? ? ?
Court launched at the guard, desperate to get to him before he made a noise. The American knocked the radio away with a backhand, then punched the man in the jaw, staggering him on his knees.
He began to fall backwards into the glass door, but Court leapt closer, caught him by the collar, and spun him around, back into the room.
Court punched him hard in the face again, knocking him unconscious onto the bed. Court then moved over to the door to the room and shut and locked it softly, then flipped the lights off again.
Court stood there in the darkness of what was obviously a guest bedroom, and he shook the pain out of his right hand. His jab had hit more cheekbone than he’d intended, and his fourth and fifth fingers throbbed from the impact.
Back at the unconscious man, Court rolled him face-first off the bed and onto the floor of the bedroom, knelt on the man’s back, and grabbed his head.
With a single swift movement Court pulled and turned, snapping the guard’s neck and killing him. He stripped the man of his shoes, his suit, his shirt, his tie, and all the while he listened to the walkie-talkie on the floor for any hint that the guards on the premises were alerted to the noise or the absence of this man.
Court stripped his uniform off and dressed in the guard’s clothing; it fit a lot better than Walid’s too-loose tunic and too-short pants.
Then Court put the Desert Hawks Brigade uniform on the dead body.
This was surprisingly arduous work that took him nearly five minutes, but when he was through, after he’d holstered the guard’s big SIG Pro pistol and clipped the radio onto his own belt, he knew he would be able to move through the darkened house more easily now.
He put the earpiece in his ear and began rifling through the man’s identification, hoping to learn his name, but the writing was in Arabic, so Court just pocketed the wallet and dragged the body into the bathroom. Here he placed it in the bathtub, closed the curtain, and headed back for the door that would lead him to the rest of the home.
CHAPTER 44
Vincent Voland sat with Rima and Tarek in the library of the French estate, while Drexler was kept under guard in the hearth room by Boyer.
Voland told the Syrian couple about the offer made by Drexler, and he added, “I don’t know why the Syrian GIS men are here, but this changes the equation totally. None of us stand a chance against—”
“You want to surrender!” Rima screamed it as the realization came to her.
Voland held up his hands. “Face the facts! They will kill every last one of us in here, and we will lose Medina anyway. If we withdraw, then perhaps we—”
Tarek snapped now. “By ‘withdraw,’ you mean run away.”
“We will have our chance, I feel certain. Just at a later date.”
Tarek shook his head. “There is no later date. My nation is dying! You have spent three days telling us no one could take Medina from this house. A lone, unarmed man walks up and you want to surrender without firing a shot?”
“I know Drexler, and I know the Syrian out there leading the attack against us, and I know the capabilities of the force he has with him. They promise Medina won’t be harmed if we—”
“She won’t be harmed?” Rima shrieked. “Drexler sent ISIS to kill her just days ago.”
Tarek added, “He’s lying! There is no one here but him.”
“He’s not lying. He’s a cold, calculating individual, but he has survived this long in his work by always acting from positions of strength. He wouldn’t walk in unarmed unless he really did have the unbeatable hand. And he says his mission now is to bring her back alive to Damascus.”
Rima said, “This is insane! We sent the American to rescue the child in Damascus, and he is doing so as we speak. And now you want to give the mother back to Azzam?”
Voland put his hands up. “We know the American is going alone into a fortified building in the middle of Syria. We certainly don’t know he’s getting out of there, and we certainly don’t know he’s going to make it out of Damascus and all the way to Jordan.”
Tarek said, “You are saying that even though the American has more going against him than we do, you still want us to give up?”
“It’s not what I want. It’s what I see as the only rational choice.”
The Halabys went into another room to speak in privacy, but quickly they returned to Voland. Tarek said, “Speaking for myself and my wife, we owe it to our nation, and to the American who is risking everything to help us. We will not surrender.”
Voland looked down at the floor a moment. “You are making a mistake that will likely get us all killed. Nevertheless . . . I will respect your wishes. I will go tell Drexler he will remain our prisoner and we will fight to defend the Spaniard.”
CHAPTER 45
Court took the stairs in Bianca Medina’s villa slowly because he could hear talking in the living room, just out of view behind him. Two men in idle conversation; Court picked up something about someone named Sayed, but that was all he understood.
On his way to the stairs he’d passed a guard sleeping soundly in a tiled alcove and moved within five feet of him in the dark hallway. At the top of the stairs he found an empty hallway that went to the left and right and then turned to form the arms of the U of the home. He went to the right first, because Bianca had said the baby’s room was there, right next to her own. Peeking around the corner, he could see a man sitting in a chair at the end of the hall near a door. It was so dark in the hallway Court could not be sure if the man was awake or asleep at thirty feet away, but he could see that the man was wearing a similar dark suit to the one Court had taken off the man he’d killed downstairs.
He went to the other side of the second floor and looked up the hall there, but there were no guarded doors, so he decided the baby was probably being held behind the first door. He returned to the corner and thought about what he needed to do.
There was no getting around that guard; this he knew. He only hoped he could kill him quietly.
Court touched the knife under his jacket, checking its placement, took a calming breath, and stepped around the corner. He began walking purposefully up the hall. He just had to hope his clothing and the dim light would disguise him until it was too late for the sentry in the chair to stop him.
He continued on, his hands idly at his sides, closing on the guard by the door. He was still twenty feet away when the man shifted and said, “Salam.” Hi.
“Salam,” Court replied, trying to use the same low voice he’d heard from the man who owned the suit he now wore.
At fifteen feet the man sat up in the chair and said something else. He spoke in a whisper, which was good news for Court because it meant the other guards in the house would not hear anything, and it also meant someone was likely sleeping on the other side of the door behind him.
When Court did not respond, the man said, “Sayed?” and then he sat up even straighter, suddenly on alert.
“Nem,” Yes, Court replied, slowing the man’s decision making a fraction of a second. But then the man began to stand, and he reached into his jacket.
Court closed the remaining eight feet in two quick steps and shoved his left hand over the man’s mouth, and with his right hand he sank the long fixed-blade knife he’d taken from Walid’s trunk hilt-deep into the Alawi guard’s solar plexus.
The Syrian’s legs gave out in two seconds, and his struggling stopped after a few seconds more.
Court slid him down the wall, back into his chair. He pulled the knife out and leaned the man’s head back against the wall.
Other than a brief and muffled gasp and some scuffling of leather shoes on a tiled hallway floor, the killing had barely made a sound.
* * *