The tunnel walls disappeared without notice. One instant her feet were pressed up against the earthen sides, and the next they were splayed wide, and she was falling. She didn’t even have time to dig her fingers deeper into the walls before she was airborne for just a millisecond, and then she landed hard and with a splash against the smooth concrete of the storm sewer.
She landed on her back and slid, her face slipping below the surface of the water before her hands and feet found a purchase and she was able to rise to her knees. Thoroughly drenched, she fought the urge to cough as her hand shot to the waistband of her pants, where she found the.44 Magnum still tucked where it was supposed to be.
She kept her right hand on the pistol grip as she extended her left hand over her head to see how close the ceiling was. When she felt nothing, she dared to stand, ever so slowly, and she was shocked to find that she could rise to her feet and stand to her full height.
That’s when she realized that she was casting a dim shadow, despite the pitch darkness. Only it wasn’t pitch dark right here. There was no detail to be seen, but when she waved her hand in front of her face, she could definitely see a silhouette.
To her right, she could see the silhouette of a ladder.
When she looked up, she saw two pinholes of gray light peering down at her like ghostly cat’s eyes through the manhole cover.
She’d found her way out. Now all she had to do was wait.
It all took longer than Jonathan had anticipated. Planting of the second charge had been complicated by the presence of occupied buildings. The last thing he wanted was to blast some kid out of his crib. By the time he’d found a suitable vehicle to booby-trap, he’d already lost an extra ninety seconds off the timing of the first charge.
Thus, when he planted the third bomb, he could allow only forty-five seconds on the fuse.
He pressed the button to activate the countdown and then he ran like a bunny rabbit across the street and down one block to join the rest of his team. With his NVGs in place, there were no obstacles that he couldn’t see, and as he closed the distance, he saw Boxers with his rifle up and ready to shoot anyone who might threaten Jonathan’s retreat.
Jonathan slowed and backpedaled and dropped to his knees as he joined the others.
“Jesus, Boss, if I knew you were going to stroll, I’d’ve come along.”
“Stuff it and take cover,” Jonathan said, pressing the NVGs out of the way. “The first one’s going to be close and it’s going to be soon.” As he spoke, he cupped the nape of Tristan’s neck and pulled him forward and down to the grass. With the PC pressed into the dirt, Jonathan lay down on top of him.
“Oh, shit,” Tristan grunted. “What are you doing?”
“Sorry, kid, it’s just part of the job.”
“But you’re-”
The camera strobe of the detonation silenced him, and an instant later, the ground shook as if struck with a massive bass drum mallet.
Boxers laughed. “Well, shit, Scorpion. At least you gave us a show worth waiting for.”
They all held their positions on the ground for the better part of ten seconds to allow whatever debris was launched to land wherever it was going.
When there was no impact, he rose from on top of Tristan and helped the kid rise to his knees.
“Well, the overture’s over,” Jonathan said. “Time for the first act.” He stood, and pulled Tristan with him. “Ready to run again?”
Palma just happened to be looking right at the detonation when it happened. His first instinct on seeing the pulse of light was that it was a muzzle flash, but in the instant that it took him to flinch, he saw the eruption of debris, and he knew that it was a bomb. The chatter of automatic weapons fire followed almost immediately, followed by panicked reports from the guards at the Sandcats that they were under attack.
Within seconds, the police channels came alive with reports of the explosions and the gunfire.
To his left, Sergeant Nazario said, “Captain, sir, we have to go and help them.”
Did this make sense? Palma asked himself. Why would they choose to fight so far away when their true target was right here? Could this be a diversion?
“Help us!” cried a Sandcat crew member.
Palma pounded the hood of the car that shielded him. Somehow, they’d found out about the trap. Were they adapting, or were they merely being stupid?
“Sir, please,” Nazario said. “Let me go reinforce them.”
In his heart, Palma knew it was a mistake, just as splitting your forces is always a mistake. These terrorists had fooled him before, and he sensed that they were doing it again.
But men under his command needed help.
“Very well,” he said, finally. “Take second and third squads to reinforce the Sandcats. You are in charge. I want a full report. They’re panicking out there.”
Nazario threw off a quick salute and brought his portable radio to his lips.
The Sandcat crews started shooting even before Jonathan and his team were there to engage them. The first blast, triggered at the end of the block where they’d parked their vehicles, had incited blind panic, and they were firing randomly at the source of the explosion.
“I feel sorry for the poor schmucks who live on the other end of the block,” Boxers quipped over the radio. Bullets flew until they hit something. That meant hundreds of rounds were chewing up the properties downrange.
A minute thirty in, the plan was working perfectly.
Stealth no longer mattered. Jonathan and his team sprinted full out two blocks east, and then turned south for a block. When they turned west onto the street where the war was happening, the Mexicans were so outflanked that they actually had their backs turned to them.
It shouldn’t be this easy. There were six in total.
Jonathan and Boxers fired in unison, and two seconds later, the Sandcats were theirs.
Jonathan held his aim for a few seconds to verify that there was no movement, and then he turned to Tristan. “Almost home,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Something had changed behind the kid’s eyes. Jonathan didn’t know what it was, and he didn’t particularly care, but he got the distinct impression that he’d somehow crossed a line. For a second, he thought that maybe Tristan was going to pull back, but it only took a slight tug on his vest to bring him along.
Tristan’s mind screamed, They just murdered those men. Shot them in the back. They never had a chance.
“Fair fights are for dead fools, Tristan,” Scorpion said, somehow reading his thoughts. As he spoke, he hooked his foot under the belly of one of the dead men and rolled him to his back. The soldier’s cheek had erupted into a hideous blooming rose.
“Forget everything you’ve heard about honor in war,” Scorpion went on. “The winners are the guys who are still alive when the shooting stops.” As if by rote, he took the soldier’s rifle away and then moved on to the next corpse. “You’ve got to exploit every weakness.”
Scorpion made a point of establishing eye contact. “No matter how you cut it, it’s an ugly business.”
The engine on the closest Sandcat turned and caught. Tristan jumped at the sound and whirled to see the Big Guy in the front seat, smiling broadly and giving a thumbs-up through the window. He said something, but the words were lost in the crisp thump of another explosion.
Scorpion checked his watch and gave a quick, satisfied nod. “Mount up,” he said.
With the second explosion, Palma knew that his worst fears had been realized. The timing had been brilliant. If his mental calculations were correct, Nazario and his men would have been very near the blast.
The debris had barely stopped falling when the screaming erupted on the radio. At first, all he heard was noise, irrational unintelligible yelling that overpowered the radio mike.