by L. J. Martin
“Reardon,” I answer in a low tone.
“Taj here,” he replies. “Sit rep. We have tapped into an American satellite they’ve diverted to do a flyover of Ma’am Helu and it seems all women are in the Mosque. We’ve counted a half-dozen vehicles in the walled palace compound but no more than a dozen hostiles. How are Abdallah and Dawad working out?”
“You did well. So far so good.”
“Good. They are good men.”
“It’s about to hit the fan here. Got to go.”
“The bird is due another fly-by at 2227. If anything changes, I’ll sit rep again.”
“Ten four,” and he disconnects.
I’m all smiles hearing there are several vehicles on site. It was my plan to appeal to the CIA when we had control of the ladies and pray for helicopter transport, but if we have to drive out maybe we can haul everyone in eight vehicles. Haul to where, I have no damn idea, but I do know there are at least three U.S. oil company camps within forty miles of our position. And oil companies have their own protection forces in place. I know. I was offered a job doing same.
Even if the Algerian military is involved, as was indicated by the trucks used to haul the women, they would risk terrible retaliation by the U.S. if they interfered with their rescue after I have them in hand. I’d make damn sure everyone from the President to FOX news will know if they do. Of course, after the Benghazi fiasco, I would not be surprised by anything my own government is capable of doing—or ignoring. However, this President or this Secretary of State is not one to sleep through an emergency.
As hot as it was today, it’s now cold enough to wear a jacket.
I check my watch and it’s 2100. Time to call my shooters. This one’s via the handhelds.
“Anybody got eyes on?” I ask.
Waddy comes right back. “In place, high as I can get but not high enough to see into the compound. Eyes on one bogie.”
“All you can do is what you can do,” I reply.
“What kind of fucking snakes are there around here?” Pax asks.
“All kinds. Are you in position?”
“Ten ticks of the minute hand. It’s slippery as your old girlfriend’s excuses for all those other guys. Damn if I didn’t pass a wet spot, a bunch of olive trees, and then some cypress.”
I was worried about asking him to climb with his one leg a bit shorter than the other, but if I’d questioned, he’d have offered to black my eye. “Keep it on biz, bud. You okay?”
“Something slithered away a minute ago. I almost made things even more slippery.”
I have to laugh. “And smelly I imagine. Don’t worry about the Nubian cobras, they spit several feet and don’t have to gnaw on you. And you won’t have to watch them sink fangs as the spit will blind you.”
“You’re just a frigging ball buster, you prick. Glad I didn’t know that while climbing this last fifty yards, looking up over these damn ledges. Some friggin’ bird came in my face and you damn near had to scrape me up with a spatula.”
“Double click me when you’re in place.”
“Yes, Bwana.”
In less than ten, he calls back. “I’m topped out. Can see seventy-five percent of the courtyard and into a few archways in the main building. I have eyes on two ragheads leaning on the wall, having a smoke. Two hundred sixty yards. I was hoping for a challenge. The east half is caved in, but there are lights in the west.”
Waddy interrupts, “I have one atop the wall. A lookout I’d guess. But he can’t see your position from where he is.”
“Okay. Maybe we can damn near even the odds before they know they’re in a fight. Don’t wait for my order if you hear an explosion. Fire at will. Taj says the women are confined to the Mosque and he thinks no more than a dozen bogies.”
Pax comes with, “I can reduce that to ten in short order?”
“And I got one,” Waddy says. “Three hundred forty-seven yards. If this thing’s on and the wind stays down, I can clean out his earwax…put it from ear to ear through his shemagh.”
“Stand down until we’re inside the walls. If we find the tunnel, we’ll try that way and will likely be out of range for a while. Stay cool.”
Skip is eager, moves on ahead, finds the described four-foot boulder just yards from the escarpment, pulls away brush above it and finds planks. By the time Bo and I catch up, he’s already loosening a plank, and with Bo’s help soon, has three planks aside.
Before I enter, I speak softly into the radio and hope all are paying attention. “Going inside, dead space for a while.”
I’m surprised by a very clean tunnel, beginning with a half-dozen stairs leading down to a flat five-feet-wide tunnel with nearly flat walls and wooden ricking and supports on the side.
We each turn on headlamps when well inside. Every twenty-five feet, torches are in rusty iron holders alternating on the side walls. They are the length of baseball bats and each wrapped in cloth on the end, soaked in what smells and feels like crude oil. The place would be well lit were they afire. We move a hundred paces through the tunnel before we come to a long stairway, cut in stone. In another fifty yards, we have a surprise no one mentioned. A heavy barred gate, and beyond it another steeper stairway of only ten steps dying into the bottom of a plank floor. Not only a lock inhibits entry, but it’s chained.
I give it a hard jerk, mostly out of frustration, and it doesn’t budge. Not only locked and chained but rusted shut.
I hate this, if we can’t pry the damn thing open it means we’ll have to set a charge, retreat damn near all the way back, blow it, run like hell back and up to the planks where we have no idea how long to broach. FUCK!
57
Time for a consult.
“Okay, let’s try and pull the damn thing down. But if not possible, I say we retreat and try to either scale the wall or breach the pass-through door? What say?”
Bo scratches his head. “If we blow it, we don’t know what we’ve got beyond those planks. And, hell, we could bring this whole tunnel down on us. No choice. Let’s give it a jerk.”
I can press four hundred on a good day and think Bo can probably do more. Skip is a freak, bull strong. So, if we can’t budge the gate with pure muscle, it likely can’t be done by humans.
“Lean in, then jerk,” I suggest, and we do.
It flies open and I go on my butt. The damn thing wasn’t locked, and the chain was only looped.
Both my compadres laugh, and I shush them. “We’ve made enough damn noise,” I mumble as I brush the sand off my butt.
When we get up the stairs, we see the plank floor is hinged. We switch off headlamps. I stay with M4 ready, while they push it open. Hay and horse, camel, or donkey crap falls into the tunnel. But light does not.
I lead as I’m locked, loaded and ready and step into an ancient rock-walled stable. There are a dozen stalls and an equal number of mangers, but no babe or wisemen. In fact, no animals. And I’m glad, as the King of Kings would likely not want to be party to what I hope is about to happen.
We switch our headlamps to the lowest beam and move forward to a pair of double heavy plank doors, wide enough to accommodate a Land Rover, if both swung aside.
There’s an inch gap between the doors, so I stay quiet with an eye glued, but nothing. So, it’s recon time. I try the handheld. “We’re in. Don’t shoot anyone coming out of the stable. Sit rep?”
Pax comes right back. “My two must have hit the sack.”
Then Waddy. “Mine is still in position. He’s on his butt with chin on chest. I’d guess this fine guard is sawing logs. I’ve seen no one at the Mosque.”
“Stay cool until you hear shots or see trouble coming our way.”
The stable doors are barred from the outside, but the gap is wide enough that I can get the barrel of the M4 through and pitch the bar aside. It clatters on the cobblestones below, so I wait thirty seconds to pull the door aside.
All quiet.
The palace itself is two stories with more window open
ings, without glass, in the upper floor than the lower. The lower floor is slightly larger than the upper and, on this side, at least, there’s a covered walkway all around the upper until it’s collapsed at the east end.
I double key the handheld and whisper, “Going into the arched doors.”
Getting double clicks back, we move forward.
We recon the lower floor, taking at least an hour to clear what must be twenty-five rooms including a two-story great room, collapsed at one end, an ancient kitchen, and storerooms.
A stairway leads to an upper floor from both the kitchen and the great room, some fifty paces apart.
“One of us should take the rear stairway,” I whisper. “Loser goes,” I say, and make a flat palm, scissor fingers, and fist for a rock. We all put a hand behind our back and I whisper, “one, two,” and we come out on three. All have fists for rocks. So, we do it again, and Bo has a rock and Skip and I paper. Paper covers rock. I give him sign language for starting up on a double click and he’s off. Bo makes his way to the rear stairway and Skip and I give him time. Then I give him the go sign, a double click. We switch off our headlamps and begin moving up as quietly as possible. But the stairs are covered with loose sand and grit, and it’s tough not to scrape.
Just as we top the stairs, a voice rings out. “Ahmed?”
I’m madly trying to remember how to say ‘yes’ in Arabic when Skip, to my great surprise, answers, “La, Mohammed.”
Then I remember, la is ‘no’. And he was brilliant, as the man may have recognized his friend Ahmed’s voice.
The man is yawning wide with arms outstretched as Skip closes the ten feet and throttles him with a big hand, squeezing his windpipe shut and shoving him against the wall.
The man flails with both hands trying to beat Skip away, but my big buddy pulls him to the ground and bangs his head on the slate floor so hard I fear he’ll wake whoever else is in the room he stood outside of.
With M4 at the ready, I enter the room which must be forty feet long by fifteen wide. The only light is from what seems a metal or clay fire pit, and it’s only glowing embers. They’ve either cooked there or fired it up for heat.
As I step inside, another voice rings out. “Ahmed?” This Ahmed must have been popular. As my eyes focus, I get at least eight, maybe ten, lumps on the floor. Men sleeping.
“No, motherfucker,” I say, and I can see the standing man scramble for a weapon as the others are rising. I spray the room, emptying a thirty-shot magazine, drop to a knee and insert another, while shots and muzzle flashes come from the far end of the room, mostly from a doorway. Only three or four shots seem to have originated from inside the room, and they quickly were stilled. Then I make out Bo who’s at another entrance. His headlamp, unlit but obvious on his head, gives him away.
As I go down to a knee, Skip opens up. As he reloads, I scan the room. There’s more than one bogie flopping around and moaning. A couple are on hands and knees trying to crawl to God only knows where. I move quickly and step on the butt of an AK one of them is trying to drag along, but he goes to his belly and quiets. I take the chance of clicking on my high beam and begin collecting weapons, then realize Skip has slid down the wall and is on his butt with legs extended.
I hurry over. “Need your quick clot,” he says, as if he’s asking for a piece of gum.
“Where?” I ask. “Side, don’t think it got bone.”
“Cover us,” I yell to Bo. “Skip took one.”
“Lie down so I can expose it,” I command, then drop my weapon and my pack and dig in for my kit.
He’s trying to free his battle rattle belt, loosen his belt, and pull his shirt free, when another shot rings out—a distant shot. A man stumbles into the room, trying to keep his footing, then falls to his back. Seems our snipers are at work.
The wound is small in the entry but must have been a hollow point of some kind as the exit has blown out a chunk just smaller than a tennis ball. I sprinkle a liberal amount of quick clot, slap a compress front and back, then jerk a headdress off a nearby hostile and bind it tightly.
“Thanks, fuckhead,” Skip snarls, “If I get fleas, I’m gonna kick your skinny ass.”
I ignore him. “I’ll call for Ji Su and an evac, while I’m heading to get the women. Stay put. Shoot any of these fuckers who twitch,” I command. He gives me a nod and frees his Glock.
“Let’s go,” I yell to Bo. We head for the stairway.
I can only pray some jihadi son of a bitch is not spraying the room full of women with his AK, now that he’s heard shots and knows a rescue must be launched.
I radio Tobias as Bo and I take up positions on the outside, either side, of the wide palm lined walkway to the mosque. “Get Ji Su moving. By the time she gets here, she should be able to set down in the courtyard.”
“What’s up?” Toby asks.
“Skip took one in the side.”
“Getting evac,” Toby says, and I go back to work.
I’m truly surprised we’re not taking fire as we approach the Mosque, but all’s quiet.
Two Muslim women in black burkas are at the door, standing with hands on their heads. Smart girls, I think, as I blow by them and Bo wisely stops to do a quick shake down. I only take three steps inside, when an American woman stops me.
“American?” she asks.
“Yes, ma’am, here to take you home.”
“Thank God.” She points at a line of women with their heads hung. “Only six Muslim women here to attend to us. We were told if we stepped outside, we’d be shot.”
I count seven. “Six?”
“Yes, six. This is the first time I’ve seen the big one.”
One of the black burka clad women glances up. I’m studying her and notice something odd about the line of her dress. Maybe a weapon. I start her way and she sweeps the burka back off her head. I raise my M4 as the bearded ‘woman’ tries to bring an AK47 out from under the clumsy garment.
He’s yelling as he struggles to free his weapon, “Paradise is under the shades of swords,” he screams. He’s firing through the burka, unable to free his weapon, and kicking up dirt in front of me but is not quick enough as a half magazine stitches him from crotch to just under the left eye.
He cartwheels back and hits hard, puffing dust in a cloud as he lands in a former flower bed off the slate entry to the Mosque.
I stride over to recover the AK when one of the women moves between us and begins beating my chest with her fists. “You have killed Colonel Musa, you infidel dog.”
I shove her aside into the arms of her compadres and recover the AK. As I do so, I hear the rattle of a SAT phone and pat him down until I find it. I answer in English and get excellent, but accented, English back.
“Who is answering my Colonel’s phone?” the voice demands.
“Who the fuck wants to know?”
“Where is Colonel Musa?”
“He’s in hell and if he’s ‘your colonel,’ you’ll soon be there as well.”
And he disconnects.
The burka clad women begin that tongue rattle thing Arab women do. I ignore them and return to the lady who’s stepped up to talk for the captives.
“Any one need medical?” I ask.
“No emergency. A few without their heart and other daily meds so they should be first.”
I study the group of women but don’t see what I seek, so turn back to the spokeswoman. “I need to speak with Simone and Connie?”
“They are not with us. They—a couple of dozen of the young pretty girls—boarded a plane right after we left the ship.”
“What?” I snap, then my chin hits my chest. Then I mutter, under my breath so as not to offend the lady, “Mother, mother, motherfucker.”
58
Before I head for the gates I first call Waddy and Pax, “Try and get your butts down here without breaking anything. We ain’t through…”
“What?” Pax comes back.
“Explain on the way. Got more calls to make.”
Then I dial Taj. “Hey, did you guys see a plane leaving Melilla right after the ladies disembarked the Bit Tawfig?”
“We did. Is it of interest?”
“Two dozen of the ladies, the young beautiful ones, were on that plane.”
“We ignored it after it left local airspace, flying southeast, by the way.”
“Any way to step back in time?” I ask.
“There is a webpage, flightaware dot com, that tracks all airplane flights. I will get on trying to backtrack it.”
“Please. I’ve got some tail to twist and will call you if I come up with anything. You do same.”
“Will do.”
I ring off then call my new CIA buddy, Frazier Mendleson. Who answers on the first ring.
“Where are you?” he asks without a howdy.
“Ma’an Helu, a rundown palace and Mosque a hundred clicks southeast of Ouargla. I have the women, at least most of them, but am not waiting for the cavalry to come. I’ll leave two associates, locals, who’ll stand guard until the SEALs or Marines or who the fuck ever arrives to pick up the ladies…”
“Why aren’t you standing by?”
“Two dozen of them, the young beautiful ones, and my charges, were separated from the rest. I’m going after them.”
“Where?”
“Fuck off and stay out of the way. If you call me and have a SEAL team or a platoon of Marines ready to land, I’ll read you in.”
“Stand down, Reardon. We’ll take it from here.”
“You’re saying the US has permission to interdict?”
“Not yet, but…”
“No fucking buts. I’m going. Tell the President my next call is to the NYT, BBC, FOX and maybe even the lying CNN, as much as I hate the lying press. I’m going public that I’ve located and freed the women and our chickenshit government is doing another Benghazi, if no one shows. So, take it for what it’s worth. I’m blowing the road all to hell so it’s chopper time. It’s a cap rock mountain with no other way up. There are over one hundred innocent American women who want to go home.”
“Reardon…”
