“Hey, Danny,” Gaby said.
“What’s up, kid?”
“I’ll give you a buck if you shut up.”
“Tough beach,” Danny said.
Party boats, Keo thought when the first vessel emerged out of the black canvas like some demon from the pits of hell.
It was white and long, with red-hot rod flames along the sides, and flat. The driver sat in the middle, guiding the steering wheel while two men crouched at the stern and two more manned the bow. They were wearing battle gear, complete with ballistic Kevlar helmets and knee and elbow pads. Keo could almost see their faces constricted into tight grimaces as they held onto the speeding boat as it burst out of the water. Like him, they were all wearing night-vision goggles, the long lens bobbing up and down like extra appendages.
Hot rod was the first boat to hit the beach fifty meters in front of him, its sharp front hull digging a trench as it was driven forward by a roaring motor. The driver was battling with the steering wheel, looking almost spastic, while the passengers hung on to keep from being thrown off by the erratic vessel. When they were closer, he saw that the two up front were actually attached to the boat by coiled cables clipped to their belts. Flurries of sand arced through the air as the propellers came into contact with the beach.
Still on one knee, Keo lifted the M4 and switched on the laser pointer underneath the barrel. A red beam pierced the darkness, clearly visible through the green of his NVG. Keo stood up and focused on the boat that had made landfall first; it just happened to be directly in front of him. He watched the two on the bow struggling furiously to free themselves from the cables. One of them finally got himself unattached and was standing up when Keo settled the half-inch red dot on the man’s chest and put two rounds into him. Despite being unsuppressed, unlike his MP5SD, both shots were barely audible against the raging storm of ten boat motors roaring in his ears at the same time.
The dead man slumped off the boat and his partner, seeing his comrade go down, decided to give up trying to manually detach himself and began ramming the butt of his rifle into the hook that held him hostage.
Losing your cool during the heat of battle is a good way to die, pal.
Keo shot him in the right thigh, then squeezed off two more rounds even as the man was going down. He was pretty sure he hit the guy at least one more time. Fifty meters should have been a difficult shot for him, even with the long-range ability of a rifle, but the red laser dot made it a cheat. Not that he spent more than a nanosecond giving a damn.
The two on the stern had already decoupled themselves and were hopping off the boat, even as more vessels shot out of the water and made landfall to the left and right of them. More sand arced into the air, and the roar of the motors became deafening.
Meanwhile, the driver of the hot rod had ducked his head behind the steering wheel, and the only thing Keo could make out from him was the twin protruding lens of his NVG over the console. Keo ignored the hidden man and turned his attention to the two running up the beach, one of them struggling to maintain control of his rifle while the other had lost his night vision along the way.
They weren’t the only two trudging their way forward, their heavy boots and equipment causing them to sink into the soft beach, further slowing them down. They should have considered that when they were gearing up for the attack. He thought of something the British used to say called the 7 Ps: Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance.
More boats were landing one by one now, hitting the long stretch of sand many meters apart. He wondered if that was part of the plan or a byproduct of the drivers trying not to crash into each other in the darkness.
As soon as he fired his first shot, Danny and Gaby immediately joined in, pouring bullets into the surging mass of black-clad bodies trying to jump off their vessels up and down the beach. The pop-pop-pop of automatic gunfire clashed with the continuous whirl of machinery, creating an odd melody that was painfully out of tune.
They had plenty of targets to choose from. Too many, in fact. The surging men looked like ants trudging and falling and stumbling as they attempted to flee from the open. They might not have any combat experience, but he couldn’t fault their tactical awareness. They knew just enough to understand that standing on the beach right now was a death sentence. Most of them hadn’t even returned fire, probably because they had no idea where he or Danny and Gaby were.
Keo flicked the fire selector on his M4 to full-auto and emptied the remaining magazine into the group of black-clad figures directly in front of him. They were already angling left toward the opening in the woods that led to the hotel grounds. Most of the soldiers were irresistibly drawn to it like moths to the flame, while only a few stayed behind to use the beached boats as cover and to return fire into the woods.
He didn’t know how many had already fallen, and he didn’t bother counting. He just knew that men were going down as he oscillated his fire from left to right, shearing the leaves and branches that had kept him hidden until now. The smell of burning foliage filled his nostrils and Keo was still smelling it as he emptied his weapon.
He hustled to his right, ejecting the magazine and slamming in a new one as he went.
A group of charging men was returning fire. They didn’t know where he was exactly inside the tree line, but even an idiot could tell his general vicinity after his last barrage. And that was where they were concentrating their fire now. Fortunately he wasn’t there anymore, and was still moving right, continuing to use the woods to his advantage.
He took a step closer toward the beach, stopping only when he could see out again, and went down on one knee, ignoring the zip-zip-zip of bullets slamming into the section of the woods where he had been just seconds ago. He was now a good twenty meters from his last position and the soldiers were still stuck in no-man’s land. The group of battle-dressed figures that had unleashed on him was reloading, while others continued running toward the passageway.
Fallen black-clad bodies zig-zagged the length of the beach, stretching from the parked boats to the trees. That was a sign Danny and Gaby were doing their part. Not that he expected any less from the soldier, though the girl continued to be a revelation. The pop-pop-pop of automatic gunfire continued back and forth, still smashing against the roar of motors that had been left unattended as their drivers darted for safety.
The group that had returned fire on his last position had just finished reloading when Keo stepped outside of the trees and onto the beach, opening up on them. He felt the sand sinking under his boots as he pulled the trigger. He was so close to them that he didn’t even need to use the red dot this time; he just kept the trigger depressed until all four men had fallen down and stopped moving.
Keo quickly searched for more targets, but there were none to be found. The rest had already made it into the opening at the center of the beach and were on their way to the hotel grounds right this moment.
How many had gotten through? He couldn’t tell. If there were at least four per boat (five in some), that meant over forty soldiers, easily. And he was pretty damn sure he didn’t see forty-plus bodies lying on the beach at the moment.
He tossed the carbine, then unslung the MP5SD. The familiar feel of the submachine gun immediately reassured him, and Keo took hurried steps back into the tree line where he wouldn’t be exposed. He hadn’t gotten completely back inside cover when he heard the hellacious explosion of gunfire coming from the cobblestone pathway to his right.