Renegade (2013) (15 page)

The man said something, but Schofield didn’t understand the language. He understood the AK-47 that was thrust inside the SUV, though. Before he had time to even try to get away, the man opened fire.

ON THE ROOFTOP,
Pike surveyed the battlefield as adrenaline cascaded through him. He stayed low and kept the M4A1 pulled tight to his shoulder as he sought out targets that tried to close on Bekah and Zeke’s position at the Humvees. A turban-wearing man carrying an AK-47 fired steadily at the Marines as he approached in a crouch from the abandoned vehicles in the street.

Pinned down by the steady stream of rifle fire, Bekah and Zeke couldn’t respond.

Pike targeted the man’s head and shoulders from three stories up and squeezed the trigger, riding out the recoil and firing again and again. The al Qaeda gunner dropped in the street.

At the end of the block, an SUV and a motorcycle came around the corner. In the next instant, the motorcyclist exploded and the SUV rolled over, sliding into a building and taking out civilians along the way. A man tried to scramble from the doomed vehicle, but bullets struck him and he dropped back inside.

One of the terrorists chewing through the civilians turned his attention to the stricken SUV. Pike tried to bracket the man with his rifle, but he couldn’t get a clear shot between stalled vehicles and civilians still on the street.

The al Qaeda gunner strode to the side of the SUV and peered inside. Pike got his sights set on the man as the tango shoved his rifle barrel into the vehicle and started hosing the occupants. Pike squeezed the trigger and readied himself for a second shot. The al Qaeda warrior dropped to the street in a half crouch, wounded but still in play. Pike shot the man twice more, leaving him stretched out beside the SUV.

In the intersection behind the overturned SUV, another similar vehicle streaked by with a motorcyclist drawing even beside it. Before the SUV cleared the intersection, the motorcyclist exploded and the resulting blast blew the larger vehicle sideways as the tires shredded.

Let it go.
Pike blinked and refocused on the street in front of Bekah and Zeke.
Save your team.

A half-dozen tangos converged on the Marines’ position from all sides. Pike fired relentlessly, but the targets were too fast. Two of them were in the street, but four others closed on Bekah and Zeke.

“Bekah, get out of there. You can’t hold that position.”

Below, Bekah grabbed Zeke’s arm and pulled him back toward the building behind them.

Bullets slapped into the roof beside Pike, grabbing his attention immediately as he rolled for cover. He flailed out with his free hand and grabbed Cho’s collar, pulling the man into motion. Together, they ran across the roof.

From the corner of his eye, Pike spotted three tangos on the next rooftop. Evidently they’d abandoned their posts inside the building and come to the high ground. Or maybe they’d been there and he just hadn’t noticed in all the confusion. One of the attackers swung up an RPG.

Cho stumbled and nearly fell. Fisting the younger man’s BDUs, thinking maybe he was moving too late after all, Pike kept Cho on his feet as they ran for the fire escape.

“Keep moving, Marine.” Bekah pushed Zeke ahead of her toward the doorway of the building. She hated leaving the Humvees behind. Mobility was one of a Marine’s greatest assets in battle.

She stumbled just for a moment as a bullet slammed into her Kevlar between her shoulder blades. The armor kept the round from penetrating, but the hydrostatic shock of the impact knocked the breath from her. She ran through the doorway on Zeke’s heels, then turned around, taking advantage of the shelter offered by the doorframe.

She raised her rifle to her shoulder and aimed at the al Qaeda fighter closing in on her. “Take cover.”

Mechanically, but slower than Bekah wanted, Zeke followed commands that had been drilled into him. He planted himself on the other side of the doorway, back against the wall, and brought his rifle up.

Thinking of Travis and her granny—and how much she wanted to stay alive to go back home to them—Bekah fired her weapon in short, controlled bursts. One of the al Qaeda warriors pulled up, staggered, then dropped. The others hunted for cover around the Humvees, and Bekah found herself shooting her own vehicle while trying to target her enemy.

Zeke stood frozen. His eyes moved restively and perspiration trickled down his chin and neck, but he never budged.

“Return fire, Marine. I’m reloading.” Bekah withdrew from the doorway and cleared the spent magazine, ramming it home in her ammo rack. One of the tangos surged forward as soon as Bekah pulled back. “Do it now.”
Or we’re going to be overrun.
Bekah grabbed for the next magazine, trying in vain to dispel thoughts of Granny having to explain to Travis why Mommy wasn’t coming home anymore.

Zeke held the trigger down and bullets sprayed wildly, kicking up roadway chunks in front of the approaching al Qaeda warrior and rising to slam into the Humvees. The young Marine’s weapon cycled dry in seconds. He squeezed the trigger again.

Bekah slammed the new magazine in place and slapped the release, stripping the first round from the clip and seating it. “Reload, Marine.” She struggled to keep her voice calm, keep her mind off Travis and Granny, and speak over the destruction taking place on the street around them. “Set your weapon for three-round burst.”

“Right, right. Three-round burst.” Zeke wheeled back inside the doorway and dumped the empty magazine. It slid through his fingers and dropped to the floor. He started to reach for it.

“Reload!”
Bekah targeted the tango scrambling once more for cover and squeezed the trigger. The rounds caught the man in the back, and he sprawled onto the pavement.

Zeke grabbed a magazine and shoved it home on the third attempt. “Three-round burst. Set.”

If you survive this, you’re going to work with him on his responses.
Bekah ducked inside as a fusillade of bullets chipped at the stone walls around the doorway and whizzed by her.

The Humvees were a problem. Bekah hadn’t thought about the al Qaeda warriors using them for cover. She hadn’t thought there would be so many of them either. The citizens in the street had cleared out, leaving only their dead behind. Thankfully, they’d taken their wounded with them as far as Bekah could tell.

She freed a fragmentation grenade from her combat harness, shifted hands with her assault rifle, and yanked the pin. Holding the spoon in place, she showed the munition to Zeke. “Fire in the hole!”

He nodded and pulled back, his face so pale she thought he might pass out.

Squatting, Bekah rolled the grenade into the street, giving it just
enough propulsion to place it under the Humvees. Then she ducked back and changed hands with the M4A1 again, counting down.
Three, two, one . . .

The grenade exploded and shrapnel hammered the wall behind Bekah and tore through the door into the room. Whirling, she leaned around the doorframe again and peered out over the gunsights.

Two tangos were on the ground, their feet torn and bloody from the shrapnel that had ripped their legs from under them. They struggled to get to their feet and raise their weapons at the same time. Bekah thought of the civilians lying beyond them who were dead, cut down viciously with no quarter given. Her heart hardened, and she vowed that her young son would never see the part of her that was in action today. She pulled the trigger, killing both men.

She swept the area over the rifle sights, realizing then that the shrapnel had also taken out the tires on her Humvee. The vehicle listed sadly, like an old, arthritic dog, covered in scars from the earlier collision and the rough ride against the wall.

For the moment, no one fired at her, but she heard small-arms fire from above. Almost immediately, a loud explosion rang out. She switched over to her comm.

“Pike!”

There was no answer.

“Pike!”

Pike didn’t hesitate at the roof’s edge. Cho tried to hold up, but Pike kept his grip and muscled the other Marine over the side with him. He’d judged the fire escape’s location from memory. There were no markers along the roof.

His memory wasn’t quite spot-on. He saw in a rush that he was going to miss the steps and the landing one floor below him. That
left a long fall that would break his legs even if he survived it. He released his hold on the other Marine and prepared to catch himself if he could.

Cho was on the mark, falling in a painful collapse at the bottom of the steps just short of the landing.

Flailing with his free hand, not willing to lose hold of his rifle, Pike caught the railing in an iron grip. His shoulder threatened to come apart as his body weight hit the end of his arm. For a moment he thought his hold was going to slip, but he clung fast, feeling the rusted metal bite into his palm like rat’s teeth.

He pendulumed and slammed into the landing. His helmet kept him from breaking his skull, but the impact banged his goggles into his right cheek hard enough to split the skin. Warm blood tracked down his face. He yelled in pain and frustration as he slung his rifle over his right shoulder and swung his other hand up to grip the railing as well.

The roof’s edge exploded above him, and he knew the al Qaeda warrior with the RPG had fired low. Stone and mortar rained down on Pike and Cho, causing them both to duck their heads. A few large pieces thudded off Pike’s helmet and hammered his back and shoulders. Bright pain seared through him, but he held on. The blast had left him mostly deafened.

Smoke drifted over him, and he realized the fire escape was no longer flush against the building. The metal latticework vibrated as it gaped two feet from the wall. Pike hung crookedly, nothing below him.

“Cho!”

The other Marine lay with his hands over his head.

Pike didn’t know if the man was dead or unconscious.
“Cho!”

“Yeah.” Cho shifted, then started coughing violently.

“Get up or you’re a dead man.” Pike swung hand over hand along the fire escape till he was mostly above the second-story landing. He
rocked forward once to build some momentum; then on the second forward progression, he let go.

Cho forced himself to his feet and started down the steps, leaning to one side because of the incline and maybe because of some disorientation he was feeling.

Pike landed safely, but his back and helmet collided against the railing with enough force to knock the wind out of him and temporarily send his senses reeling. He dropped to his knees, certain that the fire escape was going to buckle beneath him at any moment. He slid his M4A1 from his shoulder and pointed toward the collapsed section of the roofline as smoke and dust frosted him.

Cho joined Pike on the lower landing just as the first al Qaeda warrior peered over the edge a few feet from the broken area. Firing instinctively, Pike bracketed the tango with two three-round bursts that drove the man backward. Reaching to his combat harness, Pike ripped a grenade free, yanked the pin, and heaved it on top of the building.

“Pike!” Bekah repeated his name over the MBITR, but Pike could barely hear it.

He got to his feet and raced after Cho. Two tangos stood at the roof’s edge and fired down at them. Bullets whined off the fire escape railing. Ahead of Pike, Cho stumbled but kept going, whipping around the next turn as the steps shivered beneath them.

“I’m here.”

On top of the building the grenade exploded, and the gunfire from above came to an immediate stop. One of the tangos fell over the side and plummeted to the alley below, screaming all the way to that final sudden impact.

Pike made the next turn and glanced at both ends of the alley, making certain of his bearings and trying to gauge the danger they might be fleeing into. “Where are you?”

“Inside the building.”

“Good to go?”

“Yes.”

“Rendezvous there? I had to give up the rooftop to encroaching hostiles.”

“Yes. We’ve got tangos still trolling the streets.”

“Guys are real believers.” Pike reached the alley and sprinted past Cho, who had stood undecided for a moment. The Marine didn’t hesitate falling in after Pike, though.

“This is an all-out push.”

“Our lucky day,” Pike muttered. “What about support?” With everything that had been going on during his time on the roof, Pike had lost track of the other Marine units en route.