African Ice (29 page)

“I'm with Tony and Paul in the Fiat, and we've still got a visual on them,” Hagan answered, “but they're moving quicker now. The traffic thinned out once they left the Khan El Khalili. What do you want us to do?”

“We're just leaving the hotel. How far north will we have to be to get in front of them?”

“There's no way you'll get across in time to cut them off, Liam. They're moving way too fast for that. They're almost at the old city wall.”

“Shit!” O'Donnell said tersely between clenched teeth. He thought for a brief moment, then gave the first team the go-ahead. “Once they hit the wall, take them out. But for Christ's sake, don't kill the woman.”

“Yes, sir.” The radio went silent.

Alain picked the Fiat out of the traffic as it tailed them toward the wall. He watched the car for a few moments as it jockeyed about the dense traffic, closing the distance without drawing attention. Still, to the trained eye it stood out. Once he was positive, he turned to Travis.

“We've got company. The white Fiat about one hundred fifty feet back. They've been moving up on us, trying to stay behind vehicles as they shift lanes. I think there's three guys in the car.”

Travis divided his time between driving and watching the car in the side rearview mirror. After a minute or two he nodded. “Yeah, I'd say we've got a tail.” He switched lanes, moving closer to the curb. When he spoke, he wasted no words. “As we reach the east edge of the wall, I'll take a sharp left. We'll be out of their sight for a minute or so. Get out, take Sam and the sniper rifle with you and head for high ground. I'll pull in at the second gate, it's about a quarter mile down. I'll move to the right, away from the wall and draw them into the open.” He turned to Alain, his eyes riveted on the man. “Get at least one. I can't handle all three.” Alain simply nodded and grasped Samantha by the elbow. A few seconds later, Travis reached the easternmost edge of the old wall and cranked a quick left. A few cars slammed on their brakes to avoid them and the traffic quickly jammed up behind. The second they cleared the wall and were out of sight, Alain and Sam jumped from the vehicle. Alain leaned into the back and yanked out the Sako and a blanket to cover it. He pointed toward the Bab al Futuh and Sam broke into a quick run for the ancient gate. They reached the massive stone structure and Alain headed up the series of stairs that led to the walkway atop the wall. By the time they reached the top, Travis was nearing the second gate a quarter mile to the west. Except for them, the walkway was deserted. Alain slipped his Glock from his belt and handed it to Samantha.

“Watch the top of the stairwell we just came up. If a white guy pokes his head through, shoot him. Try not to kill any innocent Arabs.”

She nodded and watched as he slid the blanket off the sniper rifle and flipped open the tripod. He chambered a round and sighted on Travis as he leapt from the truck. Puffs of sand exploded around Travis as he charged into the nearest building. Seconds later, the Fiat screeched to a halt and three men piled out, heading for the doorway Travis had just entered. The lead man didn't make it ten feet. Alain's shot tore through his right lung, spinning him violently and slamming him into the coarse brick building. He slid down the wall to the dusty ground, clutching his chest for a moment before going limp. Alain moved the barrel slightly and sighted on a second target. He squeezed the trigger, then swore in disgust as he watched the bullet dig into the stone as the man disappeared into the building. He grabbed the Panther and held the send button down.

“Got one,” he whispered. “Two hot on you, already in the building.”

Travis heard the staccato burst of automatic gunfire as he leapt from the vehicle and ran for the three-story building. Bullets zinged past him as he crossed the threshold into temporary safety. He surveyed his position. A small brass plaque denoted the business that occupied the building as an architectural firm. Stretching directly ahead was a brightly lit hallway. A long glass wall lined with offices and a reception area lay to the left, a textured interior wall to the right, unbroken but for a stairwell leading up and down. He chose the hallway and jogged quietly down its length, adjusting the Vektor MINI so the gun dangled across his chest from the shoulder strap. He heard a vehicle come to a sudden stop outside the front of the building just as he reached the rear entrance. He pushed open the fire door and burst into a heavily foliated atrium. The sharp crack of the sniper rifle touched his ears as he closed the door behind him. Seconds later, his earpiece crackled with static and Alain's voice. “Got one. Two hot on you, already in the building.” Travis raced around the pond and fountain in the atrium's center, dove behind a bank of dwarf palms and waited.

Slowly, the door from the hallway swung open. Travis lowered the Vektor and his finger tightened slightly on the five-pound trigger. He waited. The door swung back and clicked shut. He cursed under his breath. His adversaries knew where he was, but were professional enough to know that if they stepped through the door they were dead. He reevaluated his situation, scanning the atrium and the four walls that contained it. The building he had entered was square, with the entire center of the structure dedicated to the atrium. Four doors, one on each wall, exited the atrium back into the building. Windows from the interior offices looked down on the atrium and a few concerned faces were staring down at him from the third floor. They must have heard the gunfire from the front of the building. He had to act quickly; the police would be arriving, and at this point, he would just as soon take his chances with Kerrigan's men as spend time in a Cairo jail. Travis chose the exit door to his left, opened it and found himself in a hallway similar to the one leading from the front doors.

This hall was dimly lit and he hugged its edges as he moved stealthily toward the far door. If he was correct, it should lead out on the side of the building closest to where Alain and Samantha were dug in on the wall. Halfway down the corridor, he realized he'd made a bad decision. He heard the soft click of a pistol's hammer cocking, and only his lightning-fast reflexes saved him. The bullet slammed into the wall exactly where his head had been only milliseconds before, as he rolled hard across the hall and smashed open an office door with his feet. He continued rolling, his momentum taking him out of the hall and into the room behind the door. It was a dentist's office, and a stunned patient in the chair, the dentist and his assistant all stared at him as he came crashing through the door. The assistant started screaming as Travis jumped to his feet and ran from the dental room through the reception area and into another hallway that serviced the front of the businesses. He turned left, his legs pumping hard as he made for the exterior door some fifty feet away. He touched the send button on the Panther as he ran.

“Alain, I'm coming out the side door closest to you. They're on my ass.” The radio clicked and he knew Porter had received the message and was sighting the gun on the exit door away from the main street. He burst into the sunshine, ducking as he heard gunfire in the confines of the hall behind him. Bullets ricocheted wildly off the door and slammed into a nearby palm. He kept moving, running across the open space between buildings, giving his attackers a target. If they could see his back, they should exit the building to sight on him, and when they did, Alain would be ready.

Less than ten seconds passed; then the unmistakable crack of the Sako sniper rifle shot across the empty lot. Travis immediately dove to his right, rolled, and swept his submachine gun up and aimed at the door. His finger tightened and bullets spewed from the gun even before he had stopped sliding on the smooth sand. He watched as one of the men took hit after hit from the Vektor, the bullets jerking his body like a life-size rag doll. Travis eased the pressure on the trigger and the gun went quiet. The body he had raked with automatic fire teetered for a second, then crashed face first into the dust, unmoving. Travis waited for a few seconds, then rose, walking hesitantly back toward the building.

Two bodies lay near the door. The man he had shot was dead before he hit the ground. The second man must have taken a bullet from the Sako. Travis approached warily, unsure of whether Alain's bullet had killed the man or just disabled him. As he neared, he saw a slight movement. He let the Vektor hang from its shoulder strap and slipped out his pistol. He took off the safety and chambered a round. He extended his hands in front of him, targeting the man's head. Twenty feet out, he saw a two-way radio lying next to the prone figure. The man's finger had the send button depressed and he was talking into the mouthpiece as best he could, considering the extent of his injuries. Travis could see both hands, but not a gun. He rushed the last fifteen feet and kicked the radio from the man's grasp. He stared into the eyes that glared back at him from the ground.

“Who did you call?” he asked.

“Go to hell,” the man answered, his breathing labored.

Travis knew the longer he stayed, the greater the risk he'd be dealing with the Cairo police. He left the man as he lay, injured but not dying. Alain's shot had crushed the man's shoulder and clavicle, probably collapsed his lung. Some emergency-room doctor could patch him up, but the man wouldn't be a threat for some time.

Travis ran back to his vehicle, slipped into the driver's seat and slammed the old Jeep into gear. He cut a wide U-turn and clicked on the Panther, telling Alain to get back to ground level. He sped back down the Sari al-galal, the historic old wall looming over the road to the right. In the distance, the sound of sirens cut through the late morning heat. He slid to a stop directly in front of the massive Gate of Conquests just as Alain and Samantha hit ground level running. They jumped into the Jeep and Travis floored it, cutting hard left into the bordering Bab an-Nasr cemetery. He slowed as he entered the graveyard, the vehicle hidden from the main road by the trees and headstones that marked the graves. The sounds of sirens diminished as they drove farther into the burial grounds. After three minutes, he stopped and opened the map.

“The second guy you hit was still alive,” Travis said.

“Shit. I thought I hit him a bit high and to the left.” Alain wiped some perspiration from his forehead. He looked distraught.

“Don't worry about it. He
did
have a radio, though, and I'm pretty sure he called someone before I got it away from him.”

“That's bad, isn't it?” Samantha said, still shaking.

“Oh, yeah,” Travis said quietly. “It's bad. The radio he was using has a maximum range of a few miles, so whomever he called is close. And these guys are professionals. They're not going to keep missing.”

Samantha sat quietly as the men discussed which route to take. This had become a nightmare, except the corpses were real. She had unleashed a chain of events with no upside. The diamonds she had uncovered in the depths of Africa were responsible for the death and suffering that was now clinging to her. She'd known going in that the bane of precious stones was misery and now that misery had become a real, tangible thing.

Sometimes, diamonds weren't a girl's best friend. Sometimes they were just plain ugly.

The two-way radio was filled with static, but the voice was discernable. Two men dead, the caller badly wounded and without a weapon. McNeil was approaching, gun outstretched. The voice again gave the location and a quick description of the Jeep McNeil was driving. Then silence. Liam O'Donnell listened for a few moments, then handed it off to the man in the front passenger seat of the van.

“How far are we from the old wall?” he asked. A map of Cairo sat on the passenger's lap.

“Only two or three minutes. Take the next right,” the man replied.

O'Donnell drove on in punctuated silence for the next couple of minutes, taking directions from his navigator as they approached the old wall. Two blocks away, they saw a congregation of police and emergency vehicles outside a low-rise office building opposite the wall. O'Donnell kept his speed low and stole a quick glance as they passed the carnage. Directly in front of the main entrance, a sheet covered a prone figure. The Fiat his men had been driving was parked nearby. On the far side of the building, he saw two bodies lying on the dry earth just outside the exit door. Emergency crews were working on one; the other was covered with a sheet. O'Donnell took in the angles as he cruised by, then stopped four blocks farther up the road. Immediately opposite them sat the old wall of Cairo, and the Gate of Conquests. O'Donnell stepped from the van and looked around for a minute, then got back in and turned to his men.

“Brent reported them moving north toward the wall. That would bring them out just ahead of us.” He engaged the transmission and pulled up another hundred yards to the intersection just past the massive gate. “If McNeil turned this corner, that would put his vehicle out of sight for almost a minute. Lots of time to dump off whoever's with him.” He pointed to the gate. “If I were in his position, I'd send a shooter up to higher ground, then try to draw whoever is following me from their vehicle and have the sniper take them out. That would explain the body in front of the building.”

O'Donnell's mobile phone rang and he punched the send button. Kerrigan's voice filled his ear.

“What the hell is going on? And don't tell me you guys are behind all this shooting at the old wall.”

“It was us,” O'Donnell admitted. “The first team had no choice. They had a visual, but the targets were moving too quickly for the second team to cut them off. They had to act.”

“It's all over the news. Who's under those sheets?”

“Two of team one are gone, one is still alive.”

“Where's Carlson?”

“We're close to them. I hope to have them back visually within the hour. They shouldn't be too hard to spot. They're driving a white '85 Jeep Wagoneer. There's not a lot of those around Cairo.”