Liberty by Stephen Coonts Page B

shortcuts.”
    â€œHow much time do we have?” Toad asked, tugging at his lower lip.
    â€œYour guess is as good as mine.”
    â€œSo how do we go about springing Hudson and Vance?”
    â€œDamned if I know,” Jake muttered. He got out his wallet, removed the card bearing the telephone numbers that the president had given him, and reached for the officer-in-charge’s secure telephone.
    Four men, Ivan Fedorov thought. This was insane! He couldn’t shoot all of them before one escaped! Yet if he didn’t, he would have to shoot Zuair.
    He flicked off the safety of the Dragunov and settled the sight on the chest of the first man, the man who had gotten out of the passenger seat. He was probably the leader. The man was checking his weapon.
    Fedorov looked behind him at the Egyptian, trying to decide. If he shot at those men and didn’t get all of them, they might trap him in the stairwell. Shoot him in the street below.
    He had the weapon off his shoulder, ready to turn, when Zuair rushed to the wall beside him carrying a long tube. He lifted it to his shoulder. “Shoot after me,” he hissed. He steadied the tube on his shoulder.
    A ball of fire leaped from the weapon, shot across the space toward the truck as the deafening report walloped Fedorov in the face. The truck exploded.

    A grenade launcher! Zuair had fired a rocket-propelled grenade!
    The men lay on the ground, thrown there by the blast.
    â€œShoot them,” the Egyptian ordered. “Shoot them now!”
    The order jolted Fedorov from his paralysis. He put the crosshairs on the man in front of the truck, the leader he had aimed at before. The reticle danced. He forced himself to exhale, gripped the rifle tighter, and squeezed the trigger. The rifle bellowed and jumped slightly.
    He brought the crosshairs down on the man again. Fired a second time.
    â€œShoot them all!” Zuair urged, hissing in his ear. “Ensure they are dead.”
    Fedorov forced himself to pan the scope. The truck was on fire, creating a heat source that threatened to overwhelm the scope. There, a man crawling …
    He shot him. Once, twice, then searched for another target.
    One man was staggering away, on the other side of the truck, back along the street they had driven down. Fedorov shot him in the back, and he went forward on his face.
    The other man … he couldn’t find the other man! The scope was being overwhelmed with heat.
    â€œHe’s under the truck,” the Egyptian said.
    Fedorov looked around the scope at the scene. The truck was burning fiercely, lighting the scene. Now he saw the fourth man. He went back to the scope, searched the brightness …
    There! Two more shots.
    â€œLet’s go,” Zuair said hoarsely. “Before the police come.”
    â€œThe rine—here, you want it?”
    â€œLeave it,” Zuair said over his shoulder. He had already thrown down the RPG launcher and was striding for the stairs.
    Fedorov dropped the rifle and followed the Egyptian. They hustled down the dark stairs, making enough noise
to wake the dead. The truck was still burning when they exited the building.
    He tried to follow Zuair, who turned toward the warehouse. “No,” the man said roughly. “Go away. I will meet you this evening at the usual place.”
    Ivan Fedorov walked quickly away from the truck. He forced himself to walk, not run. He heard a siren moaning blocks away. When he came to a dark alley between the buildings, he turned and went down it. There in the darkness the realization of what he had done hit him like a hammer. He stood in the darkness on shaky legs, retching. It took several minutes to get his stomach completely under control.
    No one came into the alley. The siren went in the direction of the burning truck and finally ceased its moan.
    He would get off a report to Moscow as soon as possible, he decided. Maybe the men there could figure out whom he had just