by L. J. Martin
He just shakes his head. Knowing the SEAL teams, they’ll disarm the damn explosives…or die trying.
We managed to clear the ship, at least of enough of the threat to get our people headed for sure. I glance at my iPhone, which I’ve managed to hang onto, and I see it’s a few minutes before midnight.
Frazier Mendleson is happy to be able to report to this Colonel Musa that the plane is loaded, the ‘gold’ rigged, and ready to depart Gibraltar, and snatches the SAT phone up as soon as it rattles. He’s been waiting for the call, waiting to hurry to the CIA airstrip as soon as it’s complete.
“Colonel,” he answers. Several others are in the room, hopeful he’s successful.
“No aircraft of adequate size to deliver the ransom has departed Gibraltar. We will kill the first woman in seven minutes. I am sure you will enjoy receiving a video that I will also send to American news agencies.”
“No, no, the plane is nearly ready to depart.”
“Ready? You’ve had many hours.”
A rather heavyset woman, in her early fifties, had been randomly selected and brought to the aft deck of the Bit Tawfig.
Colonel Musa walked aft as he talked to Mendleson. The woman stood, her face and head covered as instructed.
“Colonel,” Mendleson yelled into the phone.
“I am watching my clock. In one minute.”
“Wait, the plane will be in the air within a half hour.”
“Then at least two more will die,” Musa says.
The sound of a gunshot rings over the phone.
It’s silent for a moment, then Musa returns to the phone. “You have caused the death of one woman. In exactly ten minutes, another will die, then another, then another.”
Mendleson yells at one of his minions in the room. “Tell them to get that 130 in the air.”
Then he returns to the phone. “She’s firing up now. Ask your people to watch.”
They remain on the phone, the only sound, heavy breathing, for the next nine minutes.
Mendleson, watching the clock on the wall, covers the SAT phone with a hand, and yells at his minions. “Is she taxiing yet?”
“She is, tell him she’s heading for the runway.”
“Mister Mendleson,” Musa finally speaks again. “Another woman is ready.”
“But the plane is taxiing.”
Exactly at the ten-minute mark, another shot rings out.
Musa returns to the phone. “You have caused the death of another.”
“Talk to whoever you have watching. The plane is on the runway.”
Musa is quiet for two full minutes, then returns to the phone. “A C130 is in position for take-off. Yes, it is rolling. Now, Mister Mendleson, you would be wise to do exactly what I instruct. I will call again when we know the gold has entered Algeria. You should know that when this load lands, if it is not gold, all women will be killed. They will be gassed where they are imprisoned. Do you understand?”
“Of course, we wouldn’t risk…” But Musa has disconnected.
They have to move fast, or think of another ruse, or many women will die when the many thousands of pounds of lead are discovered.
As Mendleson heads for a CIA jet, he dials the White House to speak to the Chief of Staff. He doesn’t hesitate, as much as he’d like to do so.
“I’m sorry to report it seems they have killed two women. Hopefully that’s all, as the ship is in the air. All, at least until after we drop the ransom.”
“We’ve made no headway with Algeria. How long before they discover they’ve been tricked?”
“No idea. The load is bound with hardened steel strapping and even after they get to it, it’ll take special equipment to discover what’s on those steel pallets. We’re working on ideas, but until we know exactly where the drop zone is… I have a half-dozen people studying our options.”
“Call, no matter the hour.”
“Yes, sir,” Mendleson says, and disconnects.
As the C130 nears the coast of Algeria, the Bit Tawfig nears an Algerian port.
“Melilla in one-half hour. Get them presentable.” Connie hears a male yell in Arabic, down to the female guard.
Alia, the female, walks from cell to cell yelling. “Cover yourselves. We will leave the ship before light.”
Connie walks, picking her way between women trying to sleep, to where Simone lies sandwiched between Gretchen and Patty.
With a toe, she nudges them all awake. Simone sits up rubbing her eyes.
“How you feeling?” Connie asks.
“Mouth feels like the Gobi Desert. Thirsty. And I gotta pee…again,” Simone answers, with a pout.
Connie moves a few feet, then returns with a half-full revolting five-gallon plastic bucket.
“I can’t pee in that,” Simone complains.
“Then hold it.”
“Help me up. I guess I gotta.”
As she’s pulling Simone to her feet, Connie turns to Gretchen, who also is climbing to her feet.
Then while Simone is situating herself atop the bucket, Connie says, “Seems okay?”
Gretchen shakes her head, worriedly. “Thirst, peeing lots, by tonight she’ll be nauseous and soon upchucking.”
“When was her last injection?”
“It’s been nearly thirty-six hours. It won’t be long before she feels really tired. Her breath will smell fruity. She’ll begin throwing up. Then have trouble breathing. Another twelve hours and we’ll be in deep caca.”
“Stay close when they unload us,” Connie instructs the girls.
The C130 crosses over Melilla, and Mendleson awaits a call. It’s only two minutes until the SAT phone rattles.
“Your new course is one hundred forty degrees. I will call in twenty minutes.” He disconnects and Mendleson calls Langley.
“You get that?”
“Of course, we’re working on possibles.”
And Mendleson disconnects, and worries.
48
The ship rocks with some banging and clattering, and the engine vibration subsides to quiet stillness. Women are already standing and those asleep are coming awake.
Connie works her way through the women to as close as she can get to the guard, Alia. She finds her on her knees on her jacket, which Connie presumes is passing for a prayer rug.
She’s bending face down to the east and not quiet.
It’s morning prayer. “Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. We have awoken, and all of creation has awoken, for Allah, Lord of all the Worlds. Allah, I ask You for the best the day has to offer, victory, support, light, blessings and guidance; and I seek refuge in You from the evil in it, and the evil to come after it.” She seems to pause, then adds, “Forgive me as there is no place to wash. Keep Sa’id safe from harm.”
Then she rises. Connie has appealed to her twice during the voyage but decides to do so again. It’s all she can do not to say you’re the evil in it, but knows it wouldn’t be wise, so instead, “You’re a devout woman. Do you have a daughter?” she calls out. She points to Simone, “This girl is like a daughter to me.”
Alia pulls her stool nearer, but not near enough to the cage to be reached.
“I had a sister, much younger. You killed her, my brother, my aunt and my mother and father with your drones. There was no medicine that would have saved them.”
Connie is silent for a second, then with eyes lowered, lies, hoping to endear herself to the guard, “I’m so sorry. I marched with many other women against the wars.”
Alia merely nods, unimpressed.
So, Connie continues. “My friend will die without her medicine.”
“You have told me that many times.”
“Is there a pharmacy where we’re going?”
Alia laughs. “The Sheik can get you anything you wish.”
“How long before we get there?”
“You ask too many questions.”
“I must, or my friend will die.”
“If you’re among the chosen, y
ou’ll be there in three hours or less, Allah willing. If not inshallah.”
“I pray Allah is willing,” Connie says, and begins to turn away.
“Allah only answers the prayers of the faithful.”
Connie can’t help herself. “My God looks out for all, no matter to whom they pray.”
“I have not seen you praying to ‘your’ god.”
“Christians can pray anytime, anywhere, in any direction, without even bowing their heads or closing their eyes.”
“Then pray for your friend, who is like a daughter to you, as my sister was like one to me.” Alia turns and looks up as camo-covered legs appear descending the ladder.
“It’s time,” the first soldier of four says as he hits the deck and goes to the far end of the cells. Then yells back. “Release them one cell at a time.”
Soon they are on a quay, lined up single file. At the end of the quay are a half-dozen military style trucks. As well as a van.
Colonel Musa stands where the line will pass with two soldiers at his side. He yells something, and the line begins to move.
As they pass, Colonel Musa pulls the occasional woman from the line. Connie watches and realizes he’s picking the youngest and prettiest of the women.
Before she and the girls reach where Musa seems to be culling women, she notices the large Mercedes van, almost a bus, parked nearby under a metal-roofed shed. The other women are being loaded in the trucks, but the selected few line up behind the Colonel, guarded by the two who’ve been at his side. He has at least two dozen girls lined up when she, Gretchen, Patty and Simone reach him. He pulls Simone out of the line, then points at another girl among the two dozen. That girl leaves the group and takes Simone’s position in the long line. Then he does the same with Patty, then Gretchen, then finally Connie. Only two more women are selected after them.
They are loaded onto the van, with Colonel Musa in a front seat near an armed driver, and Alia and another armed guard in the rear. Connie wonders if this isn’t the best odds she’ll get, but is sure that even if she can surprise and get two of them, AK 47s will spray through the van and the losses will be unacceptable. To her, the loss of even one of them is unacceptable. They only drive a few miles when they swing off a main paved road onto a two-track driveway, where she sees a sign in Arabic, French, and English. Aerogare Terminal. They soon brake to a stop far from any buildings. She recognizes the aircraft. It’s a DeHavilland Otter.
The women are quickly loaded aboard the aircraft. Connie counts the seats. Nineteen passenger seats and twenty-four women.
Pilot, co-pilot, and now two guards who sit across the aisle in the rear. Two passenger seats are taken by Alia and another armed guard, so that leaves seventeen seats for twenty-four girls. Fourteen have to ride double. It’s a good thing all are slim and shapely. Connie notes that, by this time, it seems the women are so numbed out they don’t give a damn if they have on seatbelts.
She notices that the pock-faced Colonel Musa does not board, and is picked up by a Land Rover as they taxi a long way to the south end of the runway then only use a fourth of it taking off. It climbs steeply. She knows the Otter is a STOL aircraft, particularly with the propjet engines this one has. It can also land in a very short area, so God only knows where they’re headed. This damn Algerian and Moroccan desert is practically all airstrip. At least there’s hardly a tree to get in the way, other than a few palms at the scarce oasis. As soon as they level out, she rises, knowing the small toilet room, hardly bigger than the toilet itself, is in the rear of the plane. Both guards have muzzles leveled on her as she nears. She points to the small restroom door and they wave her on by.
While in the restroom, she checks the .380 on the inside of her thigh, her single extra clip, her tiny can of hair-spray-mace, and her stun-gun-compact.
She’s ready, but now wonders how wise it is to take out the two guards in the rear of the plane—easily done as they let her pass and she’s behind them—but then she’ll have to face the armed co-pilot and pilot. If a stray shot should take the pilot out, could she handle a large propjet? She once took lessons in a Cessna 150, which you could park inside this Otter—at least its fuselage. And she has no idea their altitude. A shot through the port or skin of the aircraft might cause such havoc they’d all die.
She sighs deeply.
She still must bide her time.
Far to the southwest, in Libya, Sheik Hassan answers his SAT phone.
“Aw, good,” he says, then disconnects and dials his chief of security, Omar Al-Wandi, who is at the drop zone sixty kilometers from the sheik’s palace. “It is time. Move quickly. You want to be waiting, watching, as the load is released. Wind, other factors, could impair our recovery.”
“I will not let you down, my Sheik. I have four search vehicles ready and in place plus the six trucks. I am watching carefully.”
“Do not err, Omar.”
“No, I will not.”
And he hurries for his vehicle, wondering how wise it will be to position himself directly on target. It would not do to be crushed under tons of weight, even if that weight was gold.
49
We’re no more than four miles into the twelve or so miles to shore when we’re met by two dozen craft. The largest a ferry of at least eighty feet, and many smaller craft. A miniature Dunkirk. I presume we’re a long way from the Spanish Coast Guard as it seems half the private boats on the nearby shore have responded to what must have been an SOS from someone with a cell or SAT phone.
Our small rubber boat, one of many stored individually in large drums on the Blue Pearl, holds twelve of us. Harry Weinstein and his lady are in my boat, and, at my insistence, the man Sa’id. I mean to have a long heart to heart with Sa’id. Sa’id and I have both gone in the drink trying to help load folks aboard. I’m thinking maybe the Al-Shabaab soldier is having a come-to-Jesus, or more likely a come-to-Allah, moment. He’s actually being helpful.
A fifty-foot sport-fishing yacht is the first to reach our boat and nuzzles up alongside. Soon we’re enjoying a cocktail as guests of Señor Lucas Victorio Vicario. And he’s operating the twin-engine diesel himself, with a crew of two: his wife, Imelda, and daughter, Paloma. Both beautiful Spanish ladies; that doesn’t surprise me when papa is owner of a several hundred-thousand-dollar craft. What a surprise, big yachts and bigger bank accounts seem to attract beautiful women.
The tenders proceed on their own. Only folks in inflatables are being transferred to hard-sided craft.
As we’re motoring in at twenty-five knots, Harry pulls out his SAT phone, steps out of the salon, takes a seat in a fighting-chair, and I follow. He starts to poke in a number as he speaks.
“Let’s get a ride when we get ashore. I’m sure we have people on the way or nearby.”
I cover the keyboard with a hand before he has a chance.
“A small favor, Harry?”
“And that is?”
“I don’t have time to do three or four days in interrogation much less a few years in Leavenworth or another gray-stone hotel. I don’t want to be met by the CIA or Spanish cops or military. I’m going after the ladies who were hauled off and I don’t want to be told to stand down by a bunch of our guys with M4’s, or worse a bunch of bow ties. I have no use for bullshit rules of engagement.”
Harry gives me a slow nod. “They’ll wonder why I haven’t been in touch.”
So, I twist the SAT phone out of his hand and flip it over my shoulder into the Med.
He looks a little surprised, then a slow smile appears. “I guess that’s a good excuse.”
“Hope that was a company phone?” I say, returning the smile.
He nods. We’re good, I guess.
I shoved the KRISS into my bugout bag before I disembarked the ship, but don’t want to be noticed and chucked into a Spanish jusgado by the first cop I run into. I know the shore will be crawling with them. So, I climb up to the flybridge where Señor Vicario is handling the wheel and sidle up beside him.
He looks at me curiously before answering. “Of course. Discretion is a valuable commodity.”
“Señor, I have a gift for you. I cannot land in Spain with the weapon I had aboard the ship. I was tasked with guarding the life of a young lady, but your authorities will only confiscate the weapon. I would prefer you have it.”
“Weapon?” he says.
I drop the backpack and dig out the KRISS. “A beautiful firearm. May I gift it to you?”
He gives me a conspiratorial smile. “She is beautiful. Is this weapon known to any others aboard?”
“No, sir.”
“Please slip it under the…how do you say…cushion. I accept con mucho gusto.”
I slip the KRISS, and two extra magazines, under a nearby seat cushion, give him a smile and a nod, say, “May it keep you and your beautiful family safe,” and return to the salon where his beautiful wife and daughter are pouring a rich red fruit-filled sangria for their thankful passengers.
When we arrive at Señor Vicario’s private slip, I help him tie up, then thank him. “I’ll see you again, Señor. I owe you one.” I say, then grab Sa’id’s arm as he disembarks. He tries to pull away, but I put him in a wrist-lock come-along, and he goes up on his toes. There’s a cab under a streetlight after we exit a combination lock gate—locked to enter, not to exit—at the street end of the dock.
“Cantina, paisano’s solomente, no gringos, deiz kilometers, mas y minos,” I instruct the cabbie. That’s half my Spanish language vocabulary.
He nods and we’re off. Thank God, the warm salon of the Señor’s yacht has us nearly dry.
Sa’id is nervous and keeps glancing back over his shoulder. He should be. If he doesn’t come with some actionable intel, I will rip his head off his skinny neck and piss down his throw-up hole.
