Episode 22
Goodnight, Sweet Prince
About forty minutes later, lights appeared over the hill about a quarter mile distant and we ducked low in the tall grass. I watched as the lights got closer. It was a big shipping centipede, hauling multiple containers behind it. Then it passed into the night, its taillights melting off into the faraway darkness. Jock’s voice crackled. “Fire teams—set up now. That was the only civvie. Remaining men, hold your positions and prepare to engage.”
Seconds ticked by as I crouched in the grass. Sweat dripped inside my goggles and I checked the safety on my rifle for the second time. I was tense. We’ll pull it off fine—stay cool Tommy, I told myself.
“We have visual,” came the voice of Park from the top of the hill. I was next to Four-eyes. He was perfectly calm, waiting with the tip of his tongue sticking out the side of his mouth as he looked down his sight and waited for our targets to approach. Five long minutes ticked by, then I saw the light glowing at the top of the hill, followed by a set of headlights, then three more. Definitely the prince’s caravan. They took the corner and we opened up on them.
We fired from multiple locations along the road, the armor-piercing rounds slamming into and through the unmarked vehicles, penetrating both their armor and their reinforced glass. All four vehicles were armored, but the bullet-proofing wasn’t designed to stand up to that amount of heavy gunfire.
Two of the vehicles crashed almost immediately, their drivers having been shot dead in the initial barrage. The third slewed around and came to a near-stop, and one hard case in the back seat somehow managed to open a rear door and shoot back at us before he caught an AP round in the chest. The last vehicle actually did a 180 and tried to beat hasty retreat before it too drifted off to the side of the road and came to a dead halt on the left embankment.
“Cease fire!” came the call. There was no movement except for the dripping of fluids and the steam and smoke rising from the vehicles’ engines. The cars looked like they’d driven through Hell’s own hail, with all the windows shattered and the doors filled with dozens of round holes.
“Move in,” Jock said. “Stay alert.”
I was one of the closest guys so I got there first. I held my Katzer up as I peered into the middle vehicle. I put it down once I looked inside. The four occupants were definitely KIA. They’d never had a chance. The same report came from the other cars. We’d killed them all.
The second car contained the target. We opened the door and pulled the prince’s body out onto the road so Four-eyes could take pics. His clothes were soaked with blood and it took us a little while to find his crown in the car, but Jock insisted so we could put it on his head for the photo. The guy had taken a round in the neck, another took off the side of his skull, a few more in the torso but you could still recognize him. More or less.
“Jackpot,” Jock said coldly. “All right, Four-eyes, take some tissue samples so we can evidence the kill and we’ll get out of here.
Then he frowned and held up one hand, putting the other to his earpiece. “Captain? Yeah, we’re good and the tango is down. Yes, copy that, thank you.” He turned back to us. “Captain says bravo zulu, everyone. He also says the highway to the north of us is already being barricaded by Kingdom forces, but we’ll go off-road and bypass them.” Jock looked down at the body of the man we’d just assassinated. “Goodnight, sweet prince.”
I was happy just adding up the bonus we’d nailed down, but then Four-eyes had to ruin it with one of his untimely remarks.
“Man,” he said, eyeing one of the sample tubes he was stowing away. “I have to think the Corwies are going to be some kind of pissed!”
