Svetlana grimaced as she dragged herself up and braced her Sako across a fallen log. “There. That’s where the Brothers will try to intercept.” She was aiming at another spot along the riverbank, between us and the others. “They will have to get on top of that hill to get a shot, and then I’ll have them.”
“Reaper. Status?” I commanded.
“The Brothers are heading toward the river, a hundred and fifty meters north of you. They’re blocking your escape. And you’ve got a shitload of bad guys about to be on top of you. You’ve got to get out of there now!”
The Sun was coming over the side of the canyon. I could clearly see the path I had to take to reach extraction. My best bet was to head right down the riverbank, right through the Brothers. It was rocky and uneven, and would be treacherous with Svetlana on my back, but it was the only way now.
“Pop these guys, and we’ve got to go.”
“We don’t have time to wait for them. Go through the Brothers, and I’ll cover you from here,” she stated.
I turned back to her. “There’s no way I can make it down there and back to get you and still make it.”
She gave me a tired smile. “I know.”
“Bullshit,” I spat. “I didn’t carry you this far for nothing.”
“Go, Lorenzo. We’re out of time.”
I started toward her, then hesitated. She was right. We had to take out the Brothers before they pinned down the others. There was no time to argue. I nodded once, hoisted my rifle, and turned to leave. It was suicide. Suddenly my eyes were burning.
“Wait!” she cried out. I spun, expecting her to have come to her senses. Instead, she had pulled her Makarov and set it on the ground next to her. “Let me have your grenade.” I pulled the frag that I had found in the Exodus helicopter and passed it back to her. She took it in her uninjured hand. and shoved it in the top of her coat. “I’m not going to let them take me alive. Now hurry, I’ll cover you as long as I can. Kill the Brothers.”
There was no time for sentiment. I sprinted down the riverbank in the direction of the next high spot, leaping from rock to rock. I kept the stock of my rifle against my shoulder, muzzle swinging wildly back and forth in front of me. I could hear the almost musical noise of the river flowing about twenty feet below. The rocks were slick, and the dirt between them had transformed into clingy mud. There was no way I could have made it with Svetlana in time. That didn’t make it any easier.
“The Brothers are almost on top of the hill. Antoine’s guys are still vulnerable for at least another minute,” Reaper warned. There was a loud BANG behind me as Svetlana engaged some of the approaching soldiers. I tried to go faster, but my boot streaked out from under me as it hit a damp stone and I fell painfully to the ground. I shoved myself back up and kept going. The bank was on my left, the hill to my front, and the forest to my right.
I was counting on the Brothers being focused on the others and not watching this direction. I was almost to the hill. It was more of a dirt pile, with one side eroded away by the sluggish river. Raising my rifle, I scanned, looking for movement. Something black passed between the trees, running upward, his back toward me. I snapped the red dot onto him, led the target for just a split second, and fired. The black shape went down into the weeds. I continued running. I had to get to cover.
The other Brother appeared to my right, materializing out of the shadows, a stubby PPSh in his hands, the muzzle already flashing. I flung myself face first into the mud as the bullets zipped overhead, tearing up rock chips and dirt around me. I was a dead man.
Then the shooting stopped. I waited for a moment, then popped up, looking for a target, but the Brother was gone.
“Got him!” Svetlana shouted over the radio.
“They’re both still moving! I’ve got one heading north, one low crawling east.” Reaper said. “Svetlana, you’ve got about ten soldiers in the open, due south of you.”
“Damn it,” I spat through a mouth full of mud, and I rose and headed for the trees. These sons of bitches were hard to kill. The one with the PPSh was wounded nearby in the trees, but I had to take out the one with the rifle right the hell now.
“Lorenzo, you’re on your own. I’ve got company,” Svetlana stated calmly, then she started hammering that big rifle.
I was in the trees now. There was blood on the bark of a nearby tree, and a splatter trail leading back into the brush. The Brother with the subgun was hit bad. Maybe he would just do us a favor and crawl off to die. I picked my way through the woods. It was thick, dark, and tangled with underbrush. I kept heading uphill. I knew I was making too much noise, but I was exhausted, in a hurry, and out of my element.
There was a roar of a high-powered rifle ahead of me, and I instinctively ducked. But the Brother wasn’t shooting at me. He was shooting at Shen and Antoine. Somebody screamed over the radio. I flipped my selector to full-auto and charged forward. I saw the Brother as he saw me. He turned, still working the bolt of his old M44. I didn’t take any chances. I mashed the trigger and hosed the entire rest of the magazine into him. The Brother went down in a spray of fluids and meat, and tumbled over the side into the river below.
I dropped my spent mag, shoved my last one in, and slammed the bolt closed as I approached the edge. I hung over quickly, just to make sure. The Brother lay broken in a spreading cloud of red, half submerged in a shallow slush of ice. I took my time, aimed, and put a final round through the Brother’s skull.
“Lorenzo, last one is coming up—” Reaper started to warn me, but I didn’t hear the rest. Something small and black came sailing out of the trees and landed in the mud in front of me. Grenade! No time to think. I stepped back off the edge and plummeted into the river.
The grenade detonated above with a violent concussion. I braced myself to hit the water, but instead of a splash, there was a crunch as I smashed into an ice sheet. It shattered beneath me, and my legs plunged into unbelievable cold. It was shallow, and I hit the gravel bottom way too fast. It was like an electrical shock traveled up my legs as the ice water hit me. I fell over on my side, and then half my body was submerged in the freezing cold. I pulled myself back onto the ice, and rolled into the mud on the bank.
The final Brother appeared over the top, emotionless goggles studying me for a moment. I had to move, my numb legs clumsy beneath me. The PPSh came over the edge and the Brother ripped a long burst, the ice and water billowing up at my side. I jerked my rifle up and fired wildly at him. He disappeared back over the edge.
I stumbled to my feet and started downstream, wading through the water before he decided to toss another grenade. He must have been out, as he hung the subgun over the side and fired another burst. This one was even closer, striking a string of water plumes right past me. A mist hung in the air. I extended my gun and returned fire, the two of us strobing bullets back and forth. I stumbled, sprawled backward on the ice, and broke through again.
The cold was so intense, so invasive, that I almost blacked out. I exploded out of the water, every nerve on fire, my muscles not wanting to respond, and my hands automatically clenching into fists. I thrashed through the ice and the mud, and flopped face first onto the bank, my body shivering uncontrollably.
I forced myself to breathe and grabbed my rifle. I was shaking so badly that I couldn’t even aim. I just raised it toward the brother and jerked the trigger a few times. I wasn’t even close. The empty ACR slipped from my quivering fingers and fell into the water as I struggled to draw my pistol.
“Lorenzo!” Reaper screamed over the radio. “Hang on!”
I fumbled the draw, my pistol shaking badly. The Brother fired and something burned down the inside of my arm. I jerked as the bullets hit me like a sledgehammer. I extended my hand but my STI was gone, torn right out of my grasp. My body was frozen but a flash of heat was spreading on my side.
I was done.
The Brother took his time. His subgun was empty, so he nonchalantly dropped the drum, and pulled another from a pouch
on his belt. I knew I was hit, but I was so cold I didn’t even know how badly. In the distance there was a huge amount of gunfire coming from where I had left Svetlana. I was so cold and in so much pain that I could barely understand the words over the radio, but somebody had gone back for her. I saw my pistol laying just beneath the crystal surface of the river, but it might as well have been a million miles away.
The Brother shoved the drum in, flipped the lever to lock it in place, and drew the bolt back. He took one final look at his dead comrade floating face down a few feet from me, and shook his head sadly.
“Lorenzo!” Reaper was shouting. “Hang on, man!”
There was a strange buzzing sound. At first I thought it was from my bad ear, but the noise was growing. Now it was whistling.
The Brother aimed the Russian subgun at my face.
“Fear the Reaper, motherfucker!”
A black shadow zipped by overhead. The Brother heard the approaching noise, looked up, and then got hit right in the face by Little Bird.
The flying wing smashed into pieces. The UAV didn’t weigh much, but it was enough to knock the Brother off balance, and he went over the edge, arms and legs windmilling, until he crashed through the icy crust of the river.
I plunged my hand into the icy water.
The Brother came up thrashing, water droplets flinging in every direction.
My hand closed on my pistol.
Goggled eyes fixed on me, then he scanned around. The Brother had lost his gun. He looked back up at me, then began struggling forward, waist deep in the slush, pushing my way. He reached into his furs and his gloved fist came out clutching a curved blade.
The STI came up, water pouring out of it. My hands were shaking so badly that I couldn’t even find the front sight, so I sprayed and prayed, pulling the trigger wildly. Ice cracked. Dirt puckered along the banks. A 9mm round struck the rocks and whined off into the distance. There were splashes all around him. And then I hit him. He staggered a bit. I hit him again, and again, and again. He stumbled, slipping on the slick rocks beneath his boots. He went down in a splash, but then he was right back up, lunging toward me.
I shot him several more times before the slide locked back empty. Blood was spurting from the side of his neck, drizzling down a necklace of sharp teeth.
He was only five feet away as he slowly sank to his knees, the river trailing red around him. It was almost like the Brother drifted off to sleep, as he sank to his side to bleed out onto the rocks of the bank.
“Thanks, Reaper,” I gasped, but I didn’t know if he heard me.
I wanted nothing more than to follow the Brother’s example . . . I’d been shot. I was so cold I couldn’t even tell how many times or where. Then I tried to get out of the river, and the pain told me. Blood was running out of my side, just beneath my armor. Crawling, splashing, I made it onto the rocks and lay there for a moment.
This is very bad.
Chapter 25: The Good Guy
VALENTINE
The Mountain Road Rendezvous Point
Distant gunshots echoed off of cliff faces as they drew closer to our position.
We bailed out of the trucks. The Exodus troops with us, few that there were, spread out and took up defensive positions around us. If Jihan’s forces were following us down the road, they were sure to catch up with us now. It was a risk we had to take, though. We weren’t going to leave anyone else behind.
Ling, Jill, and I waited nervously by the edge of the road. Down to the southwest was a deep, narrow rocky canyon filled with trees. That was the direction they were coming from.
The radio crackled to life. It was Antoine, breathing hard. “We’re here. I have eyes on. We’re coming out.”
“I can see them!” one of the Exodus troops said. He and a couple of others ran forward to help their comrades.
Below us, a handful of haggard-looking people trudged out of the trees. They were all dressed in camouflage, so I couldn’t tell who was who except for Antoine. The six-foot-four African was hard to mistake for anyone else. He was weaving badly, and his whole right side was covered in blood.
My heart sank when I saw how few of them remained. The look of shock on Ling’s face was difficult for even her to hide. Reaper had warned us that there weren’t many left, but it didn’t really sink in until we saw it with our own eyes. Jill took off down the embankment, sliding into the snow, and ran forward. Ling and I looked at each other, then followed. They were going to need help getting up to the road.
I followed Ling as she ran to Antoine. Next to him, another Exodus operative whom I didn’t know was helping Fajkus, the second in command of the compound raid, along. “My God,” Ling asked. “What happened? Is this all that’s left?”
“I’m afraid so,” He bent over to catch his breath. “Forgive me, I’ve been shot.”
“There’s no time to talk now,” Fajkus growled. “The bastards are right behind us.”
“Where’s Lorenzo?” It was Jill. She was running around the clearing almost in a panic, checking every person that had come out of the trees. Someone else came out of the trees, carrying a body over their shoulder. “Lorenzo!” Jill cried, but it was Shen, limping badly, but carrying a blonde woman. “Where is he?”
Ling looked up at Antoine. “He was with you. Was he killed?”
Before he could answer, Jill came running up to us, her breath smoking in the frigid morning air. “Where the hell is Lorenzo?” she barked, her dark eyes flashing with anger. “He was supposed to be with you! You tell me what happened right now!”
“Lorenzo went the wrong way to draw them off.”
Jill deflated a little, and covered her mouth with her hands. “Oh no. No, no, no.”
He was alive when I saw him last. He intercepted our pursuers. We all would have been overrun had he not done that.” Fajkus said.
“But . . . but he’s still alive?”
“I don’t know.”
Jill tried her radio. “Lorenzo! Come in, Lorenzo!”
Shen stumbled up the clearing as the others rushed to help him. He looked exhausted. Two men took the blonde woman between them, and she screamed as they bumped her legs. They were flopping about below the knees, obviously broken.
“Lorenzo was alive a minute ago.” She grimaced through the pain. “The enemy was right on top of us though.”
“Well, then, what the hell are we waiting for? We’re going to go get him!” Jill turned to run away, but I grabbed her arm. “What are you doing, Val? Let me go! We don’t have time to waste!”
“I’m going,” I said flatly. “You’re not.”
“Fuck you, I’m going,” Jill retorted.
I didn’t let go.
Ling stepped in. “Jill, please. Let us go get Lorenzo. It is our responsibility. It is because of us . . . because of me, that he’s even in this situation. I owe it to him. Michael and I will go. If he’s still there, we’ll bring him back.”
“He’s still there!” Jill shouted, pulling away from me. She turned to walk up the embankment again.
“Jill!” I said. “So help me God, you’re staying here if I have to have Exodus tie you the hell up. No one else is going to die here, do you hear me? Enough people have died tonight. What in the hell do you think you’re going to do, other than put your own life, and Reaper’s life, in jeopardy, huh?”
Jill obviously hadn’t thought about that. She wasn’t even carrying a rifle. She didn’t even have body armor. Letting her go would probably be sending her to her death.
“Jill, please . . . We’re leaving right now. We’ll find him. We’re not going to abandon him.”
Tears welled up in Jill’s eyes. She was visibly shaking. “Hurry, please,” she said quietly.
The door of one of the big Russian vans slid open and Reaper began shouting. “I lost eyes, but Lorenzo’s in the river! He’s in the river!”
I nodded, then noticed that Shen had a large bolt-action rifle slung across his back. “What’s that?”
&
nbsp; “It’s Svetlana’s rifle,” he said. “She’s a sniper.”
It was a long way down to the river. “Give it to me,” I said, “It might come in handy.”
Shen nodded, and unslung the long weapon. It was a Sako TRG-42 wrapped in white webbing for camouflage. I slung my carbine behind my back as he handed me the heavy beast. I worked the bolt to verify that there was a round chambered, and looked through the scope. It was a five-to-twenty power.
“Here,” the woman said. She tossed me a single five-round magazine for the rifle. “That’s all the ammunition I have left for it.”
.338 Lapua. That’ll put a hurting on somebody. “Let’s move.”
Ling turned her attention to Antoine and Fajkus as I began jogging away. “Do not wait for us here. Rendezvous with Katsumoto’s group. We will try to stay in contact, but do not linger for our sake. Enough of us have died here already. If we don’t make it back, don’t come looking for us.”
“I understand,” Antoine said solemnly. “Go with God, my friend.”
VALENTINE
The Mountain Road, above the Canyon
The path was narrow and treacherous as we made our way toward where we thought Lorenzo was. Ling was trying to raise him on the radio, but had no luck so far. Without Reaper to guide us in, there was little we could do but hope. I was on edge, exhausted, and afraid. The woods were swarming with Jihan’s men. What I really wanted to do was turn around and head back with the others. I just wanted to get as far away from The Crossroads as I possibly could, and never think about it again.
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