Pandemonium. Screams filled his ears as the red laser flicked out from the foreend of his H&K, searching for a target.
Terrorist. Civilian. Shoot. No-shoot. Hundreds of hours, every year, training for just this. He could see the shoot house now, tires pocked with bullets, mannequins once again arranged as so many times in the past.
Nothing ever truly prepared you for the chaos of battle. He saw one of the terrorists turn toward the stage, fumbling inside his jacket. Detonator.
Harry depressed the trigger, getting off a ragged burst — water and brass streaming from the H&K’s ejection port as he fired.
Time itself seemed to slow down. It was as if he could see the bullets striking the terrorist, slugs smashing through the man’s balaclava and on into his throat, sending him collapsing back against the seats.
He heard the death rattle of Han’s weapon, saw another man fall.
Reaching out a hand, Harry pulled himself up onto the edge of the stage, struggling to ignore the pain shooting through his side.
Slugs fanned the air past his ear and he glanced up to see one of the gunmen aiming a Kalashnikov down at him from among the seats, its barrel spurting flame.
Too close. He threw himself to one side, rolling onto his back as he brought the UMP-45 up, his finger applying pressure to the trigger.
No. A woman ran between him and his target in that moment, obscuring his sight picture. He didn’t have a clear shot as the terrorist grabbed her by the wrist, jerking her back against his body.
Human shield. He could see the terror in her eyes, the tears running down her face as he rose to his feet, the stock of the H&K extended against his bare shoulder.
“Are you going to go find mommy?”
It might have been her, might not. Might have been someone else’s mother.
Take the shot, he thought, the vision of the child filling his mind. Innocence. Hope. Trust.
He heard gunshots exploding around him, dimly saw men fall. His vision narrowed, focusing on the woman — her captor. His finger flicked out, switching the selector to single-shot.
A singular eye near the woman’s ear, half of a masked head — nothing more. Time itself seemed to slow down.
His breathing became shallow, his left hand closing around the foreend of the H&K in a rock-solid grip. The red dot of the laser stopped dancing, centering on the terrorist’s forehead, just above and to the right of the eyehole in the mask.
The trigger broke under the gentle caress of his finger, a single .45-caliber slug exploding from the muzzle — striking the terrorist in the center of the forehead.
He saw the woman’s lips open in a silent scream as the gunman’s grip on her wrist was suddenly loosed, a fine mist of blood flecking her silk blouse. She fell to her knees, eyes wide with horror, her screams finally finding voice.
Target eliminated.
He glanced across to see Han inserting a fresh magazine into the mag well of his MP-5, practiced hands moving over the action — pulling back the charging handle.
You never forget. No matter how hard you try.
A pall of silence seemed to fall over the theatre as the three of them moved forward, muzzles sweeping over the seats — over the bodies of the slain. The terrorists.
The hostages they had arrived too late to save.
The sulphurous, hellish scent of gunpowder hung in the air, mingling with the smell of blood. Death.
No shots greeted them from the balconies overlooking the stage, no explosions as suicide vests were triggered in once last act of defiance.
He could feel the hostages shrink away from him as he approached, water dripping from his body onto the bloodstained carpet of the “O”. Just another man with a gun…that’s all he was to them in this moment.
“Room clear,” Tex announced from his right, moving up the stairs barely a half-step behind him.
Han heard Tex’s voice, struggling to control his breathing against the onset of panic as he swept his weapon across the left side of the theatre. The gunshots, the sound of a sniper’s rifle — bringing all the memories flooding back.
And then it was over, just like that, leaving him trembling. “Room clear.”
Harry lowered his weapon, stepping across the body of a dead terrorist to where the congresswoman lay, leaning back against one of the seats. He bent down, his face only inches from hers, his hand reaching down to touch her arm. She met his gaze, eyes that had stared into the face of death now staring into his. Still unbowed.
“You’re safe now, ma’am. We’ve come to take you home.”
He hadn’t envisioned his own death like this…slowly bleeding to death on the carpet, his destroyed vocal chords making it impossible for him to even call for help. Failure.
“Stay calm,” he could hear one of the Americans announce. “We’re going to get all of you out of here, soon enough.”
There was no glory in having failed, in having fallen so short of the will of God. It seemed impossible, even yet…but he could feel himself growing weaker.
Jamal closed his eyes, fighting against the pain, the nausea that threatened to overwhelm him. He reached out, numb fingers groping for the detonator in the pocket of his jacket.
There was still a chance. He could still see the eyes of the shaikh, hear his words replaying themselves through his mind. “And where is Paradise to be found, my brothers?”
His own once-confident reply, chanting the takbir. “Neath the shade of swords.”
Yet it seemed death was all that was to be found. The death he had dealt to his brother. He could taste his own blood on his lips as his fingers touched the detonator, struggling to wrap themselves around it.
It felt as if his fingers were made of wood, clumsy — no longer responding to the dictates of his brain. The detonator fell from his pocket, rolling to the carpet.
Almost out of reach, the former college student thought, clawing desperately at the wire that connected it to his suicide vest.
Without warning, a heavy foot descended on his wrist, pinning it to the floor. He glanced up into cold eyes the color of gunmetal, a pistol extending from the American’s hand.
The eyes of an angel of death. The avenger of blood.
It entered his mind to beg for mercy, here at the end of his life, but there was no time. And no mercy to be found.
The gun came up, a long suppressor extending from its muzzle — the man’s finger tightening around the trigger.
The pistol coughed, a strange deathly sound. And Jamal’s world went dark.
Forever…
Harry bent down, his fingers closing around the edge of the terrorist’s blood-drenched balaclava — pulling it upward with a quick, forceful motion.
The lifeless eyes of a young man stared back at him, matted hair clinging to his forehead. But it wasn’t Tarik Abdul Muhammad.
His eyes darted around the stage, at the unmasked bodies of the other terrorists. Nowhere.
Something was wrong. He pulled the sealed pouch containing his earbud radio out of his water-logged trousers, inserting it into his ear and tuning it to the Bureau channel.
“Altmann, do you read me?”
“Loud and clear, EAGLE SIX,” the FBI agent replied. “My screens are showing you in the room with the hostages — sitrep?”
Harry glanced toward Samuel Han, kneeling over a young woman in the front row off the platform. “We have casualties, but yes…the hostages are secured. We’ll evacuate as soon as possible — there’s something else. Tarik Abdul Muhammad is MIA. The man on camera…wasn’t him.”