Chapter 24 #3
His shoulder was starting to ache from the repeated recoil.
Sweat ran beneath his gear despite the desert air, and his breathing had become hard enough that he could hear it inside his own head.
Somewhere behind them, the damaged pickup was still trying to follow, while the remaining vehicles were closing from the other direction.
Shaun dropped behind a shelf of rock and fired at the nearest pickup as it came into view, aiming for the driver whenever the angle gave him a clear shot before shifting toward the front tire when the vehicle turned away from him.
Anything that stopped those fucking trucks was useful, and right now he wasn’t picky about how he accomplished it.
Zenko fired beside him, their rifles working almost continuously as the enemy used the vehicles for cover and started pushing forward.
Another burst hammered into the rock above them, sending chips of stone and dirt across Shaun as he ducked before rising again to fire.
Men shouted to one another beyond the drifting dust, their boots pounding across the loose ground as they closed on their position.
Pebbles struck his cheek when rounds hit close enough to throw debris against him, but he barely noticed.
His entire world had narrowed to the rifle in his hands, the targets moving through his sights and the helicopter somewhere above them, still seconds away.
“Horizon, where the hell are you?” Zenko shifted behind the rock as another round struck close, keeping his rifle trained downrange while he waited for the answer.
“Sixty seconds out,” Reese answered immediately. “Coming in hot.”
“Roger.” Zenko settled back into position beside Shaun, his rifle coming up as movement shifted around the vehicles ahead.
Shaun fired again, shifted along the rock to change his angle, and came up just as a black SUV rolled to a stop farther back from the other vehicles.
The positioning caught his attention immediately.
The other vehicles had pushed forward into the fight, but the SUV had stayed clear of the worst of it, and when the passenger door opened, the man who climbed out made his stomach drop.
He knew that face.
“That’s our target, Zen.” Shaun kept his rifle trained downrange, watching Wade Sheridan step away from the SUV while another man moved around the vehicle behind him. “Sheridan.”
“Fucking bastard.” Zenko rose behind the rock and brought his rifle to his shoulder, taking aim at Sheridan across the open ground.
“Zen, get your ass down.” Shaun shifted his position, trying to find an angle that would let him cover Zenko without exposing himself. He knew exactly why Zenko had moved.
Sheridan was their HVT, the reason they had come into this fucking mess in the first place, and there was no way in hell Zenko was going to sit behind cover and watch the man walk away if there was even a chance of stopping him.
As if you’d stay put either.
He fired at the nearest shooter, swapped magazines when the bolt locked back, and leaned around the rock. He dropped the man trying to move toward them from the left and immediately shifted his aim back toward Sheridan.
That was when he saw the movement beside him. Someone was handing Sheridan a rifle. Shaun’s focus narrowed as Sheridan took it, and it took him half a second to recognize the shape.
M24.
“Fuck.” Shaun tightened his grip on his rifle as Sheridan brought the M24 up.
Sheridan shifted into a clear firing position, bringing the M24 around until the barrel pointed straight toward Zenko.
Shaun’s body reacted before his mind caught up. The world slowed around him, the gunfire fading beneath the pounding of his own heartbeat as he saw Sheridan settling the M24 into position with Zenko still exposed in his line of fire.
Fuck. Move. Move.
His legs refused to move.
“Get down.” The warning ripped from his throat, but it came too late.
His hands moved anyway. He braced the rifle against the rock, found Sheridan through the optic, and adjusted for distance and wind on instinct before taking the shot.
For one impossible fraction of a second, his sniper’s mind tracked both rounds as if he could see them, Sheridan’s coming for Zenko while his own raced toward Sheridan, the two bullets passing each other somewhere in the space between.
Then Zenko dropped.
The sound of his body hitting the ground snapped everything back into motion.
“Zenko!” Shaun abandoned his position and scrambled toward him, dropping beside him as gunfire continued around them. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”
He dropped beside him and pressed his fingers against Zenko’s neck, searching for a pulse while his other hand went instinctively toward the wound. Blood coated his fingers almost immediately, warm and slick beneath his gloves, and when he pressed harder, it came faster.
No.
His fingers slipped as blood pulsed beneath them with every beat of Zenko’s heart. “TOC, Ambra Two.” Shaun’s voice tore from his throat, barely audible to himself over the gunfire. “Ambra One is down. I repeat, Ambra One is down.”