Chapter 13: Hasa Market
LORENZO
May 3
I was in the kitchen when my phone buzzed, indicating a new text message.
Hasa Market. 4:00 at the fountain.
Wait for further instructions. Come alone.
I scowled. Come alone? Why did he need to specify that? Did he somehow think that this was all some sort of scheme to get him into the open? Was he afraid Dead Six was coming for him, too? Or maybe he thought that I just wanted to get the info out of him and then cheat him out of the money. . . .
Or it was a trap for me. There were plenty of people in this country who would pay Hosani good money for my head. “Carl, check this out,” I called.
My partner joined me a second later. He only glanced at the phone for a second. “Trap, it sounds like, maybe.”
“Could be. But we need the info. It’s worth the risk.”
“You going alone?” Carl asked suspiciously.
“Of course not. Hasa is a busy place. It’s that fish souk right off the docks at the end of Umm Shamal. Plenty of places for you guys to stay incognito.”
Carl shook his head. “No vehicles in there. I can blend in. Reaper, not so much.” That was true. Our techie was about the palest white boy we were going to find in five hundred miles. I had given Jill crap about walking like an American, but she was a master of disguise compared to Reaper. “I miss Train.”
I missed Train, too. The big guy had been a virtual killing machine and had been great backup for situations like this. “We’ll stick Reaper in the van back a ways. He’s our ride out if we need him. We’ll stay in radio contact.” I tried to keep Reaper away from the hands-on part of the work. It wasn’t exactly his area of expertise. But he was street-smart enough to keep his eyes open for anything suspicious.
“One problem,” Carl said slowly. “What about the girl?”
“Aw, hell.” He had a point. We couldn’t just leave Jill here alone. I suppose we could have tied her up, but that didn’t really go along with trying to get her to trust us. If this meeting didn’t go well, she was still my ace in the hole. The other times I had gone out since she’d been here, there had always been at least one member of my crew here to make sure she didn’t try anything stupid. She had behaved, so far. Drugs were an option.
Then Carl surprised me. “We take her.” He caught my look of confusion. “Extra eyes we could use. I saw her after that bomb went off. She was tough. Most folks don’t do that good first time they see a bunch of guts blown all over the street. We used to have a girl on the team.”
He knew how much I hated when he brought up that bit of our past. “Her and Kat don’t have very much in common,” I said.
Carl shrugged. “Personality? No. But both pretty girls, skinny but still with big tits and a nice ass. The good parts are in common.” As usual, Carl was a subtle poet of a man. “Pretty girls come in handy in this business, go places we can’t, talk to people we can’t. But that’s not what I meant. This girl, she’s a good girl.”
“Carl, oh man, I can’t believe this,” I laughed. “You’re getting soft in your old age. She’s grown on you, hasn’t she?” I didn’t think Carl was capable of actually liking anyone.
That got him. He raised a meaty hand threateningly and waved one stubby finger in my face. “We’ll stick her in the van. Make her feel helpful. This don’t change nothing. It sure don’t change the plan. So don’t you give me no shit about getting soft. I’ve burned fucking villages. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Good.” He folded his arms. “That said, I don’t like your backup plan no more.”
“Me either,” I said slowly, but it wasn’t like he had a better idea. For us, it was either find Dead Six or die. Nothing else would stop Big Eddie’s rampage. “Hosani had better come through.”
The four of us were gathered around the kitchen table. I had just outlined what was going down this afternoon. Reaper pulled up a Google Earth view of the Hasa neighborhood on one of his laptops.
“That’s a pretty open area, Chief,” Reaper said. “I can’t see them trying to take you out in the middle of all that.” The market was right off the docks. There were warehouses to the north, and a school and a mosque to the southwest. There were three roads in. At any given time of day, the place was packed with witnesses.
“If it is a trap, they’ll send another text, telling me to walk somewhere else quieter. That gives them a chance to see if I’ve got anybody tailing me.” I nodded at Carl. “You’ll need to be discreet.”
“What do you want me to do?” Jill asked quickly. It was almost like she was eager to prove that she was worth something.
I glanced at Carl. He shrugged. I already knew his opinion.
More than likely, nothing was going to happen. Hosani would give me an address or something, and I would slide him the backpack of cash. That was it. Odds were that this was going to be relatively boring. But then again, I had thought the same thing about Al Khor, and that had ended up with blood raining from the sky.
I placed the Bulgarian Makarov in the center of the table with a metallic clunk. “You said you know how to use this?”
She looked at me suspiciously for a second, then back to the gun, then back at me. “Who am I supposed to shoot?”
“Nobody in particular. You’re going to be a lookout if Hosani tries to bring in help or if Dead Six shows up. Early warning, that’s it. This is just for self-defense.”
“Got anything bigger?”
“No. You get the chick gun.” I rolled my eyes. “That’s one of the most common guns in this part of the world for a reason. It works. It’s concealable. And that’s really important because like most shitty countries, Zubara’s got strict gun-control laws. So unless you want to go to prison forever, don’t get spotted with this. If you need to ditch it, I’m not worried about it, just drop it in a garbage can and keep walking.”
Without further hesitation, she picked up the gun. I noted that she was careful to keep it in a safe direction and her finger was indexed outside the trigger guard. Maybe she had been taught well. “It’s . . . double action. The safety works backwards from Dad’s Beretta . . .” It took her a second to find the magazine-release. The Makarov had its magazine release button in the heel of the grip, unlike most American guns. She dropped the magazine on the table, then pulled the slide back, looking inside the empty chamber. She grinned maliciously. “Do I get bullets, too?”
I had to admit that she had a pretty smile. “We’ll work up to that.”
VALENTINE
Fort Saradia National Historical Site
May 3
1030
Tailor, Hudson, Byrne, and I were already sitting in the classroom when Hunter came striding in, Sarah in tow. “I’ll be brief, gentlemen,” he said, opening his laptop and hooking it up to the display screen. “You’re moving out shortly.”
“We were told that we’ve got a lock on our next target, sir,” Tailor said.
“That’s right,” Hunter replied, bringing up a picture on the screen. “This is your target, Jalal Hosani.” Hosani was an average-looking Middle Eastern man, with styled hair and a scruffy, stubbly goatee. He was dressed in a brown suit and a white shirt with no tie, as was the fashion. “He’s going to attempt to flee Zubara today. He’s not going to get out of the country alive.”
“How do we know this, Colonel?” I asked.
“Asra Elnadi,” Hunter replied. “During her interrogation, she told us that one of Hosani’s bodyguards was an ex-lover of hers, and they kept it on the sly. She was able to contact him and get him to sell out his boss.”
“No employee loyalty,” Byrne suggested.
“Not in this business, son,” Hunter said. “With his boss skipping town, this guy’s probably out of a job anyway. So he tipped off our contact without knowing who she’s working for.”
“How do we know this information is credible?” I asked.
“I made it clear to Ms. Elnadi that there would be severe consequences if the information she gave us proved to be false,” Sarah said coolly. “She’s afraid of us. I don’t think she’d try anything stupid, especially since we’ve kept her alive so far.”
Hunter switched the screen to a map of the city. “The target will be attempting his escape from a small warehouse that he owns in the Hasa Market, in Umm Shamal. This warehouse is right on the pier. According to the information Ms. Elnadi gave us, Hosani owns a boat. His escape plan is to load up his boat, hoist anchor, and sail away. Asra’s ex-boyfriend told her that he’s meeting someone in the warehouse around sixteen hundred hours, and that he’ll be leaving immediately after.
“There are several places he could go, so if we lose him he’s probably gone for good. Your mission is to intercept Jalal Hosani at the docks and kill him. There are no secondary targets. Tertiary targets are any of his employees and bodyguards that you encounter.”
“We’re going to kill him in the middle of Hasa Market in broad daylight?” I asked. “Sir, that’s one of the busiest markets in the city. It’ll be packed by mid-afternoon.”
“I’m aware of that, Mr. Valentine, but it is this or nothing. Any questions?”
We had plenty of questions. We spent the next two hours in the classroom, formulating the plan.
LORENZO
May 3
I had been dropped off several blocks from the Hasa Market and had walked in. Umm Shamal was the middle peninsula and was relatively middle-class, so I wore jeans, a soccer jersey, and a good pair of running shoes instead of sandals. I carried the money in a small backpack.
I liked baggy jerseys. They were handy for hiding stuff, including the relatively soft Level IIIA armor vest. My STI 4.15 Tactical was on my hip, concealed beneath my shirt. Between it and the two spare longer twenty-two-round magazines on my off-side, I had sixty-three rounds ready to go. Also concealed on me was my Greco Whisper CT knife. It had a five-and-a-quarter-inch blade and was perfectly balanced. If Hosani tried anything, I was going to stick to my promise to take him with me.
There was one benefit if I bought it today. Once Big Eddie found out, that would probably get Carl and Reaper off the hook, temporarily. But he had leverage on them too, so even though they couldn’t do this job, he would find some way to use them again. Believe me, I’d thought about faking my own death rather than finishing this job. But if Eddie ever got any inkling that I’d cheated him, he’d kill every single person in that folder.
The market was bustling with humanity. It was a miniature city, with buildings made from portable stands and wandering streets of weathered stones. This was where all the small-time fishermen sold their catch, so it was the best place in the city to get fresh fish. The violence in poor Ash Shamal and rich Al Khor hadn’t really hit here yet. This was the part of town where the actual work got done. This was the home of the regular people, and they just wanted to live their lives in peace, earn their money, and raise their kids. Too bad for them they were stuck between a bunch of fanatics.
There was a line of speakers placed over the central row of booths. They were playing traditional music, which was actually kind of pretty in a haunting way. Every now and then the music would cut out and a fast-talking announcer would tell the customers about some special at one of the booths.
The fountain dated back to the British and was styled to be vaguely ancient Greek. It was out of place between all the tan brick buildings. I took a seat on the edge of the fountain, waited, and watched bus drivers and school teachers buy sea bass. My Bluetooth earpiece wasn’t very out of place in this group.
“I don’t see anything yet,” Carl said. I knew he had stationed himself at the opposite end of the market near the corner of the school. He had dressed in full-on man pajamas and baggy vest. Carl was too stocky and muscular to pass for a Zubaran, but there were a lot of foreigners in this country, actually more foreigners than natives since the boom began, and he had grown a bushy beard that would make any mullah jealous. “I’m at the bootleg DVD table.”
“Anything interesting?”
“They’ve got a Robert DeNiro five-pack. I’m watching the windows on the mosque. If I was gonna snipe you, that’s where I’d be.”
That was comforting.
“Lots of traffic, but nothing suspicious,” Reaper said. He and Jill were parked about a block away to the south.
I noted a man standing near one of the fish stands. Skinny guy, wearing Ray-Bans, he was making good use of the crowd to cover himself but was obviously watching the people clustered around the fountain, waiting for something. He had the look of a local, so that was probably one of Hosani’s men.
My phone buzzed. The text was short.
Walk north. Go to the first warehouse.
So the exchange wasn’t going to be in public. The thin man saw me looking at my phone, right on schedule, so now he knew who I was. I bent down, as if to tie my shoe, but primarily so he couldn’t see me speak. “Got the message. Moving north to the first warehouse. I’ve got at least one guy watching me. Stay low.” I adjusted the backpack and started pushing through the crowd in the direction of the docks.
VALENTINE
Umm Shamal District
May 3
1555
Hasa Market was a sprawling, confusing maze of tiny shops, stands, and carts that emanated out from an old fountain in the square. To the north were a trio of warehouses on the pier. Tailor parked our Land Cruiser between a mosque and a small schoolhouse on the west side of the square.
Hudson and Byrne were supposed to park their vehicle on the opposite side of the square. As much as we could, we always took two vehicles on a mission. It gave us a backup option should we not be able to make it to our own vehicle. Also, we figured that with all of the chaos we were about to cause in Hasa Market, we’d have less chance of getting snagged by the cops if we split up.
The situation still sucked. Four of us were going into an unknown building against an unknown number of opponents. Because we had to go through a crowded marketplace in the middle of the afternoon to get to that building, we could only bring weapons that we could conceal, i.e., handguns. Going into a gunfight with nothing but a handgun is stupid and should be avoided if at all possible.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t possible. Hunter had suggested that we use compact assault rifles, concealed in backpacks, that we could drop if we needed to disappear into the crowd. Gordon Willis had overruled him on that one, apparently. He said it caused an unacceptable risk of getting made.
It seemed the risk of us getting our asses shot off trying to go into a gunfight with nothing but pistols didn’t bother him. By that point I’d had more than my fill of Gordon Willis. But there was nothing we could do except carry on with the mission and try not to get killed.
Tailor and I made our way through the cluttered mess of Hasa Market, doing our best not to be noticed. We were both wearing khaki cargo pants, dark T-shirts to conceal body armor underneath, sunglasses, and untucked shirts to hide our sidearms. We looked undeniably American, but even with the recent chaos, no one seemed to pay us any mind.
The market stunk of fresh fish, and squawking seagulls filled the air. The rows of booths, carts, and shacks weren’t laid out in any discernible order. They were gaudily decorated with what looked like Christmas lights, loudspeakers playing music, and signs in six languages. Most of the shoppers at Hasa Market weren’t Zubaran citizens, or even Arabs. Most were imported labor from India, South Asia, and the Philippines.
The market sold more than just fish. Goods of every variety could be bought, from bootleg DVDs to clothes to medicine of dubious medical value imported from Asia. As Tailor and I made our way past various stands, the vendors would blurt sales offers out at us in broken English, telling us they had a great deal that was perfect for our needs.
“Lo siento, no hablo Inglés,” is all we’d say in return. Tailor and I both spoke Spanish fairly well and had decided that with this many witnesses around, we’d avoid speaking to each other in English if at all possible. Half the world spoke English, including people in the Middle East. You’d be a lot harder pressed to find a Middle Easterner that spoke Spanish.
I did have to speak English into my radio, so I squeezed the transmit button and spoke softly. “Control, Nightcrawler, target building in sight.” Tailor and I studied the warehouse though the crowd, trying to discern the best way in.
“Control copies,” Sarah replied. Hearing her voice in my ear comforted me in a strange way. “You are cleared to engage. Be careful.”
LORENZO
The noise of the market was muted here by the thick walls of the surrounding buildings. The skinny guy was still following discreetly. I had to cross a narrow street, and, glancing both ways, I saw no vehicles other than parked delivery trucks. It was late enough in the afternoon that all the day’s deliveries had been made. It smelled like fish.
There was a man, wearing a nice suit, waiting for me at the side door of the first warehouse. “Mr. Lorenzo,” he said in rough English. “I need search you before come in.”
“Tell Hosani to kiss my ass. If he’s got a problem, me and my big bag of money will just go home.”
The guard nodded. “He said you say something like that. I just want make sure you right man.” He opened the door into darkness.
The interior of the warehouse was dark and cool. Crates were stacked up in neat rows. The roll-up door at the rear of the building was open, and a few small fishing boats were tied there, as well as one nice fifty-footer.
I spotted Hosani in the shadows under the catwalk by the glowing ash of his cigarette. There were a couple other men standing toward the back of the warehouse, and, from the sound, at least one pacing the metal catwalk above. If he wanted to take me out, I was well and truly screwed.
“Hey, Jalal. You didn’t need to bring your whole gang,” I said with forced joviality, mostly so Carl would hear and know that there were a lot of men with guns here.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Jalal said. “This is how everyone in my line of work has to travel now, in groups, and in secret. I’m only doing this as a favor, and then I’m getting on that boat”—he waved his cigarette toward the back of the warehouse—“and going someplace safe.”
“I thought this was good for business.”
He adjusted his coat as he put his lighter away, exposing the butt of a compact pistol. Hosani sold guns, but I’d never seen him actually use one. He really was nervous. Earlier I had thought Dead Six was unprofessional because of their lack of subtlety, but now I could see the logic behind it. Their targets were terrified of them.
“These Americans who leave the playing cards, they’re only part of the reason I’m leaving. This Dead Six, as you called it, is part of something bigger. I do not think they even realize who they are really working for.” He trailed off with a wry smile. “But as they say, why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? My appreciation?”
“Of course.” I tossed him the backpack. He unzipped it and glanced inside, rifling quickly through the stacks of British currency. “You can count it. I won’t be offended.”
“I don’t feel like sticking around any longer than I have to,” he responded as he zipped the bag back up and put it over his shoulder. “I’ve got to warn you, Lorenzo. I don’t know what Big Eddie’s commissioned you to do, but it isn’t worth going after these people.”
“That’s not an option.”
VALENTINE
We paused for a moment, allowing our eyes to adjust to the darkness. We were in the warehouse. I slid my sunglasses up onto my head and pressed onward. The small side door we’d come through led into the main room of the warehouse, but it was stacked from floor to ceiling with racks and shelves full of boxes. Voices could be heard echoing through the building, but we couldn’t see anyone.
We crouched down and quietly weaved our way through the maze of racks and crates. The roll-up door at the north end of the warehouse was open to the docks, flooding the center of the floor in brilliant daylight. Above that door was a metal catwalk. There was someone up there. We’d have to take him out before Hudson and Byrne came in, otherwise he’d be above and behind them as they entered from the other side of the building.
I came to a spot where I could see the main floor through a narrow gap between two crates on the shelf in front of me. Tailor had his 1911 Operator drawn and watched my back as I tried to ID my target.
There were at least four more men in the building aside from the man on the catwalk. Two of them were standing off to the side, in the shadows, probably more bodyguards. The other two men were more interesting.
One of them was a fit-looking man wearing a soccer jersey and jeans. He had on sunglasses and had a scruffy, unshaven face, so I couldn’t get a good look at him. A backpack was slung over his shoulder.
The other man was facing away from me. He wore a dark suit and had a lit cigarette in his hand. I couldn’t quite make out what he was saying over the noises of the city and the harbor, but he was discussing something with the man in the soccer jersey. He paced as he talked, and turned around so I could see his face. There was no doubt about it. It was Jalal Hosani. I looked over at Tailor and nodded. Through hand signals, I told Tailor I was going to shoot Hosani from our current position. Hosani was only about fifty feet away, I could make the shot easily. Tailor told me he’d cover the catwalk.
I aimed my revolver through the gap in the crates, placing the tritium front sight on Jalal Hosani’s chest. I wasn’t going to attempt a head shot at this range. If he was wearing a vest, the impact of a fat .44 hollow point would still probably break some ribs. Hudson and Byrne would be in the building before he could get away.
Hosani turned away to face the man in the soccer jersey. I adjusted my sight picture and aimed in between his shoulder blades as Jersey Guy tossed him a backpack. Hosani opened the bag and rifled through it. My finger moved to the trigger. I exhaled.
LORENZO
Jalal took a long drag off of his cigarette and shook his head as he exhaled. “Very well, my friend. It’s your funeral, as they say. For my part, I—” Jalal’s white shirt exploded in a spray of red, and a sledgehammer weight collided with my chest.
Jalal’s blood was on my face, in my eyes, and I could taste it in my mouth. He collapsed into me, clawing at my shirt, but he was already dead and didn’t even know it yet. I stumbled and fell, taking us both to the concrete. The bullet that had torn through his torso was stuck in my vest, and waves of pain radiated out from the bruised tissue underneath.
There was more shooting. Muzzle flashes back and forth across the warehouse as Hosani’s guards went down, one after the other. There was a scream from above, and the man on the catwalk flipped over the edge and landed a few yards away, bones audibly cracking on impact.
It was the shooter from Adar’s video, the tall one with the .44. He was moving smoothly down the aisle of crates. He had this calm look on his face, just kind of concentrating, like he was reading an interesting book or something. I shoved the twitching corpse off and jerked my pistol out. I didn’t have a shot. He caught the movement and ducked down as I started cranking off rounds. My bullets flung splinters from the surrounding boxes as I scrambled to my feet. I kept firing, forcing him to keep his head down as I moved.
I flinched as a bullet impacted a support beam right next to me. There were multiple shooters. Jerking my head in the direction of the shot, I saw the shorter man from the Adar video vaulting over a railing. He disappeared between the crates. Now I had at least two of them hunting me.
I slid to my knees behind a crate. “Carl! Dead Six is here!” I instantly dropped the mag, stuffed the partially expended one in my pocket, and slammed a new one home. Pain radiated through my chest with every breath, and that was even after the bullet had zipped through Hosani. That wasn’t a pistol, that was a cannon.
There was movement in the sunlight at the open dock door as someone else swept inside. I have to get out of here. There was a door to the side, offices or something. I leapt to my feet and sprinted through the doorway. It was a hallway, several doors branching off in each direction. Shit. Speeding right to the last door, I discovered it was locked. I took a step back and kicked it open, flinging it open with a bang. It was just a janitor’s closet. No windows. No exit. The shooters were moving up behind me. I was trapped.
VALENTINE
Wooden crates splintered and fragmented above me as I ducked behind a crate and hoped that its contents were substantial enough to stop handgun fire. The man in the soccer jersey had spotted me.
I reloaded, punching my revolver’s ejector rod and twisting a new speed loader into the cylinder. I then squeezed my radio’s transmit button. “Xbox, I’m pinned down! Get this guy off me!”
“I’m on it!” Tailor replied. Seconds later more gunshots echoed through the warehouse as Tailor opened up with his .45. “You can move!”
“Roger! Moving!” I replied, coming to my feet again. I snaked through the maze of crates and shelves, revolver held out in front of me in both hands as I moved.
“Xbox, Shafter, we’re entering now!” Hudson said over the radio. Tailor acknowledged him, and I wondered what in the hell had taken Hudson so long. I realized then that it had only been a minute since I’d fired the first shot.
“I’ve lost that shooter!” Tailor snarled, frustration obvious in his voice. In less than a minute we’d wiped out all of Hosani’s guards except one. It kind of pissed me off, too.
I cleared the maze of crates and found myself in the open area in the middle of the warehouse. Jalal Hosani’s corpse lay splayed out on the floor in a large pool of blood, a ragged hole between his shoulder blades.
“Careful,” Tailor warned as Hudson and Byrne approached. “We still got one shooter out there, the guy in the jersey.”
“Which way did he go?” I asked, kicking Hosani’s corpse to make sure he was dead. He was. I dropped an Ace of Spades onto his back.
“You two,” Tailor said, pointing at Hudson, “cover us. Val, follow me, I think he went through this door.” The four of us split into pairs again. Hudson and Byrne exited the way they’d come in, through the open dock door. Tailor extended his 1911 and led me behind another shelf of crates, through a door that was hidden behind it.
It led to a short hallway. Our two teammates stayed behind, covering the doorway while Tailor and I made our way down, weapons at the ready. There were two doors on one side and one door on the other, but all three were closed. At the end of the hallway, there was a partially open door. A small sign above the door read Custodian in English and Arabic. It was a janitor’s closet. A backpack with a broken strap lay on the floor, a few feet from the door.
My eyes caught a flash of movement in the darkened closet. Tailor and I spread out to either side of the hallway and continued to inch forward. We were wide open, and doorways were fatal funnels.
Shit, I thought bitterly. I wish we had grenades.
“Hey! Why don’t you come out and die like a man?” I shouted. I looked over at Tailor and shrugged. When all else fails, negotiate.
LORENZO
Please, don’t let them have any grenades.
“Hey! Why don’t you come out and die like a man?” one of them yelled. Despite his raised voice, he sounded very calm, almost conversational.
“Why don’t you come down here and get me then?” I shouted around the corner. The closet was decent cover, the walls were solid, and if they wanted me, they had to come down that fatal funnel of a hallway. The first one to stick his head down here was going to die, and they knew it.
“Who the fuck are you?” one of them yelled, clearly agitated. Apparently they weren’t used to somebody speaking English. He was obviously a Southerner.
“Nobody worth dying over,” I responded. “You better hurry. Somebody had to hear all that shooting. You don’t have much time.”
“We’ll make time,” stated the calm one.
Carl came over the earpiece. He was out of breath. “Some skinny guy saw me coming in the market and tried to stab me, so I broke his head.” So Jalal’s man had tried to stop my friend. That was a fatal mistake.
“There are at least three shooters. They’ve got me pinned down.”
“I’ll circle around,” he said. I could hear the Dead Six men talking back and forth in hushed tones down the hallway. The nearest two were speaking in Spanish, but they shouted at someone else in English that they would take care of me.
“We’re on the way,” Reaper said. “But I’m stuck behind some trucks.”
“I’m coming to help.” The female voice over the radio took me a second to process. I could hear the van door open.
Idiot. “Jill, stay put!”
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM
I jerked away from the doorway as the walls shattered. The giant .44 Magnum slugs tore through the building materials with unbelievable fury. The smell of solvents filled the air from leaking containers. I stuck my gun around the corner and fired several wild rounds in response.
“Val! Holy shit, look at all this money!” They’d found the backpack.
“That’s mine!” I shouted. “Assholes!”
“Not anymore, motherfucker!” shouted the obnoxious one. “Ha!”
VALENTINE
“This is taking too long,” I said, dumping a fresh speed loader into my .44. “C’mon, man, we gotta go!” Tailor nodded, slung the backpack full of money, and led the way. I backed down the hallway, keeping my gun trained on the closet at the end of the hall. We’d already told Hudson and Byrne to head back to their vehicle, and the cops would be all over Hasa Market before too long.
“Control, Xbox,” Tailor said, speaking into his radio. “Target neutralized. Egressing now. Will update as I can.” Sarah acknowledged him on the radio as we reached the door at the other end of the hallway.
“It’s your lucky day, asshole,” I said to the man in the closet, even though I doubted he could hear me. Tailor and I then turned and bolted back through the warehouse.
LORENZO
It was quiet. I risked a peek. I couldn’t see anything, but that didn’t mean they weren’t just waiting quietly to blow my head off.
“Lorenzo, there are four of them. Two came in the back. They’re heading west toward the street.” Carl said. “Those two fodas from the video just walked out the front. They’re heading south through the market, trying to play it cool.”
The ones with the box were the ones that mattered. “Tail them. I’m on my way,” I responded, already heading for the exit. I shoved the STI back in its holster as I hopped over the bodies of Jalal and his men. There was no way I was going to let them get away.
The market was continuing as normal. The walls of the old warehouse and the music must have muffled the gunshots enough not to spook the crowd. I walked quickly, as running would have drawn too much attention. A woman gasped and pointed at me. Glancing down, I realized that I was still splattered with Jalal’s blood. “Shit,” I muttered.
“They’re moving south,” Carl reported. “I’m on them.”
“Where?” I hissed. The woman was pointing at me and pulling on her husband’s sleeve. I ducked my head and turned, moving deeper into the throng.
“By the fountain.”
“Reaper, move up on the entrance. Be ready to roll. Carl, we need one of them alive.”
Carl came back. “I’ve been made.”
Then there was a gunshot.
VALENTINE
Guns holstered, Tailor and I pushed our way back through Hasa Market, south, where our vehicle was waiting for us. We nervously eyed the crowd as we walked, checking over our shoulders for the guy in the soccer jersey. I didn’t know who he was, but I knew he wasn’t just another militant asshole.
There wasn’t time to worry about it. We’d been lucky, so far, in that no one had heard the shots or called the police, but I didn’t want to find out how long that luck would hold. All we had to do was make it back to our truck and we were home free.
Not necessarily, I thought bitterly, remembering the night Wheeler died. We cleared the tangled mess of the marketplace and came upon the open area that surrounded the old fountain at the center. Like the rest of the market, it was choked with people, but it wasn’t nearly as claustrophobic as the maze of shops and carts.
Gun. I noticed it so instinctively that I almost didn’t realize it. Everything slowed down as the Calm kicked in again. On the other side of the fountain there was a man with a gun. He was short and squat, with a dark face and a scraggly beard. He was staring at me intently, and through the bustle of the crowd I could see him trying to bring a pistol to bear. He was dressed in local garb, but, like the man in the soccer jersey, I didn’t believe he was some random Zubaran citizen.
Before I’d finished processing that, I realized my gun was clear of its holster and that the front sight was aligned on the man with the gun as he brought his own pistol up. His eyes grew wide as a gap appeared in the crowd; I had a shot. I fired.
I missed. My bullet struck the edge of the fountain, blowing off a small chunk and ricocheting off into the distance. My revolver’s roar echoed through Hasa Market, and all at once everyone froze, heads turning to see what was happening. People around us stared at us wide-eyed, mouths agape.
“Oh, shit,” Tailor said, his .45 already drawn. More shots rang out as the man with the gun fired at us, using the edge of the heavily constructed fountain as cover. Tailor and I shot back, moving laterally as we fired, trying to hit the gunman without killing anyone in the crowd.
All at once the marketplace was in chaos. People screamed and began to stampede in every direction. Tailor and I were nearly crushed by a throng of people trying to get away from the shooting. We couldn’t even see the shooter through the morass of panicked shoppers, much less get a bead on him.
“We’re compromised!” Tailor shouted, straining to be heard even though I was only a few feet from him. “Let’s get the hell out of here!” He struggled to reload his .45 while he talked.
Following his lead, I lowered my now-empty revolver and began to push my way through the crowd. We headed west, toward the mosque. Our Land Cruiser was parked in an alley between the mosque and a school next door. After a few seconds, the crowd thinned a little, and I had room to breathe. I emptied my gun’s cylinder and reached for my belt again.
Someone crashed into me as I drew the speed loader from my belt, causing me to drop it. My speed loader bounced off the concrete and rolled away. Swearing, I shoved the hapless person aside and crouched down, grabbing my loader.
I stood up, pausing to twist the cartridges into the cylinder, when someone shouted at me to stop in heavily accented English. I froze and looked up. About ten feet to my left was a Zubaran police officer. His pistol was pointed between my eyes. He held a radio in his other hand.
Two puffs of blood and uniform material erupted from the Zubaran police officer’s side as Tailor double-tapped him. The cop staggered, and Tailor put a third round into his head. He dropped to the concrete like a sack of potatoes, his pistol clattering as it hit. I made eye contact with Tailor, nodded at him, and we took off at a run toward the mosque.
Looking back through the crowd, I couldn’t see the stocky man who had shot as us by the fountain. But as we crossed in front of the school, I noticed a woman in a black burka running determinedly in our direction across the lawn of the mosque. She produced a small pistol from somewhere just as I rounded the corner into the alley.
LORENZO
I spotted the two Dead Six operatives fifty yards ahead, moving fast, straight for the mosque. That had to be where they’d left their car. I raised my gun, but there were too many terrified people stampeding between us, then they were around the corner of some booths and out of sight. “Damn it! Carl, flank around the mosque and hit them from the other side. Reaper, get your ass up here now.”
I took off after them, darting between people. Some lady saw my gun and bloodsoaked countenance and screamed. That caused a bunch of other people to shriek and point, and a lot of them were already on their cell phones. This was so not good. “Reaper! We need immediate evac!”
“Almost there!” he responded.
There was a winding alley between the one-story school and the much taller mosque. The east end dumped into the market, and the west onto a quiet street. That’s where I would have parked. I caught a glimpse of a khaki-clad figure duck into the alley. Got you. I moved up along the school wall, gun at my side. I was going to drop whichever one I saw first, then try to shoot the legs out from under the other.
Most of the people from the market were moving away from the two Caucasians and the men chasing them, and maybe that’s why the woman with the veil stuck out so quickly. Jill Del Toro was coming across the lawn of the mosque, directly toward me, only she was going to reach the alley a few seconds before I was. She reached into her clothing and out came the little Makarov.
I ran faster, forcing myself forward. Jill brought the gun up in both hands, but she made the classic mistake of letting her gun lead around the corner, telegraphing her presence. And he had been waiting for it. One hand clamped around her wrist, jerking her forward. Jill disappeared.