Raven Strike (22 page)
Authors: Dale Brown and Jim DeFelice
Duka
T
hey went to the smaller building first. Even at a trot, Melissa found it hard to keep up with Danny and Flash. They were dressed in full combat gear, helmets, vests, and heavy boots, along with their guns and assorted equipment, and yet they moved like cheetahs, leaping forward. She quickened her pace, then dropped belatedly as they hit the dirt.
“What?” she said, but either they didn’t hear or simply ignored her, rising and moving in opposite directions to flank the concrete structure. Unsure what to do, Melissa decided to follow Danny; she half crawled, half ran in an arc behind him.
“Clear,” hissed Danny when she caught up to him.
At first she thought he was giving her some sort of command, but then realized he was telling Flash over the radio that there was no one on his side.
“Come on,” he told her. “Let’s have a look. I want to plant a bug inside.”
The only opening was a steel door, secured by a combination lock. Danny took out a small key gun—a lock-picking device that offered various small picks to work keyed locks.
“I hate picking locks,” he said.
“Here, let me see,” she told him.
Melissa took the small device—folded, it was about the size of a pocketknife—and worked the main lock on the door, clicking the tumblers quickly. But the combination lock was wedged in a way that prevented her from seeing the back. She twirled the dial a few times, then tried a popular combination, passing thirty-six, then coming back to twelve, then coming back as she gently applied pressure, hoping to find the last number.
She didn’t. The lock remained fastened.
“You’re going to have to remember some numbers for me,” she told Danny.
Holding the lock in her left hand, she put her right ring and middle fingers through the lock and began turning the dial gently back and forth, feeling for the gates. She ended with ten numbers, separated by four digits.
“What are you going to do? Try every combination?” asked Danny.
She wasn’t, just the most likely ones, which on that sort of lock were almost always the solutions. She went slowly at first, then fell into a rhythm. She got it on the fourth try.
“Here you go,” she told Danny, slipping the lock off its hasp.
He creaked the door open, dropped to his knees and peered inside.
“Forget it,” he said. “Inside’s filled with junk. They’re not meeting here.”
T
hey were halfway to the second building when MY-PID told Danny that the Russian had just gotten into his vehicle.
“They’re on their way,” Danny told Flash over the radio. “Drop back and cover me. I’ll get some bugs down.”
“Yeah, roger.”
Danny turned back to Melissa, who was huffing next to him as he ran.
“They’re coming,” he told her. “I want you to hide over there.”
He pointed to the ditch across the road. It was about thirty yards from the building.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’ll get a bug in and get out.”
“Is Li Han coming?”
“He hasn’t made a move yet that we’ve seen. Stay back,” Danny added. “If you see anyone coming, just keep your head down. We’ll take care of it.”
He didn’t wait for her to answer, sprinting toward the building. Much of the roof had fallen in, and the UAV’s infrared camera could give MY-PID a fairly clear view into about two-thirds of the interior. There was also no door, and hence no lock. Danny stepped over a small pile of rubble into the ground floor and scanned the interior. An old desk sat to his left, surrounded by bricks and the debris. The two floors above looked like the broken teeth of a sawed-off comb, jagged and leaning down. He hopped onto the desk, reaching up to the remains of the floor above, and placed a bug there.
“Subject is estimated to be two minutes away,” warned MY-PID.
Danny jumped back down. As he turned to go, he realized he’d left two large boot prints on the top of the desk. He swept the top with his hand, but that only made things look even stranger—now the desktop was the only thing in the place not covered with dust.
Not sure what else to do, he reached his hands under and pulled the desk up onto its back, removing the top from sight. Then he spread bricks and some large beams over the area.
“Subject is thirty seconds away,” warned the computer.
“What happened to my two minutes?” he demanded.
MY-PID took the question seriously and asked him to rephrase.
Danny bolted to the door. He sprinted toward the spot where he’d left Melissa, bounding in with a head-first dive.
“Here he comes,” said Flash.
“Any sign of Li Han?”
“Negative.”
Duka
K
imko got out of the jeep and walked over to the building, trying to get as much distance between himself and Girma as possible. He needed a plan to get away from him. The odds of that happening peacefully shrank exponentially with each khat leaf Girma stuffed into his mouth.
The sun had gone down about a half hour before. Li Han was undoubtedly waiting somewhere nearby, watching. Hopefully he wouldn’t be spooked by Girma and his men.
Maybe he’d kill the bastard. Now there was a possibility, Kimko thought. Maybe he could work that into the deal.
The building was a wreck, though at least this one couldn’t be blamed on Girma. Kimko took a small LED flashlight from his pocket and shone it around the place. There was a battered desk and a massive pile of debris, and nothing else.
The hell with the UAV, he decided. He was getting out of Africa as soon as possible. He’d walk if he had to.
“Where is your man!” shouted Girma, back near the truck.
Kimko could shoot the bastard himself—but could he take the bodyguards as well?
Girma walked through the door. “Where is he?” demanded the African. His AK-47 was slung under his shoulder, his hand near the trigger.
“He’s late,” said Kimko.
“Ha! You see—you cannot trust these people. Chinese.”
“He’s working with the Brothers,” said Kimko.
“Ha, the Brotherhood are cowards. You see, none of these people have the strength of Girma. Girma is a lion!”
Girma is an asshole, thought Kimko.
“How long do you wait?” Girma asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t wait!” shouted Girma. “You go to see him.”
“I don’t know where he is.”
Girma smiled. “You are with the lion now. Come.”
Duka
T
he women had settled into a kind of semicomatose state of shock, huddled together next to the ruined outbuilding on the slaughterhouse property. Gunfire continued sporadically in the city, stoking up for a few minutes, then dying down, like a fitful whale surfacing for a romp before heading back to the depths. Nuri knew from MY-PID that the Sudan First army was routing Meurtre Musique. It was a murderous fight, with the defeated shown no mercy; both sides simply gunned down anyone who attempted to surrender, women and children included.
“Looks like some of them are headed in our direction,” he told Boston. “Can we call in the Osprey?”
“They ain’t gonna make it,” said Boston. “They’re waiting for Li Han to show up at the meeting. Colonel Freah wants the MV-22 to stay away until they make the attack. Might spook him.”
Naturally, thought Nuri. It was the right decision, but it didn’t make things easier for them.
“What do you think we should do?” he asked.
“I say we cross out of this field and head north,” said Boston. “We get into the brush, hide there. Sitting here makes no sense. The tangos are more than likely to come up and look in the building. I know I would.”
“You think we can get them moving?”
“We can always carry them,” said Boston. “I’ll scout down to the road and come back. Be ready.”
Nuri got up and went to the nurse, Bloom. She was holding the baby in her arms, swinging him gently back and forth. The baby’s mother was passed out next to her, slumped backward against the side of the building.
“We have to move,” he said. “The troops are coming this way.”
“They’re exhausted,” said Bloom.
“We
have
to move.”
“I can’t.”
“We have to.” Nuri looked at her. “You’re with MI6?”
She shook her head. “I was. I quit.”
“Well don’t quit now.” He reached down and helped her up. Then he looked at the woman who’d given birth. Her mouth gaped open; Nuri wasn’t even sure she was still alive until he bent close and heard her breathing.
There was no way she was moving on her own. He dropped to his knee and shifted his shoulder so he could lift her in a fireman’s carry. He rose with a grunt, stumbling back a step, not quite balanced. Then he started to move toward the road.
There was a low whistle in the air behind him.
Shit, he thought as the mortar shells began to land near the main building.
Duka
“W
here’s the Russian going?” Flash asked Danny over the radio as their subjects got back into the jeep.
“Damned if I know.”
“They didn’t take anything.”
“Yeah, I know. Stand by.”
Danny had MY-PID replay the translated conversation. It sounded as if the African Kimko was with knew where Li Han was.
“What’s going on?” asked Melissa.
“They didn’t want to wait for Li Han,” Danny told her. “I think they’re going to find him.”
“Shouldn’t we go there?”
“Let’s let them get there first,” said Danny. “If I bring the Osprey in, Li Han may run.”
“It would be easier to talk to you if you didn’t have the helmet on,” Melissa said. “At least flip the shield up.”
“I’m watching them,” he told her.
“Oh.”
He flipped the shield up anyway. “I’m not trying to be rude.”
“I know. I just—I’m not familiar with your gadgets.”
MY-PID told Danny the car was stopping at the house where they had placed the initial bug. He flipped down the screen again and watched the UAV feed as the men went to the door. The African who’d been talking to the Russian took the lead. Their two escorts fanned out around them. There was a flash, then they entered the building.
“Shit,” said Danny. “Whiplash team—Osprey, get to that building! Flash, let’s go.”
He turned and started to run. Melissa climbed out of the ditch and sprinted just behind him.
“What?” she gasped between breaths. “What’s going on?”
“Looks like they’re trying to get a discount on the price,” said Danny.
K
imko gripped his pistol as Girma leapt from the jeep, gun blazing. The gunfire had actually started from the house, but that was immaterial—the whole thing was bollocks.
Damn, damn, damn.
Kimko started toward the front door, then realized that was exactly the last place he wanted to be. Even if he managed to get the UAV now, Girma was sure to shoot him. He was just too unstable.
If he was going to get out, he was going to get out now.
Without the UAV?
Without the UAV. But with his life.
“I’ll cover the back,” he yelled, bolting from the front of the house.
D
anny was about fifty yards from the back of the house when the Osprey swept in, pivoting around to the street side and depositing the team. The Russian’s people had gone through the door; there was gunfire inside the building, a metal staccato of Kalashnikov rifles.
“Left!” Danny yelled to Flash. “Take the left.”
“Subject running eastward,” warned MY-PID.
“Zoom.”
The system ID’ed the figure as the Russian. He was about sixty yards from the house, running toward the warehouses.
“Was he inside the building?” Danny asked MY-PID.
“Negative.”
“What does he have with him?”
“One handgun, unidentified.”
“Radio?”
“Uncertain. No transmissions.”
“Track him. Stay on him.”
“Tracking.”
Danny decided they could ignore the Russian for now; obviously he’d panicked.
“Osprey, take out all the vehicles around the target house,” he radioed. “Team, stand back.”
The chain gun under the MV-22’s nose began to revolve. A spray of black and red began to spit from the mouth of the 30mm twin cannons, chewing the vehicles into pieces with the staccato jabs of a boxer hitting a speed bag. The quick and brutal rhythm eliminated the jeep and the two white pickups parked at the side.
Suddenly the Osprey jerked hard on its wing, fire igniting behind it—flares.
Someone inside the house had fired a missile.
Duka
T
he woman Nuri carried seemed to gain ten pounds with every step. She was slung over his shoulders and inert, like a sack of rapidly hardening cement. His pace slowed as he ran down the hill toward the road, and even the inspiration provided by the mortar shells that were starting to fall in the field near the house began to wane. He squeezed the woman’s legs tighter as the shaking ground caused him to lose his balance. He caught himself, only to jab his left foot into a hole a moment later. He tumbled forward, trying to send his free shoulder to the ground first and avoid crashing onto the woman.
The next thing he knew, he was in Boston’s arms. The trooper broke their fall and set them on the ground.
“Damn, you’re heavy,” he told Nuri.
“Thanks.”
Boston scooped up the woman and hurried across the nearby road. Nuri followed, out of breath. It was now dark, and in the uneven field Nuri tripped again and fell flat on his face. As he rose, he heard machine gun fire back near the slaughterhouse.
By the time he reached the others, Boston had organized them into a little clump behind some brush at the edge of a thick layer of woods.
“Osprey will be here soon,” said Boston. “They just went in.”
“Good,” said Nuri, getting his breath.
The women clustered around Bloom, hugging her for warmth or perhaps protection.
“Shit,” said Boston, looking back toward the slaughterhouse.
“They’re coming down toward the road,” he said. “They must have seen us.”
One of the small buildings near the slaughterhouse erupted in fire. The red light silhouetted three figures with guns coming down the side of the hill.
“We can get deeper into the woods,” suggested Nuri.
“Don’t want to get too deep,” said Boston. “Who knows what the hell’s in there?”
“Whatever it is, it’s better than what’s in front of us.”
“I’m going to draw them away.” Boston got to his feet.
“Wait!”
“Don’t worry. Take them into the woods. I’ll get them from the side. When the Osprey is clear, I’ll hear and come back.”
“Boston! Hey! Stop.”
But Boston was gone.