The Templar Salvation (2010)

by Raymond Khoury

  The two orange blobs on Reilly’s screen weren’t moving. Judging by their oblong shapes, they seemed to be lying down, asleep, which was hardly surprising, given the time. A long-distance directional microphone wasn’t picking up any chitchat or snoring. The question was, who were they? Was one of them the target, or were they just a couple of civilians sleeping under the stars? And if one of them was the bomber, who was the other? Simmons? Or the owner of the second SUV? In which case, where was Simmons?

  The plan was to go just before sunrise. Use the advantage of having the right gear, the Hawk circling overhead, while knowing that if things didn’t work out as planned, daylight wasn’t far off. Reilly glanced around him. The men of the Ozel Tim were making their final preparations, checking their weapons and adjusting the straps on their night vision goggles. There were sixteen of them altogether—three down the road with Tess, the others, under Keskin’s command, up there with Reilly and Ertugrul. They had all come from the military and were specially trained in anti-guerrilla warfare. They were well equipped and heavily armed, and from what Reilly had seen so far, they seemed to know what they were doing.

  Reilly tried to release the knot of tension at the back of his neck. He told himself that things were looking up. If his guy was up there, the son of a bitch was cornered, outnumbered, and seriously outgunned. But he might have a hostage. And, Reilly knew, that kind of thing rarely worked out without some kind of wrinkle.

  He caught Keskin’s eye. The burly man nodded, raised a bullhorn, and aimed it at the two SUVs up ahead.

  “Dikkat, dikkat,” the captain bellowed. Attention, attention. “You, up there by the cars,” he called out in Turkish. “This is the Jandarma. You are surrounded. Come out with your hands where we can see them.” He repeated it, then said it again in a heavily accented, broken English.

  Reilly peered out into the darkness, then dropped his eyes back to his screen. The ghostly, orangey shapes on it sprang to life. They moved around by the vehicles, merging into each other and splitting up again like molecules in a petri dish. The veins in his neck hardened as he tried to picture what was going on up there. Seconds turned to a minute, then Keskin raised his bullhorn and sounded out his warning again.

  The shapes stayed merged for a tense moment, the better part of another minute. Keskin glanced over at Reilly and Ertugrul, his hard features brimming with confidence.

  “If they were just regular civilians up there, they would have shouted back,” he told them. “I think it’s your man.”

  “The question is, who’s up there with him?” Reilly asked. “Is it Simmons or an accomplice?”

  “Either way, he can have us believe it’s a hostage,” Ertugrul noted. Addressing the captain, he asked, “How do you want to play this?”

  “We’ll give them another minute or so, no more. Then we’ll hit them with stun grenades and go in.” He turned to one of his men and fired off some crisp words in Turkish. The man nodded and slipped away quietly, gesturing to his men to get ready.

  Reilly turned to his screen. The figures were still one, still in the same position, behind the Discovery. Then they started moving, gliding around the back of the car—then they detached. One of them remained behind the SUV, the other stopped momentarily, then headed out. Into open ground.

  Reilly raised his night vision binoculars as clipped shouts burst out around him. He saw a lone figure appear behind the Discovery, a pale green silhouette in a sea of black. He squinted to allow his focus to adjust. The figure now definitely looked like it was a man. He was walking toward them, slowly, his gait reluctant. Reilly flicked a glance down at his screen. The other orange blob was still behind the Discovery, but it had edged to the very back of the car.

  “Who is it?” Ertugrul asked as he also tracked the man’s approach through infrared binoculars.

  “Not sure yet,” Reilly replied, his eyes locked on the figure.

  The man started down the narrow path that led to them. The lenses’ 3.5 magnification range now allowed for a clear ID. His face came into view, the long hair, the athletic build.

  “Hold your fire,” Reilly hissed. “It’s Simmons.”

  A few brief commands in Turkish bounced down the line of paramilitaries. Simmons was now barely fifty yards away, and Reilly could see him more clearly. He was wearing a windbreaker and had his arms behind his back, and as he swung around to have a look behind him, Reilly could see that they were heavily tied with duct tape. He also had a side strip of tape around his mouth.

  The other blob was still huddled behind the Discovery.

  Simmons was about thirty yards away when Keskin barked another order. A half dozen men in camouflage fatigues, black balaclavas, and night vision goggles surged from behind trees and boulders and converged on him. They grabbed hold of him and hustled him back to safety.

  Reilly kept his eyes lasered on Simmons. The archaeologist seemed totally distressed, in a panic even, twisting around, shaking his head sideways, struggling against the commandos, a muffled, high-pitched wail coming from behind the tape.

  A loud siren started blaring inside Reilly’s head.

  Why is he struggling like that? Why isn’t he jumping for joy?

  Then his gaze dropped to the thin windbreaker Simmons was wearing, how it was zipped all the way up, how it seemed much puffier than he’d have expected it would be on that ripped kitesurfer’s torso.

  Oh shit.

  A rush of blood flooded his brain and he bolted up, waving wildly, shouting out at the top of his lungs, “No, get away from hi—”

  And Simmons blew up.

  Chapter 31

  The night went bright with a flash of searing light that obliterated everything from view a nanosecond before the blast wave hit Reilly. It punched the wind out of him and wrenched him off his feet, flinging him back into the gravel-strewn ground. In the blink of an eye, all of his sensory inputs were shut down and he was plunged into a dark and silent bubble.

  It wasn’t the small belt charge.

  That one would have only killed Simmons and wouldn’t have hurt anyone else unless they happened to be lying on top of him.

  No, this was entirely different.

  This was thirty-odd pounds of plastic explosive strapped around the archaeologist’s waist. A proper, full-bore suicide bomber’s rig. And the effect was devastating.

  As he stirred to consciousness, Reilly felt as if his ears had been turned inside out. He couldn’t hear anything apart from his own ragged breathing, and he felt heavy-headed and unbalanced, as if he were lost deep underwater and couldn’t tell which way was up. His eyes were having trouble focusing, but from the vague shapes drifting into view, he figured that he was on his back. He tried to move his arms and legs, but they wouldn’t respond at first. He gritted his teeth and found the strength to roll slowly onto his right side, wanting to check and make sure none of his limbs were missing, but not wanting to discover that wasn’t the case. He lifted his hands and saw that at least they were both still there. His hand settled on the handgun in his holster for a split second before he realized the weapon was burning hot and quickly pulled it back.

  He propped himself up on one elbow and looked out.

  The mountain had turned into a vision of Hell.

  The trees around him were ablaze, spewing acrid black smoke, which stuck uncomfortably in his throat. Screams and moans reverberated around him. Through the haze, he glimpsed strewn body parts littering the scree—an arm, a leg sticking out of a stray boot. Injured commandos were sprawled on the ground, cradling their wounds, calling out for help. The explosion had shredded Simmons’s body to bits before ripping through the commandos who were escorting him back to safety. Every bone in his body, even his wristwatch and his belt buckle—it had all been smashed into superheated shrapnel that burst out and sliced through any flesh that stood in its way.

  Reilly’s eyes roamed around the carnage and the chaos, then fell on a couple of bodies on fire by the trees, the air thickening with the
sickly smell of their burning flesh. One of them was still alive, moving slowly in a flaming death-crawl. Then he spotted Ertugrul, closer to him, a dozen yards or so to his left. He was on the ground, sitting up, motionless and soundless, looking over at Reilly with a shocked, confused stare, his right hand on his cheek, his fingers inching their way up toward a big hole in his skull, a shrapnel wound that was spewing blood.

  “Vedat,” Reilly mouthed, but the word caught in his throat and he coughed. He tried to push himself to his feet to help him, faltered, then attempted it again and managed to get up—which was when two things happened.

  First, more explosions went off nearby, smaller detonations, but still loud and potent enough to send him reeling backward. He realized they were grenades that the commandos had on them, blowing up as the flames licked them.

  Then he heard the distant wail of a car engine. Coming straight at him.

  He stumbled forward and turned, his mind still frazzled, not sure what to make of the noise, feeling a trickle of blood now oozing from his left ear and down the side of his neck. Through the smoke, he glimpsed the grille of the Discovery, glinting from the flames, hurtling down the mule path, its engine screaming. He saw a lone commando rush toward the SUV from the driver’s side, his weapon raised, unleashing a torrent of bullets on the Discovery—then he saw an arm gripping a handgun dart out of the car’s window and heard a trio of sharp gunshots slice the air just as the commando faltered and crashed to the ground, face-first.

  The Discovery was bearing down on him, now so close his eyes could fill out the Iranian’s features through the dark windshield. Reilly shook his head and tried to breathe in some air, focusing on what he was doing there, on who was in that car, on how much he wanted him dead. He was reaching for his gun when a figure burst out in front of him, the Ozel Tim commander, Keskin. The man was covered in blood and limping, with a telltale crater in his thigh and another in his shoulder, but he seemed impervious to the pain, like he was on crack. He had a haunted look in his eye and an automatic in his hand and was lurching right into the path of the onrushing SUV.

  Keskin stopped and raised his weapon, adjusting his aim—

  Reilly stared in dazed disbelief as the arm darted out again from the car’s side window, only this time it was aimed forward—

  “No,” Reilly yelled out—

  —and bolted toward Keskin, feeling the big man’s body shudder from the impact of the bullets just as he tackled him from the side and shoved him out of the Discovery’s path. The two of them hit the ground hard just as the black SUV plowed through the very spot they’d been standing in and thundered down the mule track and out of view.

  Reilly was winded and felt himself teetering on the edge of consciousness. Through foggy eyes, he glanced at Keskin. The man was staring back, his eyes wide open, blood gurgling out of his mouth. Reilly felt an impotence and a primal rage he’d never experienced before, a cauldron of hate roiling deep within him. He felt any strength remaining inside him drain away, and the thought of passing out and falling into a dark sleep seemed like an attractive one until one word burst through his daze and his fury and reminded him of who was in the bomber’s path.

  Tess.

  TESS HEARD THE EXOLOSION and jumped.

  This wasn’t part of the game plan. Worse—it was too big, far bigger than anything she imagined the weaponry she’d seen Reilly and the commandos take up with them could sound like. Which meant that it was someone else’s doing. And that didn’t sound good at all. Not when you considered how handy the man they were chasing was with explosives.

  She switched off the flashlight she was using to study the map of the area that she’d brought with her and looked up the mountain. Seconds stretched out torturously, then more explosions followed. Smaller ones, different, more muffled, like thuds—but explosions nonetheless, echoing across the hills. Then came some scattered gunfire, and by now Tess was crippled with fear. It sounded like Iwo Jima up there.

  The commandos around her were as startled as she was. They exchanged nervous words in Turkish that she couldn’t understand, though their body language said plenty. They didn’t know what was going on either. One of them reached for his walkie-talkie and, in a controlled tone, radioed the others. No reply came back. He tried again, this time with more alarm in his voice. Still nothing.

  Then came the distant groan of a diesel engine, straining as it fought to slow the heavy SUV down the steep incline. Tess couldn’t see any lights coming down the mountain—then in the faint glimmer of moonlight, she saw a dark, boxy shape swerve down a hairpin before disappearing from view. The commandos saw it too and went into action mode, readying their weapons and flipping down the lenses of their night vision goggles as they shouted out to one another. One of them grabbed Tess with his free arm and hustled her back to safety, behind a Cobra light armored vehicle, positioning himself to shield her. The others ducked behind the two Humvees that were also parked there, and waited.

  More nerve-racking seconds followed, the engine’s growl rising and falling as the SUV snaked down the mountain—then it appeared. A dark shape, heading toward them.

  The commandos hesitated, unsure about whether or not to fire—then the car’s headlights suddenly came on, high beams, full blast.

  Blinding.

  They tore their goggles off, but their retinas were already seared, and in the precious seconds it took for them to adjust, they were exposed. Bullets quickly tore into one of the commandos, sending him snapping sideways like he’d been whipped. More rounds punched into the Humvee the other soldier was using for cover, biting into its panels and punching through its canvas cover.

  Tess huddled low and covered her ears as the commando protecting her kept leaning out and firing quick bursts from his MP5 machine gun. His rounds took out one of the SUV’s headlights and drilled into its front grille, but it kept on coming, turning now so it was headed at the Humvee. It clipped the front left side of the wide jeep and sent it arcing right, slamming into the second soldier and knocking him to the ground. Moving with uncanny speed and precision, Zahed slammed on the brakes, burst out of the SUV and around its back, and pumped two bullets into the downed commando.

  A shriek of anguish accompanied each shot, followed by haunting groans of agony. Tess spun her gaze to her guardian, unsure of what to make of it at first, then she understood. The bomber hadn’t killed the commando. He was toying with his victim, killing him one piece at a time to goad any remaining opponents and unsettle them. What he didn’t know was there was only one man left.

  One man, and Tess.

  The moans went on for the better part of a minute, then died out. The clearing was quiet now, except for the clicking of the idle diesel engine. Tess looked to her guardian for guidance. He raised a finger to his mouth, then edged sideways for a peek. Tess swallowed hard and pressed back against the cool hull of the armored carrier. She glanced down and suddenly became very conscious of the high ground clearance of the vehicle, and edged closer to the commando, both of them now tucked in behind one of its big, donutlike tires. Her protector was looking out, his brow furrowed with concentration, a lone bead of sweat glistening in the faint light, inching slowly down the side of his face.

  He looked as scared as she was—then a metallic snap cut through the silence, followed by the sound of something spinning across the air.

  The commando’s eyes instantly went wide with recognition. He grabbed Tess and threw her to the ground, throwing his body on top of hers, pressing her down. Whatever flew over them landed in the loose gravel beyond the Cobra and bounced a couple of times with a metallic clinking noise before exploding. The soldier knew what pulling a clip out of a grenade sounded like, but it had been thrown too far to cause them damage. Then Tess saw booted feet rush up to them, felt the commando scramble off her, and heard the bullets slam into him and punch him down to the ground.

  The bomber hadn’t wanted to kill them with the grenade. He only needed the distraction.

&
nbsp; Tess looked up.

  He was looming over her, his eyes darting down at her while scanning the surroundings for any remaining threats. Tess knew there weren’t any left.

  He picked up the dead commando’s submachine gun and told her, “Get up.”

  His voice was as she remembered it. Dry, monotone, devoid of any trace of emotion.

  She pushed herself to her feet, her arms and legs trembling at the sight of the same man who’d kidnapped her in Jordan and stuffed her into the trunk of a car alongside a big wad of explosives. And now here she was, in the middle of nowhere, alone with him. At his mercy.

  Again.

  Hoping he wasn’t about to utter the last words she ever wanted to hear from him.

  No such luck.

  “Let’s go,” he told her.

  She thought of running, thought of lashing out at him for everything she knew he’d done, but she knew it would be pointless. Instead, she let him lead her to the Discovery and watched helplessly as he pumped several rounds into the tires of the Humvees and the Cobra to ground them. She got into the passenger seat beside him, and said nothing as they pulled away from the kill zone and drove off into the Anatolian night.

  Chapter 32

  Just getting up onto his feet was a titanic effort. Reilly felt like a boxer who’d been knocked down one time too many and could do nothing else but hug the canvas and ride out the count. But he couldn’t stay down. Not while Tess was out there.

  He managed to push himself upright. All around him, small fires were blazing, lighting up a macabre tableaux of suffering. The acrid stench of death shrouded the scorched earth near him. Keskin was still there, by his feet. The beefy commando wasn’t moving anymore.