“Taliban?”
“Affirmative. If AQ gets him, they’ll kill him. Or worse.”
“He better fight, then.”
Deion nodded to himself. “He damn well better.”
“Mr. Burch? Ms. Simon? My name is Eric. I’ll be your Overlook, along with Sergeant Clark. Can you hear me?”
Neil and Valerie confirmed they could.
“Very good. We’re going to get through this together. Deion, how much ammo do you have?”
“Four mags each for the M4’s, and a couple of grenades. Plus, our sidearms.”
“Remember,” Eric said, “conserve your ammo. Slow and steady, maximize your kill shots. Deion, it’s just like training, and you’ve become a fair shot.”
It was true. During John’s weapons training, Deion had learned just how good Eric was, and after Eric’s gentle coaching, Deion found himself on a level he never thought achievable. I hope it’s enough.
There was a long pause. “You’ve got enemy on the south-bound road, ten o’clock, two hundred meters away,” Eric said. “Two men on a motorbike with AK’s. They’ll come around the corner in ten seconds.”
“Roger that.” He turned his head. “Neil, get set. Anything that comes from the east, you kill. Single shots only.”
Neil glanced back across the shadowy rooftop and shook his head. “I want you to know I hate this kind of shit.”
Deion gave him a quick thumbs up, then went back to his scope. He heard the motorbike’s engine, a soft buzz growing louder, and the men emerged on the motorbike.
He sighted and pulled the trigger. The rifle bucked against his shoulder and the driver slumped over in the intersection, dead. The motorcycle’s front fork twisted, spilling the passenger in the dirt. He came up shouting, struggling to raise his AK, when a crack rang out and Nancy’s bullet took the man in the stomach.
“Nice shooting,” Eric said. “That’ll give them pause, but when they come, they’ll come in a group. Mr. Burch, there’s four coming from the east. Deion, you’ve got more coming from the north, at least a dozen behind them. They’ve found the two in the street.”
Below, the motorcycle passenger Nancy shot tried crawling away, kicking uselessly in the dirt. Deion considered putting him out of his misery, but it was a waste of ammo. He would be dead in minutes.
The shouting grew louder, and the approaching fighters cast long shadows down the street. He sighted down the scope as a man ducked out and then behind the edge of the house on the corner.
“They’ve got trucks,” Eric informed them. “It’s about to get hot. Remember, folks, conserve ammo. Concentrate on holding them off.”
Deion waited for the fighter to peer around the corner. The seconds ticked by, and when the man leaned out, Deion snapped off a clean shot to the head. The fighter spun backwards and dropped to the ground in the bloody dirt.
Then all hell broke loose.
Fighters ran around the corner, too many to count. They cut loose with their AK’s, peppering the side of the building. He ducked and came up, squeezing the trigger and dropping one man, but they continued their forward assault until he heard a crack-crack as Nancy dropped two more. The dead fighters sprawled in the dirt and the remaining men screamed, spraying the building with gunfire.
The bullets zinged around him, chips of stone and mortar stinging his face. He dropped and covered, then came back up and squeezed off another round. The bullet caught a pudgy bearded man in the leg, and the man dropped, the AK spilling from his hands into the dirt. The man behind him picked it up and pulled the trigger, but the AK was empty, causing the young man to scream in frustration.
Deion heard the yelling, then. “Allahu Akbar!”
“Mr. Burch,” Eric said, “prepare yourself.”
Deion heard the crack, crack, crack of Neil’s rifle, then Eric’s calm voice. “Keep at it, Mr. Burch. There’s two left.”
Bullets tore up the east side of the building but there was nothing Deion could do about it. “Val, help him out!”
Another rifle joined in, matching Neil’s crack, cracking.
Meanwhile, it was all Deion could do to hold off the fighters from the west. The first group of men had retreated, but were now joined by a horde. They would run out, spray the building, then take shelter. He managed to pick off one more, then heard Eric’s voice. “Here come the trucks. Deion, use those grenades.”
“I’ve got the first one,” he said.
“I’ll take the second,” Nancy joined in.
Two Toyota trucks barreled around the corner and men jumped out, firing their rifles. Deion hugged the rooftop, then pulled the pin from his grenade, stood, and lobbed it toward the first truck. He felt a hot stinging pain in his left arm, bullets singing in the air around him, and then heard screams as their grenade detonated with a loud whump-whump.
He fell back and grabbed his arm where the bullet had penetrated. He winced, picking up his M4, fire screaming down his bicep. He managed a quick glance over the edge of the building and saw men scattered like rag dolls, in various states of dying. The remains of the devastated trucks blocked the street, providing cover for the remaining men who popped up randomly to squeeze off rounds.
“I’m hit, but not bad,” Deion said between gritted teeth.
“Where?” Eric asked.
“Left arm, through and through.”
“Suck it up,” Nancy yelled from below.
Deion had an urge to scream. The whole thing was her fault. Her interaction with Rumple caused their loss of Delta support. “I’m okay. How’s it look from above?”
“Men are entering the building across from you,” Eric said.
Deion gritted his teeth tighter. The road between buildings wasn’t that wide. He popped up just as the sound of muffled gunfire erupted in the house. He saw flashes of light through the windows across the street. “There go the civilians,” he said.
“Hang in there,” Eric said. “There’s a CIA Predator in the area and I’m working on rerouting it, but I have to override the CIA’s control.”
This is officially a clusterfuck. “How long before we get backup?”
“Nightstalkers are spinning up the Little Birds and a Blackhawk full of Operators. They’re leaving now.”
Deion struggled to remain calm. “We need extraction,” he said.
“Just a little longer,” Eric responded.
Across the street, the gunfire stopped.
Oh, shit,” he said. The fighters had killed the last of the Afghani civilians. “The house across the street, everyone. Light it up!”
He fired at the windows across the street and the enemy returned fire, glass panes shattering. The rest of his team joined in and it became a raging gun-battle as the fighters on the street unleashed everything they had.
There was a flash of light across the street, a trail of smoke, and a deafening explosion as the enemy RPG impacted the side of the building. He looked toward Neil but found a chasm had opened in the roof. He could see down to the first floor. Valerie was covered in debris, her head caught against the wall, her legs quivering.
Fuck!
“Nancy? Are you injured? Can you get to Val?”
“Christ, that was close. No, I can’t get to her,” Nancy said over the gunfire. “The front of the house is gone, they’ve got me pinned down.”
“What about Jaabir?”
“No idea. I don’t hear anything from the back.”
He cursed as the battle raged, the bullets pinging around him. Another RPG from the house across the street whumped in to their Helix and blew it apart in a cloud of shrapnel, leaving a smoking husk that belched smoke and flames to the sky.