It was pretty clear where the guy was going.
He was headed for the koobs.
Boom Boom identified an intersection where they’d be safe to intercept the target and dropped a pin to everyone in the crew.
“Move, braddas! Move yo hairy butts now-like-hussah!”
The gaudy sleds turned and picked up a new course track along a side street that would take them to the intercept in less than two minutes.
23
The dropship hovered over the rooftops behind Bowie, occasionally skirting ahead. He could hear the ring of blaster fire coming from the ground in the surrounding streets. The snipers on board the dropship were firing suppressed.
It was like being overwatched by an angel of death.
Except Bowie had been in these situations before. Out beyond the wire. Past the perimeter and inside a place the enemy, whoever they were this week, called home. Air cover was nice, but a full-scale infantry team with armor support made one feel a lot safer. Without any of those things, one started to feel one’s mortality.
“That’s why you get the big bucks,” Jack Bowie told himself as he jogged up the street he was navigating. He’d ditched his coat. It was too hot and also if the donks were running low-grade search identification software, even that simple change of wardrobe just might throw them for a loop.
Anything more sophisticated than low-level would bypass clothing markers and identify facial features at upwards of four hundred points. Almost impossible to defeat.
If the donks got their acts together in the next few minutes, they’d find him. That was the safest way for him to plan this.
Bowie continued to move.
What good that would do them, he didn’t know. Right now, he was passing a lot of empty streets and more than a few dead donks who’d been more than willing to meet him. Done to death from above.
The dropship was ahead of his position and engaging targets at a large intersection he’d have to cross. Bowie had made the left turn two blocks back and now he was continuing straight out of the Green Zone.
And he wasn’t thrilled about that either.
Elektra was telling him to move forward when she suddenly stopped mid-sentence. She dropped from the comm and there was nothing but a dull, ominous hum. Ahead, a block up, a ground-to-air missile streaked up from the streets, away from behind some buildings, and barely missed the dropship sniper team.
Bowie stopped and watched as the dropship jinked hard to its left to miss another missile suddenly coming up now. Engines howled, repulsors groaned as the hovering ship danced like a moth. Again, another narrow miss.
Flares and chaff pods erupted away from the turning dropship, nose down now and heading away from the intersection as fast as it could. Seconds later it was out of the area, un-hit and unharmed.
And of course, leaving Jack Bowie without his personal Angel of Death.
“Uh… problem?” asked Bowie over the suddenly quiet comm. He’d heard her at points interacting with other teams and received snippets of their comm traffic. Now, she’d isolated him from the general. And that did not bode well.
He was surprised when she came back quickly.
“Yeah,” said Elektra flatly. “We had no idea they had anti-air cap.”
Pause. He heard her say something while covering her comm.
Then…
“Hold one, Bowie.”
Things were heading away from the plan. That was fairly obvious.
“Watch your six for the present,” she said simply after a moment. He wasn’t even sure if the message was meant for him.
But the meaning was clear. He was completely beyond the Green Zone with no back up and wanted by every zhee killer on the planet. And a few others besides. He was on his own for the immediate and indeterminate future.
Bowie swore and holstered the Python in his shoulder harness.
A moment later he tapped the deployment tab on the Jackknife Supreme, currently in camo-carry mode, and watched as the thing neatly unpacked itself into a high-powered heavy blaster. A chain of charge packs effortlessly fell away from the feed-injector.
A grim smile blossomed across his determined face.
Yeah, he’d worked stealth and reach-out-and-kill… but excessive firepower had always been a guilty pleasure he’d found attractive. And he’d never minded carrying the team pig during his time attached to the Marines.
If he was going to be on his own for a few, then the Jackknife Supreme was a handy little thing to have in a pinch.
“Bowie.”
It was Elektra again. A little less calm, cool, and collected than prior transmission comms, but still pro. “Change of plans. We have ground teams moving into position. Problem is, for the next six blocks you’re on your own. I need you to reach Park and Sixth in ten minutes. Then we’ll have you back in pocket.”
Bowie had always hated that phrase. The only people who ever used it were people who had no idea what it was like to be out of pocket.
No idea what fear, adrenaline, and tension did to you in those unsupervised and very exposed moments when you were out of pocket, as they liked to say. It wasn’t the same as a termination or a hit. You were running the game then.
Take your shot and blow.
Out of pocket meant… on your own deep inside enemy territory without support, back up, QRF, or overwatch. You were in their game. Their world. Not yours. Now you had to balance reactive and proactive stances as the mission developed.
You’d left the known world.
And operationally speaking, that was not a great place to be.
Elektra was describing a route through a construction project that was going to be the future of the underground transportation system coming to Soob City in the next few years.
“Negative on route,” grunted Bowie, his voice dry and ragged over the comm. It was hot and he was dehydrated. “Follow me via tracking.”
Bowie doglegged a hard right, crossing the street and heading for an office complex east of the shootout
