There was no question that Rapp’s companion had seen a great deal in his life. But there was a difference between seeing and participating. He hadn’t panicked or run, though, and that was worth something.
“Then let’s go.”
As they started toward the entrance to the building, Rapp instinctively raised a hand to activate his throat mike but then remembered it wasn’t there. Just like his body armor, night vision gear, and, most critically, his silencer. It wasn’t quite as bad as going up against a group of well-armed jihadists with a stick and a rock, but it was close. At least sticks and rocks were quiet.
They stopped outside the door and Rapp leaned into Mohammad’s ear. “Remember, we belong here. Until we’re sure those kids are locked away upstairs, anyone we run into is our best friend. All you have to do is translate for me just like you did with the guard. If you stay calm, all this will be over in a few minutes.”
After a nervous nod, they entered a lobby decorated with a bullet-ridden plaque commemorating the school’s opening. Dim, widely spaced bulbs strung together with extension cords provided enough illumination to navigate but not much more. Rapp led, bloody knife still held against his forearm.
They stayed in the center of the hallway, walking casually through a litter of crayon drawings that recalled better times.
“Left just ahead,” Mohammed said.
Rapp strode into the narrower corridor, slowing when he noticed that the doors along the right side contained windows. Some had intact glass and others shattered, but all the rooms they looked onto were dark. He moved quickly to the first, peering inside at a classroom full of overturned desks.
The next one looked similar, but with one critical difference visible near the center: a lone cot with a man asleep on it. Rapp was about to continue on when he spotted a shadow moving among the desks piled against the far wall. His hand moved subtly toward the gun in his waistband but then his mind identified the vague shape. A girl, probably not much older than Anna, naked and shivering.
Rapp felt his anger building again, but he pushed it aside. There would be time to let it out soon enough.
Footsteps became audible approaching from the west and Rapp turned away from the window, motioning for Mohammed to remain calm.
The armed man who appeared around the corner looked a hell of a lot more serious than the guard at the gate. Rapp computed the distance between them and tried to figure the odds that he could hit him with an underhand knife throw. Before he could finish his calculation, though, the man shouted at him in thickly accented English.
“Eric! I saw you in the square, but I could not reach you in the crowd!”
Rapp was starting to enjoy his newfound fame. Maybe they’d throw him a party and he could pop every one of these pieces of shit while they were cutting the cake.
“Brother!” Rapp said, throwing his arms around the man, despite the AK between them. It was tempting to use the knife, but their joyful reunion was generating too much noise. Someone was bound to hear the commotion and come to see what it was about.
“Why are you here, Eric?”
“General Mustafa has returned me to the team,” Rapp said excitedly and then pointed to Mohammed. “This is my new friend. He translates for me when it’s necessary.”
“God be with you.”
“And you,” Mohammed replied.
“You really must learn our language, Eric. This is your home now. We are your people.”
“I know,” Rapp said. “You’re right.”
The door that he had peeked into earlier was suddenly thrown open and the man who had been sleeping on the cot appeared.
Rapp raised a hand in greeting, but Mohammed was startled by the sound and spun, firing an automatic burst into the man’s chest.
Rapp’s new buddy, despite having an assault rifle hanging across his chest, hesitated. With no other option, Rapp used that delay to drive his blade into the back of the man’s head.
“Get to the girls!” he said, dragging the body toward the open door Mohammed was frozen in front of.
“I’m sorry,” the Iraqi stammered. “He scared me. I didn’t-”
“The girls!” Rapp said, adjusting the scarf around his neck to cover his face and head. “Now!”
Mohammed started sprinting toward the back of the building as Rapp wrestled the two bodies into the open classroom. He’d barely gotten the first over the threshold when the naked girl shot past him and ran, sobbing, toward the lobby.
The sound of her slamming through the main doors was accompanied by the shouts of men waking up all over the building. What he didn’t hear, though, was a gunshot. Gaffar was thankfully less easy to startle than Mohammad. The girl would be allowed to disappear into the night.
“Americans!” Rapp shouted in Arabic. “The Americans are attacking!”
He slid the knife back into his waistband and clamped a hand over his thigh, lurching forward as though he’d been shot. A man appeared in the stairwell to his right and Rapp motioned toward the lobby. “The Americans! They’re out front! Hurry!”
More men appeared and ran for the main entrance, checking their weapons, speculating loudly as to the strength of the opposing force, and wondering if the Americans would dare use drones. Rapp’s feigned wound gave him an excuse to hang back. Six men were in front of him, none of whom were looking behind them. He reached for Gaffar’s Smith & Wesson but then heard the sound he’d been dreading: the screams of young girls mixed with a drumroll of running feet.
His sweet setup went to shit in a matter of seconds. The men ahead started looking back and a moment later he was engulfed in a sea of panicked children. They flowed around him and the ISIS men, trapping them in an irresistible current moving toward the front of the building. The terrorists faced forward again, shouting angrily and swinging their rifle butts. A few connected and the girls went down, but it was useless. The slave trade was clearly better than Mohammed thought, because there had to be at least a hundred of them.
Shooting was pointless. Rapp would be lucky to hit the ground in this environment. He spotted what he needed just ahead and to his right-a three-foot break in the lockers that lined the wall.
With considerable effort, he managed to fight his way out of the flow of escaping girls. Five men were still visible and he braced himself between the lockers, aiming his pistol at a terrorist about to disappear around the corner.
Rapp went for his upper back, not wanting to cause the mess that tended to accompany a headshot. It worked. He went down, but it looked like he’d just tripped in the melee. The gunshot was loud as hell, but in the concrete corridor, it would be impossible to pinpoint its source.
A tall girl with a blanket wrapped around her bumped Rapp’s gun hand as she ran past, but he recovered quickly and took out a man who was actually slashing at the children around him with a sword. A man a few feet behind saw him fall and looked back at Rapp, but he didn’t have time to raise his weapon before taking a round to the throat.
The last viable target disappeared around the corner just as the tail end of the stampede passed by. Only a few very young girls were left behind, confused and crying.
Mohammed appeared a moment later. Apologizing a little too loudly, but at least not shooting at anything.
“They were already coming through the door when I got there! I tried to push it closed, but it was impossible.”
Rapp didn’t respond, instead starting to run toward the front of the building. When he came to the lobby, he found close to fifteen men firing blind bursts through the windows.
Rapp went straight for the middle of them, slamming his back into the closed doors with Gaffar’s pistol held near his chest. “General Mustafa sent us to warn you that the Americans were planning an attack. But we were too late.”
Completely destroying Mustafa’s teams wasn’t part of his plan, but he needed a few more dead before the night was over.