She knocked. “Kyle? It’s me, Tianha. Let me in.”
There was a pause and a shuffle of feet behind the door, as if someone were looking cautiously through the spy hole. Then there was a rattle of a chain as if the door were being unlocked. The two guards stepped back into the hallway, rifles pointed at the door, and Shakuri held Tianha tightly as a shield.
Kyle Swanson had silently opened his own door and was already in the hall behind them. His pistol was extended, a part of him, and he went for the soldier on his right with the first shot, which sounded like a cannon in the tight quarters. Swanson felt the kick of the recoil and saw the bullet strike the man just behind the ear. Kyle was already turning to the next target. The pistol crossed over the major and Tianha and steadied on the second guard, whose head also exploded before he could turn around. Bright red blood and pink and gray brain matter showered the walls, and Kyle moved in hard and fast.
In three steps, he was at top speed and hurtled into the major, whose face was covered in gore and who still did not realize what was happening. Swanson hit with a body tackle that slammed the Iranian officer against the wall as the door opened and Omar reached out and snatched Tianha inside to safety. Kyle pistol-whipped the officer, back and forth across the face, three times, letting the front sight gouge and tear at the flesh, then banged down hard on the skull with the butt of his gun and knocked Shakuri cold. Two kill shots and a takedown in less than ten seconds. His marksmanship and mixed martial arts coaches would have been proud.
He shoved the weapon into his belt and helped Omar drag the three bodies inside and dump them in the living room. They had no time to wipe down the walls and mop the hall, but at least the corpses were out of sight.
Tianha emerged from the bathroom with a stack of wet and dry towels and gave Shakuri a quick cleanup, pouring water into his face. “Wake up,” she said. “You’re going on a trip.” The major was hoisted into a chair and cuffed with plastic strips, then gagged with duct tape. His eyes blinked madly when he started understanding what had happened, and he stared at the slim man standing before him with arms crossed. It had to be the American.
“So you are the famous Major Mansoor Shakuri, and I hear you have been looking for me,” Swanson said. “Too bad you found me.”
Kyle seized the man’s right hand and with a hard pull and a sharp twist broke the little finger. Shakuri jerked away in pain and tried to kick out, but Swanson just slapped him. “That was for ordering the assassination of an American citizen on American soil — an accountant who had done no one any harm, but was a threat to your efforts in Egypt.”
Shakuri shook his head in denial, only to get slapped again with an open-hand strike that made him see stars. The bleeding on his face had resumed, and Tianha stepped in to towel him clean again.
“We’ve got to go,” she said.
“Almost there,” said Kyle. He took the left hand, stared into the major’s terrified eyes, and broke the pinkie finger on that one, too, watching as Shakuri recoiled with the new slash of pain. “And that is for sending a team out to kidnap Lady Patricia Cornwell in London.” He gave Shakuri the look of a wolf checking out a rabbit. “This next one is going to hurt,” he said and tore away the duct tape gag. “I want to hear you scream on this one.”
“But…” the major sputtered, as Kyle flipped the pistol around, and the excuse turned into earsplitting screams when Swanson hammered Shakuri in the stomach, breaking a couple of ribs, then once more in the balls, and threw a final punch that broke two upper front teeth. The screams came with every breath for a few seconds, then lapsed into moans of despair and pain.
“Pat’s my mother, you asshole,” Swanson snarled.
Omar put a hand gently on Kyle’s shoulder and was surprised to discover that Swanson’s muscles were not even tense. “That’s enough of the torture. Save something for the intelligence types.”
Kyle stepped back. “That wasn’t torture, Omar. It was just plain old ass-kicking payback. I’m done with this piece of shit.”
27
“Let’s do it quickly,” Omar said, his voice flat and under control. “This safe house is burned. Even with the bodies out of sight, the blood trail out there will be a big flashing sign when someone comes looking for them.” There was no time to waste with scrub brushes and buckets of water to wipe up the blood, the goo of brain matter, and the white bits of bone that stuck to the walls and spread on the floor.
Tianha had watched in shock as Kyle had attacked the major, for it had been so quick and continual, one violent act after another. “You must have steel bands around your heart,” she said when it was over.
Kyle dropped the used magazine out of his pistol and slid home a new one, then lifted his backpack, which was already on the kitchen table. The anger that he had displayed only a few minutes earlier had evaporated like a blowing fog as he adjusted to the developing situation, preparing for whatever came next. He did not answer her observations. “I’m ready. Let’s move out.”
Omar hauled the major to his feet, and Tianha slid a pillowcase over the prisoner’s head for a hood. The thin cotton immediately soaked up the ribbons of blood from the facial wounds, and Shakuri groaned against the stabbing pain of the broken ribs and fingers. He was wobbling on his feet when he heard the American hiss, close to his ear, “You call out for help, I’ll rip your throat open. Now move.” Kyle did not have a knife in his hand, but the major did not know that.
Tianha opened the door, and the four of them went into the hallway and down the emergency stairwell, with Omar and Swanson dragging the reeling major between them. Within ten minutes, they were in the garage, and the moaning Major Mansoor Shakuri had been bundled into the windowless cabin of a scarred van.
“Come with us,” Tianha said to Kyle, looking him in the face and noticing the exhausted eyes and the cheeks sunken from weariness. “We rendezvous with a Saudi Air Force helicopter about twenty miles to the north and will be across the border in no time. Then we fly this package straight back to London. Let’s go.”
Kyle reached into the bag and found the computer flash drive that had been given to him. No bigger than a domino, it was packed with vital inside information about the government of Egypt, the armed forces, and the Muslim Brotherhood. He pressed it into her hand. “Here’s the digitized material the Egyptians gave us during our meeting. It never made it out of the country, but our bosses can still use it.”
“You’re not coming, are you?” She dropped the flash drive into her pocket. “MI6 has set up the extraction with the Saudis, our agents will be aboard, and we have a quiet place waiting in the desert where the major will be interrogated. Everything will be safe. We can clear out of this place, Kyle. Our job is done.”
“Can’t do it,” Swanson replied. It was a Marine thing: first in, last out. “I still have some unfinished business here.” He did not consider telling her about the earlier disaster with the American special ops chopper. Keep things upbeat. “You and Omar go ahead. You have an intelligence coup with these documents and your own personal observations, plus my debrief with Omar this morning, and a prisoner who has been getting headlines as the man in charge of the Iranian operation. If that major isn’t your so-called Pharaoh, then he knows who is, and he knows a hell of a lot of other things. You did a good job when crunch time came, Bialy, and organized a great snatch-and-grab operation. Now finish it off. Get to your bird and extract your high-value target out of here.”
“What about you? How are you going to operate with no safe house and no backup?”