Hostage Zero

Jonathan darted to the open door and dropped to his knee, switching again to his M4. He watched as a stream of men poured out of Building Delta. They stumbled and bumbled out the door and down the stairs, some of them dropped by Boxers’ bullets, but most just tangling their feet in their panic to get out. They streamed into the woods on the far side of the compound.

Jonathan pressed his mike button.

“Heads up, Harvey. They’re coming right at you.”

Harvey’s stomach flipped. “Fuck.”

“What?” Evan asked, keenly dialed into the change of emotion.

Harvey hadn’t been aware that he’d spoken aloud. He pressed a hand to the boy’s shoulder. “Get down,” he said. “Lie flat. Bad guys are coming. No matter what happens, you stay put until one of us comes for you.”

Both boys showed alarm. “Who?”

“Your old bosses. Now get down.” Harvey snapped his NVGs back over his eyes, and right away saw them scattering into the jungle. At a glance, he saw seven or eight of them, but they weren’t interested in seeing him. They were interested in getting the hell out of there.

Should he shoot or let them go? It was a tough call. His mission was to get Evan Guinn home alive and healthy. By opening fire, he’d give away his position and invite return fire that would endanger the boy. But by letting them get away, he let them live to attack again.

“ Los banditos estan aqui!” shouted a voice from above and behind. The bandits are here! Harvey whirled on the sound, but when no one was there, he realized that it was one of the kids who were still inside the barracks they hadn’t unlocked. Somehow they knew, and then the one voice was joined by others. “ Los banditos estan aqui!”

They started to chant it. And it worked. The fleeing soldiers turned. The closest one raised his weapon to fire.

Harvey’s MP5 chattered out a three-round burst and his target dropped; whether dead, wounded, or just scared, he couldn’t tell. The important part was that he didn’t shoot back.

But a whole bunch of others did. The jungle lit up with muzzle flashes, the staccato pounding of a dozen automatic weapons combining to form the sound of tearing fabric. A fierce and deadly stream of bullets shredded the wall behind them and the foliage surrounding them. Harvey pushed the boys deeper under the barracks hut, while above them the boy who had brought the fire this way screamed in terror and pain as the enemy’s poorly aimed fire passed through the plank walls as if they were made of cardboard.

Harvey knew he couldn’t stay here. If he returned fire from this spot, the response would bring a deadly fusillade that would as likely kill Evan as him.

After all this-after all the blood and the suffering-the one unforgiveable sin would be for Evan to get hurt.

“Don’t move,” he hissed to the boy. “No matter what, don’t move.”

“Where are you-”

Harvey didn’t stick around for the rest. Staying pressed low to the wet ground, he crawled the remaining length of the barracks and emerged into the darkness on the north side. Brilliant muzzle flashes marked the location of the attackers. Where Harvey saw a flash, he fired two three-round bursts at it. The flash suppressor on his own weapon kept him invisible to all but those who would have happened to be looking directly at him when he fired. With all the noise of the continuing battle, his were just more shots fired amid the cacophony.

He damn near jumped out of his underwear as a hand landed on his shoulder. When he spun to confront the danger, another hand blocked the swing of his weapon. “We’re the good guys,” Jonathan said, and then he and Boxers added their firepower to repel the new attack. Within fifteen seconds, it was all over.

As their ears recovered, they could once again hear the subtle sounds of the night. Like the moaning and whimpering of wounded children.

And the sound of an approaching helicopter. Jonathan and Boxers exchanged looks.

“You didn’t call for cavalry, did you?” Boxers asked.

Jonathan kicked at the dirt. “Shit. That’s just what we need. An aerial assault.”

“We need that chopper,” Harvey said. “These wounded kids. We can’t carry them down to safety.” He shot a hard look to Boxers. “And don’t even think of saying that they’re not our responsibility. We did this.”

“If you’ve got an idea, I’m listening.”

Harvey sighed and shook his head as he undid the Velcro fastener on his vest and lifted his helmet off his head. “Oh, I’ve got an idea,” he said as he pulled his vest off. “It sucks to be me, but I’ve got an idea.”

To make it work, though, he had to move quickly.

Even from a mile out, the scale of the destruction was ten times worse than the worst Mitch Ponder could have imagined. Bodies lay strewn everywhere, as if dropped from an aircraft. Everything was on fire-even the ground itself in some places-and what wasn’t burning had instead been chewed mercilessly by gunfire. An airstrike could not have produced more thorough destruction.