Hostage Zero

“Motherfucker!” Jonathan yelled, and he brought his M4 to bear, spraying the windows and walls just inches from Boxers, who in turn unleashed withering fire on Building Delta on the north end.

Return fire ceased as the enemy dove for whatever cover they could find.

After reloading, Jonathan knelt and scooped the boy’s limp body into the crook of his left arm while he emptied another mag with his right as he ran for cover.

Back in the shadow of the building, he skidded to a halt and let the boy slide to the ground. Most of his throat was gone, and two holes had been punched through his chest. In the light of the fires, the boy’s fixed pupils looked as lifeless as glass.

“He’s gone, Dig,” Boxers said. “Nothing you can do.”

He couldn’t have been more than eleven years old. That’s a blink. What had the kid been thinking? What would have driven him to stand in the open like that and assault the body?

“Dig, we gotta go. He’s dead. Fuckers killed him.”

Jonathan felt terrible thoughts encroaching on his consciousness, and he pushed them away. This was warfare, for God’s sake, where the entire world consisted of current facts and future objectives. The past becomes irrelevant the instant it passes. You can’t worry about the dead at the same time that you’re planning to protect the living. But he was so young.

“Focus, Dig,” Boxers said.

“Fine,” Jonathan said. “None of these assholes gets out alive. Not one.”

Boxers nodded. “Works for me.”

Jonathan reloaded his carbine, then let it fall against its sling as he lifted a fragmentation grenade from his vest. “Keep their heads down in Building Delta,” he said. “I’m gonna frag these fuckers in Bravo and then roll ’em up.”

“You’re making me hard,” Boxers grinned. He slid a fresh magazine into his rifle. “Say the word.”

Jonathan settled himself with a deep breath. “The word.”

Standing to his full height, but using the corner of the barracks for cover, Boxers aimed at the farthest building and raked the front windows with three round bursts.

Jonathan used the cover to push out in a crouch and moved to the left, down the front of Bravo, keeping his left shoulder pressed against the wall. Behind him, Boxers threw out an amazing volume of fire, while ahead of him, in Building Bravo, nobody seemed to know what to do.

Jonathan nestled the spoon of the grenade in the web between his thumb and forefinger and pulled the pin. He duck-walked three feet out from the wall, barely in sight of anyone with the courage to peek out, and let the spoon fly. At this range, he didn’t want to give the enemy time to throw it back, so he let it cook off for two seconds before he threw it through the open window.

“Frag away,” he whispered into his radio, cuing Boxers that an explosion was coming. Jonathan dropped to the ground and two seconds later was rewarded with the crisp bang! that meant victory. The screams of the wounded followed instantly. He moved down two windows and repeated the procedure. “Frag away.”

After the second detonation, it was time to finish the job up close and personal. “I’m going in,” he said into his radio.

“Rog.”

Jonathan snapped his night vision back into place and reached for the Mossberg again, stretching it against its bungee sling. All of this in one continuous motion as he charged up the three steps to the stoop and kicked open the door.

Outside, Boxers reduced his rate of fire by two-thirds. It made no sense to waste the scores of rounds in suppressing fire when the man he was covering was inside a building and invisible.

The instant he crossed the threshold, Jonathan pivoted right to clear the area behind the door and damn near yelled when he came face-to-face with a soldier. The man just stood there, disoriented and bleeding. The man held an M16 in his hands, but it seemed foreign to him. Such was the disorientation that commonly followed a blast in close quarters.

The temptation to let him live gave way to the reality that once recovered, the dazed soldier would be lethal again. Jonathan killed him with a blast from the Mossberg at point-blank range, shredding his chest with nine. 32-caliber pellets.

Then he turned left and took his time strolling down what was left of the center aisle between the ranks of bunks. When he kicked at an arm that was protruding from under a bunk, intending to check if its owner was alive or dead, the arm itself skittered freely across the floor.

Ahead and to the right, a man writhed in agony, his midsection wet and black in the night vision. Jonathan assessed the wound as lethal and had just decided to let him be when the man raised a bloody pistol. Jonathan shot him.

Fifteen seconds after he’d entered the room, Jonathan pressed his mike button. “Bravo’s clear. I’m coming out.”

“Holy shit, they’re running!” Boxers’ voice announced in his ear. He started shooting again.