Decker kept rolling ahead, then ten yards from the car he cut the wheel hard to the left and barreled down a narrow dirt passageway between two buildings. Brodie checked the rear and saw the other Hummer was following.
A D-17 stepped out into the road in front of them with an M4 rifle aimed at them. It sprayed the windshield with bullets. Brodie ducked as the bullet-resistant windshield took the barrage. A bullet punched through and hit Decker in the shoulder, and he cried out as the Humvee lurched to the right and scraped along the side a building.
Brodie grabbed the wheel and said to Decker, “Just keep your foot on the pedal.”
Greer was hanging out the left window and fired an RPG. Direct hit. The tin man was ripped apart in a fiery explosion as the Humvee barreled into it. The smoking, melting head of the D-17 smashed into the windshield and held there a moment, then Brodie cut the Hummer hard to the right and it flew off.
More gunfire was coming from above them. Another rooftop ambush. Someone in the rear Humvee fired an RPG that hit the upper lip of a building just ahead of them, and chunks of concrete rained down on top of their car, hopefully not damaging the LRAD, as they sped along. More gunfire. Reyes hung out the window, his head inches from the sides of the buildings along the narrow road, and fired a round.
Brodie cut the wheel right again and turned onto another narrow road. Ahead was the asphalt road at a junction beyond the burnt car obstruction.
The Hummer rumbled onto the asphalt and Brodie cut hard to the left. The vehicle skidded along the road as Brodie gunned the engine and sped toward the fork. Brodie took the right-hand fork and called out, “How’s it looking?”
Greer replied, “We cooked two of them, and I don’t see any more.”
They sped toward the cul-de-sac. Breathing hard, Decker said, “I think it’s time for some tunes.”
With his free hand Brodie pressed play on the music, and Decker floored it down the road.
The angry, driving guitar riffs of “Know Your Enemy” blasted out of the LRAD at an ear-destroying volume as the Humvee sped toward the houses. Decker, maybe high on the adrenaline, called out to Brodie, “Feels good, don’t it?”
“Feels like middle school,” he called back.
The ring of houses approached quickly. Brodie could see house six, Ames’s old residence, where the hostages were supposedly being held. He called back, “Reyes, we in range?”
“Almost, sir! We only have one shot at this. Gotta get as close as we can.”
The Humvee continued to speed down the road. The LRAD’s deafening acoustic beam blasted toward the houses.
“How’s it looking, Corporal? They know we’re here.”
“Almost…”
They roared into the cul-de-sac and Brodie noticed the bloody bodies of two Rangers lying next to the road up ahead. Decker muttered, “Those motherfuckers…”
Reyes called out, “Now!” and flipped a switch on the EMP bomb. The blast sounded like a sharp punch of bass beneath the music.
The Hummers screeched to a halt outside of house number six and everyone piled out. Reyes, Greer, and the two Rangers from the rear vehicle equipped themselves with EMP rifles and formed a stack outside the house. Brodie retrieved a med kit from under his seat and looked through the cracked windshield at the house as the lead guy in the stack kicked in the door, and they entered.
Brodie applied a field dressing to Decker’s wound. Then he said tothe man, “Hang tight,” and hopped out of the Humvee with his M203 launcher.
He heard no gunfire. After a minute one of the Rangers came out of the house and flashed a thumbs-up, then Angela Morgan and Eric Saltsberg emerged. They appeared shaken, but unharmed.
Decker stopped the music as General Morgan strode up to his wife and hugged her. Brodie and Taylor approached Saltsberg, who appeared bewildered.
Taylor asked him, “You all right?”
The man had no response as he stared somewhere in the middle distance.
Brodie said, “Eric. You have any insight as to why those things wanted to go back to your employer’s headquarters? They on salary? Looking to put in a worker’s comp claim for mental distress?”
Saltsberg slid his eyes to Brodie. “Is this a joke to you?”
“No,” said Brodie. “Not even close. Actually, I’m extremely pissed off and looking for someone to blame. You’re looking promising.”
Saltsberg glared at him. “If you understood my job at all, Mr. Brodie, you would understand how absurd it is to level such an accusation at me. I hadnothingto do with the development of these things. As for my employer, they will be my former employer as soon as I get home and resign.”
Brodie nodded. “All right. But be careful who you piss off. At the moment, everyone at Camp Hayden knows at least a little more than they should.”
