by D. J. Molles
As Mateo spoke, Lee became aware of a distant, staccato chopping.
Lee glanced at Mr. Daniels, and though he could only see the side of his face, he thought he saw that the Cornerstone CEO had heard them too.
“You misunderstand me,” Mr. Daniels said. “I’m here to claim that refinery as the rightful property of the United States government, on whose sovereign soil your presence is only just tolerated, due to our apparent mutual interest. Tex and Harden and the bunkers…they aren’t really a payment, you see. Think of them more like…a severance package.”
Mateo’s smile broadened. “I’m surprised at you, Mr. Daniels. You speak very reckless for a man with only five armed men around him.”
The sound of helicopter rotors had become more evident now.
Impossible to ignore.
Mr. Daniels inclined his head, as though just hearing them. Then he turned and looked to the skies behind them. When he turned back around, he had a smirk on his face. He waggled a finger in the air, as though gesturing to the growing sound itself. “Five men, yes. And two Apache gunships.”
For the first time, Mateo looked unsure of himself.
It was quickly obscured by a flash of rage.
“You are going down a bad path, my friend,” Mateo said. “I’d advise you to take a moment and reconsider your stance. I’m not the man you want to double-cross.”
“There’s no double-cross,” Mr. Daniels said, as though Mateo were being melodramatic. “We’re simply negotiating. And, as you said, we must all be sure of where we stand. I’m simply showing you where I stand. And where you stand.” Mr. Daniels’s voice hardened, no longer accommodating. “Which would, ideally, be about five miles south of this refinery, along with every man that’s in there right now.”
The sound of the gunships had stopped growing louder.
They’re hovering, Lee realized. Just within range.
Mateo’s eyes had narrowed to slits. “What a very American thing to do. What is the phrase? Gunboat diplomacy, no?”
Mr. Daniels shrugged. “More like gunship diplomacy.”
“You will throw away our entire alliance for this one refinery?”
“There is no alliance, Señor Ibarra. There’s only the facts. I have two gunships, and two platoons of men on the way, and I want that refinery. If you remove all of your men from the refinery and agree to move peacefully five miles south, then you can leave with the Texas bunkers, and your revenge on these two men here. If you don’t…well, then, that is your choice too. And it will probably be the last one you make.”
Mateo’s teeth flashed behind his short beard. “And what’s to stop me from killing you now and taking what’s mine?”
“I suppose nothing,” Mr. Daniels admitted. “Except that you won’t really have a chance to enjoy much after that. Have you ever seen what those gunships can do? Oh. Yes. Of course you have. You saw the bodies at the power plant.” Mr. Daniels chuckled. “They’re frighteningly good at their job. Absolute killing machines.”
Mateo drew himself up and snorted. He held out his hand. “Fine. The GPS. And Tex and Harden. Turn them over. I will remove my men from the refinery.”
“So you can hide in the refinery and give us one last spiteful battle?” Mr. Daniels shook his head. “That would end up destroying too much of the structure. Don’t be ridiculous. You’ll remove your men first, and when they are completely out of the refinery, then I will release the GPS and the prisoners to you, and you can go off to whatever shithole bandit hideaway you crawled out of and do whatever it is pieces of shit like you do.”
Mateo’s men tensed behind him. Grips shifted on rifles. Their eyes darted to the Cornerstone men across from them, and then to the gunships in the background. Tongues flashed across lips. Calculations were made. The results were not favorable. No one dared to raise their rifle past a low ready, and yet everyone felt like they might be shooting at each other at any moment.
“You mean to trick me into leaving and then keep them for yourself,” Mateo hissed through clenched teeth.
Again, Mr. Daniels answered with a casual shrug. “You never can tell, can you? But the question is, what other option do you have?”
The two men stared at each other in stony silence.
Their soldiers only moved their eyes, looking for any twitch that might set off the shooting.
Lee knelt on the pavement, bound and gagged, and completely unable to defend himself. And yet his heart was steady. His breathing deep and even.
Eyes open. Mind clear.
When it happened, it happened all at once.
TWENTY-NINE
─▬▬▬─
BURN
The first thing Lee knew was that the shots hadn’t come from Mateo’s men.
His eyes were fixed on those cartel men, and none of them had even raised their weapon.
And yet, Lee perceived a sudden flurry of zzzip-THWACK sounds, so close together an untrained ear might’ve thought they were all one noise.
He felt warm spray on the back of his neck.
And bodies falling.
He saw two more things in that micro-second: Expressions of shock on Mateo and his men; and Mr. Daniels leaping backwards for the cover of the helicopter.
Then the bodies of the two men guarding Lee toppled onto him, and flattened him to the ground, and the door gunner in the Blackhawk opened up.
Then the air was saturated with gunfire and lead.
***
Abe Darabie jacked another .338 Lapua Magnum round into the rifle, and let out the breath that had been burning in his chest. His muscles were still on fire from the run up to his shooting position.
A twelve-hundred yard shot, with his heart pounding in his chest—difficult even for him.
Beside him, the three snipers from Brinly’s Marine detachment had already settled back into their scopes for follow-on shots. They’d only just had time to deploy their rifles and coordinate their targets before they’d taken the shot.
If they’d received the GPS location ten seconds later than they had, Abe wasn’t sure that Lee would still be alive.
You don’t know if he’s alive now!
Abe blinked sweat out of his eyes and seized down on his breath again. The scope of the rifle was still centered on the Blackhawk, but now he couldn’t see Lee—the Cornerstone operator whose ticket Abe had just punched had fallen on top of his friend.
And now the whole scene had devolved into chaos.
The muzzle of the Blackhawk’s M240 spouted a yellow starburst and a steady stream of smoke, raking 7.62mm projectiles over the two cartel technicals while the Nuevas Fronteras soldiers fired back, tearing the sidewall of the Blackhawk to shreds, even as the Cornerstone leader—Mr. Daniels, Abe recognized—scrambled around the nose of the helicopter and dove for cover on the other side.
Rounds smashed through the cockpit, and Abe saw the windows abruptly painted red.
Abe shifted, trying to target the cartel, but they had beat a hasty retreat as they fired haphazardly at the Blackhawk. The two technicals had slammed it into reverse, and the men had hightailed it, and the last of them—a man in white—went sprinting back towards the refinery, and then slipped out of sight beyond a copse of trees that obstructed Abe’s view.
Those trees might’ve saved Abe’s life.
He was already aware of the two Apache gunships that hovered about a mile north of the meeting between Cornerstone and Nuevas Fronteras, but they surged back into the forefront of Abe’s mind as they let loose with their cannons, targeting the fleeing cartel.
“Check fire!” Abe snapped, pulling his own finger away from his rifle’s trigger. “Don’t give those birds anything to shoot at!”
Their hide was deep in some brush, directly east of the Blackhawk. They’d been lucky that their first barrage hadn’t drawn the Apache pilots’ attention. There was no need for them to push their luck now.
Abe rolled onto his side, looking at the lead Marine, a gunnery sergeant. “Get
on the horn with Brinly and tell him we need all hands at the refinery, right-fucking-now!” Abe grabbed the satellite phone from where it lay in the dirt just to the right of his rifle—the antenna already extended, and the line to Breckenridge and Menendez already open.
He snatched it up and placed it to his ear. “The location you pulled from Tex’s GPS is spot on! I got positive ID on Mateo Ibarra and Daniels from Cornerstone! Get everyone you can and haul ass!”
***
Lee had to give the door gunner his due: He didn’t go down without a fight.
Half-buried under the corpses of two Cornerstone operatives, their blood and brain matter trickling down his face and neck, Lee watched the gunner stand behind his M240 and let it eat, only a few tiny breaks in fire keeping it from its full cyclic potential.
The first flurry of responding rounds from the cartel tore up the side of the helicopter, and the gunner took three of them, punching holes in his gray flight suit and jerking his body around.
He didn’t go down. His eyes didn’t even seem to register the fact that he’d been shot. He just re-centered the muzzle of his machinegun and kept firing.
The sound of the gun, just a few yards from Lee’s head, felt like being punched in the forehead at the rate of nearly 600 times a minute.
Two more rounds hit the gunner.
The muzzle dipped towards Lee, still firing.
Lee shrunk into the bodies that covered him as bullets screamed by his head.
The gunner righted himself and ripped the muzzle back up.
Lee couldn’t even see the gunner’s face anymore behind the smoke coming off the overheating barrel.
One more round came in from the fleeing cartel, and that was the one that it took.
The gunner’s head snapped back and his body slumped.
The machinegun went silent.
In the absence of that roar, Lee could hear other things now.
The Apaches were firing. He heard the reports, and felt the impacts through the dirt that he lay on.
He heard the roar of the technicals’ engines.
The screaming of men—both wounded, and those trying very hard not to be.
And he heard Mr. Daniels, shouting to his men that were no longer alive.
Eyes open. Mind clear.
If there was a way out, Lee was going to take it.
And his way out came to him in a sudden flash, and in the shape of a smoke-billowing, almost-red-hot machinegun barrel.
But it wouldn’t stay hot for long.
Lee thrashed his body. That was the best that he could do. He was on his side, buried under two grown men. It felt like he couldn’t get enough movement with their weight bearing down on him. His motions were stunted. He screamed through his gag, stars sparkling in his vision.
Then one of the bodies slumped off of Lee’s back, and he had more wiggle room.
He kicked the other one, catching the body in the fabric of its pants and managing to press it off of him. He kicked it again to clear it from his intended path.
Gasping for breath, he looked up at the machinegun barrel.
Still smoking. But it was losing that dangerous near-glow.
The sounds that came out of him as he moved were involuntary. They were snorts, and growls, and yelps, all muffled by the cloth in his mouth. He didn’t even know he was making them. His only worry in the world was trying to get his body across two yards of dirt, without the use of his arms or legs.
A bizarre memory crashed through his brain.
Defensive Tactics, from God-knew how many years ago.
A defensive, oh-shit movement that the instructors called “shrimping.” A weird, thrashing, hip-bucking movement across the ground, that made every single trainee wonder, When am I going to use this?
But Lee was using it right then.
Anything it took.
Each thrash only gave him a few feet. But that was all he needed.
He became aware of Mr. Daniels, who had drawn the pistol on his hip, and was now firing it in a rapid discharge of pop-pop-pop, around the front of the Blackhawk.
As he shrimped, Lee saw the man’s boots, from under the belly of the helicopter.
And then Lee was there.
The deck of the bird was right above his head.
He sat up with a grunt. He couldn’t get his feet under him—not with his ankles secured together. So he used his head. He craned his neck, and hooked his jaw over the lip of the helicopter’s deck. He cried out as metal cut hard into his ear and he writhed his entire bodyweight up by the use of the side of his face.
Then he rolled. Smashing his face into the deck. His nose cracked, as he used it to prop his upper body up.
It didn’t matter. He had his feet under him.
He turned his back on the smoking machinegun barrel.
He bit down on the gag in his mouth, and then thrust his plastic zip-cuffed wrists against the scorching hot barrel. The pain didn’t wait to greet him. It slammed into him, all the way up his arm and into his spine like he’d touched one of the high voltage wires around a Safe Zone.
He screamed.
And knew instantly that Mr. Daniels had heard him.
He strained at his bindings, pulling at the plastic as it melted and bubbled, right along with his flesh. He felt the slightest give, a gooshy sort of elasticity—
And then his wrists snapped apart.
The zip-cuff still hung from his left arm, but his right was free.
Mr. Daniels edged into view on the other side of the Blackhawk’s open door. His eyes were wide and scared. His pistol was locked back on an empty magazine. His gaze hit the dead gunner.
And then he saw Lee.
“Motherfuck—” Mr. Daniels dove for a spare magazine on his belt.
Lee slapped the barrel of the M240, sending it spinning around on its mount. He seized the grip as it swung around.
Mr. Daniels mashed the magazine into his pistol’s magwell, his eyes focused not on Lee now, but on the muzzle of the M240.
Lee fired.
Five 7.62mm projectiles spat out, smashing Mr. Daniels’s body from hip to shoulder. He flew backwards into the dirt, the pistol tumbling out of his hands, still with its slide locked back.
A muffled scream from somewhere to Lee’s right.
His eyes snapped over. Saw Tex, trying to thrash towards Lee.
Lee tried to call out, but all that issued from his throat was a crackling moan. He ripped the gag out of his mouth.
The two Apache gunships thundered over his head in a sudden calamity of noise and rotor wash. Lee squinted against the flying dust, looking up at them.
They hadn’t seen what had happened to Mr. Daniels at the Blackhawk. They were pursuing the cartel’s technicals, which were almost back to the refinery now, trying to get to the concrete structure that would give them some cover.
Tex screamed wordlessly again, pulling Lee’s attention back.
“Hang on!” he managed to articulate this time.
Lee still had no use of his legs.
His eyes tore across the Blackhawk’s cabin, searching for something, anything. They landed on the dead door gunner, but he didn’t have anything on him. Then Lee spun and looked at the two dead operatives.
True to form, they both had knives.
Lee went down to his knees and pulled himself through the dirt to the closest body. He snatched the knife out of its sheath, then rolled onto his back, bringing his legs up. He stabbed the knife at the thinnest point of plastic he could perceive, which was the band going across his right ankle. His boots saved him from gouging his own flesh out.
He sawed at it, gasping out curses.
The plastic broke.
Same as his wrists, the zip-cuff remained dangling from one ankle, but he had the use of his feet back. He rolled again, thrust himself upwards, and then scrambled towards Tex.
He stopped. Looked south.
Tex screamed at him again.
The Apache gunships worked
in a hovering circle, trying to get angles on one of the remaining technicals. The other technical sat in a smoking heap, halfway between the Blackhawk and the refinery.
Those gunships wouldn’t be distracted for long.
And something else…
Something that burned through Lee like a sudden grassfire after a lightning strike.
He had no way of knowing if these were the same Apache pilots that had attacked them at the power plant. But it didn’t matter. They bore those sins. They were guilty by association.
Staring at the two hovering forms, he knew without having to even think about it, that he was going to do something that might end up killing him. But he’d already decided it. His eyes were savage, his teeth bared. He snarled as he turned away from Tex.
He clambered onto the deck of the Blackhawk, shoving the door gunner’s body out of his way and spinning the still-hot M240 around to face the gunships. That barrel had definitely been overheated, but Lee had neither the time nor the inclination to locate a replacement and swap it out.
The five rounds that he’d pumped into Mr. Daniels had been the last in the chain. Lee knew that, because if there had been any more, he would have put them into Mr. Daniels.
Two more green cans filled with linked M61 armor-piercing ammunition sat secured to the deck to Lee’s right. He ripped the clasps from one of the ammo cans and hauled it up into place, swapping it out with the empty can fixed to the side of the machinegun.
Tex had gone silent, seeing what Lee was doing.
Lee’s hands worked fast, his eyes focused on his task, while he saw, in his peripheral, the two gunships, still making their slow circle around the refinery, searching for targets. Still distracted.
He jabbed the first round of the chain into the feed tray, then slapped the cover assembly down over it. Racked the cocking handle.
He settled into it, his feet braced wide, his cheek mashed down onto the buttstock.
Iron sights. A ghost ring and a tree.
It was not easy to take down a helicopter with small arms fire.
