Retribution

Bullets started to pop over Parker’s head as he struggled to get back to Moncrief and the safety of the rocks.

Jesus, how many of them are there?

Parker tried to zig and zag, but the disease seemed to have affected his sense of balance. Every step felt as if his foot were sinking into a bog. The wind did the rest, resisting every step he tried to make. He bounced off the boulders, trying to keep his balance.

A much larger caliber bullet flew over his head. This time the rifle was firing from the rocks ahead and shooting back toward the approaching convoy. Moncrief’s Windrunner was tearing through the engine blocks of the vehicles in the chase. Occasionally, a man would drop as well. The .338 bullet needed only to strike a meaty portion of the target’s body, for then the force of the blow would punch out the arm or the leg or the flank of the target. It was like being pummeled at close range with a shotgun loaded with ball bearings.

Parker heard the small crack that followed as the round passed through the air at supersonic speed. But this time the rifle was coming from yet another direction. From behind Parker came a long, sickly moan.

Gut shot, he thought automatically. Another sniper from our team, shooting to wound.

Others in the army heard the man’s moans and cries for help, and with those cries others began decelerating their trucks, lightening their attack. The rat-tat-tat of AK-47s slowed, like popcorn finishing in a microwave.

Parker heard the voice from behind a rock that he just passed.

“Well, I hope you got what in the hell you wanted to get. Does the word Alamo mean anything to you?” Moncrief’s wide smile could be seen in the flash of headlights from the trucks.

“I bet you tell jokes at your best friend’s funeral too, don’t you?”

“We need to head up to our alternate rendezvous site. It’s about a click.” Moncrief didn’t even ask if Parker could make it. It didn’t matter. He had to make it.

“Lead the way.”

The gunny had slung over his shoulder a pair of bi-oculars like Furlong’s. With bi-oculars, a single lens takes in the light, the thermal computer registers the heat, and the two eyepieces on the other end act like binoculars. The thermal AN/PAS-28 bi-oculars made night into day as Moncrief looked up the valley, and also had a built-in direction finder that pointed the way.

“What is it?”

“Listen.” The rifle shots coming from up the valley were increasing, the big bullets volleying over their heads.

“Good, some cover.”

“Yeah, and the wind’s letting up a little.” With the wind dying down, the others in the team were able to better locate their targets and make more kills.

Moncrief headed north through the whap, whap of bullets flying past. The pursuing men’s shots were not well aimed and flew by harmlessly. But that wasn’t the case with Villegas’s Windrunner. With each booming shot Parker knew that another man fell.

Six, seven, eight.

“Does that other team know to get out of there?” he whispered to Moncrief.

“They should, but hold on.” Moncrief stopped to radio them.

“Slashing talon one, this is slashing talon alpha. Are you on the move?”

“Alpha, this is one. We are out of here.”

It was a good thing, as the guns below had become silent.

They’re reorganizing and making their plan. Parker knew that if they were led by an experienced warrior, their leader would adapt to the situation, move his forces uphill, and try to get the high ground. From there, his men could fire rocket-propelled grenades down onto them.

A bright flash of yellow light suddenly lit up the darkness.

The ear-shattering sound of the Predator’s strike followed the flash a millisecond later. Parker felt the rush of wind, dust, and chips of rock blow past as he was knocked to the ground by the concussion wave.

“What the hell was that?” Moncrief lay next to Parker, their ears ringing from the blast.

“Our guardian angel.” Parker rubbed the dust from his face and eyes.

Just as suddenly, the lights of the remaining vehicles went dark. The ragtag army had learned a painful lesson. Headlights only guided drone bombs to their targets.

“They’re gonna move above us,” Parker whispered to Moncrief.

“Yeah, and they’ll be spreading out so another missile will not catch them together.”

“They know that this valley is a dead end. They were raised in these mountains, so they know every rock.”

“Shit, yeah.”

“Worse problem is that they know there’s no way out.”

Parker’s team was in a box with one side being Zulfiqar and the other three being the twenty-five-thousand-foot Himalayan peaks.

Moncrief nodded. “And as long as they think we have this”—he patted the box that held the nuclear core—“they won’t stop, no matter what.”