Bang. A bullet had struck the armor plating in his suit and ricocheted off, but the impact would give him a terrible bruise.
He wailed and nearly fell out of the chair.
She turned her scorching gaze on him. “Get on that computer and get me what I want! I will kill you!”
He scrambled forward and began typing on the wireless key panel. He slid off a glove for fingerprint authentication, received it, issued a voice command, was identified, then, finally, gained access.
“Oh, no,” Riggs was saying as she whirled to find six fully suited Spetsnaz troops standing behind her. She faced forward, where two Chinese troops were doing likewise.
Schleck was screaming, as was Voeckler.
And Brent watched it all happen in his HUD as Juma’s driver raced toward the Silver Tower.
The woman Brent remembered as looking so ravishing the night they had gone to the Tour de France party did the only thing she could do.
She opened fire on the Chinese guys, then spun back and fired on the Russians.
She didn’t last long. Of the dozens of rounds fired at her, only a few needed to find the seams in her armor. She shouted, “I’m sorry, Ghost Lead. I tried my best.”
And then her avatar flashed red and the camera image from her helmet showed the wall. She lay there, unmoving.
The voices came: We’ve lost Riggs! We’ve lost Riggs! The reports swirled in Brent’s head and never took hold, all of them unreal for just a moment and then finally, inevitably, they registered as a cold shock to the system.
Suddenly, Riggs’s helmet camera swiveled to an image of another man, now wearing a helmet of his own; it was Haussler. He was staying a while after all. He muttered something in Russian to a man behind him, then dropped Riggs’s head with a thump. The camera shook.
With a finger gesture, Brent closed the window, took a deep breath, and tried to calm himself, his gloved hands balling repeatedly into fists.
That opportunity lasted all of two seconds before the whomping of a Cheetah sounded from behind them, and before Brent could scream his warning, a rocket detonated not three meters behind the SUV, causing the driver to lose control, smash into the retaining wall, rebound, then hit the opposite wall, even as cannon fire stitched a line through the top of the SUV.
A round struck the driver and blood splattered over Brent’s visor as he hollered for everyone to bail out.
The SUV had slowed to about twenty miles per hour when he hit the concrete, dropped, rolled, and came up with his rifle.
Lakota was beside him, as was Juma, who took a hard fall but assured them he was okay. The militiaman with the Javelin launcher jogged off, found a position to his liking, then lifted his weapon to the sky. He shouted something drowned out by the din of motors, and then the entire highway turned pure white as the missile streaked away.
Brent craned his head to follow the Javelin’s trajectory. The bird homed in on the chopper, but this time the Cheetah’s pilot launched electronic countermeasures — white-hot chaff that bloomed like a cloud of metallic confetti. The missile punched into the chaff and streaked on by, losing its lock on the chopper and then flying skyward for a second or two more before heaving into a thundering explosion.
“Come on, let’s go!” Brent cried, waving them down the road as the chopper banked at a steep angle, then turned its guns northward and opened fire a few blocks down from the tower.
More flashes came from behind the skyscrapers, and the thought of Juma’s men being mowed down by the Euros made Brent’s skin crawl.
He and the others were only a quarter kilometer from the ample cover of the high-rises, and they ran hard and fast but dropped Juma quickly. The fat man could not keep up, and Lakota went back to urge him on while Brent and the Javelin guy hit the wall of the nearest skyscraper, the Goldcrest Executive Tower, which stood just beside the Almas.
Shifting furtively and almost not wanting to do so, Brent reached the corner of the building and stole a glance.
The BTR was sitting there like a pit bull on all fours, big guns lowered and pointed directly at him. Two dismounts hunkered down on either side of the vehicle, while the driver sat forward, his hatch open.
Yes, the long way around was through the Silver Tower tunnel, but at least they wouldn’t have to face Haussler’s buddies.
Brent checked the WAN uplink and dreamed of having Colonel Grey call in an air strike, something, anything, to ward off these wolves.
“Ghost Lead, this is Remus,” called Voeckler. “Euros just got orders to provide air cover and escort to any vehicles leaving the tower area, including the Russian BTRs. You believe that?”
“She’s got the Euros and Russians working for her. And no, I don’t believe it,” Brent answered.
Voeckler’s camera switched on, and Brent saw that the man had taken up a position behind some kind of maintenance section with large machinery.
“Where are you?” Brent asked.
“I’m moving closer to the vault. We’re thinking if I can cut the main power, we can lock her inside.”
“Providing they’re already in.”
“It’s worth a shot, sir.”
“Do it.”
Juma and Lakota came up behind them. Juma paused a moment to take both a radio call and a cell phone call from his men. When he was finished he looked up gravely. “I’ve already lost nearly half my army. I’m sorry, Brent. But I must call for a retreat — unless you can get us some help.”
Brent took a long breath and closed his eyes.
And there, of course, was Villanueva, with his Corvette burning behind them.
The punk shook his head. “You know, you didn’t have to do any of this. No one cares. You didn’t make anything right by joining the Army. You thought you could get rid of me. But I keep coming back. You wanna race?”
“NO!”
“Now you feel bad that you got Juma into a fight you can’t win.”
“I did.”
“What do you want, Brent?”
“I want her.”
“No, I mean what do you want in your life?”
“To get rid of you. .”
Villanueva smirked. “Joining the Army didn’t fix that. And you think getting her will solve all your problems?”
“I never said that.”
“No, but you’ve been thinking it. Deep down. You’ve been telling yourself that if you get her, then maybe you’re done. You’ll just retire. Maybe teach. But you’ve done enough. Paid your bill. And I’ll go away.”
“Yeah.”
“And what if that doesn’t happen? Then what?”
“I don’t know. .”
Chopra lifted his head enough to see the computer screens in front of Hussein. The maps were complex, commissioned and produced by geologists working for the family, while others showed the locations of the hidden oil reserves. Two were aboveground, while a third was submerged within the Strait itself and carefully disguised.
The boy was giving her everything. Had Chopra placed too much faith in the goodness of the world? Probably. But did he have any other choice? Some would argue that he did. Admittedly, he’d listened to his heart. He knew no other way.
“Hussein,” he gasped. “What’s that smell?”
“Shut up, old man!” cried the Snow Maiden, standing over the boy’s shoulder. “You’ll go to sleep soon.”
“Upload’s complete,” Hussein said, handing something to the Snow Maiden.
“Let’s go,” she snapped. “We wait up top until they finish loading.”