Half the reinforced pillar disintegrated around him before the deafening hail of armor-piercing bullets stopped. “HALT,” a magnified voice ordered, “OR WE WILL USE LETHAL FORCE.”
The warning felt a tad late.
One shot from Pollen’s rifle wrecked both gun and turret. The APC’s turret didn’t shoot Jan’s column again. The big vehicle’s rumbling engine stopped rumbling after Pollen put several more deafening shots into it, howling with delight.
On the other side of the warehouse, Jan spotted Eyepatch fumbling with the outside door. Jan pulled a throwing knife, took a breath as his vision narrowed, and tossed. A moment later, his knife imbedded itself hilt deep in the back of Eyepatch’s neck. The man dropped dead.
“Told you!” a gleeful Pollen shouted, as Jan risked a peek around the savaged column. “Tank killer!
The Truther APC sat smoking and motionless. Then the whole thing burst into flames. Jan kept his eyes on the vehicle’s top hatch, ready to shoot anyone who popped out, but no one popped out. Pollen’s armor-piercing bullets must have ripped right through the vehicle’s occupants.
The APC bore no identifying markings, just dull brown paint and weathering, but it had certainly belonged to Ceto’s military at one time or another. You didn’t just buy APCs off the street.
So how had the Truthers gotten their hands on a surplus CSD military vehicle? The CSD were careless, but they were not that careless. Someone would have reported the APC missing.
The APC’s origin story was a mystery for later. The mystery, now, was how to get out of here without running into more Truthers. Jan rushed across the open space and slid into cover beside his crew.
“Pollen,” Jan said, “use your Wi-Vi scope on the floor. Truthers don’t stay anywhere without an escape tunnel.”
Jan kept his eyes on the dark sky outside the giant hole in the wall, but no more attackers arrived. Perhaps the crew inside, and the APC outside, had been all the Truthers posted here. Still, going back outside put them all at risk.
“Found tunnel!” Pollen exclaimed, painting a spot on the bloodstained floor with the red targeting dot from her rifle. “Where’s the door?”
“We’ll make one,” Jan said. “Blow it, Kinsley.”
“You’d like me to blow open an underground tunnel?” Kinsley strolled forward and pulled a small wad of gray plastic from her pack. “Doesn’t that seem counterproductive, given the average structural integrity of underground tunnels?”
“It’s our safest way out,” Jan said.
“It’s possible you’re right.” Kinsley crouched and placed the explosive on the dot from Pollen’s rifle, then joined them in the hallway, with a wall between her and the impending explosion.
Rafe would be so annoyed he’d missed a chance to blow something up. Speaking of, where was Rafe? “Rafe?” Jan asked. “Any more bad folks outside the warehouse?”
No answer from Rafe. And on that note, why hadn’t Rafe warned them about the giant fucking APC rolling toward the warehouse? Who missed a giant fucking APC? “Rafe?”
Nothing. What if the Truthers had captured Rafe when they arrived? If a group that savage had Rafe, he would tell them everything before they could finish their coffee. Rafael Garcia did not resist interrogation.
“I don’t hear anything but wind outside,” Kinsley said, head cocked as if listening to something they couldn’t hear.
“Snipers are quiet people.” Pollen gestured impatiently from behind Kinsley. “I am very quiet. Blow the bomb.”
“Well, all right.” Kinsley shielded her eyes as her other hand raised a remote. “Here comes the boom.”
After the crash of the Truther APC through the wall and the deafening bang of Pollen’s rifle, the thump of plastic explosive barely registered. Jan and Emiko rushed into the warehouse to find a Pollen-sized hole leading to darkness. No ladder.
Emiko dropped a glow stick. The glowing cylinder landed on rubble two meters below, revealing three walls and a muddy dirt floor. Jan dropped into the tunnel before anyone else could. He’d dragged them into this dangerous situation, so he’d be the first to take any dangerous risks.
He landed in a crouch on wet earth. He picked up the muddy glow stick and waved it around, revealing a reinforced tunnel leading straight ahead. The light from the stick shined at least to where the wall of the warehouse might be, yet no one down here shot him. He was alone.
“Come on down,” he mouthed over comms, walking forward to give them room. “Rafe? You read us out there?”
Rafe gave no response as muddy thumps sounded one after the other. Emiko. Kinsley. Pollen. Jan led them down the darkened tunnel. They’d likely make it out, now, even if Rafe had told the Truthers who they were, assuming Rafe wasn’t ...
No. Jan refused to consider that. Rafe was not dead. He had not put Rafe in a situation where Truther assholes would make him dead. Jan reached a T and randomly went right. This entire blood and rain-soaked night made not a lick of sense.
Why had they arrived at this warehouse to find already dead Truthers? Had someone else killed them? That made the Truthers Jan and the others had just killed a cleanup squad, but that also implied the first set of Truthers had been dead long enough for another Truther cell to come check on them. And worse, with those Truthers all dead, Jan had no one to interrogate.
So had Bharat busted out before they arrived? Had Bharat singlehandedly killed the seven Truthers Jan saw dead on the floor back there? Given what Jan had seen of Bharat’s combat prowess, he wouldn’t put it past the man, but that still left Bharat wandering around Star’s Landing,
