Combat was always a role of the dice. Those who survived were as lucky as they were skilled. But that didn’t mean you trusted blind chance. He’d been a student of war his entire life, and what he’d learned told him that this was a bad situation.
The man on the megaphone was Sergeant Phillips. He had his personality flaws, but there was no faulting his soldiering skills. The one behind the sniper rifle was probably Corporal Steele. He remembered grad-night, and her evening gown. If she’d been paying attention she wouldn’t have missed. There’d be six others, young kids he couldn’t name but deadly nonetheless. Two with machine guns and maybe a grenade launcher or two. Why they hadn’t used it yet, he couldn’t say.
Four against one were impossible odds if the four were remotely skilled. Three against one was doable, if you were highly skilled and they weren’t, four? Never. The Hellhounds and Slayer had been different situations, even if Raxx didn’t realize it. But now the Regiment had found him. He was probably better than them, but it wouldn’t matter. Not in a fair fight, anyway.
This was dead man walking time.
Steele was sweating. She’d been picking her nose when Wentworth came into view and somehow during that second while she’d hefted her weapon and drew a bead on him he’d sensed her. How the hell had he done that? She was a block away in the shadows of the parking garage where they’d found his motorcycle. A tingle ran down her spine. She ignored the memory — the tingle was fear, not something else. The man was scary. But he didn’t scare her as much as Sergeant Phillips did. She shouldn’t have missed, and she’d hear about it later.
The rest of the Section was arrayed along the walls. All of them wore the same helmet and goggles as Wentworth, with long black trench coats made out of the same black leather. Gaps of several meters separated them, while Phillips watched from behind. They had their weapons trained on the concrete barrier waiting for a target.
“Get ready, Corporal. The rest of you, hold your fire” said Phillips.
Staring through her scope she saw Wentworth slowly rise from behind the barrier, hands over his head as ordered. Taking aim at his centre of mass she slowly squeezed the trigger. The recoil caught her by surprise, as it should, but when the gun steadied all she saw was another cavity in the glass building behind the barrier.
“Shit!” she said, “It was just his reflection!”
A sudden movement on the far side of the barrier caught the Sections attention and they all opened up. Steele drew a bead, only to realize that the object was green — they’d been firing at his duffle bag! Swinging her scope she caught Wentworth and the savage he was with running towards the subway. “Shift Fire Left!” She fired a couple of snap shots and heard the others open up, but all of them missed. Wentworth and the freak travelling with him had disappeared into the subway network.
“Goddamnit!” yelled Phillips. “Let’s move people, we can’t let him disappear into the city. I said move, goddamnit!”
The tunnels seemed darker than before. They moved at a jog, the beams from their flashlights jerking back and forth with each step.
“You got any C4 on you?” asked Wentworth as they vaulted over a series of turnstiles blocking their path.
“Nothing but my shotgun and some extra ammo,” panted Raxx, “You?”
“Same here; nothing.” They’d left their bags behind when they bolted for the subway. There’d been nothing in them that would have helped, anyhow.
Wentworth would have traded his motorcycle for a few grenades at this point.
His mind was whirring, thinking up and discarding plans as they came to him. “We need to start some fires. Get some light in here. Anything that’ll burn.” He vaulted back over one of the turnstile, back towards the entrance, to a newspaper box. He tried pulling it, then stomped down on its door, breaking the hinges. He held his lighter up to the contents and waited for them to catch. Sweat was pouring down his brow and he kept glancing over at the entrance, expecting Phillips’ Section to enter at any moment. Raxx was still standing by the turnstiles, his flashlight was pointed downwards and all that could be seen were his feet. “Head down to the tracks and see if you can find anything,” he said, “Garbage cans, whatever. I’ll just be a sec.”
They’d gathered by the subway entrance. Mathews, one of the gunners, was crouched down behind some rubble on the right, covering the stairwell. The rest of them were stacked up on the left. Steele was covering the rear with her sniper rifle while Phillips stood next to her. The other six were stacked up against the building ready to breach the entrance. Phillips gave the nod. The rear man in the stack squeezed the next man’s shoulder and so on up the line until it reached the one in front. A split second later he started moving and the rest followed. Like a single organism they glided in smooth, their black coats merging into the shadows, cones of light shining from the flashlights at the ends of their rifles. Each moved to their corners in the small foyer and yelled up “Clear!” Phillips gathered the remaining three on the surface and they started down the stairs while the group below took the next room.
The subway was a nightmare for close combat. The main room they entered would have been wide and open but for benches, support columns, and magazine stands filling the space. They stuck to the walls as they entered, circling and training their weapons back and forth. There were numerous places that the two might be hiding but Phillips was confident that Wentworth wouldn’t be that stupid. An ambush at this point might take out a couple of them, but Wentworth would die in the process. No, he’d be going deeper. He’d keep running. But they still needed to clear the area.
There were a bunch of fires lit, in garbage cans and newspaper kiosks. His Section had the sense to stick to the darker corners, away from the smoke. The flames made shadows dance against the walls and ceiling, but were useless for seeing. He kept his own flashlight pointed down the long corridors.
Moving leap-frog, they went further along. Past the turnstiles was another set of steps. He could make out the light from several different fires reflecting off the roof of the lower level. Wentworth was leaving a path for them to follow.
With hand signals he grouped his Section on either side of the stairs. It was quiet. When they moved their footsteps echoed and their trench coats swished. Their weapons made greasy clacking sounds as they adjusted their grips. The fires crackled softly while in the distance a moan almost too low to be heard resonated through the long tunnels. He grabbed the shoulder in front of him, not caring who it was. “Prep smoke,” he whispered in their ear.
Wentworth was leaning against the wall in sitting position, canted to his right so that his point of aim would be at the distant subway platform. His weapon’s sling was wrapped around his right arm, his hand was on the pistol grip, while the weapons magazine was cradled in the crook of his left elbow. His arms were crossed and the weapon was nestled snugly between the two. Taking deep breaths he tried to slow his heart rate. This shot needed to be on target.
Running was not an option. This time, it was a question of resources. If he and Raxx were to attempt flight it would be a pyrrhic victory. Without their vehicles and supplies Phillips would eventually catch up with them and it would be the same fight, only they’d be exhausted and hungry. Better to make their stand now. Phillips had screwed up by not killing him immediately, and now they were both flying by the seat of their pants.
Except Wentworth had already explored these tunnels.
He could barely make out the distant subway platform. The fire Raxx had lit had been in a garbage can. It was projecting its light upwards towards the ceiling, not onto the platform itself. But Wentworth could remember what it looked like and the few things reflecting the light were enough of a guide for him to take up a point of aim.
A metal canister bounced down the stairs, Wentworth recognized its sound. It started spewing out purple
