full impact of a buttstroke to the head delivered by his attacker. A glancing blow, however, caught the back of his skull, rattling his teeth and rocking his world. Staggering forward, he went to his knees, twisted at the waist and raised his crossbow.
He caught a brief impression of his opponent—a lanky man, head and face wrapped in a black scarf, dressed in jeans, T-shirt and athletic shoes. James fired the crossbow. The bolt plunged into the man’s shoulder, causing him to drop his assault rifle.
James followed up by lashing out with a blurring kick that caught the side of the man’s knee, snapping it, causing him to teeter. The Phoenix Force commando surged up from the ground and dropped on the guy like a stone, his weight driving the air from the man’s lungs. Fisting his combat knife, he pressed its keen edge against the man’s throat and, with a deep stroke of the blade, killed the man.
Wiping the steel clean on his opponent’s shirt, James dragged the corpse into a nearby stand of bushes. He recovered his crossbow, reloaded it and continued through the embassy grounds, immersing himself in the shadows.
A cough followed by the scratch of a lighter’s wheel sent a cold sensation plummeting through his belly. He halted and dropped back into a crouch. He saw an orange flicker several yards away, illuminating a terrorist’s face as he lit a cigarette.
The rank amateur move surprised James. Terrorists were by no means a match for well-trained commandos, but their training and weapons had become increasingly sophisticated over the years. To see one of these men break such a basic rule caused James to feel suspicious. Was the man just undisciplined, or was he trying to call attention to himself? A distraction, perhaps? Regardless, James would assume the worst.
Encizo’s voice sounded in James’s earpiece. “Two down, Cal. Your status?”
He had enough distance that his quarry never would hear a whisper. He cast a glance around and began to reply. Before he could, he caught another shadow closing in from his right.
Encizo’s voice, still cool, crackled again in his earpiece. “Cal? Cal?”
Powerful leg muscles coiling and uncoiling, James thrust himself forward. A glance right revealed a man closing in on him, weapon held at hip level, spitting flame and lead. The volley of shots sliced the air just above James.
Still in midair, he fired the hastily aimed crossbow. He was rewarded with a one-in-a-million shot, planting the bolt into his attacker’s right eye socket. Dropping his weapon, the man covered his face with both hands and cried out in pain. Stopping in midstride he pitched backward, his foot twitching as he plummeted into death.
James’s superbly conditioned body hit the ground. He launched into a roll and let the crossbow slip from his grasp. The man with the lighter began unloading a small grease gun in James’s direction. The bullets struck the ground, shredding grass and kicking up bits of dirt. Still rolling, the warrior plucked his sound-suppressed Beretta from a thigh holster and squeezed off three shots. The first two went wild, missing the terrorist, but coming close enough to foul his aim. The third round made a neat hole in the man’s shoulder before exploding from his back. The man stumbled backward, his injured shoulder unable to raise the rifle. The Beretta coughed twice more. Parabellum slugs drilled into the man’s sternum, chewing through his heart and spine before dropping him in a boneless heap.
“Cal?”
James keyed his headset. “Go, Rafe.”
“Shit, man—”
“I know. I know.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s your position?”
James told him.
“I’m on my way,” Encizo said. “You get your two guys?”
“Three, man. You gotta start carrying more water here.”
“Son, I was carrying water when you were still pissing in your diapers.” Encizo’s grin was almost audible through the line.
James stood, dusted himself off and put a full clip into the Beretta, pocketing the partially spent one. Holstering the handgun, he brought around the sound-suppressed MP-5 and set it for 3-shot bursts.
His eyes roved the terrain for other attackers. At the same time his mind roiled, particularly over the terrorists’ errant gunfire. The noise had been unwanted, but unavoidable. Now the bastards inside knew a hit was coming. That brought heightened urgency to the mission.
Encizo’s voice came over the com link. “Coming up on your six.”
“Clear.” Within moments, the two men were crouched together, next to a two-story, redbrick outbuilding.
EXITING THE TUNNEL, McCarter, Manning and Hawkins fanned out over the dimly lit room in the embassy basement. McCarter, in concert with the other two men, swept the muzzle of his MP-5 over the room, but found nothing other than computer servers, two computer workstations and a minifridge.
“Embassy Command,” he whispered into his com link. “Embassy One and team are inside.”
“Clear,” Colvin replied.
McCarter nodded toward the door and headed for it. The other warriors fell into step behind him, spreading out in a triangular formation. McCarter knelt next to the door and let his MP-5 hang loose on the shoulder strap. He extracted a handheld device outfitted with a small television screen and a lengthy, tubular camera lens. He slid the lens through the space between the door and the floor and checked the screen. The door led into a corridor. A pair of Arabs stood in the hallway, smoking cigarettes and talking. One man carried his AK-47 on a shoulder strap, the barrel canted toward the floor. The other man had leaned his against a wall. His hand rested on his pistol.
McCarter turned to his friends and with hand signals indicated the number of opponents and their positions. The men nodded.
Pocketing the handheld camera, McCarter brought the SMG back around. For the hostages’s sake, he knew that they needed to keep the element of surprise for as long as possible. They’d need a quick, quiet takedown. Resting a palm on the doorknob, he held the MP-5 ready. A glance at his comrades told him they, also, were ready to go.
McCarter surged through the doorway, the sudden motion causing the Arabs to turn toward him. The men scrambled for their weapons. But their inattention would prove fatal. The man who’d abandoned his AK-47 dropped into a crouch and scrambled for his pistol. McCarter’s MP-5 chugged out a burst of 9 mm rippers that shredded the man’s middle, killing him.
The gunner who’d held on to his assault rifle proved to be a livelier target. He raised the weapon to acquire a target. Manning rewarded the man’s efforts by laying down a burst from the sound-suppressed MP-5. The slugs stitched the man from right hip to left shoulder, launching him back several feet. To McCarter’s relief, the man didn’t trigger his weapon in a death reflex.
As Manning and McCarter had fought, Hawkins had taken out the surveillance cameras with a small device he, Schwarz and Kurtzman had developed. The zapper could be aimed at a camera and destroy the fiber-optic cables by bombarding it with microwaves. A dead camera would attract attention, but not with the urgency of images of two bloodied corpses.
A quick check of the rooms in the basement revealed them to be empty. McCarter
