The leader—the one Jenn had identified as Norrgard—was an imposing man with Scandinavian features and a dissatisfied scowl that had etched deep lines around his mouth and clearly made smiling more trouble than it was worth. He was Eskridge’s right hand at Cold Harbor, and Jenn had sketched out his string of atrocities across Nigeria in 2014. Just on the off chance Gibson wasn’t terrified before.
Norrgard paused as Gibson approached. With military precision, he snapped his arm crisply at the elbow and examined his wristwatch. “Take your time, sweetheart,” he told Gibson with a voice that reminded Gibson of every drill instructor at Parris Island—one part disgust, one part what is the world coming to?, two parts I ought to charge you for breathing my air.
“I’m going, aren’t I?” Gibson said.
Norrgard looked from Gibson to the interior door and back to Gibson. “Where are my men?” he asked, meaning the two mercs sent to check on the problem with the hangar door. Jenn had subdued them and tied them up with the others.
“The hell should I know?” Gibson said. “The pisser?”
“Together?”
“Maybe they like to hold hands. Look, you want me to fix the door or go chaperone your boys? Your call.”
The big Scandinavian bristled but only cocked a thumb toward the control panel. “Get that door open or I’ll polish my foot in your ass.”
“Aye, aye, capitaine,” Gibson said with a mock salute.
Crossing the hangar, Gibson adjusted his cap still lower and slung the tool bag over his shoulder so that his right arm concealed his face. As he came around the C-130, the other mechanic called out a greeting from the driver’s seat of the ramp vehicle. Gibson raised his free arm and gave an ironic thumbs-up. Hopefully, the mechanic wouldn’t get ambitious and come offer to help.
“So, what seems to be the trouble, boys?” Gibson asked the final two Cold Harbor mercs who stood guard by the exterior hangar door.
“Door don’t work,” one said with the stupid accuracy of the mechanically disinclined. He pointed at the open access panel.
“Why don’t I take a look-see,” Gibson said and knelt to unzip his bag. Among the tools, he saw the Taser and a Glock. He reached for the flashlight instead and shone it into the access panel, nodding thoughtfully as if he had a clue what he was doing. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the other mechanic moseying in his direction. That narrowed Gibson’s timetable considerably. He estimated twenty seconds before the mechanic got a good look at him and raised the alarm. He didn’t like how close the two Cold Harbor mercs stood to him, but there wasn’t time to do anything about them now. Gibson only hoped that Jenn was in position.
He reached up into the access panel and mimed fiddling with the wiring. Then he stood, dusted off his dustless hands, and punched the oversized green button on the control panel. The enormous retractable door began to open. Given its size, Gibson had assumed it would be deafening, but the motors rumbled quietly overhead. He realized this was the same gambit he’d tried in Damon Ogden’s garage. After everything that had happened, all he’d done was trade one garage for a much larger, much more dangerous one. As he reached for the Glock and not the Taser, the symmetry of his life struck him as darkly funny.
A hand slapped him on the back.
Behind him, the mechanic congratulated him on troubleshooting the problem. Simultaneously, from the far side of the aircraft, a shotgun discharged. Once. Twice. Rumbling through the hangar like distant thunder.
Everything slowed down.
Everyone turned to see.
Everyone but Gibson.
The two Cold Harbor mercs took several tentative steps toward the aircraft. It bought Gibson critical yards.
He pointed the Glock at the ceiling and fired twice.
The mechanic flinched as thousands of years of survival instinct drove him into a crouch. Gibson shoved him hard to the ground, barking at them to get down, facedown. The mechanic rolled into a ball and covered his head with his arms.
The two Cold Harbor men didn’t flinch, decades of training sublimating their base drives. They pivoted smoothly, assessed the threat, and moved quickly apart to create two targets from one. It reminded Gibson of pack hunters circling prey. He yelled for them to get down, but instead, they showed their hands and kept moving laterally and forward.
The warning shots had been a mistake. The Corps had taught him better than this. You didn’t shoot to warn. You didn’t shoot to wound. If it came time to pull the trigger, you aimed center mass and put your man down. Now they knew he meant to take them alive—a weakness they aimed to exploit. Gibson repeated his command, drifting to his right, back against the wall, buying himself time—compounding his error.
He’d lost the initiative and control of the situation. Either he took it back or he’d have to kill them both.
Or they’d kill him.
He wasn’t wild about either of those options.
Both men outweighed him substantially, so with no good option, Gibson went for the man to his left. Straight at him. Gun level with his eyes. When the man’s stare shifted to Gibson’s gun barrel, he knew he had a chance.
The Marines taught unarmed, close-quarters combat that someone with a sense of humor had once dubbed “Semper Fu.” In it, rifles and sidearms became hand-to-hand weapons that could deliver devastating attacks. Of course, the Marines assumed the magazine would be empty by that point. Gibson figured it would work either way.
At the last moment, the man brought his arms up in a defensive posture, but not fast enough to stop the heel of the Glock from breaking his nose. Like a faucet, blood gushed down the man’s face. Gibson hit him again squarely in the eye socket.
The man dropped and lay motionless.
Gibson spun, looking for the partner, who was closing like a linebacker, low and fast. Six feet . . . five feet . . . He didn’t see another way.
Gibson shot him twice in the chest.
The man went down and clutched his chest. Labored breathing but no blood. Gibson said a silent prayer to the inventor of ballistic armor.
“Smart move,” Gibson said, patting the merc’s vest.
“Fuck you,” the merc wheezed.
“Roll over.”
Gibson had just finished restraining all three when gunfire erupted from inside the C-130.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Gibson sprinted across the hangar toward the desperate sounds of battle. When he got close, he slowed and crept alongside the fuselage toward the rear of the aircraft. As if on cue, the gunfire stopped, and the hangar fell ominously silent. Using the ramp as cover, Gibson surveyed the scene.
Jenn’s handiwork lay all around. A trail of bodies led from the hangar door to the bottom of the C-130’s ramp. Miraculously, none was dead. The guards at the hangar door had taken beanbag rounds to the head. They’d be out for a while yet, and Gibson didn’t envy them their concussions when they regained consciousness. He saw where she’d discarded her shotgun on the run and switched to a compact MP7. The big Scandinavian and the loadmaster lay trussed up like Christmas trees on the way home from the lot. They peered up at Gibson with murderous eyes.
“Was that fast enough for you?” Gibson asked.