“Got it,” she said.
“Sonny, when you’re in position,” Chris said, “if you could break squelch once, I’ll know you’re ready. Hannah, I’ll be able to see you. Sonny, you’ll have eyes on the target, so you’ll see me move in on them. Questions?”
Hannah and Sonny shook their heads.
Chris’s experience told him they should remain in place for about fifteen minutes, to make sure no one had followed them after their insertion, but they didn’t have the luxury of time. He adjusted the sling of his carbine. “Okay, let’s roll.”
Chris resumed the trek north. The trees, roots, and uneven terrain slowed him down, but the forest concealed his movement from the tangos.
Minutes later, after crossing a trail and small road, Chris arrived near his intended destination. He stalked east until he reached the edge of the park where the trees ended. There were two separate lanes in the street with a patch of grass running down the middle. Near the intersection sat a black van facing south. In the driver’s seat was a man with a square-shaped head and a Frankenstein haircut — instead of scanning the whole area around him, he stared at the road ahead.
Chris started to signal Sonny to move into position, but Sonny knew where to go and was already backtracking south. While Chris waited, he glanced at Hannah. She looked good to go. Sonny keyed his mic once.
Showtime.
Chris aimed his rifle and calmly walked toward the driver. The driver must have noticed Chris in his peripheral vision.
The man turned and faced him.
“Police,” Chris shouted. “Put your hands up where I can see them!”
The driver shouted in Arabic, and others in the back of the van yelled. There didn’t appear to be a weapon, but a shot blew out the driver’s window, and something scraped across Chris’s cheek. “Where’d the shot come from?”
Sonny returned fire, unloading into the front passenger side of the van.
Chris stepped sideways, so he wouldn’t present a stationary target and shouted in Arabic for the driver to put his hands up, but the engine roared, and the van leaped forward.
Sonny fired into the driver. The van veered off the road near Sonny and continued until a tree stopped it. Four men hopped out of the back, one of them shooting in Hannah’s direction. Chris and Hannah popped the shooting tango in the chest and laid him out on the asphalt flat on his face. The Nasrallah cousins and one other tango fled into the woods. Chris, Hannah, and Sonny fired at them and missed.
Sonny assaulted the front of the van, shooting more holes in the driver and passenger. “Front, clear!” he shouted.
As Chris neared the back of the vehicle, he edged around the open back door, weapon at the ready. All the terrorists inside had fled. “Back, clear!” he reported.
Police sirens wailed in the distance.
Chris and Sonny turned and hurriedly entered the woods to the west. Hannah followed close behind. The terrorists crashed through the forest, moving fast. Chris picked up speed, and Hannah and Sonny kept up with him. They crossed a park road then a trail. Chris tried to shoot, but the tangos’ weaving in and out of tree trunks blocked his line of fire. Soon slivers of moonlight stabbed low through the trees — the tangos neared an opening in the forest. The trees gave way to a rock-reinforced bank that dropped one meter into a creek. Jawwad and Lateef crossed the creek and ascended the opposite bank, not looking back as their buddy’s legs bogged down in the water. His upper body moved faster than his legs, and he fell on his stomach. He stood, but before he could regain forward momentum, Chris shot him twice in the back, and his body arched before it came down with a splash. Chris hopped down into the creek to find the tango face down in the water — dead.
He ran out in the open and maneuvered to the other side of the creek. He trusted that Sonny and Hannah were covering him. When he reached the trees, he turned to see Hannah and Sonny still on his six, and he continued the chase west through the woods.
They traversed more trails, a smaller creek, and then even more trails. The tangos crossed Oregon Avenue and passed in front of a parked vehicle. Chris aimed over the vehicle, tracked Jawwad in his sights, and fired, but the man spun around an oak tree, and Chris’s shot sank harmlessly into the wood. He dodged a truck on the road before racing across into the woods on the other side. But by the time he got there, he’d lost sight of the cousins.
Just as Chris stepped out of the trees and onto the north lawn of a private residence, an AK flashed from around the corner of the house. The bullet chipped off a chunk of bark from the tree beside Chris. He dodged the AK’s line of fire and took cover behind a tree. Then he shifted directions and ran around the south side of the house.
He circled around to the west side, but the Nasrallah cousins weren’t in sight. He stopped to listen. Tree branches and leaves snapped and crackled to the north — Lateef and Jawwad were still moving fast.
Chris ran across a concrete driveway and an asphalt street as he followed the noise into another copse of trees. After he and his teammates exited the grove of trees, he spotted the cousins dashing through a neighborhood of houses that stretched to the northeast. Lights came on and curtains parted, and Chris knew the neighbors must be watching.
Chris took aim at Jawwad, but he crossed in front of a house. Chris held off on shooting. He didn’t want to accidentally hit an innocent homeowner. Jawwad turned around to check behind him and ducked behind a large car parked in a driveway. Chris crouched behind a station wagon parked in the street, went prone, and put the side of his head to the pavement. He peeked out from under the car. He could only see one person’s feet below the large sedan. The other brother was probably standing behind a tire. Chris lined up the cousin’s ankle in his sights and squeezed the trigger. He hoped that if his shot hit too low, the bullet would skip off the street and at least hit the tango in the foot. Jawwad yelped. Bingo.
Chris fired at the other ankle, and the man came down on his hands and knees. His knees presented bigger targets than his hands, so Chris homed in on one and squeezed three times. The cousin toppled over and screamed. Chris fired until his magazine went dry, and he became still.
As Chris inserted a fresh thirty-round magazine in his carbine, Hannah and Sonny exchanged fire with the remaining tango. Fully reloaded, Chris popped up to help Sonny and Hannah, but Lateef had already fallen.
Hannah met Chris’s eyes, concern filling her voice as she spoke. “Sonny is wounded.”
Chris hurried over to find Sonny on his back, carbine still in his hands. “Just a scratch.”
“Can you move?” Chris asked.
Sonny moved his arms and grunted. “Just my upper body.”
“Can you move your legs?” Chris asked.
“Nada.”
“Don’t try to move anymore,” Chris said. “Can you feel your legs at all?”
“I got shot in my side, and it must’ve damaged my spine. I can feel the ground against my legs, but I can’t move them.”
“Just stay still,” Chris cautioned him. “Hannah’s going to bandage that leak in your side, and I’m going to take care of the Nasrallah cousins.”
Lateef’s upper body stuck out from behind the front of the large sedan. He appeared immobile, but Chris advanced on him to be sure. Chris felt the pulse in his neck — nothing. Nearby, Jawwad lay in a pool of his own blood. Frothy goo bubbled out of his chest. At least one of the bullets had entered a lung. Jawwad’s eyes were full of life, and his lips moved.
Chris stepped closer and aimed at his head.
“Please,” Jawwad said in English. He held a pistol in his hand.
“Drop it,” Chris said.