I wait, rifle trained on the hallway opening.
A body appears, shuffling in a sideways run, firing—too high. I riddle with him a three-round burst, roll to my side and then lever up to my feet and crab walk sideways to the far side of the hallway.
Never be where they expect you to be, Sasha used to say.It will save your life, someday, maybe.
Sure enough, the next burst from the enemy hits the ground where I was—he never even looked for where I am, just assumed I’m where I was.
I drop him.
Then I dart forward—the other two were preparing to rush me. I drop one, sink to a knee and drop the fourth; the last one gets off a shot, however, and this one nearly ends me. It creases my cheekbone; I touch it, and groan at the sting.
I move past the doors; the men had been shooting down the hallway. “Hello? It’s me!”
A small head appears from a doorway, cautiously. Female, Asian, bloodied. She says something to me, waves at me.
I go back to the intersection and motion for Apollo to follow. I find the majority of the group I’d come in with clustered in the room where we’d been photographed.
The blood on the Asian woman’s face is not hers—it’s the photographer.
Unarmed, they’d made short work of him. A few of them took some pretty nasty knocks, and it’s clear he didn’t go down without a fight, but go down he did. Messily. It looks like they kicked and stomped him to death, and then smashed the equipment to smithereens.
Good riddance.
But…gross.
I look away.
The doorway to the stairs is closed, and it’s on this my group of girls is focused.
“Bad men, other side.” This is from the girl who’d been brave enough to peek around the corner at my voice.
She has the distinctive snappy twang in her accent that I identify with Vietnam. She has a pistol, which I recognize as the one I’d discarded in the evil room…that being how my brain identifies the room where I found the German girl. This girl, the Vietnamese one, is about my age and six inches shorter than me, slender, with black hair in a neat bob at her chin. She holds the pistol in both hands, barrel down and close to her body in a position that suggests she has some kind of training.
“How many?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Many. Out there, many. Other side of door? Don’t know.” She juts her chin at me. “You shoot good?”
I shrug. “Yeah, pretty good.”
“I police, Hanoi.”
I gesture at the door. “You open it, I’ll go through.” I withdraw my pistol and scan the room. “Anyone know how to use this?”
A Black girl steps forward—I recognize her as the one who speaks French. She’s nearly as tall as me and curvy under a loose, sleeveless cotton dress, her hair buzzed, with three large gold hoops through her ears on either side. Her eyes are cold, her demeanor calm—something tells me all this isn’t terribly shocking to her. Perhaps she’s seen worse, where she’s from. She takes the pistol from me and, moving with expert familiarity, checks the magazine, replaces it, and racks the slide. Meets my eyes and nods, once.
I point at Apollo. “Stay close to me.” I gesture at the Black girl, then the doorway leading to the interior of the underground complex. “Cover us.”
She nods, and heads for the doorway, holding the pistol upright against her chest with both hands, leaning against the doorframe and watching both directions with her head on a swivel. Looks at me, nods. All clear.
I move to the doorway where the stairs will lead us up and out. Replace my magazine for the fresh one, stuffing the partially depleted one in my back pocket. Suck in a breath, let it out. Assume a crouch, butt snugged against my shoulder. Rack the charging handle on my M-16.
No telling what’s on the other side.
I hear gunfire. A helicopter, faint muffled thumping. An explosion. More automatic gunfire.
I train the barrel on the doorway and glance at the Vietnamese girl. “Ready?”
She places her hand on the ring. Glances at me. Touches her chest with on hand. “Anh.”
