Reel’s headset went silent. She turned to Blue Man. “Parry’s dead.”
Blue Man looked at her grimly. “JC was a good man who got caught up in something while trying to do the right thing.”
“The same could be said for you,” Reel pointed out.
Lamarre said from the rear, “Hey, do we have any idea what the hell we’re doing?”
The bullet caught him in the back of the head and ended the need for any answer to his query.
Mateo screamed and threw himself down on the floor as Reel and Blue Man turned.
Reel dropped to the floor, sighted through her optics, and fired three shots. She only had one image in her scope but she wanted to be sure.
The dead man hadn’t hit the floor yet before she had found and acquired another target. This time she only pulled the trigger once.
It was enough, as the round tattooed a black hole on the man’s forehead.
Another shot rang out, and Reel heard a grunt behind her.
Even as feet ran away down the hall, she turned and rose up in time to stop Blue Man from falling.
“Where?” she said.
His face gray and his breathing labored, he pointed to his right shoulder.
She felt the front of his shoulder and found the entry wound. She felt the back of his shoulder and found nothing. The round was still in him. It might have banged around inside her boss and done far more damage than was readily apparent.
She muttered a silent curse.
“Mateo!” No answer. “Mateo!”
“Y-yes.”
“Are you hurt?”
“N-no.”
“Then I need your help.”
Mateo rose and took Blue Man’s right arm, helping to hold him up.
Reel checked Lamarre, but it only took a glance to see that he was dead. The rifle round had gone through the back of his head and stayed in his brain, because there was no exit wound in the front. That sort of shot was fatal ten times out of ten, because all the bullet’s kinetic energy stayed inside the brain.
Hard metal against soft tissue was no contest at all.
She took the paint can with the IED that Lamarre had been carrying and hooked it to her belt.
Reel had brought some first aid supplies. With Mateo’s assistance they cleaned and bandaged Blue Man’s wound as best they could.
The man showed his grit by not making a sound as they worked around the wound.
Then Reel got on her comm and explained the situation to Robie.
“How bad is he?”
“Bad enough. We have to get out of here pronto.”
“We’re double-timing it.”
After that they slowly moved down the passage heading toward the door that Blue Man had mentioned. It was bothering Reel that the remaining shooter—she didn’t know if it was Randall or not—had been running in the opposite direction from the passage leading up. But maybe there was another route. She would have liked to ask Blue Man, but he was in no condition to answer.
They reached the doorway, and after Reel made sure it was clear, they passed through.
Or so she thought.
The bullet barrage hit them at their most vulnerable.
It couldn’t be just one person, Reel knew. Because she was hearing different types of weapons firing.
She dropped to the floor and returned fire.
When she looked to her left, she saw Blue Man lying there breathing heavily.
On top of him was Mateo.
Where his left eye should have been was a gaping hole.
Shit.
Reel grabbed Blue Man by the back of the shirt and dragged him behind a stack of metal bars situated near a wall.
She said, “Are you hit again?”
“No. Mateo?”
“Dead.”
Reel peered over the stack of bars and nearly got her head blown off for the effort.
They were pinned down. She got on her comm pack and relayed their situation to Robie.
“Two minutes away,” he replied.
As the line went dead Reel knew she didn’t have two minutes.
Blue Man was bleeding. They were pinned down. If Robie and the others tried to come though that door they would get slaughtered.
She took the scope off her rifle and managed to work it between two of the bars on top of the stack.
She saw three men parked at the top of the short stack of stairs that led through a door and then up several more flights of stairs to the surface. They had high ground, good cover, and thus the clear tactical advantage. That also meant that reinforcements had joined the battle.
She was never going to get off enough shots to take these guys out without exposing herself to return fire. And if she went down it was all over.
She gauged the distance between her and them.
Thirty feet.
It might be possible.
But she needed a diversion. And they had no handy corpse on a stick.
She got back on her comm and explained her plan to Robie.
“Roger that. One minute.”
“Give me a five-click warning,” she said.
“Done.”
She told Blue Man what she was about to do.
“You going to wish me luck?” she said.
Holding his shoulder he managed a weak smile and shook his head.
“I know,” said Reel. “It’s never about luck.”
She put the scope back on her rifle’s rail, ran through the plan in her mind, and judged it to be good enough. She eyed the top of the metal stack and the trajectory there to her intended target.
Then she loosened up her right throwing arm. This was far more intense than throwing out the first pitch on opening day. If she didn’t toss a strike, they were dead.
She positioned her rifle barrel on top of the metal stack, making sure to keep her head below the barrier.
She got the five-click warning from Robie.
What she was about to attempt was the mother of all multitasking.
You can do this, Jessica. This isn’t as hard as what you did back in Iraq. Nothing is as hard as what you did back in Iraq.
The door burst open and shots were fired through it.
As Reel expected, her adversaries pointed their weapons that way and returned fire.
She stood with the paint can in her right hand. She swung it around to gain momentum and force and then heaved it at the stairs.
As soon as it left her hand and arced toward the target she dropped to the floor and sighted through her rifle as the paint can began its descent.
She waited…waited.
Her aim with the can had been good enough.
Her focus was complete. There was nothing else on earth right now, other than her and that can.
Like shooting clay pigeons.
She fired.
The round punctured the can and the heat from the bullet did what the match and fuse would have accomplished.
She ducked down right before the explosion.