Chapter 15 - Fire in the Night
The bullet had come from the ridge bordering the eastern treeline, three hundred yards away.
I dropped to my stomach, sliding across the wet pavement, my hand clamping down on the encrypted drive Pendelton had given me. "Torres! Status on Pendelton!"
Torres pressed two fingers against the accountant's neck, her face grim. "No pulse. Clean center-mass penetration. High-caliber, suppressed. He was dead before he hit the ground."
Another round chipped the concrete three inches from my boot. The shooter had night-vision optics and a vantage point that controlled the entire open apron of the diner.
"They aren't trying to pin us down," I said grimly, reading the sniper's firing rhythm. "They’re trying to destroy the evidence. Stay behind the engine block!"
I reached into the front seat of my car, grabbed the tactical radio connected directly to Fort Riley’s Provost Marshal quick-reaction force, and keyed the mic. "Echo Lead, this is Vance. Officer under fire at Grid 44-Bravo, Junction City industrial spur. We have one civilian fatality. Sniper team positioned on the eastern ridgeline. Execute immediate containment cordon!"
"Copy, Colonel, Vanguard QRF rolling in four mikes!" the dispatcher crackled.
I knew four minutes was a lifetime against a professional hit team. I glanced at Torres. "Torres, lay down suppressive fire toward the tree line at the two-o'clock position on three. I’m flanking through the ditch."
"Colonel, you don't have body armor!" she protested.
"Move on three!" I barked. "One... two... three!"
Torres leaned around the bumper, firing controlled double-taps into the dark tree line. The sharp cracks of her service pistol broke the silence.
I lunged to the left, diving into the drainage ditch that ran parallel to the road. Mud and freezing runoff soaked through my uniform as I scrambled on hands and knees through the brush, using the embankment for cover. I peered through the weeds.
Through the mist, I caught the dull flash of a rifle barrel retracting behind a stand of pines. A dark-clad figure was already descending the ridge toward an idling black motorcycle concealed beneath the highway overpass.
I vaulted out of the ditch, sprinted across the forty yards of rocky scrub, and raised my sidearm. "Halt! Drop your weapon!"
The operative didn't hesitate. He threw the rifle across his shoulder, kicked the starter of the bike, and drew a sidearm with his left hand, firing two wild rounds in my direction. The bullets whined past my ears.
I fired three rounds in rapid succession. The third shot struck the rear wheel hub of the motorcycle just as the engine roared to life. The bike fishtailed violently across the loose gravel, throwing the rider onto the pavement.
Before I could reach him, the operative scrambled to his feet, threw a smoke canister that exploded into an blinding wall of white phosphorus and chemical fog, and vanished down the steep concrete culvert toward the riverbank below.
Sirens wailed in the distance. Blue and red flashers swept across the highway as three armored MP patrol vehicles screeched into the diner parking lot.
I walked back through the smoke, my heart pounding with cold rage. Pendelton was dead, but the drive was intact inside my tactical pocket.
Torres walked over, re-holstering her weapon, her face pale. "They knew he was meeting us. There was a leak."
May you like
"Not a leak," I said, looking toward the distant glow of the military base. "A declaration of war."
***
