Thank God for the uncertainties of the first cold shot.
I loosed a single round in the direction of the storefront and then scuttled backward deeper into cover, moving on my elbows and toes, keeping the SIG up and alert for a target. None showed itself.
“Charlie!” Joe Marcus made no attempt to speak quietly now. I flinched at his voice in my earpiece. “Report! What’s your status?”
“I’m being shot at, what do you think?” I responded in a savage whisper. “Not you by any chance, is it?”
“No ma’am,” Marcus said more mildly. “I’m not nearly pissed enough at you for that. Not yet.”
“Well I’ve pissed somebody off enough, that’s for sure. Where are you?”
Did I imagine his hesitation? “I’d guess southeast of your position. I saw movement I thought was you but I guess that must be our shooter. Looters, maybe?”
“If that was the case he would have fired and run. This guy’s dug in for the long haul.”
“Stay put. No heroics.”
I rested my forehead momentarily on my clasped hands. Moment of truth time. Did I trust Joe Marcus or did I think he was the one who’d just taken a pot-shot at me?
Ah well, only one way to find out.
“Any chance you can get yourself in a position to lay down a bit of covering fire for an exfil? By now he’ll have lined himself up with the end of the service road and I’m caught like a rat in a drainpipe.”
“You reckon that’s where he’s located?”
“Why not? It’s where I’d be.”
“Give me a couple of minutes. Riley’s on his way in for an evac.”
“Well unless he’s managed to fit a GE Minigun to the Bell since he dropped us off, he better keep his distance until we’re clear of groundfire. The helo makes a much more satisfying target than I do.”
“Don’t you worry none about Riley. Won’t be his first time playing with the big boys.”
“Speaking of which, how many extra magazines did you bring for that Colt?”
“A couple. You?”
“The same,” I lied. Always good to keep one in reserve. “Let’s hope that will be enough.”
“I was trained by guys who believe you can never have a gun too big or too much ammo.”
“I was trying to travel light or I would have packed my RPG.”
He laughed briefly and was gone.
I lay very still with more rocks and half bricks digging into my ribs, pelvis and shins than I was happy about. A few insects buzzed around me. I was aware of the smell of something vaguely rotten permeating the air. Large areas of the city had now been four days without power. We might have pulled out the bodies but if there was any food in the vicinity then it was definitely no longer fit to eat. A tiny shimmer of movement caught my eye and I noticed a couple of suspiciously large ants tracking across the terrain just in front of me.
“Oh great. All supposing I’m not shot to death, instead I get stripped to my bones by bloody ants,” I grumbled. “Just what I need.”
I cricked my head over to one side and raised it just far enough to have a minimal view over the tumbled pile of broken concrete in front of me. Almost immediately I saw the muzzle flash and heard the echoing snap of a handgun report from the glassless window of a storefront on the far side of the main street.
The range was probably less than thirty metres, which was the length of a standard pistol range. If the unknown gunman put in any practice time at all, then hitting me was well within his capabilities. I ducked rapidly but the round landed close enough to blast concrete dust and grit into my face. The ants went about their business unconcerned.
I didn’t return fire just for the sake of it. Let him think I needed to conserve my supply. I almost keyed the mic on my radio to report the gunman’s position but decided against it. If he had any sense Marcus would contact me before he took any offensive action. It seemed like a long time since we’d spoken, even though it could only have been a minute.
Meanwhile there was no great imperative to move — providing those ants didn’t turn out to be some man-eating species. And providing my lone gunman wasn’t biding his time waiting for a bunch of his pals to show up. It wasn’t unreasonable to suggest they might be looters, although in my experience they tended to cut and run when faced with discovery rather than make a stand.
I unwound the cotton scarf I wore round my neck as a dust filter and wiped my face to keep my eyes clear.
“Whatever you’re going to do, Joe,” I said under my breath, “do it soon.”
There was always the possibility, of course, that Marcus was already doing exactly what he came here to do, which was pin me down in an exposed location and wait until I panicked or did something stupid from sheer boredom.
I could think of any number of reasons why he might have decided that another convenient ‘accident’ was called for. Aware my time here was short and we’d promised Mrs Hamilton answers, I knew I’d pushed harder than was prudent. I recalled again the way Joe Marcus had carefully questioned who was my contact back in New York — Sean or Parker. It was no secret that I worked for Armstrong-Meyer, but did the fact that I was reporting directly to Parker give anything away?
With his well-informed source Marcus probably knew it was Mrs Hamilton who’d come to Parker for Kyle Stephens’s replacement, and it wasn’t a stretch from there to assume I’d also been briefed to finish the investigation Stephens had started. Was that enough to make him concoct this makeshift plan to get rid of me?
Perhaps Hope had called him about my discovery of the gems she’d lifted from the street. Or maybe I’d overplayed my hand on the short flight over and he’d simply decided I was going to be too greedy for my own good.
On the other hand, I could be way off base and it wasn’t Marcus out there at all. I took small comfort from the fact that most of the US Marines I’d encountered were proficient enough with a weapon to have slotted me at their first attempt.
Still, Marcus was no longer in the Corps. It wouldn’t take long to discover if it took him a while to get his eye in.
I twisted round very carefully and checked the service road behind me. As far as I could tell it was empty. The nearest piece of available cover was probably the same distance away as the man lurking in the storefront up ahead. That meant an attack — if and when it happened — could come from either direction. A fit man could sprint the thirty metres separating us in a little over four seconds. If he started his run when I was looking the wrong way, even for a moment, that didn’t leave much time to react.
I shifted my position so I could swing the SIG to cover both vectors with the least effort. I learned a long time ago that the more naturally the muzzle points at the target, the more likely you are to hit it, even with your eyes closed. And the lack of reaction from across the street proved at least that my hips were not wide enough to stick up beyond the concrete in front of me when I was on my side. So, there’s always a silver lining.
The time oozed by with exaggerated slowness. I forced myself to concentrate on the noises around me, trying to pick up on anything out of place. It was difficult when everywhere was far from silent. Apart from the distant helos constantly overflying the city and the squabble of scavenger birds, the buildings themselves rasped and groaned as they continued to settle. Plastic packaging snapped in the breeze. The occasional tile slithered and skipped off the roof and smashed on the concrete below. Every time one did so I tried my best not to jerk in surprise.
Eventually, I caught the faintest scuff of movement along the main street to my left, too regular to be anything but human, moving with care. They were good, whoever they were, but not quite good enough to disguise all sound of their approach.