Target Acquisition. Don Pendleton

floor, men screaming above him.

      A burst of gunfire echoed in the stairwell and 5.45 mm rounds tore into the floor where McCarter had landed. He went up against the wall at his back and pulled a 9 mm Glock 17 from its holster. He heard boots thundering on the stairwell and he bent, swiveled and thrust his gun arm around the corner. He triggered four shots without exposing himself.

      There was a satisfying thump as the gunman pitched forward and bounced down the stairs. He spilled out at the bottom of the stairs, sprawling in front of McCarter, and his weapon skidded out from his hands. The ex-SAS trooper triggered a round into the back of the man’s head and snatched up his fallen weapon.

      Another figure appeared at the top of the stairs and took a shot at him. McCarter leaped back out of view of the stairwell, grabbing up the AKS-74U by its shoulder sling. Bullets struck the corpse of the dead Pakistani terrorist. McCarter caught a motion from his right side in time to see a khaki-clothed figure come through an interior door.

      McCarter fumbled to bring the AKS to bear but didn’t have time. He let it dangle from the strap and brought up his 9 mm pistol as he dropped to one knee. Instead of firing from the hip, his adversary brought the AKS up to his shoulder for a more accurate shot.

      McCarter’s shot took him in the throat. From the door to the alley outside, Hawkins fired a second burst, dashing the thug’s brains out. McCarter immediately spun in a tight crouch and fired blindly up the stairwell for the second time. There was an answering burst of automatic gunfire, but no sound of bodies hitting the floor.

      McCarter holstered his pistol and took up the AKS. He quickly ducked his head into the stairwell before thrusting his carbine around the corner to trigger a burst. Using the covering fire to keep the enemy back, McCarter snagged the dead man at the bottom of the stairs over to him by his belt.

      “Can we go, boss?” Hawkins shouted. “Engines running!”

      “Too hot!”

      McCarter pulled a Soviet-era RGD-5 antipersonnel hand grenade from the dead terrorist’s belt. Like the RG-42, it had a blast radius of slightly more than seventy-five feet. He held his AKS by the pistol grip and stuck out his thumb. He used his free hand to help hook the pin around his extended thumb. He made a tight fist around the pistol grip of the AKS and pulled with his other hand, releasing the spring on the grenade.

      McCarter let the spoon fly. He turned and put a warning burst up the staircase to buy time. He counted down three seconds and then chucked the grenade around the corner and up the stairs. He turned away from the opening as the blast was funneled by the walls up and down the staircase, spraying shrapnel in twin columns.

      Ears ringing, McCarter made for the door to the building down the short entrance hall. He came up to it, AKS held at the ready. The door hung open, broken. From outside he heard gunfire as the Phoenix Force commandos engaged targets firing from the windows above them. A figure darted past the open door and McCarter gunned him down as Hawkins backed toward the running vehicle, directing rounds at targets above him.

      A terrorist jumped into the hall and flopped down onto his belly, throwing a bipod-mounted RPK 7.62 mm machine gun down in front of him. McCarter jerked back outside the doorway as the machine gunner opened up with the weapon, sending a virtual firestorm in McCarter’s direction.

      McCarter’s heart pounded as he moved, beating wildly in his chest. His perception of time seemed to slow as adrenaline speeded up his senses to preternatural levels of awareness. His mind clicked through options like a supercomputer running algorithms. His head swiveled like a gun turret, the muzzle of his weapon tracking in perfect synchronicity.

      He saw no movement other than his team down the alley. Inside the hallway he saw woodchips fly off in great, ragged splinters from the withering machine-gun fire. He heard the staccato beat of the weapon discharging. He sensed something and twisted toward the staircase. A khaki-clad man with a beard rushed off the stairs.

      McCarter had the drop on him and gunned him down. The AKS bucked hard in the big Briton’s hands and he stitched a line of slugs across the Pakistani gunman’s chest. Geysers of blood erupted from the man’s torso and throat as the kinetic energy from McCarter’s rounds drove him backward. The man’s heel caught on the outflung arm of his compatriot and he tumbled over, dead before he struck the ground.

      McCarter scrambled back out the door. He saw a flash from the stairs and felt the air split as rounds blew by his face. He fired wildly behind him for cover as he rolled up and across the alley. He swung back around and covered the staircase and the side door, prepared to send a volley in either direction. His finger tensed on the smooth metal curve of the trigger.

      There was a lull in the firing for a moment and McCarter heard Manning screaming instructions. Cold anger burned deep inside of the Phoenix Force leader. A haze of smoke hung in the hall and the stench of cordite was an opiate to McCarter’s hyperstimulated senses. A burst of fire broke out from behind him.

      “Let’s go! Let’s go!” James shouted.

      McCarter stood, weapon up, and made to turn toward the vehicle. A final, crazed jihadist burst out the door as more weapons fire burned down from above. The Briton’s 5-round burst tore out the man’s throat as the van pulled up next to him. Hawkins leaped in the back and spun, spraying covering fire.

      McCarter turned, pumped his legs and dived in the back. He landed hard on the vehicle floor and heard the sound of squealing rubber over the din of weapons fire. He tried to get to a knee but Manning jerked the wheel hard as they took the corner and he was thrown into James.

      “Are we calling this a win?” the ex-SEAL asked, voice dry.

      “Let’s call it a push,” McCarter replied.

      Burj Dubai Tower, Dubai

       United Arabic emirates

      THE EMIR LOVED the old ways.

      He loved having sixteen wives, riding his Arabian stallions through the desert, drinking tiny cups of strong black coffee in the company of wise men, smoking his tobacco from a hookah. Despite this love of all things archaic, the emir was a pragmatist. He knew his ability to enjoy those wives and high-blooded horses came from the seemingly endless supply of oil, the petroleum sold to the infidel in volumes so staggering it was impossible to imagine it ending.

      So the emir wore his traditional dress as he stood staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows in a penthouse suite of the Burj Dubai, the tallest man-made structure in the world and a wonder of modern engineering. It was a luxurious building he’d arrived at via jet-helicopter from his home city of Riyadh.

      Among all its other wonders, Dubai also offered the finest in Filipina child prostitutes.

      The emir turned away from the massive bed where the silent, hollow-eyed girl sat motionless, curled up on herself. He felt exhilarated and when he stared out the tinted windows into the uniquely blue waters of the Persian Gulf he felt like a master of the very universe.

      From behind him he heard a discreet throat clearing and recognized the voice of his majordomo immediately.

      “Yes, Abdulla,” the emir said without turning. “Take her away, pay her purveyor and tell him I wish three more for this evening after our meeting with survey committee of the Bank of Kuwait and the Exxon-Mobil geologists.”

      “Sir…” Abdulla hesitated.

      “Yes? What is it?” the emir snapped.

      “It’s about your son…Ziad?”

      The emir turned, regarded the slightly built man who, despite appearances, was irreplaceable in running his holdings. “Ziad? He is here? I thought he was spreading the jihad in Islamabad among those barbarians and American foot-lickers, the Pakis.”

      Abdulla turned toward the child and clapped his hands fast three times before making a hissing sound. The child rolled out of bed and scurried toward the door to the suite. Bruises lined her skinny thighs in vivid relief.

      “What? What is it?”

      “It’s