Hostage Zero

After a while, Charlie stopped translating the whispered threats that were directed toward Evan. They were going to kill him in his sleep or put a snake in his cot. It was all stupid shit that was not entirely unlike the crap that went on in the dorms at RezHouse when no adults were around to hear. Of course, such words were idle noisemaking back in civilization. Out here, they carried the weight of a promise.

Charlie had done his best to make him believe that they were all talking through their butts-that they’d get the crap kicked out of them by Victor if anything happened to him-but the combination of heat and artificially lit darkness made the threats seem very real.

Better to die on the street than get in the car.

Well, one thing was for sure. There wouldn’t be many more-

The whole world came apart.

The explosions combined into a single shock wave, ripping the night apart with a devastating burst of sound and pressure. Even on the far side of the hut, the concussion hit Jonathan like a fist in the chest.

In the first milliseconds, total darkness enveloped them just as surely as if they’d blinked their eyes shut. Then, just as the first half-second was expiring, the night seethed yellow-orange. Gasoline drums launched like missiles through the destroyed walls of the storage hut, spewing roiling trails of fire that splashed to the earth like flaming latticework, setting the entire world ablaze.

Almost immediately, automatic weapons fire added to the cacophony. It started as a single burst from somewhere nearby, and then others joined from different parts of the compound. One of the great mistakes made by inexperienced or frightened soldiers was to fire indiscriminately at whatever you think is the source of your fears. If your adversary knows what he’s doing, it’s always a mistake.

Jonathan counted to three silently, then went to work. With his M4 at the ready, the stock pressed into his shoulder, and his body bent at the waist, he swung the corner to his left, cleared the short side of the building in five quick strides, and then turned the corner again. What he saw impressed him.

Boxers by God knew how to build one hell of an inferno. The explosion of the fuel shed had launched a literal rain of fire over the compound, igniting hundreds of spot fires from tiny to large. Only ten seconds into the assault, the big center structure-the one that Jonathan had identified as the factory-was consuming itself with fire, growing exponentially as the flames found additional stores of processing chemicals and touched off secondary explosions. Behind him in the dormitory shack, the children had begun to scream.

Their screams were nothing compared to the sound that tore the night from the other side of the compound-the sound of people on fire.

The sentries who had been posted to the door were completely absorbed by the diversion of the drums. With their rifles at the ready and their backs turned to the door they were assigned to guard, they uselessly scanned the yard for targets. Jonathan killed them both with single shots to the head.

See guy with gun, kill guy with gun. The Hollywood sense of honor, in which it was cowardly to shoot someone in the back, was pure fiction. The trick in real warfare was to kill the bad guys before they could pose a meaningful threat to the good guys. If he’d let the sentries live, he’d just have to confront them again on the way out.

Harvey appeared on Jonathan’s right, looking for all the world like a dedicated warrior. His weapon at the ready, he sank to a knee and took over the work of covering the door. “Don’t you have a job to do?” he asked Scorpion.

He did indeed. Per the plan, Boxers had taken bolt cutters to the lock, and the bolt was ready to be slid out of the way. Jonathan joined him on the stoop and locked his gaze just as he’d done so many times in the past. Once the door was crashed, Boxers would go in high and to the right to engage targets, and Jonathan would go low and to the left.

The snapped their night vision back into place and threw open the door.

Evan was terrified. The explosion startled the crap out of him, and the gunfire was downright horrifying, but it was the blast of heat through the windows that completely undid him. He rolled out of his bed onto the floor and curled himself into as tight a ball as he could manufacture. Throughout the barracks, all pretense of toughness or machismo evaporated. They were now a roomful of boys who were terrified of dying.

Next to him, Charlie was on the floor, too, doing his best to slide under his cot. Evan’s mind screamed to get out of here-to claw at the wire over the windows or maybe slam his shoulder into the door to bust it open-but his body refused to respond. He was frozen. He’d heard that expression before-frozen in fear-but he had no idea that it was possible in the literal sense.

“What’s happening?” Evan screamed to Charlie.

The other boy’s eyes were wide and red. He shook his head.