by S L Shelton
“Target on the move…the real target. Leaving the twenty-fifth floor now with a party of six.”
Storc and Mark had made their way to Panama after tracing the account hack back to Goughin’s assistant at the bank. They had spent that past few days tracking him, not realizing Goughin was the accountant. If they had managed to grab Jim Garfield, they would have discovered that on their own, but it would have also tipped off Goughin and netted them nothing.
“Tall Bird, describe the party of six,” Gaines said over the radio.
“Four stone cold killers, the assistant we thought was the target, and an old white…” he paused a second. “Holy shit, that’s Braun.”
Braun, I remembered. He’d been the central character in this conspiracy through every memory I had—few as they were. And I suddenly remembered one other detail; Braun had been responsible for the deaths of Gaines’s family.
“Stinger, I’m coming down to switch places with you,” Gaines said after a moment.
Stinger, Ensign Thompson, was to be the street distraction that triggered our assault. Gaines obviously wanted to be on the street now that he knew it would bring him closer to Braun.
“Negative, DJ. You’re fine in the pinch vehicle,” I said.
“I’m coming down, Stinger.”
“Just to make it clear, DJ, if you step out of that car, this mission is scrubbed and we’ll have to—”
“Channel three, Monkey Wrench,” he said, squelching over my broadcast.
I switched to channel three. “Don’t do it. I swear I’ll abort.”
“This changes the Op. We need Braun, too.”
“I agree. But that doesn’t change who’s doing the takedown. Seifert and I have this. If you go off script with this distraction, it’s not going to be clean.”
“Damn it, Monkey Wrench, put me on the street. A two-man takedown is going to take someone more capable at close quarters nonlethal than Stinger is. You’re going to have your hands full.”
I stretched my chin and neck, trying to suppress the agitation creeping up my back. “If I agree, you have to promise you understand it is a capture, not a kill. Braun is the goddamned goose that lays the golden eggs.”
“I got it. I wasn’t planning on killing him anyway.”
I knew what that meant. “Alive and able to answer questions.”
“I understand.”
I looked over at Seifert who shook his head.
“He has a point. No one else on this team is as competent at close range as Mark,” I said.
Seifert shrugged. “It’s your call.”
I took a deep breath and clicked the mic open. “Okay, DJ. I’ll call it out.”
“Roger.”
He got out of the car before I’d even switched channels. “Okay. Change of lineup. DJ is taking the street, Stinger you’re in the pinch vehicle. When they come into the zone, Piper and Doc, you need to wait until DJ gets Braun in the van, too.”
A flurry of acknowledgments broke across the radio.
“Tin Star, if they’re in two different vehicles, you’ll have to take two shots, lead vehicle first…can you manage that?”
“Roger that, Monkey Wrench,” Petty Officer Gregory said with his deep southern twang. “Won’t be no trouble ’tall.”
“Copy.”
“They’re to the lobby, three SUVs pulling up out front,” Storc said, then after a few seconds. “There are people in the lead and tailing SUV already.”
“How many, Tall Bird?”
“I can’t tell, the angle is wrong, but there are already people in two of those vehicles other than the drivers.”
“Shit,” I muttered.
We had picked the edge of the overpass as our strike area because the concrete on one side and the empty convention center on the other would virtually eliminate the possibility of collateral deaths. But with six guns plus an additional unknown number of guns in those SUVs, that zone was starting to look like a gauntlet that we’d have to run.
The better target zone would have been the intersection three blocks earlier; three-side coverage, narrow side streets were easier to block escape and a short hop to parking garages for vehicle switches. The only problem with attacking there was the number of busy shops on the ground level. The civilian casualties would be high if Combine’s men were up to a fight. So, we opted for site two. Now it looked like that might have been a mistake.
“Piper, you might be backing that rig into a hot LZ. Armor up.”
“Roger. Doubling up on the Kevlar.”
I turned and reached into our ammo bag in the back seat, pulling out extra magazines for Seifert’s and my SIG Sauers. I dropped three in his lap and he looked down.
“If this goes sideways, you need to disappear through that brush over there,” he said.
I shook my head. “If this goes sideways, we all need to dig deeper and turn it right side up. Goughin is our last hope of exposing this shit. If we don’t get him, we’ll never be able to show our faces on a traffic cam again.”
He nodded. “I get that. But seriously…the guys and I talked about it. If we can’t get this bean counter and his books to unlock our traitor status, we’re turning ourselves in and throwing ourselves at the mercy of the UCMJ.”
Shit. I didn’t need that kind of pressure. “While I’m sure you guys will survive a pass through the military justice system, I’m not sure the new regime will let it come to that.”
He nodded again. “Yeah. True. We talked about that possibility, too. We’re willing to take that chance.”
Not only was it unhelpful to try to convince Seifert not to turn himself over if this Op failed, it also made my chest tighten at the prospect of these guys getting executed behind some black site hangar and dumped in the ocean.
But if they had felt so helpless that they managed a secret meeting and voted on their combined fates, nothing I said now could reverse it.
“Okay. Then balls out for this, our last Op together.”
He put his fist up and I bumped it. “Balls out.”
“They’re pulling out of the hotel now,” Storc said in our ears. “Braun and the Accountant in the middle vehicle.”
“Roger that,” I replied. “You got that Tin Star? Our targets are both in the middle vehicle.”
“Copy, Monkey Wrench. I’ll be ready.”
“Okay, fellas,” I said into my mic. “We’re on.”
Seifert and I couldn’t see the three SUVs as they left the hotel. Tin Star would be the only one tracking them the whole route to our trap. We’d see them as they merged onto the street.
They came into view moments after Storc had given us his warning, turning onto Via Israel at the light. They moved fast after pulling through. I began to worry they’d have too much momentum to stop with our blocker vehicles.
It became a moot point a second later.
From the balcony of a high-rise condo, a streak of fire traveled down, striking the rear SUV. Simultaneously, a garbage truck sped out of one of the narrow connecting streets and slammed into the lead vehicle, pushing it into a concrete barrier at the edge of the highway exit ramp. Gunfire erupted before the tail vehicle crashed back to the ground.
Mark Gaines’s voice crackled over the radio, “What the shit?! We’ve got a third party engaged.”
“We should get over there,” Seifert said immediately.
“No. Hold your position,” I snapped. “Everyone hold their positions. They’ve pointed themselves coming into our trap. They have to come this way.”
“We don’t know that these new guys are going for a live capture!” Mark yelled into my ear.
“They took out the lead and tail vehicles. They were watching too. We’d be stepping into their cross fire.”
The battle raged behind us as we watched in the rearview. Another garbage truck zipped around the flames emanating from the first vehicle, and hit the middle SUV with an angled blow, flipping it to its side. Four men poured from the truck and ran toward the target vehicle, rifles raised.
“They’re not firing on the target,” Tin Star reported.
I looked up at the high-rise tower from where the rocket had originated. “Tin Star, is the rocket launcher still in that tower?”
“Indeed he is, Monkey Wrench, loading up another round. Want me to take him?”
“Hold.”
“Roger. Holding.”
The four attackers on the ground dropped handheld charges through the overturned vehicle’s windows. “That’s why they used the truck on the middle vehicle. They needed those armored windows out,” I muttered.
“Are those grenades?”
“I don’t think so,” I said just as three bright flashes and muted pops exploded inside. “Flash-bangs…they want a live capture, too.”
Gunfire erupted from the crushed lead vehicle. Two of the attackers fell to the street. Pinned down, the attacker who appeared to be in charge of the assault put his hand over his ear and looked up at the high-rise balcony.
I quickly debated our options. As I was about to order everyone to hold their positions again, I caught a flash of activity in the crushed lead SUV. The windshield crashed outward over the hood in one piece, as if kicked by a draft horse. From the front of the SUV, crawling through the opening from where the windshield had just fallen, was the enhanced killer I’d faced two months earlier—the one who had killed Kathrin.
A flood of memories from that encounter threatened to overwhelm my mind and just as a shadow of anger began to rise at her sight, the world went sideways—on an emotional level anyway. Inside the SUV, behind the ponytail killer, and spilling over the center console, a shock of thick, curly blonde hair rose from the back seat. I brought the binoculars up to my face and peered inside, my heart racing. Kathrin?
“No,” I muttered, my head suddenly dizzy, feeling as if I might pass out. “Impossible.”
“What?” Seifert asked.
I shifted my binoculars up to the balcony in the high-rise. There, a man with a rocket took careful aim at the lead vehicle.
“Tin Star, take out the rocket launcher, now,” I said without even thinking it.
As if my words alone were a weapon, I watched as the man with the rocket lost his arm and the upper half of his chest and shoulder. The rest of his body fell backward inside. A split second later, the report of Tin Star’s shot reached my ears.
On the street, two men pulled passengers out of the center, target vehicle and pushed them over the back edge of the SUV, providing cover from the fire that had erupted from the back window of the lead vehicle.
In less time than it took for the dark haired female enhanced assassin to fall from the hood to the ground after freeing herself from the wreck, the attackers tossed Braun and the Accountant into the rear bin of one of the garbage trucks. It lurched forward leaving the remaining attackers exposed.
I stepped out of the car, my body running on autopilot.
“Where are you going?” Seifert yelled at me.
“Hold!” I yelled at him and into my mic simultaneously.
My feet were running before I had willed them to—running toward the crushed lead SUV.
Seifert’s voice buzzed in my ear, “Where are you going, our target is in the garbage truck!”
The female killing machine on the street in front of me had brought her attention to bear on the garbage truck, firing into the window at the driver.
“Tin Star, take out that bitch with the ponytail,” I said, breathless as I ran toward the battle.
“Roger.”
As if she’d heard the command, she jumped up on the passenger side running board of the garbage truck, narrowly escaping the shot. She turned to me as the garbage truck carried her toward our trap, a cold grin forming on her face.
I aimed and fired from the great distance, emptying my magazine as she neared. When they passed, I saw blood splatter on the door. She glared at me with hate in her eyes, but still smiling as she clung to the truck.
I dropped the empty mag and slapped in a fresh one, firing behind me, ten more rounds into her legs and toward her head. As the garbage truck neared our pinch point, she fell off, rolling into a heap in the center of the street.
“Now, DJ!”
In a single smooth motion, the white pickup lurched over the median and slammed into the front of the trash truck. Piper backed into the street from between the convention center ticket gates and the gatehouse to block the path. The truck stopped immediately.
My guess would’ve been that the enhanced attacker had killed the driver before I got her. But I wasn’t thinking about that.
My feet pounded down the asphalt toward the crushed, first SUV. Though a raging battle exploded on the street in front of me, behind me, there were no shots fired by our team. All I heard were reports and updates in my ear.
“Braun and the Accountant in hand. Moving to secondary rally point,” Gaines said. “Monkey Wrench, where are you going?! We have them!”
I ignored the call as I neared the SUV. Inside, members of Braun’s security team fired through the back window at the mystery attackers. One of them turned and saw me approaching. Before his arm could pivot, I had him in my sights and fired, exploding his head on his partner.
Alerted to the new danger, his partner also turned. The slide on my weapon locked back after five shots and I ducked to the side behind the hood of the SUV as I dropped the empty magazine.
At the rear of the SUV, the shooting continued for a moment, but not in my direction. I looked over the edge of the empty windshield frame and saw something impossible.
“Kathrin,” I whispered then climbed in through the front.
As I dropped into the front seat, the last surviving shooter from Braun’s team turned but was cut down from outside. It may have been the mystery attackers who got him, but I was grateful, having no defense at my disposal short of throwing my empty pistol at him.
Her head tossed to the side as if she were in a fevered delirium.
“You aren’t gonna believe this,” came Tin Star’s voice in my ear. “But Monkey Wrench is with Gretel in the front seat of that truck.”
I pulled on her arm, trying to get her disentangled from the clear plastic sheet wrapped around her lower legs and torso. It took a moment to register that it had been an isolation tent. She’d been thrown from the cargo area in the back of the SUV when it had been struck by the garbage truck.
Why was she in an isolation tent?
I yanked harder at her arm. “Kathrin, come on sweetheart, kick that shit off your feet.”
I couldn’t tell if she heard me or not, but her feet started to move as if she were swimming. I pulled again. As I freed her legs from the tangle, still attached to the back cargo area, a grenade dropped in the seat beside me—it wasn’t a flash-bang.
I picked it up and chucked it through the back window. I heard it bounce on the asphalt once before it detonated, peppering the back of the SUV with shrapnel.
I pulled once more and then pulled backward with all my might through the opening where the windshield had been. Over the edge of the hood, I continued pulling her until she fell on top of me.
“Kathrin,” I said into her ear. “Wake up, babe.”
Boot clad feet appeared to my side, and I looked up as I reached for my holstered SIG. It turned out I didn’t need it.
The man fell—or rather the bottom three-quarters of him fell. Tin Star had taken his shot. The report sounded in my ears after the mangled corpse had fallen.
Behind us, the Toyota Seifert drove slid to a halt. He ran around as I lifted Kathrin, and we pushed her into the back seat. He jumped back in as I was about to close the door—but I stopped when I caught a glimpse of the tattoo on the mangled body beside us.
I slipped my phone from my pocket and thumbed the screen to the camera icon. It was an unusual tattoo; the outline of a bat with a ribbon of Cyrillic text, and what looked like a parachute behind it.
“Get in!” Seifert yelled.
I snapped the picture t
hen jumped in. We were moving before I had the door closed.
“How the fuck is she alive?!” Seifert asked.
I reloaded my pistol and peered out the back window as another vehicle rushed around the burning wreckage of the rear SUV. It burst through the flames and sped toward us.
I clicked my mic open. “Tin Star, take the engine out on that sedan behind us.”
“Roger.”
The round ripped through the front of the approaching sedan. The pressure released from inside the engine exploded the hood backward over the windshield and jerked the car sharply to the side.
“Monkey Wrench, this is Tin Star. Route is secure.”
I paused, drinking in her miraculous appearance for a second longer then clicked my mic open. “Roger. Dust off, everyone. Secondary rally point.”
After an orderly roll of acknowledgments across my earbud, Seifert looked back. “Who the hell were those guys?”
“I don’t know, but they weren’t playing.”
Behind us, the ponytailed woman in the street twitched. I suddenly had the urge to call Tin Star back to his perch and finish her off. “Tin Star, are you on the move?”
“Roger that. Halfway to the street. Need somethin’?”
I clinched my jaw, torn.
Seifert looked in the rearview. “She’s not going anywhere fast.”
I shook my head. “Negative, Tin Star. See you at the RP.”
“Roger. Drive safe, y’all.”
After making sure no one else followed, I poured myself over the seat into the back, cradling Kathrin and checking her for wounds.
“Is she alright?” Seifert asked.
My hands searched for telltale wetness or red splatter. Brushing away a spot of red on her back, I found nothing but smooth skin. I breathed out in relief—it had been someone else’s blood.
“Kathrin, sweetie. You’re alright now. I have you.”
Her skin was hot to the touch. But all other concerns aside, she was alive, with me in the back of a car about to be free.
My mind raced, trying to piece together any possible scenario as to how she was alive. My damned spotty memory fought me, refusing to give me enough information to figure out the puzzle.
She opened her eyes, briefly, before they rolled closed again, and she muttered, “Tris. Where’s Tris.”
