Tom Clancy's op-center_ acts of war - Tom Clancy [145]
"Do any of you speak English?" Hood asked.
The soldiers stopped. They were nearly twenty feet from the reception room, about three-dozen yards from him. Without turning around, the leader said something to a man behind him. The man stepped forward.
"I speak English," said the man. "Who are you?"
"An American guest of the President," Hood replied. "I just spoke with the commander of the presidential guard by phone. He's asked that all loyal forces meet him in the north gallery at once."
The man translated for the leader. The leader gave an order to a man behind him. Two soldiers left the group and went back the way they'd come.
He's got to check, Hood thought, but he's not using his field radio. If there are presidential guards out there, this man doesn't want them to know he's here.
As the two men trotted around a corner, the leader issued a new order. The group split up again. The leader and four men continued toward the reception area while three men moved toward Hood. Their weapons were in their hands. They weren't coming to rescue him. The question was, did they intend to take the men hostage or kill them? They had already taken several lives in a failed effort to assassinate the President. And they'd killed all the men in this booth. Even if they were taking prisoners, which Hood doubted, he didn't want to subject his country, his family, himself, or the men in the other room to an extended hostage ordeal. As Mike Rodgers had once put it, "In the long run, that's just a different way to die."
Hood hugged the automatic rifle to his waist, the magazine resting along his thigh. Aiming the barrel low, he swung into the corridor and fired at the floor just in front of the group's leader. Hood was startled as casings flew at him from the ejection port, but he continued to hold the trigger. The men down the hall retreated. The three men, who were coming toward the security room threw themselves against the wall, behind a large bronze horse, and returned fire.
Hood stopped firing and ducked back behind the jamb. His knuckles were bone-white around the pistol grip. His breathing was fast and his heart was hammering harder than before. The men down the hall also stopped firing. The automatic rifle felt light, nearly empty. Hood picked the bloody pistol up off the floor and checked the magazine. It was about one-third empty. He had seven or eight shots.
Hood knew that there wasn't much time. He'd have to go back into the hallway and fire again, this time aiming higher. He checked the monitor. The leader and his group were hanging back. They'd been joined by a ragtag group of Syrians with guns. The leaders of both groups were conferring. Hood knew that if he waited any longer he'd fall to sheer force of numbers.
He sidled up to the jamb and held both guns facing up. He didn't feel like John Wayne or Burt Lancaster or Gary Cooper. He was just a frightened diplomat with guns.
One who's responsible for the lives of men trapped down the hallway. He listened. He heard no movement outside. Holding his breath this time, he dropped both guns hiphigh and swung into the hallway.
And stopped as a soldier stepped right into his face and shoved a pistol barrel up under his chin.
* * *
FIFTY
Tuesday, 3:37 p.m.,
the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon
Before joining Striker, Sergeant Chick Grey had been Corporal Grey of the elite counterterrorist Delta Force. He'd been a private when he'd first reported for training at Fort Bragg. But Grey's two specialties had enabled him to climb the ratings ladder to private first class and then corporal in a matter of months.
His first skill was in HALO operations--high-altitude, low-opening parachute jumps. As his commander at Bragg had put it when recommending Grey's boost from private to PFC, "The man can fly." Grey had the ability to pull his ripcord lower and land more accurately than any soldier in Delta history. He attributed that to having a rare sensitivity to air currents. He believed that also helped