70
We broke out of the bushes from the draw and held up, surveying the house. So far it looked like we were undetected, but that was pretty much what Knuckles had thought in Paris.
Brett brought out the thermals, and we saw no change. Two guys to the rear, and a host of bodies in the front, all milling about and blending into one another with their heat state. It was a seventy-meter stalk to the door. On open ground.
Retro said, “Now or never.”
“Wait until Koko’s set. I don’t want to push them out the back and lose them.”
I keyed the mic. “Koko, Koko, we’re in the last cover. About to assault. You got the back door?”
She came on. “Yeah. We’re set. Got clear fields of fire for everything out front. Pike, they’ve got men outside the house. We had to take one down a hundred meters away.”
Hearing the words on the radio, all three of us began scanning with our night vision. I knew we weren’t compromised, though, because of the racket Retro had made at the creek. If someone were out here, they’d have already been shooting. I glanced at Brett with an unspoken question.
How’d you miss him?
He shrugged, whispering, “Must have left while we were getting off the hill.”
Jennifer tried to sound calm, like a day at the beach, but there was something else in her voice. I said, “You good?”
“Yeah. I am now. Remind me to give Nung a bonus.”
I was reassured that she was still on her game and it wasn’t nerves. I said, “About to break cover. Get on the scope.”
She said, “Pike, they’re running outside. I see two guys carrying a body to a car.”
Body? Dead?
It didn’t matter. Slamming the place was all that remained.
In a clinical voice that belied my apprehension of what we’d find, I said, “Moving now.”
Knowing that Brett and Retro were on the radio, I didn’t give any further commands. We broke cover and sprinted to the back of the house, bashing through the bushes to the back door. I kept my muzzle on the doorknob, watching for any movement, while Brett slapped a charge straight down the middle with double-stick tape.
He primed it and rolled to the right. I went left, Retro right behind me, his hand on my shoulder telling me he was ready. Brett looked at me and I nodded.
He capped the charge and the door splintered inward in a violent explosion. I was already two steps toward it before it went off, catching some of the backblast. I entered, muzzle ready, and saw one man on the ground, a piece of wood sticking out of his jaw and an AK held slackly in his hands. I popped a double-tap and heard firing to my right.
Retro, taking care of the other heat source. We started flowing to the next room and Jennifer called, “Car moving. I say again, car moving.”
We hit the next door in a stack, and I said, “Stop it from leaving. Can’t talk.”
Retro flung it open, and I entered, number one man again. I saw a muzzle flash as soon as I cleared the breach, my mind cataloging the action in clinical detail, working in hyperdrive to distinguish friend from foe and assess my own physical state. NOT HIT. NOT HIT. FIRING FROM THE LEFT. AIM. SQUEEZE. TARGET DOWN. SWEEP. BODY = GUN = TARGET. SQUEEZE. TARGET DOWN.
The room was clear, and Brett was the first to the next door.
* * *
Jennifer saw the headlights flare and knew the car was coming. The lights from the vehicle behind it came on, compounding her problem. She cinched the weapon into her shoulder and welded her cheek to the stock, exhaling. She’d seen the men running back and forth, seen the body tossed in the back, then both vehicles began rolling her way. Without moving her head, she said, “Nung, there’s a friendly in the lead car. Do not shoot into the body. Take out the tires. All of them. First car only. The other wants to run, let it.”
He said, “Understood.”
A burst of gravel, and the two-car caravan began to rocket down the dirt track, bouncing on the uneven grade.
She took aim at the right front tire and cracked a round. It missed. The car kept coming, gaining speed. She exhaled, going into a zone, ignoring the press of time. She squeezed again, and the tire blew. The vehicle kept coming. She refocused and let off a double-tap. The second tire blew. The car rolled onward. She heard Nung fire and saw the right rear tire explode. The car skidded to a stop, grinding on the rims alone, stuck in the mud of the track.
The men jumped out and Nung cracked a round, dropping the driver. They all crouched down, searching for the fire. One man screamed, shouting orders, and she saw them pull the body from the first car and begin dragging it to the second. She said, “Take out the other car!”
She squeezed off a round, and they made her position. A fusillade of fire rained down, forcing them both to duck behind the small earthen berm they’d chosen.
A small gap, a reload or something else, and they both rose up, Nung shooting as soon as he cleared the rise, hitting one of the men. Jennifer sighted down and did the same, watching the man twirl, his death giving her nothing more than grim satisfaction. She rotated to the man with the hostage and pulled the trigger. His head exploded and he dropped midstride, sliding into the dirt. Another man took his place, and the body was inside the second car.
It began moving and she focused on the tires, cracking rounds. The vehicle jerked around the first car, blocking her shots. She kept shooting, hearing Nung to her right doing the same, but the car rocketed past, hitting the dirt road hard enough to almost cause it to flip. In seconds, it was around the bend and out of sight.
A round snapped by her head and she refocused on the disabled vehicle, seeing two men still shooting. She centered on one and squeezed. He dropped. She brought the other into her reticle and he stuck his hands in the air, dropping his weapon. She saw the action and held up. Nung broke the trigger to the rear, and he dropped.