He winced with pain as he darted back behind the table, checking his bloodied wound with his good hand.
“Get out the back way,” he muttered to Kirkwood and Mia through clenched teeth, beads of sweat dripping down his forehead.
Kirkwood protested, “We can’t leave you like—”
“Just go, mate,” Bryan ordered. “Get the hell out of here before it’s too late.”
And with that, he swung out and fired at anything that moved by the door, cutting down the first man he had injured and pushing back the other shooter who was moving in.
Kirkwood turned to Mia, yelling out, “Come on,” before bolting out from behind the table, the codex still under one arm. Mia followed, hot on his heels, as they rushed through the doorway towards the rear of the house.
They slipped past the stairs that led to the upper levels of the house before reaching the kitchen. They’d barely stepped into the cluttered room when they heard more gunfire and thuds, then Abu Barzan came rushing back through the kitchen door alone. He wasn’t fully in yet when his eyes met Mia’s just as something struck him from behind and sent him crashing to the floor and writhing in pain as a crimson patch blossomed in his left thigh.
Kirkwood herded Mia back into the house, shouting, “Back, the other way, quick.”
She tore her eyes off the fallen Iraqi and hurried back towards the living room.
Corben stood next to Omar, muscles clenched, his hands still nylon-cuffed in front of him, and watched as the first gunman charged into the house.
He’d seen the two guards outside cut down by the sniper, who had just made his way back to them. Omar had already sent three men around to the back of the house, and Corben knew they’d cut off any retreat from there. Right now, he couldn’t do anything. He just stayed close to the wall, biding his time, looking for an opportunity, and watched helplessly as Omar’s men went about their business.
He knew their orders were not to harm the American buyer — he’d heard Omar repeat the orders several times — and felt a flush of anger as he thought of Mia being trapped in the shooting gallery.
Omar hadn’t said anything about her.
He heard gunshots coming from behind the house, then a barrage of rounds hammered the doorway around them. Omar scowled at the house, listened intently, and ordered the sniper in.
The gunman nodded, peered in, swung an arm in, and fired several rounds. A low growl of pain from inside told Corben the second of Kirkwood’s escorts had been hit. He looked at Omar. The hakeem’s man had heard it too. A psychotic gleam flitted across his murderous eyes as he ordered his men to finish him off.
In the living room, Bryan slammed in his last magazine and peered out at the front of the house one last time. Both shooters were taking cover. He couldn’t stay behind that overturned table much longer — they’d rush him sooner or later. His shoulder was hurting more now, the wound quickly getting colder, the blood loss starting to hit his head.
He had to make a move.
He leaned out, saw some movement, and squeezed off several careful rounds before scuttling, fast and low, towards the doorway the others had disappeared through. He spotted the shooter from outside glancing in and slammed a couple of shots his way as he reached the doorway.
He dived into it and rushed towards the back of the house. He reached the stairs just as Kirkwood and Mia did, coming back from the kitchen. Not a good sign — he was planning to follow them out the back of the house.
He saw Mia glance upwards, then yell, “This way.”
Urgent orders in Arabic erupted in the front of the house, and the shooter he hadn’t wounded came after him. Bryan took cover on the stairs, counted down a few seconds to himself, and bolted out, blasting the man with a chest hit that dropped him like a piece of blubber.
That was when the first of the three bullets struck him in the back.
Mia had barely taken the first few risers, Kirkwood charging up close behind her, when a small volley of bullets crunched into the walls of the narrow hallway below all around Bryan. She looked down to see the Australian take cover and return fire, only to be struck in the back seconds later by a shooter who had followed them in through the kitchen.
She felt a spasm of horror deep within her at the sight of the man’s body collapsing to the floor as the bullets plowed into him, but steeled herself and willed her legs to keep going. She bounded up the narrow steps feverishly, Kirkwood following, and quickly reached the first floor. The stairs continued to another level.
“Keep going,” Kirkwood yelled, but she was already on her way up, completely at the mercy of her overworked instincts.
Another flight of stairs and she’d reached a wooden, horizontal trapdoor with an old latch that, mercifully, wasn’t locked. She pushed against it, flung the door open and rocketed up, and found herself on the flat roof of the house. Kirkwood clambered up after her before slamming the trapdoor back shut, but there was no lock on it from the outside, and nothing heavy to block it with.
Kirkwood scanned the roof, found a piece of rusted metal rebar, and jammed it through the latches on the door. It would hold, but not for long.
Mia spun around, her eyes scrutinizing the small, whitewashed space, hoping for a miracle. A big pigeon coop occupied the center, by the trapdoor. She strode around it, her nerves overwhelmed, her mind racing to process her options, which turned out to be nonexistent: The house was freestanding, surrounded by streets and passages on all sides.
There was nowhere for them to go.
Chapter 60
Corben watched as Omar, gun drawn, surveyed the front living room before yanking him in like a dog on a leash and rushing through the house with him.
He spotted the wounded shooter by the doorway and crossed over to him in a few quick strides. He was slunk down, huddled against the wall, and looked as if he wasn’t doing too well. The body of the second shooter to go in lay by his feet. Omar took cover beside the open door and yelled down the hallway, asking for updates. A voice yelled back that someone called Rudwaan was dead — one of the two shooters Omar had dispatched to the back of the house, either the third member of his hit team or one of the drivers who’d met them — but that the other hired gun had been killed and that the American and the girl had gone upstairs.
Omar glared angrily, then dragged Corben out by his neck and slipped deeper into the house. They met up with the surviving shooter who’d come in through the back. The body of Kirkwood’s other hired gun was all bent up at the foot of the stairs, messy with blood.
Omar looked up, thought for a nanosecond, and turned to Corben. He brought his handgun up and shoved its nozzle under Corben’s chin. His eyes burned into him, the fury seething out of every pockmark in his scarred face.
Corben didn’t flinch. He either died here, now, or he’d have a chance.
The hakeem’s man barked to his man to stay with Corben and watch him, then rushed up the stairs after Kirkwood and Mia.
Kirkwood and Mia moved around the roof in a daze, trying to divine some kind of escape, flicking anxious glances from the low parapet surrounding them to the trapdoor and back.
They’d gone all the way around the edge of the house and were back where they started.
The shooters would soon be there.
They had to do something.
Kirkwood headed for the side with the narrowest gap separating it from the next house and called out for Mia to follow him. They reached it and stood by its edge. It was a six-foot gap to the next flat roof, that of the bazaar, which was long and had many protrusions they could use for cover.