Game of Drones (22 page)

“Nay’s trying to find the main control panel. She may be able to disable them in time.”

“Tan, nine minutes is nothing. It’s a big place in there. What if she can’t find it, or if she can but doesn’t have enough time to disarm it? They have to clear the area with at least two minutes left on the timer to be able to escape. So her time is really limited to seven minutes, not the nine on the clock.”

He placed a hand on Tanner’s shoulder. Then he spoke evenly. “That rule applies to us as well,” he told him. “I need to get in there and fast. I
have
to get to that control panel.”

Tanner and Chance slipped through the wooded terrain with skilled efficiency. They quickly positioned themselves at the head of the bunker, where they saw the final Reaper situated at the end of the runway, fully loaded with Hellfires and remoras. Its engines were cycling.

“I see four tangos,” Tanner said. “The big guy and the one other at the drone, plus two more, fully armed, maintaining watch at the east and west sides.”

“I spot the same,” said Chance, looking through the scope of his weapon. Then: “You know what this means, right?”

“I need to create a diversion.”

Chance nodded. “I’ll pull a stealth take-down on the guy on the west side. You draw off the other three while I slip inside.” He looked at his watch. “Just over eight minutes. Six minutes for me to get out in time.”

“Nay and Liam are working their teams forward,” Tanner stated, inching away from Chance. “They’ll draw fire from their positions long enough for you to do whatever it is you have to do. But if Nay can’t get to the panel because she’s engaged, then you need to get to the console and drive those units into the ground before the Semtex blows. Six minutes!”

And then Tanner was gone, disappearing into the brush.

Liam and Dante moved slowly, cautiously, their senses hyper-alert. Both men had been battle tested, each seeing action in different parts of the world. Liam had been a member of SEAL Team 6, and Dante with the Secret Service, having thwarted assassination attempts on the president abroad. They inched steadily forward, peering through their scopes, the hallways and tunnels before them magnified and light-enhanced.

Shadows moved, the amoeba-like forms blacker than black as they broke apart to flank Liam and Dante from the perimeter.

“See them?” whispered Liam.

“I got them,” he answered, moving to his left.

Liam moved to his right. “I count three.”

“Same.”

The Outcasts moved fluidly to the outermost points as three of Shazad’s team approached.

The insurgents were equally quiet and well-practiced at stalking. One remained centered while the other two branched out toward the perimeters, expanding their net.

Liam and Dante posted themselves behind columns and waited, their weapons at the ready.

One of Shazad’s men peeked carefully around the edges of each column as he made his way through the corridor. But when he moved towards the pillar that Liam was hiding behind and attempted to steal a look around it, Liam directed his weapon and pulled the trigger.
Pffftttt.
The suppressor did its job and muted the sound of the bullet as it sheared away part of the assailant’s skull. Blood, gore and gray matter decorated the wall behind the dead man in gruesome splashes as he stood a moment, teetered, then fell back as rigid as a bar of steel, hitting the ground hard. When his gun clattered off into the shadows, the noise was alarm enough for the rest of the unit to engage.

Muzzle flashes went off in strobe-like fashion as Shazad’s men strafed the area with successive ammo fire, the bullets pounding the columns and cement, tearing away shards of concrete and exposing the rusty rebar underneath.

From the pocket of his Dragon Skin armor Dante removed a small cylinder--a flash bang--and showed it to Liam, who offered a thumbs up.

Dante brought the grenade to his mouth, bit down on the pin, and pulled it free from the explosive. With a quick toss he sent the flash bang in the attackers’ direction, then--along with Liam--turned his head away as the grenade ignited into a white-hot starburst of light. The resulting explosion shook the area like a sonic boom, radiating a concussive wave strong enough to dull the wits of anyone within its path.

When Liam and Dante converged on their enemies’ position, they were surprised to see that they had moved away from their points before the blast, having the presence of mind to know what a flash bang was and what it could do the moment it hit the ground.

From the shadows, Shazad’s team members attacked. The foe targeting Liam moved his weapon from left to right, spraying the vicinity with a horizontal bullet-hose. The rounds stitched across Liam’s armor, pounding him off his feet to the floor. One bullet, however, caught him in the unprotected region between the chest plate and the shoulder--right at the joint--rendering his left arm completely useless.

Liam was thinking how his attacker was older and perhaps seasoned, when the man edged away from the shadows and centered his assault weapon to a target atop Liam’s forehead. But the ex-SEAL was speedy. He immediately determined that the man was wearing Kevlar, so he raised his weapon and aimed for his legs, the bullets cutting across flesh as bursts of red mist erupted from the combatant's thighs.

The attacker went down screaming with a hand to his wounded quadriceps, his teeth gritting in pain. In an action that appeared more involuntary than practiced, he simply raised his weapon in response and fired off a barely-controlled volley towards Liam, the shots hitting Liam’s weapon and forcing it free from his hands.

Liam momentarily panicked, his head turning madly from side to side, scanning for his firearm. Then he realized that no more shots came. His opponent's magazine had gone dry. But now he was attempting to reseat another one from his prone position. Liam kicked the weapon away from the man’s grasp, leaving his attacker lying belly down with a full magazine in his hand and nowhere to put it.

The insurgent rolled and tossed the magazine at Liam, who deflected it with a padded forearm. But the action bought the attacker time to reach for his knife and thrust it. Liam launched himself and grabbed the attacker by the wrist, the knife now held steady by both of them.

But the attacker had two good arms whereas Liam only had one. With a quick, hard double-jab to Liam’s injured shoulder, the assailant propagated electric pain throughout the Outcast operator's body.

Liam went to the floor shrieking and clutching his ravaged shoulder.

The jihadist followed, mounting him like an obscene lover with his knife held ready to slash across Liam’s throat. But Liam gripped the man’s wrist, yanking the blade away when the attacker tried to push it forward. The tug-of-war was one of vacillation as the knife neared the flesh of Liam’s throat, then was forced away by Liam’s strength, only to work its way back to its intended mark once more.

The knife finally grazed the skin of Liam’s throat and drew a line of blood. He could feel the strength draining from his injured arm, which felt rubbery and ineffective. As his attacker geared himself for a finishing stroke with the combat knife, a bullet-hole appeared in the center of his forehead, a ribbon of smoke curling ceilingward from the wound.

The religious fundamentalist stared at Liam for a long moment as his lungs expelled the last of their air supply with a long sigh, and then wilted to the side, dead.

Liam got onto his one good elbow and fought for breath.

Dante Alvarez stood over the body, examined it for signs of life, and then looked at Liam with a neutral expression.

“You all right?”

Liam looked beyond his partner in war and saw that he had taken out his opponent, who now lay in the shadows in an odd and twisted position. Not only had he neutralized his own man, but also Liam’s.

Liam nodded, then winced. “Get me up."

Dante grabbed Liam by his good hand and hoisted him to his feet.

“My weapon...” Liam looked around the vicinity.

“You need to fall back,” Dante told him. “You’re wounded.”

Liam found his weapon and held it up in a display of vigor. “I still have one good arm and two good legs. No way am I leaving you alone.”

Dante seemed to mull this over, eyes flicking from Liam's legs to his bad arm, to their immediate surroundings.

Liam lowered his weapon and took a few steps toward Dante. “Look, man, I'd be dead if it wasn’t for you. I know that. So please accept my thanks. And my apologies for what I said. Okay?”

Dante's face seemed to soften at Liam’s words. “Like I said,” he replied, not above a little I-told-you-so ribbing, “when everyone's claiming to give 110 percent to everyone else's 100, I always give 125.”

Liam cracked a smile. Even the movement of his lips was not without marginal pain. “I'll say it again, Dante- thank you for saving my life. There’s no way I could truly express my gratitude.”

Now it was Alvarez's turn to grin. “I believe you just did.”

Liam checked his wound and noted the blood flow, which was hemorrhaging at what he thought to be a very slow rate.

“Are you sure you want to go on?” asked Dante.

Liam raised his weapon once again. “I’m not leaving your side,” he told him robustly. “We’re OUTCAST. And you and me . . ." He extended a hand, which Dante shook.

“. . . We’re a team,” he finished.

Dante nodded.
We’re a team.

As a team they moved forward.

Nay and Shah pressed on until they entered a room whose walls were marred by graffiti, with a floor that was littered with broken glass from beer bottles that were pitched against those walls.

Nay looked for anything resembling a sending station that was capable of containing the unit that could transmit the kill pulse to the explosive devices. They now had just under nine minutes, the time seeming to wind down more rapidly than before.

Something from the shadows closed in on them, hard and fast.

Shazad’s men rushed them with their weapons discharging in rapid succession.

Nay immediately dropped and rolled, the bullets missing her as they pocked and pitted the cement wall behind her.

Stephen Shah came across with a volley of shots, catching one of their three attackers in the throat, the man gurgling to the floor in a boneless heap. The two remaining insurgents drifted off to the sides, their weapons spitting lead until their clips went dry.

Seizing the moment of downtime, Shah rushed his opponent on the left. With a horizontal sweep of his weapon, he struck his assailant with the stock of his firearm, a firm blow that knocked the man’s jaw askew, detaching the mandible. After rolling his eyes upward until they showed nothing but whites, he then fell back, hard.

When the last man standing reseated his magazine, he directed the weapon upon Shah.

A burst of gunfire came from the insurgent’s left. Rounds fired off by Nay’s weapon patterned across the man’s chest, striking his armor and knocking him to the floor. Shah was soon on top of him. When the Arab tried to come around with his weapon, Shah kicked the barrel aside just as the MP5 discharged, the bullets strafing the ceiling, causing fine dust to rain down on them.

Within the space of a single heartbeat, Shah raised his weapon and brought it down on the young Arab’s face, the concussive blow knocking the man unconscious.

Nay got to her feet and attempted to brush away the dust from her uniform with a few sweeps of her hand before realizing that it was futile. The dust was there to stay. She looked at the bodies on the floor: one dead and two injured, one severely. She turned to Alvarez.

“Steve, we need to find that panel,” she told him, glancing at her watch. “Quickly.”

. . . 08:28 . . .

. . . 08:27 . . .

. . . 08:26 . . .

The confrontation had cost them valuable time.

Chance had worked his way through the brush until his opponent was less than fifteen feet away. Being a former Delta, Chance knew how to be silent.

. . . 08:23 . . .

. . . 08:22 . . .

. . . 08:21 . . .

He approached the enemy with his assault weapon slung across his back and his fixed blade fighting knife held tight within his grip.

As soon as he came within striking distance, his opponent turned to see Chance standing over him, his eyes suddenly flaring to the size of communion wafers as he tried to swing his gun around. But Chance grabbed the barrel, shoved it downward, and brought the blade straight down through the top of the man’s skull.

Dragging the body aside, Chance got on the lip mike and whispered. “Tanner.”

“Go.”

“One tango down. I’m not too far from the castle gates.” He looked at his watch.

. . . 08:09 . . .

. . . 08:08 . . .

. . . 08:07 . . .

“I need some fireworks,” Chance whispered to Tanner. “Time’s getting skinny on our end.”

“Copy that. I’m about to light’em up.”

“Out.” Chance lifted the arm of his mike over his head, and waited.

. . . 08:04 . . .

. . . 08:03 . . .

. . . 08:02 . . .

There were three enemies remaining outside the bunker. One stood guard at the runway’s perimeter while the other two were managing the drone itself.

Tanner had made his way close to the tarmac’s edge but remained behind a wild-growing hedge, scoping out the area. It was obvious to him that the hostiles were hastening their actions, now that they were aware of a counter-team working their way onto the premises.

Tanner switched his arms to single-shot mode, raised the weapon so that his target was caught within the crosshairs, and pulled the trigger.

The head of the man keeping guard erupted like a melon, with pulpy wet matter flying to all points of the compass. Then Tanner switched back to multi-shot as he closed in on the remaining two.

#

From the corner of his eye, Lut had seen the man by the runway fall. A halo of blood and spongy mass was spread around his body, a telltale sign that the bullet used was one of sizeable caliber. Lut quickly turned to the opposite side of the field, only to see the legs and feet of the second guard extending from the bushes, that soldier unmoving. Giving quick commands to Mufad, the large man scooped up his weapon. But before he could raise it into position, bullet holes appeared across Mufad’s back, the wounds opening like the petals of a rose.