the dramatic and penchant for beheadings, he was pretty sure what would start the attack. He envisioned Fiona Katamora’s graceful neck bent and a man standing over her with a sword.
When he closed his eyes, the sword came down in a shining blur.
THIRTY-FOUR
THE EXECUTION EXAMINED THE ROOM CRITICALLY. HE was alone for now, but there was plenty of space for witnesses, though they had been forced to use a lottery system to choose the lucky ones. The black backdrop, a piece of thick cloth hung from a pipe, was in place. The camera sat on its tripod and had already been tested. The uplink worked perfectly. There was thick plastic sheeting on the floor to make cleanup afterward a bit easier.
He recalled the first time he’d used a sword to decapitate a man. His victim’s heart had been racing and his blood pressure dangerously high, so when the head came free it was like a fountain. So much blood erupted from the stump that they opted to abandon the safe house in Baghdad they had used rather than clean the mess.
Tonight would be his eleventh, and for him the most satisfying. He’d never killed a woman before—at least, not with a sword. Since taking up arms he’d killed dozens of women in bombings from Indonesia to Morocco. And in firefights with Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq, stray rounds had certainly hit others.
He gave them little thought. Al-Jama had issued orders and he had carried them out. There was no more weight on his conscience than had he been told to shake his victims’ hands rather than blow them up.
Of course the irony, and open secret within the organization, was that he wasn’t a practicing Muslim. He’d been born into the faith, but his parents hadn’t been devout followers so he’d visited mosques only on holy days. He’d only come to Al-Jama after a hitch with the French Foreign Legion had given him a taste for combat that he had yet to slake. He fought and killed and maimed for himself, not for some insane religious conviction that slaughter was somehow Allah’s will.
He didn’t try to understand the motivations of those who fought with him so long as they followed orders. He did admit, however, that the fear of missing out on Paradise kept the fighters motivated to a degree only the best- trained armies could achieve. And the ability to talk people into blowing themselves up was a weapon unlike any other in the arsenals of the world. It went so against the West’s precepts for the preservation of life that the effects rippled from the blast’s epicenter to the very hearts of any who learned of it.
A subaltern knocked softly at the doorframe behind him. “Does everything meet your needs, Mansour?”
“Yes,” he said absently. “This will be fine.”
“When should we get the American whore?”
“Not until just before her execution. It’s been my experience that they are most terrified in those first moments when they realize their death is upon them.”
“As you wish. If you need anything further, I am just outside.”
The executioner didn’t bother to reply, and the man stepped out of view again.
He doubted there would be any pleas for mercy from the woman. He’d observed her only briefly but had a strong sense of her defiance. He actually preferred it that way. The men loved the crying and wailing, but he found it . . . bothersome. Yes, that was the word, bothersome. Better to accept fate, he believed, than to demean yourself in worthless begging. He wondered if they actually believed carrying on would stop their execution. By the time they met him, their death was an inevitability, and pleading was as useless as trying to stave off an avalanche by raising your arms protectively.
No, the woman would not beg.
“WATCH THE RIGHT FLANK,” Linda said, and fired a controlled burst over the
The muzzle flash drew counterfire from four different points.
Eric had been ready for it, crouched twenty feet farther along the deck. He raked the spot where one of the terrorists was hiding, but in the cavern’s absolute darkness he had no idea if he’d hit anything.
In the first furious seconds of the gunfight, both sides scrambled to organize themselves after the surprise encounter. Linda quickly ordered her people onto the
They came swiftly, flicking their flashlights on and off like lightning bugs in order to see the terrain but not overly expose themselves. The Corporation team concentrated their fire on the men with the lights before realizing their mistake. The men carrying torches only turned them on when they were behind cover. The beams were meant for others scouting ahead.
“Come on, come on,” Mark chided himself as he tore through his pack, tossing aside gear with abandon. “I know it’s in here.”
Bullets stitched the side of the ship, several winging through a gunport and splintering wood inches from where he crouched.
Linda called to Eric. “On my mark. Go!”
They both popped up and let loose. In their scramble to find cover, a terrorist accidentally stepped into the beam of his partner’s light. He was climbing the old riverbank to gain access to the pier. Had he reached it, he would have been able to hose the deck and end the battle single-handedly.
The beam barely caressed his leg, but it was enough. Linda adjusted her aim, approximated where his torso would be, and fired again. She was rewarded with a scream that echoed over the rattling assault rifles.
She and Eric both ducked down when rounds filled the air around them.
“This is crazy,” Eric panted.
He couldn’t see her saucy grin but heard it in her voice when she said, “I’ve never been in a firefight that wasn’t.”
