Blue Warrior

“Put down your weapons. You are surrounded.”

“Ian, you hearing this?” Pearce asked.

“Hearing what?”

“Someone else on my comm link.”

“Can’t hear him on my end.”

“Change channels anyway.”

“Will do.”

“Mr. Pearce?”

“You broke my helicopter, asshole. Who’s gonna pay for that?”

“Put down your weapons. You and the bandit Mossa must come out. Your friends will not be harmed. Do it now, or my men will open fire.”

“Give me one minute to talk to my people first.”

“You have thirty seconds.”

Pearce told Mossa what the voice had just said. Cella translated for Balla and Moctar. The two Tuaregs protested. Mossa calmed them down.

“They would rather die than see me surrender,” Mossa told Pearce.

“They’re about to get their chance.”

“What time is it?” Mossa asked.

Pearce checked his watch. “Noon, give or take. Why?”

Mossa sighed. “The cavalry does not always arrive in time, do they?”

“Inshallah,” Pearce said.

* * *

Piloting the stolen Reaper from Dearborn was less than easy. Ian’s control signals were bounced off of a satellite Pearce Systems leased from the Israelis three hundred miles into space, but the overall distance between Ian and the Reaper’s location over Algeria was several thousand miles. This created a four-second transmission delay, which meant that anything Ian was seeing was four seconds old. That made hitting moving targets a real challenge. The Air Force forward-located their drone base in Niger to avoid that very problem.

With the burning Hummingbird wreckage on the tarmac and six unknown vehicles surrounding the airfield, it wasn’t hard to determine that Pearce and his team were facing hostiles. Ian’s Presbyterian father had taught him it was always better to ask forgiveness than permission, so when the DPVs stopped moving, Ian fired at the two vehicles closest to Pearce.

* * *

The two DPVs nearest Pearce exploded, shredding them instantly. The sound of the missile strikes erupted inside the hangar like grenades going off inside of an elevator. The Tuaregs instinctively grabbed at their ringing ears, pounding with pain.

Pearce’s ears had been damaged by combat over the years, which at the moment was a blessing, because the explosions didn’t shock him as much. Early’s SCAR opened up again.

Pearce ducked around the corner just in time to see Early’s 7.62mm rounds walking up the hood of one of the DPVs, then plowing into the driver’s torso. The standing gunner opened up on Early, but too late. Fingers of blood spurted out of the gunner’s thigh, doubling him over, exposing his head to Early’s withering fire. The helmet erupted in a gout of blood and the gunner tumbled to the tarmac.

Pearce fired his weapon at the second DPV near Early, but it was already rocketing away to a safer position beyond the reach of Early’s gun. Mike had always been the better shot. Any rational observer would have bet that the DPV with the automatic grenade launcher and machine gun would win a duel against a lone man with a sprained arm and a rifle, but that only meant they had never seen Mike Early in battle in full berserker mode or heard his bloodcurdling war cry.

“Good shooting, Mikey. Now duck your ass back down,” Pearce ordered.

Early wolf-howled. “The party’s just getting started!”

“Save your ammo, cowboy. It’s going to be a long day.”

* * *

Guo raged.

Two vehicles destroyed by a UAV, and another disabled by the guılao gunman in the tower. Where did the UAV come from? If Pearce had a UAV at his disposal, surely he would have used it earlier.

No matter. He would solve the UAV issue later. The guılao problem he could solve now.

“Second positions,” Guo whispered in his headset. The DPV nearest Early sped away instantly, and the two in reserve behind the hangar retreated back several hundred meters. They knew to keep moving in broad, irregular patterns to avoid the same fate as their comrades.

Guo painted Early with his laser scope, fixing the red crosshairs on the big American’s head.

* * *

Pearce turned around, shouted back into the hangar. “Everybody stay put. I’ll be right back.”

He scanned the tarmac. It was clear. The DPV he’d fired at was too far away to worry about. Pearce ran in a crouch out the hangar opening and toward the tower entrance, expecting a hail of machine-gun and grenade fire to cut him down before he got three feet. But his adrenaline had kicked in and his luck held, and moments later he sped up the crumbling cement stairs to the observation tower, shouting in his mic, “Mikey! Get covered up!”

Pearce reached the top of the stairs, greeted by Early’s toothy grin plastered on his huge, sweaty face. “God I miss this shit!”

Early’s head exploded. Blood and brain matter splattered on Pearce’s face and torso. Instinctively, he dropped to the deck. Early’s headless corpse thudded onto his back. Pearce rolled out from beneath the heavy body and sprung into a crouch, desperate to get away from his dead friend without exposing himself to the killing fire.

“Mikey…”