Читать книгу Damage Control - Gordon Kent, Gordon Kent - Страница 47

The hole under the fence was big enough for Fidel to wriggle through on his back. Clavers followed, then Ong, pulled through by the two inside. Benvenuto went in on his belly, jumped up and brushed himself off with a surprising burst of vigor.

“Save it; you’ll need it,” Alan said. He wriggled through, face up.

They crouched between two cars in the row nearest the fence. He looked at Ong. “Lieutenant? Can you make it to our vehicle?”

She nodded. Tears were running down her cheeks. She looked like a very dirty Oriental doll that would cry if you put it on its back.

“Okay.” He motioned Clavers and Benvenuto in closer, put a hand on Fidel’s back to get his attention. “There are four guys at the gate, plus the guy walking the perimeter. Maybe more, but we didn’t see them. We’re going to try to take them without shooting. Hear me, Fidel?”

He saw the back of Fidel’s head move in a nod.

“We’re going to get as close as we can—the front row of cars, with the cars as cover—I’ll already have stood up and said something. Okay? The signal is ‘friends.’ You hear me say ‘friends,’ you’re behind cover, weapon cocked and locked and ready to shoot.”

“You don’t want us to shoot, you said.” Fidel’s voice was like rocks rattling together.

“I don’t, but I don’t want us to get killed, either. If they shoot, then we shoot.”

Fidel turned his head. “You gonna let them shoot first?”

“If they try to shoot, we shoot.”

Fidel grunted. “You stand up, you say, ‘Friends,’ they shoot you, we shoot them. Okay, if that’s the way you want it.” He shrugged—quite an elaborate shrug.

“It’s a matter of timing.”

“Sure is.”

If they’d been alone, he would have read Fidel out. He took a breath, exhaled, said, “You got a better plan?”

“Yeah—waste ‘em.”

Alan looked at Clavers and Benvenuto. “The goal is to take the gate with minimum damage on either side. Clear?”

Both nodded.

“Fidel?”

Fidel nodded as they had. “When I see your head blown apart, I can feel free to waste them.”

Alan looked at him. Hard. “If you don’t like my way of doing things, give me the gun and I’ll do it alone.”

“A-a-a-h—shit, I’m just mouthing off, Commander. I’ll do it your way. But it’s going to be a split-second thing. If our guys were trained snipers, it would be one thing—” He turned on Benvenuto. “How good are you with that rifle?”

“If it shoots okay, I can hit a paper plate at a hunnerd and fifty yards.” He swallowed. “I hunted a lot of deer. With my dad.” He looked from one to the other. “Honest!”

Fidel looked back at Alan, raised his eyebrows, shrugged. “He’ll be a lot closer than a hundred and fifty yards. Maybe a hundred and fifty feet. My idea is, Benvenuto aims at the officer. He makes any move when you pop up, he shoots him. The officer’s down, the other guys may fold.”

Alan cocked his lower jaw forward, thinking about it. “Can you do it, Benvenuto? Shoot a man, not a deer?” He tried to make it as brutal as he could, so the kid would get it. “A man’s head is about the size of a paper plate.”

Benvenuto swallowed again. “Yes, sir. If that’s the plan, sir.”

“Okay, that’s the plan. But—” How to make it clear to a twenty-year-old who wasn’t really a warrior? “You’ve got to watch him. If he doesn’t make a hostile move, don’t shoot. But Fidel’s right—if he goes for a gun or orders the others to shoot me or—anything, then you shoot. Okay?”

“And don’t think,” Fidel said. “You think, you’re too late. Just do it.”

Alan thought it was a big order for a kid who had been told all his life to think.