by Jason Kasper
But even with Worthy’s uncanny reflexes, he feared it wouldn’t be enough—these men weren’t restrained to any logic of fire and maneuver, instead scrambling toward him across abundant covered positions provided by the processing equipment. They appeared to be a mix of Caucasians, Chinese, and Arabs—some were wild-eyed, others calm and shouting to one another, and a few sounded the shrill battle cries of men who’d long since resigned themselves to dying inside this building.
Worthy and David couldn’t make a move for the door without getting shot, and while Cancer and Reilly were surely moving toward the sound of gunfire as quickly as they could, he intuitively knew they couldn’t possibly make it in time to alter the outcome of what was now occurring.
David’s voice transmitted over his earpiece.
“Cancer, Team One pinned down and in need of support. Racegun, assault forward.”
Worthy realized what his team leader meant—David was trapped behind the wall-mounted conveyor belt, unable to move against the sprays of sparking metal as bullets impacted his covered position.
Worthy, by contrast, could dart out from either side of the rolling cabinet he was braced behind, and he had a good idea for his next covered firing position.
He laid down some suppressing fire first, barely registering Cancer’s transmission of “Team Two moving.” Worthy utilized one side of the cabinet as cover to unleash blasts of gunfire against every known and suspected enemy position. Emptying his magazine, he tucked himself behind the cabinet for the last time and conducted a reload.
Then he spun out from the opposite side, crouching low as he took five charging steps that sent him slamming against the side of the forklift.
Taking aim from one side, he saw a new universe of firing angles, the now-exposed flanks of two men who’d previously been hidden from view. Worthy decimated them both with a ten-round volley, their bodies dropping as he ducked behind the forklift, then popped out the other side to sling lead at a partially visible man trying to locate him.
David exploited the surprise to maneuver forward, his figure a flash of movement in Worthy's peripheral vision. By the time the first bullets began clanging against the forklift, David was behind cover, engaging the shooter with two suppressed bursts.
The incoming fire against the forklift ended, though he could still hear pop shots from a single shooter coming from deeper in the room. Unable to locate the man, Worthy decided to do something that would either prove very brilliant or very dumb within the next three seconds.
He climbed atop the forklift, squeezing his body against the seat to gain an elevated vantage point with the faith that his reflexes would outpace the enemy’s.
The next milliseconds unfolded with excruciating slowness—he saw the last visible fighter braced behind a stacked pallet, a white man who swung his rifle from David toward the new flash of movement.
Worthy tried to align his sights, the effort ending as his suppressor struck a metal roof bracket on the forklift. He leaned back to clear the obstruction, then thrust the buttstock back against his shoulder as he took aim in time to see a single muzzle flash from his opponent.
Firing at the same instant, Worthy saw the man’s throat explode in a burst of red as he fell out of sight. The enemy had missed his shot, and Worthy hadn’t—though the victory seemed of precious little consolation at present.
David transmitted, “Team Two, wave off—we’re good. Exfil, exfil, exfil.”
The response came in the form of a deep, thundering blast that shook the entire building.
The overhead lights flickered, and David was transmitting as the echo receded.
“Team Two, status?”
He got his answer not in the form of a transmitted response—there was none—but in the sounds of unsuppressed gunfire that followed from deeper in the building.
No words needed to be spoken after that—David and Worthy were sprinting past the enemy bodies, hoping none had survived with the wherewithal to take aim as they made their way toward a new gunfight.
Unaware of his orientation in time and space, Reilly fought through a fog of consciousness to try and determine what in the hell had just happened.
The last thing he remembered was advancing through the building with Cancer, trying to make their way to the gunfight that had obviously ensnared David and Worthy. He had one second, maybe two, of trying to determine the source of a new noise, one that he concluded to be running footsteps—and by the time he and Cancer were opening fire on a man in the doorway, the explosion had erased the world from view.
The facility seemed to vanish in a cloud of plaster dust and smoke, a stinking mist of high explosives and human flesh that sent hundreds of steel ball bearings into flight and turning the room into a pinball machine of destruction.
Now that he was regaining his vision, Reilly saw the industrial ceiling lined with snaking pipes and ultraviolet bulbs that flickered with flashes of light that sent spikes of pain to the back of his skull.
He was flat on his back, unable to summon the requisite strength and coordination to move his limbs. Glancing down, he saw a row of bloody dots stitching his left arm—ball bearings from the suicide vest embedded in his flesh—though that was the least of his worries.
The blasts of automatic gunfire sounded distant through his ringing head, growing louder and clearer as he regained his wits. The incoming gunfire and ricochets created a hailstorm of bullets that zipped and spun through the air around him, an angry hornet swarm of metal clanging off every hard surface.
Groggily looking sideways, Reilly felt for the rifle slung across his shoulders, detecting it through the gloved palm of his numb right hand. He struggled to lift it across his chest, the effort requiring the sum total of all his focus and strength.
The enemy was moving into the room, trying to find him and Cancer through the smoke, shouting to each other and firing indiscriminately.
This wasn’t going to end well, Reilly knew at once, though he couldn’t seem to make his body move fast enough to respond. Hell of a way to go, he thought—after all the physical and tactical training, all the deployments and gunfights, he was powerless to intervene in his fate thanks to some asshole clacking off a suicide vest.
As he struggled to lift his assault rifle to defend himself, Reilly caught a flash of movement from a doorway to his side. He wanted to shoot, couldn’t orient his weapon—and then saw that the man now entering wasn’t an enemy fighter but his salvation.
David sped through the door, cutting right and out of Reilly’s view before a second man entered.
Thank God, Reilly thought. The figure blazing through the doorway at the speed of light was Worthy, descending from on high and shooting with a speed that Reilly had never witnessed before, on the range or otherwise.
Worthy’s rifle went empty, and rather than spend the second it took him to reload his magazine, he dropped his rifle and drew his pistol instead, taking aim and resuming fire by the time his primary weapon had fallen on its sling.
But then his pistol went empty too, slide locking to the rear as a wounded Chinese fighter fell to the floor in Reilly’s view. The downed fighter locked eyes with him, then shifted his rifle for a final kill shot against the disoriented medic.
Before he could pull the trigger, a spray of bullet impacts stitched across the man’s side and he collapsed dead, David appearing over his body a second later and shouting, “Clear!”
Then it was over—no more gunfire, no enemy shouts, just the ringing in Reilly’s ears from the blast before David moved to help, straining to lift him to his feet. Reilly aided the effort as best he could, feeling strength return to his legs as he stood shakily, looking for Cancer in the room’s smoldering interior.
He located his teammate a second later. Cancer had apparently fared better in the blast and was already standing under his own power, though bleeding from his right thigh in what appeared to be a wound from the suicide vest.
“Exfil,” David announced. “Let’s g
et the fuck out of here.”
61
In the seconds before David called, Ian committed fully to his plan.
He was the only team member with any semblance of rationality remaining, untainted by the overwhelming exhilaration of combat and the most emotionally distanced from the situation at hand.
The rest were biased not only by sheer virtue of experience with near-death scenarios, but by following a single leader who was quickly turning into a madman, if he hadn’t already.
After a full night of running from the cops, David was deliriously sleep deprived and running off fumes of rage and hatred. Ian considered his response to a request for living detainees—Some people just need to get shot in the fucking face—and then allowed that his team leader may have been losing his mind as well. Ian had increasingly gotten the sense that David’s marital situation had grown more tenuous, and that wasn’t a recipe for mental health when his primary inputs were combat action and fighting for his life.
All that added up to Ian’s second greatest concern at present, landing just shy of a successful terrorist attack: David was a charismatic young leader intent on accomplishing his personal mission at all costs, and he’d take his entire team—and the Agency’s long-overdue reincarnation of a targeted killing program—off the cliff edge along with himself.
When David finally called, Ian answered on the first ring.
His team leader’s voice was contemptuous.
“Your brilliant idea was one giant trap. We barely made it out. Two of us are wounded, we’re low on ammo, and down to one car. So thanks for that.”
“I tried calling you off,” Ian shot back. “A delivery truck left the objective as you guys were closing in.”
“You have eyes-on?”
“I have an idea, based on intermittent surveillance footage. Get going northbound on US Highway One.”
“We’re on the move,” David confirmed, “and you better not lose sight of the truck before Duchess finds out.”
“She knows,” Ian replied at once.
“She...what? How?”
“I called her.”
“Why would you do that, Ian?”
“I couldn’t call you off, and the rockets have to be onboard that truck. Don’t be an asshole.”
“It’s my nature!” David almost shouted, the sound of a car accelerating audible on the other end. “So I suppose our route is crawling with cops, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Probably.”
“Wonderful. Thanks a lot, Ian.”
“Don’t blame me for the comms relay going down,” Ian said. “If you want to get your head out of your ass for one second, there’s more.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“My last visual on the delivery truck was at a traffic cam on Olive Chapel Road. It should have passed my next camera angle of the road at Alden Bridge—but it hasn’t.”
“Great. So what’s in between the two?”
“That’s my point—there’s a single paved eastbound route called Portofino. So the truck must have taken it, but all it leads to are a few neighborhoods and businesses that I can’t find any connection between. No suspicious sideroads, tunnel entrances, nothing. The truck didn’t break brush to drive into the river, so there must be a concealed trail or enemy facility. Maybe a cache. We’ve got precious little to lose by searching that road for anything suspicious.”
“Except our lives.”
“Well, yeah,” Ian said, “except for that. Get moving and search for some vehicle outlet constructed since the satellite imagery was updated. You’ve got a one-minute head start.”
“A one-minute head start to find a needle in a haystack. You’re just full of good fucking news, aren’t you?”
“Well, I have to tell you—”
David cut him off.
“Head start against what? And do I want to know why I only have one minute?”
Ian swallowed.
“Because that’s how long it will take me to reach Duchess.”
“Don’t you dare.”
“Make no mistake, David,” Ian said, “I absolutely dare. Stopping this attack is more important than who gets the credit. The only reason I’m calling you first is that the cops are tied up at the seafood distribution facility, and if you can find the truck before they do, then maybe—just maybe—we’ll score enough credibility not to rot in jail for the rest of our natural lives. So don’t fuck this up.”
62
Riding in the passenger seat, I braced myself as subtly as I could, cringing in mild anticipation of a crash as the trees whipped past the glow of our headlights on either side of the road. I said nothing, however, trying not to project any weakness to Worthy, who was negotiating the winding forest curves as quickly as our vehicle and his reflexes would allow.
Which, considering it was Worthy, turned out to be pretty fucking fast.
From the backseat, Reilly said, “Two miles of road remaining before the dead end. Next street to our left is a subdivision.”
Holding a phone in his right hand, Reilly was ticking off road junctures on the satellite imagery that Ian had sent us as we searched for some vehicle pathway that had been constructed in the interim. His left arm was out of action, wrapped in pressure dressings and hastily tied in a field sling.
“Pass,” I said. “Let the cops search it. We’re looking for a Hail Mary.”
The neighborhood entrance passed in a blur outside the window, and Worthy whipped the vehicle at near-minimum traction around another bend in the road.
From the seat behind me, Cancer said, “We ain’t catching a Hail Mary if you roll us into the trees at fifty miles per hour.” Cancer had absorbed four ball bearings from the suicide bomber, and wore a pressure dressing on his right thigh as a result. I could hear the pain in his voice as he added, “And try to remember this is our last car.”
“Last car,” Worthy asked, “or last chance?”
“Either. Both.”
He was right on both counts, of course—we’d used two cars in our hasty raid of the seafood distribution plant, though since we’d been required to exit the premises in a considerably more rushed fashion than we’d entered, one of those cars remained parked outside the building.
Worthy responded, “Never thought the mission would end like this. Clown car of hellbent men barreling toward a target that might not be there.”
Reilly added, “Decent band name, though. ‘Clown Car of Hellbent Men.’ We’ll have to start that up when we get back.”
“If we get back,” I corrected him. Because not even Ian knew what he was sending us to, and it was quite possible that he was wrong—that he’d simply missed some camera angle showing the delivery truck escaping from some alternate path. But at this point there was nothing else to go on, nothing of value on this stretch of road that was quickly ending.
Worthy offered, “Maybe they saw us coming, and our raid flushed the truck out.”
“Not a chance,” I said. “Whatever Bari Khan is doing, it’s part of the plan he’s had since Syria. We’re the ones improvising, not him.”
But at this point, what did it matter?
The abandoned team car outside the seafood facility was full of our fingerprints, with stray hair for the police to cross-check with DNA samples that Duchess was probably providing them at that very moment. Reilly’s injury had effectively removed a quarter of our already small team from the fight, leaving the three of us with limited ammunition—Worthy and I had expended much of our supply shooting it out with enemy forces.
This was a total shitshow, four men in disarray with no choices and no time: the story of my team’s entire short history, whose final chapter was being written tonight.
“Slow down,” I called, then, feeling Worthy braking the vehicle, continued, “Reilly, fifty meters ahead on the right—is there a trail on the imagery?”
My heart thudded as I waited for his response, my eyes riveted on a barely perceptible break in the trees.
“No,”
Reilly answered, and Cancer spoke immediately after.
“That’s got to be it, boss.”
I caught a glimpse of a crude path with tire tracks cutting into the woods, just wide enough to fit a single vehicle. The odds weren’t great; it looked like a logging trail, and one that we could have very nearly passed by without noticing.
I said, “We’re taking it. Kill the lights and transition to NVGs.”
Worthy extinguished the headlights, and my view of the whitewashed road turned to darkness, re-illuminating in green shadows as I donned my night vision. Worthy wheeled our car into a slow right-hand turn, aligning our tires within the tracks as our car rumbled forward on a bed of dirt and tree roots.
Worthy rolled down all four windows, and we oriented our weapons into the warm night air. I had no idea whether to expect incoming gunfire or a dead end, both equally plausible.
The chanting of frogs and insects poured from the woods, an irritatingly loud symphony that prevented us from discerning any human activity. Shit, I thought, they could have had a full team digging a rocket cache by pickax and we wouldn’t hear it until we were virtually on top of them.
Reilly said, “The river is about two hundred meters ahead.”
“Stop the car,” Cancer said as we slowed to a halt. “David, we need to proceed on foot, look for visual.”
I said, “You’re right. Dismount and we’ll parallel the trail.”
Then I reflexively reached for the door handle until Cancer spoke.
“No doors—they’ll activate the interior lights.”
Gritting my teeth, I thought, why not? Let’s add another indignity to the growing list that defined our every action since the first time we’d missed killing Bari Khan in our first Syrian ambush.
We began clambering out of the open vehicle windows with varying degrees of gracefulness. I managed to pull my upper body outside the car, sitting on the windowsill before adjusting my rifle and sliding my legs out. From the sound of it, Reilly was having the toughest time both on account of his size and having one arm in a sling. Though judging by Cancer’s pained grunts, he didn't have a much easier effort with his injured leg.