He landed on his right shoulder, picked himself up, and found Davis near a banquette, holding his head, looking woozy.
“You okay?”
No answer.
“Davis, can you hear me?”
He couldn’t. So Crocker did a quick inspection of his head and neck. Saw no external injuries, but his eyes were dilated and unfocused, indicating that he might have suffered a concussion.
There wasn’t anything Crocker could do for him now. He said, “Wait here.”
Gunshots went off and ricocheted off the walls and floor. Glass flew everywhere. People screamed. He ducked behind a table and slithered on his belly through air thick with the smell of cordite and smoke.
Reaching two NATO soldiers in light blue uniforms who lay in a heap along the right wall, he discovered that neither was breathing or had a pulse. He relieved them of their weapons-some sort of automatic pistol from one, an MP5 with a collapsible stock from the other. Both were loaded and seemingly in working order.
He peered through the shattered windows facing the back and saw men by the pool spraying the brasserie with bullets from automatic weapons held at their hips. Rambo-style, he thought. Black turbans, scarves hiding their faces.
Fucking cowards!
He watched a bearded man in a black T-shirt remove the pin of a grenade with his teeth. Before he had a chance to throw it, Crocker took aim and cut him down at the knees. The man fell backward as the grenade exploded, throwing him into the pool.
When the smoke cleared, he saw the man’s legless body floating next to a woman who was facedown in the blue water. Her dress billowed out like large pink fins.
Holly’s image flashed in his head, reminding him that the dead woman in the pool was someone’s wife or girlfriend. This added to his rage.
Sons of bitches!
Spotting the shadows of the armed men retreating, he aimed and fired. One man stumbled and slid. Crocker ran across the patio to the far side of the pool, knelt on the terra-cotta tiles, and fired again. A group of attackers had turned right and were running in the direction of the marina. Crocker suspected that a boat or truck was waiting to pick them up and help them escape. He wasn’t going to let that happen.
Smoke rising from the fire behind him, he brought down two of them with bursts from the MP5. A little dark-skinned teenager in a sleeveless T-shirt crouched beside him and toppled another. The scrawny teenager turned to Crocker, smiled with a mouthful of jumbled and broken teeth, and flashed a thumbs-up. He had big eyes that caught the light. Beside him were three other young men, all dressed in T-shirts and jeans. The black tee of one had SURFER printed on it. They were holding AKs that looked almost as big as they were.
Crocker had no time to ask them who they were and which group they were affiliated with. He was glad that, like him, they were trying to stop the terrorists, who probably outnumbered them three to one.
A helicopter circled around the hotel tower and swooped over the water. Its spotlight illuminated roughly a dozen men armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades escaping down the beach. One of them stopped, took aim at the helicopter, and fired his RPG before Crocker could take him down. The rocket whooshed and smashed into the copter’s side. The resulting explosion splashed everything with white light and numbed Crocker’s ears. The copter’s rear rotor continued spinning in the sky as the cockpit plummeted into the sea.
Pieces of hot shrapnel screamed through the air, stuck in the sand around them. One of the teenagers fell. He started moaning and kicking wildly.
“Where was he hit?” Crocker asked.
One of the other teens ran over to help his injured friend and was struck in the back by a volley of bullets.
Crocker shouted, “Stay down! Stay down!” as he lay facedown in the sand and returned fire. He asked himself, “Where is security? Where the fuck is NATO? How come we’re the only ones shooting back?”
The attackers fired rockets in their direction, then retreated. One exploded in the sand in front of Crocker. Others screeched over his head.
He got up, spit out the grit in his mouth, and gave chase. But when he stopped to fire, the mag in the MP5 ran out. He didn’t have another. When he tried to fire the pistol, it jammed.
“Piece of shit!”
Still he gave chase. Reaching the first fallen attacker, he kicked him in the face, then relieved him of his AK, which was still hot.
The sand was a bitch to run in. Made him remember his younger brother and how they used to play on the beach when they were kids. His brother now owned several car dealerships north of Boston. Meanwhile, he was halfway around the world getting shot at by terrorists.
Nearing the marina, he sensed someone running beside him. It was the kid in the sleeveless T-shirt with the big eyes and uneven teeth.
Who is he?
Sounds of chaos continued beyond his shoulder. He knelt and fired at the attackers ahead who were jumping on motorcycles and climbing into the back of a pickup parked alongside the marina. Bullets skidded off the pavement and slammed into the cab of the truck. The kid beside him hit the rider of one of the motorcycles in the chest.
“Good shot!”
The bike spun, hit the curb with an eruption of sparks, and threw its rider into the bushes along the canal.
Crocker ran over and righted the bike. Jumped on and gunned the engine.
The kid sprinted to the canal, shot the rider again, then jumped on the back. A smooth customer.
Pointing the motorcycle toward the Corniche, Crocker pulled back on the throttle. The bike roared and took off.
For the first time he heard sirens approaching, which pleased him.
Finally!
But the bike wouldn’t pick up speed. He heard scraping from the back wheel.
Maybe the axle is messed up.
He got about fifty yards down the Corniche and stopped, his heart pounding.
“Motherfuckers!”
He looked at the kid with the big eyes and the tangle of dark hair that stood straight up.
The kid grinned and repeated, “Mutha-fukka.”
They knelt on the pavement and fired until they ran out of ammo. Then hurried together back across the beach to where the kid’s two buddies were lying. The one who was shot in the back had bled out and was dead, but the other was still breathing. Crocker removed the kid’s SURFER T-shirt and pressed it against two bullet holes near his hip.
“Hold it there until we can get him to a hospital. He’ll be okay.”
The kid with the big eyes grinned and raised his thumb. He was a brave little guy, whoever he was.
Pointing to his chest, he said, “Farag.”
“Tom Crocker. I’m going to help the people inside.”
“Very good. Good man.”
“Good luck, Farag. And thanks.”
Back in the brasserie, Crocker spent the next hour giving CPR and trying to clear airways and stop bleeding, using towels and pillows and the pathetically meager emergency medical supplies on hand. People were missing hands, parts of legs. They’d been shot in every place imaginable, struck with shrapnel, burned.
His hands and arms were covered with blood, and he was wrapping a sock around a man’s arm as a tourniquet when someone tapped him on the shoulder. Turning, he saw a NATO doctor and nurse standing behind him, light blue masks over their faces.
Emergency lights were now burning, powered by a portable generator, and he saw the room clearly for the first time. The scene was gruesome. Blood smeared everywhere. Piles of bodies. Reminded him of a documentary he’d once watched about a slaughterhouse in Chicago.
At least the wounded were being carried out on stretchers. Nurses, paramedics, and doctors were taking charge, directing armor-clad NATO soldiers.
“Have you seen Al Cowens?” he asked.
Someone pointed to a pile of bodies near the far wall.