“You’re staying quiet,” Boxers said.
Jonathan softened the message by holding a finger to his lips in a silent
Jonathan keyed his mike. “Mother Hen, Scorpion. You there?”
“I heard Big Guy,” she said. “What’s wrong?”
He told her about the vehicle. “I have to assume that we’ve got OPFOR deployed around our target building. What does SkysEye show you?” He knew that she’d recognize the shorthand for opposition force.
“We had a tasking problem,” she said. “So we’re just now getting images. Want to be patched in?”
“Negative,” Jonathan said. “Can’t afford the light wash.” While the SkysEye system and Venice’s bag of toys allowed her to download imagery to be shared in real time on Jonathan’s PDA or even a laptop, here at night in the middle of the street, the glow would be too obvious and could easily give away their position.
While they waited to hear back from Venice, Jonathan pulled a digital night vision monocular from its pouch on his ruck. While Boxers continued to hold his aim on the street, Jonathan rose above their cover and scanned the area for risks. Just beyond the wash of the streetlight that illuminated the Sandcat that Boxers had discovered, he saw another one parked along the curb.
“I’ve got another vehicle,” he whispered. “Shit, and a third.” This one was parked across the road from the second one, on their side of the street.
“See any guards?” Boxers asked. “If I were their commander, I’d have left at least one guy to keep an eye on the trucks.”
In a neighborhood like this, it made even more sense.
His earbud popped. “Scorpion, Mother Hen. I’ve got bad news.”
“SkysEye’s thermal imagery shows a number of people clustered around the target property. They all seem to be huddled behind some kind of shelter. Vehicles, mostly.”
“Shit,” Boxers spat.
Tristan went on alert. “What?”
“A small setback,” Jonathan told him. Into his radio he said, “Okay, download the photo to my PDA. I’ll find a way to look at it.”
Jonathan shifted his monocular away from the Sandcats, where he was certain there were guards, even if he couldn’t see them, and surveyed the surrounding buildings. In this part of the city, so many residences had been abandoned in place that it was hard to tell the ones that were occupied from the ones that were empty.
The houses here weren’t row houses in the strict sense of the term because they didn’t physically touch, but they were so close together that the difference was academic. Most were in various stages of rot, but a few showed visible signs of prosperity in the form of flower boxes in the windows or a wreath on the door. Scanning the closest structures on his side of the street, Jonathan focused in on the third property down, where the frayed drapes on the house were open yet the lights were off. That struck him as an odd combination. If people lived in the house, and if they were home, wouldn’t they make a point of closing the drapes-especially in a neighborhood as dangerous as this one?
If only because it was convenient, Jonathan locked on to that as an undeniable truth. He tapped Boxers on the shoulder and brought his lips to within an inch of his ear. “We need to get under cover,” he whispered. “I want to target the third house down on the left. It looks empty to me.”
Boxers said, “Aim my weapon and I’m yours.”
That was Boxers’ way of saying,
Jonathan turned to Tristan. “How’re you doing?”
“I’m okay. I think.” His eyes were wide, but his focus seemed sharp.
“I can’t explain all the details,” Jonathan said, “but we need to seek some shelter for a few minutes. We’re targeting the third house up there on the left. I don’t need you to do anything but stay close. Are you cool with that?” He asked the question as if there truly was a choice.
Tristan nodded. “I’m good.”
Jonathan flashed him a smile. “You’re my shadow, remember?” He stuffed the monocular back into its pouch.
“I remember,” Tristan said. He looked at Boxers. “And my safety is on.”
Boxers smiled, too. “I figured as much.”
“Hand on my ruck,” Jonathan said to Tristan. When he felt the tug, Jonathan snapped his night vision back into place and started moving.
The first two houses were obviously occupied, one of them playing the television or radio loudly enough to be heard out here on the street. That was good news. It covered the sound of their movement.
They advanced to the base of the short stairway that led to the front door of the abandoned house. Jonathan keyed his mike. “I vote we enter from the black side,” he said.
Boxers made a sweeping motion with his arm that said,
While the Big Guy took a knee at the front corner of the house, his weapon to his shoulder, Jonathan made his way down the side of the house toward the back, taking care not to brush the side of the structure next door-they really were that close. About halfway down, he encountered a window that had been broken out. The bottom sill lay at chest height, an easy climb inside.
Jonathan hated anything that was easy. He didn’t trust anything that was easy.
Even with night vision in place, it was hard to see any detail of the interior, so he raised his M27 and twisted the lens ring on his muzzle light to ignite the infrared flashlight. With night vision in place, the infrared beam operated just like a visible light beam, except it was, well, invisible. Through Jonathan’s lenses, he might as well have been peering through a green-tinted window at midday.
From this angle, furniture and fixtures blocked a thorough view of every corner, but he saw no signs of recent occupancy. In fact, there appeared to be a huge water leak in the middle of the front parlor. Given that there was a second floor above the first, Jonathan considered that kind of uncorrected damage to be a good sign of abandonment.
“Do you need a boost or can you climb?” Jonathan asked.
“I think I can climb,” Tristan said.
That was the right answer. “Okay, stay there for a second.”
Jonathan shrugged free of Tristan’s grasp, planted his gloved hands on the gritty ledge, and hefted himself up. He didn’t feel any broken glass or nails or any other nasty stuff that could hurt Tristan when it was his turn. When his waist was clear, and he pulled himself inside, he drew himself to a knee, brought his rifle to his shoulder, and waited.
When no one shot at him or jumped out at him, he allowed himself to rise to a crouch, and then to a standing position. He keyed his mike. “I’m in,” he said. “I’m going to sweep the building.”
“Roger,” Boxers said. “I’ve got eyes on the PC.”
Some might argue that it was overkill to search the entire house for other people-they only needed shelter for a few minutes, after all-but a hidden bad guy had the power to ruin Jonathan’s day in enough ways that it was worth the time it took to make sure there was no one else in the building.
It took him all of three minutes. Once he got past the two front rooms on the first floor, the rest of the house had virtually no furniture, and therefore no place for bad guys to hide. He checked every closet, and saved the basement for last. He chuckled in spite of himself. He wondered if anyone entirely escaped their childhood fear of basements. Still, despite the creepiness, the cellar harbored no terrors.
As he climbed the steps back to the first floor, he radioed, “The house is clear.”
“The sidewalk isn’t,” Boxers replied. “I found our sentries. There are at least two, and it looks like they kill time crashed in the front seat of the vehicles. Lazy bastards.”
That news was bad, but it wasn’t devastating. It wasn’t even unexpected. Jonathan asked, “Are they an immediate problem?”
“Negative,” Boxers said. “So long as we’re quiet.”
Back on the first floor now, Jonathan walked casually back to the window where he’d made his entrance and announced to Tristan, “No bad guys.”
“I figured that from the absence of shooting,” the kid replied. “Am I supposed to join you in there?”
That had been Jonathan’s original plan, but now it didn’t make a lot of sense. “No, just stay put,” he said. “I’ll
