Again Bukowski turned fractionally. The heavy gun rig slung at his hip turned with him. Duffy saw the muzzle elevate fractionally. His wrists flexed, and a short snarling volley of 20mm slugs punched through a sandbagged revetment on the top floor of a neoclassical mansion a hundred yards away. A dazzling spark traced the flight path of the shells. Duffy refocused the lens on her video rig, pulling in tight on the French windows the marine had targeted. Streams poured from ruptured sandbags as smoke rose from within the darkened recesses of the room. A disembodied human hand twitched on top of one bag.

Bullets zipped past her, uncomfortably close. Her C/T-weave armor was the best that money could buy. Better than Marine Corps standard issue, in fact. But you could still get yourself righteously fucked up in a free-fire zone like this. Duffy unsafed the MP5 and quickly panned up and down the road. It was a quick and dirty scan. She’d use an intelligent editing suite to clean it up later before laying down her own commentary.

She knew in broad-brush detail that they were swarming the divisional HQ of the Japanese command, that most of the enemy’s strategic assets were already just scrap metal and charred meat. But beyond that, like the men and women around her, she knew only what she could see with her own eyes and imaging rig.

They were still taking sporadic, but reasonably intense small-arms fire from the surrounding buildings. It seemed more opportunistic than directed. Marines occasionally shuddered or tumbled as rounds hit them and their armored padding dispersed the kinetic energy. She knew from personal experience that it still felt like getting whacked by a Louisville Slugger. Sometimes, in the background, she’d hear a scream or gurgle over the platoon comm channel as somebody caught a bullet or a piece of shrapnel in the face or throat.

Gunships ripped overhead, pouring autocannon fire into pillboxes on street corners, popping Hellfire missiles through windows, and raking small concentrations of Japanese troops who periodically attempted desperate charges across open ground. She’d seen worse. Damascus was way tougher than this. That had been like the whole fucking city was out to kill you.

Bukowski had moved ahead, and she had to hustle to catch up. He took the steps at the front of the big white building at a run, leaping over the bloodied form of a prostrate Japanese soldier. Duffy was lining up to jump over the corpse when it unexpectedly rose from the dead, rolled up onto one knee, and leveled a ridiculously long rifle at the back of the marine’s head.

“Bukowski, look out,” she yelled.

The marine began an instinctive dive to the side as the guard fired. Duffy saw the big man’s helmet jolt, but he kept on moving.