"Sir." I've a tendency to ramble before a firefight like this.
Arjun was always giving me shit for it. Fuck, I miss that lad. He could take the piss outta me and have me laughin' at myself. Brave, funny, clever lad.
"Here's good," Harris says, and the Suburban brakes to a halt. The Arrows stop behind us, and we kill the engines, slip out of the vehicles, and take up positions behind wheels, boots, and bonnets.
"RMI, status?" Harris says.
"In position," Chico says. "On your order."
"Arrows ready," Solomon adds. "On your order."
"Light 'em up on three," Harris growls. "One—two—three."
The crack, rattle, and crash of M4s, HKs, and Steyr-Augs is sudden and deafening, my ears immediately ringing and going muffled. It's hard to see shit with the muzzle flashes. I spot a shadow illuminated by a burst and put a trio of rounds into it.
Again.
Again.
These fuckers are no untrained thugs, though. They spot the threat immediately and adjust accordingly, sending suppressive fire at us while they shift behind cover, deeming us more of a danger than Bryn.
Perfect.
I pay close attention to the way the Arrows work, and I'm impressed. They pick their targets carefully, and their shots are calculated to inflict damage and pull the focus of the others to care for them. Nontraditional, but effective. Anselm has vanished into the night, and I hear the boom of a rifle—a big one.
The enemy's return fire picks up intensity, becomes withering, forcing us to duck as their rounds smack into the body of the Suburban—it's armored, thank fuck, with heavy duty, bullet-resistant glass.
Rifle chatter from the flanks changes the calculus of the firefight as RMI makes their presence known.
I pop up, spray a burst their way, scanning the battleground: shadows move, shouts in Spanish echo, groans flutter. A shadow moves near the tail of a pickup; an arm slicing through the air. A dot-shadow arcs through the illumination of the gas station lights.
"Grenade!" I shout, scrambling around the bonnet of the Suburban.
The grenade clatters across the cement and skitters toward me, so I do the only logical thing—wind up and boot the thing as if this is the Emirates Stadium and I’m taking a corner kick for Arsenal.
I dart away as something hot snaps past my ear, whickers over my head, and buzzes angrily around me. Fuck, fuck. I'm out of cover, now, in the open. "RUSH!" Harris shouts. "Get the fuck back here!"
I dart the other way, but a burst of fire rakes the cement inches from my feet, forcing me to scramble the other way. More fire blatters at me, rounds hissing all around me like a swarm of hornets.
KA-BOOM!
The grenade detonates—good thing I don't play for Arsenal, though, as my kick was total shit. The thing went nowhere near the enemy, blowing up an air pump off to the side rather than the petrol pump I'd been aiming for.
Shrapnel dings and tinkles all around us, but no one pays any attention. No. They just shoot at me. Bullets snap perilously close to me on all sides, chewing up the concrete behind me, preventing me from returning to the protective cover of the armored SUV.
"RUSH!" I hear a blessedly beautiful voice call from the gas station shop.
Fuck this. Sometimes the only way out is through, yeah? So fuck it. Time to make a break for it.
I bolt forward into the teeth of the enemy fusillade, bullets whipping all around me, plucking at my shirt sleeves and trouser legs as I zig, jog, zag, and jig toward the shop. A figure looms in front of me, an M16 leveled at me, the barrel a huge round hole. I fire from the hip, catching the shooter in the thigh. He buckles, goes to a knee, but still gets off a burst at me. A sun-hot hammer slams into my left arm, jerking me around off-balance. There's no pain at the moment, just the tremendous impact with crushing heat spreading to my shoulder, chest, and forearm. I let my carbine go, and it swings from the clip attached to my vest. Draw my sidearm without losing a step, sprinting through the scrum of tangos—now no one dares shoot, not with me in the mix. The tangoes don't want to hit each other, and our lot don't want to hit me. Which means for a split second or two, the firefight is paused. I use the lull to run even harder, until my lungs scream and my thighs burn and the pounding hot ache in my arm slowly becomes a pulsing mass of agony that I have no choice but to swallow. I'm even with the tango who shot me, his eyes wide, teeth bared as he swivels on his arse in an attempt to bring his rifle to bear on me.
Too late.
I fire across my body—my pistol is in my right hand, and the target is on my left. I catch a glimpse of red blooming at his throat, and feel a little zing of pride. That was a good shot, if I do say so myself.
The shop is mere meters away now, and I feel a dozen pairs of eyes on me, feel iron sights settling on my back. Instinct screams in my gut, that sense of danger. You wouldn't think it would be helpful in the middle of a firefight, because obviously there's danger: motherfuckers are shooting at me. But it's more subtle than that, if you care to pay attention. This instinct is telling me to drop, now.
You don't survive in this job for long without those instincts, without the ability to react instantly to nothing more than a warning tingle in your bollocks. You gotta learn to listen. I learned a long time ago—it's how I survived on the mean streets of London as a homeless little gutter rat and it's how I made it through all those missions when so many didn't. That and blind, stupid luck, of course.
