Private Paris (Private 10)

“Major?”

“You’re recon-trained?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So you know what a rat patrol is?”

“Seek out the enemy and draw fire, sir.”

“Are you a brave man, Corporal Perry?”

“I’m a recon soldier, sir.”

“Then do your duty. Advance east. Cruise the perimeter of the project.”

“Done, sir.”

The Sherpa rolled toward La Forêt. Sauvage put both hands on the machine gun, swept away in the heightened awareness he longed and lived for.

He felt the way he used to in Afghanistan, when the sky was moonless and armies were moving. He sensed the tension that built before la pagaille, waiting for the first shot, the first flare, the first rocket streaking across the sky.

It was where he belonged.

I’m coming home, he thought ecstatically. Coming home right—

A gunshot ripped the night. Someone was shooting in the project.

“You hear that, Corporal Perry?”

“Affirmative, sir.”

“Bear right along the perimeter. Take the first entrance in, road or path.”

The Sherpa swung right onto a narrow two-lane road. The streetlamps were dead. A block away, two cars had been turned sideways, bumper to bumper, spanning the street, and set afire. Two other cars were burning and blocking the road a hundred yards beyond, up against the Bondy Forest.

Between the two barriers, a mob of young men guarded the main entrance into the project. Most held knives or machetes, clubs, Molotov cocktails, or stones. Sheets had been hung in the trees. There was Arabic writing on them that Sauvage read easily.

We fight for the Prophet’s warhorse!

Even better, Sauvage thought.

Then he barked, “Straight at them, Corporal Perry! Show them how the Sherpa works at ramming speed!”

Chapter 105

WITH A LURCH that threw the major against the back of the turret, Perry buried the accelerator. The armored car hurtled at the burning barrier.

“Brace for impact!” his driver shouted.

Sauvage leaned into the crash as the Sherpa’s massive steel bumper blew through the two cars, sending them spinning out of the way.

Perry screeched the armored vehicle to a halt thirty yards from the mob, which had begun to break up and scatter. But ten or more men stood their ground, screaming at Sauvage. They hurled stones and then a Molotov cocktail that burst into flames in front of the Sherpa.

Provocation if there ever was, the major thought. He flipped the safety lever on the machine gun and almost pulled the trigger. But he held his fire and said, “Straight ahead, Perry. Get them running.”

Perry steered around the fire and accelerated toward the lingering rioters, who turned and fled into the housing project.

“Follow them,” Sauvage said.