Pandora's Grave (Shadow Warriors)

by Stephen England

  Sweat was streaming in rivulets down his face, the sun heating the interior of the closed-up Grand Cherokee to an almost unbearable temperature. He tapped the steering wheel nervously, endeavoring to bring the verses of the Quran to remembrance. They would give him strength.

  The cell phone lay silent in his pocket. Call! his mind screamed, desperate for the call to come before he lost his courage. Lost the nerve to sacrifice his own life for the jihad.

  He could see the meeting place from where he sat, could see his targets. So close. And yet the phone remained silent.

  “I’m moving.” Nathan Gur stepped through the pedestrian entrance of the resort, his hand slipped deep inside the pocket of his photographer’s vest, fingers wrapped around the butt of his Beretta 92.

  The Jeep Wagoner was about fifty meters ahead of him, engine running and windows tightly closed. The young Israeli agent took a deep breath and began to move through the crowd. Toward his target.

  About forty feet behind Gur, Sarah Halevy emerged from the resort, her handbag slung across her chest, the Glock easily accessible. How the American had seen it, she didn’t know. Gideon had told her Nichols was good, but his perception still took her off-guard. It was almost uncanny.

  She banished the thoughts from her mind, focusing on the task at hand. The distance between her and Nathan was increasing—his bulk making it easier for him to elbow his way through the crowd. Where?

  There he was—she caught sight of him again, working his way diagonally toward the parked Jeep. Sarah quickened her pace and began to close the gap…

  Something was happening. Tex knew that much. The bat leveyha had left abruptly, making her way to the entrance of the resort before he lost sight of her in the crowd. Harry’s attitude had changed, tension pervading his body language.

  Tex was laying on his stomach on the thick carpet of the hotel room, about five feet back from the opened balcony door. With the bipod-mounted FN-FAL, he could easily cover the courtyard from there.

  “Kill them wherever you find them,” the young man whispered, reciting the sura under his breath, “and drive them out from whence they drove you out.”

  He opened his eyes, calmed by the sacred words, and began scanning the crowd once more. A mindless sea of licentious Western tourists, careless of their danger. Invaders in the house of Islam…

  And then he saw him. A big man, dressed in shorts and a tank top, a photographer’s vest over the upper half of his body, pushing his way through the crowd. Moving with purpose.

  His calm evaporated like the morning dew. “Ya, Allah,” he gasped. Oh, God. He reached in his pocket for the cellphone, his fingers shaking uncontrollably.

  There was no time. The realization smote him with the cold certainty of death. The Jew would be next to the vehicle in a few moments.

  His trembling hand moved forward, fingers closing around the detonator…

  “Something’s wrong,” Yossi observed, his binoculars aimed at the young Arab in the Jeep.

  “This is MARKSMAN ONE, requesting permission to terminate.”

  There was a moment’s silence, then Gideon’s voice came over the headset. “Execute.”

  Almost in the same instant, the Jeep vanished in a fireball, the explosion’s concussive force spreading across the lagoon.

  She was thirty-five meters from the Jeep when it blew up, the explosion knocking her to the ground. “Nathan!” Sarah screamed, her eyes watering as she stared through a spreading cloud of thick, oily smoke, into the explosion’s epicenter. There was no way anyone had survived.

  Harry threw himself flat against the concrete of the courtyard as the explosion went off, flames and smoke arising from the entrance of the resort. He looked over to see Gideon still standing there, as though frozen in place.

  Then the shooting started. First a single shot, barely audible over the screams of agony and fear arising from the resort, then the chatter of assault rifles on full-automatic.

  “Move!” Harry yelled, scrambling to his feet and drawing his .45 in a single smooth motion. His voice seemed to jar Gideon into action and the Israeli grabbed up a suitcase from beside the overturned pool chair, extracting a Uzi submachine gun from its depths.

  “Go! Go! Go!”

  The Israeli sniper team was caught off-guard when the shooting started, Chaim well-nigh blinded by the explosion, Yossi several feet from the gun.

  Tex swiveled the FN-FAL on its bipod, identifying the source of the hostile fire. Two men, kneeling on the bow of a boat in the marina. The scope’s cross-hairs centered on the forehead of one of the shooters and he squeezed the trigger.

  Target eliminated, Tex thought coldly. The man collapsed, the top of his head nearly blown away by the heavy bullet. Next target.

  Before he could draw down on the second shooter, a rifle boomed from somewhere in the marina and the man toppled over the rail, his body falling into the lagoon.

  When the shooting started again, it took him by surprise, coming, as it seemed, from right over his head. Shooters were in the hotel.

  He hesitated for only a moment, then sprang to his feet, leaving the FN-FAL where it was. It was too bulky.

  He left his hotel room and hurried down the corridor toward the stairs. Reaching the covert of the stairwell, he reached down and jerked the Smith and Wesson from his ankle holster. He had six shots. Time to go.

  The ineptitude of the Eilat cell was truly unamusing. Farouk swore in frustration as he lowered the binoculars and turned away. He needed to leave—quickly, before the Zionists mopped up the rest of his fighters.

  Come on, Tex, Harry thought, crouched behind the engine block of a Corvette near the edge of the resort. With the shooters firing from the dark interior of a hotel room eighty meters away, the pistol in his hands was largely useless. This wasn’t Hollywood.

  Gideon was five meters to his left, behind the bullet-riddled hulk of a Hummer H2. The courtyard and street outside had all but emptied in the six minutes since the car bomb went off. Those not under cover were dead or dying, lying in their own blood in the street.

  With a twinge of regret, Harry realized he hadn’t seen the bat leveyha since the explosion. Such a waste.

  “You have an angle on the window?” he hissed across at Gideon.

  The Israeli nodded, slapping a fresh mag into the butt of his Uzi. The question was clearly visible in his eyes.

  Harry nodded. “Cover me.”

  Small-arms fire sputtered from the fifth floor of the Crowne Park Plaza hotel as Sarah crawled forward on her hands and knees, forcing herself to ignore the cries of the dying. The shooters had to be stopped. Sirens sounded in the distance, their discordant wail adding to the cacophony of noise surrounding her.

  She bit her lip, striving to hold back the images of Nathan in the last seconds of his life. Walking confidently toward the explosives-laden Jeep. He was dead, she knew it in her heart. He had been a scant five yards from his target when the bomb went off.

  Her hands were bleeding and raw, the hard polymer of the Glock clutched between them as she moved forward, from cover to cover.

  “Now!” At Harry’s shout Gideon rose up from behind the hood of the H2, aiming at the hotel window, burst after burst of fire erupting from the muzzle of the Uzi.

  Harry plunged forward, feet drumming a dark tattoo against the pavement as he rocketed toward the hotel entrance, bent low at the waist. Bullets ricocheted off the concrete in his wake as the shooters above took aim at the runner.

  His shoulder hit the revolving glass door of the hotel restaurant and he pushed his way through. The restaurant was full, people huddled under the tables. A woman screamed as he burst in, gun in hand.

  “Stay down!” he bellowed in English, brandishing his wallet in his left hand. “Police!”

  Tex paused at the top of the stairwell, aware suddenly of footsteps on the other side of the door. Back and forth.

  A small window in the top of the door afforded a view of the corridor, and he waited as the f
ootfalls came closer, watching as a masked head came into view. They were patrolling the hall.

  He thumbed the hammer of the revolver back to full-cock and crouched there, his hand on the door handle.

  Footsteps. Coming closer as the terrorist completed his circuit. It was all about timing. Almost. There!

  He pushed the door open with a violent thrust, slamming the steel fire door into the body of the gunman. The man recoiled, nearly dropping the rifle as Tex stepped into the hall, the Smith & Wesson already at eye level.

  He pulled the trigger at close range, the bullet striking the gunman in the neck, severing the brain stem as he dropped to the floor, his blood staining the carpet.

  Tex paused over the body of the dying terrorist, listening. Another burst of gunfire gave him his directions. Ten doors down…

  5:35 A.M. Eastern Time

  NCS Operations Center

  Langley, Virginia

  “Anything from Nichols?”

  “That’s a negative,” Carter replied, looking over his shoulder at the DCS. “The meeting is probably ongoing.”

  A phone rang on the desk of the analyst’s workstation. “Yes, Monica?”

  He listened for a moment, an expression of shock spreading over his countenance. “What is it, Ron?” Kranemeyer asked as he hung up the phone.

  “Turn on CNN.”

  The DCS picked up a remote and aimed it at one of the TV screens which lined the wall.

  “This is Brenda Langford, reporting live from Eilat. As you can see, there’s been a bombing, near the entrance of the Crowne Park Plaza resort.”

  Kranemeyer’s mouth fell open. “Dear God…”

  12:36 P.M. Local Time

  The hotel

  Eilat, Israel

  Tex paused outside the door, feeding another bullet into the empty chamber of his S&W. The bodies of two hotel security guards lay twenty feet down the corridor, gunned down as they had responded to the initial shots.

  He tested the door with his hand. Locked. The possibility of it being booby-trapped went through his head, but he was out of time. Caution to the wind.

  The big man took a step back and aimed a kick toward the door, his booted foot connecting just below the bolt. It flew in on its hinges with a crash and he stumbled into the suite, bringing the revolver up as he went around the corner.

  The room reeked with the acrid, sulphurous smell of burnt gunpowder. Two men were kneeling four or five feet back from the open balcony window, shooting down into the courtyard of the hotel. The man on the right was firing, the man on the left loading another magazine into the mag well of his Kalishnikov.

  Tex shot him first, to the back of the head, before he could pull the charging bolt of the assault rifle.

  He screamed, the rifle falling from his lifeless hands as he collapsed on the floor. Alerted to his danger, the second gunman started to turn, rising from his crouch.

  The revolver spoke twice. Tex stood there, the pistol still leveled in his outstretched hand as the terrorist staggered backward, arms flailing as he crashed into the balcony rail.

  A pall of silence fell over the room.

  Tex took a step back and fished a speedloader out of his pocket, only then realizing that he’d been holding his breath ever since his entrance into the hotel room.

  Sirens sounded outside and he read their signal loud and clear. Time to go. He stepped from the room, closing the door with a gloved hand and proceeded down the hall…

  Harry had reached the fourth floor when his TACSAT rang. “Nichols.”

  It was Tex’s voice. “Shooters have been terminated. Exfiltrating.”

  “Are you clean?”

  “That’s a roger. The rifle is still in my room, no prints. Handgun is on its way down the laundry chute. Likewise.”

  “I’ll try to keep them off your back. See you stateside, brother.”

  Gideon’s phone buzzed against his ribs and he flipped it open, cradling the Uzi in his free hand. “Laner.”

  “This is Nichols. The shooters are neutralized. I repeat, the room is clear.”

  “Good work,” the Israeli replied grimly. He rose up from behind the Hummer and slung the Uzi around his neck. Police vehicles were starting to set up a perimeter, sealing off the entrance of the resort.

  “Gideon!”

  He turned to see Sarah stumbling toward him, the Glock still in her hand. Her robe was torn and blackened with smoke, her hands and knees bloodied, her hair a mess. She had never looked more beautiful.

  He reached out to embrace her, and she fell against him, her arms around his neck.

  “You’re alive,” he whispered, tears starting in his eyes. “Thank God, darling, you’re alive.”

  Sarah kissed him on the cheek, embracing him fiercely, her emotions roiling with the events of the previous fifteen minutes. Nathan Gur lay dead only a few scant yards away, but none of that seemed to matter at this very moment. Gideon was alive. He had survived.

  All at once, her vision seemed to clear through the haze of tears. A figure, moving from the cover of the building behind Gideon, an M-4 carbine in his hands. The figure of a teenage boy, his face obscured by a mask.

  It was a vision of extraordinary clarity. Time itself seemed to slow down as the teenager moved forward, the carbine coming up.

  Her hand seemed to move of itself, the barrel of the Glock moving to cover the target. Oh so slowly.

  “Allahu akbar!” the boy screamed, the sound of his voice breaking the spell that had fallen upon her. She pulled the trigger of the Glock roughly, the gun going off just inches from Gideon’s eardrum.

  He staggered to one side, a hand clasped against his ear as she fired again and again, watching her bullets strike the boy, high in the chest. The teenager reeled back as slug after slug entered his body. Falling down to the pavement, his head lolling to one side, body splayed out like a broken doll.

  Dying.

  Glassy-eyed, she lowered the pistol and safed it, her movements mechanical. Target eliminated…

  2:45 P.M. Tehran Time

  Alborz Mountains

  It would be a never-ending source of amazement to Thomas that some people considered horseback riding recreation. After four hours of riding through the mountains, he was suddenly and painfully aware of muscles he had previously known of in theory alone.

  Estere reined in her horse at the top of the rise, glancing back at his progress. “Come on!”

  His only reply was a glare as he rode abreast of her. “Stupid beast,” he muttered, swearing under his breath.

  When he looked up, her eyes were flashing like dark coals of fire. “Bahoz was Sirvan’s horse,” came her stinging rebuke.

  She fell silent, jerking the reins of the grey with an angry gesture. Thomas turned to follow as she turned back to the west, kicking her horse into a gallop.

  1:13 P.M. Local Time

  Eilat, Israel

  “We were set up,” Harry stated, his tones low as he spoke into the TACSAT’s receiver. “They knew both the time and place of the meeting.”

  “You’re sure?” Kranemeyer asked.

  “Listen, boss, I don’t believe in coincidence. There is no such thing. They didn’t get up this morning and say, ‘Y’know, it would be fun to bomb Eilat today.’ They had a target, and that target was us. We’ve got a leak somewhere.”

  “I’ll see what I can find out,” came the noncommittal answer. “Zakiri and Sarami are deploying to Iraq this afternoon.”

  “Oh?”

  “Parker is being extracted. He made contact two hours ago. I want team members on-site for the debrief.”

  “Sounds like a plan. Keep an eye on Petras,” Harry added after a moment. “She takes a dim view of operators playing in her backyard.”

  “To be sure. What’s Richards’ status?”

  Harry looked over his shoulder to see Gideon Laner approaching, flanked by two police officers. “Everything’s copacetic, sir. You’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go.”

  He p
ressed END before Kranemeyer could respond, turning to face the Israeli commando. “Your sweep turn up anything?”

  Gideon nodded. “Harry, I’m going to have to ask you for your gun…”

  7:13 A.M. Eastern Time

  CIA Headquarters

  Langley, Virginia

  The clinic was just starting to buzz with the shift change as Davood Sarami checked out. Hamid was waiting for him at the door, Davood’s gun belt and government-issue Glock in hand.

  “Take these,” Hamid instructed. “How do you feel?”

  “A little light-headed when I went to bed last night,” Davood replied, buckling the belt. “After-effects of the concussion, or so the nurse said. I feel fine right now.”

  “Glad to hear it. We’ve got a plane to catch.”

  Davood’s eyebrows went up. “Where to?”

  “Iraq. We’re extracting Thomas. And Sarami…”

  “Yes?”

  Hamid stepped in close, the carefree look disappearing from his face. “Kranemeyer put me in charge of the extraction. I want you to follow my orders to the letter. None of this hero routine you pulled at Richards’ house. Do we have an understanding?”

  The Iranian-American agent stiffened. “I was just trying to—”

  “I really couldn’t care less what you were trying to do,” Hamid snapped back, turning to lead the way out of the clinic. “You went against your orders and screwed up. I don’t want it happening on my watch.”