Dead Six

Ling took off her tinted shooting glasses and wiped her brow on her sleeve. “I don’t think that’s wise,” she said, putting the glasses back on. “All employees of Vanguard have been declared unlawful combatants by the UN. I’m sorry, but we need to go, now.” We all looked at each other, and several obscenities were uttered. We were now on our own in a country where we’d made a lot of enemies.

“They sold us out,” Tower said. “I told you!”

Tailor spoke up. “It don’t matter. Let’s move.” He took off after Ling. The rest of us followed, spacing ourselves out in a small column. Ling rallied the Exodus personnel, and they followed her as she climbed over the edge of the pool. Two of them were always within arm’s reach of the strange young girl. We quickly moved across the courtyard of the resort complex, heading for the buildings. The grass was overgrown, and the palm trees were untended.

Tailor tried to contact the pilots for an update but got no response. It was obvious something was wrong. The small attack plane zoomed back over the resort in a steep right turn, ejecting flares as it went. An instant later, a missile shrieked across the sky, trailing smoke behind it. The Super Tucano exploded in mid-air, raining burning debris into the ocean below. A Rafale fighter jet with UN markings roared overhead, turning to the east.

Our entire group froze in disbelief. This day just kept getting better and better. Beyond the noise of the fighter’s engines, the distinctive sound of a large helicopter approaching could be heard.

Tailor grabbed my shoulder and pulled me along. “Move, move, move!” he shouted, breaking into a run.

“Into the hotel, quickly!” Ling ordered. Behind us, a huge Super Cougar transport helicopter descended past our crash site and set down in the courtyard. Like the fighter jet, it bore UN markings. More than twenty soldiers, clad in urban camouflage and blue berets, spilled out of the chopper. They fanned out and immediately started shooting at us. Rounds snapped past my head as I ran across the hotel lobby. I jumped, slid across the reception desk, and crashed to the floor below. I landed on top of Tailor. Harper landed next to me.

“What do we do?” I asked, climbing off of Tailor. The water-damaged lobby was illuminated by hazy daylight streaming through the huge, shattered skylight. The wall in front of us was pockmarked with puffs of plaster dust as bullets struck. The reception desk was heavily constructed out of marble and concrete, so it provided decent cover. The hotel interior was ruined from disuse and stunk of rot.

“Why are they shooting at us?” Tailor screamed.

Ling was crouched down next to Tailor. She shouted in his ear. “I told you, they declared you unlawful combatants. We broke the cease-fire. They’re just following orders!” She then reached up, leveled her assault rifle across the counter, and ripped off a long burst. “Protect the child!” The Exodus operatives under her command obeyed her order without hesitation. The two men guarding the young girl hustled her, crouched over, to the very back of the room. The rest started shooting, causing the UN troops outside to break their advance and dive for cover.

I glanced over at Tailor. “What do we do?”

Tailor looked around for a moment, the gears turning in his head. He swore to himself, then raised his voice so he could be heard over the noise. “Switchblade-Four! Open fire!”

My team was aggressive to the last. Tower opened up with his M60E4. The machine gun’s rattling roar filled the lobby, making it difficult to hear anything. I saw a UN trooper drop to the ground as Skunky took the top of his head off with a single, well-placed shot from his M14. Harper’s FAL carbine barked as he let off shot after shot.

I took a deep breath. My heart rate slowed down, and everything seemed to slow with it. I was calm. I found a target, a cluster of enemy soldiers advancing toward the lobby, and squeezed the trigger. The shortened alloy buttstock bucked into my left shoulder as I fired. One of the UN troops, much closer, tried to bolt across the foyer. Two quick shots and he went down. Another soldier crouched down to reload his G36 carbine. The palm tree he was hiding behind didn’t conceal him well. The blue beret flew off in a spray of blood as I put two bullets through the tree.

I flinched. Something wet struck the right side of my face. Red droplets splashed my shooting glasses. Ducking back down, I reflexively wiped my glasses, smearing dark blood across them. Harper was lying on the floor, a gaping exit wound in the back of his head. Bits of gore and brain matter was splattered on the wall behind him.

I tugged on Tailor’s pant leg. He dropped behind the counter. I pointed at Harper. My mouth opened, but I couldn’t find anything to say. “He’s dead?” Tailor asked, yelling to make himself heard as he rocked a fresh magazine into his weapon.

I nodded in affirmation. “We have to move! We’re gonna get pinned down!”

“Got any grenades left?” Tailor asked. I nodded. He got Ling’s attention. “Hey! We’ll toss frags, then I’ll pop smoke. They’ll find a way to flank us if we stay here.”

Ling shouted orders to the rest of her men. Tailor and I pulled fragmentation grenades from our vests and readied them.

“Frag out!” We lobbed them over the counter. The lobby was rocked by a double concussion as the explosives detonated nearly simultaneously. Dust filled the room, and the remaining glass in the skylight broke free and rained down on top of us. Tailor then threw his smoke grenade. It fired a few seconds later, and the lobby quickly filled with dense white smoke.

“That way!” Ling shouted, pointing to my right. At the far wall was a large doorway that led into the main part of the hotel. Her men filed past us at a run, stepping over Harper’s body as they went.

One of Ling’s men stopped. He was a hulking African man, probably six-foot-four and muscular, so broad that the rifle he carried seemed like a toy in his hands. “Commander, come on!” Behind him, a Chinese man fired short bursts through the smoke, keeping the UN troops busy as we fell back into the building. Then came the young girl, flanked by her two bodyguards.

The girl looked down at me as they hustled her by, and everything else dropped away. Her eyes were intensely blue, almost luminescent. Her hair was such a light shade of platinum blond that it looked white. It was like she was looking right through me. ’m sorry about your friends,” she whispered. At least, I could’ve sworn she did. I don’t remember seeing her say anything, but I definitely heard her.

Tailor grabbed me by the arm. “Val, go, goddamn it!” It snapped me back to reality. He shoved me forward and we followed Ling’s people into the building.

LORENZO

Disputed Zone

Thailand/Myanmar Border

September 6

Men with AK-47s waited for us at the gate, illuminated by the headlights of our stolen UN 6x6 truck. The guards approached the windows. One of them was wearing a necklace strung with dried human fingers.

“Decorative bunch,” Carl stated.

The voice in my radio earpiece was not reassuring. “Lorenzo, I’ve got three at the gate. Two in the tower. FLIR shows lots of movement in the camp.” Reaper was a quarter mile up the hill, one eye on the glowing blobs on his laptop screen and the other on the road to make sure the actual United Nations troops didn’t show up.

I was signaled to roll down the window. Complying let in the humid night air and the scents of cook fires and diesel fuel. The lead guard shouted to be heard over the rumble of our engine. My Burmese was rusty, but he was gesturing with the muzzle of his rifle toward the only building with electricity, indicating our destination. I saluted. The guard returned it with a vague wave.

The heavy metal barricade was lifted and shuffled aside. Carl put the truck into gear and rolled us forward. “They bought it.” The gate was shut behind us, effectively trapping us in a compound with a thousand Marxist assholes. My driver smiled as he steered us toward the command center. “That was the hard part.”

“For you,” I responded as I took my earpiece out and shoved it back inside my uniform shirt. Scanning across the compound showed that our aerial reconnaissance had been spot-on for once. The main generator was right