Mark Greaney - On target

"Frag out!"

Within seconds opaque red and white smoke had spurted from canisters in the streets on two sides of the building.

Spencer had unhooked much of the gear from his back and hips, and with only his UZI, a pistol, and a few magazines, he leapt out of the window of the shop, began sprinting across forty meters of market stalls and open ground to try and make it to the other strip mall. He was somewhat obscured by thick white and red smoke, but above and behind him the Hip turned on its axis and plunged through the air after him.

The big black operator slowed and turned to fire at it, raised his impotent weapon for a long burst, but the Hip fired first. The chain guns ripped up the wooden stalls to the left and right of him, and Spencer turned and began running again.

The Hip moved closer, creating distance between itself and the roof of the building behind it. Dan, Sierra Three, stepped out of his low concealment and brought the machine gun to his shoulder.

He lined the big rifle's red dot sight on the tail rotor assembly at the back of the big bird. He opened fire with quick controlled bursts to combat the recoil, and he did not stop, firing eighty rounds and turning the barrel white-hot.

A small puff of black smoke appeared in seconds. The aircraft shuddered and angled to the right, breaking off his chase of the man in the market. He banked harder and harder. Dan thought he was trying to fly back around and engage him, but an explosion at the rotor assembly, much larger than the original puff of smoke, sent the Mi-17 spinning on the vertical midline of its main rotor.

It was eighty feet in the air, completely out of control, and Dan ducked back into the stairwell with a warning to Sierra Five, "Spence! He's goin' down hard! Get clear of the market!"

The tail of the Mi-17 slammed into the second story of the mall Zack and the majority of Sierra Five occupied. It dipped forward and hit the ground nose first. It was only a drop of thirty feet or so, but the big machine was moving at speed, and the resulting explosion and fireball ensured there would be no survivors.

Hightower knew exactly what happened to the Hip, though he had not seen it take the hits from Dan's rifle nor had he watched it auger into the dirt between the two shopping centers. But he heard all the noises and the transmissions from his man on the roof, and when the chopper burst into flames, he and the two men with him were just coming out of the second-floor stairwell and passing a window, and the light and heat off his left shoulder left no doubt as to the fate of the Mi-17 and those aboard.

The three men continued down a short hallway, where they met Dan just as he came down a ladder from the roof. Brad and Dan each took hold of Milo, and Zack led the way as they tried to put some distance between themselves and the last point of contact with the enemy.

"One for Five," Zack called into his headset as he warily moved through a long sundry store that apparently took quite a bit of heavy machine gun fire. All around papers, woven baskets, ceramic pottery, everything in the room, was shattered or shredded.

"One for Five. How copy, Five?" Nothing. "One for Five. Spence?"

The team's headsets were silent.

Court entered the thatch-roofed dwelling, cleared it with his Glock in under five seconds. The walls were primarily burlap, and a fifty-five gallon drum had been pounded flat to use as a door. Treads from tires had been worked in with driftwood, plywood, and other refuse material to augment the burlap on the walls.

The inside was dark and sweltering, the air still and thick, an absence of the smells of food and smoke from cooking fires that made the American assume the owners had been gone awhile and were not coming back soon. He wiped away some cobwebs, kicked at some trash in the corner to make sure no one was hiding there and nothing dangerous came slithering out, and then used his knife to cut holes in the fabric walls to provide light and draft.

He had lucked into finding this hide. After Hightower's last transmission, the Gray Man had decided to not go all the way up to the marshland as he'd originally planned. Instead, he wanted to be closer to Suakin in case he needed to get back there to help extract Whiskey Sierra. So he pulled off the main road, wandered aimlessly down a lonely dirt track, passed a few donkey carts and one small village, looking for any place to park the car and find a few minutes' peace. The abandoned dwelling was surrounded by high grasses and was barely visible from the road, and immediately he knew it would do, although the grasses looked like they would certainly be full of all sorts of poisonous snakes and angry insects.

Gentry holstered his weapon and carefully retraced his steps back to the Skoda to get his human luggage out of the back.

Oryx was awake and alert. His eyes were wide and filled with alternating signs of relief, disdain, and a bit of drug-induced contentment. He'd downed the entire bottle of water and somehow even managed to get his undershirt ripped off of his body. His white shirt was literally clinging to him, soaked with sweat. His large bald head dripped.

The trunk had already begun to smell like death.

"You are not with the American government," Oryx proclaimed as he was led towards the dwelling. "The way you executed that man. The way you hit me, threw me in the trunk. The talk of money and assassination. These are not the actions of an American serviceman."

"Nope."

The president stopped and turned. "You are a soldier of fortune."

Gentry pushed him forward. "After expenses, I'm really more like a soldier of the middle class."

"I know who sent you to kill me."

"Do you?"

"Of course. It's obvious. Who has both the resources to pay you and to plan this, and hates me enough to set this in motion? Those American actors who are so against me and have so much money. I have seen them on television for years, speaking to your congress, making movies of lies that they call documentaries. I knew some day these infidels would make an attempt on my life."

Court wasn't in the mood for chit-chat. The barb in his back was causing all his muscles to seize and cramp in pain; even walking was difficult now. As they approached the open doorway, he said, "That's right. I'm gonna be a primo player in Hollywood when this is done. Fucking star on that sidewalk and all that shit."

"And I also know who sent you to kidnap me." His voice trailed off at the end, as he stopped at the entrance to the tiny structure. "Where are we? What is this place?"

"Keep going."

"What are you going to-"

Court struck him soundly on the side of the head with the butt of the gun. The big man staggered, turned to the shack, and began walking forward with no more questions. Once inside, he continued to the center of the dimly lit room, and then he turned around. Gentry could see his confusion.

"You are working with Bedouins?"

"Shut up."

Abboud shook off his confusion and began a sales pitch. Court had expected nothing less. "I can arrange to pay you more, more than you are getting to do this, I assure you."

"Shut up."

"Not money from Sudanese banks, no. I have accounts all over the world. Friends in the West and in Asia. This could be a larger monetary event for you than you now realize. You can just double what you are being paid and I will see-"

"Shut up and listen!" Court holstered his pistol again, the agony showing in his face as he reached across his body and gingerly removed his backpack by unbuckling the shoulder straps. Then he began working on his brown shirt, tearing at it with grunts and winces. After several tugs it tore free, and he stood bare-chested in the dim shack. "I need you to help me get this out."

"The arrow?"

"No, the coffee stain on my crotch. Yes! The arrow!"