Rusty hadn’t moved. He stood in the open, pointing to the north and a tangle of steel pipes laced between two buildings a hundred feet away.
“The fellas are over there,” he said calmly. “I see six or seven of them.”
“Great,” Michael told him. “Now get the fuck down.”
A trio of bullets struck Rusty’s body and caromed away, leaving shiny scratches on his chest. He grunted. “I’m fine,” Rusty said. “Let me try—”
A stream of orange fire and black smoke raced past well above them and slammed into the side of the main refinery building fifty feet behind. The concussion of the explosion was like a fist, the sound was deafening. Michael could feel the heat of the fire as debris rained down around them. A brick slammed into the sand a hand’s breadth from Michael’s right side, burying itself several inches deep. “RPG,” Michael shouted to Rusty, wondering if any of them could hear anything over the lingering roar. He was trying to wrestle his own M-16 from his back. “That’s why you have to get down, Rusty! Marlon? You okay?”
The man was cursing loudly in French, and blood stained the sleeve of his uniform. “Fuck,” he said in English. “I think so, but the lieutenant, I think, is dead.”
Rusty had stooped to grab Bedeau’s body, then came lumbering behind the piping with the others. “How is he?” Michael asked, glancing at Bedeau’s open-eyed stare and already knowing the answer. Rusty shook his head.
Michael felt his stomach turn over. He gulped acid.
They huddled behind the pipes. It was the only cover—they had been caught in a large swath of open ground, the nearest building the one now burning behind them: a good twenty running strides away and already a conflagration, vomiting black smoke and fire from the hole the RPG had punched in it. Rifle fire rang from the pipes like a Midwestern hailstorm. To their left and right there was nothing: just sandy ground for a hundred yards or more—a killing field if they tried to retreat.
Michael could hear more small-arms chatter to the north and to the east—separate firefights on the compound. Someone with a high, thin voice was shouting in Arabic near where Rusty had said their attackers were hidden. Through the din, Michael heard the dull k-WHUMP of another explosion somewhere in the distance, followed by the thrup-thrup-thrup of a chopper’s rotors starting up. He hoped it was one of their people at the controls. Christ, it wouldn’t take many of them to get us all.
Marlon was moaning as he ripped open his medical pack. Michael helped him apply the pressure bandage to his arm. “Can you still use that?” Michael asked him, gesturing at the soldier’s weapon. Marlon nodded grimly. “Good. Look, it sounds like the others are dealing with their own problems right now. We can’t just sit here and wait for someone to rescue us—and if our friends have another RPG and send it our way, we’re dead. Rusty, you willing to take a few more hits? If we can see the muzzle flashes, Marlon and I can return fire and hopefully take a few of them out, and maybe then we can figure out a way to get the fuck out of here.”
“Sure thing,” Rusty said. He lumbered to his feet behind the pipes as Marlon and Michael moved to either end of the pipes. Gunfire popped and hissed; Michael could see the glint of fire from the muzzles—their attackers were settled in a snarled nest of piping and flow valves between two buildings; judging by the flashes, there seemed to be five or so separate people with guns. Twenty feet over their attackers, a heavy pipeline bridged the structures. Michael heard the chatter of Marlon’s gun and he pressed the trigger on his own weapon, the recoil slamming into his upper shoulders, his lower set of hands bracing himself on the pipes. The Arabic shouting returned, more alarmed this time, but Michael doubted they’d hit anyone. Michael saw a bloom of fire and smoke—“Rusty! Down!”—and another RPG arrowed toward them. Rusty stood there gaping as the round passed a bare few feet over his head before slamming into the burning building behind them with a new eruption of fire.
Rusty hit the ground belatedly with a grunt. He stared at Michael wide-eyed, his steam-shovel mouth open. “Yeah,” Michael said. “I know. Cripes. We’re lucky that bastard’s a lousy shot, but we can’t sit here waiting for him to get more practice.”
Another bullet ricocheted from the pipes, the sound like a drumstick on the bell of a cymbal. The heat from the fire behind them was searing; Michael began to wonder what was going to kill them first.
“They be amateurs, these ones,” Marlon spat in his broken English. “Professionals would now spread to come from different angles; but these—they stay all together.” He made a quick sign of the cross. “This is good, yes? If they are well trained, we would be already like poor Bedeau.”
“Yeah, there’s some comfort,” Michael told him. The gunfire had slowed to erratic single shots. Michael hoped that wasn’t because they were taking Marlon’s advice. The wind was whipping the choking smoke away from them, but flames were gushing from the ruined building and the heat was nearly unbearable—Michael was almost afraid to touch the pipes in front of him. The fire hissed loud and throatily and suddenly leapt thirty feet into the air as a gas line in the building ruptured. They all felt the fiery embrace of the inferno. “We really can’t stay here. We gotta make our move. Rusty, you willing to take a chance on being a target again?”
The ace’s shoulder lifted and fell. He didn’t look thrilled at the prospect, but he didn’t say no.
“Okay, then. Marlon, I want you to start firing from your side of the pipes—keep them down as much as you can. Rusty, I’m hoping they’re even worse at hitting a moving target. Head toward them, but zigzag it—maybe about ten steps’ worth, then go down just in case Mr. RPG is waiting. I’m hoping that they’ll be a lot more interested in a fucking big steam shovel coming their way than me.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to give them a free performance that’ll bring down the house. I hope.”
Rusty’s eyes widened. “Oh,” he said, somewhere between question and statement.
“Yeah.” He touched the wound on his forehead, looking at the blood that stained his fingertips. “Sorry, I don’t have a better idea. Do either of you two?”
Rusty slowly shook his head. Marlon just stared and clutched his weapon. “Then wish us luck,” Michael said.
Rusty, his knees creaking, got to his feet; Marlon, lying on the ground, began to rake the space between the buildings on full automatic as Rusty came around the pipes and started toward them, shouting and waving his massive arms.
Michael, on the other side of the improvised cover, stood up. He started drumming with all six hands, the multiple throats in his neck pulsing as he shaped and focused the sound as he surveyed the target area. At first it was merely noise (as Marlon continued to fire, as Rusty weaved and roared while bullets pinged from his body). Michael could hear the stacked pipes in front of him rattling in their racks with sympathetic vibrations, and he forced his throat openings to narrow, to toss the sound farther out and focus it—as he had when he killed the Righteous Djinn. He aimed the torrent of percussion between the two buildings, hitting himself harder and harder, his arms flailing. There was a new sound now: a metallic wail as the piping set between the buildings started to respond.
(Rusty took a few more steps, a lumbering, bearlike dance. Marlon’s weapon went silent for a moment as he changed clips. Through the fury of Michael’s drumming, there was a percussive cough, and a smoky lance arrowed in Rusty’s direction, hitting the ground six feet to his left and erupting; Michael saw Rusty lifted and tossed.)
He drummed, grimacing at the effort of finding the right notes, the right timing, and the right frequency. The pipes shuddered and danced angrily in response. He could see figures there, pointing toward him, and muzzle flashes. Bullets whined past him and he forced himself not to respond. The huge pipe above their attackers groaned loudly enough to be audible over the racket and Michael concentrated on it, forcing all the sound toward it; he saw dust and bricks falling as it shook itself loose from the walls, shaking like a wet dog. Dark, thick fluid gushed out in a wide stream.