The Survivor

CHAPTER 28

Scott Coleman was in a prone position at the bottom of a shallow impression in the dirt. The bushes were dense enough to make him invisible from the mansion but he’d cut away a few to give him a view of the chaos he’d created.

The smoke had dissipated to the point that he could see the massive hole in the wall surrounding Obrecht’s property, but not enough for the cameras on Marcus Dumond’s drone to provide a reliable overhead feed. Flames were licking the blackened edges of the breach, and burning cinder blocks dotted the ground almost to the tree line.

He swept his scope along the newly created gap, noting two men down. The one lying facedown was still intact but in a grotesque position that suggested there wasn’t an unbroken bone in his body. The other was on fire.

“Targets?” he said over his mike.

Wicker and McGraw both returned negatives.

Based on the radio chatter, Rapp was alive and on the move. Hurley and Gould’s conditions were more ambiguous.

He activated his throat mike again. Rapp knew he was constantly broadcasting, but it was still unusual for him not to have made a specific report of his status.

“Mitch. Give me a sitrep.”

There was a delay long enough to make Coleman start to worry, but then Rapp’s voice came on.

“Gould, Stan, and two tangos down in the mansion. This frequency’s been compromised. Cut me out.”

Coleman let out a quiet breath and did as ordered, mentally assessing their situation. Hurley and Gould were dead. Rapp was running around the building with no way for Coleman to track his position or status. They’d just detonated a projectile that was loud enough to wake people in Madagascar. And, by his count, there were still eight serious shooters digging into what he assumed were hardened positions.

His earpiece produced a series of beeps in the eerie post-explosion silence, notifying him of an incoming encrypted call on his cell phone.

“Done,” Maria Glauser said, and then disconnected.

As their logistical support person, she’d carried out their contingency plan for covering up the rocket attack. Rapp had come up with the idea of filling a vacant house in a nearby subdivision with plastique. She’d blown it the moment she heard the blast created by the SMAW and now her people were calling in breathless reports of a gas explosion. It wasn’t a permanent solution by a long shot, but it would buy them a little time with the local authorities.

“Movement on the fence line,” McGraw said over the radio. “Are you both seeing this?”

Coleman eased his rifle left, finally finding a disturbance in the smoke at the top of an undamaged section of wall. It was too big to be a man and rising with the smooth steadiness of some kind of mechanical platform.

“Take cover!” Coleman shouted, though he knew his men in the trees had a limited ability to do so.

He flattened himself in the shallow ditch just as the familiar buzz of a Gatling gun started up. He could hear the shattering of wood and the crash of falling branches as rounds spewed from the weapon at a rate of three thousand per minute. When the bullet stream passed overhead, Coleman was forced to roll into a ball to protect himself from the debris raining down on him.

Then everything went silent again.

The gunner had no visible targets. He was just sending a message. A very clear one.

“Sound off,” he said into his radio.

“No injuries,” McGraw said.

The unflappable Charlie Wicker came on right after. “I want to talk about my compensation package.”

Coleman ignored him. “Bruno, do you have a line on that guy?”

“Negative. He’s completely shielded. At best, he’s using cameras for targeting. At worst, the gun’s remote controlled.”

“Wick?”

“I’m still lined up on the knoll. Can’t even see the gun placement.”

“Any movement?”

“The explosion seems to have lit a fire under them. Looks like they’re retreating and that they’re going to just leave their wounded man.”

“Joe, did you copy that? Those guys are coming in your direction.”

Maslick, who was still covering the tunnel exit, responded immediately. “I copied.”

“Do not engage,” Coleman said. “I repeat, do not engage. I don’t want to do anything to give away your position or change their mind about running. Just stay sharp and watch for Obrecht.”

“Roger that.”

Coleman crawled forward through the downed leaves and branches. The Gatling gun was fully visible now, moving smoothly back and forth on what he guessed were electric motors. It seemed likely that there was a similar weapon on the southern end of the wall but the damage there was significant enough that he doubted it was something he’d have to deal with. They must have been mounted beneath the wooden promenade behind the fence, keeping them hidden from Dumond’s drones.

“Let me know if you acquire a target, but no one shoots without my express order. We can’t afford to draw that kind of fire.”

He swept his scope over the scene again. The smoke continued to thin, and now he could see a single open window in one of the attic dormers. No doubt there was a sniper just inside and even less doubt that he was top-notch.

“Bruno. You see that window?”

“Yeah, but I got nothing.”

It had gone quiet enough that Coleman could hear his own breathing and the light breeze rattling the leaves. It was a sound he was depressingly familiar with — the sound of an operation dead in the water.

Back in the day, this was about the time he’d be calling in air support. Paint the compound with a laser and let the flyboys drop something nasty from the stratosphere. There were times he really missed the navy.

Coleman finally made a decision and enabled Rapp’s radio frequency again. “There’s a Gatling gun placement on the north side of the wall,” he said. “Remember Herat?”

If Obrecht’s men were monitoring their communications, they would have no idea what he was talking about. Herat was a city in Afghanistan where he and Rapp had been pinned down for more than an hour by a sniper in the upper floor of a hotel.

As expected, there was no response, but hopefully the message got through. Rapp was in a position to flank Obrecht’s men, and if he could just take a little of the heat off, Coleman’s team could advance. If not, they would be forced to leave him. Kennedy’s orders were clear: At the first hint of Swiss authorities, they were to get the hell out of Dodge.

“Come down and regroup around me,” he said, after killing the connection to Rapp again. “One way or another, we’re going to have to move fast.”