it was, but what the government troops lacked in organization, they made up for in sheer numbers. As the Whiskey Sierra van blasted through the little streets lining a seemingly endless vista of hovels on the north side of town, more and more Sudanese troops seemed to be coming out of the woodwork. Sierra Four had emptied an entire magazine from his weapon at enemy threats during and since breaking through the corral, and now Milo reloaded quickly, certain there’d be more fighting to come.
Sierra Five’s voice came over the net between bursts of automatic fire a quarter mile from the van.
“Yo, One. I could use some help over here. GOS has backed up out of my line of sight, and I’ve repositioned to a second-floor window, but it won’t be long before they come back and blow the shit out of this hotel.”
“Roger that, Spence,” said Zack. “We’re coming to pick you up ASAP; we’re just a little turned around over here.”
“Just follow the sound of the shooting. I’ve got a dozen or so of Oryx’s guards taking potshots at me from the square. You ought to be able to orient yourself on that.”
“We’re trying,” Zack replied, as Sierra Two made two quick turns to his left, pulled right behind an army jeep with an unmanned Russian machine gun mounted on its rear bed.
Brad made an immediate right.
“Sierra One to Sierra Three, gimme a sitrep on your position.”
Dan did not stop firing to communicate. “They’re hitting me from two alleyways.” Two cracks of his rifle distorted the transmission in Zack’s headset. “Not coordinated fire, and I’ve got the high ground on the roof here, but there sure as hell are a lot of them. They get in below me, and I’m toast. How copy?” Several more cracks delayed Hightower’s response.
“Good copy. We’re on the way.”
“Contact rear!” Milo shouted from behind Zack. In the small metal space of the van, his machine gun sounded like a jackhammer amplified by a heavy metal band’s amp stacks. Zack spun around to engage with his Tavor, but Brad made another quick turn that took them out of the line of fire.
“One, this is Three. I’ve got eyes on a chopper approaching from the north.”
“A chopper? Civ or military?”
“Uhhh, wait one, break. He’s military. Big, fat fucker. Looks like he’s about seven or eight klicks out, low and fast, headin’ this way like he’s got someplace to be . . . Looks like an Mi-17.”
“The Mi-17 is a Hip. The Sudanese don’t have Hips.” Hip was the NATO designation for the Russian-built MI-17.
“Pretty sure it’s a Hip, boss.”
“Roger that, goddammit,” Zack growled. Not much he could do about an assault from the air right now.
“Five for One!”
“Go Five.”
“I’ve got small arms fire to my west. Not on my position. Sierra Six isn’t a klick to the west of the square, is he?”
“He shouldn’t be. Six, if you are able to transmit, let me know if that’s you.”
“Six, to One.” Court came over the net. His voice was sure and succinct. “Negative. I have Oryx, and we are southeast of the square. We’re making a try for the harbor.”
Zack thought it over as the van made another hard turn, this time to the left. “Must be the SLA rebels. Better late than never, I guess. I’ll take whatever I can get at the moment. Sound like much, Five?”
“I’m not impressed. Doesn’t sound like half of what I’ve got going on right on top of me!”
“Wait a sec,” interrupted Sierra Two from behind the wheel of the van. “This is that alley that runs into the northeast corner of the square.”
“You’re sure?” asked Zack. He had no idea. It looked the same as the last dozen alleys they’d driven through.
“Yeah. We stay on this, we’re in the square in thirty seconds. We want to do that?”
Zack thought it over for a second, then said, “What the hell. We don’t want to get lost again, and Spence and Dan are going to run dry if we can’t pick them up.”
“There are gonna be troops in the square. And Abboud’s guard force,” Sierra Two noted as he drove on.
Hightower just nodded. He began transmitting, “Three and Five, we’ll hit the square in twenty seconds, blast through it shooting, whip around behind the bank, and pick both of you up outside your positions in the alley one block west of the square. Keep your heads down!”
A pair of “Roger thats.”
“Four, it’s gonna get crazy,” Zack shouted back to Milo.