Backdrop

by C. G. Cooper

  He settled back on his feet. “Switch places with me.” Ashburn let him pass. Andy loaded a fresh magazine into his rifle and looked around the corner.

  He ducked around the side of the ramp and looked out onto the parking lot, then jerked his head back to give himself a second to process what he had seen.

  There were the shadowy shapes of men in the black, unmarked clothing and shemaghs. They scoured the area.

  Andy risked another glance. If he cut straight to the right, he’d be in and out of the cars’ headlights in a couple seconds. Enough to be seen, not enough to be targeted.

  Cut to the right, then straight toward the highway. Give them five or six seconds to register that he was trying to escape, then another right turn off the road and into the ruins. He should be able to lose himself there long enough to double back and lay down some cover fire for Ashburn. Or he could keep running for the highway a little longer and try to draw them off for a few seconds longer. He’d have to see how it went.

  Deep breath. Clear all thoughts. Focus. “Ready?”

  Ashburn gave him a gung ho pat on the shoulder.

  He stood up and bolted from concealment just as the rattle of rifle fire pocked the area.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  As Andy took off running, Serena counted to three, then stopped. This wasn’t going to work. Not without another distraction.

  She checked that her sleeves and scarf were pulled down and her belt was tight, then broke off to the left and started running. The car lights were aimed in the other direction, so she had the advantage of darkness.

  She reached the nearest boulder and dropped. She could hear another engine approaching in the distance, driving across gravel. The attackers in black fired at Andy, still shouting at him.

  It didn’t sound like anyone had seen her, though, what with Andy’s distraction. She grabbed a rock off the ground and weighed it in her hand. The sound of Andy’s distraction was getting further and further away, the new car closer. If she wanted to accomplish something, it had to be now.

  She stood up and drew back her arm, getting ready to throw it into a thicket of brush off the side of the road.

  A trio of shots came from above them.

  A voice that was obviously Jack Cooper’s shouted what sounded like, “You bastards! I’m going to kill you all! Take a nice, deep breath, because it’s going to be your last!”

  Dear God, she thought, he’s quoting from the script!

  Everyone ducked as more bullets rained down. Serena ran for the back of one of the cop cars and huddled beside the fender, hoping that Cooper could tell who was who.

  Another rattle of shots forced her to move around the back of the car. She raised the rock and crept toward the nearest man in black. One more distraction should do it.

  A piercing whistle echoed across the valley. The men turned their heads toward it.

  Serena took a step forward and swung.

  The skull gave way, blood and bits of brain exploded away. The man hit the car fender in front of him and bounced off. Serena dropped her weapon, trembling violently and choking back vomit.

  Composing herself, she took the 9mm pistol out of the dead man’s hands.

  The shouting behind them was interrupted by a rain of rifle fire. The echoes made it sound like it was coming from everywhere.

  She ran as fast as her fatigued legs would allow, not fully registering what was happening behind her. There were more shots, and then something heavy hit her legs, and she felt herself falling.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Andy saw what might have been a muzzle flash from behind the new car, and then Cooper’s rifle went silent.

  No, not him. Not Cooper.

  He’d found a good vantage spot in the old town behind a half-fallen wall of ancient brick and stonework, covered with plaster that exploded like dust when rounds hit it, but he’d been in the same place for the last couple of minutes, and it was time to move.

  With the hail of bullets, it was hard to tell where any of the noise was coming from. The men who had survived his initial spray of bullets across the sides of the SUVs had moved out of the way, mostly clustered behind a single large boulder at the edge of the parking lot.

  My kingdom for a mortar barrage.

  He dismissed the thought and fired at a shape trying to creep around the side of the boulder. No idea whether he’d hit any or not.

  A figure broke away from the new car, sprinting toward the SUVs. He fired off a few well-aimed rounds at the boulder, just enough to keep the bad guys pinned in place.

  A pair of muzzle flashes appeared between two of the SUVs. Andy shifted to try and get a better view.

  The man who’d climbed out of the car had just taken two shots. What looked like the same dark shape jogged out from between the SUVs and hit the ramp at the bottom of the outcropping.

  Not for the first time that day, Andy wondered what the hell Coles had dropped him into.

  He worked his way back toward the castle ramp, finally settling behind a pile of busted bricks alongside a ruined, roofless hut. There was no way around it: he was going to have to cross in front of the group of shooters behind the boulder, then in front of the two SUVs and their blazing headlights.

  He’d just have to move fast and hope that nobody’s reactions were that quick. And that he and the other shooter had hurt them enough to make them wary for a split second.

  That’s all he needed, right? That and a heavenly dose of luck.

  He gripped the rifle, made sure there wasn’t anything on the ground in front of him that would make him face plant after he left cover. The other shooter let out a barrage of fire aimed in the direction of the castle. Someone was alive in the castle. One of the good guys.

  Andy ran for it. He broke from cover, made it up onto the parking lot, and crossed through the headlights without a single shot tagging after him.

  Then all hell broke loose.

  Shouts in Arabic that had to be “get him” echoed across the valley, alongside too many shots to count.

  Andy made it all the way to a crumbling wall at the base of the path leading up to the castle. He rolled over its side and dropped to the ground on the far end, then kept moving. He could hear the bullets hitting stone above him. He’d have to make it up at least one more turn of the path before he could even pretend to be safe from the fire below.

  He took another quick breath, jumped to his feet and then sprinted up the path.

  He stayed as low against the stone wall as possible. He’d caught sight of a man in black who seemed to be treated with deference, as if he were a lieutenant or some sort of commander. They were nearing the outcropping where remains of the helicopter lay.

  Andy kept his eyes away from the light. The shadows between him and the next bend in the path were even, nothing out of the ordinary. Not hiding anyone. The shadows in and around the helicopter’s charred skeleton didn’t look any darker, but he knew that in the moonlight, it might just be a trick of the light.

  He searched up and down the slope, hoping for a sound, any sound.

  At the bottom of the ramp the rifle shots stopped all of sudden, like the cease fire call on a rifle range.

  “Come on, guys,” he muttered, “what the hell are you planning now?”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Andy heard the shouts erupting out in the old town—shouts that weren’t followed up by gunfire. He jogged down the path, blood running freely down the side of his face. One shot grazed his skull—felt like it had left a groove in it—and another shot had hit the rock next to him and driven an impressive piece of shattered rock into one arm. He could feel at least one piece grinding around in there. He didn’t mind the pain; he would later, but for now it was just something to egg himself on with.

  Keep running. Stay focused. Use the distraction of whatever was going on down there. Pray that Ashburn wasn’t lying on the ground with her throat cut.

  He stopped where the road emerged from the protection
of the plateau, glanced around to make sure that nobody was running toward him, and saw a man in black standing on top of one of the ancient stone and clay houses in the old town. He was raising his rifle at something on the ground underneath him.

  He set a stance, stopped, aimed, fired.

  The man fell.

  A shout went up, a man’s outraged, shocked voice, from the same direction.

  A second shot echoed through the old town and his heart damned near stopped.

  A voice called out a question curtly in Arabic; a man’s voice shouted back. A confirmation. The first voice--coming from the parking lot--shouted an order and received another confirmation.

  Whoever they’d been hunting was dead. Two options: Ashburn or Mansour.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Al-Salakhi breathed deeply, closing his eyes and taking in the chilly night air, which did little to soothe the rage in his throat. The mistress had been executed and was dead, the one surviving soldier returning to the parking lot. She should not have fled; she had received what was coming to her regardless.

  But he resented the timing. He had not yet been able to use the woman to apply more pressure to the prince. And now his plans must once again change.

  He could not afford to adjust his plans angrily, in the heat of the moment. And so he imagined the rage inside him puffing out of him with each exhalation, like steam.

  The Americans had at least one of the walkie-talkies; otherwise, they could not have contacted the CIA, and a helicopter would not be on its way. Therefore, to use the walkie-talkies to coordinate an attack was more or less useless without an elaborate code. His men had not set one up, and it was too late to establish one.

  Al-Salakhi had used codes, whistles, hand signals, coordination via time, and so on. Now, to be unable to control the movement of his pieces was an anathema to him. They were less intelligent, less well trained, and had less experience with this type of situation, in which a chain of events had gone wrong, but from which opportunities for success could still be wrested.

  The essence of the matter was this, as far as Al-Salakhi could tell: his pieces could not be moved according to his guidance. They could not be coordinated. In fact, they were a hindrance to his goals at this point. The gains that he had made against the Americans in his assault on the prince had come from their mistakes, not his own skills or insight or genius.

  Because he had surrounded himself with lesser tools, when he was used to working alone, or with one or two trusted confederates. He was used to having a surplus of information, a carefully-studied schedule, a method of killing that was likely to go undetected as murder or at least a carefully-crafted plan to shift the blame onto chance, misadventure, jealous rivalry, or a drug overdose.

  The prince was unimpressive; the old actor, Cooper, a decent tactician, but now unconscious; the Marine deadly and efficient, but unwise. But they had a stronghold, one that was hard to penetrate. Especially when one’s own pieces were the major stumbling block to one’s accomplishments.

  If the new men were dead—setting aside Nima, of course, who knew the score—then he would be able to destroy the castle with the rocket launcher that Thompson had so thoughtfully brought to him.

  “Nima,” he said.

  “Yes, Saiyid?”

  “You still have the walkie-talkie?”

  “Yes, Saiyid.”

  “Do you remember the code we used in Turkey?”

  “Of course.”

  “When you receive my signal, fire the rocket launcher up into the castle.”

  Not a second’s hesitation: “Yes, Saiyid.”

  “Take care not to be killed by that soldier.”

  They both looked toward the old town, where the three new men were jogging toward the last place they had seen the soldier. Al-Salakhi and Nima both understood those men to be dead men.

  “I will, Saiyid.”

  Nima did not ask about Al-Salakhi’s plans. Later, they would discuss the thoughts and strategies that had gone into them. But now was not the time for questions.

  Now was the time to kill.

  Chapter Fifty

  The three men chasing Andy weren’t stupid. One of them guarded the road while the other two started to circle around him through the old town. The problem was that the old town was packed with huts built practically on top of each other. The idea of a front yard, or even a back gutter, seemed to have been completely foreign to the ancient dwellers who had built the place. It was not the kind of place where two donkeys could pass each other without one of them impregnating the other on his way through.

  The man who’d been helping Andy earlier had known how to move through those spaces quietly. Ironically, so did Andy, who’d been through plenty of impoverished shantytowns that had been packed together just as poorly, if not worse, and had been made mostly of tin siding and tent canvas to boot.

  These new guys weren’t nearly as quiet. Give ’em a week, sure. They’d get the hang of it. But right now they were dashing across narrow spaces and throwing themselves against walls in their hurry to keep under cover.

  Andy moved with catlike grace through the narrow lanes, turning into doorways of the houses when he could, taking no chances of touching the crumbling stone and clay walls and knocking loose dirt or pebbles. He didn’t brush against fallen support beams that looked like they’d crumble with a touch.

  He worked his way toward the place where the other shots had come. He shouldn’t have. He should have stuck with his priorities: Caine, Cooper, and Mansour. Most likely it was Ashburn who had been shot and killed. She had to be dead. Otherwise, there would have been another shot.

  His fault. He’d brought bullets into the mix, and they’d panicked.

  Stop it, he chastised himself. They’re nothing but psychopathic thugs.

  The two men actively following him were falling behind. What he should be doing was doubling back around and taking them out, one at a time. Slowly. Cautiously.

  But he had to know.

  It was hard to tell if he’d passed the area or not, in this maze.

  He peeked around a corner, and a bullet burst into the clay over his head, scattering ancient dust in his eyes. He pulled back, blinked, then glanced around. He was in a narrow alley in a row of houses. The next break in the wall was a good hundred and fifty feet behind him.

  He ran across the opening in the row; another bullet tried to catch him but missed. That was the problem with not being a computer. The brain couldn’t handle the planning needed for that kind of shot without training on how to do it. And these guys weren’t that experienced.

  He paused to listen for movement. The other attacker was trying to circle around him to the left. Andy slipped inside one of the houses and out the other side, through a break in the wall. The other attacker might be another row of houses away, by the echoing noise coming in that direction.

  Andy looked for another route between the rows of houses and almost tripped on the body in front of him.

  One of the attackers in black. Now on the ground with his neck broken and shot center mass. The one that Andy had taken down earlier. He lay crumpled up, head down, one leg still leaning against the wall, arms outstretched as if he’d been trying to catch himself. He’d bled out.

  Andy heard footsteps running toward him and stepped into the shadow of a house.

  The footsteps came to a stop outside the door. He’d been seen.

  Part of the roof had fallen in the house, but not enough for an easy exit. He’d have to shove his way out to go that way.

  A crack in the wall might be enough for the muzzle of a rifle. A shadow flitted across it.

  The soldier was leaning in, putting the muzzle of his rifle against the old clay. Metal scraped and chunks of baked earth scattered on the ground.

  Andy stepped out, shot the man in the side of the head and again in the chest, and doubled back the way he had come, toward the other shooter. It was a racket that echoed up and down the alleys.

 
But it might draw one of the remaining three inexperienced men to the spot. Andy glanced at the walkie-talkie. The volume was off, but the red light stayed black, too. They didn’t dare contact each other. Not when he could hear them.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Prince Mansour heard the men coming up to the top of the ramp and flipped over the flashlight, dimming it further so that only a few rays shone out from underneath. He’d taken off his shoes. He moved out of the room where the injured men were breathing hoarsely in the darkness and into the chamber with the half-walls. From there, there was only one more antechamber before the courtyard. The castle was long rather than wide, following the shape of the plateau.

  Four men emerged from the trail, covering the courtyard with their rifles. Mansour knew he couldn’t be seen from his position and watched them openly. They split up, two men circling one way, another going the other, and the last one watching the open doorway.

  As soon as the other three men were out of sight, Mansour shot the fourth. He went down, shouting and moaning, pulling the other three back to him.

  One of the men ran back into the line of fire. Prince Mansour shot him as well. It wasn’t fatal; the man turned around and limped in the other direction.

  One of the others shouted, “Give up, Mansour, you bastard!”

  A few more shots, and then he turned around and crept back to the other side of the room. His back was mostly covered by the half-wall behind it.

  One of the attackers was peeking through the door on the other side of the room, past Caine’s body under the tarp.

  “My prince?” he whispered in Arabic. “Is that you? We’ve come to rescue you.”

  The light was good enough to pick out the sincere look of concern on his face.

  Mansour shot him.

  I will not be used as a pawn in Al-Salakhi’s game, whatever that might be. The innocent who suffer do so because of him.