“Grenade out!” he yelled, tossing it toward the rear of the aircraft.
Chapter 52
Farrington dropped to the hard tarmac the moment the red light disappeared from the crew door next to him. His quick instinct was rewarded by the hollow metallic thunk of a bullet above him. Aleem Fayed spun and fired two quick shots toward the nose of the aircraft.
“Two targets! Front landing gear,” said Fayed before his body crumpled to the ground like a rag doll.
Flashes erupted behind Farrington from the rear wheel housing, bullets cutting through the team from a third direction. This would be over in a few seconds if they remained exposed like this. There was only one place to go, and he had no idea if the situation would be better or worse when they got there. Holloman’s head snapped back, a dark splotch appearing against the side of the gray aircraft. It couldn’t be any worse than this.
“Go under! Get to the other side!” he yelled, rolling underneath the aircraft.
Bullets chased him across the concrete for half of the trip, the initial gunmen quickly losing their firing angles from positions best suited for catching them in an ambush along the port side of the aircraft. When he emerged on the opposite side of the C-17’s belly, he caught two men in full tactical gear crouched in the open next to the refueling truck.
They either didn’t see him or didn’t expect him. It didn’t matter. Farrington lined their dark forms up with his tritium sights and fired center mass. One of the men dropped into a seated position on the ground. The other spun against the truck’s front wheel well and went to his knees. Knowing they weren’t out of the fight, he closed the short distance, alternating bullets between them until he was close enough to shoot them in the face. He drilled the seated man in the nose; then the pistol’s slide locked back.
“Shit,” he muttered, ejecting the magazine while his free hand retrieved another.
He’d practiced swapping pistol magazines more than a thousand times, under every possible condition, but when the second commando unexpectedly twisted on his knees to face him, Farrington knew it wasn’t going to happen. A thousand times? Two thousand times? When your time was up — your time was up.
He slammed the new magazine home anyway, staring down the barrel of a compact rifle. The man’s head jerked backward against the tire well, the rest of his body going slack. Farrington crouched between the two dead men and searched for his savior. Dihya Castillo lay flat on the tarmac directly underneath the aircraft, her pistol extended in both hands. She was the only other member of the team that had made it under the C-17.
“Keep going!” he yelled.
She started to crawl, but fell flat on her stomach with an agonized groan. Farrington started forward, then froze. Castillo held her left hand out, telling him to stop, while the other rapidly fired her pistol at a dark form barely visible to him on the other side of the aircraft. The shadowy figure slumped to its hands and knees, head down. Farrington picked up the suppressed M4 carbine and fired twice. The shooter’s body flattened. He started toward Castillo again.
“No! There’s a sniper out there!” she yelled. “I’m done anyway.”
“Fuck that,” he muttered, determined to grab her.
Her body shuddered from a high-velocity impact, the supersonic crack startling him. Gunfire continued to rage inside the aircraft, but he could tell that battle was dying down. Farrington resolved to make this as painful as possible for whoever was behind this. He’d use the fuel truck to blow the whole fucking plane up before he was finished. He snatched three thirty-round magazines for the M4 from one of the vests and took off behind the fuel truck, stuffing the magazines in his pocket as he ran.
A shooter hidden behind the bulging wheel well fired at him when he poked his head around, striking the edge of the fuel tank. Scratch the fuel truck idea. He’d find another way. Farrington peeked again, drawing fire, one of the bullets creasing his hair. He dropped into a prone position behind the back wheels of the truck and leaned quickly into the open, finding his target in the rifle’s holographic sight. A single trigger press sent a bullet straight into the shooter’s chest before he could readjust his aim. The man staggered sideways, trying to recover from the hit to his body armor. Farrington followed up with three shots to the upper chest and neck area, putting him down.
He searched the shadowy area around the massive landing gear, coming up empty, which didn’t mean he was in the clear. His view was limited, and he knew it. The pistol fire inside the C-17 had nearly stopped, the sound of Hoffman’s submachine gun conspicuously missing. Even the suppressed fire from the hostile rifles had slowed, replaced by more methodical bursts. They were mopping up the last survivors. He had to act.
Farrington burst into the open, sprinting for the rear cargo bay ramp. He’d almost reached the ramp when he heard a familiar voice.
“Grenade out!”
They were still in this.
Chapter 53
Hoffman’s intentional use of the word grenade had the desired effect. Unable to see what he’d thrown into the rear of the cargo bay, the gunmen scrambled out of the aircraft, shouting panicked orders. Fragmentation grenades and fuel-laden aircraft didn’t mix. The moment they scattered for the ramp, he rolled to the left, drawing fire from the top of the stairs.
A pistol low to the deck and across from him unleashed several shots at the elevated gunman before Hoffman pressed the MP9’s trigger, adding to the sparks flying off the top of the metal staircase. A tightly spaced series of earsplitting explosions crunched his eardrums and lit the cargo bay, spurring him into action.
“Clear the front! Clear the front!” he screamed, barely able to hear his own words.
Hoffman leapt forward onto his feet and rapidly moved to the front of the cargo bay, firing short bursts up the stairwell and scanning for the loadmaster. Ashraf Haddad sprinted past him on the right, checking the loadmaster station before pressing himself against the side of the aircraft and aiming his pistol at the open crew door.
The loadmaster had disappeared, either out the door to help ambush the team outside or down the short passageway next to the stairwell to hide behind the stairs. Both scenarios presented a problem he needed to solve in the next few seconds before the confusion sowed by the flash-bang grenade dissipated.
With Haddad covering the door, he chose to clear the area behind the stairs. Another flash-bang would do nicely right about now, but he didn’t have the time to dig through one of the packs behind him to retrieve one. Hoffman improvised, firing the rest of his MP9’s magazine into the dark red space, igniting it with sparks before yelling, “Grenade out!” He tossed the spent submachine gun into the loadmaster’s possible hiding space and dropped to the ground with his pistol drawn.
Much to his surprise, the ruse worked. A dark figure lurched into the dark red passageway and charged forward, firing a compact weapon on full automatic. The bullets zipped harmlessly over the Black Flag operative’s head, the fusillade answered by several swiftly fired bullets from Haddad’s and Hoffman’s pistols. The loadmaster twitched from the repeated hits, careening into the stairway’s handrail and sliding to the deck.