True Faith and Allegiance

Only when the first shot missed and exploded into a decorative masonry fountain just four feet to his left did Scott Hagen snap out of it. He knew his family was right behind him, and this knowledge somehow overpowered his ability to duck. He stayed big and broad, using his body to cover for those behind, but he did not stand still.

He had no choice. He ran toward the gunfire.

The shooter snapped off three rounds in quick succession, but the chaos of the moment caused several diners to knock over tables and umbrellas, to get in his way, even to bump up against him as they tried to flee the café. Hagen lost sight of the man when a red umbrella tipped between the two of them, and this only spurred him on faster, thinking the attacker’s obstructed view could give Hagen a chance to tackle the man before getting shot.

And he almost made it.

The attacker kicked the umbrella out of the way, saw his intended victim charging up an open lane in the center of the chaos, and fired the AK. Hagen felt a round slam into his left forearm — it nearly spun him and he stumbled with the alteration to his momentum, but he continued plowing through the tables.

Hagen was no expert in small-arms combat — he was a sailor and not a soldier — but still he could tell this man was no well-trained fighter. The kid could operate his AK, but he was mad-eyed, rushed, frantic about it all.

Whatever this was all about, it was deeply personal to him.

And it was personal to Hagen now. He had no idea if anyone in his family had been hurt, all he knew was this man had to be stopped.

A waiter lunged at the shooter from the right, getting ahold of the man’s shoulder and shaking him, willing the weapon to drop free, but the gunman spun and slammed his finger back against the trigger over and over, hitting the brave young man in the abdomen at a distance of two feet.

The waiter was dead before he hit the ground.

And the shooter turned his weapon back toward the charging Hagen.

The second bullet to strike the commander was worse than the first — it tore through the meat above his right hip and jolted him back — but he kept going and the shot after that went high. The man was having trouble controlling the recoil of the gun. Every second and third shot of each string was high as the muzzle rose.

A round raced by Hagen’s face as he went airborne, dove headlong into the man, slamming him backward over a metal table.

Hagen went over with him, and both men rolled legs over head and crashed to the hard pavers of the outdoor café. Hagen wrapped the fingers of his right hand around the barrel of the Kalashnikov to keep it pointed away, and the hot metal singed his hand, but he did not dare let go.

He was right-handed, but with his left he pounded his fist over and over into the young man’s face. He felt the sweat that stuck there, soaking the man’s hair and cheeks, and then he felt the blood as the attacker’s nose broke and a gush of red sprayed across his face.

The man’s hold on the rifle weakened, Hagen ripped it away, rolled off the man, heaved himself up to his knees, and pointed it at him.

“Davai!” The young man shouted. It was Hagen’s first indication this shooter was a foreigner.

The attacker rolled up to his knees now, and while Hagen shouted for him to stay where he was, to stop moving, to put his hands up, the man reached into the front pocket of his trench coat.

“I’ll fuckin’ shoot you!” Hagen screamed.

An unsheathed knife with a six-inch blade appeared from the attacker’s coat, and he charged with it, a crazed look on his blood-covered face.

The kid was just five feet away when Hagen shot him twice in the chest. The knife fell free, Hagen stepped out of the way, and the young man windmilled forward into the ground, knocking chairs out of the way and face-planting into food spilled off a table.

The attack was over. Hagen could hear moans behind him, screams from the street, the sound of sirens and car alarms and crying children.

He pulled the magazine out of the rifle and dropped it, cycled the bolt to empty the chamber, and threw the weapon onto the ground. He rolled the wounded man on his back, knelt over him.

The man’s eyes were open — he was conscious and aware, but clearly dying, as compliant now as a rag doll.

Hagen got right in his face, adrenaline in control of his actions now. “Who are you? Why? Why did you do this?”

“For my brother,” the blood-covered man said. Hagen could hear his lungs filling with blood.

“Who the hell is your—”

“You killed him. You murdered him!”

The accent was Russian, and Hagen understood. His ship had helped sink two submarines in the Baltic conflict. He said, “He was a sailor?”

The young man’s voice grew weaker by the second. “He died… a hero of… the Russian… Federation.”

Something else occurred to Hagen now. “How did you find me?”

The young man’s eyes went glassy.