The Gates: An Apocalyptic Novel Page 3

  Ellis strolled up to Tony and lifted his chin in a way the pompous git probably thought was authoritative. “Now look here, Staff Sergeant, I will not have you criticising our operations here. You have made it quite clear your feelings on our duties in this part of the world—and since I have served nowhere near as long as you have I will reserve my judgement—but please keep your disenfranchisement to yourself. The men need not hear it. We are here to do a job, so leave the moral quandaries to the politicians.”

  “That’s the last bunch of crooks I’d leave it to.”

  Ellis placed his hands on his hips. “Am I understood, Staff Sergeant?”

  “Perfectly, sir.”

  “Good. We can be fairly certain that this is the ingress point from Syria into Iraq, so our mission is as planned. We set up here, and ambush the next group that tries to come through.”

  “I don’t think that’s necessarily the best course of action, sir.”

  “Oh? Why not?”

  Tony told him, “The first set of rebels we fall upon might be a bunch of wet-eared kids. We should hold off until we identify a high value target.”

  “And allow members of ISN to funnel through in the meantime? No, I’m afraid not. We are here to shut down this security breach for the Iraqi government and that is what we will do. We engage the first border-jumpers we see, and then get this fence repaired.”

  Tony didn’t waste time arguing. This twenty-six year old, fresh out of Sandford Academy thought he knew everything and wouldn’t bend from what he thought best. He wasn’t the first arrogant little twerp to give Tony orders, and it was just part of the job. In the older days of war, Ellis might have got a bullet in the back, but those times were over. As they were carrying out a pretty low-risk mission in a conflict they were not officially involved in, Tony’s only concern was keeping the lads from doing mischief. Ellis could play the simpering peacock as much as he wanted.

  Tony snapped off a half-arsed salute. “I’ll get the men dug in just behind that hill, sir. It’ll keep us well hidden until the time is right.”

  “Excellent! See to it, Staff Sergeant.”

  Tony marched away, leaving the Lieutenant to stand with his hands glued to his hips. The young officer’s expression made it look like he was planning a campaign to rival D-Day, but the truth was that there was probably very little going on inside his skull. With all the British Army’s great progress into the modern fighting force it was today, it was still top-heavy with entitled idiots from ‘military families’ and well-bred fools looking for a jolly old jaunt in the forces. The real leaders of the Army were the sergeants like him.

  Tony flagged down one of his corporals, a young Scouser named Green. Like his name suggested, he was a little inexperienced, but he was also bright and eager—which counted for a lot out here in the wastelands.

  “Yes, Staff Cross? Do you have orders?”

  “Get four men and dig a defensive trench on the rear of that hill.” He pointed to the gentle slope that formed a moderate peak. “We’ll dig in with a lookout position at the top. We’ll see any border jumpers long before they see us. Have Corporal Rose help you.”

  “Right away, Staff Cross.” Green marched away at the double, gathering men as he went.

  There were fifteen of them assembled at the border, split off from a platoon of two hundred stationed at a temporary camp fifty miles way. Britain had decided not to take direct action in the Syrian conflict, or commit itself to any land wars, but it had compromised upon a small reactionary force to operate within ‘friendly’ Iraq. Any border jumpers could be dealt with as criminals, rather than terrorists, and that made things less politically precarious. After the decade-long nightmare of Al Qaeda, Britain did not want to draw the ire of another extremist group. It might have held an obligation to keep Iraq free of dangerous individuals, but it held no such responsibilities to Syria. Damascus could burn for all Westminster cared, so long as it was down to Syria’s people or Syria’s government. Tony didn’t particularly disagree. How could the Arab nations ever hope to evolve and pull themselves up out of the dirt if the West interfered every time a government was threatened? There would be no United States if some disenfranchised Brits hadn’t stuck their fingers up to the Crown. There would be no democracy in Britain if not for Cromwell and his armed uprising. People needed to overthrow governments and take control of their own destinies. The rest of the world should stand back and let them. The Arab Spring movement was the Middle East’s first step towards positive change. Worst thing to do now would be to try and manipulate things from Washington, London, and Brussels.

  Not that Tony held any respect for the ISN. Like all fanatics, they were monsters hiding behind ideals and traditions—they deserved whatever they got—but it was for the Arab world to deal with them. Only through their own trials and triumphs would the people of the Middle East gain the confidence needed to unite against extremism and join the rest of the world on equal footing.

  While Private Green carried out his orders, Tony took a trek up the hill to double-check that it was indeed a suitable location to stage an ambush. The elevation alone should give them the better end of a firefight, but it never hurt to know the terrain. For instance, as he strode up the gentle incline now, he noticed that the ground underfoot was loose. It would become tough to see if a sudden gust swept dirt up into the air. The last thing the men needed during a battle was a face full of sand. It might be worth building a windbreaker out of any larger rocks they could find.

  So Tony set about looking for those rocks. There were numerous fist-sized boulders, but few that were large enough to provide cover. The unit had brought jeeps with them—hidden nearby under sandy tarps about half-a-mile back—so it was possible to make a quick reccy to see what lay in the surrounding area, but before he had properly considered doing that, he spotted a large stone up ahead. A jet-black boulder, completely out of place amongst the browns and greys of the desert.

  In fact, it looked very much like it had been placed there.

  Tony squinted and muttered to himself, “What the hell is that thing?”

  “Incoming,” came a squawk through the radio.

  Tony dropped onto one knee and swung his rifle up and around. Private Harris, a large brute of a man and the group’s lookout, pointed toward the Syrian border. Lieutenant Ellis rushed to the bottom of the hill and signalled the men to gather up, but as Tony was on higher ground, he stayed right where he was. Ellis realised that his Staff Sergeant was in a better position and instead rallied the men to Tony’s location.

  “Who’s coming? How many? And which direction?” Tony asked Private Harris before Ellis had time to interject.

  “Vehicles—I counted four. Three cars, one van.”

  “Dear Lord,” said Ellis. “That’s quite the convoy.”

  Tony faced his commanding officer with urgency. “We should get the men behind the hill and call it in to Command.”

  “Yes, of course. Everybody, form a firing line behind the hill and await my orders.”

  When the Lieutenant did nothing else, Tony frowned at him. “Are you going to call Command, sir?”

  “No, it’s unnecessary until we know what we’re up against.”

  “When we know what we’re up against it’ll be too late.”

  “Nonsense. I don’t want to put a call through to Command without good reason.”

  “There could be twenty armed men in that convoy.”

  “Pah, twenty rebels against fifteen British soldiers. In an ambush no less.”

  Tony gritted his teeth. He knew the Lieutenant wanted to call Command after successfully taking out a rebel unit so that he looked like a competent leader with initiative, instead of an officer who called everything in to get orders from above on how to proceed. “Fine,” Tony relented. “Let’s just be ready.”

  The men scurried behind the hill and bedded down, spreading themselves out six feet apart and forming a well-spaced firing line. Closer to the top of the hill, Tony p
eeked over the crest to see what they were up against. It was bad.

  Four cars and a van—not three as Private Harris had reported. If the vehicles were full of rebels, there would be a serious firefight. The ambush would have to be executed flawlessly, because if it became a protracted affair, there would be casualties on both sides. Tony got on his radio, the quickest way to speak to all fourteen men at once. “Everybody keep their ‘eds down ‘til either me or the Lieutenant give the word. When the shit hits the fan, we drop grenades on those vehicles and pin ‘em down with gunfire. Hit ‘em quick and hard enough and they’ll drop their weapons and surrender. Radio silence until then. Over.”

  Tony remained at the top of the hill, pulling out his binocs and assessing the situation that was racing across the desert towards them. AK47 barrels protruded from the car windows like spines on a porcupine. The convoy was headed right for the breach in the fence, which meant they knew it was there. ISN rebels.

  Ellis crawled up the hill and rested beside Tony. “You shouldn’t have ordered radio silence until I had spoken. I may have had something to add.”

  Tony knew Ellis had nothing to add, but he nodded and gave an apology. “Just trying to do my best for you, sir. I’ve identified five vehicles; passengers armed to the bleedin’ teeth. We need to be ready.”

  “We are ready,” said Ellis. “My men are ready for anything.”

  “Let’s hope our grenades hit the target. It’ll improve the odds.”

  “Don’t you feel that’s a little excessive, Staff Sergeant? We don’t know who is in those vehicles. There could be civilians. Would it not be better to be a tad more precise?”

  Tony blinked at his superior. “They’re illegally crossing the border and bearing arms. Our mandate is clear, sir. We take ‘em out, and any civilians stupid enough to be in the middle only ‘ave themselves to blame.”

  Ellis sighed. “Poor fellows aren’t going to know what hit them. Fall back, Staff Sergeant, lest they spot you.”

  Tony nodded, then shimmied down the hill on his belly until he was a part of the firing line. If all went to plan, the men would rise up like something out of Braveheart and reduce the enemy in seconds. Tony had faith that the lads would be ready to act, but he was yet to witness any of them under fire. You could never tell how good a soldier was until somebody tried to kill him. If this didn’t go fast, it would get bloody.

  The convoy was still half a mile away. Nothing to do but wait. Tony tried to ignore the churning in his belly he still got before a fight. Even after fifteen years in the Army, you never stopped being afraid of death. Even suicides changed their minds in those final seconds before death. They all begged for a second chance as they dangled by their necks. Every soldier worried a bullet would find them without them even knowing it, and all of them begged for their mothers if they ever got hit. Tony had held the hands of more dying men than he cared to remember.

  Movement in the corner of his eye.

  Tony flinched and hoped he wasn’t about to spot a sneaky rebel coming up on his flank—but all was well. It hadn’t been movement he’d seen, but a flash of light. The strange black stone he’d spotted earlier seemed to be glowing. Its smooth surface danced with delicate sparks of light, like the static on an old-fashioned television. There was a crackling sound too. But Tony was a soldier, not a geologist, and his only focus was the enemy speeding towards him. Whatever the strange stone was, it would have to wait.

  The din of sand-clogged engines arrived, and the British soldiers behind the hill became visibly on edge. Tony saw the tension in each of their eyes and knew exactly how they felt. For a man, controlling his adrenaline was an arduous task, and perhaps a soldier’s biggest skill, and to run into danger instead of away from it was against every basic human instinct. It took training and courage to overcome the urge to flee.

  Giving the word would be difficult, for Tony would have to rely on his ears instead of his eyes. He’d have to gauge when the enemy convoy was within range purely from what he could hear. Too soon or too late and things could go very wrong.

  The engine noises grew louder.

  Tony gave a hand signal to the men. Wait.

  Grenades slipped from link straps. Safeties went off L85 combat rifles. All done in silence.

  The men were ready.

  Tony kept his hand where it was. Keep holding.

  The engine noise rose in pitch.

  The convoy was close.

  Almost time. Almost…

  “Engage!”

  Tony flinched. His hand was still in the air, signalling for everyone to remain holding, but the men leapt out of cover and raced up the hill.

  Ellis had his rifle pointed and was bellowing at his men like a lion. “Engage, engage, engage.”

  “You fool,” cursed Tony, as he shouldered his rifle and ran up the hill. None of them could be sure what they would find there until they reached the top.

  When Tony got there, he saw it was bad.

  The convoy was still fifty metres away. The flat, hard ground of the desert had carried the engine noise and made the vehicles sound closer. If the men had waited just another five-seconds, the enemy would have been close enough to engage, but now, Tony realised in horror, they were screwed.

  A volley of British Army grenades took flight, arced through the sky, plummeted back towards the ground.

  Multiple explosions shook the air and kicked a cloud of dirt up off the desert floor. Nobody could see or hear anything. Confusion reigned.

  Then the enemy convoy screeched to a halt just outside the border fence. Their vehicles were unharmed—the British grenades had missed them—and armed ISN soldiers spilled out into the desert, surprised, but in no way deterred. They used their car doors as cover and opened fire upon the hill. Private Green went down in a red mist as a bullet took off the top of his head. Two more privates and a corporal went down right next to him. Four men dead in a single second.

  Tony zeroed in on the nearest car in the convoy—a banged up Toyota Corolla—and pulled his trigger. The first burst ricocheted and sent sparks off the bonnet, but the next round hit an ISN soldier in the throat and sent him cartwheeling to the ground.

  The dirt kicked up two feet in front of Tony, making him turn and leap for cover, ducking down behind the hill. By that time, Lieutenant Ellis had already fallen back, and so had all the other men with half a brain.

  “Our grenades fell short.” Ellis stated.

  “No shit!” Tony growled. “Why did you give the order?”

  “Because I felt it right.”

  “Well, it was sodding wrong.”

  Ellis cleared his throat. “We need to focus on our next move now, Staff Sergeant, not the past.”

  “I agree. We need to flank ‘em. They have too much cover to keep trading shots back and forth like this. It’ll degenerate into a case of who has the most ammunition, and we don’t know what they’ve in the back of that van.”

  Ellis flinched as a bullet whizzed past his head, but he stayed calm and kept talking. “Okay, I concur. I’ll split the men into two-”

  “No, we don’t split up. Our only cover is here and that’s where the unit needs to stay. I just need two men.”

  “You’re going yourself?”

  “Damn right I am. The men acted on a bad order and that’s our fault.”

  The corners of the Lieutenant’s mouth crinkled, and he looked offended at the implication, but he settled on a guilty look and nodded. “Take any two men you want, Anthony.”

  Tony chose the two men nearest, for it didn’t matter whom. There were no heroes in the unit yet, just a dozen well-drilled kids. The two men he chose were Corporal Blake and Private 2nd Class Harris.

  “We break south along the fence,” Tony explained, “and try to get an angle on ‘em. The fence will stop us from getting behind their cover, but if we can get at their flank, we can take ‘em out while the rest of the unit suppresses ‘em from the front. You be careful, Harris, you’re a big bloody target.�
��

  Both men nodded, a mixture of excitement and knicker-wetting fear on their faces.

  “On my command. Ready…

  “… Go!”

  The three British soldiers raced down the hill, heads down and zigzagging. Tony was a decade older than Corporal Blake and Private Harris, which led to him falling back a pace, but he could still move at a decent clip—even at thirty-four. Gunfire bit the dirt around his feet, but he kept on going, outrunning his death by a factor of centimetres.

  The border fence was just ahead. Corporal Blake was almost there, Harris right behind him.

  Something caught Tony’s attention, making him stop. The strange black stone came up on his left and had begun glowing brightly. His focus and urgency dripped away. He strolled towards it even as gunfire cracked from every direction. He was uninterested in anything other than the curious black stone. It seemed to call to him. The light coming out of it spread and started to form a border around a translucent layer that reminded Tony of the suds in the centre of a child’s bubble blower. Something inside that translucent layer moved—something that seemed to stare right back at Tony as he approached it.

  It’s beautiful.

  Before Tony could figure out what was happening, a bullet hit him in the back and dropped him to the ground.

  Suddenly the bright light above the stone was replaced by darkness.

  ~SAMANTHA SMART~

  Central Park, New York City

  Samantha loved Central Park in the summer. It was so alive. When people thought of New York City, they pictured skyscrapers, banks, and museums, but to Sam, Central Park was the real soul of the city. In the seventies, the park had been a dangerous place, like the city itself, but gradually, and in tandem, both the park and city had evolved. Now the Big Apple was one of the most welcoming places on Earth. A place where kosher delis sat alongside Italian pizzerias, Ethiopian restaurants, and LGBT bars. No racial underclasses here like there were in LA or San Antonio; New York was a place of acceptance. Gay or straight, black or white, it didn’t matter in the Big Apple, which was why Samantha, a Lesbian from Utah, felt so at home. Sure, the hustle and bustle could give you a headache, and the traffic was pure torture, but that was why the park was so wonderful. Even in Manhattan, you could find tranquillity.