The gunfire went silent, which should have been a positive development, but the abruptness of it set alarm bells off for the former SEAL. It had been too loud for his opponents to hear a cease-fire order that uniformly. And that left only one possibility he could think of: they had someone coming in on him that they didn’t want to hit.
He dove left just as the dull snap of a silenced pistol sounded. The round smashed into his motorcycle helmet with a deafening crash, jerking his head to the side. There was no time to worry about whether he was injured—or maybe even dead and just not realizing it yet—so instead he rolled with the force of the impact and came back to his feet. Miraculously, his body and mind were still working in concert and he began sprinting toward a stand-alone office just beyond the line that separated sunlight from shadow. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw an armed man walking calmly toward him. Not Middle Eastern and not like any terrorist he’d ever run into. No, this shooter wasn’t just Caucasian; he was wearing a really nice suit.
Just before reaching the door, Coleman altered his trajectory and dove through a window. On the back wall, a puff of dust sprang up where the gunman’s round penetrated. Judging by the position of the impact, his aim was once again dead-on. Had Coleman not changed course, the bullet would have hit him right between the shoulder blades.
The former SEAL found himself rolling through a carpet of broken glass with virtually no control. By the time he slammed into what was left of an old desk, his torso, hands, and arms were a spiderweb of oozing cuts.
He pressed his back against the wood and aimed through the doorway, spotting the man coming at him in a sideways run to minimize his profile. Coleman suffered a rare moment of confusion at the speed of his opponent’s approach. Rapp was the fastest guy he’d ever seen in person and this son of a bitch was noticeably faster.
It was impossible to line up a reliable shot, so he calculated that his best option was to conserve his ammo. Against a lesser opponent, he might have gone for a few near misses in an attempt to score a psychological blow. This asshole wouldn’t be so easily intimidated.
Coleman slid away from the desk through the loose glass just as the man opened up again. Three rounds hit right where he’d been a split second before, grouping in a circle just over an inch in diameter. It was an incredible display of marksmanship. Even with time to aim, it would have been impressive. But from a full run? Bullshit. No one could do that.
Coleman yanked his foot away from the open door but was just a fraction too slow. The shooter had anticipated his move and a bullet tore through the middle of his right calf, spraying blood across the floor.
Certain that the next few rounds were going to come through the flimsy plywood wall next to him, Colman pushed himself into a standing position on his wounded leg and fired four times in quick succession.
The move was obviously unexpected and the shooter didn’t have time to recalibrate his aim. Instead, he grabbed a metal pillar and swung around it, changing direction ninety degrees without any loss of speed. Less than a second later, he had disappeared behind an enormous machine set up in front of an old crane.
Coleman expected the men at the back of the building to open up again, but they’d lost interest. The sudden silence seemed absolute.
“Do you have eyes on me, Mitch?” Coleman said, in hopes that his radio was still operational. “The office. One tango to the east. The others are still working on the crate. Do you copy?”
No response.
He grabbed a chunk of two-by-four off the desk and threw it through the window in front of him. The glass shattered, leaving him a clearer view as he sighted over his Sig. There was no movement near the machine the shooter had disappeared behind. The only evidence that he’d ever existed was the widely spaced footprints in the dust.
“Mitch. Do you copy?”
Again, nothing.
He could feel a slight shaking in his hands and knew it wasn’t just the sprint to his current position or the leg injury. It was fear. There was something about this opponent that was different from those he’d faced in the past.
Combat was the one activity no human ever did half-assed. Situations like this were full-gas until you either won or died. But Coleman had a gnawing suspicion that this guy wasn’t really trying.
He reached up with his free hand and ripped off his motorcycle helmet, further improving his vision. The side was caved in and he could see what was left of his radio dangling from it. That explained the silence from Rapp.
Without the helmet to contain it, blood began flowing down his neck and shoulder. The calf was a hell of a lot worse, he knew, but he didn’t dare look.
Time was working against him. The heat had been a problem already, but blood loss would magnify its effect. Coleman was already incapable of running, and in a few minutes his mind would start to dull.
For the first time in his career, he could see no path that didn’t end with him dead.
CHAPTER 17
RAPP swept his rifle left, sighting through the scope and finally settling on the image of Scott Coleman. His helmet was off and he was bleeding badly from the side of his head. The seriousness of the injury was impossible to determine, though. Head wounds tended to bleed profusely and when mixed with sweat could look a lot worse than they were.
He also seemed to be favoring his right leg, suggesting that he’d either been hit or injured when he’d gone through the window. What concerned Rapp most, though, was that he looked scared. It was an emotion that Coleman had never openly displayed in their years working together.
The former SEAL was pinned down in a wrecked office near the center of the building. The bottom four feet of the enclosure was constructed from plywood, with windows above, running a full three hundred sixty degrees. The ceiling was low—probably no more than seven feet, with a few damaged acoustic tiles hanging lower.
Whoever Coleman was fighting had managed to stay out of Rapp’s line of sight. Based on the former SEAL’s movements, Rapp’s best guess was it was one man, that he was fast as hell, and that he’d taken cover along the east wall.
A shot rang out from the street below and Rapp glanced around the edge of his scope to make sure it wasn’t anything he needed to worry about.
The sound of gunfire in the warehouse had sent the people on the crowded road into disarray. A few cops and soldiers had arrived on the scene and one had fired into the air in an effort to get the evacuation of the area under control. Predictably, it had the opposite effect.
When Rapp returned to his optics, he eased the rifle a little farther left, focusing on the same massive industrial machine that Coleman was locked onto. One edge of it was obscured and he assumed that the shooter had slipped behind it there. If he reappeared on the south side, Rapp would be able to line up on him. If he tried to come out on the north side, Coleman would have a clear shot.
“Mitch, I’ve got two tangos leaving through the back of the building,” Maslick said over his earpiece. “Both are on foot and not carrying anything other than a small backpack.”
“Copy that,” Rapp said, scanning the mast of a crane that rose up behind the machine. “Hold your position. Don’t follow.”
“Affirmative.”
Maslick’s chopper was hovering just off the south side of the building and wasn’t getting too much negative attention yet. The Pakistanis would assume that the Russian-built Mil Mi-17 was being operated by the military, but the illusion wouldn’t last. When they couldn’t raise it on the radio, the local commanders would figure out that it wasn’t one of theirs. Hopefully, the backstabbing dysfunction the local armed forces were known for would delay that epiphany a few more minutes.
Rapp kept exploring the crane mast through his scope, finally coming to its junction with a steel track that ran the length of the ceiling from north to south. He felt a dull surge of adrenaline when he saw that it passed directly over the office at a height of about twenty feet.
“Scott!” Rapp said into his throat mike.
It was possible that Coleman had been forced to remove the helmet to improve his field of view and that the radio was still functional. If that was the case, he might still be able to hear a transmission.
“Scott! Do you copy?”
No reaction.
Coleman was one of the best soldiers he’d ever worked with but he had a tendency toward two-dimensional thinking. In a way, it was the result of his training. Even in spec ops, the U.S. military was a little too focused on there being a right way and a wrong way for a battle to develop.
Rapp’s mentor, Stan Hurley, had been a hell of a lot looser. He’d stressed creativity and improvisation over learned knowledge. One of his many mantras fit this situation perfectly: If everyone else is thinking right and left, you fucking well better be thinking up and down.
Hurley’s premonition became a reality a moment later when Rapp saw a flash of dark gray near the top of the machine. His finger tensed on the trigger but he had no shot.
“Look up,” he muttered, but Coleman’s gaze remained fixed straight ahead.
The figure moved quickly along the gridwork that made up the crane’s mast, staying behind the heavy steel and as deep in the shadows as possible. Whoever this prick was, he was talented. Beyond climbing the vertical surface faster than most people could run up a set of stairs, he maintained a weaving path that kept him obscured from as many angles as possible.
It took only a few seconds for him to reach the horizontal track and slip behind it. Rapp kept his scope locked on, but that section of rail was solid. He could see occasional flashes of sleeve and pants leg at the bottom but nothing that he could score any damage hitting.
The man’s plan of attack was obvious at this point. He’d simply get above the office and drop. It was around twenty feet to the ground, but hitting and breaking through the ceiling would absorb some of the impact. As strategies went, this one was incredibly risky. He could hit the edge of the desk, the roof could hold, or he could get hung up on his way through. Despite those unknowns, it was the best option and likely the one Rapp himself would have chosen. The element of surprise was everything against an opponent as formidable as Scott Coleman.
Rapp resisted the overwhelming urge to go over the side of the building and run for the warehouse. His gut was screaming at him to get into this fight but his head told him that it was impossible. By the time he pushed his way across the street and into that building, it would all be over.
Rapp reluctantly adjusted his scope to focus on the area above the office. This tango wasn’t going to give him a shot while he was climbing but there was no way he could avoid exposing himself forever. He’d have to make the drop, and in that split second, he’d be vulnerable.
Rapp controlled his breathing, willing his heart to beat slower and relaxing his shoulders. He’d have only one chance at this.
Movement at the edge of his scope surprised him and he tried to adjust his aim as the man swung from beneath the crane well to the left of the office below. He let go and came in at an angle instead of dropping straight down. Again, Rapp’s finger tensed on the rifle’s trigger, but the unexpected move reduced his chance of a hit to near zero. In all likelihood all he would do is give his presence away to both the tango and the soldiers gathering on the street.
The figure arced through the air, firing a rapid series of shots into the roof below. He came down hard and the addition of sideways momentum made the impact even more dangerous. Despite the complexity of the landing, he handled it with what could almost be called grace, disappearing through the roof in a dense cloud of dust and debris that made it impossible for Rapp to pick out a target.
The haze was immediately lit up by the flash of shots being fired but there was no way to know who was doing the shooting or if they were hitting anything.
“Come on, Scott,” Rapp muttered, feeling the rage building over his inability to help his friend. “Get him up. Get him up where I can see him.”
• • •
Scott Coleman’s initial instinct was to drop at the sound of the shots, but then he registered that they were coming from above. Instead he threw an arm protectively over his head and crouched, firing upward in a wide pattern.
He felt an impact to his right shoulder and a moment later the entire ceiling collapsed, raining shards of rotted two by fours and shattered plywood down on him. The unmistakable thud of a body hitting the ground sounded behind him but he didn’t bother to spin. His gun arm was now useless and he had to assume that his adversary was already lining up a shot.
Instead, he dove over the desk, feeling another bullet impact in his right side just before he slammed headfirst into the floor. It felt like a graze and he ignored it, kicking back against the desk and sending it sliding toward his attacker.
He switched his gun to his left hand and aimed beneath the desk at a flash of movement. Blood loss and the awkward firing position combined to make the shot go wide.
And then his opponent was on him.
A hand clamped around Coleman’s left wrist and immediately gained control of it. The former SEAL’s wounds hadn’t left him with much strength to fight with, but it wasn’t just that. His wrist felt like it was in a vise.
The dust was clearing and they were face-to-face, on their knees. Coleman would have liked to die on his feet, but there was nothing he could do. The man was too strong. Too fast. The butt of his gun was arcing inevitably toward Colman’s head. There would be a flare of pain, a loss of focus, and then it would be over. The dark eyes locked on him were the last thing he would ever see.
But then the man hesitated. A split second of confusion flashed across his features, as though he wasn’t sure what he was looking at. As though he’d been expecting someone else. It was all Coleman needed. He used his injured arm to grab a chunk of wood and slam it into his opponent’s gun hand.
The blow dislodged the weapon, but the man was in motion again. He grabbed a knife from his waistband and Coleman tried to dodge right, but his body would no longer obey. The blade penetrated his side and he felt the dull ache of the steel sliding into him. When it stopped on bone, the man released the hilt and grabbed Coleman’s right elbow, yanking it upward in an effort to flip him on his back.
Knowing that if he went down, he was never getting back up, Coleman threw his weight forward, ignoring the sensation of his already injured shoulder being torn from its socket. He used his good arm to wrap the man in a bear hug and, with one last desperate burst of strength, lifted him.
CHAPTER 18
RAPP kept his scope trained on the warehouse’s empty window frame, focusing on the small office at its center. Every few seconds a body part would come into view above the plywood wall, but it always disappeared too quickly to discern who it belonged to. The only thing that was crystal clear was that Scott Coleman was overmatched. His attacker was moving with incredible speed and power, while the injured SEAL was on the ragged edge, barely able to defend himself.
A knife appeared and then plunged down, causing Rapp’s breath to catch. He gripped the rifle a little tighter, but didn’t attempt a shot. While there was no doubt he could hit one of them, which one was no better than a coin toss.
“Get off your ass,” Rapp said quietly. “Get him up.”
The decision to go for the high ground had initially been a no-brainer. In the anticipated scenario of Coleman coming up against a number of moderately well trained jihadists, the danger was that they would split up and go for position. A sniper with a wide field of view was the ideal tool to deal with that situation. This, though, was something very different. It should have been him down there. Not Coleman.
A shot rang out from below and a chunk of concrete shattered about two feet to Rapp’s right. The cops had finally noticed the lone gunman on the rooftop. He ignored them, keeping his rifle trained on the battle taking place inside the warehouse.
“Come on, Scott,” he repeated under his breath. “Get him up.”
As though his friend had heard, the tops
of two heads suddenly rose from behind the wall. It occurred to Rapp that he’d been wrong about Coleman’s conspicuously blond hair. At that moment, it was the most beautiful thing in the world.
He immediately adjusted his aim to the darker of the two heads but was a fraction too slow. Coleman’s attacker shifted his weight and swung the SEAL left, using him as a shield against anyone looking down on them.
The scene seemed to slow down and every detail came into razor-sharp focus. Coleman’s right arm was useless, hanging at a grotesque angle in its socket. Beyond that and the knife sticking from his side, it was impossible to assess the number or seriousness of his wounds. There was just too much blood.
His attacker, by contrast, appeared to be uninjured from the fall and in complete control. He had Coleman by the shirt and was lifting him up while simultaneously ducking down, further reducing Rapp’s line of sight to him.
His actions made it likely that he’d been tipped off that there was a sniper on the roof north of him. In the same situation, Rapp would twist a little farther and drop onto his back, pulling Coleman down on top of him. Done correctly, it would drive the knife the rest of the way in and provide cover from a shooter controlling the high ground.
Clearly the man had come to exactly the same conclusion. He continued to turn, beginning to disappear behind the plywood wall with Coleman in tow. Rapp knew that if he lost sight of them without acting, his friend was a dead man.
He adjusted his aim slightly and squeezed the trigger. Maslick’s meticulously dialed-in rifle bucked against his shoulder and the crack of one of the most critical shots he’d ever fired assaulted his eardrums.
As planned, the round missed both men, instead shattering what was left of the office window they were standing in front of. Shards slammed into the back of Coleman’s head and stuck there. The ones that didn’t, though, sprayed into the face of his opponent.