The Genesis Plague (2010)

bumper and came to Meat’s window, saying in an agitated tone, ‘ Ista’ gil ?! Esh cair fik ?’ He slammed his hands on the door and leaned in for a better view.
    The Arab made eye contact with Jason and his haggard face blanched.
    Meat wheeled, grabbed a fistful of the man’s tunic and tugged him close. In the next instant, he plunged the blade through the man’s Adam’s apple. He felt the tip of the knife clip bone. The Arab’s attempted scream was instantly reduced to a gurgling yelp. Blood spewed over Meat’s hand as he turned the blade like a doorknob, then sliced upward to the jaw and into the brain. The Arab’s eyes rolled back into his skull and Meat made sure to let the body drop to the ground out of view from anyone who might be watching from inside the house.
    ‘Let’s go,’ Jason said, calmly opening his door and stepping out from the truck. He directed his face away from the house and clutched his AK-47 low behind the opened door.
    Meat got out and stripped the AK-47 from the dead man. The safety was off and he checked the clip. Full. Gripping the weapon, he hurried around the truck, headed straight for the door. His face was knotted with determination and adrenaline.
    ‘So much for being subtle,’ Jason mumbled and fell in behind him.
    At the door, Meat intercepted a second unlucky Arab who’d been calling out for the dead guy. Without hesitation, Meat levelled the AK-47 at his chest and squeezed off a quick burst that opened his torso like overripe fruit. Then he charged inside.
    Jason stepped over the body and shadowed Meat with his weapon drawn. Peering in at the house’s tight rooms, he was glad to have an AK-47 since the weapon’s short muzzle and rapid-fire action were just what the doctor ordered for a raid in a place like this. He turned right and swept the first room. Nothing but a wooden table and two metal folding chairs.
    Like a raging bull Meat stormed to a second door that led into a narrow hallway. He held his AK-47 with a straight arm, turned flat. What he liked to call ‘gangsta style’.
    Jason heard frenzied voices overhead. Three distinct tones. He immediately moved back against the wall just as the plaster ceiling tore apart in a hail of bullets. He dropped to one knee, raised his AK-47, and strafed the ceiling in a wide ‘G’, followed by a tight ‘X’. In one corner, a heavy whump shook the floorboards, followed by a second whump near the middle of the ceiling. In both spots, blood dripped down from the sieve of bullet holes. The voices had gone silent, but a single set of footsteps pattered fast towards the centre of the house before Jason could line up for another sweep.
    Meat also heard the runner and bolted to the base of the house’s central staircase. He immediately spotted his target and opened fire. An agonizing scream rang out just before a rifle came cartwheeling down the stairs.
    By the time Jason made it to the hall door, Meat had ducked into the next room and reappeared, shaking his head to indicate that it was empty. Jason signalled for him to remain still.
    A perfect silence settled over the house.
    Then Jason heard a small voice coming from a room at the top of the stairs. He listened intently. Someone was chanting a prayer.
    ‘Fuck this,’ Meat grumbled. ‘Cover me.’
    Before Jason could stop him, Meat charged up the stairs.
    Jason raised his AK-47 to cover the landing, fully expecting Meat to get hit with a faceful of lead. But there was no resistance from above. At the top of the stairs, Meat popped in and out of the room to the right, then disappeared through the left door.
    Three seconds later, he yelled down, ‘Google, get up here!’

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    Crawford shone the floodlight up at the gaping hole the marines had opened on top of the rubble that dammed the tunnel passage.
    Emerging from the other side, a grimy face capped by a sand-coloured helmet appeared in the light. The marine reported, ‘It won’t be easy, but we can get through.’
    ‘Fine, Corporal,’ Crawford said. ‘We’ll make it work.’
    ‘Colonel, there’s a lot of blood on this side,’ Corporal William Shuster reported matter-of-factly. ‘Some fingers and tissue too. Not pretty. I’m sure there’s plenty of meat buried under these rocks. I don’t see how anyone could’ve survived the explosion.’
    Crawford remained stonefaced. ‘Al-Zahrani managed to walk out of here. Let’s make sure no one else does.’
    Shuster scuttled down the rocks, holding a