Midnight: A gripping Aggressor Inc. action thriller (The Aggressor Series Book 4) by FX Holden

Author:FX Holden [Holden, FX]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-03-28T00:00:00+00:00

The Rearguard: Jinhua Street

There was nothing underwhelming about the firepower the Marine Sergeant Jackson had brought into play in Taipei. The premier’s limo was down on its front axle and smoking. From east and west, the ripping-paper noise of slaughterbot fire chewed the air.

Confirm the kill?

Jensen stuck his head out into the alley again. If Squirt had a camera on his robot neck, he could send the LS3 out to the vehicle, but they’d only deployed with the sonic drill module.

Jensen saw shadows near the compound gates, like someone there was preparing to re-engage maybe. At the same time, he heard the whir of slaughterbot rotors as the hostile slaughterbot came into the western end of the lane. Someone inside the compound tried to engage it, attracting only a withering burst of fire.

“Lieutenant,” Jensen told Chang. “Can you tag the other slaughterbot?”

“Will do. Covering on your mark.”

“Good copy. On three. One, two, three …”

Their tame slaughterbot opened up, sending measured two-round bursts at the hostile bot that hammered it 2 yards backward. It steadied, aimed its gun toward the bot attacking it, but didn’t fire. Some kind of protocol preventing blue-on-blue attacks? Whatever the reason, it trained its gun on the compound, loosing off a short burst, even as Chang opened up on it again.

Jensen took the chance he’d been given and ran from the shop door at a crouch, pulling in a lungful of acrid smoke that sent his chest into a spasm. But he reached the vehicle and the shattered window.

The grenade blast had triggered the heavy passenger door lock mechanism, and it hung partially open. The interior of the limo was filled with smoke from burning upholstery, and he pulled open the door fully, sticking his head inside as far as he could. He saw shapes through the swirling smoke—bodies, or parts of them. The smoke cleared for a moment and he recognized Ko from the photographs Jackson had shared. A bodyguard was lying across him, but only covered him from the waist down. The body of another man lay on the floor, more a collection of body parts than a corpse. The back of Ko’s skull was missing. A fourth body, in green uniform, had been blown partially backward into the limo’s luggage compartment, the seat behind him collapsed, or just shredded.

Jensen pulled a miniature camera from a pocket and took video of the occupants inside the limo. He retched, pulling back to get some clear air. “Target is … Target is down.”

Then he saw a silver gleam from inside the exposed luggage compartment. A metal document case maybe? He put the camera away and reached past the bloodied body of the man in uniform and tugged at it. It wasn’t light, and he could see a lock under the handle. It looked like some sort of secure case.

“Four KIA inside the vehicle,” Jensen said as he worked the case free. “There’s some kind of locked briefcase here, heavy. I’m trying to free it.”

The slaughterbot cannon rattled again, and this time someone tried to return fire from the compound.

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