Covert Action

by Dick Couch

  Tomba began to give instructions to the men out on the perimeter. Wilson and Rosenblatt escorted Meno and Mitchell to the helo pad. Per Rosenblatt’s instructions, Meno was bound, and a pillowcase covered his suit helmet; Mitchell walked free. Soon they heard the rotors of an inbound helicopter. The four of them, plus one of Tomba’s Africans from the perimeter, boarded the Jet Ranger and lifted away from the complex. The helo struggled but gradually gained altitude and transitional lift and flew down the valley, quickly reaching cruising speed. Soon it began to climb toward the mountains in the west.

  AKR saw the helo off and ran back to the hotel lobby. “Get them outside and away from the building,” he said to Mohammad Senagal, and then set off to find Tomba.

  Senagal began to herd the remaining medical staff outside and into the courtyard in front of the hotel, littered by the aftermath of battle. Two vehicles were still smoldering, beside the remains of a truck that had been dismembered by rocket fire. The bodies lying about the courtyard and access road were beginning to draw flies. There was the smell of burned rubber and death. Many of those filing from the hotel entrance recoiled from the scene, and a few tried to turn back, only to receive a blow to the ribs from Senagal. He drove them like sheep, making them line up under an acacia tree and kneel down. They were sure this courtyard was soon to become a killing ground. One man leapt to his feet and began to run down the drive, away from the hotel. Senagal took leisurely aim and put a bullet between his shoulder blades. Like all the M-4 rifles carried by the Africans, the rounds were APLP bullets. On impact, the bullet entered the man’s chest cavity and literally exploded his heart and lungs, opening a huge hole in his side. He was dead before he hit the ground. Those under the acacia tree watched in horror. Senagal lowered his rifle and turned to them.

  “You will probably die soon enough, but there is no need to hasten the event. If any of you so much as gets to his feet, I will shoot you where you stand.”

  No one moved.

  In a stand of trees above the hotel, two of the Africans, stripped to the waist, dug furiously at an elongated pit. They were four feet into the rich, black soil, throwing shovels of dirt with the rhythm of two machines. Another kept watch with his rifle. Near the grave lay two forms, each wrapped in his sleeping blanket. A dark figure silently approached the two men at work.

  “That is all we have time for, brothers,” Tomba said. “Put them to rest.”

  The two men scrambled up from their work and helped Tomba ease the bodies into the hole. Saying nothing, they immediately began to shovel the soil back. Tomba turned to the man on guard duty. “When you have finished, fall back to the helo pad. We are soon to be gone.” The lone sentry nodded and returned to his security duties. Ten minutes later, the two gravediggers tossed aside their shovels and recovered their rifles and field equipment. The three moved off in the direction of the helo pad in a file, with good spacing between them.

  AKR walked down the main corridor of the hotel, tossing thermite grenades into one room, then another. When he reached the main entrance, he lobbed the final two—one into the lounge, and another behind the reception desk. The explosions were not loud, but they hurled bits of molten white phosphorus everywhere, setting fire to all they touched. By the time he had cleared the entrance portico, the belly of the Makondo Hotel was burning furiously.

  AKR was standing behind the line of scientists. They had been stripped to the waist and all were barefoot. Mohammed Senagal passed in front of them with a small canvas bag, into which they were ordered to turn out the contents of their pockets. When he reached the end of the line, he had a sack full of money, watches, wallets, and personal identification.

  “The vehicles?” AKR said to Tomba.

  “They have been taken care of.” While AKR had been firing the hotel, one of the other Africans had visited each car and truck not destroyed in the attack and put a small thermite charge on each engine block. All transport serving the compound had effectively been destroyed.

  “Excellent. You and Mohammed head for the pad. I will be along in a moment.”

  “We are not going to shoot them?” Senagal said, rifle at the ready. There was a murderous look on his face. He genuinely wanted to kill them; there was no doubt that it would give him pleasure.

  Tomba put a hand on his shoulder. “We do as the Nkosi says. Come with me.” He led Senagal away. The faint beat of the second Jet Ranger could just be heard echoing down the valley.

  “My men wanted to kill you here and now,” AKR told them, “but there has been enough death in this place for the moment. And simply shooting you would be too good for you. You are free to leave this place. Most of you will be taken soon enough by animals or the African heat, or by the angry relatives of those who died at your hands. Those of you who survive the walk out of here will carry the shame of what took place here for the rest of your miserable lives. God have mercy on you, because Africa and the Africans will not.”

  Kelly-Rogers reached the helo pad as the Jet Ranger began to power up for takeoff. Aboard were five of the Africans, including Mohammed Senagal. Moments later they were airborne and hurtling down the valley. Tomba, AKR, and the three remaining Africans quickly filed out of the compound and began to climb back up the drainage away from the hotel. When a Jet Ranger was available to bring them out, they would find a mountain clearing where it could land. Twenty minutes later, they stopped on a ridgeline to look back. The hotel was now consumed in flames, and an angry pillar of smoke rose from the compound. They paused only for a moment before they were again on the move.

  The miserable collection of men under the acacia tree watched the helo lift from the pad and disappear down the valley. So did a half dozen or so armed men well out in the bush, the remnants of the Renaud Scouts. They turned their attention to the ragged stream of white men that had begun to file away from the burning hotel and down the access road, wondering if they had anything of value on them.

  This was probably Vadim Karpukhin’s last chance to learn what this girl knew. Time was running out. He had led his blindfolded prisoner into a small bath with a shower and tossed in a T-shirt and a pair of men’s jockey shorts. He told her that she had fifteen minutes to make herself clean. He knew from experience, especially in the interrogation of Western women, that they detested being dirty. He had learned that if you let them clean themselves up, especially after they had soiled themselves, the prospect of becoming dirty again caused them to crack. A little privacy and some hot water made them feel human again; then you took it away. But this was his last trick. If it didn’t work, then he was going to have to start hurting her. The prospect of that distressed him—not that he minded hurting people, and especially not this American female agent. It just meant that he was down to his last option. She might respond to pain, but then again, he had thought she would have broken by now. He stood outside the door and heard the water running. Then, moments later, he heard her singing in the shower. She was a tough one, all right.

  Exactly eight minutes later, Karpukhin found the central water shutoff valve and cut the water to the bath. The act of stopping the water was part of reestablishing control. Time to get her back into a vulnerable position. When he opened the door, he expected to find her wet and wrapped in a towel, but she was dressed in the T-shirt and shorts. She had turned off the light, so he did not see her clearly. She exploded upon him out of the dark, screaming with rage. She had a long shard of mirrored glass wrapped in a towel, holding it like a knife. In her other hand she had a section of pipe. The force of her charge caught him off guard, and they both went down. He partially blocked the shard dagger, but not before she cut his cheek and sliced away part of his ear. It took both of his hands to fend off the deadly weapon. He twisted the hand with the blade with both his own, but she would not drop it. Then the first of the blows came from the pipe. It was a short piece of iron plumbing with the U-joint still attached, and she wielded it clumsily in her left hand. The first blow only mildly stunned Karpukhin, and he con
tinued to fight for the makeshift knife. The second blow brought his eyes to hers, and he saw for the first time the terrible rage and determination in her face. Again and again she hit him. He relinquished his hold on the knife hand, vaguely knowing that he must somehow stop this incessant pounding to his head. He tried to bring up his arms to ward off the blows, but he was becoming addled, and movement was difficult. When he again caught her face, he saw that the rage was still there, but now it was accompanied by an expression of triumph. Then things grew dim, and finally dark.

  While in the bathroom, Judy Burks had turned on the shower, rinsed off quickly, and then scrambled into the scanty clothes provided her. In the process, she took quick stock of her surroundings, looking for a way to arm herself. It had taken all her strength to move the locking threads on the sink trap, but it had come away and provided her with a rudimentary club. Wrapping the towel around her hand, she began to sing while she pounded at the mirror. It cracked long-ways, as she had hoped, and after sustaining some minor cuts to her fingers, she managed to extract a suitably long piece of the glass. When her captor cut the water to the shower and came for her, she was armed and ready. She gave no thought to the method of her attack; she knew only that she would rather fight and die than again submit to this man. So she had continued to hit him well after he had ceased to struggle. Only when she rose and stood over him did she realize that he wasn’t moving, and that his face was distorted and beginning to swell. There was blood coming from his nose and mouth, as well as from the partially severed ear and the gash on his cheek.

  Suddenly the front door exploded inward, away from the lock and hinges, down flat on the hall floor. She whirled around to see two men surge through the opening, one black and one white. Others were behind them. Her first impulse was that these were associates of her captor, and they had come for her. She then recognized the familiar form in the jeans and T-shirt.

  “Oh, Garrett! Garrett!” Her voice was high-pitched and girlish, not the scream of the Valkyrie that had half beaten her tormenter to death. She rushed to him, flinging her arms around his neck. He held her close to him while the other three men quickly moved past them, pistols drawn.

  “Clear in back.”

  “Bedroom clear.”

  “Kitchen clear.”

  They drew back to the hallway, where Judy still clung to Garrett. He safed the Sig and eased it back into his trousers. Then he gently peeled her away from him and guided her to a chair in the adjacent living room.

  “Why don’t you let us have these for now?” Garrett said softly. He slipped the towel from her hand. It was bloody and still holding the shard of glass, now broken off to half its former length. Then he eased her fingers from the pipe and set it aside. As soon as she released the pipe, she reached desperately for his hand.

  “You got here—you got here just in time,” she now babbled, somewhat in shock. “He was going to hurt me. Thank God you came. Thank God you got here in time.”

  Sergeant Hallasey rose from the still form of Vadim Karpukhin and turned to Ambassador Conrad. “Yeah, thank God for him. He’s still breathing, but he needs to get to a hospital fast.”

  Conrad looked at the battered man on the floor and then at the diminutive figure who had again flung herself into Garrett’s arms. “It’s a good thing we let her back into the embassy, Sarge. She might have come after us.”

  Janet Brisco lit a cigarette from the half-inch butt of the previous one and watched as Cheetah tracked the second Jet Ranger away from the hotel. Dodds LeMaster controlled the camera with a joystick at his console. He followed the helo down the valley and saw it bank away to the northwest for the Zambezi; then he slewed the camera back to the hotel, now fully engulfed in flames. Whatever had been going on there was now gone forever. Then he began to watch over the five men toiling up the valley, searching around and in front of them for any sign of danger.

  “Where’s our first bird from the target?” she said to LeMaster.

  “It’s inbound; it should be here in about five minutes.”

  “Good. After it lands with the first lift of our men, send it on to Lusaka. Tell them to refuel there and stand by for instructions from Steven and Garrett. As soon as the second one lands, get it back across the Zambezi for the last group.”

  LeMaster raised the pilots and gave them instructions. He passed control of Cheetah to Bill Owens in the next van. With things winding down, he had to see about getting his systems shut down in preparation for leaving. Owens continued to watch over the five men still on the ground.

  “The C-130?” Janet asked.

  “On station and orbiting over Lake Malawi. It’s an hour away, no more.”

  “Let’s get it here. I want it on the ground when Steven and Garrett get back, and the last helo returns from Zimbabwe.”

  LeMaster passed the instructions along to the aircrew of the C-130J. The pilot checked in with the controller at Lilongwe Airport and requested permission for the Simpson Foundation aircraft to continue with its humanitarian mission. The flight was quickly cleared into Zambian airspace. As with all NGOs who flew regularly into southern African nations, the foundation regularly paid controllers a small fee to ensure that its aircraft encountered no delays as they went about their business.

  “Keep an eye on things, Dodds,” Janet said, lighting yet another cigarette. “I’m going to meet this helo.”

  The Jet Ranger set down a respectful forty yards from the vans, but it still sent a wave of dust across the vehicles and into the camp. As soon as the five passengers were on the ground, it rose and headed on northwest toward Lusaka. Brisco watched as two Africans escorted a solitary figure from the helo to an isolated piece of ground near the camp. He was in a black suit and had his hands bound in front of him. There was a pillowcase over his head. Elvis Rosenblatt approached with another white man in tow.

  “How’d it go, Doctor?”

  “I’m not sure. We destroyed the place, but there’s a good chance we got there too late to prevent the delivery of a dangerous pathogen. I’m afraid we’re a long way from being out of the woods on this one. You know we lost two men in the attack.”

  “Yes. Are we bringing them out?”

  “Tomba and his men are burying them there. This is Dr. Johann Mitchell. He was one of the clinical staff at the hotel, but he’s decided to help us with this problem. So far, his help has been invaluable.”

  “Mr. Mitchell,” Janet said, regarding him cautiously.

  “Miss Brisco, how soon can we be on our way out of here?” Rosenblatt asked.

  “The men we lost,” Janet asked, ignoring his question, “I’d like to know their names.”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t know.” Then, seeing her anguish, he added, “I wish I did and could tell you. I only know they were killed in the assault. There were a lot of people killed at that place. Now, please, this is important. How soon can we leave?”

  Janet Brisco looked at her watch. “With any luck, Steven and Garrett will be back here in an hour or so. The C-130 will be on the ground in fifty minutes. We can break camp quickly, and the vans can be loaded as soon as the transport arrives. But it will take another two hours to get a helo back for the last of the attack force. What’s the hurry? If we were too late, we’re too late. We are configured as an assault force. What can we do about it now?”

  “Maybe nothing, but we have to try. I need to get that man to Paris as fast as I can,” he said, pointing to the solitary figure under guard with his head swathed in a pillowcase. “I don’t have time to explain right now, but trust me when I say that we may have a chance to get back some of what was created in that lab. Now, I’m given to understand that you have long-range private jets available. Is that right?”

  “Well, yes, but I—”

  “Then get your best and fastest plane here as soon as possible.”

  “It certainly can’t land here.” She thought a moment. “Perhaps we can link up with it at another location. You say this is vital?”

/>   “It’s life and death,” Rosenblatt said, “on a massive scale. Now, I need to get a call to the States. Can I do that from here?”

  “See the fellow over there by that van?” LeMaster was folding up a portable dish antenna. “He can connect you to the pope if you need to talk to His Holiness.”

  It was a very busy day for the Jeki airstrip. Thirty minutes later, the second Jet Ranger approached. It did not even touch down. Five bush fighters leapt from the hovering helo, which quickly returned in the direction in which it had come—one more load. Fifteen minutes after that, a big Hercules C-130J crabbed out of the sky at stall speed and squatted onto the end of the dirt strip. It immediately reversed the big Allison engines, taking most of the dirt strip to bring itself to a stop. There was dust everywhere. The aircraft taxied over and pivoted a hundred and eighty degrees to present its open bay to the camp. The loading ramp grinded down. By the time the two vans were driven aboard and chained to the deck of the transport, the first Jet Ranger had come over the horizon from the west and delivered three people to the dirt strip. It turned on the ground for a few minutes, then headed back to Lusaka. Garrett and Steven made their way over to the transport with Judy Burks between them. She was wearing a long nightgown under a T-shirt that was spotted with blood. Janet spotted them first and rushed over to Judy, putting a motherly arm around her.

  “Just what the hell have you been doing to this girl!” she said, looking sharply from Garrett to Steven and back.

  “It’s okay,” Judy said with a lopsided grin. “We had to kick a little butt.”