The Teeth of the Tiger - Tom Clancy [120]
The first floor of Belk's started off with perfumes and makeup. As before, they ran to the sound of the guns. There were six women down at perfume, and three more in makeup. Some were obviously dead. Others were just as obviously alive. Some called out for help, but there was no time for that. The twins split up again. The noise had just stopped. It had been off to their left front, but it wasn't there now. Had the terrorist run away? Was he just out of ammo?
There were expended cartridge cases all over the floor-nine-millimeter brass, they both saw. He'd had himself a good old time here, Dominic saw. The mirrors affixed to the building's internal pillars were nearly all shattered by gunfire. To his trained eye, it seemed as though the terrorist had walked in the front, sprayed the first people he'd seen-all women-and then worked his way back and to the left, probably going to wherever he saw the most potential targets. Probably just one guy, Brian's mind told him.
Okay, what are we up against? Dominic wondered. How's he going to react? How does he think?
For Brian it was simpler: Where are you, you motherfucker? For the Marine, he was an armed enemy, and nothing else. Not a person, not a human being, not even a thinking brain, just a target holding a weapon.
Zuhayr experienced a sudden diminution of excitement. He'd been more excited than at any moment in his life. He'd had only a few women in his life, and surely he'd killed more women here today than he'd ever fucked but to him, here and now, somehow it felt just the same.
And all that struck him as very satisfying. He hadn't heard the shooting from before, none of it. He'd scarcely heard his own gunfire, so focused was he on his business. And good business it had been. The look on their faces when they saw him and his machine gun and the look when the bullets struck that was a pleasing sight. But he was down to his last two magazine pairs now. One was in his gun, and the other in his pocket.
Strange, he thought, that he could hear the relative silence now. There were no live women in his immediate area. Well no unwounded women Some of those he'd shot were making noise. Some were even trying to crawl away
He couldn't have that, Zuhayr knew. He started walking toward one of them, a dark-haired woman wearing whorish red pants.
Brian whistled to his brother and pointed. There he was, about five-eight, wearing khaki pants and a similarly colored bush jacket, fifty yards away. A playground shot for a rifle, something for a boot at Parris Island to do, but not quite so easy for his Beretta, however good a marksman he was.
Dominic nodded and started heading that way, but swiveling his head in all directions.
"Too bad, woman," Zuhayr said in English. "But do not be afraid, I send you to see Allah. You will serve me in Paradise." And he tried to fire a single round into her back. But the Ingram doesn't allow that easily. Instead he rippled off three rounds from a range of one meter.
Brian saw the whole thing, and something just came loose. The Marine stood up and aimed with both hands. "You motherfucker!" he screamed, and fired as rapidly as accuracy allowed, from a range of perhaps a hundred feet. He fired a total of fourteen shots, almost emptying his weapon. And some of them, remarkably, hit the target.
Three, in fact, one of which got the target right in the belly, and another in center chest.
The first one hurt. Zuhayr felt the impact as he might have felt a kick in the testicles. It caused his arms to drop as though to cover up and protect from another injury. His weapon was still in his hands, and he fought through the pain to bring it back up as he watched the man approach.
Brian didn't forget everything.