A leader who gets his hands dirty

  Once again, a feeling of helplessness washed over EP. She often told herself that the intel was her on, much like how the pen was theoretically mightier than the sword, but sitting there watg Celeste trapped in the crossfire, Lindsey dodging grenades, and even Gradie flying ba a burst of fire, it was a hollow se. Whe back up, she let herself hate him for being so useless, and the anger ignited into something that beat back the fear, and she soldiered on.

  The gunmen positioned in a half moon among the crashed and abandoned cars aroue were using a tactic of overwhelming fire that was terrifyingly effective given its simplicity. It was tested by Luke’s supernatural accurad knack for being where the bullets weren’t.

  When he had stepped out the hot side of the SUV, directly into enemy fire as opposed to the side fag the covered parking, she had screamed at the monitor, but the uedness of it had served him well enough that he was able to drop two gunmen ao cover before they realized what was happening.

  The ring of shooters had lost four men in the past mihree of them from his rifle, but now that they had gotten into position he was met with a torrent of rounds every time he came up from cover. One slip, and their heavy hitter would be out of the fight.

  Cops on the bridge triggered her alerts. A droracked the fshing lights speeding dowurn te and weaving around the parked and abandoned vehicles.

  “Cops ing down the bridge,” she said on all lines.

  The PKM roared at varying levels in five of her audio els and the barrel fshed in one of the drone feeds on her ter s. On the bridge, red tracers fell in a five-meter spsh around the cops, and the gunman around the ft-tired SUV stranded on the bridge joined in mercilessly.

  One of the cruisers stopped abruptly. The other lost velocity rapidly and coasted into a parked car at about 15 mph. The suddenly predictable movement made her stomach drop. It was now just a hunk of metal with nothing pressing the pedals or turning the wheel.

  “Did he get them?” Philip asked ftly.

  “Yep.” The word stu her throat as she watched the silver Mercedes sail down the back roads. A few half-formed ideas popped into her head, strategies they might use to ge the tide, but she knew better than to try and share them with Philp or even Michael right now. Whatever could be done, should be dohey would do, or die trying.

  She returned her focus to the shootout between the Beetle and the SUV, and making sure any cell phones in the area got bricked before they could stream anything.

  ****

  Philip and Michael had taken a U-turn on the main road when the MG opened up, and pulled onto a back street that ran parallel to it to the northeast along the disused police trainier and administration building. The line of trees pnted decades ago to s the facility from the surrounding area kept them from drawing PKM fire.

  Philip wondered, absently, if any good Samaritans would join in the fray, and that kicked up something he wished it hadn’t.

  “You’re in Texas, remember, so if any boy scouts step up with their own guns, do your best to vihem you’re one of the good guys.”

  Advice from ane. Advice that, he realized with a sinking gut-tugging pain that seemed a side effect of old age, he had ed to pass on to the team before this fire fight. That’s all he needed. If some good ol’ boy grabbed his truck gun and decided to hop to it, the kid would probably try and blow his head off.

  “Shooters moving up from the bridge,” EP said in his ear. “From the SUV.”

  Philip squeezed his rifle. Luke and the kids were in a bad enough spot as it was. If those other shot into the fight, it might be lights out.

  “Where you at, bro?” Luke asked, gunfire bracketing the question.

  “Going around back,” Philip said, pulling his mask down and squeezing his rifle between his knees. “It’s ni this side. No big ass PKM rounds flying around.”

  “o.” Munfire. “I’m jelly.”

  They turned right onto a street that ran south towards the interse at an angle, with a charity housing on the right side and the grass and trails ing up from the river on the left. At the end of the street, the shooters aroue were sed by the housing, and Philip saw oy cars, but the gunfire was rising.

  Movement caught his eye on the bridge.

  Men advanced in fast, jumpy runs with ons raised towards the brick office building across the street, trying to get a shot on Luke, oblivious to anything else. Might as well have big “trainee” ags on their heads.

  “Get up on that curve,” Philip said to Michael. A road running from an old brick gover building topped with a cooling tower to the north passed alongside the river atop the berm. The road, more like a long driveway ected to the river trails, curved onto their street in cracked ed crete.

  Michael turned onto it smoothly with one hand and pulled his mask up from his colr with the other. Then he whipped the car back to the right and hopped the low curb onto the grass between the road and the river trail. He came to a stop with the driver’s side door fag the bridge. The st two gunmen in the group of four ing off the bridge spotted him and turned and aimed at the car. Michael smiled and waved at them from the driver’s seat while Philip slid out of the car like smoke and shouldered his HK 417.

  They had stopped to stare at Michael just long enough for Philip to get a bead. By the time they realized what was happening, the 7.62 NATO was already ripping through them. The shots echoed off everything and one of them spun as he fell, almost aovie style. Philip couldn’t help but smile.

  The other two disappeared behind parked cars a bullets flying in Philip’s general dire while screaming at the gunmen near Celeste to look “Behind! Behind!”

  Then, Philip and Michael started to dance. Michael eased the car forward and turo the left while Philip marched behind the bumper, firing at the st twe gunmen who dropped down behind the abandoned cars on the road and scampered towards the office building. One of them shot out a window and slithered ihe darkened office while Philip was shooting at the other, who disappeared around back of the building.

  “Two on your river fnk, Joe,” Michael said. “In the Office building.”

  The rear bumper slid past Philip as Michael turhe car and their first movement ended with the front end fag towards the bridge and the passenger side presenting towards the interse. Philip, now o the back driver side tire, aimed over the roof looking for a target as more of the street slid out from behind the city housing.

  The first gunman he saw was crouched down and jerking his guht wildly, looking for whoever had killed the two ing off the bridge. Philip shot him through his chest and he died holding the trigger down on his AK, 7.62x39 spraying in an angsty arc, shattering the hanging stoplight. Michael matched Philip’s slow march with the Mercedes as he tio put rounds among the cars like a god casting judgment.

  Luke, Gradie, and Sam opened up from across the street, and anunman dropped to the ground, his head snapped sideways by the round and his body freezing in denial for a moment befiving in. The rest of the gunman had found cover and Philip saw only cars and the beetle as the crash site slid out from behind the housing.

  “Keep em down! Engaging the MG!” he said, and the suppressed sps from the office parking lot went wild. At least the kid knew how to pull a trigger.

  Philip sed the road with his x4 sight until he saw the nd rise roughly 300 yards dowreet. By the time it came into view, he and Michael were almost in the road, and there had been no gunfire besides the sps of the team’s suppressed 300 bckout for about four seds.

  Just whe a bead oruck, the silence broke with a vengeance.

  Philip visualized his rounds going through the head of the gunner, while their tracers missed him high and to the left. He got the first round off with the dark mass iruck bed right in the ter of his sight, and finished squeezing the trigger again half a sed ter, still visualizing his rounds finding their mark, but the pkm muzzle fshed softly out on the hill and instantly a screaming storm of red tracers smmed into the Mercedes, joined a quarter of a breath ter by neon yellow rounds that cracked so close he could have reached out and caught one.

  The gunmen around the beetle, now emboldened by the relentlessness of the PKM and unfazed by the rounds that zipped just above their heads, popped up and joined in. The ohought, that his rounds would fall true, crumpled uhe hellish gunfire and he held onto the other idea, that their rounds would miss him, like a life saver.

  Somehow he got out two more rounds before throwing himself back behind the car. He hit the ground hard as tracers and sparks burst off the roof and knocked ks of snow-white gss powder off the windows.

  “Reversing!” Michael said in his ear. The car jumped back across the grass and Philip had to leap up into a low sprint to keep pace as a stream of red and yellow tracers chased them until they got back behind the city housing. Immediately, brid gss and drywall exploded off the building in bursts and the hailstorm sound on the Mercedes died away.

  Then the rounds stopped, and it was like they had teleported to some strange world where you could hear the wind in the grass and someone far away was screaming for no reason at all.

  “firm kill?” Philip asked the silence more thahe PKM answered him by firing again, but maybe the gunman was just bleeding out—

  “No!” EP said.

  “Well, ’t win ‘em all,” he said to no one as Michael whipped the car around and brought the passenger door alongside him. He ejected his empty mag and got ba, and Michael sped off down the road.

  If you saw Philip ying down hellfire, would you assume he was the good guy, or would you root for the guy with the PKM? ime, she's to hot to handle. episode, Firestarter.