“Contacto!” Juan Carlos shouted, and then he and Court raised their rifles and aimed up the hill. Court flipped his magnifier up in front of his red dot sight, and this gave him a good sight picture at this distance, but he had no illumination to find a target.
Court quickly threw himself between the origin of incoming fire and the Nicaraguan agent Caprice, and an instant later, another flash of light from the building meant another bullet was coming their way.
It zinged again just to Court’s right and slammed into the bed of the truck, ripping metal.
The American fired a half dozen rounds in quick succession at the origin of the muzzle flash on the hill. He paused just long enough to shout, “Get in the truck!” and then he fired ten more times, ripping into the building’s windows.
When he took his eye out of his magnifier, he was surprised to find Juan Carlos and Caprice still right there with him. But when he chanced a look back over his shoulder, he saw why. The Tacoma wasn’t there anymore; it was rolling slowly away down the drive.
The man behind the wheel lay slumped forward against the door. Court processed in less than a second that the first gunshot from the hillside had taken him out, and the shooter up there knew what the hell he was doing.
The passenger rolled out of the moving truck, pulled a handgun from under his arm, and began firing up the hill at the building, but another sniper round hit its mark, spinning the man around dead, leaving him face-first on the gravel, the top of his head a ruined mess of exposed bone, blood, and brain matter.
Court fired his rifle up the hill till it ran dry, and since he was still standing in the open with his agent, and the enemy had the high ground on one side and more enemy were fast approaching from the other, he dropped his weapon down on its sling, grabbed Caprice, and began running with her towards the ramshackle restaurant.
He called to Juan Carlos as he ran. “Come with me! Get your other man to stay in cover, tell him to move through the jungle and get our vehicle. Key is under the mat.”
Juan Carlos relayed these commands into his walkie-talkie as he ran, while Court and Caprice raced along next to him. They made it to the restaurant door, where Court pulled his Glock pistol and fired a single round at the padlock.
It blew apart and he kicked the door in, and then they were inside the small shack, just as the first set of headlights swept across the windows.
The three trucks turned onto the driveway.
Another gunshot boomed on the hillside. Somehow the sniper up there was still alive, even though Court and JC had each fired a couple of full magazines in his direction.
While Court reloaded his rifle with another thirty-round magazine he grabbed from his pack, he turned to Caprice. “You can shoot?”
The woman looked terrified, but still, she nodded.
When he finished his reload, he handed her his pistol. “Sixteen rounds. No safety. Understand?”
“I understand.” She took it, asked, “What are we going to do?”
Juan Carlos had been on the radio, but he turned to Court now. “Marco is not responding. I think they got him.”
Horns began honking out front, and then men shouted, but Court couldn’t understand their words. He had taken up a defensive position by a window, but he wasn’t yet looking out.
“What are they saying?” he asked Caprice.
“Just…shouting. Bad words, mostly. I…They are hard to understand.”
Court made a face of confusion. The guy on the hill had some serious discipline, some legitimate training. But the dozen dudes honking their horns and shouting curses on the driveway right in front of a building of armed enemy didn’t sound like they had much discipline at all.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket, dialed a number on Signal.
The phone rang, and a man shouted out front; his words were in English, and they seemed odd, almost slurred. “Come out, pendejos! Nothing will happen if you come out!”
Other sounds came from the three trucks; Court thought he heard bouts of laughter.
That’s fucking weird,he thought, considering the context of the moment.
Then his Signal call was answered on the other side by Matt Hanley. “Go ahead.”
Court kept his voice calm but assertive enough to convey the gravity of the circumstances. “Extraction location has been compromised; enemy has opened fire. I have three agents down, one agent and the asset Caprice are with me, but enemy has the personnel to overrun at will. Possibly ten to twenty aggressors on our position at this time.”
Hanley did not hesitate. “Notifying Managua station. They have assets in Chinandega and I’ll get them rolling your way. Stand by.”
Fuck,Court thought. Whatever CIA Managua station had on standby up here in Chinandega would not have been given a heads-up that he would be operating here tonight; it would have been terrible OPSEC to let anyone around here know in advance what was going on. That meant it would be a half hour, maybe more, until reinforcements would arrive, and Court had no idea how effective they would be once they did.
