AMIRA

by Matthew Betley

  A disgruntled former Army staff sergeant who’d watched too many of his friends die in Afghanistan, Tony Bernelli’s cynicism was complete and unhindered. He’d learned the hard way that the US government didn’t care about its service members or its citizens. It was why the five-foot-eleven former Special Forces Green Beret now served only himself and his family. The job was the job, and Trevor Emerson paid well.

  “Understood,” Tony replied, the weight of his concealed, holstered Glock 17 9mm pistol on his right hip reassuring as he fell in step next to Omar.

  The two men followed Amira, deftly weaving in and out of the crowd, closing the distance to their unsuspecting prey. Both parties had passed the stand-alone stores in the middle that resembled village storefronts, and Omar was running out of room. His targets would be near the exit within seconds. He stopped and withdrew the Glock 9mm pistol he’d concealed under his sport coat. He sensed Tony do the same. Vengeance is mine, he thought, his mind blocking out the thrum of the crowd and the movement of the people around him.

  His focus was completely on Amira and the three men with her. It was also why he failed to hear the scream of a father with his two children and wife ten feet to his left at a table in the open-air section of the main restaurant. Had Omar known the man was a Marine Corps major on leave with his family, he might have reconsidered the point at which he’d stopped. But it was too late, and the man screamed, “GUN!!!” as Omar and Tony raised their weapons.

  A second of time hung in the air, as if a gap had been created between the past and the future, the moment when families enjoyed their early dinners, to the moment unfettered chaos broke out and panic raged across the Gaylord National atrium. In that space, confusion reigned as bystanders processed what the warning meant in the age of domestic terrorism. But Amira, Logan, and John weren’t civilian bystanders, and the heartbeat that transformed the Gaylord was enough to trigger their reactions, even as Omar and Tony pulled the triggers on their Glocks.

  Sensing the threat behind them, Amira and John dove left under the suspended belt held up by stanchions that marked the edge of the restaurant seating area. Logan dove right, twisting in his dive towards the fountain and the enormous Christmas tree within, his Kimber eager to locate the threat.

  Without the years of endless and repetitive training, Chris Hauty was the only one who didn’t react, which was why he was the one struck in the back by several bullets. He fell forwards to the hard, smooth, stone floor, his consciousness fading as his blood drained from multiple holes. Snapshots of his family, his wife, their children, and young grandchildren appeared in his mind. A devout Catholic, he believed he’d see them again, and he closed his eyes one last time, content in the knowledge as death embraced him.

  “Motherfuckers,” John said, scrambling under a table as the guests scattered around them. He felt a pang of sorrow at the security chief’s murder, but he suppressed it, knowing the time to grieve and honor the dead would come later.

  More shots rang out, and they struck tables and chairs that were overturned by the diners’ rush to safety.

  Amira was sickened at the willful negligence and callous disregard of their attackers, but then she saw Omar, and she knew the truth once again – he doesn’t care about anyone but himself.

  “Logan! Get to the ballroom and stop the attack! We’ll cover you! Move!” Amira shouted across the walkway, praying he’d heard her through the chaos as he hunkered down behind the trunk of a large tree.

  Both Amira and John knelt behind a table, looked at each other, nodded and stood up in a crouch, their weapons aimed at Omar and a second shooter twenty feet away.

  Too many people behind them. “Shoot into the ceiling, and I’ll flank them. Now.” Amira demanded.

  John never hesitated, crouched down, and fired the 1911 into the air, which served two purposes – to suppress the two shooters and force the remaining bystanders near the gunfight to fling themselves to the floor. He fired several times, praying the vaulted glass ceiling several stories above wouldn’t come crashing down upon all of their heads.

  Logan leapt into action at the first shot, sprinting towards the glass wall and the exit to the walkways outside that led to the Riverview Ballroom.

  The slide on John’s 1911 locked back, the magazine empty. John ducked down, ejected the magazine, inserted another, and pulled the slide, releasing it. He stood up to engage the shooters but held his fire and smiled at the sight of Amira charging the two men from the side. Get those fuckers, babe.

  ===

  John’s fire had forced Omar and the second shooter to back against the wall of the free-standing convenience store and hide behind a large Christmas tree. Amira had crouched down and skirted along a row of fallen tables until she was behind a plastic Roman architecture support column for the awning of the restaurant, parallel to the shooters.

  John’s 1911 went silent, and Amira spun around the column, her SIGSAUER at the ready. Gotcha.

  Omar’s little helper was less than fifteen feet away in between her and Omar. He stood back up to return fire when Amira pulled the trigger one time, striking the man in the side of the head. Even as he collapsed to the stone floor, Omar recognized the mortal peril he was suddenly in, and he took a step backwards, turned, and dashed towards the open door to the store.

  Amira couldn’t risk firing into the building, as she knew the 9mm rounds would easily pass through the thin walls. She sprang into a run and gave chase, covering the open ground in seconds.

  Omar was already through the door when he crashed into a man who’d mistakenly thought it would be a good idea to try and get a glimpse of the chaos outside the store. Both Omar and the young man in his late twenties crashed to the store floor and slid into a rack of snacks erected in the middle of the floor. Omar pulled up his right hand to fire into the man’s stomach, when he realized with surprise that he’d dropped the Glock. Instead, he punched the man twice in the face, broke his nose, and scrambled backwards, lifting himself to his knees.

  He turned back towards the door as the figure of Amira Cerone rushed through the entrance, her pistol trained on him. Omar snarled at the woman he despised purely and completely, grabbed a box of Cliff power bars off the shelf next to him, and flung them at her as he launched himself off his knees towards his enemy. I won’t go down without a fight.

  Amira batted away the projectile power bars, the SIG still in her right hand, as she collided into the attacking, muscular figure of Omar Bol. I guess we’ll do this the hard way. She sensed several bystanders inside the store, cowering in the corners on the floor, and she feared a stray shot would take an innocent life.

  As Omar wrapped his arms around her, his head to the right side of her chest under her arm, she quickly turned her head and flung the SIG through the doorway to the walkway outside, where she knew John would collect it after he secured the scene around the other shooter’s body.

  The momentary action gave Omar the advantage, and he punched her hard in the left side three times before she could react. Her ribs and abdomen absorbed the blows, and she slammed her right elbow down on to the base of his skull. The blow staggered him, and he released her waist and spun to the left. Amira pressed forward, spun on her left foot, switched to her right foot mid-spin, and struck Omar in the hip with a back kick. The blow sent him careening into a spinning rack of paperback books, and both Omar and the rack tumbled to the floor as the paperbacks fell out of their holders. Omar picked up a book and hurled it in Amira’s direction as she stalked towards him.

  She easily deflected it, and said, “This ends now.” As she passed the pentagonal counter in the middle of the floor, she grabbed a silver Gaylord National letter opener from a hanging rack next to the register.

  Omar threw another book, and Amira ducked as it sailed past, catching a glimpse of a soldier on the cover, staring into the wilderness over big block letters that read, “OVER WATCH.”

  Omar rose to his feet, his eyes on the letter opener, and he pulled a short
push-dagger from beneath his jacket.

  Amira smiled at the appearance of the blade. “Good. I don’t want to be accused of killing an unarmed man.”

  The bystanders gasped at the unfolding knife fight, and several fled through the two entrances into the store.

  “Go to hell,” Omar said, and threw a left jab at her face with the intention of distracting Amira in order to close the distance.

  “You first,” Amira said as Omar attacked.

  Unfortunately for Omar, Amira Cerone was one of the most skilled hand-to-hand combat fighters in service of the CIA and Task Force Ares, and she identified the feint for what it was. She brought the letter opener up so fast Omar never saw it until it was sticking out of the bottom of his forearm and the pain had blossomed in his arm. She pulled out the letter opener, the blood glistening on the silver blade, and grabbed his right wrist with her left hand, immobilizing the push-dagger.

  Amira’s eyes blazed with fury as Omar struggled futiley against her grip. “There’s nowhere left to run, Omar. Your time has finally come. All you did in Africa was for nothing, only to die in a losing effort on US soil. Now, go to hell, for good.”

  Before Omar could respond, Amira twisted his right wrist to the left and plunged the letter opener into his left side. She felt the blade grind against a rib as she pushed farther, searching for a vital organ.

  Omar shrieked in pain, and his body went rigid as if an electric current ran through it.

  Amira mercilessly withdrew the letter opener, released the blade mid-air, and switched her grip with the blade now emerging from the back of her right hand. With blinding speed, she brought the letter opener in front of Omar, and he watched in horror as she buried it into his chest, piercing his heart. He stared down and saw the $19.99 sticker on the handle facing up, looked at Amira one last time. Her merciless pale blue eyes were the last things he saw as the darkness consumed him, and he fell to the shop’s floor, dead.

  “Are you okay?” John said from behind her, and Amira felt her heart race at the sound of his voice. He held her pistol in his left hand, as she’d known he would.

  She turned and faced him, and said, “The world is a better place with this monster no longer in it. I’ll tell you the whole story after this nightmare is over.”

  “That’s my girl,” John said, and smiled. “Now, let’s go help Logan before he destroys this place. Minus the gunfight, I kind of like it and wouldn’t mind coming back.”

  Amira smiled at her lover’s morbid sarcasm. “One thing at a time, killer. Let’s go.”

  John handed her the SIGSAUER pistol, and the two dashed out of the store in pursuit of Logan, hoping there was still time to save Director Tooney.

  Chapter 21

  Logan West ran down the concrete walkway from the atrium to the Riverview Ballroom, which had been constructed off-set to the right of the Gaylord and closer to the Potomac River in order to create the capital region’s first infinity ballroom. The sun was still up and wouldn’t set for another twenty minutes or so, but the wind blew in off the water, swirling around him as he ran, although the Kevlar vest he wore kept him warm.

  The day had started like most others after the events in Venezuela earlier in the year – Sarah and he had changed and fed Sophia, who at three and a half months, had finally started sleeping through the night. He’d thought endless days of sleep deprivation at the Marine Corps Basic Reconnaissance Course and then years of training in Force Reconnaissance Company had prepared him for fatherhood, but he was still tired, day after day, although he knew Sarah carried most of the burden. After the morning routine, he’d checked in with Jake Benson, the unofficial overseer of Task Force Ares, as dictated by President Preston Scott. But after Venezuela and the dismantling of the Organization, the task force had laid low, checking in at their new headquarters on the grounds of Quantico co-located with the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, headed by their close friend and ally, Lance Foster. But then John had called him at home, and the day had escalated wildly, until once again, Logan found himself running with a gun towards a new threat. Can’t catch a break.

  More gunshots erupted behind him in the atrium, but he ignored them and prayed his friends were on the giving end of the gunfire.

  He reached the first set of doors to the Riverview lobby and yanked the one on the right wide open.

  The Riverview Ballroom was a two-story, rectangular structure with a curved roof that dipped down where the lobby emptied into the enormous sixteen-thousand-square-foot ballroom enclosed by glass on three sides that overlooked the Potomac River and DC to the east. The panoramic vistas were breathtaking, and the venue was usually booked a year in advance.

  He stepped into the lobby, which ran the length of the facility. On the right were the restrooms and a series of rooms that comprised the pantry and kitchen to stage the food for the events held in the ballrom.

  On the left, a series of doors were set at intervals along the entire lobby, providing access to the ballroom. The doors were all open, as attendees of the summit moved back and forth between the main venue and the lobby. Great. More crowds. What did you expect? This is the Big Leagues when it comes to the Intelligence Community.

  Several people stopped mid-stride as Logan stalked across the blue carpet towards the first set of open doors, his Kimber at the ready and the FBI badge swinging across his chest. Their civilian senses told them something was amiss, but they weren’t sure what, although Logan was certain had they known, they would’ve fled in a panic. Keep the panic to a minimum, until it’s out of the bag.

  Screams and a series of gunshots reverberated from inside the ballroom, and Logan sprinted to the doors, hoping to get through them before the bystanders inside fled for their lives. Well, so much for the element of surprise.

  Logan burst into the ballroom and stepped to the left along the wall besides the door as the first panic-stricken people dashed out of the line of fire past him. What had been a speech on the cyber vulnerabilities of America’s power grid, specifically, the supervisory control and data acquisition systems – known as SCADA – that controlled it, had turned into a sustained gunfight.

  Logan West absorbed the entire scene in an instant and snapped a mental picture, even as he moved left along the wall. Director Tooney was nowhere in sight, but three of his personal security detail crouched behind the elevated stage on which the director had been speaking. Large, cushioned chairs had been knocked over, providing additional cover to the men behind the stage. A fourth agent lay on the stage, unmoving, blood pooling around his still body. The three protective agents were engaged in a gun battle on two fronts, and he recognized Charlie Jenkins, the head of the director’s detail, as he’d met the man on multiple occasions.

  Two hostile shooters, a man and a woman – Amira’s double, Logan realized – stood near the left glass wall while two others fired from the far side of the ballroom. And all four concentrated their fire towards the podium and the protective detail behind it.

  The only good thing in Logan’s mind was that the bad guys were using pistols, probably because it was easier to conceal a pistol than a long gun. But that didn’t matter to the several hundred people trapped inside when the gun battle began – they knocked over audience chairs and scrambled for safety towards the back of the ballroom.

  Need to even the odds. Logan moved against the tide of humanity along the back wall until he reached the glass windows on the left side of the ballroom. The sound of gunfire combined with the screams of the bystanders was deafening inside the enclosed space. Bullet holes appeared in all three walls, and Logan was reminded of the battle at the mountaintop hotel in Venezuela ten months ago. Why is there always so much glass? He kept moving forward.

  He was twenty-five feet away, and both shooters’ backs were to him. The Kimber was up and locked on the back of the head of the male shooter, who was closest to him. Unfortunately, several people still fled towards him, as if the side of the ballroom could somehow grant them refuge. A woman spot
ted him from ten feet away and screamed in horror, mistaking him for one of the attackers. He grabbed his badge with his left hand, pulled it away from his chest to show her and the others who’d seen him, and motioned for them all to get down.

  The second it took for her and the attendees near her to process and follow his instructions was enough to gain the attention of the man he’d locked on to with his Kimber’s front sight. As they dropped to the carpet, the man turned to see what had caused the commotion, and he spotted Logan just in time to see the bearer of his death.

  Logan pulled the trigger, and the Kimber roared inside the space, and the jacketed hollow point struck the man in the right eye, blowing out the back of his head and spraying the Amira look-a-like with a dark red mist. That got her attention, I’m sure.

  She stopped firing towards the back of the ballroom and turned towards Logan, the right side of her face and head covered in blood. Her eyes were wide as she saw the man who’d pulled the trigger. She screamed in outrage and swept the muzzle of the pistol towards Logan. She made it halfway before Logan pulled the trigger once again.

  The round struck her just above the right eye, and she dropped to the carpet, no longer a threat to anyone in the land of the living.

  The gun battle on the right side of the ballroom continued, the two attackers unaware of the fate of their two friends on the opposite side.

  Logan glanced at the stage and spotted Charlie Jenkins staring at him, recognition and relief written upon his face. Logan pointed through the fleeing masses towards the other two shooters and received a nod from the head of the director’s detail. Now, for the really fun part.

  He crouched low and began to combat walk quickly through the crowd, weaving in and out of moving bodies. He was confident in his approach, as he knew the shooters’ goal wasn’t to slaughter innocent civilians but to assassinate the director of the CIA. While he knew that key piece of information, the crowd didn’t, which explained the chaos and panic that reigned in the ballroom.