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She held up her hands in a brief gesture of surrender and moved three steps away. The hut was so small she couldn’t go much farther anyway. She sat down on a pack of provisions and tried to beat down the suffocating waves of anxiety.
The minutes crawled by. She knew Dallas was creeping toward the warehouse section, using every bit of cover available to him, trying not to take chances. She also knew that every passing second put the terrorists that much closer to leaving with the shipment of bacteria. Dallas would be balancing caution with expediency.
Tucker spoke into the headset. “Sayyed. Report.”
“1 can’t budge an inch. The truck is almost loaded.”
“Two minutes,” Dallas said.
Two minutes. Niema closed her eyes. Cold sweat trickled down her back. Please, she found herself praying. Please. She couldn’t form any words other than that.
Two minutes could be a lifetime. Time itself could be strangely elastic, stretching until every second was ponderous, until the second hand on her watch seemed almost motionless.
“I’m in position.”
The words almost broke her control. She bit her lip until the taste of blood filled her mouth.
“How does it look?”
“Sayyed’s got his ass in a crack, all right. Hey, buddy, how many charges did you get set?”
“One.”
“Shit.”
One wasn’t enough. Niema had listened to them, knew how many charges Dallas estimated it would take to completely destroy the facility.
“Hadi?”
“In position. Can’t help you much.”
“Start pulling back.” Dallas’s voice was even. “Sayyed, arm all the charges.”
There was another silence, then Sayyed’s, “Done.”
“Get ready. Throw the pack under the truck, then run like hell. I’ll lay down covering fire. I’m gonna give us five seconds to get outta here before I hit the button.”
“Damn. Maybe you should make it six,” Sayyed said.
“Ready.” Dallas was still utterly calm. “Go!”
CHAPTER
TWO
The staccato thunder of gunfire blasted from the radio speaker. Niema jerked as if some of the bullets had hit her, her hands pressed hard to her mouth to hold back the scream that clogged her throat. Tucker swung around to face her, as if he didn’t trust her to keep silent. He needn’t have worried; she was frozen in place.
There was an animal-like sound, cut short.
“Son of a bitch! Sayyed bought it.”
“Pull out,” Tucker said, but there was a renewed burst of gunfire that drowned out his words.
And from the tinny speaker came a sound that made the hair on Niema’s neck stand on end, a kind of hollowed-out grunt, underlaid by gunfire and a thudding sound.
“Ah . . . shit.” The words were strained, thin; she could barely recognize Dallas’s voice.
“Hadi!” Tucker barked. “Dallas is down. Get him—”
