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two fingers at her eyes, then two at Elijah, who was firing from cover ten yards away. You, back pocket , he mouthed. Kate nodded – and moved up to the next position of cover, which was an overturned barrel. She hoped like hell it didn’t contain aviation fuel, or any other kind for that matter.
    And she got busy shooting.
    She’d just burned through her first mag and was ducking down to change it out when a dude sprinting flat out actually hurdled her barrel. At the same time, some jihadi out there suddenly managed to find the range, and a broad burst of full-auto fire went clattering across Kate’s position. A few rounds clanked into the barrel, the rest falling short, tearing up the turf in front – and close enough to the feet of the hurtling dude that he pulled up short and dove for the nearest bit of solid cover, which turned out to be Jake’s.
    Still watching, magazine half-changed, Kate could see Jake drop down, look across at the newcomer, grimace, and say, “Sure. Come on in.” The joke was that his cover was a single crate hardly big enough for one. As the newcomer pressed his back up against it, Kate saw the branch insignia on his sleeve – two crossed flintlock pistols, which meant he was an MP; and the single silver bar on his collar said he was a very junior officer, a second lieutenant. He looked to Kate like he was about fourteen – like he’d been in Junior ROTC class that morning.
    Then again, he’d just been running balls-out and exposed through heavy fire – which meant he was putting his mission, whatever it was, ahead of his own personal survival.
    Kate finished her mag change and brought her weapon back online. Now she felt rounds snapping overhead again – but the overall volume was falling and she found she could hear Jake and the MP shouting back and forth. Jake said, “ You going for the heavy weapons locker? ”
    She saw now the guy was clutching some kind of lanyard, with a security key card on it, as well as at least two big-ass metal keys.
    “ Yeah, man! ” the MP answered, shouting perhaps louder than necessary. Fear, adrenaline. First time under fire probably. “ It’s time! ”
    “Go,” Jake said. “We’ll cover you.”
    Kate considered that her cue to make herself useful. She popped up and started triggering off steadily, the percussive coppery sounds of the 5.56 shots clinking in front of her face. She couldn’t see where her rounds were hitting in the bad light, but they were at least in the vicinity of the bad guys.
    She heard Jake’s shoulder cannon start up again, firing wider spaced single shots, and in peripheral she saw the MP rise up into the starting blocks and launch himself from behind cover like Usain Bolt… well, like Usain Bolt being shot at.
    But something pulled her attention forward again. Something moving and slithering, the darkness taking shape and rushing forward – to the left of a section of HESCO barriers that had already been put into place. Because of Kate’s position on the left edge of the line, she wasn’t sure anyone else could see this.
    As she traversed her weapon over, something deep inside her told her exactly what this was. Still firing, she turned her head to shout a warning to the running and exposed MP. As she was still drawing breath, though, she could see a round take him in the shoulder blade. His plate may have stopped it, she didn’t know for sure, but the force of it sent him headlong, eating dirt just as Kate had earlier.
    She got her shout out as she simultaneously pulled herself under cover. The last thing she saw was the fourteen-year-old MP turning to look at her as he bounced back up to his feet.
    Then it went off, the suicide bomber, a hand-delivered human munition, and it pushed Kate’s barrel right into her body and knocked her back several feet across the rough ground. When she scurried back in the lee of the thing, and looked around for the MP, she couldn’t see him through the smoke and dust the