Using a thumb to pull the AK selector lever into full auto, I ripped two short bursts in their direction. Whether I’d hit them or not was anyone’s guess; the hisses and pops of incoming fire echoed so quickly that I ducked behind cover, alarmed at how fast the security men were responding.
Reilly filled the gap, opening up with unsuppressed gunfire to my left as I angled into a new shooting position, then emerged to acquire a third guard over the iron sights of my rifle before firing another burst.
We’d just stirred up a hornet’s nest of enemy activity, and I caught glimpses of guards swarming out of the building as they took up defensive positions. Reilly and I engaged them as quickly as we could, keenly aware that our weapons produced a blinding muzzle flash with each burst, all but a billboard heralding our exact position to anyone who cared to shoot back.
We took our shots accordingly, remaining behind cover to the full extent possible until the volume and accuracy of incoming fire forced us to remain concealed. The men were reacting faster and better than we’d anticipated, and over the crackle of flames I made out the sound of running footsteps approaching to my right—and without any reduction in the incoming gunfire, a knot formed in my stomach as I realized that they were using fire and maneuver to flank our position.
“Goddamn,” Cancer muttered to himself, aligning his sights with the front runner in a three-man maneuver element closing with David and Reilly.
His position on a rooftop west of the objective gave him clear lines of sight to the battle in progress, which he now surveilled through his day scope to compensate for the ongoing vehicle fire casting its blazing glow in all directions. The guard force’s frequent patrols so far had given him cause for extreme concern, but nothing compared to what he felt now—a deepening realization that his team was in deep shit.
The guards had immediately established a support-by-fire line at the southernmost buildings before sending their runners to flank David and Reilly with astounding speed—these men were no casual employees from the local labor pool. Nor were they Boko Haram, because none of those terrorist shitheads had anything close to the training required to operate this effectively.
That left one explanation: his team had just picked a fight with a guard force of professional mercenaries, meaning that for once they might just have bitten off more than they could chew.
Cancer achieved a shot to center mass, dropping the lead runner in place as the other two responded by wildly spraying the cinderblock wall as they moved. Amid the flames and gunfire, they had no way of knowing a sniper lurked in the darkness, and at this point they probably assumed that David or Reilly scored a lucky potshot.
But those remaining two fighters presented an obstacle of sorts; maybe David and Reilly would be able to tag them first, or maybe not. The bigger issue for Cancer was that the second those guards suspected a sniper, they’d retreat inside the buildings, which would be a very bad thing for Worthy and Ian, tasked with penetrating the inner offices. And for the pre-staged bodies with all their incriminating ISWAP propaganda to have the desired effect, David and Reilly first had to reach them and draw enemy fire at that location.
But a ten-meter gap lay between his two teammates and the shed where they’d deposited the bodies, and if Cancer didn’t respond with immediate and deadly force, they’d never make it.
He released his left palm from the handguard of his G28, pivoting his aim on the bipod as he continued to track the remaining fighters through his scope while keying his mic to transmit.
“Two pax, ten seconds out from your right side. You better hit them before I need to.”
Then Cancer resumed his grip on the rifle, watching David and Reilly sprawl into the prone almost shoulder to shoulder, their weapons angled toward the approaching fighters.
Cancer held his index finger taut against the trigger, squeezing a shot on one guard as both fell in a collective hail of gunfire from himself, his team leader, and the medic. Those latter two were lucky he’d been able to warn them, he thought, transitioning his aim left to scan for the security force’s next move now that their first maneuver element had been effectively reduced to a pile of bodies.
The sight caught him off guard at first—the guards should have sent a second maneuver element in the wake of the first, albeit in a more distant line of approach to the known attackers.
Instead, the next men to move did so toward defensive positions around a central warehouse inside the main compound, taking up vantage points to cover the front and side entrances.
Cancer transmitted, “They’re massing around Building Three. Probably a major load they’re trying to protect. Entry team, if you’re still able to move, now is the time.”
Ian keyed his mic and replied, “Entering now.”
Releasing his transmit switch, the intelligence operative watched Worthy complete the final steps in his lockpicking effort.
He heard the deadbolt click open, his suppressed rifle poised at the ready to enter, but before he could, Worthy did it for him, flinging the door aside and stepping into the dark hallway.
That wasn’t entirely unexpected, Ian thought as he followed, closing the door behind him and locking it shut.
The fact remained that as the team’s sole intelligence operative, Ian was by duty description the least equipped to deal with any emerging threats. That was why Worthy had been assigned to safeguard the collection effort inside the building—as the team’s quickest shot, he was more than capable of slinging subsonic bullets to great effect before withdrawing.
Ian desperately hoped it wouldn’t come to that, however.
No matter what else occurred tonight, the undetected collection of intelligence was at the forefront of the entire operation, and Ian considered that for the first time in a long time, he was now the main effort of a team incursion.
He watched Worthy moving stealthily down the hallway, sweeping his barrel from left to right as he relied on an infrared floodlight to illuminate the building’s interior. With no requirement for rear security short of hearing the deadbolt unlatch behind him, Ian resigned himself to ducking inside the doorways on either side of the hall, using his own infrared floodlight to bring the rooms into stark relief in his night vision.
Most were discountable at a glance, the various crates and dollies distinguishing each as a setting for manual labor, however illicit.
But the fourth room he encountered was a different story altogether—its door was closed, and when Ian tested the handle, it held fast.