“Well?” the hakeem asked. “Jaawib, ya kalb,” he ordered him viciously. Answer, you dog.
The mokhtar mumbled something. He didn’t know anything.
The hakeem’s eyes narrowed, then he turned to the gunman who was standing guard over the mokhtar’s family and nodded disdainfully at the children. The guard herded them over roughly.
Kirkwood felt his pulse quicken and he instinctively inched forward, but the gunman standing next to him stopped him with a firm hand.
The hakeem raised his gun towards the children. “Which one goes first?” he asked the mokhtar. He aimed at the teenage boy. “The boy? Or maybe”—he swung the gun around recklessly at one of the little girls—“her? Choose one,” he ordered.
A tear streaked down the mokhtar’s cheek, and he muttered, “Please,” as he dropped to his knees.
“Which one?” the hakeem shouted fiercely, his eyes blazing with manic determination.
“Tell him,” Kirkwood yelled out angrily.
The mokhtar shook his head.
“Tell him,” Kirkwood repeated fiercely. “It’s not worth their lives,” he added, glancing at the man’s terror-stricken children.
The mokhtar mopped his face with his hands, then, without looking up, nodded his acquiescence and mumbled, “I’ll take you. I’ll take you where you want to go.”
Just then, something struck one of the hakeem’s men squarely in the chest, yanking him backwards, a red cloud erupting. The man dropped heavily to the ground as the rifle shot’s report echoed in the hills around them.
Chapter 68
Several other rounds crackled around the cemetery, scattering the gunmen and their hostages in a panicked frenzy.
Kirkwood darted for Evelyn, but the hakeem was closer to her and snared her just as three rounds struck a nearby gravestone. Kirkwood ducked for cover and could only watch as, with a handgun pressed against Evelyn’s head, the hakeem dragged her to the low wall of the graveyard. The bullets seemed to be coming from behind a house at the edge of the village. One of the hakeem’s men was with him and was intermittently rising from his cover and peppering the source of the gunfire with carefully placed rounds.
Kirkwood tried to go after Evelyn, but another of the hakeem’s men was firing back from behind the mazar, and the fire directed at him was also pinning Kirkwood to his cover. He glanced to the far end of the cemetery and spotted Corben, hustling the mokhtar and his family to safety and helping his children over a kink in the wall. The hakeem spotted him too and barked at the man crouched with him to stop them. Corben also heard the shout and turned. The gunman raised his weapon, looking for the shot. Corben pushed the mokhtar over the sag in the wall and leapt over it himself just as a couple of bullets bit into the bricks behind him.
More rounds crunched into the markers around Kirkwood, looking for the shooter sheltering behind the small monument. To his left, the hakeem was still huddled against the low wall, his arm clasped around Evelyn’s throat, but he was inching his way to the opposite, downhill side of the cemetery, pulling Evelyn along with him. Beyond the wall lay a forest of tall poplars. Kirkwood swallowed hard. They were at the far end of the village, and whoever was firing at them was coming from the opposite direction. They weren’t surrounded. And that meant the hakeem could potentially escape.
Kirkwood couldn’t allow him to take Evelyn again. But right now, he was helpless to do anything about it. He watched with roiling frustration as the third surviving member of the hakeem’s squad, who was huddling behind the wall by the entrance to the graveyard, sat up and sprayed a cartridge-load of bullets at his attackers, ducked and reloaded, then rose again and spat out some more rounds before lurching backwards violently, the back of his head blown open. The shooter who’d gotten him then made the mistake of leaning out of his cover recklessly to check out his success. The gunman escorting the hakeem rose up and dropped him with a single bullet to the chest.
The hakeem and Evelyn reached the edge of the cemetery. Kirkwood saw Evelyn try to make a run for it, but the hakeem lashed out and pinned her down ruthlessly. Kirkwood’s blood was boiling. He couldn’t sit back anymore. He saw the gunman close to the hakeem get hit while returning fire, saw the hakeem’s attention snagged by the squirming man beside him and darting terror-stricken glances over the wall, and decided he would make his move.
He bolted across the cemetery, head low, fists clenched, eyes laser-locked on the hakeem and Evelyn. No bullets came his way, and he kept rushing. He was ten feet from them when the hakeem noticed him.
The hakeem spun around just as Kirkwood tackled him, his left arm lunging out at the handgun in the madman’s right hand. A round went off just as he hit him, jarring his senses and sending a flash of pain erupting across his left shoulder. He heard Evelyn scream as he rode the adrenaline wave and butted a knee into the hakeem’s chest. The hakeem wheezed out heavily. Both of Kirkwood’s hands were now clasped around the hakeem’s handgun, fighting desperately to keep it clear. Another shot rang out, but the gun was aimed downward and the bullet harmlessly kicked up some dirt as it burrowed into the ground.
“Move away,” Kirkwood shouted to Evelyn, unable to take his eyes off the hakeem to judge her proximity.
The hakeem elbowed Kirkwood’s jaw, bone crunching against bone heavily, sending a bolt of pain searing across Kirkwood’s head. His grasp on the hakeem’s hand weakened, and the madman used the moment to wrestle the gun free. He swung it around at Kirkwood, but Kirkwood didn’t blink and just lunged at him with total commitment, slamming him against the wall with all of his weight and sending the handgun spinning out of his fingers and biting into the ground.
Their eyes locked in a split second of unmitigated and absolute loathing. Their eyes darted within nanoseconds of each other at the fallen weapon. Then Kirkwood sensed movement to his side. He turned to see the surviving gunman, the one positioned behind the mazar, spinning his weapon toward him. His heart missed a beat before a couple of rifle rounds punched the stonework of the monument, forcing the gunman back into cover. Kirkwood dived at Evelyn, pulling her to the ground before turning to face the hakeem, who gave him one final leer before clambering over the low wall and disappearing behind it.
“Come on,” Kirkwood yelled to Evelyn as the last surviving gunman returned fire feverishly. He crawled forward, shielding Evelyn, trying to put more gravestones between him and the shooter. The pain in his shoulder flashed angrily with every move. He’d managed a few feet when the gunman turned his attention to them again and leaned out to take another shot at them, but before he could make the kill, several rifle rounds plowed into him, knocking him backwards savagely, a burst of wild bullets from his submachine gun cutting up the still air over the cemetery before dying out with him.
An eerie stillness descended on the cemetery. Kirkwood eyed Evelyn, his shoulder burning, his mind racing, wondering if they were finally safe.
“Hello?” he shouted out to no one in particular, hoping that whoever had intervened was friendly.
The voice he heard back blew through him like a gale of joy. “Kirkwood? Mom?” Mia was yelling. “You okay?”
He looked at Evelyn, his face bathed with relief. “We’re fine,” he hollered back. His eyes scanning the hakeem’s fallen men and watching out for any unseen threats, he got up carefully, wincing from the pain in his shoulder.
Evelyn stood with him. Mia and a few armed men were racing down from the village.