Nuclear Storm. Don Pendleton

thing he was aware of was being jerked back and squinting as an intense light was shone in his face. Joe tried to put an arm up to shield his vision, but it was grabbed and twisted behind his back and up between his shoulder blades.

       “What the—ow! Hey, what’s going on?” he asked, blinking fast to try to adjust his vision.

       Brandy was also protesting what was going on, and Joe heard, “Get your hands off me, fuckwad—” followed by what sounded like a slap, and her voice fell silent.

       “Hey, look, just tell us what the problem is here.” Joe’s tearing eyes were finally adjusting to the glare, and he could see five figures beyond the spotlight. Next to him, Brandy had a hand to her bruised and cut lip. He bent over to look at her, but her answering glance wasn’t scared or surprised—she looked furious.

       “The only problem is that you two are in the wrong place at the wrong time.” The light was suddenly taken away, and Joe got his first look at the intruders.

       The group was unlike anyone he had ever seen. Four men and one woman were all dressed in green, brown and black camouflage fatigues, complete with nylon straps and harnesses crisscrossing their chests and around their waists. Camo face paint covered their cheeks and forehead, giving them an unnerving appearance with their white eyes staring out of a swath of black or green. Each had what looked like night vision goggles pushed up on their heads. They were all armed, too, with the biggest guns Joe had ever seen. With a start, he realized they were Heckler & Koch submachine guns like counterterrorist teams used. Before a few seconds ago, he’d only seen them in the movies.

       “Uh, okay, guys, what is this—did we stumble on some kind of Army training exercise or something?”

       His question didn’t bring the desired response. Instead of an answer, the men and woman all looked around and laughed quietly. One of them turned his head and spit on the ground.

       “We’re about the farthest thing from Army pigs you’ll ever see.”

       Brandy moved closer to Joe, her hand stealing into his. He felt it tremble, and he gave what he hoped was a reassuring squeeze. “Okay, look, obviously we went a little too far down the path, so we’ll just head back to our campsite and let you go on your way—”

       “Campsite? What campsite? Where?” one of them asked.

       “That’s not important—look, we should just be going—” Joe pulled Brandy with him as he tried to turn and go back the way they had come.

       The group reacted instantly. Two of them moved to cut the pair off from the path, while the woman grabbed Brandy’s hand and twisted it free of Joe’s.

       “Ow—let go, bitch!” Brandy’s arm came up in a roundhouse swing that cuffed her attacker on the side of the head. The blow didn’t even stagger her, and the woman glared at Brandy with venom in her eyes.

       “That’s it.” In one fluid movement, she drew the pistol on her hip and aimed it at Brandy’s head. “This whore dies now—”

       “Stand down, Zeta!” the group leader ordered. “No unsilenced shots, remember?”

       The woman’s lip curled in a snarl, then she raised the pistol and brought it down in a savage blow to Brandy’s cheek. The butt of the gun split her skin, making the young woman fall with a scream.

       “Hey, what the fuck!” Joe crouched next to Brandy and put his arm around her. He felt the flashlight in his back pocket press into his butt, and thought about using it as a weapon, but dismissed the idea—they’d cut him down before he even got close. “Hey, you all right?”

       She looked up at him with unfocused eyes filled with fear. Her once-high, proud cheekbone was gashed to what looked like the bone, bleeding profusely as it started to swell. “Joe,” she whispered, “they—they’re gonna kill us!”

       “You may be right,” he whispered. “Just follow my lead, and be ready to run.” Joe brought her up with him as he stood again. “Look, we don’t know who you are or why you’re here, and we don’t care. Just—just let us go, and we won’t say a word to anyone, I swear. Hell, we’ll pack up right now and head home. You’ll never see us again.”

       The group leader grinned without a hint of mirth, making Joe’s heart sink. “I wish I could believe that. Hell, if it were up to me, I’d probably let you skedaddle, since it isn’t gonna matter one way or the other in a few days anyway.” Again, Joe was surrounded by those quiet, ominous chuckles as the man slowly shook his head. “But it isn’t up to me. We have our orders, and we’re gonna carry them out.”

       “No!” Brandy broke from Joe’s side and launched herself at the woman, hands outstretched to claw at her face.

       “Brandy!” Joe could only watch helplessly as the woman intercepted her with a feral smile. She raised her left hand to sweep Brandy’s arms away from her face and brought her right hand around from behind her back, shoving it out at the other woman’s abdomen.

       Brandy stopped as though she had run into a wall. Her mouth fell open, but no sound came out as she slowly looked down at herself.

       “I hope that felt as good to you as it did to me.” The woman called Zeta did something Joe couldn’t see, but it made Brandy’s entire body convulse. She then lifted the frozen girl’s face up and kissed her open mouth. “Mmm—I never tasted the last breath of anyone before. Kinda sweet.”

       “Damn, Zeta, that’s cold,” a tall, skinny man muttered.

       “What. Delta said no shots fired. I’m just following orders.” The woman took her hand away and stepped back. Brandy turned to Joe, hands clutching her middle, and he saw her waist and legs were dark and wet.

       “Oh my God—Brandy! Brandy! What the fuck—” Joe grabbed her as she staggered and fell, easing her to the ground and placing her on her back. As he did, he moved her hands aside and saw a gush of blood well from the wound in her stomach. “What the fuck did you do to her?”

       “I stabbed an uppity bitch, that’s what I did.” Zeta knelt next to him and wiped her bloody blade on Brandy’s jeans. “She’ll bleed out in a day or two, and be in the most unimaginable agony the whole time. It’d be better if you let one of them put a bullet in her brain.”

       “Joe…please don’t…please don’t leave me.” Brandy’s eyes were huge white pools of terror. She shook again, grabbing his jacket with bloody hands. “I’m cold—so cold.”

       “Oh, fuck this.” Before Joe could do anything, Zeta reached out and drew her blade across the wounded girl’s throat. More blood gushed out, and she made horrible choking noises as she died in Joe’s arms.

       The woman cleaned her blade off again and stood. “Trust me, you should really be thanking me—”

       Joe saw red. A howl of fury burst from his throat, and he lunged into the woman, knocking her off balance and sending her tumbling into the men behind her. Whirling, he rushed at the two blocking the path, catching them both by surprise. As they scrambled to bring up their weapons, Joe drew the flashlight from his back pocket and swung it at the nearest man’s head, the plastic housing making a satisfying thunk as it connected with his skull. The man staggered under the blow, and Joe shoved him into his partner as he took off into the woods, hearing urgent orders behind him.

       “No open shooting!”

       “Stop him!”

       “Sigma, Theta, go! Execute scorched earth!”

       Joe ran like the Devil himself was behind him, stumbling along the path leading through the dark forest. The trail, which had seemed wide and clear earlier, was now a twisting, narrow ribbon of dirt under his feet. Branches clutched at his arms and clothing, and an exposed root caught his foot and made him hit the ground and bite his tongue. Tasting blood, he spit it out as he leaped to his feet and kept going, limping now on a twisted ankle. He tried to look around to see if the camouflaged crazies were chasing him or what, but all he