The Reluctant Assassin Box Set

by Lee Jackson

  23

  A Training Camp Outside Khartoum, Sudan

  Klaus raised his head and listened. Something in the pre-dawn hours had awakened him, but he could not discern what. His gut stirred. He sniffed the air, but nothing unusual drifted in the light breeze. Across the room, other men snored and puffed in their sleep, but no other sound caused alarm. From afar, he heard the call of a rooster, soon to be followed by the call to prayer.

  Thinking of the latter, he rolled to his other side, annoyed. Although he considered himself devout, he sometimes admitted to himself that his religion’s demands could be onerous. Prayer five times a day!

  He dispelled the thought, but soon the sense of unease returned. Am I becoming paranoid, or are my instincts warning me? He reached under his pillow and grasped his pistol, then sat up and tried to look through the darkness. Only the sound of sleeping men accompanied their unwashed malodor.

  Rising to his feet, Klaus thrust the gun into his belt and reached for his AK-47 leaning against the head of his bed. He headed for the door, opened it, and looked out. Behind him, two men rose from their cots and joined him.

  Klaus looked across the compound. The sun, still below the horizon, cast its pre-dawn light against a sky just turning blue with wisps of elongated red clouds above the distant ground level. Seeing and hearing nothing amiss, Klaus was about to turn back when strong arms seized him from behind. One hand went immediately to his face and clamped a wet cloth with a sweet-smelling substance across his nose and mouth.

  Klaus only had time to sense that his assailants were hardened, trained combatants before he slipped into unconsciousness. The two men behind him grabbed him under his shoulders and dragged him forward into the compound’s open ground.

  A small white pickup truck was parked beyond the door. The two Israelis pushed Klaus into the middle and took seats on either side of him. The man on the driver’s side cranked the engine and drove at an unhurried pace toward the main entrance. Although vigilant, he was not worried about meeting resistance. Other members of the team had subdued security across the camp, including the main gate.

  Once outside the compound, the driver mashed the accelerator and headed west into the desert at high speed, leaving a trail of dust billowing behind them. Aided by a flashlight and map, his partner navigated through the dunes and craggy, sparsely vegetated hills. After ten minutes of driving, they crested a ridge and descended into a long, flat piece of hard ground. At the near end, a Black Hawk helicopter idled, its blades whipping the air and throwing up dust around it.

  The pickup came to a halt a safe distance from the aircraft. Behind it, other vehicles pulled in with the rest of the assault team and formed a perimeter around the small truck.

  Klaus stirred. His eyes opened. He looked around, taking in the full scene, as comprehension dawned. He heard the steel-on-steel sound of weapons being armed. On either side of him, his captors held pistols to his head.

  As full consciousness returned, he heard another sound, the low roar of an idling jet engine. Then he saw a C-17 cargo jet a short distance behind the helicopter, idling on a rough, makeshift runway. Its rear cargo hatch had been dropped to the ground, exposing a cavernous interior. Crewmen hurried about making preparations for taking on freight.

  Meanwhile, a man emerged from the Black Hawk. He wore the tattered clothing of a Sudanese beggar, and although he looked gaunt, he walked with authority. He was joined by another man in Western garb.

  The two men guarding Klaus exited the truck while keeping their weapons trained on him. He sat motionless, watching the Sudanese beggar and his companion approach. The two guards stood aside while the newcomers thrust their heads in to take a closer look.

  “Is that him?” the team leader asked.

  The sun had risen to the point that no additional light was necessary. The Sudanese beggar stepped closer and gazed into Klaus’ eyes.

  For seconds, Klaus and the beggar stared at each other. Startled recognition crossed Klaus’ face, but his mind could not yet believe what he saw.

  The beggar turned to his companion. “It’s him,” he said simply. “He goes with us.”

  On hearing the voice, Klaus reacted. “Atcho!” he screamed, and lunged, wrapping his hands around Atcho’s throat.

  On the other side of the truck, the driver leaned in swiftly. He crooked one arm around Klaus’ neck, and his free hand brought the pistol to Klaus’ head.

  “Let go,” he growled.

  Meanwhile, Atcho landed a punch in the middle of Klaus’ face that stunned him, causing him to release his hold. With the gun at his head and surrounded by overwhelming firepower, Klaus stared at Atcho, hatred glistening in his eyes. “I will kill you,” he said. “You and your family.”

  Without expression, Atcho turned his back on Klaus and walked away. Next to him, Jaime thrust an arm into the air with a circular motion. Immediately, the vehicles ringed around the white pickup started moving toward the C-17. The Black Hawk’s idling engine began winding down. Two crewmen prepared to fold its blades and winch it into the hold of the cargo plane.

  The pickup driver grabbed Klaus by the shoulder and pulled him from the truck, while the guard on the passenger side rounded the truck and held his weapon steady, aimed at Klaus’ chest. The driver pointed to the C-17 and shoved him toward it.

  Suddenly, gunfire erupted from the left ridgeline above the aircraft. Klaus’ two guards went down and did not move.

  Next to Atcho, Jaime fell, a clean bullet hole through his chest. Atcho heard the spit of rounds whizzing past him, ran to a sand berm, and dove behind it.

  The helicopter’s engine spun up again, and armed men returned fire and ran from their vehicles to clamber aboard it. Others scurried to the back of the nearest C-17 and ran up the cargo hatch. Within seconds, the helicopter soared into the air, spun in the opposite direction, dipped its nose, and gained speed as it climbed into the sky and out of range of small-arms fire. Meanwhile, the large aircraft leaped into forward motion and began taxiing even while the cargo hatches were raised.

  Klaus wasted no time. As soon as his two guards collapsed, he ducked, ran back to the pickup, and sped off. As Atcho watched from his hidden position, the little truck vanished in a cloud of sand.

  Within minutes, the aircraft had disappeared. Except for the sound of wind springing up over the desert sand with the rising sun and morning heat, all was silent. Deathly silent. Atcho reached into a pocket and activated the tiny transmitter that would send out a location beacon.

  24

  Nessim had slept fitfully that night in the chamber next to the one Klaus occupied. His room was small, no more than a closet, and it doubled for his place of work during the day. His job was to keep records of each trainee’s progress.

  He longed to be a fighter as well, but his slight figure made that improbable. He was well regarded in the camp, even considered to possess superior intelligence, but no one thought of him as being effective on a battlefield. Perhaps he could be a martyr if the appropriate mission came along, but doing so did not require training in the other military skills, and he was not sure he wanted to take such extreme action before contributing to jihad in some other meaningful way.

  Nessim’s ambition had always been to be a jihadist, and he had arrived at the camp with that intention. However, he soon learned that the training cadre looked for trainees of at least average physical build, and his frame was slight. They humored him by allowing him to stay and take part in training if he did not get in the way, but they gave him noncombatant jobs that prevented him from being a full participant.

  His favorite trainer was Sahab Kadyrov, the Chechen who had been a KGB officer trained by the Soviet Spetsnaz. Rumor circulated that he was wanted in the West, where he was known by an alias he no longer used, Klaus.

  Sahab maintained a distance from trainees and other instructors, but Nessim found the man’s breadth and depth of knowledge fascinating. Whether the subject was hand-to-hand combat, small-arms targeti
ng, demolitions, land navigation, or any other of a myriad of subjects, the Chechen seemed to know all of it to a superior degree. Students also muttered that Sahab had a personal connection to Osama bin Laden, a distinction that gave him an almost mythical aura.

  Nessim had contented himself with attending lectures whenever time allowed, and he took part in skills exercises every chance he could. His perspicacity had been recognized despite his size, so he maintained the respect of trainees and cadre.

  He heard the rooster crow and anticipated the call to prayer that would follow. He sat up in bed, yawned, stretched, and got up to prepare for the day. He heard the door creak open in the next room and went to see who might be up. Entry to his room was on the opposite side of the building, but his window was angled such that he had a clear view of the door to Sahab’s room. Nessim was pleased to see that Sahab was the first to rise and had stepped outside just beyond the door. Not surprising.

  As he observed, two other men appeared behind Sahab. One Nessim recognized. He was a trainee who had been in camp for many months and did well at all his lessons. He was quiet and kept to himself for the most part, but he was friendly when addressed, and he helped other students who did not grasp training tasks as easily as he did.

  The other man was one Nessim did not recognize. That surprised him because the man had not registered with him, yet he slept in quarters reserved for trainees and cadre. For a guest at the camp to stay in that room was unusual.

  As Nessim watched, one of the men stepped closer and threw a hand over Sahab’s face. The other immediately grabbed Sahab’s arms and held them until they went limp. Then both men dragged Sahab to a white pickup truck.

  Before the truck’s engine had turned over, Nessim ran out his door, heading around the building. As he reached the front, the pickup drove off.

  Nessim darted into the room where Sahab had slept. He tried to wake the other men there. They had been drugged.

  He sprinted to the office near the front of the camp where someone was always on duty. He arrived there with heaving lungs in time to see the pickup clear the gate without being challenged.

  Inside the small room that served as the duty office, a young man, really a boy, was slumped in his chair, also drugged. In desperation, Nessim ran to the headquarters building, yelling all the way. He pounded on the door until a tall bearded man opened it. From other buildings, men poured into the compound to see what had caused the commotion.

  Speaking in precise terms despite being out of breath, Nessim told the camp commander what he had seen. With a wave of his hand, the commander ordered the camp to be rousted. Within five minutes, a quick reaction patrol of twenty trucks with heavily armed men rolled out of the gate in pursuit.

  Nessim rode in the lead truck with the commander. The trail of dust lingering in the air made following the pickup easy. Looking ahead, they saw by the abrupt end of the dust cloud where the intruders had halted.

  The commander ordered his patrol to the left of a ridge that would hide their actions. Then all the fighters dismounted and climbed up the hill, Nessim with them.

  At the crest, they looked over. Several military vehicles had circled the white pickup. Two men, one in traditional Sudanese clothes, leaned into it, and two other armed men stood on either side of it. A Black Hawk helicopter idled below the ridge, its blades spinning. Beyond it, a huge cargo jet faced away from them, its cargo bays open.

  Nessim pointed toward the white pickup and spoke into the commander’s ear.

  “Who is the Sudanese?” the commander asked.

  “I don’t know,” Nessim responded. “He was not in the pickup when they took Sahab.”

  The commander designated targets to three snipers, set his other men in a line along the crest of the ridge, and gave the order to open fire.

  25

  When the mayhem had subsided, Atcho remained still for nearly ten minutes, listening. Then, from the far ridge, he heard voices. When he dared peek over the top of his meager cover, he saw armed men descending the steep, craggy slope on foot.

  He eased back down, his mind racing. The only plan that came to mind was impersonating a deaf and mute Sudanese beggar again—he was already in costume and knew the part.

  The weakness in his plan was that snipers had already seen him. That had been evident when they’d picked off Jaime and the two men in the pickup but had left Klaus and Atcho unscathed. Did they shoot at me and miss, or did they assume I was a captive? Either way, they’ll spot me. I can’t beat them all, so I’d better join them until a better plan comes along.

  The ground behind him was flat, aside from a few low sandhills. He pushed himself backward on his stomach down a shallow sandy slope a few yards and stood up. Then, assuming the posture and gait he had used while traversing Khartoum on foot, he started up the bank toward the site of the firefight.

  He first headed toward Jaime’s limp body to check for breathing and to pretend to scavenge. On his way, he waved wildly at the men still struggling down the embankment. As he neared Jaime, he saw clearly that there was no life.

  Casting aside remorse for the moment, he spotted Jaime’s sidearm still in its holster. He reached for it, and then heard the rhythmic chopping of helicopter blades slicing the air, followed by long bursts of machinegun fire. From the back side of the ridge, the Black Hawk wheeled around and veered to the front, firing withering bursts that cut through the men, who now ran headlong down the slope seeking cover. Atcho estimated that they numbered between seventy and a hundred.

  Its machineguns still doing their deadly work, the Black Hawk settled back to the ground. Immediately, armed men jumped out of each side. The ones nearest the enemy advanced toward them, sending a hail of bullets. The ones on the opposite side sprinted toward Atcho and the three dead Israelis.

  Moments later, Atcho found himself running toward the helicopter among a group of rescuers who carried their dead between them. On reaching the aircraft, they clambered aboard, while the other element retreated to the opposite side and climbed on. All the while, the door gunner kept up his prodigious rain of steel.

  The helicopter lifted into the air. Atcho took in the simultaneous roar of gunfire, thunder of engines, and odors of fuel, gun smoke, and bloody corpses. He glanced down at Jaime’s still face, remembering their time together in Lima, in the rancid streets of Khartoum, and now on the bleak sands of the Sudanese desert. Against the chopper’s throbbing vibration, he felt overwhelming sorrow.

  He looked into the faces of the men who had mounted the original assault and risked their lives to rescue him and bring back their fallen comrades. Some watched the bodies. Others stared far away into the empty desert. All carried the same expression of unspeakable grief and failure buttressed by stoicism. No one spoke.

  At the far end of the desert runway, the ground spilled into rough terrain, all but impassable for ground vehicles. Then it spread into flat, hardscrabble ground.

  The helicopter flew on for a few minutes, then settled on the surface and cut its engines. Ahead of them, the C-17 waited with cargo hatch down. Even as Atcho and the soldiers jumped from the Black Hawk and transferred to the larger plane, a crew ran to the helicopter to fold its rotor blades and winch it into the cargo hold.

  Fifteen minutes later, the C-17 taxied over the rough desert floor and lumbered into the sky. Atcho settled in with the rest of the team for the long flight back to Tel Aviv, each man alone with haunting images.

  26

  A panel truck with three coffins awaited the C-17 when it taxied to a stop on a remote airstrip outside Tel Aviv. Atcho stood with the rest of the team to pay respect as the bodies were transferred. Burly, Eitan, and the head of Mossad operations, Jaron Bryk, joined them.

  When the panel truck had departed, Burly and Eitan escorted Atcho to a waiting car while a bus drove the rest of the team away. Bryk and the mission leader walked separately to another waiting car, already in deep discussion.

  Eitan shook his head sadly as he watched them.
“Heads will roll over this cluster. What happened?”

  Atcho described as best he could.

  “What happened to the overwatch?” Eitan pressed. “And why was the Black Hawk on the ground? It was supposed to be providing air cover.”

  “I don’t know what happened to the overwatch. I can say that the dust kicked up by the returning assault team hung in the air and created a smoke screen. A good guess is that the overwatch couldn’t see the force in pursuit.”

  “Which the Black Hawk should have seen. So again, why was it on the ground?”

  “It had a mechanical problem. The crew considered that it wasn’t mission-threatening, but it took longer to fix than expected. It had something to do with locking the blades in place once they were unfolded. So, the assault got a late start. The leader decided to go for the capture rather than wait for air cover. Another few minutes and he would have had to scrub the mission because daylight was already dawning.”

  “He should have scrubbed it,” Eitan observed. “We wouldn’t have captured Klaus, but we could have had another chance. That’s why the Mossad is deliberate.” He closed his eyes momentarily and leaned his head back. “As it is, we lost three good operators, one on loan from Lima and two from Sudan. That’s a huge intel hole in both countries, and we still don’t have Klaus. Worse yet, he knows we’re closing in on him.”

  He opened the car door. “There’ll be an investigation. I’m sad to say that the mission leader is likely to see the end of his career. He’ll live with this for the rest of his life.” He sat in the driver’s seat and started the engine.

  “What now?” Atcho asked, settling into the back seat.

  “Klaus has already scooted, I’m sure of that.” Burly turned in the front passenger seat to look at him. “Who knows where?” He grimaced.

  “He recognized me,” Atcho said. “Now more than ever, he’ll want revenge. He’ll come after me and my family.” He leaned forward and grasped Burly’s arm. “Please get word to Sofia to stay put at West Point.”