Chapter 12 Close But No Cigar
CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR
LORENZO
I'm point, with Kane behind my left shoulder and Chance behind my right.
We're spread out a few feet while we navigate the maze of containers; Solomon was able to call in a marker and get us a satellite shot of the container yard, allowing us to create predetermined routes.
We follow this memorized, predetermined route now, as fast as possible, jogging the echoing, shadowy channels between towering stacks of containers.
Red, blue, yellow, black, and green containers are stacked five high in some places and up to seven in others, creating walls fifty and sixty feet high.
A cough, a sniffle, a heavy step, every sound echoes and carries and dopplers back to us—if you don't know exactly where you're going, you could end up lost in this place for days, as each next path between stacks looks identical to the one before.
One wrong turn, and we'll end up who knows where and miss the cue, miss the entire fight.
Thus, I recite the order of turns under my breath as we jog: "left, left, right, right, right, left, right, left, left, right." But don't get the order wrong. Don’t forget a turn.
"This fuckin' place, man," Kane murmurs as we pause at a three-way intersection. "Creepy and confusing."
I ignore him, chanting the turns loud enough to make my point—don't fucking distract me.
Chance slaps a hand on Kane's shoulder. "Unless you want to get lost, brother, shut the fuck up."
Kane goes silent. I slow the pace as we near the target zone—voices can be heard now, low, idle chatter and the occasional bark of laughter.
Kane and Chance hold onto my shoulders, pulling our formation in tight.
We make a left, jog straight down the corridor, another left; the voices sound like they're around the next turn, and we slow to a creep, approaching the last turn.
"…Y la puta intentó pegarme, como si no se lo pidiera..." …And the bitch tried to hit me as if she wasn’t asking for it…”
"Le diste una lección?" Did you teach her a lesson?
"Si'! Si!" Yeah, yeah.
Fuck that.
I hold up a fist to call a halt and then inch forward so I can peek around the corner; a pair of armed guards—Rafael's, I would assume, judging by their Spanish conversation, and the vile subject matter—loiter a dozen feet down the corridor, AK-47s dangling barrels-down as they share a cigarette.
The scent wafts me to me, and it's semi-sweet and skunky—not a cigarette, then. Even better.
"Beta team in position," I breathe. "Ready."
A moment later, Alpha and Charlie report in ready almost in unison, followed by Delta.
"Lash?" Inez asks.
"Pugli is still inside. The men seem to be settling in for a long wait.
I cannot be sure that Rafael does not have a way out that we cannot see.
Who knows how extensive his preparations might be.
We risk losing him, is my point." Lash hesitates, sighing.
"We either wait for Pugli to exit, or we attack now while they're inside. There are risks either way."
"Attack," Inez says. "We’re as close as we've ever been. On my mark. Three—two—one—MARK!"
I swivel out from behind the cover of the corner, dropping the two guards in rapid succession—TAKTAK!TAKTAK! They drop to the ground, limp, boneless, and leaking brain matter.
Kane and Chance trot past me the second the rounds have left my barrel, reaching the next corner. Kane peers around, and then returns. "We missed a turn or something," he mutters.
I take a look as well—there should be a large group of soldiers around the corner, but there's not.
Just an empty corridor.
"Fuck," I snap. "Kane, look right, I'll go left. Chance, watch our six."
"Moving," Kane says, and jogs past me toward the right-hand turning while I go left. Chance stays where he is, watching our back-trail. Kane and I peek, pop back.
Kane signals that there's no one over there, and my side is empty too. Using hand signals, I indicate I'm moving forward and that he should do the same.
I round the corner and trot down the corridor—I hear voices again, echoing and tinny, their origin masked. Another corner; another peek.
A resounding CRACK! shivers the air, the sharp report of Lash's rifle.
Gunfire erupts, then, and shouts, curses, orders, in a jumble of languages.
I hear running footsteps behind me and whirl just in time to see a tango round a corner behind me—the light and shadows and angles made it seem like a dead end when it wasn't. I drop to a knee and fire off a trio of rounds.
He never even saw me, the unlucky bastard.
My rounds take him in the chest and knock him backward—he's wearing a vest, however, and he only drops to a knee, gasping, and manages to crack off a single shot that sizzles past my ear with the buzz of an angry yellow jacket.
I fire again, and his face explodes in a pink mist.
Chance appears beside me, and his rifle chatters—round thunk and rattle against the side of the container inches from the skull of another tango.
He skids and wobbles in his attempt to throw himself out of the line of fire, trips and goes down to one knee, firing wildly.
His rounds go high and wide, not even hitting metal; mine do not miss, and he joins his comrade on the ground.
CRACK!
CRACK!
CRACK!
"The container is opening!" Lash snaps over comms. "Move in, move in!"
"Kane, back to me!" I shout.
“I’m—a little…" I hear him over comms, broken up by the crackle of his rifle, "busy at the moment."
"Got it," Chance mutters to me. "Hold your position."
"Fuck that," I snap. "I'm moving in. You two catch up. I am not losing this motherfucker again."
Chance whacks me on the shoulder as he moves out. "Fine. Just don't die—I'd never hear the end of it from Inez."
I snort a laugh and jog forward. Gunfire echoes from every direction, overlapping and confusing. It's impossible to tell where any of it is coming from.
Something hums overhead, and then another yellow jacket buzzes past my ear, and then something hot slices past my knee.
I throw myself to the side, shoulder slamming against the container so hard my arm tingles, partly numb; my momentarily weak hand means I miss my return volley, but it keeps his head down and gives me time to shake out the tingles, sprint forward on a diagonal to approach the corner wide.
My mark is on one knee taking cover behind the corner; he wasn’t expecting me to run toward him, and my rounds catch him unaware.
His skull rocks backward, and he slumps heavily against the container. I hear an engine roar and tires squeal.
"Pugli is escaping!" Lash shouts. CRACK! CRACK! His rifle barks. "Driver down. He's running for another automobile. We are going to lose him!"
Cursing floridly in Portuguese, I sprint forward. A tango rounds the corner and I drop him. Another. A third. I'm reacting automatically, operating on instinct. I reach the corner, gasping, panting, pause for a split second, and then pop out, rifle up.
I bump into a body—surprised brown eyes meet mine.
I jam my barrel into his throat as hard as I can, and he stumbles backward, gurgling and gasping, clutching his bloody throat; I fire from the hip and take him in the vest. His eyes are wide and blinking and terrified.
I grab him by the vest and frog-march him backward, hunkering behind him as the sound of automatic weapons fire grows louder and more confusing.
I reach the end of the corridor; my unfortunate prisoner-slash-living-shield is scrabbling at me and his throat, in which my rifle barrel tore a nasty hole.
He'd be fine with medical attention, but his fate is already sealed.
I round the corner to a barrage of gunfire that whips past me on both sides and overhead, stippling the man I've shoved backward.
He jerks and thrashes, blood dribbling down his chin as a dozen rounds slam into his back, shoulders, and neck.
I tossed a flashbang the second I shoved him away; I bolt back around the corner and cover my ears as the device detonates.
Confused, pained shouts ring out, and I pivot out, toss a frag, roll back. BOOOOOM! The shouts become screams.
"Havin' all the fuckin fun without us, Ren?
" Chance says, appearing through the streamers of smoke blown back to me by the currents of wind swirling through the maze.
Kane is with him, bleeding profusely from a long, ugly cut slicing from his forehead diagonally down the bridge of his nose and past the corner of his mouth.
"Not as bad as it looks," he growls. "Just bleedin' a lot.
Have a wicked new scar, though. C'mon, fuckers, let's dance. "
He doesn't wait for an answer, rolling out from the corner and raking rounds across the corridor.
I hear them clang off metal, whining as they ricochet, and I hear at least one thunk into something soft.
Smoke swirls and clears, the dirty white smoke of the flashbang mingling with the darker gray smoke of the frag.
Moans overlap as we jog through the mess—men lay bleeding from a myriad of wounds, others lay dying or dead.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! Lash's rifle speaks in threes.
The roaring engine cut off abruptly when Lash took out the driver, and now a new roaring sound bounces around the corridors.
"He’s heading east! Beta team, intercept!" Lash punctuates his words with a rapid trio of shots.
I hear tires squealing and the engine groaning. Something crunches against metal. I catch a glimpse of black and silver and glass as the Suburban rounds the corner, partially obscured by the still-swirling pall of smoke.
Tires thunk over bodies.
"LINE AbrEAST!" I shout.