needed to hear was, “Right here, Chief.”

Come on.

But the familiar voice never came.

“Miguel, do you read?” Dom tried.

He could practically feel the nervousness of the other Hunters as they, too, waited to hear something, anything from Miguel.

“Come on, Miguel, do you read?” Dom asked again.

As he waited, he stared at his smartwatch. Miguel’s GPS location didn’t shift. But the roars of the Skulls and the gunfire all around Dom did. Maybe they’d already found him. The Skulls might be digging into Miguel’s flesh even now. The Hybrids and soldiers would be watching, looking on and laughing.

No, no, no!

“Miguel?” Dom tried one more time.

Nothing over the comm link.

But he heard something. The scratch and tap of talons on concrete echoed down the alley he had come from. Headed toward his position. If he moved now, he might run right into them.

He would be a dead man.

But if he waited, if Miguel was trapped where he’d landed, unconscious or worse, those Skulls would get to the other Hunter before he did.

Sit here and save his own ass, or risk his ass to see if Miguel was even still alive?

To Dom, there really was no choice.

He surged from his hiding spot and burst out the door of the shop, sprinting as fast as he could. Skull talons scratched behind him, but their pace hadn’t picked up. Maybe he had left before they could see him.

Following another street, he weaved between blackened cars and leapt over chewed-up skeletons. Glass crunched beneath his boots, and he left footprints in the layers of ash and dust over the street. His trail was strikingly obvious to even the untrained eye. All he could do was hope that the wind and the pack of Skulls wandering down the street after him would obscure his tracks before any sentient being noticed.

It didn’t matter right now. He had to reach Miguel.

Dark thoughts passed through his mind with almost palpable pain. One of his closest friends, someone who’d served with him on the Huntress longer than anyone else, might already be dead. The thought of Miguel as nothing but ribbons of flesh and chunks of broken bone hurt worse than any of Dom’s injuries.

He ran ahead, no longer aware of his body.

They had already lost too many. They couldn’t lose Miguel.

A loud commotion boiled over toward the end of the street. Beneath a tangle of wires hanging from the side of a building, someone fired a rifle.

Two someones.

Their muzzle flashes cut through the darkness, reflecting off the jagged remains of the broken windows in the apartment building at their backs. A horde of Skulls piled over the broken cars and trucks, like a wave washing over the rocky shore. The beasts lunged toward the combatants.

Was one of them Miguel?

Dom nearly cried out that he was here to help. He pulled his rifle up to his shoulder and started to sight up the first of the beasts.

But there were dozens upon dozens of them. And behind them, he saw a trio of Hybrids crouching atop the cab of a truck. One had his arm forward, pointing at the two soldiers backed into the wall. They were the ones controlling the Skulls, urging them on.

The duo, whoever they were, were already dead. Even if Dom tried to help now, there was little he could do but give up his own life in a futile effort to save them. He checked his smartwatch. There was no GPS marker indicating they belonged to his crew. But he assumed they must be Americans, part of Thunderbolt.

Christ, he couldn’t let them die. Not like this.

Dom shouldered his rifle again and leaned into the sight, ready to pick off the Hybrids. That would be the best way to help the Americans. He caught the first Hybrid in his sights and squeezed the trigger. The bastard went down without even a chance to cry out in pain. The other two twisted to find their mysterious attacker, immediately pressing themselves flat against the truck cab.

Neither had spotted Dom when he started to aim at the second. A burst of fire led to a clean headshot, bone and blood spraying over the truck. The third Hybrid jumped off the truck and out of Dom’s sight. Gunfire still barked from where the two soldiers were making their last stand, giving Dom hope that distracting and killing the Hybrids would be enough to break the ranks of the Skulls.

He started to move, finding a new shooting position where he could get a clean shot on the remaining Hybrid.

Something crunched to his right.

Swinging quickly to the side, he aimed just in time to catch a Skull rushing him. He fired. Bullets filled the bastard’s chest, and its corpse somersaulted forward, carving a long trail in the dust-covered street.

More Skulls trickled out of the alley where he had come from. As he scrambled to fight them off, firing and retreating, he heard two agonized human screams. The gunfire stopped. In the aftermath, there was only the sickening tearing of flesh and the splash of spilling blood.

One of the Skulls chasing him grew too close, and he plastered its face full of bullets. Bone snapped as it face-planted into the dirt. A few more trampled its corpse, and Dom finished them, too, letting the armor-piercing rounds deliver the anger pulsing through him.

It was too late for the two Americans, whoever they’d been. He didn’t even have time to identify their bodies. Dom sprinted away from the scene. His lungs were shrieking at him to slow down, and his legs burned, his muscles overworked from the constant sprinting. Even the effects of adrenaline could not last forever.

The only thing carrying him now was the determination to save Miguel’s life.

Hell, he had to save somebody tonight.

A look over his shoulder showed he was a good hundred yards ahead of the closest Skull now. He needed a distraction, and the best distraction he had was a play straight out of Andris’s book. A sharp left took him down another alley. Hopping over soggy cardboard and shredded plastic bags, he ran as fast as he could. He let his rifle fall on its strap and plucked two high explosive grenades from his tac vest. Tugging the ring from one, he turned and lobbed it backward. The first Skulls ran straight at the explosive, completely unaware of the threat until they were right on top of it.

The resulting explosion threw a cloud of dust and blood into the air, the Skulls turned to a fine mist. Dom pulled the ring of the second grenade and tossed it more gently, hoping he had timed it right. He took a hard right down another alley.

An explosion rocked the street behind him, and he heard a few pained shrieks from the Skulls. The alley spit him out on the street where Miguel should be, and Dom quickly took another sharp turn, staying close to the buildings. The clatter of the running Skulls drifted out of the alley.

Their footsteps continued onward. They had missed his last turn. They seemed to have fallen for his feint, sufficiently thrown off by the grenade blasts.

Dom barreled toward Miguel’s position. Gunfire and Skulls still called out into the night. The crackle of fire from only a few blocks away added to the cacophony as thick pillars of smoke stabbed the sky.

And then Dom saw something flapping in the wind. It looked like a tent that had had its poles yanked out, a shapeless piece of fabric only given shape by the charity of a breeze.

That had to be Miguel’s parachute.

Dom rushed toward it. Dom closed in, hurdling over a dried skeleton. Then another.

His heart raced as he neared the chute. Something was weighing it down. Preventing it from flying away with the tugging wind. When Dom was no more than twenty yards away from Miguel’s chute, he saw exactly what it was that was still anchoring the parachute. Something tangled in the chute’s cords.

A body.

-10-

Meredith ran through an empty street. Gunfire and yells echoed from all over. No more planes cut through the sky that she could see, and the ground forces that were supposed to be invading the city were still hours out. For all she knew, the Hunters and the Special Forces teams that had survived the antiaircraft fire wouldn’t see any reinforcements until then.

If at all. If Kinsey didn’t pull the plug and chalk it all up to acceptable losses.

All they could hope to do was find each other then try to survive in a city filled with thousands upon thousands of enemy forces and flesh-hungry monsters. And, if they were lucky, complete the mission they’d started.

Those tasks pressed on her with an almost tangible force. If she thought too long about the odds they faced, she would surely freeze. But there was no chance of refuge in a ghost town filled with angry demons.

So instead of considering any of the many reasons why this mission was already fucked and why she would probably be dead before the light of day, she focused on one thing she might be able to do: find O’Neil.

“Headed your way, O’Neil,” she said over the comm link.

“Copy,” he replied. “See you soon, ma’am.”

She followed the direction her smartwatch indicated, heading down a street toward where O’Neil should be. The nightmare sounds of the embattled city continued, haunting her every move. She ran as much as she could while sticking to the shadows of the blackened husks of vehicles and buildings.

Flames flickered all around. Against the walls, the fires cast silhouettes of demonic beasts with crooked horns and long, scything claws. The beasts didn’t seem to be moving with any particular sense of urgency.

Meredith didn’t want to give them any.

As quietly as she could, she snuck down the side of the street, avoiding the monsters. The Skulls moved lethargically. Thanks to the ongoing din of battle, she expected them to be riled up, desperately searching for the source of the noise, seeking fresh protein. The mere fact that these ones weren’t going crazy like a school of piranhas after a raw steak made her suspect that a nearby Hybrid was in charge.

That meant she had to be careful. Otherwise, she might find herself at the mercy of the enemy.

She retreated into the recesses of what looked to be a restaurant. Three flimsy wooden tables had been flattened by piles of mortar and the tiles that had fallen from the gaping holes in the ceiling. Support beams stuck out of that ceiling like broken bones protruding from flesh.

Making her way to the rear of the restaurant, she ducked behind the counter that led to the kitchen. Behind her, she heard the crunch of talons over gravel. Several shapes swam through the street, silhouetted by the orange-and-red tongues of flame. They moved like a pack of wolves on the hunt. One even paused, sticking its nose in the air, its head twisting.

Meredith ducked behind the counter and crawled toward the meager kitchen. Across the grease-covered floor, under the caked-on dust and bits of debris, dozens of metal plates sat like landmines.

Great, Meredith thought. Hit any one of those, and I might as well scream to the Skulls that I’m right here.

She thought to ping O’Neil and ask him what he was seeing out there. But she feared even so much as a whisper might attract the Skulls.

Rising to a crouch, she snuck between the plates and utensils scattered around her. A stainless steel refrigerator stood in one corner. With the fridge left open, its contents had spilled across the floor. What had once been meats and vegetables had devolved into a puddled brown goo with a stench that reeked of death.

Meredith stifled a gag as she stepped around a large metal pan that looked like something she might cook a paella in. She tiptoed, careful not to step on anything. Toward the back of the kitchen, there was a recessed door she hoped would lead her to the alley behind the building. With any luck, it wouldn’t be teeming with Skulls and fire like the street.

A howl shot through the restaurant, stabbing into her eardrums. A Skull was right outside the restaurant. She could see it through the kitchen door. The monster wasn’t looking at her but rather some other point across the street. It climbed over a sedan and leapt to a truck, scrambling over vehicles toward whatever it had spotted.

Meredith almost breathed a sigh of relief.

But she didn’t have the time.

Another muffled shriek burst out, this one much closer. She let her rifle hang across her chest and swiped up with her knife. There was a Skull somewhere in here, and she had to end it as quickly and quietly as possible. A wooden door on the wall farthest from her began to shake. The doorframe had already partially peeled from the splintered wall around it as the monster behind it pounded, screaming and growling.

The story of the Skull behind that door must’ve been interesting. Maybe someone had tried to take refuge in this kitchen after an attack and locked themselves away, thinking that they would survive. But the scratch they’d sustained had already decided their fate.

Or, more optimistically, maybe a person had taken refuge in the kitchen like Meredith was now. But they had noticed they weren’t alone. They had come face-to-face with a Skull, and they had managed to shove the thing into that closet, locking it away.

The reason didn’t matter now. Meredith would have been perfectly fine leaving it in that damn closet. Let it rot away like the food from the refrigerator, its flesh sloughing from its body as it starved to death. But unfortunately, ignoring the monster wasn’t an option.

The more that thing struggled to break free from its prison, the more likely it was that another one of those skeletal monsters would come to investigate. Then the Hybrids would show up, too.

She didn’t need to take on a whole army tonight; she just needed to reunite with O’Neil and then move on to the next group of Hunters.

The Skull continued to beat at the door. One of the corners of the doorframe popped out. A cloud of dust puffed from it. Meredith used the back of her hand to cover her mouth and nose, protecting herself from breathing in the grit.

She stashed her knife and pulled out her suppressed pistol instead. The monster was already making enough of a racket that a few muffled pops of gunfire weren’t going to add to the din, and she wasn’t about to swing the door open to let some half-starved monster lunge at her.

Meredith aimed the pistol at the center of the wooden door, predicting where the beast should be. She fired off several rounds that punched through the door, spread out in a pattern she hoped would end it quickly. A solid thump sounded next, which she assumed was the monster’s body falling against the floor.

She was probably right.

But what she hadn’t expected was the scrabble of talons and claws that followed, the sounds of things being crushed and tossed around on the other side of the door. Suddenly the broken wood of the door puckered outward. A claw, covered in blood, reached out toward her. The Skull pulled at the chunks of wood, tearing the hole wider, its voice erupting in a shrill cry that made more noise than stepping on all the damn plates in the kitchen at once would have.

More of the wood peeled away as the Skull forced its face through the hole, its body coming next. Blood poured from the injuries in its chest and abdomen, leaking over the floor like streaming faucets. Bony plates covered the beast, and Meredith saw that beneath those plates was gray sickly flesh stretched tight over sinew.

This monster had been starving for a long while. Its hunger must have been greater than the pain of the bullets. She aimed at the Skull’s head. Four more shots punched through the skeletal shell. With a final gasping death rattle, the beast went limp, its body hanging in the middle of the door.

It was dead.

But the damage it had caused hadn’t ended with its life.

More Skull voices echoed in the streets. No way they weren’t headed toward Meredith now. She needed to escape out that back door and get lost in the alleys beyond.

“O’Neil,” she said over the comms. “I’ve got company. I’m headed your way, but backup would be great.”

“Got some company here, too,” O’Neil said.

That did not sound promising. Meredith bounded over the discarded plates. Despite her best attempt at stealth, she still landed on one, knocking it away. It pinged against a few others, ringing out like a miniature bell tower.

With another bound, she made it to the back door of the kitchen. A roar blasted from the front of the restaurant. She turned back to see a pair of Skulls standing atop the broken tables, their eyes locked on her.

She fired at the one on the left. Bullets struck out at it, knocking it backward. The second leapt down from the table, rushing toward her. Two more charged into the restaurant, arms spread, with claws ready to disembowel her.

Spinning on her heels, Meredith tore open the door to the alley. She took a step then froze.

From either end, Skulls rushed in her direction.

She was surrounded.

***

Another volley of gunfire sounded somewhere over the city, punctuated by a blast like a demolition charge knocking down an old building.

Andris stood on the roof of a building, peering over the side. Caught in a mess of TV satellite dishes behind him, his parachute flapped in the wind like an injured bird trying to take flight. All around the street, little fires burned from pieces of the debris strewn by the crashed planes. Flames consumed the haphazardly constructed wooden market stalls below him, and smoke billowed into the sky. The fires had spread, catching pieces of fabric and plants long since dead from neglect. The air scratched his lungs when he breathed. He tried hard not to cough.

His cough probably wouldn’t be louder than the crackling flames. But being quiet in a world filled with Skulls was a good habit. One he did not take lightly.

So when he heard the commotion with both Dom and Meredith over the radio, he knew neither of them were in a good spot. He wanted so desperately to swoop in with his MK-11 and clear a route.

But they were each over a mile from his position in opposite directions. Not far as the crow flies. Too far in a dying city filled with Skulls and the FGL.

For now, Jenna and Glenn were closer.

“Jenna, Glenn,” Andris said over the comm links. “You should do a much better job of hiding. You are, as you would say, sticking out like the sore thumbs.”

Crouched next to what looked like a charred ambulance, Glenn looked around, clearly confused. Jenna was at his shoulder, her rifle pointing into the darkness, probing for Skulls.

“Up here!” Andris said, holding up a single hand.

Glenn and Jenna looked up at him in unison.

“Glad to see you,” Glenn said over the comms.

“Stop playing around and get down here,” Jenna said. “We’ve got to get to the others.”

“I do miss the ground,” Andris said, his mind still replaying the sight of the exploding planes and bodies thrown from the flaming C-130s. He looked about the rooftop for an easy route down. A pile of rubble and broken fragments of wood showed where there once had been a stairwell that would have led to the street.

He looked over the side of the building again. No balconies. Nothing but narrow windows on all four stories. He had a climbing cord, as always, in his pack. But between the broken pipes and bits of stone, he saw nothing that would serve as a solid anchor.

At least, not on this roof.

“Andris, what’s taking so long?” Jenna asked. “We got company inbound.”

A pack of Skulls moved in from the south end of the street. At the rear of the pack were three Hybrids and at least another five human FGL soldiers. The group wasn’t large. Andris could easily lay a C4 charge under one of the broken-down transport trucks in front of the group and destroy the lot of them. A couple of well-thrown incendiary charges or even an M67 would ruin their evening stroll.

He would settle for the pop and fizzle of a smoking Pacifist Fog grenade. At least that would throw the Skulls out of the Hybrids’ control, if not outright stop the Skulls in their tracks.

“Yes, guests are indeed on the way,” Andris said then relayed to them what he saw from his vantage point. “They must have seen us land.”

“See a good exit?” Glenn asked.

Andris scanned the mess of vehicles clogging the street. Alleys sprouted from it like tributaries into a river, but he could not see deep enough into any of them to judge if they offered any viable route of escape. Northward along the road he saw another group of Skulls. They filtered toward the other group in a pincer move that would catch Jenna and Glenn.

“No exit, but more problems,” Andris said. “Contacts coming in from the north, too.” He pressed his scope to his eye to gauge the strength of the incoming search party. “Our best bet is to punch through the forces to our south.”

“I really don’t want to get in a gunfight down here,” Glenn said. “Last thing we need to do is give away our position.”

“I can cover from up here,” Andris said.

“And as soon as the Hybrids realize you’re up there, they’ll climb the building and tear you to shreds,” Jenna said. “It’s the three of us against these two groups.”

“I agree. It isn’t a fair fight,” Andris said. “Perhaps we should wait for them to call more reinforcements.”

“Even if we can handle them,” Glenn said, “how many others will they send after us? And how in the hell are we supposed to reach anyone else if we’re dragging a parade of Hybrids and Skulls with us?”

“Fine,” Andris said. “You two are no fun.”

He scoped the street, looking for a better hiding spot. Somewhere to give them shelter from the incoming Skulls and Hybrids. “Thirty feet south of your position, there is a bus. You probably cannot see it because of the two trucks blocking it. But the windows of the bus are covered in soot. Maybe this is a good place to hide? If you have to leave, it has a door out the back and an emergency exit on the roof.”

“Seems about as good as anything,” Jenna said.

She and Glenn started crawling between the vehicles. The duo made it to the bus before the first Skulls wandered by.

“Keep quiet now,” Andris whispered. “There are three Skulls all around.”

The Skulls’ bodies brimmed with spikes and horns. They walked at a hunch, their arms held in front of their chests like they were prehistoric raptors on the hunt. One stuck its nose in the air. Its nostrils flared as it cocked its head then paused. The monster waited right behind the bus for what may have only been a few seconds. But the pause seemed to stretch on forever to Andris.

Keep going, Andris thought. He didn’t even dare whisper another warning to Jenna and Glenn lest the monsters hear him over their comm links.

The Skull suddenly crouched down, eyes wide, a snarl wrinkling its gruesome face.

Andris pressed his rifle tighter against his shoulder, ready to pick his first shot.

The Skull near the bus wasn’t the only one that had suddenly gone rigid. The rest of the pack looked equally alarmed, as if they’d all heard something. They gazed straight ahead, muscles tensed, ready to attack.

Andris scoped the Hybrids. They crouched behind a pair of sedans. The FGL human soldiers guarded their flanks.

Yes, they were certainly preparing for a battle.

Better to strike now, Andris thought. He caught the head of the first Hybrid in his crosshairs.

“I am afraid you have been found out,” Andris said to Glenn and Jenna. “But wait for my signal.”

But before he could squeeze the trigger, the Skulls from the north end of the street broke into a flurry of shrieking howls. They charged down the road, drawing Andris’s attention away.

It made no sense for the northern group to attack first. They were much farther away.

And then the flashes and sounds of gunfire answered his unspoken question. Voices sprang up there, alarmed and panicked, as the Skulls scrambled over the cars and down the street.

Human voices, American accents.

Suddenly Andris saw movement at the north end of the street. The rest of the Skull forces nearest Andris, Jenna, and Glenn took off, flying down the street, completely ignoring the bus with the two Hunters so that they, too, could join the fray.

Some of the survivors from the other teams had been found out. Judging by the flashes of gunfire lancing out at the incoming Skulls, there might be only four or five of them.

Andris told Jenna and Glenn what he was watching from above. “If we leave now, we can continue on without being spotted. We are in the clear. But if we do so, those others will die.”

Glenn peered out of the open front door of the bus, looking up at the roof with Andris. “Then I think you know what we’ve got to do.”

-11-

Dom stared at the body wrapped up in the parachute. Miguel hadn’t even made it out of the chute before he’d died.

“No, Miguel,” Dom whispered, approaching the chute slowly. The fabric billowed in the humid breeze. Dust swirled around it.

Somewhere over the buildings, he heard the cries of Skulls explode into the night. They had found more victims, more people to disembowel and devour. Their howls echoed off the clay and brick walls, and the scratch and tap of their taloned feet filled the air. But all of that faded away as he approached Miguel’s body.

Nothing else mattered in that moment. The others were alive. He should be going after them, but he hated to leave Miguel here to rot or be torn apart by Skulls. The man didn’t deserve that. The best he could do was drag Miguel to a nearby building and hope they would be able to return to give him a proper burial.

As he neared the body, he used a foot to keep part of the parachute down as it fluttered around him. His stomach twisted. Three Skull corpses lay nearby.

The beasts lay with their necks and limbs askew, dark blood dripping out of open, crooked wounds. Miguel hadn’t been dead when he’d hit the ground. He had fought, still entangled in his chute. He had been alive at least for a little while down here.

If only Dom had been faster, he could have saved Miguel. He wanted to slam his fist into the nearest wall, punching it until his knuckles bled, until the bones in his hand stuck up out of his skin. He had gotten distracted. He had tried to save those other two Americans on his way to Miguel—and in the end, he had saved no one.

Then Dom spotted another dead Skull farther down the street. This one was a good twenty yards away. Its face appeared to have been dissolved, and its chest plate looked like it had been scorched. Its innards, little more than a soup of brown and red, poured out of its abdomen.

At first Dom thought the thing was a Drooler. But its muscles were too well-formed to be a skinny, shriveled Drooler. Could it have been attacked by one instead? Dom had never known a Drooler to splash acid over one of its own Oni Agent brethren unprovoked.

Hope welled up in his chest.

Miguel did this.

One of Miguel’s most prized weapons was the acid-spewing attachment Chao had built into his prosthetic arm. And Dom knew damn well that the weapon didn’t have a range of twenty yards.

Dom pulled back the parachute. He uncovered a body in black fatigues, not so different from his own, and turned the corpse over.

The face staring back up at him wasn’t Miguel’s. It wasn’t even human.

Sharpened fangs poked out of its cracked lips, and its nose had been eaten away by an overgrowth of bone. A couple of horns stuck out from its scalp. One had been broken. Fissures spread through its face, as though something had been smashed into it. Judging by the layout of the scene, Dom wouldn’t be surprised if it was the stock of Miguel’s rifle.

The shrieks of Skulls and the rattle of gunfire sounded closer. The beasts, driven by the Hybrids, must’ve realized by now that Dom had escaped them. They would be reforming their search party and expanding, hoping to grab him in a dragnet.

Dom glanced at his smartwatch. According to the map there, he was right beside Miguel. The Hunter hadn’t gotten far, even if this wasn’t his body tangled in the cords of the chute. Dom shouldered his rifle, swinging his barrel to probe the darkness around him. If he were Miguel, probably injured in the fight, hurting, where would he have gone?

The trail of dead Skulls seemed to lead away from Miguel’s landing site, so Dom passed the first few Skulls he’d seen, creeping toward the one whose armor had been eaten away by the acid.

A trail of blood spots led away from the scene and into a nearby doorway. Dom nudged the broken door open. It squeaked on its hinges, the quiet noise making Dom cringe. He squinted through the darkness into what had once been a living room. A broken TV lay in a corner with its electronic components sticking out like the insides of a wounded animal.

And there, in the doorway to the next room, stood a man near Dom’s height, holding a rifle, bathed in shadows.

Was that actually him? Was he still alive?

Dom wanted to believe it was Miguel, but he couldn’t get a good look at the man’s face. And if Miguel had his rifle at the ready like that, then he must be after something. Surprising Miguel in a tense moment like this wouldn’t be a great tactical decision.

So he offered just a whisper, hoping it wouldn’t spook him. “Miguel?”

The man turned, lowering his rifle. Then without warning, he pounced. Lips peeled back into a snarl. Claws scythed through the air. Eyes burned red beneath a skeletal mask.

Definitely not Miguel.

Dom fired, but the Hybrid moved too fast. Bullets plunged into the wall. Mortar and dust sprayed across the room. The Hybrid hit Dom with the force of a runaway train, and they both slammed hard against the wall, leaving a crater in it.

Claws reared back, ready to slash at Dom. He grabbed one of the Hybrid’s wrists and twisted it hard, sending the Hybrid on its back and snapping the plates on its arm in the maneuver.

The Hybrid let out a howl of pain as it shook its injured arm free from Dom’s grip. Dom planted a knee hard into the Hybrid’s chest and then swung his rifle around with one hand, battering the half-man’s face. Blood and bone flew at the impact.

Dom felt something wet and warm around his knee. Blood, and not Dom’s. He realized the Hybrid was already wounded. Probably from a battle with Miguel. He dug his knee deeper into the wound, and the Hybrid writhed in pain. Dom dropped his rifle again. He was too close to get the rifle between himself and the half-man. Instead, he pulled out his H&K 45C with one hand then aimed the pistol straight at the Hybrid’s bloodied nostrils.

But the Hybrid, broken and beaten, was a cornered animal fighting for any chance of survival. He erupted upward. Dom slammed hard against another wall, losing his grip on the pistol. He barely had time to scramble to the side before the Hybrid lunged, claws piercing the plaster walls where Dom had been.

Spewing curses in Russian, the Hybrid prepared to strike again. He snarled, his lips pulled back to reveal a set of broken fangs.

His eyes suddenly widened, and the tip of a knife protruded through the center of his throat. Eyes rolling back, the Hybrid collapsed to the floor. Behind him stood another figure, twisting his prosthetic arm so that the blade retreated back inside it.

“Gotta hand it to you, Chief,” Miguel said. “This is the worst goddamn game of hide and seek I have ever played.”

***

Meredith retreated into the restaurant’s kitchen. She scrambled over the plates and pans spread over the floor. They rang in an earsplitting din almost as loud as the Skulls that surrounded her. She slammed the door to the alley shut. Then she shoved a metal island in front of the door. She rushed to the counter facing the dining area of the restaurant. The first few Skulls burst through what remained of the restaurant’s windows. Shards of dirt-covered glass flew around them. They charged over the broken tables and chairs, snarling, spittle spraying from their mouths.

For now, she didn’t spot any Hybrids.

That was just fine.

She could handle Skulls.

One by one, she lined up her shots, firing into the center mass of the beasts. Armor-piercing rounds sprayed into their chests. Bone chiseled away, bullets piercing organs. The Skulls collapsed, yet still their brethren leapt over the fresh corpses.

Fire and aim, fire and aim.

Meredith’s world became the narrow space at the end of her rifle’s muzzle. Skulls pounded on the door to the kitchen, rattling the metal island. But so long as that door held, all she could do was stem the tide of monsters in front of her.

Then a Skull hit one of the restaurant’s rotted wooden support columns. Dust fell from the ceiling, and the column buckled. One of the support beams cracked and dropped a foot, suspended by groaning, splintering wood. Ceiling tiles fell away and burst over the floor. Even the walls seemed to groan.

Another shrieking Skull slammed into a different column. The column broke from its post in the ground and started to topple. Above it, the ceiling puckered, and more tiles fell. The hapless Skull burst through the fog of dust and debris, jumping for Meredith.

She never even had a chance to fire on it. The ceiling of the restaurant collapsed. The contents of an apartment above swallowed the remaining Skulls. Furniture and rubble filled the space, and the resulting cloud of dust hit Meredith with an almost-concussive force. She coughed and spat as the dust scratched down the back of her throat and into her lungs.

She backed away into the kitchen as debris continued pouring into the restaurant. The place looked like it had been devastated by an earthquake. Meredith’s eyes watered.

Skulls were no longer going to be pouring in through the front door. But Meredith wasn’t going to be going out that direction, either.

The island she’d pushed against the back door of the kitchen rattled. She turned to face the kitchen again. The doorframe there was starting to split as the growls of the Skulls grew louder, their efforts more desperate. The noises inside the restaurant had riled them up even more.

Meredith was completely trapped. The longer she waited here, the sooner the Hybrids would show up and make things worse.

She swapped the magazine on her rifle for a fresh one then patted her tac vest, making sure she had plenty of ammunition. She plucked one of the Pacifist Fog grenades from her vest. She hated using it so early on the mission, but she had little choice if she wanted to survive. The grenade would spew a biochemical cocktail that made the Skulls docile, putting them into a near-trancelike state.

The only problem was that it took anywhere from ten to thirty seconds to work, depending on how much of the fog the Skulls inhaled. Even ten seconds was an eternity in a cramped space with as many Skulls as she was about to face.

But it was her best option. Her only option.

Sucking in a deep breath, she shoved the island out of the way. It clattered against the plates and pans on the floor. The door shook. Wood cracked, and more splinters spiked out of the doorframe.

Meredith pulled out the ring from the Pacifist Fog grenade and held it with one hand. With her other, she gripped the door handle and sucked in a long breath.

Here we go, she thought.

She yanked the door open no more than six inches. Claws and bony limbs grasped for the gap. Teeth gnashed, and Skulls let out their banshee cries. A nearly impenetrable wall of monsters. She found a small gap as they wrestled with each other to be the first inside. She flung the grenade into the alley. Almost immediately it began spewing a red cloud of gas.

Meredith wasn’t going to stand around and wait for the Pacifist Fog. Shouldering into the door, she threw her weight against it. The Skulls weren’t going to let their chance at fresh meat get away so easily. They pounded against the door. She tried to find some grip on the ground with her boots, her leg muscles burning and straining with the effort.

Her sad attempt to keep the door closed was like trying to hold back a tidal wave. There was nothing she could do against their raw power, even as tendrils of the red Pacifist Fog leaked into the kitchen.

Got to hold on, she thought.

Adrenaline wasn’t enough to fuel her. Every nerve sparked, driving the last dregs of energy and strength she had into her flagging muscles. The Skulls beat against the door, throwing themselves at it in a frenzy, the impacts resonating into Meredith’s bones.

Another slam. Her boots slid a few inches. She scrambled to regain her footing.

Not today, you bastards.

She pushed back at the door. Her boots found the crevices between the tiles in the floor.

But it wasn’t enough. Her arms and legs shook. More of the red Pacifist Fog seeped in. Again, a Skull slammed into the door. This time Meredith was flung backward. Pain rocketed up her tailbone and the elbow she landed on. She ignored it and swung the rifle up, flinging rounds into the Skulls now barreling into the kitchen. They surged over each other, trampling corpses and the living alike. It was impossible for Meredith to tell which were alive and which were dead.

All she could do was fire and pray, taking out as many as she could before...

The first wave of Skulls staggered to a halt. Their eyes twitched, and they breathed hard, staring about the room. Others pushed past them, but it seemed like they had hit an invisible wall, their gazes suddenly unfocused and random. Drool dripped from one beast who was mere feet from Meredith.

The beasts weren’t quite the frozen statues the fog usually made them. Instead, they were still wandering about the room, almost as if they had simply forgotten about Meredith.

At the door, the group of Skulls parted. A dark shape walked through the space, dust and Pacifist Fog roiling around it.

It was a person... or rather, a Hybrid.

Meredith started to raise her rifle until she heard the familiar voice.

“It’s me, ma’am.” Blood trickling through his nostrils, O’Neil strode toward her, reaching out a hand.

“Thank God,” Meredith said as she took it, breathing hard.

Through gritted teeth, he said, “Don’t thank me quite yet.”

He led her out to the alley, where more Skulls were milling about.

“I’ve got control for now,” he said. “That Pacifist Fog definitely helped me snag them when they started to calm. But the more of it they breathe, the more likely it is I’ll lose control completely. They’ll stand around for a little while. But after it wears off, it’s going to be really difficult for me to gain control again.”

“That’s fine,” Meredith said as they began jogging down the alley. “We’ll get the hell out of here before they so much as blink.”

An ear-shattering roar suddenly boomed down the alley.

“Maybe,” O’Neil said. “Only problem is, on my way here, I never really got rid of my company.”

A huge shape loomed at the opposite end of the alley. Enormous spikes hooked out of its spine. Its head looked almost comically diminutive atop a body built for tearing straight through walls. Massive arms hung by its armor-plated chest, ending in claws that could cleave a human in half with a single swipe.

Goliath.

-12-

Andris watched as the Skulls, Hybrids, and FGL soldiers swarmed toward the Americans. They were about to be slammed like a sailboat in a typhoon.

“Captain,” Andris spoke urgently over the comm link. “We have spotted some of our friends. They are in much trouble. If we do not intervene, they will certainly die. If we do, we will lose any chance of stealth. Do we proceed?”

Andris expected an immediate “yes” from Dom. If the Hunters had a chance to save someone’s life, then they did it. From the civilians trapped on cruise ships in the Chesapeake Bay to test subjects in Estonia, the Hunters always made it their mission to help people who needed it.

If it had been his choice to make, Andris would’ve passed on some of those rescue missions, knowing their fates were sealed. He was different from his captain, not quite so tenderhearted.

So when Dom did not respond immediately, Andris was surprised.

“Captain, do you read?” Andris asked again.

“I read,” Dom replied. “If you think you can change the outcome of this engagement, then proceed. If not, do not engage and advance to the rendezvous point.”

Andris blinked in surprise. He had not expected Dom to give such a matter-of-fact response. Then again, Andris had been there when Dom was forced to choose between their primary mission and the chance to save Spencer Barrett. Dom had chosen to continue, forsaking the life of the Hunter in hopes of stopping their enemy.

Maybe his captain had changed over the course of this war.

Andris pressed his scope to his eyes and surveyed the desperate Americans. They clung to their entrenched positions like rats scrambling aboard chunks of wood from a sinking ship. Chances were good that they were going to die.

Could he watch them die?

“I must say, Captain,” Andris said at last, “you ask if we can change the outcome of this engagement. To me, this sounds like a challenge. And I will always say yes to a challenge.”

“Then proceed,” Dom said.

Andris took another look at those Americans, their faces contorted in rage and desperation. Something inside him turned over at the sight of them as the Skulls closed in. The choice to move on and ignore the gunfight was not something he could consider.

Perhaps the war had changed Dom. But it had also changed him.

Son of a bitch, he thought. You are growing soft like a baby.

Andris looked around the rooftop again. There was no easy way to get down to join the Hunters below. At least not from this building.

“Jenna, Glenn,” he spoke through the comm link. “There is a good spot for you to knock out the group from the south. If you move from the bus, there is a cement truck you should be able to see. Next to it is a bulldozer. Good protection and very good vantage point. I will leave you to talk to the Americans. Tell them to wait on word from us, if they’ll listen.”

“On it,” Jenna replied. “What are you going to do?”

“I will provide support from here,” Andris said. He strapped his rifle over his back again and then dug into the dust-covered flat roof with his boots. “I am going to be your friendly Baghdad Spider-Man.”

He sprinted as hard as he could to the opposite edge of the roof. Summoning every bit of strength, he threw himself into the air. His arms pinwheeled as he soared over the alley. He never looked down. To look down would be to admit it was possible he could fall those four stories to the ground.

Air rushed over his body. He braced himself for the next roof. His feet hit first, and he rolled forward into a clumsy somersault. He didn’t waste any time to dust himself off before he started running for the next roof.

Briefly, he considered running down the stairs of the building to get back to street level. But he would be more useful with a high vantage point if he wanted to snipe any of their enemies. And he’d be in a better position to lob explosives.

The thought of raining fire down on their enemies pushed him forward. He took the next leap with considerably more grace.

“We’re almost at the bulldozer,” Glenn reported.

“Good,” Andris said. The flash of gunfire was growing closer as he took another roof, then another. “I am almost in position.”

One more apartment building, and he found himself a roost overlooking the Americans. He took out his rifle and scoped the battlefield. The FGL and the Skulls were so focused on the Americans that they had no idea he was up here.

That would be a mistake he would not let them forget.

He sighted up the first Hybrid. “You will know when to fire,” Andris said over the comm link.

The Hybrid seemed to be grinning as it watched the Skulls plow into the Americans’ position. Most of the mindless monsters went down under the hail of gunfire from the Special Forces. But Andris could see that the Hybrids and the FGL soldiers were using that distraction to their advantage. They positioned themselves around the wreckage to surprise the Americans.

Or so they thought.

Andris fired. The Hybrid’s head disappeared in a misty red spray, and his body slumped. The Hybrid next to him glanced at the headless body then peered around for what had caused the sudden attack. Andris did not give him much time to wonder.

Jenna and Glenn opened up on the flanks of the FGL with equal fervor, scattering the FGL forces. Their efforts relieved some of the pressure on the American forces, letting them push back the Skulls and earn themselves a little more breathing room.

The southern group of FGL forces started to falter, cut down by Jenna, Glenn, and Andris. They were the most exposed to the attacks, and Andris relished every thump of his rifle as he brought down one of the bastards.

But the north side of the street was still filled with shrieking Skulls, Hybrids, and soldiers. Andris did not have time to snipe them all. He smiled to himself and strapped his rifle over his back again. Then he ran for the next roof.

Now it was time to break out the fireworks.

He landed on the roof and rolled to soften the landing. Before he straightened up, he was already pulling a pair of high-explosive grenades from his tac vest. He lobbed the first one close to the building, watching it land right at the feet of a group of Skulls. The second grenade he tossed toward the Hybrids.

A blast of hot air whooshed up past Andris, carrying with it the limbs and broken bone plates of the monsters. The odor of charred flesh and explosives was already in the air when the second grenade went off.

Unlike the Skulls, the Hybrids knew what to expect from a grenade. That didn’t mean they had had the time to react. A few disappeared in the blast. Several managed to throw themselves far enough that they came away from the explosion with a few bleeding wounds. But they weren’t dead.

Andris had been ready for that, too. He opened fire on the dazed Hybrids, picking them off one at a time as they struggled to recover. The FGL soldiers who had fanned out around the Hybrids finally figured out where the assault was coming from and began returning fire.

But by then, it was already too late.

Jenna and Glenn shouted over the comm links, tuning in the American channels to coordinate a counterattack.

The FGL forces didn’t have a chance.

As confusion riddled the ranks of the remaining FGL forces, Andris was certain that they had, as Dom put it earlier, “changed the outcome of this engagement.” They might have sacrificed some of their stealth, but Andris figured that had already gone out the window when their planes had been shot down. If they were lucky, they could finish off the remaining FGL forces here and then disappear into the backstreets and alleys, making their way to the rendezvous point, with their allies in tow.

A chorus of loud howls exploded over the city. The din of claws and talons scraping over rock and metal came next, like the rumble of a distant thunderstorm. Unlike a storm, the rumble never ceased. Andris guessed there might be a hundred Skulls in the mob, maybe more.

Those Skulls were headed their direction. Maybe the FGL had called in reinforcements. Maybe the beasts were simply responding to the sounds of battle.

Either way, Andris knew one thing for certain: they had to leave immediately.

***

Meredith followed O’Neil as he pushed past the ranks of the wandering Skulls. Red clouds of Pacifist Fog swallowed the alley. Behind them, the Goliath roared, nearly invisible behind the dense fog.

Meredith’s heartbeat throbbed up through her throat, her pulse pounding in her ears. A cold injection of adrenaline rushed through her, and her legs worked like pistons as she powered her way out of the alley.

“Lost touch with the Skulls,” O’Neil said.

The Skulls stood listless in the alley, their jaws slack, saliva dripping out as their eyes focused on points only they seemed to see. One stood in Meredith’s way. She shoved it and leapt over its fallen body.

She hoped that the Goliath would suck up enough Pacifist Fog to stop it in its tracks. For now, the ground still rumbled with each step the Goliath took. It crashed through any Skulls standing in its path, knocking some aside with wide swings. Those monsters flew through the air, splattering against the alley wall. The Goliath was only a few yards behind her and O’Neil now. It was definitely catching up.

Ahead, she saw the red smokescreen dissipating. Any hopes that the Goliath would finally succumb to the calming Pacifist Fog was gone. They would have to lose this Goliath the old-fashioned way.

“Oh shit!” O’Neil cried.

Meredith could see the street at the end of the alley now. But that wasn’t what had caused O’Neil to shout. More Skulls were roaming around the street. At the sound of O’Neil and Meredith’s pounding feet, they turned and charged.

Skulls in the front, Goliath behind. Meredith was not a fan of this kind of sandwich.

“Can you control them?” Meredith asked.

“Trying!” O’Neil said, the word coming out more like a grunt.

The Skulls trembled, slowing down. Meredith figured O’Neil was having at least some success. The beasts weren’t throwing themselves at the duo in a suicidal rage now, but they did swipe lazily at them when they approached.

“Keep... running,” O’Neil managed.

“What are you going to do?” Meredith asked.

Before she got an answer, O’Neil leapt up one of the walls. His claws dug into the mortar and cracks between the stones as he scrambled up and out of sight. The Skulls began to twitch then stumble forward like drunks leaving a bar at closing time.

What the hell? Meredith thought.

Had O’Neil abandoned her? He must have lost control of them again. They were rushing straight at her, and the Goliath was pounding away behind her. She was no better off than before.

“O’Neil!” she yelled.

No response.

She braced herself as a Skull neared, bringing her rifle up to fire on it. But instead of leaping at her, the Skull had its eyes locked on something behind her.

No, she realized, I’ve got to trust O’Neil.

She pressed herself against the wall as more Skulls barreled down the alley. Somewhere above her, hidden in the edges of the fog, was O’Neil. She could guess at his plan now. He had sent the Skulls at the Goliath.

Meredith gave herself a brief second to turn back. The Goliath’s huge arms hung from its sides as it rolled toward her, more like a gorilla than anything that had ever been human. Huge tusks curved out of its mouth, pressing against its bottom lip. Uneven spikes protruded all around its joints and even covered the plates along its arms.

The Skulls ran at the giant beast, throwing themselves at it, biting and scratching. Their claws were long enough to impale a human, belly button to spine. Each beast had strength enough to slice through muscle and break bones. But against the Goliath, they might as well have been insects.

Skulls smashed against the walls, brains and flesh spraying with each impact as the Goliath flung them away like toys. The Skulls didn’t understand what they were up against. They didn’t know the weakness of the Goliath like the Hunters did.

Which only meant one thing: no matter how hard O’Neil forced the Skulls to attack, it wasn’t likely to work. The Goliath had barely slowed as it churned through the onslaught of Skulls.

Meredith had to help turn the tide. She brought her rifle up to her shoulder and squeezed the trigger. Rounds pinged against the Goliath’s chest and shoulder as it bucked, going wild and sweeping up the Skulls. The weakest point of the Goliath from her vantage point was its face. A bullet or two through the nasal or orbital cavities might be enough to stop the bastard.

But those were very small targets on a beast that would not slow down. She could hardly keep her sights centered on its face as she squeezed the trigger. Bits of bone chunks sprayed into the air as Meredith fired.

“Hold!” A voice called over the comm link. “Hold... your fire.”

O’Neil.

Meredith took her finger off the trigger but kept her aim on the Goliath. The beast was drawing closer. It had to be stopped.

But she needed to trust O’Neil.

Suddenly, a shape dropped down from above and slammed onto the back of the Goliath. The giant went crazy, throwing itself against the walls, knocking away bricks and mortar. One wall gave way completely, revealing the interior of an abandoned office filled with discarded trash and skeletons.

The Goliath reached toward its spine, trying desperately to peel off its attacker.

Squarely in the middle of the behemoth’s back, O’Neil held on, his claws embedded in the flesh between the beast’s plates. He climbed the Goliath’s back until he could reach the monster’s neck then stabbed his claws deep.

“Trying to... control him...” O’Neil grunted over the comm link.

His muscles seemed to shake as he hung on, trying desperately to quench the rage of the beast. As he focused on the Goliath, Meredith noticed he was losing his mental grip on the Skulls. They started looking between her and the Goliath as if they didn’t know which target they should attack.

One lunged at her, baring its teeth in a vicious snarl, and Meredith ducked, letting its claws scrape against stone. She struck out with her rifle, knocking the beast back, then kicked it in the chest to give herself more room. A bullet through the bastard’s open mouth ended its attack.

More had already started to filter toward Meredith. They came at her in jerks and fits, as if they were fighting against a magnet pulling them back toward the Goliath and O’Neil.

The longer this fight continued, the more the Skulls would come after her—and O’Neil. Behind them, the Pacifist Fog continued to lift, swirling out into the night sky.

The Goliath needed to be stopped. Now.

Meredith couldn’t get a good shot at the beast. Not from here or with the Skulls in her way. So she had to do something else. Something desperate.

She leveled a barrage of gunfire into the chests of the Skulls that O’Neil had controlled. Their bodies collapsed in the alleyway. A few dragged themselves forward, blood spilling behind them as fatal wounds took them more slowly.

But Meredith ignored them, her path now mostly clear. She let her rifle fall on its strap, took out her knife, and began running as hard as she could.

Reaching the Goliath, she jumped up toward its open maw as it bellowed. Blood dripped out of the wounds caused by the Skulls and O’Neil, snaking between the monster’s spiked plates. None of them were anything more than superficial to the Goliath. They weren’t winning this battle. They had barely begun to piss the thing off.

She had one shot. One opening to do this right.

She leapt. The jump gave her enough momentum to power up the creature’s chest. She grabbed one of the spikes and pulled herself up the last stretch. With her other hand, she drove her knife into the flesh between the Goliath’s neck plates. The blade drove in deep, up to its hilt. Meredith watched the huge, pulsing vessel beneath the flesh.

Using her boots to give her extra leverage, she yanked the knife back out of the Goliath’s neck and jumped to the ground. Blood gushed from the wound, squirting in crimson gouts with each beat of the Goliath’s heart. One of its huge clawed hands grasped at Meredith’s knife.

Too late, Meredith thought. There was nothing the Goliath could do now to stop from bleeding out.

Its bellows quieted as blood bubbled out of its mouth, staining its tusks and dripping over the front of its chest in a long crimson beard. A heavy thump echoed in the alley as the monster fell to its knees. O’Neil leapt off the beast when it fell face-first into the dead Skulls around it.

“Damn.” O’Neil’s chest heaved in audible, gasping breaths as he looked at the Goliath. “Thanks... ma’am.”

“Don’t mention it,” Meredith said, flicking her knife to loosen the viscous blood on its blade. She replaced it in its sheath. “We need to get to the rendezvous point now. Think we’re clear?”

O’Neil squinted. Meredith knew the look of concentration well. He was trying to read the wind, to see if he could tell whether there were more Hybrids out there.

“We’ll never be clear,” he finally said. “They’re everywhere.”

That wasn’t the answer Meredith had wanted, but it was the one she needed. She looked at her smartwatch.

“Let’s go,” she said, starting forward again.

They had a long way to travel and a short time to make it. With the FGL tightening their dragnet and the rest of the NATO ground troops soon to make their appearance, things would continue to get uglier.

“What’s that?” O’Neil asked in surprise.

As they finally made their way from the alley, another noise caused them both to duck for cover. At first, Meredith thought she was hearing the whine of a mini-gun firing down a nearby street. Then it grew louder, sounding more like a machine gun.

That’s not what it is, she realized. I know that sound.

She smiled at O’Neil. “That’s our ride out of here.”

-13-

Blood and dirt covered Miguel’s fatigues and face. At their feet, the Hybrid lay in a pool of gore. Rotted curtains flapped with a humid breeze pushing through the house, but it didn’t help. The lingering odor of must and decay only seemed to grow stronger.

“I take it the fifty yards from your parachute and into this building weren’t easy going,” Dom said.

“Easy is the last word I’d use to describe it,” Miguel replied.

“I’m glad to see you alive,” Dom said. “But why in the hell were you ignoring our calls on the comm link?”

Miguel fished in his pocket and pulled out a plastic earpiece. It was split into three pieces, the circuit board inside smashed. “Had a tough landing.”

“All right, brother. I’ll give you a pass this time.” Dom spoke over the comm link next. “Dom here. Found Miguel. Lost his comm link, but he’s alive.”

“I’ve still got my spare,” Jenna said. “As long as Miguel promises not to break that one, too.”

“Good,” Dom said. “We’ll see you soon.”

“Maybe not exactly soon,” Glenn rumbled back. “We’ve got a few members of Wraith and Talon with us now. Headed out before the Skull horde reaches us.”

A loud whirr sounded in the distance amid the report of gunfire and cries of the Skulls.

“We’ve got company,” Meredith said. “How long before you all can get here?”

“To your position?” Dom asked. “You’re not anywhere near the rendezvous point.”

“Nope,” Meredith replied. “But if we play our cards right, we’ll get everyone there a lot faster.”

Meredith told Dom her plan. He wasn’t certain whether it would work. But if it did, they would definitely be better off than before.

“Fine,” he said. “Go for it.”

Miguel stood in the middle of the living room. “What fun am I missing out on?” he asked, pointing to his ear.

“We’re getting the hell out of here,” Dom said, “and we’re doing it quickly. Come on.”

“I like the sound of that,” Miguel said.

Skulls cried out in the distance, the constant shrieks of the monsters ebbing and flowing like waves in the ocean.

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Miguel said.

They retraced their steps to the parachute, creeping between the destroyed vehicles in their path. All the while, the occasional bellow of a Goliath punctuated the chorus of distant Skulls. For as much noise as the monsters made, they still hadn’t run into a single one since dispatching the Hybrid back in that house.

“Does it bother you that none of the Skulls are getting closer?” Dom asked after they made it another block.

“Is that a joke, Chief?” Miguel asked. “I’m more than happy if they leave us alone.”

“Normally I would be, too,” Dom said. “But you slaughtered a whole FGL squad back there before I arrived.”

Miguel smirked as they paused at the corner of a building. “Damn right I did.”

“You can pat yourself on the back later. Those things should be after us. They know where we are. They know what we can do.”

Miguel froze, his palm on the wall of the crumbling apartment building they stood next to. “They should be sending reinforcements. Why aren’t they sending reinforcements?”

A thousand thoughts whirred through Dom’s mind. “What if this is one big goddamned honeypot?”

“Draw us in and then...” Miguel looked around the street as if the answer would spring up on them.

“We’ve got to keep going,” Dom said. “Whatever they have planned, we’ll fight through it. We need to get the Heikegani Agent cure.”

They pushed through the debris-filled streets, crawling over the piles of rubble. Rebar stuck out of a couple of cement pillars they had to carefully climb around. They crossed the enormous minaret of a mosque that had collapsed into the street, crushing a line of cars.

And that’s when they heard it.

A whistle screeched through the sky.

Dom instinctively ducked, pulling Miguel down beside him. Then an explosion rocked the office building half a block down from them. A huge dust cloud expanded around it, bricks and glass spraying into the street.

More whistles.

“Let’s go!” Dom slid the rest of the way down the remains of the minaret.

His boots hit the ground hard. He gave up on any semblance of stealth as he and Miguel dashed down the street, dodging past the vehicles and piles of broken bodies. They weaved between the broken carts of street vendors, rotted canvas canopies flapping in the wind.

The explosions chased them all the way. Brick and mortar geysered into the air, destroying buildings, crushing vehicles, and blasting craters into the streets. The air filled with the thick odor of smoke from the fires that started to spread through the trash-and-debris-filled alleys. Those fires began to devour what little the explosives left behind.

Dom began to lose track of the telltale whistling as blasts resounded all over the neighborhood. Everything became a kaleidoscopic blur of explosions and dust and sandy buildings disappearing amid it all.

A sudden wave of heat slammed into Dom’s back. He and Miguel sprawled, a high-pitched ringing screaming in Dom’s ears. Gray fog rolled over them as rocks rained from the sky. Dom sensed pain in his limbs and down his spine from his fall. But the pain was dulled by the rush of adrenaline flooding his system.

He had to keep running. It was the only thing he could do. Get up. Run beside Miguel. Hope they outran the mortar shells pouring down over them in the deadliest hailstorm he’d ever encountered.

Despite it all, Miguel started to laugh. He never slowed, but even through the ringing in Dom’s ears and the constant roar of mortar shells landing around them, he could not miss Miguel’s laugh.

“What... the... hell?” Dom managed between strained breaths.

Miguel glanced at Dom only briefly as they charged forward. “All this for just the two of us, Chief? Must be scared shitless of us. Kind of flattering, if you think about it.”

Then Dom couldn’t help himself. Buildings crumbled around them, the whole neighborhood quickly turning to a field of rocks. And, goddamnit, Miguel was right. Maybe it was the gallows humor. Maybe it was the adrenaline. Maybe it was a mind warped by all that he’d been through, all that he’d seen.

Maybe it was because, for now, despite it all, they were still alive.

He let out a single, cathartic laugh.

But any humor he tried to grasp soon burned away when he heard the din of the Skulls again, drawing near.

***

John Sullivan had been a member of the Irish Defense Forces Infantry Corps since he was eighteen. He had served two stints in Iraq, but most of his time had been spent in Ireland. During his overseas deployments, he had talked to his American counterparts and marveled at how many times and how long so many of them had been sent abroad. He’d heard their stories of watching IEDs take their brothers and suicide bombers decimating an entire restaurant.

He had never thought he would see that horror in Dublin, much less his peaceful home in County Cork. Or at least, what had once been his peaceful home. The Brutes—or as the Americans called them, Skulls—had ruined any idyllic image he had had of growing old in Knockgriffin. He would probably never again enjoy those pastoral drives through the rolling green hills toward Cork or deeper into the country, up to the verdant Corrin Wood for a light trek.

He had welcomed the first Americans—the Hunters, they had called themselves—when they came to Dublin to defend the city against an imminent FGL attack. He’d been ready to fight the Skulls back when the FGL had fooled them with explosives instead of monsters landing on their shore. He’d missed his chance then, and Sullivan had been disappointed not to fight.

Now he was in Moscow. He and his brothers were fighting the Skulls and the Hybrids across a flat bridge over the Moscow River. The FGL had set up positions behind the large black KAMAZ trucks at the end of the bridge. They had sent wave after wave of Skulls along with the bastards that sprayed the vile, disgusting acid.

He had watched Moore’s skull be crushed by one of those giant brutes the Americans called Goliaths. He had seen McGregor and Nowak both succumb to a desperate, bleeding Hybrid who had charged them, slashing at their necks with his last dying breaths. Walsh had bled out after taking a burst of rounds from a human FGL soldier’s rifle.

Sullivan did his best to push those thoughts from his mind for now. There would be time to mourn later, but for now, they were so close to victory. They had to push on.

The FGL forces at the end of the bridge had finally been scattered. Antiaircraft fire still sprayed into the sky, but a few NATO planes had managed to squeeze in, providing the vital air support the ground troops had needed to finally cross the bridge. All around, he heard the hoots from Americans and Germans and English and so many others. They were what remained of the offensive units.

Once they finished off the last few Skulls, they finally made it to their destination.

“There she is, that damned church,” Sullivan said.

The colorful spires of St. Basil’s cathedral sprouted ahead of them. Or at least, those that were left. Half the church had been reduced to broken walls and piles of ashes.

“Isn’t that...?” Sullivan trailed off, pointing toward where they had been told their target would be.

“That’s what’s left of the Kremlin,” Flynn said. “Not much to bloody look at now.”

“If we were supposed to take it, why did they blast it into drobes?”

“Don’t know,” Flynn said. “All I know is they’re telling us to crack on, so we crack on.”

The Hybrids had tried retreating, but those that attempted to run or climb one of the remaining walls of the Kremlin were quickly slashed to bits by gunfire. Now one of the American squads had pinned down the last pocket of Hybrids near the Kremlin.

A Hybrid poked his head out from behind a bullet-pocked sedan. Sullivan aimed and fired, knocking the skull cap right off the bastard.

“Good shot,” Flynn said.

A cold wind blew over the square, sending a chill down Sullivan’s spine. Fire bloomed in the sky, and gunfire burst in the distance as other infantry units squared up the lines in other parts of the city. The fighting around Red Square started to quiet. The rate of snowfall quickened, almost as if God himself wanted to cover up the violence with a white blanket.

Sullivan wasn’t brash enough to think that they had already won this battle.

No, it was far from over. But he prayed it was nearing the end.

They had lost so much to get here. Taking Red Square, this emblematic center of Moscow, had to mean something.

Right?

“We got yards to go, bud,” Sullivan said, turning to Flynn. “I hope that our brothers in Baghdad are making as much bloody progress as us. We might end the apocalypse yet.”

“Right we will.” Flynn gave Sullivan one of his characteristically cocky grins. “And the sooner we finish this, the sooner we’ll be back in Dublin, having a pint of the black stuff.”

Sullivan nearly swooned at the thought of a cold Guinness. That was a luxury he didn’t think he’d ever experience again, even if—when, he corrected himself—they won here.

And that’s when he felt it. At the core of his being. A great rumbling. Like the seeds of an earthquake. He looked to Flynn to see if he was imagining it.

The look on Flynn’s face showed he was not.

“What in the—” Flynn started.

A roar unlike any Sullivan had ever heard exploded into the night, threatening to shake the stars from their perches. Other voices rose to greet it as if the ground had opened up, letting the hounds of hell bay at the moon.

Then the monsters those voices belonged to appeared behind the buildings lining Red Square. They were more massive than any living creature Sullivan had ever seen. Tusks like an elephant’s jutted from their jaws, and talons like the trunks of trees pushed from their toes. The snow swirled around their faces, something between a gorilla’s and a human’s. Around their feet swarmed a horde of Skulls interspersed with Goliaths. And atop their shoulders rode entire squads of Hybrids.

“What the fuck are those things?” Flynn cried.

Sullivan had heard tales of these monsters. They were like the forebears of the Greek gods come to life, wreaking havoc among mortals. He whispered the word, lest the beasts hear him and turn their dark eyes on him. “Titans.”

And like that, all the progress they’d bled for, everything they had hoped to achieve in Moscow, was wiped away as the Titans loped across the Red Square with their monstrous reinforcements, leaving behind them a wake of blood and shattered corpses.

Sullivan and Flynn tried to flee, tried to find somewhere better to post up and defend themselves. But no such place existed when a single hand of a Titan could swipe away an entire city bus with as much effort as a toddler knocking down a house of cards.

When one of those hands hit Sullivan’s body, he barely had time for his thoughts to swing toward County Cork. He prayed that Heaven was half as beautiful as his home.

-14-

Meredith crouched behind a truck that had fallen on its side. All four of its tires were punctured and hung off the rims like trash bags. Normally she might wonder how in the hell a truck like this had ended up sideways in the middle of what looked like a snarled traffic jam in the middle of Baghdad.

But the large silver gashes along its side left no illusion this had simply been the result of a car accident. She wondered if the Goliath that had flipped the truck had been the one they’d taken down in the alley.

Whatever the case, she didn’t have long to think about it. Mortar rounds whistled into the city, pounding the neighborhoods where Dom and Miguel had been. Radio reports blared over their comm links that Wraith and Talon were under fire, too. The FGL must’ve been tired of sending waves of Skulls after them.

Meredith hoped to turn the tables. It was their turn to set a trap. Her gambit was the only way she could see to get the mission back on track.

The whine of what Meredith hoped to hell were motorbike engines rose above the blistering drone of mortar rounds. It made sense the FGL would have something a little more mobile to navigate the streets, when every route seemed to be clogged by broken vehicles.

“Ready?” She looked back at O’Neil.

He stood in the middle of the street, between a taxi and a delivery van. All around him, atop the vehicles and between them, stood the misshapen Skulls. Some wore rags of clothing, showing they too had once been human like Meredith. But others wore nothing but the horns screwing from their heads and the organic plates pushing out from their flesh.

O’Neil offered only a pained grunt that barely registered on Meredith’s comm link. His body swayed slightly, and Meredith worried he might collapse. She couldn’t see the blood trickling out of his nostrils from this distance, but she knew it was there. Probably dripping from his ears, too. He had gotten better at using his abilities to direct Skulls after waking up from his coma, though it still took a toll on him.

Either that, or he was too determined to fail. This plan hinged entirely on O’Neil’s efforts, and they both knew it.

Meredith pressed herself close to the exposed axle of the truck and peered around the rear bumper. The rising dust cloud masked the stars above. Soon, the group of Hybrids on motorcycles roared into view. Of course they wore no helmets, showing off their organic horns.

“I see them,” Meredith said.

This time O’Neil gave no reply. With the Hybrids moving closer, it was likely that they were exuding their own biochemical trail through the streets. She had no idea how they were trying to influence the Skulls, but it was definitely affecting the three dozen or so O’Neil had managed to round up.

Come on, O’Neil, she thought. You’ve got this.

The first few motorcycles were now just a hundred yards away. The riders weaved in and out of the frozen traffic. One of the Hybrids stuck a leg out and kicked a desiccated body. The head flew off and then slammed against the side of a sedan with broken windows. Meredith thought she heard laughter amid the roar of the bikes.

“Get ready!” Meredith said.

The motorcycles were headed straight toward them. They gave no sign that they had seen her.

“Steady!”

Then, behind the motorcycles, she saw cars being flipped out of the way. A rusted-out coupe somersaulted into the side of a building.

The Skulls around O’Neil started to jump up and down, their teeth gnashing and their mouths opening, releasing demonic howls. He had just about lost his grip.

A pair of Goliaths were clearing a path for two six-wheeled Russian armored vehicles. The bulky, rectangular Ural Typhoons slammed straight through the cars that the Goliaths didn’t move.

The motorcycles had just been a vanguard. Behind them were the real ranks of the FGL forces. She and O’Neil had not been prepared for mine-resistant vehicles and Goliaths. Maybe it wasn’t too late for them to hide and hope that the motorcycles simply zipped past them. But if they hid, they risked being crushed by the Goliaths or the Typhoons. On the other hand, if they tried to make a run for it now, they’d expose themselves to the six Hybrids on their motorcycles.

Neither was a great option.

“Dom, you all need to hurry,” Meredith said. “We got two Goliaths and two Typhoons on us now!”

The first motorcycle was only a few yards away now. She squeezed herself against the bottom of the truck, praying she looked like nothing more than a shadow as the motorcycle rocketed by. The second and third passed, followed by the other three.

“O’Neil, now!” Meredith yelled.

Originally the plan was for her to stay put and close in on whatever Hybrids survived what happened next. But with the Goliaths and Typhoons now charging toward her, she had no choice. She ran toward one of the nearby apartment buildings.

As she dodged through the vehicles, staying as low as possible, she turned her head in time to see O’Neil fulfill his part of the plan. On cue, the small horde of Skulls began running straight at the Hybrids. Meredith reached the apartment building right as the first Skull slammed into the motorcycle. The collision threw the Hybrid over his handlebars. His head smashed against the pavement, leaving a wet smear.

Three more crashes sounded behind Meredith. The Skulls had lunged fast enough that most of the motorcycle riders hadn’t stood a chance. Meredith jumped through a broken window of the apartment building. She looked back in time to see another motorcycle swerve, trying to avoid a pouncing Skull. But three more Skulls threw their bodies in front of the bike. His front tire dug into one of the monsters, crushing the beast’s legs. The Skull’s slashing claws were lost in the whirling spokes of the wheel.

It was enough to send the rider toppling forward. He crashed against the ground, somersaulting several times, audible cracks tremoring through the air when his plates and bones broke.

The last Hybrid deftly curved around the pack of Skulls. Meredith held her breath as she saw him aim for O’Neil. But O’Neil was quicker. O’Neil launched himself at the rider, claws piercing the air and stabbing straight into the rider’s shoulders, taking them both down. The duo disappeared in a cloud of flying dirt as the Skulls descended on them.

“O’Neil!” Meredith cried. “You’ve got to move!”

The Goliaths were closing in now, and with them, the Typhoons. Hatches atop both Typhoons opened, revealing more Hybrid soldiers with weapons at the ready. Her rifle was damn near useless against the Typhoons and the Goliaths at this range. Not even a grenade would make much of a dent.

Meredith and O’Neil would soon be a shredded mess if the others didn’t get there soon.

***

Dom felt like the insides of his lungs were peeling off. He was in good shape for a man his age, but goddamn if running from a bombardment didn’t push him to his limits. He’d run faster than adrenaline alone could account for, and now it was catching up to him.

But at least the shelling had ceased. They approached the area where Meredith and O’Neil were supposed to be and slowed to a trot, advancing more carefully now. His body screamed at him to pause, let him catch his breath. But Meredith’s last transmission wouldn’t let him stop for even a moment.

“Lang, Craw,” Dom tried over the comm link. “What are your positions?”

“Wraith Actual here,” Lang replied. “Headed toward the rendezvous point.” He sounded nearly as out of breath as Dom. “I’ve got about half my team. The rest... I don’t know.”

“Talon Actual,” Craw said next. “We’re at seventy-five percent strength. Your team saved my guys’ asses back there. Remind me to thank them later.”

“Copy,” Dom said, studying the street ahead. “How close are you to the rendezvous?”

Lang laughed over the connection. “Not sure we’re getting there before the main forces hit Baghdad.”

“Same,” Craw said simply.

“Then I’ve got an alternative,” Dom said. “Wheels. Enough for the whole team. But two of my people are pinned down trying to take them for us.”

“I told you, this is our mission,” Lang said. “You guys are following our lead.”

“Which is why I’m not giving orders right now,” Dom said. “But I am not leaving two of my people to die out there. We’re catching a ride out of here. Join us or don’t. Your call.”

“You take one of the FGL’s goddamn vehicles—”

“Two, actually,” Dom said, “and a handful of motorcycles.”

“What part of ‘covert mission’ was confusing?” Lang demanded.

“We’ve already sacrificed any surprise we had. I’m taking them, with my people, to get closer to the JIC. We’ll ditch the transports a kilometer or so out, giving us enough time to get lost again.”

“Time’s ticking,” Craw said. “And I have to admit, I’m on the mercenary’s side.”

Silence reigned over the line for a moment. Dom heard only his own heavy breathing as they ran.

“Fine,” Lang said. “We do this. And I’m in charge, understood?”

“Understood,” Dom said, happy to say anything to make Lang feel like he was in charge.

A look at Dom’s smartwatch told him they were only a block from Meredith and O’Neil’s position. He peered around the corner to get a better view of what they were about to run into. A path through the wrecked cars had been cleared leading to the two Typhoons. The Goliaths were climbing a building, punching their claws into the sandstone and tearing away chunks of rock. The walls looked as if they could barely support their weight.

“Meredith, we’ve got line of sight on the Goliaths,” Dom said.

Atop each of the Typhoons, a Hybrid soldier stuck out with a mounted PK machine gun. The gunners sprayed rounds into the building, chiseling away at the stone and windows between the Goliaths. All around the Typhoons, Skulls crashed into each other like concertgoers in a mosh pit. They didn’t seem to be going after O’Neil or Meredith, but they weren’t going after the FGL, either.

And Meredith wasn’t answering.

“Christ, Mere, you okay?” Dom yelled over the comm link.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” she replied, sounding out of breath. “All their attention is on O’Neil right now. I’m in the building opposite his. I want to get some pressure off him, but there’s nothing I can do against those damn things.”

Dom looked between the Goliaths and the Typhoon. He and Miguel weren’t equipped to take these bastards on, either. The least they could do was provide a distraction.

Then again... that might be enough.

“Meredith, how do you feel about getting up close and personal with those things?” Dom asked.

“The Goliaths or the Typhoons?” she asked.

“Typhoons for now,” Dom said. “We know we can kill the Skulls. It’s the vehicles I’m worried about. We’ll provide the distraction.”

Miguel raised an eyebrow, looking at Dom. “We will?”

They had just escaped a goddamn mortar bombardment, and Dom knew that had mostly been pure luck. Now they were pressing their fortunes again. He patted his tac vest, taking inventory of his wares, then paused on a Pacifist Fog grenade. They didn’t have many of the weapons. But judging by the scene before them, O’Neil and the Hybrids there were battling for control of the monsters. O’Neil was outnumbered, and Dom wasn’t sure how long until those Skulls turned against them.

More bellows shook the night air. Goliaths and Skulls were undoubtedly pouring toward their position. Whether wild Oni Agent monsters were reacting to the noise or the FGL was directing them, it hardly mattered to Dom. All he knew was they needed to get the rest of their team and get the hell out of here.

He told Meredith and O’Neil his plan.

“I can manage that,” O’Neil said. He sounded like he was talking through clenched teeth.

“Fine,” Meredith said. “Let’s do it.”

“You in?” Dom asked Miguel.

“I’m always in.”

Dom and Miguel worked their way between the wrecked cars while maintaining sight lines on the Typhoons parked on one side of the street. The gunners continued to pour sporadic rounds into the building, spraying dust and rock across the crazed pack of Skulls below.

“Mere, you in position?” Dom asked.

“Affirmative.”

“O’Neil?” Dom asked.

“Staying alive,” he said, his voice strained.

The Goliaths were nearly at the top floor of the apartment building.

“Here we go!” Dom cried over the comm link.

He tossed a Pacifist Fog grenade between the Typhoons and the building where O’Neil was hidden. Red tendrils of the fog hissed out, quickly expanding to form a cloud that began enveloping the Skulls. The red fog rolled toward the Typhoons and climbed up the apartment building to swallow the Goliaths.

“Now, Miguel!” Dom said.

Miguel quickly fired, and one of the PK machine guns atop the Typhoons went silent. After Miguel adjusted his aim and fired again, the second gun went quiet.

Now it was just up to Meredith.

-15-

Ronaldo stared at his monitor as he surveyed the chaos in Moscow from the AC-130. Bullets of sweat shimmered off the foreheads of both the scanners in the red interior lights of the AC-130. The antiaircraft fire continued to pound at them. So far, they had avoided most of it. His scanners and electronic warfare officers were some of the best men in the Portuguese Air Force.

The constant thump of the M102 howitzer and screaming blare of the M61 Vulcan cannons resonated through the plane. Ronaldo hoped they were giving the FGL as much as they were taking. He surveyed the infrared scans of the cityscape below. The NATO forces were retreating from the Red Square. Hordes of Skulls filled the Square, washing over their enemies in a wave of deadly claws and jagged teeth.

More frightening than the Skulls were the enormous beasts herding the smaller creatures along.

“Targets locked,” Ronaldo said, indicating the first two of the behemoths.

Titans, he had heard them called. He had never seen the beasts in person. He wasn’t sure seeing them through this screen really counted. But he did know that he did not envy the ground forces. The least he could do was provide some cover for them.

“Take them out!” Ronaldo said.

“Yes, sir!” the gunners cried.

The four gunners worked tirelessly to keep the hungry guns fed, reloading them as fast as the weapons spewed rounds. Ronaldo watched with satisfaction as the blasts blossomed on his monitor. He could not hear the resulting booms from here, but he watched their destruction. Skulls disappeared in black clouds. Others fell in the rain of Vulcan fire slicing through their bodies, shredding their limbs and bone plates.

But the most gratifying images were those of the howitzer shells slamming into the Titans. The beasts faltered, chunks of their massive organic armor cracking, their limbs flailing, nearly useless. The first two collapsed to the ground, trying to drag themselves through the hordes of dying and dead Skulls around them.

Ronaldo gripped the joystick of his controls with one hand and held his other hand over the keyboard, ready to select a new Titan target. The giant beasts had already done enough damage to the NATO forces. They couldn’t be allowed to continue their massacre.

Antiaircraft fire pummeled the sky around them. Tracer rounds lanced by, and another circling AC-130 disappeared in a spray of fire and metal.

“Can’t catch a break,” one of the scanners said. Then his expression dropped. “I’ve got a SAM activity light.”

Ronaldo’s stomach twisted. The AC-130 was a beast of a plane. But it was not invincible. They would not survive a hit from a surface-to-air missile.

“SAM activity light!” the scanner repeated, this time a little louder with an air of urgency. He practically stood in his seat, straining against his belts.

Ronaldo still hunched over his own screen and joystick, guiding fire at the Titans and Skulls. What else could he do?

“We’ve got a launch!” the scanner said, his voice shaking.

“Shit, shit, shit,” the other scanner said.

The plane suddenly banked hard, breaking left. The AC-130 couldn’t outrun a SAM chasing them down.

True to Ronaldo’s expectations, the scanner announced, “It’s following!”

Then the plane rolled harder to the left, its wings damn near perpendicular to the ground. It was a maneuver that shouldn’t have been possible. They started diving toward the Earth, and Ronaldo’s stomach climbed up into his throat, a tang of nausea threatening to take him.

The airframe creaked as they barreled toward the ground. If this didn’t work, there was no jumping from the plane. The best they could hope for was a quick death.

The plane accelerated, nearly twisting back on the missile. It was a maneuver more suited to a fighter than a gunship. Metal groaned, and Ronaldo feared the wings might shear off.

“It’s...” The scanner’s face lit up. “It’s going past us!”

“Hell of a pilot,” Ronaldo said.

They had indeed survived. And just like that, they were back in the battle. Ronaldo focused on his screen again, doing his best to pretend like they hadn’t all just barely missed death.

Once again, the gunship unleashed Vulcan fire and howitzer shells into the ranks of the Skulls. The battle for Moscow wasn’t yet lost, but they still hadn’t regained the Red Square.

He only hoped they were having better luck in Baghdad.

***

Navid stood at a lab bench with a pipette in his hand and sickly yellow light washing over him. He deposited the liquid in his pipette into a small glass test tube and shuffled over to a spectrophotometer. Chains bound his feet so he couldn’t run across the lab.

The chains had taken some getting used to, and he had spilled a couple of samples performing this task before. The first time, he had been concerned he might have exposed himself to the Heikegani Agent.

Each night, he had waited for the bones to move beneath his skin. He imagined the burning pain the Hybrids experienced during their transition. And as he recalled the stories he’d heard of agony, he wondered if he would be strong enough to resist when the FGL offered him the Halo pills.

It was, after all, the combination of the Halo pills and the Heikegani Agent that the FGL would use to assemble armies across the world without actually having to train soldiers. Hybrids, with their own intellect intact, could be turned into slaves for the FGL, making them a potentially more frightening weapon than the Skulls.

No, Navid thought as he deposited the test tube into the spectrophotometer. I’ll never be their soldier. I’ll never take those pills.

He started to hit the start button on the machine, initiating another experimental run. But as his gloved finger touched the plastic, he paused.

What in the hell was he thinking? He was already working for the FGL.

Their beatings, the starvation, they had broken him. His jaw ached, and he walked with a limp, certain several toes had been fractured along with something in his lower leg. The FGL wouldn’t give him any medical care, so he couldn’t be sure how badly he was injured internally, but he did know that if he ate or drank too much at once, his intestines would twist on themselves like a python.

He looked at Lauren. Most of her hair had been ripped in chunks from her head. He had a hard time distinguishing where the dark bags under her eyes began and where the bruises ended. Her nose was crooked and swollen, broken at least a couple of times that Navid had personally witnessed.

She had promised him the Hunters would rescue them.

And maybe she truly believed that.

But Navid wasn’t sure how much more of this he could take. How many days of beatings and intermittent starvation he could endure. How many nights of struggling to find sleep on the floor of the laboratory only to be interrupted by a Hybrid slamming him with a club or kicking him awake. How many more broken teeth. The only thing the Hybrids had seemed to avoid was his fingers, leaving him the digits to work in their lab for them.

“Boy, do you have a problem?” the Russian voice called.

Navid merely glared at the Hybrid. This was the sniveling one that wore a white coat, housed with them in this laboratory for as long as they’d been here. The Hybrid had been directing their work like he and Lauren were nothing but a pair of micromanaged lab techs.

The Hybrid called himself Dr. Sokolov. Navid wasn’t sure if the man was actually a scientist, but he seemed familiar enough with all the lab equipment and experiments they were running. He had even participated in some of the experiments himself, so long as his stubby claws didn’t get in the way of the more delicate sample preparation techniques.

Sokolov let out a sigh that rattled from his skeletal nostrils. He limped like Navid as he approached. The whites of his eyes were nearly entirely red, pulsing like burning embers. His shoulders were stooped, one higher than the other. Green mucus bubbled around his left nostril, and he was forced to wipe it away with the back of his hand.

Navid still didn’t know what was wrong with this bastard, but he was certain the half-man was sick with something else besides the Heikegani Agent.

“I asked you if you have a problem, Ghasemi,” Sokolov said, his voice as ugly and angry as his monstrous visage. The half-man pointed a claw at Navid’s chest. Sokolov bared his fangs in an attempt to look like one of the snarling soldier Hybrids. His nostrils quivered, the mucus sliding out. “Get back to work.”

Navid’s eyes watered. Out of exhaustion, fear. Maybe disgust. He didn’t know. His fingers curled into fists. “No.”

Sokolov’s claw rose higher, the stench of a threat pouring off of it. “Get back to work.”

“No.”

“Navid,” Lauren said, looking at him with an expression of pity. Like she was his mother. “Please.”

She had been cowed into submission like him. They couldn’t go on like this. He recognized the look in her eyes. She wanted desperately for him to hang on, to delay their work as long as possible while acting like they were submissive. Wait it out until the Hunters came.

They might come, Navid figured, but what if the damage had already been done? What if they helped the FGL achieve their next terrible goal and the Hunters never arrived in time to stop them?

“I cannot do this any longer,” Navid said. “I’m not going to help you.”

“You have not even begun to help us,” Sokolov said. His claws twitched. “This is nothing. And if you do not cooperate...”

Navid could easily fill in the blank. “I don’t care. Whatever this is, I’m done with it. I’m done with all of this.”

He refused to let himself remain a pawn for them. The beatings had fired his nerves, damaged them so badly he wondered how much they could really hurt him anymore. Maybe they would just kill him and get it over with.

Mere weeks ago, he had been helping to develop therapies to help save the goddamn world. Now he was working for the people trying to destroy it.

Death was better than a life in chains.

“I will not.” Navid took a step back from the machine.

Sokolov lowered his hand; Navid had called his bluff. The half-man never actually hit them. Navid’s muscles started to tense, knowing this was when Sokolov would send in the Hybrid goons again to administer corporal punishment.

Navid laughed. “I knew you didn’t have the balls to touch me. You’re scared, you ugly piece of shit.”

A fire burned in Sokolov’s eyes, but only briefly. Then those scaly eyelids closed, and he strode away from Navid. “You do not understand anything, little boy.”

“What are you doing?” Lauren asked, setting aside her pipettes and test tubes. “Dr. Sokolov?”

Sokolov wandered toward a computer at the front of the laboratory. This was unusual for him. When Lauren and Navid had shown any sign of rebellion before, Sokolov had simply made a single call on his radio. Navid folded his arms over his chest, feigning disinterest.

“If they hurt him again, I’m not sure he’ll survive,” Lauren said, stepping toward Sokolov. In her rush, she knocked over a pair of glass beakers that rolled off a lab bench and hit the tiled floor. Shards of glass sprayed across her feet, but Lauren ignored it. “Don’t, please.”

She seemed broken. That was the only way Navid could describe it.

“Lauren, enough,” Navid said. “I’m done here. I’m done with all of this.”

Spinning on her heels, she shot him a look of rage. The words went unsaid, but the intention was clear.

No, she wasn’t broken. She still thought the Hunters were coming. And she was furious that Navid had lost his faith in them.

That was foolish. It was better to Navid that he died and prevented the FGL from whatever they hoped to get out of him. The only problem was that he didn’t have the luxury of arguing this with Lauren. They usually could only trade a few words before Sokolov called in reinforcements to dole out a torturous beating.

But this time Sokolov merely tapped on a keyboard. “I do not think either of you know what is at stake. You have no idea how strong we are.” His words didn’t come out with the zeal of a Hybrid warrior. Rather, Navid thought he detected a hint of despair there. Strange.

Sokolov’s claws tapped along the keyboard, and a tile in the ceiling opened up. A projector descended from the open tile and shone on the back wall of the laboratory.

“I can see in your eyes, boy, that you mean what you say. You are done fighting it.” He paused. “Fighting us. You would rather die.”

Navid said nothing.

“If you will not do it for us, do it for them,” Sokolov said.

His claw tapped on the keyboard. The blank blue image from the projector switched to a grainy image of what looked to be a prison cell. A Hybrid stood in the middle of the cell, waving a placard at the camera view showing numbers that Navid presumed was today’s date. Navid supposed it was an effort to show this wasn’t preproduced for his benefit.

Then the Hybrid left the screen.

“This is what is at stake,” Sokolov said.

The camera panned the room and then dramatically zoomed in on the three figures huddled in a corner. Navid shook his head, unable to believe what he saw. His teeth chattered, his lips feeling numb as he tried to find the right words to express... anything.

He backed away until his spine hit the lab bench, and he crumpled, holding his knees to his chest as he stared at the image.

Navid knew those faces. They belonged to people he had thought he would never see again. After all, they’d been in Canada during the outbreak. But the FGL had found them.

It didn’t make any sense.

The three faces on the screen made him question everything he’d resolved to do only a few seconds ago.

There, in the FGL’s custody, were his mother, father, and sister.

-16-

Meredith crouched at the open window of a second-floor apartment. Around her swirled the putrid odor of death, a mix of rot from within the apartment and the pungent odor drifting off the Skulls now bathed in Pacifist Fog. Around the room, decaying flesh hung off scattered skeletons in flags of gray and brown.

The Goliaths were still climbing the opposite building, pummeling the walls and windows in search of O’Neil. After taking out the gunners on the Typhoons, Miguel and Dom were closing in on the two vehicles. They were at least a solid thirty yards or so away. They wouldn’t close that distance before more Hybrids emerged from the hatches.

Meredith had to act quickly to help. Here goes nothing, she thought.

She lowered herself from the second-floor window. The worn stone frame crumbled, coming away in her fingers. One of her hands lost its grip, and she started to fall. She wanted to lower herself down softly on the Typhoon, but that wasn’t going to happen.

She swung herself out slightly to get what little momentum she could. Her hands swung through the air when she let go. She flexed her legs, ready to hit the roof of the vehicle. When her boots hit, she rolled. The impact of the landing reverberated through her joints, but she didn’t let the pain in her old bones stop her. She sprinted toward the open hatch where the machine gun was sitting idle. From inside the Typhoon, Russian voices echoed out.

A Hybrid head appeared out of the hatch as Meredith reached it. She swung her rifle up and fired. The Hybrid slumped back into the vehicle, and Meredith let the rifle fall to its sling, grabbing a pair of M67 grenades. She pulled the pins, dropped them into the Typhoon, then slammed the hatch shut.

Without missing a beat, she dashed toward the edge of the Typhoon and threw herself through the air, landing hard on the roof of the second. She scrabbled for a handhold, propelling herself toward the open hatch of that Typhoon. Before she reached it, the grenades in the other went off with a pair of muffled explosions and the rattle of tortured metal. The unlocked hatch swung open as smoke poured out in a shifting column.

“Move in!” she yelled to Miguel and Dom.

She had no time to see if they’d followed her directive. Another shape emerged from the hatch of the second Typhoon. She tried to raise her rifle up, but this Hybrid was ready. He sprang from the hatch and flew through the air toward her, claws ready, rifle swinging by his side. Meredith dove and rolled to avoid his raking claws. One of them grazed her shoulder anyway. A deep, stinging pain tore through her flesh.

The Hybrid’s talons scraped against the roof of the Typhoon as it slowed itself. He wasn’t stupid. This time, he brought his rifle up, claws reaching for the trigger before the stock had even hit his shoulder.

Meredith raised her rifle. With no time to aim, she fired in a violent spray. Bullets ricocheted against the metal roof in a metallic hailstorm. Rounds disappeared into the fog and cracked into the neighboring buildings.

The Hybrid fell to his knees. Blood blossomed from his abdomen and chest, puddling around his feet and rolling across the roof. He lost his grip on his rifle. The weapon dropped to his side. His claws opened and closed, desperate to take her down despite his impending death.

His eyelids quivered then fell still, eyes wide open. He was no longer a threat. The other Hybrids inside the Typhoon, however, were still very much alive. Another set of claws gripped the edge of the hatch. The Hybrid appeared with the barrel of his gun pointing at Meredith.

She rolled aside to avoid him. The crack of gunfire exploded, slamming into her eardrums.

She had been too slow this time. Meredith expected to feel the wetness of blood over her belly. Feel the heat and pain wash through.

But nothing happened.

Instead, she saw Dom atop the other Typhoon, his rifle against his shoulder.

“Thanks,” she said, plucking her last M67 grenade from her vest. She flung it inside and closed the hatch before another Hybrid made it out.

She ran to the opposite end of the Typhoon and kept her rifle trained on the hatch just in case. But before the explosion sounded from inside, the rear doors opened. A handful of Hybrids scattered out. Meredith spun around in time to fire into the backs of two of them.

“Dom, Miguel!” she cried.

“Got them!” Dom said, firing at the fleeing Hybrids.

Two more fell in the street, inertia carrying them forward, smearing blood and bone against the pavement. Another escaped their fire, flitting between the busted vehicles over the debris-filled street. Bullets pinged around the cars, sparking, but the Hybrid escaped.

“He’s going to come back with friends,” Meredith said. “We’ve got to hurry.”

“Typhoon clear!” Miguel yelled as he emerged from the rear doors of the other Typhoon. “But it’s blown to shit inside. No way it’s going to drive.”

He peered into the open doors of the Typhoon Meredith stood on.

“This one’s clear, too,” he said. “Looks a little better.”

The Goliaths hanging onto the apartment building on the other side of the street were still growling and bellowing. But the gunfire and grenade blasts had gotten their attention. Without the control of the Hybrids, they were acting once again of their own volition.

“Looks like we’ve got more immediate problems than FGL reinforcements,” Miguel said.

Meredith slipped down through the hatch of the Typhoon. Shrapnel damage scarred the interior of the passenger section. Black singe marks and tears had made the seats ugly but not completely unusable.

“Well, the engine’s running,” Meredith said.

“Can’t control those Goliaths,” O’Neil said. He sounded out of breath. “They’re too riled up. Might be more Hybrids around.”

“Understood,” Meredith said as she surveyed the controls for the Typhoon. Everything was in Russian, but Meredith was confident she could figure out the basics. Somehow, she always ended up as the driver, from a school bus to a Russian troop transport. She shifted the Typhoon into gear. The clutch ground noisily, but she managed not to kill it.

Through the windows, she saw the Goliaths lowering themselves down the building. “We better leave.”

Dom and Miguel filed into the back of the Typhoon, shutting the doors.

Through the door window of the Typhoon, Meredith watched O’Neil fling himself out of one of the holes in the side of the apartment building. He soared over the heads of the Goliaths and hit the other Typhoon.

For a moment he disappeared out of her sight. Then O’Neil slipped through the open hatch.

Meredith grinned at him as she threw the Typhoon into reverse. Tires dug into dirt and asphalt, kicking the vehicle backward and away from the Goliaths. Their retreat only seemed to anger the huge beasts.

“They’re still after us!” Miguel yelled.

“I see that!” Meredith replied. “Thank you very much!”

O’Neil clung to the seat next to Meredith then swung himself into it. His chest heaved as he fought to catch his breath. Long rivulets of blood trickled from his nostrils down over his chest and out of his ears.

Meredith pressed the pedal to the floor. The Goliaths ran at them, eyes filled with animalistic fury. Going in reverse, her speed was limited. And as the truck accelerated, so did the Skulls.

“Hold on!” she yelled.

She slammed the brakes and twisted hard on the wheel to turn the truck around. The vehicle shuddered as the rear of it smashed into a building. There wasn’t much room to maneuver in the narrow, carnage-filled streets. She did her best to swing the hulking vehicle around, slamming the gear back into first.

The tires dug into the broken asphalt and dirt, vying desperately to pull them forward. But the maneuver had cost her too much time. One of the Goliaths slammed into the side of the Typhoon. Hardened bone scraped against metal as the Goliath clamped its thick, clawed fingers into the wheel well.

The vehicle fishtailed... and then suddenly tilted forward. The Goliath was lifting the rear of the Typhoon.

“I could use some help here!” Meredith yelled.

“On it!” Dom pushed open the top hatch. His rifle exploded to life. Meredith estimated he spent damn near an entire magazine on the Goliath. The vehicle suddenly dropped, the rear tires finding traction again. Dom lowered himself back in. Flecks of bone and gore covered his face.

“I take it you got him, Chief,” Miguel said.

Meredith pressed the pedal to the floor.

“Not quite dead,” Dom said, “but no more eyes. Would’ve been a hell of a lot easier with something that goes boom.”

***

“Something that goes boom?” Andris asked over the comms. “Why didn’t you say so sooner?”

He checked his smartwatch. Meredith and the others were not far from his position.

“We’ve got a Typhoon,” Meredith said, “but the Goliaths got us.” There was a pause over the line. “Couldn’t hang onto us for long. We’re free again, but they’re right behind us.”

Andris looked between Glenn and Jenna.

“Y’all want to tell us what’s going on?” Rabbit asked.

The Americans trailing them were clueless since the Hunters had been talking over their private comm line. Andris figured it was best that way. Lang didn’t seem to give the Hunters much credit. He had overheard Dom convincing Lang to fall in with their plan to board one of those Typhoons. The Hunters didn’t want to give Lang an excuse to decide helping them was no longer a risk worth taking.

“Should be getting a new set of wheels,” Glenn said, “but we’re running into a few problems.”

“Skull problems?” Rabbit asked.

“That’s the gist of it,” Jenna said.

They needed a new plan. Fast.

“Are the Goliaths still on you?” Andris asked.

“We’re moving again,” Meredith said, “but they aren’t more than twenty yards away. It’s slow going with the condition of the roads.”

“Good,” Andris said. “Slow gives us more time.”

He looked around the street, gauging the landscape. Around him lay the gaping maws of broken shop windows, tables lying sideways under ragged, collapsed tents. A statue stood next to a dry fountain stained by rust. And, like everywhere else, there were broken-down cars. So many of them in this goddamn city.

It was almost as if the FGL had intentionally burned and wrecked them to use as barriers for the impending invasion. Christ, for all he knew, that was exactly what they had done.

Then Andris grinned.

“You got an idea, don’t you?” Glenn asked.

“I have very much an idea.” He turned to the Americans. “I will need your help.”

Rabbit shrugged. “Whatever we can do for y’all.”

Andris told the group what he planned and relayed those plans to Meredith. He prepared a batch of plastic explosives, inserting radio-controlled blasting caps into each of them.

“Remember what I told you,” he said, passing the explosives to the Americans. They nodded and moved into position, and Andris retreated to the fountain. He climbed up the spouts to stand atop the central pillar next to a bronze statue of some half-eagle, half-lion beast that had been bent from its post. There, he had a full view of the intersecting roads Meredith would be taking with the Goliaths in tow.

Andris watched Glenn, Jenna, and the Americans spread out over the road, doing his bidding, before they disappeared into nearby storefronts. The growl of the Typhoon’s engine soon roared down the road with the bellows of the Goliaths chasing after.

Andris winced slightly at the noise. The Goliaths were even louder than the Typhoon. Their bellows would soon be followed by a horde of Skulls attracted to the commotion. He would be surprised if there wasn’t already a gaggle of the bony monsters chasing them.

That meant he had to work quickly and work well. Because, of course, if the Goliaths weren’t enough to attract the Skulls, what Andris had planned would be.

The Typhoon roared toward the plaza, kicking up a rooster tail of dust and gravel. Two Goliaths followed. They slowed only long enough to toss the odd garbage can or lamp post at the Typhoon.

“Get ready,” Andris said, standing atop his perch. He rolled the detonator in his palm.

The Typhoon rocketed toward the plaza. Both Goliaths ran in tandem, no more than a yard or so between them.

Even better than I planned, Andris thought.

“This better work!” Meredith cried as the Typhoon shot across the plaza, crunching over fallen umbrellas and tents that had once covered produce stands. The brakes on the Typhoon squealed as the vehicle slid to a stop behind the fountain.

Almost, Andris thought, watching the Goliaths rush between the path of vehicles. They ran next to a bus that was positioned perfectly in parallel with the road.

Now.

Andris pressed the detonator. A dragon made of hellfire and black smoke exploded from the side of the bus, consuming the two Goliaths. Orange-and-red light glimmered off the side of the building, illuminating the darkened streets. For a moment, it might well have been midday. Two bellows of anguish followed the thundering boom of the explosives.

Hasta la vista, baby, Andris thought. Sweet, sweet fire.

It was a sight that calmed Andris’s nerves. The first part of his plan had succeeded. But he didn’t let go of his detonator. Instead, he switched the channel.

“Did we get the bastards?” Dom’s voice sparked over the comm link.

“No way anything survived that,” Jenna replied.

Andris squinted into the fire raging across the street. “I do not know yet.”

The Goliaths should be dead. Or near dead, if he had timed it right.

The flames started to die. One huge shape lay sprawled over the road, bone plates broken. A pool of blood circled the monster, soaking into the dirt-covered streets and reflecting the dancing flames. Pink flesh hung out of a wound on one side. The beast was nearly turned inside out. Andris felt a sense of grim satisfaction at the sight. One more FGL weapon gone.

But the second Goliath stomped through the flames, pushing past its fallen brother. Black singe marks scarred its bone plates, and blood streamed from dozens of wounds in its side. One side of its face looked as if it had been completely shorn off.

Its mouth opened as it let out a bone-rattling roar, pounded its chest, and then barreled straight at Andris. Almost as if the damn beast knew it was him that had blown up his friend.

“Second round, now!” Andris yelled. “Go, go, go!”

Andris had prepared for this. He hadn’t been sure what the Goliaths would do if the exploding bus failed. So he had directed the Hunters and the Americans to prepare more surprises. Now, those surprises were rolling straight toward the Goliath. Two relatively intact cars, both stuck in neutral, churned down the slight incline of the plaza. The Americans ran behind them, divided between the two cars, shoving them forward until momentum took over.

The Goliath tucked its chin against its chest like a rhino and ran to meet the vehicles.

“Bye-bye,” Andris said, depressing the detonator once again.

Once more, tongues of flame leapt into the night, an angry geyser of heat and fire spewing from each of the cars as the Goliath collided with them. Chunks of the wreckage cut through the air. The resulting concussive force nearly knocked Andris off the fountain. He clung to the wings of the statue, refusing to let his eyes off the Goliath even as the hot wind seared his skin.

The second Goliath’s ribs were torn open. Shards of metal stuck up from its ruined chest. Blood bubbled out of the beast’s mouth, staining its broken tusks as it fell backward. It was done.

“Now we can load up,” Andris said, jumping down from the fountain.

He joined the rest of the group as they loaded into the Typhoon. Jenna tossed Miguel the spare comm link, and he pressed it into his ear. Meredith slammed the vehicle into gear once they shut the rear doors, and they raced away.

-17-

The interior of the Typhoon reeked of sweat and burned plastic, a swamp of body odor and the pervasive aroma of death. They had packed the Typhoon to capacity. It didn’t help that the seats were mostly shredded from the grenade Meredith had dropped.

Though they were cramped in the confines of the armored transport vehicle, this was all that remained of teams Wraith and Talon. Lang had only managed to contact nine of his men. One of those nine had died, killed by Skulls, before they had had a chance to rendezvous. Craw had managed to get another nine members of team Talon together, four of those thanks to Jenna, Glenn, and Andris’s intervention after they had first landed.

They had already lost seven men, and they hadn’t even made it near the JIC.

“Nothing from HQ?” Dom asked Lang.

Lang picked chunks of bone and blood from his beard. Dom assumed they were from a Skull Lang had killed.

“Mission is still a go,” Lang said.

Dom nodded wordlessly. He had expected as much.

“You want to back out of this?” Lang asked, eyes narrowed. He flicked one of the bone chips away.

“Hell no,” Dom said. “We came here with a job to do, and we’re going to do it. Coming in hot like this, though, I want to make sure we’re still on track. We’re not the ones with eyes in the skies and a goddamn army sweeping in from the east.”

Lang grunted and turned away as if he didn’t believe Dom. “Don’t let this stunt get to your head. You’re still taking orders from me.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Dom said, careful not to lose his cool in the packed Typhoon. He had to consciously remind himself not to ball up his fists or clench his jaw too tightly.

Craw looked between the duo. He clutched a bar along the ceiling with one hand, holding on as the Typhoon bounced over the debris and corpses littering the streets. “Cut the merc some slack. He saved four of my guys.”

“You were responsible for your men,” Lang said.

Craw’s nostrils flared, and his bottom lip twitched. He looked like he was about to say something in anger. Then, in a more measured tone, he began again, “We’re deep in this shit together, Lang. Remember the Pashtuns you were embedded with before the world went to shit? You trusted them. Cut these mercs some slack.”

Dom knew there were quite a few Special Forces who had been assigned to make inroads with the local tribes, sometimes going so far as to live in their complexes. Many of the Special Forces teams had been successful at creating bonds with Pashtun tribes, successfully turning them against the Taliban. Those kinds of cultural connections had been crucial in the war against terrorism.

The only problem was that those tactics didn’t translate well when your enemies primarily consisted of monsters whose brains had been rotted by a bioweapon. Lang seemed to be taking that especially hard.

Lang glared at Dom. “First time I met my first tribe, they pretended to accept me as a guest. A brother, even. And then, not a week later, they led a group of Taliban fighters right to my tent. If you’re anything like them, then you can screw yourself.”

Once again, Dom bit the inside of his cheeks, trying not to lash out. Instead, he grinned. “One week? Good thing this mission is only one night. I think we can try to get along for that long, don’t you?”

“Screw you,” Lang said.

Dom once again had to remind himself this man was acting in what he thought was the best interest of his country. And to top it off, he had lost six of his brothers. A wave of guilt gnawed at the back of his mind. He, too, knew loss. It was a knife that stuck into his back, always digging deeper.

But he couldn’t let this animosity continue. The man had to stop treating Dom like the enemy.

“Look,” Dom said. “I get your distrust. I had a career in the CIA before doing this. Distrust is what I did best. We don’t need to be drinking buddies, Lang. I don’t care if we never see each other again, but I want this mission to succeed.” Then Dom paused, using a hand to indicate the others in the Typhoon. “And I want everyone in here to make it back alive.”

“Staying alive,” Craw said, “sounds good to me.”

Lang said nothing.

The Typhoon started to slow, and Dom turned, facing out the front windshield. Ahead of them, the road was filled with vehicles, everything from broken-down carts to a few tanks in such disrepair that they looked like they hadn’t been used in decades.

“We’re at the end of the road,” Meredith said. “Got to go on foot from here.”

Lang looked at Meredith then glared hard at Dom. “Probably better anyway. We need to get lost again, make sure the FGL isn’t on our trail.” Then he turned to his men at the rear doors of the Typhoon. “Listen up, Wraith, Talon... and mercs.” Lang swallowed hard. “We’re one team. We do this as quiet as possible. In and out, no more fireworks.”

Andris’s shoulders slumped, but he nodded along with the rest of the team.

“Now let’s move!” Lang said.

The rear doors of the Typhoon opened, and the Special Forces and Hunters poured out, fanning into the street. Dom went out last with Lang.

“I meant what I said,” Lang said, rifle pressed to his shoulder, scanning the dark streets. “I’m getting you in, and I’m going to get you out. You go rogue, I’ll still get you out. But you’ll be in a body bag instead of on your feet.”

“You made that clear,” Dom said. He wanted to say more, but O’Neil suddenly went rigid, eyes wide.

“Something’s not right,” O’Neil said.

“What is it?” Dom asked.

O’Neil shuddered. “There’s something here, sir. And it’s not like anything I’ve ever sensed before.”

***

Ever since he had touched ground, O’Neil’s mind had been tugged back and forth, under constant pressure from the biochemicals spewed into the air by the FGL. He had a difficult time distinguishing the locations of individual groups of FGL Hybrids with so many signals around him. But as soon as he had stepped out of that Typhoon with the others, something new slammed into him.

Most of the time, the feeling he got from the other Hybrids was red-hot aggression. Chemical cues that told him to attack, to stab his claws into the closest living thing and disembowel whoever got in his way. Sometimes those urges tried to pull him in a certain direction; other times they were more like a voice through a bullhorn, yelling, “Attack, attack, attack!”

But now, instead of fiery violence, hatred, and hunger, there was something he could only describe as a black hole. A sinking emptiness tugging at his insides. It filled him with a terrifying sense of dread and despair that devoured his mind, threatening to shake his soul from his body.

“O’Neil, you still in there?” Meredith asked.

Dom, too, had paused beside him, keeping an eye out for threats while Craw and Lang eyed him suspiciously.

“Still here,” O’Neil said heavily.

“We got incoming Hybrids? Skulls?” Dom asked.

O’Neil reached inside his mind, trying to push past the blackness lingering there. He could sense the enraged FGL Hybrids rounding up Skulls and other Oni Agent monsters. They seemed to be relatively distant, but they were growing closer each second.

“We have some time, but they’re coming,” O’Neil said.

Craw turned away, seemingly satisfied, as he advanced with the rest of his team. Lang stayed back, waiting for O’Neil to pass in front of him. They continued flitting through the streets like poltergeists, stabbing out at the occasional lone Skull. Corpses of monsters and humans alike littered the street. Most of the human remains were nothing but skeletons with bones marred by teeth and claws, broken and devoid of marrow. Onward they continued past a Goliath missing the bottom half of its body, looking like a gigantic macabre melon split in half, its insides rotted away.

Block by block, the scenes grew more intense. A pile of charred human skeletons lay in an alley next to the remnants of bags and suitcases. A handful of shoes lay at the entrance to the alley, some surprisingly unburned.

O’Neil wondered at the stories for each of these scenes. But he couldn’t let his concentration stray too long from the task at hand. Each time his mind started to wander, the darkness sucked at him, threatening to peel him away from reality like an umbrella caught in a tornado.

Each step closer to the JIC facility, those feelings grew stronger. The biochemical cues flooding his nervous system gave him the feeling that there was a giant beast in his mind, lurking just out of sight. He glanced over his shoulder, expecting to see something huge lumbering down the street.

Instead he only saw Lang, who gave him a look filled with suspicion.

“We’re about half a mile out,” Dom said, looking at his smartwatch. He pressed his night-vision binoculars to his eyes to scan the streets ahead. “Don’t see anything yet.”

“O’Neil?” Meredith asked.

Closing his eyes, O’Neil tried to focus on the shifting winds curling through the streets. He clenched his jaw tight, pouring every bit of concentration into detecting the presence of the Hybrids.

Nothing.

The blackness was too great. His mind was at the bottom of a pit now.

No, not a pit. A cave buried miles under the Earth. He could not sense the presence of a Hybrid just down the block any more than he could tell whether there was one somewhere back in the United States. All his heightened senses had been dampened by whatever dark tentacles were squeezing his mind.

“I can’t tell,” he finally said.

“Can’t tell?” Lang asked. “Or won’t?”

O’Neil glared at him. “Can’t. There’s something blocking my senses.”

Lang gave O’Neil an unconvinced harrumph as they treaded onward.

“You all right?” Dom asked O’Neil.

“I’m okay,” O’Neil said. “Just... this is weird. That’s all.”

“Maybe the FGL figured out a way to mask themselves,” Meredith suggested.

“Maybe,” O’Neil said. He wasn’t convinced.

After a few more minutes of sneaking through the darkness, Craw held up a fist. “Contacts,” he said.

Dom raised his night-vision binoculars again. O’Neil’s senses might have been hampered, but even he could see the movement along the next couple of streets. The JIC facility was down the road from them, a huge bunker of a building surrounded by what looked like thick concrete walls lined by razor wire. Rifles and machine guns poked out of windows from several of the buildings leading up to the base, and entire packs of Goliaths wandered about with Hybrids trailing them.

O’Neil would not be surprised if somewhere in all that madness there were Titans waiting to be released.

And now the inexplicable darkness wasn’t the only source of despair welling up in his mind. How in the hell were they going to get through this?

***

A hot wind rolled over Meredith’s face, bringing with it the rotten stench of a Skull horde. Three meager teams could not penetrate those defenses.

“Please tell me there’s another plan I don’t know about,” Meredith said.

Lang gave her a condescending look that made her want to punch it off his face. “You think the brass is dumb enough to send us against that?”

“We were promised an easy entrance,” Meredith said, glancing at her smartwatch. “A relatively unguarded side to the building, but I don’t see one.”

“That’s because you weren’t provided one,” Lang said.

Meredith felt a swell of frustration pressing at the back of her skull.

“Explain,” Dom said simply.

“I told you, we’re in charge here,” Lang said. “You’re following us. We didn’t trust you’d stay on your leash, so you didn’t get the full layout. Before the outbreak, the US obviously had plenty of time in Baghdad to get to know the city. We mapped out all the government complexes, including the shit Saddam’s regime kept quiet. We got ways in.”

“Directly into that building?” Meredith asked. “And you assume it’s going to be unguarded as well?”

“Not directly in,” Craw said, joining them. “But close enough.” He unfolded a map. Lang appeared slightly peeved at this but said nothing. Craw traced a finger over the streets. Several winding routes of dashed lines passed under their feet and intersected with the JIC building. “These tunnels connected some of the government buildings and prisons—convenient for transporting and disappearing political prisoners. We can get direct access to the underground level of that building.”

“Door access?” Dom asked.

“Might have to knock down a wall,” Lang said.

Dom looked between Craw and Lang. “That’s not as quiet as I thought we were playing this. They’ll notice an explosion.”

“That’s what we’re here for,” Craw said. “We’ll provide security while you sweep the facility’s lower level. If there’s a lab anywhere, that’s where it should be. All our previous intel points to the upper levels being the hive of comms activity, offices, and residential quarters.”

“Anything else you neglected to tell us?” Dom asked.

“That’s it,” Lang said.

Special Forces guys were good at blending in. They were skilled at ingratiating themselves with the locals. Half of it came from a sincere interest in helping others; the other half was from a sharp intellect. These guys had the ability to act sincere even when they weren’t.

Unfortunately for them, Meredith’s career in the CIA had relied on detecting and dismantling falsehoods. And no matter how good these guys were at their jobs, she was better.

“Bullshit,” she said. “You’re hiding something else.” She took a step toward Lang. He took a step to meet her. “As soon as we get into the base, you know as well as I do that all hell is going to break loose. Maybe the plan is to escape back through those tunnels. Maybe it isn’t. But we need to know everything you do about this mission. Because when things go wrong in there, we need to know what’s right.”

“When the time is right, I’ll tell you,” Lang said.

“There’s no better time than now,” Meredith said.

Craw looked between them. His lips pursed, and the scar across his face puckered. “Shit, Lang, she’s right. You’ve seen how tonight’s been going. These Hunters are legit.”

“Don’t say a goddamn thing,” Lang said.

Craw ignored him and addressed Meredith. “Plan A is to get the hell out the way we came in. We’ve got a flight of helicopters that are going to meet us here.” He pointed to a spot on his map that was not the one Meredith had marked on her smartwatch. “Should be clear of AA. If that doesn’t work, we go to site B.” His finger jabbed at another point.

“What the fuck did I tell you, Craw?” Lang ripped the map from the other man’s hand.

Craw continued, ignoring him. “And if all else fails, we’ve got guys standing by to shoot the shit out of the JIC and meet us on the roof.”

“Fuck,” Lang said. The darkness of night masked the color of Lang’s face, but Meredith guessed it was bright red now. Yet somehow he was restraining himself from acting out. Probably the shred of mission discipline he had left.

“Thank you,” Dom said to Craw. “They want that intel bad.”

“Brass wants Halo bad,” Craw said. “If we don’t get that... well, they didn’t explicitly tell me anything, but I don’t think they’re going to put much effort into getting us out.”

Meredith felt a tug at her insides, but she realized it didn’t completely surprise her. “That’s why they’re sending the Hunters inside.”

Craw nodded. “They didn’t want to risk too many of us.”

By “us,” Meredith assumed he meant American Special Forces. She imagined those were in very short supply.

Lang still fumed next to them, saying nothing, his lips remaining straight and tight. Maybe this was why he’d been so strung out. He knew this was a suicide mission, and he blamed the Hunters for it.

“They’ve got other teams out there like ours,” Lang said. “Or they were supposed to, anyway.”

Meredith wanted to curse the brass that had hung them out to dry. From a tactical standpoint, she understood why they might be leveraging their resources like this. It made logical sense. But that didn’t make the pill any easier to swallow. Knowing that they had been deliberately thrown into the gauntlet—and that the odds probably weren’t great that they’d get out—there was only one thing left to do.

“Well, gentlemen, why don’t you show us these tunnels?” she asked. “We’ve got to find that Halo.”

-18-

O’Neil waited next to the edge of a hole in the floor of an abandoned house. The first members of Wraith and Talon were escorting the Hunters into the darkness below.

Cool air bled from the wound in the house’s floor. Something squeezed tightly around O’Neil’s chest. The darkness was back again, slithering through his veins like a snake searching for prey.

He vowed not to give it any.

“Go on,” Lang said to O’Neil, motioning to the opening. “We don’t have all day.”

O’Neil leapt down. His feet landed hard on a hard floor. A flick of his NVGs illuminated the space in blacks and greens. Dom and Lang descended last. The rest of the group had already spread out down the length of the corridor.

The rock walls were ribbed, making it look as if the group was traveling straight into the throat of some giant beast. There was nothing down the tunnel for them to hide behind.

“Go, go, go!” Lang said.

He sent the group into a jog, running down the hall. The cavernous space filled with the echoes of their steps. O’Neil cringed whenever his plates clacked together. As much as they tried to push forward quietly, the task was difficult when the tunnel seemed to amplify their every sound.

Then, somewhere behind them, he heard it. An echoing tap. At first, he mistook it for his own footsteps, but the rhythm wasn’t right.

He tried to concentrate. The clicking didn’t belong to one of the other Special Forces or the Hunters. His mind still reeled in the overwhelming grasp of the darkness, but his senses were sharp enough to detect it. The smell was unmistakable.

“We got Skulls on the approach,” O’Neil said.

“Did we set off an alarm?” Craw asked.

“No,” Lang said. “We entered clean.”

“Then it’s just bad luck,” Meredith said.

The group picked up their pace. They could mow down a group of reckless Skulls in here. It wouldn’t be hard when the Skulls had no cover or long-range weapons. But it would be another story entirely if the Skulls were being escorted by the FGL.

O’Neil’s heart raced as they sped faster toward their destination. The tap and clatter of Skulls chased them the entire way, starting to grow louder. Moans and growls soon caught up to them.

At least the Skulls weren’t howling yet. That would be a sure sign they were on the attack and not just a random horde of the bastards headed their way.

“We’re almost there!” Craw said, running at the lead of the group.

The tunnel curved up, and they ascended with it. At the peak, the corridor suddenly branched off in three directions. Lang pointed to the tunnel directly across from them. It was about half the width of the one they had just cleared and twisted hard to the left, disappearing out of sight. They charged into it.

A sudden shriek pierced the tunnels, reverberating wildly against the walls. O’Neil tensed, waiting for the chorus of howls that would follow. The cries of the other Skulls never came. But their footsteps grew louder, the rattle of bone against rock sounding like a violent rain. Whether they were on the hunt now or not, they were fast approaching.

Craw suddenly halted, staring at the map he had in his hands. “Here! This is it!”

Next to him, the rock wall had been chiseled away to reveal one made of brick. In the middle of that brick wall was a pair of steel doors.

“What the hell?” Lang said. “These aren’t supposed to be here.”

O’Neil sensed panic in the looks shared between Lang and Craw. Their secret tunnels were not as secret as they had thought. The FGL seemed to have built an entrance. Their men shuffled about nervously, rifles pressed against their shoulders as they peered back down the corridors like spearmen preparing to face a cavalry charge.

“We’re either doing this, or we’re giving up on the mission—and our lives,” Dom growled.

The implied threat wasn’t so subtle. Now that they knew they were utterly expendable, giving up now would mean they’d be abandoned, forced to fend for themselves. If they had no worthwhile data or samples, the military would not waste time and resources on an extraction.

That realization seemed to slam into Lang like a jolt of adrenaline. “Rabbit, Nunez, Haynes! Charges, now!”

A trio of Wraith operators placed charges on the door hinges then yelled at the group to back away. The thermite went off with a sizzling hiss, cutting through the hinges. The door crashed to the floor with a heavy clang.

The Skulls had to have heard that.

“Move, move, move!” Lang yelled.

They didn’t bother to wait for the dust to clear before they stormed into the facility.

***

The blown-out door led Dom into a cavernous space. Harsh fluorescent lights bloomed overhead, forcing the group to remove their NVGs. Giant steel cylinders stood in a row in the center. Dom would bet anything they were bioreactors used for culturing either the Oni or the Heikegani Agents. Or maybe even something worse. Above them, catwalks crisscrossed the ceiling, leading to each of the half-dozen bioreactors and around the perimeter of the huge room. Conveyer belts and forklifts, all dormant, were spread across the chamber, along with stacks of crates near a set of warehouse doors.

They had entered the place expecting to find active research or production operations. Instead, it looked more like the FGL was moving out of this space rather than in. Dom wondered if they’d run straight into a trap or if they had simply arrived here a few days too late. Maybe instead of sabotaging their scientific work, the FGL had already transported everything out of here before it could be taken from them.

Whatever the reason, Dom had more pressing concerns in that moment. Hunters and Special Forces operators ran for cover as bullets began pinging against the bioreactors and scarring the walls. Dom surveyed the catwalks. There were dozens of people rushing away through doors leading out of the chamber. Amid the flow of people came a hailstorm of bullets.

Sliding behind a forklift for shelter, Dom scoped out the catwalk, looking for a target. It was difficult to see who exactly was shooting at them. Then he found his first target, a man with an AK rifle firing in wild bursts. This was no well-trained Hybrid operative.

Dom took him out in a single shot.

“How many?” he cried over the comm link.

“I’m counting maybe twenty,” Miguel called back. “All human.”

That was a good sign—for now. Gunfire blasted around the room, punctuated by the occasional scream as one of the FGL soldiers fell from their perches. But the longer this battle raged, the more likely the Skulls in the corridors would come investigate.

“Lang, we need people at the door,” Dom said.

Lang looked ready to remind Dom who was in charge, but in the midst of the firefight, it seemed the need to survive won out. He sent three of his men to barricade the door.

Between spats of gunfire and yells from above, Dom tried to look around the room for likely caches of intel. A computer, surely. Maybe there were liquid nitrogen tanks or even incubators where the FGL was keeping their biological samples. But he saw nothing that stuck out to him. Not even a goddamn discarded plastic vial or a single laptop.

The place was cleaned out.

“You sure this is the target?” Dom asked Lang.

Lang ducked behind a nearby bioreactor. “This is the JIC.”

Dom saw a look of dread cross the man’s face at that realization. They had found the target, and it was a bust. They should climb to the catwalks and scour the rest of the building, just for good measure.

“We don’t have long,” Dom said. Footsteps clanged overhead as more soldiers moved into position. “Miguel, Andris, cover me!”

Miguel and Andris each peered out from their positions, firing up at the catwalk.

“O’Neil, on me!” Dom ordered.

He knew Lang wouldn’t like this, but they had to try. If there was still something in this building worth having, they needed it. Dom sprinted for a set of ladders near the wall. Miguel and Andris’s fire pinned down the soldiers directly above them while the rest of the group engaged the grunts on the other catwalks. Dom took the ladder two rungs at time, swinging himself up. O’Neil didn’t need the ladder. His claws found purchase even in the brick-and-mortar walls. He sped upward then threw himself onto the catwalk.

Dom heard the screams of men being thrown from their positions before he made it to the top. Swinging himself over the side of the catwalk, he saw O’Neil standing over a frightened soldier. The man crawled away backward, one hand in front of his face. O’Neil picked him up and threw him over the side. A heavy thud sounded from below as Dom pivoted, kneeling, and fired into the flanks of soldiers farther down the catwalk.

With the help of the troops below, Dom and O’Neil cleared the catwalks of the remaining soldiers. The scents of cordite and blood hung heavy in the air, mixed with the sterile odor of cleaning chemicals. Voices and footsteps reverberated through the floor above, seemingly panicked.

Lang looked around the room as if he expected Halo pills to magically appear. “Search those crates!”

Dom watched Lang’s men break apart the crates near them, hammering them with the stocks of their rifles. Wooden boards came away, shooting loosened nails across the floor. The crates fell apart and spilled metal tubes. Others contained stacks of wrapped glassware. Laboratory supplies, nothing more. The more crates they bashed open, the louder the Skull horde in the corridor got and the lower Dom’s hopes sank.

There was nothing in this room.

“We’ve got to go up!” Dom said.

To Dom’s surprise, he saw Lang nod. “We’ll hold this place,” Lang said. “You take your people up there!”

Dom didn’t question whether the man was finally beginning to trust Dom and the Hunters or if he thought the Special Forces’ chances were simply better down here.

“You heard him!” Dom said. “Hunters, let’s roll!”

Glenn, Jenna, Meredith, and Andris were up the ladders and onto the catwalk almost as soon as Dom said it. Below, gunfire exploded from the trio guarding the doorway. The Skulls were on them now. And upstairs, their cover had definitely been blown. But Dom had to risk it. More guards would be descending on them soon enough. They likely wouldn’t expect the small group of invaders to try facing off against a force that vastly outnumbered them.

And so that was exactly what Dom had to do.

The seconds went by in a blur of anticipation and rushed orders, hand signals and yells. The Hunters burst through the doors that the FGL’s lackeys had fled through. Those doors led to a room that looked every bit as bureaucratic and stuffy as Dom had feared. It was an office, not a lab. People ran about frantically as soldiers struggled to maintain order. Cubicle walls were knocked over, desks and chairs toppled.

Dom surveyed the madness, holding his Hunters back from firing. They could hide in plain sight for the moment, amid the frantic yells and the barked orders from soldiers just outside the building. There was a bank of computers at one end of the room next to a set of monitors and radios. Half of the equipment had already been packed up. The desks were empty except for the odd pens and pencils, knocked-over glasses, and crumpled papers.

Whatever had been going on here would be nothing but a memory in a matter of hours.

Dom pointed out the computers to the others as they remained crouched at the doorway. At that moment, it seemed like an FGL soldier finally realized they had unexpected guests. Bullets began ripping through the room, chewing into the walls and ceiling, crashing against lights, sending sparks and shards of glass spraying around them.

Dom and the Hunters returned fire. But even if they won this firefight, Dom saw the battle was already lost. Two of the FGL soldiers were destroying the remaining computers, first firing into them, then dashing the chunks across the floor. One lit a fire that began to melt the plastic and silicon innards of the computers.

“Holland, I want a report,” Lang said through the comm link. “We can’t hold them forever down here.”

They’d been found out. They were alone in the JIC. And they were not any closer to finding a cure to stop the threat of the airborne Heikegani Agent.

Everything was collapsing around them.

“We’ve got nothing,” Dom said.

***

“SAM light detected!”

Ronaldo looked at the scanner in disbelief. They had just shed one antiaircraft missile through sheer force of will and a dash of luck. They couldn’t possibly hope to pull the same stunt again.

Sweat poured over Ronaldo’s forehead, stinging his eyes. He blinked to clear it as he tightened his fingers around the joystick with one hand. His other hand arched over the keyboard as he picked out the next set of ground targets: a pair of Titans.

To their credit, the gunners in the back never stopped inserting fresh clips. The M102 howitzer boomed its throaty reply to the erupting chaos, over and over, a violent bass line to the chorus of the whining M61 Vulcan cannons.

“We’ve got to do something!” the electronics warfare officer said. “It’s—”

Then a high-pitched shriek exploded through Ronaldo’s headphones. Holes appeared through the fuselage of the AC-130. The scanners disappeared into violent plumes of red mist.

Ronaldo blinked, trying to understand what he had just witnessed. The plane listed hard to the left. He smelled burning plastic and saw dark smoke billowing up from the center of the plane. Alarms screeched, and malicious red lights twirled about the space.

The EWOs hadn’t disappeared. At least not entirely. Parts of them were missing. Other parts of them were smeared over the bulkhead. Most of their bodies were slumped across the floor, slipped out of their broken restraints. Behind Ronaldo, the guns had gone silent.

The pilot’s voice broke through his comms. “We’re going down.”

Ronaldo looked around. He wasn’t sure who else was left in the cockpit, but he was the only one alive back here. Holes pocked the rear of the plane, and a fire burned on one of the monitors near the gunner’s station. Dangerously close to the stacks of ammunition for the howitzer.

It didn’t take much imagination to see what was about to happen.

The plane started to nosedive as Ronaldo unclipped his restraints. He fought the drag of gravity and slope of the plane, grasping for handholds, heart pounding, adrenaline surging cold through his body. He reached out to grab a handhold on the side of the bulkhead.

But for some reason, he couldn’t get his fingers around it.

Then, in the blur of his muddled senses, he saw why. His stomach lurched. The acidic bite of vomit crawled into his mouth, and he couldn’t help but let it loose.

He had no fingers left. Just a bloody stump. It thumped with a distant pain dulled by adrenaline and shock.

Ronaldo nearly tumbled to the floor. Or maybe gravity was pulling at him. Voices shouted through the comms. He was certain they were in Portuguese. He should be able to understand them.

But he couldn’t. Blackness threatened to close in around him. He wanted to fall backward into that blackness and let it take him.

“We’re going down,” the pilot repeated.

The radio at Ronaldo’s station was going crazy. A flurry of radio activity broadcast voices from the ground:

“The lines broke.”

“Moscow is being retaken.”

“Titans everywhere.”

The words came in fits and bursts, barely sinking into Ronaldo’s brain.

The plane shook as it dove, as if the wings were going to fall off. But there were still people on the ground relying on their support. He could not give up just because this piece of machinery was failing.

He had helped the Hunters and NATO so many times before, providing air support wherever he could. His old base, Lajes Field, should’ve fallen long ago to the Oni Agent. Hell, Ronaldo himself should already be dead given how many times he had been forced to deal with the Skulls.

Maybe this was his fate catching up to him. But he would make these last moments on Earth count.

He let out an agonized scream as he loaded another clip of heavy rounds into the howitzer and then reloaded the Vulcan cannons. The weight on his bloody wrist sent agonized waves of fire through his body. Each gun had enough in them for another volley, and he was going to make it count.

Gravity yanked on him. He slid down the sloping deck, back toward his seat. Part of the keyboard was missing, plastic melted where his hand had been blown away. Yet somehow, the monitor was still intact. He had his joystick.

The camera view was awful, shuddering violently as they fell, the Earth rising to meet them. Ronaldo concentrated on the screen. The world swam around him. He could not let himself pass out. Not when he still had debts to pay.

There! He spotted them. Big white shapes moving amid the darkness. Titans storming the NATO forces.

“Not today,” Ronaldo said. “Not for you.”

He fired. The howitzer boomed to life. The Vulcan cannons roared. The pain in his missing hand flared. His last act of defiance against the FGL completed, he waited for his mind to take him away from the pain. To take him from this world.

But that sweet surrender never came. Instead, he stayed awake for every abominable second as the fire in the rear of the plane spread, consuming the munitions. A violent explosion tore the tail of the plane away, the night air sucking at Ronaldo now, daring him to pass out.

Then the world screamed and raged, fire blooming and metal screeching as hell swallowed him whole.

They had hit the ground.

-19-

Navid’s family was in the FGL’s custody. Lauren could hardly believe it. But he had insisted that the people Dr. Sokolov had shown were indeed his mother, father, and sister. The Russian Hybrid had explained just how easy it had been.

But if Sokolov’s explanation was to be believed, things were worse than Lauren could have imagined. In the early days of the outbreak, Canada had set up evacuation points far north, where the climate was deemed a hindrance to the Skulls. They carefully recorded every person who made it to those evacuation points.

Which meant that there was a plethora of easily trackable evidence pointing to exactly where Navid’s family was. And once the FGL had identified Lauren and Navid as being the engineers behind so many of the weapons plaguing the success of the Oni Agent and Heikegani Agent, they had embarked on exploratory intel grabs to figure out how to leverage the two scientists to work for them.

The answer came all too easily when Navid’s family showed up on the official refugee evacuee rolls. Sokolov wouldn’t answer what happened to the rest of the refugee camp or how in the hell the FGL had infiltrated even the northernmost parts of Canada to retrieve the Ghasemis. Suffice to say, though Lauren could scarcely bring herself to trust Sokolov’s claim, Navid had been thoroughly convinced.

The young scientist had collapsed at the Hybrid’s feet. The strange doctor had let Navid lie there for a while.

The Hybrid must have felt victorious then. He thought he had broken Navid. After that, they continued to work in silence. Lauren prayed every second, as she carried out the FGL’s bidding, that the Hunters would arrive that day. She could picture them breaking down the doors to the laboratory. Dr. Sokolov would find himself torn to pieces under a hail of bullets. He and all their awful captors would be dead, and Lauren would spit on their corpses.

But nothing of the sort had happened. She was still their servant in the lab.

Carefully, she walked a small tray full of samples toward a high-performance liquid chromatography machine. She placed each glass vial, smaller than her thumb, into their corresponding spots on another tray inside the machine. When she was finished, she selected a method on the machine’s computer. The device began its automated analysis, its pump humming to life.

She looked over at Navid. His eyes were glazed over, like he was a Drooler carrying a painful bellyful of acid.

You have to believe, Navid, Lauren thought, turning back to her own work. They will come for us.

A sniffling sound dragged her eyes up from the computer monitor and across the lab. Sokolov wiped the back of his bone-covered hand over his slitted nostrils. Drops of blood clung to the back of his hand. He rotated his hand to examine the dark blood droplets glimmering in the light.

Sokolov looked up, catching her gaze. “Get to work, Winters,” he rasped, his eyes narrowed. He started toward her, walking at a tilted hobble.

Lauren glared at him as she backed away from the computer monitor. She wanted him to see the hate in her eyes, how she devoted every ounce of her being to wishing him dead.

But even so, she couldn’t force herself to protest any more than that steely look. She moved across the room, her eyes never leaving his, as she went for another round of samples. Gazing at him like she did, she felt foolish. The gesture was futile. It didn’t matter if she gave him a death stare or a smile or anything else; she was still doing exactly what he wanted.

As she placed another set of glass vials, one by one, into the chromatography machine, she mentally cursed Sokolov. The way he limped and the bloody nose. The intermittent coughs. He was definitely sick. Hopefully dying.

Maybe what he had was contagious. The other Hybrids would get it, too, and soon they would all be sputtering blood as they died on the floor of this godforsaken place.

Lauren caught herself breathing hard. She backed away from the chromatography machine. She had every right to want these people dead, but God, was she becoming a monster like them? She had developed an almost sick sense of wanting to see them bloodied and in as much pain as they’d inflicted on her and Navid. She wanted violence. No, torture.

She couldn’t become one of them—or worse. She looked at Navid. With his listless stare, he had turned into an automaton.

Lauren tried to move back to the flow hood to load up more samples. She picked up the pipette, trying to transfer liquids from a larger glass vial into the smaller sample vials. But her fingers shook. When she squeezed the plunger on the pipette, some of the droplets rolled down the side of the vials.

She was too keyed up, too angry. She was getting sloppy. Not that she should care about being sloppy with the FGL’s work. For Christ’s sake, she should be sabotaging it. She should be wrecking this whole place. She shouldn’t be complicit in working with them.

But when she looked up and saw Sokolov staring at her, her stomach went weak. The unspoken threats lingered in the air.

What did Sokolov want from them? What did the FGL want from them? These experiments were worthless, little more than busywork.

They had not only stolen away Navid and Lauren, but they had also traveled to Canada to kidnap Navid’s family. That was an awful lot of effort just to get them to pipette samples like any half-trained lab monkey could do.

Then it finally dawned on Lauren. She had been too blinded by the torture to see it.

Sokolov was waiting until she was as broken as Navid. He must still be able to sense her defiance. Whatever the FGL actually wanted them to do, she wouldn’t find out until her soul was as shattered as Navid’s. It wouldn’t happen. As long as she held on to the hope that Glenn and the Hunters would rescue her, there was nothing her captors could do to completely break her spirit.

But it gave her another idea.

***

“We have to fall back!”

The words rang clear in Dom’s comm link. The JIC was a lost cause, and it was suicide to linger here. The workers still ran about the offices, streaming toward vehicles waiting for them outside, guarded by the hordes of Skulls and Goliaths they had seen earlier. Black smoke choked the room. Flames chewed through the ratty carpeting and across the furniture, killing most of the sight lines across the room. Rounds chewed through the air.

“Chief, look!” Miguel cried, pointing across the room.

There, among the trampled desks and cubicles and tangles of discarded cords and cables, stood a group of soldiers. These weren’t like the panicked FGL guards. People streamed around them like river water around a rock. Horns graced each of their temples, protruding out in wicked curves. Unlike other Hybrids Dom had seen with random tangles of bony growths, these Hybrids had shaved them down to give themselves a decidedly diabolic appearance. The plates pushing out from their shoulders were as uniform as the fatigues they wore, too. Their sleeves were marked with two white armbands on either side.

The way the squad of Hybrids moved through the room like liquid steel cemented the idea in Dom’s mind: These were elite soldiers. Probably Russian Spetsnaz before being turned Hybrid. While the rest of the FGL’s workers stormed out, they had been sent in to deal with the incursion. A wave of gunfire rattled from the elite Hybrids’ rifles. Dom was forced to duck low as Glenn and Miguel returned fire.

“Go,” Dom said. “We can’t waste our time with them. Meredith, take us back down.”

Meredith led with Andris and Jenna close behind. Glenn and Miguel covered them, spraying blindly into the columns of smoke. Dom could feel the cool professionalism radiating from the team of elite Hybrids. They advanced methodically, as if the building weren’t becoming an inferno.

The office was almost clear of other workers. FGL human soldiers hanging around the wings seemed to have become more brazen with the sight of their elite Hybrid brethren. They advanced behind the ranks of the Spetsnaz Hybrids.

Dom ducked back through the doorway, signaling for Glenn and Miguel to come in next. They retreated down the metal stairs toward the catwalks in the bioreactor room.

“Lang, Craw,” Dom said over the comm link. “We got company coming in from above. Worse than the Skulls down here. By the looks of it, Spetsnaz turned Hybrids.”

An agonized scream yelled from below. Dom recognized the sound of something wet flopping onto the floor amid the barks of rifles. The yell had been all too human.

“We got a man down!” Lang cried.

“Line’s breaking!” another member of Lang’s team roared. “We’re not going to make it out of here!”

Dom’s mind whirled with a storm of possibilities. They had a Hybrid Spetsnaz team heading down through the fire above, with a contingent of human soldiers and a horde of Skulls breaking into the Special Forces teams below. He felt as if they were in a Titan’s claw, being slowly squeezed. No room for escape.

The Hunters ran over the catwalk above the bioreactor room. Skulls lay in piles, broken and twisted, fragments of bone spread amid pools of dark, congealing blood. Despite the carnage, the Special Forces hadn’t contained the threat. More beasts climbed over the dead, claws slashing, throwing themselves into the wall of gunfire. Dom saw at least one Special Forces soldier lying lifeless, arms spread next to a dead Skull with bloodied claws. The man’s abdomen was nothing but a mess of torn red flesh.

“O’Neil, can you stop them?” Dom asked, indicating the ravenous Skulls.

O’Neil gave him a sorrowful look. “Don’t think so.”

O’Neil had always been willing to at least try pushing Skulls back through force of will. But whatever had been going on with him since they’d come here must have screwed with his abilities.

With or without him, they needed an escape from the Joint Information Center. That mess below might be the only route to their salvation. A rough idea of what needed to happen for them to escape formed in Dom’s mind. He grasped the Pacifist Fog grenade secured on his tac vest.

“Miguel, Glenn, Jenna, get Pacifist Fog on those Skulls,” Dom said. “Everything you’ve got!”

The modified smoke grenades flew from the Hunters’ perches above the Skulls and bioreactors. They hissed, trailing red smoke as they clunked against the ground. A minute might go by before the fog took hold, especially in such a big space.

That meant they needed to buy time. The other Hunters were busy providing cover fire for Wraith and Talon. But as soon as the first Spetsnaz Hybrids made their way onto the catwalks, they would have no cover here. The Hunters would be slaughtered or forced to give the higher ground to the Hybrids.

If the Hunters couldn’t hold the high ground, Dom figured no one should have it.

“Andris,” Dom said. “What explosives do you have left?”

Andris seemed to brighten at the question. “Enough to bring down this entire building.”

“Then that’s what we’re going to do.”

***

Andris was more than happy to oblige. His fingers worked meticulously to shape his plastic explosives and insert blasting caps with remote detonators. Around him, gunfire lanced into the Skulls’ ranks. The smell of death hung in the air, and Skulls jumped suicidally at the Special Forces below.

Footsteps pounded down the stairs toward the catwalks.

The way those new Hybrids had pushed through the JIC was more frightening than any single Goliath or Drooler. They had moved as a single organism, covering each other and taking whatever ground they wanted despite the Hunters’ cover fire. Whatever kind of elite soldiers those bastards had been before they had turned into Hybrids, they were even more frightening now. Andris was very thankful Dom had no intention of engaging in a lengthy gun battle.

Explosions were the best way to deal with enemies like that. To be fair, Andris believed explosions were always the best choice.

Meredith covered Andris as he tucked the plastic explosives around the edges of the catwalks where the rails met the wall. The others were sliding down the ladders toward the ground, joining the American Special Forces. The red smoke of the Pacifist Fog swirled around them. Maybe it was Andris’s imagination, but he thought that the Skulls were growing quieter.

He placed the last of his explosives. Hopefully they would not need any more, because he was completely out now.

Ah, well, Andris thought. I will make this count.

“Andris, look out!” Meredith shouted.

He turned in time to see the first Spetsnaz Hybrid appear at the edge of the catwalk. Andris ducked. Bullets crashed into the wall where he had just placed his final bomb. Meredith returned fire. The Hybrid retreated slightly.

Andris joined Meredith. They crouched on a portion of the catwalk where they were at least somewhat hidden by the huge pipes and gauges sprouting from the top of one of the bioreactors.

“We’ll cover you!” Dom shouted from below. He and Miguel had rifles aimed at the doorway where the Hybrids had taken up shooting positions.

“The Fog isn’t going to last forever,” Miguel said.

“You two need to get down here!” Dom yelled up at Andris and Meredith.

Andris looked toward the nearest set of ladders. Twenty yards without cover lay between him and those ladders. He had planned on setting off these charges before the Hybrids arrived. But plans had to change.

“Do you trust me?” Andris asked Meredith.

Bullets sparked against the pipes around them as the red fog swirled upward. The smoke provided some cover, but they wouldn’t be invisible.

Meredith looked hard at Andris, crouched against the catwalk’s railing. “You know me,” she said. “I’m up for anything.”

“That is good to hear, because you may not like this plan. Hold on.”

Before Meredith could ask why, the first Hybrids poured out of the doorway. Rounds shrieked around the bioreactor chamber. Soon, the Hybrids would overwhelm Meredith and Andris and almost certainly take all the prime vantage points on the catwalk. They would tear apart the Hunters and Special Forces below in seconds.

So Andris did what he did best. He detonated the first round of charges.

A thunderous boom filled the cavernous space. Chunks of concrete and gray dust plumed from the stanchions at the wall. The catwalk on the north side of the room, where the Hybrids were, gave away, its supports melted and torn. The blasts threw two of the Hybrids off the catwalk. If the concussions didn’t kill them, Andris hoped their fall to the floor below would crack their armor like eggshells.

Smaller blasts followed, tearing the catwalk from other supports. The entire scaffold structure sloped toward the floor. Meredith started to slide with it, but she had taken Andris’s advice and held on to the railing. He had one foot against a piece of railing and a hand clutching at a rung. They were now at a nearly eight-degree slope, their length of catwalk more like a ladder than a walkway.

The Hybrids had caught on quickly. Those that were still on the stairs leading to the catwalk scrambled for their own handholds.

“Quickly, to the bottom!” Andris yelled.

Adrenaline burned through him, nearly as hot as the waves of heat rolling from the explosions. He slid down the catwalk. Meredith wasn’t far behind him. When his boots hit the ground, he turned, firing at the Hybrids perched in the doorway. Meredith jumped the last few feet and landed, rolling to absorb the impact. He offered a hand and helped her to her feet as bullets rained around the bioreactors near them, pinging against the metal.

“We must move now!” Andris yelled.

Somewhere through the red fog, he thought he heard the clatter of talons hitting the tiled floor. The Spetsnaz Hybrids were following them.

“You heard him!” Dom yelled.

The Hunters and Special Forces rushed between the Pacifist Fog–frozen Skulls. Some twitched, their eyes moving erratically. Andris pushed past a few of them, knocking the Skulls over as he made his way behind the others to the tunnels.

He saw a shape moving in the murk, cutting toward them through the fog like a shark. Red tendrils of the fog clung to the two horns sticking up from its head.

A Hybrid.

“Watch out!” Andris yelled as it lunged for Meredith.

He kicked up his rifle and fired into the Hybrid. Bullets smashed against the half-man’s armor, knocking him off his trajectory. Andris didn’t know if the Hybrid was dead or alive, but he didn’t have time to investigate.

More Russian voices shouted from above, joining the frantic clatter of talons against metal. Another Hybrid appeared in the fog. The band of Hunters and Special Forces lunged out of the doorway of the bioreactor room, chased by bullets.

“Everyone’s here!” Dom said a moment later. Teams Wraith and Talon had taken cover along the grooved walls, the Hunters interspersed between them. “Andris, now!”

Andris ducked into one of the grooves. The first couple of Hybrids had made it to the entry of the tunnel. The pursuing Hybrid peered out of the doorway, rifle aiming his way.

“Dasvidaniya, asshole,” Andris said.

Andris depressed the detonator, initiating the second round of explosives.

A series of heavy thumping explosions sounded. The tunnel shook. Fractures spread in the ceiling. Dust poured out of them. The shaking grew more violent as the JIC groaned, metal protesting. A series of snaps cracked through the air.

Andris couldn’t see what the bioreactor looked like now, but the dust cloud expanding from the entryway was evidence enough. A pile of rubble poured out from the entry, clogging that area of the underground tunnel system.

If Andris had done his job right, the ceiling of the bioreactor room would’ve collapsed in on itself, burying the Hybrid team and the Pacifist Fog–subdued Skulls there. And if he had succeeded beyond his expectations, the entire JIC might’ve even been brought down with it. Either way, they had rid themselves of their pursuers. With the sporadic crack of gunfire, they eliminated the last few Skulls within the tunnels, ensuring the beasts wouldn’t be after them when they recovered from the Pacifist Fog.

Miguel looked back at Andris, grinning through the soot covering his face. “Hell of a fireworks show, bro.”

Andris grinned back.

-20-

O’Neil had hoped that the elite team of Hybrids had been the source of the darkness pervading his mind. Maybe they possessed supernaturally strong biochemical abilities that made his own look like a toddler trying to play soccer with a team of professionals.

Or maybe there was something in the JIC itself that had been responsible for clouding his senses.

But the darkness haunted him like a relentless ghost. Once it had taken hold in his mind, its claws hadn’t released for a second. Now, as they pushed deeper into the tunnels, away from the JIC, the feeling only grew stronger.

Air shifted in the chambers, carrying the rank odor of must and decay. The tunnels started to branch off into smaller passages. Lang suddenly held up a fist. Craw returned the gesture, and the group came to a pause. O’Neil searched the darkness for enemy contacts. But nothing moved except for water falling from the ceiling in persistent drips.

The two Special Forces leaders conferred between themselves before inviting Dom into their fold. O’Neil strained to listen, but he couldn’t hear them. The damn darkness was making it hard to concentrate.

The suspense didn’t last long. Dom returned to the Hunters.

“These aren’t on their maps,” Dom said, pointing at the branching corridors. “They think they’re new. We’re going to keep following them in hopes we can get out of here.”

“Any word on an airlift?” Jenna asked. The look on her face suggested she already knew the answer.

“Negative,” Dom said. “HQ says Operation Thunderbolt is already in full effect. They need all their resources focused on getting people into the city, not out.”

“So what, they want us to join the fight on the ground?” Glenn asked.

“Lang had the same question for them,” Dom said. “They told us we’re welcome to join. But they have no way to reposition us.”

“That doesn’t sound a whole lot better,” Meredith said.

“From what they did tell us, things aren’t looking good in Moscow,” Dom said. “So I suspect they’re getting nervous about what’s going to happen here. Ground troops are rolling in over the next hour. I think they realize taking Baghdad won’t be as easy as they thought.”

O’Neil didn’t like the sound of that. Whenever the leadership was nervous, that feeling reverberated down the ranks and right into the minds of those with boots on the ground. “What are we doing now?”

“Mission’s not over,” Dom said. “For all we know, the FGL moved their work somewhere else. If we can find any useable intel, we have a better chance of getting out of Baghdad alive tonight.”

“Plus helping to save the world and all that, too,” Miguel said. “Right, Chief?”

“Right now, we got to save our own asses if we’re going to help anyone else.”

Lang wandered over to the Hunters with his map of the tunnel system in hand. “We’re moving out. I want you guys on point.”

Dom raised an eyebrow. “Still trying to keep your guns on our backs?”

Lang shook his head. “No, man.” O’Neil noticed the corners of his lips twitched up ever so slightly. “The way you all took control of that situation at the JIC... we should all be dead right now. I underestimated you. Mercs or not, you know how to handle yourself with those monsters.”

O’Neil wasn’t sure that he believed Lang, but he still found himself at the vanguard of the group as they snuck deeper into the winding passages. Small manmade caves filled with crates and oil drums, most of them covered in dust, sprouted from the main corridors. The tunnels gave way to a slightly larger, square-shaped room with a generator hooked up to an overhead light system. The generator had long since drained of fuel.

Along the corridors, they discovered old desks and chairs. Weird.

“What a place to have an office job,” Miguel said.

“Not where I’d want to spend my nine-to-five,” Glenn agreed.

They continued onward. Footprints from boots and Skull claws alike collected puddles of water.

“I don’t think this place is as much of a ghost town as it looks,” O’Neil said.

O’Neil found it harder to breathe the farther they went. At first, he thought it had something to do with the atmosphere. It was dank and humid in the tunnels, like a locker room that had never been cleaned. But he noticed no one else had the same problem.

No, it was just him.

That ominous darkness pressing on his mind was now physically affecting him. His muscles seemed to grow weaker with each step. He struggled to catch his breath when they paused at a three-way intersection, each tunnel no different than the other. The intersection wasn’t on their smartwatches or the Special Forces maps.

“Where the hell do we go?” Craw asked, looking between them.

O’Neil breathed deeply. A strange scent rode the stagnant air. Something cloying. If he faced the tunnel where he sensed that sickening sweetness was strongest, the darkness in his mind pulsated, throbbing as if some parasite had taken residence in his head.

“Something up, O’Neil?” Dom asked.

“If you want to find out what’s going on in Baghdad, we need to go that way,” O’Neil said. He pointed down the tunnel leading to what he suspected would be the source of the darkness. “There’s something in there. Something evil.”

O’Neil knew he sounded like a prophetic weirdo, but the Hunters didn’t give him any strange looks. Too much had happened already to make them doubt his claims.

“I don’t know,” Craw said. “I think we should just find a way out. See if we can help the troops on the ground.”

Lang shook his head. “There might be valuable intel that way. If we can help make Thunderbolt a success, we’ve got to do it.”

“Who gives a shit at this point? Command has given up on us,” Craw said. “Just like when they pulled us off our tribe assignments in Afghanistan.”

“This isn’t about what the leadership wants,” Lang said. “It’s about us. I want to stop the FGL.”

“And you think the word of that Hybrid is going to help us?” Craw asked.

O’Neil didn’t like the way the rest of Wraith and Talon looked at him when Craw called him “that Hybrid.”

“Hey, man,” Glenn said, “O’Neil is our teammate, our brother. We’ve survived worse by trusting him. He knows more about the Heikegani Agent than any of us.”

“It’s not that I don’t trust you guys,” Craw said. “I just don’t think running headlong into a tunnel under Baghdad is smart. We would be better off joining the assault.”

“That’s not how we do things,” Lang said.

Craw looked at Dom as if imploring him to join his side.

“It surprises even me to say I’m with Lang on this one,” Dom said. “We’ve survived plenty of firefights, but being cannon fodder isn’t our thing. We’re used to working in small teams, and even this”—Dom used a hand to indicate the rest of Wraith and Talon—“is getting beyond our comfort zone. I say we do what we do best. Infiltrate, survey, observe, and take whatever we can find.”

Craw closed his eyes, turning away. When he turned back, he had calmed himself. “Fine. Fine, if you’re agreeing on something, then hell really has frozen over. Let’s do this.”

O’Neil led the group down the tunnel. The darkness in his mind wasn’t the only thing causing a creeping sensation down his spine now. They passed corpses strewn over the ground. Most were nothing but piles of bones connected by sinewy ligaments. Rags of clothes hung off them, stained in blood.

“Was this team one of ours?” Craw asked.

“We didn’t have any other teams in this area,” Lang said.

“Then the FGL let this happen to their own people?”

No one answered him.

The weight hanging over O’Neil’s mind throbbed, growing heavier with each step. He felt like he was pushing against gale-force winds, mentally struggling to pull himself forward claw by claw.

And then, they found it.

A massive chamber lined with smaller caves, all filled with the fetid odor of rot. Barred iron doors covered each of those caves as if this were some kind of prison complex. The group fanned out. O’Neil wandered toward the nearest prison cell. This one had bars that were so close together there was only half an inch between them. The space inside was barely large enough for a man to lie down. A bucket lay on one side next to a pile of bug-eaten fabric stained with what O’Neil could only guess was bile and blood. He traced one of the bars with his claw. The slight rasp of his claws on the metal brought the pile of fabric to life.

He jumped back. Something rose from the floor. The thing stumbled forward, its mouth open. No teeth lined its gray, rotten gums. Where its eyes should be remained only empty cavities. The monster let out a clicking sound from the back of its throat as it hobbled toward the door. Those eyeless sockets turned straight toward O’Neil as if the creature could actually see him.

Then, with its staccato rattle growing louder, it levered back its arm. Its limb shot forward again with all the speed of a scorpion going in for a strike. The beast’s knifelike claws flew straight from the ends of its fingertips toward O’Neil.

O’Neil would not have had enough time to get out of the way. The only thing that saved him was the tightly spaced bars. The claws pinged against them, breaking before falling away. The beast inside continued to hiss and rattle, bringing up its other set of claws.

“Jesus,” O’Neil said, backing away.

“Slinger,” Meredith said. “Heard about those from our friends back in the States.”

The Slinger flung its next set of claws at the bars. They broke against the cage uselessly as the Slinger’s rattling and clicking intensified.

“We’ve got computers down here!” Jenna yelled from a neighboring den. “Looks like there’s a working generator. We can get data off them!”

Lang perked up from where he’d been examining one of the other cells with his Special Forces. Like O’Neil’s, it contained a frustrated Slinger.

“Good,” Lang said. “I’ll tell HQ.”

O’Neil scoured the other prison cells with Andris and Miguel. The rest of the Hunters rushed to help Jenna recover data from whatever computers they had found there.

“I don’t understand why the FGL did not smash these computers, too,” Andris said as they paused in front of a cell with its door open.

O’Neil took point, peeling the door open wider before kicking aside the jumbled, torn blankets there to make sure nothing was lying in wait for them. But the cell was empty except for the lingering smell of death.

Miguel backed away from the prison. Scenes like this played out across the vast chamber, with teams Wraith and Talon investigating other cells. Only a few of the chambers were occupied—and those were mostly half-dead Slingers, a couple of seemingly normal but starved Skulls, and a Drooler whose legs had been nearly dissolved by its own leaking acid.

“Hey, Craw, was this place on your map?” Miguel asked.

“Actually, yeah,” Craw said. “It was a lot smaller, though. Used to be one of Saddam’s secret prisons.”

“Place gives me the creeps,” Miguel said, turning back to Andris and O’Neil. “I feel like we’ve got ghosts watching us.”

“I have a very similar feeling,” Andris said.

“Damn straight,” O’Neil said, the dark beast in his mind heavier than ever. Then something hit him through that black fog. “Andris, what was that you said earlier?”

“About the smell in this place?”

“No... the computers.” O’Neil looked toward the unexplored end of the chamber. The cells there were much larger. Big enough for a Goliath. And then it hit him, the thing that had been bugging him about this unexpected treasure trove. “The FGL sabotaged or moved everything valuable when they found out we were coming. So why is this place untouched? Why didn’t they destroy this stuff, too?”

Miguel stared at the open cell O’Neil was looking at. “Oh shit.”

O’Neil’s stomach twisted, the darkness in his mind throbbing now with the intensity of the midday desert sun. Each step he took toward the cell inspired a sense of dread unlike anything he had ever felt before.

“They didn’t have time,” Miguel said, “because it destroyed them first.”

-21-

Meredith could not believe the cache of intact hard drives they had discovered. For the first time on this mission, they had access to working FGL computers. This room, filled with its computers and lab bench tops and glassware, made her think of the lab back aboard the Huntress.

They’d definitely found something here. They would find out just what that something was once they sent all this data to the Huntress and Thunderbolt HQ for full decryption and translation.

That was the problem.

“Connection is too slow down here,” Jenna said. “No way we can wirelessly transfer everything unless we’re going to camp here for the next two days.”

“Then we’ll just take it with us,” Dom said.

Meredith helped him pry apart some of the computers, physically removing the drives and stuffing them into their packs.

“Glenn, you got any idea what this place is?” Meredith asked.

Glenn was hunched over one of the computers, doing his best to parse the garbled Russian. “I’m not sure yet. I found a bunch of experimental logs. I saw mentions of the Heikegani Agent and the Oni Agent but also a bunch of other words I don’t know. I think they might be codenames for things like Droolers and Slingers.”

“How’d you figure that out?” Jenna asked.

“Well, specimen Boyevoy Nozh is described as throwing knives, according to these literal translations,” Glenn said. “But I haven’t seen anything related to controlling the Heikegani Agent.”

“Damn,” Jenna said. “It would be real nice to find something to make this trek through Baghdad worth it.”

“That doesn’t mean it isn’t here,” Glenn said. “It’s just impossible for me to sift through all of this right now.”

Meredith looked about the room for her next scavenging target. Half of the lab was ordinary, as far as underground labs in former political prisons went. She recognized glassware, pipettes, and machinery similar to what the medical team aboard the Huntress used. But the back half of the laboratory was nothing like the organized front section. Several of the lab benches had been torn from their anchors in the ground and tipped over. Shards of glass sparkled over the floor under a bank of LED lights, many of which had been broken and were hanging from the ceiling. The computers there were smashed across the floor, bits of silicon and wires tangled between busted monitors and toppled chairs.

“Anyone figured out what happened here?” Meredith asked, relaying her question over the comms.

Glenn shook his head. “Nothing in the logs.”

“I’m just making a wild guess here,” Miguel said, “but it looks like whatever the FGL was keeping in these cages got out.”

“I get that,” Meredith said. “But did they just let it out? Or did someone sabotage this place?”

“Couldn’t say,” Miguel said. “But—”

There was a pause over the comm line.

“Holy shit!” Miguel cried. “I think we found something! Get your asses over here.”

Meredith looked at Dom. “Dom, can you and Jenna finish up in here?”

“Go,” Dom said.

Meredith sprinted out of the laboratory and through the wide chamber. She saw Andris waving her down from in front of another short corridor. He led her to another room—this one in pristine condition. Whatever had happened in the laboratory and the main prison complex, it hadn’t happened here.

The walls were lined with shelves and shelves of nondescript boxes about the size of a pack of cards. A clear partition led to what looked like a miniature version of the bioreactor room they had discovered under the JIC facility. Next to it was a single laptop on a small table.

Meredith picked up one of the boxes and took it over to Andris, who was already at the laptop. Given his Latvian background, he was the only other member of the team besides Glenn who could read Russian.

“What is this stuff?” she asked.

Andris turned from the computer, a grin dawning on his face. “These are the pills the FGL gives the Hybrids. The Halo.”

A bright beam of hope pierced the dread that had accompanied Meredith since the beginning of the mission. “We found it. We actually found it.” She pointed through the acrylic partition into the small manufacturing chamber. “That’s got to be where they were making this stuff. We need samples.”

“Can’t we just grab these pill boxes?” Miguel asked as he stuffed his pack.

Meredith shook her head. “A finished product isn’t good enough. We need to know how the process works, what the raw ingredients are, everything if we’re going to start replicating this stuff ourselves to help people infected by—”

A noise shuddered through the prison chamber. It sounded like a mixture of metal groaning under an immense weight and the gurgle of a Drooler getting ready to let loose a spray of acid.

“What in the hell was that?” Miguel asked, turning back toward the open doorway.

***

Gunfire erupted from the main prison chamber before Dom could even begin to ask what in the hell was going on. Glenn was in the middle of deciphering text on one of the computer monitors, and Jenna was scrounging through broken computers for hard drives or anything else that might contain a shred of data.

Both of them froze.

“On your right!” Lang’s voice boomed through the comm links.

“Get a team to the other wall!” Craw yelled. “We need cover from those Skulls!”

“Glenn, Jenna! Let’s go!” Dom said, leading them out of the lab.

A wave of rot swirled in the air around them. Skulls trickled in from the prison complex’s underground entrance. More barreled out of another corridor at the opposite end of the chamber. Team Wraith and Talon were spread out, positioned behind huge concrete posts and tables thrown on their sides. They unloaded into the ranks of monsters, the dead quick to be replaced by other living monsters. Among the Skulls were people who had only just transformed, wearing ragged shirts and jeans that were soiled but intact. Buds of horns sprouted from their scalps, and their fingers ended in yellow points. Some of them even wore the uniforms of FGL soldiers, a testament to how they must have lost control down here.

Most of the Skulls had lost every shred of humanity. There was little more than rags left on them, tangled in the weave of bones curling out of their flesh. Overgrown ribs pushed out of their chests, and plates curled out of their shoulders and arms, giving them the appearance of an army of undead knights freshly awoken from their graves.

High-pitched shrieks and ravenous growls hammered on the stone walls. Dom, Jenna, and Glenn joined the others in laying down a stream of armor-piercing rounds that devastated the Skulls. Red blood splashed across the floor. Corpses rolled to the ground, sliding in the blood and organs spilled by their brethren. Monsters leapt through the air, clearing piles of their fallen comrades, claws wheeling and slashing as saliva sprayed from their lips.

“Changing!” one of the Special Forces called out.

Another provided cover fire, sending a pair of Skulls tumbling over their limbs.

Dom caught movement among a pile of dead Skulls. A beast dragged itself across the ground. Only a few stretching sinews kept its left leg attached to its torso. Blood streamed out of its mouth. It wasn’t long for this world, but even so it was determined to get a taste of flesh before its abominable life ended.

With a squeeze of his trigger, Dom ensured the beast would never get its dying wish.

“Hold your lines!” Craw said.

The piles of bodies grew. When Dom had to reload his own rifle, he noticed Meredith and Andris were missing from the fight.

“Mere, what’s your sitrep?” Dom asked as he clicked a new magazine into place.

“We think we found the Halo pills,” she said. “Maybe even the manufacturing equipment.”

“That’s the best news I’ve heard all day. How soon can you wrap up?” Dom asked.

“We need a few minutes,” she replied. “The data hasn’t finished transferring. Andris and I are collecting specimens from the lab equipment.”

“We have to get the fuck out of here,” Craw said, looking at Dom and then Lang across the room. “Told you this was a bad idea!”

“It’ll be worth it if Meredith and Andris come through for us,” Lang said.

“Just buy us a little time,” Meredith said.

“Consider it done,” Lang said.

Dom heard the eagerness in his voice. This was their ticket out of Baghdad—

and more importantly, to subduing the Hybrid population. All the innocent people transformed by the Heikegani Agent wouldn’t have to resort to working for the FGL to get relief from their condition.

They had to get these samples back to the Huntress and Thunderbolt HQ. This could be it, the moment that finally turned the tide of this war. They just needed a few more minutes.

Dom assessed the situation. The stream of Skulls wasn’t slowing. Bullets weren’t going to be enough. He patted his tac vest. No more Pacifist Fog grenades.

“If you’ve got Pacifist Fog, throw it out there!” Dom yelled. “We need to hold them off for as long as possible.”

O’Neil tossed a grenade. It popped and hissed as it rolled.

Then, above the cries of the Skulls, another roar erupted deep within the corridors. It sounded like metal grating against metal. Something else gurgled and popped like a volcano preparing to turn Baghdad into the next Pompeii.

O’Neil staggered toward them, doubled over as if someone had punched him in the gut. He had one clawed hand pressed against his head. “The source of the darkness. It knows we’re here.”

The grinding metal sound grew louder until Dom thought his brain would explode from the sheer magnitude of the noise. Gravel fell from the ceiling as the space shook.

The source of the noise finally appeared. Dom recoiled from it instinctively.

“What in God’s name is that?” Lang cried out.

It was a fair question.

The beast before them was like nothing they had ever seen. It rose to the height of a Goliath. Tusks pushed out from its underbite, and its thick, bony brow protruded over its skeletal face. Huge muscles wrapped around its limbs, nearly as thick as the bony plates covering its chest.

Where its eyes should be, though, there were only dark cavities. Just like the much skinnier, much smaller Slingers. Dark stains marred its chest, highlighting canyons carved in the monster’s plates. Those marks reminded Dom of something.

When the beast’s jaw opened and the bubbling sound intensified, he knew he was right.

“Get down!” he bellowed. “Get the fuck down!”

But it was too late.

-22-

O’Neil ducked into one of the prison cells, pressing himself tight against the cold stone wall. The torrent of dark-brown acid barely missed him. Two of Team Wraith’s men hadn’t had time to find shelter. Their screams rose above the growls and shrieks from the Skulls. O’Neil watched in horror as their skin bubbled and sizzled, sloughing off to reveal the wet red muscle beneath.

The darkness in his head seemed to ebb as the beast drew back, recovering from its acid spray. Droplets fell from its mouth and sizzled on its own armor.

“Take that thing out!” Lang said. “Team Wraith, Hunters, focus on that beast. The rest of you, keep the smaller Skulls off us.”

O’Neil fired at the beast, joining the salvo of gunfire. The monster’s plates were thick enough to absorb most of the armor-piercing rounds. Those shots that pierced its exposed flesh didn’t seem to make the beast flinch. Instead, it let out that grating, rattling metallic sound as it gazed about the room, seemingly searching for its next victims.

Most of the Special Forces teams now sheltered in the empty prison cells. With so many of them focused on the acid-spewing behemoth now, O’Neil noticed that the regular Skulls were making it farther and farther from both ends of the chamber. The Pacifist Fog wasn’t nearly thick enough to stop them.

He focused his energy on fighting back against the Skulls.

His vision started to blur, making it more difficult for him to find a clean shot. But he had to stop the Skulls. He could feel the blood trickling from his nose, making his nostrils itch. Every time he tried to force the Skulls to slow, he felt as if he were throwing himself against a brick wall. And as he blinked through his blurred vision, he saw the Skulls hadn’t slowed down at all.

Whatever this beast was, it was blocking O’Neil’s attempts to influence the Skulls. It needed to die—and fast.

The beast let out another belching scream. This time the Special Forces were prepared. Acid sprayed from its open maw. The Special Forces soldiers took cover. The Skulls did not. Caustic acid rained down on them. It clung to their bony armor, dissolving it in bubbles of black goop. The Skulls’ flesh soon began to pop like bacon on a frying pan—with an odor far less appetizing. Their cries were choked in an anguish that was far too human for O’Neil.

“Mere, we need to leave now!” Dom cried over the comm link.

“Almost there. One minute more should do it.”

“Negative,” Dom said. “We don’t have a minute.”

O’Neil looked at the lab’s entrance. The beast was dangerously close to it. It would have a clear lane to drench Meredith and Andris in its acid spray. The rest of the group might be able to fight the Skulls off as they retreated back the way they had come, but that meant they would have to leave Meredith and Andris, along with the Halo pills they’d found.

“Miguel,” O’Neil rasped to the Hunter next to him. “We have to stop that thing.”

“Couldn’t agree more,” Miguel said, pressing himself flat against the wall of the prison cell. “What did you have in mind?”

The beast filled the prison chamber with its gargling, metal-scraping roar again. O’Neil winced, his eardrums feeling as though they were on the verge of splitting open.

O’Neil pointed at Miguel’s prosthetic arm. “Acid. Use its own weapon against it.”

Miguel smirked. “I like the way you think.”

O’Neil strapped his rifle over his pack and sucked in a deep breath. “I’ll distract it so you can get up close. You know what to do.”

“You’re damn right I do.”

“Captain,” O’Neil said over the comm link, “I can take that thing down with Miguel. Just say the word.”

“Go ahead and—” Dom paused. “Lang, you’re running this show.”

“Do it,” Lang said. “What do you need from us?”

Either Lang had truly changed his opinion of the Hunters, or he was extremely desperate. O’Neil guessed it was probably a combination of the two.

“Focus your fire on the Skulls, but leave the big one alone,” O’Neil said.

“You serious?” Craw asked.

“Yes, sir,” O’Neil shouted back, falling into his old habits of addressing command. “Ready? Now!”

O’Neil shot out of his hiding spot, legs pumping and bone plates rattling against each other. He charged straight for the beast. Footsteps behind him told him Miguel was staying close. The red mist of the Pacifist Fog clung to him as he pushed through it. Skulls dove and slashed. He juked around them, adrenaline seeming to slow time.

Around him, Skulls went down, blood spraying from fresh bullet holes. Chips of bone and flesh sprayed over O’Neil. He ignored it all. The screeches of the Skulls seemed to fade away as the beast called out its metallic roar. The noise was filled with all the fury and hatred of a thousand FGL soldiers condensed in a sonic hammer that bombarded O’Neil’s eardrums.

Underneath the grinding bellow, there was another sound. Gurgling.

“He’s going to blow!” O’Neil yelled.

He dove hard to his right, Miguel shadowing him.

Acid blasted to their left. It splashed over the rocky floor, spraying up over neighboring Skulls. Flecks of it hit O’Neil’s uniform. The Hunters’ fatigues had been treated against this acid spray, thanks to their science team. But O’Neil’s face wasn’t covered by the antiacid treatment. A few droplets landed on his cheek and burned with an unholy fire.

He pushed himself to his feet, and once again Miguel was at his side. They were nearly halfway there. Skulls continued to fall under waves of bullets. O’Neil heard more human yells and screams from the other side of the room. And still more Skulls poured in around the monstrous beast. They must’ve been flooding in from the other side of the chamber.

But they could wait. The beast needed to go now.

He sprinted the final few yards, weaving between the last Skulls that blocked him from the beast. The giant continued its slow, lilting hobble. Those eyeless orbital cavities seemed to lock straight on O’Neil. There was no way it could see him, but he knew the creature was staring straight at him.

The darkness in his mind pulsated. It sent a wave of pain through his body. His muscles locked up, and he stumbled, sprawling, his claws clicking against the ground.

Miguel bent and pulled him up, still running. O’Neil found his legs again. His muscles threatened to give out with the next pulse of darkness, but he was ready this time.

“Won’t... let it... win,” O’Neil ground out, staring up into that ugly eyeless face.

The creature reared back a claw. It looked like it was preparing to swat them both away. But they were too far for the strike to connect. Maybe the creature was blinder than he thought.

Miguel charged, bashing the occasional Skull that dared get too close. The beast’s arm started to whip forward.

And then everything clicked for O’Neil.

He tackled Miguel, sending them both to the floor right in front of a pair of Skulls. The two monsters growled, spittle flying from their cracked lips. Before they could attack, they disappeared in a spray of flesh and shredded bone plates, organs and limbs expanding like a starburst.

It took O’Neil a fraction of a second to figure out what had caused the destruction. It was the beast’s thrown claws, like a Slinger’s projectiles but the size of tomahawk missiles.

The beast roared again. O’Neil looked up just in time to see the monstrosity slashing at the air again. Miguel started to stand. O’Neil pushed him back down. Two more claws ripped through the air.

This time, they had been easy targets for the beast. There was no avoiding the bony missiles. A wave of pain tore over O’Neil’s shoulders and back. He yelled as the darkness expanded in his mind, blooming with the agony in his body. No amount of adrenaline could hold back the feeling that his spine had been ripped from his flesh.

Miguel staggered to his feet. He looked at O’Neil, then the Skulls, and then the giant beast. “Cover us!” he shouted.

O’Neil felt hands wrap under his armpits as Miguel started to drag him away from the destruction. Each bump over the ground sent tremors of pain through O’Neil’s body.

A sudden ray of clarity poured through him.

He had tensed his legs. He could still move.

The pain was secondary to the mission at hand. The monster needed to be taught a lesson. O’Neil was not done here.

He scrambled to his feet. “Let me go!”

The smell of his own blood covered him, and he felt the warm wetness dripping. He still had his claws. Still had the use of his legs. Whatever had happened to him, he was alive and not paralyzed. Even if he only had a few minutes to live, he would make the most of them.

He barreled toward the beast, plowing over a Skull that was foolish enough to step in his path. His vision pulsated scarlet, and he was certain the eyeless beast had locked its attention on him again. He felt the monster’s struggle to use the shroud of darkness it had cast over his mind, but it could no longer touch him.

Nothing could touch him.

He flung himself into the air. His claws clattered against the plates of the beast, and he scrambled up its arm. No bigger than a Goliath, it took him less than a second to get on the beast’s shoulders. It shuffled madly, swinging its claws. But O’Neil danced atop the thing, avoiding the beast’s flailing.

Normally, he would sink his claws into the thing’s eyes. But the creature had no eyes, just like a Slinger. In fact, it seemed to be an amalgam of a Goliath, Drooler, and Slinger. And if it had the strengths of those creatures, O’Neil guessed it also had their weaknesses.

One of the creature’s remaining claws scraped down O’Neil’s back. Hot pain flashed through him as his flesh tore. He suddenly realized why he felt so much lighter. He guessed that the earlier thrown claw had sheared off most of the organic armor on his back. His rifle and pack, too, were missing.

That was okay. He had all the weapons he needed.

If this beast was anything like the eyeless Slingers, he knew they didn’t use sight to hunt. They used some kind of strange echolocation. Which meant O’Neil knew exactly how to “blind” the bastard.

He wrangled himself on its shoulders, balancing with his talons sunk into the crevices between the plates. The creature roared in frustration. O’Neil let out a bellow of his own as he swung both arms down, his claws sinking deep into the holes on the sides of the skeletal monstrosity’s head. He heard satisfying pops as he dug the claws deep into the ear canals.

No sight, no hearing.

The beast let out another acid spray that splashed uselessly over its own brethren, nowhere near Miguel. With the acid expended for the moment, O’Neil yanked backward on the creature’s head, pulling its chin up to reveal a point of vulnerability.

“Now!” O’Neil yelled.

Miguel ran at the flailing monster, aiming his arm straight across the thing’s neck and face. A concentrated stream of acid blasted from his prosthetic into the thinner bone plate on the beast’s neck, carving it free from the flesh. The beast thrashed, stumbling backward, and the rest of the stream scarred its thick chest-plates.

O’Neil stuck his claws into the now-exposed flesh of its neck and pulled hard, cutting through trachea and blood vessels alike. It tried to struggle, but O’Neil already knew it was done. He leapt off the monster as it collapsed. The thing fell on its belly, trying to drag itself forward in a lake of its own blood. With a blast of hot air, the creature exhaled for the last time, falling still.

The darkness lifted from O’Neil’s mind. The bastard was dead.

Chaos still reigned in the chamber. Skulls ran wild, seemingly even more frenzied than before. O’Neil concentrated on them, willing them to stop. To calm them like he had tried to do with the help of the Pacifist Fog.

And slowly, without the burden of the giant monster’s darkness on his mind, the mindless beasts succumbed to his power. He breathed heavily, pain lancing down his back with each expansion of his lungs.

But O’Neil found himself grinning. The tremoring Skulls stood where he had stopped them. A moment ago, his allies had been a dwindling team of Hunters and Special Forces. Now they had an army.

-23-

Navid stood at the lab bench with a pipette in one hand and a glass vial in the other. Sokolov sat across the room, engrossed in his computer.

As Navid worked, he tried to turn off his mind. But he couldn’t help thinking about what the FGL had done to him since they’d taken him from Frankfurt. He found himself wondering if the FGL had extended that same hospitality to his family.

His sister, Yasamin, had been on the verge of completing her university education in social work. His dad, Atash, had been an administrator in a hospital, managing the purchase and inventory of medical devices and supplies. And his mom, Anahita, had worked at a local community college, teaching biology and chemistry courses.

None of them were hardened soldiers. None were prepared for the unflinchingly evil treatment the FGL doled out on its captives.

His joints seemed to weaken. Blackness crept into the corners of his vision. He focused hard on the pipette and vial, but his fingers trembled.

He could not drop the sample. If he made a mistake, what would those Hybrids do to his family?

So he worked. And he noticed that now Lauren was working, too. He wasn’t sure what had finally convinced her to acquiesce to Sokolov’s demands. Maybe she had finally given up hope that the Hunters would ever rescue them. Maybe she saw that this laboratory was going to be where they spent the rest of their miserable lives.

“Are you getting bored?” a rasping voice asked.

Navid looked up. He must have spaced out. Sokolov stood in front of him, bone-plate-covered arms crossed. In one hand, he held a pair of folders.

“You hear me, Ghasemi?” Sokolov asked.

Navid nodded, eager to please.

“I asked you if you were bored. Are you?”

What was the right answer? Navid assumed Sokolov wanted him to be engaged, to be interested in this menial lab work. So he shook his head vehemently.

“That’s too bad,” Sokolov said. “I have something better for you. You, too, Winters. Get over here.”

Lauren shuffled toward them. The bruises on her face had mostly diffused to golden yellows and a glimmer of light purple. Her eyes appeared glazed over. She looked at Sokolov as if she’d been woken from the dead.

“We are not making use of your talents,” Sokolov continued, “so I want you on some new projects. I think you will find it most rewarding, scientifically speaking. And if rewards aren’t enough...”

He raised his hand as if preparing to strike them.

Navid winced. Lauren seemed to notice his reaction and mirrored him a half  second later.

Sokolov laughed and lowered his hand. He gave Navid one of the folders. “Take this.” He handed Lauren the other. “And this is yours. Read them over and begin designing your experiments immediately. Should you need any supplies we do not have in the lab, you may request them from me. Before you start any experiment, you will run it by me. You will not do anything without my approval.” His eyes narrowed as he looked between them. “I do not believe I need to tell you what will happen if you fail to follow these instructions.”

Navid gulped. He didn’t want this hanging over his head. Certainly not over his family’s heads. But he had no choice. He had to appease this sick Hybrid. Lauren shuffled away to her lab bench and spread the folder out before her. Navid returned to his own bench and opened his folder. The description of the work within told him he was to design a therapeutic that sequestered a certain molecule at the blood-brain barrier—the tissue interface that provided a protective barrier for the brain from substances flowing through blood vessels.

The project truly had been handpicked for him. His research before the outbreak had been focused on developing drug delivery mechanisms through the blood-brain barrier. Trojan horses to fool the body’s defenses. This time, he was supposed to use that knowledge to prevent certain molecules from making it through. That seemed like a task he could handle. And maybe he could even do it well enough to please the FGL so that they spared his family.

But what he couldn’t understand was why he was trying to protect brain tissue. After all, didn’t all the FGL’s bioweapons—the Oni Agent and the Heikegani Agent—rely on delivering dangerous pathogens to the brain?

Then he looked at the molecule he was supposed to prevent from entering the brain. There was something familiar about it that struck a chord in his memory.

He knew what this molecule was now. And he knew what his task was. If he didn’t work on it, his family would be killed. Probably slowly. But if he succeeded, the result would be catastrophic.

They wanted him to find a way to block the Phoenix Compound. He was supposed to defeat the very thing he had helped design to save the human race.

***

The odor of decay consumed the manufacturing chamber where Andris and Meredith were scooping up all the samples they could carry. With O’Neil focusing on controlling most of the Skulls, they only had to contend with the stragglers left in the wake of the giant beast, those that had come after the monster had met its demise.

So many samples and pills had been stored in this place. Meredith hated to leave any behind. Even if they couldn’t immediately start manufacturing the pills, they would at least have a small stash to start helping victims of the Heikegani Agent.

When her pack and Andris’s had been filled, she called out for the others. Miguel was the last person to take his turn in the small lab. Splotches of both dried and wet blood covered his face and fatigues. Sweat dripped down his forehead, cutting little streams into the mask of grime as he shoveled pill cartons into his pack. He even stuffed a couple into his pockets.

“Can you take any more?” Meredith asked, eying the racks still full of pills.

He patted his tac vest then his pants. “I’m all full up.”

“Then let’s call it a day,” Meredith said. “Although I hate leaving so much of this behind.”

Andris snagged a couple more cartons, shoving them into his pockets. “Does that make you happy?”

Meredith shrugged. “Would make me a lot happier if I knew for certain we had the key to manufacturing these things.”

“The NATO forces will be here to pick up whatever we left behind,” Andris said. “Come, it’s time to rejoin our friends.”

Miguel stepped out into the main chamber. Meredith and Andris followed.

While she had been scrounging through the lab with Andris, she had missed the devastating battle out here. The stark bite of reality hit her as hard as a Goliath’s punch. A huge monster lay dead in a puddle of its own blood. Acid slowly leaked from the corners of its mouth and through wounds in its neck, sizzling when it hit the ground.

“What the hell was that thing?” Meredith asked.

“Chimera,” Glenn said, sounding like he was still regaining his breath. “A mixture of all the Oni Agent’s worst presents wrapped into one awful beast. O’Neil named it.”

“Christ,” Meredith said. “Another Spitkovsky special. Just what we need.”

“This Spitkovsky guy must have a hell of a Frankenstein complex,” Rabbit said. “Can’t believe you guys actually met him.”

“I can’t wait to meet the asshole again,” Dom snarled.

All around the rest of the chamber lay the twisted, gnarled bodies of Skulls. The hazy remnants of the dwindling Pacifist Fog gave the place an otherworldly look, accentuated by the small contingent of Skulls standing in a trance near O’Neil.

The sight of the bullet-riddled Skull corpses was bad enough, but then Meredith saw something worse. Three bodies were sprawled flat across the floor. Three Americans had given their lives to buy her extra time in that lab.

“God, I hope I made the right choice,” she whispered.

“You did,” Andris said in an equally low voice. “We will save many lives with what we found.”

The logic of that statement was true enough. They might now have the key to saving thousands upon thousands of people suffering from the Heikegani Agent. But the hurt of seeing those three dead men couldn’t be reasoned away by facts and statistics.

Jenna used the back of her hand to wipe grime from her face. She seemed to have overheard Meredith and Andris.

“This is what we signed up for. All of us,” she said.

Meredith wasn’t so certain. That must’ve been clear enough in her expression.

“Look, when I entered Ranger school, it was a boy’s club,” Jenna said. “I was warned I wouldn’t fit in with the guys. That they would be harder on me. Maybe because they thought it was for my benefit, or maybe because some didn’t want me there. Didn’t matter. I knew what I signed up for.”

“You knew you would deal with the hardship?” Andris asked.

“No, none of that mattered,” Jenna said. “I signed up to serve my country. To be a part of something greater than myself. Whatever it took to do that was worth the cost. And the thing that got me through Ranger school was knowing everyone else there was in it for the same reason.

“We all knew what this mission might cost,” Jenna continued. “Lang and Craw’s men included. Any of us—any of them—would give it all to stop the FGL.”

Andris walked ahead of them.

Jenna fell back beside Meredith. “In reality, I got to admit, being one of the first women in Ranger school was a bit intimidating,” she whispered to Meredith. “All eyes on me. If I screwed up, I knew I would be letting down women everywhere. Had to prove I deserved that spot as much as any of the guys.”

“I think you’ve proven that over and over again.”

“Didn’t always feel like that,” Jenna said. “Fortunately, I also had company. I wasn’t the only woman. And when things got rough, when I thought I had made the wrong decision, I always had them. Girls got to stick together. You know what I mean?”

Jenna held out her fist. Meredith tapped her knuckles against it.

“Seriously,” Jenna said. “You did what you got to do. Dom would tell you that. But it’s not always easy doing what you’re supposed to. Sometimes it downright sucks. You want to talk about it, I’m all ears.”

Meredith wasn’t sure the talk made her feel any better. But at least she knew someone else had her back.

When they reached Dom, Meredith told him they were ready.

The sporadic gunfire began to die down as fewer lone Skulls ventured into the underground prison.

“O’Neil, you good to go?” Dom asked.

O’Neil didn’t open his eyes. Even from where she stood, Meredith could see the trickles of blood from his nostrils and ear canals. His chest expanded and deflated steadily as though he were in deep meditation.

To her surprise, he responded calmly to Dom’s question. “I’m ready. That Chimera was blocking my senses, but now I can tell there are Hybrids in these passages. They can’t be more than five minutes out.” His eyes opened. “We need to move.”

“Lang,” Dom said, “please tell me there’s a way out of here other than the route we came through.”

Lang nodded, pointing at the tunnel from which the beast had come. “There is. That way.”

“I pray to God there was only one of those things,” Craw said, eying the fallen Chimera.

O’Neil marched across the room to join them. The Skulls hobbled after him in fits. A few of the Special Forces aimed rifles at the monsters, and O’Neil held up his hand to stay their fire.

“I’ve got them under control,” O’Neil said.

“For now,” Lang said.

“For now,” O’Neil agreed. “I don’t think there is another Chimera down that way.”

“You sure about that?” Craw said, raising a brow. His long scar wrinkled at the gesture.

“Absolutely,” O’Neil said.

“I don’t know,” Lang said. “I’d rather take my chances with those Spetsnaz Hybrids. They were tough but still easier to kill than this thing.”

“Trust O’Neil,” Meredith said. “He knows these monsters better than any of us. And if he says to move, then we need to move now.”

“She’s right.” Dom looked hard at Lang. “But it’s your call.”

Lang turned away and pointed at the tunnel where the Chimera had come from. “All right, men. Move out!”

-24-

Dom jogged beside Meredith and Miguel. Dirt and blood caked his face, and he coughed nearly every other breath he took, choking on the thick, gravelly dust clouds kicked up by the group. They barely paused at intersections, stopping only long enough to ensure that the path ahead was free of contacts. If there were contacts, it was usually no more than a handful of Skulls, and they dispatched those quickly before taking off again.

“O’Neil?” Dom called over the comm link.

By now, the Hybrid knew what that one-word inquiry meant. “Closing in on us.”

O’Neil led the group. Or rather, his squad of Skulls led the group, acting as their vanguard. Through his influence, he picked up reinforcements along the way that the Special Forces or Hunters didn’t take out.

“Thought we’d taken care of all the Hybrids at the JIC,” Meredith said.

“I did not mess up the explosives,” Andris said almost defensively.

“That building went down faster than a ten-dollar hooker,” Miguel said.

“You know that from experience?” Glenn asked.

“Stay focused, everyone,” Dom said. “Jenna, Andris, fall back with Glenn.”

The duo slowed just enough to join Glenn and the four members of Team Wraith and Talon bringing up rearguard.

“Don’t you think five is enough?” Meredith asked in a lower voice as they cleared another intersection.

“Five Hunters would be enough,” Dom said before they took off again.

Meredith nodded.

Dom trusted his people to deal with the Skulls and Hybrids. Although the Special Forces were well trained, today, the only casualties had been their soldiers. They didn’t seem to have the same handle on the ravenous beasts that the Hunters did.

Somewhere behind them, Dom thought he heard Russian voices call out. With the echoing cries of the Skulls, he couldn’t tell if he had actually heard something or if it was just his mind playing paranoid tricks on him.

Then he saw Glenn studying the tunnel behind them. Evidently, he wasn’t going crazy. Their pursuers had almost caught up.

“We’re almost there!” Lang said. “Should be up this tunnel, then we’ll have a way out.”

Steel support beams ribbed another corridor. There seemed to be nothing but darkness ahead of them.

Behind them, the tide of yelling voices was growing more distinct. Dom hoped the Russians would have to split up to investigate all the branching corridors. It was a damn shame Andris had run out of explosives. Down here they could have trapped the Hybrids behind a wall of rubble. But they had no good ways to bring down those beams. Instead, if it came to it, they would have to stop them the old-fashioned way: armor-piercing bullets.

“Found it!” one of the Special Forces called out from the front of the group. His flashlight beam hit the rusted rungs of a ladder leading up to a trapdoor.

“Open it!” Lang said.

Two of the men scurried up the ladder. The first pushed open the trapdoor. It creaked on its hinges, and all of them winced. Sand and dust poured down from the opening as the men climbed out. All Dom could hear was the labored, rasping breaths of O’Neil’s Skulls as everyone else waited for the two men to tell them it was clear.

From behind them, the clatter of talons on concrete grew louder. Voices rang out in anger. Their pursuers couldn’t be more than thirty seconds away.

Lang signaled quietly for his and Craw’s men to take firing positions. Dom did the same. All of them waited for the first sign of a Hybrid, trigger fingers ready.

“I can send the Skulls,” O’Neil said.

The Skulls made good cannon fodder. But Dom had another plan. “No, not yet,” he said.

The voices grew louder.

Come on, come on.

Dom pressed his rifle against his shoulder and knelt beside Meredith. As in the other tunnels, there wasn’t much to hide behind besides the ridges in the cave walls and the steel support beams.

A gunfight down here would be bloody. No doubt about that.

“Clear up here!” a voice crackled over the comm link.

“You heard him,” Lang said. “Move! Now!”

The Special Forces operators began their ascent, filing up the ladder. The clatter of talons grew closer.

“Let’s move!” Dom said, waving on the Hunters.

Four Special Forces operators stayed in the tunnel with the Hunters, plus Lang and Craw. O’Neil stood just beyond the ladder with the twenty-odd Skulls crammed around him. The beasts twitched and stumbled, and Dom noticed O’Neil’s eyes were closed. He was focusing everything he had on the monsters, keeping them from falling under the influence of the incoming Hybrids.

“Glenn, O’Neil, on me!” Dom said. “The rest of you, get up there!”

The Hunters’ boots clanged against the rungs of the ladder. A drop of sweat rolled down from Dom’s hairline, and he blinked before it could sting his eyes. Never for a second did he let his rifle barrel stray from the echo of those Russian voices.

Lang started up with the last of his men.

Craw looked at Dom, two of his men at his side. “You go. We’ll cover you.”

There wasn’t time to argue. Dom grabbed the first rung, pulling himself up. Glenn was close behind when the first of the Hybrids appeared down the corridor. Immediately, Craw and his men opened fire, the blasts deafening in the confined space.

Dom reached the top of the tunnel, pulled himself out, and then helped Glenn out. “O’Neil, send the Skulls now!”

O’Neil opened his eyes wide and let out a roar every bit as frightening as a Goliath’s. The small army of Skulls swarmed around Lang and his men, throwing themselves straight at the Hybrids.

“Craw, get your ass up here now!” Dom cried. “We’ve got you covered!”

Craw’s men began climbing first. O’Neil skipped the ladder, his claws digging into the rocky crevices on the side of the tunnel. He made it to the top before the Special Forces Operators. Once he pulled himself up from the tunnel, he crouched in a corner and closed his eyes again, apparently losing himself in concentration.

The wails of the Skulls crashed against the sound of gunfire. Dom and Glenn reached to help the last men out of the tunnel. They lugged the men to safety as bullets tore into the tunnel wall. Below, the chaos of Skulls fighting each other exploded in a fit of claws and bony limbs. Dom caught sight of a Spetsnaz Hybrid attacking one of the Skulls under O’Neil’s control. The Hybrid slashed at the Skull’s belly, connecting perfectly with the weak spots in the Skull’s armor. Guts spilled out, and blood sprayed from the wound, splattering over the Hybrid’s uniform and staining the two white bands on his arm.

Craw was the last man up the ladder. Dom grasped for his hand. Craw’s fingers touched his. Before he could pull the man to safety, a flash of black and white exploded from below. Craw was dragged back down into that hellhole, and Dom nearly fell in after him.

An agonized scream filled the tunnel. When Dom looked down, he saw one of the Spetsnaz Hybrids standing atop Craw’s body. Dom leaned forward, ready to jump in. But a hand grabbed his shoulder, pulling him back.

“You can’t,” Lang said, pulling a grenade from his tac vest. “He’s gone. We can’t lose you, too.”

Two other men had grenades in their hands. Lang signaled to them. They dropped them into the tunnel. Another operator slammed the trapdoor shut, and they all hurried to get clear.

A series of explosions rocked the tunnel. The trap door burst open in a shower of splinters. Smoke wafted up from the tunnel, thick with the odor of charred flesh.

Dom closed his eyes. The sight of Craw’s face as he was pulled into the darkness would haunt him, just as he was haunted by the ghosts of every Hunter he’d failed to save, every civilian he’d failed to protect.

When he opened his eyes again, he saw the rest of the Hunters and the remnants of Wraith and Talon were standing in a wide warehouse. Dozens of carpets were rolled up and leaning against the concrete walls of the place. Others were laid out in heavy stacks. Their designs had been obscured by layers of dust.

Craw’s men looked about the room as if they didn’t know what came next. By now, they could all hear the distant boom of artillery. The invasion had just begun in full force.

“Pile everything over the door,” Dom said, not bothering to route the command through Lang first. They had no time for that.

It didn’t take long for all the rugs and junk to find their way into the center of the room. Nearly as soon as they finished, Dom heard the first taps against what remained of the trapdoor. The surviving Hybrids were definitely trying to get out.

“We need to move,” Dom said, looking at Lang. “What next?”

Lang used the back of his hand to wipe away the sweat and grime from his eyes. “Time to get the hell out of Baghdad.”

-25-

Ever since the Chimera’s death, the darkness had fallen from O’Neil’s mind. Since then, he had been drained, completely wrung out with the effort to maintain control over his body and emotions.

Now he felt free again. No Chimeras or Hybrids or Skulls or anything else had their biochemical shackles weighing him down. He’d be tempted to laugh if they hadn’t just lost Craw and three of Craw’s men to the old Iraqi prison.

“If we follow that road out,” Lang said, pointing up the stairs from the storage room, “then we only have a mile or so to go. There’s a building there—five stories—with a flat roof, easy chopper access. That’s where we’ll be picked up.”

“If they pick us up,” Miguel said.

“You a gambling man?” Rabbit asked.

“I’ll give you three-to-one odds they leave us,” Miguel said.

“No way, Jose,” Rabbit said. “They’ll come.”

“Name’s Miguel, not Jose. And I hope you’re right.”

O’Neil wanted to believe Rabbit. But he’d been left high and dry by the military brass too many times to feel confident in their chances.

“O’Neil, Miguel, on point,” Dom said.

He was only too happy to oblige. At least if he was moving, he could focus on something other than the pain. The agony persisted where his plates had been shorn and broken.

He had thought about trying one of those Halo pills Meredith had found. Maybe it would eliminate his pain entirely. That’s how it seemed to work with the other Hybrids they had released from FGL custody.

But the memory of the Chimera’s darkness weighing on his mind was too much. The pills seemed to dull people’s senses and allow them to be so easily influenced by the FGL. He couldn’t risk it. Not now when they were so close to escape.

The group stationed themselves at the exit of the carpet store. Lights flashed in the distance, explosions bursting in the sky. Muffled blasts rocked the other side of the city. The first leg of the ground invasion had arrived. A distant chorus of Skulls sounded over the buildings.

“Picking anything up, O’Neil?” Dom asked.

O’Neil closed his eyes for a moment. He focused on feeling out their surroundings. The tug of Hybrids toying with Skulls seeped into his consciousness. A stronger tidal wave crashed over his nerves. He was almost certain that was from a Titan. The ebb and flow of anger and hunger played across the breeze as he sampled the biochemical traces of the FGL trying to manipulate their skeletal armies.

Now O’Neil opened his eyes, scanning the streets. Blown-out windows, trashed cars, awnings tangled around lampposts, and doorways with no doors. The occasional picked-over skeleton. The street looked like every other place they had trampled through on their way into the JIC facility.

“Negative,” O’Neil said. “Activity in the distance but nothing in the immediate vicinity.”

“Good,” Lang said. “Roll out.”

O’Neil led the advance through the streets. The constant boom of falling mortars and screaming Skulls accompanied their journey. O’Neil kept his mind open for any hint of approaching Hybrids. But so far, this part of the city seemed abandoned.

When he paused at the corner of another intersection, Miguel caught up to him. He glanced at his smartwatch. “NATO should be deeper into the city by now. What’s taking so long?”

O’Neil had no good answer for him. But he imagined the rest of the invasion forces had ground up against unforeseen monsters and traps set by the FGL. If this was the FGL’s last stand, then they were acting every bit the cornered animal.

“All I know is the longer we stay in this city, the worse it’s going to get,” O’Neil said. The Titans and Hybrids were out there. He could sense them, even at this distance. The sensation made him think of the static in the air before a violent thunderstorm. “And when I say worse, I mean this city is going to be flattened in a couple of hours.”

“I’d prefer we don’t end up as pancakes,” Miguel said.

“There’s that,” O’Neil said. “We also have the key to helping innocent people turned into Hybrids.”

“Yeah, bro, I guess that’s kind of important, too.” Miguel glanced back down the street they’d come as the others trickled to catch up with them. “Next corner?”

“On it.” O’Neil surged across the street, with Miguel covering him. Block by painful block, they advanced. O’Neil’s body screamed at him to run, to charge straight ahead without stopping. Get to the evac point as soon as possible. The influence of the Heikegani Agent on his mind wasn’t helping, either. Animalistic instincts of hunger and aggression egged him on, especially when his body was under extreme duress like it was now. To make matters worse, each block they advanced, he could feel the rising wave of the biochemical cues on his mind.

There were at least a few Hybrids and maybe a Titan or two headed their way. Those creatures wouldn’t be worried about stealth. They would be charging straight ahead.

“They’re going to catch up to us,” O’Neil whispered the next time he and Miguel were at the same corner.

Miguel looked back at the remnants of teams Wraith and Talon. “Yeah, man, they’ve been keeping up a good pace. I wouldn’t worry about them.”

“No, I’m not talking about them,” O’Neil said.

He watched the dawning of realization in Miguel’s expression. “Shit.” He turned back to face Dom, who was rapidly approaching their position. “Chief, O’Neil thinks the FGL’s got bloodhounds on our trail.”

“Of course they do,” Dom said. “Question is, how much time do we have?”

O’Neil paused, sticking his nose into the air. He focused on the tingling sensations coursing up and down his nerves, doing his best to ignore the pain in his back, still wet with blood. Through the dust clouds drifting over the city and the odors of carrion and fire, he detected those hints of the Hybrids and their brethren. Over the time he had spent in the field, he had gotten better at judging their distance from his current position if he took into account the direction of the wind.

“Five to ten minutes,” O’Neil said.

“Not bad,” Dom said. “We can make it to the evac site and have time to bunker down. If we stay low, they might never know we’re there.”

“That’s a lot to hope for, Chief,” Miguel said.

“Hope is all we have now,” Dom said, patting his tac vest’s empty pockets where fresh magazines should be. “Five minutes, you say?”

Before O’Neil could nod, a tremor shook through the streets. The remnants of a mostly collapsed building near them gave way, a pile of rubble shifting and rolling into the street. Cement and stone blocks crashed against a van there. Glass windows shattered and broke, raining down around them. The crack of concrete and stone snapped from the neighboring buildings. A lamppost quivered then fell, crashing across the hood of a sedan.

O’Neil recoiled. He ducked behind the remains of a wall near him. The wave of pheromones hit with a palpable punch, almost knocking him over. And with the pheromones, the darkness returned, pressing over his mind more oppressively than ever.

Something had just emerged from its subterranean prison.

They didn’t have ten minutes. They didn’t even have five. They were out of time.

***

The biting taste of antiseptic in the air mixed heavily with the odor of rot drifting off Sokolov. Lauren had been around other Hybrids before. The magnitude of his stench wasn’t normal. Something was wrong with Sokolov. The longer she had spent in this lab, imprisoned with Navid, the sicker Sokolov had become. He seemed to struggle between coughing fits and nosebleeds. His voice sounded like a hundred-year-old chain-smoker’s.

Even with his evidently terrible health, he hardly ever left the laboratory. The lights in the lab never changed. The only way Lauren tracked time was through Sokolov’s habits. She assumed it was night when the Hybrid scientist’s eyes drooped and he eventually settled down for a nap. The first days they had spent down in this lab, his naps would be woken when Lauren so much as breathed too hard.

Now, with whatever illness had taken him, he slept longer. She looked over at the corner of the lab where he rested on his cot, his eyes clenched tightly as if he was in pain. Dried blood traced the corners of his skeletal lips.

Navid was in his cot on the other side of the lab. She wanted desperately to reach out to him. Maybe she could risk it while Sokolov slept. But she imagined that somewhere, other people were monitoring the lab.

Navid wasn’t sleeping. He merely stared up at the ceiling. The dark circles under his eyes made him appear like a living corpse. More than ever, Lauren wanted to tell him that the Hunters would come. They would save them and his family.

Maybe she was only trying to reassure herself. How could the Hunters possibly know where she was? She had no idea herself.

She had a fantasy of seeing Glenn march through that door, sweep her into his arms, and announce that everything was going to be all right. But for all she knew, Glenn and the others might already be dead. Maybe the FGL was winning the war and humanity was on its collective heels, teetering over the edge of obliteration.

Clenching her fingers into tight fists, she sat at the edge of her cot. She wouldn’t be able to find sleep now. Across the room, Sokolov’s breathing stopped, then he erupted in a coughing fit. She bit her bottom lip for a moment, praying he wouldn’t wake.

The coughing subsided, and Sokolov rolled over.

Lauren stood and drifted slowly toward her lab bench with the folder Sokolov had given her. She opened it and, with a swipe of her hand, spread the contents across the bench again.

The papers described particular neuroreceptors she was supposed to block. The FGL had already designed a drug that could block these particular neuroreceptors. She just needed to design a delivery system like she had done with the Phoenix Compound and even the chelating agent long before that.

The project definitely had something to do with shielding Skulls from the Pacifist Fog.

Back when she had worked on the chemical weapon at Frankfurt, they had characterized the various factors produced by Hybrids to influence Skull behavior. They hadn’t completely figured out how the pheromones worked, but through some iterative experiments, they did succeed in developing a weapon that provided a calming effect over the Skulls, putting them into a trance of sorts.

She had a whole list of neuroreceptors within a Skull’s brain she suspected were affected by the chemical cues exuded by the Hybrids. But with the FGL breathing down their necks, they hadn’t had time to explore the basic science of the Pacifist Fog. All they could do was put the crude weapon together and then ensure it worked.

Then the FGL had kidnapped her and Navid before bombing the Frankfurt facility into oblivion.

Putting the papers back together, she closed the folder. The work wouldn’t be that difficult. In a matter of days or weeks, she could get a working prototype. Then the FGL could produce their anti-Pacifist Fog drug. They’d be able to inoculate entire populations of Skulls against the Pacifist Fog, rendering one of the most powerful NATO weapons obsolete.

A glance across the room told her that Sokolov was still asleep. He might watch them closely in the lab, but he couldn’t read her mind. Lauren vowed to delay her work as long as possible, thinking up bogus experiments she could run to make it seem like she was making progress.

But she couldn’t do this alone. She tiptoed toward Navid’s section of the lab and reached for the folder Sokolov had given him. Her plan to delay her own research would last only as long as Navid delayed his.

It was possible that they were redundant pieces in the scientific puzzle, each working independently on the same challenge. If they had different projects entirely, that complicated things. Her fingers traced the edges of Navid’s folder, and suddenly she felt eyes on the back of her neck.

Navid sat upright at the end of his cot, his eyes burning into hers. He stood slowly and walked over to her then put his palm down on the folder.

“They want me to block the Phoenix Compound,” he whispered.

Something dark tugged at Lauren’s insides. That answered her question. Two separate projects, both intended to neutralize NATO’s only chemical weapons against the Oni Agent and the Skulls.

“You know we can’t do that,” Lauren replied.

Sokolov coughed, and they both froze up. When his rasping breathing returned to normal—or at least normal for the ailing Hybrid—she continued.

“We can’t help them do this,” Lauren said.

A wet sheen covered Navid’s eyes. “My family.”

“I know. But delay your results,” Lauren said. “As long as possible. Make it look like we’re working hard, but take only the least effective baby steps.”

Navid said nothing, his lips pressed tight. He looked as if a strong wind would tear him apart. “My family is relying on me.”

“The world is relying on us,” Lauren said softly.

-26-

Meredith scanned the street for shelter. The buildings here were nearly in ruins. Broken walls revealed the guts of the buildings like macabre cutaway dollhouses where the furniture was broken and battered and the dolls were desiccated corpses.

The ground trembled. A chorus of roars and shrieks exploded through the streets. O’Neil, Miguel, and Dom were a block ahead of her. She was near the end of the pack with Glenn, Andris, and Jenna.

“In here!” Meredith cried as the shaking grew worse. She jerked her head toward the closest building.

Glass shattered above her, sprinkling her with crystalline shards as another set of windows gave way. She used a hand to shield her face and continued into the building. Like the others lining these blocks, massive holes carved wide entrances, making the still-standing doors look ridiculous. She dove into one of those holes with Glenn, Jenna, and Andris on her tail.

A swampy odor of rotting meat hit Meredith. The group scanned the room with flashlights. Gravel and glass crunched underfoot as Meredith backed away from the hole in the wall near the center of the room, between all the cots and makeshift patient beds. IV tubes tangled around fallen poles, the bags hanging from them long since emptied of contents. In nearly every bed lay a skeleton. Blankets were draped over their tattered forms.

Andris bumped into a stretcher, knocking it aside and spilling the corpse onto the floor. The dried bones clattered, and he stepped on a femur in his attempt to right himself. The femur snapped in two, the audible crack ringing against the walls.

A rasping growl exploded from behind her.

The Skull came at her in a half lurch, its mouth chattering. There were no eyeballs in its sockets. Immediately, she recognized the thing as a Slinger. One of its hands rose as the monster prepared to launch a volley of claws.

But nothing jutted from the tips of its fingers. No claws on the other hand, either. The Slinger’s hand shot forward. Meredith ducked on instinct. Caution was better than confidence even though she was sure the Slinger was out of ammo.

She tackled the weakened Slinger. Caving its head in with the stock of her rifle took no more effort than if she had been beating up a carton of eggs. This thing was weak, starved. Probably hadn’t had enough nourishment in this destroyed medical clinic to regenerate its missing claws.

“Anything else?” Meredith asked.

Glenn and Jenna scoured the rest of the room. The ground shook more violently. Andris peered behind the counters at the other corner of the room. He paused at a set of stairs at the back.

“They’re here,” Dom said, his voice nearly a whisper through the comm link. “Everyone, stay down.”

Meredith ran behind the counter where Andris, Jenna, and Glenn were. She peered around the corner, watching the holes in the wall, praying that whatever was headed their way wouldn’t be interested in this clinic. Soon, shapes moved along the street, lunging between the vehicles, their shadows stretched by the meager moonlight. Skulls, hundreds of them, stormed past. They carried on with their banshee cries, and judging by their sheer numbers, Meredith knew that there was no way the Hunters, even with the help of the Special Forces, could hold those bastards off.

Between the Skulls navigating the rubble, other creatures jogged forward with awkward, hobbling gaits. Slingers and Droolers, the riflemen of the Skull army. Not far behind them were the Goliaths.

One of the huge beasts knocked aside a car. The vehicle’s car alarm screeched. When it slammed into a building, the car’s roof crumpled. Other Goliaths seemed to ignore the screaming vehicle now that it was out of their way. Normally a siren like that would be answered by an onslaught of curious Skulls. Meredith figured the creatures’ apathy was a sign that the beasts were under the tight leashes of the Hybrids.

The walls started to quiver. A beam in the ceiling broke.

Meredith pointed to it, quietly grabbing the attention of the others. Another beam cracked. The ceiling was going to come down, that much Meredith knew. They couldn’t simply run out the front door now, though. That would be suicide.

The only option, ironically, was to get above the ceiling before it caved in and hope there was another floor above where they could hide. She signaled to the others that they should go up the staircase Andris had spotted earlier.

Meredith jumped over the counter as the shadows of the monsters coursed through the room. Another beam split, a fracture running parallel with its length, and dust fell from the ceiling above the counter.

Glenn, Andris, and Jenna followed Meredith. She took two or three steps at a time, pushing with every bit of strength in her legs. She made it to the second floor in time to watch fractures spread across it like spiderwebs. The moonlight filtering in through the broken windows illuminated the corpses pressed tightly together on patient beds here, too. It suddenly gave way in a sucking black hole. The second floor disappeared, replaced by a billowing wall of dust.

Meredith led the team up again. The rising dust cloud chased them past the third floor then up to the fourth. Here, there were no cracking beams, no supports breaking under the duress of the other floors. They could only pray that while the ceiling of the first floor might’ve given out, the other structural components of the building were sound.

Every time the building trembled, another wave of anxiety flowed through Meredith. She cautiously inched away from the staircase. The floor up here was filled with skeletons sprawled over mats and piles of blankets. Crates were stacked against the walls of the building. Evidently, when the clinic had run out of room on the first three floors, they had turned this storage space into another room for patients.

On the west-facing wall, she noticed a gaping hole. From it, she could see the roof of the next building. A mess of wires and satellite dishes covered it. Meredith inched toward the hole. It was wide enough for her to jump through, and the distance between the two buildings was not so great that Meredith didn’t think she could make it.

But it was just far enough she didn’t want to risk it unless she had to. At least it was a backup exit should the rest of the building give way like the second floor had.

Outside, the march of the Oni Agent monsters continued. Their stampede rattled through the building and straight into Meredith’s bones. She clung to a stanchion on the wall to steady herself as she watched the steady flow of abominable creatures. Far off, she heard the bone-chilling cries of Titans joining the battle, and she half-expected to see the lumbering monsters crash through the street outside the windows.

But instead she saw a vision that frightened her even more.

Chimeras. Dozens of them just like the one they had painstakingly defeated in the underground prison chamber. Atop their shoulders rode Hybrids. Even as they flashed by, she noticed the double white armbands on them. These were the elite units of the FGL.

Meredith’s allies were going to be in for a long fight. The higher-ups had been desperate to take the city by force and uncover the scientific secrets of the FGL. Meredith wondered if that had been a mistake. If maybe they shouldn’t have tried to retake the city but gone straight ahead to leveling it instead. Then again, would that have been enough? The FGL, with their network of facilities around the world, were worse than roaches. In fact, they and the roaches would probably be the only things that would survive a nuclear holocaust.

A shiver snuck down her spine at the trumpeting, metallic sound of the Chimeras’ cries. A moment later, Meredith heard the crash and snap of the third floor going out. The vibrations shook up through the fourth floor, and she saw the first cracks in the floorboards here.

The sound hadn’t gone unnoticed. One of the Chimeras slowed as it went past.

“Down!” Meredith hissed at the others.

Glenn crouched behind some crates. Jenna lay flat behind a stack of mats and soiled rugs, and Andris retreated into the stairwell. Meredith sucked in her breath as if that might help her disappear into the shadows of the beams she hid behind.

The Chimera’s eyeless face appeared in the windows of the room. Those orbless sockets seemed to bore holes wherever it peered. Its tusked mouth opened, and it let out a grating roar that stole Meredith’s breath from her lungs.

Next to the monster’s grotesque head stood one of the Spetsnaz Hybrids. He had his rifle pressed to his shoulder, holding it with one hand as he clung to one of the beast’s horns with his other. His rifle barrel roved over the room. It seemed to settle on the space where Meredith was hiding.

She gulped hard, thinking about her next best options. Run. Leap out that hole in the wall. Grab the attention of the beast and its rider, leading them far from the others.

Or she could take them by surprise, start firing now. Meredith could at least knock out the Hybrid. But it wouldn’t take much more than a couple of swipes from the Chimera to knock down the rest of this decrepit building.

No, her best bet would be to run. Run fast and get them away from the rest of the team. She prepared to jump out of the hole in the wall toward the next roof. If she was lucky, she might actually disappear into the maze of alleys behind the building, prolonging her life awhile longer while the others escaped.

Then another boom echoed over the streets.

Brilliant flashes lit up the night sky as a new wave of antiaircraft fire connected with one of the NATO planes. The Chimera turned away and joined the rest of the charging forces as they advanced toward the front lines. Their stomping footsteps faded almost as quickly as they had arrived.

Meredith let out the breath she had been holding, nearly collapsing on the floor.

“You okay?” Andris asked, stepping toward her.

“I’m going to be a lot better when we’re on a helicopter out of this place,” she said.

-27-

The Chimeras might have continued down their own paths, but the darkness from their presence hadn’t left O’Neil’s mind. He felt caged, boxed in once again. Those brief moments of freedom seemed like a distant memory. All the pain in his back returned with the aggressiveness of a tiger shark tearing into his flesh.

“Forward!” Lang cried over the comm link.

The Special Forces and Hunters rushed out from their hiding spots. A trail of destruction had been left in the wake of the FGL’s advance. Metal tubing and ribs of vehicles stuck up from where cars and trucks had been demolished by the rampaging behemoths. The smell of the Chimeras lingered on the air, reminding O’Neil of butchered meat that had been left too long in the sun.

But most alarming was the direction the beasts had been headed.

O’Neil indicated the road with his claws. “This leads straight toward the evac point.”

“Can we get an alternate?” Dom asked, looking at Lang.

“Thunderbolt HQ, Talon One requesting alternate evac point closer to our position,” Lang said into his radio.

Lang listened intently for a second. O’Neil noted his flaring nostrils and pursed lips.

“We need a goddamn alternate!” Lang snapped into the radio. “There are no contacts in our immediate vicinity, but if we keep moving, we may run into a hell of a lot of them.”

He listened for a moment again. His expression didn’t leave much mystery as to how the other half of the conversation was going.

“Damn it!” Lang said, all but throwing the radio across the asphalt. “They want us to confirm the primary evac site is compromised before they’ll give us an alternate.”

“What more confirmation do those yokels want?” Rabbit asked. “We got a shit-ton of the bastards headed down there.”

“And we’re wide open here,” another added.

“They don’t give a shit,” Lang said. “They want us at the original evac site. They claim it’s the only place they can get in and out.”

“Fine,” Miguel said. “Sooner we get there, the sooner they run out of excuses not to pick us up.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Meredith said, covered in gray dust. “Men sitting in their office chairs are good at coming up with excuses to stay in those chairs.”

They pushed on silently. O’Neil tried to probe their surroundings for potential Hybrids, Skulls, or worse, but the wall the Chimeras had left around his mind stayed put. He couldn’t stand the loss of this sixth sense. One of the few blessings of his cursed body. Now, gone.

“There it is!” Lang finally said.

The building towered above its surroundings. Not because it was particularly tall but because many of the others were in various stages of collapse.

“Is that a hotel?” Jenna asked.

“That’s right,” Lang said. “The old Coral Prince Hotel.”

Half of the hotel was a huge silo-like cylinder. The other half was more rectangular. O’Neil imagined it must look something like a keyhole from overhead. Huge windows graced each floor—except that most of the glass had long since been blown out. Across its wide lawn, dried-out fountains were interspersed with palm trees. Many of the trees stood tall amid the wreckage, a testament to the perseverance of nature.

At Dom’s order, O’Neil took off, loping across the lawn and past the algae-filled pools toward the hotel lobby. Miguel strode by his side, their rifles scanning the promenade where scattered tables and chairs marked what once must have been an elegant outdoor eatery.

Two rotating doors led into the lobby. But they had no need for doors. Instead, they crunched over the broken shards of glass from the destroyed ceiling-to-floor windows. Empty television screens hung on the wall near a bar. The concierge desk still had posters advertising images of historic sites, restaurants, and museums that no longer existed.

“Lobby is clear,” O’Neil said.

The others soon filed in around the mildew-covered sofas. They left footprints in the dust covering the marble floors.

Lang pointed toward another hall. “Emergency stairs just past the elevators. Take them to the roof.”

O’Neil nodded and went ahead with Miguel. They passed an aquarium that was only half-full. The skeletons of fish were suspended in the mass of mold and algae pushing them up from the green water. O’Neil and Miguel paused there to ensure nothing waited for them around the corner where the elevators should be.

He rounded the corner, rifle at the ready. Nothing moved. Near the elevators he found only a pile of discarded luggage. Most of the bags had been torn open, spilling wrinkled and musty clothes over the floor. As he passed the luggage, cockroaches scattered from the nests they had made in the clothes.

O’Neil’s heart beat in anticipation as he approached the stairs. One short climb remained between them and the freedom of an airlift, carrying with them all the secrets they’d stolen from that lab. Whatever else happened in Baghdad and Moscow tonight, they at least had that. It might well be the key to helping anyone afflicted with the Heikegani Agent—including himself.

When he made it to the stairs, he paused, letting Miguel catch up.

“Hall’s clear,” O’Neil reported over the comm links.

The others joined, and they began their ascent. O’Neil caught the odor of death in the air, and occasionally a shriveled Skull lunged lazily at him from where it lay half-starving on the stairs.

As he neared the landing at the top floor, a Skull lurched toward him. O’Neil slashed out with his claws, catching the Skull under its ribs. In one fluid motion, he tossed it over the railing. The Skull shrieked as it fell. Its limbs cracked on the railings as it plummeted. A crunch and splat echoed up when it hit the bottom floor, its limbs askew. A puddle of red spread from its still form.

“Save some fun for the rest of us,” Miguel said.

“Maybe next time,” O’Neil said.

He paused at the access door to the roof. When Lang caught up to them, he signaled for Miguel and O’Neil to open the door. O’Neil’s claws wrapped around the handle. He twisted it and pushed. A strong wind shoved through the open doorway.

At once, he felt a myriad of sensations tugging at him. The darkness in his head played havoc on his emotions, sparking a mindless anger. He wanted to lash out at anything and everything. His muscles quivered as he bit into his bottom lip. He tasted blood.

Miguel raised a brow, asking the question he wouldn’t voice aloud, saving O’Neil from the embarrassment in front of the other Hunters and the Special Forces.

O’Neil forcibly exhaled and pushed past the doorway. He roved his rifle over the rooftop. Luckily, there were no contacts. Just a flat roof with a set of air-conditioning units pressed up against the knee-high wall around the edge of the roof. If there had been contacts up here, O’Neil wasn’t sure he could have aimed properly. His vision was already growing blurry, blackness encroaching around the edges.

A tattered set of sheets flapped in the wind. Cinder blocks, broken lamps, and other heavy objects held down their corners. Almost half were missing, but it was clear that someone had constructed an H with them. Presumably to call for help. Whoever had been responsible for creating this SOS was long since gone. There weren’t any bodies up here, and O’Neil wondered if that person had actually been rescued or had decided help was never coming.

He hoped they’d been rescued.

“Form up along the perimeter,” Dom said to the Hunters, pointing to the edges of the roof. “We’ve got to keep this place secure until air support arrives.”

O’Neil found his spot next to an air-conditioning unit as Lang spread out his remaining Special Forces operators. Dust clouds and smoke rose from the edge of the city where the NATO ground clashed with the FGL. The Tigris River below reflected the orange-and-red shimmer of erupting fire in the sky. O’Neil thought he saw the shapes of Titans moving in the distance, shouldering between buildings.

“Contacts!” Andris shouted, his eye pressed against the scope of his MK11. “They are headed our direction.”

O’Neil didn’t need the sniper rifle’s scope to see the Skulls swarming toward them. The screams and shrieks were loud enough, rising into the air above the sounds of the fight toward the southeast of the city.

“I am seeing the big beasts, too,” Andris said.

The darkness pulsated in O’Neil’s mind. He wanted to dig his claws into his own skull and tear it out.

“Maybe they aren’t coming for us,” Jenna offered hopefully. “There’s no way they know we’re here.”

But O’Neil knew that wasn’t true. “They are. And they do.”

She looked almost hurt. He was sorry to be so blunt. But like him, she must have known the horrible truth. Company was incoming. No way was an airlift going to make it to the hotel before the FGL did.

“How did they follow us?” Glenn asked.

O’Neil wondered if it had something to do with him. Maybe when he’d tried to exert his influence over those Skulls, the FGL Hybrids had sensed him. But that seemed unlikely in the mess of odors and pheromones drifting in the air of the battlefield.

“Shit,” Dom said. “Think they got us with a tracker?”

“It’s got to be in the meds,” Meredith said. “Or maybe the computers we stole from them.” She started tearing through her pack.

“No,” Lang said, standing between them. “They wouldn’t have passed us by earlier if that were the case.” He looked down at his radio. “They’ve been listening in.”

“You think so?” Jenna asked.

He pointed to the front lines of the battle. “Look, the NATO forces should’ve broken through an hour or more ago. They should be in the city center. The FGL is outgunned and outnumbered. But it looks like they’ve preempted our every move... they’ve probably broken our encryptions.”

“Fuck,” Miguel said, kicking at the roof.

A few of the other Special Forces operators shared his sentiments.

Lang called HQ and reported that they’d made it to the evac site. They were ready for a ride out and contacts were on their way. He told them to make it quick.

O’Neil was having trouble concentrating. He tried desperately to cling to reality. Every foot closer the beasts came down that road, he felt his head swell with the darkness inside him.

Lang dropped the radio. “It’s too hot,” he said heavily. “We’re losing out there. They can’t expend any more resources. Sounds like the bombs are going to start dropping soon, too.”

O’Neil had to do everything in his power not to scream in primal fury.

Jenna piped up, “So after they pick us up, they’re blasting the city?”

Lang shook his head. “They’re not coming for us at all.”

-28-

Dom pressed his binos to his eyes. He surveyed the monsters headed their direction. Across the city, bright flashes of gunfire marked where battles raged.

“I can’t believe they’re going to leave us here,” Jenna said. “They could delay the bombing. Give us a chance to get out on our own.”

Dom lowered the binos. “And that would give the FGL more time to leave, too. HQ knows about the JIC now. They know the FGL is already shipping out.”

“If they’re going to level the city anyway, why even bother with the invasion? Why telegraph it like they did?” Lang spat. “This is their fault. Their oversight.”

Dom’s memories of losing the Huntress were too raw to see this as just an oversight. “They’re not that foolish.”

“What do you mean?” Lang asked.

“How do you get rid of a nest of cockroaches?”

Lang gave him a nonplussed look. “Excuse me?”

“You don’t just stomp them one by one,” Dom said. “You bait their nest then poison them all.”

“You’re saying we’re the bait,” Lang said.

“I’m saying this whole attack is the bait. Maybe the brass wanted to see if we’d succeed. But they spent days amassing troops in plain sight. The FGL had time to draw in their defenses, bring reinforcements back to the cities. Makes it a lot easier to bomb them all when they’re in one place, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t believe it,” Lang said. “They had to know the FGL might just run instead of concentrating their forces here.”

“They probably did,” Dom said. “But that was the gamble. If the FGL ran, they would get Moscow and Baghdad without having to waste more time, people, and ordnance.”

“But now, the FGL is defending the cities and getting their assets the hell out of here,” Lang said.

“Worst-case scenario,” Dom said, “which is why I bet the brass doesn’t want to waste any more time before they turn this city into dust.”

“And turn us into dust,” Miguel said darkly.

“To those guys at the conference tables, we’re all just numbers,” Dom said. “And if the numbers look better when you bait and bomb the FGL, then that’s what you do.”

Lang looked lost for a moment, his eyes staring up at some point in the distance only he could see. “Shit.”

“Yeah, shit is right,” Miguel said. “So, what the hell do we do now?”

“We can’t stay here,” Meredith said.

“The FGL will be on us in minutes,” O’Neil said. “We going to fight them off?”

Dom noticed the red pulsing in his eyes and the way his bone plates seemed to bristle at the suggestion of imminent combat. He’d need to keep an eye on O’Neil. They had the higher ground up here, but they were running out of ammunition. And if air support took too long to reach them, they wouldn’t last. All night they had been running from the FGL. He hated running. But what else could they do?

“As soon as we move, we’ll need to tell HQ,” Lang said. “We move, the FGL follows.”

“We’re not telling HQ anything,” Dom said.

Lang spread a hand wide to indicate the city around them. “Then how in the hell are we getting out of here?”

“We’ve got our own lines,” Dom said. “If comms to HQ are compromised, we can’t use them. We’ll use our link to the Huntress as a backchannel.”

“And what if you’re wrong? What if your backchannel is compromised?” Lang asked.

Dom nearly laughed at the ludicrousness of it all. He missed the good old days, when they chased two-bit terrorists across the globe as contractors for the CIA. Everything was infinitely more complicated now. “Then we’re no better or worse off than before.”

“It’s a risk,” Glenn said, “but we got to take it.”

“Tonight’s rodeo has been a disaster,” Rabbit said. “I’m with them.”

Lang looked at his men then at Dom. “You’re right. It’s a risk we’ve got to take. We need to get those drugs out of this city.”

Dom nodded. “Worst-case scenario, if we don’t get air support, we go back to ground. We’ll sneak our way out of this city.”

“Or pick a place to hide until the FGL has had its ass thoroughly kicked,” Miguel said.

Rabbit looked out over the city. “Doesn’t look like they’re the ones getting their asses kicked.”

Dom hated giving up a spot like this with perfect sight lines. Going back to street level didn’t offer them near the same advantage. They couldn’t study their enemies’ movements from the ground. Of course, having less intel on enemy maneuvers was still preferable to being slaughtered.

“Let’s pack up and move,” Dom said.

Lang reiterated the command to his own men as if it didn’t count unless he said it. They were already moving anyway. Miguel and O’Neil surged ahead to the roof access door, automatically taking point. Before they could open it, a chorus of Skull shrieks exploded from below the hotel.

Rabbit rushed to the side of the roof and peered over the side. “Holy shit, y’all! We got more Skulls!”

Dom joined the man and risked a look. Across the courtyard of the hotel, Skulls charged, claws outspread. They rushed the lobby of the hotel. Behind their ranks, Dom saw a squad of Hybrids. They wore the same double armbands as the other Spetsnaz Hybrids. These ones must’ve traveled under the cover of the river bank, flanking Dom and his team while they had been watching the more distant horde’s approach.

“How’d they make it so fast?” Jenna asked.

The Skulls would be funneling up the stairs now. The Hunters checked their magazines, readying themselves. It was going to be a bloody fight to the bottom through that blender of bony claws and teeth. And by the time they did—if they did—the other FGL horde with the Chimeras and Goliaths would be just in time to join the fun.

“Stairs aren’t going to work,” Lang said, reaching the same conclusion.

“Nope,” Dom agreed. He ran toward the other side of the roof facing the Tigris. “We’ve got another way down. Hunters, belay ropes!”

Andris and the other Hunters rifled through their packs. Dom opened the door to the stairwell. He secured his climbing rope to one of the support posts. The other Hunters did the same.

“I’m going to take a wild guess and say you all don’t have your own rigs,” Dom said to Lang. It was standard equipment for the Hunters given the number of times they’d been forced to scale buildings or other structures.

Lang shook his head.

“Carabiners?” Dom asked.

“Plenty,” Lang said.

“Good. We can use those.”

He showed Lang how to construct a makeshift belay device out of five carabiners. Climbers once used this type of setup before actual belay devices became popular, so it wasn’t unproven technology. He had to repeat that fact several times to a few of the Special Forces troops who weren’t convinced by the MacGyver-style rigs.

If that didn’t convince them, he would let the Skulls do the rest of the talking.

Dom scoped the banks of the Tigris, ensuring no Skulls were waiting for them down there. The Special Forces operators began looping the climbing cords into their impromptu belay devices.

“Here goes nothing,” Rabbit said.

He hopped over the side. Two more men followed and started their descent with him.

As the men touched the ground, Dom sent the next group down. Andris, Glenn, and Jenna made it down next. A handful more of the remaining Special Forces operators did as well, lowering themselves over the side and pushing off, letting gravity drag them slowly down to the earth. Meredith, Lang, and Dom finally clipped their belaying devices onto one of the ropes, along with the last group of Special Forces.

The high-pitched cries of the Skulls grew louder. In another twenty or so seconds, the first of the monsters would emerge onto the rooftop, desperately searching for a chunk of fresh meat to sink its fangs into. Dom hoped the team would disappear into the shadows by then.

Fate had other ideas. Two Hybrids appeared over the edge of the roof opposite where Dom was preparing to descend. Their gazes swept the roof.

“Go, go, go!” Dom yelled to the others.

He jumped over the side, dropping several feet before swinging back toward the wall. The Hybrids would either simply cut the lines or head over the roof, picking the Hunters off with ease.

Dom expected the attack with every heartbeat. His boots slammed against the wall as he swung back then shoved himself into open space again. Gravity pulled him farther down. The cord ran through his belay device as he swung back toward the wall, moon-jumping down as fast as he could.

A loud growl exploded to his left. He spun instinctively. Claws raked the air, and he twisted in time to avoid a suicidal attack from a Skull throwing itself from one of the windows. The beast tumbled away, still reaching out for Dom as it slapped against the ground.

Dom had considered the dangers of the monsters surging up the stairwell and now, apparently, the other face of the hotel. But he had neglected to consider the FGL would have been performing a comprehensive search of the hotel, leaving no moldy, rotten bed unturned as they searched for the Hunters and the Special Forces. He looked into one of the broken windows of the hotel as he swung back toward the wall. Skulls roiled through the room like a surging wave, crashing against each other. As one, their eyes locked onto Dom.

Shrieking and wailing, the monsters rushed toward the broken window. The bones scything out of their bodies knocked away the few glass shards remaining in the frames. Most of the beasts jumped at Dom, risking their lives for a taste of blood. He kicked off from the wall, heart pounding, and yanked hard on the rope to throw himself out of their way.

“Look out, Chief!” Miguel yelled from the bottom of his rope.

One of the monsters had crawled out onto the window ledge and begun scaling the wall down toward Dom. Its mouth opened, a gray, wormy tongue rattling against its teeth as long ropes of saliva stretched between its cracked lips. The Skull’s claws found crevices within the porous stone façade of the hotel as it scrambled down toward Dom.

He once again pushed himself away from the wall, but the creature lashed out first. It snagged the rope, pulling the cord back toward the wall and slamming Dom hard against it.

Pain flamed through his shoulder and his fingers as they smashed against the stone. His spine hit the wall next as he spun. The monster crawled like an oversized, bony spider, its muscles rippling underneath its bone plates as it prepared to lunge.

Dom finally stopped himself from spinning with one boot. He let go of the rope with one hand then pulled out his sidearm. The Skull let out a scream, and Dom fired. Rounds lanced into the monster’s face and chest, silencing it. The fresh corpse fell toward him, and once again he pushed himself away.

The shots had not gone unnoticed. Not by the frenzied Skulls who now poured out of the windows like demonic hail. Nor by the Hybrids who ran to the edge of the roof, looking over. One caught sight of Dom.

Dom fired wildly at the half-man even as the rope swung. All the Hybrid had to do was slice through that rope, and Dom was done for. The world seemed to blur as his mind processed possible outcomes. Skulls careened from broken windows. Glass and beasts rained down around Dom as he shot.

The Hybrid recoiled, a red mist puffing from his shoulder.

Got him! Dom thought.

The forces on the ground provided cover fire, keeping the rest of the Hybrids and Skulls back. Bodies pumped full of bullets fell around Dom.

He kicked at the wall, trying to gain traction with his boots. A yell exploded to Dom’s left as one of the climbing ropes gave way. Attached to that rope was one of the Special Forces soldiers. As the rope went slack, he fell, arms pinwheeling, legs kicking. Skulls jumped out of the window after him.

Another rope went slack, and the operator attached to it fell. His descent was only a single story, and Dom guessed he would get by with only a sprained ankle. But then he saw Meredith’s line began to go slack at the top. She was desperately bounding down the wall, but a fall from her height would likely result in a broken leg or ankle, which might well be fatal out here.

“Mere!” Dom cried. “Hold on!”

“The hell do you think I’m doing?” she cried back.

He gathered all his strength and kicked off the wall, swinging toward her rope. With one hand, he reached out for hers. The rope above her gave way, sliced by the Hybrid on the roof. Their fingers touched. Gravity started to tug Dom backward, away from her.

Images of her falling and cracking against the ground flashed through his mind, tearing at his heart. He couldn’t lose her like that.

Her fingers intertwined with his.

Then the rope above her fell, and all her weight was on his shoulder, tugging at it violently, reigniting the pain from old injuries. But none of that compared to the pain he felt at the thought of losing her.

“I’ve got you,” he said. “I’ve always got you.”

Lang touched ground just as his rope was cut. Dom’s was next. There was no time for Meredith to even attempt attaching her belaying device to the rope. They had merely a second or two before they would be in free fall. They had to get closer to the ground before the line dropped.

Holding on to her with one arm, Dom pushed himself off the wall, letting the rappelling line race through his other hand. Meredith clung to him, helping to kick off from the wall. When a Skull leapt from a window nearby, she released one hand from him to shove the Skull aside, letting it drop with a violent smack of bone against concrete.

Above, a few of the Skulls peered over the side of the roof, salivating as they surveyed their prey. Pops of gunfire sounded from the Hunters and Special Forces on the ground as they picked off anyone or anything trying to attack Dom and Meredith from the roof.

Dom kicked off the wall again. They were now passing the second floor. Meredith’s added weight accelerated their descent. But before they could make it to the first floor, the rope snapped.

-29-

Meredith felt her stomach flip as she plummeted toward the ground, holding onto Dom. Her boots hit first. She let her knees buckle. Momentum took her as she rolled forward, doing her best to soften her fall. She tumbled over her pack and the tangled climbing cord. Pinpricks of pain blossomed around her arms.

At first, she worried it was the sensation of losing control of her muscles. Maybe she’d hit the ground hard enough to snap something vital in her back.

But when she pushed herself to her feet, she saw the crystal shards of glass poking out from her fatigues. She had landed on the remnants of all those broken windows from above, soaking the glass up as she rolled, like a sponge absorbing water. There was no time now to pull all those shards from her flesh.

The Skulls were still throwing themselves from the windows and roof.

“You okay?” Lang asked, dusting himself off as he joined her, his rifle pointed toward the second-floor window. Before she could answer him, he squeezed the trigger, rattling off a burst of fire that cut into the Skulls poised to pounce there.

“I’m fine,” Meredith lied.

She strode toward Dom. He hadn’t made it quite as far as her. When they had landed, she had fallen on top of him, making the impact much worse for him than her. He started to push himself up from the pavement. Glass glistened over him like he was covered in water. Blood streamed from his face.

A Skull hit the ground near him. Its ankle shattered. Splinters of bone jutted from its gray oozing flesh. Nevertheless, the Skull hobbled toward Dom with claws outstretched. Others landed behind it, pouring out of the windows.

Meredith fired at the first Skull. Lang helped cover her from the others. The monsters went down in waves.

“Dom, can you get up?” Meredith asked.

She wanted desperately to pull him away from the firefight. Meredith would have given anything to magically teleport him to the med bay on the Huntress. It was only a matter of time before the Hybrids on the roof would mount a counterattack. The cover fire provided by the Hunters and Special Forces wouldn’t keep them away forever. They had to move. But Dom might be severely injured. Hurrying him might only worsen his injuries.

Then again, worsened injuries were better than death.

“I think I’ll live,” Dom said. He tried to push up to his feet again, but his ankle nearly buckled. Under the grime and blood covering him, his face was pale. “My goddamn ankle.”

“Here,” Meredith said, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. She helped him hobble back toward Lang, who was still firing desperately into the ranks of Skulls screaming down from the hotel. She allowed herself the briefest moment to lean her head against his. It was the closest thing to an embrace they could manage. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll try not to do it again.”

“We’ve got to move,” Lang said as they joined the others. “We’re dead here.”

Past the rest of the group, the Tigris river churned, its murky waters lapping up against the shore. Skulls were starting to surround their position, giving them very little room for escape. They had no vehicles, and Dom’s ankle, even if it was just sprained, wouldn’t let him run.

To Meredith, there was only one real option.

“We’ve got to take the river!” she said. “Stay close!”

She gave no time for anyone to offer their dissent. Her heart raced as she pushed toward the shore, nearly slipping on the grass. The shards of glass tore into her skin with every movement.

“You up for this?” Meredith asked Dom.

“I can manage a lazy river ride.”

“This river doesn’t look so lazy,” Meredith said.

Andris and Glenn helped O’Neil into the water. Skulls and Hybrids were notoriously bad swimmers thanks to the weight of their bony plates. O’Neil would be at a similar disadvantage, and Meredith hoped that his comrades could keep him afloat. There wasn’t any time to be gentle. No time to find an alternate solution. FGL Hybrids had now braved the edge of the roof and fired down on them. Skulls swarmed around the building, still throwing themselves out of windows and the lobby as they made a mad dash toward their prey. And the metal-scraping shrieks of the Chimeras only grew louder.

It would be a matter of seconds before one of those things was close enough to start slinging its claws or spraying them down with acid.

So Meredith trusted in the Tigris. The cold water rushed over her body, and she kicked off from the muddy shore with Dom in tow. O’Neil kicked desperately to keep his head above water. The former Navy SEAL barely managed to stay afloat, but Glenn and Andris stayed by his side.

The water carried Meredith away. The bodies of the Special Forces soldiers they’d lost on the shore were soon covered by Skulls. The Skulls fought with each other to tear into the corpses, blood and flesh spraying from their tearing claws. Others surged into the river, quickly disappearing under the waves.

Soon, three of the Chimeras appeared around the side of the hotel, Hybrids on their shoulders. One of the Chimeras rocked its arm back and launched a pair of claws toward Meredith and Dom. The claws had no chance of hitting them, as far as they were from the Chimeras, but that didn’t make the spectacle any less frightening.

Even as the Tigris carried them away, Meredith feared it wouldn’t be long before they saw those unholy beasts again.

***

Sokolov craned his neck, watching Lauren as she worked at the lab bench. Mucus caked his nostrils. Each exhale brought with it the fetid odor of a thousand dead fish baking in the sun. All the while, he traced his claws over the bench, scraping grooves in its surface as he stared at the tubes she held between her gloved fingers.

“What is the plan?” he asked her.

“Do the work you assigned to me,” Lauren said, doing her best to sound dead inside.

“Are you being smart with me?”

Lauren cowered from him, hoping to look sincere. “No. I’m trying to characterize these drugs. I want to see if I can adapt them to block those neurotransmitters.”

Sokolov’s eyes narrowed behind his bony mask. He swept his gray tongue over his pointed teeth as he studied her. “All right. I expect to see your report in less than twenty-four hours.”

Lauren nearly laughed, but she bit the inside of her cheeks to stop herself. Twenty-four hours was a ludicrous timetable. She could never tell if Sokolov was a talented scientist or a quack who knew just enough to make himself seem like a real doctor. This demand pushed him toward the “quack” end of the spectrum.

She didn’t even know what these drugs were. She had just been given them by Sokolov and told they were what the FGL had on hand. How was she supposed to run her tests and write her reports in less than a day?

This was probably some kind of test. Maybe this whole first experimental objective had already been figured out by the FGL. They just wanted her to run the same experiments to see if she would give them the results they already knew. Then they could be sure she was properly broken.

God, the whole thing gave her a headache.

“You look confused,” Sokolov said. “Can you not do the work?”

“I’m just... thinking,” Lauren said as meekly as she could. It was the truth after all.

If Sokolov detected any double meaning behind those words, he certainly didn’t let on. “Good,” he said before moving on to Navid.

As he moved, Sokolov began coughing. He hunched over as saliva and blood sprayed into his bony palm. Lauren shot Navid a glance that she hoped he understood: Please, remember what I said. Delay your experiments as long as possible.

She still wasn’t sure if she had convinced him. The stakes for him were higher. His family’s lives were on the line if he didn’t capitulate to the FGL’s demands.

And he was smart. Damn smart. From what she had seen of his assignment, it wouldn’t be too difficult for him. Maybe he would rush through his project and deliver what the FGL wanted.

Lauren guessed the FGL would still kill his family anyway. Eventually, the hostages would outlive their usefulness.

“You are making progress, too?” Sokolov asked, surveying Navid’s work.

“Yes, Doctor,” Navid said. “This should be easy.”

The words stung. Lauren wanted him to lie and say how difficult the project would be. Maybe even say he didn’t have the right supplies. They couldn’t expedite the project without more resources. Come up with some excuse as to why it would take a long time.

“I am glad you think this is so easy,” Sokolov said, his accent thick through his nasally, rasping voice. “I will need a report from you tomorrow as well. We must send everything you do here to the front lines immediately. If we do not, every day that there is no progress, you will feel our displeasure.” He stared at his claws as he spoke, his fingers moving as if caressing skin before he dug his talons in. Then he stopped looking at his bony hand and glared at Navid. “Your family will feel it most of all.”

Lauren could practically hear Navid gulp. His already sickly complexion turned a shade grayer, and he swiveled back to his work. Sokolov strode away, apparently satisfied that his slaves would do the work he demanded. The illusion of confidence was quickly ruined by a coughing fit that nearly toppled the Hybrid.

While the half-man was doubled over, blood dripping from his nose, Lauren averted her gaze. No use in hurting the man’s pride. Any emotional injury there would likely be paid in kind with physical harm to her.

She tried to focus on the pipette again, trying to remember which sample was in the thin plastic pipette tip. But something heavy dragged down her mind, pulling her from any focused research-related thoughts. She pictured the completed results of her project. How the FGL would be deploying these new remedies among their troops, the Skulls, and civilians. People would transform into monsters, wondering why their governments had failed to protect them.

The Hunters would lay down a curtain of Pacifist Fog. But instead of being met with subdued and docile Skulls, they would be torn apart, left bleeding and asking why their scientists had lied to them. She might as well have taken the gunpowder from the bullets they fired, the explosives from their grenades.

Then, through her despair, she saw a brilliant light appear. It flickered, like a candle unsure of the wind, but it was there. An idea. Something Sokolov had said resonated with her, and she clung to his words, rehashing them in her head over and over.

We must send everything you do here to the front lines immediately.

That was it. That was her way out of here.

She had no idea if the Hunters knew where they were. Judging by how long they had been in captivity, she doubted that they knew she was still alive. Navid probably was right—no one was coming.

Not yet.

Sokolov was still hacking up whatever bone-covered lungs he had left. Lauren looked at Navid and gave him a smile. The biggest shit-eating grin she could muster. It must have looked hideous with the bruises and the broken nose. But Navid gave her the ghost of a smile in return.

He was still on her side.

The Hunters and their allies didn’t know where she and Navid were. It was up to her to make them a map. Lauren would have to play along with the FGL a little longer, but she could endure anything as long as she had hope.

She stood up a little straighter, raising the pipette. It was time to get to work.

-30-

O’Neil sputtered and coughed as the river wrapped itself around him like a python. He had excelled as a SEAL. Maneuvering through water had come as naturally to him as breathing. Even rough waves or whitewater rapids didn’t send him panicking. He understood the power of water. The relentless churn. He understood that he shouldn’t fight against it, but rather he should find those little pockets of calmness.

A human against water would never win. They swam perpendicular to the riptide rather than against it if they wanted to escape its hold.

As a Hybrid, everything was different. The only thing he could do with any reliability was sink.

The weight of his organic armor dragged him under. His claws were better at slicing than they were at paddling.

Pathetic.

It was only by the grace of Glenn and Andris putting up with him that he could swim at all. If only his old SEAL brothers-in-arms could see him now.

Get ahold of yourself!

That’s what they would say. That’s what he needed to do. He stopped trying to paw uselessly at the water with his claws. All that did was spray water over Glenn and Andris. Instead, he focused on kicking, pumping his legs as hard as he could.

He was no longer a SEAL. He had to accept that.

As he resigned himself to this cold reality, the pain along his back swelled. He didn’t want to think about what kind of toxic gunk swam in this water. The heat roaring through his flesh told him something might have already taken hold. He did his best to ignore the agony and focused his mind instead on blocking out the darkness from the Chimeras.

Christ, if this isn’t the most perfect of perfect storms...

“Shore!” Dom yelled out, his voice loud above the slapping waves and the sounds of distant gunfire. “There!”

The Special Forces leading the group were clinging together, forming a living life raft of sorts, and they pushed themselves toward the bank of the Tigris. As they approach the muddy edges of the river, they held out hands to catch the others swimming by.

Andris and Glenn kicked toward them. One of the operators took hold of O’Neil’s shoulder. That reignited the pain in the shorn bone, and he had to bite his lip to refrain from yelling. Soon enough, his feet sucked into the mud at the bottom of the river. The current still tugged at him, daring him to go back in deeper. He pushed through the water, fighting against the current and the weight of his armor, feeling like gravity had just doubled.

He had made it onto the riverbank and collapsed in the reeds. He gasped for air. Each time his lungs expanded, a sharp, jabbing pain screamed from his spine.

“Everyone accounted for?” Lang asked, looking around the group.

“Everyone that’s left,” Rabbit said.

The soldiers murmured to each other. Some were on all fours, gasping like O’Neil. Jenna was leaning on Miguel as she sucked in breath after breath. As far as O’Neil could tell, everyone who had made it to the river had climbed out again.

O’Neil recovered his breathing enough to talk again. “Where to now?”

“You reading anything on the air?” Dom asked.

“No,” O’Neil said. His mind was still as dark as space. “Not with the Chimeras around.”

“We need higher ground,” Meredith said.

“You’re still hoping for an air rescue?” Lang said. “You heard HQ.”

“I’m not expecting anything from them,” Dom said. “We’re taking this into our own hands.”

The boom of distant explosions rattled the city. A series of fiery-orange clouds blossomed somewhere closer to the center of the city. O’Neil couldn’t tell what had caused the blasts, but it looked like the fighting had spread. Tracer rounds and bursts of fire filled the air. But at least where they were, things were quieter. Almost as if they were watching a fireworks show from the riverbank rather than a brutal war.

The voices screaming over the public comm channels shattered that illusion. There were constant calls for reinforcements and retreats, medics and support.

O’Neil muted the public channel and focused on the people in front of him. Lang and Dom consulted over their maps. The rest of the team had spread out, bristling with weapons as they searched the night for signs of contacts. They seemed to be at the edge of a park bordering the river. Dead grass crunched underfoot, and brown leaves flaked off of the few trees that remained.

He squinted, peering into the darkened city streets around them. Beyond the façades of storefronts and cafes lining the street closest to the river, he saw a sand-colored building rising from the rest. Half of it seemed to have been shorn away as if a Titan had taken its claws through the building. Rubble piled up around the side. O’Neil had no idea what the place had been in its previous life. But one thing he did know was that it was at least as tall as the Coral Prince Hotel they had abandoned.

“There,” O’Neil said, pointing a claw toward it. “What is that?”

Lang looked at where O’Neil was indicating. Then his eyes traced back to his map. “Ah, Baghdad Teaching Hospital.” He looked back at the building. “If I’ve learned anything during this war, it’s that hospitals are downright deadly. Filled with all kinds of creatures.”

“That hospital doesn’t look like it’s filled with anything anymore,” Miguel said, pointing at the rubble and exposed interior of the place.

“It’s our best bet,” O’Neil said. “The sight lines in this part of the city will be unbeatable. Let’s take it.”

Dom put away his binos, nodding. “They’ve got to have a helipad there. And it’ll give us a good landmark for our air rescue.”

Lang raised a brow.

“Trust me,” Dom said. “Even if HQ isn’t going to respond, I know someone who will.”

***

Frank Battaglia spit out the coffee he’d been drinking. Maybe he was overreacting. Maybe he’d heard Chao Li wrong.

Either way, he’d just wasted coffee.

But then again, the coffee was decaf. Decaf coffee didn’t count. He could pour the whole damn pot out over the floor of the mess tent he was sitting in, and he doubted anyone would actually miss it. What the hell was the point of hot shit-water if it didn’t have caffeine?

Focus, Frank. Ah, right, but that wasn’t the important part.

The two crew members of the Huntress who were going to serve as his gunners looked at him expectantly. He held up a single finger and spoke back into the comm link.

“No more airlift?” Frank asked.

“That’s what Dom says.”

“Look, Chao, here’s the deal. From what I hear, the fiesta in Baghdad-town is getting a little spicy. FGL has had enough of the rabble-rousers, and they’re throwing people out left and right. Battle ain’t going well. They need that airlift.”

“That’s what Dom said. Command told Dom the best thing they can do was sneak out on foot. Otherwise they got to hope they live through the bombing that’s about to start.”

Frank pushed his comm link more snugly in his ear. He’d nearly dozed off earlier. He’d been bored sitting around at Forward Operating Base Bravo-66. All night, he had been waiting for a call from the higher-ups here, waiting for them to rally him and the other chopper pilots for the air evac they’d been promised was coming.

Instead, he’d been sitting here, twiddling his damn thumbs with the rest of his crew, listening to the other pilots gossip like schoolgirls. He’d heard them say a whole special ops team had been wiped out of the air before they’d landed. Then he’d heard that the troops over in Moscow were losing their battle. Last tidbit of gossip he’d heard the pilots chewing on was some gab about a full-scale retreat from Baghdad.

None of that sounded right. He knew the FGL was strong. But were they strong enough to defeat everything NATO could throw at them?

“You’re screwing with me, Chao,” Frank said. “For a second there, I thought you said orders were that the Hunters, Wraith, and Talon were supposed to lay low for the night or leisurely hike out of that Skull-strewn city while the bombs drop.”

“This isn’t a joke, Battaglia,” Chao said. “Dom was in contact with me not more than two minutes ago.”

“That cheeky Lang character let Dom call you?”

“Apparently the channels with Thunderbolt HQ are compromised. Lang gave him permission.”

“I don’t understand why command isn’t getting them the hell out of there. Especially if they got the goods.”

“That’s the problem,” Chao said. “There’s no confirmation that they do have what HQ wants. Just the Hunters’ word.”

“And of course that ain’t good enough for the brass.”

“Guess not. Brass says they can’t risk the resources in a race against the bombing run.”

Frank slammed his mostly empty cup on the table. “Can’t they postpone the rain of fire until we get our boys and girls out of there?”

“I can’t pretend to know the half of it, but word is that they don’t want to give the FGL time to escape. Dom and Lang think that maybe this was all a feint. Prepare a couple of huge attacks for Baghdad and Moscow, draw all the FGL forces into the cities. Then, while they’re concentrated in one place, decimate them.”

Frank rubbed his temples. He felt the edges of a headache creeping in. Probably some combination of his frustration and the utter lack of caffeine in the garbage water he’d been drinking. “The fuck, Chao?”

“Sorry?”

“I mean, why the fuck is HQ leaving them high and dry?”

“I don’t have answers. Only people that need to be picked up.”

“Shit,” Frank said.

“You going to do it?” Chao asked.

“Seems like a job for Badass Airlines,” Frank said. “’Course, I’ll need help. I can’t fit two twelve-man squads plus the Hunters in one bird.”

“Afraid there’s not much I can do about that,” Chao replied.

“Not to worry,” Frank said, looking around the room. “Just tell me where and when I’m meeting my passengers.”

A minute later Frank had all the details he needed. Frank’s gaze lingered on the other men and women in the mess. He recognized a few of the pilots who had been in the same briefing as him—pilots who were assigned to pick up the Special Forces. He wondered how many of them were up for a little mutiny.

“You boys want to sit around here all night, or you want to go flying with me?” Frank asked, looking at the two gunners.

“I take it this isn’t an authorized mission,” one replied.

“Depends on whose authority matters to you,” Frank said. “One hundred percent authorized by me.”

“And the captain?” the gunner asked.

“He’s requesting it.”

“Then we’re in.”

The gunners understood the risks of flying in low over war-torn terrain. Frank was confident he could miss the brunt of the surviving antiaircraft equipment simply by avoiding radar detection. It would take some insane piloting, but what was he if not insane?

Frank looked conspiratorially at the gunners, raising a finger with each point he listed. “We need backup. We need at least two other choppers to fly with us. And we need some extra firepower.”

He stuck a plastic coffee stirrer between his teeth and chewed it as he scanned the room.

“Which one of these assholes looks as crazy as us?” he mused.

He would be asking for a lot. Disobeying orders. Risking their asses by going. Risking their asses by coming back. Court martials, for sure.

But the reward—bringing back the key to stopping the Heikegani Agent and a bunch of men and women stranded out there who were doing their damnedest to save the world. That had to count for something.

“I’ll be back, boys,” Frank said, standing.

He went right up to the nearest pilots. One was Lieutenant Styles. He was in the middle of throwing a ratty tennis ball at the back of a crate and catching it. Not crazy in itself, but Frank could’ve sworn he’d seen the man steal that tennis ball from one of the wild dogs that lived around the FOB. That was crazy.

The woman next to him, Lieutenant Iglesias, was chewing gum and reading a John Steinbeck novel. The mere fact she was reading classic literature so calmly like that in the middle of an FOB like this made her seem like she sailed to her own wind. Plus, half her head was shaved, and the other half was all long hair, draped over the shaved half. Kind of had a Joan Jett vibe. Frank liked that. In fact, he liked it a lot. But now was not the time to flirt.

She glanced up from her book at him, her eyes flashing.

Okay, maybe just a little flirting.

Frank pulled up a seat next to them and leaned in close. He plucked the coffee stirrer from his mouth and flicked it to the ground. God, he hoped he looked as cool as them.

Who was he kidding?

He looked cooler.

Joan Jett closed her book as the other guy caught the tennis ball and gave Frank the exact stare he was certain the man must’ve used to frighten those wild dogs.

He pointed at Iglesias. “Joan Jett.”

She raised a brow.

Then he pointed at Styles. “Wild Dog.” He leaned back and smiled. “Goddamn, are those some cool names or what?” He brushed a hand through his dark hair. He was damn proud of that hair, and back in the day, it had earned him a name that had stuck with him. Of course, he had never told the Hunters what it was. Miguel would’ve had a field day with it. But these pilots deserved to know.

Frank jabbed a thumb into his chest. “Fabio.”

“What the hell—” Wild Dog started.

Frank held up a finger to stop him. “Look, I’ve got some bad news. Some even badder news. And then some good news.”

As quickly as he could, he explained everything going on. About the war. About the Hunters. The losses the Special Forces had experienced, all the crazy beasts out there, and the cargo that the Hunters and Special Forces might have on them. Frank expected questions about why HQ was abandoning them. At least about what would happen when they returned from this insane mission. His new friends did not disappoint.

“You’re asking us to fly wingmate for you just so we can return to a court-martial?” Joan Jett asked, letting out a sigh.

Frank lifted up his jacket to show his holstered pistol. “If it helps, you can always claim I forced you.” Jett raised a brow. “Which I’m not. Really, I’m not. That’s not how Badass Airlines works. We’re totally voluntary. I’m just giving you an excuse. I’ll gladly go down for you. I mean, throw me under the bus and call it square. Whatever you have to do.” They were both looking at him coolly. Coolest cats he’d ever seen, and he was afraid he was losing them. “Besides, you really want to sit here reading Steinbeck and playing tennis with a wall? Or you want to fly?”

Jett’s brow was still quirked. Might as well have lifted off on its own, a caterpillar-sized helicopter. “Badass Airlines? Fabio?”

“No baggage fees ’cause there’s no baggage. No meal service, either.”

“What in the hell is wrong with you?” Wild Dog asked. He pointed a finger straight at Frank’s chest. “Fabio? That’s what you choose to call yourself?”

“You know you don’t choose your call signs. It chose me.”

“Fabio, the goddamn romance cover model,” Jett said, shaking her head. “In your dreams, man.”

Frank tried a different tack. He wouldn’t usually try something this drastic, but it was an emergency. Frank dropped the jokes and bluster to tell the simple, unvarnished truth. “Not to overstate things, but this could literally save the world. It’s important, damn it, and I need help. I need your help to rescue my friends—my family—and bring them home. Everything else is going to shit, but this is something we can do now.”

Jett grinned. “I’m in.”

“Seriously?” Frank asked.

She shrugged. “We heard stories about you guys. You’re legit. And if you need help, I’m in.” She shoved the Steinbeck novel into a pack by her feet.

“Me, too,” Wild Dog said. “What the hell.”

“Besides,” Jett said, “all the people we were supposed to save are already dead. Would be nice to help some people, you know, not die tonight.”

“Real nice,” Wild Dog agreed as he stood up. “Let’s go get our crews and our birds.”

Jett stood too and stretched. “By the way, Badass Airlines is a stupid name.”

Wild Dog grinned. “And so is ‘the Hunters.’ I mean, you guys named your ship the Huntress, too? Kind of redundant, don’t you think?”

Frank led them out into the blistering winds curling around the base. “And yet, we’re pretty much the only ones who have been winning this war for everyone else.”

The wind tugged on Jett’s hair, tousling it. “Badass isn’t so bad.”

Wild Dog shrugged. “Hunters kind of grows on you.”

“That it certainly does,” Frank said.

-31-

Ronaldo tried to breathe, but each intake of air stabbed a thousand tiny needles through his lungs. His ears rang with an unholy fervor. Somewhere in that kaleidoscope of sound and pain came the burbled cries of desperate people. People being torn to pieces, people running from the things chasing them. Gunfire, too, in its staccato rasp. The last rattle of a dying army beaten by a monstrous enemy.

Something hot washed over him. It wasn’t pain, though God knew there was enough of that.

No, it was actual, physical heat. Orange flickers of fire played violent shapes over what remained of his plane’s fuselage. A cloud of black smoke choked him, scratching against his eyes. He tried to wipe them and then remembered what happened to his left hand. It was a bloodied stump, and the mere sight of it turned his stomach.

He couldn’t get up. Huge chunks of fuselage had fallen over him, pinning his legs. Come to think of it, he couldn’t feel his legs, either.

“Anybody... alive?” he tried feebly.

Coughs wracked him. Blood splattered from his mouth over his chin. So much pain, the world threatened to go dark again.

A radio crackled to his right. “All air units are to return to base. Repeat, all air units to return to base.”

An order Ronaldo could not oblige.

Other voices buzzed over another radio. “Retreat!”

“Fall back!”

“More Titans!”

“Good God, some kind of new monster. Something we’ve never seen! We’re taking heavy losses. We can’t go on. Everyone—”

All the voices blended together. They had lost Moscow. A waste of resources. A waste of life.

He prayed that someone, somewhere had come away from this battle with something worth the heavy tolls they had paid tonight. It had always seemed, even when they’d scored small victories over the FGL, that their enemy was winning the war. Operation Thunderbolt was yet more proof that he was right.

Do not despair, a voice said in his mind. It sounded a lot like his own.

A river of memories coursed through his head. He forced himself to recall all he had seen in this war. He saw those times they had almost lost Lajes Field. The Skulls there. The towns around the Azores Islands as they succumbed to the Oni Agent.

And he saw how they had fought back, time and time again. How, when they thought they had secured the base, the airborne Oni Agent returned to wreak havoc on them. Then they had gotten the godsend Phoenix Compound. The battle changed once again.

They had made progress, fighting against the Ghost Fleets of the FGL. They’d supported the Hunters in their missions to Estonia and then in Finland to help the Germans sweep Helsinki and recover what they thought had been the FGL’s stores of the Heikegani Agent.

Their efforts had made a difference. And Ronaldo had done his part to hold what remained of the Portuguese Air Force together.

So even if Moscow was lost, even if he died now, he had done something worthwhile. He hadn’t just hidden on an island, pretending that they would be all right as the world burned.

Ronaldo realized he was ready to die. Someone else would carry on the fight now. He’d earned his rest. His eyes started to close, and he let the warm darkness envelop him.

A final breath sucked in.

And then came the scratches of bone on metal, the high-pitched shrieks that grated on Ronaldo’s eardrums, piercing through the fog of his dulled senses.

They would come for him. They would eat him alive. He’d seen it happen too many times to have any illusions about the horror of his final moments on this Earth.

He didn’t want to die on their terms.

He wanted to die on his own.

His left hand—or lack thereof—pulsed with a violent fury. He ignored it and reached across his body toward his holster.

Ronaldo glanced up. A figure stood silhouetted against the flames before him. Spikes coursed down its spine, and long claws draped from its fingers. There was something almost beautiful about the strange creature as it stood there, almost like a tiger prowling the jungle.

And this tiger was not alone. Other Skulls scrambled atop the wreckage, their talons tapping. The spreading fire didn’t seem to alarm them. They didn’t choke on the smoke like he did.

The scratching in his lungs grew worse. His body screamed at him to cough, to let loose that annoying pest biting at the back of his throat.

A cough now would ruin his plan.

The Skulls searched through the debris. Their efforts were rewarded when one uncovered the bloodied form of one of the EWOs. Ronaldo couldn’t even recognize which of them it was—in fact, he was merely guessing it was the remains of an EWO because of where the Skulls had found the man. Or rather, the pieces of the man.

Their teeth sank into those remains with the ferocity of sharks in a frenzy. Bits of blood and flesh dripped down their faces and stained their chests. They growled and jostled with each other, fighting for pieces of the body, playing tug-of-war over the limbs. Breaking the bones and licking out the marrow with their gray snaking tongues.

Fucking bastards, Ronaldo thought.

His fingers touched the handle of his pistol.

It was still there. Maybe he could grant a couple of these twisted abominations the mercy of God before they turned their fangs on him. He pulled the gun out and steadied it in his right hand. Each breath he took was shallower than the last. It would be a race to see if the Skulls or his internal injuries would take him first.

The monsters moved on to the next chunk of meat, working like piranhas to separate flesh from bone. And when they were done, they started scouring the broken plane for more. It would be a minute, probably no more, before they descended on him.

His last stand.

He prayed the strength left in his failing muscles would withstand the next few seconds. All he needed to do was fire a couple of rounds. Right into those bony monsters’ faces. His parting gift would be a few less Skulls the rest of the world would have to deal with. It was the least he could do to make this world a better place.

But another grating sound rolled over the wreckage. Something he had never heard before. It sounded like metal tearing intermixed with a strange clicking sound.

What unholy beast made that kind of noise?

It wasn’t a Titan or a Goliath or a Drooler... it sounded like some godforsaken mix of all of them though.

His answer came before he could even fire off a single shot at the Skulls. A beast at least as big as a Goliath stomped into the plane, peeling away bits of the fuselage. Tusks curled out of its mouth, and its limbs were longer, leaner than a Goliath’s. Its maw opened again to let out that high-pitched, almost-mechanical sound.

And it had no eyes. Just blank pits in its monstrous head.

Ronaldo adjusted his aim at the strange beast. He fired. Once. Twice. Three times.

The creature absorbed those bullets like it was made of fog. Somehow, its empty orbital cavities locked onto Ronaldo. He tried to back away before remembering he was pinned down.

There was nothing more he could do.

Somewhere in the distance he heard the thunderous rumble of bombs blasting over Moscow.

The creature stepped toward him, looking ready to tear him open.

Ronaldo wouldn’t let the creature have the satisfaction.

Yes, he had played his part in this war. In his role leading the remnants of the Portuguese Air Force out of Lajes Field, he had saved as many lives as he could.

No matter what happened, today’s battle wouldn’t be the end of the free world, no matter what had happened.

Humanity had clawed its way from the brink to survive against the unforgiving force of biological agents engineered to tear them apart. So many men and women had lost their lives to beat back the Oni Agent menace.

As the giant monstrosity bore down on him, Ronaldo was certain that he would not be the last to die. But there was no way he was going out of this world on anybody’s accord but his own.

He turned the gun on himself and his thoughts to a higher power.

He imagined the sun glinting off the waves of the coast of Lajes again. The call of the gulls circling under clouds of fluffy cotton. White sails slicing over the horizon from boats skirting through the azure waters.

His life had been blessed with natural beauty and driving purpose. That was all a man could ask for.

The monster roared at him, interrupting his reverie.

Let God save these people, because I am done here, Ronaldo thought.

Then he squeezed the trigger.

***

Meredith surveyed the city as far as she could see with her binoculars. Amid the flashes of light from intermittent explosions, she could distinguish the silhouettes of Titans lumbering their way between buildings.

There was no denying what they’d overheard on their radios. They were losing the battle for Baghdad. The operation in Moscow had not fared any better. Everyone was ordered to pull out.

This was, to put it plainly, a clusterfuck. The bombardments and air and ground attacks had not softened the FGL up enough for the allies to take the cities. Now, the contingency plans would be executed. The bombs would drop.

Baghdad would be leveled, and the Hunters would be right there in the middle of it.

She stood silent for a second, holding her breath. Wondering if the buzzing she heard in the air was the first bomber coming in for a run.

“All this is going to be gone by tomorrow night,” Andris said, standing beside her, his MK-11 on his shoulder.

“All the history here,” Glenn said, almost mournfully. “Gone with the press of a button.”

“Plus everything the FGL had—research, intel, tech—will be lost,” Meredith said.

“Which makes us getting out of here all the more important,” Dom said. “Frank is a good hour or more out, depending on conditions in the air.”

“I don’t suppose he’s talking about the weather,” Miguel said.

Meredith studied the streets. Getting to the top of the hospital hadn’t been nearly as difficult as she had anticipated. They had only met with a few dozen Skulls and a handful of Slingers. And somehow, Frank had managed to convince two other pilots to grab their crews and fly out here. The man was a bit arrogant, and his humor was corny at best, but she would never again question his methods if he got them all the hell out of here.

For now, all they could do was wait. Lang and Dom spread the group out around the roof to watch for any signs of an enemy approach. Meredith situated herself beside Dom and Andris. They were looking out over a ruined section of the hospital.

There was plenty of movement below. Skulls and other monsters rushed through the city’s remains. Meredith wondered if their movements were orchestrated or if there were simply too many of the Oni Agent monsters to be controlled by the Titans and Hybrids.

“To think it wasn’t that long ago I was pushing papers in Langley,” she said. The storm was coming, she knew that, but she could not help marveling at the apocalyptic series of events that had taken her here, to this hospital roof in the middle of Baghdad.

“And I was out there doing your bidding,” Dom said. He was leaning slightly, favoring his injured ankle. “Saw enough action... but never expected that final mission you gave me would lead to something like this.”

Fires burned all over the city. Ominous pillars of smoke rose into the sky as if the FGL were trying to spread their influence to the stars themselves. Amid the columns of smoke, Meredith also noted reddish tinges of Pacifist Fog. Back in the United States, they’d manufactured tons of the weapons. And all those stores were being expended in a single, volatile battle. Even with that biological weapon on their side, it seemed like progress in the city was still stunted by the sheer numbers of the FGL’s undead army.

“Tonight is lost,” Meredith said. She thought of the men who had died in the Special Forces. From the first planes that had been shot down to the casualties in the tunnels and the JIC, to the deaths in the prison complex and the descent from the hotel. They had fought a lifetime of battles in a single mission.

It used to be that the rising sun gave her hope. As if the light would flood the city and somehow expel the evil within it, bringing with it the promise of a better tomorrow. A better future where humanity didn’t hide in the shadows from monsters of their own making.

But not today. Not tomorrow. Probably never again.

“We didn’t lose,” Dom said. He patted his pack. It rattled with the pills they had liberated from the prison complex.

“I hope not,” she said. She still saw the bodies of the men who had died in the complex. Lang and Dom had issued the orders, but it had been her call to stay there longer. “I hope it was worth it.”

“It will be,” Dom said.

Meredith could tell he wanted to say more. Something like “it has to be.” The reality was that if they had lost this battle in Baghdad, if these sacrifices weren’t worth it, then what future did they have? A world controlled by the FGL would be an endless nightmare for anyone who survived this war.

“I miss my explosives,” Andris said, lifting his rifle to his shoulder. He pressed his eye into the scope as he glassed the landscape again. “Did you ask Frank to bring me more?”

“Always,” Dom said. “But once Frank gets here, we’re not going to stick around. Plan is to get loaded and leave.”

Andris muttered to himself unhappily, but Meredith was glad that they weren’t going to linger. She couldn’t stand to see another person get torn to shreds by a Skull or impaled by a Chimera. There was no need to face off against the Spetsnaz Hybrids again.

Of course, that was her plan. Not the FGL’s.

Jenna settled down beside Andris and Meredith. “While we’re waiting here to find out if we live or die tonight, figured this might be as good a time as any.”

“What’s that?” Meredith asked.

“I, uh, was talking to Andris,” Jenna said.

“Oh?” Andris said.

Jenna sighed, peering out over the darkened cityscape before them. “I got a feeling about tonight.”

A beat of silence passed between them all.

“I’m just going to say it.” She looked hard at Andris. Her lips moved, but no words came out.

“What? What is it?” Andris asked.

“God, this is hard for me to say,” she said. “Andris... I’m in love with you. I always have been, and if we don’t make it out of here tonight, I just wanted you to know.”

Andris visibly gulped. Meredith wanted to scoot away, feeling like she was intruding on the moment. It definitely was not what she had expected from Jenna.

“I do not know what to say,” Andris replied. “Ever since I became part of this crew, I have enjoyed serving beside you. You have saved my ass more times than I can count.”

Jenna looked at him expectantly.

“But I always saw you as a sister, you know?” Andris said. “I mean, I... I cannot...”

A wide grin cracked across Jenna’s face. She gave him a playful jab in the shoulder. “I’m just screwing with you.”

Andris let out a long exhalation. “You are sure?”

“Absolutely,” Jenna said, twisting to face Meredith.

“Why would you do this to me?” Andris said.

“Because I need to keep you on your toes,” Jenna said.

“Hold on a second,” Miguel said. “Andris—”

Andris glowered at him. “Not you, too.”

“No,” Miguel said. “What’s going on there?”

He pointed down the street to a spot Meredith couldn’t quite make out.

“I will find out,” Andris said. He peered through his scope. “I see something.” He paused. “Correction, many somethings.”

Meredith raised her binos and looked where his rifle was pointed. All at once, it seemed her blood drained from her body. “How in the hell did they find us so quickly?”

They were still a few kilometers away. But there was no questioning which direction the Chimeras and Hybrids were headed.

O’Neil joined them. Sweat streamed between the spikes on his forehead, trickling into the crevices of his skeletal mask. “It’s me. They’ve been tracking me.”

-32-

O’Neil crouched at the edge of the roof, wishing he had the courage to throw himself off of it. The realization that he had put his brothers and sisters in danger was the worst he’d felt since being turned into a monster.

The Chimeras had used their hold to track him. When they first entered the prison complex, that initial Chimera had noticed him, an anomaly in a sea of biochemical factors floating in the air. Something different. It had come down to investigate.

And maybe it had taken a while for the Chimeras and the Hybrids to understand that this slight difference in the air was O’Neil. Maybe that had been why they had rushed past the Hunters and Special Forces the first time they had hidden in the streets. The Hybrids hadn’t been keyed into O’Neil’s strange scent yet.

But by the time they had run into the Hunters and the Special Forces again, they must have gotten his number. He didn’t doubt that Lang and Dom were right about the NATO comm channels being compromised as well. After all, that was probably what had led the Spetsnaz Hybrids to connect two and two together. Then they had discovered the Hunters and Special Forces on the roof of the hospital with the unfamiliar pheromones leaking off O’Neil.

They had followed his trail all the way here.

“Are you sure?” Meredith asked. “Maybe they aren’t actively tracking you.”

“Yeah,” Miguel said, “if we stay low, maybe they’ll pass by again.”

The pulsating evil at the back of O’Neil’s mind grew louder, heavier. It was almost like radar waves. He couldn’t help that his body produced pheromones in response to those signals bouncing off him for the FGL to detect. He couldn’t quite explain it, but he knew the FGL sensed him. Just like he had always been able to sense them.

“Yes,” O’Neil said. “It’s me they’re after.”

He knew what he had to do then. There was only one way the others made it off the top of this hospital without becoming food for the Chimera.

“I’ve got to leave,” O’Neil said.

He had never belonged with them anyway. He was a freak, a monster. It had been foolish for him to think he was more than a liability. His usefulness had been worn out, especially now that he was injured.

“Screw that,” Lang said.

O’Neil twisted to see the man scowling.

“You don’t leave us,” Lang said. “We’ve lost too many already.”

O’Neil hadn’t expected that to come from Lang.

“We need you on our side,” Rabbit said.

“Yeah, sorry, brother, but you aren’t running out there alone,” Glenn said. “That’s suicide.”

“Staying up here is suicide,” O’Neil replied.

“We don’t leave our own behind,” Jenna said.

“They have already got their mark,” Andris said. “They must know we are up here already if they have detected you.”

O’Neil couldn’t tell if Andris actually believed that or if he was just saying it for his benefit.

“Look,” Lang said, taking a step toward O’Neil, “we got any more of that Pacifist Fog? That shit shields the influence of those things, so maybe it’ll help hide us a little longer if they don’t have us pinned down exactly. We don’t have anywhere else to run. Even if we let you go, we’re only delaying the inevitable.”

“No Fog left,” Miguel said.

“I need to go,” O’Neil said, still resolute in his decision. “Look, I can’t even control my body right now. I’m pumping out the pheromones they’re following. They’re forcing me to do it. I can feel it.”

Silence reigned in the group. That was what he’d thought. They had no good solutions, and his was objectively the best.

“What about the pills?” Jenna asked. She pulled out a carton from her pack. “They control the Heikegani Agent in the Hybrids, right?”

O’Neil took the pills from her. He hated ingesting drugs without knowing exactly what they would do. But he was about to lead the FGL off on a wild goose chase anyway. If he did, he would probably be dead before midday.

Back in Estonia, the Hybrids that they had rescued from the factories had been weak, slow. They hadn’t been able to control themselves, much less other Hybrids or Skulls. The only Hybrid that seemed to have made a difference was a former Estonian soldier, Jaan Kask. He didn’t have the unrestrained power O’Neil did until the Hunters had rescued him from the prison in Tallinn and the effects of Halo had worn off.

But deep down, Brendon O’Neil wanted to live. He wanted it with a selfish, burning need. If the Halo pills could mask his signature, then even if they made him slow and stupid for a while, it was better than the alternative.

“It’s worth a shot,” O’Neil said. He tore open the carton and took two of the pills. Might kill him, might make him go crazy. But there was no looking back now. He swallowed.

At first, he felt nothing. While he waited for a response, the FGL continued their warpath through the city. Darkness throbbed in his mind, an ever-present reminder that they knew where he was. That they were coming for him.

That he would soon lose everything.

As the FGL drew nearer, the feeling started to evaporate like a puddle on a hot day. The darkness receded, and he reached deep into his mind, ensuring it wasn’t just hiding. But no, the urges had disappeared. They had been replaced by an intense feeling of euphoria. The sky seemed to brighten, though he could still see stars peering between the clouds, even as the colors over the horizon shifted.

He looked at his claws, marveling that they were still there. Of course they were, but whatever the pills had done to him, it made him feel as if his normal fingers were back. He no longer felt the strange sensation of his bones growing out of his flesh, and for the first time since Morocco, he felt like a normal human being.

No wonder Hybrids became addicted to this stuff. Even the pain in his back from the shorn-off plates was a mere shadow of itself.

Relief. Pure and simple relief.

He tried to reach out with those biochemical factors, gauging the world around him and sniffing the air for evidence of the Hybrids and beasts below. But he felt nothing. None of those scientifically endowed super powers.

For the first time in what felt like an eternity, he felt truly free from the Agent.

“I think it worked,” he said, disbelieving.

“Good,” Dom said. He appeared relieved. “The FGL is still headed our direction, but if we stay low, they might just go right by.”

O’Neil felt confident that that was exactly what would happen. Then they would get out of here as soon as the choppers arrived, and damn, these pills would be his saving grace.

A sudden yell of agony broke O’Neil’s optimism. A Hybrid stood on top of one of the Special Forces men. Rabbit fired at the Hybrid, killing the half-man. But the damage had been done. The other soldier had been eviscerated, and the Hybrid had not come alone.

While O’Neil and the others had watched the Chimeras, they must have missed this scouting party creeping through the rubble on the destroyed side of the hospital. Now the bastards were pouring over the wall.

He’d waited too long to act. And now everyone else would pay the price.

***

Chaos erupted across the hospital roof. There was no time for Dom to rally the Hunters and Special Forces. All they could do was fight off the lashing claws and gnashing teeth.

Fire and parry. Fire again.

“No!” Rabbit yelled, tripping over a dead Hybrid. He held up a hand as if that would stop the claws slicing the air toward his face.

Dom would never let those claws fall. He swiveled on his heels and squeezed the trigger. The rifle shuddered against his shoulder with each round. Bullets punched into the Hybrid attacking Rabbit. The Hybrid clutched at his chest then crumpled to the ground.

“Thanks!” Rabbit said, scooping up his rifle and plugging another Hybrid with rounds.

Dom found his next target. His ankle throbbed, but he ignored the pain. Adrenaline pummeled through his vessels. The distant booms of the ongoing battle for Baghdad seemed to fade. All that mattered now were the men and women stranded on this rooftop here with him, besieged in a city turned into a living nightmare.

He tried to count the Hybrids as they threw themselves over the roof. Nine had made it up that he first saw. Now four were dead, three in hand-to-hand combat with the Special Forces and Hunters, and two more unaccounted for. Lang quickly ran to the aid of one of his men, doing his best to take down the Hybrid there with blade and fists.

Meredith sprinted toward the edge of the roof, rifle in tow. Ten yards before she made it, a Hybrid pulled himself over the side. Sweat gleamed between the plates on the front of the Hybrid’s body. Dom saw the same two white armbands he had seen on the other elite Hybrids they had faced.

The Spetsnaz Hybrid’s muscles coiled as it paused, bringing up its rifle. It aimed at Meredith. Dom exhaled and squeezed his trigger. The Hybrid went down before it could get off a shot.

Dom readjusted his aim. It never hurt to ensure an enemy like that was really down. He rocked the trigger again, and a three-round burst lanced from his rifle.

But the bullets only chipped away at the concrete roof, puffs of gray dust pluming where they hit. The Hybrid was already on his feet and moving. He leapt to the top of the roof access door then flung himself in the air. Dom tried to track his movement. Bullets cracked into the wall behind the Hybrid then cut through the air, finding no target.

The Spetsnaz Hybrid landed on Dom’s chest, talons cracking hard against his body armor. Only an inch or two to the side and those talons would have found soft flesh, tearing into tendon and muscle, breaking bone. Dom swung the stock of his rifle at the Hybrid’s face.

Claws met metal. The impact resonated through Dom’s arm like he’d just hit a home run with an aluminum bat. With a devilish grin, the Hybrid swiped at the rifle, tearing it from Dom’s hands and slicing through the strap. The Hybrid flung the weapon away, and it disappeared somewhere in the shadows as other Hybrids poured over the roof.

“You people are nothing without your guns,” the Hybrid said with his thick accent.

The voices of the Hunters and Special Forces carried up like an inferno around Dom. Cries of pain, anger. Desperation.

“Miguel, watch out!”

Andris.

“Another two on the south wall!”

Jenna.

Dom’s heart threw itself against his ribs. Time seemed to slow. How long could they keep up with the flow of Hybrids over their roof? How long could they push back against this pressure?

The Hybrid’s claws tore an arc that would connect with Dom’s face. He could already feel his eyes being pulled from their sockets. Feel the claws digging into his nasal cavity, breaking through bone as if it were nothing but flimsy, sodden cardboard.

“Dom!” Meredith called. It didn’t sound like she was coming to his rescue. It sounded like she was crying out for help.

I’m coming, Dom thought.

He turned his head in time to avoid the brunt of the claws. They scraped the side of his head, tearing his skin before catching his helmet. Dom grabbed the Hybrid’s arm. He used the momentum of the attack against the Russian, swinging the Hybrid up and over his shoulder.

The bastard landed hard on his back, smashing the bony spikes on his spine. Dom landed on top of him. He pressed his knee deep into the soft part of the Hybrid’s belly. He couldn’t quite get under the ribs to knock the air out of the Hybrid, but his opponent wasn’t going anywhere.

The Hybrid cursed at him in Russian, saliva spraying across Dom’s face. Dom still had control of one of the Hybrid’s wrists, and he bent it as far back as he could. A violent snap resulted in a howling cry.

“I am more than any gun,” Dom said.

Dom reached with his free hand for his thigh holster. He whipped out the knife there. His eyes already focused on the soft gray tissue beneath the Hybrid’s face plate. The knife drove up toward the spot, ready to end the Hybrid’s life.

The Hybrid seemed to sense that, too. He lunged up, his broken wrist cracking more. His eyes glowed red with a furious, unquenchable anger, and he drove Dom backward. His working claw slashed through the air with all the controlled ferocity of an expert fencer. When Dom reached for his H&K 45C, the Hybrid knocked that away, too. Dom had no rifle, no knife.

“We need help!” It was Miguel this time.

“More than your guns?” the Hybrid asked, spittle flying from between his fangs.

Dom stole a glance to see Miguel and Meredith backed against a wall. From one side, Hybrids fired at them. Another group approached in front, held off by their sporadic gunfire. They would quickly be overwhelmed.

Claws slashed against Dom’s shoulder. They tore into old injuries, reigniting a pain his body had never forgotten. The Hybrid pushed deeper into the muscle. Dom’s fingers went straight, rigid. He let out a howl of agony to rival a Skull’s banshee screams.

His calves hit the small wall lining the roof. His stomach lurched at the thought of the open space behind him. The Hybrid seemed to sense this unease and pressed the attack, shoving Dom backward. Dom felt his center of balance leaning dangerously over the side of the hospital. Another inch and he would be flying toward the earth.

He had already gone skydiving once today. That was more than enough.

Dom grabbed the Hybrid’s claws, still buried in his shoulder, with his right hand. The pain welled up in a brilliant flash of white, threatening to make him pass out. But he didn’t let go. With his left hand, he swung out at the Hybrid’s face. The first punch connected hard with the Hybrid’s chin. Pain ricocheted through Dom’s knuckles.

Might be a few hairline fractures in his hand now. But he would deal with that later. He delivered left hook after left hook. Each impact shook through his bones like his arm would snap at any moment.

He didn’t care. In his mind’s eye, he saw his Hunters spread out on the roof, desperate to deny these Spetsnaz Hybrids their victory. Desperate to bring home the Halo pills.

Desperate to survive.

The Hybrid’s pupils dilated as Dom delivered another blow. His jaw went slack. Cracks fractured through the Hybrid’s skeletal mask. Bits of bone flew off, sprays of blood splashing over Dom’s face. The Hybrid’s grip on Dom’s shoulder weakened.

Summoning the last of his strength, Dom twisted the Hybrid’s claws out of his shoulder. He shoved the bastard over the side of the hospital, watching with grim satisfaction as the Hybrid fell.

Then Dom ran and picked up his discarded rifle, his ankle screaming at him with every step. The mere act of positioning the weapon against his shoulder sent waves of agony through his arm. He wasn’t sure he was strong enough to hold the rifle up, but somehow he persevered, firing into the flanks of the Hybrids moving in on Miguel and Meredith.

He held the trigger down until the bolt locked back. Without taking his aim off the Hybrids rushing Meredith and Miguel, he slammed in another magazine and began firing again.

Lang rounded up his men. They entrenched themselves against one of the roof access doors, firing at the Hybrids trickling in over the west wall of the building.

“Come on!” Dom said, waving the other Hunters over.

They had to stay with Lang and his men. They couldn’t afford to be split up. That would lead to slaughter. They ran at Dom, two at a time. Glenn and Andris fired on a group of Hybrids that had just made their way onto the roof, finding shelter behind a pile of rubble. Jenna and O’Neil sprinted toward Dom next. They raced along the edge of the roof to meet him.

O’Neil reached him.

Jenna did not.

A Hybrid shot from behind his shelter and dove at Jenna. His claws sank into her leg.

And then he shoved her off the roof. She had just enough time to let out a scream before she disappeared.

-33-

Meredith reacted without thinking. She couldn’t let Jenna die. Not when they were so close to getting out of Baghdad.

She was already leaping over the side of the roof after Jenna, arm outstretched. Meredith wished she were thirty years younger in that moment. Although she kept as fit and flexible as possible, age had taken its toll. And it looked like what she had left was not enough.

Everything happened in less than a second.

Jenna was barely hanging onto a window ledge, starting to fall already, fingertips slipping from the weak handhold. She reached with one hand for Meredith.

Their fingers met. Just enough friction, glove on glove, to give Meredith the grip she needed. Her other hand held onto the wall around the hospital’s roof, keeping her from plummeting.

And with an instinctual response, her hand tightened. She didn’t know if she had a good grip on Jenna or not, but she couldn’t wait until she was certain. By then Jenna would already be out of reach.

Her muscles went taut, and she held the lip of the roof. Jenna slipped completely from the window ledge, pulling hard. Meredith felt like every muscle in her arms was tearing as Jenna scrabbled to get another foothold, handhold, anything to brace herself.

Meredith had only a tenuous grip on Jenna. Already she could feel the other Hunter’s fingers slipping from her grip. She couldn’t readjust her grip without losing Jenna completely. And her other hand was clinging to the lip of the roof, barely keeping them both from dropping.

“Meredith!” Jenna said. “Behind you!”

The Hybrid that had thrown Jenna over the side moved toward Meredith. She had no way to defend herself. Not unless she dropped Jenna.

All she could do was half-heartedly swing herself away from his swiping claws. Arcing away just enough that his strike hit the wall instead.

Meredith felt Jenna tugging on her arm and looked down. “Careful! I’m going to lose you!”

Jenna managed to get her boots onto the top of the window ledge under her. She didn’t have enough room to let go of Meredith and find a handhold somewhere else, but it was just enough to relieve some of the weight from Meredith’s shoulder.

Beneath them, Meredith saw at least another six Hybrids scaling the wall. They crawled up like bony spiders. Unlike her, they seemed to move effortlessly, their claws fitting into or making new crevices in the wall so they could yank themselves up toward her.

But the Hybrid she was most worried about was the one still taking swipes at her.

“Hold still!” Jenna said.

“I’m trying not to get us both killed!” Meredith said.

The Hybrid hissed at her as she tried to level a boot at his face. He said something in Russian before climbing closer. He pulled his arm back.

There was no way to avoid the oncoming attack. Well, she could let go of Jenna and yank herself out of the way. But that really wasn’t an option.

Instead, she closed her eyes. The best she could do was withstand the pain until the other Hunters made it to her position. She merely had to hope that the wounds weren’t too bad. She just needed to stay alive long enough for someone to pull her and Jenna over the side.

Right when she expected to feel those claws sinking into her flesh, a gunshot split the air. The Hybrid appeared just as shocked as she was. Three more blasts went off in quick succession. Each punched through the Hybrid, and the Russian fell like a broken doll, gravity carrying him back where he belonged.

Meredith looked up to see if it was one of the Hunters finally making it to them. But no one was at the edge of the roof. Instead, she looked back down to see Jenna fumbling to put her pistol back into its holster. The wind howled around them. One of Jenna’s boots slipped off the window ledge. The added weight dragged Meredith’s fingers toward the edge of the roof.

Jenna swung out her hand, dropping the pistol as she tried to steady them both.

“Hang on!” Meredith called.

“I’m slipping!” Jenna said.

Meredith felt Jenna’s fingers sliding from hers.

“Meredith!” It was Dom’s voice.

She was afraid to look up, fearing the slightest movement would compromise what little grip she had on Jenna. Gunshots rang out from above. Farther down the wall, the Hybrids scaling it fell away, like insects being swiped off the face of the building.

Meredith felt hands wrap around hers.

“We got you covered!” Lang’s voice boomed out.

More gunshots exploded around the roof. Meredith guessed the Hybrids were attacking from all sides.

“Damn it!” Meredith said. “Help Jenna!”

Jenna’s fingers slipped another half inch. She looked up at Meredith with wide eyes.

“You did your best,” she said, offering a weak half smile.

“No,” Meredith said. “I’m not letting go.”

But Jenna’s fingers slipped anyway. The Hunter tried to grab the window ledge with her free hand. Meredith watched as Jenna succeeded in grabbing only air.

Then a shape blurred past them both. A Hybrid, descending from the roof past the Hunters. For a brief second, Meredith worried that this was it. The Hybrid would knock them both off, taking advantage of their vulnerability.

“I’ve got you!” the Hybrid yelled, grabbing hold of Jenna. The talons stabbing out from his boots and his free set of claws dug into the side of the building as easily as the FGL Hybrids.

Thank God for O’Neil.

His intervention gave Meredith the chance to wrap her fingers around Jenna’s wrist again.

Soon, Rabbit and Miguel were leaning over the side of the roof, helping Meredith haul them up. O’Neil never let go of Jenna, helping to alleviate some of her weight. Once Meredith was over the short wall lining the roof, Andris and Glenn grabbed hold of Jenna’s reaching arms.

“Thanks,” Jenna said, sounding out of breath.

“You got my back,” Meredith said. “I got yours.”

Jenna gave Meredith that same smile she’d had when delivering that pep talk to Meredith back in the underground prison.

Behind the group, Lang and the rest of his men continued firing at the pinned-down Hybrids. No more reinforcements had surged over the side. It looked as if they were fighting off the last remnants of the initial scouting party.

The last few Hybrids put up a hell of a fight. But the Hunters and the Special Forces were desperate. They drew on every ounce of elite training and skill they had developed in their varied careers. And more importantly, they fought with the certain knowledge that they alone carried the cargo that might be the tipping point in this war.

At last, they cleared out the final Hybrids. Some of their group had taken wounds. Half of Dom’s face was covered in peeling skin and blood. It looked bad, and Meredith wished there was something she could do for him.

“Why don’t they just fucking mortar the shit out of us?” Rabbit asked as he bandaged his arm. He was seated against the wall, blood covering his face.

“Don’t give them any ideas,” Glenn said.

“They really don’t want us to keep what we took,” Meredith said.

If the FGL didn’t just bomb them to pieces, they must want back whatever she had taken. And if that was the case, they actually had something important. Something that really could shift the course of the war.

“You’re probably right,” Dom said. He smiled, though it looked painful. “As usual.”

Dom peered over the crumbling edge of the hospital roof. Meredith moved toward him, her chest still heaving. She stood by him for a moment, absorbing the sight below. The Chimeras were closing in. Armies of Skulls swarmed at their feet, and she had no doubt that among them were the Hybrids who drove the others along. A pair of Titans trundled along the rear of the horde, and interspersed among the creatures, she saw Goliaths.

An unholy chorus rose up from the monsters, wailing into the night. Beyond them, the fires and explosions of the ongoing invasion raged on.

Meredith placed her hand on Dom’s shoulder. “You okay?”

“No, not really,” he said with a heavy sigh. “I keep thinking about Sadie. About the world she’ll grow up in. If this isn’t hell, it’s the closest thing to it.”

“Hey, none of that talk. We’re going to save the world. We’ll stop the FGL, and then we’ll rebuild.”

Dom wouldn’t quite meet her eyes, and she moved around to face him. “I’m serious, Dom. We’re going to win. Maybe not tonight, but we will. The alternative is not acceptable.”

He let out a ghost of a chuckle. “That’s what I love about you, Mere. You’re such an optimist.”

Behind them, someone cleared his throat. “If you two are finished making the googly eyes at each other,” Andris said, “we have some work to do.”

Dom straightened up, steely resolve in his eyes. “Yeah. We’re done. And we’re not letting those bastards get anything.”

“Agreed,” Andris said. He moved to lie flat on his stomach, his MK-11 sniper rifle snug against his shoulder. “Captain, you say the word.”

Meredith patted her tac vest. She had only a few magazines left. She couldn’t imagine the rest of the Hunters were any better off. Even if they made every single shot count, there was no way they were destroying that entire force alone.

“I wish I had more explosives,” Andris said wistfully.

“Then I know what I’m getting you for Christmas,” Meredith said.

“Andris, whenever you have a good shot, take it,” Dom said. “Prioritize Hybrids and those Chimeras.”

The first rifle shot echoed over the rooftop a second later.

“Bye-bye,” Andris said. “One Hybrid down. Only a hundred more to go.”

“That many?” Glenn asked.

“No, not quite,” Andris said. “But it sounded more dramatic than saying thirty-seven, did it not?”

The macabre army charged ahead as Andris picked off their leadership. They were almost within range of the others’ weapons. All Meredith could think about was what they were going to do when they ran out of ammunition and those beasts started to make it onto the roof.

Frank better hurry.

One of the giant beasts reared its claws back. It let loose, slinging a pair of claws like bolts from a ballista. They arced into the air, deadly missiles flying silently through the night. When they came back down, they crashed into the side of the hospital. Each was heavy enough to crack the wall, sending mortar and brick crumbling away. The beasts weren’t quite close enough to launch an effective volley all the way onto the rooftop.

But it wouldn’t be long now. Judgment Day was upon them.

-34-

Orange flashes of fire punctuated the sprawling blackness. Already, the sun was flirting with the horizon.

Frank wasn’t exactly thrilled about that. Darkness gave him cover. The noise of the battle should help mask their thrumming engines, and he was doing a damn good job—if he said so himself—of flying low enough that he’d be hard to spot. Still, he wasn’t looking forward to the moment when those FGL jackasses spotted him and turned their guns on his bird.

Getting out of the FOB hadn’t been as difficult as Frank had thought. Their birds had already been fueled, and there was enough chaos that getting into their choppers hadn’t drawn any sideways glances from the crew chiefs. It certainly didn’t hurt that Wild Dog and Jett were cocky as roosters on steroids. They looked like pilots on a mission, and their crew followed suit, feeding off that confidence.

Someone had asked them on the radio where the fuck they thought they were going. Wild Dog had fired back: “What the hell are you going to do? Shoot us out of the sky?”

No one had taken Wild Dog up on that offer. They were too busy with the chaos in Baghdad. Other pilots were scrambling to pick up the forces that were already beginning to pile up at a designated evac site nearly thirty kilometers outside the city, and most of the higher-ups were prepping a bombing run.

The radio crackled. “Frank, Dom here. ETA?”

“Fifteen, twenty minutes at most,” Frank said. “You all okay?”

“Going to be a lot better when we’re in those choppers,” Dom answered. “We got company.”

“That’s a damn shame,” Frank said. “I was hoping we’d be the first to the party. Hang in there, Captain.”

Frank twisted the throttle on the collective. The rotors whined as they beat the air, pulling him ever closer to the rest of the team.

“You all got the guns ready to go?” he called to the crew in the cabin.

“Always.” A gunner gave him a thumbs-up.

Jett and Wild Dog maintained a perfect distance from his bird as they neared the edge of the city. Their cocky attitude matched their piloting skills, and for that, Frank was thankful. He was used to doing the Lone Ranger thing, charging into enemy territory on his own. But for tonight, with the battle raging around the outskirts of Baghdad, he was thankful to have a couple of wingmates.

Maybe their confidence was contagious. He opened the line to Wild Dog and Jett and started singing “Flight of the Valkyries.” It was the only thing that made sense in that moment. He got about fifteen seconds into the song before Wild Dog told him to shut it.

“Don’t like my singing?” Frank asked.

“Not particularly,” Wild Dog said.

“Too cliché?” Frank asked.

“That’s not the problem,” Wild Dog said. “I got something better.”

Soon enough, an actual orchestral score was streaming in through the radio.

“That’s better,” said Jett. “But I don’t smell victory... yet. Let’s fly, boys!”

Frank couldn’t help grinning like an idiot even as they plunged between the columns of thick black smoke. Fires raged through the city and its crater-pocked streets. Beneath them, he saw the movement of FGL forces crashing through the streets like waves.

“You see ’em yet?” Wild Dog asked.

“Not yet,” Frank said. Rotor blades whipped up small tornadoes of oily smoke, making it hard to see anything. “Should be on them soon.”

Then they cleared the street and were soaring just above the Tigris. Corpses choked the river. Blood from humans and monsters alike damn near turned the water red.

“Got word that they’re calling Baghdad a bust,” Jett said. “Just heard on the radio they’re sending all troops to the evac site now. Air units are supposed to respond as needed.” She gulped audibly over the line. “Ordnance is about to be unleashed.”

“And what did they say about our friends trapped in Baghdad?” Frank asked.

“No evac units are to respond to requests for pickups in the city,” Jett said. “Don’t want them to get in the way of the bombs—or risk the extra resources. All ground forces are being told to hike to evac sites outside the city.”

“Christ,” Wild Dog said. “Just like we thought. Where are the designated pickup sites?”

“Scattered fifteen kilometers to the east,” Jett said.

“Long way to walk when the bombs are dropping,” Frank said.

“Good thing they got us,” Jett said. “That was the right call, Fabio.”

“And fifteen kilometers is close enough we can make a pit stop on our way back,” Wild Dog said.

Frank nodded as if the gesture would mean anything to the others. Habit, he guessed. “Badass Airlines, making frequent stops to save the goddamn day.”

***

O’Neil sensed the darkness of the Chimeras at the corners of his mind. The drugs that he’d taken had done wonders to fend off the brunt of the beasts’ chemical assault on his senses. But the probing tendrils of those pheromone trails kept tugging at him. If only he had risked the drugs sooner...

The Hybrids that had ambushed them, the scouting party, had found them before he’d taken the pills. He couldn’t help but think that they might’ve remained hidden longer. That maybe they wouldn’t be staring down a horde of Chimeras and Goliaths and Skulls led by Hybrids that would die to reclaim what the Hunters had stolen from them.

The muffled whoomph of Andris’s rifle continued at a rapid clip. At first, O’Neil had taken a sense of satisfaction knowing there was one less Hybrid for them to take down with each of Andris’s shots. The man was a machine—and a deadly one at that. But the horde never slowed. There were still more than enough Hybrids to keep the mass of monsters in control.

No 7.62 mm round was going to be enough to take down the Titans following up the pack. The best they could hope for was that the Titans, with their ungodly weight, wouldn’t be able to climb up to the hospital roof. Either they would bring the building down on themselves, or they would simply stand by as the Hybrids directed the smaller monsters up.

Either option wasn’t good.

The first group of Skulls had reached the bottom of the hospital. They began to crawl up the wall. Their hisses and shrieks called up as if to taunt the Hunters and Special Forces.

“Open fire!” Lang said.

The resulting salvo sent the first wave of Skulls crashing to the ground. More leapt up after them.

O’Neil’s rifle thudded against his shoulder with each shot. An animalistic fury took over, and he was certain it wasn’t driven by the darkness creeping in from the Chimeras. This was the desperate instinct to survive. It had been beaten into mankind for thousands of years. He couldn’t shed that instinct even with the Heikegani Agent altering him at a genetic level.

He wanted to live. And he wanted his brothers and sisters to live even more.

Every snarling Skull that charged up the crumbling hospital wall was met with a fierce wall of resistance. The beasts had completely lost their humanity. They cared not about their lives or their dignity. They were worse than cattle, poked and prodded into violence. Their minds were malleable, distorted by a biological agent.

O’Neil did not want to imagine a world where this was all that remained. A world where mankind’s legacy was reduced to nothing but mindless hunger and violence. Vicious as humanity could be, it could create as well as destroy. The very Heikegani Agent plaguing him had been created by man—but, he hoped, man would also create the ultimate cure.

Those Skulls would cure nothing. They would build nothing, create nothing. They and their FGL handlers needed to die. Not just at this hospital, but also in the rest of the world.

And the only way O’Neil could see NATO succeeding in that endeavor was if he and the rest of his compatriots got the hell off this tower and back to HQ with their cargo.

“Come and get it, you bastards!” he called down at the monsters as he secured a fresh magazine.

His pulse throbbed in his ears, a constant beat accompanying the chorus of gunfire and the interludes of screaming Skulls. All around him, he heard the feverish cries of the others, laughing or screaming in the face of their own deaths. Every one of them knew what was at stake.

Baghdad was lost. Moscow was lost.

This night was supposed to be a turning point in the war. If O’Neil could help it, maybe it still would be.

The allied forces had already lost these battles for these destroyed cities. But they would have the intel, maybe even the technology to sweep the FGL’s advantages away. This little band of brothers and sisters had succeeded where all others had failed. O’Neil would be damned if he let them fall now.

Skulls charged up the walls, undeterred by the hail of bullets meeting them there. The first set of Goliaths punched their claws into the rubble. Their roars overpowered the shrieks of the Skulls. Andris popped each of them straight through their weak orbital cavities. When those giants fell, they left craters in the ground below, crushing their smaller brethren beneath them. They were like living asteroids falling to Earth.

Die, die, die! a voice screamed in O’Neil’s head. Was it his or something else’s? He couldn’t tell. He only knew that it needed to be done.

Between a group of Skulls, he spotted a Hybrid. O’Neil wondered if he should feel some bond with the people that had been affected by the Heikegani Agent like him. But as long as they were on the other side of this war, he never had. He hoped he never would.

A quick burst from his rifle sent the enemy Hybrid onto a pile of Skull corpses.

“Nothing up here for you, buddy,” O’Neil said.

He could feel himself grinning—or possibly grimacing—as he took down as many Hybrids as he could find. They weren’t his brothers even though he looked like them at first glance. His brothers and sisters were standing beside him. And O’Neil thought they just might make it off this shitty building tonight. They just might change the tide of the war.

Then claws slammed against the side of the building, not more than a yard from his position. Concrete tumbled away under the bony missiles, a miniature avalanche that knocked away several of the climbing Skulls. Another volley of claws swished by their heads. The air trailing those missiles nearly knocked O’Neil backward.

“Holy shit!” Miguel said. “Look out!”

More huge Chimera claws pounded the side of the building like artillery shells. The monsters didn’t have the best vantage point, but their volleys were enough to send everyone diving for cover. Every precious second they spent cowering from the flying claws was another second the Skulls climbed unimpeded.

Then the building began to shake.

“What the hell is that?” Jenna cried.

O’Neil dared to peer over the side of the building. His heart hammered against his ribs as if it wanted to run away without him. There, at the base of the tower, two of the Chimeras had dug their claws in. They started their slow, steady climb. Eyeless sockets peered up at him as the monsters let out their metal-breaking shrieks. That sound would haunt O’Neil in his nightmares.

If he ever made it out of here to have another nightmare.

Suddenly, all the hope he’d had before dissolved like a Skull’s armor under Drooler acid spray.

-35-

“What do we do, Chief?” Miguel yelled to Dom.

For the first time since the war started, Dom was completely out of ideas. Usually, he would have at least a half-baked plan that, with a little luck, might be their saving grace. As the sun rose on this terrifying morning, he had no such idea. They couldn’t simply rappel off the building and run for a new evac site. They had already tried that. They couldn’t launch a barrage of grenades. They’d already expended those. Same story with the Pacifist Fog.

“No explosives, Andris?” Dom asked.

“Are you trying to make me sad?” Andris replied.

The hospital wall looked like it was shedding Skulls from the concerted fire of the Hunters. But there was so little they could do to take out the beasts. Those huge, lanky monsters climbed up the side of the hospital like orangutans. Then he noticed something as one of the Chimeras reached for the next handhold through a broken hospital window. It had only one claw left on its malformed hand.

Not much of a grip.

And while the Skulls practically flew up the wall, the Chimeras were going at a much slower, more cautious pace. Even the Goliaths seemed to have no problem accelerating past them.

Meredith looked at Dom. “I know that look. What are you thinking?”

In a matter of seconds, the Hunters were heaving at the large metal air conditioning units from the roof. Each was nearly as big as a refrigerator and several times as heavy. At least they weren’t bolted down; most were held in place only by their own weight. With the Hunters grunting and sweating, they moved the defunct pieces of machinery to the edge of the roof. The Special Forces provided cover fire.

The first of the Chimeras were nearly halfway up the wall.

“This is some medieval shit,” Miguel said, looking back over the edge of the roof.

“Sometimes the old stuff just works,” Glenn said. He was positioned behind one of the air conditioning units.

Dom waited for the first Chimera to line up with them. It started its slow, methodical stretch for its next handhold.

“Push!” he yelled.

Miguel and Glenn tipped the air conditioning unit over the side. A length of tubing and cords trailed it as it fell. The Chimera didn’t seem to have any idea what was happening until the unit smashed into its face. Metal pieces sprayed around it. The monster let out a shriek of surprise and started to teeter backward. It never got its handhold, and the force was enough to drag it off the wall.

The beast plummeted toward the horde below. When it hit the ground, its distended stomach exploded, splashing a tidal wave of burning acid over the monsters around it. Skulls wilted under the caustic spray. Goliaths bellowed, their armor dissolving. Another Chimera caught in the blast collapsed, its bones and flesh chewed away as it tried to pull itself forward.

As though they were defending a besieged castle, the Hunters and Special Forces dumped whatever heavy objects they could find on the roof down on the Chimeras. The monsters, massive as they were, were not made for climbing tall buildings.

A loud gurgling sound came from one of the climbing Chimeras. It hadn’t yet thrown all its claws. When Dom directed chunks of rubble to be thrown down onto the monster, the beast seemed to brace itself, taking the assault in stride.

“It’s going to blow!” Lang said.

The Chimera let out a shrieking cry then opened its maw. Dom backed away from the edge of the roof. A column of acid spewed into the air. Most of it slopped against the space where they had been mere seconds ago. However, some of the liquid fell back down toward the Skulls. Dom heard the cries of the creatures. He imagined the acid tearing into them.

Let them kill themselves, he thought.

But when they cautiously made their way back to the edge of the roof, he was disappointed. If the Chimera had caused much damage to its brethren, it certainly didn’t look that way. Already, four more of the Chimeras had begun their ascent. Others on the ground lobbed their claws toward the Hunters and Special Forces. Skulls dared to make it closer now, some only a couple stories away from the top of the building.

They were running out of things to toss down onto the beasts. Their magazines were nearly depleted. And now the Hybrids at the base of their tower were firing up at them, bullets ricocheting off concrete. Soon, the first Chimera would be over the side of the roof. If that happened, Dom didn’t hold out much hope. It would take another daring stunt by Miguel and O’Neil to bring it down. And the last time they’d worked to kill one of those beasts together, they’d barely made it out of the fray alive. To risk their lives, over and over, spraying acid and jumping onto those beasts—it would only take one small mistake, and they would be crushed or flung over the side of the roof.

“Holy shit!” Miguel roared. “Chief!”

He pointed to the western edge of the city. The roar of plane engines boomed overhead. A second later, the bombs hit. Blinding flashes of light burst over the neighborhoods there, followed by a wave of smoke. A wall of thunder roared over them.

The first round of the bombs had begun to fall.

Soon the Hunters, the Special Forces, would be left with no effective weapons besides their rifles, chewing into the overgrown armor of the Chimeras. They might still manage to kill a few, if the bombs didn’t get them first.

And finally, there were the elite Hybrids to contend with. They had entrenched themselves in the rubble on the ground, learning their lesson from Andris. Now they peppered the roof with a constant stream of rounds. Taking them on in a gunfight would only grow harder the longer the Skulls, Goliaths, and Chimeras continued their assault.

The bolt on Dom’s rifle slammed back.

Empty again.

“Frank, tell me you’re almost here,” he said.

“Doing my best, Captain,” Frank said. “Can you hold on for a few more minutes?”

A few more minutes might as well be an eternity. It was likely this would be their last stand.

Dom reached up to his tac vest to grab another magazine. Near him, he saw Meredith doing the same. She looked so damn beautiful in that moment, like a warrior queen from a bygone age. Mere was, in every possible way, his match. Dom only wished he’d realized it sooner. That they’d had more time together. The boom of gunfire, the explosions from distant bombs, and the chorus of Skulls overwhelmed anything he might’ve said to her.

But he mouthed those three words that he prayed she knew by now. She offered a sad, accepting smile and mouthed them back. Their magazines clicked into place.

His thoughts turned to his daughters still aboard the Huntress. Knowing Kara, she was either listening outside the electronics workshop or had weaseled her way in there to diligently watch the action. Maggie was probably doing her best to comfort Sadie.

Dom couldn’t bear to think about what would happen if he didn’t make it back.

He had to make it back.

Another Skull stared up at him, caught in his sights. Saliva roped from its pointed teeth, whipping in the wind as it climbed. He rolled the trigger back. One pop, and the Skull’s head flicked back. Its gray tongue lolled out of its mouth, and it peeled away from the hospital, limbs flailing as it fell. The new corpse slammed into a couple other Skulls on the way down.

“Huntress, Dom here,” he began. The Skulls were nearing the top. A spate of bullets punched into the wall beneath him. Chips of stone sprayed across his face. “If this goes south, tell my girls I love them. Tell them we did our best, and remind them to do theirs.”

“Copy,” Chao said. That one word had never sounded so miserable.

Then another voice broke over the comm link. One that nearly brought him to collapse. “Dad, we love you, too.”

Kara.

He blinked away the wet sheen that had formed over his eyes.

“But you’re going to make it back,” Kara continued. Her voice sounded shaky, and Dom knew it wasn’t just the tenuous connection over the comm link. “You don’t have a choice.”

He had to smile at that. Always stubborn, his girl.

Another squadron of jets blasted overheard. Ordnance hit the rest of the southwestern portion of the city. Fire filled the sky, brighter than the rising sun.

“Look out!” Glenn cried.

A huge claw gripped the wall around the hospital’s roof. Stonework crumbled away, and the claw dragged across the roof. The Chimera’s metal-breaking cries exploded as it fought for purchase. A sound like an entire river boiling came next. As soon as that beast made it up, it was going to unleash a torrent of skin-dissolving acid.

Dom stepped back from the wall as the second set of claws swooped up. Rabbit jumped out of the way, too, narrowly avoiding being scythed down like a stalk of wheat.

Then amid the chaos, he heard a glorious sound.

The thrum of helicopter engines. A sound he couldn’t mistake, even amid the horrifying chorus of monsters beneath them.

“Frank, tell me that’s you!” Dom yelled over the comms.

“You’re damn right it is,” Frank said. “Badass Airlines coming in for an early arrival. Got you in our sights.”

“Watch out for the huge ones without eyes,” Dom said. “The Chimeras can sling their claws like missiles.”

“Noted,” Frank said. “I’ll pass that on to my colleagues.”

The throaty bark of M249s exploded above the drowning voices of the Skulls. Flashes of gunfire illuminated the three helicopters now circling above the horde in violent bursts of orange and white. Angels of death, they focused their fire on the monsters climbing the side of the wall. Enough suppressing fire screamed down from the choppers to keep the Hybrids at bay.

But Dom still saw sparks as small arms fire pinged into the choppers.

They wouldn’t be able to stay long.

Two choppers peeled away, coming to a dangerously close hover above the rooftop.

“LZ doesn’t look quite clear enough for me to make a landing,” Frank’s voice rang out over the comms. “Badass Airlines is requesting all passengers form a line and load up in an orderly fashion. But make it real snappy.”

The side doors to the Black Hawks flung open. The first Skull topped the roof, screaming and bellowing. Machine-gun fire from the other two choppers peppered the monster’s back. Bone flecks flew, and blood sprayed across the Hunters as they ran toward Frank’s chopper. The Special Forces streamed toward the second, unfamiliar bird.

More Skulls poured over the side of the building, unhindered by gunfire.

“Go, go, go!” Dom yelled.

Lang fired into the masses rushing toward them, buying the group every second he could.

Dom stood near the hovering chopper, helping the others. Glenn was the last aboard, and he held out a hand for Dom.

“Lang! We’re ready!” Dom called. He got in beside the chopper’s gunner.

Together, they provided cover for the Special Forces officer. Lang ran for his chopper. Skulls lunged for him. The third chopper mowed down a swathe of the monsters, and Dom did his best to keep the rest off Lang’s back. He jumped into the chopper with a truly impressive leap.

Dom smacked the fuselage. “We’re in!”

The gunner continued to lay down a barrage of fire into the Skulls. A few claws managed to scrape the bottom of the chopper’s fuselage. None made it on.

“We’re going home!” Miguel yelled, pounding the bulkhead.

-36-

Sweat trickled down Frank’s forehead. His palms were clammy. Holding a hover this close to a building while winds buffeted the bird was almost as hard as trying to wipe his ass with his elbow.

The threat of Skulls overwhelming the chopper didn’t do much to settle his nerves. Their nails scraping across the bottom of the bird made him want to slap the damn things silly.

Awful, atrocious sound. Nearly as bad as the throaty boom of ordnance leveling the city now. Parts of it, anyway. HQ wasn’t totally heartless. They seemed to be selectively bombing the areas of the city where their forces hadn’t tried to invade, giving the people on the ground a few more minutes for escape.

It wouldn’t have been enough for the Hunters or Special Forces, though.

Frank liked flying solo. But right now, he was thankful for a couple of friends. Wild Dog and Jett continued to circle around the horde of Skulls, thinning the monsters’ numbers with bursts of gunfire. Without Wild Dog circling the sky, firing hell down onto that horde, there was a damn good chance Frank would’ve just been overrun with Skulls when he tried to pick everyone up. Not to mention their firepower had been crucial to blowing those big ugly Chimeras to pieces.

“BA Airlines, cleared for takeoff,” Frank said.

“Copy, Fabio,” Jett said, her chopper rising above the hospital.

They raced into the sky. Small arms fire pinged against the belly of the aircraft. Getting out of the city, now that the FGL knew they were here and their flight paths were limited by the bombing runs, would be almost impossible.

But nothing was impossible when Frank was in the cockpit. That was a Badass Airlines guarantee.

Frank took the chopper down toward the streets again. Last thing they needed was to be blasted out of the air by one of the antiaircraft units. All the AA fire seemed concentrated toward the southwest of the city. If they made this quick, hopefully it would stay that way.

They powered over the heads of the Skulls and Chimeras and Goliaths. A few of the Chimeras launched geysers of acid. None of the acid made it near the choppers. And when they launched their claws, they telegraphed their moves enough to make the projectiles easy to dodge. All the monsters could do was scream in rage, their voices muffled thanks to the chopper’s blaring engines.

Frank scanned their surroundings as he flew, looking for a telltale puff of smoke or flash of light. Waiting for an errant RPG or worse. But trying to spot something like that when half the city burned hotter than his ass after binging a dozen tacos was next to impossible.

Instead of following the streets, they skimmed over the Tigris. This way they stayed low, under the height of the buildings. The gunners’ fire sporadically leapt out when Hybrids or even the FGL’s human soldiers dared to show themselves. At cruising speed, the choppers were a hard target.

They swerved hard to the south before they reached the front lines of combat. Already, the gunfire was spreading out to the small towns outside of the city. A clear sign that the NATO forces were beating a hasty retreat.

“Bye-bye, Baghdad,” Frank said.

“Sweeter words were never spoken, Fabio,” Wild Dog said.

“I can think of sweeter,” Jett said. “Something about a cold brew and a comfortable bed would do it for me.”

“We got shit coffee and cots back at base,” Frank said.

“Close enough.”

They pushed past the last of the crumbling apartment buildings and restaurants, almost to the edge of the city, and then—

Frank barely had time to react. He pulled hard on the collective. A few startled yells cried out in the cabin. He could practically hear the rotors bending in protest at the abrupt maneuver.

Four huge claws sliced through the air past the bird. They had just run straight into another horde rushing toward the front lines. And while they hadn’t been able to hear the monsters above the growl of their engines, the monsters—or at least the Hybrids directing them—had heard them.

The Chimeras had plenty of time to react. The choppers were headed straight into them, like knights charging a pike line.

“Hang on!” Frank cried as he jockeyed the bird past the slinging claws.

A loud boom tore through the air. Claws impaled the Black Hawk on Frank’s right wing. One of the gunners was torn from his post, plummeting toward the waiting monsters. Two of the claws now stuck out of the smoking chopper as if it had grown a pair of horns.

Those horns intersected the path of the rotor blades. All the blades sheared off as they collided with the claws. The Black Hawk started to fall.

Frank’s stomach plummeted with it.

“Game over for me,” Wild Dog said. “You two—”

Everything seemed to happen in agonizing slow motion. Wild Dog’s voice was cut off when an explosion took the chopper. Torrents of oily smoke and fire consumed the bird. Another set of flying claws had pierced a fuel line. An errant spark, maybe, had set the whole thing off.

It didn’t really matter to Frank exactly what had happened. He had lost a wingman. Someone he’d barely known, and yet, after the stunt they’d pulled off, he had thought of Wild Dog as a brother-in-arms. Now there might as well have been a gaping wound in Frank’s chest.

Frank had to ignore the guilt. Later, he would have time to think about what he’d done, dragging his wingman straight into a trap. But if he let it take over now, there would be more than one bird falling out of the sky.

“Watch your six, Fabio!” Jett cried out.

Frank banked the chopper hard in time to avoid another barrage of flying claws just under the chopper’s belly. He and Jett blew past the rest of the Skulls and the Chimeras and whatever other nasty monsters lay below them.

“Fabio has left the building,” Frank whispered to himself. “Godspeed, Wild Dog. Until we meet again.”

The rest of the flight was a blur of burning buildings and dropping bombs. Their route had been forced to intersect with the evac site. Below, soldiers loaded into troop carriers, rolling away in clouds of dust. A few other helicopters appeared as specks over the horizon, preceding the fire of the rising sun. Armed forces still streamed from Baghdad, chased by Skulls and other Oni Agent monsters. The scene reminded Frank of some kind of twisted postapocalyptic version of the Battle of Dunkirk.

“We got any empty seats?” Frank asked.

“We got room on the floor,” Dom replied.

“Good enough,” Frank said. “Permission to assist, Captain?”

“Do it.”

“Jett, what do you say we help these boys out?”

He tried to sound cool. But his voice shook. The air shimmered with the heat radiating from the fires. The FGL would be pouring out of the city, if not to pursue the NATO forces, then to escape the bombing.

“I can squeeze in a few more,” she replied.

They brought their choppers down, keeping their engines hot. Once Miguel opened the side door of the chopper, none of the NATO forces asked questions. They just piled in, bringing the wounded with them. Frank guessed it took only fifteen seconds to get loaded.

He tried not to look at the expressions of despair on those who were still waiting on the dusty road when the side doors closed. They took to the air again.

Jett’s voice cracked over the line. “Told ’em I’d be back for more. That bothers me.”

“Why so?” Frank asked. The golden hues of the morning light played across the windshield, catching on the cracks from the small arms fire they’d absorbed. More planes jetted past them, their sonic booms hitting a second after Frank spotted them.

“We aren’t coming back.” Jett’s voice quivered from emotion, her trademark cool fracturing under the strain. “At least, not in time for them.”

“We did our best, though,” Frank said. “We did what we could.”

He couldn’t help but think of Wild Dog. They had lost the man in a blink. Frank had gotten cocky, thinking they had nearly escaped. And then wham! Danger hit them right in the ass. He gave himself a mental reminder to stay sharp. They wouldn’t be safe until they touched down on the Huntress.

“Just hope command is on top of things,” Jett said, sounding more like herself again. “That’s a lot of people to move. Most of their vehicles took heavy damage. FGL is going to be on ’em soon. And those bombing runs were getting too close. Way too close.”

“You don’t think they’d bomb their own...?” Frank couldn’t even finish the question.

Jett didn’t respond, either.

The line remained silent after that. Frank could barely hear the muffled voices behind him from the passengers in the cabin. He wondered if they were thinking about Wild Dog or the brothers they’d left behind. He hoped that this was all worth it. That the brass had made the right choices today and that the sacrifices they had all made would be paid for in kind.

That whatever the Hunters had brought home with them would mean the end of this godforsaken war.

***

An invisible weight dragged down Lauren’s eyelids. She could feel each vertebra in her spine compressing. Every muscle seemed to cramp into a solid mass as she stood in front of the lab bench, working on her report for Sokolov.

She was tired.

Damn tired.

She had not even tried to sleep, forgoing it in the hopes she could get the report for Sokolov done as soon as possible. That meant working a lot of superhuman hours and pushing the boundaries of her normally excellent time management and organizational skills. She had run chromatography experiments while doing nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, with a dash of UV-vis spectroscopy in between. Multiple experiments, multiple machines, all running around her in a quiet, mechanical concert.

Sokolov had even grinned at her once while she worked. A frustratingly satisfied look on his face.

But that was fine.

Let him think that he had beaten her psyche down. Let him think that she was operating all this equipment as though she was working for him and the FGL.

The less he suspected her the better. She had characterized the drugs and compounds the FGL had given her. She had indeed found matches for some that were potential antagonists to the neurotransmitters she needed to target to prevent the Pacifist Fog from having any effect on the Skulls.

But she limited her results to reporting just those potential candidates. Her fingers hit the keyboard furiously, working to type up the mountains of data. Already such a report in so little time blasted past the normal expectations of the churning progress science normally took. She’d be impressed if someone had given her a report like this with all the results of these characterization assays. Hell, there were professional academic journals that would publish academic papers with less data than what she was providing.

All the same, she tried to keep the actual progress to a minimum. Nothing she offered in the paper was a remedy against the Pacifist Fog. Just the illusion that she was close to identifying something.

Across the way, Navid worked just as diligently. His hair had grown long during their time in Germany. Now it hung in oily clumps over his face, shielding his eyes from hers. She wanted to catch his gaze just one more time to ensure he was on her side. If the threat to his family clouded his judgment—if he really was working to develop something that would render the Phoenix Compound useless—

then that made what Lauren was about to do even more important.

As she set up experiments, she had racked her brain trying to figure out the best way to tell Glenn and the rest of the Hunters that she and Navid were being held hostage. Beyond that, she needed to find some way to tell them where she was.

She had recalled the time the Huntress had been taken hostage by the US Coast Guard under the direction of General Kinsey. Back then, he had been certain the Hunters had something to do with the Oni Agent. He’d been right—they did have something to do with the Oni Agent. Only they were fighting the bioweapon, not developing or spreading it.

Most importantly, Lauren had remembered how they had furtively communicated with the Hunters from the lab. Samantha had developed a script to bypass the USCG control of the Huntress’s comm equipment and relay simple voice commands to the Hunters from the med bay.

She didn’t have access to that script now. Even if she did, Lauren doubted the program would work with whatever comm equipment the FGL had in this place.

But she had learned a couple things about computers. For one, she knew that although this computer was networked to a server elsewhere in the facility, she had no external network access from this terminal.

But Sokolov had said they were going to send her results to the front lines. That meant they had to have some way to send it. She doubted it would be delivered by homing pigeons. To get her report out to a bunch of labs, they had to be networked somehow.

That’s what she was banking on. Any message that was sent electronically could be intercepted.

Hidden in her report, she’d included a message that she hoped Samantha would recognize. All she needed was for this report to be picked up by the right people. If her allies were winning the war, they’d be taking those frontline bases and labs from the FGL. Snagging intel from errant transmissions. Infiltrating FGL servers with their own cyber warfare strategies. Sooner or later, they would come across this report. They would figure out Navid and Lauren were alive. And they would, she hoped, be able to track down the origins of the message to this hellish laboratory.

Of course, if they were losing the fight, then they would never see her message.

Lauren supposed that didn’t matter. If her allies were losing the war, nothing mattered. She and Navid would be as good as dead.

Here goes nothing.

“Sokolov,” she said, drawing out the name to emphasize her exhaustion. “It’s ready.”

“Good. Ahead of schedule even.”

“May I submit it?”

“Not yet.”

Sokolov pushed himself off his seat. Dried blood crusted his skeletal nostrils. He limped over to Lauren. His breath washed over her. It reminded her of eggs left to rot. The combination of his sickly odor and her exhaustion was enough to cause her stomach to twist. Her head started to feel light, and she gripped the edge of the lab bench.

“Something else you want?” Lauren asked, trying to sound as glum as ever.

“I just want to look the report over before we send it to our mutual bosses.” His voice sounded raspy and weak. His bloodshot eyes scanned the computer screen. His claws draped over the mouse. They tremored slightly.

Lauren didn’t move. She tried to breathe normally as he scanned through the report. The way he managed the lab had always made her suspect he was a scientist. And he had worked closely with Navid and Lauren, day and night.

Surely he could see right through her.

If he found the message she’d embedded, she had no illusions what would happen to her. Or to Navid and his family. The beatings and imprisonment would all have been a prologue to what would come next.

Nervous sweat rolled down the back of her neck. How good were a Hybrid’s senses? They could detect pheromones from other Oni Agent–riddled beasts. Could a Hybrid detect fear? Could he smell it on her?

“What is this?” Sokolov asked. He pointed a shaky claw at the screen.

Lauren’s stomach lurched. “What... what is what?” she asked.

“This is garbage,” he said.

He pointed at the screen again, this time more vehemently. His rancid breath hit. She wanted to throw up.

Shit, shit, shit.

She blinked to clear her vision and tried to stand straight next to him, studying the screen. A laugh bubbled up in her chest, and she threw her hands over her mouth to hold it back. She tried to play it off as a cough. Relief hit her with its cool touch, wiping away her frayed nerves.

“Oh, yes, I screwed up,” she said.

He was pointing to a series of graphs. Each had lines that looked like tall, skinny mountains. These were the results from her nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy experiments. They were supposed to show the chemical composition of the various compounds she had analyzed. Except that in doing a blanket copy and paste of all the graphs into her report, the images had been compressed. The vertical axis had been smashed so as to make all the labels illegible, rendering the results useless. In her haste to complete the report and embed her message in the text, she hadn’t spent the time to double-check all the report’s figures.

“I can fix that easily.” She did her best to play the part of the groveling lab assistant. “I’m sorry. It must be because I’m tired. I won’t screw it up again. I promise.”

Sokolov waved a clawed hand at her. “The rest looks good enough. Fix the graphs, and we will send this.”

Lauren nodded, only too happy to make the revisions on her report. She looked over the whole thing a second time. The message she’d hidden was all too obvious to her. Hopefully not obvious at all to the Russians, but clear enough that someone on the Huntress would see it.

This was a long shot. But it was the only shot she had.

-37-

The fires of the battle over Baghdad had given way to a clear blue sky. That sight alone should’ve made Meredith happy. But she still smelled the smoke clinging to their clothes, the odor of spent ammunition, and the metallic tang of blood. She had helped change the bandages over Dom’s cheek a couple of times, but already he had bled through them again. He needed more help than she could provide in the field. O’Neil, too, was in bad shape after the bony plates and spikes had been torn off his back. The Halo pills they’d taken from the underground complex seemed to alleviate the pain. But they did nothing for the persistent bleeding or the black gunk that oozed from the wounds.

At least they were better off than the passengers they had picked up outside Baghdad. The images of the soldiers gored by Skulls and people with acid burns stretching the lengths of their bodies would haunt her. They had packed both choppers up with as many souls as they could. She couldn’t imagine what had happened to the poor bastards left behind in the retreat.

“Please place your trays in an upright position,” Frank said over the comm link. “We are now beginning our descent to Shit Creek, Nowhere. Temperature is hot as balls.”

“You think we will be welcomed back?” Andris asked.

Meredith didn’t answer. She had been so focused on getting out of Baghdad that she hadn’t thought about their reception at the FOB. After all, neither Frank nor Lieutenant Iglesias—or Jett—had been given clearance to bring back the Hunters or teams Wraith and Talon.

“Hard to say,” Dom answered. “Everyone should stay close. We might need to take off in a hurry.”

“Getting on the US military’s bad side again?” Miguel asked.

“Better not be, with what we’re bringing back,” Jenna said.

Meredith wasn’t sure if she meant the other NATO troops or the Halo meds. Maybe the combination would be enough to let them off the hook.

A few minutes later, they touched down in the middle of the airfield. All around them, people rushed toward other helicopters. A squadron of F-22s blasted overhead, soaring straight toward Baghdad. Voices called between the sirens bleating over the base.

Frank shut the chopper’s engines down, and the blades began to slow. Meredith pulled back the side door and hopped out, turning to help the wounded out first. She waved to a group of field medics assembled near the edge of the tarmac. An ambulance met them, taking those who couldn’t walk on their own. As people unloaded, Andris and O’Neil piled up the packs with all the pills and samples they’d retrieved next to the bird.

“Could we get a porter to help with our luggage?” Glenn rumbled.

“How about a medic?” Meredith asked, indicating Dom and O’Neil.

“Don’t know about that,” Lang said. “But it looks like we at least got a ride.”

A pair of Humvees churned over the airfield, kicking up a cloud of dust. Each had a gunner poking out of the top. There was no mistaking where those guns were pointing.

“That answers my question about our welcome reception,” Andris said.

“Suppose it does,” Meredith said.

The Humvees skidded to a stop in front of the group. The two gunners kept their fingers off the triggers, but the guns remained pointed at the Hunters.

A man stepped out of the first Humvee. From the insignia on his shoulder, Meredith could tell he was a major. With no facial hair and a head as smooth as Mr. Clean, there was nothing to hide the scarlet hue of the man’s face. He began yelling at them almost immediately after his boots hit the ground.

“What in the hell do you idiots think you’re doing?” he asked, storming toward them.

Frank stepped out of the cockpit. His helmet was slung under his arm.

The major was close enough Meredith could see his nametape now: DANIELS.

“And you!” Major Daniels pointed at Frank. His face seemed to darken with every word he spat at the pilot. “Risking one of our birds when we explicitly said not to. You’re all out of your goddamned minds. You are not mission priority.”

The two privates flanking Daniels like twin ghosts remained stone-faced. They did not seem at all dismayed at the reaming their XO was delivering. It made Meredith think that Daniels’ rage was not an uncommon occurrence.

“Every goddamn helicopter, every goddamn bullet, every goddamn person we have is goddamn valuable,” Daniels said. Then his eyes narrowed as he stared at Lang. “You of all people should know that. I told you and Craw to handle these people. I trusted you to keep them on a tight leash.”

Daniels looked around for a second. All of a sudden, the red of his face drained away. “Where is Craw?”

Lang’s lip trembled slightly before he answered. “Killed in the line of duty, sir.”

Daniels’s fingers clenched into white-knuckled fists at his side. “Fuck.” Then he inhaled a deep breath. “This is all that made it back?”

“Yes, sir,” Lang said.

“Half of Wraith and Talon, and all those damn mercs.”

“Yes, sir.”

“But not Craw,” Daniels said, as if he couldn’t believe it. Maybe he didn’t want to believe it.

“We also brought back two helicopters full of wounded, sir,” Lang said, waving toward the ambulances.

“I noticed.” Daniels’s expression seemed to soften for a brief moment. Then he turned back to the choppers. “Colonel Abraham is not going to be happy about that. He was already pissed about that stunt you dumbass pilots pulled.” Daniels jabbed his finger at Frank again. “And I already heard the news. We lost Styles, his crew, and his bird because you all wouldn’t listen.”

“Sir, if I may,” Dom said. Meredith recognized the underlying current in his voice. He was pissed. He was really pissed. But somehow he was managing to hold it back like a chain holding back a rabid junkyard guard dog. Only he was one link away from letting that dog go.

“You may not,” Daniels said.

“I’m going to anyway.” Dom must’ve been just menacing enough with half his face peeling off that Daniels let him speak. “You were going to leave us to die. We weren’t going to survive those bombs.”

“You were not on our priority list. We needed to preserve as many air units as possible.” That was Daniels’s way of saying they were expendable.

“Those men we brought back—were they also not a priority?” Dom asked.

Daniels huffed, glaring at Dom. His nose scrunched into a snarl as he took a step forward over the dusty tarmac. “Our focus is on neutralizing enemy contacts in Baghdad right now. That comes at a cost, and we are well aware what resources we can and cannot expend to achieve that target.”

Meredith understood euphemisms from her time in the CIA. There were times when they had to release or abandon assets. That is, if a contact or an operative was in a tough situation, sometimes it was better to let them confront that tough situation alone than compromise mission integrity.

She cursed inwardly. Even in her thoughts she was thinking euphemistically. Bureaucratic speak was hard to shake.

Sometimes, you had to let people die.

There. That’s what Daniels had been faced with in Baghdad. She understood where he was coming from. And now he had to deal with a bunch of insubordinate rebels who were about to be court-martialed. He was probably wondering if the trade that Frank and Jett had made without his approval had been worth it. How many lives had been lost because they had been missing two—no, three—choppers and crews when the retreat order had been issued?

All that to bring back a half-dead group of Special Forces and a team of mercenaries he couldn’t care less about. Was it worth it to him?

Meredith had been asking herself a similar question all night. Was sacrificing a few extra lives so they could fill their packs with Halo pills worth the effort?

She still wasn’t sure if it was, but she hoped Daniels thought so.

“Our mission wasn’t a complete failure,” Meredith said. She grabbed one of the packs and then heard the clicks of the two privates swinging their rifles up at her. If she made a wrong move, she’d be turned into Skull food. “May I?”

Daniels raised an open palm to stay the trigger-happy men behind him.

She dug her hands into the packs and pulled out one of the white boxes. “Halo.” Then she indicated the packs behind her. “All of these are full. We also harvested data, drives, and computers from one of the FGL’s labs.”

Daniels’s face remained stern, but his voice lost the grizzled, angry edge. “Do you have the formulas as well? The manufacturing instructions?”

Meredith saw the Hunters trade uncertain looks.

“We’re not sure,” Meredith admitted.

“Not sure?” Daniels’s face began to redden again. The man seriously needed to watch his blood pressure.

“We didn’t have time to sift through everything. But the pills give our scientists a start to reverse engineer the formula.”

“You have a lot of faith in science,” Daniels said.

“I’ve seen what it can do,” Meredith said. “I was with the CIA prior to all this. Bioweaps division.”

Daniels didn’t even raise a brow. “Good for you.” Then, with a nod, he indicated the bags. “Load those up. Lang, your men need to come with me.”

The Special Forces started filing toward the Humvees. Lang paused next to Meredith and Dom. “I was wrong about you two. I hate being wrong.”

“Come on, Lang,” Daniels said. “We don’t have time for sappy goodbyes.”

“Yes, sir,” Lang said. He gave Dom and Meredith each a hearty handshake before rushing off.

It was strange to Meredith to have fought beside a man like that and then to say goodbye so quickly. She had a feeling that they wouldn’t be seeing him or his men anytime soon. That was the military. Train and fight and bleed together. Then, in an instant, get shipped out somewhere else.

“We might be able to use this stuff,” Daniels said, eying the cargo his men were loading into the Humvees. “And I may appreciate the return of our wounded more than it appears. Problem is, I can’t justify what happened with those birds to the others waiting for me in the CIC.” Daniels locked eyes with Dom then Meredith. “The rest of you didn’t land here. You took off on your own bird, escaping Baghdad of your own volition. Nothing wrong with that since we told you to clear out for the bombing.”

Jenna and Miguel looked confused, but Meredith understood.

“We flew straight back to the Huntress,” Meredith said. “Assuming there’s enough fuel in that bird to take us there.”

“There will be,” Daniels said.

“But the Chief?” Miguel asked, pointing to the bandages. “He needs medical attention.”

“I’m sure it’s better on your ship than in military prison,” Daniels said.

Meredith got the hint. She had to hope their rudimentary first aid would keep Dom and O’Neil stable until they reached the med bay on the Huntress.

“And Lieutenant Iglesias?” Meredith asked. She looked at the Black Hawk they had arrived with. Jett was helping a medic unload the last of her passengers. “She was crucial to our rescue.”

“If she made it back, she would be court-martialed,” Daniels said slowly. “You all are mercs. Not much we can do to you. If Iglesias decided to throw her lot in with you...”

Meredith nodded. “Of course.”

“Hurry,” Daniels said. “I’ll have your chopper refueled. In all the confusion and chaos, I’ll be sure you and Iglesias are not a priority.”

With that, he turned his back and stepped into one of the Humvees. There was no goodbye, no thanks for their service. This abrupt departure, a little fuel, and an escape from Iraq would have to be good enough.

“You heard him,” Dom said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Badass Airlines specializes in quick layovers,” Frank said, patting the side of the chopper.

“Hey, Frank?” Meredith said. “Let’s go have a chat with Iglesias.”

“Jett,” Frank corrected.

As Meredith walked toward Jett with Frank in tow, she noticed Glenn having a heated conversation with Dom. She was confused as to what the two could be talking about. Then she noticed Glenn trying to replace some of the bandages on Dom’s face.

Like always, someone else had to convince him he needed to take care of himself before he tried helping everyone else. Meredith took off her helmet, letting her hair down. A breeze helped to cool off her sweat-soaked scalp, and she breathed a sigh of relief. With the clear promise that they’d be heading back to the Huntress again, she actually felt safe.

At least for the time being.

Jett was standing by her Black Hawk as the last of the military ambulances zoomed away.

“Fabio,” she said, looking up at Frank as they approached. “I’m going to be screwed, aren’t I?”

“That’s awfully forward of you,” Frank replied. “Why don’t you come back to my place?”

Jett just shook her head, brushing back the hair that fell over her eyes to reveal the shaved half of her head. “You’re a character. That might be the best thing I can say about you right now.”

“I’m sorry about Lieutenant Styles,” Meredith said.

“He’ll be forever known as Wild Dog,” Jett said. “Ace pilot. Good guy.” She looked like she wanted to say more but stopped and pointed at Meredith. “You copying my hairdo?”

It took Meredith a second to understand what Jett was talking about. Then she turned her head to show the full extent of why she had half her head shaved like the pilot.

“Not intentionally,” Meredith said. “Lost an ear. Needed surgery.”

“Damn,” Jett said. “Looks like you’ve got a long story to tell.”

“I can give you the whole thing on the way back to our ship,” Meredith said.

“Back to your ship?” Jett repeated. “I thought that was just Fabio coming on to me.”

“We really going to call him that now?” Meredith asked.

Frank merely grinned and combed his hand through his hair.

“Look, Iglesias, I need to level with you,” Meredith said. “Major Daniels may have mentioned that the smart move is for you to come with us. I can tap a few of my old intelligence connections and have you officially transferred to contract work with us if that’s what it comes to.”

“Intelligence contacts? Who the hell are you people?” Jett asked.

“Thought you said you’d heard the stories,” Frank said.

“I heard the stories,” Jett said. “I assumed most were just that.”

“You want to find out what’s true or not, I recommend coming with us,” Meredith said. “If you prefer to find out what a military prison is like in a time of war, not to mention the bureaucratic chaos surrounding a crumbling government, hang tight here.”

Frank gave the other pilot an endearing smile. “Badass Airlines is hiring.”

Jett looked between them, uncertainty painted across her face. “Damn it. Fine. As a responsible human being and pilot, someone’s got to look out for this bastard in the sky.”

“Great,” Frank said. “Because you can start now. We’re flying out of here in my bird.”

“I’ll introduce you to the others,” Meredith said. “And welcome to the team.”

-38-

“Back to the Huntress,” Dom said, slapping the headrest of Frank’s seat.

“Badass Airlines thanks you for flying with us,” Frank said, using his trademark humor like a shield. “You don’t have any choice, and we appreciate it nonetheless. Just not enough to provide in-flight entertainment other than the pilot’s jokes.”

“Does he do this every time?” Jett asked, looking back from the copilot’s seat.

“Unfortunately,” Dom replied. “But you learn to live with it.”

Meredith smiled, and Dom grinned back. It hurt, but he’d be damned if he let her know it. She and the rest of the crew had already tried to baby him enough. The scar on his cheek would be yet another one to add to his collection. And besides, a flesh wound like this was nothing compared to the sacrifices so many others had heroically made.

Heroes like Craw. He hadn’t known the Special Forces officer for long, but it had been long enough for him to know the man would be sorely missed. As would the members of teams Wraith and Talon who had died all just so they could bring back a few bags of Halo samples and some tenuous intel.

The chopper’s engines roared as it clawed its way into the air, leaving behind the dust clouds and people below. Other helicopters rose up in concert, heading north toward Baghdad. This was going to be a long day for everyone left behind at the FOB. Dom did not envy them.

“Happens every time, Chief,” Miguel said.

“What’s that?” Dom asked.

“We make some allies, then we leave. Can’t really sit still long in a war like this.”

“You’re right,” Dom said heavily.

“It’s like I always say—” he began. Suddenly Miguel’s eyes went wide. He nearly jolted out of his seat.

“What? What is it?” Dom asked.

“I forgot something!”

Now Dom’s heart was beating at a rapid clip, nearly outpacing the thrum of the helicopter’s blades. “What?”

Miguel held up his left arm. “We were supposed to look for my real arm in Baghdad. Anyone see it?”

A round of laughter greeted this comment.

“I’m serious,” Miguel said. “Andris, if you’re holding out on me, I swear to God, I’ll take your arm instead.”

“You are a very forgetful man, Miguel,” Andris said, his accent extremely thick. Dom wondered if that wasn’t part of the show. “We have come all the way to Baghdad on the most hellish mission, and you did not even bother to look for your arm.”

“Nah, man,” Miguel said, rubbing the opposite wrist with his prosthetic fingers. “Guess I wasn’t on my A game. Got distracted.”

The whole thing reminded Dom of the time he had been helping Kara make the transition from training wheels to a normal bicycle. She had wiped out on the sidewalk. When she got up, she started limping toward him, her foot twisted horribly. Dom had run to her, ready to scoop her up and take her to the hospital.

But as soon as he had reached her, she had burst out laughing and started walking normally.

“Got you, Daddy!” she had said with such annoying glee.

“Miguel, you are a jackass,” Dom said. “You pull some shit like that again, I will personally take your other arm.”

“Why?” Miguel asked. “Yours not good enough?”

Dom pointed to the side door. “You miss Baghdad? I can get you back there real fast.”

The conversation eased into good humor. It wasn’t the kind of thing that made sense to civvies, who would probably expect them to be an emotional train wreck. Sure, they would pay the psychological toll for everything they had done, everything they had seen, and everyone they had lost. But for now, they reveled in coming away from it all alive. The good-natured jabs and jokes were the release valves from all the pressure that had built up during their time in hell.

It wasn’t enough to be alive. They needed to feel alive, too.

Electricity coursed through Dom like pent-up adrenaline, spiraling through his body and soaking into his nerves. Every time he laughed, the side of his face throbbed. But he didn’t care about the pain right now. He wanted to laugh and yell and curse all at once. His thoughts intermittently swirled between a juicy cheeseburger and a nice bed. Maybe he could convince a certain redheaded ex-CIA officer to join him. Hell, if Meredith brought him a cheeseburger in bed, he’d marry her on the spot.

Dom chuckled at the crazy thoughts tumbling through his exhausted brain. He imagined the others were in a similar state. Even Jett joined in the conversation. She had a certain edge about her. Not that Dom had expected anything less from a person who willingly disobeyed standing orders to follow Frank into a firefight with Oni Agent–addled monsters. But he could tell she would fit into the group well.

They could never replace the people they’d lost, but the new additions they’d picked up so far were working out well. He smiled at Meredith. She had melded into the team almost seamlessly, rising from her desk job at the Agency to shooting up Skulls in the streets. And their newest Hunter had quickly become an invaluable member of the team. O’Neil wore a grim expression, his clawed hands resting neatly over his knees as if he were sitting in a church pew, listening to a sermon. He was the only person not laughing.

Chinning his comm link, Dom switched over to a private channel. “You doing all right?”

O’Neil looked up at Dom. Redness was creeping in from the edges of his eyes toward his pupils. “My back will be okay.”

“Good,” Dom said. “But that’s not what I was talking about. You’re looking a bit distracted.”

O’Neil let out a long exhale. “The Halo pills. They’re as good as the other Hybrids said they were. They’re starting to wear off... and I miss them.” O’Neil gritted his teeth. The muscles around his jaw worked as if he were grinding his fangs together. “I just wish... I want... I need more of those things,” O’Neil said. “Now that I know what’s it like to not feel this”—he held up the claws in front of his face—“I don’t want to feel it anymore.” He hung his head. “I can see why someone like me would start working for them.” O’Neil wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “If I, a Navy SEAL, can get hooked on these things, the average person without the training and discipline wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“It’s a lot,” Dom said. “Can I ask you about it?”

“The Heikegani Agent?”

“Halo.”

O’Neill nodded.

“Do you think they laced it with something addictive? Is that what you’re feeling?”

O’Neil met Dom’s eyes again. “I don’t think so. Nothing like morphine. It’s not the same urge, like I have to have it or I’ll die. No, the addicting part is that all the physical pain goes away. I no longer feel the bones growing through my skin. They just... stop. And there’s not this fever in my brain. There’s no longer this darkness, this heaviness in my mind.”

“I see,” Dom said. “There’s something that bothered me. Halo seemed to block the Chimeras from your mind. Why wouldn’t Halo make you more susceptible to the influence of the Chimeras—or Hybrids or whatever at that point?”

O’Neil frowned. “It’s difficult to explain. But to answer your question, I’d have to tell you what it’s like to be influenced by the Hybrids. They don’t stream thoughts into my mind. There are no orders. Just raw, angry emotions. Urges. Kind of like instincts. Like there is a monster in my mind, and they’re just egging it on. But it’s never a direct command like ‘Advance to the next position’ or ‘Fire over there.’

“The pills calm that anger. They clear my head. And if someone had promised me more Halo at the time, I would’ve done anything for them. Knowing that we had packs of it with us, I was more than happy to do anything you told me to.”

Dom tried his best to understand. He would never be able to truly empathize with O’Neil. He couldn’t imagine the effects the Heikegani Agent had on the man’s mind and body. But the best he could do was listen.

“I... I have to admit, the prospect of not having any more... of having to live with this pain and these sensations...” O’Neil’s bony fingers clenched together, forming a knot of gnarled knuckles and claws. “It’s going to be hard going on without them.”

“I understand,” Dom said. Then he turned to his side, breaking off the private channel. “Mere, you got that bag?”

Meredith reached under her seat and pulled out a canvas bag. She unzipped it to show stacks of the white Halo cartons, a few hard drives, and some of the computers they had taken from the underground complex in Baghdad.

O’Neil’s eyes widened. “I thought we gave everything we had to Daniels.”

“Hell no,” Meredith said. “We learned our lesson a long time ago with those guys.”

Dom took one of the cartons from the bag and held it out to O’Neil. “I want you to work with Peter and Divya on coming up with the right regimen.”

“I understand.” O’Neil took the carton. He looked like he’d been cuffed and shackled, and now suddenly he was free. “You have my word.” With one claw, he cut the top of the carton off and pulled out a blister pack of pills. He popped one into his mouth and dry swallowed it. “Don’t you think the military is going to be wanting this stuff?”

“They don’t even know it’s missing,” Meredith said.

Dom nodded. “Thing is, you saw how chaotic things are. I don’t want to put all our eggs in one basket. Or in this case, one intelligence organization. I think we’ll be helping them by helping ourselves. We’ll give Chao and Samantha something to do to earn their paychecks and then get our medical team working on these pills. See if we can’t come up with something that doesn’t feel addictive but still controls the Heikegani Agent.”

“Or even reverses it,” Meredith said.

“You think you can turn me human again?” O’Neil asked.

“That’ll be up to the science team,” Dom replied.

O’Neil looked troubled. It was hard to tell with his bony mask of features, but Dom had gotten pretty good at reading him.

“Something wrong?” Dom asked.

The uncertainty vanished in O’Neil’s eyes. “No, actually, I don’t think so. Ever since Morocco, I’ve wondered who I am. What I am.” He smiled, shaking his head almost ruefully. “I just realized none of that matters. I’m still Brendon O’Neil. And most importantly, cheesy as it sounds, I’m a Hunter. That’s who I am.”

“Not cheesy at all,” Dom said. He cleared his throat and tried not to let the swell of emotions overwhelm him.

A voice piped in from the cockpit. “It’s a little cheesy.”

“Says the guy who calls himself Fabio and claims to operate Badass Airlines,” Jett said, already bantering with Frank.

Dom couldn’t help but laugh. She was going to make a good addition to the team. Just like Meredith had.

Just like O’Neil had.

Both Baghdad and Moscow were gone now. Wiped off the planet in a matter of hours along with whatever elements of the FGL remained there. Even though the enemy’s cities were gone, it didn’t feel like a victory. Tonight was just the beginning of a terrifying next stage in this war. But they weren’t alone. They had allies. Whether it was people who joined the team permanently, like O’Neil and Meredith, or even those who worked with them only fleetingly, like Alizia Mudimbe in the Congo or Lang and Craw in Baghdad, they formed bonds with their brothers and sisters in this fight. It was because of those bonds that they would persevere.

And without a doubt in his mind, Dom knew that soon, victory would be theirs.

-39-

Kara stretched, grabbing her toes with her fingers while seated on a gym mat. The exercise was a brief respite from her work. A chance to expend all her pent-up energy. She liked being useful aboard the Huntress, but all her time aboard the ship involved either working in the engine room or studying the maintenance manuals Alden had given her. A quick workout helped jump-start her brain so she could hit the books again.

Down the corridor, she heard Divya’s and Sadie’s voices coming nearer.

Kara wasn’t the only one trying to be useful. Sadie had latched on to Divya and refused to let go. While the Hunters had all been training with those Special Forces, the med bay was empty. Divya had taken Sadie under her wing, giving her a dose of homeschooling in math and science. Kara hadn’t realized how much her little sister must have missed school. Now she was always following Divya around like a duckling, constantly asking questions.

“And the Golgi bodies pack proteins into vesicles for transport,” Sadie said.

“Ribosomes?” Divya asked.

“Translate RNA into amino acids.”

“Excellent!” Divya said.

They entered through the open hatch of the fitness room. Maggie trailed them, tail wagging, and slipped past Divya and Sadie. The dog charged Kara and knocked her backward, plastering her face with wet, slobbering kisses.

“Come on, Maggie! I’m working here!” Kara said. She couldn’t help but laugh as the golden retriever completely ignored her protests. It had only been an hour since she’d last seen the dog, but Maggie acted as if she’d been gone for years.

“I think I want to be a tissue engineer,” Sadie said proudly as she stood over Kara.

Kara was still flat on her back, hugging Maggie. “Really? And what does a tissue engineer do? Make Kleenexes?”

Sadie laughed. “Come on, Kara. No, a tissue engineer makes new tissues from cells and materials. Like building organs for people. That kind of thing.”

“Ah, I see.” Kara sat upright and looked at Divya. “You think she can handle that?”

“Of course I can!” Sadie said, hands on her hips.

“She’s very smart,” Divya said. “Takes after her sister.”

Kara felt a sting of guilt. If Sadie was doing well in her studies, it wasn’t because of something Kara had done. “And her parents,” she said.

Maggie picked up one of the rope-grip accessories from a weightlifting machine and began running around the room with it. She stopped, set it down, barked at Sadie, then grabbed it and resumed her running.

The message was pretty clear.

Sadie trotted over to play with the dog. Divya smiled as she watched them romp around the room.

“That dog needs to burn some energy. And so does Sadie,” she said.

It was hard for Kara to believe that the golden retriever had fractured her front leg so many months ago all the way back in Maryland. She had since walked with a bit of limp, but it had never slowed her down. There was certainly something to say about a dog’s stubborn resilience.

“You know,” Kara started to say, standing up, “you’re going to be really busy with patients and science work again as soon as everyone gets back. I guess I can start tutoring Sadie, too.”

“I think your sister would like that,” Divya said.

“She’s right,” Sadie chirped. “I’d like that.”

Divya’s smile grew wider. “I’m happy to show you the books I’ve been teaching from. It’s nothing you didn’t cover in high school or back when you were at college.”

“I wasn’t in college long before... you know.”

“True,” Divya said, “but you still have years of education. Teach her everything you know, and it’ll make it a little easier for me to bring her up to speed when I can.” Divya’s gaze turned upward, as if she was losing herself in thought. “You know, I bet Glenn could tutor her as well. He’s a whiz at languages and always has his face in a book.”

“Yeah, actually, that’s a great idea,” Kara said.

“He could use the distraction, too,” Divya continued. “Ever since Lauren and Navid were taken, I can tell he’s had a hard time.”

“I’ll do that. As soon as they get back.” Kara paused then corrected herself, “I mean, I’ll give them a chance to recover and recuperate, of course.”

“Of course,” Divya said.

A voice broke over the ship’s intercom system. It was Chao. “Helicopter inbound,” he said. “Hunters are twenty minutes out.”

“Speak of the devil,” Kara muttered.

Sadie froze beside Maggie, a wide grin spreading across her face. “They’re back!”

Even Maggie seemed to sense something great was happening. Her tail swished through the air like it was beating back a Skull horde. Those twenty minutes passed agonizingly slowly until finally Kara was up on the flight deck with Thomas and Divya and Peter and all the other members of the crew who could take a break. She joined in the cheers and applause when the chopper touched down and the Hunters poured out of it.

She and Sadie ran to Dom and Meredith. They all threw their arms around each other in one big group embrace. Kara felt almost silly at the tears streaming from her eyes, but she couldn’t help it. Was this how Maggie felt every time she saw her human family after a separation, no matter how brief? The joy of someone she loved being there, being present? Knowing that she had that time with them, that moment to share?

It was enough for Kara. She relished every second she could soak it in.

***

“Stitches look good on you,” Meredith said, eyeballing the side of Dom’s face as he sat on a patient bed in the med bay. “Sure you want to take them out?”

“You think they’re sexy?” Dom asked with a wink.

“Didn’t say that,” Meredith replied. “Wouldn’t say that in front of your kid. I’m a lady.”

He looked at Kara. “Should I keep them?”

Kara grinned. “Nah, you’re just trying to look like me, aren’t you?” She indicated the scars covering the side of her face, the evidence of a Skull attack she had survived.

Meredith felt a pang of sympathy. The side of her head seemed to burn where she had lost her ear. They all had scars to show for their battles. The physical ones were obvious, constant reminders of what they’d been through. But they were only a hint at what lay within. The mental anguish, the baggage they would carry in their souls for the rest of their lives.

She could not help but think of the Special Forces troops. They had been lost on the battlefield because of the choice Meredith had made to stay underground. She’d chosen to keep searching, to gather as much intel as possible. And now they didn’t have a definitive answer as to whether that data was helpful. Chao, Samantha, Glenn, and she had been digging through everything they had recovered. So far, they had come up with barely more than crumbs of useful, intelligible intel.

She prayed it had been worth it. Then again, even if history or some higher power—whoever was the judge of these things—deemed it was worth it, would the guilt of making a decision that had cost those men their lives just vanish?

She didn’t think so.

Divya came over with surgical scissors and tweezers. She traced a finger over the stitches. “Everything has healed up very nicely. Even the slight infection. I would count yourself and O’Neil very lucky.”

“Yeah, you’re very, very lucky,” Kara said. “If you had hurt yourself worse, I would’ve killed you.”

Dom raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really? And then I bet you would have taken over my ship.”

Meredith tried to smile, but her thoughts weighed her down. “I’ll leave you all alone. I have to check in with the gang in the electronics workshop.”

In truth, she wasn’t sure how much more time she could spend in there pretending to be happy. She needed to get to work.

When she made it into the workshop, she was welcomed by the warm air of all the buzzing computers and communications equipment. Chao was studying something on his computer. Glenn was leaning over Samantha’s shoulder, pointing to her monitors and presumably giving her real-time translations. Andris was sifting through something on a laptop. From what Meredith could see, he was also providing some translation work to the documents.

Operation Thunderbolt had been an abysmal failure. The US military and the Hunters’ contacts within NATO had remained relatively quiet in the days since, licking their wounds after their defeats. The Hunters had spent that time trying to salvage something worthwhile from the meager intel they’d recovered as well as repairing the ship. The downtime was useful, even necessary, but Meredith couldn’t help but feel restless.

“Anything new?” Meredith asked. She expected the same resounding “no” as usual.

“Actually, yeah,” Glenn said. “Samantha finally restored some of the corrupted data we got from that underground lab you found.”

At that, Meredith’s heart felt lighter. They’d been waiting on those clues for a long time, hoping and praying that they’d find the key to controlling the Heikegani Agent. It was more urgent than ever, too. She’d seen the reports of more Hybrids showing up in the US and other allied countries—more people who had survived the Oni Agent only to be turned into Hybrids.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Those Chimeras,” Glenn said. “The whole facility in Baghdad was dedicated to genetic engineering, kind of like what we saw in the Congo with the Titans. They seemed to have been studying all the physiological changes in the Goliaths, Droolers, and Slingers. From what I’ve translated, when they unleashed the Oni Agent, even the FGL didn’t predict what kind of strange mutations it would unleash.”

“And the Chimeras?” she asked. “I take it they aren’t a normal mutation.”

“Not from what I’ve seen,” Glenn said. “Seems that they uncovered the mechanisms for triggering those other creatures then combined all those mutations in one Skull. Over time, if they kept promoting those genetic and epigenetic alterations, they could turn a normal Skull into a Chimera.”

“Frightening,” Meredith said. She was almost afraid to ask what she really wanted to know. But not asking wouldn’t make the truth any less true. “And the Halo pills? Were they manufacturing those down there, too?”

At this, Glenn shook his head. “No, nothing yet.”

Samantha sighed. “I hate to say it, but I don’t think we’re going to find anything. That laboratory was solely dedicated to the Chimeras.”

Meredith’s heart started to feel like it was turning to stone in her chest. “Then why did they have all those pills down there?”

“Nothing unusual, according to the inventory reports,” Andris chimed in. “There were plenty of Hybrids working down there who would need the pills. They probably hadn’t gotten to cleaning out the lab.”

“Cleaning out the lab?” Meredith asked.

“Yes,” Andris said. “The Chimera we faced had rebelled against its captors. Apparently, the first iterations of the monsters were not as obedient as later ones. It escaped during the invasion.”

“What he’s saying,” Glenn said, “is that unlike the other facilities in Baghdad, the FGL didn’t have time to clean out their stocks of pills from that complex. If we had arrived earlier, we would have seen those same piles of pills in FGL facilities anywhere we went. This place wasn’t special.”

“Shit,” Meredith said. “You’re telling me we have no idea how to manufacture these things?”

“None that we’ve uncovered,” Samantha said. “I mean, Divya and Peter tell me they might be able to isolate some of the compounds and chemicals. That would be a start. But the exact process isn’t going to be easy to figure out.”

“And it’ll take a long time without...” Glenn trailed off, a look of sorrow on his face.

“Right, any more bad news?” Meredith asked, briskly changing the subject.

Andris and Glenn looked at each other, sharing some thought.

“Oh, God, what now?”

Andris spoke. “We found out in Moscow, Colonel Ronaldo was there. He was one of those suspected to be KIA.”

Another shard of glass stabbed straight through her heart. Half their medical team gone. No crucial data to stop the Heikegani Agent. And now more lost allies.

“Nobody knows where Spitkovsky went?” Meredith asked. She knew the answer but couldn’t help herself.

“Radio silence on that, too,” Chao said. The Russian head of the FGL had been conspicuously absent throughout Operation Thunderbolt and its aftermath. “But Baghdad and Moscow are gone. Nothing but rubble. If he was in either of those cities, I doubt he made it out alive.”

“That man is worse than herpes,” Samantha said. “Doesn’t seem like there’s any way to get rid of him.”

Meredith didn’t want to say it aloud, but Samantha was right. Even if Spitkovsky had been in Baghdad or Moscow during the bombings, she had a feeling he would find a way to survive.

“Things have got to change,” Meredith said.

“I do have one good thing,” Samantha said. She tapped her keyboard. “One of the computers you gave me had a bunch of encrypted messages and network connections on it.”

“Oh?”

“If I can get this shit to work right, we’ll have a direct line to the FGL encrypted sat comms,” Samantha said. “We’ll be able to eavesdrop straight into their science division. And if we’re really lucky...”

Samantha didn’t need to finish that thought. Meredith still clung to the hope that they would intercept a vital piece of communication. Some data, some report, some email that had the clues they needed. Maybe then they could piece together these mysteries without infiltrating another FGL base.

“God, I hope that works,” Meredith said.

“I’ll make it work,” Samantha said.

-40-

The smooth melody of a jazz standard curled from Samantha’s headphones. The lights in the electronics workshop were mostly turned off, leaving the reds and blues of various LEDs blinking like multicolored stars around her.

Chao had left some time ago. Might’ve been half an hour, might have been four hours. Maybe a whole day had passed. She wasn’t sure. Samantha only knew one thing for certain: she was almost there. She had to keep working.

A headache wrapped itself around her brain, squeezing with each beat of her heart. They had been at this since the Hunters got back from Baghdad a few weeks ago. Once they had confirmed there was no Halo formula in the data, she was determined to give her team something worthwhile.

So, as she had promised Meredith days ago, she had put together the communications hack, patching in the Hunters’ comm equipment to intercept transmissions between FGL research sites. She hoped something, anything, would show up. Her captain needed it.

Dom had seemed restless lately, like he wanted to get the ship sailing again. Get out into the field. But he was a rock star without a gig. All this music in his head and no way to get it out.

Shit, was she describing him or herself?

She had tried so hard to find the intel on the Heikegani Agent in the shit Meredith and the others had brought back. There had been nothing. All that time wasted. Time that could have been better spent setting up her communications intercept program.

A trumpet solo drifted into her ears, and all the other instruments seemed to fade away.

Earlier today—yesterday?—Chao had tried to get her to go to bed. Told her she needed the sleep.

To hell with sleep. The FGL was still working. They didn’t seem to sleep. The Skulls were still out there, too. World still burning, people still dying. Hybrids were still popping up all over the United States. No one had figured out why or how yet. Innocent people turned into foot soldiers for the enemy.

And here she was in a cushy seat at her computer. She didn’t deserve to sleep.

The trumpet soloist faded into the background again, giving way to a saxophone. She had begun to like jazz. It was a surprisingly nice change of pace from the heavy metal. Kept her focused.

The coffee was another story. Hadn’t ever liked it. Wouldn’t ever like it. Tasted like ass. No amount of caffeine was worth that flavor. She gulped down the dregs in her mug anyway then shuddered at the cold, nasty, gritty liquid.

Her computer chimed. A soft ping that nearly made her jump from her seat.

“What’ve we got now?” she whispered to herself.

She moused over to the new file that appeared.

A fresh intercept. A laboratory report, just like all the others. Probably not what she was looking for.

Now the bass was thumping in her ears. Upright bass by the sound of it. She imagined the bassist’s fingers sliding up the neck and plucking the strings as her own fingers worked across her keyboard.

Most of the time, the files she got were just stupid emails between scientists. Usually cryptic crap about competition percentages for projects they never named. Other times, she intercepted reports that told them shit they already knew.

Shit the Hunters had risked their lives infiltrating labs to find. Like intel on the Chimeras and some generic talk about using Titans to shore up the defenses in Skull hordes. She put stuff like that in a separate folder that they would send back to their contacts in the US. Other people might find the intel helpful. Or they might see something in it that she had missed.

It didn’t help that almost all this shit was in Russian. Glenn and Andris would have to take a look at it. Her natural language processing and translation software was pretty good, but it sometimes missed the subtleties in language. Like the time the results from her algorithm suggested that the “Oni Agent digested to completion in good meal make best boner soldier.”

Software wasn’t perfect. Andris and Glenn could do better.

The drums picked up now, and she noted the chord change. Couldn’t keep her fingers from tapping along. She closed her eyes, miming the drummer’s hand movements, hitting those high hats and making it snappy on the snare.

When she opened her eyes, she clicked on the new report.

It was in English.

English letters. English words. English sentences.

This had to be a joke. The FGL knew she was watching, right?

But the more she read on, the less she understood. It really was in English. Good, legible English. The language wasn’t the issue. Rather the report was some huge document about a group of esoteric compounds. Bunch of science mumbo jumbo she didn’t get. The white coats in the lab would follow it better than she ever could.

She understood enough to know she didn’t like it. It mentioned something about blocking neurotransmitters, some kind of foreign chemicals that inhibited control over Skulls. Sounded like something related to the Pacifist Fog.

Still, the fact that it was in English really bothered her. Someone was working for the FGL, sending a report in English. Why?

Didn’t make sense. There had to be another layer to this. Something she wasn’t quite seeing yet.

Her eyelids flickered. Wanting to shut. The jazz music softened, too. Her body and the music were in cahoots.

Screw them.

She didn’t need sleep. What she needed was to understand this crazy message.

But the more she studied the paper, the less things made sense. She needed some help.

Time to bring out the big guns.

She turned on the Alice in Chains. All the sounds of the ship creaking, the computers humming, and even her fingers tapping were muted against the shrieking layers of electric guitar.

With a couple of commands, she sent the document through another natural-language-processing algorithm. It was a program she’d written herself, one that detected anomalies in written documents. The computer compared this report to all the translations of the science documents she’d intercepted. And for good measure, the machine learning program embedded within the software was also fed with the science papers and other resources from the Huntress’s databases.

All of that took time. Which was good. Because her coffee mug was empty.

She switched her headphones over to her MP3 player. Silly having such an old-fashioned device, but it was nice for times like these. Samantha liked that it couldn’t be compromised since it didn’t connect to any wireless networks. She couldn’t be too careful. Plus, it held a shit-ton of music.

Alice in Chains bled into Metallica.

She wandered from her desk into the Huntress’s mess. Dropped the mug into the industrial dishwasher with the rest of the dishware waiting to be cleaned. Then she looked to the coffee maker.

Could she really stand another cup of that sewer water?

No, what she was doing tonight was important. She could feel it. Samantha went to the walk-in cooler. Walked to the back and moved aside the prepackaged food to her stash spot. And there it was. A gleaming green-and-pink can. Her precious, precious energy drink.

She left the cooler and walked back down the corridor to the workshop. Plopped into her desk and popped the tab on the energy drink. A swig later and the holy nectar of caffeine and sugar churned down her throat, bubbling in her stomach.

“God, how I missed you,” she said. Samantha held the can at eye level then touched her lips against it.

She was back in business.

The music drowned out everything around her as she worked to peel back the layers of the report. She thought she saw Chao come in and begin working at his computer again. Maybe it was morning. But she didn’t pause to say hello. This was too important.

Electricity seemed to course from the computer right into her fingertips and up through her bones. The first clue that something was up appeared before her. A small, subtle thing. Barely noticeable to a normal reader but absolutely obvious with the help of her language-processing algorithm.

The clue appeared in an abbreviation for a science term. Numerical molecular weight average. She wasn’t sure what that meant. Didn’t really matter. But all throughout the paper, it was abbreviated as Mn. But in one instance, it wasn’t a subscript. It was a normal, lower case “n.” Mn.

Could be a typo, but she made a note of that weird little “n.” Then she noticed another error. There were a bunch of chemical models. The kind that looked like a bunch of sticks between random letters. Nothing she could make sense of. But her program noticed something she would have missed. In several of the models, the software tagged letters—stand-ins for different elements—that had an extra space between the little line and the letter.

Once again, hardly noticeable to the eye but glaringly obvious to her program.

Damn, it was like someone had written this thing for her.

Her eyes grew wide. Exhaustion sat at the back of her mind, pushed aside by the energy drink and her excitement. Things were starting to look a lot less like typos and more like a hidden message. She finished the last drops of her energy drink just as she got to the end of the document. Then she went back to the beginning, finding what she had missed. Then putting the letters together in the order she had found them.

Music blaring, heart pounding, she finally got it. The real message. And now she knew the truth.

It read: FORCED TO WORK FOR FGL. NAVID AND I ARE STILL ALIVE.

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The End of Book 9 in The Tide series. The adventure continues in The Tide: Final Surge, the 10th book: https://amzn.to/2XLT00p

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Thank you for reading The Tide: Dry Gallows! I appreciate all of you who have followed Dom and Meredith’s adventures. The series will continue in Book 10—and that will be the final book in The Tide storyline! I’m hoping to answer all your lingering questions in the book, and we’ll finally get an answer to whether the world can pull itself out of the disaster the FGL started. If you would like to know when the final book comes out, you can sign up for my newsletter here: http://bit.ly/ajmlist

You’ll also receive two free stories (Fatal Injection and No Refuge for the Dead, a Tide story) for signing up.

If you enjoyed the story, please consider leaving a review here: https://amzn.to/2UTXArp

Reviews help new readers decide if the series is right for them and helps guide me for the next books!

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I love to hear from my readers. If you want to get in touch, there are a number of ways to reach me.

Facebook: www.facebook.com/anthonyjmelchiorri

Email: ajm@anthonyjmelchiorri.com

Website: http://www.anthonyjmelchiorri.com

Also by Anthony J Melchiorri

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Former Army Specialist Nick Corrigan is abducted and unwittingly becomes embroiled in a biotechnological nightmare. He embarks on a dangerous adventure to return home. The only person that might be able to help him is a man Nick never knew existed—his clone. 

Back in Washington, CIA analyst Sara Monahan makes a startling discovery while tracking the use of biological weapons in an ongoing war in Africa. She races to uncover a global conspiracy that may shake the very essence of what it means to be human. 

Find it here: http://bit.ly/thf14

About the Author

Anthony J Melchiorri is a scientist with a PhD in bioengineering. Originally from the Midwest, he now lives in Texas. By day, he develops cellular therapies and 3D-printable artificial organs. By night, he writes apocalyptic, medical, and science-fiction thrillers that blend real-world research with other-worldly possibility. When he isn't in the lab or at the keyboard, he spends his time running, reading, hiking, and traveling in search of new story ideas.

Read more at http://anthonyjmelchiorri.com and sign up for his mailing list at http://bit.ly/ajmlist to hear about his latest releases and news.