The Genesis Plague - Michael Byrnes [96]
The first missile hissed out from its pod, shot out in front of the chopper along a high arc, then bobbed and weaved as its onboard guidance system synchronized with the laser’s coordinates. Jason kept his eyes nailed to the crosshairs, made slight adjustments for the side-to-side rocking caused by Meat’s less than graceful attempt to hover the Blackhawk. Onscreen the missile struck with a brilliant flash.
‘Nice!’ Meat said.
‘Now let’s hit them in the rear.’ Intensely focused, Jason panned the crosshairs to the convoy’s rear, picked his target and squeezed a laser mark. Keeping the laser dot steady over a pickup truck mounted with a crude machine gun turret, he hit the fire button. The second missile hissed out from the weapons pylon, spooled and angled sharply towards the target. Within seconds, it hit - decimating the target with flawless execution.
Jam and Camel hooted and high-fived one another.
‘Now pop ‘em in the middle,’ Meat said.
‘Roger that,’ Jason said. He targeted the remaining vehicles and fired a third missile.
Another explosion rocked the convoy’s centre in a maelstrom of fire, hurling bodies and metal in every direction.
Meat pulled the cyclic to the left and the chopper banked. He spotted the Arabs charging north along the open roadway. ‘They’re on the run, heading north to the camp. Camel, you’re up. I’ll sweep in and you hit anything that moves with the mini gun.’
‘Roger,’ Camel said. He assumed a crouch position behind the six-barrel M134 Gatling gun pedestal-mounted outside the fuselage doorframe. He opened the ammunition container cover to check the supply. It was filled with 7.62 mm shells. He flipped on the mini gun’s master arm switch, then adjusted the gun scope’s night-vision display. Gripping the fire control handles, he tested the swivel mount’s action.
‘You ready, Camel?’ Meat called over the intercom.
‘Ready,’ he replied, steadying his thumbs over the trigger buttons.
Meat manoeuvred the Blackhawk on a sharp trajectory, gliding low on approach, and hooking sharply along the road.
Camel lined the runners in the scope’s crosshairs - all scrambling for cover. He opened fire at 3,000 rounds per minute, effortlessly cutting down the combatants and sending bodies tumbling off into the ravine. He even managed to strafe a trio attempting to climb over the foothill. In one sweep, he guessed that half of the fifteen surviving Arabs had been taken out.
Meat pulled up and banked out over the plain again.
‘One more pass … then the marines are on their own,’ Jason said.
The Blackhawk’s final sweep eliminated all but three Arabs, whose focus had turned from attack to retreat.
‘Shit, Camel,’ Meat said, impressed. ‘That was some nice shooting.’
‘He’s the goddamn Terminator!’ Jam said.
As the chopper pulled away, Jason was fixated on the roadway, which in less than five minutes had been transformed into a living nightmare of carnage and fire. His nerves were buzzing with adrenaline, fingers trembling. Though he feared the emotional swirl of satisfaction, euphoria and indifference that this perfect devastation evoked, he allowed himself to embrace the primal urge awakened deep in his core - the lust for vengeance; the driving force that pushed otherwise rational men to commit unspeakable acts to exact justice. That’s for Matthew. Burn in Hell … all of you.
But the vendetta was far from complete.
‘Now let’s get Al-Zahrani back,’ Jason said.
54
LAS VEGAS
If there was an economic slowdown in Las Vegas, it certainly wasn’t evident at the bustling work site of Our Savior in Christ Cathedral, Flaherty thought. An armada of construction vehicles commandeered the sprawling parking lot - cement mixers, flatbeds piled with steel framing and massive cable reels, and HVAC vans. Throughout the lot, building materials were organized into sectors: rows upon rows of tinted-glass panels; mountains of honey-coloured marble floor tiles; hundreds of porcelain restroom fixtures sorted by colour. And stacked three-high were clusters of shipping containers bearing