by Sam Sisavath
“They killed Ron and Floyd.”
“Yeah, well, them’s the breaks. You want guaranteed safe working conditions? You join the Girl Scouts. This outfit ain’t for the faint of heart.”
Tall and Skinny snorted. “Fucking orders.”
“What about this asshole?” Short and Fat asked. “We need him, too?”
“Clive didn’t say anything about him,” the driver said.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, you can make him your girlfriend if you want.”
The truck’s passenger chuckled from somewhere on the other side of the parked vehicle. “Hey, you always did say you wanted someone to cuddle with at night, Benson.”
Short and Fat grunted. “I like them younger. And with bigger tits.”
“That’s what them Victoria’s Secret bras are for.”
“Big and real tits.”
“You’re so picky.”
“Oh, shut up and just kill the fucker,” Tall and Skinny said just before the sound of jet engines filled the alley and a strong wind lifted the Mercerian’s hair slightly. The man’s eyes went up as the gray belly of a Warthog passed by overhead—
Now, now, now!
Even as the words flashed across Gaby’s mind, Peters was already moving, his right hand dropping while his left reached up and grabbed the barrel of the rifle pointed at his head. Like his partner, Short and Fat was glancing up at the sky when Peters made his move, but he instinctively pulled the trigger when Peters grabbed at his rifle.
The shot went wide, striking the wall behind Peters, who had pushed the AR to one side even as he drew his SIG Sauer and fired from the hip. Gaby wasn’t the least bit shocked by Peters’s ability to do that. She’d seen him do it before in training when he wanted to show off. The man could fast-draw a gun and shoot from the hip with astounding accuracy. But training was one thing, and doing it during a real life-and-death combat situation was another.
Goddamn, he’s good, Gaby thought as Short and Fat stumbled back even as Peters spun on his knees and, again with his SIG still at hip level, fired off two shots so fast that Gaby only heard one.
The machine gunner! The machine gunner!
Tall and Skinny was falling in front of her when she turned around, rising up from her knees even as the Glock came out of its holster at her side. She prayed that her fingers, still slick with Jones’s blood, didn’t let go of the pistol as she raised it. Unlike Peters, she had no chance of shooting from the hip with any accuracy, and she knew it.
The driver of the truck was walking back to his vehicle when Peters made his move, and as soon as Peters’s third shot rang out, the man was turning, reaching down for his own holstered sidearm. Gaby shot him first in the chest, and as he began to fall, shot him again, hitting him in the neck this time.
Blood sprayed the side of the parked technical even as the machine gunner in the back scrambled to get behind his shielding. The Mercerian had been looking in the other direction, bored, when the gunshots rang out. He was just now getting into position when she fired her third bullet—
Ping! as the round bounced off the metal shielding in front of the MG.
Shit!
Gaby got up and ran toward the truck, pulling the trigger again and again, but she couldn’t shoot around the heavy plate. It was too big and wide and tall, and the damned thing was much too thick to shoot through. That was the point of the shield, after all. If it were easy to overcome, the technical wouldn’t be using it.
Get around it! Get around it before—
The MG was moving, swiveling up to take aim.
No no no!
Ping-ping-ping! as she continued firing and running at the same time, but she couldn’t see the Mercerian’s head. He was keeping it smartly hidden behind the shield as he moved it around, getting it into position to fire. With his head behind the plate, he wouldn’t be able to really see what he was shooting at, but she guessed he wouldn’t really have to. All he had to do was shoot in the general vicinity of the alley and she was dead. She and Peters—
Ping-ping-ping! as Peters ran up alongside her, also shooting at the machine gunner and hitting only the shield. As good as Peters was—and he was damned good, even with just a handgun—he couldn’t get around the plating.
Ping-ping-ping!
Ping-ping-ping!
Then the metal shield stopped moving, and Gaby stared at the muzzle of the MG as it stared back at her. There were five meters between them, and she remembered the sight of Jolly and Jones as the weapon sliced into them.
I’m sorry, Lara. I’m not going to make it.
I’m so sorry, but I tried.
I really tried—
Moonlight reflected off the chrome of a second vehicle as it appeared in the corner of her right eye. A split second later, the newly arrived truck slammed into the parked technical’s back bumper and sent it careening forward up the sidewalk.
What…
The impact had sent the machine gunner into the air like a rag doll, and Gaby watched as the man fell back down to earth, seemingly moving in slow motion, before smashing into the hood of the truck that had suddenly taken the place of the technical.
…is happening?
It took Gaby a few seconds to process the series of events: A second technical had rear-ended the first, knocking it up the sidewalk. It hadn’t been an accident, either, because Car No. 2 had clearly been speeding just before the collision. Speeding up.
She was coming to grips with what had happened when the Mercerian, lying on top of the new technical, started to get up. There was a bang! from behind her—Peters!—and the man fell back down, before rolling off the hood and into the street.
Gaby stared at the second truck. Or more precisely, at its driver.
The man leaned out the open driver-side window, one bloodied arm dangling over the big circled M, while the other one was nonchalantly perched over the steering wheel. There was dry blood over half of his face, but that did nothing to hinder the stupid-looking grin.
“Jesus Christ,” Gaby said. “You’re supposed to be dead.”
“You wanna get in, ma’am, or would you like me to send an official invitation first?” Becker asked.
Eighteen
Becker. Joe Becker.
He was still alive. How was he still alive?
And if he’s still alive, that means I left him back there…
Gaby walked over to the truck, still not quite believing what she was seeing. But there he was, smiling at her even if he looked like he should be lying in bed in a hospital somewhere being treated for…everything. The truck he was sitting in looked familiar—and she realized why seconds later: because it was one of the two technicals that had been parked outside the warehouse earlier.
“You’re alive,” she said.
“Last time I checked,” Becker said. “Where is everyone?”
She looked back at Peters, who was stripping the Mercerians of their rifles. “It’s just us.”
“Jolly?”
“He’s dead.”
“The other guy?”
“Him, too.”
“Damn,” Becker said, looking past her at Jolly’s and Jones’s bodies, lying among the dead Mercerians. “Sorry. I know you were friends with Jolly.”
She pursed a smile at him. “You’re still alive.”
“Didn’t we already go over this?”
“How are you still alive?”
“I got nine lives. Well, eight, now.”
“I saw you get blown up.”
“The door got blown up. I was behind it.”
“Jesus.”
“No, just Joe.”
Something moved across the front seat from Becker. It was a shadow, rising up on the other side of the passenger door.
Gaby raised her gun—
“Hey,” Becker said when she fired.
Her shot shattered the passenger side window, and the figure fell.
Becker had wisely ducked his head when she pulled the t
rigger, and he raised it back up slowly. “Seven lives, now.”
Gaby ran around the front of the truck. She got a good look at the front grill as she did so. The bumper was crumpled but somehow still clinging to the vehicle, and the hood was badly dented from both the collision and when the machine gunner fell on top of it. The man himself was crumpled on the sidewalk, and she had to step around him.
The man she’d shot was lying on his back in the street. He was still alive, clutching his chest where blood pumped through his fingers and were spreading liberally across his vest. It took a second for her to register his identity: The passenger in the Mercerian technical, who had been standing next to the vehicle when Becker slammed into it.
Gaby thought about putting the man out of his misery, but she decided to save the bullet. He was going to die anyway. She could tell just by looking at him.
Instead, she glanced up the streets at the same time headlights flickered in the distance, coming toward them.
She looked over at Peters, just now walking over to them. “We have to go. Someone’s coming.”
“So let’s go,” Peters said. He had two rifles slung over his shoulders and a third in front of him. Then, seeing Becker, “Goddamn. You look like how I feel, kid.”
“You don’t look so hot,” Becker said.
“That’s what I meant.”
Gaby stepped over the wounded Mercerian and opened the passenger side door. She climbed inside while Peters slid into the back seat and dumped the rifles next to him. He glanced back out the rear window at the approaching headlights. There were just two spots, which meant only one car.
Becker glanced up at the rearview mirror. “Where to, folks?”
“You know where the park is?” Peters asked.
“Sure. Parks are my specialty.”
“That’s where we’re going.”
“Buckle your seat belts, because I don’t have insurance,” Becker said. He put the truck in gear and stepped on the gas.
It lurched forward before rumbling off the sidewalk and onto the street. There was a loud grinding noise, and Gaby wondered which part of the truck was dragging on the road. Whatever it was, it wasn’t bad enough to stop them from moving.
“How did you find us?” Gaby asked Becker.
“I didn’t,” Becker said. “I was just driving around minding my own business when I saw that technical on the sidewalk. Heard the shooting and figured, what the hell, might as well go out with a bang.”
She glanced at the headlights in her side mirror. “Can this thing go any faster?”
“It used to be able to,” Becker said.
“We’re dragging something,” Peters said.
“We’re dragging a lot of somethings, yup.”
For the first time, Gaby got a good look at Becker. He was in even worse shape than he’d looked initially. Besides the blood on one side of his face, his blue BDU was wet (More blood), and he had what looked like strips of clothing tied tightly around his right leg and right arm. His cheeks were bruised, as were his forehead, and a small trail of blood had dried along his temple. She couldn’t help but imagine him back there in the warehouse, alone, picking himself up and then wandering around looking for her.
He glanced over and flashed a too-forced grin. “It looks worse than it really is.”
“Is it? Because it looks pretty bad,” Gaby said.
“I’m still alive. That’s all that counts.”
She nodded, and thought, Barely.
But he was right. He was still alive, and after what had happened to Jolly and Jones, it was more than she could have hoped for.
“You’re right,” Gaby said. “That’s all that counts.”
She turned around in her seat to peer out the back window at the same headlights. They were much closer than the last time she looked.
Peters had been busy bandaging up his bleeding left arm and was swallowing a couple of pills when she looked past him. He followed her gaze down the street, and by the expression on his face, she knew he’d come to the same conclusion.
“We can’t let them follow us to Lara,” Gaby said.
“I know,” Peters said. He leaned between the two front seats and tapped Becker on the shoulder. “Stop the car.”
“Why?” Becker said. “There are patrols all over the city. We’ve been lucky there’s just one car on our ass. You know how many I had to avoid just to find you guys?”
“Where were they going?” Gaby asked.
“Who?”
“The patrols you had to dodge.”
“A lot of them were heading south for some reason.” He glanced over. “Or is there a reason?”
“Stop the car,” Peters said from the back.
“You still haven’t given me a reason,” Becker said.
“We have to ditch those headlights,” Gaby said.
Becker sighed. “Hey, I don’t need to live to see morning anyway,” he said, before applying pressure to the brakes.
Peters opened his door and was already outside before the vehicle had even come to a complete stop.
Gaby grabbed one of the rifles Peters had tossed into the truck and opened her own door. “Stay here.”
“I don’t think I can move anyway,” Becker said.
Gaby looked down at the AR in her hands. It was painted with camo, and there was a red dot sight mounted on top. She flicked the fire selector to semiauto and glanced around them in case another Mercerian patrol had appeared nearby. There wasn’t, and it was just them and their tailgater in the streets. The rest, she thought, were heading exactly to where Lara wanted them to go right this moment.
Peters, meanwhile, had climbed into the back of the truck and was settling in behind the machine gun. This one didn’t have the shield plating of the last technical, but Gaby didn’t think Peters was going to need it.
The Buckies were getting closer, their truck’s headlights flashing across her face as they neared. If they saw Peters in the back, readying the MG, it didn’t slow them down until they’d gotten almost fifty meters, and by then it was too late.
As soon as the trailing truck’s tires squealed to a stop, Peters pulled the trigger and the machine gun, an all-purpose M240, began spitting lead down the street. Empty bullet casings clattered against the truck bed around Peters’s feet while a dozen more bounced off the side and into the street in front of Gaby.
The first twenty or so bullets that Peters sent downrange shattered the windshield of his target. The rest destroyed the front hood, the grill, and took out the headlights. Peters kept shooting until Gaby heard a tire explode, then another one, and soon a fire had begun near the back of the vehicle.
Gaby wished she could feel sorry for the poor bastards in the truck, but she couldn’t even make them out. Even if they somehow managed to survive the first wave of bullets, they were probably wishing they hadn’t as fire began to engulf the vehicle.
Peters looked down the side of the technical at her. “I’ll stay back here until we’re clear.”
Gaby nodded and slipped back into the truck. She slammed the door and nodded at Becker. “Let’s go.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Becker said and put the technical back into gear.
They continued down the street, but they hadn’t gone more than half a mile when the truck shook. Not just their vehicle, but the street it was traveling on, along with the buildings to the right and left of them. The streetlights that hadn’t worked for over five years rattled violently as they drove underneath them, the power lines swinging wildly on their poles.
“Earthquake?” Becker said.
“No,” Gaby said.
She stuck her head out the broken window and looked behind them. There, plumes of red and orange fireballs in the distance. They were coming from the other side of Darby Bay. The south. She was looking at bomb detonations. More than one had just reduced what might have been an entire block—if not more—of the city to rubble. The sight was mesmerizing, and she imagined it would be more amazing up
close. That is, if you weren’t one of the poor bastards caught in the blast.
She could still feel the truck shaking slightly when she pulled her head back inside.
“What was that?” Becker asked.
“Those patrols you saw heading south earlier? That’s what that was. Lara letting Buck’s people know that tonight’s not over yet.”
Becker gave her a questioning look.
“The guys you crashed into?” Gaby said. “They were supposed to take me to where Buck’s people were amassing for what they thought was a final assault on our rallying point. Lara and the remnants of surviving Black Tiders were supposed to be there getting ready for a counterattack.”
“Supposed to be there?”
“The enemy has been monitoring our communications all night. They knew about the tunnels, the alternate OP, and a lot of inside protocol that no one except us is supposed to know.”
“Spies,” Becker said.
“Yeah. They’ve had spies in our ranks for God knows how long now.” She thought about Loman and Biden. “Buck’s been planning this for years.”
“So back there…”
Gaby glanced at the side mirror. She could still make out the orange and red cloud gathering over that part of the city. She imagined Buckies burning, vehicles on fire...
“That’s us striking back,” Gaby said. “But it’s not over yet.”
The truck trembled slightly as a Warthog appeared overhead and banked right. Another one followed behind it, moving in formation. For a second, Gaby was afraid they might fire on them, but they didn’t.
“I’m glad those Hogs are on our side,” Becker said, leaning slightly to look after the A-10s as they disappeared into the night sky. “How long can they stay up there, anyway?”
“As long as they can,” Gaby said.
“Is that going to be long enough?”
God, I hope so, she thought and said, “I guess we’ll find out.”
She took out the radio that Peters had given her. It was the same one he’d stolen off a dead Bucky. Gaby powered it on and turned up the volume.
Multiple voices were talking through the comm at once, others screaming back and forth. There was no mistaking the panic and fear that came through the speakers: