Prime (Chess Team Adventure, #0.5)

Tremblay tossed the phone aside and turned for the door. His disappointment at being left behind by his teammates was sincere, but the clock was ticking, and the two minutes it might take him to exit the hotel could mean the difference between rescuing the kid or recovering his headless body.

The ‘kid’ was the adult son of the US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. He’d been abducted while vacationing in the area—sailing or some other damn fool diversion of the idle rich. Tremblay and his three teammates from Delta’s elite Alpha team had managed to identify the kidnappers. They were al-Something-or-other…there were so many damn terrorist groups in the Arab world that he’d given up trying to keep them straight. Alpha had tracked them here to Aden’s Gold Mohur Resort, but evidently the bad guys had split up. Two of them had been living it up here at the hotel, while an unknown number were babysitting the hostage on the other side of the city.

The attack came before he took a single step.

Something tipped him off. The creak of the floor as the man attempted to sneak up behind him, a shadow moving on the wall, the rush of wind as the man drew back to hit him… Whatever it was, the premonition saved his life. He half-turned and threw up a hand to block the chair that his assailant was about to smash down on his head.

There was a splintering sound as the chair came apart on impact. Pain throbbed in Tremblay’s forearm and the pistol flew from his nerveless fingers, even as he staggered under the blow. Then, like a player in a slapstick movie, he tripped over one of the bodies on the floor and fell squarely on his backside.

The attacker pounced on the gun.

There wasn’t time to seek cover, so Tremblay did the only thing he could think of: he grabbed the body he’d tripped over—the corpse of the big man that had met him at the door—and hauled it front of him like a human shield.

Something heavy fell out from beneath the man’s jacket and slammed like a sledgehammer into Tremblay’s crotch. Even as he grimaced against this fresh wave of pain, he heard a faint coughing sound and the rasp of the Beretta’s bolt sliding back and ratcheting another round into the firing chamber. There was a faint tremor as the bullet punched into the dead man, but Tremblay barely noticed. His attention was fixed on the thing that had just punched him in the nuts.

It was a Desert Eagle Mark XIX. The weapon was a monster. Its ten inch barrel was almost as long as the Beretta with its attached suppressor, and at about five pounds, it weighed more than twice as much as the standard issue military sidearm. A cursory glance at the half-inch diameter of the barrel confirmed what Tremblay already suspected: the Desert Eagle was outfitted for the .50 caliber Action Express round.

He grabbed the pistol in his left hand, awkwardly reinforcing his grip with his still half-numb right hand, and shoved the enormous pistol against the back of his very dead human shield, pointing it in the direction of his assailant. His thumb swept the safety off and his finger pulled the trigger.

The report sounded like cannon-fire. It felt like it too…or maybe like holding a stick of dynamite. Because he’d been in a sitting position, there had been no way to brace his body against the recoil. Newton’s Third Law of Motion ruled against him and he toppled backward, barely keeping the gun in his clenched fist. He still fared better than his attacker though. The bullet had punched through the dead man’s soft abdomen, and continued forward undeterred, striking the man halfway across the room, spattering both men’s blood onto the walls and even the ceiling.

Tremblay quickly shook off the effects of both the unexpected attack and his stunning rejoinder, and scrambled to his feet. The report from the Desert Eagle had been loud enough to wake the dead, to say nothing of the other guests at the resort, and that was going to make getting out a bit trickier than he’d planned. He hastened to the room entrance, which was still open after his violent intrusion. In the hallway beyond, doors were opening and a growing tumult of voices was audible, but he didn’t step out to investigate. Instead, he stripped away the piece of tape he’d used to confound the latch bolt, and firmly closed the door. That would buy him a few minutes to figure out what to do next.

Remembering that he’d been caught off guard once already, he spun around with the Desert Eagle at the ready and quickly checked the suite to make sure there were no other occupants waiting in ambush. There were no more surprises of that sort, but he did find an open door leading to an exterior balcony where he suspected the third man had been lurking. The balcony also gave him an idea on how to make his exit.