Uzi cursed under his breath.
“Come out, Yaseen.” He said this in English because he knew the man had no difficulties with the language. “You have till three. One. Two.”
“I’m not coming out. But you can come in or I will kill your friend. So now it is my turn to count. One.”
“I’m coming.”
But Uzi knew that if he approached the doorway, Yaseen would open fire. Game over. Uzi was not wearing a vest.
He also did not have any flash bangs or concussion grenades. No strobing lights to disorient him or other high-tech means to disable the tango without putting himself or Fahad in danger.
But he did have a low-tech method. Would it work?
“Two,” Yaseen yelled.
He ejected the magazine from one of the Berettas and with it in his left hand, approached the door in a crouch.
In one motion, he yelled, “Mo, get down!” and threw the loaded magazine into the room, backhanded, as hard as he could. He swung left, into the open doorway, his Glock in ready-to-fire position.
Yaseen was focused on an area a few feet away where the magazine had struck. Uzi squeezed off a round and struck the tango in the right shoulder. He jerked back and sprayed the far wall wildly with automatic rounds.
Uzi fired again, taking care to avoid striking vital organs. This time Yaseen dropped his weapon, an MP7 submachine gun.
Uzi stepped into the modest sized bedroom, which featured a folded futon bed and a dresser. Boxes were stacked along one of the walls.
Fahad was picking himself — and the MP7—up from the floor.
Uzi noted three missing fingers on Yaseen’s left hand. If there was any doubt as to the man’s profession, that helped confirm it.
“You okay?”
Fahad hit Yaseen with a right cross and sent the man backward into the corner.
“Now I’m okay.”
“What the hell happened?”
“He got the drop on me when I walked in. My fault.”
Fahad pulled out a flexcuff and yanked his prisoner’s arms back to fasten the restraint.
“Ahh! Son of a bitch. You did that on purpose.”
“He’s losing blood,” Uzi said. Using his knife, he sliced off a long strip from the bed sheet. With Yaseen’s arm abducted, Uzi saw that the wounds were not in the shoulder but were lodged a few inches above the elbow. He tied the tourniquet around the upper limb to stem the potential arterial bleeding. “Check on our friends, see if they’re in any mood to talk.”
“I’ll make sure they are.”
“This means nothing,” Yaseen said. “You think that by capturing us you’ve won?”
“It’s a start. But I’m not so naive to think that one victory will win the war.”
“The war’s over,” he said disdainfully, resting his head against the wall. “You people just don’t know it.”
Uzi had a hard time arguing with that — but he had an equally difficult time accepting it. He was not waving the white flag and he didn’t know any of his colleagues who were, either.
“You’re Uziel,” Yaseen said. “The Jew FBI agent.”
“In the flesh.”
“Kadir Abu Sahmoud has an order out to kill you.”
“Yeah, how’s that working out for him?” Uzi stood up and walked around the futon to the wall of corrugated boxes. He stabbed at one with his Puma and ripped open the front panel of the cardboard.
He moved to the next one, and then the next, tearing them open with angry vigor. They all contained the same item: suicide bomber vests.
Fahad walked in and surveyed the contraband. “Gotta be dozens.”
Yaseen grinned. “We’ve got a whole army waiting to die for Allah.”
“You fucking brainwash people,” Fahad said. “I should shoot you right here, put you out of our misery.”
“I believe your Constitution would prevent that. Of all our weapons, that one is maybe our most potent.”
Fahad glanced at Uzi. That comment was truer than either of them wanted to admit.
“What about those jokers out there?”
“Aziz is not talking. The other one—”
“Michel?”
“Yeah, that’s the thing. It’s not Michel. Claims his name is Noori. I sent Richard Prati and Tim Meadows his photo to see if they could run him through the database, get an ID.”
“So where’s Doka Michel?”
Yaseen’s lips broadened. “You missed him. He left twenty minutes before you got here.”
“With the Jesus Scroll?”
Yaseen laughed.
Uzi ground his jaw. “Believe him?”
Fahad shrugged. “Let’s tear the place apart. It’s small, a few minutes should do it.”
“Police are gonna be on the way. With all that gunfire—”
“You’re not going to find anything,” Yaseen said.
They ignored him and went about looking under, on top of, in the middle of, and behind everything in the flat. Other than the suicide vests, it was clean, just as Yaseen had claimed. Uzi figured the place was a secondary safe house used to store bombs, not for operational planning. When the Rue Muller location was compromised, they came here.
Understanding did not lessen the disappointment. But it was short-lived because sirens blared in the distance. Uzi ran to the window and listened. “We’ve gotta get out of here.”
Fahad reached over to one of the open boxes and pulled out a vest. He unfolded it and found it fully equipped with explosives. He did a quick check, seemed satisfied, and rolled it back up. He pulled a second one from the carton and placed it with the first.
Uzi started to back out of the room. “I’ll get Abdul and Hijaz and leave them with Noori. Get Yaseen ready. We’ll take him and Aziz with us.”
They stuffed socks into the mouths of their two hostages and tied a long strip of material around their heads, keeping the gags in place. They dragged the still-unconscious bodies of Abdul and Hijaz into the living room beside Noori and headed down the stairs.
Two minutes later, with the sirens getting louder, Uzi found an unmarked, rusted fire door at the end of the hall. He pulled it open and they stepped inside, keeping the two men in front of them. Uzi turned on his phone’s flashlight to scout out the interior: a set of stairs led down to what looked like a basement, perhaps with a boiler or furnace. The building was several decades old and the room had a strong musty smell. Whatever this place was, it was likely only frequented by maintenance staff.
After descending the steps, they saw, through street-level half windows above their heads, the swirling lights of police cars. From the looks of the constellation of colors flickering off windows in the surrounding buildings, there were several of them.
“I’ll go take a look,” Fahad said.
Uzi moved the men into a corner against the far wall and explored the remainder of the room. He found another set of stairs that led to a different metal door.
When Fahad returned, Uzi showed him the exit he had discovered.
“They’re deploying tac teams. Any minute now, they’ll start infiltrating the building and setting up a perimeter.”
“My bet is your door leads up to the street,” Fahad said. “If I’m right about where it’ll let us out, we may be able to get down the block without being seen.”
“I’m sure the tac team hasn’t had time to review the building’s blueprints. They probably don’t know about this exit.”
They grabbed Yaseen and Aziz and shoved them up the steps. When they reached the top, Uzi shined his light on the door. It had warning stickers and other decals that had been painted over and rusted through in spots. Fahad pushed his Glock against Yaseen’s temple as Uzi grasped the handle and pulled it open. He peered out and indicated that they were good to go.
Fahad closed the door behind him and helped usher the two men down the dark side street. Behind them, swirling lights painted the buildings.