Dorian Gray. John Garavaglia
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request. This was an order.
“Report now.”
The panicked gunman fired with a submachine gun as he came. Bullets strafed up the flattop in Dorian’s direction, whining off the concrete, and he threw himself aside, the rounds narrowly missing him.
Dorian came to his feet tugging the automatic pistol from his waistband, and returned fire. But he missed.
Then he emptied the clip, tossed the pistol aside, and lost sight of his target behind a cloud of smoke.
JOHN GRAVAGLIA
• 59 •
CHAPTER SIX
To survive war, you gotta become war.
—John Rambo.
“You just couldn’t wait for the rest of us, huh?” Said a man coming out of the shadows, and several armored henchmen accompanied him.
Dorian holstered his weapon, knowing the stranger was not a threat. He turned around and gave the leader of the small militia a smile.
“I’m sorry, Henry,” Dorian said casually, without the trace of a sincere apology in his voice. “It was a first-come/ first-serve ass-kicking buffet, and I got tired of hanging out at the bar.”
A smile formed on Henry Lord’s face, and a light chuckle had escaped from his lips. “Good ol’ Dorian Gray. You always shoot first and never ask questions. Are you all right? Are you hit?”
“Nope,” Dorian replied, grinning, “still untouched like a mafia don’s virgin daughter.”
“Thank you for that lovely image, Dor.”
Henry had black hair cropped to the scalp, large brown eyes, and a quiet disposition. He was moving quickly in the shadows. Dorian kept a close eye on him as he advanced. Henry stopped in front of him and brushed him aside. He gazed over at the other side of the train yard. He was ever so vigilant.
DORIAN GRAY
• 60 •
“You think they’ll come?” Henry asked Dorian.
Dorian nodded, automatically checking his best friend’s temperament. Henry was standing ready on the blacktop, spare magazines at hand, and spare weapons as well.
“They’ll come,” Dorian said.
“Can we stop’em?”
“That’s our objective.”
“No offense, but what I heard from the—”
“That’s our objective.”
Henry shrugged. “All right, as soon as you see movement, blow them all to hell.” He hefted his long gun. “I get a decent shot with this!”
One more time, for reassurance, and to give himself something to do, Dorian made the rounds of his fire team, checked their sight lines and kill zones, and made sure everything had an abundance of weapons and ammo. In a fair fight, against an adversary such as themselves, no matter how well trained and disciplined, he would have called the outcome no contest. His guys had ideal ground with anyone advancing up this sector wouldn’t even come close.
Henry scurried back to his team, assuring Dorian would leave once he had tied his shoes.
“Everyone in position,” he whispered loudly. “And remember, shoot to kill.”
One of the agents indicated their objection to the order with the drooping of their firearms, but Henry’s steely eyes said, Don’t argue. That’s an order.
JOHN GRAVAGLIA
• 61 •
The rookie exhaled, steeled himself. “You heard the boss,” he said to his comrades, “let’s saddle up.”
The agents spread out in positions along the roof. Henry, naturally, had chosen the spot where he could fire the first fatal shots at the enemy.
They’d know the stakes now.
“I have a valid target,” Henry announced, leveling his sniper rifle.
Dorian whipped his binoculars to his eyes and brought the approaching figures into focus.
“You’re cleared to fire,” Dorian said, and immediately a resounding boom filled the train yard around him, so loud he couldn’t help flinching.
The shell didn’t hit its target; it never came close. The rest of the team opened up, and Dorian was surrounded by the sound of spent casings rattling off the walls and floor. Every man here was a crack marksman, and this was point-blank range. The only pause in the murderous volleys was when someone had to replace an empty magazine. In the space of a few frantic minutes, they expended better than half their munitions…
…and found themselves with absolutely nothing to show for it.
A team in full body armor—it was hard for Dorian to tell who was who, there were so many of them.
Too astonished to be scared, the troopers gradually stopped firing. A couple looked to Dorian, hoping for a Plan B. In the
DORIAN GRAY
• 62 •
countless number of times he’d played this scene out in his mind, it had never gone quite this way.
Dorian was hoping the hostiles hadn’t made a radio call, either for reinforcements or to alert headquarters to the presence of the insertion team. But he knew that was a prayer that would likely go unanswered…
Henry and Dorian ducked low, still holding their drawn weapons, trying to shield themselves from the onslaught as all hell broke loose around them.
“Henry,” Dorian shouted over the gunfire, “with me!”
Not waiting for an answer, Dorian crawled to his left, the enemy gunfire following him almost as closely as Henry, bullets whistling through the air, hitting the walls.
Henry asked, “What the hell are you doin’, bro?”
“I thought you said you liked it hot,” Dorian said.
“Bikini women hot,” Henry said, “umbrella drinks on the beach hot—not have bullets flyin’ around my head hot!”
“I just can’t take you anywhere. All you do is bitch, bitch, bitch.”
With bullets whistling overhead, Henry was up to his chin in the mud. Feeling movement to his right, Henry glanced over to see Dorian ready to spring into action.
“You gonna move?” Dorian asked.
Another burst of gunfire shrilled past their heads.
“Actually,” Henry said, “It’s pretty cozy right here.”
Bullets tore up the mud in front of them, flecking their faces with thick brown teardrops.
JOHN GRAVAGLIA
• 63 •
* * *
The enemy scout gasped when he saw through the lenses of his night-vision goggles. He positively identified the subject as Dorian Gray.
“Better have a look at this, sir,” he said to the aide-de-camp to the squad’s captain.
The captain looked over the officer’s shoulder at the horizon and recognized the face—it was indeed the man they all feared.
“I’d say he has a lot of nerve coming here like this,” the captain said.
The aide-de –camp frowned. “I don’t like it. The man is a menace.”
The captain cocked his rifle. “Then let’s do something about it.”
Henry nodded, fixing the target in his mind. A second burst of weapons fire came. The instant it stopped, he was moving, the barrel of the