Fear and Anger (The 47 Echo Series) (34 page)

“Martin – I want a way inside that Razor if all we can do is shut it down. No ‘it can’t be done,’ clear? Figure out a way.”

“It can’t... shit. I’ll see what I can do,” Martin grumbled.

“Looks like you’re getting the hang of this whole ‘leader’ thing,” Bryce said quietly as the rest of the team got working.

“We’ll see. I’ve always been able to talk a good game,” Christopher said.

“Hey, man. Sometimes being a good leader and talking a good game are the same goddamn thing,” Bryce told him.

Christopher had never thought of that, but it made a certain sort of sense to him. He suddenly remembered something Nick had told him once, something he thought his friend had been joking about at the time. Now, he wasn’t sure.

How do you come up with this shit?
Christopher had asked after Nick laid out an unorthodox attack plan on a heavily defended Renegade airfield a year back.
You’re always the man with the plan
.

Fuck if I know
, Nick had told his friend, smiling and lighting a cigarette.
I’m making this shit up as I go along, man
.

Christopher grabbed a bottle of water from his console and found it empty. Bryce wordlessly handed him a half-full one from his side of the cabin, and Christopher took a long drink. Maybe, he realized, that was all command was – fake it until you make it. Take a gamble and hope like hell it worked out. Nick always seemed confident about his plans, and that’s why Christopher and the rest of the unit had no problem following them. Perhaps that was all he needed – a fucked-up idea and the confidence to sell it to his team.

For the first time since he’d taken over the unit, Christopher didn’t feel like he was a fuckup. For the first time, he felt like a real leader.

He liked the feeling.

* * *

“That’s all I’ll be able to guarantee,” Mary told Christopher, her voice low so only he could hear her.

“If that’s what we’ve got, we’ll make it work,” Christopher told her. “Excellent work.”

“I mean, I might be able to do more, but...”

Christopher put a hand on her shoulder, then turned to face the rest of his crew.

“OK, people. Here’s how it’s going to go down. Mary’s going to send a pulse to the GPS system on the other Razor that tells it ‘hey, you’re where you’re supposed to be. Stop the truck.’“

Bryce nodded.

“Yeah. GPS will put the brakes on and kill the engine. But there’s the double-check after that,” he said.

“Right. Five seconds later, the GPS will try to confirm its location, just in case it’s a couple hundred meters off. We’ll send that pulse too, and we should have just enough access and just enough time to send one other command: ‘open driver door.’“

“Question,” Anthony said. “We’ll have to drop the electronic part of the stealth to send the pulse.”

“That wasn’t a question, man,” Peter pointed out.

“But it’s correct,” Mary said. “Adaptive camouflage will still be active, but they’ll be able to pinpoint signals.”

“Here’s the question – won’t they pick up our transponder? The one that identifies our Razor?” Anthony said, shooting a glare at Peter.

“Transponder’s not the problem. We’ll just turn it off,” Mary said. “Before you say it can’t be turned off, Tony, I mean we’ll disconnect the power running to it.”

Anthony had opened his mouth to say something, but just closed it and nodded.

“But there is a problem,” Christopher said. “When we jumped out on these guys earlier, they picked up the convict locators in the guys who ran up on them. Unless they’re complete fucking idiots, they’ll have their computer monitoring for those locators. The second we shut down our electronic stealth, they’ll know we’re there.”

“Which means we have five seconds to jump out, run up to the driver door, and keep it open long enough to kill everyone inside,” Peter said.

“Correct again.”

“What about the ELR’s weapons systems? You gonna be able to shut those down?” Gabriel asked.

“Can’t guarantee that. The only thing I’m 95% on is the GPS exploit and being able to access the driver panel,” Mary said.

“So if they got someone up in the .50 turrets, we’re fucked the second we get out of our truck,” Peter said.

“If they do, yeah. We know they’re running a skeleton crew, so it’s possible no one’s up in the turrets. Mikey, how long does it take you to get up there?”

“Three, four seconds,” Michael said. “But there’s a way around that. We stay to the side of their Razor, the guns can’t hit us. Five feet away, we’re dead. But hand on the truck, we’re fine. We’re exposed for two, three seconds when we jump out of the middle hatch on the driver’s side of our own truck.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Christopher said.

“Assault plan for the driver’s door calls for me, Mikey, and one other gunner. Daniel’s gonna be useless from that angle – no offense, homeboy,” Peter said.

“None taken,” Daniel said.

“So the other gunner can be anyone who can shoot worth a damn.”

“That’s me,” Christopher said.

“Negative, Chief,” Bryce piped up. “If I jump out from the driver’s door, I’m several feet closer, and not exposed for more than a millisecond before I can side up on the other truck. I’m the logical choice.”

“That’s assuming I’m letting you drive,” Christopher said. “You’re not the only one who can sit in that chair, you know... but you are probably the only one who can drive the ELR back. You’re staying in here.”

Bryce started to say something, but Christopher cut him off.

“That’s not an invitation for a discussion, Bryce. You stay in the truck.”

Bryce closed his mouth and simply nodded.

“Martin – assuming we don’t make it to the driver door in five seconds and they realize what’s up and lock us out, you’re the second wave,” Christopher continued.

“Engine’s still off, right?”

“Yeah,” Mary said. “I’m shutting down the whole drive system. Take them at least a minute and a half to get it back up.”

“That case, I’ll need one of you muscleheads to give me a boost. I’m gonna take everything I’ve got left and blow out one of the blast shields on the front of the Razor. That’s the weak spot – it’ll basically be like blowing the windshield out of a car and crawling in that way.”

“What about driving it back? NoKos will probably notice an open window floating along,” Anthony said.

“There’s a TFT thing. We can patch it. I’ll explain it if I have to, but I can re-camo whatever hole I blow,” Martin snapped impatiently.

“Good enough for me, Martin. Calm down,” Christopher said.

“I’ll throw him up on the hood,” Daniel said. “What do you weigh, man, like a buck forty?”

Martin nodded.

“Good. Everyone clear?”

There were nods and affirmative grunts all around the inside of the truck.

“Let’s do this right, people. And fast. We’ll all be back underway before any of the locals know anything happened.”

Christopher shot his team a nod and headed back up to the front of the cabin. He switched out with Bryce in the driver’s seat, and Bryce took the passenger seat.

“You sound suspiciously like you know what the hell you’re doing,” Bryce said. “I’m actually beginning to believe that we’ll all get out of this alive yet again.”

“Yeah. But just in case I’m wrong, and those .50s take out me and Mike and Pete... you’re in charge. Get that other Razor and get everyone home.”

“You’ll survive this one, Chief. I have a good feeling about it.”

“We’ll find out in less than an hour, won’t we?”

Chapter Forty-Two

When The Shit Hits The Fan

The second Hardy sounded the alarm, data from the Ops station flashed across Nick’s screens. It was just a string of numbers and letters, but he immediately recognized them. And he immediately knew who “those guys from earlier” were.

The characters that flashed across his screen were “47ECHO1313.” It was his team. His friends.

Nick didn’t waste any time, pulling the Type 77 from his belt and spinning in his chair to put a bullet in the back of Harlan’s head. Before he could pull the trigger, though, the Razor jolted to a sudden stop, as if Cruz had stomped on the brakes. Nick tumbled out of his chair and hit the deck hard, the pistol tumbling from his hand and sliding under Harlan’s chair.

“The fuck?” Cruz yelled. Before anyone could say anything else, the Razor jolted again, as if hit hard from behind.

“Larry! Get on those fucking .50s!” Harlan yelled.

Nick scrambled to his feet as Hardy raced to the turrets. Before the convict could make it to his post, Nick shot his right hand out, twisting his hip into the blow as hard as he could. The flat bit of his hand between his thumb and forefinger slammed into Hardy’s throat, and the convict dropped immediately, choking and gurgling. He floundered on the deck and spit up blood.

“They got the door!” Cruz shouted.

“Lock it, fuckwit!” Harlan yelled, hopping out of his chair and rushing back at Nick.

Nick heard the locks click, heard someone outside trying to open the door, just as Hardy barreled into him. Nick had dropped into a crouch the second he’d seen the big man coming, but Hardy was insanely strong. Nick’s bad knee gave out, and both men tumbled to the ground. Hardy landed on top and immediately drove his huge right fist into Nick’s nose.

“Knew we shoulda just fucking shot you when we found you,” Harlan said, his voice even and flat. He raised his hand to strike again.

Time slowed for Nick. Through the blood and blurred vision, he saw the punch headed for his right eye. He tried to bring an arm up to block or deflect the blow, but Harlan had his arms pinned under his knees. Nick jerked his head to the left, and the punch grazed him.

Harlan’s hand smacked into the metal decking, but if the big guy felt any pain, he didn’t show it. He simply reached behind his back and drew a knife.

Nick brought his left knee up as hard and fast as he could, slamming it into the small of Harlan’s back. Harlan toppled forward just enough for Nick to get his right shoulder free. He moved quickly, flipping Harlan over while the big man was still off balance. Nick was now on top, raining punches down on Harlan’s face as hard as he could.

Nick was so engrossed in punching the shit out of the big man that he almost didn’t feel it when Harlan jammed the knife through his left forearm. Nick stopped punching, yanked the knife out of his arm, and stabbed it as hard as he could into Harlan’s left eye socket.

The big man let out one surprised yelp, twitched hard a few times, then went silent.

Nick dragged himself into a standing position and turned to face Cruz, who was now out of his seat and advancing cautiously toward Nick, his fists balled up in front of him. Nick looked at him and sighed.

“Really?”

Cruz let out a wordless yell and threw a sloppy punch at Nick’s already smashed nose. Nick slapped the punch away, kicked Cruz hard in the groin with his left foot, and dropped the small man with a savage right-handed jab to the temple as he doubled over.

Nick was the only one standing in the ELR, the only one moving. He could hear something happening outside on the hood of the truck, though, and glanced over at the camera station next to him. On the forward feed, he saw Martin Chase climb onto the front of the Razor and fumble with a backpack.

Nick reached down and took the hand radio off of Harlan’s belt and quickly set the frequency to 1-9 Victor.

“Hey, Chris. Tell Martin he doesn’t get to blow shit up today. Everyone in here is dead or wishing they were,” he said into the radio.

There was static for a second. Then he heard a voice he felt like he hadn’t heard in years.

“Nick?” Christopher said, his voice full of doubt.

“That’s the name my momma gave me,” Nick radioed back.

Martin must have had his radio on, too, because the man was just standing on the hood of the truck, looking confused. Nick punched a few commands into the ops panel and opened both of the ELR’s side doors.

“Use the door like a civilized person, Martin,” he radioed. “And someone send Gabriel over here. I’m all fucked up.”

* * *

The next several hours – if his sense of time was anywhere near accurate, which he doubted – were a blurred mess in Nick’s memory.

He remembered Daniel charging through the side door, seeing him, and stopping in his tracks.

He remembered Gabriel and Daniel loading him onto a stretcher and carrying him back to the other Razor.

He remembered silence inside the Razor before Gabriel finally went to work.

When he woke up again, they were moving. He was on one of the fold-down racks, and Gabriel was sitting over him, checking a bloody bandage on his left arm.

“How bad is it?” Nick remembered asking.

“You want the list? Knife wound to the arm is ugly, but it should heal. I re-set your nose, but it’ll probably be crooked. Sorry about that. Your knee is dislocated. No idea how you were walking around on that shit. You scraped off one of your toe implants and ripped a nice little hole in your foot, but the doctors can fix that. I just left that shit alone. Besides that –”

“I’m OK?”

“You’re dehydrated, malnourished, and you were about ten minutes away from a heart attack thanks to the stimulant overdose. How many Dexys did you put down, anyway?”

Nick tried to shrug, but it hurt.

“Oh, yeah. Dislocated shoulder, too. I put it back in, but it’s gonna ache for a while. You need to sleep, boss. For, like, a week.”

“The other Razor?”

“Bryce is driving it right behind us.”

“And the crew who stole it?”

“You killed the shit out of them, man. Go back to sleep, or I’ll have to shoot you up with something.”

Nick nodded and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, Christopher was sitting where Gabriel had been. He was drinking a cup of coffee.

“You look awful,” Nick said, grinning.

“You’re not at the top of the list for GQ yourself, boss.”