Chapter 13 - The Tactical Pivot
Before the operator’s finger could tighten on the trigger of his weapon, Loasing dropped to one knee and swept her foot outward in a devastating low kick, catching the tactical operator behind his knee joint and sending him crashing hard onto the gravel rooftop. The flash drive and the black voice recorder flew from her tactical pouch, skidding across the slick surface toward the drainage grate.
The General reacted with surprising agility for his age, diving sideways behind the concrete housing of the roof hatch just as the other unbadged operators opened fire with suppressed submachine guns. Bullets chipped concrete chunks into the night air, whining off the metal parapet in a shower of sparks.
Loasing rolled across the wet gravel, snatching the black voice recorder just before it fell down the drainage pipe. She scrambled behind the low brick wall of the rooftop elevator penthouse, returning suppressive fire with three rapid shots that disabled the primary communications relay on the unbadged team’s extraction helicopter overhead.
“Pilot, pull up! We are compromised!” the lead operator screamed into his radio as the chopper’s external navigation panel sparked and died in a plume of grey smoke.
The pilot fought the cyclic control stick, lifting the massive aircraft away from the rooftop just as base sirens finally began to wail across the entire residential sector. Floodlights snapped on along the perimeter fence, illuminating the dark uniforms of the genuine military police as they swarmed up the exterior stairwells in full riot gear.
Henderson lunged toward the edge of the roof in a desperate attempt to grab the falling secure tablet, but Loasing grabbed the collar of his trench coat and yanked him backward onto the pavement just as the true military police breached the rooftop hatch with weapons drawn.
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“Secure the perimeter! Arrest everyone without a standard-issue uniform!” shouted the lead military police captain, stepping onto the roof with his rifle raised.
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