by Eric Meyer
“That business in 1972, they were Jews back then, as you know. My men are afraid of a repeat. We Germans have an unfortunate history with our Jews.”
Unfortunate! That sure is one way of referring to mass murder during the Second World War. Like calling the Wall Street Crash a bank overdraft.
“The Second World War was a long time ago.”
“Yes, so was the Munich Olympic fiasco. My men are, shall we say, reluctant to undertake this mission. Even if I order them in, I fear they may not give of their best. If any of those Jews die during a rescue attempt, it would be a disaster.”
“It sure would be for them, Captain,” Guy snapped out.
Talley realized that Welland was staring at the German, his face a mask of hatred.
“What is it, Guy?”
“Why does he call them Jews? If they weren’t Jews, would he call them Christians, Catholics, Protestants, or atheists, whatever? They’d just be fucking people. These bastards never learn, do they?”
There was a tense silence in the room as they digested what he’d said. Captain Baumann reddened even more, if that were possible.
“If I have offended you, I apologize, Sir.”
Guy didn’t reply. Talley made a note to speak to him later. It had never occurred to him that any of his men were religious. There was no reason to ask, and he sure didn’t give a damn one way or the other. He guessed that if a man was of Jewish descent, and a lot of Brits were descended from German Jews who’d fled to England during the Nazi terror, any life or death problem that linked Germans and Jews could be pretty emotive. Talley switched his attention back to Baumann.
“Okay, Captain, let’s cut to the chase. Saarbrucken is what, fifty klicks from here?”
“Sixty kilometers, I would think.”
“Okay. These Palestinians are holding a group of people hostage in a synagogue, and you want us to go in and get them out. Forget the politics, does that about sum it up?”
Baumann looked relieved. “It does, yes.”
“Do you have maps, diagrams, a building layout?”
“I have everything with me.” He gestured to his briefcase.
“Okay then.” He turned to Welland. “Guy, get the men ready. We’ll leave in twenty minutes, prepare for close quarter battle. Domenico, arrange transport to take us to Saarbrucken. Find who’s in command of those Little Birds on the pad. We could use at least one for an overhead assault. I’ll go in with the helo. Guy, I want you to lead the rest of the team in on the ground assault.”
Even as he was giving orders, his mind was ranging through the options for a successful assault and hostage rescue; they were always tricky. There never was an easy one. And for the hostages, they had no body armor, no training, and no weapons to protect them. They were at the mercy of their kidnappers, and the Palestinians had a record of shooting their hostages when a rescue mission went south. Mercy and compassion was not a part of their make up. Guy and Domenico had disappeared to make preparations for battle. He turned back to Baumann.
“Right, Captain, turn out your briefcase. Show me what you have.”
They traveled the sixty clicks to Saarbrucken in a Chinook. A Little Bird flew alongside them, and they would transfer when they were close to the target. The MD MH6 Little Birds were fitted to carry four SpecOps operatives on seats fitted two to each side. Talley carried his MP7, the lightweight Heckler and Koch submachine gun. Domenico was to go in with him on the Little Bird, and Roy Reynolds and Virgil Kane would occupy the other two seats. Guy Welland would lead the ground assault, and from an early read of the documents Hauptmann Werner Baumann had given to him, Talley believed it would be possible to get the hostages out; hopefully alive. They landed in a school playing field a kilometer from the synagogue and used the school hall as a temporary operations room to prepare the assault.
“Domenico, we’ll go in loud and hard with the Little Bird. I want those guys to be looking up when Guy goes in on the ground with his squad. Buchmann, you’re our demolitions specialist. I want you to blast through the outer wall, and make a breach the rest of the unit can enter through.”
He stopped and looked around the school hall. What had been empty space, with wooden gymnasium equipment festooned around the walls and a headmaster’s lectern on the stage at one end, was transformed into the chaos of men and women running to set up the necessary equipment for the forthcoming operation. On one side, a group of disconsolate men, wearing uniform were stood talking quietly, and smoking. He guessed they were the GSG9 Operatives.
Too bad, they should have taken the mission, and to hell with the politics. The Germans are still sore about the Second World War, and rightly so, but there are lives at stake here.
He turned back to the men and continued.
“We’ll be firing tear gas and smoke, so we’ll need respirators, and…”
The German, Buchmann, had a sour look on his face.
“What is it, Heinrich? Is there a problem?”
“You want me to blast through the wall. This is a synagogue, Lieutenant. These Jews, if I destroy a sacred part of their building, they’ll…”
“Jesus Christ, not you! Buchmann, you’ll do it. I don’t have time to argue.”
“You want to blow up the Jews' synagogue, get that damned Frenchman to do it. He doesn’t have a conscience to worry him.”
“Stop! Right there! It’s your job, and Valois has his own duties. Heinrich, these are people, period. A building can be rebuilt, no matter how holy, sacred, or anything else. I don’t give a damn if it's the roof of the Sistine Chapel; it’s still the same principle. People come first. Clear?”
He nodded reluctantly. “Very well, I will do as you order.”
“You’d better. If you blow a hole through some sacred Jewish shrine, they’ll be pissed. But if you stand by and do nothing, and allow the terrorists to kill innocent people in that synagogue, we’re likely to find the Mossad mounting an operation to destroy the Reichstag.”
Domenico looked at him sharply. “I wouldn’t go there, Abe. It happened before.”
“The Reichstag fire in 1933? I couldn’t give a goddam. This is now and that was then. Let’s get the job done and get those people out. So, plenty of smoke, and make sure you use the red dot sights, and be careful about who you shoot. Any questions? We need to start moving before those terrorists up the ante. Guy, are you set to go?”
“All ready, Boss. The local cops have laid on a couple of trucks to carry us and our equipment to the target. I’d suggest we leave now, and we’ll call you when we’re in place.”
“Good. We’ll be ready to come in like a bat out of hell.”
Guy led the men out. They loaded their gear, boarded the trucks, and drove away to the synagogue. They’d infiltrate the grounds of the synagogue in silence and lay their charges ready to go in. When Talley’s group of four men landed on the roof in a clatter of engine noise, rotor blades, and shouted orders, Heinrich Buchmann would detonate his charges. Immediately, Guy Welland, who was designated Echo Two, would lead his squad inside the building in thick, choking smoke and tear gas and take out the hostiles. The stakes were high. Thirty-three Jewish worshippers held prisoner, and a lethally dangerous group of terrorists that had to be stopped from committing an act of mass murder. He led Domenico, Roy and Virgil over to the Little Bird. The pilot, a Marine Captain with a Louisiana accent nodded a greeting.
“How long before we get the go, Lieutenant?”
"Any minute now, you all set?”
“Just about. You want me to spool her up?”
“Yes. Captain, I don’t want to land on the wrong roof. I asked our guys to use a laser target designator to light up the target. Is that okay?”
“That suits me. I don’t want to put you guys down to start shooting up the local convent school. Yeah, we can read your laser designator, no problem.”
“Good. Stand by to leave. When we get the call, we go in like a bolt of lightning. I want us to dazzle those guys with everything
we have. They have to look up at the roof while my ground assault team goes in.”
“You want me to use the high-intensity search light slung under the fuselage? That’ll get their attention.”
“We’ll be using Night Vision gear, so it would blind us. But thanks anyway.”
“No problem.”
He heard a murmured voice in his earpiece and held up a hand for the pilot to wait.
“This is One, go ahead, Echo Two.”
“We’re in position. Buchmann has set his charges in what he believes is a good entry point. Laser target designator is on.”
“You got any audio or video from inside?”
“That’s a negative. The walls are very old, a couple of feet thick, I’d guess. It would take too long to bore a hole for a probe. The local cops have infrared cameras and as far as we can tell, we’ve isolated the part of the building we need to hit. But once we’re in there, we’ll have to wing it.”
“I hear you, Echo Two. We’re leaving now. As soon as we drop onto that roof, start your attack. Good luck.”
“And you, Echo One. Two out.”
The pilot had got the message. The engine roared as it built up power, and the rotors spun in a dizzying arc.
“Let’s mount up.”
Talley fixed his respirator in position and sat on the seat fixed to the side of the MH6. It was a short journey of one klick to the synagogue, and even before the helo lifted off the ground, they were making their final preparations for the assault.
“Radio check, do you read?”
A chorus of ‘five by fives’ came back to him. He looked down, and he could see the synagogue already looming, lit up by the flashing police lights surrounding it. He’d ordered them to keep their searchlights switched off. The pilot’s voice came into his earpiece.
“We’re thirty seconds out, Lieutenant.”
“Copy that. Switch to NV.”
He saw the whole world turn green, with pinpoints of light where the cars and roof lights of the local cars on the scene tried to burn through the sensitive optics. He could see cops all around the perimeter, but there was no sign of Guy’s group, which was as it should be. If he could see them, other people could see them too.”
“Ten seconds.”
“We’re ready.”
The helo dropped like a stone, and Talley experienced the familiar feeling as his stomach tried to push up into his chest. Then they were over the roof, and he looked down. It was less than a meter below them.
“Bravo Two, blow it in five seconds! Let’s go!”
He jumped down onto the flat concrete rooftop and saw the other three operatives land close to him. He shot out a glass skylight and armed a tear gas grenade, lobbing it through the hole. Around the rooftop, the other men did the same. Four tear gas grenades exploded, and clouds of the gas began to permeate the building. Each man then hooked a rope to the nearest smashed skylight framework, looped it around, clipping the end to a karabiner.
“Smoke grenades!”
They threw the missiles, and even before they’d detonated, the four operators were making their rapid descent down the ropes, and then the smoke grenades exploded. Talley’s feet touched the floor. He looked around and saw they were in an attic storeroom. A flight of steps led down to the second floor of the synagogue, and he sped over to them. Along the corridor, the smoke was drifting in clouds.
Up the staircase from the first floor, he could hear a man screaming, “Don’t come any nearer. We’ll kill them all. These Jews will die! This is your last chance. Get out of the building, or we kill them. We are…”
The explosion overrode his shouting as Heinrich Buchmann’s charge detonated and blew out a section of the synagogue wall.
“Go now,” Talley shouted to the men. “Hit them before they recover!”
One of Guy’s squad tossed in a stun grenade. They heard the shout ‘fire in the hole’ and covered their ears, but the shock was still enough to slam into them, temporarily disorienting them. Talley shook his head to clear it. He was already halfway down the stairs, and the scene that greeted him was like one of those gruesome medieval paintings, a depiction of hell; terrified people milling everywhere. Some lay on the floor, men and women screaming, tendrils of smoke and tear gas floating around the room. He focused on the action, which now seemed to occur in slow motion. They’d trained hard and relentlessly for this moment. The snarling shouts of the terrorists, and the automatic scan for who was a threat, who carried a weapon or a bomb and who did not. He saw the red dots lighting up the targets and heard the ‘phut, phut’ as the silenced rounds slammed into their targets. A hostile recovered and aimed his assault rifle, a German G3.
The German armament manufacturer Heckler & Koch developed the 7.62mm battle rifle in the 1950s. An accurate and powerful weapon, it could be fired in full-auto mode, and the shooter managed to loose off half of the 20 round magazine. Thankfully, the man’s eyes were smarting from the smoke, and his brain confused from the effects of the stun grenades. His shots went wild, tearing chunks of plaster from the decorated ceiling. Domenico hit him with a short burst from his MP7, and the man skittered to the floor. A group of hostiles gathered themselves for a concerted fightback on the NATO unit. In the center of them, Talley saw a man arm a grenade. He shouted a warning.
“That group of hostiles by the Ark, one of them has a grenade!”
The Ark, the holy chest, occupied a key place in any synagogue. The valuable artifact was placed in a niche, opposite the temple’s door. The synagogue always pointed to Jerusalem, and the Ark stored the Holy Torah, a worthwhile terrorist target.
A half-dozen guns switched aim, and the red dots cut through the haze, targeting the hostiles. The man with the grenade went down, shot through with enough rounds to take down an elephant. The other hostiles were milling in confusion when his grenade went off, tearing the entire group into a bloody ruin. It was almost ended.
“The Torah! We must save the holy books!”
Talley looked around to where the voice was coming from. An elderly man with long black hair and beard, wearing a prayer shawl, was running toward the destroyed part of the synagogue. Flames and smoke were licking out of the wooden structure.
“Save them, we must hurry.”
Another man got to his feet and ran to help. Out of the darkness at the other end of the synagogue, a figure materialized and ran toward the people who were getting to their feet, believing the trouble to be over. It wasn’t over. He carried a weapon. Talley recognized the folding stock AK-47S, the Russian built rifle intended for paratroopers and Special Forces, and beloved of terrorists around the world. He wanted to open fire, but the worshippers blocked him, shielding the man whose rifle was positioned ready to sweep the building and riddle the hostages with bullets. His mouth was half open, and his lips pulled back in a snarl. His teeth showed white against his olive, Arab face, and he screamed a word alien to this holy place.
“Allah A…”
A red dot had appeared on his forehead, and then the dot blossomed into a gaping wound as a pair of 7.62mm sniper rounds smashed into him, hitting him in almost exactly the same place. He was tossed backwards, as if a truck had hit him. Talley searched for the man who’d fired. It could only be one of the snipers, Jerry or Vince. It had been a dangerous, almost impossible shot and easy to hit one of the hostages by mistake, unless you were a world-class shooter. A sniper whose skills had been honed in hundreds of training sessions, thousands of marksman hours spent on the range, and scores of live operations. Both the Echo Six snipers were such men. He saw Vince get to his feet and lower his rifle, the Accuracy International Arctic Warfare Magnum. It was loaded with .338 Lapua Magnum rounds, capable of pinpoint accuracy to a range of almost a mile. Inside the building, range was not a consideration, and Vince had taken the shot at a target less than an inch from the nearest hostage. Talley pulled off his mask and sighed with relief. The worst of the smoke had cleared. The civilians were coughing and red faced with the effe
cts of smoke and gas, but they were alive.
“Nice shooting, Vince. We were worried about the civilians. How’d you do it?”
“See that woman there, the elderly lady?”
Talley looked over at the group of civilians.
“Yeah, I got her.”
“She’d put out her arm against the younger woman next to her. I shot underneath her elbow. It was the only window open to me.”
“Yeah, what if she’d moved? At the last second, I mean.”
Vince looked at him steadily. “But she didn’t move.”
Talley nodded. Some things were best left unsaid. “No, she didn’t.”
The rest of his Echo Six troopers were roaming around the synagogue, making sure of the hostiles.
“They’re all dead,” Rovere said, coming up to him.
Talley nodded. “I hear you. Good work.”
Both men looked around as the guy with the black hair and beard ran toward them, shouting.
“”It is destroyed, our Ark, it was blown to pieces by that grenade. This is terrible, a catastrophe.”
Another man, younger, was trying to pull him back. “Joshua, no! We are alive. It is all that matters. These people have saved us.”
They reached Talley. The older man had stopped shouting, and now he was weeping, his shoulders hunched over and shaking with emotion. The younger man nodded a greeting.
“We are deeply indebted to you and your men. Take no notice of Joshua. He is our Rabbi, and to him, matters of religion are more important than people.”
“But they are, Israel, do you not understand?” the Rabbi shouted. “They have stolen our heritage, which is priceless.”
“They did not steal our lives, Joshua. We can rebuild everything. We cannot bring back the dead. And you have not yet thanked these men who risked their lives to save ours.”
The Rabbi nodded. “You are correct. We will rebuild everything.” He turned to Talley. “Sir, you have my thanks. I apologize. I was just upset. I was very young the first time that happened to me, and it brought back memories. It was a long time ago.”
“There’s no need to apologize. You were in a camp?”
