Free The Genesis Key by James Barney Page B

gripped his pistol tightly and, with his thumb, gently clicked the safety off.
    As the soldier neared the driver’s side window, Sargon lifted the Tariq and fired twice in rapid succession. The soldier lurched backward and fired a short burst of bullets over the top of the Mercedes as he fell to the ground. Sargon wasn’t sure if the soldier was dead but had no time to find out. For, at that exact moment, the driver of the van was getting out of the vehicle. Sargon aimed and fired twice in the man’s direction. The first shot missed, but the second landed squarely between the man’s eyes, bringing him down instantly. The soldier fell out of the van’s open door, his feet catching on the seat belt as he did, so that he ended up dangling awkwardly, upside down over the road.
    Frantically, Sargon looked in the backseat, where Farhana and Nisreen were huddled on the floor. Beneath a blanket of broken glass and tattered upholstery, he saw movement. Then he heard Farhana crying softly and Nisreen hushing her. Thank Allah , they were alive! He was just about to speak to them when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye.
    Time seemed to stand still as Sargon turned to see the first soldier staggering to his feet beside the driver’s side window, his torso bloody from the two gunshot wounds Sargon had inflicted. The wounded soldier hoisted his automatic weapon to his hip and, for a split second, locked eyes with Sargon. Reflexively, Sargon lifted the door handle and pushed the door open as hard as he could with his wounded shoulder. He yelped as an excruciating pain surged through his upper body.
    The car door connected squarely with the gunman’s weapon just as the AK–47 erupted in a burst of fire and bullets. The lethal barrage, meant for Sargon, instead slammed into the vehicle’s rear door and quarter panel. Simultaneously, Sargon lifted his pistol and fired through the open door. His first shot caught the soldier in the right shoulder, the second in the neck. The soldier fell to the ground and dropped his weapon.
    Fueled with rage, Sargon exited the vehicle and stood over the soldier’s prone body, his pistol aimed directly at the man’s head. But the soldier was already dead.
    There was now only silence, and the acrid smell of gunpowder and burned rubber.
    Sargon stepped over the soldier’s bloody body and stuck his head through the Mercedes’s shattered rear window. One glance confirmed his deepest horror—Nisreen and Farhana lay in a bloody, lifeless heap, their bodies riddled with bullet holes.
    He opened his mouth to scream, but nothing came out.
    He couldn’t breathe. His knees buckled.
    For several seconds, he braced himself awkwardly on the car, desperately gasping for air, until, finally, he lost consciousness and collapsed.

Chapter Ten
    September 4, 1979. Mishkhab, Iraq.
    S argon couldn’t stay long in Mishkhab. By now, Hussein and his cronies almost certainly knew what had happened on the highway south of Baghdad. At the very least, someone had surely reported the abandoned Mercedes and two dead soldiers to the authorities. They were after him, and they knew he was heading south.
    He had driven four hours in a panic-induced haze, with the bodies of Nisreen and Farhana in the back of the military van, wrapped in green blankets. He’d driven and shifted gears with one hand because his left shoulder was stiff from the gunshot wound. The bullet had nicked the soft, fleshy portion of his upper arm. Whenever he tried to move his injured arm, the searing pain made him feel lightheaded. But, in an odd way, that pain was the only thing that kept him grounded as he drove. Everything else around him seemed like a horrible dream.
    He was dressed like an army corporal now, having removed the military uniform from the body of the van driver. The olive green fatigues were snug at the waist but otherwise fit surprisingly well.
    Just after 4:00 P.M. , Sargon