Sassi cradled the warm weapon using the shooting position that Beretta had taught her at the range that day. The buttstock was against her shoulder. Her right hand cradled the grip and trigger housing group. Her left hand grasped the stock beneath the barrel. Her elbows were sharp pointy edges poking into the hard concrete.
When she thought she saw movement, she pulled the trigger. Better to err on the side of caution.
“Waste some ammo now,” the man said in a rushed voice.
She squeezed off five shots in a row. Thunderous booms from a pistol rocked her eardrums. He grabbed her arm and spun her around the corner directly into the field of fire from the attackers!
She resisted, but he was strong. As soon as he muscled her into the first room on the left, an explosion rocked the building, shaking it to its foundation. As quickly as they were in the room, they were out. Smoke and debris were still pulsing outward from the blast.
And they were moving toward it!
Back toward their original position. What the hell was happening?
The man shined a flashlight into the boiling smoke and debris. The noxious fumes were overpowering, and she thought she might be sick but realized she hadn’t eaten anything. That didn’t prevent the dry heaves from having their turn. She gulped a couple of times and followed the pull of the man. They were stepping through a jagged portal into a black tunnel. He was wearing the space-age device over his eyes, which had to be helping him because for the life of her, she couldn’t see a damn thing.
For the first time in her life, Sassi entrusted her safety to another man, a soldier by all accounts, perhaps even an American soldier as he claimed to be.
Gunshots echoed as they raced into the bowels of hell.
CHAPTER 18
Jasar Tankian
Tankian hustled through the narrow escape tunnel he had built into the side of his compound.
He had made a split-second decision that the American commando would be of greater value than a random UN worker. His calculation included the estimate that the attacker was most likely coming to retrieve his friend and that the two of them would make an even more formidable pair than the lone gunman.
How had this one person decimated his carefully laid plans and defenses? News of this account would reverberate up and down the valley like a never-ending echo. The weight on his broad shoulders was heavy, but much less so than the grave that would assuredly be pressing down on him if he hadn’t fled. His father had always taught him to live another day to make a deal. Survive and the deal survives also.
He arrived at the end of the tunnel after loping along the seven-foot-high passageway he’d had built into his compound for exactly this purpose. While he never could have imagined precisely this clusterfuck occurring, he was prescient enough to foresee the need for an undisclosed exit. Reaching the heavy steel door with the captain’s wheel, he turned three dead bolts, all tight and rusty from lack of use.
The wheel squeaked as Tankian got leverage. The prisoner was on Tankian’s back, cuffed and deadweight. The gag in his mouth was stained with oil, and Tankian hoped that he would survive. He was going to need a chit in the near future to barter his way back into business.
Finally, the door gave way at the same time he heard voices behind him.
Tankian stepped out of the tunnel, dragging the captive by both his arms over the lip of the door and depositing him on the sloped shale of the ridge that angled east into the Beqaa Valley from just beneath his compound. Tankian put his shoulder into the heavy door and closed it. Looking for something that could impede the madman who had attacked his compound, he found nothing, so he took a deep breath and lifted the man onto his shoulders as though he were carrying a bag of cement.
He climbed up the hill and flipped the soldier onto the plateau. Pushing himself up, he lifted the man again and strode to the garage off the main compound building. A black Suburban SUV was sitting idle on the concrete slab. Part of his emergency escape plan had included an evacuation route, a vehicle, and supplies. He flipped the bound soldier into the rear compartment, next to two cases of bottled water and two cases of MREs. He hustled around to the driver’s seat and cranked the engine, then shot out of the garage and found the road to the west.
* * *
Harwood saw the door at the end of the corridor slam shut as he clasped the hand of the woman who had been in the cell where Clutch should have been. They moved quickly, chased by the shouts of the men who had entered the basement moments before.
The slamming door echoed like a gunshot. The voices approached closer behind them. It was only a matter of seconds before they would be in the funnel of fire and near inescapable death.
“Hurry,” he said to the woman whose hand he held.
They approached the door, and he lowered his shoulder.
“Stay with me,” he growled.
“I’m here,” she said defiantly.
The voices behind them called out.
He threw his body into the door, and it burst open. An immediate difference between the stale air in the tunnel and the cool, fresh air outside was noticeable. Pulling the woman outside, he said, “Stay right here,” as he put her in a protected position out of the line of fire. He lay down, propped his rifle on the lip of the door, flipped on his IVAS, and saw two men running toward them about twenty meters away.
He fired twice at each man and, satisfied with the results, leaped up and said to the woman, “Follow me. Quick.”
They ran up the hill to the plateau upon which the compound sat just as a black SUV was racing to the west. To his right was the adobe-walled compound he had invaded earlier. Up ahead was a complex of buildings he hadn’t noticed before. Because of their positioning opposite of where he had made his point of entry, his view of this small cluster had been blocked by the main home he had just blown through.
By now, he trusted the woman to stay with him, and he released her hand so that he could run faster. When he did so, she actually began to outpace him, running toward the first safe harbor, which was a cavernous garage. They slammed into the side of the building.
“You first,” the woman said. She had a slight accent that Harwood tried to place. Something European.
He nosed around the edge of the garage door opening, black as midnight. He turned on the flashlight under the rail of his SR-25 and swept the cavern. The flashlight assisted his IVAS in providing the ambient light needed to see more clearly. Another vehicle sat inert in the back of the garage.
“There’s an SUV. We’ll take that,” Harwood said.
“Okay.”
First, Harwood cleared each corner of the interior and then motioned to her to move to the SUV. “Clear!”
As Harwood jogged to the SUV, there was a flicker of light in his left-side periphery. He changed course and darted toward the light. The woman noticed and followed suit, not wanting to be too far from protection, he presumed. Her breath was on his neck as they had their backs against the adjoining wall. He reached into his cargo pocket and handed her one of the pistols he had secured from the compound’s basement during his assault.
“Don’t shoot me,” he said.
She took the pistol without hesitation and whispered more to herself than to him, “My pistol.”
Harwood sneaked a quick glance at her. There was more to this woman than had met his eye. She had substance to her, making decisions quickly and executing them without hesitation. Harwood nodded and reiterated, “Don’t shoot me … with your pistol.”
She nodded back, wavy hair dangling in oily tendrils across her face. Her eyes were wide, her breathing slow and steady, her face determined. She nudged him with her left shoulder and whispered, “Let’s move.”
Harwood spun into the room, lit up by his IVAS. Inside the expansive bay were several unmanned aerial vehicles in various states of disrepair and a fleet of Mercedes-Benz snub-nosed cargo trucks. Probably about ten trucks. Double that number of UAVs. One of the UAVs had a running light that was flashing w
eakly, which must have been the faint light he had seen moments before. He pressed a button on his IVAS several times, taking still photos of the room, which downloaded automatically to his TacSleeve and uploaded to his RangerSat cloud service.
“Let’s go,” Harwood said. He exited as quickly as they had entered. He tossed his rucksack into the back seat of the SUV, placed his SR-25 muzzle down into the passenger floor well with the buttstock lying across the console, and kept his pistol in his lap. The woman sat in the passenger’s seat, quick eyes scanning the back of the SUV.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
Harwood found the keys above the visor, cranked the engine, and let the GPS power up. He pressed a few buttons and was happy to see that the same multiunit GPS tracking system was at work in this vehicle as well.
“There,” he said, pointing a finger at the blue dot moving west along a winding road about five miles from them.
He punched in the route to follow the other vehicle, which he presumed was the last man standing who had escaped from the compound. The timing was right. Did he have Clutch?
As they wheeled out of the garage, the woman asked, “What was up with all those small airplanes?”
Harwood navigated the gravel driveway cut with washboard rivulets from high mountain rains, all sloping toward the Beqaa Valley to their east.
“Terrorist compound. Prisoners. Cargo trucks. Unmanned aerial vehicles. Not a good combination. I took pictures.” He looked at the woman, who was staring straight ahead into the night.
All they could see was the headlights stabbing into the blackness. The only differentiation was the bleached gravel and dirt upon which they drove. His IVAS, however, provided him a high-definition view. Boulders framed either side of the road. Lights winked in the distance. Low mountain pines hung over the road like sinister spies.
“Sassi. My name is Sassi Cavezza. I’m a worker with the UN High Commission for Refugees.”
Harwood nodded. “Nice to meet you, Sassi. I assume you were not voluntarily visiting that compound?”
“No,” she said. “Thank you for helping me.”
“Roger that.”
After a long pause, she asked, “Do you have a name?”
He replied after a longer pause, “Vick Harwood. United States Army Ranger.”
CHAPTER 19
The terrain was formidable with its high mountain buttes and deep ravines. Tankian switched back on the road that descended into the Adonis Valley. He had no time for mythology or gods, but he understood the allure of the region and why people might make up mythological stories about its beauty. Even in the darkness, the terrain felt overwhelming with its sheer cliffs looming overhead. The SUV lights poked into the black night as Tankian strained to stay on the narrow road.
After an hour of navigating the fierce terrain, he hit the coastline, bouncing north on Route 51 around coastal villages. Traffic slowed as he entered the town of Byblos at 4:00 a.m. Red brake lights flashed as fishermen moved toward their boats, preparing for a day on the sea. Tankian respected the drive and determination of the men who woke up early, prepared their vessels, and ventured onto the water to provide for their families. They were businessmen like him. He could relate.
He called Khoury using his Bluetooth headset.
“I’m inbound to your location. Need you to visit the morgue and prepare our friends for a trip.”
“And do what with them?”
“Put them in the containers.”
“Part of the exchange?”
“We are pooling all valuable commodities given what has transpired.”
Khoury paused. “I understand.”
Tankian would now spend more time at sea than he had planned. His best option was to oversee the execution of his big payday rather than put the pieces back together at his compound. The compound and its strategic position served a functional purpose, primarily that of being a logistics hub. He could easily rebuild it and resume his enterprise or—as the sun rose on the Mediterranean Sea to his left—he could buy a nice home with some servants and live a simple, luxurious life.
It might be nice not to have to hustle and work with the terrorists of the world, always believing he was one wrong move from having to kill or be killed. The constant exposure to daily threats of life and limb had reinforced his dispassionate disposition. Always calm and collected, Tankian had encountered very little that could fluster him.
About 6:00 a.m., he pulled up to the outside gate of the Port of Tripoli. He used this port for all his supplies, but a few times, merchants had accidentally shipped his goods to Tripoli, Libya, two thousand kilometers away. At the gate, the guard was dressed in a gray short-sleeved police officer’s shirt and black pants. He had gray hair, a three-day beard, and smelled of alcohol. Seagulls squawked overhead in their perpetual cry as they rode the onshore breeze. The musty smell of the maritime shipping industry—oil, grease, diesel, salt water—wafted in when he buzzed down the window.
“Gabir,” Tankian said, handing his identification to the guard.
Gabir leaned forward and stared into the SUV with a perplexed look on his face. “No driver today?”
“Thought I’d take a little spin in the countryside,” Tankian said.
“Mr. Tankian, Khoury came here a few hours ago, then left, and he’s back again. He’s waiting for you in the container yard.”
“Thank you, Gabir.”
It was good news that Khoury had retrieved the two dead American soldiers without incident. He would have contacted Tankian otherwise.
The guard pushed a button, and a chain-link gate rolled backward, allowing Tankian to drive into the port. He navigated past stacks of rust-colored containers. The large blue container cranes hung in the distance like giant storks standing above the water. Tankian drove into the container yard, where he found Khoury standing next to the cargo truck.
“Everything go smoothly?” Tankian asked.
“Of course. Both are in the ammunition container. I wrapped them in a tarp. Won’t keep the smell down, but they’re frozen right now. In less than a day, they’ll be ripe.”
Tankian nodded.
Khoury looked inside through the window Tankian had buzzed down and raised his eyebrows.
“Everything okay, boss?”
“All good,” Tankian said.
Khoury nodded and said, “Ship’s at the berth. Cargo-handling equipment is on the way. They’re ready for our two containers.”
“Want to take a boat ride?”
“Whatever you say,” Khoury replied.
“Leave the truck here and jump in.”
Khoury entered the passenger side of the SUV, and Tankian drove to the ship.
“We have a prisoner that is very valuable to us.”
“The American?”
Tankian chinned toward the back seat. Khoury turned and looked.
“What’s the offer? Not sure anything is worth what we’ve just experienced.”
“Two million euros. The catch is that we have to personally deliver him. So, we take him on the boat, stop in Cyprus, and make the trade there. Wolff has a plan.”
Khoury nodded, then said, “I’ve received some calls from the valley.”
“Yes?”
“The destruction sounds … total,” Khoury said.
“That’s why we’re getting on the ship,” Tankian said. “A business decision.”
“Our motto has always been to live to do another deal.”
Tankian nodded.
A top-pick container handler pulled up and lifted the first container, then drove to the berth and placed it on the ground. It returned and repeated the process. The ship was stacked to the sky with containers, and Tankian was curious where these might fit. The crane reached down and plucked the first from the yard and lowered it into a nook even with the ship’s deck. Repeating the process, the crane placed the second container directly in front of the first.
“My instructions are to board the ship and ride it to Cy
prus,” Tankian said. “We can disembark there and stay at the beach a couple of days, relaxing.” Tankian walked to the back of the Suburban and said, “Leave the SUVs here. They’ll watch them until we get back. Meanwhile, help me with this guy.” He popped the hatch. It rose slowly, revealing the bound and gagged American soldier from the airplane crash site.
Khoury looked at the soldier and then at Tankian. “You’re sure about this?”
“Like I said, ‘two million euros.’”
“Let’s leave him here in the back of the truck.” Khoury stepped away from the SUV. His bald head glistened in the morning sun. The seagulls continued squawking above their heads. Tankian was more worried about one of the gulls dropping a shit bomb on his head than he was about Khoury’s protests. Khoury had been a loyal business associate, fully subordinated to Tankian’s leadership and management. The businessman from Beirut narrowed his eyes at Tankian and repeated, “He’s a curse. Leave him, Jasar.”
Jasar. When was the last time Khoury had called him by his first name?
“I’d prefer to have you come along. If you don’t want to, I can’t stop you from driving away.”
Khoury said, “Think about what you’re doing. It was one thing to hold the American for Wolff until he figured out what to do with him. It’s an entirely different thing to drag him onto that boat and kidnap him. We will have the entire U.S. military looking for him!”
“And they’ll be looking where? On a boat?”
“Once they find our cars, they will!” he said, pointing at the Suburban.
Tankian shrugged. “We will deal with that when and if we ever have to. Now, either get in the Suburban and drive away or grab one of those dock carts and help me stuff him in there.”
Khoury shook his head but walked toward the terminal operations center about a hundred meters away. Tankian retrieved his prepacked go bag and checked the equipment. There were two 9 mm pistols, body armor, and several boxes of ammunition. The gravel crunched behind him. He turned around and saw Khoury pulling a large fishing cooler.
Reaper: Drone Strike: A Sniper Novel Page 16
