David hugged the ditch, pinned down, but Alton had no such problem. He and Mallory slipped to the right side of the dumpster. Setting his carbine for three-round bursts, Alton aimed for the closest attacker and opened fire. The thug’s head snapped sideways, bits of his cranium scattering into the dust.
The second attacker swiveled in their direction just in time for Mallory to put a bullet through his eye. He slumped to the ground, motionless.
Their success drew the attention of the other attackers. A fusillade of rounds poured in from three directions, pinging off the dumpster with a deafening clatter.
“Around to the other side,” Alton told Mallory, motioning with his head to the left edge of the dumpster. “Maybe we can catch them by surprise from there.”
A ricochet bounced within inches of Alton’s right hand. He instinctively snatched it back towards safety. The sour odor of gunpowder wafted into his nose, bringing with it a collage of horrific memories.
“What is happening?” called Hanif over the mike.
“They spotted us,” said Alton. “We took down two, but the rest are laying into us pretty good. What do you see from your position?”
“There were four of them in the backyard. They all headed to the front when the firing started.”
“Wonderful.” He turned to Mallory. “We need to put down suppressing fire or they’re gonna move around and flank us. From what I can hear, it sounds like two of them are already making their way along the left fence. Let’s take them out first.”
She nodded.
“You go low, I’ll go high. Ready…now!”
They swung their weapons around the edge of the metal container. Peeking their heads around just enough to line up the attackers in their sights, they opened up with a pair of bursts. One of the goons fell against the fence but continued firing. The other turned and fled back towards the house.
A compact pineapple landed in the dust a dozen feet away.
“Grenade!” screamed Alton. “Get around to the other side!”
The couple leapt behind the rear of the dumpster, landing on the ground with a thud just as the device exploded.
“That was a Russian F1,” said Alton. “These guys are certainly well-equipped.”
He glanced over to David. His friend occasionally peered above the rim of the ditch and fired, but pulsing gunfire from the hostiles kept him pinned down.
“How you doing over there?” asked Alton into his mike.
“Just dandy. Wish we’d brought more firepower.”
“I hear you, brother. You’d better fall back. Keep going north along the ditch. They know you’re there, and it’s just a matter of time before you get a pineapple headed in your direction, too.”
“Roger.”
“Alton, how are we going to get out of here?” asked Mallory. “We won’t make it five feet in the open, and they’ll just keep chucking grenades at this position until they get lucky.”
Alton nodded, his mind racing to devise an effective solution. “The best defense is a good offense. Let’s go back to the right side. Three-round bursts. Focus on the driveway. If I were trying to flank our position from that side, that’s where I’d go—behind that little berm along its edge.”
They swung around and fired, their rounds chewing up the driveway’s dirt surface and kicking up a cloud of dust. Alton heard an attacker cry out in agony. He didn’t know how severely the man was injured—hopefully enough to take him out of the fight.
A blast rocked the front of the dumpster, sending shards of metal spraying out on both sides. Alton’s ears rang, and the sounds of combat in his left ear were suddenly dampened.
“Ah,damn!” cried Mallory.
Alton looked over to his wife. A slow drip of blood emerged from between three fingers she pressed onto her left forearm.
“Mallory! You’re hit?”
“It’s not bad. I think a piece of the dumpster caught me on the last blast.” She waved a hand back in the direction of their adversaries. “Let’s reengage, or this will be the least of our problems.”
Alton nodded. He scanned the side yard, spotting no one, then looked over to David. His friend had crawled forty or fifty yards along the depression—a good thing, too, for another grenade landed at the top of the ditch at David’s original location and dribbled down the incline.
“Fire in the hole!” yelled Alton into his mike.
David pulled his arms under his body as the device exploded. Alton heard him grunt over the mike and saw a crimson stain cloud the side of his shirt.
“Shit. David’s down.”
“Alton, catch!” came Hanif’s voice over the mike.
Alton turned to see the ex-policeman standing behind the wooden fence on the edge of the house’s property. Hanif swung a pouch over his head and sent it flying in Alton’s direction. The bundle almost hit Mallory as it landed at their feet.
As Alton hurried to unsnap the canvas flap, he heard gunfire from Hanif’s direction. He looked over to see the former policeman lying in a prone position, looking through his rifle’s sights. “Alton, there’s a hostile at the southeastern corner of the house, and another low-crawling directly behind the trash container. He’s almost in range to throw another grenade.”
“Thanks, Hanif,” replied Alton. He opened the pouch and discovered a cache of squat bullets. “Awesome—rounds for the M two-oh-threes,” he said, referring to their rifles’ under-the-barrel grenade launchers. He studied Mallory’s face. “How are you holding up?”
Mallory gave her arm a shake. “It stings like a mother, but it’s okay.”
“Good. In that case, let’s load up.”
He and Mallory slammed rounds into their weapons.
“Split up,” said Alton. “You to the left, me to the right. I’ll take the guy right in front of the dumpster. We’ll both take the guy on the corner of the house. Stay low.”
Hearing them over the mike, Hanif spoke up. “Count down, and I will lay down suppressing fire.”
“Roger. On my mark…three, two, one, now!”
Alton and Mallory swung around opposite ends of the metal container, launching their grenades and unleashing a blitz of rounds towards the corner of the house. The man positioned there jerked as if on marionette strings, then fell to the ground in a heap.
Alton’s grenade exploded, eliciting cries of agony from the thug who had approached their position head-on. The man sounded too injured to toss any more Russian grenades.
The remaining goons returned fire with a fusillade of their own. How many were there? A stream of rounds pinged off Alton’s side of the dumpster’s metal wall, and a hail of bullets sliced through the wooden fence behind which Hanif had taken cover.
Ducking behind the dumpster, Alton heard the sound of labored breathing in his ear mike. He looked toward David, but his friend had rolled onto his side and had his rifle pointed in the direction of the combatants, ready to fire if approached. He didn’t seem to have any difficulty breathing.
So who was injured? It must be Hanif, but Alton would have to survive this firefight first before he could assist the man.
“Reload,” said Alton to Mallory. “Don’t give them a chance to catch their breath. You aim for the left side yard, I’ll aim for the right.”
They punched in two more M203 rounds, then turned and fired. One of the masked men went to catch Alton’s round, perhaps with the intent of throwing it back towards them, only to be blown to bits as the impact-detonated grenade landed at his feet.
A burst of fire from two or three AK-47s pinged off the front of the dumpster, setting Alton’s ears ringing again.
As suddenly as the firefight had begun, it stopped. Alton and Mallory hung back, suspecting a trap.
“I don’t see anyone,” said Alton as they both reloaded their M203s, “but they could be coming right up the front, where we can’t spot them. We’ll have to swing around again from both sides. On my mark…ready, go!”
They pivoted around opposite
edges of the container, only to find the yard empty of the living. An explosion from the back of the house sent a plume of black, oily smoke into the air.
“They’ve detonated the gasoline,” said Alton, noticing the blast had occurred too far from the house to ignite it.
He scanned the front and side yards and heard the sounds of men scaling the wall in the backyard. “They’re escaping.”
“Alton, we can’t pursue,” said Mallory, her breathing still heavy from the ordeal. Sweat tracked down her face, creating trails of clean, pink skin through the layer of dust that had accumulated there. A line of blood dripped down her arm, staining her pants with crimson drops.
“I know. Let’s take a look at your arm.”
“I’ll be okay. We need to look after David first.”
“And Hanif. I think he’s down, too.” Alton wiped the sweat streaming down his own forehead and ignored the pain lancing down his left thigh.
“Okay,” said Mallory. “I’ll take Hanif, you take David.”
Alton nodded and began hobbling toward his friend. He activated his mike. “Fahima and Kamaal, can you hear me?”
“Yes, we hear you,” said Fahima, “Is David all right? How bad is he hurt?”
“I’m heading over to him now. The kidnappers are taking off, so it should be safe for you all to come over here now. Can you bring two of the medic kits? One for David and the other for Hanif and Mallory?”
“Yes, we have them. We are coming.”
Alton reached David’s side. His friend grimaced. At least he was conscious.
“How you feeling?” asked Alton, kneeling.
“I’ve been better.”
Fahima raced up and fell to the ground, cradling David’s head in her arms. “Oh, my love, my husband!”
“Careful not to jiggle him just yet. David, can you feel this?” asked Alton as he pinched David’s toes.
“Ow—yes.”
“That’s good. It means your spinal cord is still working. I need to roll you over to assess the wound, but we need to go as slow as possible, just in case your spine took a hit.”
David’s jocularity evaporated, and he seemed too afraid to breathe while Alton and Fahima rolled him onto his stomach.
“You’re in luck, dude. It mostly hit a love handle.”
“What love handle?” David’s eyes narrowed into slits.
“Uh…the ones you’ve been working on since you married your bride here.” Alton removed antiseptic, gauze, antibiotic cream, and bandages from the medic kit, treating David’s wound with a field dressing in the space of two minutes.
Alton turned to Fahima. “Can you stay here with David for a minute? I’d like to go see how Mallory is faring with Hanif.”
“Yes, I will stay.”
Alton limped through the yard and across the decimated front of the dumpster, arriving at the wooden fence the former policeman had used for cover.
He stepped around the fence to see Hanif lying on the ground behind it, just as he had feared.
“How’s he doing?”
“Alton,” said Mallory, looking up with tears in her eyes. “Hanif is dead.”
CHAPTER 50
Mastana’s mind reeled. After her brief taste of freedom, the confines of her cell seemed more oppressive than ever.
She couldn’t help but replay the scene of her recapture in her mind. Could she have done something differently? Perhaps she should have used the sewer to her advantage, using it to disguise her scent rather than avoiding its foul contents. But she hadn’t known Divband would employ dogs to find her.
The sound of snoring interrupted her musings. The guard on duty, the fat one, often slept on the job, and tonight seemed to be no exception. With a shackle on each limb and two locked doors between herself and the guard, though, Mastana couldn’t see how she could use the man’s dereliction of duty to her advantage.
A new sound mingled with the snoring—the sound of a girl crying. It seemed to be coming from the adjacent cell.
“Hello?” called Mastana softly. “Is someone there?”
The crying stopped.
“Najia, is that you?” whispered a voice through the cracks.
“No, my name is Mastana. Who is Najia?”
“She was in your cell until a few days ago. Then the guards took her away. I have not heard from her since then. I was hoping she had returned.”
A sense of dread filled Mastana’s heart. When would it be her turn?
“What is your name?” asked Mastana.
“Sita.”
“How did you get here?”
The guard’s snoring stopped for a moment, and the girls fell silent. Mastana held her breath. Perhaps the man had merely needed to reposition himself, for his nocturnal blasts resumed within seconds.
“My school is not far from my house, so every day I would walk home after school. About a week or two ago—I am not sure exactly how long—someone grabbed me from behind. I could not see this person, but his arms were very large. He put something over my face, and I passed out. When I woke up, I was here in this cell. I have not been out since then.”
“I am here in the same way. A man entered my house when I was alone. Actually, it wasn’t my house. I was staying with a friend. In any case, a large, brute of a man caught and drugged me, too.”
“I am sorry for you.”
“Thank you. Sita, what became of Najia?”
“I do not know. But whatever happened to her must surely be our fate, too.”
“The guards never speak to you of their plans for us?” asked Mastana.
“No, never.”
The muffled sounds of chants from several rooms away reminded them of the menacing presence of their captors.
“Do you have family or friends who might be looking for you?” asked Mastana.
“I am sure my parents are worried and doing all they can, but how would they ever find us? By the time I awoke from the drugs, I was already chained up here inside this room. I do not know where we are. Even if I found a cellphone, I would not know where to tell them to go. What about you, Mastana? Do you think your family is looking for you?”
“My parents are dead,” said Mastana, omitting the details of her mother’s recent decline. “I have friends who are clever, but as you said, how would they know where to look?”
The teens fell into silence for a minute.
“Sita, do you know if there are others like us in this place?”
“I think so. I believe I heard a girl crying a few days ago, but I cannot be sure. She was too far away for me to call out without the guards hearing.”
“I wonder how many of us are here.”
“I do not know.” Sita’s breathing became ragged, as if she were fighting her emotions. “Mastana, I am afraid of this evil place.”
“Me, too. If one of us has a chance to escape, we must promise to help the others.”
“Yes, I promise.”
“As do I,” said Mastana. “Now we must hope such an opportunity arises.”
But what were the odds of that? Mastana leaned her head against the wall and, exhausted, fell into a fitful slumber, an interval interrupted by recurring dreams of crying, curses, and a bright, blinding light.
CHAPTER 51
Alton’s mind reeled. Hanif—dead?
“Are you sure?” he asked, kneeling down.
Mallory nodded, unable to speak as tears tracked down her face.
Alton examined the body. A shot had severed one of Hanif’s carotid arteries, causing him to bleed out in a minute or two. Even if Alton had been with him and applied medical treatment the moment the injury occurred, Hanif wouldn’t have survived the wound.
Alton felt a sickening sense of déjà vu. Once again, a man under his leadership in Afghanistan had died in combat. He could only stare at the dead man’s face.
“Alton,” said Mallory. “It wasn’t your fault. You gave him the chance to stay away. He came to help us of his own accord.”
“Bu
t once he arrived, I was happy to have his help. Should I have told him to back off? Or was I too worried about saving you and me?”
“He was a combat-trained policeman who made a personal decision. If you had told him to leave, do you think he would have?”
Alton mulled over the question. He hadn’t known Hanif for long, but he had grown to understand the man enough to tender an answer. “Probably not.”
“So let’s make sure he didn’t die for nothing. Let’s collect whatever evidence we can from the yard.”
“Yeah,” said Alton, standing. “You’re right. But first let’s take care of your arm.” He opened the medic kit, cleaned the wound—a light gouge running across the middle of her left forearm—and applied a bandage.
“Good as new,” said Mallory.
Alton counted his blessings that the injury hadn’t been worse. He turned to Fahima and Kamaal, who stood nearby. “How’s David?”
“He is telling his jokes, so I think he will be okay. But I think he will need rest for a few days.”
“That’s a relief.” He looked around the scene of destruction and bloodshed as fire crackled in the backyard. “Did you call the police?”
“Yes, just as you said,” replied Fahima.
“I wonder why they’re not here yet. This is about as violent a civil crime as you can get.”
“I will call them again.”
“Wait, why don’t I call Captain Poya?” said Alton. “That’ll probably get a faster response.”
Alton called the police office and was put on hold. As he waited, he walked over to the body of the closest thug. He raised the man’s mask to reveal a fellow with a nondescript appearance. Then he rummaged through the dead man’s pockets but found nothing but a few banknotes.
Captain Poya came onto the line. “Hello, Mr. Blackwell?”
“Yes. Captain, we just had a major firefight with a band of thugs.”
“What? Where?”
“I don’t know the exact address here, but we’re in the Pule Charki neighborhood.”
“What happened? Why are you there?”
“We…uh…read in the paper about a break-in at a house here a couple of days ago. We wondered if it was related to a recent string of kidnappings—including Mastana’s—and decided to come here to check the yard and maybe talk with the family, to see if they had any information that could help us track down the kidnappers.”
The Devil's Due (The Blackwell Files Book 5) Page 16