“Dr. van Keuren,” Omidi called, breaking the silence. “Listen to me. There’s nowhere for you to go. Come out and I will guarantee your safety. Do you hear me?”
She poked her head from behind the column and then pulled it immediately back. The man she’d stabbed was working his way right with a pistol in his hand and a bloodstain spreading across his shirt. Omidi was on the ground typing on the laptop, which apparently hadn’t been smashed into the million pieces she’d counted on.
His offer of safety was complete bull — he’d called off his gunner only because he was afraid of damaging the briefcase. Given the chance, Omidi would either kill her and unleash the parasite on America or take her prisoner again and set her back to weaponizing it. Neither was a particularly attractive scenario.
She heard a creak behind her and saw the door leading back into the facility begin to close. He was running Zarin’s program — trying to seal in the force attacking them and set the infected animals loose.
With no other choice, she ran for the closing door, gripping the briefcase tightly to her chest as she broke into the open. She ignored the sound of gunshots behind her, focusing entirely on getting to the door before the gap became too small to pass through.
A searing pain flared in her leg and she went down, sliding uncontrollably forward as the briefcase flew from her hand. She came to a stop halfway across the threshold and made a move back toward the case but was forced to stop when a bullet exploded against the rock wall next to her.
The door hit her in the shoulder and she shoved uselessly back against the powerful motor closing it. The man she’d stabbed was running hard in her direction, and the barrel of the mounted machine gun was aimed directly at her. There was nothing she could do. They were going to get the briefcase. But hell if they were going to get her.
She dragged herself the rest of the way through the door, barely managing to clear her feet before it sealed, and then just lay there trying to get control of her breathing.
The wound in her leg was only a graze, and she tore off one of her sleeves to use as a bandage. There was no way to know who was attacking the facility, but whoever they were, they were her best — only — hope.
Sarie pushed herself to her knees and was trying to get to her feet when she froze, straining to decipher a faint buzz just beginning to rise above the ringing in her ears.
It was the monkeys. They were free.
80
Jon Smith looked over the edge of the dry moat and studied the tower on the northeastern edge of the fence line, searching for the sniper ensconced there. Hakim’s truck tipping over had been a complete disaster, pinning down Farrokh’s team and potentially turning the entire operation into an unwinnable war of attrition.
Howell was prone on the bridge above, using his freakish marksmanship to cover the men huddled behind the capsized truck. Farrokh was crawling back and forth among them, patting shoulders and delivering words of encouragement, but most still looked like they were about thirty seconds from melting down.
The distance between them and the remaining towers had neutralized the advantage of elevated machine guns, and the men in them had switched to rifles. They were good, but not particularly great shots — with one exception. There was a sniper in the northeastern tower who was a damn prodigy. He’d already taken out three of their men and was throwing an extremely large wrench into what little was left of their machine.
His bearded face appeared over the rim of the tower, and Smith was unable to adjust his aim before the muzzle flash. The round ricocheted off the bridge and he turned to see that it had knocked loose a chunk of concrete near Howell’s shoulder. The Brit remained completely still, eye glued to his scope.
“I’d be much obliged if you’d kill that son of a bitch, Jon.”
“Working on it.”
A bullet kicked up some sand two feet from Smith’s head, and Howell fired off a few rounds in the general direction it had come from. Sitting there waiting for the Iranians to find their range and call in reinforcements wasn’t an option. If they broke cover, though, the sniper to the northeast would have a field day.
And so it was a guessing game. On what part of the tower would he appear next? In order to have time to get off an accurate shot, Smith would have to anticipate his position within about a foot.
“I think I’m starting to get a sunburn,” Howell said, making the point that he hadn’t come there to get involved in a deadly stalemate.
“South, east, or west?”
“What?” Howell said.
“Choose one.”
“South.”
“Pick a number between one and ten.”
“Six.”
Smith aimed at the south side of the tower, about six feet from the left, and waited. Five seconds. Ten. Fifteen. When the dark face appeared again it was almost exactly where Howell had unknowingly predicted.
Smith held his breath and squeezed off a round, waiting the split second it took to travel across the compound before seeing the head jerk back in an explosion of blood.
“You have the luck of the Irish, Peter. Go!”
Farrokh’s men laid down suppressing fire at the line of men Howell had been keeping in check, but their position made it impossible to do anything about the remaining snipers in the towers.
Smith heard the bullets hissing by as he tried to coax a little more speed from his legs in the heavy sand. “Break right!”
Howell did as he was told, diving behind the sandbags that had torn through the truck’s canopy when it tipped. He fired controlled rounds at the towers as Smith jumped over the body of one of their people and slid up next to Farrokh, who was trying to keep his surviving nine-man force from completely depleting their ammunition in one panicked burst.
“We’re safe! Pull back!”
Farrokh shouted for his men to retreat fully behind the truck again. Smith grabbed the youngest of them, swatting away the phone he was inexplicably using to film the battle, and dragging him toward Howell.
“The tower at three o’clock!” Smith said, throwing him down next to the Brit. “Do you understand? Cover the tower at three o’clock!”
He cried out when a round struck a few feet away, but then rolled dutifully onto his stomach and propped his rifle on a sandbag. It was his first time in combat, but he’d grown up hunting with his father and was a better-than-average shot.
Howell reached over and patted him on the back. “That’s a good lad. You’re going to do fine.”
Farrokh and the others had crammed themselves into the now empty bed of the truck while Omidi’s men blasted away at its underside, undoubtedly trying to penetrate the armor protecting the fuel tank.
Finally afforded an unobstructed view, Smith looked toward the rock outcropping that held the entrance to the facility. The heavy doors were blackened and dented, but the breach wasn’t what he’d hoped — no more than a two-foot-by-five-foot gap where the steel plates had been pushed apart. It would be enough, though. That is, if they could get to it. The truck was the only thing keeping them from a cross fire no one could survive. And since there was no way they could abandon it, they’d just have to take it with them.
“Come on!” Smith shouted, digging his fingers into the sand beneath the top of the cab. “Let’s get this thing on its wheels!”
Farrokh and his men came to his aid, and with all ten of them working together, it began to rise.