Deep Black

45

Dean moved down the fire escape — like ladder as slowly as he could. Every five seconds of delay would increase Karr’s chances of getting away, which in turn increased his own odds of survival. Finally, the man above him had enough and began stomping at his fingers to make him go faster. Dean jumped the last two rungs and pretended to crumble to the ground, but the Russians were having none of that — the man who’d gone down first put his rifle about two inches from Dean’s face.

Dean had surrendered the.22 and his combat knife, along with his pack and all of his grenades. He still had a small Glock hideaway strapped to his calf and another under his vest. But at the moment there was no way he could get them before being perforated.

The Russian said something, probably telling him to move forward to the front of the building, where there was a vehicle. Dean didn’t have to pretend not to understand; he stood with his hands out, as dumb a look on his face as he could muster — which was pretty dumb.

“I don’t speak Russian,” he said.

The Marine said something that sounded like “pash-lee, pash-lee,” which Dean recognized as Russian for “let’s go.” As he started to move, the Marine behind him decided he wasn’t moving fast enough and slammed his rifle butt into Dean’s kidney. The American fell to the ground, this time not faking it. The Marine went to jab him again, this time with the barrel end. Instinctively Dean grabbed the gun.

He realized this was a big mistake about half a second before it fired.