Target America

56

Akram radioed to Abad that they were going up the hill to make sure that Shannon was dead and to shoot anyone coming out of the house. He and Duke climbed down from the loft at the back of the stable and made their way up the hill.

No one had heard Marie’s scream over the driving rain.

After the climb, they came to stand over the more or less headless corpse of Glen Ferguson, still zipped up in the ECW sleeping bag with his arms sticking out through the improvised holes.

Duke kicked the Mauser downhill and raised the infrared binocular up onto his head, shining a Tactical Touch flashlight onto the bloody mess at their feet with a derisive chuckle. “Nice of him to provide his own body bag like that. Whattaya say there, Akram? Think he’s dead?”

Akram couldn’t help smiling. Now, no matter what happened to him, the fiend murderer Gil Shannon was dead, destined to fuel the fires of Jahannam for all eternity. “I think he’s burning in hell.”

“Good. Now let’s get the fuck outta this rain and head back to the hotel to square up.”

“How do I know you won’t kill me the moment I transfer the rest of your money?”

“Because I ain’t no fourteen-carat son of a bitch like you—that’s how.”

“Forgive my bluntness, Duke, but you are a traitor to your own people.”

“That’s between them and me. I put in nineteen goddamn years of loyal service, and they kicked me to the curb. Now what’s it gonna be, tough guy: do or die?”

Akram felt something hot and wet spatter his face, followed by the distant echo of a rifle shot.

Duke dropped his flashlight, and the strap of the TAC-50 slipped from his shoulder. He put a hand to his stomach, where his fingers found a gaping exit wound the size of a baseball. “Fuck,” he muttered, and dropped dead to the ground.

Akram dove between the rocks as another round ricocheted off a boulder. He grabbed the strap of the TAC-50 and pulled it to him while radioing Abad that Shannon was firing from inside the house.

Automatic weapons fire broke out down below, and Akram pulled the infrared binocular from Duke’s head, snatching the dog tags from what was left of the body, before scrambling back down the trail on the eastern side of the slope. He radioed for the men to cease fire, and ten minutes later linked back up with them in the stable, where they all stood around in a heated frenzy.

“Where’s Duke?” Abad asked.

“Shannon shot him,” Akram said, throwing the dog tags at him. “He tricked us!”

Abad shined a red penlight on one of the tags, reading Glen’s name and seeing the “USMC.” The idea of killing Marines was distasteful to him, and he was ready to be done with the entire mess. “Uday is missing.”

“What do you mean he’s missing?”

“Just what I said. He’s missing. He was under the horse trailer covering the front of the house. Now he’s not there, and we can’t find him. I told you we needed more radios.”

“Have you tried his phone?” Akram asked testily.

“There’s no damn signal out here.”

Akram combed his fingers through his wet hair. “So what are you saying? That someone came out of the house and dragged him inside?”

Abad may have been a devout Muslim, but he’d been raised in America, and the American in him didn’t have the patience for Akram’s condescending Arabian bullshit. “I’m saying he’s missing! Open your ears!”

“Who do you think you’re talking to?”

“I’m talking to you,” Abad said, stepping forward. “And I’m telling you one of our men is missing. We need to end this, Akram, and we need to end it soon.”

When the firing had died off, Buck crawled down the hall with the Winchester into the bathroom, checking on Janet, who was curled up beneath a blanket in the cast-iron bathtub. “You okay in here, Jan?” Lighting flashed, and he saw a big chip in the porcelain where a bullet fragment had struck the side of the tub.

“Fit as a fiddle,” she answered. “How are you men doing?”

“We’re okay,” he said, pulling himself up against the tub. “I got one of ’em up there on the ridge.”

“Good for you!”

“Jan, I think Glen and Roger might be dead.”

She peaked over the edge of the tub. “You can’t know that.”

“Two of them godless sons a bitches were just standin’ up there with a flashlight, like they didn’t have a care in the world. They were lookin’ down at somethin’. I think it was one of my boys.”

She reached out, touching his face in the darkness. “If it was, Buck, he’s in a better place now. But don’t give up hope.”