“Fetch dog,” laughed the major and made the same sign to ward off evil that the first goon had made back at my hotel—touching his heart and drawing a line above his eyes.

“If you kill that piece of shit dog we will make it quick for you,” said the maintenance man.

He smiled when he said it.

It was bad enough that he made that suggestion. He shouldn’t have smiled when he did, because until that moment I was genuinely terrified.

Now I was pissed.

“Here’s an idea,” I said conversationally, and I threw the screwdriver at the maintenance guy with my left hand and drew my Beretta with my right.

Two things happened at once.

The Upier in the coveralls shocked the hell out of me by catching the screwdriver.

A microsecond later I put a bullet through the bridge of his nose.

Do not fuck with my dog.

Chapter One Hundred Thirteen

Chapter One Hundred Thirteen

Aghajari Oil Refinery

Iran

June 16, 6:12 a.m.

The maintenance man flew back. The bullet blew out the back of his head, and the force of impact snapped his neck. Hollow points. Booyah.

The major didn’t stop to gape at his fallen comrade. He moved like a blur and I pivoted, firing round after round at him. Ghost barked and lunged, but he was trained not to run into a field of fire.

The Upier was stunningly fast, but he really ought to have run serpentine. I fired at the target and caught him with my fourth round. He was fast, but a nine millimeter bullet is a whole lot faster. The round hit him sideways, clipping his elbow and drilling into his hip. From the way he fell it was clear that his pelvis was shattered.

“Hit,” I told Ghost, and he flashed across the concrete floor toward the screaming vampire. The major’s screams instantly jumped to a higher register.

It was over very fast, and I wasn’t sure if it was because of Ghost’s aggression or the bullet. Jonatha Corbiel-Newton had made some very smart recommendations, and we’d used them. A drop of garlic oil into the mouth of a hollow point, sealed in place with a bead of wax. We’d used the same syringe to inject garlic into all of our shotgun shells, sealing the plastic cases with a cigarette lighter.

And we had some other surprises.

Which left a big problem.

Echo Team was still upstairs, and there were a couple of dozen Red Knights somewhere in the facility. The Knights didn’t know that and I couldn’t call my team. Lydia either hadn’t found Echo Team yet or something was slowing up their progress up there.