He thought back on what he had just said and added, “I mean…while we dive.”
“Fine. But if I’m the one who gets you through this alive, then you get to wear the bikini.”
Knight was about to complain, but realized that either way, she was agreeing to join him. Distant gunfire ruined the moment and pulled him back to the present, spurring him forward.
30.
Donahue succumbed to a fit of coughing after a few moments of screaming and banging on the hull of the Osprey. It felt like his chest was on fire and his lungs were caving in. He felt light-headed, and the world pulsed and throbbed along with the beating of his heart and the pounding in his skull. When he looked down at the hand he had coughed into, he found it slick with blood.
He leaned his head back against the Osprey’s fuselage and allowed his eyes to slip closed. He felt so tired. He just needed to close his eyes for a moment to recharge his battery. Just close his eyes for a few seconds and he’d be fine.
He jerked his head up and slapped himself across the face. If he fell asleep now, he suspected that he’d never wake up. A soldier’s will to fight was all that he had left. His men deserved to be avenged, and he refused to let them down.
A few more rounds from his pistol sailed into the distance. His screams lasted until his lungs had no more power, and then he used the butt of his weapon to clang against the bottom of the Osprey.
Where the hell was that thing?
He feared that he’d already be dead by the time it came to kill him. That would be no fun for anyone.
He pulled himself to his knees and checked his work on the warhead one last time. Everything looked in order, and he allowed himself to slip back down to the pavement.
Then he saw a clawed hand reach over the top of the concrete lip of the parking structure. It pulled itself up slowly and then sat there watching him.
Its eyes darted around the wreckage as if checking for some kind of trap. It was the first time that he had seen the creature show any kind of caution. Apparently, Knight had made an impression with his distraction.
The creature’s eyes settled back on him. Fury burned in the red, reptilian spheres, and the beast hissed softly.
“Do you worst, you ugly bastard,” Donahue said.
The creature’s massive legs stomped slowly forward, and its lips peeled back in a snarl. As he studied the gleaming white fangs, Donahue prayed that Knight was in position and ready to keep up his end of the plan.
31.
Knight took aim at the beast through the scope of the XM500. He estimated that his vantage point was right at one and a half miles from his target, meaning that he was beyond the effective range of the weapon but still within its maximum boundaries. It wasn’t easy to hit a target from one and a half miles. A huge number of variables had to be considered—wind, distance, drift, the curvature of the Earth—and there were only a handful of people on the planet that could make such a shot.
Thankfully, he was one of them.
He made the necessary adjustments in his head, released his breath and squeezed the trigger.
Through the eye of the scope, he saw the beast flop to the side from a direct hit to the cranium. He shifted his aim to Donahue and felt a pang of remorse for the man, but also felt proud to have known him. Only the rarest men could look death in the face and not cower in fear. The device utilized a two-stage explosion, so they needed to make sure that the beast couldn’t escape before the second stage was activated. The first stage would blow the casing and disperse the accelerant, fluoridated aluminum layered between the charge casing and a PBXN-112 explosive mixture. The second stage would detonate the fuel, and anything not incinerated would be crushed by the resulting shockwave.
Knight watched Donahue prepare to detonate the first stage just as the beast gained its feet. It must have sensed some type of danger. It seemed almost fearful. He sighted in and fired again, keeping the beast pinned down and unable to escape.
It flopped to the side but continued to crawl toward the edge of the building.
Most any living thing would be destroyed within a mile of the blast, but with this creature, he wanted to be sure that it was as close to the eye of the storm as possible to ensure that every last cell was annihilated.
The beast pulled itself up and tensed its legs to jump clear.
Knight fired again, but then a blinding light filled the eyepiece of the rifle. He jerked his head away, white spots filling his vision. The thunderous boom arrived a moment later, shaking the air from his lungs. A wave of warm air coursed over his body, pushing dust and debris away from the blast-zone. After a moment, he looked back to see the mushroom cloud rising into the air above the spot where the parking structure had once stood.
At his side, Beck said, “If that didn’t kill that thing, then we might as well just give up and head to the beach.”
“Sounds about right to me. Let’s just make sure everyone else gets out alive, first.”