Chapter Thirty-Eight #2
“He’s in a gray GMC pickup and has bypassed your position.
He’s in the passenger seat; someone else is driving.
Looks like they are heading to Wisconsin Avenue.
From there they can go north up to N, double back, and cause you trouble.
They’re…” She stuttered her words. “They…they’re surrounding you. ”
Zack said, “You have a vector out of here for us?”
Hesitantly, she said, “If…I…I’m not sure.”
Court could hear the young woman panicking. She was an analyst, not a field team controller; this firefight, like the one down in Washington Circle two nights earlier, was completely out of her wheelhouse. “Relax, Gumdrop,” Court said. “Just do your best.”
Before the young woman spoke again, Hanley came over the net.
“Listen up! If you can make it through the crossfire in that alley to the other side, you’ll find a row of small backyards running east. There are trees there with some cover.
Can’t really tell about the fences between the properties from our angle, but you can create some distance from the assholes trying to encircle you, break.
” A second later, he said, “Yeah, there’s a row house about five units away to your east, on the north side of the trees, it looks like it’s got active construction or repairs going on.
I bet you can get right through it, pop out on N Street. ”
“Then what?” Court asked.
“Shit, Six,” Hanley said. “That’s all I’ve got so far. Move your asses and we’ll try to—”
Gumdrop’s voice came back in Court’s ear now. She sounded more authoritative, as if she’d recovered somewhat. “Six, you left that tow truck right there at N and Wisconsin. It’s just a block from where you’ll come out. Go for that!”
“Good thinking!” he replied, and then he moved to the edge of his cover. To Zack, he said, “You cover north, I cover south, and we move east. When we get to fences, we go through them, around them, or over them, whatever’s fastest. We run with Cathy here between us. You copy?”
Zack nodded as he adjusted the grip on his pistol, readying himself for the run. “Velocity and ferocity. Let’s do it.”
To Catherine King, Court said, “Cathy, pretend you’re mountain biking, and there’s a grizzly bear chasing you.”
“Can’t I just pretend that a bunch of guys in masks want to assassinate me?”
Court nodded. “Yeah, try to picture that.”
“Consider it pictured.”
“Grab my jacket and don’t let go.” He took a quick breath, then looked to Zack. “You good?”
“Let’s fuck ’em up, Six.”
“Go!”
The three of them burst out into the alley; Court immediately saw a middle-aged man in a button-down shirt and slacks ahead to his right, between his position and the enemy nearer to the restaurant.
He recognized this man as a civilian, and he started to shout at him to get the hell out of the way, but instead he just sighted through the Aimpoint optic on his Scorpion and fired a three-round burst into some garbage cans next to the man.
The civilian hit the deck just as another burst of fire came from behind the garage near the bistro, and Court returned fire as he sprinted to the east, concerned less with achieving a good sight picture through the optic and more with getting the hell out of there.
Zack began laying down suppressive fire with his pistol towards the north.
This run was all about three things: speed, trust, and noise.
Court couldn’t shoot terribly accurately at a man forty yards away while sprinting in a different direction, especially while a fifty-nine-year-old woman held on to his coat and pulled him off balance.
But the gunfire in the direction of the enemy would give them something to worry about, and that would buy them time.
And the speed of the run would shorten the chances that the multitude of enemy around them would be able to aim in and get the accuracy they need.
But it was trust that was perhaps most important.
Court had to keep his eyes to the south while running east. He had to trust that Zack would have his eyes and his gun focused on targets to the north, up on N Street.
There was no alternative; Court had to fight with his back to at least some of the enemy, and Zack had to protect him while trusting Court to do the same.
They made it to the first fence and Court glanced at it briefly, saw that it was old, weatherworn wood, and he shouldered into it with all his might.
The wood snapped and he crashed through; Catherine picked her way through the wreckage more carefully, and Zack backed into the hole, emptying his magazine at the target behind them while he did so.
Court rose, went back to the hole he’d just created, and laid down fire so Zack could get through, and as he did, he announced he was loading his last magazine into his pistol.
They’d just started running together through a cluster of trees in some backyards that were not divided by fences when Zack pitched forward a couple of feet, stumbled, then righted himself. Court could sense the motion from his mate, even though he wasn’t looking, but soon he heard Zack shout.
“Enemy on our six!”
It seemed Zack had been shot from behind, hopefully into his vest, but Court knew Zack would need several steps to recover.
Court spun around among the trees, shouldered the wire stock of the Scorpion, and immediately saw a man down on one knee on the stoop of a row house one building south of where they’d taken cover.
Gumdrop had identified a pair of Gauntlet Group men entering that building, so Court flipped his selector switch to full auto and let his weapon rock.
The man spun, then fell off the stoop and down into some recycling bins.
A second man appeared at the open door, and Court fired a very short burst, sending him back inside.
He turned around and ran again, Zack and Catherine right with him, and they all shifted a little to the north to go through a pass-through gate in the middle of an iron fence between properties.
Once on the other side, they started running again.
Gumdrop shouted into their ears. “That’s the property under construction! Go left. Find a way in and get onto N Street.”
Zack led the way with his smoking pistol; Catherine wheezed and heaved from the stress and exertion, and Court one-armed his subgun while scanning for targets back to the east, his left hand guiding the former newspaper reporter from behind.
Construction materials were all around the backyard and on the redbrick patio; Zack found the door unlocked, entered the ground floor of a row house, and immediately encountered a four-person painting crew up on ladders working on the molding.
The Hispanic crew had stopped working; the intense gunfire outside to their east had been the culprit for that, but none of them had moved from their perches, so frozen were they in disbelief and fear.
Zack passed them by, all business, heading for the front door with his pistol out in front of him.
Catherine shuffled under the ladders next, and Court took the time to shut and lock the door before running himself up the hall, cradling his suppressed firearm in both hands now. He looked up at the crew, two men and two women, gave a little shrug, and kept going.
Seconds later they were out on N Street, a tiny residential tree-lined affair. Zack and Court waved their guns to the left; Zack’s shot-up Yukon was there, as was the black Gauntlet sedan parked behind it, but the white Nissan Armada that had been across the street in front was gone.
No one was shooting at them from that direction, at least, so they turned their guns to the east and found themselves just a block from relatively high-trafficked Wisconsin Avenue.
Here Court had parked the Big Cheeze tow truck he’d used to scan the plates in the area just minutes earlier, so he led the others towards it, still at a run.
They were just slowing at the truck, however, when fresh gunfire burst from behind. Court turned to find two men squatting behind parked cars near where Zack had left the Yukon in the middle of the street.
He fired single shots in their direction, desperate to conserve the last few rounds of ammo in his CZ Scorpion.
Zack fired, as well, moving out into the street to get a better angle, and this put him near the driver’s-side door of the tow truck.
Court shouted over the gunfire, still aiming in on the targets to their rear. “It’s unlocked! The key’s under the mat.”
“Roger!” Zack shouted back, and then, “King! Get in the passenger side!”
Court hit one of the Gauntlet men right in the pelvic girdle, dropping him writhing on the sidewalk, and the other operator had ducked down to cover either to reload or else to reconsider his career path, but Court took the opportunity to run to the open passenger-side door.
They sat three abreast in the front seat, with Zack behind the wheel. He fired up the engine and then threw the big vehicle into gear.
Just as they lurched forward, however, the white Nissan Armada that Zack had clocked parked in front of him minutes earlier lurched around from Wisconsin Avenue and began racing towards the tow truck, gaining speed.
Behind it, a GMC pickup followed.
Court had just a couple of rounds in his subgun, but he fired them through the window at the oncoming truck, then dropped the rifle and pulled out his Glock again.
Catherine screamed, and Zack jerked the wheel to the left in an attempt to avoid a crash, but the full-sized Nissan SUV plowed headfirst into the grille of the tow truck.
Airbags deployed, knocking Court’s Glock out of his hand, flinging it somewhere onto the floorboard as the inflating bag shoved Court’s hand up into his face.
His AirPod flew from his ear, as well.
Court found himself hopelessly dazed and disoriented with the noise and concussion and the blow of his hand to his mouth, and all this, along with the fine powder from the airbags filling the air of the tow truck’s cabin, made it hard to focus on any new dangers.
Maybe five seconds had passed; he heard Zack shout something, and he heard Catherine scream. He tried to push the inflated airbag out of the way, and when he did, he saw a man moving towards him, a pistol high in his hands.
Court recognized Asem Shaban, the assassin who operated around the world under the moniker Snare.
Snare approached Court’s side of the truck, a confidence in his movements.
Court reached for the knife he had mounted sideways in front of his belt buckle. It wasn’t much, but he knew the Jordanian assassin would kill them all, and he wasn’t going to die without some attempt to fight back.
Snare yanked open the door right next to Court and centered his Beretta pistol on him, and Court realized he was out of knife range.
The bearded killer smiled, didn’t say a word, because he seemed to recognize that no one here was in a position to stop him. He aimed at the right side of Court’s head; he was only eight feet away, and he began to press the trigger.