The gangster’s body crumpled against the door, holding it shut from men trying to open it.
Now Court turned back to the pile of undulating bodies lying in the doorway that led to the bar. The small fire from the bar area spread into the kitchen, fueled by frying grease and other items that had fallen from the crumpled shelving unit into the flames in the doorway. The pile of men — Court counted at least five so far, with more stumbling in through the dancing flames — kicked and scrambled to get up and away from the danger.
Court charged at them, reaching into his right front pocket as he did so.
Zoya Zakharova was pleased she hadn’t heard any more shooting from the cargo ship, but now a new sound caused her to pull her eyes out of the eyecup of the scope. The roar of shouts and screams of excitement came across the water, apparently from the only area of activity around the bay, the little dive bar.
Although she was 350 meters away here in her hide, the sound traveled easily in the night air over the still water.
She brought her binoculars up to her eyes to check it out and, to her surprise, she saw that some kind of a barroom brawl had erupted at the same moment as the raid. She knew it was possible the patrons had heard the gunfire from the cargo ship, but she doubted they’d be able to tell that was where it came from. If men on the Tai Chin VI had managed to contact their ten colleagues at the bar, they could have warned them, which might have brought the Vietnamese gangsters racing back to help their comrades, but she didn’t see how it would have led to a fight there.
She didn’t know what was going on, but any dustup might help slow the response from the Vietnamese and cover the actions on the cargo ship, so she was pleasantly surprised at this turn of events.
For a better look she shifted the entire sniper rifle so she could train its optic on the bar, and when she did so she saw the lighted covered deck, and a large mass of people moving around the poorly constructed building.
She squinted. A fire?
It appeared the bar area was ablaze, and smoke poured from the open-air building.
No one was down on the dinghy dock, which meant the Vietnamese weren’t heading back to their ship to investigate the shooting there — at least not yet — so she began to lift the rifle back up so she could scan the deck of the Tai Chin VI again, but she stopped herself suddenly and lowered her eye back to the scope. The crack of a gunshot was unmistakable over the quiet bay, and this gunfire had come from the bar, not from the ship.
She couldn’t see the shooter, she was too far away, but she felt like she should notify the Zaslon unit. She knew Vasily had called for radio silence and they were maintaining it, even though they were obviously engaging hostiles right now. Vasily had demanded she not transmit on the net unless absolutely necessary, but Zoya thought it prudent to tell them about shooting going on away from the cargo ship.
“All elements, this is Sirena. Be advised — there is gunfire coming from the bar on the northwestern shore of the bay. I can’t see who is shooting. There is a fire there, as well. There seems to be an altercation that might be unrelated to our operation.”
No one replied, but she hadn’t expected a response.
More gunshots from the bar now; the reports sounded to Zoya to be coming from pistols, at least two different weapons firing in close succession. She had no idea what the hell was going on over there, but she decided she’d focus on the bar, watching the action in case this melee caused the ten men from the Tai Chin VI to head back to their ship, right in the middle of the raid.
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
Court thought things couldn’t get much worse; then some asshole out in the covered deck area started shooting blindly into the galley kitchen.
Awesome.
As Court sprinted towards the men falling in front of him, braving the flames, stumbling over one another and the destroyed shelving unit full of cooking supplies, he heard the shots and saw holes appear in the thin wall, not far away. Court ran on, launched into the air, and planted his left foot on the edge of a metal grill. In full leap he pushed off, vaulting high over the men in the pile, and grabbed on to the single hanging bulb lighting the kitchen area. He crushed the bulb, shattering it and sending the kitchen into darkness save for the flames licking in from the bar, the light of which did not reach into the far end of the galley. Still, he stuck his landing at the northern end of the kitchen because he’d calculated his trajectory before the light went out.
Court spun around, turning on the tactical flashlight he pulled from his pocket. The taclight sent nine hundred lumens of blinding white light back in the direction of the men climbing over the shelves, cans, and boxes. He laid the five-inch-long device on a shelf over a sink just to his right so the beam would remain constant up the galley and hide Court’s actions.
Above the shelf he saw a stocked knife rack nailed into a wooden support beam. Court yanked a meat cleaver and a long carving fork off the rack, just as a man charged forward through the light, his eyes surely blinded, but either his adrenaline or his stupidity pushing him on. He held a stiletto in his hand.
Court dispatched the man with a parry of the knife with the carving fork and a brutal strike to the side of the neck with the meat cleaver. The man fell and writhed on the cement floor of the galley, and Court stepped back, nearly to the back wall, ready to take the next ten men to try their luck up the narrow aisle.
More Hong Kong Triads shielded their eyes and braved the danger of having no idea where the gweilo in front of them was.
Another crack of a gunshot caught Court’s attention, but he didn’t stop swinging as another man closed in the narrow space. He struck this man in the arm with the cleaver, causing the attacker to drop his blade and fall, clutching a long and deep slash.
The man just behind him stumbled over his fallen comrade and fell to the ground on his forearms and knees. Court drop-kicked this attacker in the face, spinning him 180 degrees before he fell in a heap.
Persistent gunfire cracked outside in the bar now. Court saw the holes in the walls getting closer to his position, and he knew he’d be hit in seconds if he waited around for the shooters to adjust their aim.
The walls!
Court had noticed earlier in the day that this dive looked like it had been put together with flypaper and baling wire. There was no way out of the corner he’d backed himself into… unless he made his own exit.
He heel-kicked at the wall behind him as hard as he could. It moved, shaking the entire kitchen, but the thin plywood held. As another man climbed off the pile and raced towards him with a blade, rushing out of the dazzling beam of light, Court kicked again, lower on the wall, trying to hit another of the weak boards at its least secure point.
This time he heard a crack, and the board separated from its fasteners.
The new man sprang on him, faked a kick that caused Court to commit to blocking, then barreled in with a jab of the knife. Court dropped fast to his knees, causing the blade to fire just inches above his upper back; then Court spun on his hands and kicked out hard, striking the man in the ankle on his weight-bearing leg. The appendage cracked and the man fell forward.
Court propped the carving fork on the floor, business end up. His attacker fell straight down onto it, killing him instantly.
On the ground now with men just feet away and surging forward like a flood, Court rolled out of his backpack, flipped onto his back, and kicked at the loose board in the back wall with the heels of both feet. After one hit it bent away and cracked again; a second try broke the board all the way through, sending it flying into a far corner of the bar’s back deck.