He looked to the two Nicaraguans in the tiny restaurant with him. “You guys have anyone you can call?”
Caprice shook her head. “In Managua, yes. But not up here.”
JC shrugged. “Same here. I was told America would have everything under control.”
“Well…I’m America…and for at least the next half hour, what you see is what you get.
“We’re fucked,” he muttered.
Laughing and shouting continued out in front of the restaurant.
Juan Carlos said, “Those voices out there don’t sound like DDI.”
Court had been thinking the same. “They aren’t intelligence agents. They sound like they’re drunk.”
Caprice looked over the pistol in her trembling hand. “Renazco gang.”
Court said, “Whoever is on the hill is something else, though.”
Juan Carlos peeked out the window, then turned in the darkness and spoke to Caprice in English. “You must have been followed.”
“No,” Court said. “She wasn’t. There was a sniper up in that building, probably a two-man team. I couldn’t tell through the FLIR. Either way, they’ve definitely been in position since before your men arrived.”
“But how?” the woman asked. “Herman just told me where to come one hour ago.”
Both Nicaraguans looked his way. As the American put the phone back in his pocket, he addressed Juan Carlos. “This op was compromised before we gave Caprice the location. Before we gaveyouthe location.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying weallgot fucked. Either by Managua station…or someone in the USA.” To himself he mumbled, “Another compromise.” Neither of the other two could hear him.
Court said, “We have to fight these guys from here. We can’t win, but we can try to stall for time. Caprice, you don’t have a rifle. You go look for a back door, cover it with your pistol. Stay away from any windows, but shoot anybody that tries to come in.”
Caprice rose, moved low between a couple of rough wooden tables, around a counter, and then disappeared into a back room that Court assumed to be the kitchen.
Just after she left, a massive volley of fire erupted from the front of the property. Court and his agent dove for the dirty floor of the restaurant, then crawled on hands and knees back behind the small wooden counter, desperate to put something between themselves and the thin walls of the structure.
The American could tell the sound of AK-47s, and he knew they fired a bigger bullet, albeit slower, than his own M4. His weapon was superiorin accuracy, and in some types of penetration. Theirs, on the other hand, fired a far superior round for turning a little wooden shack into a pile of splinters.
After what sounded like a couple hundred rounds had been dumped in their direction, the gunfire subsided somewhat, and Court rose and began firing rapidly through the smoke and dust and debris at the light coming from gaping holes in the wall in front of him. He targeted moving shadows, men passing in front of the headlights of the three trucks parked there in front of the Versa and the Tacoma with the dead FORNAT agent inside.
He was banking on the fact that the guys shooting at him were undisciplined enough to where they were all pausing to reload at the same time, but very quickly fresh rounds of incoming fire tore into the restaurant. Glass shattered, simple light fixtures above him fell, and pieces of the ceiling crashed to the ground between the now-overturned tables.
It was just a couple of guys shooting; the rest were probably reloading, but they were executing mag dumps, so a lot of bullets continued pulverizing the ramshackle building.
Next to Court, Juan Carlos fired, as well, emptying his magazine first. He called for cover, then began kneeling back down so he could reload, and Court kept up his own fire until his rifle ran dry.
When it did so, he dropped back down low, reloaded again, and looked over to see Juan Carlos on the floor, blood pouring from his throat, his hands frantically trying to stanch a through-and-through wound that would not be survivable even if they were right next door to the best trauma hospital in all of Central America.
Juan Carlos would live a few seconds more, but that was it, and as harsh as it was to admit it, Court knew he didn’t have time for lost causes.
“Fuck!” he shouted out in the dusty room. While more enemy fire raked the building, he hefted JC’s rifle and crawled off through broken glass towards the back of the structure, hoping that he could, at least, do something to help save Caprice.
JC’s legs kicked, his arms thrashed, but Court left him behind.
Seconds later, he’d moved through the kitchen, now up to a low crouch, and he moved up next to Caprice, who, despite his orders to stay away from the window, was in the process of peering outside. “Just us left,” he said.
She nodded in the darkness. The shock on her face was obvious.
