To Crown a Caesar (The Praetorian Series: Book II) (33 page)

I quickly shifted my aim towards the rooftops.  I saw the Romans hesitate for a few seconds, but it wasn’t long before the seasoned warriors dr
ew swords and knocked arrows to bows.

“You might want to start running, 3-3
,” I suggested.  “You’re about to have incoming.”

I didn’t bother to look and see if he heard me or not.  Instead, I rested my crosshairs on the biggest threat I could find, a Roman with his bow loaded and the string pulled back to his ear.  I was in the zone now, and I didn’t hesitate, but before I pulled the trigger, his head exploded.

“Tango down,” Helena confirmed.

It still amazed me just how good a shot she was.  I
gritted my teeth, but smiled.

If she w
anted a challenge, fine.

Her bolt action rifle and five round magazines gave me a slight advantage over her.  After every shot she had to manually reload another round into the chamber, whereas my semi-automatic SR-25 could fire with each pull of the trigger, and I had twenty rounds to fire before I needed to reload.  I moved my ret
icule to the dead man’s partner and put a round through his chest, ending his life before he even knew his buddy had gone down.  The spent casing flew from my rifle’s ejection port into a mesh bag I attached to catch them.

No sense leaving any additional evidence behind.

Four down, twenty to go.

They didn’t stand a chance as
Helena and I began to systematically take them apart.  Another archer pointed his bow as Santino ran and I shot him in the shoulder, spinning him to the ground.  I put another round in his chest to make sure he stayed down.  His partner noticed his friend’s death, having no idea what happened to him, the cough of my rifle barely passing beyond my building, and took off running.  I tracked him as he ran past five IR patches, so I adjusted my scope instinctually for 550 yards and pulled the trigger as he tried to leap between buildings.  The bullet caught him just as he launched himself from the rooftop.  He went limp at the impact and lost control over his jump, plummeting between the buildings.

I saw another Roman by himself, 475 yards away, and shot him in the chest.

“Four tangos down,” I communicated to Helena.

“
Seven for me,” she reported, much to my annoyance.  “But we have another problem.  Enemy reinforcements coming in from the west.  I count at least fifty.”

I shifted my body so that my rifle faced further to the west and saw just what Helena was describing.  Fifty or so armed and dark clad men came running in our direction.  There was only one anomaly amongst the group
– well two actually.  It seemed like Gaius and Marcus had decided to join the fight after all, because I clearly saw two IR strobes pulsating amongst the group as they ran towards Santino, who had finally made it to the rooftops.  An arrow flew a foot from his head and I tracked its progress back to the source, removing the man with a shot to the stomach.  I also saw one of the Praetorian runners, hot on his heels, only to be taken out by another surgical strike to the neck by Helena.

This was not good. 
Because of how Agrippina’s ninjas had positioned themselves prior to Helena’s first kill, Santino only had one direction he could run in.  The problem was it threw off my ability to continue covering his withdrawal.  Luckily, we’d prepared for that potentiality.

I clicked my radio.  “I’m bugging out to Hide-3.”

“Copy,” Helena replied, for once too busy to transmit the double clicks.

I got to my feet, tossed the SR-25 into a large bag shaped like a bloated rifle, picked up
Penelope
, shouldered both rifle and gear bags, and took off from my position, heading southwest.  Last night Helena and I located a third hide that we could use if the battle moved too far north into the city as it appeared to be doing now.  Tall buildings were about to block my line of sight in a few minutes with Santino running in that direction.  Helena’s position to the west, however, was higher off the ground than any other point in the city and allowed her to stay put, but in order for us to maintain an effective field of fire, we had found a third hide on a tower near the coast of the Propontis.  It was relegated to the secondary position because its line of sight into the courtyard in front of the Hippodrome was negligible.

I huf
fed under the weight of my gear but I didn’t stop.  I knew where all the big jumps were, having rehearsed the route a number of times last night, so I plowed through the darkness at top speed.  The only impediment along the way was a clothes line that held large sheets drying in the summer breeze, an obstruction that was not there last night.  When I rounded the corner, I ran headlong into it, entangling myself in the white linens.  It only slowed me down for a second, and I was just glad Helena hadn’t seen it.

I
tore them off and pitched them off the side of the building, forcing my head to stay in the game.  The tower was in sight now, and I had been out of the fight for almost two minutes now.  I hadn’t heard anything over the radio that would make me worry about Santino, just Helena’s constant updates on enemy KIA, but that didn’t mean the situation
wasn’t
deteriorating because of my absence.  The intel Gaius and Marcus had provided indicated there’d only be twenty four Praetorians here, not seventy four, and those extra numbers were an obvious snag in our mission.

Approaching my last jump, I pushed my body as hard as I could, this last one being the longest.  Making my leap, I reached out to grab the ladder that would take me to the roof of the tower.  Missing the ladder or failing to grasp the handles would end in a quick death, but even my overwhelming klutziness wasn’t going to get me killed now.

Luckily, the jump was more successful than I could have ever hoped for, and I secured myself easily.  Taking a quick pause to catch my breath and with a quick exertion of strength, I pulled myself upwards, rung by rung.  Reaching the roof, I retrieved my SR-25 and rested its’ bipod on the low wall encircling the circumference of the roof, and focused on the advancing Praetorians.

They were getting smarter.  Word must have gotten to them that something was killing them from afar,
and had adopted defensive measures that included zigzagging, stopping intermittently as they ran, even skipping, and others stole my signature move: rolling.  I had eight rounds left in my original magazine and took careful aim at the advancing troops, who were now spread out and running from my left to right across my field of vision.

Eight rounds, four hits, two confirmed kills.  Not a good start, but even for a sniper of my caliber, these targets were very hard to hit.  Helena’s breaking of concise, military radio protocol, resulting in a constant stream of profanities on her end confirmed she was having trouble as well.

I swiftly reloaded and followed a new target, vowing I was going to get this particular agile bastard.

Agile, yes.  Creative, no. 

He made a pattern of two skips, a zig, followed by a roll, the latter aggravating me more than anything else.  On his third repetition of the pattern, I put a bullet in his right flank as he came to his feet from his latest roll.

This ain’t the movies, pal.

The impact of the bullet pitched him left into his partner.  I took advantage of the other man’s stumble and put a round in his chest.  500 yards away, my third target was far less predictable.  I had to recheck my secondary range card after it took five rounds to finally get him with a solid, but lucky, shot in the neck.  Two more targets expended my remaining rounds.

Reloading my third magazine, another
problem quickly became evident: I’d only brought four magazines with me.  Eighty rounds ensured three to four rounds per target had there only been twenty some targets out there.  With that many rounds per man, a drunk cat would have ended the night with rounds to spare, but with the way these guys were moving, and their additional numbers, Santino could be in serious trouble.

“Uh, guys?”  Santino
asked over the radio, his voice only slightly belabored from his run.  “Why aren’t you calling out dead bad guys like you were earlier?

“You try doing this,” Helena suggested
in frustration.  “Tango down.”

“They’re
catching on to what’s happening to them,” I reported.  “Where are you?”

“
I’m almost to the Horn.  I’m running out of room to run here.”

This was very bad.  If I took more careful aim to hit everything I targeted, too many bad guys would slip through and reach Santino, but if I fired erratically, I’d run out of ammo before I could kill enough of them.  I only had a few magazines for
Penelope
, but at these ranges I’d be lucky to hit much of anything.

“I could use an exit route here,” Santino urged frantically, rare con
cern emanating from his voice.

I tried to think as we quickly ran out of options.  Plan “B” didn’t exist and fear
for my friend slowed my rate of fire as Santino ran for his life.  If only we had an army that could counter Agrippina’s, maybe we’d stand a chance.  But where the hell was I going to find an army?  It wasn’t like nations left armies just laying around, waiting for someone to come around and find an excuse to use them.  Did they?

“Head to street level,” Helena recommended.  “Lose them in th
e alleys.  It’s your only chance.”

Santino didn’t answer
and I felt ashamed that I hadn’t said anything.  Helena’s suggestion was obvious, and had Santino not already come to the same conclusion, I knew that he had to have been close.  Yet, it seemed so utterly brilliant that I couldn’t even fathom how such a thought would have ever come to me.

“What
’s next, 3-1?”  Helena’s voice called out again insistently.

I tried to think but couldn’t.  I didn’t know what to do.

“Jacob!” She pleaded.

“I don’t know…”  I trailed off, not know what was about to happen.

The situation was turning into a clusterfuck along with my state of mind.  I felt delirious, so much so that in my own confusion, I almost missed my eye piece flash in front of my eye, indicating my computer had received some form of update.  Interested, I tapped the screen on my forearm and a brief text message appeared on my lens.

LOOK UP

Confused, I craned my neck up towards the night sky, wondering what the hell I was looking for.  I saw the Big Dipper and the rest of the stars that made up constellations I had never bothered learning, but nothing out of the ordinary.  Not until I caught sight of a star moving faster than it should have, pulsating a dull shade of red.

I blinked.  Either my eyes were dece
iving me, I was observing a UFO or the last thing I expected to see was stealthily hovering above us at one thousand feet.

Santino’s UAV.

For the first time in what seemed like years, I laughed out loud uncontrollably, my moment of indecision almost forgotten.  The UAV could mean only one thing.

Accompanying my discovery was the unmistakable roar of Bordeaux’s Mk 48 LMG spewing forth dozens upon dozens of 7.62 caliber rounds of destruction.  I yanked open the sheath on my wrist mounted screen and for the first time in months, saw an aerial view of my surroundings thanks to the UAV, along with six green dots scattered throughout, pulsating a bright green.

Bordeaux’s team must have done some advanced intelligence gathering with the UAV because along with our green dots, were a series of smaller red triangles, about thirty five of them, indicating enemy troops.  Thanks to the Blue Force Tracker II software installed on our computers, updating anything on the map was as easy as tapping the screen on our wrists.  These red triangles were caught in a horseshoe created by the six of us, with Helena and me at the ends.  Our reinforcements must have crossed the Golden Horn and entered the city from the north.

I watched as red triangles
winked out of existence in quick order.  Looking through my scope, I observed man after man fall to Bordeaux’s hail of gunfire and the steady stream of two other rifles, until only Gaius and Marcus remained, their IR strobes still flashing brightly.

Another flash indicated
a second data package, one that displayed a radio broadcast frequency.  I reached for my radio and tuned it to the proper frequency, smashing the PTT button with vigor.  “Bordeaux, is that you?”

“
Oui, mon ami
,” he said, and my smile broadened at his continuous and somewhat pretentious use of French.  “Who else would it be?”

I didn’t reply immediately, the memory of only a few minutes ago coming back
to me.  How could I explain my apparent inability to make tactical decisions or form conscious thought into words when I needed to most?  The only thing I could take solace in was that they hadn’t heard our radio transmissions, the one that offered proof of my negligence.  I put it into the back of my mind for now.

“You couldn’t have picked a better time to show up,” I commented.  Are Vincent and Wang with you?  You guys there?”

“We are, Hunter,” came Vincent’s Italian accented voice, despite being a native of Switzerland.  “It is good to hear you.”

“Wang?”