Drone Strike

He loved it. It was oblivion.

Stoner saw two more men coming from the direction he’d just driven. He aimed and fired, got one, but missed the next, leading him rather than simply squeezing off a bullet into the man’s chest.

It was the sort of error one made in haste. It was emotion-driven, adrenaline-fueled. He would not make it again.

The man had ducked behind a wall. Stoner took a very long, very slow breath, switched the gun to single fire, then waited for the man to rise.

He took him with a shot to the head.

“Infrared,” said Stoner, telling the smart helmet to switch on its infrared sensors. “Count.”

The smart helmet calculated five targets moving along the edges of the ruins behind the men he’d just killed. They were obscured by the terrain, but their heat signatures were visible.

Stoner looked left and then right, gauging the area and its potential for cover.

They’ll expect me to be in the ruins.

If I retreat to the low run of buildings behind me, I can crawl into the weeds on my left. Then I’ll have a clear shot at the group coming up in front of me now.

I’ll get Turk Mako when I’m done. If they don’t find and shoot him first.

TURK REALIZED HE WAS GOING TO DIE. BUT RATHER than scaring him, the knowledge freed him. It told him that he should take out as many Iranians as he could. In that way, he would atone for having left Grease.

He had to be smart about it. Going kamikaze was foolish, and an insult to all Grease and the others had taught him.

Slipping out the window of the ruined building, Turk slithered to the ground like a snake. Automatic rifle fire boomed left and right; it sounded like he was on a firing range.

Move out!

He crouched down, keeping himself as low as possible as he moved along the ancient alley between the ruins. The loose sand and dirt were slippery, and with his weight bent forward, it wasn’t long before he tripped, sprawling forward in the dirt and landing hard on the rifle.

Once, this might have discouraged him, perhaps even sending him into a depressed spiral that he’d never recover from. It would have reminded him that he was a pilot, useless on land, awkward and vulnerable. Now it was only something to work through, even take advantage of: he had become adept on the ground as well as in the air, a true warrior.

Turk crawled along the ground, knowing that in his final moments on earth he was going to kill as many of his enemies as he could. He kept going until he reached an open spot between the walls where he could see the nearby ruins. Something moving on his left. He raised his rifle but before he could aim it was gone. He watched along the top of the old stone wall, saw one, two shapes briefly passing, then nothing as the wall rose a little higher.

Two men, a pair of Iranians trying to get down along the side of the ruins.

Turk started forward, then stopped. It would be better, he realized, to retreat to the remains of the building on his left and a little behind him. Then he could go around and come up on their rear.

He’d have to be fast.

Up, he told himself, and in a moment he was on his feet, ru

SEVEN TARGETS APPEARED ON STONER’S SCREEN, IR ghosts that moved across the darker rectangles of the ruins. Lying prone in the dirt amid a few clumps of scrub weeds, he waited until they stopped near the edge of a building that was nearly intact. Switching to burst fire, he moved his rifle left to right, shooting into the scrum until all but one of the men were down. The survivor retreated up one of the alleys, disappearing behind a low run of tumbled-down blocks and stone.

Two or three of the men he’d shot were still alive, trying to crawl to safety. Stoner dispatched them, then changed the magazine and started after the man who’d escaped.

Two vehicles appeared in the distance on his left, both Kavirans. One winked at him—a machine gun was mounted in a turret at the top, Hummer style. Stoner went to a knee, zeroed in on the small area of glowing flesh at the top of the flashes, then fired.

The Iranian fell off the top of the vehicle. The passenger-side door opened. Stoner waited, then took the man as he tried to climb up to the gu

Stoner shot down two more Iranians, one from each truck, before they decided to retreat. Then he shot out the tires on both vehicles. It slowed, but didn’t stop, their retreat. He turned back toward the collection of ruins to follow the man who’d gotten away.

Something moved at the corner of his vision as he neared the closest ruin. He spun and found two Iranians taking aim.

He emptied the mag, dropped the box and pulled up a fresh one. In the half second it took for him to grab the fresh bullets, something turned the corner on his right. Two men, shooting—Stoner threw himself down. But before he hit the ground, the gunfire abruptly ended. Both Iranians keeled forward, blood pouring from their shattered heads.

Behind them stood Turk Mako.

IT WASN’T GREASE. TURK STARED AT THE FIGURE IN THE field, the man he’d just saved. He had the faded camo uniform of the Pasdaran Guard, but he was wearing a Whiplash smart helmet.

Grease really, truly, was dead.

“We have to get out of here!” yelled Turk. He pointed left and started to move. “Come on.”

STONER STOOD, FROZEN TO THE SPOT. TURK MAKO was there, not fifty feet away.

Assassinate.

He raised his gun, then hesitated. Turk had just saved his life; at that range, the Iranians would have had good odds of hitting him somewhere.

A strange emotion took him over: doubt.

What was his job, exactly?

Find and eliminate Turk Mako. He had been sent precisely because he wouldn’t feel.

Stoner hesitated as Turk ran. Killing him was trivial. He raised his weapon.

What was his mission? They wanted him eliminated.

Stoner was a killing machine, turned into something less than human. He hesitated. He had a memory of something else, something deeper.

Turk Mako had just saved his life. He was an American. Turk Mako was on his side.

A man’s heat signature flared in the corner of his screen. Stoner turned, saw that he had ducked behind the wall.

He waited until the man peeked out again, then fired, striking the Iranian in the head.

Assassinate Turk Mako.

Save Turk Mako.

Stoner moved methodically up the row of the ruins, reaching the dirt road that ran along the edge of the city. A dozen buildings sat between the road and the railroad tracks, strung out in a long line between clusters of buildings at either end. The Iranians had moved two large troop trucks near the tracks at the exact center of the road and the city; a half-dozen men were standing in disorganized clumps around the vehicles.

Poor discipline, thought Stoner, switching his weapon to single fire to snipe them, one by one.

TURK REACHED THE SLOPE OF ONE OF THE FIRST HILLS overlooking the city before realizing he was alone. He climbed up, some seventy or eighty feet, and looked back in confusion. The Whiplasher was in the center of town, walking near the vehicles parked there, methodically eliminating soldiers.

Turk watched in wonder as the trooper single-handedly took on what had to be a platoon-sized force. The enemy didn’t gang up, and the groups of soldiers east and west at either end of the village remained where they were, but it was still an impressive, almost superhuman show. Even Grease couldn’t have accomplished it.

Was he just lucky? Could he keep it up?

Turk climbed to the rounded peak and surveyed the area behind him. Hills poked out of the desert like measles. There were clumps of vegetation, mostly in the valleys between the hills.