Kismet could barely hear the shots through the dense brick walls, but what he could make out was enough to slow his pace as he ran toward the exit. His shirt and the skin underneath had been torn to shreds during his violent extrication from the museum’s interior gardens, but he gave it little thought. He was far more concerned about catching a stray bullet as he stepped outside the sheltering brick structure.
The distinctive popping sound of gunfire ceased as he reached the doors, but he continued with hasty caution, moving in a duck walk through the archway. He eased around the corner, just in time to see a lone Humvee tearing out of the parking area and onto the street. The pandemonium that lingered in its wake was explanation enough as to what had just occurred. The lone assassin had somehow stolen the vehicle under the noses of the infantrymen and was escaping.
Colonel Buttrick was already marshaling his troops for the pursuit, but every passing second put the fleeing Humvee further away. Before Kismet could cross half the distance to the parking area however, the first of the three transports took off in a spray of sand and gravel, while three soldiers, now standing in a firing line, continued to pump short bursts from their carbines at the rapidly diminishing target vehicle. If the bullets found their mark, they were insufficient to slow the assassin.
A second Humvee pulled away close on the heels of the first and Kismet saw the third give a slight tremor as its gears were engaged. Desperate to reach that last remaining vehicle, he sprinted ahead, no longer concerned about the exchange of weapons fire.
He was not sure what exactly he hoped to accomplish. Catching up to Aziz’s killer seemed a remote possibility at best, but that individual was the only person remaining who could answer the question burning in Kismet’s mind: why had Aziz been silenced?
As he closed to within ten meters, the Humvee’s rear tires began to turn. A scattershot of gravel blasted into his face as the driver punched the accelerator a little too eagerly, and Kismet involuntarily looked away for a moment. Three more steps, in less than a second, brought him to the place where, only a moment before, the Humvee had sat idle. Now there was only a toxic cloud of diesel exhaust. Still running, he thrust out both hands, blindly groping for the vehicle as he blinked away the sand and fumes.
The fingers of his right hand bounced off the hardened aluminum exterior of the rear hatch, momentarily catching on the fabric of the white United Nations banner rigged across the back end of the vehicle. His left hand however closed on something more substantial: the driver’s side antenna mount. He reflexively closed his fingers, gripping the coiled spring of metal as he might a lifeline.
The Humvee lurched forward and Kismet was abruptly yanked along with it. A stabbing pain shot from his elbow to his shoulder as his full weight suddenly depended from that lone extremity, but he did not let go. He made a futile effort to run behind the vehicle. There was no hope of keeping pace with the racing transport, but Kismet reckoned he only needed to get his feet under him long enough to propel himself up and onto the rear hatch. If he failed to do that, nothing else would matter.
For a moment or two, he succeeded. Pouring on a burst of speed, he actually managed to run along behind the Humvee, easing the strain on his left arm incrementally. He could feel the ground vanishing beneath his toes, moving faster than his legs could propel him, and knew that he would only get one chance. With two more bounding steps, he threw his right hand forward, groping for anything that might give him a second secure point of contact.
Once more, his reaching fingers found no purchase. The smooth exterior of the vehicle was free of latches and other protuberances. With half a meter of ground clearance, the designers had not even bothered with collision bumpers. The rear of the vehicle was a featureless metal wall, rising vertically above nothingness before sloping forward at a forty-five degree angle. He once more found himself clutching the flimsy UN banner as he was yanked forward off his feet.
Miraculously, the flag did not tear as his weight pulled the fabric taut. The sudden shock was absorbed by the rubber bungee cords that stretched from grommets at each corner of the strip. As he lost his footing, Kismet swung forward and his face slammed into the vehicle. The impact was not hard enough to knock him loose from his precarious handhold, but it proved a thankful distraction from the jarring blows that now traveled up from his feet as they dangled and scraped along the rough macadam roadway. The heavy leather of his boots afforded a measure of protection, but that would not last. His footwear was being methodically sanded away by friction from the relentless forward movement.
The Humvee’s speed was impossible to judge, but Kismet knew intuitively that he was now moving too fast to safely let go. He could not give up in his quest to gain a perch on the vehicle even if he chose to do so. If the impact did not kill him, the drop onto the pavement would scour the flesh from his bones. Though his left arm now burned with exertion and the pain of torn ligaments, he summoned every ounce of will power that remained and channeled it into a single pull.
His muscles bunched under the tattered remains of his shirt. To avoid losing what little progress he had made, he jammed his right arm deep under the UN flag until he could feel the fabric cutting into his armpit. Though his progress seemed marginal, he found that by flexing his knees, he could lift his feet away from the constant scraping punishment, if only for brief moments.
Nothing else existed in his world but the task of hauling himself onto the back of the Humvee. The streets of Baghdad flashed by unnoticed, and even the pursuit of the assassin now seemed a secondary concern. Kismet counted twenty ragged breaths before trying once more to lift himself higher, but his effort collapsed after only a moment, yielding almost no reward. Gritting his teeth, he tried again…
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