The Disciple

The self-propelled howitzer was covered with very light steel, just enough to stop rifle bullets and shrapnel. A tank shell would go through it like a bullet through paper. Not having armor plate on the vehicle made Joe Mottaki feel naked. On the other hand, the howitzer was an artillery piece, and the shells in the vehicle were general purpose. In theory, they should penetrate a tank’s armor. If the gu

He could. The gun bellowed, the tracked vehicle rocked from the recoil, and the tank on the boulevard, almost a mile away and head on, coming straight for the howitzer, disappeared in a tremendous flash.

When the IR scope cleared and Joe could see, the tank was not moving. The gun barrel was pointed down and to the left.

“Where’s the other one?” he asked the gu

“Du

Joe looked at his watch. Eight minutes had passed since the first shot. Carmellini wanted ten.

“Put another one in the ministry. Shoot at something intact.”

“Roger that. By the way, we only have seven more rounds.”

“Counting the one in the breech?”

“Yes.”

The gu

The footsteps receded. The tiny whine of the electric motor on the safe door had stopped.

I checked. The combination was there. I took the apparatus off the safe door, took a deep breath and tried the handle. It gave. I pulled the door open.

Oh yes! There was a laptop in there. I grabbed it, pulled out stacks of paper and threw them around. If there was another computer in there, I didn’t want to overlook it. No, there was only the one. I added it to the backpack, pulled the straps around my shoulders, went to the door to the office, put my ear against it. Silence.

There was no way around it-I had to go through that door. Since the office lacked windows, that door was the only exit.

“Hurry up, Tommy!” That was G. W.

I pulled the goggles back on, looked through the door to see if I could make out figures in infrared. The hall appeared empty.

With the Ruger in my hand, my thumb on the safety and the backpack on my back, I twisted the doorknob slowly and pulled the door open.

Nothing happened.

I looked across the corridor at the blank wall, then eased my head out so I could see down to the left. Pulled the door completely open and looked right. The hallway appeared empty. Of course, the darkness was Stygian, but the goggles allowed me to see in IR. What I saw was a corridor empty of humans.

No more impacts from howitzer shells, so the big building was relatively silent. I hoped and prayed all the people had bailed.

The staircase I had descended was two doors down on the other side of the hallway. I took a deep breath and came slowly out of the Targeting Office, pulled the door shut behind me and walked along the corridor toward the stairs. I paused there, looked up the stairs… empty. Empty all the way to the landing. There I would have to turn 180 degrees and climb another flight to the ground floor, where I had come in.

Perhaps I should go back, put the C-4 against the outside wall. It would blow a hole I could pop through to the sidewalk. Where I might be gu

When that C-4 went off, I decided, I wanted to be as far from this building as possible and ru

I started up the stairs. Got to the landing, stood and listened… and heard nothing. So I went around the corner-and found myself staring at the business end of an AK-47 held by a soldier sitting on the stairs.

He wasn’t wearing night vision goggles, but he had that weapon pointed right at my belly button and he was staring straight at me. He said something in Persian that I didn’t catch.

I froze. For about half a second I thought about shooting him, but the thought didn’t get far. The Ruger fell from my grasp and made a metallic clank as it hit the steps.

A flashlight illuminated me. The holder of the light was at the top of the stairs. That much, at least, I could see in the goggles.

The sitting soldier turned on a flashlight, studied me for a moment, then rose and picked up the Ruger and helped himself to the Kimber 1911, which he pulled from the holster on the left side of my web belt.

The man at the top of the stairs said something loudly, then came down, carefully keeping his light pointed right in my face.

One of them pulled out handcuffs while the other stood on the second step up, about five feet in front of me, with his submachine gun leveled on my belly button. He gestured with the barrel for me to raise my hands higher.

I wondered if they were told to bring me in alive regardless, or to shoot me dead if I resisted.

The other came down the stairs and approached from my right. He released his weapon, which hung on a strap slung over his neck and shoulder, and reached for my right wrist. Snapped one of the cuffs over it, then reached for my left.

I drove my left hand under his chin as hard as I could, with the fingers curled back halfway. Drove my knuckles into his Adam’s apple with all the force I could generate, which was quite a bit since I had enough adrenaline in my blood to run an Olympic athlete for a month, and I managed to turn a little, getting my weight into the blow. I tried to drive my fist right through his neck, intentionally not trying to stop the punch. I heard his Adam’s apple snap, crushed, as he fell away from me.

“Tommy?” I heard G. W.’s voice in my ear; then I lost the headset.

I didn’t let my guy fall. I had him with my right hand now and pushed him with all my strength toward his pal, who had tried to back away and tripped and was now sitting on a stair. He triggered a burst right into the guy’s back.

I followed the handcuff man right onto the gunman, who went over backward even as he tried to get out of the way.

I was on him like a cat, pushing the gun barrel aside and smashing him with my right fist. The first blow shattered his nose, sending blood flying everywhere. I hit him again and again as fast as I could. The third punch snapped his neck. I felt it go and released the body.

I got up breathing hard. This whole encounter had taken no more than fifteen seconds. As I groped for my pistols, which were on the floor, another shell exploded in the building and the windows rattled.

A police car pulled up fifty yards from the Raad-2, and the man at the wheel jumped out. He had an AK- 47 in his hands and ripped off a burst. The bullets pinging against the armor alerted Joe Mottaki to the cop’s presence.

He had the gu

The cop with the AK was hit by some of the pieces of the car and thrown for twenty feet. He didn’t rise from the pavement.

Mottaki had the gu

The third floor of the building to his left exploded, showering the street with brick and dust.