Page 64 of Into the Gray Zone

His head slapped against the car, then slid to the ground. I shouted, “This one is down! This one is down! Coming back!”

I heard Brett shout back, “Keep going deeper! Jennifer and I have them pinned, get around them!”

I thought,Easy for you to say... and shouted, “Roger all. I’m moving.”

I crouched over and ran up the line of the cars, the remaining two enemy ineffectually spraying rounds at my movement only for Jennifer and Brett to force them to drop back down.

I was making ground, and they knew it. Soon they would be in a crossfire with no cover to use. I reached the end of the line of vehicles and began moving perpendicular to my line of march, toward their vehicle. I saw them on the open ground, fired one round at them, and they slid into their SUV. Brett rose, pumping rounds into the windshield, and the driver crouched down, putting the car into reverse and punching the gas. I began peppering the vehicle with my own rounds and it slammed into a parked car, went into drive, then raced back up the alley to the main road.

I ran back to our vehicle, seeing Brett helping Jennifer load Veep in the back seat. I said, “You think this thing will still move?”

Brett said, “Yeah. Just can’t open the doors on the passenger side, but the engine should be okay. If it doesn’t start, we’re screwed, because even if nobody heard this gunfight back here, someone’s going to show up sooner rather than later and see the bodies.”

We got Veep settled, him bitching about how he was fine, Jennifer next to him in the back keeping pressure on his wound. I slid acrossthe driver’s seat to the passenger side, and Brett got behind the wheel, saying, “Moment of truth.”

He pushed the start button, and the SUV roared to life. He smiled and said, “Where to?”

“Out of here, first of all.”

We went back down the alley we’d used to enter, and I was amazed at the normal activities happening around us. Nobody had registered the life-and-death struggle that had just occurred.

I said, “Unbelievable. We’re going to drive away from a gunfight and these locals have no idea.”

Brett said, “The question is, ‘Drive where?’”

I looked at my watch and saw it was just after eleven. We’d missed the meeting, and I had a wounded teammate in my vehicle from an unsanctioned mission for the RAW. The correct choice would have been to call it a day and exfiltrate, getting the hell off the Indian continent.

But I wasn’t known for doing what was correct.

I said, “Jennifer, you’re going to take Veep back to Delhi. Call Kerry Bostwick. I’m sure he has a doctor in New Delhi for things like this.”

She said, “Not the Taskforce? You want me to call Kerry at the CIA? We can get a Taskforce medical team here. That’s what they do.”

“No, that’ll cause too many problems. George Wolffe will lose his mind, and he’ll have to notify the Oversight Council about a medical emergency. Call Kerry and tell him you’re coming in. Worst case, meet him at the U.S. embassy in New Delhi. Let him deal with the problem with CIA assets. If he gives you any shit, threaten to call Wolffe. He’ll play ball, because he sanctioned this and doesn’t want the headache either.”

Brett said, “What are we doing?”

“We’re going into that fort to find the grid.”

“The meeting’s come and gone. What’s the point?”

“Thakkar’s coming soon. If they plan on attacking him from there, we’re going to stop it.”

He said, “What about what just happened? Those guys weren’t Indian.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure they’re Chinese, and they have something to do with this attack. All the more reason to go in before Thakkar arrives.”

Jennifer looked at the time and said, “Thakkar’s already there. Nadia said he leaves at eleven thirty.”

I said, “Then pull over, because we really need to get moving. And call Knuckles. Tell him to let Nadia know she’s probably going to get some bad news.”

Chapter38

Mr.Chin sat at the Imperial Hotel bar, surrounded by dark oak walls and artifacts from the time of the British empire. He was the only patron on a stool, the bar having just opened, the bartender serving him a bourbon old-fashioned.

Dressed in a red uniform with a Sikh dastaar, his beard shaped in a V sharp enough to carve beef, the bartender said, “Watch it with those, because they’ll bite you if you aren’t careful.”

Mr.Chin took the drink and said, “I will, trust me, but I have no work today and you make the best ones I’ve ever had.”

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