Maden Mike - Tom Clancy Firing Point

He crouched low and inched close to the east side of the building facing the Mediterranean Sea, just a few blocks away. He pulled out his pocket-size Nikon monocular, one of those small, innocuous checklist items Clark insisted they carry when traveling. The most likely location of whoever was listening would be in one of the many cars parked on the streets below.

Jack raised himself up just high enough to sight the Nikon down the north side of the street that ended just a block up. The buildings fronting the street were tall enough to cast shadows against the sun, so the car windows weren’t blinded by glare.

Near as he could tell, there wasn’t anybody sitting in any of the cars in that direction. Nor in the other.

Jack then scooted low across the terrace to the west side of the building and repeated the exercise. He spotted a woman walking a small terrier on one side of the street, and a South Asian man emptying the garbage from the back door of a restaurant. Neither appeared to be the tango in question.

Jack then turned his monocular to the southbound direction.

Bingo.

Across the intersection, approximately seventy-five yards away, an Audi sedan was parked in the lead position, and a man in a black Nike hat sat in the driver’s seat, his window down and his elbow resting on the door. An audio headset was perched on his head. The face was square and the eyes were deep set, and most important, the long nose looked like it had once been broken.

Crooked Nose.

Had to be.

There was one way to test his assumption.

Jack put in his AirPods and pulled out his smartphone. “Gav, I’m on the roof. You ready?”

“Yeah, I think I’ve got something that’ll do the trick.”

“Fire away.”

Jack put his monocular on the man. A moment later, walrus and seal noises exploded in Jack’s ears—a cacophony of roars, chuffs, screams, squeals, and bellows. It sounded like a pride of angry, flatulent lions fornicating inside a small public restroom. The noise was simultaneously hilarious, weird, and perfect to elicit the response Jack was hoping for.

Crooked Nose shook his head and tapped his headphones, his face twisted in a frown of utter confusion.

Bingo times two.

Gavin was running a crazy soundtrack through Jack’s laptop speakers directly beneath one of the planted listening devices. It was so strange and unexpected it caught the guy off guard.

“Love the soundtrack, Gav. But you should see a doctor for that intestinal issue you obviously have.”

“Funny, Jack.”

“Good job. I’ll take it from here.”

—

Since the dude in the car was on the same side of the street as the building’s only exit, Jack had to find another way down to the street if he didn’t want to be seen.

Jack pocketed his AirPods and phone as he ducked back over to the west side of his building and scanned up and down the row of adjacent buildings looking for a way down. There weren’t any fire escapes. But there was an option.

The only problem was, how to get to it?

The sturdy aluminum awning frame on his terrace was bolted to his stairwell wall and, luckily for him, to the wall of the taller south-facing building. Jack stepped onto one of the wood-slatted chairs, up onto the outdoor table, then pulled himself up onto one of the aluminum awning struts where it was bolted into the taller wall.

Now he stood high enough to reach the roof of the next building. He hauled himself up onto it and made his way across three more rooftops, two lower, one higher, until he reached the roof of a building undergoing renovation.

Jack crossed over to the scaffolding attached to the west side of the building—the opposite side of the block where Crooked Nose was stationed—and climbed his way down to the street out of his sight line.

A gray-haired woman carrying groceries saw him emerge from the netting covering the scaffolding and offered him a polite smile. Jack smiled back and waited for her to turn a corner before he sped away.

He ran all the way to the end of the street, careful not to show himself at the intersection. He waited until a large delivery van rumbled by and used its intervening bulk to block the line of sight between him and the intruder, now examining his headphones for malfunction. Jack sped across the street and all the way down the next block so he could come around behind Crooked Nose and surprise him.

He turned the corner once, and then once again, carefully crouching down low behind the line of parked cars in case Crooked Nose was checking his rearview mirror.

It took Jack another minute to make his way between parked cars, still ducking low behind vehicles or into doorways, trying all at once to not be seen but to not appear to any nosy neighbor like a thief or a terrorist on the street.

Inch by inch he made his way forward, still formulating his plan of attack. He needed to grab this guy and find out who he was and who he was working for.

Jack was twenty yards behind the man’s vehicle on the opposite side of the street, hidden inside of a doorway, waiting for his chance. He got it when a green Mercedes diesel tour van rumbled up the street, its right turn signal flashing.

Perfect.

Jack jogged alongside it, waiting for it to make its rolling stop at the corner. Just as it made a sharp right, Jack dashed straight at the open car door window and threw a hard punch at the side of the man’s close-cropped head.

Either Jack wasn’t as stealthy as he’d thought or the man had preternatural peripheral vision, but either way the man’s head ducked out of the way of Jack’s punch. Jack’s momentum practically tossed him through the open window just as Crooked Nose’s iron-hard hands grabbed Jack’s arm like a blacksmith’s vise and pulled him farther into the car.

Oh, shit!

With his upper torso halfway into the Audi and his right arm trapped in the man’s grip, Jack lost all of his leverage, robbing him of the power to launch any kind of a punch or even an elbow strike. His left arm was free but his own body and right arm blocked his left from doing any kind of damage.

The only good news Jack’s brain could register in the nanosecond that followed was that the man’s attempts to punch Jack’s lights out also faltered because of Jack’s awkward position. The adrenaline surging into Jack’s bloodstream heightened his senses and fueled the years of CQB training driven into his muscle memory. Jack sensed more than saw the man loosen his grip and reach for a Kydex-holstered pistol, giving Jack’s right elbow—the hardest bone in the human body—just enough distance and leverage to drive itself into the man’s previously broken nose.

The man cried out as the cartilage cracked and blood spurted onto Jack’s sleeve, giving Jack enough time to reach around with his left hand and grab the man’s gun hand.

The two of them struggled to punch and grab, like two fighters boxing inside of a phone booth. It would have been comical if there hadn’t been a loaded pistol in a holster just inches away from Jack’s face. The man’s powerful legs were wedged against the floorboard and he began using them for leverage to work himself free to get enough distance between him and Jack to reach the gun and pull it out and blow Jack’s brains out all over the windshield.

As the man’s body began pulling away, Jack’s only defense was to grab the man’s shirt and pull him back toward him. Crooked Nose only pushed back harder, inching away from Jack, his right hand making its way to the pistol.

Jack’s big right hand opened up, and he clawed the man’s face, gouging at his eyes. The man screamed again, his panic giving him a surge of strength. His gun hand turned into a fist and slammed into the side of Jack’s skull but Jack turned his claw hand into a fist and threw a couple of short, sharp jabs into the man’s forehead.