For a heartbeat no one did. The terrorists, most on the warehouse floor, two still on the stairs, froze, startled no doubt by the sight of more than a dozen armed men in coveralls stepping or rolling out of concealment to point weapons at them.
Then one of the terrorists screamed something, certainly a curse, even if Howard didn't understand the words. The screamer dug his hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small chrome-plated pistol—
Somebody cooked off a double-tap—pop! pop! — and dropped the pistoleer.
It all went south. Most of the other terrorists tried to get their guns out.
One of them saw how stupid this was, yelled "Nyet! Nyet!" but too late.
Howard's orders to his troops had been clear — take them alive if possible, but if somebody is going to get shot, do not let it be you.
Time stalled, stretched, and Howard saw part of it in his suddenly tunneled vision, as if it were a movie being run in slow motion and he was in the front row. His vision narrowed, but there was nothing wrong with his hearing: Even amidst all the gunfire, obscenely loud in the enclosed warehouse, he distinctly heard the sound of men yelling, actions cycling, chunk-chunk! and brass clinking on the concrete floor, tink, tink, clink—
— a big bearded man pulled what looked like a World War I Luger from his belt and swung it up, only to catch several rounds from a submachine gun in a neat horizontal row across the center of his mass—
— the man yelling "Nyet!" dropped to the floor, covered his head with his hands, curled into a fetal position, still repeating his panicked yell—
— the men on the stairs turned to flee back the way they had come—
— a thin, balding man missing a front tooth came up with a sawed-off bolt-action rifle, a.22 maybe, and thrust it toward Howard. So keen was his vision that Howard noticed a ring on the man's right forefinger as he wrapped the digit around the trigger—
No time to raise the assault rifle to aim. Howard point-indexed the thin man, stabbed the weapon at him as if it were a bayonet and pulled the trigger. The big weapon bucked, once — twice — three times! and recoil lifted the muzzle with the second and third rounds. The first bullet struck at high solar-plexus level, the second the base of the throat, the third at the top of the receding hairline. Howard saw the spray of the head's exit wound, a balloon full of dark red fluid bursting—
One would have been enough. That was the thing with a.30-caliber rifle, a good solid body hit was a one-hundred-percent-fight-stopper. No handgun could claim that, but a 7.62mm, yeah—
The thin man fell, already dead, taking nearly forever to reach the floor. Land masses rose and sank, life came and went, time wore away mountains…
By the time the dead man lay flat on the concrete, the battle was over.
Howard noticed his ears were ringing, and the stink of burned gunpowder filled his nostrils. Jesus!
His troops moved, covering the surviving terrorists. Two had made it up the stairs, only to find the other exits blocked. Hands raised, they came down the stairs again.
The yelling man had survived. When the smoke cleared and the counts were done, of the twenty-one terrorists, nine were dead, six were wounded — two seriously enough so that Howard's medics didn't give them much hope, four with survivable injuries. The unit's medical transports had already pulled up and were hauling the bodies and wounded out.
None of Howard's troops had sustained a scratch.
And he had killed a man, face-to-face, who had tried to kill him.
"Sir," Fernandez said, "we oughta skedaddle."
"Affirmative, Sarge." He glanced at his watch. Not yet noon. Amazing.
According to Hunter, they had about ten minutes before the local authorities would have to quit pretending they didn't know anything and take action. "Pack it up," Howard said to the troops. "Oh, and… good work."
That earned him a few grins, but his adrenaline was fast fading. He felt tired, old and suddenly depressed. He and his troops had been better trained, better armed, and they'd had surprise on their side. This wasn't a battle, it had been a complete rout. These so-called terrorists had never had a chance.
How much pride could you take in winning a battle of wits with an idiot? A footrace with a man wearing casts on his ankles? Not very much.
Still — he hadn't screwed it up. That was something.
15
Toni Fiorella was practicing sempok and depok, moves that allowed a fighter to go quickly from standing to sitting positions while keeping a defense. To do these properly required a fair amount of balance and leg strength, and she tried to include them in most of her workouts to maintain both. Silat had a lot of ground-fighting techniques, but being able to spring to one's feet in a hurry from a seated position was also part of the training. It was hard on the knees, however.
She was breathing hard and working on a pretty good sweat when Jesse Russell came into the gym. No spandex this time. He wore faded black sweat pants, an oversize black T-shirt and mat shoes.
"Hey," he said.
"Mr. Russell."
"Rusty. Please."
"All right. Rusty."
"What, uh, do I call you in class? As a gesture of respect? Sensei? Sifu?"
"The term we use for teacher is ‘Guru,' " she said.
He smiled. "Really?"
"Indonesia got a lot of its culture from the mainland, some from the Hindu and Moslem religions."
He laughed.
She raised her eyebrows.
He said, "I was just thinking about telling my friend Harold about this: ‘I went to see my guru today.' ‘Yeah? You learning how to meditate?' "
"Actually, she's teaching me how to kick some serious ass."
Toni smiled. "Are you serious, Rusty? About learning?"
"Yes, ma'am. I trained five years in taekwondo, and I'm pretty sure I can handle myself in most situations, but it's mostly outfighting, long range. This in-your-face stuff sorta came as a surprise. I'd really like to learn it."
"All right. There are three things you want to remember: base, angle and leverage. And one of the most basic principles works on taking the center line — you want to control the area in front of your head and body, and in front of an opponent's head and body. I'm going to demonstrate the first djuru. Watch me, and then we'll break it down."
He nodded. "Yes, ma'am."
When Alex Michaels bothered to eat lunch, he usually ate it at his desk. The unit secretary would get his order, put it on the list and fax it to the deli guy, who would deliver the food to the reception guard just after noon. Before the deli had been approved as a supplier, Net Force had run a background on the deli's owner, his wife and grown kids and the guy who brought the orders. Even so, when the assassination protocols had been in place, if anybody wanted to order out, an agent had to hand-carry the order to the store, then stand and watch the food as it was prepared. Security was tight, and rightfully so — why bother to shoot somebody if you could poison his lunch?
Michaels was partial to the Reuben sandwich and potato salad, and the crunchy dill pickle, quarter-sliced lengthways, that came with it. That was what he usually ordered.
On days when he just had to get out of the unit for a few minutes, he skipped the deli order and the Net Force cafeteria and went to the new restaurant row a couple miles away. In good weather, he took his recumbent trike, a low-slung sixteen-gear three-wheeler he left parked in the covered bike racks.