“You taking the mission or not, Wong?” The Colonel didn’t give a fuck. That’s what it sounded like to me, anyways.

“Short notice,” I said, thinking it through, looking across the room at Maddock, strip-cleaning her M4, and I figured I better clean my own soon. I’d put more than a few rounds down the barrel this morning. Pour encourager les autres, Brad used to say, except none of us needed much in the way of encouragement. Hadn’t since the early days, and speaking for myself, I needed reining in now, not encouraging.

I wasn’t the only one.

“We’re not exactly trained for rescue missions,” I added.

“Captain Wong,” the Colonel said, because I was a frigging Captain for my sins, or maybe it was because of what’d happened back at the Pass, and now he did sound pissed. “The entire Army of the Second American Republic is a rescue mission. Adjust your frigging attitude.”

“Yes, Sir, Colonel, Sir!” I snapped, and Montoya glanced across, M4 ready, the way it always was when he was with me, and he wasn’t the only one, because he had Frazer with him, and Frazer was faster and meaner than a mongoose on crystal meth.

“For fucks sake, cut the crap, Wong. Just give me a yes or a no,” the Colonel said. “I know your unit’s not trained for this. No-one in our Army is, not the units available, anyhow, but you’re my best Clearance Unit. Your call. If you can’t take it on...”

Well, we all knew what was gonna happen to them if we didn’t. Wasn’t like we didn’t do it ourselves. We did, and we were better at it, too, and I’d known what I was gonna say the moment he’d laid it out for me. No one in my Task Force was gonna disagree, and I knew that, too.

“We’ll take it,” I said, voice clear and flat. This was gonna suck, but we’d done it before, a time or two. Weren’t good at it, not like the old professional guys that used to train for this sorta shit day in, day out, but those guys, the ones that were left, they were all with the front-line units. Brad, he’d done this sorta shit back when he was in. He’d have known how to do it, professionally. Me? I’d have to rely on the old guys to tell me how to do it, but we’d done that before too, learnt on the job, and most of us were still alive.

Most of us. Not all of us. Learning on the job had a price, but we paid it.

“Choppers are already on their way,” the Colonel said, and suddenly he was all business, his voice as clear and flat as mine. “They’ll be landing in thirty minutes. Four Blackhawks. Seven old Huey’s. Everything they could spare. You’ll use the Huey’s to move the survivors out. All we got for this one. Anyone you can’t pack in is shit out of luck. Give ‘em whatever guns and ammo and anything else you can, ‘n tell ‘em to run for the hills, and keep their heads down until we break through. Avgas tankers with JP-4 should be at your location in half an hour or so. Maybe sooner. Birds are gonna need the tanks topped up going in and coming out, it’s on the edge of their range for the Hueys. You’re gonna have about an hour to put this one together, Wong.”

“I’ve got Kratman and Reilly, Sir,” I said. “If they can’t put a plan together in an hour, no-one can.”

“It’s yours, Wong,” the Colonel said. “Don’t fuck it up, and don’t kill too many of ours getting them back. Not if you can help it.”

“Fuck,” I said, swinging my feet of the desk, and sitting upright. Montoya was there, instantly. Him and Frazer both, and their safeties sure weren’t on. “What were you gonna do if I didn’t say yes, Sir?”

“I knew you’d say yes, Wong,” the Colonel said, still clear and flat, all business, and I didn’t have to think about it. Not really. He was right. I might bitch, but I’d never leave anyone to the ratdogs. Not if they were still breathing. I knew that. The Colonel knew that. “You know as well as I do what’ll happen to those poor bastards if we don’t go in when we can, and I’d go in with you if it’d help. One other thing.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Some asshole from the Head Shed’s coming in with the Blackhawks. Real brown-noser. Personal briefing for the officer commanding. Need to know and all that crap, so I got no idea what the fuck he’s gonna ask, and it won’t be an order, or it would’ve come through me. Make nice to the fucker, Wong,” the Colonel said. “He’s only a Major, but he’s speaking for someone high up in Headquarters. Not our head shed, the guys right at the top, and I got a call, telling me that and to stay out of it. Ignore him if you want, your call, I’ve got your ass on this one, but make nice to his face, okay. Higher up is why we got the birds to extract those poor bastards.”

“Okay, okay,” I said, tiredly. “I won’t blow his head off, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

“Good, because it was,” the Colonel said. “And Wong...”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t go fucking it up and getting yourself killed, okay. Your Task Force needs you.” He hesitated, and he sounded tired now. Exhausted. “You’re good, Wong, and I know you like leading from the front, but just ... be careful, huh. Don’t do anything stupid, okay.” He sounded like he cared, and for a moment, the ice threatened to crack, but then it froze again.

“I won’t, Sir,” I said. And I wouldn’t. I had the baby to think of. Brad’s and my baby, and yeah, it was only two months, but I knew, and I knew Montoya wouldn’t let me get myself killed either. He’d die before he’d let that happen, and I didn’t want Montoya to die. I didn’t want any of my people to die. Some of them were going to, but I didn’t want them to.

They always did, though.

My hand put the old field phone down, real slow, and I watched. It wasn’t shaking. Not this time. Never did, when push came to shove, but that was about the only time it didn’t, now. Looked at Maddock, and she looked at me.

“Well, fuck, Sergeant-Major,” I said, and now I was smiling, but it sure wasn’t the sorta smile I’d have liked to see smiling at me. Guess Maddock was used to it. She didn’t flinch. “Got a dozen choppers landing in half an hour. Four Blackhawks, seven Hueys out of a museum or something. They’re gonna need to refuel. There’s avgas tankers on their way. Be here soon. We got an hour to put together a fifty man team and come up with a plan for a rescue mission.” And now it wasn’t a smile. It was a rictus, a baring of the teeth. A snarl.

“Ratdogs got a bunch of our people down the road, their side of the front, locked up in some old High School, and they’re working their way through interrogating them, and putting them down. Intelligence has a lock on them, and there’s someone in there they wanna get out, and guess what...”

“We’re the ones getting him out?” Montoya said, and they were all looking at me.

“Yeah,” I said. “Him, and everyone else there that we can, and that’s it in a nutshell.” And now I looked at him. “Go round up forty eight of the guys, will ‘ya. Gear up for an extraction, and put out a call for Kratman on your way.” My eyes met his. “I’m leading this one, Sergeant. Forty eight guys, me, and Maddock, coz I know she won’t stay behind if I go.”

“Right you are, ma’am.” Montoya left, and I knew he’d be picking the best. Knew he’d be one of them. Him and Frazer, both. One or the other of them never left my side, these days.

“Fifty? Combat load for a Blackhawk’s eleven each.” Maddock didn’t look too happy.

“We’re gonna overload them,” I said. “I want twelve in each, and you and me. Two six man teams in each bird. We won’t be carrying anything except weapons and ammo. They build those things with plenty of margin.” There’d be more margin coming back.

There always was.

“Gimme a break, Kratman,” I said, eleven minutes later, coz it’d taken the old guy ten minutes to get his ass over. His knees. Wasn’t much of a runner these days. “You’re too fucking old for this. What I want from you is a plan. Just tell me how to fucking do it, and keep it simple.”

Because Kratman was a pro. Been in the regular army for fucking years before he retired. Been in the Rangers, Lieutenant-Colonel, knew his stuff, and he was an old fucker, but he’d walked in one day, and signed up. Why he wanted to sign up with us, I had no fucking idea.

Brad, he’d laughed, ‘n about a nanosecond later he was staring down the barrel of a 1911, and neither of them were laughing, and neither was I, ‘coz my 1911 was pressed up real hard against the side of Kratman’s head, and my safety was off, unlike Kratman’s. Hell of a way to get yourself recruited, coz I nearly blew his head off, but Kratman was a persuasive bastard, ‘n fuck, he was hard as nails. Harder.

I thought I was crazy, now and then, after Brad had died, and I probably was. Shit, I knew I was, and it was most of the time, really, not now and then, Yeah, I was bugnuts, I knew that, but Kratman made me look sane, ‘n I never asked what his story was. Scared me that it might be worse than mine, and mine was bad enough. Didn’t matter, he was with us, and after Brad left me, ‘n the Colonel put me in charge, Kratman was the guy I went to for advice. And plans. Like now.

I wished it was Brad, but Brad was a hundred fifty miles north and six feet down, and I really couldn’t think of anything better than joining him there, except I knew he wouldn’t want that, and that was just about the only thing stopping me. That, and the baby, but no-one else knew about that. Only me.

“Shit!” Kratman said, and I sat there, ‘coz we both knew I was right. His heart was in the right place, and there wasn’t a thing wrong with his brain, but the fucker was old. “Shit! Fuck! Damn!”

“I know you wanna go,” I said, and I knew he did. Just like I did, and that I did, that almost scared me too, because I knew why I wanted to go, and what I wanted. “But...”

“I know, I know,” he said, ‘n he knocked back that cup of Joe he’d walked in with. “Now what you’re gonna do is something like this,” he said. “Place is a High School, right?”

“Right,” I said, ‘n I flipped him the plans the headshed had faxed, coz some of those old frigging fax machines still worked, and we had one of them.

“Now we’re talking,” he said, going over them. “Eight six-man teams, right?”

“Right,” I said, and he got down to it, and yep, thirty minutes later, we had a plan, and I could hear choppers coming in, out on the Walmart parking lot, coz this week, an old Walmart was the base, and the field back of the Walmart wasn’t gonna be much good for farming for a couple of decades. Not unless you wanted to do something about what was buried deep down there, because we’d had to do a big cleanup around here.

Maddock walked in with Sanders, and a couple of boxes of Halloween masks.

“Captain Wong?” the Major said, and he was real smooth looking. Sorta like you expected a head shed brown-noser to look. All shiny uniform and polished boots, probably ironed creases in his boxers. He looked real outta place out here, because until we finished clearing house, this was still Indian country, and there were a few rats still hiding out, here and there. We’d get them though. Already got most of them, and what good were fish without a sea to swim in. “May I have a moment of your time?”

“Park your ass, Sir,” I said, enjoying the wince. “Mugga joe?”

Because mine was black and strong enough to strip the enamel of your teeth, and Jesus, I was going in as wired as I could, and who needed those drugs. I just jacked myself up on joe. That, and adrenaline. Did it every time, and when it didn’t, I wouldn’t be worrying about it, would I?

“No thank you,” he said, real polite, on the surface anyhow, ‘n I shook my head. What sorta officer didn’t drink joe, but I knew the answer to that already. Frigging head-shed brown-noser who’d never been out on the pointy end getting shot at, not that I was out there at the tip of the spear myself, but I’d been there, that night, holding the Pass, and this job wasn’t exactly back office, was it?

“Out, everyone,” I said, and they outed. Didn’t need creases in their boxers to know when an order was an order.

“Tell me, Sir,” I said, when they were gone, and the door’d closed behind them. Didn’t matter. The office was wired, and they’d all be listening anyhow. Way I worked. Didn’t keep anything from them. We’d been together too long. What I knew, they knew, and they all knew that, ‘n sometimes they’d tell me what I didn’t know.

“This isn’t an order, Captain Wong,” the Major said. “It’s a request from someone senior in Supreme Command whom I’m not at liberty to name. The Rebels...” Yeah, he called them ‘The Rebels.’ Capitalized, and you could hear those caps. Everyone else called ‘em ratdogs, and fuck ‘em. “ ... The Rebels in that Interrogation and Holding Facility are holding the son of a Very Important Person, and we’d like to retrieve him.” He held out a photo.”This is him.”

Guy in his thirties. Young looking. The sorta young look that says plastic surgery, and excess drugs, and all that shit you used to see in the Fake Media instead of, you know, actual news that never made it into the “news,” because the assholes didn’t want you to know. That look you used to see on the faces of those Hollywood actors and celebs. Used to. You don’t see them now. We got a lot of them early on. The ones that didn’t run fast or far enough. And yeah, over the border in Borelia wasn’t far enough. They found that out, ‘n most of them didn’t get the chance to learn from that mistake.

Anyhow, this dude, he had that kinda look.

I recognized the motherfucker. Tagg Yenmor. He’d been in the old fake news off and on. Knew who his dad was too. Tim Yenmor. Ran one of those frigging “global business consultancy’s” that specialized in buying up companies, selling the assets and outsourcing the jobs overseas. He made billions. Thousands of people had their jobs and their lives destroyed. Ran for President once, when I was a rugrat. Sure I knew that fucker.

Bought up the healthcare company that owned the hospital I used to work in, and look what happened to my frigging job. Went from something we could halfway live on to minimum wage, no benefits, and I’d only kept it coz I’d gone all ching chong chow on them, made it by the skin of my teeth into the diversity quota, which was pretty much every position that wasn’t affirmative fucking action, unless you were were chinese or korean or japanese, and then you were almost as screwed. Almost, but I squeaked in. God help you if you actually got sick or needed, you know, realmedical care. You might have got lucky. If you were lucky.

“Yeah, so?” I said. “He’s on our side these days, is he? You want him back or something?”

“It isn’t an order, Captain Wong,” the Major said. “His father’s connected, he’s doing things for us, and he’d like him back, and...”

“ ... and we got four Blackhawks and seven Huey’s that we wouldn’t have got otherwise,” I said, and I was a bit surprised about the Hueys. Never knew we even had them, but Blackhawks, they were like hens teeth, and we must’a been real hard up for special forces units if they were tasking me with the mission, and giving me four Blackhawks for it.

“Yes.” The Major nodded, and he didn’t even look embarrassed, and I knew his type too. Wondered why he wasn’t on the other side, but his type, they always landed on their feet.

Took a sip of my cup of joe. “Let me tell you something, Major. Every man and woman in my unit has lost people near and dear to them to the ratdogs. I don’t take ‘em unless they have. Ratdogs killed my parents, gutted them with knives, and did a few other things to them that’d have you puking your guts out if I told you, and left them to die on the floor of their house, and I was the one that found their bodies. They killed my husband, and some good friends too. Every man and woman in my unit could tell you their story.”

I stopped, took another sip, feeling my tongue stripped clean, the enamel lifting off my teeth, and my mind was white fire, and every word was clear as crystal ice.

“You don’t need to ask us to do this as a favor. Major. Every single person in this unit would volunteer to rescue prisoners from the ratdogs. We know what the ratdogs do.” My smile was mirthless, and it wasn’t really a smile, either. “We know that really well, Major, because that’s what we do, for our side, Major, and we’re good at it. We’re very very good, Major, and we’ll go in, we’ll get those people back, Major. We’ll get your man back as well, and we’ll thank you for the opportunity to take it to them.”

I thought about it. “Nobody in this unit objects to a few strings being pulled, if it helps us do our job. You can tell your friend that, back wherever he is. Now, why don’t you kick back for a few hours. We’re lifting off in thirty minutes, and you’re only gonna get in the way. I’ll make sure my men know this guy, Yenmor, is who we’re going in to retrieve, and we’ll see if we can snaffle you a couple of prisoners to go with him. No promises on that one, though.”

“Thank you, Captain,” the Major said, and I knew the prisoners he’d said they wanted, and the poor bastards in that ratdog hellhole for that matter, they were just an excuse for the mission.

The real mission was to spring this Yenmor, and that was fine by me, because we’d get to rescue a few of our people who would die otherwise. The Major, he was looking at me like he was a rabbit looking at a fox, which was when I realized I was sharpening one of my knives, and I hadn’t even noticed. Kind of a nervous reaction I guess, because I didn’t really need to sharpen it.

It was already razor sharp.

“Well ladies and gentlemen, I’m Snoopy, and I’ll be your pilot this afternoon. My side-kick here, Mushie, will now serve the drinks. All seats are smoking, you may now light-up. For those of you who haven’t previously flown with Death Dealer Airlines, the air sickness bags are located in the seat back in front of you. Oh ... wait ... there’s no seats? Well, fuck. You puke, don’t worry about it. Mushie will clean up when we get back. We ready, Mushie?”

“Fuck’s sake, Snoopy. Will you quit with the Mushie shit?”

Couldn’t help grinning. I’d flown with Snoopy a couple times before, and he always fucked around with his co-pilots. He’d been riding Mushie’s ass since we’d done the briefing.

“Are we clear left and right?” Snoopy dropped the act, and he was sounding all professional now.

“Crew Chief. Clear on left.” The chief was standing up front, off to my right, and I could hear him through my headset. Could hear the turbines winding up too.

“Door Gunner. Clear on right.”

“Rotor speed all in the green. Engine instruments all in the green.” Mushie’s voice, and I’d heard them go through the routine. Different from ours. Just as professional.

“Chock One is on the go.” Snoopy’s voice again, and we were rotating into translation lift, rising into the air, slowly. Lifting in a whirling storm of dust, nose angling down, moving forward, staying low, and there was more chatter on the radio.

“Chock Two is on the go ... Chock Three is on the go ... Chock Four is on the go...” Other voices on the radio. The drivers of the other three Blackhawks. The Huey’s were ahead of us, a little. Slower, they’d lifted off earlier, but we’d overtake them, and they’d catch us up. Hopefully, by the time we were ready to exit the objective.

“Chock One. Trail formation, follow my lead. Chock One over and out.”

“Chock Two in formation ... Chock Three ... Chock Four...” I couldn’t see them as we raced across the houses, into the countryside, straight towards the range ahead of us, but I knew they were there, in a line behind us, low and tight.

“Okay, gonna teach you to fly now, Mushie. See, that there tells us our airspeed...”

“Asshole.” Yep, Mushie was back to being real pissy now.

The chit-chat was background noise now, all about birds ahead, power lines, trees, because we were going in low, up one of the valley’s into the small mountain range, racing above the river flats, rising as the mountains rose to either side of us, climbing towards a saddle, and for a minute, I managed to lose myself in the rush of the wind, the whining of the huge twin turbine engines, busy converting JP-4 avgas into noise.

Sitting in the doorway of the lead Blackhawk as we climbed that narrowing valley, feet hanging out, just about brushing the treetops, because low and fast, and Montoya was on one side of me, Frazer on the other, and I didn’t know if they liked it or not, but I did. The wind in your face, the noise from the turbines and the blades, that scent of avgas that was always there, the clean mountain air, away from the scent of death, the rushing speed as Snoopy took us low through the pass and down the canyon on the other side.

Snoopy, our driver, I knew him. Done a couple of in and outs with him before, and he was an old guy, like Kratman. Way too old for this shit, but here he was, and he knew his stuff. Mushie did too, but he didn’t have that same smooth finesse that Snoopy did. We crossed the frontline low, real low, so low we had to lift to get over trees, brushing the scrub at the top of the pass, dropping down the other side, nose down, in a blur of speed, radio silent now.

The ratdogs had tried a few shots, I’d seen the tracers, but this part of the front, in the mountains, there wasn’t much on their side or ours, and we were through and heading down. Four Blackhawks, weaving and banking down the canyon, and one minute I’d be looking up at the sky, next I’d be looking straight down at the ground, and someone behind me was puking, and then we were out of the foothills, banking hard, howling down a long valley, just above the power lines and the trees. Sometimes.

“Five minutes out.” Mushie’s voice came over my headset, calm and clear, like we were heading out for a burger or something, not riding into hell’s Halloween party at a hundred and eighty miles an hour, ‘n I patted myself down. Everything there, and Montoya and Frazer were doing the same on either side of me, and I was breathing slow and deep.

Getting myself in the zone, and I smiled, because soon, real soon, there’d be blood and death, and the adrenaline was kicking in now ... wired, baby. I was wired, and I wanted the blood. I wanted the death, and everything was crystal clear, and the white fire was there, but I was riding it now. Riding the adrenaline rush, and everything around me was bright and clear, and when I moved, it was fast and precise, without thought, and I was completely in the zone.

The killing zone.

“One minute out.” Mushie’s voice was cool and calm, and we were flashing across rooftops, lifting up occasionally to jump trees, and in the streets below, pale faces were looking up, people were pointing, running, but they weren’t who we were coming for. Not yet.

Soon we’d come, and if they could’ve seen my smile, the ratdog symps woulda run, screaming in fear, and they’d find that out, that they should’ve run. They’d find that out soon enough.

Soon, but not yet.

Playing fields, and I knew we were close as the Blackhawk flared and dropped, and the High School roof was right below me, and I was off in an instant, dropping ten feet, first out, and landing like a cat. Either side of me, Montoya and Frazer thumped down, ‘n the rest of my team, and the other team, they were coming down around me as the Blackhawk lifted, and down below I could already hear explosions, shooting. Short tight bursts. Six teams blowing their way in through the doors and windows, and the other three Blackhawks were lifting, adding the whining syncopation of their turbines to the wall of sound accompanying us.

“Cover,” Fujimoto yelled, and I ducked and tucked. We all ducked, and the crashing explosion was almost mild as the door of the rooftop service entrance blew in. Mack and Standish ripped it off it’s shattered hinges, tossed it to the side, and I went in first, fast, riding the white fire in my head. In, and down, sprinting, cannoning off the walls on the corners, my body armor absorbing the impacts, M4 tucked in tight, cocked and ready, finger on the trigger, safety off, Frazer and Montoya tucked tight on my ass, and the rest close behind us.

Through the door, first through, and we were clearing the top floor. Door wasn’t locked, ‘n I guess this was a holding and interrogation center, bit like ours, except their security sucked, and I was in, eyes seeing half a dozen confused looking ratdogs fucking around in the hallway, ‘n I liked these old high school hallways. Concrete block walls, you couldn’t shoot through them. You could shoot through ratdogs though, and I was aiming for center of body mass.

Blat-blat. Blat-blat. Blat-blat. Double tapping, moving forward fast as I fired, fast as I could pull the trigger, every round on target, and behind me, Montoya and Frazer had peeled off to either side and those half dozen ratdogs were down, a couple of them moving, kicking, clutching at holes, thrashing around on the floor, and I left one of the others to finish them off. I was on point, running down the hallway, and fuck, they were holding the prisoners up here, not on the ground floor like Intelligence had said, ‘n they’d got that wrong.

Wondered what the fuck else they’d got wrong, but we’d find that out soon enough, ‘n all I hoped was, it wasn’t gonna be a complete cluster-fuck. Didn’t matter. Even if it was, we were here.

“All Teams, all Teams,” I said, waving the others past me, except Montoya, who stuck to me like glue. That was his job. Sticking to me. Taking anything meant for me. If he could. “All Teams, this is Mouse. Prisoners are on the top floor. Repeat, prisoners are being held on the top floor. Exercise care. Mouse out.”

Frazer was exercising care all fucking right. I could hear him carefully servicing targets inside that first classroom, fast as he could pull that trigger, with Standish covering him. Mack and the Canuck were crashing through the next door, ‘n I could hear the screams and the shooting, and there was way more shooting than my guys could put out going on back behind us, and downstairs as well, and yeah, well, fucked up, but shit happens and you adapt the plan.

My plan was simple. Kill them all.

Wasn’t much else we could do now, anyhow, except kill ratdogs as fast as we could, and we were doing that as I sprinted past Frazer and the Canuck, Montoya on my ass, ‘n my first shot took the lock right outa the frame of the next to last classroom, my boot kicked the door open, and I was in and shooting, coz someone on our side inside that room had got their shit together, and most of the prisoners were down on the floor, half of them screaming, and the other half yelling.

Ratdogs were in their uniforms, stood out like shit on a restaurant table, four of them, the only ones standing, confused as fuck, dropping their batons, bringing their handguns out, coz I guess they weren’t expecting gatecrashers to their Halloween party, and I took three down, Montoya got one, and I put another couple of rounds through each of their heads to make sure. Nothing like a double tap to tap them out, ‘n as soon as I had, dropped the mag, did a fast reload, ‘n covered the door.

“Keys keys keys which of them has the fucking keys,” Montoya yelled, dropping to his knees, starting to pat the bodies, except one of them wasn’t, but Montoya’s knife changed that real quick.

“The fat bitch with the orange hair,” an old guy on the floor yelled, and yeah, the poor bastards were all handcuffed to those frigging school chairs, except it’s pretty fucking difficult to tell if the hair’s orange after two rounds of 5.56 have gone through their skull from about four feet away. Fucking impossible, really.

They were all redheads now.

But you could tell the fat part. She was.

Made Porky the Pig look like a Weight Watchers winner.

“Got it,” Montoya snarled, ripping a set of keys out of the fat bitch’s pocket, ‘n he unlocked those cuffs, gave the old guy the keys. “Unlock them all, anyone with military experience or balls, take a gun. We’ll be back to get you outa here soon as we clear an exit.”

“Who the fuck are you?” the old guy said, looking up from the handcuffs next to him that he’d started to unfasten.

“Army of the Second Republic, we’re getting you all outa here,” I said, real loud, without looking, wondering if we could, coz we’d been told sixty, maybe eighty max, and there were twenty here in this one classroom, plus a few kids, and I fished out that photo of the Yenmor dude. “Anyone seen this asshole. We’re supposed to get him outta here too.”

“Him?” Woman lying on the floor still cuffed to a chair spat. “That McCain, he’s one of them. Don’t trust him.”

“Come on,” I said to Montoya, and we left them to it, leapfrogging Frazer and Standish, and that last room, fuck, I wanted to puke, coz the ratdogs had emptied their mags into the prisoners, they were reloading clumsily, the way rear echelon motherfuckers with fuck all in the way of combat experience did, and there were bodies everywhere, and right in the middle of them, standing by herself, the only one standing, there was this young Filipina girl, screaming, covered in blood, and one of the ratdogs was looking at her, fumbling reloading his old M16, and I took him out with a headshot.

Blew his brains out in a spray of grey and red and white, ‘n he went down in a rush of blood and shit, and the other two’s eyes were round and white, and they shoulda known there was no surrendering here, but they tried, dropping their handguns, raising their hands. Didn’t make any difference to us. Montoya took out one, I took out the other, and Jesus, some of the prisoners were still alive.