Chapter 10
When Linda had told him, early on after they first hooked up, that he was going to have to get used to a life "under fire," he absolutely, positively hadn't thought she meant it
literally
.
In addition to the drone dropping grenades, Phil heard the CRACK CRACK of a couple of bullets striking the bulletproof glass of the car's rear window, bouncing off without doing much more than causing some half dollar sized impact scars. Linda continued to weave the car as best as she could through the foliage, but it was difficult, since there was no clear road, and the trees were close enough together that speed wasn't much of an option.
"Fuck this," Linda said, bringing the car back towards the street once more. "We're too slow in the woods so the only choice is forward and fast. Hang the fuck on, baby," she said to him, as she pulled the car back onto the pavement once more. "Audrey, I need you to play drone spotter for me. Let me know if you see it."
"Dammit, Linda, I'm a doctor, not a sniper!" Audrey said, even as she was craning her head, looking out the windows, trying to get a bead on where the small flying vehicle had gone. The buzzing sound was still lingering in the air around them. "There! Two o'clock!"
"I see it," Linda said, swerving to her left to avoid another drop. Drones typically didn't carry large payloads, and so it was likely that it would be out of ordinance after another strike. "And it looks like we've got unfriendlies coming up the rear."
There was a black SUV slowly pulling up behind them, with a big burly guy hanging out of one window, trying to get a good line on shooting their car, even as Linda kept the vehicle shifting in constant motion, making it hard for the soldier to get his shot lined up.
"Dammit, Linda, give me your sidearm," Phil said.
"What? No! Are you crazy?"
"Linda, goddamnit, gimme your gun!"
She growled and with one hand reached down to grab her pistol, a Colt .45 that she treasured dearly, holding it back to him. "Don't fucking drop it, and don't put your head out the window, and
don't
make me fucking regret this."
"Relax, baby, it's just like 'Duck Hunt,'" he said with a laugh, hoping he could convince himself that he was more confident than he actually was as he rolled the window down a little bit before sticking his arm with the pistol out of the window, firing a couple of wild shots back at the vehicle behind them. Crazy enough, however, one of Phil's shots actually cracked into the center of the vehicle's front windshield, although he thought that he had missed both the driver and the gunman. It was enough to cause the vehicle to come to a screeching halt, however, as Linda sped off, driving away from the SUV at top speed.
Once far enough away from the SUV, Linda's phone finally connected with the base, the call having been jammed during the brief but harrowing conflict. "Hey Chief, what's up?" Niko's voice said from the other end of the line. Good, Phil thought to himself, she was on base tonight. That meant they definitely had someone they could trust there.
"Listen, Redwolf, and listen good," Linda said. "We have a hostile incursion within the New Eden borders. Black SUV, no plates, and at least one enemy drone in our airspace. They were after the principal, but we have evaded pursuit and are doubling back to base. Send up the alarms, and alert the border guard to be on watch for anyone attempting to breach the perimeter, most likely on foot. That means I want patrols in the hills, on the gates and on the fences. I do not want these motherfuckers who threw fire from the sky at my man to escape custody this time."
"Understood, chief. Any indication as to who the hostiles are?"
"I saw bullets and bombs, Lieutenant, and not much fucking else. Phil?"
"The big guy with the rifle hanging out of the truck looked wide and mean and blonde. Large bushy blonde beard. Nordic, maybe?"
"Russian?" Linda asked.
Phil scowled. "Honestly, I don't think so, but who the fuck am I to tell you the difference between a Russian soldier and a Swedish one?"
"Yeah, okay. Anyway, I want the base hot and lit up when we get there, Redwolf. You get every last member of the security detail either on their principal or on this fucking manhunt. I don't want it done now, I want it done yesterday."
"Then I'd better stop yapping with you, boss, and get to work."
"That's my girl," Linda said before tapping the end call button. "Any sign of the SUV or the drone?"
"Nothing in the rear," Phil replied.
"Nothing up front,"Audrey said.
"Let's just hope it stays quiet on the way back," Phil said.
"Shit, babe," Linda grumbled. "Don't jinx us."
The jinx didn't take, however, and the rest of the trip back to the base was quiet, or as quiet as could be expected with the three of them utterly riled up, hearts still pounding full of adrenaline. Before this year, Phil had never been in a shootout before. Now he was starting to think of them as regular occurrences, and he didn't like how easily that seemed to be coming to him.
Once they got to the base, Phil was glad to see that everyone was taking it seriously, as the security forces were glancing behind them, making sure they weren't still being pursued. Colonel Layla Robbins met them at their parking space. She was the woman who had taken over the top down security of New Eden, and as soon as they were out of the car, Robbins was slipping in to pull out the thumb drive connected to the Tesla's camera systems. The footage wouldn't be incredibly high resolution but it would give them a start as to identifying who had just tried to take a shot at them. "Glad to see you're all okay," Robbins said to them. "Give me an hour to download and process this, and we'll debrief after that."
"Got it, boss," Linda said to the woman with a curt salute. Once she was gone, the three of them headed down into the intense security of the underground bunker. As soon as the elevator doors opened, he saw Bill McKenna waiting for him, a giant goofy grin on his face as he tossed something Phil's way.
Phil caught the object, realizing it was a rolled up t-shirt, as Phil unfurled it and saw that it read in giant black letters "I GOT SHOT AT YET AGAIN AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT" across the center of it. He chuckled. "Cute."
Linda and Audrey headed off in one direction. While Linda generally liked being at Phil's side all the time, within the security of the base's lower quarters, she felt comfortable letting him move about on his own for a while, knowing it made him feel a little less like a rat in a cage.
"You need to stop making a habit out of getting shot at," Bill told him. "Since you're back on base, I've got some new data for you we should probably talk about." Of all the people he was glad were on the base still, Phil was most happy that Bill was still working with him. They'd been on the project together since the beginning, and despite the fact that Bill was almost twenty years older than he was, the two had a very natural rhythm that had allowed their partnership to reach all sorts of incredible things.
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is a play-by-play of your favorite Manchester United highlights and ten is Linda playing Tekken in the buff, how much am I really going to care about this data, having just been shot at?" Phil grumbled, walking alongside of Bill.
"Call it a very solid eight," Bill replied.
Phil stopped, making Bill stop with him, as he turned to look at his colleague, then sighed deeply, turning directions, as Bill moved with him, the two of them heading over towards the older doctor's lab. "Good or bad?"
"One of each."
"Jesus Bill," Phil laughed bitterly. "You really can't just make it a little easier on me. I just got fucking shot at."
"Oh lighten up, Phil," Bill grinned. "When you finally have a scratch on you, then I'll consider laying off, but until they draw blood, Superwoman's record remains unblemished." The two men headed into Bill's office, which had gone from a disaster area before DuoHalo to a literal explosion of papers after. Most of the windows were covered in dry erase marker, formulas and notations scribbled all over the place. There were no less than five plugged in laptops scattered around the room, each of them no doubt running some long-form computations or analysis of something or other.
If there was anyone Phil considered completely trustworthy inside of the building, Bill was it. They'd been brought into the Air Force together, gotten their clearances together. Phil generally liked to avoid making friends at work, but Bill had been the total exception to that.
