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He felt an impact to his right shoulder and a moment later the entire ceiling collapsed, raining shards of rotted two by fours and shattered plywood down on him. The unmistakable thud of a body hitting the ground sounded behind him but he didn’t bother to spin. His gun arm was now useless and he had to assume that his adversary was already lining up a shot.
Instead, he dove over the desk, feeling another bullet impact in his right side just before he slammed headfirst into the floor. It felt like a graze and he ignored it, kicking back against the desk and sending it sliding toward his attacker.
He switched his gun to his left hand and aimed beneath the desk at a flash of movement. Blood loss and the awkward firing position combined to make the shot go wide.
And then his opponent was on him.
A hand clamped around Coleman’s left wrist and immediately gained control of it. The former SEAL’s wounds hadn’t left him with much strength to fight with, but it wasn’t just that. His wrist felt like it was in a vise.
The dust was clearing and they were face-to-face, on their knees. Coleman would have liked to die on his feet, but there was nothing he could do. The man was too strong. Too fast. The butt of his gun was arcing inevitably toward Colman’s head. There would be a flare of pain, a loss of focus, and then it would be over. The dark eyes locked on him were the last thing he would ever see.
But then the man hesitated. A split second of confusion flashed across his features, as though he wasn’t sure what he was looking at. As though he’d been expecting someone else. It was all Coleman needed. He used his injured arm to grab a chunk of wood and slam it into his opponent’s gun hand.
The blow dislodged the weapon, but the man was in motion again. He grabbed a knife from his waistband and Coleman tried to dodge right, but his body would no longer obey. The blade penetrated his side and he felt the dull ache of the steel sliding into him. When it stopped on bone, the man released the hilt and grabbed Coleman’s right elbow, yanking it upward in an effort to flip him on his back.
Knowing that if he went down, he was never getting back up, Coleman threw his weight forward, ignoring the sensation of his already injured shoulder being torn from its socket. He used his good arm to wrap the man in a bear hug and, with one last desperate burst of strength, lifted him.
CHAPTER 18
RAPP kept his scope trained on the warehouse’s empty window frame, focusing on the small office at its center. Every few seconds a body part would come into view above the plywood wall, but it always disappeared too quickly to discern who it belonged to. The only thing that was crystal clear was that Scott Coleman was overmatched. His attacker was moving with incredible speed and power, while the injured SEAL was on the ragged edge, barely able to defend himself.
A knife appeared and then plunged down, causing Rapp’s breath to catch. He gripped the rifle a little tighter, but didn’t attempt a shot. While there was no doubt he could hit one of them, which one was no better than a coin toss.
“Get off your ass,” Rapp said quietly. “Get him up.”
The decision to go for the high ground had initially been a no-brainer. In the anticipated scenario of Coleman coming up against a number of moderately well trained jihadists, the danger was that they would split up and go for position. A sniper with a wide field of view was the ideal tool to deal with that situation. This, though, was something very different. It should have been him down there. Not Coleman.
A shot rang out from below and a chunk of concrete shattered about two feet to Rapp’s right. The cops had finally noticed the lone gunman on the rooftop. He ignored them, keeping his rifle trained on the battle taking place inside the warehouse.
“Come on, Scott,” he repeated under his breath. “Get him up.”
As though his friend had heard, the tops
of two heads suddenly rose from behind the wall. It occurred to Rapp that he’d been wrong about Coleman’s conspicuously blond hair. At that moment, it was the most beautiful thing in the world.
He immediately adjusted his aim to the darker of the two heads but was a fraction too slow. Coleman’s attacker shifted his weight and swung the SEAL left, using him as a shield against anyone looking down on them.
The scene seemed to slow down and every detail came into razor-sharp focus. Coleman’s right arm was useless, hanging at a grotesque angle in its socket. Beyond that and the knife sticking from his side, it was impossible to assess the number or seriousness of his wounds. There was just too much blood.
His attacker, by contrast, appeared to be uninjured from the fall and in complete control. He had Coleman by the shirt and was lifting him up while simultaneously ducking down, further reducing Rapp’s line of sight to him.
His actions made it likely that he’d been tipped off that there was a sniper on the roof north of him. In the same situation, Rapp would twist a little farther and drop onto his back, pulling Coleman down on top of him. Done correctly, it would drive the knife the rest of the way in and provide cover from a shooter controlling the high ground.
Clearly the man had come to exactly the same conclusion. He continued to turn, beginning to disappear behind the plywood wall with Coleman in tow. Rapp knew that if he lost sight of them without acting, his friend was a dead man.
He adjusted his aim slightly and squeezed the trigger. Maslick’s meticulously dialed-in rifle bucked against his shoulder and the crack of one of the most critical shots he’d ever fired assaulted his eardrums.
As planned, the round missed both men, instead shattering what was left of the office window they were standing in front of. Shards slammed into the back of Coleman’s head and stuck there. The ones that didn’t, though, sprayed into the face of his opponent.
The man shoved Coleman back, slamming him into the window frame and dropping out of sight. Rapp watched his friend slowly slide down and fired a pattern around him. The tango would be trying to get behind the desk and kick through what was left of the flimsy rear wall. From there he’d have enough cover to reach the rear exit.
“Mas, you’ve got a man heading for the back door. Bloody face, nice suit. Kill the motherfucker.”
“There are a lot of civilians back here and I gave you my rifle,” came the response. “I have the door gun. How big a mess do you want me to make?”
Rapp swore under his breath. There was no way they could open up on a crowded street with a weapon like that. In one of the most anti-American countries in the world, it would be seen as an act of war.
“Belay my last order,” Rapp said through clenched teeth. “Let him go.”
