Greg Rucka - A gentleman_s game

"Matteen, quickly!" he hissed, and closed the door, clambering onto the hood of the SUV and then jumping from it onto the wadi wall, holding his rifle with both hands, fitting his finger through the trigger guard. He sprinted low, the Kalashnikov ready, atop the wall of the wadi, stumbling as his pace grew more desperate, driven by the cries of his brothers.

Saudi Arabia-Tabuk Province, the Wadi-as-Sirhan 22 September 0309:03 Local (GMT+3.00)

There weren't many survivors, but there were enough to keep Chace busy. She hopped her sights from one to the next, squeezing each burst carefully, timing the shots, placing them precisely. She went for center mass, tracking shots where she needed to, one burst for most, two when required.

She reloaded and heard the sounds of the dying, and then heard something else, and whipped around, dropping to her back and bringing the P90 up at the same time, seeing the man twenty feet behind her, his hands folded on his head. All the same, her finger had almost descended on the trigger before she registered what she was seeing, and it took another half a second before the adrenaline coursing through her allowed his words to register.

"Friendly," the man was saying over and over again. "CIA, friendly, CIA."

Chace scrambled to her feet, sprinting toward him, the P90 in one hand. She grabbed his hair and yanked him over onto his back, dropping to a knee and driving the muzzle against his neck. He looked at her with pure alarm, his mouth working inarticulately.

"Friendly," he gabbled. "Friendly, in the name of God, I'm friendly."

"Who the fuck are you?" Chace hissed in return, and she pushed the muzzle harder against his neck.

"Matteen Agha," he said, and his English was accented, vaguely American. "My controller is Dennis Heppler at Langley, Juliet-ought-eight-nine-nine-two, please, I'm a friend, you must believe me."

"Nobody told me that I could find friends here."

The man closed his eyes, whispered, "I am unarmed, I am unarmed, please, you must believe me."

Chace gritted her teeth, the frustration and impatience raging. "Where did you come from, why the hell aren't you in the camp? Did you know we were coming?"

Matteen Agha shook his head, or tried to, saying, "No, we were on our way back, we were in Egypt. There were bombs, I warned Heppler, I told him there were five-"

"We?"

"-of the bombers, we were paired with them to act as their handlers-"

Chace yanked on his hair, hard, trying to silence him. "We?"

"My partner and I-"

The realization was utterly horrifying, and she released her grip on him, trying to get to her feet, turning to look across the wadi, opening her mouth to shout the warning.

Too late.

Saudi Arabia-Tabuk Province, the Wadi-as-Sirhan 22 September 0309:18 Local (GMT+3.00)

Thirty meters, and Sinan could see it, looking down the short drop, at the place that had been his home.

The tents were shredded, in tatters, and in the starlight that reflected off the desert, he saw his brothers, slain as they had slept. Their blood shone black on the earth, and he heard their sobbing, their pain. He saw survivors, struggling to get their weapons, to get to their feet, to escape the tents, and he saw them twist and fall, one after the other, as if touched by the breath of the Angel of Death.

Sinan looked around, frantic, and he saw the flicker to his left, blue light suppressed, and he heard another of his brothers scream, and he dropped back, still in his crouch, bringing his rifle to his shoulder, trying to circle around behind the shooter. His heart had climbed to his throat, and he tasted a bitterness in his mouth, something acrid, and he felt his hands trembling, his whole body shaking with his rage.

He tried to move slowly, though everything inside him screamed to hurry, telling him the more he delayed, the more his brothers died.

Sinan was perhaps ten feet from the man when he stopped, rolling to his side to reload his weapon, and the man looked up, saw him, and realized what was about to happen.

The man tried to roll, slapping the fresh magazine into place, scrambling to raise the gun and fire.

"Go to hell," Sinan said, and he pulled his trigger, held it down, watched as the muzzle-flash lit the man like a fiery strobe, watched as the man's body rattled and shook as the Kalashnikov tore him to pieces.

Saudi Arabia-Tabuk Province, the Wadi-as-Sirhan 22 September 0309:31 Local (GMT+3.00)

Chace heard the echo of the shots, saw the muzzle-flash light them a hundred meters away, the man with the rifle, firing and firing and firing, and it wouldn't stop, he wouldn't stop, and she cried out in Tom's agony, saw his arm rise and then fall again. She brought the P90 against her hip, tearing the trigger back, all her control gone. Brass rained around her feet, spent and smoking.

The strobe went off, the man twirling away, and Chace's eyes burned with the memory of light. She heard herself choking, jumped down the wall of the wadi, sprinting its width, her boots pounding the earth almost as hard as her heart, and when she reached the opposite side she scrabbled up it, losing the gun, not caring, pulling herself atop on her knees.

The brutality of his death forced a sob, caught in her throat. There were pieces of him missing, as if torn out by an angry, spoiled child who would rather break his possessions than share them. His eyes and mouth were open, and there was pain and fear in them, and his skin was splashed and painted in his own blood.

The emotion fractured her, stole her mind, too strong and too cruel, far beyond anything she had ever allowed herself to feel. Chace screamed without knowing she was screaming, and she put her hands to him, trying to hold Wallace one more time, trying to feel him warm and alive and hers.

Then the world exploded magnesium-flare red and white, and she came back to herself with blood in her mouth, facedown on wet earth. Disoriented and confused and still lost in the grief, she tried to push herself up. Pain ruptured in her back, sent her flat again, and somehow her mind connected that this was wrong, that she was being hurt, and she snapped her right arm back and up and surprised herself when it connected with bone. She felt another blow, this to her right shoulder, and she realized it had been meant for her head, and that she must have moved out of the way.

She pitched her legs up, to the side, twisting on the ground, and her boots connected with flesh again, not seriously, not enough to do anything but send her assailant back a few steps. She used the momentum to follow through, bringing her legs over and down again, flipping on the ground, getting her feet under her, and again she moved her head just in the nick of time, felt the brush of the Kalashnikov's stock as it stole the watch cap from her head.

Her thought was that it had been Matteen attacking her and that she would kill him for lying, but this wasn't Matteen, it was the other one, the one who had killed Tom. In the fraction she had to see his face, the details burned. He was young, younger than Matteen, and Caucasian, and he was swearing at her, cursing at her, spitting at her, spittle on his lips, swinging the Kalashnikov at her like a club. Blood ran from torn fabric along his left arm, and she wondered that she'd hit him only once, so poorly, and the Kalashnikov was coming at her head again.

She ducked beneath it, sprang up from her haunches, trapping the arm with her right while turning her back into him, driving her left elbow hard into his sternum. He grunted, twisting away, giving her only half the impact, and she felt the blow high on her left side, where her breast joined her ribs, and she screamed louder, yanking him forward, trying to flip him with the trapped arm.