The Last Patriot

designed to help minimize loss of blood and get you back in the fight as fast as possible. Everyone on Ozbek’s team wore them and had trained with them extensively.

Ozbek was about to confirm that Rasmussen had activated the tourniquet when he heard another series of rounds drill into the apartment.

“Son of a bitch,” groaned Rasmussen over his mike.

“Take cover,” ordered Ozbek.

“I did,” his colleague replied. “This asshole knows exactly where I am.”

Ozbek was about to climb out of the tub when silenced rounds started pinging off it yet again. How the hell does he know exactly where we are?

He looked up to see if there were any cameras that might tell him how the shooter was pinpointing their locations and then his heart dropped into his stomach. The thermal imaging device.

Ozbek clicked his transmitter in rapid succession. Nothing. He tried to raise Whitcomb once more, and when he received seven clicks to the tune of Shave-and-a-haircut-two-bits he knew that Whitcomb was dead. He also knew that he and Rasmussen were both sitting ducks. The shooter not only had the imaging device, he had Whitcomb’s radio. What he didn’t have, though, was their alternate frequency.

Ozbek didn’t need to tell Rasmussen to switch freqs. He’d heard the same thing and was already on their alternate channel.

“He’s got the imaging unit, doesn’t he?” whispered Rasmussen, his voice strained. He didn’t bother to ask about Whitcomb. He didn’t want to know the answer.

“Yes,” replied Ozbek as he looked up at the bathroom mirror hanging on one hinge. Through its broken glass, he could see where the rounds had come through the drywall. “He’s firing laterally in four-to-six-inch patterns.”

“What do you want to do?”

Ozbek needed to come up with something fast. If he and Rasmussen fired blindly into the hallway, their rounds would penetrate the apartments on the other side and very likely kill innocent people. If they sat there and did nothing, though, they were as good as dead and Dodd would get away.

If only the shooter couldn’t see them.

Suddenly, Ozbek knew what they had to do. “Raz,” he said over the radio, “is there a thermostat out there?”

Rasmussen scanned the walls with his flashlight until he found it. “Yes.”

“Can you get to it?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you have for cover?” asked Ozbek as he turned on the cold water in the tub.

“The couch.”

“You’ve got to reach that thermostat. We need to get the heat up as high as possible.”

Rasmussen studied the distance and gave the couch a nudge with his shoulder. It moved but only barely. He tried again, harder this time and it moved a little bit more. On his third shove, bullets came through the wall all around him.

Rasmussen yelled out loud as he planted his good leg and pushed the couch with all of his might. It moved more than he expected and shot off at an angle jamming up against a bookcase.

Crawling behind the length of the couch, the injured CIA operative got his hands behind the bookcase and pulled as hard as he could, sliding it away from the wall, careful not to tip it over. Finally, he had it far enough out that he could snake behind it and reach the thermostat on the other side.

Pushing himself up on his good leg, Rasmussen reached out as far as he could and flipped the temperature gauge as high as it would go.

He dropped back to the floor as more rounds pierced the bookcase and drilled into the wall where he had just been standing.

“It’s done,” said Rasmussen.

“Hang in there,” replied Ozbek as he slipped fully clothed and with his body armor into the tub that was rapidly filling with bone-chilling water.

There were multiple risks to what Ozbek was doing and he was aware of them all, but he was also aware that he had no choice. The key was in discerning the proper moment to get out of the tub.

Even if the heating unit was only adequate, the small apartment shouldn’t take long to heat up. The longer he waited, the better chance he had of his plan working, but that held true for the shooter as well.

Ozbek knew there was only so much of a drop in body temperature he could expect in a short amount of time, but every little bit would help. Being an older generation, the imaging unit had its limitations. Ozbek needed to get his temperature as close to the apartment’s as possible, thereby rendering his heat signature as near to invisible as possible. Once he did he would have to move fast.

From the reports he was getting from Rasmussen, the shooter seemed to be focusing entirely on the wounded man. Three more waves of fire had come through the wall, splintered the bookcase, and slammed into the couch.

The shooter had apparently given up on Ozbek for the time being. By taking out Rasmussen in the living room, he’d then be able to enter via the front door and take Ozbek out from inside the apartment.

Ozbek knew they couldn’t wait any longer. “Raz,” he said into his mike. “How hot is it out there?”

“I can’t see the thermostat, but it’s getting hot,” he replied.

“Okay, I’m going off comms and coming out. Don’t shoot me.”

“Roger that,” replied Rasmussen.

Ozbek pulled out his earpiece and then submerged his head beneath the water for as long as he could.

Breaking the surface, he quickly soaked a towel, draped it over his head, and slid out of the tub.

CHAPTER 54

Ozbek didn’t wait to see if the shooter was going to start firing at him. He knew that his body heat would begin rising soon.

He rushed into the living room with his pistol up and at the ready. At the door, he crouched down and reached up with his left hand to grab the handle.

When the door released, he pulled it back slowly, just enough to squeeze through, and then swung into the hallway.

He found the shooter halfway down the hall with the thermal imaging unit pressed up against his face. Ozbek pulled his trigger. The man stumbled backward and as the imaging unit fell to the ground, Ozbek saw the face of Matthew Dodd.

He pulled the trigger again, punching another two rounds into the man’s chest and sending him tumbling backwards.

As Dodd fell, he squeezed the trigger of his own weapon, splintering the doorframe just above Ozbek’s head.

Ozbek rolled back into the apartment and called for Rasmussen to come give him cover fire. Risking a peek into the hallway, he snapped his head back inside just as two more of Dodd’s rounds came blistering toward him.

Ozbek waited a beat and then stuck his gun around the door frame and pulled the trigger.

Once more, he called for Rasmussen and once more he stuck his head into the hallway. This time, he saw Dodd racing into the rear stairwell. Ozbek fired, but the man disappeared from view.

When Ozbek glanced back in the apartment and saw Rasmussen’s condition, he knew he had to get him medical attention soon. There was also Stephanie Whitcomb to consider. For all he knew, she could still be alive outside, barely clinging to life.

Even so, Matthew Dodd was too damn close to let get away.

Ozbek looked at Rasmussen and said, “I’ll be right back,” as he jumped up and charged into the hallway.

He reached the rear stairs and took them three at a time. He landed hard on the first landing and peered