There was the barest of sounds, a tick of plastic hitting concrete as the zip-tie handcuffs fell off her wrists. No one noticed it over the laughter, but they did notice when the tie around her ankles broke at the slightest pressure and she fell into a balanced shooting stance, bringing up the compact handgun that Ari had slipped into her hands when he was behind her.
“Gun!” Lee screamed, scrabbling at his waist for his own holstered sidearm. “She has a…”
He didn’t get another word out, because Ari grabbed him by the wrist of his gun hand and the throat, and slammed him to the ground. Lee’s breath left him in an explosive “whoosh” and his eyes rolled back in his head.
Roza ignored him. It was too dark and too close to use sights; instead she held the 10mm in an Isosceles stance, her arms making a triangle with her torso, the gun at the tip, and pointed her whole body at Major Sobawale. The Major was faster than the others… his service pistol had actually cleared its holster before she shot him. Two rounds through the chest and then a shift upwards and a third into his forehead. The triple-explosion of the Mozambique Drill echoed through the enclosed bunker like a snare drum, shocking the others.
Roza wouldn’t even remember hearing it. She dimly registered Sobawale’s body falling to the side, didn’t hear the shriek of fear and disgust from Hassan Ali as he suddenly found his face covered with the Major’s blood and brain tissue. Her focus was on Captain Fillon, who was trying to run for the door while simultaneously clawing at his holster, trying to get his handgun free with hands that suddenly wouldn’t stop shaking. He finally ripped the gun out and swung it around one-handed as he side-stepped toward the door, jerking the trigger over and over as he swung the gun.
A strobe-effect of muzzle blasts lit up the bunker but the rounds came nowhere near the target; the ceramic jackets shattered harmlessly on concrete walls and ceiling, the tantalum penetrator fragments within burying themselves in the rock. Roza took her time, shutting out the fear and the sounds and flashes of his gunfire as she put two rounds in his chest and a third to the head. Fillon collapsed back against the wall next to the doorway and slid down it to the floor, coating it with a red swathe of his blood.
Hassan Ali was still screaming when Ari came up behind him and snatched his handgun from its holster, then slammed it into his temple. The Guard Captain went down in a heap, moaning and clutching his head and Ari came down on his back with a knee, pinning him to the ground as he fastened a zip-tie handcuff around his wrists, then another around his ankles. He left him there and went back to Colonel Lee, who was still barely conscious, struggling for breath; more temporary cuffs secured him as well. Ari came to his feet and darted out of the bunker, Ali’s gun in his left hand as he drew his own with his right.
There had been a driver, as he feared. It was a woman, one of Lee’s trusted NCOs… he thought he remembered hearing her referred to as Sergeant Paakannen. She was running towards the bunker, a rifle in her hands. Ari didn’t have time to think, but his body reacted as he’d been trained. Even as the Sergeant raised her rifle to her shoulder, he stepped to the side, using the bunker entrance’s blast shield as cover, leaving only one eye and his gun hand revealed. She was wearing armor but no helmet… no doubt she’d been relaxing in the car and charged out without bothering to grab it. That left one target vulnerable to a handgun.
Ari’s 10mm bucked in his hand twice in quick succession and Sergeant Paakannen’s head snapped back in a spray of blood, bone and brains. She fell face first to the ground, feet kicking in one last, frantic firing of nerves before she went motionless.
Ari stayed behind cover for a long moment, making sure there was no one else out in the darkness, before he stepped out and pried the rifle from the dead woman’s hands. Slinging it over his shoulder, he grabbed her by an arm and dragged her through the door to the bunker, letting her body fall down the steps and roll to a rest next to Captain Fillon’s.
Roza gave him a nod. “Sit those two up,” she gestured at Colonel Lee and Captain Ali.
“Yes ma’am,” he grunted, tossing aside the rifle and two pistols he’d collected.
Lee had managed to get his breath back, and was using it to curse them both in Korean at the top of his lungs as Ari dragged him by the collar of his uniform jacket across the room to the concrete bench. Ari didn’t respond, just sat the officer against the bench, then went back for Ali. The Captain was still lolling from the blow to the head: Ari judged that the man probably had at least a light concussion. At any rate, he didn’t say a word or resist being moved next to the Colonel.
“Colonel Lee,” Ari said, “please allow me to introduce myself. I am Captain Ariel Shamir of Republic Spacefleet Intelligence Service, Special Activities Division. Formerly of the Fleet Marine Corps.”
“You…” Lee stuttered, recognition coming into his eyes. “You were on the Protectorate flagship in the war…”
“Yes, I’ve seen the movie,” Ari said dryly. “I am telling you this because I want you to know who you’re dealing with. This woman,” he nodded at Roza, “has specific orders from General Kage to make you go away. You’re an embarrassment to the new Colonial Guard he’s trying to build. She is very willing to
“You have me,” Lee shook his head defiantly, “but this cause will go on without me. The word will still go out… the colonies will be ours!” Ari interrupted his rant with a quick, sharp slap to the face.
“Let’s be clear about something, Colonel,” Ari snapped, “we do not need your fucking cooperation to pull this off.” He looked to Roza and she pulled a small syringe from a thigh pocket and held it up. “This will have you babbling like a baby in seconds. You’ll tell us everything you know. If we need your face, we’ll use a computer simulation. If we need you to meet someone in person, I can have restruct surgery done on my face,”
“I…” Lee swallowed hard. “I do not believe you would kill me in cold blood…”
He hardly had spoken the words when Roza’s gun fired only inches from his face and Captain Ali jerked back and collapsed against the bench, half his skull blown off. Lee screamed as blood splashed into his face, blinding him.
Ari shot Roza an annoyed glance. “That was extremely loud,” he said plaintively, wiping blood drops from his tactical vest. Calmly, he turned back to Lee, slapping the man across the face to stop his screaming. “Colonel, trust me when I say, Roza
“All right, all right,” Lee could hardly speak from hyperventilating. “I will do what you want, I will do it!”
“Good.” Ari said with a smile. “Roza, let us begin.”
Without a word, she pulled the safety cap off the syringe and jabbed the needle through Lee’s trousers and into his thigh, drawing a gasp from the man.
“What are you doing?” Lee asked in a panicked voice. “I said I would cooperate!”
“And you will, and I will keep my word to allow you to live,” Ari nodded to the Colonel as the older man began to blink his eyes and fall into a stupor. “That does not mean we trust you.”
“Now, Colonel Lee,” Roza began, “you will tell us who your contact is and how we can get in touch with him…”
Chapter Sixteen
“Well, doesn’t this inspire
