Fly by Wire

Chapter THIRTY-NINE

Jaber looked terrible. He was slumped and his face sagged behind skin the color of putty. He was holding onto the shattered doorframe with one hand in a precarious stance, listing like a palm tree that had just come through a hurricane. The other hand gripped a small plastic bag emblazoned with a red cross — part of a logo Davis recognized as being from a French pharmacy chain. Yet as weak as Jaber looked, there was fury in his yellow eyes. He took a step into the room, raised a finger to lodge his protest.

And then he fell.

Davis watched him go down, pivoting back like a tipped domino. It seemed to happen in slow motion, and when Jaber hit the floor he was slack weight, smacking down hard like a sack full of grain. Some long-dormant instinct kicked in. In a fraction of a second Davis made the connection, recognized the sound — a sharp, barely audible crack that had been nearly simultaneous with Jaber s drop. It brought a reaction he'd not had since his days as a Marine. Sorensen was standing five feet away. Davis flew across the room, arm outstretched, and knocked her to the ground. He heard the second crack before they hit the floor.

"Gun!" he yelled.

They crashed in a heap and Davis scrambled to right himself. He kept moving toward a wall, dragging a scrambling Sorensen with him. He glanced toward the window and could just make out a subtle flash across the street as a third round splintered into the wood floor next to his head.

Sorensen moved with him now, and they backed up to a wall near a heavy desk. Davis checked the angle. He no longer had line of sight to the window across the street where he'd seen the flash. Which meant the shooter no longer had line of sight to him.

"Honeywell —"

A fourth round slammed in. The laptop on the counter kicked into the air and then crashed to the floor. It came to rest in a wisp of smoke, the keyboard a shattered cluster of alphanumeric characters. Then another pause from the incoming fire. It grew longer and longer. Sorensen pulled a gun from her jacket, held it muzzle up with a cocked elbow.

Davis asked, "Where the hell did that come from?"

"After last night I thought it might be wise," she said tensely. "So who the hell is shooting at us?"

"Hard to say. But I'm pretty sure I saw a muzzle flash across the street, fifth-floor window. I think we're good here. As long as there's only one shooter."

"I heard the bullets come through the glass, but I didn't hear any shots."

"The gun must be sound suppressed," he said.

Davis took stock of Jaber. He was lying motionless in the doorway. There was a black hole centered perfectly on his forehead, a crimson pool blossoming under his skull. "We can't do anything for him."

Sorensen stared at the window. "I'd say somebody across the street is a decent shot."

They exchanged a look.

"Caliph?" she wondered aloud.

"Could be."

"But he didn't stop with Jaber, did he? He tried for us too. Not to mention that—"she pointed toward the devastated laptop.

"Whoever it is," Davis reasoned, "he's probably been over there for quite a while, waiting for Jaber. Chances are, he was watching us tinker with that computer and go through the papers."

Sorensen had her cell phone out. "I'm calling the police."

He nodded, and said, "I think that'd be a good idea."

Everything was still while she made the call. No new bullets came crashing through the window. Sorensen gave the address and situation, but didn't give her name. She hung up. "Okay, now what? Do we just sit here until the police come?"

"I've got better things to do. It'll take five minutes for them to get here. Maybe ten." Davis thought about this. "Caliph, or whoever is across the street, might still be waiting for us to show. But he'll bolt when the police show up."

"Probably. Right now I'm more interested in how we get out of here."

"Good question."

The silence grew longer. So long it was overwhelming.

Davis ended it. "Whoever's over there is using a sound-suppressed weapon. The only reason to do that is to escape attention. Aside from us, nobody around here knows what's going on. I don't hear anybody outside screaming frantically about guns or bodies. I figure there are two possibilities at the moment. Either the shooter is gone because he just wanted Jaber, or the guy is still there, looking straight through that window with his scope."

They both studied the window, saw four tightly shattered holes.

"So how do we tell?"

"If I'd worn my Stetson I could put it on an umbrella and waved it in the window."

She frowned. Then, "Jammer, how about we make him go away?"

"And how, pray tell, do we do that?"

"What kind of scope do you think he's using?"

"Scope?" he asked.

"Some kind of low-light optical number. And right now he's looking into a brightly lit apartment."

"Yeah… so?"

Sorensen hugged the wall and crawled closer to the window. She stopped just aside the frame and looked at him. "When I give the word, I want you to pull the plugs on those two lamps."

She pointed to a pair of cords plugged into the wall. Davis realized it would kill the majority of the light in the room. There was still a small overhead fixture in the kitchen, on the other side, but it was less intense than the two main lamps.

"But what good is that—"

"Just do it, Jammer!"

"All right." Davis scooted to the plugs and said, "Ready when you are, Honeywell. But I hope you know what you're doing."

She raised an index finger high, then chopped it down. He pulled the plugs and the room fell dark. An instant later, Sorensen extended her gun into the window opening and tilted it down, aiming at the baseboard across the room.

Three shots burst through the night.

Fatima blinked. The sudden darkness had surprised her. She pulled away from the scope and locked her naked eyes on the window across the street. Then came three flashes, followed by three cracks.

Fatima instinctively ducked. What were those fools doing? Could they have seen her muzzle flashes? Even so, what idiot returns fire at such a range with a handgun against a rifle? Anger overcame her. She cursed and looked through the sight, scanned every part of the flat. Nothing. Fatima cursed again.

She had wanted to take the two Americans earlier, but Jaber had been the priority. Yet as she waited, she had watched them go through his papers. Now Fatima wondered what they'd found. Could they understand what was about to happen? Had that idiot Jaber left too much lying around? At least she had taken care of the computer.

A police siren wailed in the distance. Fatima saw a man on the street pointing up toward Jaber's window. A woman next to him had her phone out. Fatima looked at her watch. It was too late to stop the final blow. Yet there was a possibility, ever so slim, that the Americans could minimize the damage.

The damned Americans!

In a fit of rage Fatima pushed over her shooting stand, the lumber and chairs clattering to the floor. She dropped the Dragunov on the couch and picked up a Glock semiautomatic from a nearby table. She racked the slide to chamber a round, then ejected the magazine and jammed in an extra bullet to bring it full. Reloading the magazine, she tucked the gun into the waistband of her pants.

Fatima shrugged a jacket over her shoulders and headed for the door.