by Ben Coes
If they opened the cab door of his truck, or the door to their vehicle, he would be able to target around the light. In addition, once they reached his truck, they would need to find his foot tracks, something that likely required a light source, unless they could do it with night optics. But that would be hard for the trackers to do. The one thing he was sure of was that he would have their muzzle flash to aim at.
After several minutes, he heard the squeak of a door opening. He scanned for the light of a vehicle but saw nothing.
Then a light went on. A flashlight. It went on and off briefly. He swept the rifle left, trying to put the luminous dot of the sight where he thought he’d seen the light. But he needed another flash. A few seconds later, it came again. It was just a fraction of an inch off the sight. He moved it and locked on just as the light went off. Then he triggered the gun, holding the trigger down. Three loud explosions cracked the air as slugs ripped through the darkness. He heard the clang of a cartridge hitting steel of the truck. He fired again and heard a sharp groan. Then the terrorists started firing.
Dewey focused on the orange-red flashes, trying not to think about the incoming bullets. He ducked low against the ground, trying to ignore the noise, listening for the helicopter. Every few moments, he raised up and fired in single rounds, trying to conserve what ammo he had left. He hit another man, who screamed and continued to moan.
He waited for what seemed like forever, listening and watching. Suddenly, the gunfire started again. It was coming from two different points. He found the red flash and fired, hitting steel. Gunfire started once more and he triggered the gun, only to hear his bullets hit his truck. The gunmen were using it as cover, firing intermittently. He waited and aimed again. When he triggered the gun, all he heard was the dull thwack of an empty round. He was out of ammo.
He ducked low and twisted the AK-47 sideways, rotating the mag in the dirt, creating a little cover. He felt the ground for the pistol and took aim but didn’t fire. He waited. He was sweating and breathing fast. More shots rang out. One of the slugs hit the rifle, making a loud ding. Dewey let out a sharp cry, hoping they heard it. He rolled left just as both gunmen focused everything on the area surrounding the rifle. He rolled several times, clutching the handgun and trying to stay as low as he could. He stopped. Propped low on his elbows, he gripped the pistol with both hands and waited as bullets peppered the ground to his right. Then the shooting stopped.
For more than a minute, Dewey waited, gun out. Then he heard an engine.
They were coming to make sure he was dead. But they kept the lights off. It meant they weren’t sure. He knew they were scanning with the night optic. If he tried to run, they’d mow him down with ease. Yet it was clear that the detection range of the optic was poor.
If he was going to move, now was the time.
They’ll see you.
It was an impossible situation.
You need to run.
The vehicle’s lights shot on. He was illuminated in one of the floodlights. It was a pickup truck, moving quickly. The headlights were aimed to his right. He fired. All he heard was a click. The chamber was empty.
He lay his head on the dirt, left cheek against the ground, and remained still. There were two men—the driver and a black-clad gunman in the back, a carbine in his hands, searching for him.
Dewey’s mind traced the dozen things he should’ve done. He felt self-loathing for his laziness.
Why didn’t you switch vehicles? Hide in an abandoned shack?
Worse, the thought struck him that whatever he’d gone to Damascus to retrieve had been worthless. A ruse by al-Jaheishi. He had so many things to live for. The thought that it had all been a waste was a bitter tonic; he felt anger and regret. The lights came closer and the gunman searched …
* * *
Peltz watched the video on the screen in front of him as Walls piloted the chopper. The screen showed a video feed, taken by satellite somewhere in the sky above. Beneath thin digital grid lines was a black-and-gray landscape, a holographic view of a remote area in Syria called Irhab—location of the last captured signal of Andreas’s cell phone. But cloud cover made the feed grainy and illegible.
The chopper’s lights were off as it moved north along the Mediterranean coast.
“Get ready, guys,” said Walls over his headset. His voice went over the intercom in back. “We have a safe corridor inland. Swinging right.”
Peltz typed into a keyboard, trying to adjust the screen and get a sharper view. Andreas’s location was locked into the chopper’s NAV system, but that was all.
Another voice came over Peltz and Walls’s headsets. It was Abramowitz in operations command back at Ramat David Airbase.
“South clearing in five, four, three, two, one,” said Abramowitz. “Zebra Ninety, you have a vector inland to the target zone.”
“Roger, mission leader,” said Peltz, swinging the Panther AS565 MA sharply right. “Heading southeast at one-three-zero, over.”
Walls looked at Peltz. “Ten minutes out.”
Peltz didn’t look up or acknowledge Walls. His eyes were glued to the screen. A break in the clouds had allowed him to focus in on Andreas. He saw the ghostlike holograph a few yards from the point where the cell phone had been locked. But there were two other figures and a vehicle on the screen. Then the telltale bright white sparks of gunfire.
“Oh, shit!”
“What is it?” asked Walls.
“Trouble.”
Peltz turned to the cabin and made eye contact with Meir, nodding, telling him he wanted to show him something. He hit a button on the chopper dash and pulled down a black digital screen from the top of his helmet, then grabbed the joystick in front of him. This controlled the weapons aboard the Panther, which included Nexter M621 20mm guns and AS-15TT antisurface missiles.
“What?” asked Kohl Meir.
“The clouds broke.” Peltz pointed at the screen with his left hand as, with his right, he adjusted the joystick. On the screen, a red square target box appeared imposed over the holographic feed of the ground. Then the screen went black again as clouds covered the view. Peltz dialed in the ordnance, preparing to fire one of the AS-15TTs. He heard the electronic hum of the targeting architecture beneath the chopper.
“Jonathan,” said Meir. “Tell me.”
“He’s in trouble.”
Meir, dressed in black tactical gear, face painted black as well, leaned toward the screen to get a better view.
“How close are they?”
“Twenty meters. If I miss—”
“Fire!” barked Meir. “If you don’t it won’t matter!”
* * *
As the pickup came closer, Dewey felt the light on him. He shut his eyes. He heard shouting in Arabic. The truck stopped. Squinting, he saw the gunman in back move to the side of the truck and point at him. Dewey didn’t move.
A loud noise came from the sky—electric, high-pitched, something moving blisteringly fast. The shriek of an incoming missile, too fast to react to. In a fraction of a second, as the noise became unbearable, there was a deafening explosion. The pickup burst into a cloud of smoke and fire. The sky lit up in a massive fireball and the ground shook. Dewey was catapulted up, pummeled backward, where he landed several feet away and tumbled, his face scraping dirt, until finally he came to rest. All he could hear was a high-pitched ringing noise in his ears. A few moments later came the sound of smoldering metal. Dewey lay still, eyes shut, waiting for the shock to dissipate so that he could determine if he was injured. He didn’t move for several minutes. He felt numb.
At some point he heard helicopter rotors above the din of the flaming truck. Slowly, he sat up, shielding his eyes as the wind picked up and sent dirt and sand flying over him. He didn’t see or hear the chopper land.
He felt hands on both sides of him, lifting him up by his arms.
It was Meir who awakened him from his shock. “You okay, Dewey?”
Meir was standing beside him, holdin
g one of his arms. Dewey stumbled, wrapping his arms around Meir and another commando. They moved to the open door of the dark chopper, its rotors slashing the air.
“What took you so fucking long?” groaned Dewey.
“Traffic.”
44
CARMAN HALL
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
The tenth floor was soon fetid with heat and so many people in such a tight space. The initial hysteria had dissipated into quiet disbelief and sorrow.
Ali dumped out a large cardboard box from one of the bedrooms. He and Mohammed stood just inside the entrance to the tenth floor, each man holding a cell phone detector, which they waved over every person as he or she entered, confiscating cell phones.
* * *
As his men corralled the students onto the tenth floor, Sirhan climbed the empty east stairs to the roof. It was imperative to secure the roof before the FBI or NYPD had time to mobilize an assault team and drop it down on top of the building by chopper.
He clutched an AK-47, safety off, finger on the trigger, and slowly pushed the door open. The urgent scream of sirens came from several directions at street level below. He crouched low and glanced cautiously around, his rifle sweeping the air along with his eyes. He surveyed the surrounding buildings and distant skyline. Seeing no movement, he placed his canvas rucksack on the ground and pulled out binoculars, again searching for movement. He saw none—but he knew snipers were coming soon. Perhaps they were already in position but waiting for the order to shoot. The FBI might attempt to negotiate before staging any counterassault or attempting to kill anyone, though he doubted it, especially after the trail of blood they’d left in the street.
The roof was empty and unfinished. A waist-high brick parapet ran around the edge. A few beer bottles, a broken lawn chair, and cigarette butts were evidence of its occasional use by students.
Looking up, Sirhan again scanned the buildings in proximity to Carman. None were as tall. Across 114th Street, several floors below, he eyed a few people at windows, looking down on the street, checking out the dead bodies and watching as police and ambulances arrived on the scene. They were oblivious of him.
Tariq stepped onto the roof. He was perspiring.
“Where is the case?” asked Sirhan.
“Behind me,” said Tariq. “Just inside.”
Sirhan nodded.
“Is it ready if we need them?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Now let’s hurry up and get the roof wired. They’re going to be here any minute. If they take the roof, they’ll be able to stop us.”
Sirhan knelt next to his rucksack and removed a large spool of tungsten wire, the same kind that Fahd and Omar were using on the stairs. He fastened one end to a steel post near a corner of the roof, at waist level. He walked diagonally across to the opposite corner. He pulled the wire around a piece of steel roof support and drew it tight. He moved to the middle of the roof, looking for another structure strong enough to hold the line. He found a thick pipe and wrapped the wire around it, and moved in the opposite direction, quickly building a latticework of tightly knit wire, a web that soon crisscrossed every section of the roof.
Meanwhile, Tariq removed six IEDs from the rucksack. They were exact copies of the ones on the stairs—Semtex 10 with firing buttons sticking out. On each device, Tariq attached the wires to the batteries, getting them ready. Gently, he handed each live IED to Sirhan, who set them on top of the tungsten web. If any part of the wiring was cut, the latticework would collapse, the IEDs would drop to the ground, their firing buttons would strike the hard surface, and they would explode. It was now impossible for the dorm to be infiltrated from above.
Each IED had enough explosive force to level whatever was on the roof and destroy part of the floor below. If they all blew at the same time, the building would likely lose several floors in the blast.
Tariq was near the edge of the roof. Looking down the smooth side of the dorm, he saw a figure. It was a student, a male, standing on a windowsill of the third floor. Suddenly, the boy jumped. He landed on the sidewalk next to the building and tumbled, clutching his leg.
“Sirhan.”
Sirhan was near the opposite side of the roof. He’d crawled along the edge with an IED and was setting it on top of the wire.
“What is it?” he asked. Sirhan turned and looked at the sky to the south. Then he heard it: the distant whirr of helicopters.
Sirhan put the IED gently atop the wire. He shimmied backward until he was in the corner. He had one more IED to set, but he was exposed, crawling along the brick precipice of the roof, the wires laden with IEDs on one side, open air to the other.
Sirhan’s eyes shot to Tariq. He nodded toward the door. “Go.”
Tariq went inside the building as Sirhan crawled along the edge of the roof and set the fifth IED.
Tariq undid the latches on the long case. He removed the SAM and the battery-cooling unit, a round canister that powered up the missile while it was still in the launcher as well as kept it cool. He placed the weapon on his right shoulder. With his left hand, he stuck the battery-cooling unit into an opening in the underside of the SAM. He flipped up a square metal slat, enabling him to target the missile. He placed his left hand on the uncage button at the front of the launcher, then gripped the trigger with his right hand. He used his thumb to press down on the safety-and-actuator switch behind the trigger and prepared to fire.
At the open doorway, Tariq eyed a pair of choppers cutting over the skyline to his right.
He put his right eye against the sight and activated the missile’s guidance system on the blue sky all around the approaching choppers, then focused in on the nearest one, rushing toward them. He listened for the hum that would signal the target’s acquisition.
“Sirhan,” he said, as he held the SAM steady and prepared to let it rip. “They’re getting close.”
Sirhan was along the near edge of the rooftop, holding the final IED in his left hand. He set it on top of the wire.
Tariq heard the hum as the first boom came from the approaching chopper. Bullets ripped the roof just behind Sirhan. He didn’t have time to crawl backward.
Tariq fired. The missile tore from the end of the launcher. A low hiss mixed with the sound of the chopper’s guns. A trail of smoke followed the missile, which weaved in the air, then straightened out. The chopper abruptly swerved left and up, accelerating to avoid the incoming missile. But it was too close. It took just seconds for the missile to slam into the right side of the helicopter. A moment later, it exploded—orange, black, and red flames shot out in a cataclysm of smoke and fire. Then a cloud of thick smoke plumed outward. The chopper broke into parts, plummeting to earth several blocks away. Distant screams could be heard from the streets below.
Sirhan, who was on his stomach, clutching the precipice of the roof, turned his head. He said nothing. He inched backward as the other chopper cut high and away.
Sirhan crawled to the door, where Tariq was waiting.
“Thank you, brother.”
45
IN THE AIR
He was asleep. Then he felt it. A hand on his shoulder. He was back in the hospital. He felt the knife on his neck. He lurched up from the chair.
“Dewey, hey, it’s me!”
Dewey was standing, his right arm around her neck. It was the female copilot. His mind raced. Then he remembered. He let go.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Instinct.”
He looked down. In the pilot’s right hand was a small knife that was now pressed against Dewey’s torso. He looked up as she pulled it back.
“Sorry,” she said, a small grin on her face. “Instinct.”
Dewey laughed.
“Is that how you usually greet a girl when she wakes you up?” she asked.
Dewey shook his head.
He reached absentmindedly for his neck, feeling the spot where Garotin had pressed the KA-BAR knife. There was a small scab. It didn’t hurt, yet he couldn’t stop thi
nking about it. The thought of being beheaded had never crossed his mind. He realized now that having his head cut off was infinitely more horrifying to him than being shot. Perhaps it was because he’d been shot—on multiple occasions—and knew he could handle it. Or maybe it was how close he’d just come to death. He removed his hand from his neck and forced himself to banish the thought from his mind.
“Only the pretty ones,” he said to the female pilot.
“You should put a Band-Aid on that,” she said.
“How long have I been out?”
“We left Israel four hours ago.”
“How long until Andrews?”
“They’re not letting us land at Andrews. There’s been some sort of attack in New York City. The FBI has it under control, but Homeland is rerouting all inbound flights along the eastern seaboard. We’re trying to get clearance, but it isn’t working. Everyone is panicking.”
“I need a SAT phone.”
“Sure.” She went to the cabin and returned with a phone. Dewey extended the antenna and dialed Calibrisi. The call went to voice mail. He tried several times, leaving a message after the fourth attempt.
“Hey, it’s me. I’m on the plane. Call if you get this.”
Dewey dialed a six-digit number he knew by heart. The phone clicked several times, then a female voice came on.
“Identify.”
“NOC 2294 dash six.”
“Hold.”
A series of beeps followed, then a male voice came on.
“Control, please hold for voice RECOG. Go.”
“Andreas, Dewey.”
Again a series of beeps, then another voice.
“Control, who do you need, Dewey?”
“Hector.”
There was a slight pause. “He’s not available.”
“Tell him I need him. It’s urgent.”
Another pause.
“Hold on.”
Several seconds later, the phone started ringing.
“Dewey?”
It was Polk.
“Hi, Bill. Where is he?”
“Where are you?”
“In the air. I’ll be back in an hour, but they’re not letting us land at Andrews.”
