The rasping sound of Nihemedow’s knife leaving its sheath set Pyragy’s teeth on edge. It was too loud. His thought had been that their silenced pistols would leave behind evidence whereas a knifing could easily be dismissed as a failed mugging or burglary. Looking at it now, in the split second he had to consider the situation, Pyragy decided it would have been better to shoot the guard.
The guard turned his head toward the three men.
Nihemedow, indeed too eager, screamed in bloodlust, his yell almost an ululation. He rushed forward, the knife coming up, the keen blade poised to strike. The guard froze and his eyes went wide. His hands came up as if he would ward off the charging attacker with his fear alone.
The knife flashed downward.
Nihemedow missed.
Had he not been watching, Pyragy would have thought it impossible. The arc of the knife passed down and through the place where the guard should have been. Some analytical part of Pyragy’s brain understood what his senses refused to acknowledge. Kanzi had been a half step off in his overeager charge. The two men collided and hit the slick, polished floor in a heap.
“Go, go!” Pyragy ordered Gandosi Burdimedezov. “Stop him!”
Burdimedezov hurried…but it was too late. Nihemedow made a sort of retching, choking noise and fell to his knees, clutching at himself. Burdimedezov threw himself into the fray. There was a moment’s scuffling as Nihemedow was knocked flat, then he curled into a ball and screamed in pain and terror. Then it was Burdimedezov yelping, the sound a strange one from so stolid a man. It was a shriek of pain and shock, of surprise. Then Burdimedezov was falling backward, landing painfully in a sitting position, clutching one of his hands. The guard fled beyond him.
Pyragy stood and ripped the Ruger .22 pistol with its attached, handmade silencer from his waistband and began pulling the pistol’s trigger as fast as he could. The bullets raised flecks of colored facade from the walls of the corridor leading away from their position as the guard ducked, dodged and scrambled for all he was worth. Pyragy cursed as his pistol ran dry. He threw it to the floor in rage.
“Why!” he demanded, wheeling on Burdimedezov. “Why have you done this?”
“He had a knife!” Burdimedezov shrieked. It was then that Pyragy saw the blood streaming from Gandosi’s arm and from the hand he clutched tightly in his other palm.
“But,” Pyragy argued, “he is a private security guard! They do not carry combat knives. That is absurd!”
“He had a knife, I tell you,” Burdimedezov snorted, sounding nothing like himself as he paled from the blood loss. A pool of sticky crimson had begun to widen around him on the floor, and Pyragy realized then how severe the damage must be. “He had a knife clipped to the pocket of his trousers. A folding knife. He flicked it open and cut me.”
Pyragy would not have believed it if he had not seen it. Americans were soft. Weak. Everyone knew that. They guarded their airports with soldiers who did not have magazines in their rifles. They apologized to the leaders of nations whose citizens streamed across U.S. borders illegally. They listened to the enemy abroad in their countless wars and “police actions,” and prosecuted their own soldiers for killing those enemies too efficiently. How, then, could one fat American fool have been armed and prepared to resist? It boggled the mind.
“See to Kanzi,” Pyragy ordered. “He will call for help. We must make sure they do not find the bomb.” Heedless of the danger, for in truth there was supposed to be no danger yet, Pyragy used a foot to shove the bomb deep into the planter he and his team had chosen for the purpose. He took a moment to arrange some of the plant fronds to cover it. Glancing at his watch, he cursed. The box was not supposed to be moved for another fifteen minutes. He had been told this over and over again: the bomb required a very specific time for preset acclimation to its environment, to ensure maximum casualties when its sensors and processors were triggered.
Well, there was no help for that now. If he did not hide the bomb, its discovery would render the entire mission a failure. He would not have such a waste on his record. He would not allow himself to fail.
So the bomb would perhaps detonate prematurely. No matter. Even if it killed no one, the explosion would have the desired effect. The Americans would see yet again that the safe little world of illusion in which they lived was not so safe at all. They could be touched. They could be harmed. One of their most precious icons of their sick, capitalist, consumerist world, a shopping mall, a temple to greed, would become a killing ground in their minds, even if there were no victims. Each time one of the lazy Westerners set foot in a shop or in any public place, he or she would be wondering if an explosion was imminent. Wasn’t that what a campaign such as this was about?
That was how Pyragy would justify his failure to his superiors, at any rate. With luck, he could convince them that his mission, while not technically successful, was not so horrible a failure as to warrant punishment for him…or for his family.
Burdimedezov dragged Nihemedow up, who still clutched his stomach. “Let me see it,” Burdimedezov ordered. “Let me see it,” he said again, more forcefully. He pushed his partner to a sitting position on a nearby bench.
Pyragy grabbed the heavy duffel bag they had brought with them. His mind began running through what he knew of their situation. They had broken through the glass doors at the rear of the mall, where the periodic parking lot patrols frequently did not come close enough for the drivers to notice such a breach because of the placement of large trash containers and an overgrowth of trees and vines close to the face of the building. The security system’s motion sensors, and other electrical components of the obsolete security devices in this structure, were being jammed by the device Pyragy carried on his belt. All of these measures were supposed to have enabled them to break in, place the bomb and get out, disguising their breach as simple vandalism.
Now the guard would be summoning police, and telling those police that armed, dangerous men were in the building. Pyragy pulled back the heavy zipper of the duffel bag and removed a pair of AK-47 rifles with folding metal stocks. He slapped one 30-round magazine home and racked the bolt of the weapon.
“Gandosi,” he said. “How badly are you hurt?”
“I will live,” Burdimedezov said, his composure returning. Pyragy knew that sensation well. Having temporarily failed, having sustained unanticipated injury, Burdimedezov would be eager to reassert his manhood, to prove that he was no coward and no weakling.
“Your arm looks very bad,” Pyragy said, preparing a second AK-47. “You have lost much blood.”
“Give me the tape,” Burdimedezov said simply. Kanzi Nihemedow sat half crouched on the bench nearby, whimpering.
Pyragy produced a roll of silver duct tape from the bag and threw it to Burdimedezov, who caught it with his uninjured hand. He began using his teeth to break the tape as he wrapped strips of it around his arm and hand. He was still very pale, and his arm and the leg of his pants were stained through with blood, but he showed no signs of slowing down.
“Kanzi?” Pyragy asked.
“He is barely conscious,” Burdimedezov said, looking again to his wounded comrade and placing a hand on either side of the man’s face to peer directly into his eyes. “He clutches his stomach and refuses to let go. He is bleeding everywhere. I think the American pig gutted him.”
Pyragy cursed again. “I do not believe it,” he said.
“Kanzi. Kanzi!” Gandosi Burdimedezov shouted. He shook his head. “He does not respond to me at all,” he said.
Pyragy, his rifle cradled in one arm, went to stand over them both. He slapped Nihemedow hard across the face.
“Operative Nihemedow!” he bellowed. “Report! You are ordered to report!”