Page 98 of Viral Justice

She saw the moment he noticed her. His eyes widened and he sucked in a breath, but before he could yell a hand slapped over his mouth from behind as a knife cut his throat.

The gunman sagged and the assassin behind him caught his body before it could make much noise.

Ali stared at the knife-wielding shadow, who lifted one hand to make a shushing gesture over his lips.

Nolan.

She looked beyond Nolan and noted several other Special Forces soldiers slipping into the house and closing the door.

She stood and walked over to him. “Where the hell have you been?” she whispered.

“Someone brought artillery to a gunfight,” Nolan said. “I lost four men in the crossfire.”

“What?” She glanced at the other soldiers and realized he was short four of them. “Holy fuck.”

“We saw you duck in here, then some of those bastards started searching house to house.”

“So, we can expect more of them to come through the door? Great.” She looked him and the rest of the men over quickly. There was blood on all of them, but it was impossible to tell if it was theirs or not. “Injuries?”

“Some. Nothing that will slow us down right away.”

Outside there were more gunshots. Three in a steady three-second pattern. “The fuckers are shooting all the men.” Her whisper ended on a growl.

“There are women and children out there,” Nolan whispered back. “A direct assault will result in too many innocent deaths.”

But she could see he was thinking hard.

“We split into two teams,” he ordered. “Half of us lead the civilians away from this area. The other half overwhelms whoever is left.” There was no question in his voice, but he looked at her as he finished speaking, in a way that begged her to agree.

Not a hard decision.

She nodded once. “Go.”

Nolan turned and within a couple of seconds the soldiers had themselves organized. He went out the door with his weapon raised, two men with him.

Had there really been only five of them? They’d seemed like an army. Then again, they were Special Forces. The Snake Eaters, as some called them, were worth three of any other man when it came to warfare.

The rapid, repeat bark of a rifle told her Nolan and his wingmen had engaged the enemy.

Shouts in Arabic told her they’d been spotted, and someone called for more men to chase down and kill the Americans.

It sounded like a crowd of men ran past, none of them quietly. It took a minute for the uproar to pass, then another gunshot went off followed by the wailing of women.

Time to put a stop to that shit.

“I’ll go in down the middle,” she said to the two Berets. “You two come in from the flanks. How many seconds do you need to get into position?”

“Five,” one of them said.

The other nodded.

“Go.”

Both went out the door in opposite directions.

She waited, counting slowly in her head. At five, she walked out the door and calmly strode toward the crying, screaming mass of women and girls. In front of them by about ten feet was the kneeling line of men and boys. About half were lying facedown, blood splattered all over them and the people next to them.

A gunman was poised to shoot the next male in the head, who was no more than a teenager.

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