The attack had been about what he’d expected. A sharp knock on the outer door, a pause, and then they’d broken it down. He’d been surprised by the silenced weapons, a nice touch, but they’d been as cold, ruthless, and stupid as he thought they’d be. They came through the door bunched up, no discipline to cover the room, and they’d begun to fire immediately at the beds and the pillows bunched under the blankets. They’d spoken in what he knew to be Arabic, nothing else sounded like that.
Ripley had taken the lead man center of mass, a double tap to the chest from the big ten millimeter. It hurled the man backward into the next following him, but as the two collided Allen fired his first volley, taking number two from the side and forcing him to his own left, out of the way of the third man. Everyone was firing now, and Ripley had felt a round or two strike the heavy wooden chest he’d hidden behind. Number three and four had kept firing, not seeing, or not understanding what was happening even as their leaders went down. Without a pause his weapon came back down into battery, the sights settling in the middle of a dark face, mustache, still shooting at beds, oblivious of the death about to strike him. Two quick pulses of his trigger, the first round took him in the forehead, and he dropped his aim enough to put the second through the chest. He heard a last “phhhhhuttt” from Allen’s gun, a scream, and then mostly silence. Feathers from the pillows floated everywhere, smoke and the smell of cordite mingled with the familiar odor of fresh death.
Both men moved quickly. Allen went to number four, who he’d only shot in the knee, nearly blowing the leg off. The man was moaning softly, eyes closed. Ripley frowned at his new acquaintance, and, their eyes both so well adjusted to the dark, Allen smiled back visibly and shrugged. “They were all down, it was a good shot, just for practice. Besides, quick is too kind for this kind of crap.” He nudged the man’s mangled leg, drew a sharp moan, and then the man passed out.
Each quickly searched the dead, pocketing wallets from all four. Ripley stood and hissed, “Let’s MOVE,” and he disappeared through the broken door. “Leave him, maybe the FNP will get something out of him, and I’ll get it from them by the end of the week.”
Together they ran to their left, away from the stairs and elevator that led to the lobby. At the end of the hall they turned right, down another long hallway, the east side of the building. At the end of this there was an exit door, already open, and they went through, closing it behind them. From there, down the fire escape three floors to the street. The alley opened two blocks west, and another two blocks east, nothing near the immediate front of the hotel. Ripley’s car was there. He fired up as Allen shut his door, and drove slowly down the alley to the east, turning south onto the boulevard and steering for the US Embassy. It was six minutes after two in the morning.