Grim determination to go down fighting settled in Gunner’s gut. He’d been in some bad situations before, but none as hopeless as this one. If he had to die, this wasn’t a bad way to go. He was with friends and the only two people in world he loved. It sucked that Poppy wasn’t going to get to grow up and have a full life. She should’ve gotten a chance to be a kid, fall in love, have kids of her own—
He broke off the train of thought. He had no time for despair. Not yet.
But as the next hour passed and the bad guys methodically forced them to use their precious ammo fighting off wave after wave of attacks, the despair set in, whether he wanted it to or not.
Chas rendered basic first aid, tying strips of cloth over their various minor wounds as they got nicked by flying shards of stone. He also passed them water bottles and the precious clips of spare ammo. For her part, Poppy cowered in the lee of the rocks with her thumb or her pacifier jammed in her mouth. She whimpered from time to time, but silence didn’t matter anymore. The bad guys knew exactly where they were and were patiently wearing them down.
“Ammo check?” Spencer asked a shade wearily.
“Thirty-two,” Gunner reported.
“Sixteen,” Drago reported.
“I’m at twelve. Time to let them draw in close. Let’s make the shots count.”
Gunner knew what Spencer was saying without stating it aloud. They were going to die soon. It was a last-ditch SEAL maneuver to let their position get overrun and burn the last few rounds of ammo on point-blank shots that would take out as many of the enemy as possible before they were gunned down themselves. As a SEAL, if you had to die, you took as many of the bastards with you as you could.
“It’s been an honor, sir,” Gunner said formally to Spencer.
“Likewise,” Spencer replied.
Drago just swore under his breath, off radio but loud enough for Gunner to hear. Then Drago transmitted. “I love you, Spencer Newman.”
“Love you too.”
“Jesus,” Chas whispered off-mike beside him. “You guys sound like you’re getting ready to charge over the rocks and go out in a blaze of glory.”
Gunner risked turning away from his weapon sight long enough to smile ruefully at Chas. “Guess you were right. We should have found another way to handle this besides shooting it out.”
Chas leaned over and grabbed the front of his shirt. “Don’t you give up on me, Gunner Vance. Poppy and I are depending on you. Be the warrior you were trained to be, dammit.”
He stared, stunned. “You mean it?”
“I’m not ready to die, and she sure as hell isn’t. You fight for us.”
“But I’m killing people. Loads of them.”
Grim desperation vibrated in Chas’s voice. “Poppy deserves to grow up. You and I deserve a shot at happiness. You do whatever it takes to give us all a future. You hear me?”
“Yeah.”
“You were right. You kill whoever you have to. And stay alive, dammit.”
He nodded and turned back to his sight. Huh. Chas finally got it. Funny how staring down death at close range could change a person’s opinions about the whole kill-or-be-killed thing.
If he, Spencer, and Drago rotated shooting so that they never shot at the same target, they could still take out a fair number of hostiles.
He transmitted, “Let’s rotate shots. Call your targets. Single shots only at close range.”
“You sure?” Spencer asked.
“I’m not ready to go just yet.”
“You heard the man,” Spencer murmured.
Gunner settled in, readying himself to shoot like he’d never shot before. He reviewed the basics as he always did. He felt the calm washing over him. There it was. The kill zone.
A heat signature moved up the path toward them. “Mine,” he said coldly. He pulled the trigger and the hostile’s head evaporated. Thirty-one rounds left.
When the bad guys were coming in slowly enough, he took two shots to every one of Spencer’s and Drago’s to even out the ammo count. He was at fourteen, which meant Spencer and Drago were down to around six each, when he heard something from below.
A muffled bang.
Another one.
Several heat signatures lit up on the trail… but heading away from their position.
“What the hell is that noise?” Drago asked.
“Sounds like weapon fire,” Spencer said wonderingly. “Muffled by the jungle. Hold your positions.”
Gunner stayed at his weapon, poised to shoot anyone who came up the trail at them, but over the next ten minutes or so, not a single person charged their position. Sounds of weapon fire came from both ends of the valley and seemed to be converging toward the middle of it.
“Come look at this,” Spencer said over his radio.
Shocked, Gunner left his weapon and moved over behind his boss, who was peering around the left end of the rocky outcrop. The entire hillside below them was lit up with muzzle flashes—two large groups of them, one coming in from their left and another group from the right. And between them, the Oshiro gang was slowly being crushed, rather like a nut in the jaws of a lethal nutcracker. For all the world, it looked like a military force executing a clearing maneuver on a battlefield.
“What the hell?” Drago muttered.
Even Chas poked his head around the rock to stare. “What is that?” he asked.
Gunner’s phone vibrated in his pocket, and he pulled it out. “Go ahead,” he murmured at Charles Favian.
“Do you see them yet?” Charles asked, sounding positively gleeful.
“You mean the massive line of shooters advancing up the hill toward us?” Gunner asked.
“They’re SEALs. Well, retired SEALs. I’ve got them on a satellite video feed here. They say there’s another group of shooters taking out the same guys they’re trying to take out, but they don’t know who the new shooters are.”
“Could be Tanaka’s guys,” Gunner replied.
“You might want to get on the phone with Tanaka’s men and tell them they’ve got SEALs on the field helping them and not to kill our guys.”
“Will do. Just a sec.” Gunner took the phone away from his mouth and relayed the message to Spencer, who immediately got on his cell phone to call Kenji Tanaka.
Charles commented, “Satellite view shows the new arrivals have pretty much cleared out your bad guys. They should reach your position in a few minutes. Don’t kill the good guys, eh?”
Gunner snorted. “We have just about enough ammo left to make a smiley face in a pumpkin.”
“Good timing, then,” Charles said. “The SEALs are operating on channel four if you want to say hello.”
“Thanks,” Gunner muttered.
Drago was already dialing up channel four on his radio. “Roger. Four adult males and one toddler. On the rocky outcropping about a hundred yards above your line. We’re using IR designators if any of you gentlemen have the capability.”
Gunner got his own radio switched over in time to hear someone respond in a gravelly voice, “We’ve got a few IR capable kits. We’ll send those boys up your way first.”
“We’ll be watching for them,” Spencer replied. “And I repeat, there are friendlies coming in from the other end of the valley.”