American operator, p.34
American Operator, page 34
part #4 of Tier One Series
“Check.”
“Right at this intersection, Nargileci Street.”
Dempsey rounded the bend and sprinted down the narrow one-way street lined with little merchant shops along each side. At the end of the street, about a hundred meters away, he saw a stone wall.
“It’s a dead end,” he huffed.
“No, it just looks that way from your position. It’s an intersection. At the T, turn left and head north,” Smith said.
Dempsey listened as a discussion between Baldwin and Smith broke out, both their voices more distant. “You think Rook is going to keep east on Vasif Cinar, or do you think he’ll go north on Uzun Carsi?”
“If he wanted to disappear, he should have fled to the Grand Bazaar. Kapali Carsi is one of the largest covered markets on earth, with thousands of shops. We never could have tracked him in there,” Baldwin said.
If not for the fact he was sprinting, Dempsey would have sighed with relief. Cat-and-mouse chases and gun battles in massive covered bazaars? Been there, done that in Tehran. Not today, no thank you.
“Maybe Rook doesn’t know this area,” Smith said.
“That, or he thinks the odds of making his planned EXFIL are better than going to ground and trying to survive the coming manhunt.”
“Why not exploit the chaos while you can?” Smith said.
“Exactly.”
“In that case, looks to me like Rook has two viable escape options: the highway . . .”
“Or a boat.”
“Precisely.”
“As fun as this is, just tell me where to turn?” Dempsey growled. His leg muscles were burning now with lactic acid, and he was beginning to get winded.
“Interesting, Rook stayed east on Vasif,” Baldwin said, apparently ignoring Dempsey now.
“Does that alley go through?” Smith asked, still talking to Baldwin.
“Yes, I think so. If we turn John here, have him cut this corner, and we accelerate him, then he should intercept the target here.”
“I’m not a drone, guys,” Dempsey wheezed, wondering how much longer he could maintain this blistering pace.
“Let’s do it,” Smith replied. Then his voice became crisper as he said, “Falcon, there’s a narrow alley coming up on your right in fifteen meters. Turn there and you’ll cut the corner. If you can pick up the pace, you’ll be right on the shooter’s heels when you emerge.”
“Check.”
Maintaining speed was getting more difficult as he navigated deeper into the warren of shops and cafés. The narrow sidewalks were paved, but he couldn’t use them because of the hordes of people and all the other crap strewn about everywhere. Baskets, luggage, boxes, wheeled shopping caddies, and display racks—stuff that should have been inside the stores—had migrated out onto the sidewalks, allowing the merchants to extend their “showrooms” all the way to the curb. The impassable sidewalks forced him to run down the center of the street, which was lined with cobblestones rather than asphalt, making him one loose stone away from a pursuit-ending ankle roll.
He spied the narrow alley ahead and banked right.
As he did, a little boy darted out in front of him, laughing and running from his mother. Dempsey spied the kid just in time and hurdled him without breaking stride. The Turkish man carrying boxes, however, did not fare so well. Dempsey sent the man and his boxes airborne.
“Careful, Falcon,” Baldwin chastised.
Dempsey gritted his teeth instead of responding. Besides, he was too winded to talk anymore. He just kept his eyes forward, feet pounding the ground and arms pumping.
Don’t think about the pain. You’re a machine . . . a machine with one objective.
“You’re looking good, Falcon,” Smith said. “If you can keep your speed on, you’ll intersect Vasif Cinar just behind the target, who is heading east. He just slowed to a walk and ditched the gray jacket he was wearing. He probably thinks he’s clear . . . He’s on the north sidewalk, in front of a six- or seven-story-tall apartment building.”
“Check.”
Fifteen seconds later, Dempsey reached the intersection where the alley merged into Vasif Cinar, and the crowd was much thinner. Here the shops seemed to be closed—their storefronts’ corrugated metal roll-down doors or accordion-style, expandable metal grates closed to keep out looters. He rounded the bend without slowing and scanned for the shooter: six-foot-tall male, lean, broad shoulders, dark hair—bing, that’s him.
As if there was a psychic link between them, the shooter looked over his shoulder and met Dempsey’s eyes. Like a jackrabbit suddenly confronted by a coyote, the man took off, but instead of running away, he turned left and ran straight toward a six-foot concrete wall topped with a five-foot metal fence rimmed in turn with a spiral of wound razor wire that cordoned off a courtyard between two buildings.
I’ve got you, asshole.
What happened next defied the laws of physics—the assassin half ran, half climbed up the wall where it intersected the eastern building like he was a computer-generated Hollywood special effect. He planted his left foot on the vertical surface and propelled himself upward, then grabbed a round metal drainage pipe running down the corner of the building. He shimmied up the pipe as effortlessly as a spider monkey up the trunk of a tree—hand over hand, foot over foot—until he was above the razor-wire coil, then pushed off the corner of the building into a backward swan dive over the wire, executing a back tuck roll in midair. Dempsey couldn’t see the landing, but the sound of footsteps pounding away told him the sonuvabitch had landed like a cat.
“What the fuck was that?” Dempsey said, standing there like an idiot, panting and gawking at the wall.
“That, if I’m not mistaken, was parkour,” Baldwin said.
“No shit.”
“Don’t just stand there, Falcon; go get him,” Smith said with the slightest hint of sarcasm in his voice.
“I’m a SEAL, not a fucking spider monkey,” Dempsey said through gritted teeth. “Do you still have eyes on him?”
“The courtyard is packed with trees. We lost him under the foliage, but it extends all the way to the next block. You could—”
“I’m going around,” Dempsey interrupted and took off running to intercept his foe on the other side of the block.
CHAPTER 50
Complacency and hubris . . .
Valerian had allowed himself to fall prey to both enemies Arkady had spent years warning him about.
The American operator was more than just a professional. He was a relentless machine. Valerian’s initial assessment that he would have to kill the American to escape had been correct. Unfortunately, the American was not cooperating. Valerian had put two rounds in his chest and shot his teammate back in the tunnel, yet still the American pursued—appearing seemingly out of nowhere each time Valerian thought he was clear. This man was either a magician, a tactical prophet, or perhaps the Angel of Death incarnate.
The pain in his left side was both a liability and a comfort. He’d needed this reminder of his mortality. He needed this reminder that he was capable of far more than just cracking walnuts and inflicting psychological damage. His body was a weapon. The loss of the HK meant he needed to harness all his power, exploit all his talents. Like the American, he, too, could be a machine—relentless and deadly.
He scanned the courtyard for exits and options. The green space had many trees, their bases surrounded by mulch and brick, but the branches were either too high to grasp or too thin to support his weight. Hiding here was untenable, which meant executing an ambush was his only option. The American would be coming around the block from the right in a few seconds. He sprinted across the courtyard to the corner and looked up. A couple sat at a bistro table along the railing of a second-story veranda café. They looked at him, both curious and dismayed. He smiled, gave a cordial nod, and then picked up a brick and tossed it over the railing, where it landed with a resounding thud. He then backpedaled five paces, set his jaw, and sprinted toward the exterior wall of the restaurant. He leaped, climbed, and leaped again, using his hard, powerful body to exploit physics and defy gravity once more.
A split second later, he was perched on the balcony railing, holding the brick and ready to descend on his foe . . . a foe who was turning a slow circle in the street below, scanning everywhere but up.
CHAPTER 51
Dempsey spun in a slow circle, his weapon clutched in both hands, the muzzle held level at the ready position. “I don’t see him, Eagle. Do you have a visual?”
“Negative, Falcon” came Smith’s voice, followed a heartbeat later by “Look out, John!”
Dempsey whirled just in time to see a shadow descending from above. In that split second, his mind filled in all the relevant tactical details—the assassin had leaped off the second-story balcony of the café on the corner and was bringing a brick down toward the top of Dempsey’s skull. Dempsey curled at the waist, ducking his head. The assassin landed and smashed the brick into the middle of Dempsey’s back. The force of the blow drove Dempsey to his knees, accompanied by a loud, sickening thud. Dempsey grunted, feeling a twinge of pain in his spine, but quickly assessed that the blow had not fractured any of his vertebrae. He knew what a broken back felt like—been there, done that. For the second time today, the antiballistic SAPI plates in his kit had saved his ass.
Reflex took over and Dempsey rolled out of the engagement zone, then up into a kneeling crouch. He brought his Sig up to where the assassin had been, but his foe had repositioned and promptly kicked the pistol out of Dempsey’s hand. The weapon flew five feet and clattered across the cobblestones into a puddle. Dempsey looked at his opponent in disbelief as a brick—yes, an actual brick—flew at his face. He juked left, and the brick sailed past him and hit the ground with a resounding crack.
For the first time, Dempsey got a good look at the killer. The man standing in front of him looked like, well, him. He stood the same height—six foot one, give or take an inch—and had the same cruiserweight boxer’s build. They shared the same square jawline and dark hair and wore nearly identical beards. The only real distinguishing characteristic between them—other than a decade’s separation in age—was in the eyes. Where Dempsey’s Irish-green irises were flecked with gold, this man stared back at him with slate-blue eyes the color of an Arctic sea. As Dempsey rose to his feet, he performed a quick survey of the assassin’s body, looking for signs of a bloody wound he could exploit in the imminent melee.
His adversary didn’t give him time to finish the survey.
The exchange happened so fast, Dempsey didn’t have time to think. The operator inside, the one with two decades of close quarters combat training and dozens of real-world engagements, took control. The guiding principle of close quarters combat was simple—use only lethal techniques to maximize damage and injury to an opponent as quickly as possible. Strike fast and first with one’s hardest surfaces—fists, elbows, knees—into an opponent’s most vulnerable anatomy, like the throat, groin, stomach, eyes, and kidneys. In the real world, Dempsey had never been in a hand-to-hand engagement that lasted more than a few seconds.
This one lasted eleven.
The assassin took a half step and then snapped a front kick at Dempsey’s midsection, but Dempsey instinctively pivoted his hips away from the blow. Wasting no energy of movement, Dempsey used the rotation to throw his first strike, a right elbow, with lightning speed toward the assassin’s neck. Too late, he realized that the killer had rotated the mirror opposite of Dempsey’s own pivot, and the elbow missed. But the distance was close, and Dempsey grabbed the shooter by the vest and pulled him in and off balance while driving his knee up to strike the groin. The knee missed, connecting instead with the shooter’s inner thigh. He threw a second knee, and this time the blow landed. His adversary huffed and buckled at the waist. Dempsey pressed in, putting all of his momentum into an uppercut that struck the assassin’s jaw, plowing the shooter’s head up and back. Dempsey spun in a half circle, his left elbow accelerating toward where the man’s temple should have been, but instead, his breath exploded out of his lungs as the assassin’s left fist struck deep into his abdomen. Dempsey’s rhythm broken, the assassin followed with a quick snap jab that caught Dempsey square in the nose. Pain mushroomed and twin rivers of blood gushed from his nostrils; his vision blurred as his eyes flooded with involuntary tears. He blinked his vision clear just in time to see a second jab flying toward his face. He bowed his head, taking the punch on the top of his crown. On impact, he heard a loud crack. Despite the spike of pain he felt, Dempsey knew it wasn’t his skull he’d heard doing the cracking.
Rage erupted inside him, and his right hand found the hilt of the SOG bowie strapped across his kit. I’m going to fucking gut you, he thought, unsheathing the knife. His gaze flicked to his opponent’s face, which, in that instant, was contorted in pain as he favored his broken right hand. Dempsey thrust the knife straight at his opponent’s left eye, hearing the primal grunt from his own throat as he drove his body weight behind the accelerating blade. The assassin slipped the strike, twisting his head right, but wasn’t fast enough, and the blade opened a gash in his left cheek.
Dempsey locked eyes with the killer and settled into a combat stance as his opponent did the same, bobbing up and down on the balls of his feet. Instead of pulling a blade of his own, the assassin suddenly flipped backward, kicking Dempsey’s right wrist and then executing an impossible half twist in midair. The killer landed incredibly on his feet, facing a quarter turn away from Dempsey, his fists up and ready for the next strike. Dempsey’s knife arced through the air and clanged on the cobblestones a few meters away. Then, before Dempsey could launch his next assault, his foe turned and fled, sprinting east with astounding speed. Dempsey looked left to where his Sig had landed in the puddle and saw that it was no longer there. He scanned the blank faces of the handful of onlookers who had gathered to watch the battle.
“Where’s my gun?”
No one answered.
“Who took my fucking gun?” he shouted, dragging his laser beam gaze across the circle of people around him.
Eyes averted, hands went into pockets, and backs turned. He could only imagine the sight he must be, a raving modern-day gladiator brawling in the streets, blood raining down from his saturated mustache and beard. A young Turk, no more than fifteen years old, hesitantly pointed at the street. Dempsey followed the boy’s finger to a black handgun two meters behind him and opposite the direction where the assassin had knocked the Sig out of Dempsey’s hand. Instead of his Sig P226, he saw the HK SFP9 lying on the cobblestone street, half swallowed in a pothole. Dempsey gave the kid a curt nod, then scooped up the weapon, which must have fallen out of his waistband during the melee.
“Falcon One, this is Eagle. We have your tango heading east on Sabuncu Han toward the Misir Çarşisi.”
“What’s the Misir Çarşisi?” Dempsey asked, his spent body churning like a lumbering locomotive engine being slowly brought back up to speed as he resumed the pursuit.
“A famous spice market,” Baldwin said. “If he goes inside, we’ll lose him.”
“Check.”
Dempsey’s broken nose was still streaming blood, and the swelling and mucus filling his nasal passages made it harder to breathe. His eyes were still watering, and the top of his head and his neck ached. Chasing this sonuvabitch was hard enough when he’d been fresh, but now he was tired and battered. He pushed all thoughts of pain and fatigue from his mind and focused on his single objective—stop the target.
He dug deep, channeled his inner SEAL, and accelerated.
“Do you have a visual on Rook?” came Smith’s voice.
“Yes,” Dempsey said, locking his gaze on the fleeing assassin forty meters away, heading toward a throng of people milling about in the street market outside the Misir Çarşisi . . . but not for long. A commotion erupted as the killer plowed through the crowd, knocking unwitting pedestrians right and left. A heavyset man fell into a cart of open spice containers; a multihued explosion of yellow curry, orange turmeric, and red chili powder dusted everyone within a two-meter radius and sent people running and coughing. Dempsey inhaled before he hit the spice cloud and held his breath as he sprinted through the commotion. The assassin was slowing, forced to maneuver through the crowd, which stayed conveniently parted for Dempsey in the assassin’s wake. The gap was closing.
The shooter disappeared around a corner, and Dempsey followed him through what turned out to be the final dogleg turn exiting the convoluted alleys and narrow intersecting streets that made up the market district of historic Istanbul. He emerged onto a massive open-air stone courtyard situated between the Misir Çarşisi and a six-lane coastal roadway that rimmed the Istanbul peninsula. Locals and tourists alike milled about—some watching street performers, others taking pictures of the Yeni Cami mosque and its iconic twin minarets—but the crowd density was manageable.
Dempsey raised his HK and took aim at the assassin’s back, center of mass. But before he could squeeze the trigger, his adversary showed almost supernatural prescience by running into the middle of a tour group.
“Terrorist! Terrorist gunman!” Rook was screaming and pointing back at Dempsey. Pandemonium erupted as everyone within earshot panicked, screaming and darting this way and that, mirroring the chaotic action of the agitated flock of seagulls squawking overhead.
Cursing, Dempsey lowered his weapon and resumed chase as the assassin sprinted toward the highway. Horns blared and tires squealed as the killer crossed six lanes of traffic—dodging, jumping, and spinning over and around moving vehicles.
Who the hell is this guy? Dempsey thought as he followed into traffic, choosing to navigate the busy thoroughfare the simple, old-fashioned way—by stopping vehicles at gunpoint. When he reached the other side, he scanned the crowd for his target. In the distance, he heard police sirens wailing.
“Looks like you’re about to have company,” Smith said in his ear.
