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As I step around a pool of blood, my confidence surges. That helo crash back home must have taken out their A-team. If all we have to face are their second string, this mission is going to be a piece of cake.
“Chopper to casino team.” X-Ray’s voice comes over my earpiece. “We’ve got six or seven on the casino floor, clustered together. Four others are on upper floors of the hotel. Let us know when you’re in position, and we’ll send the casino an invitation to this party.”
Sarge radios back to the chopper, and I tune them out. They’ve got their mission—blowing the casino and everyone in it to kingdom come, and I’ve got mine. While they’re doing their thing, I’ll be disabling Raptor’s security systems so the search team can look for Jud without raising any alarms. Since the search team includes Cora, I can’t afford to fail. Each one of us has to pull off our jobs flawlessly to ensure her safety. Otherwise, this is all for nothing.
I get the heebie-jeebies standing in the middle of three corpses that are still warm, but, hey, they sealed their fate when they sided with thatpuntaRaptor. My conscience is clear as I use my boot to shove one guy’s leg out of the way so I can stand over the mismatched equipment.
Crooked monitors lean over keyboards with missing keys. The table surface—or rather what little surface isn’t covered in dirty napkins and crumpled bags of chips—is stained and sticky.
One of the monitors has a six-way split-screen showing their camera feeds. I find the keyboard and arrow to the next six-screen, but there is no next six-screen. This is it. Six cameras to monitor the whole French Quarter. Either Raptor is stupid to have suchgilipollasrunning his security, or he’s overconfident. I’m starting to wonder if he was expecting us at all, like Rev and Sarge assumed. If I had to guess, I would say these dead dudes at my feet were not even a little prepared.
I hope any resistance the others face is just as laughable.
Before I disable the equipment—something I can do with just a thought—I focus in on the six-screen to read where the feeds are coming from. If I can secure any intel before cutting the feeds, I might be able to help the others.
The top left box says “CHURCH,” and it shows a black-and-white, wide-angle view from the tower, looking out toward the shitty wall we breached a few minutes ago. Without any lights out there, the camera can barely detect the wall and its guard towers.
The church feed isn’t helpful, so I move onto the next, which reads, “CASINO FLOOR,” and shows a brightly-lit space with gaudy carpet, slot machines, and card tables. The zoom is set to encompass the whole casino, including the main doors, the gambling floor, a bar area, and an empty stage. There’s movement around one of the card tables. The image is too tiny to make out many details, but it looks like X-Ray’s right. There are half-a-dozen men playing cards. All in one spot.
If the chopper launches the missile now, they’ll take out a good chunk of Raptor’s team in one shot. Maybe even Raptor himself.
Thanks to Rev’s visions, I know what the settlement’s leader looks like. I have an opportunity to use this camera to see if Shithead himself is one of the guys around the table. That’s intel X-Ray can’t give, not from more than a thousand feet in the air.
Glancing down, I look for controls so I can manipulate the camera and zoom in, but it’ll take me forever to find a joystick in this mess. I use my Gift instead.
Using my mind, I focus on the feed. I make the camera zoom in on the table, and I tweak the focus as much as I can, considering no one’s probably cleaned the lens, like, ever. The view isn’t perfect, but it’s enough that I can definitely make out six men drinking, smoking, and tossing down cards. Round chips make a pile in the center of the table, and bottles of booze are at every elbow. None of them looks like Raptor. Unfortunately.
The chatter in my ear confirms the chopper team has armed a missile and is ready to fire. I open my comm to put in my two cents.
“Scrap to casino team and chopper,” I say into my radio. “You reading me?”
“Got you, Scrappy Boy,” Rev says. His voice is quiet. He’s in stealth mode. He and Sarge must be creeping up on the casino, waiting for the missile strike before storming in. “Whatcha got for us?”
“I’m at the systems hub in the church,” I say. “I’ve got eyes on the casino. X-Ray’s right there are six on the main floor, about fifty feet straight in from the front door. They’re all at one table, playing cards. No sign of Raptor.”
“Roger that, Scrap,” Rev says in my ear. “Confirming six on the casino floor. Looks like we’re a go for missile strike. Got that, chopper? Sarge?”
“Sarge to chopper. That’s a go, chopper. Fire when ready.”
I grin as I give the screen one last look before disabling the system. Thesepuntasare in for a big surprise.
I’m about to mentally pull the plug on the equipment in front of me when there’s movement to the right of the card table. A seventh man strolls in from out of view, and he stands over the card game. He’s big and bald, and he has a bottle dangling from one hand. Under his arm, tucked against his side is…I blink. That can’t be right. That man has a woman at his side.
A real, life, fuckingwoman.Stained and tattered clothes hang on her thin frame, and lanky hair hides her face, but there’s no question. She’s a woman.
Jesus Christo! A woman!
“Wait!” I shout into the radio. “Hold your fire! There’s a woman in the casino! There’s a fucking female in there! Call off the strike! Call it—!”
I barely get the words out before I’m blown off my feet. Literally blown. By a gust of wind like something out of the Wizard of Oz.
I drop my gun, and my feet leave the floor. My body is tossed like I’m a Raggedy Andy doll. My back hits a pew before I crumple to the tile beside one of the dead bodies.
“Fucking,ouch!” Motherfucker, my back hurts! When I manage to get myself up on my arms, I hear laughter.
“Thought you had the drop on us, huh?” The voice is deep and menacing. “You thought wrong.”
Then another gust of wind hits me. My helmet blows clean off my head, the rifle slung across my back bangs against me like a storm door in a hurricane.
