outburst of curses and buried his head in his arms.
The grenade detonated and another cloud of smoke billowed in through the doorway on the heels of the concussive force.
McCarter came to his feet, scooping up the AKS submachine gun. He shuffled backward and crouched next to the wall, heading for the door to the staircase down to the street level. McCarter caught a flash of movement and spun toward the blown-out doors of two apartments across from their original target.
“David!” Encizo’s voice blared in McCarter’s earbud. “We’re coming, brother!”
“Negative!” McCarter shouted.
He saw two men in khaki jackets rush up to the shattered windows, AKM rifles clutched in their hands. McCarter dropped to one knee beside the wall and brought up the AKS. He beat the men to the trigger and his submachine gun spit flame. It recoiled sharply in his hands and shell casings arced out to spill across the floor.
“The stair is too narrow. I’m coming to you!”
McCarter put two rounds into the face of the first man. Bloody holes the size of dimes appeared, slapping the man’s head back. Blood sprayed in a mist behind his head and he slumped to the ground, his weapon clattering at his feet.
McCarter shifted smoothly, like ball bearings in a sling swivel, toward the second gunman. They fired simultaneously. The muzzle-flash of the man’s weapon burst into a flaming star pattern. The sound of the heavier assault rifle firing was thunderous compared to the more subdued sound of McCarter’s 9 mm subgun.
The 7.62 mm caliber rounds tore into the molding of the wall just to McCarter’s right. The rounds punched through the building material, tearing fist-size chunks from the wall and door frame, spilling white plumes of chalky plaster dust into the air.
McCarter’s burst hit the man in a tight pattern. The bullets drilled into the receiver of the AKM, tearing it from the stunned gunner’s hands. Two more rounds punched into his chest three inches above the first, staggering him backward.
McCarter came to his feet, the AKS held up and ready. He triggered two rounds into the stunned gunman and took him down, blowing out the back of his neck. McCarter danced to the side and, still facing the front of the hall, held the AKS up and ready in one hand. He stepped back into stairway door.
A gunman came around the corner of one of the rooms, Kalashnikov firing. McCarter put a burst into his knee and thigh, knocking the screaming man to the floor. He put a double tap through the top of his head. Brain matter and bits of skull splattered outward.
McCarter moved in a shuffle back toward the stair, realizing that what had been billed as a safehouse by intelligence had actually been more along the lines of a barracks—a significant and unsubtle difference. He took fire from the open door and swiveled to meet the threat as another pair of gunmen rounded the corner from the front hall. McCarter threw himself belly down, his legs trailing out behind him down the stairs, angling his body so he was out of sight from the shooters in the hall.
McCarter swept his submachine gun in a wide loose arc, spraying bullets at the gunman firing through the shattered hall. One of the men’s weapons suddenly swung up toward the ceiling and McCarter caught a glimpse of him staggering backward into the dark though he never saw his own rounds impact.
He lay on the stairs, only his arms and shoulders emerging from the door to the stairwell. He rotated up onto his right shoulder to get an angle of fire on the entranceway. He saw one of the terrorist gunmen rushing forward and shot the man’s ankles, bringing him to the floor. McCarter fired another burst into the prone man, finishing him off, only to have his bolt lock open as his magazine ran dry.
McCarter let the AKS dangle across his chest as a second terrorist leaped over the body of the first and charged forward. The skeletal folding stock of his AKS-74U pressed tight into his shoulder and he fired the weapon as he bounded forward.
McCarter put his hands against the floor and snapped up, clearing the edge of the doorway. Bullets tore into the floor where his head had just been. He twisted on the stair and jumped downward. He landed at the bottom, his legs bending to absorb the impact, just as he had been taught during paratrooper training. He took the recoil, felt it surge up through his heels, and rolled off to the side. He turned in the direction of the side door to the lower level of the building. He got up and ran down to the ground floor, men screaming above him.
A burst of gunfire echoed in the stairwell and 5.45 mm rounds tore into the floor where McCarter had landed. He went up against the wall at his back and pulled a 9 mm Glock 17 from its holster. He heard boots thundering on the stairwell and he bent, swiveled and thrust his gun arm around the corner. He triggered four shots without exposing himself.
There was a satisfying thump as the gunman pitched forward and bounced down the stairs. He spilled out at the bottom of the stairs, sprawling in front of McCarter, and his weapon skidded out from his hands. The ex-SAS trooper triggered a round into the back of the man’s head and snatched up his fallen weapon.
Another figure appeared at the top of the stairs and took a shot at him. McCarter leaped back out of view of the stairwell, grabbing up the AKS-74U by its shoulder sling. Bullets struck the corpse of the dead Pakistani terrorist. McCarter caught a motion from his right side in time to see a khaki-clothed figure come through an interior door.
McCarter fumbled to bring the AKS to bear but didn’t have time. He let it dangle from the strap and brought up his 9 mm pistol as he dropped to one knee. Instead of firing from the hip, his adversary brought the AKS up to his shoulder for a more accurate shot.
McCarter’s shot took him in the throat. From the door to the alley outside, Hawkins fired a second burst, dashing the thug’s brains out. McCarter immediately spun in a tight crouch and fired blindly up the stairwell for the second time. There was an answering burst of automatic gunfire, but no sound of bodies hitting the floor.
McCarter holstered his pistol and took up the AKS. He quickly ducked his head into the stairwell before thrusting his carbine around the corner to trigger a burst. Using the covering fire to keep the enemy back, McCarter snagged the dead man at the bottom of the stairs over to him by his belt.
“Can we go, boss?” Hawkins shouted. “Engines running!”
“Too hot!”
McCarter pulled a Soviet-era RGD-5 antipersonnel hand grenade from the dead terrorist’s belt. Like the RG-42, it had a blast radius of slightly more than seventy-five feet. He held his AKS by the pistol grip and stuck out his thumb. He used his free hand to help hook the pin around his extended thumb. He made a tight fist around the pistol grip of the AKS and pulled with his other hand, releasing the spring on the grenade.
McCarter let the spoon fly. He turned and put a warning burst up the staircase to buy time. He counted down three seconds and then chucked the grenade around the corner and up the stairs. He turned away from the opening as the blast was funneled by the walls up and down the staircase, spraying shrapnel in twin columns.
Ears ringing, McCarter made for the door to the building down the short entrance hall. He came up to it, AKS held at the ready. The door hung open, broken. From outside he heard gunfire as the Phoenix Force commandos engaged targets firing from the windows above them. A figure darted past the open door and McCarter gunned him down as Hawkins backed toward the running vehicle, directing rounds at targets above him.
A terrorist jumped into the hall and flopped down onto his belly, throwing a bipod-mounted RPK 7.62 mm machine gun down in front of him. McCarter jerked back
