Sean lined up the windshield where he thought the driver would be seated. At fifty feet, he fought his nerves to keep the weapon steady. Then his finger twitched, and the muzzle erupted.
The slug smashed through the windshield, sending a web of cracks through its left half. The car jerked hard to the left and careened toward the hangar before coming to a sudden stop.
Sean kept his weapon trained on the vehicle. The engine was still running, and the lights stayed on. He didn't notice any movement inside.
Sean motioned for Tommy to circle around the other side.
Tommy nodded, taking his own weapon out of his gear bag and making sure a round was chambered.
Sean looped around the other way, approaching the plane as he did so. "Stay inside the aircraft," Sean ordered the pilot, who was crouching at the top of the steps, taking cover in the plane's doorway.
The man nodded and ducked back into the interior to stay out of sight.
Emily's pilots were civilians, untrained in most forms of combat. Their primary usefulness was getting agents to and from mission drop points. Other than that, they were pretty useless. Some were armed, but Sean didn't trust a person with a gun if he hadn't seen them use it in the field.
Cautiously, Sean worked his way to the right until he was staring at the broadside of the black sedan. The darkly tinted windows made it impossible to see anything or anyone inside.
He took a step forward, closing the gap between him and the vehicle to about forty feet.
Suddenly, one of the back doors flung open, and the barrel of a gun appeared. Sean reacted fast, firing over and over at the door until he saw the barrel retract inside.
Tommy was approaching from the other side, keeping his angle the same as Sean's to make sure they didn't catch each other in friendly fire.
When Sean started shooting, Tommy's instincts were to shoot, too. He resisted, waiting for a target to appear.
He looked over at Sean. His shoulders raised, a signal that he was wondering if Sean took out the threat.
Then the back left door swung open, and another barrel popped out with the muzzle blazing. Tommy was out in the open with nowhere to take cover. He dove to the ground and shot back, squeezing the trigger repeatedly, peppering the car with round after round until the weapon clicked. He pushed himself off the ground and ran to his left. With no cover in sight, the only thing he could do was make the angle more difficult for the other shooter.
The only problem was that doing so put him in Sean's crossfire.
It was a risk Tommy had to take.
He pumped his legs while reaching into one of his coat pockets for a full magazine. His fingers fumbled with the object and as he tried to eject the empty one, dropped the other onto the ground.
Tommy stopped in his tracks and spun around to pick up the magazine. He crouched to one knee as another round of gunfire erupted from the car.
Sean saw what happened and tried to give his friend some suppressing fire, pounding the car with round after round until his magazine was also empty. He moved fluidly, crossing the tarmac toward the front of the car as he ejected the empty magazine and popped in a new one.
The gunman in the back of the car poked his pistol out again and fired. Sparks flashed around Sean's feet. One slug whizzed by his head. And then Sean opened fire once more. The window splintered and cracked but didn't shatter due to the heavy tinting.
Tommy grasped the magazine as the shooter on his side stepped out into the open and took aim.
Suddenly, two bright headlights lined up the gunman and the stopped car. An engine whined as a black SUV rumbled across the asphalt.
The gunman turned his attention away from Tommy and started firing at the oncoming vehicle.
He unloaded the contents of his weapon, but the SUV kept coming, faster and faster. Tommy and Sean couldn't see who was driving it.
Sean's gunman also turned away, ducking back into the car to see who the newcomer was and what they were trying to do.
It was a critical mistake.
As Tommy's shooter fired his final round into the SUV's windshield, he tried to dive clear. The SUV smashed into him, crushing him momentarily against the sedan in a thunderous crash. The car flipped over onto its side, grinding on the pavement for thirty feet while the gunman's body flew clear of the wreckage and rolled to a dead stop.
Rubber squealed and steam started billowing out of the SUV's hood until it came to a stop, casting the airport back into an eerie silence. Tommy and Sean stared in disbelief at the wreckage. The smell of coolant, water, fuel, and burned gunpowder filled the air.
Tommy raised his weapon and moved cautiously toward the driver side of the newcomer's vehicle. Sean circled around to the other side, also keeping his gun drawn in case of another threat.
Sean wondered who was behind the wheel. Like the sedan, the windows were tinted too dark to see in. The windshield was cracked, making it difficult to get a good view through the front.
The door clicked and eased open a few inches.
"Don't be stupid!" Tommy yelled. "You've got two expert marksmen at point blank range staring you down. If you're going to get out, do it nice and slow."
Ten seconds went by before the door moved another inch. This time, a pale set of fingers appeared over the top of it. A second later, another hand raised over the door.
"That's right," Sean said. "Keep your hands where we can see them." He hoped it was Emily or Adriana. Upon seeing the hands and forearms, he knew it was a guy.
The door opened all the way, and a young blond man came into view. Tommy's eyebrows lowered. He didn't recognize the driver.
"Anyone else in there?" Tommy asked.
The young man shook his head slowly. "No," he said. His accent was distinctly Russian. "I am alone."
Sean approached the SUV and swung open the front door, then the back, making sure the guy wasn't lying.
"Truck is clear," Sean said.
He hurried around the back and found Tommy pointing his gun at the driver. "I'm going to check the car. Keep an eye on him."
Tommy gave an upward nod as Sean leaned in through one of the broken windows and found the car's driver bent at an awkward angle. A bullet hole oozed thick crimson from his chest. A look into the back revealed two more men. One was lying across the seat with his face bloodied. His chest didn't rise and fall, signaling he was gone. The man who'd been crushed by the oncoming vehicle was still lying perfectly still a few dozen feet away — killed on impact.
"Well, that went exactly according to plan," Sean said to Tommy as he rejoined his friend.
"Plan? We're lucky this guy showed up," Tommy's voice rose.
"Maybe we were a bit lucky."
Tommy ignored his friend for a moment and directed his attention to the new guy. "Who are you?" he asked, keeping a safe distance between himself and the Russian.
"My name is Yuri," he said, twisting his head slightly to the left toward Sean.
"What are you doing here?" Sean asked.
"I think the words you are looking for, Mr. Wyatt, are thank you."
"I'll keep my gratitude in check until you tell us what's going on and why you're here."
"Mr. Wyatt, if I had wanted to kill you or your friend, I wouldn't have hit them with my vehicle. Your friend, Mr. Schultz, was — as you Americans say — a sitting goose. I could have run over him easily."
Sean frowned. "Duck. I think you mean sitting… you know, never mind."
Tommy flashed his friend a sidelong glance, wondering what they should do next.
Sean lowered his weapon at an angle, still keeping it at the ready just in case.
Tommy did the same.
"Thank you," Yuri said.
"Start talking," Sean demanded.
"As I told you, my name is Yuri. I work for Russian intelligence."