Текст книги "The Warrior"

Автор книги: Ty Patterson

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Chapter 8

He meets Bear and his partner the next day and outlines the circumstances to them. They agree about the need for close protection; they’ve been doing this for several years and can read a situation well.

Cassandra is furious when she learns about Zeb’s plans for Bear and his partner to protect her, shadow her, for an indefinite length of time. Zeb is vague about the reasons for their presence.

‘What is the worst that will happen to me?’ she shouts. ‘Someone will come and do me harm? So what? I am not prepared to be followed by a gorilla and his mate and have them cramp my life.’

Zeb ignores her.

‘Zeb, don’t stonewall me. I will not have them around. After living in a bloodthirsty city like D.C., do you think your enemies scare me?’

Zeb doesn’t doubt that bit. Cassandra has faced down muggers, survived bar fights, and talked down a gun-wielding hostage-taker, all courtesy of living in D.C. But all that cannot be compared to the ruthlessness that Holt brings to the table. Zeb isn’t taking any chances. He continues to ignore her, and she finally stomps out and slams her bedroom door behind her.

Bear coughs politely. ‘Gee, that went well. Do you think she’s gonna be difficult?’

‘Nope, she’ll be fine by tomorrow. By the way, she doesn’t know that you’ve already been shadowing her for weeks…so it might be best if you kept that to yourselves.’

He shows them around the apartment and his arms cache. He’d built a hidden compartment by knocking out a section of the wall, covering the inside of it with soft velvet and rebuilding a hinged door on it that looks exactly like the wall. It can be opened only by specific pressure on three pressure points in a particular sequence. Cassandra doesn’t know it’s there. Zeb has several of these scattered around the city, complete with new identities and bundles of cash.

Bear whistles when he sees the Glock 19, Smith and Wesson .357 SIG, a Steyr S40-A1, a Heckler and Koch HK416, CS Gas, stacks of ammunition, hunting knives and even some flashbangs and sting grenades.

‘Enough to start a war,’ he grunts.

‘Or survive one,’ Chloe replies.

‘We have our own kit, but it’s good to know that this is around,’ Bear continues. ‘We’ve cased the building and the neighborhood in the last few weeks, and we’re good to go from tonight.’

Zeb briefs them on the neighbors, the doorman, and various routines in the building, and works out call codes with them.

As he prepares to leave, Rory rushes in. He comes to an abrupt halt and gapes at Bear. Bear is huge, towers over Zeb by a foot, is built like a fortress, and sports a full beard; Chloe is just the opposite, petite and svelte.

Bear returns his stare and then winks slowly at Rory. He holds out a hand and introduces himself, ‘You must be Rory. For some strange reason I’ve never been able to understand, all my friends call me Bear.’ A twitch of a smile. ‘This is my partner, Chloe. We’ll be staying at your Aunt Cassandra’s place for a few weeks.’

Rory giggles in spite of himself and looks at Zeb.

‘Cass needs some help, and Bear and Chloe pitched in. They’re good friends of mine. Bear is a better pitcher than I am, by the way, and knows more about baseball than anyone else I know.’

That swings it for Rory, and he rushes out to tell his mother. Zeb looks at Bear and Chloe. ‘Let me introduce you to the rest of them.’

He brings them next door and introduces them to Lauren. Lauren’s eyes are full of questions, but Zeb says he’ll explain later when Connor is home. He leaves Bear and Chloe to sort things out with Lauren, and then later, with Cassandra.

He walks back to the subway; flowing through the anonymous passengers calms him and helps him think. He knows what he’s doing: using himself as bait to draw in and apply pressure to Holt. He knows Holt is in the city. He doesn’t know how he knows, but the knowledge is there. He has always had that tingling awareness when his prey is nearby. He tried explaining this to psychologists when he was in the Special Forces, but they didn’t get it. Since then, he hasn’t told anyone else about it, though he thinks Broker and Bear might have sensed it in him. They are two with whom he has come closest to lowering his guard.

He checks his phone and sees a message from Broker.

‘Jackpot,’ he shouts when Zeb calls him. ‘I got the mother of the fucker! Her name is Pamela Whitlock; her address is in Williamstown – about an hour and a half away from Jackson. She married again and changed her name to Whitlock. No kids and she willed the family home in Jackson to Holt. That’s how I got her.’ All coming in a rush from Broker as he enjoys his high.

‘Her second husband passed away a few years back. No known income right now, except a state pension. I guess her husband left her a decent pile to live off.

‘You want to check her house out? I know you want to, and this time I’m coming along with you,’ Broker says.

‘Don’t get involved. This has nothing to do with you.’

‘Bubba, we’ve had this discussion before. I got involved the day I met you. It’s not as if I haven’t been in the field ever since I started dealing in information.’

Zeb is aware of this.

Broker has been on a few missions with other military contractors, though he picks and chooses his missions. If he has to choose a partner, Broker will be his first choice, rock steady under fire, cool head, and a first-rate sniper. For an analyst, Broker has a knack for using a long gun.

He could do with a second pair of eyes, but doesn’t want to involve anyone else in this. As it is, there are too many non-principals involved.

‘Bubba, I know what you’re thinking, but there’s no way you’re going to Williamstown alone. I am coming along with you.’

Silence on the line, then Broker continues, ‘I’ll outfit a vehicle tomorrow, and we can go. Right now all we want to do is check the place out and see if we can pick up any sign of Holt there.’

Zeb looks out the window. If Holt is staying with his mother, then that could be a complication. Zeb has never strayed from his rule of not involving non-principals.

He also wonders if Mendes and Jones are with Holt. He thinks it’s a strong possibility. The six of them were working together a long time, and the events in the DRC would only bind them closer together. Holt still remains his priority, since he was the ringleader, and once he finds Holt, he can turn his attention to the others.

Broker drives up in an anonymous Honda Civic with New Jersey plates the next day. Zeb inspects the car and sees that he has kitted it out with a parabolic mike, infrared binoculars, a fiber-optic camera and recorder, and a thermal imager.

‘I love technology,’ he says defensively when Zeb looks across at him. ‘Besides, these will be useful.’

‘Is this your car?’ Zeb asks.

‘One of them. You know I have a car rental agency, which is a front for my cars. It’s easier and offers anonymity as well as control.’

Zeb thinks for a moment. ‘Let’s go back to the rental agency and change the rental name to mine. I also want your agent to have a good look at me.’

Broker looks at Zeb as if he just sang ‘I’m a Little Teapot’ while wearing a pink tutu and Spock ears.

Zeb looks back at him.

Broker snaps his fingers. ‘Gotcha. If Holt trails back, you want him to know it’s you.’

Zeb nods. ‘That’s why I don’t want you involved. This has nothing to do with you.’

Broker snorts. ‘Let’s get going. Enough wasting time on this. And don’t bring this up again.’

They drive to the rental agency, where Zeb walks in and changes the rental name and hangs around aimlessly, checking out the flyers on the walls, making sure he is visible to the CCTV cameras mounted inside the agency.

They drive off once they’re done, with Broker at the wheel. ‘So how do you want to play this?’ he asks. ‘We can just do a few passes by the house, we can stay till dark and break in, or we can mount long-term surveillance with a few others…there are many ways.

‘And what will you do once you find Holt?’ he pushes on before Zeb can reply. ‘For all your badass rep, you were never the cold-blooded execution type.’

‘Are you done?’

‘Just.’

‘We are not going to do anything you’ve suggested. We’re parking right opposite her house to sit for a few hours.’

‘I figured you were going to say something like that. Do you know what a spoilsport you are, Zeb? All these gadgets…when am I going to get to use them?

‘And what will you do once you find him? What if you come across him in the subway? You can’t take him to the Feds because they told you to back off. They might, in fact, go after you. If the cops get him, they’ll just hand him over to them. Other than the execution option, I don’t see a Plan B or a Plan C.’

‘I’ll be handing him over to the DRC’s Embassy.’

Broker sits in stunned silence for a beat, then laughs long and loud – right into New Jersey.

Chapter 9

They reach Williamstown close to noon. A small town with barely twenty thousand people, a town that can be driven through in an hour and forgotten in less than that. A town for retirees and those who want to escape the rapidity of large cities.

They find Pamela Whitlock’s home without much difficulty and make a few passes in front of it. The house is set back from the street and is surrounded by foliage. Broker has the house blueprints, so they look them over – it’s a six bedroom with front and back gardens. The gardens are surrounded by tall trees and have an exit to the side. Broker has activated the body-heat detector in his Civic, and it comes up empty. No one in the house…or nothing the machine can detect.

A B&E in a residential area such as this is always high risk. Neighbors know each other, strangers stand out, and residents gossip – not to mention the Block or Neighborhood Watches. Whitlock’s house has the saving graces of being set back a distance and surrounded by dense foliage. The streetlights are covered with grime, their illumination poor. Though Zeb has no intention of breaking in, force of habit makes him automatically seek out entry and exit points.

They park on the street, just to the left, still visible to anyone inside the house. Zeb makes himself conspicuous by getting out of the car, staring long and hard at the house, then walking past the place a few times, making a show of taking notes and photos as he observes the structure.

‘The house looks empty, feels empty, and the machine says it’s empty. You’re just hoping that the neighbors spot you and get the word to his mother and from her lips to Holt’s ear. All this dicking around…Zeb, I thought you were a man of action,’ grumbles Broker as he settles in the car and prepares to snooze.

Zeb spends a couple of hours on the street. In that time a neighbor comes back from shopping, the kids piling into the house with the parents following, staring curiously at Zeb. A patrol car passes him, slowly, once and then twice, but does not stop. A few other cars pass by, all with New Jersey plates.

They leave in the late afternoon, Broker driving, all the while grumbling about the waste of time.

‘Happy? Now that you’ve made yourself a target, painted yourself bright orange?’ asks Broker as they reenter New York.

‘There isn’t any other way,’ says Zeb, ‘if I want him to come to me.’

Broker throws up his hands in frustration. ‘I’ll keep plugging away at my databases, on my network, and also keep at it on Hardinger. If anything turns up, I’ll let you know. Do you want me to check into Mendes and Jones?’

Zeb shakes his head.

Broker leaves Zeb at Jackson Heights, a few blocks away from his apartment. Zeb uses the walk to run through what he has so far and to plan his next move.

He has two choices at this stage – keep hunting for Holt’s whereabouts, which might be a long, drawn-out process during which Holt could escape from the country, or draw Holt out by being provocative. Zeb being Zeb, has taken the provocative option by hanging around his mother’s house, without being directly aggressive, below the cops’ and the FBI’s radar. There is no guarantee that his actions will work nor that Broker’s digging might find Holt, but Zeb has to run with what he has, and his hunting instincts tell him that Holt will come after him.

It’s what he would have done, had he been in Holt’s position.

He goes to his apartment and takes out his carryall, which has all his weapons – a Glock 17, a Beretta 92A1, a HK416 as well as a Heckler and Koch G28, a Benchmade spring-loaded Entourage knife, some flashbangs, his cable camera – and makes a lightweight pack of his clothes. He will be living in rundown seedy hotels, where there’s no one to note his comings and goings, till this blows over. He takes out a map and works out a grid of blocks between 58th and 25th Street. Broker had hired the Civic within that grid, and it will give Holt a starting point for locating Zeb.

He walks into a hotel near 58th Street on the West Side and checks in. The porter does not look up from the football game playing on his TV as he wordlessly takes Zeb’s money and hands over a key. The room is surprisingly clean and well organized, with a small, well-maintained bathroom and a tiny window overlooking the street. He freshens up and explores the hotel thoroughly, noting the fire escape next to his window, the rear exit, the lighting along the corridors, and the single camera facing the entrance.

He walks around the block and familiarizes himself with its layout.

He then walks to that perennially populous place in New York City, Times Square, and hangs out, watching the ebb and flow of people, the pulse of the city throbbing.

The next day he hires the same Civic from the same agency, drives out to Williamstown, and repeats his observation of Holt’s mother’s home.

He notices the neighbor’s curtain twitching when he has spent an hour there, but the thermal imager is quiet.

He leaves after another hour. On returning to the city, he checks out of the hotel and finds another anonymous one a few streets south.

He walks the streets of the city the next few days, and it is on the fourth day that violence finds him.

*   *   *

He’s walking along East 36th Street late at night, not many pedestrians around, barring the lone cab cruising the street and the occasional insomniac dog walker. He hears a scuffle ahead and slows down further, checking out the street ahead and behind him. Nothing. Empty.

He moves cautiously to the mouth of the alley from which the sounds come.

Sniffen Court is one of the few alleys in lower Manhattan. It was built in the mid-nineteenth century for stables, which were later converted to housing. The far end of the alley is a dead end, with a brick wall punctuating it like a period. Adorning the brick wall are plaques of Greek horsemen. The alley is lined with genteel townhouses, where time moves just a little slower than the rest of the city.

Normally the alley is fenced off by a metal gate, but tonight the gate is wide open, and Zeb can see three black men holding a black man and white woman at gun and knife point.

All five of them are in the shadow of a house lower down the alley, and the houses either seem to be empty, or the inhabitants are unable to hear the scuffling. Zeb is wearing dark clothes and is a shadow amongst the many shadows on East 36th. He watches the scuffling a long time and also the alley behind them for signs of a trap. He doesn’t detect any. One of the attackers is holding the black man at knife point, the knife pricking his neck; the other two are grappling with the woman, covering her face so she can’t make any sound. A mugging seems to have turned into attempted rape.

Zeb steps inside the alley with his back to a wall and moves within visible sighting distance of the five. The woman sees him, and her eyes go wide, and her struggling draws the attention of the attackers.

‘Beat it, nigga,’ one of them mutters. ‘This is a private party.’

Zeb steps forward. Three to one, not the best odds, but usually if the ringleader is taken out, the others run. Been proven since the days of kings.

One of the black men swings away from the woman and advances towards Zeb, his gun glinting in the shadowed light. ‘Last chance, asshole, mind your own business and you get to live.’

Not the leader, a minion; still, taking the minion out would whittle them down to two.

He takes a step back, closer to the wall, to put distance between him and the rest, and the attacker follows, his finger on the trigger, slack. Zeb can see the black bore swing toward him and takes another step back toward the wall. If the gun fires, it will either hit him or the wall. Acceptable.

The black man steps forward, grinning at seeing Zeb cornered against the wall.

The hand of a good martial arts practitioner can move at about forty-six feet per second. Martial artists have to be slowed down or the movie camera speeded up to capture their action sequence for a movie and played back at twenty-four frames a second, or else all that the audience will see is a blur.

At forty-six feet per second, the martial artist delivers nearly forty-six joules of energy in an overhand strike. The energy needed to break the ribs of an average person is thirty joules. Much less is needed to break a wrist.

The black man doesn’t see Zeb’s left hand move. All he feels is a massive block of concrete striking his wrist, and the gun falls and skitters away. His brain takes a few seconds to process that his wrist has been broken, and then intense pain strikes him. A strike to the ribs and he collapses.

The black man holding the woman looks at them for a moment; she sees her chance and screams loudly for help. Despite her terror, her eyes are riveted on Zeb. She thinks he’ll be shot, but the next moment the black man has fallen to the ground, Zeb standing tall over him, his eyes dark, empty, staring into hers.

He glides to the one holding her boyfriend; a strike to the neck and a wrist lock and he is on the ground.

The black man who was holding her stumbles to his feet and flees, and she sees that her rescuer makes no attempt to stop him. In fact, he takes a step back and lets the remaining two black men get up and stumble away too.

He asks them, ‘I can catch them. Do you want to call the cops?’

‘We were just strolling; these guys were hiding in this alley and sprang on us. They took our money, our cards and were looking to take my jewelry when you came in.’ Fear and adrenaline push the words out from her.

By now the alley has come alive; several doors have opened, the residents emerging from their cocoons. One of them has called the cops, and they can hear the sirens in the distance. The residents surround the couple, and a bubble of excited chatter envelops them. The woman looks up after a few moments to point out Zeb to the residents and thank him, but he’s gone. She goes to the mouth of the alley and looks around the street, but all she can see is shadows and deep darkness.

The cops do a perfunctory round of questioning, but in the absence of the attackers and the rescuer, there isn’t much more they can do.

Silence descends as the residents disappear into their homes and the cops take the couple away. Zeb emerges from a recessed doorway down East 36th and walks away into the dark. Broker calls it his Batman syndrome, with a difference: Batman hunted trouble. Trouble hunts Zeb.

Chapter 10

Zeb has nearly forgotten that he has agreed to join Connor’s party to attend Hardinger’s fundraiser. Rory’s excited message on his phone reminds him. He checks out of his hotel, finds another one equally anonymous in the square of blocks, checks in, and then proceeds to Cassandra’s apartment.

Zeb has had to rent a tux for the occasion. At Connor’s place, he finds everyone gathered awaiting him, except for Cassandra. She has gone ahead with the Director. She has let Bear and Chloe go, since the Director has her own security detail around her.

Anne lets out a whistle when she sees Zeb. ‘My, my, Major. Don’t you clean up nice!’

Rory giggles.

‘Enough of that, children,’ Connor says as he pushes them toward the door.

They take two cabs, with Zeb sharing with Anne and her boyfriend to the $1000-a-plate charity fundraiser in downtown Manhattan.

Security is tight and professional, as it has to be with several celebrities and national politicians present. Zeb separates from his main group and hugs a wall, observing the events and the people.

Hardinger is easy to spot since he’s hosting the event and is never far from center stage. Tall, handsome, tanned, white teeth smiling and a full head of hair: he has all the physical attributes of a successful politician. Zeb has gone through his backstory and knows that he was a marine once and has seen combat.

Hardinger has security posted discreetly around the hall. He’s probably hired special event security for the evening. Some of the security detail carry the veteran look, but none of them are from the dossier Broker gave him.

He scans the guests, doesn’t recognize most of them, which doesn’t surprise him. He has only a casual interest in politics and the Hollywood scene.

He sees Cassandra and the Director seated together; she seems to feel his look, turns around, spots him, and sends a brief smile his way. She gestures that she wants to talk to him afterward. Connor, Lauren, Anne, and her boyfriend are seated together. They’ve left Rory with a babysitter.

Hardinger is a consummate host, engaging with the audience easily, using a brand of self-deprecating humor to pepper the evening’s festivities.

Connor signals for him to join them at the dinner table once the serious business is done. ‘How are you finding it, Major?’

‘It’s my first event of this kind, so I have no benchmark.’

‘Zeb never has any benchmark in any case. He doesn’t compare. He treats everything as a solitary incident,’ interjects a voice behind them.

Broker.

Zeb makes the introductions and asks him, ‘I thought Internet forums were your hangout?’

‘And I thought the martial arts schools were yours.’

‘So how do the two of you know each other?’ asks Anne.

‘We bumped into each other in Somalia. I was an intelligence analyst, and Zeb, well, Zeb was just drifting,’ replies Broker with a broad smile.

‘I have to say I find this event very polished and sophisticated. But then I would expect nothing less given Hardinger’s standing. It’s easy to see how he has become one of the foremost politicians in the country,’ Connor says, bringing the topic back to the evening.

‘You seem to admire him, bro…better be careful. You might end up dropping your story on his company.’ Anne laughs.

‘No fear of that. I admire his smoothness, but the story is still alive and heating up. I have some interesting emails from him to his staff in Africa about working conditions and acquiring new mines. Nothing that implicates him directly yet, but one could read a lot between the lines if one chose to do so. The emails are now with my legal department to determine if we can go with the story. But I’m also hoping to get further info from my sources, so fingers crossed.’

‘Talking about me?’ a rich baritone booms behind them, and Hardinger appears, clapping a hand on Connor’s shoulder.

‘How are you, Connor? Having a good time? Who are your friends?’ he asks, flashing a super-white grin at all of them.

‘Good show here, Senator. No wonder the party has so much faith in you when it comes to fundraising,’ replies Connor, introducing the rest of his party.

‘Major, huh? Landlubber! I guess someone has to do that job. I mean, carrying our bags while we did the fighting.’ The Senator smiles at Zeb to take the sting out of his words.

Hardinger guides them, without appearing to do so, to the gallery at the far end. One end of the gallery has photographs of the Senator with the President, the Speaker of the House, various international leaders, news clippings…the tough life of a politician. At the opposite end are photographs of him during his marine days and his medals.

Anne murmurs, ‘Nice touch. One end he’s doing good for the country; the other end he’s fighting for it.’

Zeb has to agree. Hardinger with his sniper rifle, posing in various countries of the world, is made for marine recruitment posters.

‘So, Connor, how did your Africa trip go?’ asks the Senator.

‘It was good, got good background for the series I’m working on.’

‘The exposé of the mining industry there? Their working practices and their use of labor?’

‘You know very well what I’m working on. Doesn’t Alchemy have some mines in the Congo?’

‘Yes, and if you’re implying that Alchemy is perpetrating any wrongdoing, I’ll tell you now that I have no idea what their practices are. I’m no longer running it, but I ran a clean ship when I was there.’

‘Time will tell.’

The Senator stands in front of his marine sniper photographs. ‘You know, Connor, one of the reasons I loved being a sniper was that collateral damage is minimal. But there is always collateral damage in any profession, and a responsible person should take steps to minimize it.

‘Don’t you agree, Major?’ he adds, turning to Zeb.

‘I was just the bag handler back in the day, Senator. What do I know of these big terms?’ Zeb replies. He’s eyeing the Purple Heart, the Silver Star, and various sniper-award citations on display.

‘You any good with a long gun, Major?’ asks Hardinger.

‘Yup, at using them as a crutch.’

Hardinger gives a short bark of laughter. ‘I sense hidden depths in you, Major. I can easily find your service record if I want to.’

‘If you find anything of interest, let me know. Maybe we can swap secrets.’

Hardinger smiles. ‘Have a good time, folks. I have to get back to urging people to open their wallets.’ He walks away.

Connor watches him. ‘I would love to bring him down.’

‘What if you aren’t able to dig up any dirt on Hardinger? Will you can the story?’ Lauren asks.

‘Nope. The story goes ahead whatever happens. After all, it is about the mining practices of Western-owned mines.’

‘That’s good,’ says Lauren with relief. ‘I thought you were losing your objectivity on this story.’

‘Won’t happen. I’m after my Pulitzer.’ He chuckles. ‘Come on. Let’s see what’s in store for the rest of the evening.’

He shepherds all of them back to their seats. Anne glances back and sees Broker lost in thought in front of the Senator’s medals.

*   *   *

It was hot in Mogadishu, almost ninety degrees, the dry weather sucking all moisture from the body. Broker was attached to a Rangers patrol and had been in the city for a few months. They were there to capture General Aidid, who was becoming a major nuisance to peace and the UN-recognized government of Somalia. This was a war sanctioned by the UN, but had been severely hampered by the poor quality of intelligence generated by the US forces.

Broker had been deployed to the Rangers unit to change that. He had been there a couple of months, and they had already lost a couple of Rangers to Somalian snipers.

That day they were driving in an armored Jeep along the dusty lanes of Mogadishu. Broker had been the last to board the Jeep and was seated closest to the rear, five others in front of him. He had been ribbed a lot for that, the usual ribbing that intel guys got from field soldiers.

They rocketed down a dusty road, buildings alongside them. Broker had noticed a green and white hotel, a two-story basic building that they were just passing. The far end of the hotel opened into a crossroad. There weren’t any pedestrians in the heat. The burnt-out shell of a car in front of the hotel was the sole occupant.

In Mogadishu, dusty, slumbering streets were the battlefields.

A Somali attired in plain clothes, his face covered by a red towel, stepped from behind the car wreck, holding an RPG launcher in his hand. Broker gaped in disbelief. One second the street was empty, peaceful, the next second there’s this Somali standing there with dust motes swirling around him and death in his hands.

The Jeep braked suddenly, the Ranger Sergeant shouting, ‘Cover. Cover. Rocket.’

Broker scrambled off the back, stumbling, recovering himself, and ran toward the wall of the hotel, a recessed doorway, whatever cover he could find, even as he heard the distinctive thump of the launcher. A moment later the Jeep lifted off and was flung against the hotel walls. A blast of heat hit him, followed by the Jeep pinning him, its sidewall and roof lying across his waist and legs.

Broker blacked out for a minute, and when he came to, he saw that the Ranger driver of the Jeep had taken the blast full-on, his remains lying on the road. As soon as launcher guy had fired, he was joined by several Somalis who had laid down more fire on the Americans behind the burning Jeep.

His eyesight blurred and hazy with sweat, Broker scrambled for his rifle, which was lying a few feet away, but his body wouldn’t move an inch. He didn’t know how badly he was crushed; his body was pumping adrenaline in massive doses, keeping the pain at bay.

He turned his head slowly toward the Rangers and saw three of them still alive, the Sergeant barking furiously in his radio and the two others returning fire. All of them damaged but alive. Farther away lay the body of the fourth Ranger, who wouldn’t be returning fire, or anything else, anymore.

Broker stretched for his rifle, his fingers scraping in the dirt, blood roaring in his ears. Dimly he heard the Sergeant screaming, ‘Cover. Cover,’ and turned to see launcher guy raising the barrel of the launcher toward them as the other Somalis raised a heavy cover fire.

Launcher guy’s head disappeared in a pink mist. Broker thought one of the Rangers got him, and then he heard another flat crack, and another Somali head disappeared. Broker turned his head, thinking the cavalry had arrived, but couldn’t see anyone. The dusty street was empty save for heat waves.

Evenly spaced shots, no hurry, a professional, thought Broker dimly, as the flat cracks continued and the Somalis fell. The shooting stopped as the last Somali dropped. Silence filled the street, nothing moved, and then a tall silhouette emerged through the dust waves and stood over Broker.

Silently, he bent down and pushed at the carcass of the Jeep. The remaining Rangers rushed to help him, and they freed Broker.