The Sanctuary (50 page)

Kirkwood
tried to go after Evelyn, but another of the hakeem’s men was firing back from behind the
mazar
, and the fire directed at him was also pinning
Kirkwood
to his cover. He glanced to the far end of the cemetery and spotted Corben, hustling the mokhtar and his family to safety and helping his children over a kink in the wall. The hakeem spotted him too and barked at the man crouched with him to stop them. Corben also heard the shout and turned. The gunman raised his weapon, looking for the shot. Corben pushed the mokhtar over the sag in the wall and leapt over it himself just as a couple of bullets bit into the bricks behind him.

More rounds crunched into the markers around
Kirkwood
, looking for the shooter sheltering behind the small monument. To his left, the hakeem was still huddled against the low wall, his arm clasped around Evelyn’s throat, but he was inching his way to the opposite, downhill side of the cemetery, pulling Evelyn along with him. Beyond the wall lay a forest of tall poplars.
Kirkwood
swallowed hard. They were at the far end of the village, and whoever was firing at them was coming from the opposite direction. They weren’t surrounded. And that meant the hakeem could potentially escape.

Kirkwood
couldn’t allow him to take Evelyn again. But right now, he was helpless to do anything about it. He watched with roiling frustration as the third surviving member of the hakeem’s squad, who was huddling behind the wall by the entrance to the graveyard, sat up and sprayed a cartridge-load of bullets at his attackers, ducked and reloaded, then rose again and spat out some more rounds before lurching backwards violently, the back of his head blown open. The shooter who’d gotten him then made the mistake of leaning out of his cover recklessly to check out his success. The gunman escorting the hakeem rose up and dropped him with a single bullet to the chest.

The hakeem and Evelyn reached the edge of the cemetery.
Kirkwood
saw Evelyn try to make a run for it, but the hakeem lashed out and pinned her down ruthlessly.
Kirkwood
’s blood was boiling. He couldn’t sit back anymore. He saw the gunman close to the hakeem get hit while returning
fire,
saw the hakeem’s attention snagged by the squirming man beside him and darting terror-stricken glances over the wall, and decided he would make his move.

He bolted across the cemetery, head low, fists clenched, eyes laser-locked on the hakeem and Evelyn. No bullets came his way, and he kept rushing. He was ten feet from them when the hakeem noticed him.

The hakeem spun around just as
Kirkwood
tackled him, his left arm lunging out at the handgun in the madman’s right hand. A round went off just as he hit him, jarring his senses and sending a flash of pain erupting across his left shoulder. He heard Evelyn scream as he rode the adrenaline wave and butted a knee into the hakeem’s chest. The hakeem wheezed out heavily. Both of
Kirkwood
’s hands were now clasped around the hakeem’s handgun, fighting desperately to keep it clear. Another shot rang out, but the gun was aimed downward and the bullet harmlessly kicked up some dirt as it burrowed into the ground.

“Move away,”
Kirkwood
shouted to Evelyn, unable to take his eyes off the hakeem to judge her proximity.

The hakeem elbowed
Kirkwood
’s jaw, bone crunching against bone heavily, sending a bolt of pain searing across
Kirkwood
’s head. His grasp on the hakeem’s hand weakened, and the madman used the moment to wrestle the gun free. He swung it around at
Kirkwood
, but
Kirkwood
didn’t blink and just lunged at him with total commitment, slamming him against the wall with all of his weight and sending the handgun spinning out of his fingers and biting into the ground.

Their eyes locked in a split second of unmitigated and absolute loathing. Their eyes darted within nanoseconds of each other at the fallen weapon. Then
Kirkwood
sensed movement to his side. He turned to see the surviving gunman, the one positioned behind the
mazar
, spinning his weapon toward him. His heart missed a beat before a couple of rifle rounds punched the stonework of the monument, forcing the gunman back into cover.
Kirkwood
dived at Evelyn, pulling her to the ground before turning to face the hakeem, who gave him one final leer before clambering over the low wall and disappearing behind it.

“Come on,”
Kirkwood
yelled to Evelyn as the last surviving gunman returned fire feverishly. He crawled forward, shielding Evelyn, trying to put more gravestones between him and the shooter. The pain in his shoulder flashed angrily with every move. He’d managed a few feet when the gunman turned his attention to them again and leaned out to take another shot at them, but before he could make the kill, several rifle rounds plowed into him, knocking him backwards savagely, a burst of wild bullets from his submachine gun cutting up the still air over the cemetery before dying out with him.

An eerie stillness descended on the cemetery.
Kirkwood
eyed Evelyn, his shoulder burning, his mind racing, wondering if they were finally safe.

“Hello?” he shouted out to no one in particular, hoping that whoever had intervened was friendly.

The voice he heard back blew through him like a gale of joy. “
Kirkwood
?
Mom?”
Mia was yelling. “You okay?”

He looked at Evelyn, his face bathed with relief. “We’re fine,” he hollered back. His eyes scanning the hakeem’s fallen men and watching out for any unseen threats, he got up carefully, wincing from the pain in his shoulder.

Evelyn stood with him. Mia and a few armed men were racing down from the village.

Evelyn reached out to check his shoulder. He pulled back as she touched it, the wound throbbing with a deep, burning pain. “It’s alright,” he assured her before glancing towards the forested hill that dropped down from the cemetery.

The hakeem was still out there.

Evelyn saw it in his eyes. “Tom,” she cautioned him.

He was already striding towards the hakeem’s fallen man.

“Tom, don’t,” she urged as he leaned down and picked up the dead shooter’s submachine gun. He checked its magazine, found a couple of fresh ones on the dead man’s belt, pocketed one and rammed the other into place, and chambered a round just as Mia and Abu Barzan’s men reached them.

“Stay with your mom,”
Kirkwood
told Mia before rushing to the wall. He climbed over it awkwardly, trying to protect his injured arm, then darted a quick look at Evelyn and Mia before he disappeared down the hill.

“What are you waiting for?” Evelyn shouted at the men with Mia. “Go with him.
Sa’idoo,
” she insisted in Arabic. Help him.

They nodded and bolted after him.

K
irkwood
ran through the silent, darkening forest, the ragged bursts of his breathing pumping deafeningly in his ears, the pain in his shoulder blazing with every heavy step, his eyes scouring the trees for any sign of the hakeem. The urgent, determined footfalls of Abu Barzan’s men chased after him.

His head was feeling cloudier, his eyes heavier, as the blood loss was starting to undermine the basic functions of his body. He clenched his jaw and drew deeper, plundering his last reserves of energy, allowing his anger and his revulsion to push him on.

At the very edge of his consciousness, he heard a slow whine, an engine coming to life. It grew louder and more frenzied with each step he took, the blades of a rotor cleaving the air with increased ferocity.

The realization summoned a desperate jolt of adrenaline that carried him farther down the slope. He pictured the chopper before he saw it, imagined the hakeem waving, leering down at him as it took off and ferried him to safety, and the thought propelled him even faster.

He couldn’t let him escape.

He couldn’t even let him live.

Through the confusing interplay of light and shadow of the poplars, he caught a glimpse of the hakeem climbing into the monstrous machine. He burst out of the cover of the trees, and the full ferocity of the rotor wash and the turbine’s ear-piercing scream hit him head-on as the chopper lifted off.

The chopper, a Mi-25, was facing him. It looked like a horrific mutant wasp, its fuselage disfigured by a rash of glass cockpit bubbles and gun turrets, two small wings sticking out of its side and laden with rocket launchers and other pods. Two pilots, sitting in tandem, were at their controls, facing him through the glass, urging the chopper into a quick ascent.

Kirkwood
raised his gun and started firing.

Full auto.

One full magazine, then another.

Everything he had.

Each round found a searing echo in his shoulder, but he kept a firm grip on the machine gun, emptying its load mercilessly, showering the lumbering vulture rising before him with a torrent of bullets. He watched as they sparked off the chopper’s metal skin like darts bouncing off a tank, but he kept adjusting his aim, and a few of them managed to find the forward pilot’s bubble, the first of them drilling into it and splintering it, the next few evidently cutting into flesh and bone as a red puff gruesomely splattered the inside of the cracked windshield.

The huge chopper lurched to one side, its engine groaning into a sudden frenzy just as Abu Barzan’s men reached him and joined in. It titled at a severe angle as it sideslipped through the air, and its rotor clipped the edge of the grove of poplars. The massive blades hacked into the tips of the tall trees, and for a moment, the forest seemed like a giant web that had snared a prize catch.
Kirkwood
watched, grim-faced, his feet edging instinctively backwards, his mind fast-forwarding to the explosion that would consume the hillside and obliterate him, and he thought of Evelyn and of Mia as the Mil teetered precariously. It looked as if it were about to tilt sideways and plow into the trees, but just when it seemed
terminal,
the copilot seemed to regain control. The machine pitched back violently and rolled the other way, extricating its blades from the trap of the trees before rising into clear air.

It rotated as it rose, snubbing its attackers with its tail as it banked around before heading away from the mountain.
Kirkwood
watched it recede with a reeling horror, the rage and utter frustration flooding through him,
then
he heard something from behind, coming from higher up, from the village. It sounded like a loud snap, something he hadn’t heard before, and was quickly followed by a whooshing sound that sliced through the air above him. He looked up to see the thin contrail of a narrow, white tube that was streaking across the patchy sky, arcing its way towards the chopper, rushing forward and catching up to it. The contact triggered a small explosion that was almost immediately followed by a massive fireball, the blades of the big rotor detaching
themselves
and spinning off wildly in all directions, the hulking fuselage somersaulting over itself before plummeting to the ground and erupting in a gargantuan cloud of fire.

EVELYN AND MIA raced down the hill and found
Kirkwood
resting against a tree. His face was beaded with sweat, his skin pale and sallow, his eyes barely able to stay open, but he perked up somewhat at their sight. Two other men were with them, one of them still clutching his SA-14 shoulder-held missile launcher. The men—Abu Barzan’s Kurdish friends, as Mia explained—whooped with delight and exchanged hearty backslapping hugs with their two buddies. In the distance, the black smoke still billowed upwards into the dying light.

Evelyn watched over
Kirkwood
as Mia quickly went to work on stemming the blood loss from his wound.

He didn’t know where to start.

“Evelyn,” he told her faintly, the last vestiges of strength abandoning him, “I never…” He broke off, the sheer weight of his regret catching in his breath.

She met his gaze straight on. “Later,” she told him.

He nodded gratefully, but there was one thing he couldn’t wait for. He glanced at Mia, who read through his look. He turned to Evelyn.

“Is she…?” he asked, knowing, hoping for the answer, but his breath caught nevertheless.

“Yes.” Evelyn nodded. “She’s yours.”

“So what do we call you?” Mia asked. “Bill? Tom?
Something else maybe?”

“It’s Tom,” he confessed with a contrite half-smile, turning to Evelyn. “Tom Webster.”

A confused rush of conflicting emotions swamped him, a heady cocktail of guilt and euphoria. He couldn’t help beaming at the sight of his daughter, up here, with him, with her mother, having somehow managed to get there and save them, and now patching him up. He suddenly felt very old, but for the first time in his life, he took pleasure in it.

His pensiveness was interrupted by the sight of a figure rushing down the incline from the village. It was the mokhtar’s teenage son. His face was gripped by dread.