“I got a shift down at the market.” Phil smirked. “Look, kid, Jefferson and the Kings have a truce. We aren’t gonna risk screwing up the balance of power here in Manhattan. Your guy is a rogue. He got you into this mess, you’ll have to get yourselves out of it. You got thirty dudes with assault rifles. As far as we know, the Latin Kings have about eighty or ninety guys with knives, clubs, and a few handguns. Sounds like even odds to me.”
Jake swallowed hard as he looked down the street. “Why is it that they don’t have very many guns? I mean, yeah, I know New York City gun laws and all that, but criminals don’t give a shit about the law.”
The cop nodded. “We got a lot of guns off of the streets back in the day, but they always got more. I guess I should say that the gangs are mostly out of bullets, not guns. They had some major gang wars early on for control of parts of the city, really reduced the numbers of mouths to feed, if you know what I mean. After a couple of months of firing thousands, hundreds of thousands of rounds, at each other, the idiots shot up all their ammo. There’s no way to restock unless you go over to Jersey where the loonies are everywhere.”
Jake groaned at their stupidity. How many innocents had been caught in their crossfire? No wonder there weren’t quite as many people around as he’d have thought there would be in New York. Sure, there were way more people than anywhere else these days, besides maybe Fort Bliss, but that wasn’t saying much.
“Alright, thanks for letting us know where to go,” Jake said after a moment’s contemplation. “I guess we’ll be on our way. Look for us to come back to the apartment complex soon.”
“Don’t you be coming directly to the boss’ HQ with your tails between your legs, empty handed,” Phil warned. “The boss wants Harper alive, but he’ll take the body so he can go do his scientist shit on it. That means you either gotta take out the Kings—which is a win for everybody in the city—or you gotta negotiate for the body. Either way, Scorpion can never know that we helped you in any way. Got it?”
“Yeah. I understand, Phil. Thanks. We appreciate all of your help.”
“Don’t thank me yet.” The big cop reached out a hand and Jake took it. “Good luck, Lieutenant. I hope I see you again.” With that, Phil turned and walked quickly back toward the marketplace where they’d first seen him.
Jake watched him go for a moment before calling his squad leaders over for a quick mission brief. He had no real plan besides walking into the Latin Kings’ neighborhood with his platoon and seeing what developed. Jake had made the hard decision to leave four guys back at the apartment complex, plus Taavi and David, to watch over the platoon’s gear that wouldn’t be used for the assault. That left him with thirty-one guys to attack an enemy with at least double their numbers on their home turf—terrible odds. The Army had taught him that you should have a minimum of a three-to-one advantage when you’re attacking an enemy position, but you play the hand you’re dealt and Harper had given them a fistful of dog shit.
“Alright,” Jake said, rubbing his hands together as he thought. It would have to be as basic of a movement as possible, something that everyone had done several thousand times. There wasn’t any time to train and rehearse some bullshit Hollywood attack. He remembered one of his TACs at West Point telling his platoon about the K.I.S.S. Principle. Keep It Simple, Stupid. The more complicated he made the plan, the more likely it was to fall apart once they initiated contact.
He’d given a little bit of thought to how they should accomplish this goatfuck that Harper had presented them with. It primarily involved a two-prong assault into enemy territory. “Sergeant Ogden, you’re with me. Your squad will take the route Phil indicated. Bounding overwatch by fire team. Staff Sergeant Gallegos, take your squad up a block, then turn west. Sergeant Turner, I want you to go with first squad. We’ll send a runner with you. When you get in position to move in, set a ten minute timer and send the runner back here to let us know the countdown. We’ll advance into the neighborhood at the same time. Corporal Jones, your squad is in reserve. I want you to stay here at our point of entry and be ready to shift where you’re needed.”
The corporal held up a hand. “Sir?”
“Wait until he’s done,” Sergeant Turner grumbled.
“I don’t want to get into a firefight with these guys on their turf because they’ll have the advantage. We need to present ourselves as non-threateningly as possible, but Phil said these guys are extremely territorial and their neighborhood is no-go territory for anyone not associated with the gang, so that might be decided for us the moment we go in. We don’t know how big the neighborhood actually is. It might be a block or two, or maybe more. No idea. Our goal is to retrieve Grady Harper, wherever they have him.”
It was about as loosie-goosy of a plan as Jake had ever devised, probably worse than anything he thought up as a Plebe at West Point, but they had almost zero intel about the situation. “Corporal Jones, you had a question?”
“Yes, sir,” Jones said. “How do I know when to move up? Our radios are out of juice.”
The batteries in their radios had died after losing the Strykers’ recharge capability, so the damn things were little more than added weight at this point. Jake’s mind flashed back to all of the training he’d done, both
