The Chimera Vector

Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Open ground, nowhere to run.

Crack.

The sound reverberated through the night.

‘Contact!’ a marine yelled from the Humvee.

They’d see Jay’s gunshot through the Land Cruiser window and turn him to Swiss cheese. He had to get out of there. A vehicle door opened on the other side. Jay was relocating.

Sophia dropped to one knee and fired.

Silhouetted in the headlights, the staff sergeant stumbled and fell face-first onto the dirt road. Hard.

Sophia flattened out on her stomach, one leg bent. Damien did the same, dropping one of the marines with a short burst.

The staff sergeant was still alive, staring across the dirt at her. His mouth opened like a purse. Saliva, thick with tobacco, oozed down his chin.

Sophia ignored him and fired on the left-hand marine. A gust of wind howled past, filling her nostrils with gasoline and the coppery tang of blood. Rounds cracked past. One broke the sound barrier inches from her head with the snap of a bullwhip.

She squinted through the Humvee’s headlights and found her target. The third marine toppled onto one side, arms loose and gangly.

The staff sergeant reached slowly for his pistol, but his arm was trembling and he couldn’t grasp at his holster. Sophia put a round through his nose. He slumped, face down into the dirt, and lay there like a plastic figurine.

Sophia hit the pressel switch on her collar. ‘Three down. Are you there, Jay?’

‘Two down,’ Jay said. ‘Can’t see s**t in the Humvee. Should be one more.’

‘I hear movement,’ Damien said.

It was the girl from the Citroën. She took off, but in the wrong direction. She ran between them and the Humvee.

Sophia rose into a crouch, only to watch gunfire tear through the girl. She slumped beside the dead staff sergeant, locks of hair blowing in the breeze.

Sophia fired into both headlights, bathing everything in darkness.

‘Front seat,’ Jay said. ‘Front seat!’

‘Pin him down,’ she said.

He opened fire, decorating the windshield with thick, white impacts the size of dinner plates—except they didn’t penetrate. But it was enough to cover her as she crossed open ground and circled around to one side of the Humvee. She could see the marine behind the wheel, side window down, reaching for his weapon.

Jay fired off some single shots, drowning out any sound that Sophia’s boots made. She closed the gap and realized he wasn’t reaching for a weapon at all, but a radio.

Then he saw her.

Wrangling his carbine over the steering wheel, she had only a second to close the gap. He drew his pistol instead—firing as his arm extended. The first round struck her. She felt the blow like a sledgehammer to her chest, sidestepped—gasped for breath—then came in beside him. She pulled his forearm down on the window frame. Bone shattered through the inside of his elbow. She cracked the stock of her carbine into the side of his neck. It struck his carotid sinus and sent a sudden surge of blood to his brain.

In an instant, his body’s self-defense kicked in, slowing his heart rate and dilating blood vessels to drop his blood pressure. She didn’t need to do much else except watch him slump forward, unconscious. His forehead hit the steering wheel and the horn blared.

Sophia’s nostrils burned with the smell of sweat and urine. She’d just killed half a squad of marines, and a local family caught in the wrong place at the wrong place.

‘Soph!’ Jay yelled over the horn.

A marine staggered to his feet, bloodshot eyes focused on her. He gripped his weapon in blood-coated hands—

There was no gunfire. Instead, he hunched over abruptly, eyelids twitching. Then collapsed.

Jay was behind him, teeth clenched, breathing heavily. He looked in pain. Sophia rushed over to find no blood. Jay was unscathed, but the marine’s flesh smelled burnt.

‘You zapped him?’ she asked.

Jay nodded, then dropped to his knees. He’d discharged a high-voltage electric shock, leaving him exhausted. She hauled him up over her shoulder and helped him to the Land Cruiser, propping him on the back seat.

Behind her, Damien methodically moved from body to body, checking their pulses. He stopped at the marine behind the wheel.

‘Uh, we have a problem,’ he said.

Sophia swapped to her only full mag. ‘Define problem.’

‘He called for reinforcements. They’re coming across the border now.’

Sophia exhaled, watching her breath fog into the night air.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘I think we’ll need two IEDs.’