moving assailant. He heard the black plastic stock of the M-16 assault rifle clatter against a rock, but then lost his night-vision goggles when the muscular young Ranger slammed a forearm against the side of his head, then nearly connected with an open-handed killing stroke aimed at his throat, which Lightstone barely deflected in time with the palm of his hand.
Working instinctively in the darkness, Lightstone parried another strike, and a third… then lashed out sharply with his elbow at a point where he judged the young soldier's face should be, heard a confirming grunt of pain when soft tissue gave way under the impact, then extended the muscular Ranger's arm out and twisted it sharply, wrenching it out of the shoulder socket.
The soldier was still screaming and thrashing around in the darkness, and Henry Lightstone was feeling on the ground for his goggles and the transmitter, when the beams of two flashlights converged on his face.
'LIGHTSTONE? WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING OVER THERE?!' a familiar voice yelled out as he tried to shield eyes.
Oh yeah, definitely Grynard.
'HENRY, YOU IDIOT!'
What?
Karla?
What the…?
In that brief instant during which those two remarks aimed at Henry Lightstone filled the air, the wild-card agent sensed Wintersole coming to a dead stop, and turning in his direction with the M-16 raised… and he dived for the transmitter suddenly visible in the shifting beams of the two flashlights, thumbed the A and B switches as a pair of 5.56mm rounds kicked up dirt and rocks mere inches from his head, then rolled away as the nearby barn erupted in a bright flash followed by a violent explosion that sent hundreds of pounds of rotten board fragments, dirt, and rancid, decomposing chicken manure flying in all directions.
Henry Lightstone had a brief glimpse of First Sergeant Aran Wintersole being flung to the ground by the force of the manure-bag-contained MTEAR detonation (and at least a few pounds of C-4 that Mike Takahara evidently missed, because Lightstone couldn't imagine any kind of a training device, military or otherwise, creating an explosion like that), and then… once he managed to get his night-vision goggles back on… the amazing sight of the Chosen Brigade, Natasha Marashenko and the other members of Charlie Team, FBI Agent A1 Grynard, and his colleagues all staggering to their feet dripping with clumps of decomposing chicken manure.
Lightstone was continuing his desperate search, this time for the M-16 assault rifle that his attacker had lost, when someone — a feminine voice? He couldn't tell — began screaming 'CANVASBACK! CANVASBACK!'
The furious voice of First Sergeant Aran Wintersole snarled in Lightstone's earphones.
'One-one to Fire Team One, target one-sixty-degrees relative is Special Agent Henry Lightstone… and he's got one-four's transmitter. Get that bastard, now!'
Realizing that the remaining members of Wintersole's hunter-killer team effectively surrounded him, and were very close to trapping him, Henry Lightstone abandoned all thoughts of finding the lost M-16.
Instead, he ran.
Chapter Fifty-three
The first fifty yards were the worst because Henry Lightstone knew he remained well within the hundred- percent kill range of a trained Army Ranger armed with an M-16 assault rifle. He scrambled on his hands and knees at several points, then threw himself sideways on two separate occasions, to escape the seemingly endless, short bursts of 5.56mm rounds coming at him from all directions, shearing off fragments of bark, branches, and rock that flew into his face and tore at his clothing as the projectiles whipped past his head.
Somewhere in the background, he thought he heard the sound of 12gauge shotgun and high-velocity pistol rounds, but he was much too busy trying to stay ahead of the shadowy figures working very hard both to keep up and to circle around in an effort to cut him off to worry about such things.
But as he got deeper into the woods and the thick pine and fir trees became more plentiful, the short bursts of 5.56mm rounds came further apart, and nowhere near as close, which gave him hope… and he continued to run, now driven by the sounds of boots scattering small rocks and crunching lightly on the thick carpet of dried pine needles, forcing himself to ignore his aching legs and burning lungs.
At one point, he heard a feminine voice start to ask something — but Wintersole immediately cut her off with an order to maintain radio silence.
Halfway to his goal, Lightstone paused to rest, taking in deep breaths to fill his lungs and replenish the oxygen debt in his rapidly fatiguing muscles. As he did so, he could hear the muted sounds of other heavy breathing in his earphones.
That's why he didn't want them talking with each other, Lightstone realized. I can hear them… which means they can hear me, too. Shaking his head in frustration, he quickly flipped off the microphone switch.
But as he did so, the first of the oncoming figures appeared in his night-vision goggles and immediately sent him off running again.
As he ran, Lightstone stayed on the winding path because he'd only traveled the route once before and figured this offered the least chance of spraining an ankle on a loose rock or unseen branch. He briefly considered circling back and trying to catch one of the trailing soldiers by surprise to acquire one of the M-16s, but immediately abandoned the idea, knowing that if he stopped — or did anything at all instead of run — he wouldn't stand the slightest chance against the team of professional soldiers who trained together, leapfrogging, surrounding, and killing multiple armed targets with Swiss-watch-like precision.
Instead, he continued to run, stopping only briefly every few minutes to check his compass and gather his remaining reserves… until, finally, he emerged from the tall stand of old-growth trees, crossed a shallow stream, and sprinted up a long incline to the edge of an open field.
He paused briefly at the top of the slope, looked back, saw two of the dark green figures materialize at the edge of the forest, and then, with the last remnants of his strength, staggered toward the darkened warehouse.
First Sergeant Aran Wintersole lay prone at the top of incline with the barrel of his M-16 assault rifle extended, waiting until the two members of his fire team signaled that they were in their proper flanking positions. Then he directed the figure lying next to him to set the crosshairs of her target scope on the slightly open side door of the warehouse nearest their location.
She did, and shook her head.
'I'm getting a diffuse heat source, but no movement,' she whispered while continuing to scan the front of the warehouse with her IR-heat-sensing target locator.
'Wait a minute,' she corrected herself. 'I've got heat and movement. Looks like it's coming from the gap between the siding and the floor.'
'How many?' Wintersole demanded.
'Two… no three, at least three targets. Definitely three.'
'Where?'
'Far front corner of the warehouse, opposite side from the open door, in close to the main roll-up door,' the communications specialist reported confidently.
Using hand signals, Wintersole quickly informed one-two, his heavy-weapons specialist, of the location of the three targets inside the warehouse, and ordered the corporal and his team to take the near door and go in hot while he and his team stayed outside to pick off the expected runners.
Once the Ranger first sergeant verified that everyone was in place, he signaled 'Go!' with his raised right hand.
As Wintersole watched with professional calm, the Rangers took the door without hesitation. The roar of automatic weapons fire filled the night air as the lunging and rolling soldiers sent overlapping streams of 5.56mm rounds into the front and side corrugated metal walls of the building.
Then came the distinctive sound of full magazines replacing empty ones.
And then dead silence, broken only by a softly whispered, 'Oh shit.'
