ARISEN, Book Eleven - Deathmatch Read Online Free PDF Page B

Rottes, and Sergeant Elson, the grizzled and veteran leader of second squad, who had all walked through so much fire and come out standing, only to go down inches short of making it out of that overrun building in Dusseldorf.
    And which Jameson should never have escaped himself.
    The ten handpicked men facing him now had walked through fire and much worse, and were somehow still on their feet. They hadn’t had even one minute to rest, refit, or tend to their bodies or souls, between the harrowing Dusseldorf mission and the catastrophic outbreak at CentCom. They had literally run from their helos to the fight in the strategic operations center.
    And now Jameson was asking them to put it all on the line one more time. There was Halldon, who had been critical to containing the CentCom outbreak. Corporal Nicks, one of One Troop’s youngest Marines and only promoted to fire team leader six months ago, to take over for a man who fell. Sanders – one of the quietest, but with a steely resolve and unflappable competence that kept shining, however bad things got.
    And, most reassuringly of all, there was Colour Sergeant Croucher, Jameson’s new leader of first squad, who was said to have been around longer than the famous Royal Marine beret. He’d served three tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan when, in brutally contested Sangin in Helmand Province, he stepped on a trip-wire, and threw himself on a live grenade to save the three other members of his patrol. But, being as smart as he was brave, he did it backward – using his rucksack to pin the grenade, and tucking his legs up into his body. He was thrown several feet by the explosion, but between the pack and his body armor, he suffered only a nose-bleed and perforated eardrums. His pack was ripped from his back, which was good because the explosion breached a large lithium battery inside, causing the whole thing to burst into flames.
    That backpack was still on display in the Imperial War Museum.
    Croucher’s rank and seniority meant he could have been senior enlisted man for the entire brigade. But he wanted to be out on the ground fighting the dead, not leading parade formations in barracks. Knowing that One Troop always got sent wherever things were worst, he put in to transfer – and then when the Channel was breached and everything began to fall apart, he had simply rocked up at CentCom, where he found them after their return from Germany. Jameson wasn’t willing to push Eli out of his role as troop sergeant, but he also wasn’t sending away a bonanza of combat leadership like Croucher. So he put him in charge of second squad, to replace Elson, who died in Germany. It was the best he could do, and the man seemed happy to be there.
    On the other end of that spectrum of experience was Private Simmonds, who Jameson had picked for the mission because… well, he wasn’t even sure himself. Simmonds was steady enough, and he could shoot and move. But he was also personally responsible for the disaster at the CentCom hangar and landing pad. It had been his job to secure it for the incoming command element from Edinburgh, the one that was supposed to relieve them. And the result had been the biggest explosion – not to mention biggest fuck-up – that Jameson had ever personally witnessed. He was slightly afraid he was punishing Simmonds with this assignment. But maybe he was really just getting him away from the scene of his mistake, and his shame. A new start.
    Although it was at least as likely to be the end of him.
    Of all of them. They were flying non-stop from CentCom in London right to the edge of Red Square in Moscow. What would be waiting for them there was difficult or impossible to imagine. But, Jameson tried to reassure himself, it couldn’t be a whole hell of a lot worse than what they’d faced in this campaign already.
    And maybe this would be the endgame.
    The tortured decision Jameson had made to abandon his command and personally lead this mission was