of the tower, away from the stairs. There was no time to hide the rifle and no point in trying. The probst had assured him the exclusive use of the tower…
He dropped to one knee by a corner of the belfry, steadying the Beretta in both hands. Aimed at the stairs.
A head emerged from the stairwell, a black balaclava masking it, then shoulders. Thomas took careful aim, the sights of the Beretta aimed directly at the head of his target.
Whether some sound or simply a premonition of death warned the intruder, Thomas would never know. The head and body shifted upward just as he squeezed the trigger, and the bullet smashed into the target’s shoulder.
Crying out in pain, the intruder reeled forward, clutching his right arm. Thomas crossed the belfry in two quick steps, his left hand slashing forward to deliver an edge-of-the-hand blow to the intruder’s throat.
The man crumpled, grabbing Thomas’ arm as he went and pulling him down, the Beretta slipping from his fingers.
A knife flashed in the intruder’s hand and Thomas seized hold of his wrist, leveraging against the injured shoulder.
At that moment, a bullet burned through the air past his ear, caroming off the chiseled limestone wall. Wrenching the knife free with a final desperate effort, he rolled away from his downed man, swinging round on the new threat.
The second assailant was by the brink of the stairs, moving forward, a semiautomatic pistol in his hands. Pain shooting through his side, Thomas pivoted from his prone position, hooking his right foot behind the attacker’s leg. Caught off-balance, the man staggered back as Thomas’s left heel delivered a vicious kick to his shin. Two steps back, and then there was air beneath his feet.
A scream of fear and surprise tore through the air as the intruder toppled backward into the stairwell, disappearing from sight.
“EAGLE SIX to LONGBOW, do you copy? What is your sitrep?”
Thomas forced himself to ignore the voice in his ear, swinging around as the first assailant rose to his knees, his elbow arcing into the man’s jaw…
“EAGLE SIX to LONGBOW, I need a sitrep.” Harry closed his eyes, forcing calm. Something had gone wrong. Seven minutes now.
At that moment, his headset crackled, a voice coming on the network. “FULLBACK to EAGLE SIX, we have a package.”
Harry sprang to the surveillance screens, his heart in his throat. There, on one of the screens, he saw the three men kneeling by a doorway, their bodies almost obscuring a stainless steel canister.
“Where are you, FULLBACK?”
“A corridor just off the main hall, to the east of the Mihrab. The canister was tucked beside a bookshelf-it’s shaped like somebody’s oxygen tank. A curtain was draped nearby, shielding it from the cameras. GUNHAND, are you there? We’ve got to disarm this thing.”
“I’m here,” Tex replied, moving to the screens beside Harry. With a couple of keystrokes, he zoomed in the camera, focusing on the canister. “Stand back so I can take a look. There should be an anti-tamper device somewhere-you’ll need to disarm that first.”
“Already done,” Hamid replied. “A five-ounce packet of C-4 on the backside of the canister.”
“Make sure it’s the only one. Then turn the canister over-I’ll need to see the wiring.”
The intruder was laying across two of the rough-hewn steps about twenty feet down, his eyes staring sightlessly upward through the holes in the ski mask. The fall had broken his back. The man possessed no wallet or identification, but Thomas took a cellphone from the pocket of his jacket. A couple steps down, he picked up the dead man’s semiautomatic, a Russian-made 9mm Grach, and shoved it in his waistband, making his way back up to the belfry. He let the man lie where he fell.
“EAGLE SIX to LONGBOW. Come in, LONGBOW.”
“Yeah, EAGLE SIX, I’m here,” Thomas replied breathlessly, kneeling beside the unconscious man on the balcony.
“What’s going on, man? Your sitrep was five minutes ago.”
“I had company,” Thomas retorted. “A pair of tangos who somehow figured out my location.”
“And?”
“One unconscious, one KIA. I’ll see what I can get.”
“Keep me posted. The first package has been located-we’re in the process of disarming it.”
“Don’t let me keep you,” was Thomas’s ironic reply as he turned back to the prone form of his assailant. With a quick motion, he jerked the balaclava from the intruder’s head and a gasp of surprise escaped his lips. The fabric pulled away to reveal the smooth face of a woman…
Despite the slight chill in the October air, Hamid was sweating as he worked over the device, the voice in his ear guiding him on.
“We’re almost done, I think. This looks like a Czech set-up-there should be a black wire to the right- there.”
“Snip it?” Hamid asked, wiping his palms against his jeans. This wasn’t Hollywood-there was no digital panel ticking away the seconds, but he could feel them nonetheless. Sixty-four minutes, give or take a few.
“No,” Tex replied, his voice maddeningly calm. “You’ll need to detach it from the detonator without cutting it.”
“Suggestions?”
“Use the pliers as tweezers. It should come loose.”
Hamid took a deep breath, his fingers trembling as he inched the pliers toward the wire, metal touching against insulated wire, closing around it.
A gentle tug. The black wire came free, falling harmlessly away from the detonator and Hamid could hear a collective sigh of relief escape the men behind him.
One canister down. Three to go…
At the first impact of the water, the young woman moaned, her eyes blinking. Thomas paused for a moment and then emptied most of the rest of his canteen across her face.
She roused, shaking her head and groaning in pain as she leaned against the wall. Her eyes flickered open, idly resting on his face. Then, suddenly, recognition flooded across her countenance and she tried to lunge for him, only to realize her hands and feet were securely bound with zip ties.
The stream of curses that escaped her lips was sufficient to surprise even Thomas, whose command of Arabic could only pick out the most prominent obscenities.
Unperturbed, he listened for a moment, then lifted his hand without warning and backhanded her across the face.
“Listen to me,” he instructed in Arabic, ignoring the glare of defiance on her face. He knelt in front of her,
