Gable stood behind the little corrugated hut, peeking around the corner at the approaching headlights. They had spread out from a file into a line abreast as the field had widened, yelling across at one another, not paying attention. But they all held their rifles in their hands.
Gable stepped from behind the shack into the glare of six headlights, racking the pump so fast the shots sounded simultaneous, and fired three loads of buckshot into the right jeep, whose windshield disintegrated; the two men in the front seat fell out onto the ground, dead. The two in the backseat, one wailing and wounded, bailed out and hid behind their vehicle. Before the dead men had hit the ground, Gable pivoted to put three more rounds into the middle jeep, killing the driver, while the other three jumped out and hid under the jeep. He aimed his last two shots at the far jeep, knocking a rear passenger backward out of his seat. By Gable’s count, four were down and maybe one or more wounded. At least seven left and maybe eight. Militiamen were hiding under the respective vehicles, all of them screaming at one another in what sounded to Gable as, “Ahmed, get up and start shooting,” and more jabbering that sounded like, “Are you crazy? You get up and start shooting.”
Gable jacked four of the dark-green shells into the Remington, his last shells and these were the rifled slugs—tapered solid-lead projectiles as big as marbles, the equivalent of a .50 caliber bullet—and one by one put a slug into the radiator of each jeep, causing a great whooshing explosion of steam, and cascade of water under each vehicle. Those jeeps weren’t going anywhere now, and the SEALs were home free.
Out of the corner of his eye, Gable saw movement along the back wall of the shack; the metal flexed as someone slid along it inside the hut. Gable shot the last slug at the bulging metal, knocking a back-wall panel out and blowing the militiaman through a front-wall panel. Shotgun empty, two fifteen-round pistols left with two spare mags, and maybe seven militiamen left with AKs. Shit odds.
More movement in the bulrushes by the river—where were the crocs when you needed them?—and rifle fire started up from the reeds, too close, and Gable dove into the shed—temporary concealment, but certainly not cover—and slow-crawled behind some broken wooden crates that stunk like fish, and hunkered down as a militiaman stuck his head into the hole in the wall and Gable shot him in the head, but two other gomers were coming through the door shooting from the hip and Gable dropped one of them with a snap shot in the face, and felt a punch in his right shoulder, no pain, just numb down to his hand, so he shot the second gomer with his left hand twice in the chest, feeling another round hit his thigh, this one hurt like a son of a bitch hot knitting needle, and rounds started coming through the flimsy metal, each hole creating a glancing shaft of light from the jeep headlights. Gable wiggled into a corner, putting in a fresh mag one-handed by holding the pistol between his knees with the magazine well pointing up—emergency reload—and he released the slide and started firing at the two gomers coming through the door, but felt two more slugs hit him in the chest, and rounds were still coming through the metal, but Gable was feeling numb and it was like he was breathing through a straw, not enough breath, and he saw Nash in Athens Station, and Dominika in a summer dress, and Moira playing piano barefoot, his only regret, how he screwed up his marriage, and how she died before he had a chance to patch it up. He remembered the happy first month, the honeymoon on Cudjoe Key, and he could smell the salt air.
The two surviving militiamen were leaning against the fender of their hissing jeep shakily lighting cigarettes when both their heads exploded and they dropped like string-cut puppets, the cigarettes still in their mouths. Ruvo and Lachs came out of the darkness and looked at the dead soldiers around the shattered jeeps, then looked inside the shack. Five militiamen lay piled in front of Gable, who was sitting up against the wall, eyes closed, his shirtfront black with blood.
