others, and Linko knew one of his team on the rooftops had been seen. The ANA soldiers started firing, and bullets ripped through the eaves. He didn’t have to tell the mercenary forces he’d hired to return fire. The men did so automatically. Living constantly in the battlefield did that to men: when they were fired upon, or even when they knew they were about to be fired upon, they started firing. It was a survival skill.
Linko held his own fire as bullets danced around him. He wanted Lourds.
More men rushed out into the alley, and the rifle fire became a barrage and a wave of noise that deafened him and drowned out the city sounds around them.
Desperate as the men started to load into the vehicles, Linko searched for Lourds. Something was wrong. All the men were dressed the same. Whoever was heading up this operation had been clever. But the man would not have allowed himself to get far from the man he was supposed to protect. Linko scanned again, looking for two men moving together, not independently as the other ANA soldiers were doing.
There. He saw one man holding another by the shirtfront, opening the door of the SUV directly in front of the doorway. Then Linko spotted another man wearing the professor’s backpack over one shoulder.
Linko took aim through the scope and squeezed the trigger while aiming at the man’s neck, thinking that if he could drop Lourds and recover whatever the professor had recovered from the tomb, then he could return to Moscow and receive his promotion.
The bullet tore through the man’s throat and stabbed down into his chest. He crumpled without a sound, folding into a pile there in the alley.
***
Lourds was half inside the SUV when he saw the man with his backpack go down over Fitrat’s shoulder. “No!” Fueled by adrenaline not only from fear for his life, but also fear that he would lose the scrolls, Lourds took Fitrat by surprise and managed to lever the captain off him. He dove for the man and the backpack.
Lourds dashed to the man’s side and tried to lift him from the ground, thinking that if they could get him inside the SUV then they could give him medical attention. The man was dead weight in his arms, much harder to move than Lourds had believed.
Fitrat stepped up beside him, and Lourds realized that some of the heavy fire they’d been taking had slacked off as the ANA soldiers found their targets and provided cover fire.
At the end of the alley, a man in street clothes and carrying an AK-47 thudded to the ground. Bloody from his injuries, the man slowly rose. More bullets struck him, and he stumbled out into the street. He stepped in front of a car that tried to swerve away but only succeeded in striking him a glancing blow before crashing into another car in the opposing lane. The street became blocked as cars put on their brakes, stopping traffic ahead of the ANA convoy almost at once.
Fitrat yanked the dead man from Lourds’s arms. “He’s dead, Professor. There is nothing you can do for him.” The soldier’s body fell to the ground, and the captain rolled him over to get the backpack.
Lourds started to say something about the callous way Fitrat treated the dead soldier, then he noticed the hesitation the captain showed at taking the backpack. Pain showed on Fitrat’s face, and Lourds knew the captain blamed himself for the death.
“Let me.” Lourds stepped in and took the backpack. Holding it to his chest, he and the captain ran for all they were worth, reaching the SUV just as the enemy fire picked up steam again. Bullets flattened against the bulletproof windows and left spiderwebs of cracks running through the glass.
Lourds dove into the vehicle. Fitrat slid into the seat next to him and shouted to the driver, “Go. Tell them to get underway. Now!”
The driver did as he was ordered, and the first two vehicles raced forward.
Lourds turned to Fitrat. “The street is blocked. Didn’t you see?”
“Then it will become unblocked.”
Ahead of them, through the windshield, Lourds watched as the lead SUV ran over the dead man in the street and collided with a car that had stopped in the middle of the road. Still powering forward, the lead SUV shoved the other car into the oncoming lane of traffic. Horns blared and brakes shrilled, but that barely penetrated the hail of gunfire chasing them through