As he pounded past the first LAV, one of the scientists stumbled out into the fire and stopped, looking around with an expression of acute stupidity. He was a very smart guy, a Swede who had something like six Ph.D.s. But he was in a situation for which he’d never prepared himself, mentally or physically.

“Get out of the line of fire,” Cady bellowed. He slung the M-4 and in one continuous motion snatched the scientist off his feet by his suit collar, barely slowing in the run as he lifted the overweight physicist into the air to drag along behind with only his toes touching the ground.

The far side of the road had a low wall surrounding a vacant lot. Cady wasn’t sure why anyone would put a wall around a vacant lot, but you saw that sort of thing a lot in Iraq. Some of the guys from Humvees that were drawing heavy fire had already bailed out and unassed to the wall. Cady just adjusted his run to the right a bit, switched hands on the physicist and tossed him over the wall towards one of the defending squads.

“Keep an eye on him, Reese,” he yelled as he continued down the wall. He ducked a bit since people were firing right past him, but he figured none of his men would dare blue-on-blue him. “And if you see any more of these shit-heads, get them under cover!”

“Top’s coming down!” Sergeant Reese yelled to the rest of the fighters crouched behind the wall. “Check fire for Gazelle!”

Two more scientists were out in the road, one down with a bullet in his leg and the other bending over him, waving his hands around as if reciting a magic spell. What was actually going on, Cady knew, was that the second scientist had no idea what to do for a guy with a three finger thick chunk blown out of his thigh. It wasn’t gushing arterial blood, though, so the guy’d probably live. If he didn’t go into shock and die from that.