Lance had been talking with the men for nearly five minutes and Dan felt himself relaxing. Hearing their voice and conversation flow made the thoughts of a fire-fight seem more and more remote. There was a small pause in the conversation before Lance spoke again.
“So, what happens next, then? We both have our missions. I don’t agree with what you guys are doing, what you’re supposed to be doing, and I can promise you that the United States and the United States Army hasn’t gone anywhere. Drake isn’t a law or a part of my country, and he’ll be held accountable soon enough. But you guys seem decent and I hope that you can walk away from this car park, today, alive.”
Suit’s answer was cut off by a voice behind him.
“On the RT!” a young-sounding, high-pitched voice called. A boy, Dan thought.
“They want to know if we’ve found where the helicopter landed. They also wanted to know where we are, and it sounds like there is another patrol on the way into us.”
“What? Oh fuck, fuck!” Suit turned his back to Dan and Lance, no longer caring that the soldiers had their weapons pointing at him and his men. He must have decided that they were who they said they were, and that the other patrol was a greater threat right now.
“Kale!” Suit screamed, addressing Fisherman by his proper name. “Bro, we need to move! It must be a patrol of Drake’s heavies, and if they find us disobeying Drake’s orders...” Suit turned back to Lance and Dan.
“We’ll leave, and we never saw you. Stay hidden, but know that the next patrol might be different, if they’re Drake’s believing types.”
“Too late!” Fisherman called back. “They’ve just left the highway and have already seen us, I think. They know where to go at any rate. They’ll be here in less than a minute.”
***
Lance took the lead, reaching out and slapping two of the door controls, opening them back up to the outside. Dan understood. Better to be able to see and shoot out, rather than to try and hunker down and let those outside have the advantage. Finding the enemy was the hardest part in modern combat – weapons could destroy anything, so long as you could see it. The hack threat was at bay with the men outside, so they were better off preparing to defend themselves against the next patrol as their immediate threat. Dan followed Lance back into the factory floor, taking up positions inside the building, next to shelving.
“Get low and stay low,” Lance growled quietly into his mic, addressing the team up top.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen. If we can stay hidden then that’s great; but get ready to kill everyone out there. Even these guys, who seem decent now, still pose a threat to us and to our mission. Remember that.”
Dan found himself lying in the prone position, his rifle supported on some small boxes. Lance was a few meters to his left. His position was stable and he felt like he was at the range, in a perfect, windless environment watching out into a gallery. Watch and shoot, he thought to himself.
Suit and Fisherman’s vehicles were now clearly visible to them. The group had assembled back around their trucks and were hurriedly talking between themselves.
“Making out their story, I bet,” Lance whispered across the aisle.
Another three trucks swung in behind Suit and his group, barely visible to Dan from his position so close to the ground. He could hear doors opening and see, through his magnified ACOG, additional feet hit the ground. The new crew were dismounting.
A few of the new group moved alongside Suit. They were different to Suit and Fisherman, and from the body language the original patrol were showing, the new guys were intimidating. Dan could see why. Where Suit and Fisherman looked like suburban husbands out on a shopping trip who happened to pick up a hunting rifle, the new group looked well equipped and determined. They all had boots and hard-wearing trousers, and from the few that Dan could make out they all had pretty serious weapons. Assault rifles – M4s and M16s, probably taken from local police. Someone from the second group jumped onto Suit’s second truck and took over the machine gun, aiming it low towards the factory door.
Suit was shoved towards them by a large, bearded man.
“We know you’re in there,” the bearded figure called. Dan tried to keep his rifle aimed at the gunner on the truck, just like he had before, but he could easily make out the rest of the group from his position.
“And we know you ain’t working to our plan, too. Quite why,” the bearded man turned to Suit, and Dan could see that, while tough and muscular, the new-comer was also reasonably fat and therefore slow. “Well, quite why our Sixth patrol saw fit to negotiate with you is beyond me. So I’m going to demonstrate the resolve we have against you scum cowards who are hiding and not helping in our moment of need.”
Three figures were manhandled into sight. It took Dan a moment to realize what was going on. Beard’s crew had grabbed some of the original patrol and had now pushed them to the front, blocking the line of fire between the factory and the vehicles. Dan’s stomach tensed and he felt his body shiver with adrenaline. Everything was pointing towards a confrontation.
Fisherman was one of the men at the front, and next to him was a teenaged kid, barely sixteen. Dan guessed that it was his high-pitched voice he had heard from the wagon a few minutes ago, alerting them to the arrival of the second patrol. Fisherman no longer had a weapon on him. Suit was still standing off to the side, but was being gently restrained by another of Beard’s heavies. Dan could easily see the panic and alarm in Suit’s body language. He knew why. They were about to witness a massacre.
“This is the law now,” Beard called out. “Either work with Drake and with us or be treated as an enemy.”
“Don’t do this!” Suit called out. “The men inside, they’re Army, and they don’t know what is going on! They just flew in! They could help us, they could help Drake!”
Lance quietly cursed alongside him and Dan could see Beard’s expression suddenly change. He must have expected to come across some unprepared, under-equipped rabble. Hearing that they were US Army changed Beard’s demeanor. He’s used to being in charge on these streets. In the last couple of days he’s become accustomed to being the top dog. Dan placed him as a bully who enjoyed his position of power over others. He felt tempted to switch his point of aim onto Beard’s chest but knew he needed to keep the gunner covered. He knew, too, that Lance would be watching the dismounted bandits on the left. He needed to keep his sector and his targets covered, no matter how much he wanted to place his reticule on Beard’s chubby face.
Beard disappeared back behind the others and both Dan and Lance could hear some murmurs of talking and discussion over the distance.
“This isn’t good,” Lance half-whispered through their head-sets. “They’re going to try and take out those men in front of us. But they can’t see us inside, so we’ve still got an advantage. Call in if you’ve got a clear shot against any of them. If we can take them down we’ll open up, but only if we have a chance of dropping a few of them in one go. I don’t want to cause... oh, hell!”
Lance’s call was interrupted by a gentle clattering sound on the cement, which then gave way to a sudden, accelerating hiss. Smoke started to engulf their field of view. In a second Dan realized what was happening – the new group were chucking out smoke grenades between the factory and the vehicles to obscure their location.
A loud, crashing shot echoed from their front and someone – a kid, Dan realized an instant later – started to scream and wail in agony. Dan’s response was automatic. While he couldn’t see his point of aim anymore he had kept his weapon locked in and steady on that one point. He knew where his rounds would go. The moment that Lance had started cursing he had automatically thumbed the safety catch off onto full-auto and it only took the minutest effort to move his trigger finger from alongside the weapon body onto the MP-7’s trigger and to gently pull at it. His weapon bucked slightly from the short burst as the trigger depressed, but the weight of the suppressor helped keep the muzzle low and it res
ettled back into the same position in his hands as it had been before he had fired the burst. Dan fired another three to four times as he moved his weapon as he punched out each corner of an imaginary ‘z’ shape in the smoke with his rounds. It was a searching fire pattern to try and hit anything his initial burst may have missed.
Over his fire Dan could hear more screaming erupt from the smoke. At least five different voices, each howling and screaming, kicked in as more gunshots rattled from within the smoke-screen. Dan couldn’t tell whether his fire had found his intended target as the billowing white clouds obscured any chance of seeing what was going on. Lance was holding his fire as he held his muzzle level into the smoke and Dan now did the same. They couldn’t see what was going on, and there was no point wasting bullets or doing more hard by hitting the line of Suit’s men and boys. Although, judging from the screams, Dan was sure that Suit’s group had already gunned them down.
“Hold!” Lance called out. Firing had ceased after the initial few bursts but the loud hissing of the smoke grenades and the screams of the injured could still be heard.
“What do we do?” Scott asked over the radio.
“Just hold steady and listen,” Lance replied. “And stay low.”
Over the smoke and the screams Dan could now hear engines revving and vehicles start to move. Lance’s warning to stay low seemed prophetic as a new burst of gunfire cracked through the smoke and echoed through the interior factory. The fire was sprayed indiscriminately at the factory building and was ineffective, but Dan still rolled away from his firing position and sheltered behind the aisle. A handful of rounds smashed through the factory, pinging and cracking through the light metal of the shelving and plywood walls of the aisles. The irregular cracks and ricochets around them made the gunfire sound more potent than it really was.
Both Dan and Lance instantly knew that the fusillade was a parting gesture from Beard’s crew to keep their heads down while they made a getaway, but both stayed on the floor. It wasn’t worth risking their lives and the smoke screen outside confused everything. If they tried to rush outside they would have trouble seeing Beard’s group until they were almost on top of them, and those sorts of odds favored those outside on the trucks. Better to lie still and let them leave.
Lance waited ten seconds after the last shot echoed through the factory and then rolled back into a firing position. He caught Dan’s eye and they both tried to listen to the engines over the sounds of the pained screams outside.
“Sounds like they’re clear,” Dan said, loud enough for Lance to hear. Lance nodded and they both cautiously raised themselves onto their knees, and then onto their feet.
“We’re going to quickly check outside and then close these doors,” Lance said through his microphone. The two soldiers moved to the edge of the factory doors. The smoke generators had stopped skidding around the concrete outside gushing out the smoke, but the chaotic mix of lingering smoke and screaming continued. The urgent, shocked wails of panic had given way to the more depressing, subdued wails of someone in grave pain. Dan thought he could hear at least four different screams mingling together behind the smoke screen.
Lance kept them paused at the doorway for a good minute while he weighed up his options and got his bearings. As the smoke started to thin in front of them he caught Dan’s eye and nodded. The two slowly spun out of the doorway, crouching low and keeping their weapons in a high ready position, their MP-7 barrels slicing a line through the smoke and across the parked cars and buildings. Dan pivoted his barrel back and forth, searching for any threats.
“What can you see?” called Julia over the radio. The message was distracting and annoying, but Dan could understand how hard it must be for the three watching them from up top, unable to assist. Lance was patient when he replied.
“Can’t see much now, smoke is still clearing. Give us some time to check for any injured and we’ll give you a heads up. We aren’t going far.”
It was hard making out shapes through the spinning and weaving screens of curling smoke, but the white clouds were thinning and they could start to make out the far line of cars where the trucks had parked up. Through the glimpses of light and brief windows appearing in the smoke he could patch together a rough picture of the scene awaiting them. While a few bodies had fallen to their front, all the trucks had gone.
“We need to move soon,” Dan called. He could see some movement amongst the cars through gaps in the thinning smoke. The vehicles, gunfire and screams must have drawn in the hacks around them.
Lance grunted and they started to sweep forward together, keeping a few yards between them. Their submachine guns stayed pinned into their shoulders.
“Front!” Dan called, letting Lance know that he was halting and engaging. The smoke was being blown to the left in a gentle breeze, giving him a clear window through which he could see a group of crouching, lunging hacks bounding towards them. Dan’s sight was already locked in his view next to his shoulder and he quickly swept the red dot of the holographic sight onto the first of the hacks. He fired, twice, bowling over the first hack in a howl. The creatures alongside the downed beast paused and Dan managed to hit another in a sickening thwack as the small, tumbling bullet tore apart its stomach cavity. The second creature’s howls were loud and piercing, signaling alarm to the other hacks in the area. A few of the hacks that had crept forward were now pausing and darting back for cover. Dan caught a third hack between its shoulders as it tried to retreat into the row of cars.
“Moving,” he called back to Lance, and they both resumed their slow advance into the rapidly thinning smoke.
Lance’s boot kicked one of the empty smoke canisters away as they neared the line of bodies. The thick clouds had given way into a thin mist that made breathing harder and visibility limited, but at least they could see. The smoke screen had been blown away into Lance’s path, so Dan was the first to see the injured figures in front of him. Fisherman was lying sideways, his body crumpled around the teenage kid. Blood was pooling out of Fisherman’s chest and out of his mouth in thick splatters with each breath. He seemed barely conscious and was wheezing, not screaming. Next to him, cradled in his arms, the teenaged kid was all but dead, his chest rising and falling very weakly but his back was blown apart from a series of gunshot wounds that had exited through him. With an emergency team on standby and a medevac chopped on the way there would be little hope, but with their basic first aid kit and no hope of extraction or surgery they were all but dead. There was screaming still coming from further to the left, in the thicker smoke still, so Dan held out hope that they would still be able to save someone.
“Two here, but they’re gone. Nothing we can do.”
“OK,” Lance replied. “Got two guys to my front, both goners. We need to find the screamer.”
The smoke was blowing away more and more, and Dan could see a pool of blood where the last man had been shot. He couldn’t see a body.
“Blood trails,” Lance called out, “leading away.” The screaming was growing weaker.
They moved forward another few meters, and both groaned. Behind a line of cars to their front the screaming was alternating with wailing and a sickening slamming sound of an assault.
“The fuckers have already got him,” Lance groaned. “Fucking hacks!”
The wailing they could hear varied with each blow that carried over the car. Dan was sure that the man was barely conscious given the pitch of his scream but he hated to imagine his final moments. Lance dropped onto the ground and lay on his side. Now parallel to the ground he was able to see under the car. Pushing his MP7 straight in front of him he aimed at the feet of the hack and fired a series of shots. The beast stopped its assault as it crashed down, alongside the injured man, and Lance pumped another series of rounds into its torso.
“We need to return,” Dan said, his voice sounding calm but his head was still spinning with the fear and horror of the scenes around them. The hacks were moving around the parked cars and, if t
hey stayed out for a few more minutes, they would be surrounded, having to fit their way back inside.
Lance grunted, and paused as he looked under the car at the injured figure. From his perspective he couldn’t make out many details but he could see the growing pool of blood and a battered, smashed arm unnaturally jutting out over his head. It was the leader of the first patrol, they man Dan had thought of as Suit. He’d seemed like a decent guy who seemed to be doing the best he could for his daughter he’d spoken about and for the rest of his team. He had been shot and then ravaged by the hacks. What a way to go, Dan and Lance thought together, not needing to speak their thoughts. Lance quietly muttered a few words. It was the only epitaph that Suit was going to get. He deserved more, in life and in death, but the world around them was watching and waiting to attack.
“Sorry, buddy,” Lance whispered. His MP7 fired a couple of suppressed rounds into the broken body of the man, ending his agony. The weak wailing stopped. Dan scanned around them, keeping watch on the rows of cars. He felt a sadness and a tiredness grip him and weigh him down.
“Let’s get back inside,” Lance said, as he raised himself off the ground. Dan could see that the last few minutes had taken a toll on him, too. They’d watched men and boys die, and they’d been helpless to prevent it. Lance turned away, breaking the brief moment of eye contact between them. Lance looked like a warrior, fully kitted up with the panoply of a soldier and with the fixed, staring features of a man who had seen combat in his recent past. Despite the tough, rock-hard features, Dan thought he could see tears glistening in the Ranger’s eyes before he turned away. We watched Americans; good, decent Americans, die. Dan felt his own chest tighten and his own eyes prick with tears as they stepped over the body of the teenaged kid.
Lance keyed his mic. “No survivors,” he reported. “We’re moving back in now.”
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