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He pointed to Kelly and then to himself, then made a curling motion around one side of the warehouse. He pointed to Sam and Fhajad and motioned them around the opposite side. They moved to the far corners of the building.
John and Kelly crouched and waited. They had a perfect view of the center of the camp, the calisthenics area, the parade grounds, and—right in the center—the flagpole.
Right on time a Corporal and two guard escorts marched out and unfolded their green-striped flag. He attached one corner to a lanyard dangling from the pole.
John glanced at the distant forest. The woods past the fence of Tango Company's camp had been clear-cut. He knew it was more than a hundred meters—closer to two hundred. There was no guarantee that Fred or Linda could hit anything at that range.
He drew his dart pistol and clicked off its safety.
At 0500 flashes of light strobed beneath the barracks as the grenades detonated. There was the crackle of wood and the screams of the men and women ofTango Company.
The Corporal attaching the flag dropped one end and whirled around. Floodlights on the perimeter fence snapped on and pointed inward toward the barracks.
In the confusion, no one noticed as one of the guards near the flagpole dropped his rifle, grabbed his neck ... and toppled to the gravel face-first.
His partner spotted him and knelt.
John sprinted across the compound, firing. His first shot went wild, and the kneeling guard spun around to face him. Fhajad and Sam shot him in the back.
John took aim at the Corporal—who fumbled with his pistol
164 HALO: FIRST STRIKE
holster, trying to free his weapon. John planted two narq-darts in his chest. The Corporal dropped.
Two more guards rounded the corner of the warehouse, shouted, and took aim at John.
He was out in the open, and there was no way his dart pistol could hit those guards from this distance.
One guard fired. The round pinged off the flagpole not five centimeters from John's head.
The guard stiffened and dropped his rifle, wildly grabbing at the back of his head ... and the dart stuck into his skull. He screamed and fell, thrashing in the dirt.
The other guard twitched and pulled a dart from his thigh. An?other dart hit him in the chest, and he sprawled to the ground.
John sent his silent thanks to Linda and Fred. He detached the flag from the lanyard and stuffed it into his shirt.
He waved Red Team forward, and Kelly led them to the fences.
Kelly didn't slow down as she sprinted and closed on the chain-link fence. She tucked and threw herself into the steel mesh. Just before she hit, John spotted the smoking outlines on the fence where she had applied the battery acid.
The fence broke in a jagged outline, and Kelly rolled to her feet on the other side without missing a stride. John waved his team through. He went last, pausing only a fraction of a second to look back.
The camp was in chaos. Security lights swung about, there were screams from the barracks. A tank rumbled to life and crunched into the center of the base.