Jack pulled his trigger, but his weapon was empty. He started to reach down to grab his pistol, then remembered he’d passed it to Davi, who was now down at the far end of the hall, hiding in the bathtub with Jack’s sister.
“Fuck,” Jack said — there was no way the S-vest wasn’t going to rip him to shreds from this distance.
Ding Chavez appeared in the hall right over Jack’s head, and he shot the wounded man at the bottom of the stairs, then shot him again and again when he realized he held a detonator in his hand.
The man fell onto his face, Ding grabbed Jack by the drag handle of his vest, and then pulled him up the stairs and around the corner.
Two seconds after they made it to cover, the vest detonated below them.
“You hit?” Chavez shouted it over the ringing in his ears.
“No,” Jack shouted back. His own ears were ringing loudly. “Where’s Clark?” Jack asked as he began reloading his SIG.
“He’s off comms. Out there somewhere. I tried to get out on the roof but took fire from the west.” Ding said, “I think John got hit with an RPG.”
“Jesus Christ! We have to get to him.”
When Jack had reloaded and aimed his gun back around the corner toward the front door, Ding reloaded his own weapon. “We didn’t figure for so many shooters. Have you seen al-Matari?”
“No.”
Chavez said, “I shot some guys to the north. He might be one of them.”
They both listened for a moment. There was no more shooting. Chavez said, “I’m going for Clark. Check on your sister.”
Ding launched to his feet and ran down the stairs to look for Clark. Jack stood up as well, and had made it only a few steps up the hallway before he heard a series of loud noises from the master bedroom.
First, his sister screaming.
This was followed instantly by a pair of gunshots.
Jack ran as fast as he could up the hall.
71
Chavez raced out the front of the house with his SMG on his shoulder, and found himself face-to-face with a dark figure rushing up the driveway in his direction. The figure raised a weapon in surprise, though clearly the last thing this guy had expected to see was one of the defenders of the cabin charging out the front door.
Chavez was faster, and he took the terrorist in the chest with a two-round burst. He charged up to the man as he fell, kicked the man’s Kalashnikov away, and knelt over him, rolling him onto his back.
The man was alive, just, and Ding needed at least one survivor, but as soon as he felt the man’s back and realized he was wearing a suicide vest, Ding rose up quickly and blasted the man through the skull. He then raced on toward the hill where Clark had been positioned, desperate to find his friend.
Jack ran headlong into the master bedroom as fast as he could, frantic to save his sister. When he got there, however, he saw a man standing in the entrance to the bathroom swiveling a pistol on an outstretched arm right in his direction. Jack dove into a forward roll, a shot rang out, and then Jack rolled back up into a combat crouch and put the red dot sight of his MPX on the shooter’s face.
Davi stood there in the doorway, Sally holding on to him from behind and looking out past his shoulder. “No!” she screamed.
Both Davi and Jack lowered their weapons quickly.
“My God!” Davi shouted. “I’m sorry, Jack!” He tossed the pistol on the ground, aware he’d almost shot his future brother-in-law.
Jack stood. “I told you to stay in the bathroom! What the hell were you shooting at back here?”
Sally lifted a shaking hand and pointed a finger to the corner of the bedroom, near the sliding glass door to the balcony that looked to the east. There, a man in a black windbreaker and black pants lay on his side, a pistol inches from his fingertips. He was clean-shaven, forty years old or so, and he blinked over distant eyes, showing Jack he was alive, but barely.
Jack moved to him, knelt down, and secured the pistol. He then felt the man’s jacket to see if he was wearing a suicide vest.
“No,” Jack said aloud. “Of course you aren’t wearing an S-vest. The leaders of your band of shitheads get others to sacrifice themselves, don’t they?”
Abu Musa al-Matari just blinked again; then he looked up at Jack. Blood dripped out of his mouth.
Jack searched him quickly, but as he did so he said, “Sally. I need this guy alive.”
Davi protested. “He came up over the balcony, he tried to kill us.”
“I know,” he said. “Congratulations. You just shot the chief lieutenant for North American affairs for ISIS’s Foreign Intelligence Bureau.” He stood back up and turned to al-Matari. “I’d love to watch him die, but he knows things we need to know.”
Olivia moved to start treating the man, and as she did so, Chavez came through Jack’s earpiece. “I found Clark. He’s alive and conscious but he looks like shit.”
“Roger that,” Jack said. “Is the area clear?”
“Seems to be.”
Jack said, “Okay, I’m sending you a doctor.” He turned to Davi, and pulled his medical kit off his chest rig. Unzipping it and dumping it on the bed, he said, “Davi, I need you to help my friend out front. Sally, this asshole is yours.”
The two doctors quickly began grabbing dressings, compresses, tourniquets, and other important items. Davi raced out of the room.
Olivia said, “Pick him up and put him on the bed. Make him comfortable.”
“He’s a terrorist, he doesn’t need to be comfortable.”
“Right now, he’s my patient,” she said. “Do what I tell you.”
Jack wanted to tell her that didn’t really change the fact the man was a terrorist, but he left it alone, scooped al-Matari up, and dumped him roughly on the bed.
“He’s shot through the lung!” Olivia protested. “Be careful!”
“We just need him alive, Sal. Not happy.” Jack pulled a pair of zip ties off his chest and secured the man’s hands on the bedposts. “This is so he doesn’t wring your neck while you’re saving his life.”
Olivia ripped away his shirt, felt around his back for an exit wound. It was there; her hand came back bloody. As she began cleaning the wounds to seal them, she looked up at her brother. “Who are you, Jack?”
“We’ll talk later, when this guy isn’t around.”
Al-Matari coughed. “Yes… who are you, Jack?”
Jack knelt over him. “I’m the end of your road. You don’t get to be a hero or a martyr today, Musa.”
“You’ll never get me to talk.”
“Me? I’m not the one asking you anything. Honestly, I don’t give a damn what you know. But others do, and they are going to take you somewhere and pump your twisted brain so full of drugs that you won’t be able to lie about anything.”
Chavez had found Clark lying in a heap thirty yards down the hill from the ledge. He’d bounced roughly down the darkened hillside, just below the rocket’s impact, so although he hadn’t taken the effect of the blast into his body, he’d tumbled down in an avalanche of soil and rock. Chavez held a light on Clark and admonished him each time he tried to sit or stand, while Davi checked him for serious injuries. Davi determined the dirt-covered senior citizen likely had a concussion, as well as a broken rib or two, and a sprained or broken wrist. But miraculously he’d suffered no more damage than that.