Was the American really here?
Ashani knew the delusions that a tortured man’s brain was capable of forming. Hallucinations constructed of equal parts pain and hopelessness. Like a person stranded in a desert who sees an oasis as they’re dying of thirst, prisoners desperate for rescue often construed salvation from thin air.
Maybe Rapp was just a phantasm.
The phantasm began to move.
The woman standing beside the assassin edged the pilot out of the way, clearing a corridor from the cockpit to the cabin. A corridor Rapp employed like a bullet screaming down a rifle’s barrel. One moment Rapp had been entering the cabin from the airstairs with his head down and his shaggy hair covering his face in wet strands.
His hands had been empty.
They weren’t empty any longer.
A pistol’s report battered Ashani’s ears, drowning out the idling engines. The unexpectedness of a gunman firing an unsuppressed weapon in close quarters had the effect of a detonating flashbang.
For an instant, Ashani’s tormentors were stunned.
And then Rapp wasn’t the only person moving.
Ashani resisted the urge to cower until the storm of violence passed. If he’d learned anything in his dealings with Ruyintan, it was that the Quds Force operative had instilled an unmatched ferocity coupled with an unparalleled capacity for violence into his men. Rapp might have the upper hand now, but he wouldn’t retain it.
There were five armed Iranians on the plane.
That was too many.
Ashani thrust to his left, turning himself into a human spear. The pull of restraints against his wounds tore a scream from his lips, but not before the crown of his head connected with his seatmate’s shooting arm. A pistol discharged and the muzzle blast buffeted his face. Reeling, Ashani battled the urge to retch as men screamed and weapons fired. The pungent odor of gunpowder filled the air along with the rustlike smell of blood and the putrid stench of perforated bowels.
Ashani’s seatmate plunged his pistol into Ashani’s chest.
And pulled the trigger.
The explosion of agony made what Ashani had felt earlier seem like a love tap. A milky gauze enveloped him, blanketing the pain and softening the edges of his awareness.
Hadn’t he done enough?
Couldn’t he just let go?
He saw Samira’s beautiful face.
Rapp was a man of his word, but he was also a cold-blooded killer. He did not trade in charity. Ashani trusted the assassin to save his family, but not if he died without telling the CIA officer what he knew.
He had to fight.
Ignoring the fire burning in his chest and the blood soaking his shirt, Ashani flung himself against his seatmate a second time. He fell onto the Quds Force officer like a pile of wet laundry, lacking the strength to cause harm.
But even wet laundry could spoil a man’s aim.
The Quds Officer cursed and rocketed an elbow into Ashani’s temple.
The blow accomplished what the gunshot wound had not.
Blackness claimed him.
CHAPTER 85
RAPP squeezed the trigger and sent a 9mm round into the brainpan of the Iranian seated next to Ashani. The Quds Force officer’s head snapped back as a splatter of bone and brain matter sprayed against the fuselage with a wet-sounding slap. Panning to his left and right, Rapp surveyed the cabin over his pistol’s stubby front sight post, looking for additional threats.
He found none.
The gunfight had taken the term close-quarters battle to an entirely new level. He was no stranger to violence, but he’d never killed five men in such tight confines. The once-luxurious cabin was covered in gore. Blood and other bodily fluids dripped down the leather seats and gathered on the beige-carpeted floor in putrid puddles. The stench made Rapp want to vomit and the ringing in his ears and his proximity to multiple muzzle blasts made his balance a bit unsteady. Catching movement to his left, Rapp saw a Quds Force operative pawing at his chest.
Rapp shot him in the forehead.
The Iranian went limp.
Though he’d survived the carnage without serious injury, a burning across the top of Rapp’s left shoulder suggested that this was a near thing. After completing a final sweep of the cabin, Rapp eyed his shoulder. The thin stream of blood combined with the painful but free movement of the joint confirmed his early diagnosis—a graze.
He was fine.
Ashani was not.
The Iranian’s face had been beaten to a pulp. His eyes were almost swollen shut and ringed by discolored circles. His nose was cartoonishly flat—more caricature than something resembling a normal appendage. Ashani’s lips were split and dripping blood and at least one of his teeth was cracked, but it was the wetness on his chest that most concerned Rapp.
Crossing the cabin, Rapp holstered his pistol and examined the wound. The hole was in the vicinity of the Iranian’s heart. Even if the MOIS officer had been in an operating room under the care of a world-class surgeon, Rapp would have put slim odds on his survival. In a cabin full of death with medical help nowhere in sight, Ashani had minutes to live.
Maybe less.
Ashani’s eyes opened, and he beckoned Rapp closer with a weak wave.
