Kitabı oku: «Target Acquisition», sayfa 2
“Jesus,” Encizo suddenly cursed. “The stairs we came up hugged that wall—there’s like a fifteen-foot gap here!”
Around them in the building Phoenix could hear people stirring, calling out in panic and milling in confusion. The building was rife with extremist foot soldiers. McCarter instantly went on alert, his weapon up.
“Gary,” he ordered, “check the staircase down the hall.”
“I’m on it,” Manning answered, moving out. He ran down the hall, bent low to avoid the thickest part of the smoke, and kicked open a door at the opposite end of the corridor. “It’s good!”
“You heard him,” Calvin James barked. “Let’s move, people.”
McCarter spun and covered the hall as his men ran down the passage and entered the stairwell. “Go!” he snapped. “I’ve got security!”
The other four members of Phoenix rushed through the doorway just as the first of the enemy combatants exploded into the hall. The man, bearded and dressed only in pants with a automatic pistol in his fist, shouted an angry warning and lifted his weapon.
McCarter killed him but there was a chorus of answering shouts. A volley of fire erupted outside the hall, initiating a storm of lead that tore into the corridor. More glass from the few unbroken windows shattered, falling inward, and the wood paneling was shredded. After his initial burst McCarter threw himself to the floor, directing his momentum over a shoulder, and rolled clear of the hall, keeping below the hail of gunfire.
McCarter spotted a big man armed with a black machine pistol appear from the door of a room directly across the hall from the suicide bomber. The giant shouted an order and peeled back from the doorway. A second man ran forward, Kalashnikov assault rifle slung over his shoulder and across his back.
McCarter swore. The man went to one knee and leveled an RPG-7 at the end of the hall. Rising, McCarter turned and sprinted. The 84 mm warhead could penetrate twelve inches of steel armor; it would blow through even a reinforced door with ease. McCarter scrambled across the floor and leaped up into the air.
McCarter struck the floor and slid across as a fireball blew through the door where he had been and rolled into the already devastated room like a freight train. Shrapnel and jagged chunks of wood lanced through the air.
McCarter’s ears still rang from the explosive concussion and his face bled from a dozen minor lacerations, but his hand was steady on the trigger as Pakistani gunmen rushed through the front door.
CHAPTER THREE
The first shooter breached the door, AKM assault rifle up and at the ready. McCarter put him down with a burst from his submachine gun. The combatant hit the burning floor like a bag of wet cement. The man running in behind him looked down as the point man hit the floor. He looked back up, searching for a target, and McCarter blew off the left side of his face.
The third man in the line tripped over the second man’s falling corpse. McCarter used a burst to scythe the man to the ground and then put a single shot into the top of his skull. Through the swirling smoke and angry screams McCarter saw a black metal canister arc into the room.
McCarter recognized the threat instantly as an RG-42 antipersonnel hand grenade. He popped up off his belly onto his hands and knees as the grenade hit the floor inside the hall and bounced toward him. Leaving the AKS where it lay, McCarter dived forward, scooping up the bouncing hand grenade, and wrapping his hands around the black cylinder.
He hit the floor hard from his short hop, absorbing the impact with his elbows. He rolled over onto one shoulder and thrust out his arm, sending the grenade shooting away from him. It cleared the corpses in the entranceway and bounced up and out the hall doorway on the far side. McCarter heard a sudden outburst of curses and buried his head in his arms.
The grenade detonated and another cloud of smoke billowed in through the doorway on the heels of the concussive force.
McCarter came to his feet, scooping up the AKS submachine gun. He shuffled backward and crouched next to the wall, heading for the door to the staircase down to the street level. McCarter caught a flash of movement and spun toward the blown-out doors of two apartments across from their original target.
“David!” Encizo’s voice blared in McCarter’s earbud. “We’re coming, brother!”
“Negative!” McCarter shouted.
He saw two men in khaki jackets rush up to the shattered windows, AKM rifles clutched in their hands. McCarter dropped to one knee beside the wall and brought up the AKS. He beat the men to the trigger and his submachine gun spit flame. It recoiled sharply in his hands and shell casings arced out to spill across the floor.
“The stair is too narrow. I’m coming to you!”
McCarter put two rounds into the face of the first man. Bloody holes the size of dimes appeared, slapping the man’s head back. Blood sprayed in a mist behind his head and he slumped to the ground, his weapon clattering at his feet.
McCarter shifted smoothly, like ball bearings in a sling swivel, toward the second gunman. They fired simultaneously. The muzzle-flash of the man’s weapon burst into a flaming star pattern. The sound of the heavier assault rifle firing was thunderous compared to the more subdued sound of McCarter’s 9 mm subgun.
The 7.62 mm caliber rounds tore into the molding of the wall just to McCarter’s right. The rounds punched through the building material, tearing fist-size chunks from the wall and door frame, spilling white plumes of chalky plaster dust into the air.
McCarter’s burst hit the man in a tight pattern. The bullets drilled into the receiver of the AKM, tearing it from the stunned gunner’s hands. Two more rounds punched into his chest three inches above the first, staggering him backward.
McCarter came to his feet, the AKS held up and ready. He triggered two rounds into the stunned gunman and took him down, blowing out the back of his neck. McCarter danced to the side and, still facing the front of the hall, held the AKS up and ready in one hand. He stepped back into stairway door.
A gunman came around the corner of one of the rooms, Kalashnikov firing. McCarter put a burst into his knee and thigh, knocking the screaming man to the floor. He put a double tap through the top of his head. Brain matter and bits of skull splattered outward.
McCarter moved in a shuffle back toward the stair, realizing that what had been billed as a safehouse by intelligence had actually been more along the lines of a barracks—a significant and unsubtle difference. He took fire from the open door and swiveled to meet the threat as another pair of gunmen rounded the corner from the front hall. McCarter threw himself belly down, his legs trailing out behind him down the stairs, angling his body so he was out of sight from the shooters in the hall.
McCarter swept his submachine gun in a wide loose arc, spraying bullets at the gunman firing through the shattered hall. One of the men’s weapons suddenly swung up toward the ceiling and McCarter caught a glimpse of him staggering backward into the dark though he never saw his own rounds impact.
He lay on the stairs, only his arms and shoulders emerging from the door to the stairwell. He rotated up onto his right shoulder to get an angle of fire on the entranceway. He saw one of the terrorist gunmen rushing forward and shot the man’s ankles, bringing him to the floor. McCarter fired another burst into the prone man, finishing him off, only to have his bolt lock open as his magazine ran dry.
McCarter let the AKS dangle across his chest as a second terrorist leaped over the body of the first and charged forward. The skeletal folding stock of his AKS-74U pressed tight into his shoulder and he fired the weapon as he bounded forward.
McCarter put his hands against the floor and snapped up, clearing the edge of the doorway. Bullets tore into the floor where his head had just been. He twisted on the stair and jumped downward. He landed at the bottom, his legs bending to absorb the impact, just as he had been taught during paratrooper training. He took the recoil, felt it surge up through his heels, and rolled off to the side. He turned in the direction of the side door to the lower level of the building. He got up and ran down to the ground 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 about your son,” Abdulla said.
Just like that the emir knew. Forty-five minutes later he began to use his billions of dollars in oil money to fund his vengeance against the largest consumer of that product: the United States of America.
CHAPTER FOUR
Sadr City, Baghdad
The Blackhawks came thumping over the horizon.
Baghdad lay spread out below them, the sprawling slum of Sadr City emerging from the amorphous squalor. The Shiite stronghold was block after block of slammed-together buildings, jigsaw structures, twisting alleys stacked on asymmetrical courtyards and narrow, crowded streets.
In the northern district of the massive Sadr City slum the U.S. military had run into a problem as the beleaguered country lurched toward stability. The Sixth Infantry Division remained engaged in house-to-house combat with splinter-element insurgents of Muqtada al-Sadr’s Iranian-backed Mahdi army. The ground forces had established a perimeter encircling the combat zone along with elements of the Iraqi National Army.
Fighting remained fierce in the face of the ratification of certain documents of nationalism by the Iraqi government, but five years of preparation had turned the urban terrain into a labyrinthine fortress extending from the tops of buildings to the sewers and basements below street level. An army of well-armed zealots manned the battlements.
At the center of the combat perched Abu Hafiza, al Qaeda torture master, cell leader and consultant strategist behind the Madrid, Spain, bombings. Hafiza waited, entrenched and surrounded by a hard-core bodyguard unit willing to die for jihad and the liberation of the Shiite people.
For obvious political reasons the U.S. had opted for a surgical strike rather than the use of massive force. Going into the snake pit to get Abu Hafiza was a suicide mission.
At the request of Brigadier General Kubrick, relayed through Brognola, Phoenix Force had deployed to Iraq.
American forces were arrayed around the landing strip, guns orientated outward, enforcing the security perimeter as the Blackhawk helicopters settled into position. Immediately a colonel, the division executive officer, moved forward into the brunt of the rotor wash to greet the arrivals.
The cargo door on the Blackhawk slid open under the spinning blades and five figures emerged from the helicopter transport. Dressed in black fatigues with faces covered by balaclava hoods, the men moved easily under a burden of upgraded body armor and unorthodox weaponry, the colonel noted.
The first man to reach the American officer stuck out his hand and shook with a hard, dry clench. When he spoke, a British accent was evident.
“You here to get us up to speed?” David McCarter asked.
The colonel nodded. “Have your men follow me,” he said.
With the rest of Phoenix Force following, McCarter fell into step with the colonel. “Has the situation changed at all?” he asked.
“Just as we left,” the colonel replied. “The Iraqi National Army moved into Sadr City to quell violent demonstrations. They ran into heavy resistance and our reinforcement brigade was called in. We rolled forward and discovered Abu Hafiza has prepped this slum the way Hezbollah did southern Lebanon for the Israelis back in 2007. It’s just a mess. But we’ve beaten them back to their final redoubt.” The colonel indicated a Stryker vehicle with its ramp down. “But it’s a hell of a redoubt,” he added as they climbed into the APC. “We can either bring in the bunker busters or throw away hundreds of men in a frontal assault. Neither of which is going to look too goddamn good on twenty-four-hour cable news feed.”
“Or you can call us,” T. J. Hawkins noted dryly.
“Yes.” The colonel nodded. “Whoever the hell ‘you’ happen to be.”
“We do like our little mysteries,” Calvin James acknowledged from behind his balaclava.
“You somehow manage to pull the rabbit out of this hat and I’ll call you mommy if that’s what you want.”
“That won’t be necessary,” McCarter assured the man as the Stryker ramp buttoned up and they rolled deeper into the city. “Just don’t call us late for dinner.”
THE BLAST from a helicopter missile had knocked a hole in the street. The explosion ripped up the asphalt and punched a hole in the ground deep enough to reveal the sewer line. Workers had managed to clear enough rubble out of the crater to keep the sewage stream flowing, but there had not been enough security or money for complete repairs. A line of rubble like a gravel-covered hillside led up out of the sewer to the street.
While the rest of Phoenix Force crouched in the shadows, Calvin James eased his way up the uncertain slope to reconnoiter the area. He crawled carefully, using his elbows and knees with his weapon cradled in the crook of his arms. As tense as the situation was, there was a large part of him that was grateful to escape the stinking claustrophobia of the pit. Just blocks over, combined Iraqi and American forces hammered the Shiite positions to provide cover and distraction for the inserting special operators.
James eased his way to the lip of the blast crater and carefully raised his head over the edge. The Sadr City neighborhood appeared deserted at the late hour. Tenement buildings rose up above street level shops, the structures book-ending right up against each other. Rusted iron fire escapes adorned the fronts of the old buildings. Brightly colored laundry hung from windows and clotheslines. The roofs were a forest of old-fashioned wire antennae. The street was lined with battered old cars, some of them up on concrete blocks and obviously unusable. Across the street feral dogs rooted through an overflowing garbage bin.
Carefully, James extended his weapon and scanned the neighborhood street through his scope. He detected no movement, saw no faces in windows and doorways, no figures silhouetted on the fire escapes and rooftops. He looked down to the end of the street and saw nothing stirring, then turned and checked the other direction with the same result.
Satisfied, he looked down. He gave a short low whistle and instantly McCarter appeared at the foot of the rubble incline.
“All clear. Come have a look,” James whispered.
McCarter nodded once in reply and re-slung his M-4 carbine before scrambling quickly up the rubble. He slid into place next to Hawkins and carefully scanned the street, as well.
“There,” he said. “That building.” He indicated a burned-out six-story apartment complex with a thrust of his sharp chin. “That’s the building. That’ll give us the entry point into the compound.”
“Sounds good,” McCarter agreed. “We’ll run this exactly like we did our insertion in the Basra operation a while ago.”
“Only without the sewer crawl.”
“Which is nice.”
Eighteen months before the building had been assaulted by an Iraqi National Army unit with American Special Forces advisers after intelligence had revealed it served as an armory and bomb-making factory for the local Shiite militias.
“I haven’t noticed any sentries yet,” James said. His gaze remained suctioned to the sniper scope as he scanned the building.
“They’re there,” McCarter said. “That’s the back door to the militia complex.”
“Heads up,” James suddenly hissed.
Instantly, McCarter attempted to identify the threat. Up the street a Toyota pickup turned onto the avenue and began cruising toward their position. The back of the vehicle held a squad of gunmen and there were three men in the vehicle cab.
McCarter and James froze, nestling themselves in among the broken masonry of the bomb crater. Advancing slowly, the vehicle cruised up the street. Moving carefully, McCarter eased his head down below the lip of the crater and transferred his carbine into a more accessible position.
Beside him James seemed to evaporate, blending into the background as the pickup inched its way down the street. The former Navy SEAL commando watched the enemy patrol with eyes narrowed, his finger held lightly on the trigger of his weapon.
The vehicle rolled closer and now both Phoenix Force members could hear the murmur of voices in casual conversation. James watched as a pockmarked Iraqi in the back took a final drag of his cigarette and then flicked it away.
The still smoking butt arced up and landed next to the prone Phoenix Force sniper with a small shower of sparks that stung his exposed face. The cigarette bounced and rolled down the incline to come to rest against McCarter’s leg.
A gunman in the back of the vehicle said something and the others laughed as the pickup cruised past the two hidden men headed toward the fighting. Playing a hunch, James risked moving to scan the burned-out building across the street with his scope. His gamble paid off as a man armed with a SVD Soviet-era Dragunov sniper rifle appeared briefly in a third-story window to acknowledge the patrol rolling past his position.
James grinned. The pickup reached the end of the street and disappeared around a corner. “Got you, asshole,” he whispered. “I got a security element on the third floor,” he told McCarter.
“Does he interfere with movement?” McCarter scooped loose dirt over the burning cigarette, extinguishing it.
“He’s back in the shadow now. I might have a shot with IR,” Hawkins explained. “But he’s definitely doing overwatch on this street.”
“He the only one?”
“Only one I saw,” James said. “But he could have a spotter or radio guy sitting next to him who’ll sound the alarm if I put the sniper down.”
“What’s our other option?”
“I guess send the team across and hope he doesn’t notice until we can be sure of how many we’re dealing with.”
“The clock is ticking,” McCarter pointed out.
“Then I say let me take him.”
“Encizo and I will cross the street and try to secure the ground floor before the rest of you come over.”
“It’s your call,” James said simply. He clicked over the amplifier apparatus on his night scope and scanned the windows. A red silhouette appeared in the gloom of the third-story window. “I got him. No other figures present themselves from this angle.”
“That’ll have to do,” McCarter said.
James held down on his target as McCarter called Encizo up and the two men slowly climbed into position. Encizo had left his Hawk MM-1 behind with Hawkins and held his silenced H&K MP-7 at the ready. McCarter slid his M-4/M-203 around to hang from his back and had pulled his own sound-suppressed weapon, the Browning Hi-Power, from its holster.
James settled snugly into his position as Phoenix Force gathered around him. His finger took up the slack on the curve of his trigger and he settled the fiber-optic crosshairs on the silhouette in the window.
The Mk 11 sniper rifle discharged smoothly, the muzzle lifting slightly with the recoil and pushing back into the hollow of James’s shoulder. The report was muted in the hot desert air and the subsonic round cut across the space and tore through the open window.
In his scope James saw the figure’s head jerk like a boxer taking an inside uppercut. There was an instant of red smear in his sight as blood splashed, then the enemy sniper spun in a half circle and fell over.
“Go,” James said.
McCarter was instantly up and sprinting. Behind him Encizo scrambled over the edge of the hole and raced after him. Both men crossed the street in a dead run, weapons up and ready as James began shifting his weapon back and forth in tight vectors to cover the building front.
McCarter crossed the open street and spun to throw his back into the wall beside the front door of the building. Half a second later Encizo repeated the motion, his MP-7 pointed down the street.
McCarter checked once before proceeding through the gaping doorway. He charged into the room, turning left and trying to move along the wall. Encizo came in and peeled right, coming to one knee and checking the room with his muzzle leading the way. Both men scanned the darkened chamber through their low-light goggles.
The front doors to the building had been blown out during the Iraqi raid and the room saturated with grenades and automatic-weapons fire. The two Phoenix warriors found themselves in a small lobby with a cracked and collapsed desk, a line of busted and dented mailboxes, a pitted and pocked elevator and two fire-scarred doorways. One of the interior doors had been blown off its hinges, revealing a staircase leading upward. The second sagged in place, as perforated as a cheese grater.
McCarter carefully moved forward and checked both doorways before turning and giving Encizo the thumbs-up signal. The combat swimmer turned and went to the doorway so that James could see him. He lifted a finger and spoke into his throat mike.
“Come across,” he said. “We’ll clear upward.”
“Acknowledged,” James replied.
Encizo turned back into the room just as he heard footsteps on the staircase. Booted feet pounded the wooden steps as someone jogged downward making no effort to conceal his movement. Encizo blinked and McCarter disappeared, moving smoothly to rematerialize next to the stairway access, back to the wall and sound-suppressed Browning pistol up.
Wearing a headscarf and American Army chocolate-chip-pattern camouflage uniform, a Shiite militia member with an AKM came out of the stairway and strolled casually into the room. On one knee Encizo centered his machine pistol on the irregular.
