by Tom Abrahams
“How many are there?” she repeated. Her pulse thumped in her ears. Another wave of nausea surged and ebbed.
The kneeling enforcer fired a volley of rounds and popped the magazine from underneath the rifle. As he pulled a full mag from a chest pocket, he shot Brina a look of confusion. Slapping the fresh ammunition into the weapon, he called back to her, “What are you doing here? Get inside, ma’am.”
Brina prickled at the order. First, he wasn’t one to give her orders. She had authority over all these men, the ones fighting and the ones dying or dead on the asphalt. Second, she didn’t like the implication that because she was a woman she shouldn’t be out in the open. The way he said “ma’am” made her want to jam the barrel into his mouth and hold the trigger.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said, glaring at him. “How many are there?”
“We don’t know. The—”
His head snapped to the left, and the right side of his face disappeared behind a spray of blood. The man slumped to the ground, his weapon clattering onto the street.
Brina’s body tensed and the adrenaline that had almost frozen her into inaction surged through her. Dropping to the ground, she shoved the body forward and used it to balance her rifle. Lying prone, she took aim at a TMF Marine firing from behind a row of empty concrete planters. The planters were taking the brunt of the incoming fire, and they wouldn’t hold much longer. That Marine was pinned. Brina eyed the scope and put her finger on the trigger. Applying steady pressure, she fired. The weapon kicked against her. A spray of rounds shot from the barrel and toward the pinned Marine. They drilled the planters; clouds of concrete plumed in the air, creating a dust cloud that obscured the target.
Brina swept either side of the dissipating gray haze and to the right saw a better target. She wasn’t sure at first glance, but the more she watched the potential target move along the edge of a building, she grew confident she knew who it was.
She settled into a new position and readjusted the rifle. The body shifted underneath the weight, but Brina made do and touched the trigger. She had a woman in her sights.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Li’s team had waited until Bravo and Charlie were in position. With the Tic’s radio in hand, they’d known where the enforcers were positioned. They’d converged at once, hitting the front edge of what was intended to be an ambush before they entered the valley.
There were only twelve against an unknown number of enforcers. However, with automatic weapons and the bouncing sounds of gunfire, Li figured they appeared to be a much bigger force than they were.
It had begun well. They’d knocked out the first positions on the first and second floors of the buildings at the eastern edge of the valley, and the twin snipers stationed on high ground at its effective entrance.
Then it quickly descended into chaos, and Li couldn’t tell any longer whether they had the upper hand. She’d trained in mock street fights before and had studied small-arms tactics. None of it prepared her for the mind-melting reality.
The volume of the gunfire was deafening. The speed with which the environment around her changed was disorienting. The cries of the injured and dying made her want to plug her ears and curl into the fetal position in a safe corner somewhere far away from this mayhem.
Li reminded herself this was part of the end goal. It had to happen, and she had to suck it up. With the rifle in her hands, and Bravo team advancing west, she crossed the street without engaging any hostiles. Now she was flat against a building, hidden in the shadows under a canopy. To her left, a cloud of gray bloomed larger from the incoming M27 fire.
Davis was pinned behind the cloud and a pair of battered concrete planters. The Marine was on his stomach, his head down. There was too much incoming fire for him to do anything but lie there under what little cover he had. Li considered whether he was expendable. Checking over her shoulder, she saw two Marines who hadn’t made it. They were dead in the street. That meant there were ten. Davis was critical, at least for now.
Li inched from the cover of the canopy and into the fading light of dusk. Her weapon drawn, she moved toward the street to offer cover fire. Much of it was from the second story of a building across the street and west of her position. There was also a pair of threats on the ground. One of them looked like he was using a body to balance his weapon.
Glancing back to Davis, Li caught his eye for a moment and nodded. He returned the acknowledgment and Li pivoted back to open fire. She wasn’t fast enough.
A spray of rounds zipped to her right, two of them nicking her. One bullet hit the outside of her thigh and the other at her hip. Li dove to her left and rolled behind a heavy metal barrel used for trash.
Another volley of shots pinged off and into the metal barrel. Now she was pinned and unable to identify the source of the fire. The pain swelled in her side and at her thigh. She checked the wounds and saw her black pants were soaked with glistening dark fluid, with tears at the edges of the fabric.
Li was certain they were flesh wounds and she’d escaped serious injury, but she was bleeding, and the stinging wounds were already throbbing.
Another round of adrenaline surged through her and she refocused. Whoever had her pinned would reload eventually. A volley of a half dozen shots peppered the barrel in front of her and the abandoned storefront behind her.
After a fourth round of automatic fire and a brief pause, Li took her chances. Staying low, she peered around the barrel. The Tic using the body for leverage was struggling to reload the weapon. This was her chance.
Li shot to her feet, leaning on her uninjured left leg, and leveled her weapon at the shooters on the second floor. Three of them were visible through the open windows.
Through the scope she targeted the first and pulled the trigger on her M27, sending a burst of rounds into him. He slumped against the window ledge. She shifted her aim to the right and fired again. A trio of bullets drilled into another, and he dropped from sight as she sent another stream of 5.56x45mm bullets into the third target. It was a longer pull and the spate of deadly projectiles riddled the man’s body, forcing him to convulse before sinking from view.
The impressive, and lucky, feat had taken seconds, and now she lowered her aim to the two Tics on the ground. The one who’d hit her twice was taking aim. The two of them locked eyes and, sensing she was too exposed, Li ducked behind the barrels.
As a torrent of shots rattled the barrel right in front of her, Li snuck a look toward the concrete planters. Stephen Davis wasn’t there anymore. Had he been hit before she could free him?
She scoured the streets as best she could from cover to find him. And then she did. He’d crossed the street to her side and was twenty feet behind her, unloading a flood of bullets, smoke rising from the muzzle of his weapon as he laid down cover fire for a trio of Marines advancing west.
The two Tics on the ground were surrounded now, but the advancing Marines weren’t concerned with them. They’d moved twenty yards beyond to attack another high-ground position and were entering a building. A second trio was already on the roof on the north side of the street, taking potshots at retreating Tics.
Li waited for another lull in the incoming fire and rose from behind her cover, weapon already in position. As soon as she’d cleared the top of the barrel, she applied even and constant pressure to the trigger. Her aim was off, and she missed her target, but she hit the man closer to the building. A cluster of shots peppered his side and slapped him against the wall before he stumbled and fell hard to the concrete.
Before his body had stopped falling, Li found her aim. Brazenly approaching the body-leveraging Tic shooter head-on, she unleashed a burst of fire, hitting the man in the shoulder and hand.
He screeched with a high-pitched cry that sounded feminine and dropped his weapon. Li marched toward the man, ignoring the pain in her leg and side. Stephen Davis met her at the wounded Tic’s position to cover her. A pair of Marines hustled past them, taking new positions closer
to the compound’s entrance. The battle was inching its way west.
Ears ringing, and not understanding the words coming from the wounded, squirming Tic’s mouth, Li crouched beside him. Li’s jaw dropped. Her gut tightened.
This wasn’t a man. It was Brina. Brina. The sadistic, waterboarding, nail-prying Brina.
Li’s nostrils flared with swelling rage. It was a rage she thought she’d abated by beating the living daylights out of the torturer inside the compound’s cell. But instead, it was back and more consuming than before.
“Do you know her?” asked Davis, glancing at her before returning his attention to their surroundings. His voice cut through the ringing in Li’s ears.
Brina’s body trembled. Rocking in pain, she held her mangled hand at the wrist, gripping it with white knuckles straining against her virtually translucent skin. Li recognized the woman was already descending into shock.
“I know her,” she said, standing up and straddling Brina’s twitching body, “and she knows me.”
Li pointed her rifle at Brina’s face. The enforcer, once a confident extractor of information, appeared more like a frightened little girl now. Raising her good hand and the chunk of gore that served as her other one to cover her face, she begged for mercy.
“Please,” she warbled. “Don’t. Please, Ada—”
“Don’t say my name,” Li hissed, pushing the barrel of the rifle into Brina’s wounded shoulder.
The enforcer wailed in pain and rolled onto her side. The cries softened to whimpers as she pled for her life. It was an unexpected weakness, as Li saw it. Why would she give Li the satisfaction?
“C’mon,” said Davis. “We don’t have time for this. We need to get to the compound. Our guys can’t do this on their own. They need our help.”
Davis touched Li’s shoulder, and she shot him a glare that had him pull back his hand as if she were about to bite it off. His brow furrowed with concern. His eyes flitted ahead toward his teams engaged west of their position. He looked at Li and shook his head with disappointment.
“Give me a second,” she said. “One second.”
Davis took a step toward the center of the street. “Fine,” he said, raising his weapon and pointing it west. “One second.”
With her boots planted on either side of the blubbering Brina, Li squatted over her. Brina was on her back, tears running down her temples, mixing with the beads of sweat.
Li grabbed the woman’s face with her hand and shook it as she spoke. Her voice was a growl. “Where’s Graham? Where is he?”
Brina, the woman who’d begged for her life seconds earlier, was defiant. Was it the realization that nothing she did or said would spare her life? Had the pain drained her will to fight? It didn’t matter.
The enforcer started laughing. She opened her eyes, reddened and swollen, reinforcing the husky cackle, and glared at Li.
Li stood and stepped over Brina’s legs. Aiming the rifle at one knee, she flipped the selector switch to semiautomatic and pulled the trigger. A single shot cracked, and Brina howled from the explosion of pain.
While she squirmed, Li pressed the barrel of her rifle against the side of Brina’s good knee.
“Where is Graham?” Li asked, seething.
Brina just continued to cackle. All sense of reason seemed to abandon her features. Li pulled the trigger again, leaving Brina’s legs a tangled mess of gore. Li stood there reloading her weapon while the enforcer bled out. Still, the woman laughed.
“Let’s go, Davis,” she said, picking up Brina’s weapon and slinging it over her left shoulder.
She and Davis headed toward the west, and she never looked back at her torturer. The eight Marines had already advanced another block, their handiwork littering the streets.
“That was brutal,” said Davis, pulling his rifle to his shoulder and beginning his march forward.
“Yeah,” Li agreed.
“You could have put her out of her misery. It would have been the humane thing to do.”
Li glared at him. “I could have.”
They moved west, crisscrossing the street to check for remaining hostiles. They didn’t find any. The eight men who’d preceded them were thorough.
“Who’s Graham?” asked Davis.
Li checked a dead Tic body with her boot. Pain shot up her wounded leg and caused her to wince.
“You don’t know Graham?” she said, jaw clenched. “I thought everybody in the TMF knew Graham.”
“Above my pay grade.”
“He’s the head of the Tic enforcers,” she said. “He’s the meanest son of a—”
An exchange of gunfire interrupted her, and the two scrambled toward a building. Finding a spot inside an open doorway, they stopped for a moment before advancing toward the rear pair of Marines, who were fifty yards from them.
“Sitrep?” Davis asked, putting his hand on the shoulder of one of the Marines. “Where are we, Marine?”
One of them motioned toward the small rectangular structure a block ahead. It was the target—the entrance to the compound. “Sir, two members of Charlie team are down—Eddins and Perkins. We’re the last two. Bravo and Alpha are up ahead. Alpha is about to breach the target. Bravo is providing cover. They’re awaiting your signal.”
The radio crackled on Li’s hip. She’d forgotten it was there thanks to the sting of her bullet wound. She plucked it from the clip and held it up, lowering the volume.
A hollow-sounding voice cut through the remnant static. “Brina, I think they’ve gotten through the ambush. None of the positions are reporting. Brina, do you copy? Over.”
Davis eyed the radio. “Answer him. He’ll think it’s that woman.”
Li held the radio close to her mouth. In the distance, a trio of Marines moved closer to the entrance to the compound. Three more held positions twenty yards back, rifles ready. Pressing the transmit key, she affected her best Brina impersonation, lowering her voice and speaking. “I copy,” said Li. “Where are you? Over.” She let go of the key.
“Is that Graham?” asked Davis.
“I think so,” said Li. “I don’t know who else it could be.”
“I’m in the compound,” the man on the radio answered. “What’s the situation out there? Are they close? Are we holding? We’re blind in here. Over.”
Li pressed the key again. “We’re holding,” she said. “How many do you have with you? Is everyone there? Over.”
One of the Marines outside the compound signaled to Davis, awaiting the go-ahead. Davis signaled to wait.
The radio crackled again. “Everyone is here. The last defense. We’re good to go. How many do they have? How many TMF? I’m not hearing gunfire. Over.”
Li looked to Davis before answering. “Should I tell him to come out, that we need his help out here? Or should I tell him everything is good? Keep them pinned in there?”
Davis rubbed his chin, considering the best option. It was quiet now, a giveaway that the battle was in hand. Even Brina’s sharp wailing laughter had stopped. Davis signaled to his men to breach the compound.
“Don’t tell him anything,” he said. “We’re going in.”
Li moved to put the radio back on her hip when the radio crackled with static and the voice returned. It was definitely Graham.
“Disregard last transmission. It doesn’t matter. You keep fighting. We’ll be ready if they try to get down here. What’s left of them anyhow. Ov—”
An explosion knocked Li from her feet, blowing her back against the wall. Her head slapped on the hard surface and stars filled her vision. The world fell silent as Davis’s weight landed on her injured hip. She cried out when the spark of pain shot through her body, but she couldn’t hear her own voice.
Dazed, but conscious, she gathered her wits and rolled onto her side. She touched the back of her head, felt a swelling knot there, and pushed herself to her feet. Relying on the wall for balance, she blinked into focus the carnage a block away. What had been the entrance to the compound
was a smoldering pile of burning debris, and so were the three TMF Marines who’d tried to breach it.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The explosion shook the ground under Zeke’s boots. He stopped running. “You feel that?” he asked Uriel. “What was that? It felt like an earthquake.”
“It wasn’t an earthquake,” said Uriel, gazing skyward. “It was an explosion.”
Beyond the buildings closest to them, only two blocks away, a fist of black smoke punched its way into the air and spread outward in a gray cloud caught in the breeze.
It had taken them only a few minutes to reach this point once they’d heard the beginnings of a firefight. It was loud, the staccato of automatic fire endless. Then it stopped. Zeke thought they’d been too late to help, or intervene, or attack—whatever was needed of them.
The explosion changed that. He led Uriel around a series of turns until they reached the dead-end street at the far corner of Tic territory. He entered south of what had been the entrance to the Tic compound where he believed Li might be. It was his last hope of finding her, and what he found instead was smoke, singed body parts, and flames.
Zeke’s throat tightened. Uriel stopped next to him, her chest heaving, her breathing heavy but under control.
They stood at the corner of a building south of ground zero. Its facade was crumbling. Debris was everywhere. Ash filtered through the air above them, landing on their clothes, heads, and Zeke’s hat. Uriel wiped flakes from her cheeks with the back of a hand.
“What is that?” she asked, motioning toward the epicenter with her chin.
Zeke’s vision blurred.
Uriel put a hand on his back and leaned into him. Her now familiar floral scent mixed with the acrid odor of burning wood, metal, plastic, flesh, bone, and hair. The combination was nauseating, and his stomach lurched.
“Zeke,” said Uriel, in a sympathetic tone that sounded alien, “what is that?”
“That was the compound,” he whispered, fending off tears. “If Li was there, she’s not anymore.”
