Strike Matrix

by Aiden L Bailey

  Casey was about to run to Simon when four African men burst into the foyer, wielding MI6s and pistols. The first man fired high, causing everyone to dive for cover.

  One assailant spotted Simon and discharged a full burst from his MI6 toward him.

  Simon hit the floor just in time, protected behind a door frame. It spat wood fragments as 5.56mm rounds lodged into it, one after the other, their impacts reverberating through the surviving timber.

  When the shooting ceased, Simon turned and fired his pistol.

  A bullet impacted the man in the thigh and he dropped, screaming as he hit the stone-slate floor. Simon knew he should finish the man off with a kill shot, eliminating the soldier as a risk. But he’d had enough of killing. He fired his weapon around the injured man until he dragged himself backwards, away from his rifle. The terrified man left a smear of blood on the slate behind him.

  “Simon!” Casey screamed.

  Two of the soldiers were dragging her outside.

  Simon threw himself forward, only to see the fourth soldier raise his M16 to shoot in full-automatic mode in his direction.

  Switching direction, Simon ducked behind the reception counter. The bullets missed him, but the Maharaja on his elephant painting was not so lucky, disintegrating above him. Shattered fragments of the picture frame and pieces of torn canvas fell like snowflakes around him. The scene reminded Simon of what GhostKnife had said to him about his lesson from the elephants of Tanzania, but now was not the time to philosophize.

  Again, Simon waited for the man to empty his clip, forcing him to reload. With a lull in gunplay, Simon swung around the side of the counter and shot the second man in the leg. His foe went down screaming.

  Back on his feet, Simon rushed at the man and clobbered him unconscious with the grip of his handgun. Then he ran to the first man, who was still crawling on his belly, and bashed him unconscious.

  Pulling himself up, he searched for Casey but the two surviving attackers had whisked her away.

  Simon grabbed a fallen M16 and a spare clip from the downed foe as he advanced towards the exit. He ejected the spent magazine, forced in the new one and loaded the first round by pulling back on the charging handle. He pushed the safety selector to fire and set the rate to three-round bursts.

  Glancing at the street outside, Simon noticed the crowds were clearing fast, but they were still dense enough he did not have an uninterrupted line of sight towards the two surviving soldiers. The men dragged Casey, kicking and yelling, toward the building on the opposite side of the road.

  Then, for a fleeting moment, Simon glimpsed a face in the crowd he recognized.

  Roger Gridley-Brooks.

  Not the AI, but the living version of the man.

  Again, everything happened fast. Gridley-Brooks advanced towards Casey and the two soldiers.

  Simon edged outwards and felt the air rush at supersonic speed past his head.

  A second later he heard the near-deafening noise of the bullet that had ripped past him.

  An assassin’s bullet.

  Ducking back behind the door frame, Simon cursed himself for forgetting the sniper. His old boss and friend, Ndulu Adebayo was the assassin sent to kill him. Ndulu knew Simon’s techniques and skills, and would know what to look for. He would guess where Simon was likely to position himself to get the best angle onto the street.

  Casey screamed again, then was suddenly silent. He tried to look but a second sniper bullet warned him off.

  Simon cursed. Ndulu had had two opportunities to finish him, but each time he had missed. No well-trained sniper would have missed him under these circumstances. Simon realized that Ndulu was of two-minds about killing him, but he had no problem with keeping Simon pinned down.

  Keeping his head out of Ndulu’s suspected firing range, Simon edged forward until he could see at least part of the street. He watched until he spotted Gridley-Brooks moving with Casey’s limp body slung over his shoulders. Within seconds they disappeared into the building across the road where the two soldiers had first headed.

  Simon was desperate to run to her, but could see no way to do so without receiving a fatal bullet to the head or, at the least, an incapacitating wound. Although Ndulu had missed him twice, he couldn’t count on the man doing the same for a third time. And if Ndulu didn’t want to kill Simon, a leg shot like the ones Simon had given the two African attackers would put Simon out of action.

  He had to get to Casey, but how?

  He had no plan.

  Before he could plan his next move he glimpsed two men slinking through the dispersing crowd. One was white and the other black. Both were packing USSOCOM MARK 23 semi-automatic pistols. Each was muscular. Each had the practiced ease of an Olympic athlete. They blended with the cowering crowd and using innocent people as cover. Simon soon recognized their techniques as those of U.S. military special forces, cold killers who were the recipients of the best military training in the world, who knew more tricks and tradecraft than Simon could ever hope to know. His situation was worsening by the second.

  He fired the M16 high into a concrete pillar on the opposite building, ensuring that he hit no civilians, but low enough to startle his newest foes. He could have shot the men themselves with two well-aimed bullets, but the risk of killing civilians behind them was too great.

  The magazine spent, Simon dropped the weapon and sprinted again towards the back of the Pankot Palace Hotel. He thought about grabbing the other fallen M16 but it had slid too far from his reach in the earlier shoot out, and to grab another clip would slow him.

  Although relieved that he had seen Casey alive and unharmed, he now feared again for her fate. He had no choice but to leave her for the moment, and hope he could come back for her later — if he survived this encounter.

  Outside he darted down an alley, past dogs picking at the piles of litter, and between buildings with rusting satellite dishes linked with the mess of overhanging power and telecommunication cables. He plowed into the main street just as he heard shots being fired behind him.

  The American soldiers were closing in.

  Simon sprinted through the busy and colorful street, knocking commuters over in his desperation to gain distance from his foes and receiving much abuse. A group of young boys played rhythmic drums on old metal tins for an enthusiastic crowd. Even they swore at him and threw pebbles as he pushed through their ensemble.

  After sprinting a hundred meters, the crowds soon closed in again behind him. Reaching another busy intersection, he raised his pistol and fired a single shot into the air. People scattered and ducked low, allowing him some freedom of movement, but opening an easy line of sight for his foes.

  There was more gunfire.

  Simon sprinted through a food stall, tumbling through strings of hanging cooked chicken, orange-red with tandoor spices. He banged against poles securing a tent covering with enough force that the whole structure collapsed. He could see the proprietors wanted to punch him for what he had done, but were too afraid having just seen him fire a weapon into the open air. His intention was only to create confusion and an obstacle to slow his pursuers, not to ruin a livelihood. It seemed he had done both.

  As Simon sprinted east again down a narrow lane, he realized he had only one advantage over his pursuers.

  He knew Mumbai.

  That was his only chance, to use the city to help him.

  Within minutes he reached a major north-south connector road. Cars, buses, trucks and motorcycles sped past in every direction. There was no congestion here, only speed.

  Simon sprinted into the street, causing a car to screech to a halt.

  The vehicle clipped Simon, enough to bruise but little more. Simon rolled, flipping over the vehicle to land on his feet on the car’s opposite side, and kept sprinting.

  A truck and a motorcycle missed him, then another car clipped him before he was across the road. His body ached as bruises began to purple his body. The indignant fury of a hundred different beeping
horns reminded him of his recklessness. Yet the suicidal sprint had paid off, he was on the opposite side of the hectic road, creating a distance between him and the special forces soldiers.

  He took a second to look back.

  The dark-skinned man stepped onto the edge of the road. He raised his USSOCOM and fired the weapon into the wheels of an oncoming truck.

  The bullets found their mark, bursting the rubber tires, and the truck crashed in a rolling shamble. It flipped onto its side, generating a grinding, spark-inducing crunch, sliding to a halt across both lanes of traffic.

  The ensuing chaos brought all vehicles to a standstill.

  A path cleared and the two men came after him.

  “Fuck!” Simon broke into a sprint, horrified to realize what these men would do to catch him.

  He threw himself at one of the plaster boards lining the road’s edge, knowing from experience they were flimsy and easily broken, each covered in an array of multicolored Bollywood posters. The crumpled hole he created allowed him access to the train lines on the opposite side. He counted a dozen tracks he would need to cross.

  Two trains were approaching, one from the north and one from the south.

  He sprinted past the Mumbai commuters, who willingly risked crossing these tracks every day, but none ran as fast as he did.

  The two trains were closing, at speeds fast enough to reduce him to nothing but pulp should one even clip him, dragging him onto the rails and crushing him between the steel wheels and the tracks they screeched along.

  Simon sprinted for his life.

  He ducked in front of the first train coming from the north.

  With heightened senses, he realized he could hear bullets, even above the roar of the electrified engines.

  The train approaching from the south was closing in fast.

  A horn sounded, warning him away.

  Simon didn’t stop to think as he threw himself across the lethal rail, ducking and tumbling as the high-speed train almost hit him, jumping at the last minute to land at the opposite side, separating him from his pursuers.

  Scrambling to his feet, Simon saw that this train was long. It would be a minute or more before it passed. He savored that minute.

  Breaking back into a sprint, he sped towards Mumbai’s largest slum, now within visual range.

  Dharavi.

  He was confident he could vanish in that vast metropolis if he needed to, for, of all the regions of Mumbai, he knew Dharavi better than anywhere else, and planned to use that to his advantage.

  CHAPTER 15

  Peri pounded a path downstairs. The gunfire reverberating through the walls was as loud as firecrackers going off right next to her. She kept expecting bullet holes to rupture the surrounding paneling, fragments to chew through her flesh. But until they did, she would keep moving.

  Resisting the urge to scream out loud in fear and frustration, she touched the pod on her lapel and called in, aware that she needed back up now more than ever. The situation had escalated out of control and needed containment. This was her mission, her team. She needed to fix it.

  “Delta Four?” she called for Bret Cassian. She had left the young CIA officer in command of the SUV. He should be outside the building, ready to back her up.

  No answer.

  “You copy Delta Four?”

  Silence.

  “DELTA FOUR?”

  “Yes… Sorry ma’am. This is Delta Four, Delta One.”

  The young man’s call signs were sloppy, annoying her further. She resisted the urge to chastise him. “What is your sitrep, Delta Four?”

  “About a klick out, ma’am. Traffic is at a standstill, whichever way I turn.”

  “You’ve got five minutes to get here!”

  “How, Ma’am?”

  “Use your initiative. Use the hundred thousand dollar training program the CIA put you through! I don’t care how!”

  Peri scanned through her memory of what she had skimmed in Cassian’s dossier, hoping for leverage to push him into action. He was a Harvard graduated with an aptitude for languages and getting people to spill state secrets. His looks and natural charm made him the perfect honey trap for converting female and gay assets, but he only possessed three years of real-world experience. Not long enough to learn that sloppiness cost lives. His father was a campaign strategist who consulted with Federal and state politicians on the east coast. His mother was a senior lawyer who worked for Maryland’s Attorney General. The right parents at the right level of government had ensured his fast-tracked recruitment into the Company. It seemed the CIA had not recruited Cassian — as Peri was becoming aware — for either attitude or common sense. A seasoned CIA officer would have found any means necessary to have reached her by now.

  “Did you copy that, Delta Four?”

  “Yes — Yes Ma’am — I mean, Delta One.”

  “Get to the building opposite the Pankot Palace Hotel. Third-floor, second window from the right. Yankee Three is down,” she said, referring to Naas Visser and the position she had left him in, sprawled unconscious on top of two dead mercenaries. “Secure the target and bring him to the Safe House. You copy that Delta Four?”

  “Yes — yes Ma’am!”

  “‘Copy that and understood, Delta One.’” she mimicked in anger.

  “Yes Ma’am. Copy that and understood, Delta One.” He paused, then said, “Sorry Ma’am.”

  “Get off the line. Now!”

  “Copy that.”

  Peri’s skin felt hot to the touch. Her forehead stabbed with the pain of another looming migraine. As she stumbled further down the stairs, she became dizzy, disorientated and nauseous. She found a bathroom where she splashed cold water on her face, desperate to calm her overwrought body, until she was ready to get going again.

  Four scared men ran towards her as she exited the bathroom, pushing past in their frantic efforts to escape out the back of the building. She shook her head as she realized there were, in fact, only two men — her vision had blurred and she was seeing double.

  More gunfire outside. More automatic fire.

  Rubbing at her forehead, and blinking to refocus, she ran to the main door and hid behind its frame. She surveyed the emptying street as multitudes of pedestrians fled from the gun battle erupting outside. A white Mahindra four-wheel drive sped straight into the commotion. She watched as Gridley-Brooks emerged from the building next to hers with an unconscious woman in a blue sari draped over his shoulder. The woman’s head bumped and turned, and Peri had a good look at her face.

  Claire Skaffen.

  Peri was about to advance on Gridley-Brooks when two DevWorld mercenaries came up close behind their boss and his captive. They raised their M16 assault rifles to warn away nosey bystanders. As they covered Gridley-Brooks, he lay Skaffen into the back seat. Peri saw he was being careful with her.

  She trembled. She had to act now or risk losing Skaffen. But she dared not advance because her legs felt like jelly, and her blurred eyesight kept slipping in and out of double vision. She instead considered several strategies, hoping she wouldn’t become incapacitated by the increasing migraine.

  Then she realized she was over-thinking this. Her spiking adrenaline was her best asset right now.

  Stepping out, she fired three focused rounds into the first mercenary, hitting him three times in the chest. Blood sprayed from his veins in a fine mist as he fell, dead, onto the hot ground.

  She ignored the screams from the dispersing crowd and ducked back behind the door, protected as the second mercenary returned fire. He emptied his entire clip in a few moments.

  She stepped out again, knowing that the mercenary would need a few precious seconds to reload. She used that opportunity to shoot him three times. Once in the right arm, and twice in the neck. He too was dead long before he collapsed as a crumpled heap on the pavement.

  The gunfire had been sudden and brutal, but long enough for the Mahindra four-wheel drive to screech off down the street. Pedestrians scramble
d to get out of its way.

  “Alfa Three, you copy?” She called for Lieutenant Dawson.

  “Yes, Delta One.”

  “You have Eagle One on X-ray One and Yankee Three? White Mahindra four-wheel drive, headed east from my position?”

  “Yes Delta One, Eagle One in place, and tracking.”

  “Keep tracking. I’m securing transport, then pursuing.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  Peri spotted a moped, parked near the entrance to the Pankot Palace Hotel. Not a vehicle designed for speed and maneuverability, but in the congested Mumbai traffic it was ideal.

  She ran to the moped, hot-wired it and sped east. The wind on her face created by her speed was a welcome relief, cooling her as the splashed water had done earlier.

  She honked her horn often to scare pedestrians from her path forward, for she had no time to dawdle. This operation was a monumental disaster. She could salvage it only by apprehending either Skaffen, Ashcroft, or both. Nobody botched operations like this, causing a bloodbath in such a public place and kept their career intact. Not unless the intel gathered or the enemy eliminated was worth far more than the carnage caused.

  As she throttled the tiny engine for maximum speed, darting past pedestrians, cars and the occasional cow, she followed Dawson’s directions to the letter. The Predator drone was overhead and out of sight, its cameras relaying the speed, direction and location of Gridley-Brooks’ vehicle. The South African mercenaries headed northeast. They had just crossed the north-south rail line and were circumnavigating the slum area of Dharavi.

  She passed the corpse of a thin, emaciated man who had lost both arms long ago, lying on a beggar’s mat next to a chipped bowl. The corpse bothered her more than normal, a feeling more than simple pity for what must have been a sad life. She wasn’t sure why this was affecting her now, so she dismissed it from her mind and focused again on the mission.

  “Delta Two, Delta Three? What is your sitrep?”

  “Pursuing X-ray Two on foot, Delta One,” replied Pfündl. “X-Ray Two just entered Dharavi Slum from the west side, heading east.”