A tall, fit white man stood near one of two vans. The crew door was open, and inside, Avery saw the SA-24 launchers laid out on a tarp. Nearby, a Mexican — another cartel shooter — lay on the ground with the back of his head blown away.
“Do you know who this man is?” the Viper asked Mirsad Sidran.
“I do not give a damn, woman. He is not important. Do not forget the mission.”
The Viper kicked Avery in the head again. He took the blow and felt ready to pass out. He struggled to stay awake, fought the urge to shut his eyes and drift off. He thought he heard Aguilar’s voice, telling him they were on their way to his location, and it took him a couple seconds to realize it was the receiver in his ear and not an auditory hallucination. Aguilar was asking him to acknowledge, to respond if he was okay, but Avery couldn’t speak.
“Cover the tunnel,” the Viper ordered Sidran.
The Bosnian Quds Force operative scowled. He started to protest, but then understanding and agreeing with the Viper’s concern, he cautiously approached the tunnel entrance. He pulled a grenade from his vest and, after plucking the pin with his teeth, dropped it into the shaft and threw the hatch shut. The explosion sounded a second later.
“Kill him now, and be done with it,” Sidran shouted to the Viper. “We are running out of time.”
“He’s coming with us,” the Viper said. “I am going to enjoy this and make it last a very long time.” To Avery, she shouted, “Get up!” and drove the tip of her boot between his legs. Avery jolted, the kick temporarily waking him back up, as well as sending new waves of pain coursing from his groin to his abdomen. “I said, up!”
When he attempted to stand, Avery became immediately nauseous and unbalanced as the world spun rapidly around him in a haze, and dots speckled his vision. He made it halfway up before dropping onto his knees and vomiting. There was blood in the bile. He fell forward and reached out to catch himself, his hand pressing into the hot, sticky bloody puke.
The Viper kicked him in the side as he wretched. He fell over this time, like deadweight, landing a little closer to the Glock. It was within five feet of his face, but it may as well have been a mile away for the exertion it would require to grab it, and he possessed neither the strength nor energy.
She squatted over him again, resting on her haunches. She grabbed onto his hair with one hand and tugged, lifting his head so that she could see into his eyes, which were now vacant and glossy. He stared past her at the white man.
Mirsad Sidran, up until now a spectator, stared far past the Viper and her captive. Something far out near the horizon commanded his attention. He lifted his binoculars to his eyes and saw the ATVs rolling across the desert. Helicopters hovered in the air. Sidran lowered the binoculars and glanced back to the Viper as she taunted the wounded American, completely oblivious to the oncoming Border Patrol units.
Sidran sighed. Well, he’d always expected that it would come down to this.
Looking past the Viper, Avery’s gaze stayed on Sidran as he reached into the open van to retrieve an AK-74.
“Behind you,” Avery breathed into the Viper’s ear, almost choking. His mouth and throat were dry and tasted of vomit. “Look behind you.”
The Viper frowned, and then her mind put the pieces together within the next millisecond. She released her grip on Avery, letting him fall to the ground. She spun around while bringing up the VSS into firing position, and reflexively sidestepped to the left as Sidran’s single shot whipped past her. He didn’t get a second chance.
The Viper’s first shot caught Sidran through the center of his chest. He gasped and staggered back against the van. His arms dropped with the AK. The Viper took another step closer, and this time shot Sidran low in the gut. He released the rifle, and then slid down the side of the van until he sat on the ground. The next bullet went through his groin He grimaced, but he didn’t utter a sound, knowing that the pain would end very soon.
The Viper elevated her aim several degrees, stopping when her sights passed over Sidran’s contorted face. She paused, allowing him to wither in agony for several seconds. He stared at her in indignant shock, his mind unable to fathom how this woman, an unbeliever at that, had possibly bested him, but he supposed it didn’t matter. In his physical body’s last breaths of life, his mind was a thousand miles away as he made peace with his God and accepted his failure.
Eight feet behind the Viper’s back, Avery shivered. Despite the sun baking him, he felt so cold, and weak, but he forced his body to move, telling himself that it might be for the last time so he might as well try. He reached out with one hand and dragged his weight toward the Glock. He didn’t believe he’d make it, but he wasn’t going to lay here and do nothing.
Another gunshot exploded through the air and echoed.
Avery froze and tensed, but he never felt the bullet strike.
It was the Viper giving Mirsad Sidran one more 9mm round of armor piercing tungsten. A red hole materialized between Sidran’s eyes, with a larger one opening in the back of his head, exploding blood and brain across the van.
Avery’s fingers fluttered over the Glock. His hand was numb, and he could barely feel the contact, but he saw his hand on the gun. He dragged it toward him across the sand.
The Viper turned around, bringing her rifle to bear on Avery, who, sitting partially up on his back, had already drawn a bead on the Viper.
She screamed, “No!” and her finger took up first pressure on the VSS’s trigger, but Avery had already fired first.
The single shot cracked through the air.
The Viper’s head jerked abruptly and violently back. Blood sprayed through the air. Her hands lost the VSS when the deadweight of her body collided with the ground.
Avery’s eyes stayed on her as she thrashed and jerked fifteen feet away. She clutched the hole through the side of her throat through which dark blood rapidly drained. She gagged and choked on it. Her other hand slapped around at the sand and dirt, feeling for her rifle, which was just out of reach. Her unblinking eyes, brimming with hate and anger, stared right back at Avery.
He watched her until she bled out. It barely took a minute.
Soon he heard the steady braying of approaching helicopters. As he waited for help to arrive, he rested his head back and shut his eyes.