At the time Jack though he might be overcautious— even paranoid — when he double-tagged the Saudi national. But since the sudden traffic jam on the highway, his suspicions had returned. So far they appeared to be unfounded.
As they rolled past the intersection of South Brad-bury Boulevard and Clark Street, the convoy moved out of an area of chain link fences and truck parks, entering a two-lane canyon flanked by block-long rows of flat, two- and three-story industrial buildings. Noting their location, Jack opened his cell phone, intending to contact Nina for an update on tracking down a reference for the “old man on the mountain.” Instead Jack was thrown against his shoulder harness when the driver slammed on the brakes. A long trailer truck had backed out of a garage, directly in the path of the convoy. Tires squealed, but there was no collision.
“Stupid son of a bitch could have killed us!” cried the policeman at the wheel. While Jack retrieved his fallen cell, the driver rolled down his window to yell at the trucker.
“Once a traffic cop, always a traffic cop,” grunted the tactical officer in the backseat.
Still stooped over and fumbling for his phone, Jack heard the voice of the chopper pilot on his headset. “Code Red. Code Red, there are men on the roof. Repeat—”
But Jack wasn’t listening. He’d spied the driver’s open window and cried out. “No! That glass is bulletproof. Don’t expose—”
Almost simultaneously Jack heard the sonic boom and the thwack of the bullet as it struck the driver in the throat. Hot blood sprayed the window, coating it. Two more shots ricocheted through the vehicle. A grunt, and the tactical officer slumped forward in his seat, left eye dripping from its socket. More bullets riddled the vehicle, chipping — but not penetrating— the bulletproof glass. Jack stayed close to the floor, realizing that reaching for his fallen cell phone was the only thing that had saved him.
“Officers down,” he shouted into his headset. “We are under fire. Officers down. Repeat, officers down.”
A voice crackled in his ear — the chopper pilot, but Jack could not make out his words. Outside, he heard the chatter of automatic weapons and guessed the helicopter was under attack.
Still on the floor of the cab, Jack reached out and closed the passenger side window. More shots bounced off the reinforced windshield. Jack pocketed the cell phone and took a deep breath. Then he leaped into the backseat. More shots struck the window, cracking the windshield down the middle.
Jack landed next to the SWAT team officer. Like the driver, the man was gone, his Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun still in his hands. Jack pried the weapon loose, collected a pair of XM84 stun grenades from the dead man’s vest, looted clips of gore-soaked ammo from his belt. The voices on the police net had reached panic level, screaming into Jack’s ear. Lifting his head above the seat, he scanned the vehicles behind him.
The armored van bringing up the rear sat with its doors hanging open. Though protected in their bullet-resistant van, the tactical officers had attempted to respond to the attack. Now they both lay in the street, rivers of blood pooling around them on the hot pavement. So far, the prisoner transport vehicle did not seem to have been breached, though the driver was hunched, unmoving, over the steering wheel.
Jack flipped onto his back. Sprawled across the backseat, he scanned the rooftops. He could see armed, masked, black-clad figures on the edge of the buildings. They were on both sides of the street, four on each building, eight in all — then a ninth rose into view. The man held a dull gray tube on his shoulder, aimed the weapon at armored transport.
“Frank!” Jack screamed into his headset. “If you can hear me, get out of there now—”
Trailing fire and hot smoke, the shoulder-fired antitank missile slammed into the prisoner transport vehicle. Jack watched helplessly as the blunt tip of the shape-charged projectile punched a hole into the side of the truck, filling the vehicle with a fiery jet of molten plasma. The interior of the cab lit up like a strobe light as the windows and doors blew out. The dead driver was flipped like a rag doll over the steering wheel and into the street.
The echo of the blast had not yet faded when a half-dozen men burst out of the doors of the trailer truck that had veered into their path. Jack heard footsteps pounding as the men ran past his van, heading toward the shattered transport. Jack knew they were after the prisoner — to rescue Ibn al Farad or silence him forever. Either way, Jack had to stop them.
He set the weapon to its sustained fire setting, took a deep breath and toggled the door. As soon as it opened, Jack tumbled to the street, rolling under the van. He aimed the MP5 at three men clustered around the door to the transport, squeezed the trigger. The weapon would spew bullets as long as the trigger was depressed.
Two figures danced as hot steel shells ripped them apart. Jack saw their weapons clatter to the pavement — an M-16 A2 assault rifle and a Remington M870 shotgun.
Slithering across the hot, oily pavement, Jack moved to the other side of the van. He rolled out from under the vehicle, tossing a non-lethal stun grenade into a second knot of men. The explosion sent the men reeling. One figure turned, aimed a shotgun. The MP5 bucked in Jack’s hands and he stitched a bloody path up the man’s torso.
Three men emerged from the smoking interior of the shattered transport truck — two attackers dragging a stunned Ibn al Farad between them.
Jack took aim, but before he could squeeze the trigger, a steel-toed boot crashed against his head, knocking him aside. Jack bounced off the van with a hollow thud; the weapon flew from his grip.
Dazed, Jack opened his eyes to see the muzzle of a Remington shotgun just inches from his face. He stared past the gun, into the eyes of the man behind the mask, and he saw his own death.
Then Jerry Alder stumbled out of the wreckage, his service revolver blazing. The man standing over Jack jerked once, twice, then sprawled across him, the shotgun clattering on the pavement. Jack struggled under the dead man’s weight, watching helplessly as the assassins tossed Ibn al Farad into another vehicle.
More shots, and Alder was knocked backward in a fountain of blood. Engines roared, tires squealed on hot asphalt and the assassins raced away. In seconds the chaotic battlefield fell silent. Jack threw the corpse aside and stumbled to his feet. Reeling unsteadily, he lurched toward the transport.
Detective Castalano was there, beside the smoking vehicle. Blood oozed from his nose, mouth. He held his partner in his arms. Alder was alive, too, and alert. His jacket was open, white shirt ripped. A sucking chest wound bubbled black arterial blood.
“Frank! Are you okay?”
The man didn’t respond, so Jack touched his arm. Frank whirled on him, revolver aimed at his face.
“I called for backup,” Jack told him. “Help is on its way.”
Frank lowered his weapon. He shook his head. “I can’t hear you, Jack…”
Jack realized his friend had been deafened by the blast that had torn the vehicle open. Jack realized something else, too. The ankle bracelet with the tracker embedded inside was lying in the truck. It had been cut away by the men who took their prisoner.
In the distance, Jack heard sirens. He swung around. Eyes scanning, he noted the van that had brought up the rear was still in working order. The driver and passenger were dead on the pavement, but the engine was still idling. Jack grabbed Frank’s arm, squeezed it until the man looked up again.