A soldier came running up to Carreño, radio in hand. “Señor!”
“What is it?” he demanded.
“The Americans just ran a roadblock southeast of our position here. They were seen turning east into Morón on Highway One.”
“I want that town cordoned off!” Carreño ordered. “Pull men off riot control if you need reinforcement. I don’t care if the entire place burns. Do you understand me?”
“We’ve already alerted all of our units.”
The soldiers locked the tailgate as the men inside finished strapping the warhead’s transport crate to the truck’s bed. “¡Terminado!” one of them yelled. Finished.
“We leave, now.” Carreño looked up at the sky, afraid of what might appear overhead. “¡Vámanos!” he ordered. The soldiers clambered aboard the jeeps and trucks and the convoy finally started to move.
Morón, Venezuela
Jon sent the Toyota through the streets fast enough to alarm Kyra, but the neighborhood seemed empty, the occupants either out rioting in another part of Morón or hiding in their homes. Jon scanned the buildings, muttering to himself as he rejected one edifice after another. Kyra looked right as they hurtled through another intersection—
—the riot in the next street over filled the gap one block down, a few hundred people at least gathered in one of the town centros, with a line of soldiers trying to subdue them all. People were running in two directions, either toward the fight or away from it. Some civilians held signs aloft, uniformed men were swinging nightsticks, a man caught one in the head—
—and then the scene was cut off by the next row of buildings as Jon kept the truck moving. The road passed under a freeway, probably Highway 1, she thought, which cut the small town in half running east–west. A line of jeeps filled with soldiers rumbled by on the overpass.
“I think half the army is coming together here,” Kyra said.
“There,” Jon said finally after another thirty seconds. Kyra followed his finger and saw an apartment building, ten stories of nondescript concrete with terraces protruding at every floor on all sides.
“Your call,” Kyra said. Jon accelerated, covered the last six blocks, and stopped the truck in a narrow alley across the street from the apartments he had chosen. Both analysts climbed out and went for the equipment in the back, then sprinted to the end of the narrow space.
The sign at the intersection to the left announced that the street was CALLE 10. Kyra checked the thoroughfare, in both directions. “Empty.” She led off, rifle raised, and sprinted across the street to the nearest door, a dirty wooden entryway smeared with old graffiti. It was unlocked and they entered, closing it behind them.
• • •
The stairwell ended in a small shack on the rooftop, with a television antenna rising off the top. Kyra crouched down behind it, dropped her pack, and pulled out the LST-5 and the tool kit. “I’ll get this going.”
“You going to be able to splice into that thing?” he asked, nodding at the antenna.
“I think so, but it’ll destroy the cable and be a crap connection,” Kyra said. “How far do we need to broadcast to reach the blockade line?” she asked.
“No idea,” Jon said. “The ships will be just outside the international boundary if we’re lucky. If all we’ve got is line-of-sight, those mountains could be a problem.”
“I need five minutes,” she told him.
“I’ll sweep the perimeter and find the approaches.” Jon hefted the Barrett and jogged to the northern edge of the roof.
The radio declared that it had 10 percent power when she turned it on. She programmed it to the emergency frequency, checked the encryption, then took the phone handset. “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. Arrowhead, Sherlock, GPS coords one zero point four eight two four minus six eight point two zero one six six . . .”
USS Vicksburg
11°22' North 67°49' West
75 miles north of the Venezuelan coast
Marisa got lost on the way to the communications room and made one wrong turn, which led to two more and a request for directions. She finally reached the right hatch more than a minute after she’d been summoned. Master Chief LeJeune stood inside, leaning over the shoulder of some junior officer whose rank Marisa didn’t bother to identify. He waved her in. “Looks like your friends finally decided to call.”
Marisa grabbed a headset before the communications specialist could ask another question. “Arrowhead, Quiver. Report your status.”
“All present and accounted for, no casualties,” Kyra replied. “We could use some good news.” The signal was poor and static played with her voice.
“Good to hear you. Our friends here on the water have a green light to come get you and a ‘green deck’ for launch.”
“You’ve got our coords. We’re squatting on the roof of the tallest building we could find. You come into town and we’ll pop smoke. I don’t think you’ll miss us.”
“Copy that, Arrowhead. Hold tight and we’ll be there soon—”
“Quiver,” Kyra said, cutting her off. “I inspected the package before we had to bug out. The crate was damaged but the package was intact, repeat, it was intact. I hid my smartphone inside the crate. It’s got GPS but the cellular network is down and we’ve only got a few hours before the battery runs dry.”
LeJeune did the Navy proud with the profanities he quietly wove together at that piece of news. “I’ll tell HQ and DoD. They’ve got AWACs, Prowlers, and half the drones under heaven right off the coast. One of them will find the signal,” Marisa advised. “Hunker down. We’re coming for you.” She turned to the communications officer, made a slashing motion across her throat, and he ended the transmission. “Can you get a message to Langley for me?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Marisa dictated the message, then ripped off the headset and ran for the hatch.
Morón, Venezuela
“That’s it, they’re coming,” Kyra said.
“So are the bad guys,” Jon observed. He pointed back toward Highway 1. Kyra grabbed her HK and followed him to the edge of the roof.
• • •
The convoy had just turned onto Highway 1 when the radio chattered at them. “Two hostiles spotted on a rooftop, Calle Diez. All units converge.”
“Driver! Take us there!” Carreño ordered. “I want to be there when we take the Americans into custody. Tell the cargo truck to keep going. We’ll catch up to it shortly.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Ahmadi seethed. “The cargo is more important than the Americans. We should stay with it.”
“Are you afraid, señor?” Carreño asked. “There are only two of them. We’ll have them in custody and we’ll arrive in Caracas with the cargo and a pair of estadounidense spies captured on our soil. The Americans will have to back off then. We are about to win this game.”
The driver turned the wheel and the jeep turned off Highway 1 into Morón.
CIA Director’s Office
Drescher came through the door. “Message from Mills out on the Vicksburg,” he said as he put the printout on Cooke’s desk.
1. Communications established with Arrowhead and Sherlock. Team sheltered in Morón, situation untenable. Vicksburg commencing personnel recovery. COS Caracas will accompany.
2. Arrowhead reports that warhead survived MOP detonation, but was able to hide smartphone in transport crate. HQ will be able to track via GPS until batteries die if damaged crate doesn’t block signal.
3. Regards.
• • •
“They’re in Morón?” Cooke asked, shocked. “What are they thinking going into a populated area?”
“Might not have had a choice,” Drescher said. “Imagery shows the locals have thrown up roadblocks everywhere. They might have been funneled in.”
Cooke nodded, staring blankly at the page. “Call the
White House,” she said, handing the paper back to Drescher.
Over the Atlantic
Marisa was climbing out of her skin in the back of the Seahawk. The helicopter lifted off from the Vicksburg’s deck less than five minutes after Jon’s call. The Seahawk hugged the Atlantic, moving almost 170 miles per hour and still not going fast enough. The crew was professional and she was trying to keep her composure. Staying calm had always been trouble for her when Jon was involved.
The door gunner double-checked his harness. Marisa stared at him, saw he was a young kid, nervous, probably his first time going into combat. She leaned over and laid a hand on the GAU-17/A minigun the young soldier was rechecking. “You know how to use that thing?” she yelled so he could hear her over the rotors.
The soldier grinned. Where did the CIA find women who looked this good and knew how to handle guns? “Hoo-yah, ma’am! Looking to give my girl a proper workout!” he answered.
Marisa smiled. Giving a young man a chance to show off for a woman always took their minds off what was really going on.
Over the Atlantic
“Sherlock, Quiver,” Marisa said into her head mic. “Seahawk en route your position, ETA . . .” She looked to the airborne tactical officer sitting in the copilot seat. He held up both hands, all fingers extended, then one hand with two fingers up. “Twelve minutes.”
“Copy that, Quiver,” Kyra called back. “Sooner would be better. We have hostiles inbound.”
“Can you hold?”
“We’ll let you know in two minutes.”
Morón, Venezuela
Jon put a new clip in the Barrett and loaded the first round, then set the bipod mount on the edge of the roof and put his head down and his eye to the Leupold scope.
The Venezuelan vehicles were still a half mile away, perhaps thirty seconds from his and Kyra’s position judging by the number of cross streets and their rate of speed. The convoy had three jeeps, four men each, and a troop transport carrying probably three times that many in the back—that unit alone could overwhelm his position. The truck first, then.
Jon took a breath of air into his lungs, let it out slowly, then stopped his breathing lest the rise and fall of his chest throw off the aim.
He put the crosshairs on the grille of the large transport and raised them slightly to compensate for the bullet drop over the distance. Jon put his finger to the trigger and pulled back, taking up the slack. The trigger pulled easily, then resisted. He kept his pull smooth, more force behind it now. The exact moment of the shot was a surprise—
The world was moving in slow motion and the .50 round seemed to rumble out of the barrel, kicking up the dust on the roof in a small hurricane that it pulled along behind in a spinning vortex and filling his sight with a brown haze. The muzzle brake blew hot gases out to the sides in a small storm that whipped Kyra’s face, forcing her to close her eyes and turn her head away.
The transport hit a small pothole a fraction of a second after the Barrett fired. The slug closed the distance while the truck’s cab dipped down slightly, angling into the shallow ditch enough that the bullet passed above the grille. It struck the hood and tore a furrow into the metal until it punched through and hit the engine block. The two-inch round shattered the metal, throwing shrapnel into the piston assembly and shredding hoses, hot fluids spewing out in small gushers. Crushed and misshapen, the slug tumbled end over end until it hit an iron slab too thick to penetrate. The bullet angled up and punched its way back through the hood, then through the windshield. It hit the driver’s right arm above the elbow, spraying blood, shattering the bone into a thousand splinters, and ripping out enough flesh and muscle to leave the lower arm hanging from the upper by only a few bits of skin. The driver screamed in shock and twisted the wheel with his good arm as he convulsed in terror. He would have been hard-pressed to keep the truck under control as the front bumper hit the low rise of the concrete sidewalk even had he not been thrashing in his seat.
The driver, delirious in his agony, hit the wheel, spinning the truck as he tried to avoid the concrete wall. The transport made a sharp turn and the men in the back yelled and cursed as they felt the machine roll at an unnatural angle under their feet. Its center of gravity too high for the turn, the truck rolled onto its left tires and the transport pitched over onto its side, throwing men out of the back. Half of the soldiers broke bones as they hit the ground, their bodies rolling along for a few dozen feet until they stopped, lying in crumpled heaps, bloody, several with compound fractures. Two more were crushed under the truck bed as it slid along the ground for almost twenty feet until it finally came to rest. The few men who were still able to move dragged themselves back to the toppled machine, its rear right wheels spinning on their axles.
• • •
Kyra let out a cry. “Nice!”
“I’ll take it,” Jon agreed. “How many in the jeeps?”
Kyra scanned the approaching fleet of vehicles. “I count twelve. Still too many for me to handle with this—” She patted her machine gun. “They’ll put shooters in the other buildings and flank us, easy.”
“Time?”
She checked her watch. “Helo is still ten minutes out. You want some smoke? It would give us some cover.”
“Save it,” Jon ordered. “It won’t last long enough and it’ll just keep me from seeing downrange. Don’t want those boys moving up on us.”
• • •
Carreño’s jeep hit a deep pothole, throwing him toward the roof until his seat belt dug into his shoulder and lap. Ahmadi hadn’t bothered to fasten his and struck the metal top, bending his neck. The man muttered an oath in his native tongue after gravity brought him back down to his seat.
Elham looked back to check his condition, but found his eyes drawn to the scene behind them. “We lost the truck,” he said. The other two soldiers in the back twisted in their seats and looked. “Miserable driver—” one started to say . . .
• • •
Jon moved the rifle again. The closest jeep was maybe a third of a mile away now, twenty seconds from their position, maybe a bit more. He put crosshairs on the engine and went through the mental checklist that his father had burned into his memory, never to forget.
Breathe.
Relax.
Aim.
Slack.
Squeeze.
The Barrett rumbled again and the jeep’s engine died a violent death, steam and fluids spewing from the grille. The vehicle rolled to a stop more than five hundred feet away. The men inside would need long minutes to cover the ground, but they would have entire side streets and no shortage of cover from Jon’s rifle.
“Two to go,” Kyra said.
Jon said nothing. She wasn’t sure he’d even heard her. Her partner was staring downrange, his entire world defined by the image in his scope.
• • •
“Side street! Turn off—” Elham started to yell. Steam and hydraulics erupted, blinding him to the high-rise that was still more than seven hundred feet away. He heard the engine tear itself apart, sounds of grinding metal that seemed to be screaming and cursing at the men who had driven the vehicle to its death.
The jeep to their right swerved around them, its driver gunning the engine in a mad effort to close the distance. One of his passengers leaned outside the window to fire his rifle, at what target Elham couldn’t imagine, but the fool didn’t get off a single round before that vehicle’s engine too erupted in smoke as black as the oil spilling out of it.
Elham twisted in his seat and saw the wrecked troop transport and a sister jeep both disabled, the former more than two hundred feet behind him. He looked forward again and judged the distance between the dead cargo truck and the roof of the apartment building—something over a half-kilometer, but not too far.
But why were they holding position here? Carreño had men coming from all directions. They wo
uld surround the building, establish firing positions, and keep the Americans from shooting off the roof’s edge until a team could take the stairs—
This is their extraction point, he realized.
The American military would be here soon, maybe with helicopter gunships, and Elham did not want to get caught in narrow, walled streets when those machines came over the skyline.
Elham kicked open his door and ran for the back of the jeep. He could have huddled in the front seat, the destroyed engine between him and the Americans, but he could do no good there. The jeep doors themselves were useless as cover . . . any gun that could break an engine from that distance could punch a bullet through the doors. “Get out of the jeep!” he ordered the others. They scrambled to follow and tossed themselves onto the street behind the vehicle, Ahmadi almost crawling underneath it.
• • •
The last jeep crashed to a stop with black smoke rising out of the hood before the Barrett’s echo died. The men scrambled out of the vehicle, afraid the engine was going to catch fire and the jeep burn with them inside. They hunkered down behind it, then came out running for the cover of Ahmadi’s jeep while one of their company fired his rifle in Jon and Kyra’s direction.
Neither analyst bothered to duck. The man was shooting from the hip and couldn’t have hit them at half the distance handling his weapon like that. Jon put a round at his feet and the man twisted to run so suddenly that he fell on the asphalt. The Venezuelan dragged himself back up and ran after his comrades.
“You know, you haven’t actually hit anybody with that thing,” Kyra noted.
“Not trying to,” Jon replied.
She checked her watch. “Nine minutes.” Four vehicles in less than a minute, she thought. We might live through this.
Jon swept the field, looking for men trying to move up. A head stuck out, then pulled back behind one of the dead cars. Jon didn’t waste a shot. The soldiers were staying put and none of them seemed confident enough of their skills to try a rifle shot at this distance with open sights.
Cold Shot: A Novel Page 33