Now Baldwin’s men were scrambling to protect themselves. One was lying on the ground, not moving. Sean shook his head. The guy was probably shot down before he could defend himself.
Baldwin stood his ground — out in the open — firing on the four Koreans as they retreated toward the entrance to the chapel. The first man made it to the doorway, then the second. The Brotherhood poured a barrage of rounds at the running targets. Pieces of the chapel wall exploded into hundreds of tiny fragments and clouds of dust over and over again. One bullet struck the third man in the back of the leg just before he made it around the entrance corner to safety.
Sean saw his head rock back as he screamed in pain, immediately grabbing his hamstring before falling into the chapel and disappearing from view. Their leader was the last into the building, narrowly missing dozens of bullets by mere inches.
With the North Koreans in the chapel, they now had the advantage of shooting from cover.
To counter that problem, Baldwin motioned to his men to fan out and flank both sides of the building. Two went around to the right, and the other two disappeared around the left side. He stayed and one other remained in the middle, approaching the chapel head on. It was by far the more dangerous option of the three. Sean admired the move by the leader of the Brotherhood even though it seemed a foolhardy move.
Shots fired from inside the chapel as the North Koreans defended their position. The two men on the left were just outside of Sean’s view, but he could see the men on the right pushing fast toward the outer wall. He assumed the men on the other side were doing the same thing.
Baldwin squeezed off his last round, firing on the entrance to the chapel. He deftly slid the empty magazine out of the pistol, grabbed a full one from his cargo pants, and slammed it into place. He took three quick steps forward, sliding at an angle to the right as he moved toward the building.
Sean had seen enough. He hurried around to the back of the kitchen where his companions waited. Tommy was peeking around the corner when Sean arrived.
“What’s going on?” he whispered.
“Just what I hoped. They’re shooting at each other. One of Baldwin’s men is down, and I think one of the North Koreans took a round to the leg.”
“That should slow them down.”
“Yeah.”
“What now?” Tommy asked.
Sean faltered for a second. “Um, I actually hadn’t thought that far ahead yet.”
Tommy’s eyes widened. “Seriously?”
Adriana cut in. “Hey, boys. If we go through the woods over here, we should be able to circle around and get back to the car.” She pointed at the small forest next to the kitchen building.
“See?” Sean said. “Everything works out.”
Tommy’s head went back and forth. “You’re lucky you’ve got her around to bail you out.”
“Boys, do you mind?” June said. “We should probably get moving. You two can start celebrating when we’re on our way back to London.”
Sean and Tommy twisted their heads to look at her then back to each other. They both shrugged and shared a knowing glance.
“Lead the way,” Sean said to Adriana.
She was already crouching at the kitchen’s back corner next to a large oval-shaped stone.
“What’s that thing?” Sean asked as he crept up behind her and readied himself for a sprint into the woods.
“Omphalos stone,” she answered. “They used to put them in the naves of churches. Stones like this were considered the navel of a sanctuary. Seems like I read that it was originally a Greek tradition.”
She abruptly stopped talking and darted into the woods, jumping over a small tree like a hurdler as she swiped limbs out of the way.
Sean watched her for a second, looked down at the odd stone, and then waved Tommy and June ahead.
As soon as they were into the forest, he crept back to the other corner and took one more look over at the chapel.
Baldwin’s men had encircled the ruins and were pressing forward. The two men on Sean’s right took up positions on opposite sides of a window near the front of the building. They operated with military precision, causing him to wonder if any of them had been through some kind of training.
A shot came from the back end of the chapel, and Sean saw one of the North Koreans crouching at the corner. He leaned out and took another potshot at the two exposed men near the window.
Sean thought the North Koreans’ next move would be retreating farther toward the back of the chapel, but he hadn’t anticipated them counterattacking around the side. It was a smart move.
Speaking of smart moves, Sean decided he needed to move. His friends already had a head start, and he didn’t want them to wait.
He turned and took off, rushing into the woods and leaping over the same small tree Adriana had jumped a moment before. Tommy and June were a good forty feet ahead with Adriana a few dozen feet in front of them, hacking her way through the forest undergrowth.
She moved like a professional running back, cutting around one oak then another, dipping her head under a tree limb, and then swiping another one away just before it smacked her in the face.
June, too, moved deftly through the woods. She was slightly less graceful than Adriana but had no trouble keeping pace.
Tommy’s progress, however, was a comedy of errors. He tripped over a tree root, smacked into a tree trunk, got slapped multiple times by small branches, and looked more like a tank driving through a tea shop. He lumbered forward as fast as he could, only able to keep up with the two women through sheer willpower.
Adriana stopped when she reached a chain-link fence that stretched all the way from one end of the forest to the other. Fortunately, the barbs on the top were pointed straight up, which would make it easier to get over. Had it been one with the inward- or outward-facing barbed wire tops, they might have had issues.
She started climbing and in mere seconds had crested the fence and dropped down to the other side, easily landing on her feet.
June climbed the fence like a monkey. Her lithe body was perfectly suited for climbing, and she went over the top without issue.
Tommy ran headlong into the fence, his weight causing the waves to ripple down the fence line. He grabbed onto the fencing and started climbing. When he was a few feet off the ground, his right foot slipped, and he fell back down. He started again, getting a hand on the top bar before his foot slipped again. This time, Sean was there to stop his fall.
Sean caught his friend’s foot and hoisted him higher until Tommy was almost straddling the fence top.
“I wouldn’t sit on that if I were you,” Sean said, looking at the sharp points right at Tommy’s undercarriage.
“Don’t think I didn’t already take that into consideration.”
He forced most of his weight onto his hands as he lifted his right leg over the fence and then the left. When both feet were on the other side he started to lower himself down but lost his grip and fell to the ground. He rolled clumsily in the wet leaves for a second and then stopped in a sitting position. He breathed heavily, but got himself together and brushed the dirt and leaves off his pants.
Sean shook his head and leaped onto the fence, grasping the top with both hands and vaulting over it with one swift movement.
He landed next to Tommy and patted his friend on the back. “You okay?”
“Just… don’t, okay?”
“Keep moving,” Adriana ordered. She turned and started running again, this time bending her direction slightly to head back to the parking lot.
By now, the sounds of the gunfight were all but gone. The sound suppressors both groups were using kept it from sounding like what it was — an all-out war.