Free Dead in Damascus: A Special Operations Group Short Story ([#0] Special Operations Group) by Stephen Templin Page B

sweetly.
    “Sure.” When the waiter returned, Chris ordered, and the waiter gathered up the menus.
    Najeeb leaned over the table and spoke quietly, “The man in charge is Professor Mordet. He supervise bomb cell that make IEDs in Syria. And he supervise other cell that smuggle bombs into Iraq. They plant on roadside and use cell phone to detonate.” He took out a flash drive and showed it to Hannah. “I put all information in here.”
    Hannah nodded. “We can protect you. You can live in the US like we talked about.” Of course, that all depended on his intel being as good as he claimed it was, but Hannah must’ve told Najeeb that before because she didn’t mention it now.
    “You not understand,” Najeeb said. “They will find me.”
    “They won’t find you,” Hannah said. “I’ll make sure.”
    “How can make sure?”
    Two stern-eyed burly men walked into the restaurant and studied the interior, and Chris reacted by discreetly separating the Velcro on his hip, drawing his pistol, and covertly wielding it under the table. Kapua’s slight movements indicated to Chris that his buddy was doing the same.
    Crack! Najeeb’s drinking glass erupted, one of the restaurant windows had shattered, and a shot sounded—for a split moment, space and time seemed jumbled. Without thinking, Chris crouched and brought his weapon up to search for targets. Najeeb fell out of his chair, and Hannah pulled him away from the line of fire. Kapua flipped over the table with a loud thud, creating a shield for them. One waiter froze and the other dove to the deck as two customers upped and dashed for the side door.
    The stern-eyed burly pair seemed to have spotted Najeeb, and they lifted their robes, exposing their AK-47 rifles, and then raised them in Najeeb’s direction. Chris still hadn’t figured out where the original shot had come from, but using the upturned table for cover, he popped the quickest-moving burly guy twice in the upper body before shifting to the slower guy and popping him once in the chest. Chris’s adrenaline pumped so madly, and his mind sped so quickly that the world around him decelerated. Chris’s shooting instructor Ron Hickok told him that body shots were effective for slowing a man down, but the only sure way of stopping a man was a head shot. The fear struck Chris that he wasn’t moving quickly enough, but he ignored it and took the time to adjust his own body position for a clearer line of sight and aimed at the slower man’s face. Chris squeezed the trigger, causing the man’s head to snap back. With the same efficiency, Chris dispatched the other man.
    Kapua blasted in the direction of the shattered window—he must’ve picked up the shooter who Chris hadn’t seen. Hannah and Najeeb crawled away, toward the kitchen, following the retreat of waiters. The remaining customers fled the restaurant through the side door.
    Outside, more men with AKs descended on the restaurant. Chris and Kapua didn’t have to kill them all, but they did have to protect Hannah and Najeeb. The enemy muzzles flashed. Inside, windows imploded, and a salvo of projectiles ripped into Chris and Kapua’s table. The wood wouldn’t hold much longer before the bullets broke through. Chris and Kapua scrambled to another table, and Chris flipped it to its side. He and Kapua used it as a shield while they busted caps in the direction of the muzzle flashes. Chris’s gun ran dry, and with a fluid motion, one hand ejected the empty magazine while the other brought up a fresh one. He inserted the full magazine and depressed the slide stop release. The slide sprang forward and a new cartridge loaded into the chamber.
    Hannah and Najeeb had disappeared into the kitchen, and now it was time for Chris and Kapua to do their vanishing act, too. In training and in real firefights, Chris and Kapua had learned to read each other’s minds—words were unnecessary. They gave the enemy one last taste of lead, but just as they turned toward