I opened up with the Beretta, using double taps on everyone I saw, one to the chest to stall them, one to the head to blast them out of my life. My inner Warrior was screaming at me to kill them all.

One of the men turned toward me and even though he was dazed from the flash-bang, he opened up with an AK-47, the rounds chopping into the stairwell inches behind me. I closed to zero distance and put two into his face. As he fell his finger clutched around the trigger and hot rounds stitched a line up the wall and across the ceiling.

Ghost barked a warning and I turned in time to dodge away from a man raising a pistol with both hands. He shot where I had been and I shot where he was. The man staggered out of sight.

Behind me someone screamed in terrible pain as Ghost went for his throat. The scream ended with a wet gurgle.

There were five men down already and three on their feet. The flash-bangs had done their jobs in the confined space of the entry hall. These men were disoriented and, even though they were armed, they had no aim. I killed two of them before the slide locked back on my Beretta. The last guy didn't have a pistol, and he thought I was helpless with an empty gun, so he rushed me with the stake. I used the pistol to bash the stake aside and then I snapped his leg with a side-thrust kick. He screamed and twisted down to the floor, and I rechambered the kick and slammed my heel against his ear, flinging him onto his side.

I swapped out the magazine as I spun around. Everybody was down. Ghost stood over the second man he'd killed, and his muzzle was black with blood.

The back door was a charred ruin, hanging in splinters from a single twisted hinge, and I could see a black sedan parked outside. Around me were the dead and dying. My rage was still boiling, but my inner Cop voice was telling me to dial it down, to find someone with a pulse. To get some answers.

And then a figure stepped into the doorway.

Tall, lithe, dressed in a black chador. I pointed my gun at her. Ghost growled from deep in his chest.

She said, "Joseph-they're coming!"

Instantly a hail of bullets tore into the doorframe as Violin dove into the room.

Chapter Seventy-Seven.

Mustapha's Daily Goods Tehran, Iran June 15, 7:42 p.m.

The bullets filled the air as Violin hit the floor, rolled over a dead man, grabbed him, and pulled him into a sitting position to serve as a shield.

Ghost looked to me for a command. To him she was another potential enemy, a danger to the pack. With a word I could order him to tear her apart or accept her into the pack.

"Home!" I snapped. It was the word that would change everything about how he would react to her. "Home" was code for "friend." Instantly Ghost's gaze shifted away from her and refocused on the barrage that continued to tear apart the doorway. He hunkered down behind the man whose throat he had torn out, bristling, muscles trembling as he waited for the command and the opportunity to fight.

Violin turned to me and tore away the chador that hid her face and body.

I don't know what I expected to see. Certainly not the "monster" she considered herself to be. She was beautiful, but not in the way that Circe is. Not curvy and elegant; she had none of the fineness of features that belonged on the covers of fashion magazines. Her features were sharper, more foxlike than feline, with intelligent eyes, sharply defined cheekbones, thin lips that were curled into a wicked combat smile, and a body like a dancer's. Small breasts, long limbs, superb tone. She wore black formfitting clothes with lots of pockets and cross belts for weapons. On a strap slung across her body was a compact Micro Tavor-21 Israeli bullpup assault rifle with an extended thirty-two-round magazine. Very sexy. She reminded me of Grace. Not in looks, but in her air of competence and lethal potential. It took a single microsecond to take all of this in.

"How many?" I yelled.

"Too many," she said. "Two full teams. Twenty at least."

"Christ."

"Maybe more in front."

We looked at each other in the way soldiers will on a battlefield, gauging each other's competence and skills. It was a lightning-fast conversation that would have been slowed down by words. She nodded to me and I nodded back.

The hail of bullets slowed and I heard men yelling orders. They were coming.

"Call it," I said.

"Front," said Violin.

"Back," I agreed.

She spun around and ran in a fast crouch toward the store; I pulled a grenade out of my pocket. Not a flash-bang this time. As shadows filled the destroyed doorway I pulled the pin and threw it.

"Ghost-frag out!"

Ghost flattened behind the corpse.

The grenade hit the floor right inside the door and took a short bounce just as the second wave of Sabbatarians rounded the corner. The frag exploded at waist height, blowing the men apart. There were terrible screams from the attackers who hadn't been in the direct blast radius. Men and women. Then gunfire.

I dove forward and slid chest-first to the doorway, my pistol out in front, and even before I stopped sliding I began firing. I emptied the second magazine into the mass of them, shooting for the center of any man-shaped shadow, firing the magazine dry as bullets tore through the air three feet above me. They couldn't see me through the smoke, and the confusion was too great for them to grasp that I was shooting from a prone position.

Ghost barked, wanting to be in the middle of this, but this was a gunfight; there was no place for him.

Behind me the front door was blasted to splinters by heavy-caliber gunfire. A second later I heard the distinctive pop-pop-pop of the compact MTAR-21. And more screams.

Something came whistling through the air and struck the doorframe above my head; glass exploded and I was showered by splinters and a noxious-smelling liquid. Even with the intense stink of cordite in the air, I could identify the smell. Garlic oil.

Freaks.

They still thought they were fighting vampires. Suddenly I understood why they had sent so many. They were that afraid of the Red Knights. Maybe they'd found Krystos and his crew and thought that a Red Knight had taken out the whole team, so this time they sent two teams.

"Reloading!" I heard Violin yell.

I rolled onto my back and fired six shots downrange past where she crouched. I saw one figure fall and others scatter. As Violin slapped the magazine into place I heard feet crunch on glass, and I twisted out of the way as bullets chopped into the floor where I had been lying. I fired as I rolled away, sloppily but continually, and someone screamed.

But then several of them opened up at once and I had to throw myself behind the wall and curl into a ball to save my eyes from the glass and tile splinters that filled the air like a swarm of hornets.

Ghost kept barking, furious and frustrated.

Men began pouring into the building, running past me, unaware of the figure curled in the corner, hidden by smoke. They aimed their guns at the sound of the barks and I came up onto one knee and fired, hitting two of them and causing the others to skid to a stop. They realized their mistake and turned, but then Ghost hit them from the other side. He was among them like a white demon, and instantly it was all screams and blood. Guns were useless that close and already too late.

Beyond the melee I saw Violin rise up from behind the counter and kill three men in two seconds, her weapon switched to semiautomatic for accuracy and ammunition conservation. I'd only spotted two extra mags on her rig, and she had to be near the end of the second. I swapped out my own and slapped my last one into place; but as I came to my feet I pulled another fragmentation grenade and lobbed it outside. Just as it cleared the doorway there was a figure there and the grenade burst against the man's chest, tearing him apart but effectively screening the knot of shooters behind him. I faded to one side and fired, but even as I pulled the trigger I saw three men fall. One flew backward from my bullet, but two more dropped with that distinctive rag-doll sprawl of men who had taken headshots.

Then a voice yelled in my earbud.

"No fire from the house. Friendlies on nine, twelve, and three."

I knew that voice.

Top.

I tapped my earbud and yelled. "Echo! Echo! Echo! Be advised, friendly taking fire in front of store. Friendly is female and inside."

Bunny said, "Got it."

Immediately the street out front and the alley behind were torn apart by bullets fired from three separate positions. Men screamed and shouted. The Sabbatarians tried to return fire, but they were being ambushed by Echo Team, and that is a bad place to be.

"Violin!" I barked. "Cease fire. My team is outside. Hold your position."

There was no answer, and when I risked leaning out to look, her shooting position was empty. Ghost stood panting in the hallway, but beyond him there were only dead Sabbatarians and a floor littered with bullet casings and blood.

Then it was over.

The gunfire stopped. There were no more screams, no shouts. Just the sound of running feet as Echo Team swarmed into the store from both sides, weapons out, eyes blazing with anger.

"Clear!" called Khalid as he checked the small rooms downstairs. He and Lydia ran for the stairs and cleared the second floor. No one had tried to come in that way.

Bunny's monstrous form filled the front doorway, a combat shotgun in his hands.

"Hostiles are all down," he reported.

Top Sims helped me up off the floor. He looked me up and down. "I can't leave you on your own for five minutes without you getting into some shit, can I?"

Chapter Seventy-Eight.

Mustapha's Daily Goods Tehran, Iran June 15, 7:49 p.m.

"Did you see her?" I demanded as Echo gathered around.

Bunny frowned. "See who, Boss?"

"The woman. Violin. She was fighting them from the store."

He shook his head. "Didn't see anybody but the bad guys. Lot of hostiles down out there. Saw a couple stiffs with their throats cut, too. Whoever she was, chick can fight. Who was she?"

"Long story." I hurried into the store and checked the bodies, and though one of them was female, it wasn't Violin. "Check everyone. Do we have anyone with a pulse?"

"Got one here," said Lydia, who was crouched over a slender figure. Jamsheed.

"He's one of ours," I said. "Khalid-?"

"On it." Everyone on Echo Team was a certified medic, but Khalid was an actual medical doctor with a specialty in traumatic injuries. He went to work on Jamsheed.

Top said, "This was a pretty noisy frat party, Cap'n. We're going to be ass deep in police real soon."

We listened for sirens but did not hear any yet. I wasn't certain how reassuring that was. Special Forces and military SWAT units don't roll with sirens.

"Who's watching the street?"

"John Smith and he's got night vision."

I tapped my earbud. "Cowboy to Chatterbox. What are you seeing?"

"Nothing."

He wasn't the most talkative guy on the team.

"Stay sharp. You see so much as an old lady with a shopping cart give a yell."

"K."

I turned to Khalid. "Talk to me."

He looked up from where he knelt by Jamsheed. I could read it on his face. "Blunt force trauma to the head resulting in a depressed fracture. Got some pretty severe damage to the cervical spine..." He let the rest hang.

I moved over and dropped to my knees by Jamsheed. His eyes were open, but they were bright and glassy with pain and one pupil was fully dilated, indicating a cerebral hemorrhage. Khalid's eyes bored into mine and he gave a tiny shake of his head. I took a cotton square from him and dabbed at the blood and sweat on Jamsheed's face.

Before I could say anything, Jamsheed spoke. His voice was hoarse, low. "You cannot stay here. The police..."

"I know, but we have to-"

"No, you don't," he interrupted. "You can't take me with you and still do what you have to do."

"You don't even know what we're here for."

He smiled faintly. "Does it matter? You work for the Mujtahid. He called me to say that I should trust you because he trusted you."

I didn't know what to say to that, so I nodded.

Jamsheed tried to lift his hand; I took it and his fingers curled as tightly around mine as he could manage. He looked into my eyes and saw the truth, but instead of panic I saw a peaceful expression settle over his face.

"I am so ... tired ... of war," he said, and that said a lot.

I thought of the photos he had on his walls and the gentle way he had touched the frame of the one with the playing children.

"The little girl-?" I asked.

His lips formed the word "yes." The hurt and loss was palpable.

"She'll be waiting for you, brother," I said.

He nodded and then hissed with the agony that it caused. When he opened his eyes he seemed farther away.

We regarded each other for a few moments, and then he squeezed my hand.