The Teeth of the Tiger - Tom Clancy [117]
In the men's room, they all took their weapons from the shopping bags and assembled them. Bolts were pulled back. Magazines were inserted in the pistol grips. Each man slipped the five magazine pairs into pants pockets. Two screwed the lengthy suppressors onto their weapons. Mustafa and Rafi did not, deciding after rapid reflection that they preferred to hear the noise.
"Are we ready?" the leader asked. The replies were only nods.
"Then we shall eat lamb together in Paradise. To your places. When I shoot first, you will all begin."
Brian was trying on some low-top leather boots. Not quite the same as the boots he wore in the Marine Corps, but they looked and felt comfortable, and they fitted his feet as though custom designed. "Not bad."
"Want me to box them up?" the clerk-a girl-asked.
Aldo thought for a moment and decided: "No, I'll break them in right away." He handed her his disreputable Nikes, which she put in the box for the boots, and led him to the cash register.
Mustafa was looking at his watch. He figured two minutes for his friends to get in place.
Rafi, Zuhayr, and Abdullah were walking into the main concourse of the mall now, holding their weapons low, and, amazingly, largely escaping notice from the shoppers who bustled along and minded their own business. When the sweep hand reached twelve, Mustafa took a deep breath and walked out of the men's room, and to the left.
The security guard was at his chest-high desk, reading a magazine, when he saw a shadow on the desktop. He looked up to see a man of olive complexion.
"Can I help you, sir?" he asked politely. He had no time to react after that.
"Allahu Ackbar!" was the shouted reply. Then the Ingram came up. Mustafa held the trigger for but a second, but in that second, a total of nine bullets entered the black man's chest. The impact of nine bullets pushed him backward half a step, and he fell, dead, to the tiled floor.
"What the hell was that?" Brian instantly asked his brother-the only person nearby-as all heads turned to the left.
Rafi was only twenty-five feet to their right-front when he heard the gunfire, and it was time for him to start. He dropped into a half crouch and brought his Ingram up. He turned right toward the Victoria's Secret store. The customers there all had to be women of no morals even to look at such whorish clothing, and perhaps, he thought, some would serve him in Paradise. He just pointed and held the trigger down.
The sound was deafening, like a colossal zipper of explosions. Three women were immediately hit and went down at once. Others just stood still for a second, their eyes wide with shock and disbelief, not taking any action at all.
For his part, Rafi was disagreeably surprised by the fact that more than half of his rounds had not hit anything. The poorly balanced weapon had jerked in his hand, spraying the ceiling. The bolt closed on an empty chamber. He looked down at it in surprise, then ejected the first magazine and reversed it, slapping it back into the port and looking for more targets. They'd started to run now, and so he brought the Ingram to his shoulder.
"Fuck!" Brian said. What the hell is going on? his mind shouted.
"Fuckin' right, Aldo." Dominic swiveled his fanny pack to the front of his belly and jerked at the string that opened the two-zipper closure. A second later, his Smith&Wesson was in his hands. "Cover my ass!" he commanded his brother. The shooter with the SMG was a bare twenty feet away, on the other side of a jewelry kiosk, facing away, but this wasn't Dodge City, there were no rules about facing down a criminal.
Dominic fell to one knee, and bringing the automatic up in both hands, he loosed two ten-millimeter hollow points into the center of the man's back, and then one more into the center of the back of his head. His target dropped straight down, and judging by the red explosion from the third shot, wouldn't