“You okay?” I didn’t need the head of the MEK in Amsterdam dying just then. I still needed him.
“Okay. I think,” he said.
A man clambered out the passenger’s side of the truck cab, pistol in hand, and shouted in Farsi, “Find the American.”
I’m not normally a betting man, but I was willing to lay odds just then that he was talking about me.
“We gotta move,” I shouted at Moradi.
I jerked open the door and grabbed him by the collar. We spilled out of the car and he landed on all fours on the asphalt. I fell in next to him.
“Go! They want me, not you. Go,” I shouted, pushing the huge Iranian toward the curb. He shambled into a crowd of astonished pedestrians who, not five seconds earlier, had been out for an evening stroll and were now witnesses to some very serious mayhem. If it were me, I’d be diving into a doorway for cover right about now.
I drew the Walther from inside my jacket and popped the safety. At the same moment, I heard the taxi’s front door swing open and caught a glimpse of Kia Akbari darting around the back of the taxi, gun drawn.
He looked straight at me. At this range, I was a sitting duck, and all I could do was berate myself for a lack of good judgment. Well done, Jake. But of course the Iranian was a sitting duck, too. But rather than empty a full magazine into my torso, Akbari flattened himself against the trunk of the car, held his pistol in a two-handed grip, and aimed at the truck.
“Go. Go,” he yelled at me. “I’ll cover you.”
The driver of the runaway delivery truck jumped out and drew a Glock; I imagined it was a Glock by the burnish of the metal, but it could have been any 9 mm. He and his partner used the truck’s doors for cover and opened fire. Relatively professional, but sloppy. People screamed and dived for cover. About time. I heard music blaring in my head, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Call Me the Breeze.” Time to play, Jake.
Bullets ricocheted from the pavement close to my feet. I fired two shots, taking out the window glass of the truck and sending the two gunmen ducking for cover.
Akbari scooted along the back of the taxi and put himself in the line of fire. He yelled over his shoulder, “Get the hell going!”
Akbari fired out his magazine, riddling the truck and keeping the two men at bay. He crouched behind the taxi and groped in his jacket for a fresh magazine.
I hated these kinds of decisions. Run in favor of the mission and leave a soldier with zero chance of survival, or risk the mission and take a stand by his side. I heard sirens. “Move,” Akbari screamed. So I did, and hated myself for it.
I sprang to my feet and ran. The sidewalks were filled with fleeing people, and I pushed a woman and her child into a nearby stairwell. I glanced back. There was a motorcycle darting down the thoroughfare, and it wasn’t the cops. I saw bullets splash around Akbari’s feet. One hit his ankle, and he crumpled to the pavement. I was raising my gun when the next bullet tore into Akbari’s leg and another ripped into his belly. His head lolled back, and the pistol spun from his hand to clatter on the asphalt. Goddammit. The man had sacrificed himself for me.
A flood of police cars raced onto Prins Hendrikkade. The two gunmen charged around the taxi, guns raised, and paid no heed whatsoever to the police. They raced into the crowd with one aim, and that was to find and kill me. That wasn’t going to happen today. I painted a picture of both of them in my head even as I ran. The passenger: a burly Persian with a bald head and a thick nose, snorting like a bull in heat. The driver: a skinny, dark guy with spiked hair and a Hulk Hogan mustache. I wouldn’t forget them.
I had a fifty-yard head start and dashed left into a side street, dodging pedestrians and hurdling a baby stroller. I could outrun the shooters or taken them down in a firefight, but my bigger problem was the motorcycle.
I looked over my shoulder. On second glance, it looked more like a dirt bike as it zigzagged through the street. The rider wore a black-and-red helmet. He locked in on me. He had a very nasty-looking machine pistol dangling in front of him — probably a MAC-11 purchased from an American arms dealer — and I saw him gripping it with his right hand. All hell was about to break loose, and I had to end it fast.
When I reached the cross street, I tucked myself around the corner of a four-story stone apartment house. I gripped the Walther with two hands, stepped around the building, and triggered three shots in less than a second, all low and aimed at that midlevel point where the biker’s knees and the bike’s gas tank came together. I didn’t wait to see the results. I dipped back behind the building and listened as the bike skidded across the pavement.
Now I looked. The motorcycle had tumbled onto its left side, pinning the rider’s leg beneath it. He lay dead still, arms spread apart. I dashed out into the street and straight for the motorcycle. I hadn’t ridden a bike in years, but I figured it would come back to me.
It wasn’t to be. The next wave arrived, heralded by a chorus of blaring car horns and a beat-up Renault screeching to a halt on the cross street. The right-side doors opened and the two shooters bounded out. A second motorcycle circled them. The rider goosed the throttle and pointed the wheel directly at me. I was in serious trouble.
My one chance was straight ahead, across the street, to the canal. I had maybe three seconds. I dodged a Mercedes coupe as it swerved in front of me and braked to a halt. The driver stared moon-faced at me, fear and surprise bleaching him of color. I bounded over the hood and onto the sidewalk. I saw a houseboat cruising the canal, left to right. I was probably too old to attempt what I was about to attempt, but I didn’t stop to think about it. I grasped the steel railing that bordered the canal and launched myself toward the boat. I hit the canvas canopy dead center. The canvas ripped apart under my weight, and I fell on my ass on the deck. A dozen partygoers stared, their faces blanched with astonishment. Who could blame them. A man dropped his glass of wine. A woman screamed. Dinner plates went flying.
I levered myself upright and shouted in my very rusty Dutch, “Get down on the deck. Down on the deck. Now!” I pulled an older couple to the deck and several others followed.
An instant later, gunshots popped above us. Bullets punched through the canvas and raked the boat’s beautiful wooden hull. Anyone who hadn’t dropped to the deck did so now, all except a woman in a cocktail dress with a wine goblet stuck to her fingers. She was paralyzed with fear, and I couldn’t blame her. I dragged her to the deck, looked her straight in the eye, and said, “Don’t move.”
Another salvo of bullets clawed through the port-side windows, shattering wine bottles and turning dishes into shards of porcelain. Wine and food splattered the deck.
A speedboat skimmed toward us from the right, bounding over inky water dappled with the yellow reflections of streetlamps. I saw a man take up a position on the bow. I saw him raise what looked like an AK-47 to his shoulder. The muzzle let loose a ball of fire, and bullets sprayed the houseboat.
At the front of the galley, a flight of stairs rose to the bridge. Someone begged for help over a radio. I sprang up the steps. Two crewmen wore blue jackets, khaki pants, and matching baseball caps. One looked completely panicked at the helm; the other was gripping a radio handset and screaming into the mike. Their faces beamed in shock when they saw me climb onto the bridge.
“Down, down, down,” I shouted, physically throwing the radioman to the floor of the bridge deck and pushing the helmsman aside. I grabbed the wheel. I shoved the throttle to its front stop, and the houseboat surged forward.
Our sudden wake rocked the speedboat, knocking the shooter off-balance and into the canal. Now it was two against one. Better odds. Not great.