No Fortunate Son (Pike Logan, #7)(100)

She took aim at the right front tire and cracked a round. It missed. The car kept coming, gaining speed. She exhaled, going into a zone, ignoring the press of time. She squeezed again, and the tire blew. The vehicle kept coming. She refocused and let off a double-tap. The second tire blew. The car rolled onward. She heard Nung fire and saw the right rear tire explode. The car skidded to a stop, grinding on the rims alone, stuck in the mud of the track.

The men jumped out and Nung cracked a round, dropping the driver. They all crouched down, searching for the fire. One man screamed, shouting orders, and she saw them pull the body from the first car and begin dragging it to the second. She said, “Take out the other car!”

She squeezed off a round, and they made her position. A fusillade of fire rained down, forcing them both to duck behind the small earthen berm they’d chosen.

A small gap, a reload or something else, and they both rose up, Nung shooting as soon as he cleared the rise, hitting one of the men. Jennifer sighted down and did the same, watching the man twirl, his death giving her nothing more than grim satisfaction. She rotated to the man with the hostage and pulled the trigger. His head exploded and he dropped midstride, sliding into the dirt. Another man took his place, and the body was inside the second car.

It began moving and she focused on the tires, cracking rounds. The vehicle jerked around the first car, blocking her shots. She kept shooting, hearing Nung to her right doing the same, but the car rocketed past, hitting the dirt road hard enough to almost cause it to flip. In seconds, it was around the bend and out of sight.

A round snapped by her head and she refocused on the disabled vehicle, seeing two men still shooting. She centered on one and squeezed. He dropped. She brought the other into her reticle and he stuck his hands in the air, dropping his weapon. She saw the action and held up. Nung broke the trigger to the rear, and he dropped.






71




Brett tried the doorknob, nodded, then flung it open. Retro entered and fired immediately, taking out a hostile directly in our path. He went left and I went right, entering a makeshift kitchen. I saw a man with a hood on his head, another just beyond with an AK. I hit him with a double-tap, the weapon recoiling into my shoulder in a familiar caress. I swept the room, looking for other threats, but none remained.

I felt the adrenaline racing through me and fought to control it. To keep my wits about me, because now it was thinking time.

I said, “Backsweep. Clear this place completely. Watch the windows.”

Brett and Retro left, barrels going wherever their eyeballs went, and I jumped to the man on the floor. I pulled off his hood and saw it wasn’t Nicholas Seacrest.

Damn it.

He was unconscious and appeared to be drugged, his eyes rolling back in his head and his tongue hanging out. I laid him back down and called Jennifer.

“Koko, what’s your status?”

“We’re clear. Can we come in?”

Brett entered the kitchen and gave me a thumbs-up. “Yeah. Target’s secure. We’ve got one hostage. Where’s the other one?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute.”

Which I knew wasn’t going to be good.

I looked at Brett and said, “Start SSE. Search this place for anything we can get.”

He said, “Retro’s already on it, but I don’t think it’s going to be much. These guys look like pipe-swingers. I think they were hired as local protection. I don’t think they’re part of the plan.”

I pointed to an Inmarsat terminal on the window ledge, its connecting USB cables dangling as if whatever had been attached had been ripped out. “Get him on that. See if there’s anything he can glean.”

Outside, I heard Jennifer say, “Coming in,” then a pause, her not wanting to get shot as a threat.

I said, “Come on. You’re good.”

She entered, taken aback at the carnage. She said, “I guess you guys had the same fight I did.”

Brett looked up, saying, “Really?”

“Yeah. Yeah. It was . . . not fun.”

Her eyes were glistening with a little postcombat scare, and I knew she’d seen the elephant. So did Brett. He nodded at her, saying nothing else, then went to get Retro.

Nung came in behind her and she pointed at him, saying, “He saved the mission. The man’s quick as a mongoose. They had a guy on the road. Hidden in the bushes.”

I looked at him, and he said, “You told me to protect her.” As robotic as ever.

Jennifer said, “Then he shot a guy trying to surrender.”

I glared at Nung, and he said, “He was trying to kill us.”

“Damn it! When will you get it through your head that I’d like to talk to one of these guys?”

He looked around the room, the bodies littering the floor, and said, “You missed your chance too, I guess.”

Retro entered and I pointed to the Inmarsat. “Can you get anything out of that?”

“Probably not. It’s just a terminal. I need the laptop that was using it.”

I said, “Well, examine it anyway.”

He went to work, and I asked Jennifer, “What happened with the other hostage?”

She told me the story, and I cursed. I saw her face fall, and knew I’d just blamed her. I said, “Not your fault. I’m just pissed. We were so close.”