Chapter Thirty-Eight
Thirty-Eight
Court said, “Overwatch? How’s my exfil looking?”
Instead of Gumdrop replying, Zack came over the net. “I’m pulling up on N Street, one hundred yards north of your poz. Dark gray Yukon. Get inside that restaurant and haul ass out the back alley. Keep moving behind the row houses till you get to me.”
Court rose and took the older woman by the arm, and they went inside the restaurant. Quickly, Catherine King fished through her purse; he thought she was looking for some cash to pay the bill, but instead she pulled out a credit card. Handing it to the server, she said, “I’ll be back to sign.”
Now Court pulled her towards the back; the few patrons inside along with a male server gave him looks of shock, as if they were witnessing some sort of domestic situation. Court ignored them and transmitted to Zack. “Night Train, you see any hint of any oppo in your area, let me—”
“Yep. There’s a white Nissan Armada with two men in it. Right in front of me. They haven’t locked onto me, but when you two come out of that alleyway, we’re going to find out real quick if they’re just here to observe and report, or if these motherfuckers are down to clown.”
“What’s your gut?”
“My gut is we’re gonna see some action.”
Court and Catherine stepped outside now, hustling past garbage cans, moving through a narrow alleyway past carriage houses and detached garages.
Court shuffled his pack from his back and began unzipping it as he walked hurriedly along.
To Zack, he said, “You and me are the only shooters today, so we better hope that Snare is the only guy looking for a fight and these other guys are just going to hold back and—”
Zack interrupted. “Six…got a black four-door pulling up behind me, close. Gumdrop? Can you ID from a traffic camera?”
“Stand by,” Jill said, and Court moved to Catherine’s right, held her arm in his left hand so his right hand could hover closer to his pistol on his hip. His blue backpack swung on his left forearm, half unzipped.
Hanley came over the net now. “Six, I’m with Gumdrop monitoring drone footage. I’ve got two men entering the restaurant you just left, moving with purpose. Cannot confirm they are Gauntlet, but by their actions we should presume they are hostile.”
“No argument from me on that,” Court said.
Zack spoke up now. “One man exited the black sedan behind me, passenger side. He’s approaching my poz, tactical gear, generic police vest, his mask is up.
Has not drawn his sidearm. Also, the dudes in the Armada are getting frosty.
Raising their masks, shuffling their hands below my view.
I’m gonna say they are about to go kinetic.
You two need to find cover in the alley because shit’s about to get spicy. ”
Gumdrop spoke next. “Night Train. Vehicle behind you is registered to Gauntlet Group security division, Falls Church office.”
“But of course, it is.”
“Fuck,” Court said out loud, and then he pulled Catherine behind a wooden one-car garage, out of view of N Street, just twenty-five yards to the north.
“What are you doing?”
He reached into his pack. “Gumdrop, let me know if that pair leaves the restaurant via the alleyway.”
“Roger.”
“What is happening?” Catherine demanded now.
“Lots of voices in my ear are telling me you and I are about to run for our lives. Take off your coat.” She did so, as quickly as the intensity in his voice demanded, and from the backpack he pulled a vest of thin and pliable soft body armor; he hurriedly put it on over Catherine’s head and fastened it on the sides.
“Are we about to get into a fight?”
“Dunno, you’d have to ask the other guys.”
“What about you? You’re not wearing armor.”
“I am,” he replied, and then he reached back into the bag that was now on the ground.
From it he pulled a Scorpion Micro 9-millimeter submachine gun with a short silencer and a twenty-round magazine.
It had an extended wire stock, but he left it collapsed, meaning the entire weapon, even with the protruding silencer, was less than a foot and a half in length.
The squat black weapon had a canvas sling, and this he put over his neck, and then he let the gun hang on his chest and zipped his coat about a third of the way up his body, effectively hiding it.
“You can’t just shoot Gauntlet officers,” Catherine King protested.
“Yeah, but I can shoot back,” he said, and then he ushered her back out into the alleyway.
They’d taken only a couple of steps when Gumdrop all but shouted over the net. “Two men behind you!”
Court kept walking towards Zack’s Yukon, but he glanced back over his shoulder in time to see a pair of men some forty yards back, just outside the rear door of the French bistro. One had a radio to his mouth, held by his left hand, and his right hand reached into his coat at the hip.
The second man was in the process of drawing a pistol, as well.
The man with the radio shouted out, his voice booming in the narrow alleyway. “Federal officer! Stop right there!”
Court did not stop right there. He pulled Catherine along, began running, unzipping his coat as he did so, and ahead of him, he saw the man approach the rear of Zack’s Yukon. The masked Gauntlet officer raised a pistol at the driver’s side of Zack’s vehicle.
Gumdrop shouted again. “Snare got into an SUV; he’s coming your way. That’s at least seven enemy converging on—”
Court couldn’t hear anything else that his overwatch said because he drew his Glock pistol and fired twice at the man getting a bead on the back of Zack’s head.
He shot the masked Gauntlet man in the right arm with his first shot, and the right side of his knee with the second.
The gun flew from the Gauntlet man’s hand, and just then, Zack opened fire with his Staccato pistol, dumping rounds through the front passenger-side window glass, past Catherine and Court, and towards the pair approaching them from behind.
Court continued firing at the threat to Zack, while Zack continued firing at the threat to Court and Catherine.
Court yanked the journalist out of the line of fire, pulling her quickly between a construction dumpster and a little carriage house that jutted out into the alley, and then he holstered his small 9-mil pistol and hefted his 9-mil subgun.
Leaning back out into the alley, he thumbed off the safety and first fired a burst at the man just behind Zack’s truck.
He was wounded, but up on a knee on the sidewalk, and he’d retrieved his weapon from the ground.
All he had to do was fire into the truck he leaned against and Zack would not have been able to engage him efficiently from the front seat.
Court put a burst into the man’s body armor, then a second burst higher, hitting him in the collarbone, shoulder, and right side of his neck.
Blood spurted from his body, and the man dropped flat, rolled in pain and in panic, clutching the worst of his wounds and dropping his gun again in the process.
Zack kept firing at the two men over fifty yards away from him, but they’d taken cover behind some concrete steps leading up to the back door of a row house, and all Zack could do from his position was keep their heads down.
Court spun and began shooting at the same two men with his subgun, giving Zack time to reload his handgun.
Gumdrop shouted into everyone’s ear. “The men in the Armada are on foot with rifles; they are approaching Night Train!”
Zack only had a pistol, though it held eighteen-round magazines. Still, men with rifles firing from just a dozen or so yards away would be able to chew him up in an instant.
Court shouted to Zack now. “Bail out! Bail out! Come to me!”
Gunfire boomed in the quiet Georgetown neighborhood; the windshield of the Yukon shattered, and all Court could do was divide his fire, sending a burst back in the direction of La Bonne Vache and then a burst up in front of Zack’s truck, striking the wall of a row house with the intention of impeding the men with rifles who were out of view from where he knelt in the alley.
Suddenly, however, the windshield of Zack’s Yukon exploded as rifle rounds raked across it.
Court didn’t have an angle to stop the men in the street from shooting Zack, but he kept firing his Scorpion, and soon Zack’s passenger door opened.
Court blasted a couple more short bursts of fire to keep enemy heads down, and Zack rolled out of the Yukon, onto the sidewalk, and then he rose to his feet and began running down the alley in Court’s direction.
Court’s Scorpion ran dry; he dropped it on the sling and yanked his Glock out again. As he fired up the alley past Zack, Zack kept running towards him, again shooting his Staccato towards the men in good cover behind the concrete stairs down by the restaurant.
Zack was slow, limping a little on his left leg, so Court’s Glock emptied quickly, just as a man with a rifle came into view on N Street.
Zack ducked into the cover next to Catherine and Court as a fully automatic burst of rifle fire tore into the garage wall above them, and then all three of them dropped down low.
Zack reloaded his pistol while Court reloaded the Scorpion with his last magazine, and then, while Zack took a quick peek out in both directions, Court quickly reloaded his little Glock 43.
Court looked to Zack now. “You hit?”
“Not recently, no.”
“What did you see?”
“Got one enemy still operational by the restaurant on the south side. Only saw one guy on his feet with a long gun up by the Yukon. A dead guy by the tire; you must have killed him. Don’t know where the other dude with a rifle went. Did you hit him?”
“I don’t think I ever saw him. Might be trying to flank us.”
Gumdrop came over the net now. “Assets, be advised. I think we have a total of ten enemy. Looks like two or three are down now. Others are converging. Two men are on Potomac Street; looks like they’ve entered a row house one unit to your south.”
Zack said, “What about Snare, Gumdrop?”