“I’ll hit his driver first, then switch to the other bodyguards,” Tailor said. “You take out the primary target first, then the secondary target.” The mission priorities were Al Falah, then Khalid, then the bodyguards. However, our practical priorities were to take care of the people who could shoot back as quickly as possible.
The front doors of the club opened. I recognized Khalid through the scope. As soon as the club’s doors closed behind him, I swiveled the rifle on its bipod, placing the illuminated crosshairs between Al Falah’s shoulder blades. I wasn’t going to attempt a head shot, even at this close range, with a rifle I’d never fired before, not when it was this important. My finger moved to the trigger, and I exhaled.
Crack! The suppressed rifle’s report sounded like a .22. The bullet smacked into my target in a puff of blood, a little higher than where I’d aimed, and tore right through him. Al Falah dropped to the ground like he’d been hit with a bat.
“He’s down,” I said calmly. Tailor fired off a double tap. Al Falah’s driver went down as I swiveled the rifle toward Khalid. The other men standing around began to scurry like cockroaches. The patrons of the club seated next to the windows reacted in horror. Several got up. In a moment, the entire place would empty into the street. “I’ve lost Khalid!” I was getting tunnel vision through my scope. Somebody was shooting back at us.
“He’s behind the Hummer!” Tailor said, firing off another double tap. There was someone crouched down behind the Hummer’s engine block, concealed from my view. I didn’t even see Khalid bolt for cover after I’d shot. He’s fast, I thought. I then cussed at myself. Damn it. I should’ve waited for them to shake hands. Probably could’ve gotten both of them with the same bullet.
The two remaining bodyguards were hunkered down behind the Land Cruiser as Tailor began shooting at it. One of them was foolhardy enough to bolt for Al Falah; I caught him in my crosshairs and put a round through him as he ran. He stumbled as the bullet hit and face-planted onto the sidewalk.
I still didn’t have a shot on Khalid. Swinging the SR-25 around on its bipod, I put two more rounds into Al Falah’s body, just to make sure. The terrorist convulsed as the bullets hit him. Al Falah was quite dead.
Switching back, I rapidly fired into the boxy yellow truck, hoping a bullet would punch through and hit Khalid. Shot after shot, holes appeared in the hood and fender. Then my rifle stopped. I looked at the action; a fired case was sticking sideways out of the ejection port, mashed between the bolt and the breech face.
That same instant, Al Falah’s surviving bodyguard raised his submachine gun over the ventilated hood of the Land Cruiser and ripped off an entire magazine at us. The bullets impacted all around us, kicking up clouds of plaster and dust as they hit. The noise panicked the patrons of the club, and they began to stream out onto the sidewalk, running in different directions. It was time to go.
Tailor roughly slapped me on the shoulder as he got up, changing magazines as he did so. I stood up, slung 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.