Primary Target. Джек Марс

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      They removed their ventilator masks simultaneously, almost as if they were one person. Martinez went to the downed Taliban and shot each one in the head. He didn’t touch either one of them.

      “Dead!” he said.

      It was quieter here.

      “B-Team leader,” Luke said into his helmet mic. “Status?”

      Heath came running into the house out of the darkness.

      “B-Team leader…”

      “We’re holding the front gate,” a voice said inside Luke’s helmet. It was Murphy. His Bronx accent was unmistakable. “Stone! This don’t look good. That was an ambush! They were waiting for us!”

      “Just hold the gate, Murph. We’ll be out in a couple of minutes.”

      “You better hurry, man. Somebody knew we were coming. Won’t be long before there’s more of them, and I can’t see ten feet in front of my nose.”

      Luke’s team had already moved further into the house. Heat went in right behind them.

      “Hang in there. We’re inside.”

      “Make it quick,” Murphy’s voice said. “I don’t know if we’re still going to be here.”

      “Murphy! Hold that gate! We’ll be right out.”

      “Aye, aye,” Murphy said.

      Luke turned toward the darkened corridor.

      Another man appeared—a big man in a white robe. He managed to reach his trigger, but he fired wildly. Luke kneeled, drew a bead on the man.

      POP! A dark red circle appeared on his chest.

      He seemed surprised, but then slid bonelessly to the floor.

      Now Luke moved through the dark hallways, listening for sounds up ahead. He didn’t have to listen long.

      BANG!

      A flashbang went off, then another.

      BANG!

      There was shouting and gunfire up ahead. Luke moved slowly toward it, snaking along the wall. Now there were sounds behind him, out on the grounds—automatic fire and explosions.

      Luke checked his stopwatch. They’d been on the ground for less than four minutes, and the whole mission was already FUBAR.

      “Stone!”

      Murphy’s voice again. “Trouble. Barbarians at the gates. I repeat: front gates under attack. Unfriendlies converging. Men down. Hastings down. Bailey down. We are falling back to the house.”

      “Uh, negative, B-Team. Hold those gates!”

      “There’s nothing to hold,” Murphy said. “They’re ripping it up! They got an anti-tank gun out there.”

      “Hold it anyway. It’s our only way out of here.”

      “Dammit, Stone!”

      “Murphy! Hold those gates!”

      Luke ran further into the house.

      There was screaming just ahead of him. He ran through a doorway, crossed the threshold…

      And came upon a scene of total chaos.

      There were at least fifteen people in a large back room. The floors were covered in thick, overlapping carpets. The walls were hung with carpets—ornate, richly colored carpets depicting vast landscapes—deserts, mountains, jungles, waterfalls.

      Simmons was dead. He lay on his back, his body splayed, his eyes open and staring. His helmet was off and a chunk of his head above the eyes was gone. Two women were also dead. A small child, a boy, was dead. Three men in robes and turbans were dead. It was a massacre in here. There were guns, and blood, all over the floor.

      At the very back, near a closed door, a mass of people stood. A crowd of men in robes and turbans held children in front of them, and pointed rifles outward. Behind the men, another man lurked—he was hidden enough that Luke could barely see him.

      He must be the target.

      All around the chamber, Luke’s team crouched or kneeled, still as statues, their guns trained on the group, looking for a shot. Lieutenant Colonel Heath stood in the center of the room, his MP5 machine gun pointed into the crowd.

      “Okay,” Luke said. “It’s okay. Nobody do any—”

      “Drop those weapons!” Heath shouted in English. His eyes were wild. He was focused on one thing—getting that whale.

      “Heath!” Luke said. “Relax. There’s children. We can—”

      “I see the children, Stone.”

      “So let’s just—”

      Heath fired, a burst of full auto.

      Instantly Luke hit the ground as gunfire broke out in all directions. He covered his head, curled into a ball, and turned his back to the action.

      The shooting lasted several seconds. Even after it stopped, a few shots continued, one every few seconds, like the last of the popcorn popping. When it was finally over, Luke picked his head up. The knot of people by the closed door lay in a writhing pile.

      Heath was down. Luke didn’t care about that. Heath was the cause of this nightmare.

      Another of Luke’s men was down, over in the corner. God, what a mess. Three men down. An unknown number of civilians dead.

      Luke climbed to his feet. Two other men stood at the same time. One was Martinez. The other was Colley. Martinez and Colley converged on the pile of people near the back, moving slowly, guns still drawn.

      Luke glanced around the room. There were corpses everywhere. Simmons was dead. Heath… a large hole had been punched through his head where his face had been. The man had no face. Luke felt nothing about that. This was Heath’s mission. It had gone as wrong as possible. Now Heath was dead.

      And one more man was down.

      It seemed like a complicated math problem, but really, it was simple subtraction that anyone could do. Luke’s mind was not working correctly. He recognized that. Six men had come in here. Heath and Simmons were dead. Martinez, Colley, and Stone were still in the game. That meant the last man down could only be…

      Luke ran to the man. Yes, it was. It was Hendricks. Wayne.

      WAYNE.

      He was still moving.

      Luke kneeled by him and pulled off his helmet.

      Wayne’s arms and legs were moving slowly, almost like he was treading water.

      “Wayne! Wayne! Where are you hit?”

      Wayne’s eyes rolled. They found Luke. He shook his head. He began to cry. He was breathing heavily, almost gasping for air.

      “Oh, СКАЧАТЬ