His frogman training kicked in, and without thought, he struggled up to his knees and helped her to her feet. Still suffering the aftershock of the blast, he lost his balance but managed to remain upright. “Nikkia, we’ve got to get out of here.”
“What?” she asked groggily.
“Trouble is here!”
As he started to comprehend what was happening, the ringing in his ears lessened slightly. AK fire chattered from outside the embassy, answered by Turkish shouts and a scream. The sounds of gunfire came more frequently now — and louder. Mordet’s men must’ve entered the gate and were shooting their way to the building.
Chris peeked out of their room and down the hall toward the front of the building.
The racket of combat continued to increase. His pulse picked up speed, so he sucked in a deep shot of oxygen and calmed himself until an armed man appeared, shooting at Chris before he could react. He ducked back inside the room. “Come out with your hands where I can see them!” the terrorist yelled in Arabic.
Another AK shot rang out in the hall. Now it sounded like there were two tangos. In the back of his mind, he knew he might not survive, but he clung to hope, anyway. He looked at Hannah, who flashed him a brittle smile.
An AK poked into the room then. Chris prepared to head-butt the terrorist in the face. But when the tango entered, Chris realized the tango wasn’t a tango at all. He was Sonny.
Sonny saw Chris’s fighting eyes and body stance. “Don’t Taze me, bro,” he said in his pained nasal New York accent.
Hannah stared at Sonny. “Who are you?” she asked.
“I’m Super Jew,” Sonny replied, sticking his chest out.
Chris wasn’t sure he could trust him — he didn’t even know who Sonny worked for — but he wasn’t going to turn down a rescue, and now wasn’t the time for a conversation. “The naked man on the donkey,” he explained. “Sonny.”
Sonny pulled out some keys. “Two-Face gave me these and told me to get you two out of here while he evacuates the dip-dunks.” Sonny unlocked Chris’s handcuffs. Chris looked at his watch: 2018 hours. He pressed the compass button on his watch and quickly checked his bearings — it was time to go, and he didn’t want to end up lost.
Sonny unlocked Hannah’s handcuffs. “Tangos are overrunning the embassy,” he said. “Don’t have much time.” He poked his head into the hall and looked both ways. “Let’s go.” He ventured out of the room. Chris and Hannah followed.
Just outside the door, they stepped over a motionless wide-eyed Arab leaking crimson on the vanilla tiles. Chris’s arms and hands fought to regain proper circulation, but he managed to pick up the terrorist’s AK. Sonny quickly ushered them to the back of the building. Chris motioned for Hannah to follow directly behind Sonny so Chris could protect their flank. They hurried single file down the hall.
Chris glanced over his shoulder. Two terrorists moved into the hall. Now the stakes were much higher than defending himself. Now he was defending Hannah and Sonny, and he’d rather die himself than let them get hurt.
“Contact, rear!” Chris shouted, pivoted and took aim while standing.
“Contact, rear!” Hannah and Sonny echoed.
The fear of failing his teammates cranked the panic throttle wide open, and anxiety flooded over Chris. Both terrorists brought their AKs up to their shoulders to fire. The faster terrorist presented the most immediate threat. Chris’s sights wobbled over the tango’s head while his finger quickly took out the slack in the trigger. All his senses screamed to jerk the trigger the rest of the way before they jerked theirs, but in the back of his mind, Ron Hickok’s voice calmly said, Squeeze. Chris’s finger exerted pressure straight to the rear without causing the rest of his hand or more than the trigger to move. The first terrorist’s head flopped back, and he back flopped to the floor.
The second terrorist fired. One round stung Chris’s shoulder, and wall plaster sprayed the side of his face. The throttle of fear closed tightly shut, leaving Chris in serenity as he squeezed the trigger again. And again. The second terrorist’s gut bent like it’d been hit by a baseball bat, and his head sprayed blood. The firing stopped.
The possibility that a shot might have killed Hannah or Sonny reopened the fear throttle. He wheeled around to see if they were injured.
Hannah and Sonny appeared fine. They burst through the exit at the end of the hall. Chris sprinted behind them, moving through the door before it closed.
Outside the main building and under the evening firmament, they were still inside the consulate compound — trapped like rats without an escape hole. To the south lay the German embassy, and beyond the trees and fence to the east stretched a busy multi-lane boulevard that ran from the northwest to the southeast.
From the west, three Arabs armed with AKs approached. When they noticed the trio, they abruptly halted with surprised looks on their faces. Before they could act, Sonny shredded the Syrian closest to him, and Chris terminated the man on the opposite end. Then Sonny and Chris converged on the poor bastard in the middle, filleting him with AK fire. The three Syrians hardly had time to know what hit them.
Chris gave Hannah his weapon before hurrying toward the three dead Arabs. As he reached the bodies, the main parking lot came into view. It held only a few vehicles, including the SUV with the Switchblade Whisper. Around it gathered a mob of nearly thirty terrorists, some celebrating by shooting their AKs in the air. There were too many of them, and Chris was too poorly equipped to take them on. Enjoy the celebration. This ain’t over yet.
Several tangos noticed Chris and broke away to chase him. He snatched an AK from one of the dead terrorists and slipped around the corner of the main building, out of sight. Chris ran into a cluster of trees. Sonny had already scaled the fence and was on the other side providing cover with his weapon. Next to him lay Hannah’s weapon while she made her way over the fence.
Chris wished the AK had a sling so he could strap it on his back, leaving his hands free to scale the fence, but it didn’t. The space between the black vertical iron bars on the fence was too narrow for him to squeeze through, but they were wide enough for him to hand his AK to Sonny, so he passed it through. Then he jumped and grabbed the horizontal rail near the top of the black fence. He pulled himself up and maneuvered over the spiked fence posts, which weren’t as sharp as they could be and weren’t razor-edged like concertina wire. Even so, one of the spikes snagged the inside of his pant leg, preventing him from descending. He became an easy target for the bad guys who’d just turned the corner of the building.
While Chris struggled to free his leg, Sonny and Hannah’s AKs spit heat at the tangos. Chris wiggled loose from the spike and dropped down beside Sonny and Hannah. He prepared to fire, but no one was left standing to shoot.
18
Vehicles crept along Ataturk Boulevard, their headlights illuminating the trio as they walked down the street with their AKs. Chris could feel the rubberneckers’ eyes on him, and while he was used to working covertly, here he was out in the open on foreign soil. Although Turkey was an ally, the polis wouldn’t be too pleased about three Americans running around the streets carrying AK rifles. He gripped the rifle tighter in his sweat-dampened palms.
Sonny used the lull in traffic to cross the boulevard. Hannah and Chris followed. In spite of the slowdown, the cars in one lane sped along as if they were oblivious to the situation or just didn’t care. After the trio dodged vehicles from both directions, they reached the other side. They passed between what looked like a broadcast studio building and a concert hall. The parking lots were empty, and only faint moonlight illuminated the crepuscular interiors of the buildings. Nearby, they found refuge in a cluster of evergreens. There they lay prone in a tight triangular defensive position covering the 360 degrees around them.