Dead Six (49 page)

I had my own mission, though. Clenching my MK 17, I took off at a run again, rounding the east corner of the supply warehouse. One of the shells had struck the ground right next to the building, making a small crater and collapsing part of the wall. I didn’t stop to see if anyone was hurt inside. I jumped over the crater and continued running.

A loud crash echoed across the compound. I stopped and took cover. A French-built Leclerc tank smashed through the front gate, busting the heavy metal doors open. The turret had been turned around to keep from damaging the barrel. As it cleared the gate, it began to swing its gun around, looking for a target.

A few seconds later, a Javelin missile shrieked down onto the tank and slammed into the top of the turret. The missile hit with a loud metallic
BANG,
sounding like someone hitting a metal plate with a sledgehammer. The tank rumbled to a stop just inside the gate, burning. Brilliant flames shot out from under the turret as the ammunition inside cooked off and burned.

The destroyed tank effectively blocked other vehicles from entering the gate, but that didn’t stop the onslaught. Armed troops began pouring into the compound, coming around the tank on both sides. They were a mix of Zubaran Army regulars, with their desert-camouflage uniforms and helmets, and irregular militia, who wore black fatigues and masks over their faces.

Holy shit. There’s a lot of ‘em.
I backed up and dove into the mortar crater and used it for cover. I acquired a target through my ACOG scope, a militiaman with an RPG, and popped off a shot. He dropped to the muddy ground. I shifted my carbine to the right and fired three shots at another cluster of soldiers, Zubaran regulars. One went down, but the others took cover behind the tank.

They just kept
coming.
To my left, my teammates had gotten a couple of machine guns set up. They tore into the soldiers as they filed in past the tank, but the enemy was relentless. I fired continuously, pausing only to change magazines. I don’t know how many I hit. More than a dozen Dead Six operatives were all firing into the same enemy position, mowing down the Zubaran soldiers, but there were too many of them. Rounds began to strike the dirt around my little crater, and the wall behind me. I suddenly felt very vulnerable. Taking a chance, I came to my feet and ran for the admin building, bullets snapping past me as I went. I hugged the wall, hoping the hostiles wouldn’t see me through the rain.

Thunder clapped overhead, barely audible over the roar of the battle as I reached the admin building. My heart sank when I saw the damage. A mortar had struck the roof, partially caving in the second floor. Hunter’s office was on the second floor.
Oh God, no . . .

My
Calm
began to fail. I was nearly in a panic. I busted the ground-level door open and entered the building, heading for the stairs.

“Sarah!” I shouted, hoping she would hear me. It was dark inside. The impact had knocked out the main lights. The emergency lights had kicked on, but they didn’t provide much illumination. I switched on my weapon light as I vaulted up the stairs two at a time. “Sarah!”

I made it to the second floor and shined my light down the hallway. The roof had caved in at the far end of the hall where Conrad’s office was. A small fire burned within, and the hall was quickly filling with smoke. Hunter’s office was closer. The door had been knocked off the hinges, and the ceiling was cracked all the way down the hall, but the roof hadn’t caved in yet. The old building’s solid construction was the only reason it had been able to withstand two direct mortar hits.

“Sarah!” I shouted, growing desperate.

“Here!” Sarah replied, her voice resonating through the low-pitched roar of the battle outside.

“Sarah, where are you?” I shouted, running into the hall.

“I’m—” She coughed. “I’m in here!”

I followed the sound of her voice to the first room in the hall. The door was open. A smear of blood was on the floor, leading into the dimly lit room. I found Sarah sitting on the floor. She was holding Anita King in her arms. Anita was dead.

“Oh God, are you alright?” I cried, dropping to my knees and throwing my arms around Sarah. She had a few cuts and bruises. Blood trickled from a scrape on her arm.

“She’s dead,” Sarah said. “She . . . she was in the hall when the shell hit. She got hit by shrapnel or something. She wasn’t wearing her vest. I . . . I just stepped in here. I was knocked down. Anita died.”

“Sarah!” I shouted, shaking her. “Hey! We can’t stay here. I need you to focus, okay? Are you hurt?” She was shell-shocked.

“I don’t think so,” she responded, still sounding distant. “I just fell down when the shell hit. I think I hit my head on the floor.”

“C’mon, we gotta go,” I said.

“I can’t leave Anita.”

“We have to. She’s dead. There’s nothing you can do for her now. Come on now,
please
!
”

Sarah took a deep breath and jerkily nodded her head. She gently lowered Anita’s body to the floor, and I extended my arm. Sarah grabbed it, and I pulled her to her feet.

“Come on, we have to get out of here,” I urged. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” she answered, sounding more collected. She brought her slung carbine around and grasped it in her hands. “I’ll be okay. Let’s go.” I nodded and led the way back into the hall, heading for the stairs.

“Wait!” Sarah cried. “The Colonel! He was in his office!” She turned and ran down the hall to Hunter’s office without waiting for me. I swore aloud and followed.

Hunter’s office door was lying on the floor in the hall. Sarah stepped on it as she crossed into the room. I coughed in the smoky air as I followed. The office was smashed. Part of the ceiling had collapsed and fallen right on Hunter’s desk.

“Mike!” Sarah was kneeling on the floor next to the pile of rubble that had come from the ceiling. Colonel Hunter was trapped under the debris. It had all come down right in his lap, smashing his chair to the floor and crushing him.

“Colonel!” I crouched down next to Sarah. “Jesus,” I said, surveying the damage. It was bad. Hunter was broken and bleeding. A massive pile of blocks and rebar had landed on his abdomen. Only one of his legs was visible under the rubble.

“Valentine?” Hunter asked weakly, blood tricking from his mouth.

“I’m here, sir,” I said, leaning in so I could hear him over the noise of the fighting outside. “We’re gonna get you out of here. Hang on.”

“Bullshit,” Hunter wheezed. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere. You . . . you get her out of here, you hear me, boy?”

“Yes, sir,” I replied solemnly.

Hunter coughed up a small amount of blood. “You know I was supposed to leave last night? All of us were. Not you guys, but the support staff. I said no. I told Gordon I wasn’t leaving until all my guys got out. I think maybe that wasn’t such a good idea,” he said, somehow managing a raspy laugh.

“What happened, Colonel? That boat was a Zubaran gunboat. It strafed the docks, killed a bunch of us.” Sarah gasped as I told them that. “What the hell is going on?”

“Gordon Willis sold us out,” Hunter said quietly. “He . . . he told the hajjis where we are. Made a deal with somebody. Same thing with that raid on Montalban’s yacht. That was his own idea, not a sanctioned hit. Gordon’s playing both sides. Son of a bitch sold us out.”

My eyes narrowed, and my hands clenched into fists. I was so angry I was shaking. I closed my eyes for a second and tried to remain focused.

“Take this,” Hunter said. He pushed a small object into my hand. It was a thumb drive. “Everything on Project Heartbreaker is on here. I’ve been doing some homework. Everything I found out about Gordon’s double-dealing is on here, too.”

“What do I do with this, sir?” I asked. The thumb drive had Colonel Hunter’s bloody thumbprint on it.

“Give it to the right people,” the colonel replied. “Find someone you can trust. Be careful. This is a lot bigger . . .” Hunter’s voice trailed off. He coughed up more blood.

“Colonel! Stay with us!” Sarah cried.

“This is bigger than you know,” Hunter whispered, his one eye staring at me intently. “There’s something else, too, not on the drive. Another project. Like Red, only bigger this time.” Hunter trailed off again. His breathing was ragged now. Blood bubbled out of his nose. “Project Blue’s ready. You’ve got to . . .” His words tapered off, too faint to hear.

Hunter was almost gone. “I can’t hear you. What?” I asked urgently.

Suddenly he grabbed my armor and pulled me close with surprising intensity. “
Evangeline!
” he hissed. Then his grip relaxed. His eye unfocused. “Find—” He coughed, painful and wet, gasping for air as his body shut down.

Colonel Curtis Hunter died before he could finish that sentence. I quietly swore to myself before gently closing his eye. I pocketed the thumb drive and stood up.

“What was he trying to say?” Sarah asked.

I shook my head. “I hope it’s on this drive. I hope it’s not for nothing.” I stepped across the room and looked out the window. My remaining teammates had fallen back to the supply building behind my position. They were being pushed back to the docks. Enemy troops continued to pour in around the disabled tank, spreading out through the motorpool as they entered the compound. There was literally a heap of dead Zubaran militiamen all around the tank, but more kept coming, stepping over their dead comrades. General Al Sabah was using the local radical militants as cannon fodder.

Sarah huddled close to me. “What are we going to do?” There was fear in her voice.

“I still have the phone Ling gave me.” I was scared too. “If we get out of the compound, we can contact her. She said the deal was still on if we needed her help. We can—”

Before I could finish that thought, the entire compound was rocked by a huge explosion. The concussion hit my face through the shattered windows. A section of wall just down from the gate was blasted high into the air. I turned and shoved Sarah to the floor, covering her with my body as pieces of the wall rained on the compound.

I risked another look out the window. Through the new hole in the wall, dozens more soldiers streamed into the compound, a lot more Zubaran regulars, supported by some kind of wheeled armored car. They had to be hitting us with a company-sized element, if not bigger.

Sarah shook her head. She grabbed my hand and held it tightly. “We’re . . . we’re going to die here, aren’t we?”

I stood there helplessly watching as the Zubarans pushed my remaining friends back even farther. The compound was being overrun, and they weren’t taking prisoners. I looked down at the floor, then over at Sarah. I nodded slowly as my last hope died.

Sarah closed her eyes for a second while she took a deep breath. “Promise me you’ll stay with me until the end,” she said, looking into my eyes.

“I promise,” I replied. “I won’t leave you. No matter what.” Tears welled up in Sarah’s eyes as she leaned forward and kissed me. I stepped back and steeled myself. “Are you locked and loaded?”

Sarah pulled back the charging handle on her carbine slightly, checking the chamber. “I’m ready.”

“Stay behind me. Stay low. Move when I move, stop when I stop. We’re going to circle around the backside of the building and link up with our guys on the other side. Let’s go,” I said, leading the way out of Hunter’s office. Zubaran soldiers were running past the admin building, one floor down from where I was. I didn’t have much time before they entered the building. It’s a strange feeling, knowing you’re running off to your own death.

I didn’t make it three steps before my phone rang.

Chapter 20:
Rain

LORENZO

It had begun to rain, giant, stinging drops falling like some sort of biblical vengeance.

I was pulling myself around the back corner of the brig when a Zubaran armored car came through a breach in the wall. Soldiers in desert camouflage scurried through behind it, firing wildly at anything that moved. Muzzle flashes were coming from everywhere as Dead Six returned fire.

Really. Not. Cool.

Deaf in one ear, every inch of me hurting, and with two broken fingers, I crouched in the shadows and called for help. “Reaper! Come in Reaper! This is Lorenzo. Come in, damn it!” I shouted into the radio.

“
Lorenzo! You’re alive! Get out of there. The army is attacking
!”

No shit.
“Status?

Carl responded. “
The
road’s blocked. I can see five armored cars. There’s a company-sized element hitting the compound now, mix of regulars and militia. You’ve got an unknown number of troops sitting in reserve about a click off the gate
.”

“What about the dock?” If I could get out the back way, I could swim for it.

Reaper came back. “
There’s a couple patrol boats out there now
.”

Something whistled off to the side and exploded against Building One. The army was launching RPGs. I ran a few feet to the side and took cover behind a low wall. Hunkering down, I watched the battle between Dead Six and the army unfold. The Americans were putting up a fight, taking defensive positions around the buildings, but there seemed to be an unending stream of fanatical fighters pouring in. Bullets were flying in every direction, some leaving visible trails, the rain was so thick. A few Dead Six ran past, carrying heavy weapons, but they were too preoccupied to notice me hiding in the mud.

“
What’s your status
?” Carl demanded.

I had broken at least one rib, if not more, and one lung felt like it was full of burning hydrogen instead of air. “Oh, I’m doing just
swell
. But the exit’s blocked.” Just as I said that, the armored car exploded, lifting and flipping its turret on a pillar of fire and throwing fragments fifty feet into the air. “Damn! Really blocked. I’ll think of something.”

“
Lorenzo, be careful
.” It was Jill. She sounded terrified.

“Get off the line!” I snapped. There was no time for sentimentality. Off to my right, several grenades exploded around the parked cars, shredding some of the Dead Six personnel. One of the Americans, badly injured, stumbled, confused, in the direction of the enemy, raising his empty hands in surrender and was shot dead on the spot. They weren’t taking any prisoners. “Reaper, can you keep L.B. in the air in this weather?”