Chapter 4:
Secondary Target
Nobody had any idea who’d taken him. It wouldn’t have surprised me if the senior Falah wasn’t waiting by the phone for the ransom call right now. There was a subset of the criminal underworld that specialized in kidnapping the kinds of targets whose parents wouldn’t involve the authorities. It was dangerous, but drug lords’ kids were especially lucrative. But I knew of most of the crews who did that kind of thing professionally, and I didn’t think any of them were operating around here.
Even the lowest of the low had families, easy targets that could be exploited for money, revenge, or leverage. Hell, I was a perfect example. Eddie had learned my real name, tracked down my family, and just like that, he owned me.
My family wouldn’t even recognize me now. My older brother, Bob, the federal agent, always the righteous, morally grounded, overachieving, tough guy would certainly slap the cuffs on me himself if he had even the slightest clue about the things I’d done, and he’d probably sleep well at night afterward. But he, and all the rest, were family, and I owed them. They wouldn’t understand, but I was doing this for them.
In a way, I could understand Falah’s worry. Even scumbags had loved ones. I just hoped he got that shit cleared up fast so I could hurry up and kill him.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” Hunter said. “I apologize for dragging you boys out of bed so early, but we’ve got work to do. We’re ready to move.”
“Are Hudson and Wheeler coming back, sir?” I asked as we sat down.
“I’m afraid not. I have them on another assignment right now. You two will be on your own. I have confidence in you.”
Tailor and I just looked at each other. Sarah’s face was a mask, but there was concern in her eyes.
Hunter turned on the big screen and began his briefing. “This is Ali bin Ahmed Al Falah. He’s a Saudi national by birth but has lived in Zubara for over ten years. He’s a wealthy, influential landowner and has connections to the Saudi royal family. He’s also a player.” The man pictured was short and overweight. He was wearing a traditional checkered headdress and had a thick white beard.
The picture changed. It was now a much younger Al Falah, dressed in camouflage and holding an RPD machine gun.
“This is Al Falah in 1984,” Hunter continued. “At the age of twenty-six, he dropped out of a Saudi religious university to join the jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan. He fought with the mujahedin for two years before being wounded and returning to Saudi Arabia.”
The picture changed again. This time Al Falah was shaking hands with an all-too-familiar man, and smiling.
“We believe this picture was taken in 1997 or so. Yes, that is Osama bin Laden. As I said, Al Falah is a player. He’s very wealthy, both from his father and from his dealings in the oil and natural gas industry. He’s respected, considered pious, and has an enormous family. Though polygamy is rare in Zubara, he’s got three wives and probably nine children. He lives in a large walled compound outside of the city. Nice place—fountain, palm trees, you name it. He’s got many servants and quite a few Indonesian slave girls as well.”
Tailor and I were taking notes. Hunter told us it wasn’t necessary. Sarah handed each of us a fat manila envelope.
“Everything you need is in here,” Hunter said. “Al Falah never does anything himself. He’s always the behind-the-scenes man, the one pulling the strings and providing the funding. We believe getting shot in the ass in the ‘Stan probably led to this attitude. He raises enormous amounts of cash for various terrorist groups. He has several influential charities in Zubara, Kuwait, and the UAE that are all fronts for donating money to organizations like Hezbollah, Hamas, and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.”
“I’d do this one for free,” Tailor muttered under his breath.
Hunter didn’t seem to hear him. “Fortunately for us, this is one of the rare occasions where removing the man will remove the means. Al Falah does what he does through force of personality. He’s well liked and respected. He goes to Friday services at mosque . . . well, religiously. He always fasts during Ramadan. People are happy to do business with him. Your mission, gentlemen, is to kill Ali bin Ahmed Al Falah. You can use any means you see fit. You are to keep collateral damage to an absolute minimum to keep the Zubarans from getting antsy. You can request any equipment you wish, but no other personnel are available at this time. Failure is not an option. Any questions?”
“This is . . . wow,” I said, looking through the stack of documents.
“Welcome to Big Boy Town,” Hunter said, cracking an evil grin. “You boys were picked for this assignment because I believe you can handle it. I didn’t say it’d be easy. I’m giving you two a lot of leeway. Just get the job done. The best place to hit Al Falah is here,” Hunter said, pointing to a picture that had appeared on the screen. “This is a social club that Al Falah frequents. It’s a coffee house, or a tea house or something like that. Men go there to smoke hookahs, play chess, and shoot the shit. It’s also one of very few public places he’s regularly seen.”
“How often does he go there, sir?” Tailor asked.
“Several nights a week, usually,” Sarah said. “He likes to play chess with his friends.”
“Where does this information come from, sir?” Tailor asked, looking at Colonel Hunter. “Is it reliable?” He seemed uncharacteristically concerned.
“Our intelligence assets are dependable enough, son,” Hunter replied crossly. “We have our own people as well as contacts in the Zubaran intelligence services. This is an important job. This will be our first major hit.”
“Anything else we need to know, sir?” I asked.
“As a matter of fact . . .” Another picture appeared on the screen. This one was of a pretty nondescript Gulf Arab man, in traditional dress, and was taken from far away. “Your secondary target is this man. He’s the new proprietor of the social club. He appeared on the scene a few months ago. We don’t know anything about him other than his name, Khalid.”
“Why’s he important, sir?” I asked.
“He’s hosting Al Falah,” Sarah said. “He’s a facilitator. We’ve picked up some unusual electronic chatter coming from the club. A lot of encrypted phone traffic, stuff like that. We have reason to suspect Khalid is part of the enemy’s support network.”
“Even if that’s not the case,” Hunter said, “everyone in Zubara knows who our target is and what he does. Part of our objective is to make the man on the street afraid to deal with the bad guys. So Khalid is your secondary target. Your tertiary targets are Al Falah’s bodyguards and assistants. Eliminate as many of them as possible.”
Tailor and I exchanged a knowing look. I felt a predatory grin split my face as I returned my attention to the briefing. This was the kind of job I’d signed up for.
The Land Cruiser’s doors opened, and four men, presumably bodyguards, piled out. They were all dressed in cheap-looking suits without ties. As I watched, the driver got out of the Hummer, hurried to the other side of the vehicle, and opened the passenger’s side door.
“There he is,” Tailor said as a short, heavyset man in traditional Gulf Arab garb climbed out of the large yellow SUV. Tailor and I laid eyes on Ali Bin Ahmed Al Falah for the first time. We’d been coming to the same spot for days, watching the social club, waiting for him to make an appearance. Today we finally got lucky.
We were on the second floor of a half-completed building that stood directly across a divided street from the social club. It was going to be an office building of some kind, but construction had been halted. The second floor had large floor-to-ceiling windows on the sides. The glass wasn’t installed yet. We lay on the floor, side by side, shrouded in the darkness the unfinished building provided, watching our target. The sun was low in the western sky behind us. People passing by on the narrow street had no idea we were there. Our vehicle was parked in the narrow alley behind the building, concealed from view.
Tailor reached into his backpack and pulled out a handheld device that looked like a satellite dish. He put on a set of headphones. “Let’s see if we can hear what they have to say.” Neither of us spoke Arabic, but we could connect the parabolic microphone to our radios and transmit the intelligence back to Control.
Al Falah made his way toward the glass front doors of the establishment, with his driver walking just behind. The other bodyguards fanned out and did a half-assed job of observing the area. As Al Falah approached, another man in similar Arab attire appeared from inside. The two men greeted each other warmly, grasping each other’s right hands while putting their left hands on the other man’s right shoulder. They then exchanged kisses on each cheek.
“That must be Khalid.” I squeezed the transmit button on my tiny microphone. “Control, Nightcrawler. We have eyes on the primary, secondary, and tertiary targets. Intel was correct. This is the place.”
“Copy that, Nightcrawler,” Control replied, all business. Anita King was on the radio instead of Sarah.
“Control, Xbox,” Tailor said, “I’m transmitting now.”
“Copy that . . . receiving,” Anita said. I could hear Al Falah and Khalid speaking in Arabic in the background. We observed Al Falah and Khalid for several minutes, until they disappeared into the club, followed by Al Falah’s entourage.
“Did you get all that, Control?” Tailor asked.
“Uh . . . roger that,” Anita said. “They were just greeting each other. Said something about a chess game, and that they were going to discuss a proposal.”
“What kind of proposal?” Tailor asked.
“They didn’t say. Observe the area for as long as you can, then withdraw without being detected.”
“Roger that, Control,” I said. “Out.”
Tailor looked over at me, then back through his binoculars. “I’m hungry.”
“So, what do you think?” I asked. “How you wanna do this?”
“I say we get a scoped rifle and just pop him from here.”
“Sounds easy enough. Do we have a scoped rifle?”
“There’s an SR-25 in the safe house we can use. It’s got a suppressor, too. From right here, we can lay down some fire, drop a bunch of these guys, and then bug out through the back.”
“Did you get a good look at the bodyguards?” I asked. “I think they’ve got sub-guns.”
“Probably little MP5s or something under their suit coats,” Tailor agreed. “Probably can’t shoot for shit. We should be okay.” It was about sixty yards from our position to the front door of the club.
“Cripes, we should’ve brought the rifle with us. We could’ve popped him just now and had it over with,” I said. We’d been ordered to observe the club and try to get a feel for Al Falah’s routine. We knew where Al Falah lived, of course, but it had been deemed too risky to attempt to hit him there.
“Yeah,” Tailor said, not really listening to me. “Can’t see much in the windows. They’re tinted. Al Falah won’t sit by the windows out front anyway. He’s a big shot, right? He’ll have a private room in the back or something.”
“Worse comes to worst we could enter the club,” I suggested, even though I knew that wasn’t a good idea.
“Hell, no. Not with just the two of us. No, we’ll have to hit him here. We’ll only get one shot. If we fuck this up he’ll go underground and we might lose him.”
“You’re right.” I set my binoculars down. “You wanna take the shot, or you want me to?”
“You take the SR-25,” Tailor said. “I’ll grab a carbine and provide cover fire.” Tailor wouldn’t come out and admit it, but I was a more accurate shooter than he was. He was correct in his assertion that we’d only have one shot, too. There wouldn’t be much room for error.
“I don’t like it,” I said. “Just the two of us versus five bodyguards—”
“That we know of,” Tailor interjected.
“Right. Next time he could have more. One shot, maybe two, since the rifle’s an autoloader, before his bodyguards can get him behind cover. A rifle I’ve never shot before, and who the hell knows who zeroed the scope or when.” We didn’t have access to any kind of a shooting range, and I doubted they’d let us risk taking the rifle out into the desert someplace to test-fire it.
“You’re right,” Tailor agreed, setting down his binoculars as well. “If they get Al Falah into that club, we’ll have to go in after him. So you better drop him on the first shot. That’s the best chance we got.”
“Why are there only two of us? We could really use Hudson and Wheeler for this.”
“I don’t know,” Tailor said. “I don’t like it, either.” I could only wonder what kind of operations the others were involved in if they could only spare two of us for a job they insisted was so important. As I continued to watch the social club, I couldn’t help but worry that things were going to get ugly, fast.
It never hurts to recheck your equipment. I put a few drops of Slipstream lube on the frame rails of my STI 4.15 Tactical 9mm before fitting everything back together. The gun was a stubby work of lethal art. Phenomenally accurate and reliable, it was the pistol I used when performance was more important than deniability. I had a few Bulgarian Makarovs and old Browning P35s for that. I worked the slide back and forth quickly, feeling the familiar slickness of oiled metal on metal. I checked the chamber before aiming at Al Falah’s picture that had been taped to the wall. The tritium sights lined up perfectly on the bridge of his nose as I pulled the trigger. The hammer fell with a snap.
Ali bin Ahmed Al Falah dies today.
The old terrorist bastard had dropped by the club yesterday. He was still distraught, but he wasn’t going to let that get in the way of business. Our meeting was on.
An eighteen-round, flush-fit magazine went into the STI. I pulled back the slide and let it fly, feeding a Hornady hollow point into the chamber. If everything went according to plan, that same bullet would end up in one of Al Falah’s bodyguards by the end of the night. He’d beefed up the number on his security detail since his nephew’s murder. Sure, Al Falah was still calling it a kidnapping, but at this point I knew that was wishful thinking.
The call for prayer could be heard coming from the corner mosque as the sun rose. It was a mournful sound but I had spent so many years in places like this that I found it kind of comforting.
I showered, put on the obnoxious perfume that all of the men in this region wore, and dressed in my Zubaran thobe, vest, and head scarf. I’d tailored this one a bit with a few extra pockets, and I could hike up the idiotic skirt and run if I needed to. The reflection in the bathroom mirror was that of an Arab landlord who had become friends with a terrorist. Today would be the last day that this identity would ever exist.
If I were just here to assassinate this man, life would be simple. Murder is easy, no matter who the target. I needed him for so much more, hence the effort of fabricating Khalid. Al Falah needed to quietly disappear. A business meeting meant that he would probably have greater than normal security, but he would also need his computer to arrange the transfer of funds. I needed that computer for Phase Two and I needed Al Falah himself for Phase Three.
I splashed some water on my face and stared into the mirror. This was too damn complicated. If anything went wrong, there was going to be hell to pay. Shutting the faucet off, I dried my hands and prepared myself for what I had to do. My crew had woken up by the time I came out. The three of us ate breakfast in silence. There was a lot riding on today, and we all knew our jobs.
I holstered the pistol under my thobe, along with two more magazines and the Silencerco suppressor that would be attached to the end of the STI’s threaded barrel. My radio went into another pocket.
“You ready?” Carl asked rhetorically, still chewing his Captain Crunch.
“I’m going down to the club,” I answered in Arabic. “I’m expecting a busy day today.”
I’d gone through this routine many times before, and the jitters always passed, but it was different this time. It was just Tailor and me. No backup, no fire support, and our entire egress plan was to get in our car and drive away.
We’d gotten the word earlier in the day. Al Falah would be returning to the club tonight to broker some kind of arms deal with Khalid. Intelligence had given us the time of the meeting, but few other details. It was on.
But still my mind wandered. I had a lot of questions, many that I didn’t dare to ask. I wondered about this intelligence. Where did it come from? Do they have someone inside Al Falah’s network somewhere? Why not have that guy kill him? I wondered what happened to Wheeler and Hudson, too. Though they were supposedly assigned to our chalk, we hadn’t heard from them in days.
I chided myself. So many questions, but now was not the time to worry about them. I returned my attention to my gear. Standing up, I slid on my body armor and adjusted the straps until it snugly conformed to my torso. It was a low-profile vest, black in color, with pockets front and back for hard protective plates. The plates, designed to stop rifle fire, were made of ceramic and were thinner and lighter than any I’d ever seen.
On my left hip was a high-ride concealment holster for my revolver. Tailor flashed me a smirk when I pulled the big wheelgun out of my bag, but I paid him no mind. It was my good-luck charm, and I had a feeling I was going to need some luck tonight.
I put on my jacket. It was loose-fitting, and like my body armor and T-shirt was black in color. In Zubara, it was still fairly cool out in March once the sun went down. I wouldn’t look too out-of-place with a jacket on. The dark color of the jacket made it hard to tell I was wearing the armor vest underneath it.
Reaching down, I picked up my primary weapon and shouldered it. I pulled back the charging handle, observed that the rifle’s chamber was empty, and let the bolt close. I then looked through the scope. The Knight’s Armament SR-25 sniper rifle felt heavy in my hands. Its twenty-inch barrel was capped with a sound suppressor. A folding bipod was attached to its railed hand guards. I began to partially disassemble it so it’d fit in a discreet padded case.
While I did this, Tailor got his own equipment ready. His weapon was a 5.56mm FN Mk.16 carbine, also with a suppressor. The carbine had the short, ten-inch barrel installed, making it very compact. Tailor removed the suppressor, then folded his carbine’s stock. He was then able to fit it into his backpack.
As Tailor and I finished packing our gear, I realized Sarah had come down the stairs. Hunter had left her with us, as he’d been called away for something else. I wasn’t sure why they left her at the safe house instead of bringing her back to the base where she belonged, but I was happy to have her around.
“Be careful,” she said simply. The look on her face told me she wanted to say more.
“We’ll be fine,” I said, hefting my bag. I didn’t mean to be dismissive of Sarah. It was just that I had my game face on and it was hard to be sociable. I looked her in the eye and touched her on the arm as I walked past. She didn’t follow Tailor and me as we made our way up the stairs.
***
“Where is he?” Tailor whispered in frustration.
“Punctuality is not considered a virtue over here,” I said absentmindedly, scanning the front of the club through the SR-25’s scope. It was a lot more crowded than I would’ve preferred. By my count there were more than a dozen patrons, all of them Arab men, most of them in traditional garb, in the club now. I could see a few of them sitting by the windows, smoking, playing chess, and having animated conversations with a lot of hand gestures and laughter.
I looked up from the scope of my rifle and over at Tailor. His carbine was on the floor in front of him. He was propped up on his elbows, watching the front of the club through binoculars. I could tell he wanted a cigarette, but we couldn’t risk the light signature. In order to have a clear shot, we had to get a lot closer to the window than I liked.
Another ten minutes slowly ticked by as the jitters got worse. Finally, a yellow Hummer H2 pulled up to the curb and parked, trailed by the same white Toyota Land Cruiser as last time. I quickly hunkered down behind the rifle as Tailor picked up his carbine and looked through the ACOG scope mounted on it. The jitters melted away. My heart rate slowed down. I felt my body relax as The Calm washed over me again.
A rough-looking man with a brown suit jacket and a bushy mustache got out. It was the same driver from the previous day. Through the rifle scope I could tell that he had a compact submachine gun hidden under his suit jacket. He hurried around to the passenger’s side and opened the door.
Ali bin Ahmed Al Falah stepped out of his truck. He was on the opposite side of the Hummer, and I didn’t have a clear shot, but there was no mistaking his squat stature and white beard.
“That’s our boy,” I whispered. “You confirm?”
“I confirm,” Tailor said.
“Control, Nightcrawler,” I whispered into my microphone. “We have eyes on target.”
“Roger that, Nightcrawler,” Anita said, her voice distant and professional. “You are cleared to engage.”
“Copy,” I said, flipping the SR-25’s selector switch from safe to fire. Al Falah, trailed by his driver, made his way toward the door of the social club. This time he had a large black briefcase in his hand. His four other bodyguards had piled out of the Land Cruiser and fanned out. To my dismay, they seemed more alert than they had the previous day.
“I’ll hit his driver first, then switch to the other bodyguards,” Tailor said. “You take out the primary target first, then the secondary target.” The mission priorities were Al Falah, then Khalid, then the bodyguards. However, our practical priorities were to take care of the people who could shoot back as quickly as possible.
The front doors of the club opened. I recognized Khalid through the scope. As soon as the club’s doors closed behind him, I swiveled the rifle on its bipod, placing the illuminated crosshairs between Al Falah’s shoulder blades. I wasn’t going to attempt a head shot, even at this close range, with a rifle I’d never fired before, not when it was this important. My finger moved to the trigger, and I exhaled.
Crack! The suppressed rifle’s report sounded like a .22. The bullet smacked into my target in a puff of blood, a little higher than where I’d aimed, and tore right through him. Al Falah dropped to the ground like he’d been hit with a bat.
“He’s down,” I said calmly. Tailor fired off a double tap. Al Falah’s driver went down as I swiveled the rifle toward Khalid. The other men standing around began to scurry like cockroaches. The patrons of the club seated next to the windows reacted in horror. Several got up. In a moment, the entire place would empty into the street. “I’ve lost Khalid!” I was getting tunnel vision through my scope. Somebody was shooting back at us.
“He’s behind the Hummer!” Tailor said, firing off another double tap. There was someone crouched down behind the Hummer’s engine block, concealed from my view. I didn’t even see Khalid bolt for cover after I’d shot. He’s fast, I thought. I then cussed at myself. Damn it. I should’ve waited for them to shake hands. Probably could’ve gotten both of them with the same bullet.
The two remaining bodyguards were hunkered down behind the Land Cruiser as Tailor began shooting at it. One of them was foolhardy enough to bolt for Al Falah; I caught him in my crosshairs and put a round through him as he ran. He stumbled as the bullet hit and face-planted onto the sidewalk.
I still didn’t have a shot on Khalid. Swinging the SR-25 around on its bipod, I put two more rounds into Al Falah’s body, just to make sure. The terrorist convulsed as the bullets hit him. Al Falah was quite dead.
Switching back, I rapidly fired into the boxy yellow truck, hoping a bullet would punch through and hit Khalid. Shot after shot, holes appeared in the hood and fender. Then my rifle stopped. I looked at the action; a fired case was sticking sideways out of the ejection port, mashed between the bolt and the breech face.
That same instant, Al Falah’s surviving bodyguard raised his submachine gun over the ventilated hood of the Land Cruiser and ripped off an entire magazine at us. The bullets impacted all around us, kicking up clouds of plaster and dust as they hit. The noise panicked the patrons of the club, and they began to stream out onto the sidewalk, running in different directions. It was time to go.
Tailor roughly slapped me on the shoulder as he got up, changing magazines as he did so. I stood up, slung the SR-25’s carrying case over my shoulder, and followed Tailor, trying to clear the jam as I moved.
We headed back into the building. A Range Rover came speeding around the corner and screeched to a halt next to the Hummer. Four more guys, armed with submachine guns and short-barreled Kalashnikovs, jumped out of the vehicle and fanned out. The bodyguard hiding behind the Land Cruiser leaned around the vehicle, pointed in our direction, and began shouting. As Tailor and I hit the stairs, our hiding place on the second floor of the half-completed building was hosed with automatic weapons fire.
That was the first coherent thought that ran through my mind as Ali bin Ahmed Al Falah’s chest puckered into a grapefruit sized exit hole right in front of me. Scarlet and white bits rose like a cloud as he went to his knees, heart torn in half and still pumping.
I had been on the receiving end of gunfire so many times that I instinctively bolted for cover behind the nearest vehicle. Flinching involuntarily as I wiped the fine mist of Al Falah off my face, I honed in on the shooter’s position across the street. I wasn’t the only one. “Achmed, up there!” the first bodyguard shouted as he lifted his MP5. Two rapid shots came from the building, and the guard went down hard, disappearing from view on the other side of the yellow Hummer. One of the other bodyguards returned fire.
My ear piece crackled. “Who’s shooting? What the hell’s going on?”
“I don’t know! I didn’t fire!” The sniper hammered two more rifle rounds into the fallen man’s back, and now the closest bystanders realized what was happening and ran away screaming.
“Who did, then?”
“A sniper wasted Falah.” I pushed myself tight against the wheel as the sniper fired a couple of rounds into the Hummer. The window shattered, and the nearest guard fell, missing half his face. A Range Rover screeched to a halt and the rest of Falah’s men piled out.
“Witnesses?”
“Bunches,” I replied.
Carl said, “Roger that.” Then there was a stream of profanity so vile that it made me cringe more than the incoming sniper fire. “A public killing! This ruins everything!”
The voice on the radio changed. It was Reaper. “Lorenzo! We still need his computer.”
“Get it! Get the case!” Carl bellowed across the channel. “I’m on the way.”
I risked a peek. The other guards were blasting the crap out of the building. Bystanders were running for their lives. Bodily fluids were draining all over the street, and there it was, a plain leather briefcase, still clutched in Falah’s twitching hand. I had to move now, because some asshole had just blown my carefully laid plans. Starting toward it, I stuck one hand under my thobe and grabbed the butt of my STI. I had spent three months wearing a dress, and I was not leaving without that damned case.
The shooting had stopped. The new guards were shouting and pointing at the sniper’s building. One young man jumped from the vehicle and sprinted toward me. He knelt next to his former boss, barely even registering that I was there, recognizing me from previous visits. The Range Rover tore away, probably in pursuit of the shooter. Good.
“Khalid! Call for doctors!” he shouted. It took a split second for me to realize that was supposed to be my name. Look one way, look the other. People moving, pointing, talking on cell phones, no other guards in sight, this could still work.
“At once!” I answered as I reached down and grabbed the case. Al Falah’s hand wouldn’t let go when I pulled. He had it clutched in a literal death grip. I tugged harder, hoping that the guard would keep trying to hold the contents of Al Falah’s chest in rather than pay any attention to me.
The guard looked up in confusion. “What are you doing? Why—” I kicked him in the teeth, sending him reeling into the gutter. Jerking the case into my arms, I ran back into the club. I pushed past the startled onlookers, their attention mostly on the bodies in the street. Some of them were just realizing that I had booted a man with a submachine gun in the face and robbed the dead. I jerked up the thobe and ran like hell back into the club, through the kitchen, past the startled employees, out the back door, and into the alley. I heard the door slam closed behind me.
I rounded the corner. The stinking alley was empty except for overflowing dumpsters and graffiti-sprayed walls. Carl wasn’t here yet. “Where are you?” I hissed. “I’ve got it. I’m at the back of the club.”
His voice was slightly distorted in my ear. “Coming. I almost got hit by some crazies having a car chase or something.”
I glanced back to the club. Nobody had followed yet, but it wouldn’t be long. I jerked my head around at the noise of an engine. A vehicle pulled into the alley, only it wasn’t Carl’s van, but another car full of angry Muslims, and I immediately recognized the driver screaming into his cell phone as Yousef, one of Al Falah’s men.
No cover, no place to hide. No time to run. Yousef’s eyes widened when he saw me there, splattered in his boss’ blood, stolen briefcase in hand. He was probably on the phone with the guard I had just booted. Ten yards to that vehicle, Yousef behind the wheel, one passenger, no other options, and the 9mm was in my hand before I even thought about it. Car doors flew open as my STI cleared leather.
Time slowed to a crawl. The passenger was quicker, coming up out of the vehicle, stupidly leaving cover, stubby black MP5 rising. Dropping the case, my hands came together, arms punching outward, the gun an extension of my will. The front sight entered my vision, focused so clearly that the bad guy was only a blur behind it. I stroked the perfect trigger to the rear.
The sound should have been deafening, but it seemed more of a muted thump in the narrow alley. The heavy 9mm had virtually no recoil, and I fired as fast as the sights came back into place. The man with the submachine gun fell, his weapon tumbling from his hands. My muzzle moved, seemingly on its own, over the driver’s windshield where Yousef, face betraying his shock, was slower to react, cell phone falling from his open hand as he wrestled with his seat belt. The glass spiderwebbed as I opened fire, obscuring my target. Uncertain as to his fate, I continued firing, pumping round after round through the car. The slide locked back empty. The spent magazine struck the ground as I automatically speed-reloaded.
I had done this kind of thing a few times.
Carl’s white van careened wildly into the alley, locked up the brakes and narrowly stopped inches from the car’s bumper. “Down! Down!” he screamed out the window, creating a weird off-time effect as my radio earpiece repeated it a millisecond later. Without hesitation I flung myself into the garbage. The muzzle of a Galil SAR extended from the van’s window as Carl fired over my head. The cracks of the .223 were ear-splitting compared to my 9mm.
Rolling over, I could see dust and debris spraying from the club’s rear exit. The guard I had kicked a moment ago was sliding limply down the door frame, already on the way to his seventy-two-virgin welcoming committee.
“Let’s get out of here!” Carl shouted. I scrambled to my feet, grabbed the case, and ran past the shot-up car, keeping my gun up, scanning for threats, and pulled myself into the already moving van. We sped off into the streets, Carl’s beady eyes flickering rapidly back and forth, looking for cops. I reholstered my gun and watched as my hands began to shake.
“Did you get the computer?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Didn’t get hit. Thanks for asking,” I replied.
He rolled his eyes. I opened the case, and inside was the unharmed laptop. So at least we hadn’t screwed everything. Months of planning and preparation, Phase One almost done, Phase Two ready to go, and all screwed because some mystery person whacks my target in public. Damn it. Damn it. Could we still pull this off? We had to. We sure couldn’t afford to fail.
I closed my hand into a fist as the trembling continued. I was going to figure out who screwed us, and I was going to make them pay.