by Seeley James
Dhanpal ran through the archway, firing at the arrow slit as he came. No one returned fire.
Pia caught her breath. Her heart pounded harder than ever before as the reality of the battlefield sank in. She’d led her people into a stone kill zone. They were the best in the business, but this might have been beyond anyone’s capabilities.
Flashes from another muzzle caught her eye before the noise reached her ears.
Miguel groaned and fell.
She started to move to him but felt strong hands grab her body armor and yank her backward. She fell against Jacob behind a stone planter.
He scrambled to his knees, aiming his rifle left and right.
She joined him and saw a shadow at the next building. She squeezed off a three-round burst and heard a shout of pain. The shadow fell to the ground writhing, and rolled over. He pulled his weapon around and aimed at Pia. Even in the dark, with nothing but the strange colors of thermal imaging, she knew she was looking directly into the barrel of his rifle.
A strange sense of calm came over her. She thought it through logically in an instant. She could try to flee, but in the hundredth of a second she had left, she could only hope to take a bullet in the shoulder when she turned to run. Or she could fight, but retargeting and firing would take longer for her than him. Her third option was the quickest but the scariest. It required blind faith in the newer MICH helmets she authorized for the company. They contained slow-memory foam and more flexible shell compounds that could absorb a bullet’s energy, while the older, standard-issue helmets suffered catastrophic failure from a direct shot.
She went for the third option and dipped her face downward, tilting her helmet toward the shooter.
The bullet hit hard near the back of her skull at the top of her tipped head. The projectile caromed off. Her head rang like a bell, but the helmet saved her.
She raised back up, reacquired her target and squeezed off another three round burst.
The shadow fell.
He must’ve been wearing the older helmet.
Jacob had been firing over her head. He moved his rifle across her back and fired. He stood and grabbed her hand, pulling her up. Together they ran to a massive wall, slammed their backs to it and raised their rifles to the roof line and the upper-story windows behind them.
Clear.
For a moment at least, they could breathe and think.
In the cleared courtyard, Tania and Dhanpal pulled Miguel to his feet. They ran to a nook in a retaining wall.
“I’m good,” Miguel said. “Knocked the wind out of me.”
More gunfire erupted in the night. She couldn’t see anything and guessed it was coming from the other side of the wall. She and Jacob were exposed to the south and could only move north, where the bullets were coming from. Across the cobblestones, Miguel opened up on a target beyond her wall. For the moment, she was helpless.
She’d heard her veterans talking about the abject fear of patrolling a hostile area where snipers or bombers could strike from any direction at any time, and how that dug into the fabric of your life, raising your blood pressure to the breaking point, and making you hyper-vigilant. Many of them spent so much time in sheer terror that it left them changed for life: fully aware of their mortality and equally aware of an undefined spirit-world just out of reach. The ghosts of war.
For the first time, she felt that terror. She felt close to that vague world beyond life. It called to her.
A shadow on the roofline caught her eye. She aimed at it but held her finger off the trigger. A gargoyle.
The snow came down thicker and swirled, giving life to shadows. She jerked left and right, her eye lined up with the iron sights on the barrel. Fear made her twitch with each object in her peripheral vision. A bird, a window, a flag pole. Her heart beat out a rhythm like a timpanist pounding the kettledrums hard and fast.
Jacob fired at a window. A body slumped in the frame.
Dhanpal ran ahead; Jacob followed. Then Tania, then Pia followed her people. Miguel watched the back.
Three guns opened up straight in front of them.
Pia dropped, rolled, and returned fire. Tania and Jacob fell back until they were behind her, then turned and fired.
Dhanpal grabbed her elbow as she pushed off the ground. Together they staggered back to a retaining wall and fired around it. Dhanpal knelt and Pia stood to give the others cover.
But they weren’t there. The cobblestones were empty.
Pia gasped for air as if she’d sprinted an entire marathon. The adrenaline surge of being in a kill zone with nowhere to run and a third of her squad missing overwhelmed her.
Dhanpal touched her and pointed left and up. A window was opening.
Pia took aim and waited.
“Had to retreat.” Miguel’s voice on the comm link. “Making my way back.”
Shots came from the window and pinged off the stones next to her face. Her attention snapped back to the shooter. She adjusted and fired a triple. The man in the window recoiled. She’d hit him, but not fatally.
“We’re in the Eifel House,” Tania said. “Three more Velox boys are waiting for the undertaker.”
“We’re on our way.” Pia waved Miguel forward.
Dhanpal touched her leg again and pointed up to the same window. She understood her assignment. While they moved forward, she was to make sure anyone wanting fresh air would die for a breath.
Dhanpal followed Miguel across the next stretch of open cobblestones.
Pia was ready to follow when something appeared in the window. She fired before she understood what it was: an arm lobbing a grenade.
She sprinted around the wall and ran for the next safe zone, Eifel House. She flew to the open doorway where Dhanpal waited for her.
The grenade went off with a deafening roar. Brilliant orange exploded behind her. Shrapnel splintered the air. Her ears rang. She could see Dhanpal shouting but couldn’t make out his words.
She looked at him and, for the first time since meeting the former Navy SEAL, she saw fear in his eyes.
He raised his barrel level with her head. She figured he was shouting “duck” and dove to the ground like a runner stealing second base. She slid between his legs. She still couldn’t hear anything but she could see brass cartridges raining on the floor around her.
He was firing on full-auto.
Desperation mode.
She scrambled to her feet in the cramped kitchenette behind him and caught a glimpse of Jacob and Tania firing into the next room. She sensed Miguel doing the same thing in another direction.
Eifel House was a trap.
CHAPTER 43
“Jago!” Koven shouted. “Jago Seyton! Goddamn it, where is my body armor? Bring me something. I hear their suppressors popping already. Seyton!”
Former Senator Bill Hyde pushed the door open and held up a bottle of vodka. “How about some moral armor?”
Koven stared at the man. “You really are a wreck. The living embodiment of Seneca’s warning.”
“Seneca? I didn’t know you read books longer than a Tweet.”
“Seneca said, drunkenness is voluntary insanity.”
Hyde moved to the window and looked down. “What do you call this, then? Rational life?”
“Get away from the window, you idiot!” Koven grabbed the man’s shoulder and pushed him to the middle of the room. “Can’t you hear the gunfire?”
Hyde dropped onto a couch by the fireplace, reflected flames dancing across his bald crown.
Koven paced the room, shifting his Beretta from one hand to the other.
Hyde poured himself a shot of vodka.
Koven gave him a hard look before storming to the door and shouting down the hall. “Where the hell is Seyton now that I need him?”
“You don’t know who you need.” Hyde held up his glass and downed it.
Koven spun away from the door and lapped the room. He glared at Hyde. “Why are you even here?”
“Because I’m the one who had Gottl
eib killed and I thought it only fitting to see it through to the end.”
Koven stopped pacing while he processed the man’s words. He went slack. He laid the pistol down on the center table and crossed to Hyde. “Why? What did that boy ever do to you?”
Hyde picked up the vodka and poured out two shots. “It’s not what he did to me that matters. It’s what he did to you.”
Gunfire barked outside their window. Bullets cracked off the stones beneath the window.
Koven flinched. Hyde didn’t.
Red-and-yellow reflected flames danced in the shot glasses. Hyde picked up his and waved it at Koven, then slid the liquid down his throat. He slapped the glass on the table, exhaled a contented breath, and nodded at Koven’s drink.
Koven didn’t move.
“He bugged your office and tapped your phones,” Hyde said.
Koven dropped onto the couch opposite and kept staring at Hyde.
“Oh yes, my bright-eyed young genius.” Hyde chortled. “You’ve been working on your project in secret for a long time. But I found out. David and a friend of his bought me drinks and asked funny questions. It was obvious he was on to you.”
Koven couldn’t hide his shock. David had been a loyal worker for years. He would never have trusted an alcoholic like Hyde.
Hyde continued. “I audited our books. Our banker told me we had a hundred million more than we knew. What a wonderful surprise.”
Koven reached for the shot glass.
More rounds skittered off the walls.
“Then you convinced Alan Sabel I’d been drinking too much.” Hyde poured himself another. “He went to Tom and insisted I go back to rehab.”
“Your drinking problem was obvious. I never told Alan anything about it.”
“Don’t lie to me.” Hyde’s dulled eyes flashed. He pulled a gun from his pocket and looked pleased when Koven take a quick breath. “Alan and I were just reminiscing about that in the new guest quarters. By the way, he’s not happy with the accommodations.”
Koven stared at the Smith and Wesson .45 aimed at his chest. His eyes flicked to the table where he’d left his weapon. “If Sabel got that impression from anything I said—”
“Smart people know when to play dumb. You’re so good at it, I forget when you’re playing.”
Koven twirled the shot glass without breaking eye contact. “OK, I’m sorry.”
“You wrecked my firm, Koven.”
“If you’re going to pull that trigger, do it.”
“If you’re not man enough to kill yourself, don’t think I’m going to do it for you.” Hyde pulled the trigger.
The bullet tore through Koven’s bicep. His vodka flew skyward.
“You shot me.” Koven screamed. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Jago Seyton came in, carrying a heavy vest with Velcro straps.
“Get the man some bandages, Jago.” Hyde watched him writhe in agony with dispassionate interest.
Koven slapped a hand over the bullet hole and rocked back and forth, gritting his teeth.
Hyde stood, stepped around the low table between them, and stared down at Koven. “Katy Hellman and I used to be an item back in the day. Did you know that?” Hyde waited, but Koven was preoccupied trying to breathe away his pain like a woman giving birth. “No reason you would, I guess.”
Jago ran back into the room with a medical kit. He cut off Koven’s shirt and cleaned the wound. Despite its large diameter, the bullet went straight through without hitting any major veins. He used butterfly sutures to close both ends, then applied antiseptic, followed by copious amounts of gauze bandages. Finally, he wound medical tape all the way around it.
Koven looked up. “I’ll kill you.”
“Good luck with that. You’re a dead man already.”
“Katy Hellman might’ve put up with you in your dreams, but she told me no one on Earth could touch me.”
“And she was right. Pia Sabel and her people parachuted in.” Hyde smiled. “She also promised you’d be safe until the Oberstdrogen rose from the dead. Here’s a newsflash you didn’t pay attention to: that machine gun you hear in the courtyard is manned by a former drug dealer known as ‘the Colonel’. In the German army, a colonel is called an oberst, and drogen means drugs. He died of stab wounds in prison but the gods decided to spare him for one more mission. This one.”
Koven kicked the coffee table. “You’ve been working with her all along?”
“We thought you might pull off this Future Crossroads symposium, so we let it play out. Her reporters started following you as soon as we found out what Gottleib was doing. They were there to build your story either way, hero or villain. But after the Post ran their story on you this morning, we decided to move on. Did you know Pia Sabel gave them a photocopy of the prince’s contract with your signature on it?”
“She killed Taimur. No one will believe her.”
“Oh no, my dear boy. Don’t give that muscle-headed athlete credit for my hard work. I thought we had them both in Dubai, but she got in the way, so we had to shoot him down in Khasab. Shame, really. Waste of a perfectly good Gulfstream. It doesn’t matter, the Three Blondes are posting reports that pin all those murders on you.”
“My god, Hellman asked me who stood to gain. She was talking about you.” After the realization came to him, Koven opened and closed his mouth but only managed simple grunts of confusion. After a few tries, he managed some real words. “Müller? Suliman? Why? Those were profitable business relationships.”
“You make me feel so smart—by comparison.” Hyde aimed his revolver at Koven’s thigh. “Do you know how easy it was to get Shane Diabulus on board after you gave the Oman deal to Sabel? Not only are they competitors, but it seems Pia and Jacob made him look bad on a couple high-profile missions. Turns out he was dying to get rid of Jacob Stearne and took to his tasks with glee. I was surprised how quickly he dispatched your clients. And not just Suliman and Taimur, but all of them. Now all your social welfare cash accounts are mine. Katy was screwed out of her inheritance by her misogynistic father and I was screwed out of my retirement by you. So we took your $100 million as our retirement plan. Isn’t that nice?”
“Don’t shoot. Please. I’ll do anything.” Koven doubled over on the couch, trying to make himself smaller. “Just tell me what you want.”
“I want my business back, working the way it was before you came along.” Hyde fired into the couch and laughed when Koven jumped. “But it’s too late for that. So, you’ll suit up and take the fight to Sabel.”
“Kasey and his guys are working on that now. Please, don’t shoot.”
“Kasey is just another boy with a rifle, but you are the war hero. Go out there and show the boys how it’s done—the way you did it in Nasiriyah.” Hyde fired another round next to his thigh. “May the best man win.”
Hyde rose, crossed to the fireplace and watched the flames. He downed another shot. “My money’s on the Sabel girl, though.”
Jago stepped forward with the vest in his outstretched arms.
Koven looked back and forth at the two men, fear in his eyes. He rose and put his good arm through one side, then gingerly arranged the other. Jago pulled the Velcro tight and smoothed it flat.
“This is so much heavier than I remember.” Koven tried to chuckle. He shifted his weight under the vest. “And so thick.”
Jago handed him the Beretta.
Koven turned and aimed it at Hyde and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
He pulled the slide back to find an empty chamber. Turning the pistol over, he discovered an empty slot for the magazine. He turned to Jago.
Seyton held two magazines, one in each hand. He turned to the door, tossed them out, then turned back to Koven and nodded at the hallway. “Fetch.”
Koven faced Hyde. “Why are you doing this?”
“When you tried to take over the Fuchs News account, Katy called me. I began checking around. You were careful and left very little
trail. But it’s the money that tripped you up. As soon as I talked to the bankers, I found your off-books accounts. At that point, I could’ve saved the company. Then I discovered Gottleib finishing up his recordings. We killed him, but he’d already turned them over to Jacob Stearne. It was only a matter of time before Stearne and Sabel went public.”
“Why didn’t you just help me?”
“Ah, so young and stupid.” Hyde laughed. “Everything you did? I’ve been doing it for years. And I’ll keep doing it for many years to come. Hell, thousands of people are pouring enticements, foreign and domestic, into elections every day. Although I do it with a lot more discretion and a lot less greed.”
Hyde poured himself another shot. “But don’t worry, I’ll keep funneling money until the voters stand up and do something about it.”
Koven swiveled to the door and back. “You expect me to go out there and die?”
“Yes,” Hyde said. “We would’ve been fine if we stuck with Velox. But you had to bring Sabel Security into this deal. Your wife was right—the Sabel girl’s been prowling your perimeter, waiting for the right moment since the day you met her. Kidnapping her father certainly accelerated her timetable, didn’t it? Marthe took the noble way out. But then, she always was the one with balls.”
They stared at each other as the chill sank deeper into their bones.
“Although cutting her arm off was a bit dramatic.” Hyde smiled a sick smile. “Ah, but you have to admire her dedication.”
CHAPTER 44
Tania pressed against my shoulder, blasting a table in the hallway while I fired through an open door into a gift shop. Behind me, I sensed Ms. Sabel slide into the kitchen and join the fight. I faced two hostiles huddled behind a book rack, and a third who squatted behind the cash register. Next to me was a light switch. I flipped it on because incandescent lights won’t mess up thermal visors, but they blind night vision. And the last time I dealt with the yoyos from Velox, they were wearing NVGs. Their boss is cheap.
The clowns stood up, blind and defeated, hands in the air.
I ordered them to come forward and waited until they were in a tight line right in front of me. I pulled my sidearm, filled with Sabel Darts for just such an occasion, and put down all three.
