“It’s a Warthog,” Gaby said.
“Friendly?”
“I think so.”
“Kid, this is kinda something you have to be sure about.”
Gaby shook her head. “What are the chances Buck has an air force?”
“Did you see one when you were in Fenton?”
“It was night. I could barely see where I was going.” And God, I hope he doesn’t have an air force, she wanted to add but said instead, “I guess we’ll find out if it’s a friendly or not pretty soon.”
“Fingers crossed.”
Yeah, fingers crossed, she thought, when the brap-brap-brap of machine gun fire filled the world outside the barn.
Now that’s a good sign!
The sight of the technical firing up at the incoming Warthog made her grin from ear to ear, because that meant it wasn’t Fenton’s. The MG’s muzzle flashed in the morning sunlight as it sent a stream of bullets upward, the Bucky manning it holding on for dear life as he swiveled the weapon to track the craft’s movements.
Gaby crawled up to her knees and grimaced slightly from the sudden stabs of pain before picking herself up and hobbling over to one of the bullet-riddled walls next to the open loft doors. She stuck her head into the open and looked out just as the A-10 flashed by overhead, banking as it did so and exposing the missiles underneath its wings.
She followed the aircraft as it smoothly tore through the crisp white skies and just barely glimpsed the white clown’s face with bright red lips painted on its nose. The clown’s big teeth appeared frozen in a wide grin—except instead of a tongue there was the Avenger cannon poking out from the very middle. If she had blinked, she would have missed it.
“It’s ours,” Gaby said.
“You sure?” Keo asked as he hurried over and took the other side of the opened doors across from her and peeked out.
“That’s Mayfield.”
“Who?”
“The pilot. I recognize the clown face. All the pilots have their own paint. Mayfield’s got a thing for clowns.”
“I don’t know whether that’s interesting or creepy.”
“We always thought it was a little creepy.”
“Yeah, now that I think about it, it is kind of creepy.”
Gaby followed the path of the A-10 as it climbed back into the sky, getting smaller as it got farther away from their position.
“Is it taking a hike?” Keo asked.
“Wait for it,” Gaby said.
On cue, the Warthog began turning.
“Here it comes,” Gaby said.
“Oh boy,” Keo said.
Even as the airplane grew bigger as it neared them a second time, Gaby heard loud car engines starting up nearby, and a few seconds later the second technical appeared below the loft doors. The truck kicked up clouds of dust as it streaked toward the highway, the machine gunner in the back holding onto the MG welded onto the vehicle’s cab to keep from being tossed as the tires bounced on the uneven terrain.
“Looks like it’s a party now,” Keo said. “Shoulda brought the marshmallows, because I have a feeling there’s going to be a lot of spontaneous campfires very soon.”
Gaby was too busy adjusting the frequency on the two-way radio to respond. The Warthog was starting its second pass when she keyed the radio and said into it, “Warthog, Warthog, come in. This is G-Squad One. Please respond.”
There was no answer.
Come on, Mayfield. Come on.
“Warthog, Warthog,” she said into the radio. “If you can hear me, please respond. This is G-Squad One. Please respond.”
Still nothing.
“You sure—” Keo started to say when the radio squawked (Thank God!) in her hand and a voice that was heavily muffled by the sounds of a jet engine in the background came through the speakers:
“I hear you loud and clear, G-Squad One. Thought we’d lost you for good.”
Gaby grinned. “You don’t know how happy I am to see you up there, clown girl.”
“Not as happy as I am to hear your voice. We had a pool going, and I just made some money.”
“Glad to be of service.”
“Mind telling me who these guys are that’re shooting at me?” the pilot asked.
“That’s the enemy. Feel free to let them know you’re not happy with being shot at.”
“Roger that. What about you?”
“We’re in the barn. Do not shoot the barn.”
“Gotcha, G-Squad One. Thunder Nine out.”
“Kick their ass, Thunder Nine.”
“Asses will be kicked,” the pilot said.
The brap-brap-brap had resumed outside as the technicals unloaded into the air on the charging aircraft. The one on the highway hadn’t moved from its spot, even as the second one pulled up about twenty meters away and its own machine gunner joined in.
The torrent of gunfire from the two MGs going at once was deafening, sunlight bouncing off shell casings as they pelted the back of the trucks and ricocheted into the air. The Buckies on foot joined in with their rifles.
“Idiots,” Keo said across the loft doors.
Dead idiots, Gaby thought, feeling almost sorry for the Buckies.
Almost.
How many of them knew, she wondered, that the armor plating on an A-10 was designed to withstand armor-piercing rounds from cannons, with the cockpit and part of the aircraft’s vital systems protected by titanium plates. Against that kind of protection, the bullets being hurled at it might as well be flies trying to stop a lumbering elephant.
Except the Thunderbolts didn’t lumber. They swooped and closed in for the kill, which was what Thunder Nine was doing as men, clearly now understanding the futility of trying to shoot it down, began scrambling away from the vehicles (Too late!) just before the truck in the road imploded about a second before the noise she’d been waiting for finally reached her ears.
Brooooooooooorrrrttttttttt!
The ferocious roar bellowed across the sky like some ancient beast rising out of the ocean to lay waste to a city and everything within it.
Gaby shuddered. No matter how many times she heard it, or who the Warthog’s primary gun was being directed at—her, the enemy, or some poor bastard on the road who thought he could take on an A-10—the sound always sent shivers through her entire being.
There was something almost unreal about seeing the white truck sitting there one second, the man in the back firing away with the machine gun, and then the vehicle—along with everyone else around it—reduced to little more than shells of their former existence a second later.
“Daebak,” Keo whispered, though most of that was lost when another—
Brooooooooooorrrrttttttttt!
—ripped across the landscape as the Warthog razed the road, its 30mm rounds shredding the blacktop as if it were little more than dirt and not hardened asphalt. Multiple clouds of debris violently erupted into the air, and Gaby glimpsed men diving off the highway while others simply vanished under the onslaught.
Three—no, four others had begun fleeing across the open field on the other side of the road. Soon, more were scrambling after them.
There go the smart ones.
The second technical had begun moving toward two figures racing in its direction. One of them had very bright red hair.
Oh no, you don’t.
Gaby lifted her rifle and took aim just as the truck skidded to a stop next to the highway, even as the machine gunner in the back swiveled his weapon around to track the Warthog as the aircraft began to turn for a third pass.
But Gaby was only concerned with the man with red hair as he grabbed one of the technical’s doors and jerked it open. As he did that, the man glanced back and over his shoulder, and right at her.
Redman’s eyes widened when he saw her, just slightly exposed in the open loft doors, aiming at him with her rifle. It was just for a second (maybe two), and seventy meters or so separated them. She’d made longer shots under more harrowing situations.
She shot Redman in the chest and watched him stumble into the open door behind him. She was about to put a second round into him when a pair of hands snaked out of the vehicle and grabbed him by the shirt and dragged him inside.
The technical began moving, tires slipping and sliding on the ground as it struggled to reach the highway nearby. The back door swung wildly back and forth but somehow never managed to close back up. She glimpsed blood splatters on the door’s upholstery and some on the window, and thought, Gotcha, you sonofabitch.
Gaby was pulling her eye away from the rifle’s scope to get a better view of the overall picture outside when three very loud boom-boom-boom! exploded from almost directly below her.
What the hell?
“They’re breaching!” Keo shouted, and was already running toward the trapdoor before she could respond.
Breaching?
It didn’t make sense. Who was breaching?
Not just who, but why? And why now?
It took a second—maybe a little more than that—before everything came into focus.
The Buckies that hadn’t left with the second technical were breaching the barn!
Gaby peeked out the loft doors and looked down just as a black-clad figure disappeared into the suddenly open alley doors. She glanced back to warn Keo, but he was already at the trapdoor and firing, the pfft! pfft! pfft! of his suppressed submachine gun absurdly underwhelming after all the firepower on display the last few minutes.
Keo was moving around the open door and shooting, never staying in one place for too long. That turned out to be the smartest thing he could do, because chunks of the floor around him were exploding as—pop-pop-pop!—automatic rifle fire came from below. Then there was a series of boom-boom-boom! as someone unloaded with a shotgun, and Keo dove for cover as the small holes became large craters.
Gaby stepped toward the open loft doors and turned around. She took a breath and balanced herself against the edge, and thought, This is going to hurt.
She sucked in a deep breath.
This is going to hurt a lot.
Then another one.
Don’t think. Just do it!
She sighed…just before she dropped off the second floor of the barn.
Ten feet. It’s just ten feet!
Then: Oh God, I’m going to die!
She had braced herself for the landing, for the world of pain she knew was coming, but it wasn’t even close to the real thing. Her brain instantaneously lit on fire (Stupid!) and every part of her screamed from the sensory overload (So goddamn stupid!) as she touched down on solid ground and every inch of her vibrated from the impact.
Somehow—somehow!—she managed to land on both feet without either one of her legs snapping like twigs, but she did lose her balance and toppled backward onto her ass. Fortunately there was no one around to see her inelegant landing, or just how wide her mouth opened as she let out a pained but silent scream.
But there was no time to wallow in her misery.
Get up! Get up, damn you!
Even as she scrambled to obey and pick herself up from the ground, grimacing and grunting through the wash of pain from every part of her, she had no trouble seeing into the barn through the wide-open twin doors.
There were six of them, but only four were still alive. One had a shotgun and was firing—boom!—then racking and firing again—boom!—into the floorboards above him. He wasn’t even aiming at the trapdoor and seemed to be trying to literally destroy everything between him and Keo, who was somewhere above him.
The other three were more selective with their shots as they continually moved around the opening and fired, all the while stepping over their two dead comrades. They were shooting, moving, and shooting, but always constantly moving.
Not idiots after all!
As far as Gaby could tell, Keo wasn’t returning fire, either because he was badly outmanned, outgunned, and outmaneuvered, or he was—
Dead. Just like you should be right now.
What were you thinking? You idiot!
She gritted her teeth and nearly blacked out, but somehow managed to move forward anyway. Her right leg was engulfed in flames as she staggered toward the open doors and switched the fire selector on her AR to full auto and squeezed the trigger.
She aimed for the Bucky with the shotgun first, even as he was attempting to shove shells into his weapon. As the dead man dropped in front of her, she swung the rifle right and left and dropped two more.
The fourth and final Bucky was reloading when she emptied the final six bullets in her magazine into him, and only released the trigger when the man slumped sideways and lay twitching in a pool of blood.
Gaby was reloading, the adrenaline pouring through her body helping to somewhat control the (ungodly) pain pouring out of her right leg, when the ground under her shook for a second or two as a monster let out another belch.
Brooooooooooorrrrttttttttt!
She glanced back but couldn’t see anything through the open doors.
“Hey,” a voice called behind her.
Gaby turned around and saw Keo’s head dangling upside down from the trapdoor next to the ladder.
“Did you just jump down from the second floor?” Keo asked.
“Yeah,” Gaby said, and blinked through the pain back at him.
“Well, that was pretty stupid.”
She wished she had a smartass retort, but could only manage to let out a heavy sigh. “Not the dumbest thing I’ve ever done, but close.”
Keo chuckled. “I can dig it.”
“Good, that means you can also dig my grave for me when I die later tonight from the pain,” she said, and walked back to the doors and outside into the sunlight.
She dropped the rifle to the ground (suddenly it was very heavy, and Danny would kill her if he saw her do it), before sitting down next to it and leaned back against the barn wall.
Smoke was rising lazily from the road somewhere between the ranch and Sandy-something in the distance. She spotted the Warthog, a small gray dot in the sky, beginning to turn.
Gaby closed her eyes and tried to blink through the tears.
Keo’s coming. He’s not going to stop calling you kid if he catches you tearing up.
She wiped at her face with her shirt sleeve and got her cheeks cleaned before Keo stepped outside. He stood next to her and looked up the road, toward the smoke and whatever was left of the second technical.
Keo didn’t say anything, and she was glad for the silence, because it allowed her to finally accept that she was alive. She was actually alive.
She reached down and touched the part of her pants with the bandage underneath. It felt slightly wet, but if she was bleeding through her gauze, it hadn’t seeped all the way through the pant leg yet.
I can’t believe I’m still alive…
“Here,” Keo said.
She looked up. He was holding the bottle of painkillers she had tossed back to him.
“Thanks,” Gaby said, and took it.
“Told you you’d need it back.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She shook out two white pills and popped them into her mouth, then crunched them into dust before swallowing them. “What is this stuff, anyway?”
“The good stuff.”
“Does it at least have a name?”
“Of course.” Keo followed the Warthog as it reached them again and kept going. “What did you say the pilot’s name was?”
“Mayfield.”
“Remind me to buy him a beer. A nice, cold beer, not that warm, stale piss people are passing off as beer these days.”
“Where’d you get something like that?”
“I know a good bar or two that’s still taking customers.”
“Sounds like a plan. By the way, Mayfield’s a girl.”
“Seriously? When did that happen?”
She smiled. “You’ve been on your own for way too long, Keo. A lot of things have changed since you left.”
“Tell me
about,” Keo said.
He sat down next to her, and they stared at the still-burning husk of the first technical on the road in front of them. Chunks of metal and lumps of…other things surrounded the metal carcass. There was a lot of red on the asphalt, and Gaby tried not to think about what they used to be.
“I guess this means Buck got his answer,” Keo was saying.
“About what?”
“Whether Black Tide’s going to stand in his and Copenhagen’s way or not.” He nodded at the still-smoldering leftover remains of the technical. “That’s a declaration of war if I’ve ever seen one.”
Gaby stared at the fire for a moment. Then, “Like you said. They started it.”
“Yup. That they did.”
She looked over at him. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Are you coming back to Black Tide with me now?”
“Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Keo, but Fenton kind of has a lot of manpower—and the firepower to go along with it. You still think you can walk right into Fenton and save your friend? By yourself?”
Keo didn’t answer her, but she could see that he was thinking about it.
“You actually thought you were going to walk in there and save her,” Gaby said. “Jesus, Keo.”
He shrugged. “It was a notion.”
“And now?”
“Now…” He paused for a moment, staring at the burning technical on the road. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”
Twenty-Three
“Is it supposed to be doing this?” Keo asked.
“Probably not,” Gaby said.
“So, uh, should it be doing this?”
“Don’t sweat it. They’ve trained for it.”
Keo didn’t look convinced. “For this?”
“Something like this. Relax.” Then Gaby added, because seeing Keo so uncomfortable with something was so amusing to just let it pass, “But if it starts to wobble, I suggest running as far away and as fast as possible.”
“Hunh,” Keo said.
She grinned before shielding her eyes against the sun reflecting off the wings of the A-10 as it began lowering toward the undamaged parts of the two-lane highway. They had to walk a good football field from the ranch in order to reach the Warthog’s intended landing area because of all the debris from the destroyed technical. That, and…all the other stuff the aircraft’s firepower had left in its wake.
Road To Babylon Box Set [Books 1-3] Page 50