It almost made him turn and engage right there, but none of the Green Shirts he could see were looking in his direction. All their attention was directed uphill, where even more gunfire thundered and crackled, the cacophony echoing across the darkened hills.
With a lunge, Bianco dashed out across the road, keeping his head down and crossing in three lurching strides, his chest rig bouncing against his torso, the Negev’s weight tearing at his arms. He probably hadn’t run that fast in a long time.
One of the Green Shirts must have spotted him, because a half dozen shots followed him, a few kicking up dirt at his heels while others sailed out into the night with hissing cracks.
Then he was in the trees and he pivoted, dropping prone behind one of the largest ones and dragging the Negev to bear. He had half a belt left.
It would have to be enough. He leaned into the bipods and went to work.
By luck, he’d dropped into a near-perfect position. The Green Shirts on the road—only a handful of the men on foot had started to venture up into the cornfield—were spread out along the shallow curve of the roadway that faced Galán’s farm, but they were all within an arc that he could easily cover with the belt-fed simply by shifting his aim a few inches to the left and right.
Starting on the left, he held down the trigger, leaning into the gun to control the recoil, stitching tracers across the line of vehicles and men. The first man, the one who had shot at him and was still moving forward with his rifle up, caught the first burst at the knees and crumpled, screaming, to the roadway. Bianco had already traversed past him, though, raking the road and the up gunners on the trucks.
Several more Green Shirts collapsed, dead or wounded, and the fire slackened considerably as they scrambled for cover or died. Bianco reached the end of his arc and started back, but the Negev ran dry halfway across, before he could reach the first man he’d shot, who lay in the dirt, writhing and still screaming.
Scrambling to his feet, he flipped the ammo tray cover open and ripped the drum off as he started to run into the jungle, heading up the hill toward the house.
***
Brannigan couldn’t tell exactly what had happened down below, but they suddenly had a lull in the incoming fire. “Get up and move! Get to the house!” He rose to a knee and added his own fire to whoever had just jumped the Green Shirts down on the road. He ripped half the mag down the hillside at the trucks, and at least one round shot out one of the headlights. Brannigan didn’t consider that an achievement. Better if he’d hit one of the men.
Curtis had recovered and let rip with a long, ravening burst from the next terrace up. Brannigan turned and ran, struggling up the hillside to the right, finding the shallower slope beside the terraces, rather than trying to climb the three-foot-high earthen walls. He got to the next one up and dropped prone again, resuming his fire and giving Curtis some cover.
Curtis turned, hefting the gun and running the other way, toward the trees on the east side of the farm. Unfortunately, that was where the other Green Shirts were coming from.
Brannigan didn’t hear the curse, but he sure heard the panic fire as Curtis skidded to a halt, snatched up the Negev like it was a carbine, and laid a twenty-round burst into the trees directly in front of him, even as more rifle fire from the house chopped into the shadows nearby.
“Everyone get to the house! Now!” Flanagan was ordinarily a quiet man, but he could make himself heard when he needed to. His bellow sounded even over the thunder of gunfire. “Move your ass, Kevin!” A moment later, more fire plunged into the trees, answered by a pained scream.
Curtis put his head down and sprinted up the hillside, his short legs pumping, the machinegun in his hands swinging from side to side.
Brannigan had already started moving, grabbing Jenkins as he went and propelling him toward Quintana, who’d retreated farther up the hillside, but was moving more slowly. “Get him moving!”
Jenkins ran forward and grabbed hold of Quintana, dragging him upward as Brannigan turned back and dumped the last of his magazine down through the cornstalks. The former policeman stumbled and almost fell, but Jenkins hauled him to his feet and kept moving. Then, as the fire from the house redoubled, Brannigan followed, stripping the empty mag out and rocking in another.
Another burst of machinegun fire roared out of the night nearby, entirely too close for comfort. Brannigan pivoted as he chambered a round, bringing his rifle up, searching for the muzzle flash, knowing he was too late.
But just before he fired, he realized that the automatic fire had been directed downhill. He shifted, added his own fire, and a moment later, Bianco burst out of the trees, panting for breath, clutching his Negev to his chest as he staggered toward the house.
Brannigan was right behind him, as Curtis opened fire from the house itself, raking the terraces and the road below. The two Blackhearts raced the last handful of yards to the door and plunged inside.
“Headcount!” Brannigan looked around the darkened interior of the bullet-riddled structure, praying that he had everyone. Bianco was on the floor next to him, gasping for breath but already shifting his position to point the Negev out the partially open, thoroughly holed door. Curtis was at the window with the other and Flanagan was at the west window, while Burgess, Javakhishvili, and Gomez
