Peter Kirsanow - Second Strike

Bor stood no more than thirty feet away with the PP-2000 aimed in the direction of Garin and the guards. A girl of seven or eight stood directly in front of him. Many of the throng of travelers in the area instinctively dove to the floor. Others pressed against the walls of the concourse. The only sound was that of the alarm.

Keeping the PP-2000 trained on Garin and the guards, Bor wrapped his left arm around the girl and hoisted her in front of him, shielding his head and torso. No clean shot. Garin was vaguely aware of a woman screaming.

The look on Bor’s face was eerily calm. He made a downward motion with the submachine gun, signaling the guards to lower their weapons. They didn’t budge.

“Place your guns on the floor,” Bor commanded. “Do it so this girl may go home with her mother. You have three seconds.”

Whimpers and whispers wafted from the prostrate crowd. The guards remained motionless.

Bor counted down. “Three… Two…”

Each of the guards lowered their respective pistols to the floor.

Bor, in turn, gently lowered the girl to the floor. Then he fired a series of three-round bursts, killing each of the security officers.

Garin drew his SIG from the small of his back just as he was staggered by another spike of pain that shot from his ear to the center of his skull, clouding his vision. He fired at Bor, the round deflecting off the muzzle of the PP-2000. Almost simultaneously, Hassan Ali Daar emerged from the lavatory with his own PP-2000 and appeared in the rightmost edge of Garin’s blurred field of vision. Garin dove to the floor a tick before Daar fired a burst in Garin’s direction, the rounds slamming into the Gate 10 counter.

Prone, with his SIG extended before him, Garin fired repeatedly at Daar, striking him five times in the head, neck, and torso. The Somali’s body flipped backward over a row of chairs in the seating area adjacent to Gate 11.

Still prone, Garin shifted his aim back to Bor… who had disappeared. Garin cursed under his breath, sprang to his feet, and bolted toward Gate 11, firing at the ticket counter to provide cover until he had expended his ammunition. When he was within a few feet of the counter, Bor sprang up with the submachine gun trained at Garin, who hurled himself over the counter and into Bor, slamming the Russian backward and onto the floor, Garin landing on top as his SIG clattered under the scanning station.

Garin seized the stock of the PP-2000 as Bor, momentarily stunned by the collision, struggled against Garin’s weight to regain control of the weapon sandwiched between their torsos. Garin responded by pinning the PP-2000 against Bor’s chest with his left hand and jackhammering Bor’s face with several blows from his right. The weapon discharged in a staccato series of three-round bursts that shattered the windows overlooking the tarmac adjacent to the concourse, causing travelers to scream and scurry frantically in the direction of the main terminal.

Bor heaved and rolled to his left, throwing Garin, who maintained a grip on the weapon, off of him. Another series of three-round bursts fired, a ricochet catching a wailing gate attendant in his left thigh.

Garin now used both hands to attempt to wrest the weapon from Bor’s grasp. As he struggled to maintain control, Bor’s finger squeezed the trigger and he heard the hollow metallic click signaling an empty chamber.

Garin immediately released his grip on the weapon and pumped several savage punches at Bor’s face, producing a torrent of blood from the assassin’s nose and mouth. Bor countered with a brutal thrust of his knee to Garin’s abdomen that caused him to roll away in agony.

Almost simultaneously, both combatants leapt to their feet. Bor, still grasping the empty submachine gun, swung its stock like a bat at Garin, who absorbed the blow on his left shoulder, pivoted to his right, and thrust his right forearm into Bor’s bloodied face. The Russian barely recoiled, moving back a half step before driving the butt of the PP-2000 upward under Garin’s jaw.

Staggered, Garin instinctively retreated a step to gather himself. Bor pressed forward with another thrust of the stock toward Garin’s head but missed as Garin crouched under the blow and then sprang forward, driving the top of his skull into Bor’s exposed face. The assassin grunted in pain and dropped the PP-2000, but barely moved. He spun furiously to his right in a complete three-sixty—elbow raised at shoulder level—to generate enough centrifugal force for a debilitating blow to Garin’s head. In the fraction of a second Bor began the move Garin recognized his former teammate’s maneuver, ducked under it, and pounded a hook into Bor’s exposed ribs. Bor winced in pain, the blow cracking two of his floating ribs, but continued to spin rightward, slamming his left fist into Garin’s head. Though jarred, Garin lowered his shoulder and drove Bor against the Gate 11 ticket counter, knocking the wind out of him. Garin quickly windmilled a flurry of punches at Bor’s head and torso.

His arms pinned against the counter, the assassin thrust the edge of his right foot toward Garin’s left knee. Had the knee not been slightly bent, the blow likely would’ve shattered the patella. As it was, the force of the blow threw Garin off-balance, causing him to fall onto his back next to a row of chairs in the waiting area. Bor dove atop him, seizing both sides of Garin’s head, and began repeatedly slamming the back of his former leader’s skull against the low table between the seating.

Garin tasted blood and noted the familiar sharp smell of ammonia that signaled concussion. Desperate to avoid unconsciousness, he launched a roundhouse at Bor’s head, missed, then threw another that barely connected. As Bor continued to pound Garin’s head onto the edge of the table, Garin twisted his head, dug his teeth into the middle of Bor’s left forearm, and ripped off a chunk of flesh, generating a guttural cry from deep within the Russian’s chest.

Blood spurted onto Garin’s face as the assassin released his grip. Garin’s eyes rolled in their sockets as he strained to regain focus. His survival instincts insisted on immediate movement—but his body struggled to respond.

In his right periphery he saw Bor beginning to stumble to his feet as he grasped his torn forearm. The piercing sound of the terminal’s alarm imparted an even greater sense of urgency, and Garin responded by rolling onto his hands and knees. He shook his head and took two quick, deep breaths to regain his sense of awareness. His mental clock told him he had no more time to recover before his adversary would make his next move. He needed to engage now.

Down the concourse toward the main terminal he could hear the sound of officious voices, issuing multiple commands and directives. More security was approaching. To his right he saw Bor reaching for the empty PP-2000. Garin shook his head once more and craned himself upright. Bor had released the submachine gun’s spent magazine and was slamming in a fresh one retrieved from a back pocket. Garin shot forward and with his right fist jacked two fierce punches at Bor’s head while using his left hand to attempt to tear the weapon from the assassin’s grasp. Bor stumbled backward as another blinding bolt of pain streaked from Garin’s ear and through his head, causing him to double over at the waist, nothing in his field of vision but white light. He sensed the presence of several security officers immediately to his rear. There were several angry shouts, then staccato bursts from a submachine gun and the distinctive sound of metal striking flesh.

Though still staggered, Garin began to regain his bearings a couple of seconds later. He was surrounded by the bodies of four dead security personnel. Bor was gone.

Garin recovered the SIG from under the ticket scanner, released the magazine, and seated a full one.