LITMIR.BIZ

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wanted his options open to immediately grab a weapon. The plastic water bottle and newspaper, however, were indicative of a savvy mind—they could be dropped with no hassle, and guns could be grabbed as trouble arose.

      Ranch business was another clue. It was a code phrase that Striker had used with him in their private dealings.

      “Let me set this hunk of crap down and we can talk somewhere,” Rust answered.

      The handsome man smiled, and easily slipped the bottled water and newspaper into the deep pockets of his cargo pants. Reaching out, he took the box. “I’ll carry that.”

      He could see the younger man’s dark arms ripple with corded muscle. “Oh sure. Just because you’re young, strong and agile…”

      The kid grinned. “Old age and treachery will win over youth and purity every time.”

      “I like your attitude, kid.”

      “Just want to live long enough to get to old age and treachery, Mr. Russel.”

      He nodded and led the way. “Got a name?”

      “Alex Johnson, sir.”

      Rust paused and looked him over. “You look like a Johnson.”

      “Excellent, sir. I was barely able to detect the sarcasm in your tone.”

      “Come on, Alex.”

      ALESSANDRO KALID SET DOWN the cardboard box with a grunt, causing the rickety old table to wobble under the sudden impact. Kalid held his breath for a moment, but the spindly legs held. In the heat, it was heavy work, and he was glad for the breeze that pushed and puffed-up the gauzy drapes to Rust’s apartment. He didn’t know how much was in it, but knowing the man he knew as Striker, the box certainly wasn’t filled with jelly beans and Easter eggs. He looked at the seal on the box and saw the telltale signs that the tape had been stripped off and replaced.

      “Someone’s been looking in Striker’s stuff,” he muttered.

      “Yeah,” Rust stated. “The Lebanese have been interested in the packages that come in to me.”

      Kalid flipped out his Tanto knife with a deft wrist movement, slashed open the box and returned the blade with a flourish. “If that’s the case, your cover might be blown.”

      “That’s on the short list of things that are certain in life,” Rust answered.

      Kalid could only shrug and pull out the contents of the box. “A laptop, a printer and some digital cameras.”

      “Son of a…” Rust said.

      Kalid smirked. “The printer works, but it’s twice the size it should be.”

      He flipped over the unit and looked at the bottom. “No, not smuggling guns.”

      “So what’s that?” Rust asked, pointing at the silver square that Kalid was removing from the printer’s plastic shell.

      “Consider it the ultimate in wireless modems. State of the art. I think I’m supposed to light my eyeballs on fire for knowing about this,” Kalid said. He looked through the heavy booklet in the box. “And the manual on how to use the cameras.”

      Kalid flipped through the book. “You think they’d slip something into this that could give us a clue as to what’s going on?”

      Rust held out his hand, and Kalid handed over the book.

      “The manual’s copyright page,” Rust spoke up after a moment. “There’s a user name and password for the laptop.”

      Rust powered up the laptop after plugging it in to the modem and the wall outlet.

      Kalid watched Rust type the access into the computer, then looked out the window.

      More than the gauze curtains were moving. Traffic had cleared off the street, as had most of the women and children. Kalid’s brain went into overdrive as he saw two blurs flying through the air. On pure reflex, Kalid drew a shaken throwing star and flipped it at one blob, knocking it back, slowing it in midair enough to determine the identity of the object. It was a cylinder, with writing on the side, smoke spewing out the top in a gout. Somewhere in the distorted adrenaline overdrive of the moment, Alex Kalid recognized the tear gas projectile. One part of his brain wondered what the second object was. Reflex, however, threw his mouth wide open, screaming loudly to Rust.

      The cry of alarm saved Kalid’s brain from a battering from the concussion grenade’s explosion. The second blurring minibomb had sailed through the window and landed under Rust’s chair. The thunderclap of pressure was brain numbing, shaking Kalid’s hyper-perception back to something resembling normal.

      Rust was on the floor, his chair collapsed, eyes open and dazed, the laptop spilled across his chest.

      “Yeah, your cover’s blown,” Kalid quipped, lips engaging on their own while his hand reached for his knife. He wondered where his gun was, the concussion knocking away the memory that his SIG-Sauer P-226 was back at his hotel, in a hidden compartment of his luggage. He snapped out his arms to each side, corded muscles bracing him against the disorientation.

      His brain stopped sloshing in his head after a few heartbeats, his vision clearing. His gaze locked on the door, which shuddered under an impact. Dust and splinters fell from the door and its frame, and Kalid realized he had only one more smash before whoever was on the other side swarmed in and took them. He glanced around. Rust looked back at him, eyes unfocused from a point-blank concussion, then lifted one leg, trying to bring it up.

      Kalid noticed the pistol in the CIA agent’s ankle holster. He lunged, grabbing it off the dazed man’s leg and swinging it up. No safeties, no bells, no whistles, even punch-drunk, Kalid knew it was a Glock of some kind and he opened fire, not even waiting for the door to crash open. The door splintered again, but the second impact didn’t have the force of the first after Kalid slammed four shots through it at chest level. A rent appeared in the top panel, a jagged shard bent out by whatever battering ram was being used. He could see the men in the hall scrambling and tending to their wounded.

      Kalid opened fire again, sweeping the hallway for another eight shots before the 12-shot magazine on the Glock ran dry. With the little pistol at slide lock, the door was slammed again. This time, it buckled and burst inward. Two men rushed in and the ex-blacksuit spun the Glock in his hand and hurled it at the first one through the door. Despite being a lightweight gun with a polymer frame, the twenty ounces of steel in the gun still made a big impression on the forehead of the first thug through the door. The intruder went stumbling to the floor while the guy behind him leaped, snarling and bringing up a pistol, as if to stuff the gun in the American’s face.

      Kalid grabbed his wrist and drove his palm into the guy’s elbow, leveraging him and tossing him against the wall with a bone crunching thud. The pistol went flying across the floor, but Kalid wasn’t going to give up any advantage over even a dazed enemy while he might still be able to stab him in the back. Instead, he brought up his knee hard, two quick pumps into the kidneys of the captive Lebanese, then dropped back and twisted.

      The terrorist went sailing out the window, catching the half-open pane on his way out, as well as the gauzy curtains. Glass, wood and fabric enveloped the falling man as he went tumbling into the street twelve feet below. Kalid pivoted on his heel as he heard the scrape of steel on steel in the doorway.

      A big, bearded man had a long curved fighting knife clenched in his fist. His face was drenched with blood, but there were no visible injuries on him. Kalid assumed he had to have been behind another guy who took a high velocity 9 mm pill.

      “We were going to try to take both of you in alive, but Faswad only needs one prisoner,” the knife goon sputtered.

      Kalid smirked and answered him in his own language. “Quit talking and bring it, crybaby. Papa doesn’t have all day to play with children.”

      Crybaby gawked at the taunting response, and paused. That gave Kalid a half step to grab his knife from where he dropped it by Rust. Then the

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