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Finally, the tango went for better position and was forced to break cover for a moment. Rapp’s round hit him in the face while Black’s impacted his torso, dropping him on top of a dead parking attendant.
“Kent,” Rapp said. “See that bodyguard shooting from the cars east of my position? Pin him down. I don’t want him coming up behind me.”
By way of answer, Black rammed a fifty-caliber round into the edge of the door the man was hiding behind. A good third of it was ripped off, and shrapnel sprayed across the asphalt. Apparently that was enough. He ran for the trees at the edge of the lot while Rapp sprinted toward the building.
He kicked one of the doors and looked inside. Two bodies lay on the floor in the opulent entryway but it was otherwise empty. Gunfire echoed from deeper inside, with enough rounds expended to create a gunpowder haze in the air. He leapt over the bodies and passed two more corpses before coming out into the main bar area. Most people were on the ground or seeking cover behind overturned furniture. The scene seemed to slow as Rapp swept his Glock from right to left. One shooter was down, likely the work of either Azarov or Donatella, but he could spot neither of them.
A man appeared from around the corner and began sprinting across the room. His extraordinary speed made him easy to identify.
Rapp fired toward Azarov, missing his ear by only inches. The Russian didn’t flinch or bother to look behind him to see if Rapp had hit the terrorist who had been coming up behind him. Instead, he swung his gun awkwardly toward a man shooting at a group of young people huddled in a corner booth. The seemingly desperate shot fired from beneath his arm hit the man in the neck, spraying blood across a massive mirror and crumpling him.
There were only three shooters left, and they seemed to recognize that the momentum of the battle had reversed. Instead of continuing to fire at every viable target, they were shouting at each other to spread out. This wasn’t a random terrorist attack. They were looking for someone.
Rapp ran toward the bar, grabbing an injured girl as he passed and shoving her beneath a table. He finally spotted Donatella and bin Musaid in the southeast corner of the building. She was screaming her head off while the prince cowered behind. Her right hand was in her purse, undoubtedly wrapped around the Beretta Nano inside, but for the time being she seemed content to play the damsel in distress.
A barrage of automatic fire began pounding the polished wood trim near her and Rapp dove to the floor as she fired, hitting the tango in the leg. Rapp didn’t bother to check his momentum, instead sliding toward the terrorist, zeroing in on bin Musaid, who was so focused on his target that he didn’t even notice Rapp coming to a stop only inches away. The CIA man was actually able to press the barrel of his weapon against the back of the tango’s head before pulling the trigger.
In his peripheral vision, Rapp saw another terrorist using a young man as a human shield while he tried to get a bead on a fast-moving Grisha Azarov. The Russian had a clear head shot but didn’t take it, instead firing through the hostage’s stomach and into the shooter’s left hip. Not ideal but understandable. The hostage would survive and Azarov’s cover as an energy consultant wouldn’t be jeopardized by a one-in-a-thousand combat shot.
With no similar concerns about anonymity, Rapp hit the tango in the back of the head as he was falling away from his hostage. That left one alive by his count. He was out of view, though, so that meant he was Azarov’s problem.
Rapp sprinted to where bin Musaid was now trying to wrestle the gun from Donatella’s hand. He grabbed the Saudi by his silk collar and shouted at him in Arabic. “Forget the whore, Your Highness. We have to get you out of here!”
“Who . . . who are you?”
“The king charged me with your safety, Highness. Now get up. We have to go!”
Rapp pulled the man to his feet and they started running toward the front door. Bin Musaid was terrified and unaccustomed to moving fast, causing him to stumble with nearly every other step. They were only a few feet from escaping when a shot sounded—not the undisciplined automatic fire that had been echoing off the walls since he’d entered, but a single, carefully aimed round. Bin Musaid’s feet went out from under him, and Rapp was forced to drag the man across the polished floor.
He was still conscious, but the wound in his lower back was bad enough that he wasn’t going to be able to continue under his own power. Rapp lifted him into a fireman’s carry and headed for the door, talking into the microphone hidden in his shirt cuff.
“Kent, I’m coming out carrying the prince.”
“Roger that. You’re clear to the car. Don’t try to get out of the parking lot the way you came in, though. It’s a complete clusterfuck. Back straight up and go through the bushes. If you don’t hit any trees, it’s about twenty yards to the road.
“Copy.”
Very few people had managed to escape the building, but most of the ones who had were forgoing their vehicles and running for the edges of the property. That left Rapp a clear path to his car and a welcome amount of privacy as he shoved the wounded Saudi through the passenger-side door. A few moments later Rapp had the engine started and was reversing through Terry’s expensive landscaping. When the BMW finally jumped the curb into the street, he drifted it 180 degrees and slammed it in Drive.
“Mitch, you’ve got a vehicle coming hard at you from the southwest corner of the lot. Might just be someone looking to tag along on your escape route, but I wouldn’t bet on—”
Black’s voice was drowned out by the sound of automatic fire and the ring of impacts against the BMW’s rear end.
“Can you do anything about them?” Rapp said.
“No angle. You’re on your own, man.”
Rapp pressed his foot to the floor and was shoved back in the seat as the vehicle accelerated down a sweeping hill.
The stench in the car suggested that one of bin Musaid’s intestines had been punctured, and Rapp glanced over at him. The pallor was obvious even in the dim glow of the instrument lights, as was the amount of blood that was soaking into the upholstery. More concerning, though, was the Volvo in his rearview mirror. There was a man standing up through the sunroof, and Rapp could see the gleam of his weapon. So far they were out of range, but the driver was taking insane chances, nearly rolling over the steep embankment to the right every time he cornered.
“Did you hear those men speak, Your Highness?” Rapp said. “They sounded Iraqi. And there’s no question that they were after you personally.”
“Hospital,” he responded weakly. “Hospital . . .”
Rapp had seen enough people in similar shape to know that he wasn’t going to make it. This would be a short interrogation and he needed to focus the man. To that end, he eased up on the accelerator and let the Volvo get close enough for the shooter to shatter their rear window.
Bin Musaid’s feeble scream mixed with the roar of the M5’s engine as Rapp accelerated again.
