“Describe him,” McCarter said. He listened. It was clear that Encizo was describing an entirely different person.
“I’ve got another,” James said. “He’s just to my left, in a black shirt and tan pants.”
“Me, too,” Manning said. “In fact, I see two, close to the podium on the far right.”
“I’ve got one, as well,” Hawkins drawled.
McCarter worked his way farther to the rear of the hall. He looked out over the assembled group and, with the positions of his team still fixed in his mind, ran down the approximate positions of the potential shooters. “Calvin,” he said, “I need you to take the two closest to you. That’s yours and the one Rafe spotted.” He ran down assignments for Manning and Hawkins, too. “That leaves one for me. Get ready.”
Ahmadi had assumed McCarter and his men would think of something.
McCarter reached the rear of the cafeteria and pulled the fire alarm.
The response was immediate. Most of the crowd began filing out of the room, conditioned as were most people to respond to a fire alarm. But in that moment when most people stop and look up in reaction to such an alarm, the possible shooters had looked, not to the alarm, but to their target at the podium. McCarter knew what they were thinking; it was what he would be thinking in their place. They were wondering how to complete their mission.
Well, they wouldn’t be. He and Phoenix Force would make certain of that.
“Now!” McCarter ordered.
The Phoenix Force commandos drew their weapons and leveled them at the would-be gunmen. The shooters went for their own weapons, but they weren’t fast enough. The pops of pistols were almost anticlimactic in the seconds that followed. Phoenix Force moved in on their targets, crouching low, moving smoothly, confident in their ability to engage enemies in close-quarters handgun exchanges and come out the winner.
As soon as the battle had begun, it was over, and the members of Phoenix Force stood over a dozen dead bodies.
Someone screamed.
The few people who had not responded to the fire alarm began to flee from the cafeteria. The speaker at the podium and the political operatives with him looked around in dismay. Some of them fled and some of them didn’t; the ones who remained looked confused or frozen.
It was time to go, before they met more resistance.
“Go, go, go, go,” McCarter urged. The team backed away, leaving the stunned speaker still at his podium. “Do we have anyone else?”
“No one that I can see,” Encizo reported. There were calls of assent from the other team members.
“Let’s fade, lads,” McCarter said. “Ghaem?”
“Meet me at the rear entrance, please,” Ahmadi reported. “I have secured alternate transportation.” The foghorn sirens of Iranian Internal Security were closing in. Ahmadi could hear them better than he could, McCarter was certain.
He stepped over one of the corpses—and it grabbed him. The terrorist was not yet dead, and he was determined to take someone with him. McCarter went down and suddenly found himself wrestling for possession of his Browning with a man possessed. The strength of adrenaline, fear and imminent death made the man’s hands iron as he clawed at the Briton.
“Keep going!” McCarter yelled. He slammed a palm heel up under his adversary’s chin. “Don’t wait for me! Go!”
The sirens were more insistent now; they sounded as if they were immediately outside. This was what Mc Carter had feared: doing their jobs only to end up handing themselves to the Iranian security forces. To be prisoners under those circumstances would be a fate worse than death. The Farm would have to disavow knowledge of them, and the Iranians, realizing they had high-value military personnel from the United States, would never let them go. They would probably use their captives for whatever propaganda value they could get, first torturing each member of Phoenix Force to break them.
Everyone could be broken. Many times McCarter and the men of Phoenix had found themselves in the clutches of determined enemies, and at times those experiences had been decidedly unpleasant. They had remained strong through them, but he had no illusions. The members of Phoenix Force were human, not super-men, and they could be broken by persistent torture as could virtually anyone else. It could take years of privation and steady mistreatment…or it could take hours of brutal, maiming torture, depending on the methods used.
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