Mark Greaney - On target

Be cool Zack.

A long hesitation. "Let's knock it off. Everybody stand down. Hold positions until Oryx's entourage gets in the mosque; then I want a quiet egress back out of the area-"

Court let out one of the longest sighs of relief of his life.

Each member of Whiskey Sierra came on the net, in turn, and confirmed that they understood the order to stand down. These men were consummate professionals; they betrayed no emotion, neither relief nor disappointment, that the mission had been scrubbed at the very last second.

Gentry took one last look at President Abboud, walking briskly through the square with his entourage towards his position. Disappointing to be so close and yet so far, but Gentry was a pro as well. He'd been here before, a second or two before the point of no return but unable or unwilling to proceed. Court wasted no time turning away from the window and moving back towards the stairs from the atrium to the front door entrance to the bank. He walked down the dark colonnaded hall. He'd almost reached the back door when his headset came alive once again with Whiskey Sierra's radio traffic.

Zack Hightower rested his rifle between his knees and leaned his head back against the headrest of the passenger seat in frustration as Brad/Sierra Two put the dirty beige cargo van in gear. Behind them, in the very back of the van, was Milo, Sierra Four. He sat facing the closed back door of the vehicle, with a big HK21 between his legs. The shoulder-wielded machine gun carried the same powerful cartridge as many hunting and sniper rifles, but it fired them faster and from a 100-round box magazine. Milo was the designated "trunk monkey," the man ready to shoot out the back doors to keep opposition off of their tail. He was low-profile now, with the doors closed and no targets to fire at, but if the operation had gone ahead, it was likely Sierra Four would have been the man sending the most hate downrange.

The van had been waiting in the deep shadows of an alley a few blocks from the square, far from where the government of Sudan infantry had been reported. Other than chickens and goats in the road, they'd seen no movement at all, so they pulled out of their hide and began moving south. This was in the direction of the square, so Brad made his first turn to the left, which would take him closer to the port and allow him to avoid Abboud's guard force.

But the alleyway turned into a dead end at a camel corral. It was a large circular structure crafted out of driftwood and scrap metal, with a few hulking animals kneeling in the dirt, and there was no way around it.

Brad began backing up the truck. Both he and Sierra One looked into their rearview mirrors.

Zack saw them first and shouted to the van and over his radio to the team.

"Troops!"

Sierra Two slammed on the brakes. Twenty meters behind them, at the mouth of the alleyway they had just entered, stood half a dozen green-clad soldiers, their Chinese-made Type 81 rifles raised in front of them and pointing at the van. One of the soldiers shouted a command.

"What do we do, boss?" asked Brad from the driver's seat.

The delay from Zack was brief. When he spoke, he transmitted to the entire team.

"All elements. Belay my last command. We are a go for Nocturne Sapphire. I say again, execute! Light 'em up!"

In the back of the van, Milo kicked open the rear doors with his boots. They locked open wide. He lifted his machine gun and fired spurting bursts at the six soldiers at the mouth of the alleyway.

Three soldiers died where they stood. The rest dove to the ground and returned fire.

Behind Milo, Zack unbuckled himself and spun between the seats, lifting his Israeli Tavor TAR-21 assault rifle and firing over Sierra Four's left shoulder. Brad shoved the gearshift knob forward, from reverse to drive, stomped on the gas, and the big Ford van crashed through the fencing of the corral, sending massive brown camels clambering out of the way.

The Gray Man's shoulders dropped in resignation.

His fingertips were a foot from the latch to the back door of the bank. On the other side of the door would be a dark alleyway. Beyond that a few quiet twists and turns, and he'd be at the port, in the water of the lagoon or on a small boat. He'd be out of danger in minutes.

But Zack's transmission and the gunfire to the north changed everything.

Now Three was on the net. "Three's going loud." and then the explosion of an RPG, close to Gentry's position.

And now Spencer was joining the action. "Five's on the trigger." Submachine gun fire emanated from the Suakin Palace.

It was on. Abboud would be storming through the doorway behind Court in seconds.

The Gray Man turned, reached for the suppressed Glock 19 holstered on his hip.

Just outside, the square cracked to life with return pistol fire from Abboud's men. Court sucked in the musty air of the old bank building, brought his shoulders back, and clenched his jaw before saying, "Here we go."

He ran up the stairs and got into position.

Seconds later the double doors in the lobby below him burst open.

Welcome to World War fucking Three.

The men below Gentry shouted and screamed, but not in panic. No, these were trained bodyguards. Their commands were to their principal, the president of the Republic of Sudan. Court knew the drill. They would hustle into the room in a tight cordon, with Oryx in the center. Once inside they would secure the door and then lead him towards the most secure portion of the building, likely the basement vault. Gentry didn't know how many protectors had come in with Abboud; that would depend on how they were positioned when the gunfire started, if any had been hit by Sierra Five or Three, and any number of other factors. But ultimately it did not matter whether there were two men or twenty downstairs; Court Gentry had a surprise for them.

Court pressed a button on a handheld remote device he'd left on the windowsill. By doing so he activated electromagnets on two bolt locks he'd attached to each side of the double doors below, firing the three-inch long iron bolts across the space between the two doors and holding them fast. This ensured no one else came through.

Next he lifted a twelve-pound device off the cheap linoleum flooring of the atrium by its carry handle, jammed his thumb under a switch cap, and then pressed the button. One second later he hefted it over the side railing. It fell towards the lobby, but it was attached with a six-foot cord to the railing itself, so when the acousto-optical nonpyrotechnic less-lethal stun device reached the eye level of all the men in the lobby, its two-second countdown clock beeping and flickering, thus ensuring all eyes would be upon it, it would create maximum effect. Court threw himself to the atrium's floor, tucked into the fetal position with his eyes shut tight and his hands covering his C4OPS earpieces.

The device was a prototype built by the CIA's Directorate of Science amp; Technology, and Zack just referred to it as the Big Bang. It was designed to cause both physiological and psychophysical disorientation, with incredible lights and sound. The eggheads at Langley had been careful to only use off-the-shelf equipment in the device, mostly from Japan and France and Germany, to avoid having a virtual "Made in the USA" label affixed to the contraption.

Even with his eyes closed, its bright burst of light reflected off the walls around him and burned into his eyes, and even with his noise-reducing C4OPS headset in his ears and his hands covering them, the high-pitched one-second siren's wail was deafening. Its advertised optical effect was akin to staring into the sun for 110 milliseconds, and acoustically it battered the eardrums and even concussed those within twenty feet of it when activated in an enclosed space. Court felt the teeth in his jaw rattle, and coral rag and other material from the ceiling above him rained down on his body, but he ignored pain and the falling debris, and jumped to his feet instantly.