Through the Killing Glass by Mainak Dhar Read Free Book Online Page B

bag?’
    The men were
now shrinking back in fear. Before The Rising they had been convicts on death
row, and both men were well accustomed to violence and crime; talents that had
served them well in the Deadland. But for all that, they knew that they were no
match for this half-Biter girl who could not be killed. They had heard tales of
her and what she had done to the Red Guards, and they had given her settlement
at Wonderland a wide berth, only now to be faced with her in the middle of the
Deadland.
    One of them
gathered up the courage to speak. ‘We saw a group of Biters in the Deadland a
day ago. One of them dropped this.’
    Alice thought
back to the strange Biters she had seen at the scene of the latest attack.
    ‘Where were
these Biters going? Were they going towards the Reservation?’
    The man who had
spoken now looked at her curiously.
    ‘No, that was
the weird thing. We thought all the Biters around here followed you, but not
these. These ones were different.’
    Satish had now
climbed down, but he kept his gun pointed at the two men.
    ‘Why do you
think these Biters were different?’
    ‘They were
picked up by a black helicopter.’
    The next
morning, Alice and Satish had the two bandits lead them to the location where
they had seen the helicopter take off. Satish took a look around the area.
    ‘Alice, if they
come back, this is where they will come. They’ve flattened the ground to create
some sort of a landing pad, and they’ve sandbagged those two hills to create
guard towers.’
    Satish got on
his radio to call his recon teams. They checked in one by one, but not one of
them had seen or heard a helicopter approach the area. Then again, if a black
helicopter had flown in low at night, it was possible to pull off such an
attack. Why and how someone would bring Biters in to launch such attacks was,
however, beyond Satish.
    Alice kicked
the dust at her feet, thinking of the dead children back at Wonderland.
    ‘Then we will
wait here, and when they come back, we will kill them all.’
     
    ***
     
    ‘It’s an attack
helicopter.’
    Alice heard
Satish’s warning and looked up to see the black, predatory shape hover in the
distance. They had been waiting for close to a day, and were about to give up
hope and try their luck elsewhere. A makeshift bunker near the landing zone had
been their regufe. They had been expecting a troop carrier, of the sort the
bandit had described, and with the advantage of surprise, Alice was fairly
confident that she and Satish could have handled whoever was being flown in on
these deadly missions into Wonderland. However, they most certainly did not
have the firepower to deal with an attack helicopter.
    ‘How far away
are your boys?’
    Satish grinned.
 ‘One of them has that chopper in his sights right now. If we order it, a
SAM will be going up that chopper’s tailpipe. Should we fire?’
    Alice shook her
head emphatically. ‘No. If we show our hand now, they will not go through with
their landing. Let’s wait.’
    But it soon
became apparent this helicopter did not mean to land. It swept over the area
several times, and then one of Satish’s teams radioed in.
    ‘White Rook, I
can see two Red Guard APCs and two jeeps filled with Red Guards coming. Still
four kilometers from your location, but they are closing in fast. Wait, they
just stopped, and it looks like an officer is scanning the area with
binoculars.’
    Alice asked,
‘What’s going on?’
    Satish
responded, ‘They seem to be on a search mission more than an attack. I have no
idea what or who they might be looking for. Coming this close to Wonderland on
land is a big risk for them to take, especially in broad daylight, so it must be
someone important.’
    Alice thought
back to what she had heard in the Looking Glass. ‘Could it be those Americans
who had supposedly escaped?’
    Satish had his
own binoculars trained on the horizon and replied without shifting his gaze. ‘I
don’t see how two escaped