“Anything that looks like a computer.”
Chapter 26
When Nuri heard the gunfire in the field, he glanced at the women. They stared at him blankly, sharing the frozen expression of people resigned to a terrible fate. Even Bloom seemed to have given up. Her lips were moving rapidly though no sound came from her mouth.
She was praying, he realized.
Only the newborn seemed to have any spirit left — his eyes darted around, still in wonder at the wide world around him.
No way was he going to get them to move.
“All right, I need you to stay here,” he told Bloom. “Whatever happens, stay hidden. You understand? Do you understand?”
She didn’t answer.
“Hey!” Nuri started to shout, then realized that wasn’t wise. The result was a loud hiss, foreign even to him. He grabbed Bloom’s arm and shook her. “Do you hear me? You’re going to stay. All of you.”
“We stay,” she repeated.
Nuri took his Beretta from its holster. “Use this if you need it,” he told her.
She stared at it.
“If you need it,” he told her, pushing it at her.
What he meant was — kill yourself and the women so you don’t have to suffer if the bastards get past us. But he couldn’t say that.
Bloom remained frozen.
“It’s here,” he told her, putting it down. “I’ll be back. Watch them.”
Nuri pushed into a crouch, then scooted to his right, deciding he would take the bastards in the field from the side opposite Boston, catching them in a cross fire. Unlike Boston, he didn’t have a combat helmet, which meant he didn’t have night vision. But he didn’t mind it: he could see the outlines of the field and where the enemy was, and he could move without the claustrophobic sense helmets always gave him.
“Boston, I’m going behind them,” he said over the team radio circuit.
“Move the women back.”
“They ain’t movin’. You keep these guys’ attention, I’ll nail them from behind.”
Nuri scuttled along the edge of the woods, his enemy to his left. He wasn’t exactly sure how much room to give them before turning. He simply ran for a few seconds, glanced to see where the gun flashes were, then ran a little more. Finally he threw himself down and began crawling in the field.
The Sudan First fighters were clustered near the dirt road where they’d crossed, scattered in a staggered line about four men deep. They’d only had rudimentary training. Besides being packed relatively closely and not recognizing that they were opposed by a single man, they fired wildly, wasting bullets and not coming close to their target.
Three of them, apparently having lost their nerve, began crawling to the west, moving perpendicular to Nuri as he came down the hill. Trying to get away, they were inadvertently coming toward him.
Nuri raised his rifle. He leaned his head over, peering through the scope. But he couldn’t see the image. He raised his head, checking to make sure the caps were off — they certainly were, and the scope was on and operating. But for some reason his eyes just wouldn’t focus. He moved his head back and forth, still trying to see through the damn thing, his nerves starting to rise.
Finally he decided they were so close he didn’t need the scope. He started to pull his head back — and of course that was when the image appeared in front of his eye.
The men were low to the ground, moving on their haunches. He raised his shoulder slightly, bringing the crosshair level with the chest of the first man in the group. Slowly, he swung to the left, praying he wouldn’t lose the image.
He tightened his finger against the trigger. The SCAR was a light gun, and for Nuri it always seemed to jump to the right. His plan was to take advantage of that — he’d move in that direction, left to right, taking all three if he could.
His target rose, full in the crosshairs.
The gun gave a light, rapid burp as he pressed the trigger. He swept it right, then brought it back, pumping bullets into the tangos. All three were now on the ground, though he couldn’t tell if he’d hit them or they simply flattened at the sound of bullets crashing nearby.
“Grenade!” yelled Boston over the radio.
Nuri turned to look in Boston’s direction, hoping his friend would be able to avoid the explosion. Belatedly, he realized that Boston was warning him that
A collective scream followed the bang, one of the wounded men screeching in pain. Nuri turned his attention back to the men in front of him, sighting the prone bodies through his scope. One moved. He fired, but the gun jerked against his shoulder, the bullets flying too high. He leaned back left, fired again. The bodies jerked with the impact of the bullets.
Nuri jumped up and began running toward them. He reached them in a few quick strides, his thighs straining. They lay a few feet from each other, guns on the ground. Dropping to his knees, he grabbed the weapons and tossed them into the field.
Gunfire stoked up again near the road.
“Boston — what’s going on?”
“I got three or four more still moving, right by the road. You see them?”
Nuri got to one knee and peered through the weapon’s sight. Once again he had an almost impossible time sighting.
Finally he saw them. He loosed a stream of bullets, then saw a glowing tracer flick from his barrel — he’d reached the end of the magazine.
He slammed the box out and around, using the spare — the team rifles had their mags doubled up so they were easy to change. He fired another burst, then rose to a crouch and began going down the hill.
“What do you think? What do you think?” he asked Boston.
“Yeah, they’re down. Hold your position. I want to make sure no one’s moving up on the left from the buildings.”
Nuri dropped back to one knee. He looked down at the scope and saw it was flickering — it wasn’t his eyes; there was something wrong with the optics or circuit.
Somehow, that failed to reassure him.
A dark veil hung close to the ground. He took the scope and found that the image held steady if he kept his hand on the top. He scanned the field. The men closest to him were dead or dying. Nothing else moved.
“All right,” said Boston. “We’re clear here. You see me? I’m on the road.”
Boston rose and waved his arm.
“I see you.”
“I’m going to check these bodies here. Then I’m coming up in your direction. You’re covering me.”
“Right. My scope’s screwed up.”
“What?”
“Aw nothing. I’m good.” Nuri rose. His legs had stiffened and his arm had tensed so long that it felt almost numb. He swung his upper body back and forth slowly, trying to loosen the muscles.
His eye caught something moving in the area where the grenade had exploded. He froze, staring at it.
Nothing.
