Clean Kill by Jack Coughlin, Donald A. Davis Page A

inside the open door, keeping the small pistol pointed at the floor. There was no option of moving Jeff to a more secure location, but the nurses pushed the bed out of the direct line of the doorway, and were busy adjusting the IVs and monitors.
    Prince Abdullah, a tall, slender, handsome man wearing freshly pressed black trousers and a loose blue shirt instead of Arab robes, hobbled down the hallway toward the room, leaning on a cane with one hand and with the other upon the arm of his fifteen-year-old son, a younger version of himself. He smiled at her.
    “Miss Tabrizi. Fully armed and dangerous,” he joked when he saw the small pistol.
    “Mr. Ambassador. Please excuse me for having a weapon in your presence.” She gave a slight bow of her head in respect.
    “Nonsense, Delara. That shooting we are hearing up on the roof means that your weapon is most welcome in our current situation.” He looked over the situation, shifted his attitude and took command.
    “Let me have the pistol, Delara. I’m an old soldier. I will stand guard while you and my son and the nurses shift all the furniture you can just outside the doorway here to create an obstacle. Make sure the legs are pointed outward, toward any attacker. Lock the adjoining doors to the sitting room.”
    The prince looked over at Sir Jeff. Lady Patricia could not smile back, and ever so slightly shook her head in dismay. Abdullah walked over and squeezed Jeff’s hand, then went back to the door, checked the pistol and knew it was really no protection at all against a military-style assault. The only open question was whether the man and woman who had gone charging up the stairwell were really capable of fighting trained terrorists. He shrugged and settled a shoulder against the doorframe. Allah’s will.
     
     
    KYLE SWANSON HUSTLED TO the small parapet that lined the edge of the roof, keeping his head low but still having to duck when a crisp three-shot burst of fire slashed into the concrete and sent big chips flying. He fired blindly twice over the edge, then carefully looking over it, he saw only a thick and spreading cloud of gray smoke. “He popped a smoke grenade! Probably going inside two floors down.”
    Sybelle was rummaging through the equipment on the two dead terrorists, tearing off the H&K MP5 submachine guns and pulling spare magazines from the chest pouches. She gave one of the weapons to Kyle as he ran past and followed him back into the stairwell.
    The intruder was disoriented. The firefight had forced him to land on the roof of the third floor of the clinic and his target was on the top floor. Under the smoke cloud, he kicked his way through the door of the adjacent building and found himself on the floor of a wide landing that led to the ascending staircase. With the MP5 tight against his shoulder, he moved slowly up the steps.
     
     
    SWANSON HALTED BEFORE GOING beyond the landing on the fifth floor and whispered to Sybelle, “Don’t use the MP5s yet. We have to draw him out, so stay with the pistols. Make him think that’s all we have.” He cracked two rounds from his Colt .45 down the stairwell, the sound amplified by the enclosed, area, and the bullets gouged out chunks of the wall and whined away in wild ricochets.
    The attacker below paused on his step, but did not see anyone, which meant the defenders had no clear line of sight and the firing was meant only to slow him down. A pistol, not an automatic. Move. He ascended two more steps and stopped at the middle landing, where the stairs zig-zagged higher. A blue door with a white number 4 painted on it was to his right. He leaned out and fired a short burst through the door to clear it, then another burst upward in retaliation for the few shots that had come down. Keep their heads down.
    Kyle shifted back into the main corridor on the fifth floor and tucked into the slight recess of the elevator entrance, which provided partial concealment and a minimum of cover along the length of