“I sure. I sure.” She said. “Go get girl.”
Jake moved the other unconscious man against the wall, removed the darts, and motioned to Kaplan and they started up the stairs.
The stairway went up fifteen steps then made a ninety-degree left turn at a landing. Because of the high ceiling downstairs, Jake made the assumption that the next flight would be equally as long.
Jake went up the left side of the stairwell while Kaplan went up the right side, two steps below Jake.
“He’s coming down on your side, Jake.” Wiley’s voice. “Remember, no gunfire. Shots attract attention.”
Jake motioned to Kaplan to move to the left side of the stairwell behind him. Jake moved higher in the stairwell, now two steps from the top of the first flight of steps.
“He’s just around the corner.” Wiley’s voice. “Go for casualty, but no shots. I repeat no shots.”
Jake eased his tranquilizer pistol into the holster and pulled out the Benchmade knife Wiley gave him on the airplane, a spring-assisted with a 3.25-inch blade. He silently opened the knife and locked the blade. Jake took another step. One step below the landing, back against the wall.
“Jake, stop right there.” Wiley. “He’s less than two feet away and about two feet higher. Wait for him. When he makes a move, you’ll know what to do.”
Wiley was right. The man in the stairwell was impatient and Jake was ready.
He saw the barrel of the man's weapon, a pistol, break the plane of the wall. Jake knew he had to move fast. Keeping his head and body behind the wall, Jake calculated where the man’s hand was, reached around the corner of the wall with his right hand, and sliced in a downward thrust where the man’s arm should be.
Jake felt the blade strike the man’s wrist, slicing through sinews and tendons. He felt warm blood spill onto his arm and hand. The man’s gun clambered onto the floor. Jake heard the man scream followed by footsteps running up the stairs.
Jake chased him up the stairs. The hallway was long and straight. The man grabbed a chair and held it out as if mimicking a lion tamer. The chair seemed small in front of the large man. Jake estimated the man weighed two-eighty and stood six feet tall. But he was injured. The man’s right arm was useless.
Jake pulled out his tranquilizer pistol and fired. The man anticipated the shot and blocked it with the chair, the dart lodged under the seat. He yelled and threw the chair at Jake. Then he turned and ran.
A mistake.
Jake was close enough when the man started running to catch him in a short distance. Jake was a sprinter and the man was slow. Jake tackled him from behind and landed on top of the facedown man. Although he’d never used the move before, he learned it at The Farm when Bentley sent him for skill craft training.
Jake grabbed the man’s head from behind, right hand under his chin, left hand on the back of his skull. He pulled back on the man’s head. The man thrashed about grabbing at thin air and attempting to buck Jake loose.
Jake pulled back harder, craned the man’s neck backward, placed his knee at the base of the man’s neck, and then he yanked hard to the right. He felt a small crack but the man kept moving.
Jake turned harder.
A louder pop and the man’s legs stopped moving.
Jake gave another twist.
The man’s neck cracked loud and his body fell limp. A last gurgling exhale left the man’s body.
When Jake turned around, Kaplan was gone.
Gregg Kaplan followed Jake up the steps in the Hajjah Palace. Blood spattered on the walls and steps from where Jake slashed the last remaining terrorist’s wrist, causing the man to drop his weapon and flee. The large man screamed, turned, and fled up the stairs and down the long hallway.
Kaplan wasn’t accustomed to someone else taking the lead in an operation, especially someone with as little experience as Jake. But Wiley didn’t give him a choice. He’d never understood why Director of Central Intelligence Scott Bentley had handed Jake off so fast to Wiley. Kaplan had Special Forces training and had served in combat. Jake was a rookie and his impulsiveness made him a loose cannon. Danger and killing were new to him. He was still dealing with the loss of his fiancée. It didn’t make sense to hand Jake off to a stranger just to get him away from Washington and the pressure Bentley was receiving from Senator Richard Boden. But politics was Bentley’s problem and whether he agreed with it or not, it was the DCI’s decision.
Kaplan noticed Jake seemed to know exactly what to do when he was faced with the terrorist at the corner of the stairwell. He was quiet and effective. Jake slashed the knife exactly where it was needed. When Wiley said “casualty” and “no shots,” Jake, without hesitation, holstered his weapon and wielded his knife. Maybe Bentley did know what he was doing, and there was more to Wiley than just making spy toys.
Kaplan saw Jake sprint down the darkened hallway. Low wattage lights hung from the ceiling — bare bulbs in wire cages. Kaplan watched Jake jump the man from behind and twist the man’s neck while the man tried to buck Jake off. He followed Jake until a voice in his ear told him to stop.
“Gregg, stop.” Wiley’s voice. “Turn around. Go back down the main hall past the stairs and take the first left.”
“Got it.” Kaplan replied. “What about Jake?”
“He can handle himself.” Wiley said. “He knows what to do.”
“Apparently.”
Kaplan retraced his steps, ran past the stairwell and turned down the first corridor to the left.
“End of the hall.” Wiley’s voice. “Second door on the right.”
Kaplan ran the thirty feet to the door and tried the knob.
Locked.
The light was dim so Kaplan fished out his MagLite mini and shone the beam at the locking mechanism.
A warded lock, which meant he needed a skeleton key.
Kaplan heard a groan on the other side of the door. Isabella.
More groaning.
“Isabella."
Kaplan stepped back and kicked hard into the massive door. It didn’t budge. Although the exterior of the palace was in disrepair, the interior structure was built to withstand time. The huge planks of wood that framed the doorway were more than a match for any man. He needed the key.
Kaplan turned to go search for the key, Jake was standing next to him.
Jake held out his hand. “Looking for this?”
Kaplan saw the skeleton key dangling from a leather strap.
Something aroused Isabella Hunt from her drug-induced stupor but she was too groggy to tell what it was. Or, if in fact it was just another dream. She thought she heard screaming. A man screaming. Not a yell, but a scream. The sound of fear — or injury. And then a loud banging from somewhere in the building.
Maybe it was just a dream. She’d had plenty of them while she’d been held captive in this God forsaken place, wherever it was. She thought she’d heard Gregg Kaplan yelling for her, coming to save her. But that, too, had been in her dreams. Gregg would kill all the guards, burst through the door, take her in his arms, and sweep her off to freedom. Just like in a Harlequin romance novel where the hero rescues the damsel in distress. But this time the voice was different than in her dreams. It was louder and more distinct.
Hunt jumped at the sound of the key in the lock. A sound she’d become accustomed to hearing, but not at this hour of the morning. The familiar clank as the solid shafted bit key released the locking mechanism. The squeak of the hinges as the massive wooden door opened wider.
In the darkness she could discern only two beams of light entering the doorway. Frozen with fear and groggy from the drugs, she tried to move. She didn’t have strength to resist.
She heard his voice again. “Isabella.”