That was so messed up.
I didn’t have time to freak out about it, as NOVA was calmly informing me that another round of assailants was on their way.
“The next wave is coming in,” NOVA informed me.
“Ok, on it,” I gasped, feeling a strange mix of adrenaline and dopamine rushing through me at the fact that our plan seemed to beworking.
“Jay, get to the front, it looks like they’re coming up with vehicles… two black SUVs, I can’t tell how many guys are in them,” I said, and Jay immediately abandoned the two corpses he’d left in our garden to head back into the cabin.
He reloaded his weapon as he cut through the house, crouching down by one of the front windows and poking the nose of his machine gun out through the crack between the shutters.
I watched the outdoor feed carefully, waiting for the SUVs to pass over the spike strip I’d laid out earlier. Seconds before they sped over the marker, I hit the button on my keyboard I’d programmed to extract them.
The vehicles had been speeding through too fast, and the abrupt puncture of the tires sent them into a fishtail. I whooped in triumph as one of them collided into the other, sending both cars to violently roll and screech across the gravel entry point.
One car landed on the driver’s side, with the underbelly of the car facing the cabin, and the second one ended up fully upside down, rear wheels still spinning in the aftermath of the wreckage.
I waited in silence to see if they would get out of the cars, but the men seemed to understand that this was a trap and were hesitant to leave the safety of the vehicles.
“They’re trying to find cover. They’ll probably try to use the wreck to their advantage. We’ll be here all night if you don’t smoke them out quickly,” NOVA said grimly, and I nodded.
I’d had two bombs left over from the trap in the footpath, and I’d set them by the entrance to the mountain road for just such an occasion.
This entrance was too open to hope to get them all at once with the bombs like I had in the footpath, but I was hoping I could drive them toward the cabin where Jay could pick them off with his MP5.
After several long minutes of us waiting in silence, the men finally began to work their way out of the wrecked SUVs, doing their best to use the car as cover as they slid out of the windows and skylight.
“There areeightof them,” I whispered into my headset.
“Which means we’re missing two more,” Jay murmured back.
“Yeah, plus Seb, and maybe Luke.”
“Not worried about Luke,” Jay replied, and I let out a frustrated snort as I watched the men from the SUVs methodically work out their positions behind the wrecked cars.
They spoke to each other using hand signals that I didn’t understand, and the excitement I’d been feeling from earlier was starting to morph into worry.
Eight men were a lot for Jay to face all at once, and they had decent cover… The fact that we were missing at least two other guys was making me panic.
“Milo, stay focused. Follow the plan. Stay calm,” NOVA said, her familiar voice soothing me.
I nodded.
“Right. The plan… I’ve got this…”
Grabbing my second detonator with my left hand, I made sure to position my shaking fingers on my right over the keys programmed to set off the strobes.
“I’m going to hit the last bombs and drive them toward you,” I informed Jay through the headset, and I watched him nod through the feed, never once looking away from the sight of his gun perched in the window.
“Do it,” he ordered.
I hit the button, and then all hell broke loose.
NOVA play: The Emptiness Machine by Linkin Park
The last two bombs went off close enough to our attackers that I heard several of them scream out in pain.
Milo hit the strobes immediately after, as most of the guys launched themselves helplessly away from the explosion and directly into my line of fire.
