Page 37 of Into the Gray Zone (Pike Logan #19)

We reached the city of Agra in record time, having little traffic to deal with. I wasn’t sure how India monitored speeding,

but I bet it wasn’t with police cars and radar guns like you’d find in the United States, so I’d told Brett to punch it.

We left the highway at just over three hours and crossed into the city of Agra proper, now bogged down by the insanity of

Indian traffic, which included donkey carts. Veep said, “Next right, next right,” and I looked at my watch, seeing it was

now past ten in the morning.

“We’ve got less than thirty minutes. Get us to the fort. Veep and I will get out. You guys find a place to park and follow.”

We found the road leading to the entrance, the fort still about a hundred meters away, and Brett tried to pull over. A policeman

blew his whistle and started waving his arms, demanding we come to him. Brett continued forward, his window down, and the

cop waved us to keep going, not addressing Brett at all.

We drove past the entrance, with me cursing. I looked to the left and saw a shopping area, the lanes not as narrow as in Delhi

but still dense. I said, “Take a left into that area. Find a place to park. We’re running out of time.”

He did so, tooting his horn and moving through the crowds, at one point using the bumper to clear a lane through the people. They didn’t seem to mind, which was crazy to me. Apparently, if you didn’t show you would aggressively plow someone over, the locals would just ignore you.

He began to pass a narrow alley, and I saw a bunch of cars behind the buildings. A parking lot. I said, “There, there!”

He turned, and we were riding forward on a lane that barely cleared our rearview mirrors. In about seventy meters, it opened

up to a dirt lot full of trash barrels, mopeds, and larger vehicles, the area surrounded by the back walls of various shops,

and unlike the street outside, it was empty of people.

He inched forward and said, “There’s no parking spot.”

I looked at my watch and said, “We’re out of time. The meeting is in fifteen minutes, and it’ll take us at least ten to get

tickets and enter. Just double-park this thing on the far side and we’ll run to the fort.”

He reached the far side, pulled parallel to another car, and put our SUV in park, and I turned to open the door, hearing Jennifer

shout, “Watch out!”

I saw a black SUV coming straight at me. I slammed back into Brett in the driver’s seat and the vehicle hit us head-on, crunching

my door and spraying me in glass, our SUV rocking violently. Time slowed, my brain trying to process what was happening.

I looked out the shattered window, saw their SUV back up about twenty meters, then all four doors open, and the same Asian

men I’d seen at the Imperial Hotel started spilling out, all of them armed. Brett opened the driver’s door, grabbing his pistol

at his waist, Jennifer rolling to Veep’s side while he flung his own door open.

It was all out of time, in slow motion, my body simply reacting, flooding with a reptilian fight-or-flight response.

Before I had even processed what had happened, I’d jumped over the separation between the passenger seat and the driver and rolled out, Jennifer diving out from the back seat, Veep and Brett already on the ground, scanning for threats. Then the gunfire started, the men in the SUV plastering our vehicle with rounds. My ears felt like they were full of cotton, my body instinctively trying to protect my eardrums from damage from the exploding gunshots as rounds ripped through the steel of our vehicle.

I slammed against the side of our SUV and saw Veep rise, shooting to try to suppress the enemy. He took a round, his body

spinning behind me.

Mother fucker.

My brain went into overdrive, which was both fast and slow. I rose, pulling my pistol from its holster, seeing the front sight

of my barrel and placing my other hand on the grip. I focused on the red dot and started killing.

One man was to my left, hiding behind a vehicle door and shooting through the window. I split his head apart with a single

shot. Another was running to my left. I tracked him for a millisecond, snapped a double tap his way, but missed. A round smacked

the frame of our SUV right next to my head and I rolled to the front of our vehicle, peeking around the bumper.

I saw two more men coming out of the SUV and crouched back down behind the vehicle. I turned, finding Jennifer treating Veep,

Brett on a knee with his own pistol out.

The entire action had happened in the blink of an eye. Brett shouted, “Left, left!” And I turned, seeing the man I’d missed

earlier darting into the parking area, going behind a civilian vehicle.

I said, “There are two more out there. Three on the loose.”

He nodded and faced away from me, toward the rear of our vehicle. I turned to Jennifer and said, “Status?”

“He’s got a through-and-through on his shoulder. Nothing vital hit, but he’s bleeding.”

I nodded, and Veep said, “I’m fine, I’m fine. I just can’t use my strong arm. I’ll have to shoot from my weak hand.”

I said, “Well, we’re in trouble then, because I’ve seen that shooting.”

He smiled, and I realized he really was going to be okay. I turned to Brett and said, “We need to end this. Brett, I’m going

after the guy on the left. He’s trying to flank us. Keep your eyes on the rear, that’s where the other two will be coming

from.”

He nodded at me and said, “They have to finish this soon, or leave. They’ve made a lot of noise.”

I said, “Let’s help them leave.”

I rolled out and started hunting the loose man in the car lot. The other two saw my movement and focused on me instead of

Brett, taking a couple of shots as I ran, the bullets smacking ineffectually around me. The muzzle blasts gave away their

position and Brett started firing, forcing them behind cover. I kept moving and made it across the open ground to the row

of cars.

Behind me, Brett and the other two kept exchanging rounds, with neither getting the upper hand. I squatted down, listening,

trying to hear the third man on the move. I leaned around the bumper of a car, looking down the row, and then heard a clatter

on the roof.

I whipped my eyes up and saw the barrel of a gun aimed at my skull. My body reacted without thought, first slapping his weapon

aside with my own, like we were dueling with swords, then grabbing his wrist behind the weapon with my other hand and jerking

it violently to the ground.

The weapon discharged harmlessly into the metal of the car and his body slammed into the earth. I stomped a foot on the hand with the weapon and raised my Staccato, trying to put the red dot on his forehead. He whipped his legs around, hitting me just below my calves and sweeping me off my feet. I landed hard on my back, my weapon still held in front of my body, and he leapt up, raising his own pistol. I fired twice, hitting him once in the neck and once right in the middle of his face, splitting his eyes apart.

His head slapped against the car, then slid to the ground. I shouted, “This one is down! This one is down! Coming back!”

I heard Brett shout back, “Keep going deeper! Jennifer and I have them pinned, get around them!”

I thought, Easy for you to say ... and shouted, “Roger all. I’m moving.”

I crouched over and ran up the line of the cars, the remaining two enemy ineffectually spraying rounds at my movement only

for Jennifer and Brett to force them to drop back down.

I was making ground, and they knew it. Soon they would be in a crossfire with no cover to use. I reached the end of the line

of vehicles and began moving perpendicular to my line of march, toward their vehicle. I saw them on the open ground, fired

one round at them, and they slid into their SUV. Brett rose, pumping rounds into the windshield, and the driver crouched down,

putting the car into reverse and punching the gas. I began peppering the vehicle with my own rounds and it slammed into a

parked car, went into drive, then raced back up the alley to the main road.

I ran back to our vehicle, seeing Brett helping Jennifer load Veep in the back seat. I said, “You think this thing will still

move?”

Brett said, “Yeah. Just can’t open the doors on the passenger side, but the engine should be okay. If it doesn’t start, we’re

screwed, because even if nobody heard this gunfight back here, someone’s going to show up sooner rather than later and see

the bodies.”

We got Veep settled, him bitching about how he was fine, Jennifer next to him in the back keeping pressure on his wound. I slid across the driver’s seat to the passenger side, and Brett got behind the wheel, saying, “Moment of truth.”

He pushed the start button, and the SUV roared to life. He smiled and said, “Where to?”

“Out of here, first of all.”

We went back down the alley we’d used to enter, and I was amazed at the normal activities happening around us. Nobody had

registered the life-and-death struggle that had just occurred.

I said, “Unbelievable. We’re going to drive away from a gunfight and these locals have no idea.”

Brett said, “The question is, ‘Drive where?’”

I looked at my watch and saw it was just after eleven. We’d missed the meeting, and I had a wounded teammate in my vehicle

from an unsanctioned mission for the RAW. The correct choice would have been to call it a day and exfiltrate, getting the

hell off the Indian continent.

But I wasn’t known for doing what was correct.

I said, “Jennifer, you’re going to take Veep back to Delhi. Call Kerry Bostwick. I’m sure he has a doctor in New Delhi for

things like this.”

She said, “Not the Taskforce? You want me to call Kerry at the CIA? We can get a Taskforce medical team here. That’s what

they do.”

“No, that’ll cause too many problems. George Wolffe will lose his mind, and he’ll have to notify the Oversight Council about

a medical emergency. Call Kerry and tell him you’re coming in. Worst case, meet him at the U.S. embassy in New Delhi. Let

him deal with the problem with CIA assets. If he gives you any shit, threaten to call Wolffe. He’ll play ball, because he

sanctioned this and doesn’t want the headache either.”

Brett said, “What are we doing?”

“We’re going into that fort to find the grid.”

“The meeting’s come and gone. What’s the point?”

“Thakkar’s coming soon. If they plan on attacking him from there, we’re going to stop it.”

He said, “What about what just happened? Those guys weren’t Indian.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure they’re Chinese, and they have something to do with this attack. All the more reason to go in before

Thakkar arrives.”

Jennifer looked at the time and said, “Thakkar’s already there. Nadia said he leaves at eleven thirty.”

I said, “Then pull over, because we really need to get moving. And call Knuckles. Tell him to let Nadia know she’s probably

going to get some bad news.”