The vanguard arrived at the COLIN vehicle. They crept up crabwise and peered inside the cabin. Tugged at the door handles and barked surprise when the doors pulled open on smooth hydraulic servos. Poked their weapons nervously inside. Now he could hear them talking. Forced bravado rinsing through the soft coastal Spanish accents like grit through a silk screen. Young-boy talk.

“You check the back, Ernesto?”

“Already done it, man. They’re fucking gone. Run off. Told the sarge we should have pulled them over old style. Flashing lights, roadblock, it never fails.”

“That’s all you fucking know.” A third voice, from around the other side of the jeep. It sounded a little older. “This isn’t some Bolivian strike leader, this is a fucking thirteen. He would have driven right through us, fucked us in pieces.”

“That gringa cunt, that’s what I’ll fuck in pieces when we catch up with them.”

Laughter.

“She’s not a gringa, Ernesto. Didn’t you see the photo? I got a sister-in-law in Barranca got lighter skin than that.”

“Hey, she’s from Nueva York. That’s good enough fucking for me.”

“You know something, you guys disgust me. What if your mothers could hear you now?”

“Ah, come on, Ramón. Don’t be an altar boy your whole fucking life. You seen the photos of this bitch or not? Tits on her like Cami Chachapoyas. Don’t tell me you don’t want a piece of that.”

Ramón said nothing. The slightly older one filled in for him.

“Tell you what, you do fuck her, either of you, you’d better spray on first. Those gringas got a dose of everything going. I got a cousin in Nueva York says those bitches are out fucking everything that moves.”

“Man, you got fucking family all over, don’t you. How come—”

An NCO bellow from the jeep: “Report, Corporal!”

“Nothing here, sir,” the older voice called back. “They’re gone. Have to quarter the area.”

In the jeep, something indistinct was said about fucking infrareds. Probably, Carl guessed, that they didn’t have any.

“Ground search. Oh for fuck’s sake. I’m telling you, when we catch up with this twist and his bitch—”

And time.

He let the rage drive him, rolled, braced himself off the edge of the molded roof storage pan, and came down a meter clear, on the side opposite the other jeep. The heat-resistant elastic tarpaulin that had hidden him stretched taut as he rolled, let him free, and then snapped back with a flat slapping sound.

It was all the warning they ever had.

He hit the evercrete amid uniformed bodies. Sent them staggering and sprawling—no time to count. The one in front had his back turned, did not quite go down—

“Fuck, Ramón, what are you doing?”

He hadn’t understood what was happening. Was turning, unguarded, no worse than irritated, when Carl swung the shovel blade into his face. Blood splattered, warm and unseen in the dark, but he felt it on his cheek. The man dropped his assault rifle and clutched at his shattered cheekbone, made a wet sound, fell down screaming. Carl was already spinning away. A second uniform, struggling on his hands and knees. Ramón the altar boy? Carl hacked down with the shovel, into the soft top of the skull. The man made a noise like a panicked cow and collapsed prone. More blood spritzed, painted his face with its warmth.

The third soldier was still on the far side of the COLIN jeep. He came around the back of the vehicle at speed and Carl met him head-on, grinning, black and splattered with the other men’s blood. The soldier panicked, yelled. Forgot to raise his rifle.

“He’s here—”

Carl lunged. Jabbed hard with the shovel, blade end into the soldier’s throat. The warning shout died to a choked gurgle. Carl zipped up the gap between them, blocked off the late-rising barrel of the assault rifle with one splayed hand, smashed the butt end of the shovel into the man’s nose. The fight died, the soldier went down choking. Carl reversed the shovel and hacked down with the point of the blade, into the throat until the other man stopped making a noise.

The night flared apart with headlight beams from the other jeep. Shouts of alarm from the other side. Four more, he knew. No way to be sure how many were still sitting in their vehicle, how many deployed by now…

Come on, Ertekin. Pick it up.

Gunfire—the flat, high crack of the Marstech gun, six rapid shots in succession. The lights doused. Panicked yells from the jeep.

Fuck. Nice shooting, girl.

“Open fire!”

Carl hit the asphalt. Kicked the screaming, rolling victim with the shattered face out of his way, snagged the man’s assault rifle. Dimly he registered it as a use-worn Brazilian Imbel, not exactly state-of-the-art but—

From somewhere, the mounted machine gun on the army jeep cut loose. The noise ripped the night apart. Stammering thunder from the gun, and the shattering clangor as the .50-cal rounds smashed themselves apart on the COLIN vehicle’s armored flank. Marstech, Marstech, we got the Marstech. The idiot rhyme marched through his head, flash image of the kids who used to chant it out back of the bubblefabs at Wells. Carl grinned a tight combat rictus, crabbed about in the cover the jeep gave him, and poked the Imbel under the vehicle. He sprayed a liberal burst of return fire through the gap, then cut it off. Confused yelling. The machine gun coughed, suddenly silent. Carl pressed his face flat to the road surface and peered. Nothing—his vision was still blasted from the headlamps. He squeezed both eyes shut, tried again.

“Motherfucking twist piece of—”

The injured soldier was on him, flailing with fists, face hanging off in flaps where the shovel had sliced it apart. His voice was a high weeping torrent of abuse, a boy’s fury. Carl smacked him under the chin with the butt of the Imbel, then again in the region of the wound. The soldier screamed and cringed back. Carl brought the barrel of the assault rifle to bear. Short, stuttering burst. The muzzle flash lit the boy’s ruined face, reached out and touched him on the chest like fizzling magic—kicked him away across the road like rags.

The machine gun cut loose again, died just as abruptly at yelled orders from the jeep. Still grinning, Carl got to his feet and crept to the wing of the COLIN vehicle. He crouched and squinted, squeezed detail from his flash-burned vision. Saw the silhouette of the soldier manning the mounted gun. About forty meters, he reckoned. It hurt to hold on to the detail through aching pupils, but—

Better get this done.

As if she’d heard him, Ertekin’s Marstech pistol cracked again across the night, three times in rapid succession. The soldier on the mounted gun pivoted his weapon about, chasing the sound. Carl put the Imbel to his shoulder, popped up over the jeep hood, cuddled the weapon in, and squeezed the trigger. Clattering roar at his ear and the muzzle flash stabbed out again in the cool air. Long burst, drop back into cover, don’t stop to see…

But he already knew.

The mounted machine gun stayed silent.

He gave it another minute, just to be safe—just to beat that bullshit thirteen arrogance, right, Sutherland?—then poked the weapon up over the hood again, butt-first. No returning fire. He moved to the rear of the COLIN jeep and eased his head out far enough to see the other vehicle.

Silent, tumbled figures in and alongside the open-topped jeep. The mounted gun, stark and skeletal amid the carnage, unmanned and tilting butt-first at the sky. Carl stepped out of cover. Paused. Moved slowly forward, mesh-hammer ebbing along his nerves now that the fight was done. He covered the distance to the other jeep in a cautious, curving arc. Peripherally, he was aware of Ertekin climbing up onto the road from the ravine side where she’d hidden. He got to the jeep well ahead of her, circled it once, warily, and then stood looking at his handiwork.