Dead Six

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.

LORENZO

Half a year of my life . . . wasted.

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