Uncharted: The Fourth Labyrinth

9

Drake crouched behind a dented Sahin sedan and took aim.

“Leave the girl or I drop you right here!” he shouted.

One of the thugs spun and took a shot at him, blowing out the Sahin’s rear window. Drake pulled the trigger twice, and the grim-eyed man danced backward, one bullet taking him in the shoulder and the other in the chest. His gun flew, clattering to the ground.

Jada punched the goon who was holding her in the throat, and he let go, gasping for air. She launched herself full-out after the gun and skidded on the pavement on her belly, hands reaching. One of the remaining men went after her, the other two drawing their guns.

Drake fired again and missed, the shot echoing off parked cars and the side of the hotel. The two armed men opened fire, bullets punching the flimsy body of the sedan and bursting the rest of the windows. Drake threw himself to the right, counting on the night to veil his movements. He scuttled behind a red Tata minitruck and stood up, looking through the driver’s window. The parking lot was on the side of the hotel and poorly lit, but the men were out in the open and the glow of the city was enough for him to make out some details. The two still standing were in dark suits like the one he’d shot, and though one had the olive complexion of the Middle East and northern Africa, the other was Caucasian.

Their car was a dark gray BMW, and it was still running, a low growl coming from the engine. Three of the doors were open. They’d been trying to force Jada into the car when he had come out, which meant that they had been lying in wait for her and that they were quick and well organized. This wasn’t some random tourist abduction; that much was clear.

He heard Jada scuffling with the third one, and he wanted to intervene, but rushing in now would only get him killed and it seemed clear they wanted her alive. However, the men who’d come after them in New York hadn’t seemed all that concerned about whether she lived or died, and if these bastards were working for the same employer, they wouldn’t hesitate to kill her if it came to that.

One of the standing thugs gestured for the other to circle around to their left-Drake’s right. They were a few cars away, but if they split up now, they would flank him in moments. He’d have to try to take them down from cover, which would mean revealing his precise location.

He took a breath, finger resting on the trigger. He’d shoot the one who seemed to be giving the orders first.

A single gunshot split the air, and Drake flinched, thinking they’d found him. But then he realized that the shot had come from the gun Jada and the third thug were fighting over, and ice twisted in his gut.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered.

Throwing caution to the wind, he ran between the truck and the bullet-riddled sedan, taking aim at the broad-shouldered white guy. The thug had been waiting and started to take aim, when a shot came from off to the left. It sang through the air and shattered glass but missed its target.

Sully stood at the edge of the parking lot, pistol clutched in both hands. Olivia was behind him, pressed against the hotel, looking frantic, like she wanted to bolt. The black-suited linebacker dropped behind a car; he was smarter than he looked. If he’d taken the time to aim at one of them, the other would have shot him, though it looked like Sully needed target practice.

“Nate, watch your three o’clock!” Sully shouted.

Drake spun, saw the olive-skinned goon appear between two rows of cars, and squeezed off a shot. A bullet screamed past his ear, close enough that he felt the displacement of air against his cheek. He swore and took cover, glanced over at Sully, and saw that his old friend had done the same thing, hidden behind the corner of the hotel with his gun barrel pointed heavenward like a cop about to break down a perp’s door.

Or James Bond without the suave, Drake thought. Sully would love that. Or maybe shoot him.

Olivia stood ten feet behind him, well out of range of the shooters. She was trapped there unless she wanted to go back into the hotel and deal with the chaos that would bring. The guests and restaurant patrons would be freaking out now, some under tables and others at the windows, trying to figure out what was going on. They weren’t alone in that.

“Jada, you alive?” Drake shouted.

In answer, she struggled to her feet. For a second he thought all would be well, but then he saw that she wasn’t alone. The third guy held her tightly from behind. White, early thirties, ex-military by the way he carried himself. But he didn’t look well, and the bullet hole in his shoulder probably had something to do with it. He’d been the only guy not in a suit. His shirt had been gray or blue, but a stain had spread out from the wound Jada had given him, the blood looking black in the dark.

Drake twisted and took aim, but there would be no way for him to take the guy down without shooting Jada. He was only a half-decent shot, not some kind of marksman.

The guy winced in pain but didn’t make himself a target. Jada might have shot him in the struggle, but he’d gotten the gun back. Now he jammed it against her skull like he was trying to drill a hole.

“Back off or she’s dead!” the gunman snapped.

Drake didn’t move, gun still leveled at Jada and her would-be abductor, but without a safe shot.

“Drop the damn gun, Drake,” the man snarled. “You and Sullivan both.”

Drake glanced at Sully and Olivia. Sully still had his back against the corner of the hotel, hidden from sight, gun still aimed at the sky. He saw the frown on Sully’s face and knew it reflected his own. These guys knew their names. If they worked for Henriksen, the boss had done his homework. Of course, Olivia had known Sully was with Jada, and she could have guessed that Drake was the other man with her on the basis of descriptions from the attack in New York. But Henriksen might have figured that out himself.

“I will kill her right now!” the gunman said.

Drake started to lower his gun, then darted behind a battered, dusty Jeep. He’d give up his gun if he had to, but he wasn’t going to stand there and wait to get shot.

“Dimitri, drive the car!” the gunman said.

The one Drake had thought Middle Eastern turned out to be Dimitri-a Greek. He kept his weapon aimed at the Jeep and hustled over to their BMW and slid behind the wheel. He kept the door open, ready to shoot again.

The linebacker didn’t need to be told what to do. He went to the man Drake had shot dead and lifted the corpse under the arms, starting to drag him around the back of the car.

“Open the boot!” he shouted to Dimitri. “The police will be here in moments.”

The Greek popped the trunk of the BMW, and it started to rise.

Drake took several deep breaths, waiting for the moment when the guy holding Jada would try to muscle her into the backseat. He had seen the fear in her eyes, but he had seen the determination as well. She would fight him if she had the chance, and if she tried to break free again, Drake would be ready. He would shoot the son of a bitch the second he had a target, and he knew Sully was waiting for the same thing.

Distant sirens reached them. The police were on the way. He tried not to think what might happen to an American with a gun and a fake passport in an Egyptian jail.

He heard a new scuffle, and a man cried out in pain.

Go, Jada, he thought, figuring she had tried to fight back. He swung out from behind the Jeep, aiming at the spot right beside the BMW where Jada and the wounded thug had been a moment before. They were still there, but they weren’t alone.

A darker figure had risen up behind the gunman. Hooded, clad in flowing black, the new arrival gripped the wounded thug by the hair and cut his throat with a long, wickedly curved blade. Jada had tried to twist free, had gotten her hand on the gunman’s wrist and forced the gun barrel away from her skull. Now she held on to the man’s wrist and watched him slump to the pavement, dead.

Others emerged from the darkness between cars, four, then six, then eight more of the hooded figures. Two of them fell upon the linebacker, killing him in near silence. Another appeared from the backseat of the BMW, flowing like liquid darkness over the seat and murdering Dimitri, who pounded the car horn-but only for a moment.

Sully had stepped out from the corner of the hotel and taken aim, but he watched in astonishment that mirrored Drake’s as the shadowed figures made short work of Jada’s would-be abductors. For her part, Jada staggered backward in shock.

Hooded figures put the linebacker in the trunk with the man Drake had killed. Others tossed the one Jada had wounded into the backseat of his own car. One of the assassins shoved Dimitri over and took his place behind the wheel of the BMW. Drake kept swinging the barrel of his gun back and forth, wondering if he ought to be shooting at them, though they hadn’t made any attempt to attack him or his friends.

Then one of them darted at Jada so swiftly that when Drake pulled the trigger, he had no chance of hitting the man. The assassin whispered something into her ear and then retreated into the shadows between cars. The BMW’s engine roared, and Drake moved aside as it shot from the parking lot, skidding into the road and vanishing up the street.

When he glanced back at the scene of the melee, Jada was alone. Sully ran toward her, and so Drake did the same thing. Of Olivia, there was no sign. She had vanished.

“Get the car,” Sully snapped at him.

“But-”

“The cops!” Sully barked.

Drake ran for the car, digging out his keys. He was behind the wheel and had it started in a matter of seconds, slammed it into gear, and pulled up beside Sully and Jada, who quickly piled in.

“What about Olivia? We can’t just leave her for the police,” Drake said.

Beside him in the passenger seat, Jada shot him a withering glance. “Are you kidding me? She took off. You still think she didn’t set us up? Let’s go!”

Drake didn’t have to be told twice. He hit the gas and tore out of the parking lot, raced along the street, and slowed at the corner, taking the turn just as a police car barreled toward the hotel from the other direction.

Heart hammering, he kept his speed down until they were out of the city and the desert sky had opened up above them.

“Who the hell were those guys?” Drake muttered.

“The guys who tried to take me or the guys who killed them?” Jada asked.

“Either one,” Sully said.

“Jada, what did that guy whisper to you right before they did their disappearing act?” Drake asked.

She glanced at him as if deciding whether to tell. Then she exhaled. “Go home,” she said.

“Wow,” Drake said. “Y’ know, maybe this is me going out on a limb here, but I’m going to say I think we’re officially screwed.”

Nobody argued with him.