The Rescue(81)

Decker readjusted his aim and pressed the trigger again, placing a hole in the center of the windshield, which had the desired effect. The SUV careened to the right, freeing him to engage other vehicles. He took his face out of the scope to look for the next closest threat, finding it on the far-right side of the line. Before he could shift the rifle to line up a shot, the SUV screeched to a stop, after taking multiple hits from Aleman’s semiautomatic cannon.

Taking a cue from Aleman, he quickly acquired the next SUV in his scope and rapidly fired three bullets at its black silhouette with the same result. The oversize vehicle veered out of control for a few seconds before stopping. With three targets neutralized in the span of several seconds, Decker started to feel confident about their odds.

He searched over the barrel of the rifle for the next target, and his hopes were instantly dashed. All of the approaching vehicles had stopped, the mercenaries inside jumping onto the ground to hide behind the armored SUVs. This couldn’t be good. The sudden increase in bullets snapping overhead confirmed that assessment. They’d stopped the vehicle rush too close to Aleman’s bunker—well within the mercenaries’ accurate rifle range. At least they had stopped it. Things would have been far worse if they hadn’t.

“I give this another five seconds!” said Pierce.

“Make it count!” said Decker, centering the reticle on a partially exposed shooter.

The half-inch-diameter projectile hit the man at close to three thousand feet per second, shearing an arm from his body and knocking him off his feet. The arm tumbled through the air past the man, hitting the ground and bouncing out of sight. Decker’s next shot skimmed the hood of the same SUV, removing a head. Not surprisingly, he couldn’t find any targets after that.

Decker was tempted to start firing at the vehicles, knowing the bullets would pass right through the armor, but his chances of hitting an unobserved target were slim. He’d just be drawing a lot of unnecessary attention to himself. The Barrett’s muzzle blast lit up the ground like a spotlight.

“I don’t have any good targets!” said Pierce. “A little movement here and there behind the vehicles, but nothing I can hit.”

“They’re up to something. Probably breaking out some sniper rifles,” said Decker. “Let’s pull back a little. We’re easy targets here.”

Decker squirmed backward, pulling the thirty-pound rifle with him, when he suddenly realized he hadn’t heard Aleman’s 50-cal in a while.

“When’s the last time you heard Aleman?”

“Right around when we started firing,” said Pierce.

If that son of a bitch had bailed on them, Decker would hunt him down and kill him. A bullet clipped his night-vision device, jerking his head sideways.

“Sniper!” said Decker.

“Third car from the left. Flash came from the ground on the front passenger side!” Pierce said before firing three rapid shots. “Suppressing!”

Decker swung his rifle toward the identified SUV, hastily firing at the front of the vehicle as soon as it appeared in his scope. The hood buckled from the impact, bending inward at the front. A muzzle flash erupted from the ground near the front tire, the poorly aimed bullet hissing overhead. Decker centered the green reticle on the space between the bumper and ground and pressed the trigger when he saw movement. The right front side of the SUV collapsed, his bullet blasting dirt beyond the vehicle.

“Target down!” said Pierce.

Sporadic rifle fire echoed across the gap between the vehicles and their position, most of the rounds sailing far above or thumping into the ground well in front of them. The mercenaries popped up and down, taking wild shots, nobody willing to risk losing a limb—or a head.

“I think we stopped them!” said Decker.

“Yeah! We did Aleman a big favor. He’s probably halfway to Mexico by now,” said Pierce. “You ready to get out of here?”

He was right. For all they knew, Aleman had lied about the escape tunnel door code. They could arrive in the armory, only to discover they had unknowingly climbed down into a seventy-five-foot-diameter grave.

“Crawl or run?” said Decker.

“Crawl. Unless you want to get shot in the ass,” said Pierce, already turning around.

Decker abandoned the Barrett and started to work his way toward the back of the roof. When he reached the fake boulder, halfway across the roof, a series of hollow thumps reached his ears. He looked at Pierce, who had already stopped crawling and was staring at him.

“Is that—” started Pierce.

A grenade launcher? Yes.

“Run!” said Decker.

He pushed himself onto his feet and sprinted headlong with Pierce for the thin beams of light poking through the bullet-riddled hatch. They reached the door just as the first grenade exploded near their previous position. Decker grabbed the rope handle and pulled the door open, shoving Pierce toward the hole when the second struck several feet in front of the first. Pierce slid down the ladder, holding the sides, vanishing moments before Decker dived through the hole. He’d barely cleared the hatch when the rest of the grenades rained down on the roof, shredding the wooden door with shrapnel.

Decker frantically grabbed Pierce’s vest straps as he plunged toward the ground, nearly pulling him off the ladder. His friend must have anticipated the desperate move, because he held tightly enough to stay in place for a few seconds, hanging by a single rung. They swung back and forth twice before Pierce let go, both of them falling feetfirst to the ground below.