The Green Shirt’s head bounced, and he stopped struggling. He was still moving, so he was still alive, but he was dazed enough that the cop was able to rip the rifle from his suddenly slack fingers and stood up.
“We need to get these three secured and hidden and get moving,” Brannigan told Quintana. “We don’t have a lot of time.”
“I know.” Quintana looked up and down the street, then pointed. “That might be their vehicle up there. The Green Shirts are lazy. They don’t like to patrol on foot for very far. We can stuff them in the back and hide the vehicle in the jungle on the way to the rendezvous point.” He turned to the cop, and spoke quickly, pointing up toward the hills and the road where Pacheco was taking the truck with the weapons. The cop nodded, pulling his handcuffs out of his belt and flipping the stunned Green Shirt onto his back.
Quintana went to work on the one Brannigan had choked out, as Jenkins held security and Brannigan moved to the man who’d been hit in the head with a brick. A glance up at the balcony showed him a small head peering over the low wall, another brick held ready to throw. One of the cop’s kids, more than likely.
It was a universal. Boys everywhere wanted to be resistance fighters. Few ever got the opportunity.
He checked the unconscious man’s pulse. He was still bleeding from a cut on his forehead and what might very well be a broken nose. He had a pulse, though it was slow and thready. He was alive, but he wasn’t in great shape. He’d probably be unconscious for quite some time. A concussion was a certainty.
Brannigan pulled a length of 550 cord out of his chest rig and tied the man’s hands after dragging the FNC rifle out of reach anyway. Best not to take chances.
“George, you’re on security.” He hefted the unconscious Green Shirt into a fireman’s carry, even as Quintana and the other cop started dragging their prisoners toward the vehicle, an old VW van.
It took seconds to get the incapacitated fighters into the back, check their bonds, and find the keys. Then the cop started the van and rolled out, waving to Quintana. He’d ditch the van and meet with Pacheco.
Provided he didn’t turn on them. It was doubtful, given what had just happened, but Brannigan was long past trusting anyone in a situation like this.
“Come on.” Quintana kept going up the street. “We have a few more to find. We should be able to speed things up after this next house—both brothers are policemen, and they both live in the same house.” He glanced up at Brannigan. “And I trust them more than I do Abalos.”
“Let’s go, then. We’re running out of time.” He tried not to think too much about Hank as they hustled up the street.
Chapter 19
The gun trucks parked at the entrance to Ballesteros’s house weren’t in the greatest of shape anymore—Curtis was a good machinegunner, but machineguns aren’t precision instruments. Most of the glass had been shattered and the driver’s side was riddled with bullet holes. More rounds had punched into the bed, and the PKM mounted on top of the cab had taken a single round to the buttstock, shattering the wood and making it more than a little uncomfortable to shoot.
Curtis, currently in the back, was still bemoaning the damage to the gun. “I mean, we need all the firepower we can get, but I can’t shoot that, not now!”
“Why not?” Flanagan saw Bianco wince in the rear-view mirror even as the words left his mouth. But it was too late.
“Can you imagine what that splintered buttstock would do to this face under sustained recoil?” Curtis managed to sound indignant even over the roar of the wind and the engine. “Do you have any idea how many women would be devastated at the damage to such a national treasure?”
Flanagan just rolled his eyes and kept driving. Javakhishvili didn’t want to let it go, though. “Dude, chicks dig scars.”
“Some chicks dig scars.” Curtis wagged a finger as if he were giving a lecture. “Not as many do these days. And those who do dig scars aren’t necessarily turned off by a lack of scars. So, scarring up this handsome face will take more of the chicks out of the equation than will potentially be added.” He folded his heavily-muscled arms in front of his chest. “It’s simple math.”
Flanagan knew better than to get involved in that conversation. Even less so when he thought he could hear gunfire over the noise the wind was making whistling through the remains of the windshield.
He sped up, hurtling along the narrow mountain road toward the Galán farm, where Wade and the others were under siege.
***
The women and children were down flat on the floor, and Galán had turned off the light. The advancing Green Shirts had noticed, too, and they’d gotten down and disappeared into the corn as soon as the house went dark. Wade, Burgess, and Hank dropped their PVS-14s and scanned the fields for their enemies. Wade really wished that he had an ATPIAL infrared laser right then, but wish in one hand…
For a long moment, the fields below were still, the only sign of the Green Shirts being the gunners on the two trucks on the side of the road. They were definitely getting more cautious.
Wade swept the cornfield with his muzzle, searching intently for any movement. He was beyond giving a damn about who engaged first—if he saw overhead movement in the corn, he was going to engage. He knew the best way to do it, too. The Rhodesians had developed “cover shooting” as a combination of a counter-ambush tactic and recon by
