Brad Taylor - Enemy of Mine

She moved to the opposite side of the door, Glock at the ready, and pulled out her cell phone to call Pike. She saw the missed call from him and relaxed for the first time.

That explains the broken glass. All hell’s breaking loose now.

* * *

With no immediate threats on the bottom floor, we began flip-flopping toward the stairwell in back. No longer concerned with stealth, we simply mule-kicked every door that was locked.

Speed was my primary goal. I knew if they had Jennifer and realized we were coming for her, they’d evacuate and I might never see her again.

I entered the final office and saw the stairway to my front, fully illuminated from the inside. I heard feet pounding down the stairs and slammed up against the wall on the edge of the door, Knuckles on the other side. I heard Decoy and Brett still kicking doors one office over and so did the men coming down. Their chatter ceased, and I heard the distinct sound of rounds being chambered. They began a half-assed stealthy descent.

I raised my NODs to my forehead and caught Knuckles’ eyes. I did the universal finger across the throat, meaning take them without any noise. I had no idea who was above them and wanted to maintain at least some element of surprise. The suppressed UMPs were certainly quiet enough, but I didn’t want to risk an AK going off when the bodies hit the floor. Knuckles nodded and raised his NODs as well.

The two men stopped inside the stairwell, softly chattering. Eventually, they worked up enough courage to exit, but paid absolutely no attention to their rear security. They walked out with AK-47s at their shoulders, staring straight ahead.

When they cleared the frame and were about two steps into the room, I glanced at Knuckles. He nodded, and we pounced, breaking both of their necks in sequence like a macabre synchronized drill team, then softly lowered the bodies.

I called Brett and Decoy, getting them to our location. Knuckles and I positioned at the base and we flip-flopped up the stairs, two men pulling security while two went up a landing.

We reached the second floor and heard a racket down below, several men shouting and yelling in Arabic.

Knuckles said, “Looks like our exit’s fucked.”

With a single focus, I replied, “We’re moving too damn slow. Get up the stairs.”

We hit the third floor landing and exited, guns going left and right looking for a threat. I raced down the hall to the room Jennifer had used to enter and found an open window. Nothing else. Shit.

Knuckles entered behind me, saw my face, and returned to the hallway, an urgency in his expression for the first time. I followed in time to see Decoy and Brett close on the target door. Right behind them, we slid into the stack.

Across the frame, Decoy nodded and flung open the door. Brett entered first and went right. I went left, the muzzle tracking everything my eyes came across. I focused on a figure and centered the red dot on the eye orbit. And recognized Jennifer aiming a Glock at me. She immediately raised her hands, but didn’t say a word. I was almost catatonic with relief. The rest of the men piled in, saw it was clear, then got guns back out into the hallway.

Knuckles said, “Okay. What’s the play now?”

I didn’t respond, still savoring the fact that Jennifer was alive and out of the torturers’ hands. He repeated the question, and Jennifer said, “My radio went dead. I didn’t have time to call on the cell.”

Knuckles said, “Not your fault. Blame lover-boy here for not trusting you.”

It hit home that I’d made a mistake. Possibly a catastrophic one given the men downstairs. Jennifer rubbed a little salve into my wounds.

“It worked out for the best. If you hadn’t come in, we wouldn’t have gotten the clone. I was about to be in a gunfight when they went to chase you, leaving the door open for me to penetrate.”

Brett said, “Still ten minutes on this download. What do you want to do?”

I put the mistake aside, getting back to the mission.

“Shut it down,” I said. “Take what we have and move up to the fourth floor. Find a roof exit and get out of here while those guys search.”

We were on the roof in short order, making our way past clotheslines and air-conditioning units to the apartment building adjacent to the target. We reached the access to the floor below, and Decoy said, “What now? How are we going to exit here?”

I could feel the tension in the men, all knowing they would last a millisecond on the street as American infiltrators. I looked around the roof, hoping for some answer to jump out at me.

Jennifer smiled, more calm now that she was in our hands, and said, “Time for a little Pike miracle action.”

I realized she didn’t think coming in had been a mistake.

I said, “You’re the miracle. We need to get you back into the apartment so you can get the van. We’ll keep doing the roof hop until we’re a safe distance away, then get to the street.”

Decoy said, “How the hell is she going to do that? Dressed like Catwoman?”

“Brett’s going to the apartment to get her costume. He’ll come back, she’ll change and exit. We’ll keep moving north.”

Brett said, “What? I don’t speak a lick of Arabic, and I’m dressed like a damn commando.”

“You’re black. It’ll give you an edge. Best we can do. Besides, you look like an Arabic commando with those clothes. Leave your NODs and UMP. Just take the pistol. You hit trouble, and we’ll be right behind you guns blazing.”

Brett muttered, “Always about the black man,” and turned to the roof access. Jennifer passed him the key and gave him directions.

We waited for eight minutes, watching car after car arrive at the target building. When he returned, he had Jennifer’s abaya and niqab .

She walked a short distance to put it on, pulling me out of earshot of the other men. “You know you screwed up here tonight. I was okay.”

She affixed the veil until all I saw were her gray eyes. She winked. “The after-action review is going to be murder. But I’m glad you came. No matter what they say tomorrow, I’m not sure I would have gotten the drop on both of those guys. I probably would have ended up calling you-trying to use a cell phone in the middle of a gunfight. You made the right decision for the wrong reasons.”

They shouldn’t have, because I was the man with all the experience, but her comments meant a great deal. I winked back and said, “I’m just glad you’re okay. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

The Ghost scraped down the alley in a dented and rusted rental he’d picked up in Sanaa, seeing the minaret for the grand mosque, but unable to find the entrance in the maze of side streets.

One of the oldest cities on earth, and once the capital of Yemen, Zabid had declined to a state of abject poverty, with the entire town reminding him of the refugee camps back home. Full of crumbling buildings constructed of homemade brick and mortar, all jammed together with little forethought to any overarching plan.

The drive west had been rapid on the arid desert road, with only two stops at checkpoints manned by hard men armed with AKs. He had no idea whether they were government, opposition, or simply bandits, but they let him pass. He had given himself an extra hour just for such difficulties and was pleased he had met so few. It gave him enough time to conduct a reconnaissance on the Al-Asha’ir Mosque, the location where he was told to meet the AQAP contact.

Squeezing through a gap that might or might not have been meant for vehicles, he saw the entrance to the mosque to his front. He killed the engine and waited, surveying the area. Nothing suspicious stood out. A man swatting a donkey pulling a cart, a couple of kids playing in the dirt, a lone woman clad in black carrying a bucket of water. The usual ebb and flow expected from such a town.