The troops opened the roof hatches and hot air rushed inside. She shoved in her earplugs as she scrambled to the nearest firing port. She turned the steel plug counterclockwise, then let it fall onto the seat. Bullets plinked against the fortified walls, then seconds later the sharp echo of her troops’ automatic gunfire drowned everything out.
She shoved the XM8 through the firing port and looked outside through its night vision scope. A dozen insurgents scattered across the courtyard like ants swarming around a disturbed nest. They sprayed the Cougar with their AKs, but they might as well have been using squirt guns. The rounds didn’t penetrate.
She aimed the XM8. A trickle of sweat rolled between her breasts and she itched underneath the bulky body armor. She slowly squeezed the trigger, then stopped before firing. She didn’t feel even the slightest tinge of fear that she, the predator, could become prey and without that sense of danger, she didn’t want to do it, not from the comfort of her air-conditioned Cougar. But she knew she couldn’t risk her men sensing even a hint of compassion because it would be all over for her-even if she did pay them eight hundred bucks a day.
With only a few seconds delay, she targeted and fired, retargeted and fired, dropping one bad guy at a time. It was almost fun. Hell, it was fun. And the world was a better place without them, she told herself as she dropped out the empty mag and snapped in a full one. Just then something caught her eye. An insurgent dropped onto one knee and pointed a long tube toward them.
She shoved the XM8’s barrel back through the port, acquired the target and fired. The shooter crumpled to the ground just as his weapon spat out a trail of flames and a small orange fireball.
“RPG!”
As she listened to the whistle of the incoming rocket-propelled grenade, she fired off a stray prayer to whatever god was listening and targeted rounds at the first tangos she could find. A clap of thunder rocked the vehicle. She steeled herself for a flash of heat, then searing pain.
She waited.
Nothing.
The tango must have aimed the RPG at Cougar’s belly since that was usually the most vulnerable point on a vehicle. The over-priced jitney actually lived up to Force Protection, Incorporated’s sales promises and deflected the explosion.
She searched for additional targets, but didn’t locate any. Bodies lay strewn across the courtyard and the house seemed lifeless, as if all the insurgents had dashed outside for action at the first sign of an assault. She lowered her weapon, careful to keep the hot muzzle from touching her leg, then shouted to NOONER. “Give me your best man to clear rooms. Use the others to secure the perimeter. I don’t want anyone coming in and joining us.”
“GENGHIS, you’re with us,” NOONER said, then gave orders to the others.
Camille pointed at Hunter. “You’re going in with me. I’m going to find out what Rubicon is always trying to beat us to. We’ll go in with a three-man stack. I’ll take point.”
“Three-man stack or three-man lift?” Hunter said as he got in position to quickly exit the vehicle.
The men laughed.
“Don’t you fuck with me.”
“Understood. Three-man stack, except I’ll be the number one man.”
“You think point’s too dangerous for a woman?”
“I’d rather have a chick’s gun pushing up against my backside than some ugly dude’s.” Hunter smiled, but this time the men seemed to know better than to even snicker.
“Okay,” Camille said and continued, “but only because I know better than to trust you behind my back.”
GENGHIS flashed a signal and they all burst from the Cougar, their weapons sweeping the compound.
At the entrance to the mud-brick structure, NOONER got into the breech position to kick the door down while the others formed a stack. Camille pushed up against Hunter’s back as tightly as she could. Her body armor disguised the feel of his body pressing against hers, but she caught a whiff of his earthy scent and bit her lip to distract herself.
GENGHIS stacked himself against her back and squeezed her thigh just below her ass, signaling he was ready. She did the same to Hunter, much lower down his leg than she normally would.
Hunter struggled to focus on the task at hand, but with Stella plastered against his backside, it wasn’t easy. Since he’d officially died two years ago, he’d dreamed of her spooning against him again every day. One wild fantasy even had them doing it, both jocked up in full combat gear, but not even in his worst nightmares was Stella sandwiched between him and another guy like they were at the moment. He already hated himself for what he had put her through and now she was more furious with him than ever. He would never forgive himself if he lost her.
He was afraid he already had.
Hunter felt Stella grab his leg and he flashed NOONER a hand signal. NOONER kicked in the door and they flooded inside. Hunter hugged the wall as best he could given the clutter and worked his way to the right corner of the room, sweeping his section. He knew that, only a second behind him, GENGHIS would buttonhole the door and neutralize any muj hiding behind it. As he moved to the back corner of the room, he saw a figure raise a weapon. He fired a burst, dropping the tango and continued on to his position in the corner.
Camille rounded the doorway and moved to the left. She pointed the XM8 toward the far left corner and fanned it toward the right corner.
“Surrender. Friend. Surrender.” A man moved near the center of the room, shouting in heavily accented English and waving his empty hands in the air.
She targeted, but saw no weapon and didn’t fire. Trusting that GENGHIS and NOONER were in place behind her, she rushed toward the insurgent. “Tango down! Moving!”
She smacked her boot against his ankle and swung the butt of her weapon into his back. He tumbled down face first. She pushed her boot into his back and pointed her weapon at him.
“Allahu akbar. Allahu akbar,” he said over and over. “Allah is great.”
Although Hunter already knew it was lifeless, he kicked the body of the insurgent he’d shot just to be sure before he worked his way over to Stella. A jumble of tables, chairs and assorted junk blocked his way. He bulldozed a trail.
He patted down the prisoner and found a small sidearm and took it. The man continued to pray loudly, moving his head with the beat of his words. “Is kut!” Hunter shouted to shut him up as he pulled out a zip-tie. He was tightening it around the tango’s wrists when Stella shined an infrared light into the man’s face.
Hunter froze.
He was trained not to forget faces and this one had been etched into his mind-in Afghanistan where the man had been posing as a Taliban. At the time Hunter had understood from some of the other operators that the guy was some kind of an undercover operative.
Hunter wasn’t sure who he worked for, but Hunter guessed the Other Government Agency-the CIA. He wasn’t going to blow the spook’s cover, not even with Stella, so he barked orders at him in Arabic and pulled him to his feet. The sound of gunfire in the courtyard had now slowed to only an occasional shot. In less than fifteen seconds after exiting the Cougar, the action was over.
Camille searched the room, moving quickly. GENGHIS walked behind her and muttered under his breath, just loud enough for her to hear. “Should’ve neutralized him. You’re going to get someone killed someday.”
She ignored him, turned the XM8 around and smashed its butt into a mirror. It shattered with a high-pitched ring and the shards fell. A stash of computer disks and papers were in a cavity in the wall behind it. She pulled them out and stuffed them into her cargo pockets. An oriental carpet hung on the wall and a kilim and pillows covered a sofa. She threw the pillows onto the floor and ripped away the tapestry, revealing a long wooden crate. The lid was not nailed shut, so she picked it up and moved it aside. Inside was a three-inch diameter tube, about a meter and a half long with Russian markings. Camille immediately recognized the SA-7, an old Soviet missile that could shoot down a low flying aircraft. Packed around it were slabs of plastic explosives and various types of detonators. She picked up several and looked them over. They had Chinese and Russian markings.