Max Collins - Executive Order

On this moonless night, the planes were not visible, though he could make out parachutes dropping out of nowhere. Not only would he and his team fail to get away in time, they would soon have Russian paratroopers landing all around them.

Ready to fight.

“ Faster! ” McMann shouted.

Somehow they all picked up the pace, though McMann had a grim feeling they wouldn’t even make it to the car, let alone get away.

The Azbekistani jeeps were closing, but not as fast as Russian invaders were materializing from the sky. His team sprinted even harder — they had orders not to engage the Russians unless fired upon.

McMann unsnapped his holster and drew his Glock.

To his right, the first Russian thudded to ground. The paratrooper was a good distance away, judging by the sound, and they were now only two hundred yards from their car. Two football fields, two lousy football fields between them and the chance to get away before the Russians and Azbekistanis opened fire on each other.

Sweat burning his eyes, his lungs burning too, McMann kept running, kept urging his team on. Young slender Liz was leading the way, Meeks keeping up with McMann, though Gorianov was slowly falling back.

“ Vitor, ” McMann yelled, “ pick up the pace! ”

Somehow Gorianov found an extra gear. Again, for a moment, McMann thought they had a chance, right up to where the Russian soldier landed hard in front of him. Meeks circled around the guy, but McMann had no choice but to hit the brakes. Gorianov nearly ran up his back, but dodged left in time.

That left McMann face-to-face with the Russian as the paratrooper came up, AK-47 at the ready, pointed right at McMann.

The CIA agent shot the man in the head.

It was all reflexes and his action meant that if they weren’t in a shitload of trouble before, they sure as hell were now.

When McMann fired, the other three on his team opened up, too. This was a target-rich environment, getting richer by the second. Looking up, all McMann could see were shadows, but he knew each one was a Russian paratrooper...

... and there were shadows everywhere.

He holstered his pistol, then leaned down, picked up the fallen paratrooper’s AK-47, and started shooting, doing a slow, deadly pirouette.

Not only were they suddenly in a firefight on the ground, but paratroopers who hadn’t even landed yet rained fire down on them. Gorianov took a hit, went to a knee, wincing, but kept firing. The next second, he was up and moving again, though not nearly as fast.

The Azbekistani jeeps were on them, headlights lancing through the inky night, and men riding opened fire, raking the field with machine gun rounds even as they rolled forward.

Because we don’t have enough trouble , McMann thought, emptying the magazine of the AK-47.

Dropping the depleted weapon, he got out his pistol again. Their progress had slowed to a walk now as they moved toward the car, firing at Russians all around. McMann looked over at Meeks and saw a shiny black spot on his partner’s leg, leaving him barely able to limp along now, much less run.

They kept fighting, did their best to keep moving. Gorianov got hit again, this time in the chest. They all wore body armor, but having been hit like that more than once himself, McMann knew it hurt like a son of a bitch and knocked the wind out of you as surely as a fist to the belly. Suddenly Gorianov was on his back, arms and legs flailing.

With his free hand, McMann went to Gorianov and grabbed a fistful of the man’s fatigues and pulled him up to a sitting position. He was about to help the analyst to his feet when a Russian bullet exploded Gorianov’s skull, the lifeless, near headless body sagging back to the ground.

Spattered with gore, McMann swung and fired at the paratrooper, killing him as dead as Gorianov.

But their pistols were no match for AK-47s, and they were outmanned a hundred to one, not to mention the Azbekistani jeeps firing indiscriminately into the night, unaware that Americans were on their soil.

Meeks took two hits, one in the body armor, one not, spun, dropped, fought his way to his hands and knees, then Gillis and McMann each caught him under an arm and dragged him toward the car.

“Jesus, are we screwed,” Meeks burbled. Hurt bad.

“And it’s all your fault,” McMann said, a standard line between them when the shit was coming down.

Meeks tried to laugh, but summoned only a choke, then he stumbled and Gillis lost her grip. McMann waved for her to keep going, and get to the car. If she could, maybe they could still make it out of here alive, that back road so close, so very close...

McMann felt a sudden searing pain in his leg, and dropped to the ground, looking down to see a nasty wound in his thigh, shiny with bubbly blood. Turning to Meeks, he said, “Come on, Willie, quit loafing — time to go.”

“Cut a guy some slack,” Meeks said, and smiled, and died.

McMann dragged himself to his feet, no time for sorrow, just as an Azbekistani machine gun tore into Gillis and shook her like a rag doll, less than fifty feet from the Citigo. Her slender, bullet-riddled form dropped in an awkward pile.

Shit.

His leg burned, shock setting in, sweat pouring out everywhere as he limped toward the car, both sides of the battle seeming to turn their gunfire toward him, tracers streaming like fiery ribbons.

He was hit once, twice, three times, two in the body armor, another time not, stumbled, fell, rose, like a nearly knocked-out fighter who should have stayed down for the count. Bullets buffeted him now, the car barely ten feet away. Machine-gun fire from one of the jeeps raked the vehicle’s hood, turning the engine into something worthless, no doubt.

Still, McMann limped on, fell to his knees, got hit in the left glute. Which one of these sons of bitches had actually shot him in the ass? If that wasn’t covered by the Geneva Convention (some detached part of his mind said), it sure as hell should...

Crawling, he got to the car, touched a tire, the feel of the rubber tread oddly comforting. He moved forward, the Russians coming right up on him now, the firing coming to a merciful stop. He reached up, his hand bloody, his arm barely working, and he touched the door handle.

Then in a crystalized instant he realized why he and his team were there. It all fell into place — they had been sent here to die, so that...

Cold steel against his temple cut his thought short — a muzzle. He tried to turn but couldn’t see who held the gun. Did it matter? McMann heard just the start of the shot that killed him.

And felt no pain at all.

He was history.

“Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.”

Nothing hit FBI Special Agent Patti Rogers in the pit of her stomach quite like getting summoned upstairs to see Assistant Director Margery Fisk. Somehow, no matter how benign the circumstances, it always reminded her of being called to the principal’s office.

She felt that way right now, as she rode the elevator up to Fisk’s floor. But if Joe Reeder — her task force’s consultant, and her good friend — had been with her, this trip wouldn’t have been unnerving at all. Or at least much less so.

She and Joe would be having dinner tonight. Since they had first been thrown together on the Supreme Court task force two years ago, the pair had become tight, and they had usually dined out every couple of weeks or so. In the last year, however, her social life had taken a decided upturn, so she and Reeder — there had never been anything romantic between them — were seeing less of each other.