Dewey waited, gun cocked. The killer with the orange shirt appeared, running into the road, then down the middle of it toward him. Dewey waited another second, then two, watching the killer come toward him, oblivious to the fact that he was waiting for him in front of the van, hidden behind the back bumper of a pickup.
Dewey steadied his arm, then squeezed the Colt’s trigger, firing a silenced bullet across half a block into the killer’s chest, knocking him backward. The body dropped into the middle of the street. A pool of blood quickly spread onto the black tar as the terrorist was killed.
Dewey turned. He looked around again for others as he listened for the other killer, the one at the rear of the van.
Dewey crouched and waited. He heard the terrorist begin to move along the passenger side of the van. Dewey remained in a crouch, close to the blacktop. He ducked and looked beneath the van. He saw the silhouette of two legs stepping slowly toward the front of the van.
Dewey waited. One second, ten seconds, then fifteen. He waited in a crouch at the front for nearly half a minute. Drops of sweat cascaded down his face, drenching his hands, arms, legs, and shirt. He heard the faint scratch of movement, denim, a leg shifting in space, just a whisper. He looked up. Above his head, the black tip of a silencer emerged from behind the edge of the van.
Dewey lunged, grabbing the killer’s weapon just as bullets started to fly from the machine gun’s silencer. Dewey felt the heat of the gun barrel, but held on. A shower of slugs struck a windshield across the street, shattering it. Dewey pulled back sharply and ripped the weapon from the killer’s arms. The hail of bullets ceased as Dewey threw the machine gun to the blacktop. The startled terrorist was frozen in place for a second, then reached for Dewey’s neck. He slammed his knee into Dewey’s abdomen. His fists struck wildly. A fist hit Dewey’s mouth and Dewey tasted blood. The killer hit him again, a sharp punch to Dewey’s chest, the blow absorbed by a wall of muscles.
Dewey turned, his back to the killer for just an instant, then wheeled his left foot in a vicious roundhouse kick to the Arab’s stomach. The terrorist was knocked back a few steps, moaning, clutching his chest. Dewey followed the kick with a fierce swing to the Arab’s face, crushing the killer’s nose, blood exploding out everywhere. Another strike, this time Dewey’s left fist to now-cracked ribs. The terrorist fell backward onto the sidewalk, and reached inside his pocket, pulling out a cell phone. Dewey reached down and tore the cell from the man’s grip before he could say something. Frisking him, he found a handgun in the killer’s ankle holster and removed it. Incapacitated, the Arab grunted from the pain.
Dewey stood over the man. He needed to move quickly, before someone discovered the corpse of the other man, the thug in the orange shirt, in the middle of the road. He tucked his handgun into the small of his back and reached for his knife. As the terrorist struggled to breathe, Dewey knelt atop his chest and stuck the tip of the combat blade into his mouth. He pushed the blade in, vertically, so that the jagged teeth along the upper blade ran across the top of the terrorist’s mouth, against his upper teeth, and the razor-sharp blade of the knife was pressed into the man’s lower teeth.
Slowly, Dewey pushed the blade down into the killer’s mouth. He stopped when it was a few inches in. The knife now propped the terrorist’s mouth wide open. Biting down or struggling in any way was futile; the blade would sever the man’s tongue and lip. Both men knew that one last push by Dewey and the knife could easily go straight through to the man’s spine, killing him. He writhed in pain, as blood poured like water from his lips and mouth down his chin. In the pale glow of a distant lamppost, the terrorist’s brown, bloodshot eyes looked up at Dewey, helpless.
With the thick steel blade propping the man’s mouth open, Dewey reached into the man’s mouth, feeling the molars until one loosened. He tore the fake tooth from the mouth and looked at it quickly. The cyanide pill was the size of a pinhead.
The terrorist was silent.
“Talk and I’ll let you eat the cyanide,” said Dewey. “Don’t talk and I’ll tie you up. The police will find you. You’ll be at Guantánamo in a day or two. They’ll torture more information out of you than you ever thought you knew. Aswan Fortuna will exterminate your family by the end of the week out of revenge.”
The killer grunted.
“How many?” demanded Dewey. He glanced down the sidewalk both ways, an eye out for any others, but saw no one. “
How many
?” Dewey pushed the blade half an inch further in. The terrorist grunted, gagging.
“Seven,” the man said awkwardly as the blade held against his lips and teeth.
“Where are the others?”
“Coming. Nearby.”
“How close are you? Do you know where I live?”
The terrorist shook his head. “No. But they have your friend from the bar by now. They’ll find out from him and go there next.”
“If they harm anyone—”
“It’s too late. He’s a dead man.”
Dewey shook his head back and forth as his anger boiled over. It took everything he had to restrain himself.
“Al-Qaeda?”
“Hezbollah.”
“Are your instructions to kill me or take me back to Beirut?”
The terrorist shook his head, back and forth again.
“Kill.” The edges of the terrorist’s mouth flared up at each end, a slight grin.
Dewey stared at the young terrorist. It was time.
“Break my neck,” whispered the killer, as if sensing Dewey’s thoughts. “Please. A soldier’s death.”
Dewey leaned forward. He placed his left hand on the side of the man’s neck. With his right hand, he grabbed the man’s forehead.
“Aswan will never stop,” whispered the young terrorist.
Dewey said nothing.
In a swift motion, Dewey ripped the man’s forehead to the side as he held his spine steady. The dull snap of the terrorist’s neck echoed down the empty street.
Dewey stood up and walked back to Main Street. He walked past shop windows, a diving store, a bikini shop, until he saw the neon sign a block away:
WHITEY’S
.
His eyes were drawn to the street in front of the bar. A chill ran from his ankles up his back. Across the street from the entrance stood two men. Short-cropped hair, one was in a black windbreaker, the other in a red, white, and blue warm-up jacket, watching the entrance to the bar like wolves. It was in their eyes.
Dewey looked for others. Seeing no one else, he turned and walked away from the bar. He took his time, a tourist out for a stroll. After two blocks, he crossed to the elevated boardwalk above the beach. He went to the railing, next to a couple, kissing and oblivious. Dewey leaned down, jumped through the railing slats and onto the sand ten feet below the boardwalk, his feet striking first. He rolled and then looked up. The couple was still kissing, unaware.
Dewey walked, hidden in the dark recess of the overhanging boardwalk. When he reached the place where he knew the two men were waiting, he pulled the silenced Colt from his back.
Dewey paused. The terrorists were swarming. The first had seen him, and now that knowledge was disseminated through the group. He realized now the danger in which he’d inadvertently placed Talbot, not to mention Charlotte.
He stepped away from the darkness so that he could see the boardwalk above him. Hidden by the shadows, he watched another couple standing against the railing, holding hands, their backs to the ocean and to him. Behind them, Dewey could see the tops of the shoulders of the two killers, and their heads, which shifted about as they searched for him. He raised the .45. He aimed it in the only open space he could find that had a direct angle: between the legs of the young girl, now leaning toward the boy and kissing him. The taller terrorist leaned in, whispered something in the other killer’s ear. Dewey squeezed the trigger. The bullet tore through the humid air and the terrorist’s head jolted left, a millisecond later the left side of his skull exploded outward toward the car traffic. The man crumpled, falling awkwardly to the sidewalk at the feet of the other terrorist.
The other Arab shuddered as he stared at his dead partner and tried to process what had just happened. Momentarily confused, he struggled to regain his composure and began to look for the source of the bullet. Dewey, invisible in the darkness, steadied his firing arm and aimed. Before the man could collect himself enough to run, he triggered the .45 again. A silenced bullet whistled through the same space and struck the terrorist in the right eye. His body was jerked violently backward, thrown into the air, pummeled in a roll onto the crowded street.
Dewey ran down the cool sand of the beach, beneath the protection of the boardwalk. After several hundred yards, he climbed up from the beach, back onto the boardwalk, and sprinted toward the bar.
Behind him, the sound of screams ricocheted across the crowded street. Sirens pealed in the distance. People ran in every direction, trying to get away from the violence.
At Whitey’s, Dewey opened the door to the crowded bar. It was loud, and the drunken crowd had no clue about the chaos just outside the door. He pushed through the crowd, looking for Talbot, but he was gone. He looked for Charlotte. He saw the back of her head, the long brown hair, halfway through the room. Her arm was held tightly by a tall man with long black hair, who was forcing her from the bar stool. He had her arm twisted behind her back and with his other hand he pressed what was almost certainly a handgun against her side. The boisterous, drunken crowd was oblivious to it all.
Dewey pushed hard through the crowd, elbowing aside anyone in his path. One man, a large, overweight tourist in a bright yellow golf shirt, sunburned, pushed back, yelled an obscenity at Dewey, but Dewey simply raised his right arm and brushed him to the side. By the time Dewey reached her and her abductor, Charlotte was near the door. Dewey reached down to his ankle and pulled the knife from its sheath. He approached the terrorist from behind, slipping past a blond woman giggling with her friends.
Dewey wrapped his right arm around the killer’s front, plunged the knife between his third and fourth ribs, yanked sideways, and ripped the blade through the man’s heart. Just as quickly, he pulled the blade out. The killer grunted, then tumbled to the hardwood of the barroom floor. Dewey left the killer in a bloody clump on the ground.
The blond woman looked to her right. Her laughter turned to shock as she saw the terrorist falling to the ground and she screamed. The crowd split and several more screams pierced the air as people realized a killing had just taken place in front of them.
Charlotte stared at the dead man on the ground. Then her eyes drifted up to Dewey’s arm, covered in crimson, his hand clutching the blade. Her fear was pure and innocent and there was nothing he could say, there wasn’t time. Dewey grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the door.
“What’s happening?” Charlotte whispered slowly.
“Where’s Talbot?” Dewey pulled her past a line of patrons, frozen in fear, out through the front door onto the street.
“They took him. Just now. Two men.”
“Where’s your car?” he asked calmly.
She pointed and they walked quickly down a side street as the sound of sirens, now coming from all directions, filled the night air. The sidewalk was emptying quickly now, as people ran from the scene of the dead men in the middle of the street. Charlotte caught sight of the two dead terrorists, lying in the street across from the bar, blood pooled on the blacktop. She audibly gasped.
“What are you going to do to me?” she asked.
“I’m not going to hurt you, if that’s what you’re asking,” said Dewey as he led her away.
“You just killed a man.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He was a terrorist,” said Dewey as he directed Charlotte down a side street, toward where she had pointed.
She tried to pull away from him, but he held her hand tightly with his clean hand. In his right hand, now covered in blood, he pulled the .45 from the small of his back. They were a block off the main street and Dewey glanced around, searching for other terrorists who might have marked him.
“It’s hard for you to understand this,” Dewey continued. He stopped in a shadow, scanned the darkened side street quickly with his eyes, then looked at Charlotte. “There’s a war going on. It’s mostly invisible to you, but that’s an illusion. Tonight, you’re seeing the real world, Charlotte.”
“My head is spinning,” she cried softly. “I’m scared.”
“Where’s your car?” he asked.
Charlotte pointed to the next block. Dewey picked up the pace, keeping hold of her arm.
“I need you to do something for me, Charlotte.”
“What is it?”
“I need you to trust me.”
A low yell came from down the street. The voice was unmistakable: Talbot. Then, a door slammed, an engine started, followed by the screech of tires. Dewey turned his head and saw the flash of the car’s red lights crossing the road less than a block away as it tore away.
“How many men did you kill?” Charlotte asked.
“I’ve killed five men tonight,” said Dewey, running now, still holding her arm. “Those men were all part of a team that came here to kill me. That man would’ve tortured you for information, then killed you. All because you spoke with me.”
“Why do they want to kill you?”
“I killed one of their leaders.”
They reached a black Porsche. “Is this yours?”
“Yes,” she said.
Dewey pointed to the car in front of the Porsche, a sedan.
“Climb under that car,” said Dewey. “Wait for the police to arrive. Don’t move until they get here.”
“Who are you?” Charlotte asked as she looked at Dewey one last time. “You’re not a rancher.”
“No,” Dewey said as he quickly surveyed the dark street, his blood-soaked hand clutching the steel of the Colt in front of him, cocked to fire. “I’m not a rancher.”
AIR FORCE ONE
The Gulfstream G650 tore into the sky over New Delhi. Within five minutes, the jet was at 18,000 feet, flying through a thin cloud line, tearing back home at 700 miles per hour, protected by an invisible triangle formed by a lead F/A-18 U.S. Navy war jet, and trailed at each wing by two more Navy fighter jets.