Locked On

15

John Clark had been forced to physically push two Chinese businessmen out of the elevator on the second floor. They had ignored him when he asked them to take another car, they’d yelled back at him angrily when he demanded they get out, and even when he resorted to pulling his pistol on them they just stared at it in confusion. Finally he shoved them out and pushed the close door button before continuing on up alone.

Now he was arriving at the third floor; his SIG pistol was out and ready, the silencer in place. He knew al Qahtani and his men would be in the hall by now, if they were not already in room 301, and he also knew his own arrival on the floor would be announced in advance with a ringing bell and a flash of light above the elevator doors.

Not exactly a covert dynamic entry.

When the doors opened, he leaned out and to the right with his pistol at eye level. Immediately he ducked back into the elevator. No sooner had he pulled his head out of the hallway when unsuppressed fully automatic machine-pistol fire tore into his elevator car. He flattened himself on the floor, then reached up with the tip of his silencer and pressed the door hold button, locking open the doors here in range of the enemies.

He’d seen the gunmen right as they kicked at the door to 301. They were carrying Škorpion machine pistols, a small weapon that fired a .32-caliber bullet at a rate of 850 rounds per minute. Only one man was looking back in Clark’s direction, but that tango had been ready to gun down whoever the hell exited the elevator. John had felt the overpressure of the supersonic rounds and they missed his face by inches, and now he was effectively pinned down inside the elevator.

Another burst of fire tore through the aluminum car as he pressed his face flat on the cold floor, the sound in the hallway like the ripping of paper into a microphone attached to the amp stacks of a heavy-metal band.

Al Qahtani and his men fired first; Ding heard the sound of automatic weapons fire just as he got his finger to the trigger of his HK. The Frenchmen in the hotel room reacted surprisingly quickly. The two men at the desk dove for the floor, and the man standing with the coffee and cigarette spun away from the gunmen on the balcony and ducked upon hearing the door smash and the gunfire behind him. Ding got a snap sight picture on an armed tango in the doorway and squeezed off a double-tap through the glass of the sliding balcony doors, hitting the chest of the first terrorist. The man spun 180 degrees, his Škorpion flew from his hands, whipped by the sling around his neck as he landed on his back.

The glass of the balcony door shattered with the impacts. Dominic Caruso fired a pair of double-taps at the threats across the room, then kicked a remaining crotch-high glass shard free from the doorframe as the stepped through it. The second terrorist through the door had sighted his machine pistol on the first DCRI operative, but Dom took him out with a double-tap to the forehead.

The man’s skull exploded; blood drenched the wall of the entryway.

Both Dom and Ding had entered the room now; the third assassin dove to the floor of the hallway, using the slumped bodies of his two dead compatriots for cover. The Frenchmen in the bedroom scrambled to get themselves out of the line of fire. They dove to the floor next to the bed or crawled into the bathroom. Not one of them had a firm grasp on what was happening right in front of them, but the two men who’d rappelled to the balcony had made it clear with their shouts and actions that they were there to help.

A long uncontrolled spray by the third gunman at the door emptied his Škorpion. He rolled onto his side to reload it, and his partners in the hall covered for him by firing into the room indiscriminately. Both Dom and Ding had advanced farther into the room to get out of the line of fire. Chavez shepherded the six Frenchmen into the bathroom; one of the men had been shot through the hand. With the bathroom door shut, Caruso lay on the floor in front of the bed, rolled out onto his right shoulder to get a narrow field of fire on the tangos. He fired short, controlled bursts from his HK, hitting one of the men in the hallway in both legs, dropping him into the entryway.

Dom then shot the wounded man in the face with his last bullet.

“Reloading!” he shouted to Chavez. Ding stepped over him, leaned around the corner toward the entryway, and fired 4.6-millimeter rounds at the opposing force. Three of his bullets tore through the face and throat of the terrorist on the floor of the entryway, sending the man tumbling backward and causing arterial blood to jet into the air like a sprinkler.

There was one more tango, but he was out in the hall. Chavez couldn’t hit him unless the man stuck his head back into the doorway.

Dom had reloaded, and he covered the entryway while Chavez took a moment to put a fresh magazine into the grip of his weapon. As Chavez worked his HK’s action to chamber another round, he spoke into his headset. “There’s one out there with you, John.”

“John?”

John Clark did not answer Chavez, careful not to make a sound as he peered around the open door of the elevator car. He looked down the hallway toward the source of all the gunfire. Still in a low crouch, he held his SIG Sauer pistol at the end of his extended arms at eye level.

Other than two dead bodies half in and half out of room 301, the hallway was empty. Where the fuck did the last guy go?

The door to the suite immediately on Clark’s right opened, and an Asian man peered out. Clark swiveled his weapon toward the movement, but he recognized quickly this was no threat. He took his left hand off his pistol to motion for the guest to go back inside and shut the door, and the Asian man was all too happy to comply with this request.

But when John turned his attention back to the hall in front of him he did see movement, and it came from a doorway on the left, on the opposite side and just closer than the DCRI’s room. The door was open, and a blond-haired woman stepped out slowly. The forearm of a man was wrapped tightly around her neck.

She came all the way into the hallway now, and she was not alone. Holding her from behind was Abdul bin Mohammed al Qahtani, operational commander of the Umayyad Revolutionary Council. He held a black Škorpion machine pistol in his right hand, and the tip of his barrel was pressed tight under the woman’s chin.

The lady was in her fifties. Clark guessed she might have been Swedish, but he had no way to know for sure. She sobbed, and mascara dripped down her cheeks as she slammed her eyes shut.

Clark stepped out into the hallway fully now, keeping his weapon pointed at the threat ahead of him and his eyes on his target through his notch and post sights. Calmly he spoke softly into his earpiece microphone. “Stay in the room and get ready to leave. I’ll be right there.”

“Roger that,” said Dominic.

The blond woman’s eyes opened now, black tears drained down her cheeks. She blinked away the wetness and saw the armed man in the hallway, twenty feet ahead. Her eyes went wide and her pink face reddened even more.

For his part, al Qahtani looked a little more relaxed than his hostage, but not much. He shouted in Arabic, “Stay back or I will kill her.” He took a single step backward, pulling the blonde with him.

“Of course,” replied Clark in Arabic, surprising al Qahtani by speaking his native tongue. “I will stay back. What do you want?”

The Arab did not answer, he just stared at the figure with the distorted face in amazement. Who was this man? How did he get here? Was he with the others, the ones who’d just killed all his men and thwarted his operation?

“I’m listening,” Clark said calmly. “I am listening to you, friend. Just tell me your demands, and please do not hurt the woman.” He kept the weapon trained on the URC commander while he spoke.

Al Qahtani recovered a little more as he realized he retained some control over this situation. He pulled the blonde tighter to him with his forearm; by this action he literally pinned their faces together, cheek to cheek. He kept the machine pistol pressed tight under her chin. He did not know who this man was, but he spoke as if his main concern was the safety of the woman. Al Qahtani screamed, “I want everyone back! Out of my way!” He began pulling the blonde backward to the service elevator, the friction of the carpet against her high heels ripping the shoes from her feet. “I want all the police to leave the hotel, and the stairwell cleared, and a car brought to the entrance.”

Clark nodded but kept his weapon steady. “Of course! Of course. This is no problem. Just don’t hurt her. There is no need. I will get a car for you. But where will the car take you? Do you need a helicopter or a plane? We can arrange for you to go to the airport or the train station, or, if you like, you can go to—”

John Clark pressed the soft trigger of his SIG 220 and shot Abdul bin Mohammed al Qahtani through the right eye orbit, severing the man’s medulla oblongata and knocking him backward into the service elevator.

The body hit the cold metal floor even before Clark’s .45-caliber shell casing landed on the carpet of the hallway.

The Škorpion machine pistol clanged off the wall and landed at al Qahtani’s feet.

The woman looked at Clark for a long moment before putting her hand out to the wall next to her. She took a single slow step forward.

Clark lowered his pistol, hurried to her, and caught her under her arms as she fainted. He lowered her onto the carpet gently and then turned to run back to room 301.

During all the action above, Jack Ryan had stood on the landing between the ground floor and the first floor. Below him, he could see a portion of the lobby, but he remained concealed from the hotel employees by the reception counter.

When the shooting started, people ran past him on their way down from the guest floors above. Some were screaming, some were calm, but all were hustling down to the lobby, or even out into the street.

Ryan just stood there on the landing, his hands empty.

He’d been listening to the few transmissions from his three teammates above him, and from this he had an understanding of what was going on. He had worked out that they had eliminated all the threats. He assumed Clark would send him to get the minivan with his next transmission.

But the next transmission did not come from Clark, it came from Driscoll. “Sam for Ryan, you copy me?”

“Ryan copies.”

“I’m at the van.”

“Okay, I’ll come out.”

“Listen up. The black Mercedes truck just pulled up at the corner. The driver is heading inside like he’s got someplace to be.”

Quickly Jack turned around toward the lobby. The stairwell was clear now, there were no more stragglers heading down past him. He backed up the stairs to the first floor and then trained his eyes on the landing turn from where he had just come. He pulled his Glock and shielded it between his right hip and the wall.

Clark’s voice came over the net now. “Jack, that target is yours.”

“Understood.” He prepared for the man to appear on the staircase, but then a thought entered his amped-up brain. What if the guy ran straight into the guest elevator in the lobby? Or into the employee area, where he could take the employee elevator? Shit. Jack would miss him, and the tango would hit the team upstairs and catch them unprepared.

Jack began running down the stairs; he had to get eyes on the lobby so he could determine where the —

A large bearded man appeared from the lobby, running up the staircase hard and fast, and he crashed into Ryan. Both men lost their balance and tumbled. As Jack fell he felt his ribs brush against the grip of a pistol in the bearded man’s hand, just as Ryan’s own handgun slipped out of his fingertips.

Together the two men rolled out into the lobby.

Ryan recognized the other man as the driver of al Qahtani’s Mercedes truck. The terrorist ended his fall on top of Jack, and he reached back to hit the American in the face, but Ryan shoved the palm of his hand hard into the bearded man’s chin, and then flipped him off him to the marble floor.

Ryan started to go for his gun, he could see where it skidded after hitting the lobby floor, but instead al Qahtani’s driver rolled quickly to his knees and then charged from a three-point stance. Ryan could not get out of the way of the attack, so he dropped backward toward the floor, reached out and grabbed the man’s jacket, and spun him back to the ground.

The big man crashed to the ground, but he rolled up to his knees quickly, then turned and charged Ryan again. This time Jack leapt to his feet, sidestepped the attack, and slammed the palm of his right hand into the driver’s head as he stumbled past him.

The URC terrorist fell to the floor, dazed by the blow to his skull.

Jack had the advantage now, and he leapt on the man, grabbed him by the hair, and slammed his head viciously into the marble tile floor, once, twice, and then a third time, when there was no resistance from the neck muscles of the terrorist and the skull cracked audibly, echoing in the empty lobby.

Ryan hesitated for just a moment, tried to catch his breath, then he gave up. Still on the verge of hyperventilation, he climbed off the dead terrorist and grabbed his pistol from the floor. He holstered it and then reached up to check for his earpiece. Miraculously it was still in place in his ear.

“This is Ryan. Tango down.”

“Copy that. You okay?” It was Clark.

Ryan nodded to himself, held his breath for a second to catch his wind, and then said, “I’m bringing the van around. Two minutes.”

Ryan crossed the wide floor, heading for the exit, but he was met by uniformed Prefect Police who poured through the doors with pistols in their hands. Jack stepped to the side, held his hands up, and then, feigning panic, he crouched like a terrified tourist. Outside in the street by the black Mercedes truck he saw several police cars. The vehicles were empty; their occupants had just passed him on their way to the stairs. After the police ran past him through the lobby, Ryan hurried out the door and spoke into his headset. “Guys, listen up. Eight cops heading up the main stairwell. You’re going to have to find another exit.”

“Okay.” It was Clark’s voice now. “I’m with Ding and Dom. We’ll come up with something. Be ready to pick us up.”