Cat crouched low to the ground, peered
around the corner, and loosed off a burst. The butt of the rifle slapped his
shoulder in recoil, and spent cartridge cases went flying into the street.
Smoke from the burning buildings made his eyes water despite the goggles.
“Cover me,” he called over his shoulder. “I’m
going to try to make the other side.”
Something smacked into the wall just above
his head. Chips of brick and plaster bounced off his Kevlar body armour.
Cursing, he threw himself back, almost falling over in his haste.
“Damn bastards don’t know when they’re
beaten,” he said.
Tiny Marc laughed, his huge frame shaking
so hard that the rocket propelled grenades in his backpack clanked against each
other. “It’s just this last building,” he said. “Fighting on isn’t going to do
them any good.”
Very cautiously, Cat edged a mirror past
the corner to get another look at last remaining enemy stronghold. The tall,
cylindrical building was burning in three or four places, but he could still
see the enemy’s flag flying on top, its white and yellow emblem clearly visible.
His throat tightened with anger.
“What are they still fighting for?” he
asked. “Don’t they know they haven’t got a hope now?”
“Money,” Jean-Baptiste said. “As long as
the money flows through the taps, they’ll fight, even if it’s just one
building.”
“Shut up,” Cat told him sourly. “Last
building or not, we still have to beat them.” A machine gun rattled and tracers
streaked down the street at head height. “They aren’t going out of their way to
make things easy for us, either.”
“Look,” Jean-Baptiste said, pointing. A
small figure was hurrying past on the other side of the street in a shambling
trot, dodging shell holes. It ducked behind the charred remains of the truck
Tiny Marc had destroyed earlier. The truck had been carrying food, and might
have been able to supply the enemy. It had therefore, they’d decided, been a
legitimate target, and Marc had wrecked it with one well-placed rocket. The
hurrying figure emerged again, clutching two dusty loaves of bread to its chest.
“Civilian,” Cat said. “Not worth a bullet.”
They watched the woman run down the narrow alley opposite, still clutching her
bread.
“Civilians,” Marc said. “I hate ‘em.
Useless people.”
“Without them we’d be out of a job,” Jean-Baptiste
reminded him.
“Here comes the artillery,” Semmler said,
from his position further back. “Dupree must have got through after all.”
A
pickup truck mounting a light cannon wheeled into position at the end of the
street. Its shells slammed into the blue-and-white concrete of the enemy
building. The machine-gun fell silent. The pickup truck kept firing, hosing the
lower floors of the building with metal-jacketed death.
“Let’s go,” Cat snapped, and signalled a
frontal charge. Tiny Marc stepped into the street, the RPG launcher at his
shoulder, and his rocket propelled grenade streaked to the sandbagged entrance
of the building. With a colossal explosion, part of the doorway fell in.
They charged, running through the smoke,
stopping momentarily to fire and then charging again, past the wrecked truck
and over the scattered sandbags, into the building. Scrambling up the stairs,
shooting past every corner, hurling grenades into rooms as they passed. The walls
trembled from the explosions.
And then, quite suddenly, it was over. The
remnants of the enemy, who had fought so hard for so long, surrendered. Their
last troops descended the stairs, hands held high.
“Set them to putting out the fire,” Semmler
suggested.
“Not unless you pay us,” the leader of the
prisoners snapped. “We’re security contractors, hired to fight, not put out
fires.”
“Never mind.” Cat said. “Next campaign, we
might be on the same side. What’s your outfit?”
“Argus. And yours?”
“Blockwater, of course,” Cat said proudly. “The
best of the best. But you put up a great fight.”
“Here come your employers,” the Argus man
said, peering over Cat’s shoulder. He turned to see a retinue of men in suits
climbing up the stairs. One was carrying a flag.
“Gentlemen,” he said on seeing Cat and the
others. “I must congratulate you. It was a hard campaign, and expensive, but you
fulfilled all expectations.”
“We always do.” Cat glanced at the Argus
man and back. “Blockwater always delivers results. That’s why your firm hired
us, sir.”
“Yes.” Triumphantly, the man in the suit
shook out the flag with the twin golden arches and posed so that one of the
others could take a photograph.
“Once again,” he declared exultantly, “McRonalds has
beaten Sunway to control the burger market of the free world!”
(With no apologies whatsoever to Frederick Forsythe,
for whom my disdain is unfathomable)
Copyright B Purkayastha 2012
