Juggernaut

Two shooters at a window seventy yards down the street. Amateurs. Spray-fire. She waited for a reload lull. Lucy popped single shots, blowing chunks out of the windowsill. Suppressive fire. She felt calm. A flow state. This was where she belonged.

The last two rounds in each mag were red-tip tracer to alert she was running low. She ejected the clip, pulled a fresh thirty-round STANAG mag from a vest pouch and slapped it into the receiver.

Danver dragged a backpack from the cab. He crouched behind the Humvee and worked the radio.

‘Tell them we are by the old telephone exchange,’ shouted Lucy.

‘All call signs, this is India One, heavy contact, taking RPG and sustained fire. Grid: niner, six, two, five…’

The windshield took hits but didn’t break. Spider web cracks in the ballistic glass.

Bullets splashed mud and rainwater.

‘JTAC says stay put and dig in. The Quick Reaction Force are staging at Camp Freedom. We should have air cover in ten minutes. Mechanised exfil in twenty.’

‘This is nuts. We have to pull the fuck back, get out of this enfilade.’

‘RPG,’ screamed Amanda.

The guy stepped out of an alley. Amanda shot him in the gut as he pulled the trigger. Flash. Billowing blast of rocket efflux. Streaking projectile.

The grenade punched through the windshield and blew out the command Humvee. Lucy threw herself down and lay in the mud. She hid her face from the scalding pressure wave, the supersonic corona of metal and glass.

She struggled to her feet like a boxer trying to beat the count. Concussed. Deafened. She tongued a tooth. She had lost a filling. She wiped blood from her nose with a gloved hand.

She grabbed Danver by his tac-vest and pulled him upright.

Debris imbedded in the road. Jagged shards of metal dug into walls, coiling smoke. Acrid stench of cordite.

The gunner rolled off the roof, legs and hair on fire. Lucy slapped out the flames, seized his collar and dragged him across the street.

A volley of AK fire. Bullets blew rock chips from a nearby wall.

Lucy kicked open a door and pulled the injured man inside, Danver on her heels. Toon and Amanda followed closely behind her, laying down fire.

A shuttered hair salon. Big mirrors. Beautician chairs. Wigs and hair extensions hung from the wall like scalps.

‘Go firm,’ she shouted into her radio. ‘Huang, we need you.’

They lay cover fire as Huang sprinted down the street.

Huang unzipped his trauma kit. He cut away the guy’s tattered pants and wriggled on Nitrile gloves. He swabbed the wounds with Betadine and pressed burn gel dressings on weeping flesh. He checked the kid over, patted him down for wounds.

‘Fucker’s veins are collapsing. Shrapnel. Must be an internal haemorrhage somewhere.’

The gunner fumbled at his groin.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Huang. ‘You haven’t lost your dick.’

Huang pulled his bayonet from a belt sheath and sawed at the injured man’s clothes.

The soldier trembled and arched his back. Grand mal.

‘Can’t you give him something?’

‘Blood pressure is too low for morphine. You. Danver. Help me find the bleed.’

Voss ran through the doorway, slammed against a wall and slid to the floor. He was panting. He dropped a spent magazine and slapped a fresh clip into the receiver.

‘More of them by the minute. We can’t stay here, boss.’

Crackle of gunfire. Lucy crouched in the doorway. She gulped from her canteen. The Humvee was ablaze. Ammunition cooking off. Pistol rounds popped like corn. .50 cal rounds discharged with a heavy thud. The street filled with the sour stench of ignition.

‘Were there phosphor grenades in that thing?’

‘A few,’ said Danver.

‘The SUVs are starting to burn.’

‘Where’s the money?’

‘Fuck the money.’

‘We should throw a strobe.’

‘No need,’ said Lucy. ‘Choppers will see the smoke.’

Bright arterial blood bubbling from a hole in the injured man’s belly.

‘Smells like shit,’ said Danver.

‘Gut wound,’ said Huang. ‘Intestinal bleed. The guy is pretty messed up. We need those fucking Bradleys.’

Lucy glimpsed movement in the lead Suburban. Private Rubin, frozen with fear, money bag in his lap.

‘Ah fuck.’

The hood of the SUV was enveloped in flame. The tyres were ablaze. Burning oil and brake fluid trickled into the gutter. Rubin was starting to nod on the back seat, overcome by fumes.

Lucy gripped her rifle and prepared to sprint to the SUV. The wooden doorframe beside her exploded. She fell backward into the salon and rolled for cover. She pulled a shard of wood out of her cheek.

‘Sniper. He’s on the roof directly across the street. Mandy, lay suppressing fire. Brass him up. Toon, get Rubin out the car.’

‘And you?’

‘I’m going to take this fucker down.’

Three-count.

Amanda ducked out the doorway and directed burst-fire at the parapet across the street.

Toon ran to the SUV. He shouldered the money bag and pulled Rubin clear.

Lucy ran across the street and kicked in a door. Some kind of trashy boutique. She toppled mannequins as she ran for the stairs. Three flights. A ladder to a roof hatch. Lucy paused to catch her breath. A sudden wave of too-old-for-this-shit. Her hands were shaking.