He lined up the nearest shadow detectable through the smoke and put the shotgun into action, pulling the trigger repeatedly as he moved swiftly toward the back of the market. He expended the fifteen remaining twelve-gauge shells within a few seconds, abruptly stopping the assault team's momentum into the market. Grunts and screams erupted during his sudden charge, as a wall of double ought buckshot blanketed the narrow confines of the storage area, ripping through half of the True America commandos. Return fire followed immediately, barely giving Sayar enough time to reach the cashier counter. He saw a dark red, football-sized smear on a calendar tacked to the wall behind Diyah's stool. The operative was nowhere in sight.
He caught movement in his peripheral vision and hurled himself over the counter. Before he could clear the white Formica barrier, an automatic weapon sent several bullets in his direction. The counter disintegrated around him, and he felt his left knee explode, followed by a similar pain in his right ankle. He crashed into a stack of VHS tapes and toppled a recycling bin as his momentum slammed him down to the littered floor.
He heard repeated pistol shots and looked up to see Diyah Castillo sitting low against the wall a few feet away, firing her pistol through the opening in the counter. Her face looked ashen. She stared blankly down the sight of the Glock, firing slow, methodical shots. The drywall around her exploded, as True America's commandos started to take better-aimed shots from the storeroom. She didn't flinch as the rounds hit the wall next to her head.
He reached out and grabbed her bloodied left arm, yanking her toward him as several bullets struck the space she had just previously occupied. Her right arm remained extended, and she continued to fire. A ski mask and assault rifle appeared above the counter, the barrel pointed right at his head. Before the muzzle could flash, ending Sayar's life, Diyah's pistol roared, sending a .40 caliber hollow-point round through the rifle's EOTech sight. A massive dark splash hit the wall behind the commando's head.
He had managed to bring his own weapon up over Diyah's left shoulder when he saw more movement over the counter. Too many of them, he thought, as the slide on Diyah's Glock locked back. Her pistol was empty, and there was no way she would be able to reload it. Her left arm had been destroyed. He raised his own pistol, thinking that this was the end. He hoped their sacrifice would give Sanderson what he needed to stop True America. Before he could pull the trigger, bursts of rifle fire erupted from the front of the market. He was faintly aware of the blue and red light dancing on the market's surfaces and the sound of yelling. The words "clear" and "FBI" rang in his ears.
Aleem Fayed sprinted down the poorly lit, uneven sidewalk, keeping his suppressed MP-9 submachine gun as low as possible. Tariq followed a few steps behind. He couldn't believe their luck, given the fact that the True America operatives had nearly achieved a complete surprise attack. Their radio discipline had kept the impending assault from detection until the very last moment, when the final order had been given from the vehicle they were rapidly approaching. One brief radio transmission had given their electronic warfare team everything they needed.
Tariq and Aleem had been parked just around the block when the attack order had been transmitted. The close proximity of True America's command vehicle put them within striking distance. When the location of the transmitted order popped up on their mobile tablet, they hadn't wasted a second talking about options. They bolted out of their car, leaving the keys in the ignition.
The occupants of this vehicle had been the true purpose of the entire operation. The FBI might capture some of the True America shooters alive in the market, but Sanderson was more interested in getting his hands on someone higher up in the leadership structure. Given the training level of the True America operatives, Sanderson highly suspected the existence of a substantial training compound. If they could discover the location of True America's militant training center, the FBI should be able to rapidly unravel True America's plot. Aleem intended to be the one to deliver this information to the FBI.
The two operatives slowed to a quick walk, raising their weapons to a ready position. Tariq's MP-9 had been fitted with an underslung Taser, which would be critical to taking one of the men alive. It would be Aleem's job to identify the leader and kill the rest. They had exhaustingly practiced this abduction technique at the Argentina compound, to the point where they could take down a four-man security team, removing the high-value target within seconds. As they weaved through the thick tree trunks between the parked cars and sidewalk, he could see that they were dealing with two men in an Explorer parked three cars down. The sound of automatic gunfire echoed off the brownstone houses, hitting his ears from every direction.
The driver raised a handheld radio to his ear for a few seconds, before lowering it and shaking his head quickly. The Explorer's brake lights illuminated, followed by the sound of the vehicle's ignition turning over.
"Driver is our target," Aleem said.
Tariq sprinted forward, clearing the trees, while Aleem slipped between two parked cars and approached from the street. As he passed the rear of the Explorer, he barely caught the white reverse light in his peripheral vision. If the car was in gear, this could get complicated when Tariq's Taser pushed 50,000 volts of electricity through the driver's body. If his foot was on the accelerator, they'd have a major problem. It was too late to stop Tariq. He just hoped his partner detected the white reverse lights. Based on Tariq's wide angle of approach, he wasn't hopeful.
As soon as the front passenger's head came into view through the rear passenger window, Aleem fired a short burst, immediately seeing the bloody result on the front windshield. He aimed through the shattered window into the back seat, confirming that it was empty. He continued forward, but was unable to get to the front passenger window. It took him a brief moment to realize that the car was moving forward. He fired a round through the passenger window and tried to aim at the driver's leg, but the car accelerated rapidly, headed straight for a white pickup truck parked several spaces down. He sprinted behind the vehicle with Tariq, who no longer held his submachine gun.
"I tossed it in the fucking car to keep the wires intact," he hissed, anticipating Aleem's question.
The Explorer slammed into the rear of the pickup truck, causing a deafening crunch. The SUV's engine continued to scream, pushing the vehicle against the pickup truck and edging both vehicles forward. The engine's whine drowned out the sounds of gunfire, bringing the neighborhood to life. Porch lights snapped on up and down Westminster Street. They needed to get out of here immediately.
Tariq reached the Explorer first and yanked the driver's door open for Aleem, who grabbed the driver by the left arm and pulled him free of the vehicle, silencing the hideously loud engine. He dragged the convulsing man several feet onto the sidewalk, while Tariq retrieved the MP9 in the dead passenger's lap and disabled the Taser. In the few seconds it took for Tariq to do his job, Aleem searched the man for weapons, finding only a wallet in his rear pants pocket.
"Grab the radio and find his phone," he said.
Five seconds after the Explorer had crashed into the pickup truck, he jogged down the sidewalk with their target in a fireman's carry, while Tariq covered their one-block retreat to their vehicle on Argyle Road. Through his own labored breathing, Aleem noticed that the distant shooting had stopped. He hoped Sayar and his team had survived, but given the amount of gunfire they had heard approaching the Explorer, he wasn't very optimistic. Sanderson had been right about the Imam. Killing him had been extremely important to True America's leadership. Important enough to send more than a dozen highly trained commandos to conduct a brazen hit-and-run attack. His deadline for extracting information from the man slung over his back would be accelerated. There would be no way to keep the FBI's direct involvement a secret, which meant that True America might hasten their timeline upon learning that some of their operatives had been captured alive.