“Captain, you need to hightail it with the commander,” said Judiah.
“Colonel Yosef and I can set the plastique. All we need is for Monkey and Mcdonald to lay a screen of protective fire from the boat. Once that starts, we’ll plant the explosives and get the hell out of here ourselves.”
“True, but I’ll stay and provide—”
“Captain, your knee is bigger than a house right now. You can see it through your cammies. If we have to run for the boat, you couldn’t make it without me throwing you over my shoulder,” Beau added.
“I could,” Duncan replied curtly. “And the only reason you’d throw me over your shoulder is to use me as a bullet sump.”
“Captain, you need to go, sir,” Chief Judiah added.
A tattoo of bullets laced the top of the flour bags, sending another white shower floating down on the men.
“I’ll stay, Captain,” Beau said. “You go back.”
“No, Commander,” Yosef corrected. “All three of you go back. Cover can be provided from the boat. The boat is ready. Everyone but the two Guardsmen watching the prisoners is on board. Have my men shove the prisoners into the harbor and cast off. We don’t want to take them with us, and I do not kill captives. We’ll set the explosives, run to the end of the pier, and jump toward the boat. You haul us in and, voila, we’re gone.”
“But I can stay and give protective cover,” Beau objected.
“Yes, you can stay, and then there would be three of us who could get shot.”
“He’s right, Commander,” Chief Judiah added. “We’ll be fine. There’s enough plastique here to blow up the whole city if we need to.”
Reluctantly Beau nodded as he accepted the chief’s judgment. He pushed himself up from his haunches. “Be careful, Colonel; Chief.”
Duncan pulled himself up. “Yeah, be careful, and we’ll be waiting at the end of the pier. Just don’t get yourselves shot.”
“We won’t,” Yosef replied.
“Come on, Duncan. Let’s get you on that ugly boat. You’ve always wanted to sail the Mediterranean, and here’s your chance. Monkey, I’ll help the captain. You bring up the rear.”
Beau reached toward Duncan, who jerked away. “Beau, my knee may be gone, but I am still a United States Navy SEAL. I still have one leg and two arms.”
“So what’d you want? Twenty-five-percent disability?”
Without a word, Duncan turned and began an ambling run toward the boat.
Beau and Monkey deliberately slowed their pace to stay with Duncan. The three SEALs weaved along the pier, keeping pallets of merchandise between them and the rebels. Fifty feet later, Colonel Yosef and Chief Judiah disappeared from their sight.
* * *
“Okay, they’ve gone,” Chief Judiah said to colonel Yosef.
“Be careful, Judiah, there’s a twenty-meter clearing to cross. This close to going home—”
“Call them, Colonel. They’re are out of sight now. No one around, but us.”
Colonel Yosef pulled a small transmitter from his pocket. Flicking it open, he pressed the prominent red button near the top three times, waited a couple of seconds, then pressed it five times.
“You think that was how they were able to follow us?” Chief Judiah asked, pointing to the transmitter.
“Could have been. But President Alneuf had a cellular telephone and he used it twice last night.”
“Who’d he call?”
“I am not sure. He has never called when I have been within hearing.
Neither have I been successful in seeing what phone numbers he dialed.
Our people would have liked to have had the numbers he used.” “I thought the only phone was the one Bashir lost at the villa.”
“He found another and gave it to him last night while we were at the doctor’s,” Yosef replied, shrugging his shoulders. “I know he spoke English with whoever he called.”
Chief Judiah handed Colonel Yosef one of the explosive squares with the fuse already pushed in it.
“Okay, I’ll set the charges here. You be careful and do it on the other side.”
Chief Judiah touched Yosef’s shoulder. “It was good to see you again, Daoud.”
“And me, you, Zackeriah. Different roads since ‘93, but it’s amazing how many times paths cross in our field. I can’t tell you how hard it was to pretend not to recognize you when you shocked me by appearing out of the darkness at the villa.”
“You would think they’d give us a heads-up. Small field; large world.”
“Sometimes not as large as we would like it.”
The two men pulled the pins simultaneously on the grenades. They tossed the grenades behind them. A chemical smoke curtain spewed forth, screening Judiah and Yosef from Duncan and the others on the boat.
Judiah pulled two more grenades from his satchel and handed one to Yosef.
They looked at each other, grinned, shook hands, and pulled the pins. Standing quickly, they hurled the smoke grenades forward of their position. A minute later the smoke, forward and behind, isolated them visually from both the Algerian rebels and their former comrades.
Three frogmen crawled over the side of the pier behind them. Their black wet suits glistened in the sunlight. Surprised, Yosef swung his gun toward the figures. The lead frogman raised his arms as he pulled his face mask off.
“Shalom, my friends.” “And you are?” Yosef asked. His eyes narrowed. Yosef’s finger tightened on the trigger in the event of the wrong password. They could still make the water carrier if they had to.
“Three dits, pause, five dits, Colonel. We are your passport out of here.”
Yosef lowered his gun, unaware until then how tight his finger had been on the trigger. The three frogmen took cover with them.
“Here is the situation.” And Yosef briefed them on the attacking force and how the Americans and the remainder of the Algerian Palace Guards intended to spirit President Alneuf out of the country.
“We need to blow the pier before the rebels attack in their armored car. If they do, and are successful, then President Alneuf may be captured. Headquarters wants him safely away,” Yosef explained as he held out the plastique toward the Israelis. “All we’ve got is this.”
“Don’t need it, Colonel,” the leader of the Israeli Special Forces replied. “We wired the pier to explode when the firefight started.” He grinned and slapped Yosef’s shoulder. “Sometimes, great minds think alike. If the armored car had attacked, we would have blown it.”
“Good,” Yosef replied, knowing if they had blown the pier, the explosion would have killed Duncan, Beau, and Monkey. “How is this going to work? How are we going to blow the pier and disappear?”
The frogmen unpacked a waterproof bag hauled up from beneath the pier.
“Put on these suits. They’ll protect your body heat. Here’s the plan…”
Yosef and Judiah pulled on the diving suits as the Israeli talked.
Beneath the pier, two sets of aqua lungs waited for the American and Algerian Israeli agents. Outfitted, they followed the commandos over the side of the pier. The frogmen activated the explosions to give them three minutes to clear the area. Three minutes was ample time. Leading the two agents, the Israeli commandos swam toward the underwater shuttle. The leader estimated less than an hour to the Israeli diesel submarine submerged outside the harbor.
* * *
“Cast off, Mcdonald,” Beau shouted from the controls of the boat. He bent slightly to check the gauges below the helm.
The water carrier was a small hundred-foot-long boat used to carry fresh water from the reservoirs to the coastal villages that lacked a natural water supply. From the condition of the boat, it looked as if the water carrier had seen many years of service. The bridge, crammed near the bow, gave the boat a fallen-water-tower appearance, with an engine on one end and a control station on the other. Basically, that was exactly what she was. The full load of water drove the waterline to within two feet of the surface. Duncan do
ubted the craft had much maneuverability, and it definitely had no sustain ability in anything but calm seas.
Unfortunately, she was the only craft of the twelve tied along the pier that was seaworthy. The others had been vandalized and looted, even to the rubber lining around the hatches. The ugliness of the water carrier and its dilapidated condition must have fooled the looters into believing there was nothing of value on board. Beau guessed that the rebels had stopped the looters before they could take the flour and other things on the pier.
A Palace Guard emerged topside, a can opener in one hand and an unopened tin of beans in the other. Beau’s mouth watered with the sight.
Near the stern, Gibbons’s head popped up from the engine room. He gave Beau a thumbs-up. “I’m ready when you are, Commander Pettigrew,” he shouted, jerking Beau’s attention reluctantly away from the beans and back to the matter at hand.
“Captain, I can’t see them!” Monkey shouted from the stern, his MG-60 pointed toward the front of the pier. “There’s smoke all over the place.”
The sound of intense gunfire came from the direction of the smoke.
Duncan hobbled lo the stern and stood beside Monkey and Mcdonald.
“Damn! Can’t see a thing through that soup. Keep a good eye out.
First two people through the smoke will be the colonel and the chief.
Don’t shoot them.” At least, they should be Colonel Yosef and Chief Judiah. He mentally crossed his fingers.
Monkey and Mcdonald gave the captain an irritated look as if to say.
“Captain, we know what they look like and we’re professionals. We don’t go around shooting our own guys.” But they kept quiet. Mcdonald licked his cracked lips. Those beans looked appetizing.
Across the pier from the boat, the Guardsmen prodded the rebel sentries off the pier and into the polluted harbor waters below. Then, they turned and ran to the water carrier. The boat rocked slightly as they jumped aboard.
The engine increased in tempo as Beau gave it power. “Cast off all lines!” he shouted. “Damn! I sound just like a surface warfare officer. Whatever you do, don’t tell my parents!”
Awkwardly, the water carrier wallowed away from its berth and gradually began to move forward. The distance from the pier slowly opened from inches to a foot to several feet.
A gigantic explosion sent a shower of debris a hundred feet into the air. Some fell on the water carrier as the dark cloud from the explosion spread. When the smoke cleared, a twenty-foot section of the pier had disappeared.
Duncan gripped a line that ran from the deck edge to the top of the aft mast, keeping his balance as he scanned the pier for Judiah and Yosef.
A minute later the boat reached the end of the pier, turned right, and put-putted at two knots across the end of it. A small trail of dirty gray smoke from the diesel engine marked their passage. There was no sign of the two men.
“Here, Captain,” Mcdonald shouted as he tossed his MG60 to Duncan.
Duncan caught the machine gun. Mcdonald scrambled up the twenty-five-foot-high aft mast.
“Do you see them?” Duncan shouted.
Mcdonald reached the top. “Sir, they’re not there.”
“What do you mean they’re not there? Is the smoke too thick?”
“No, sir, the smoke is nearly gone. And so is the pier from where you were fighting to the harbor road. Colonel Yosef and Chief Judiah aren’t there.”
Lost? A cold wave of nausea and guilt rushed over Duncan. He should have stayed with the chief and the colonel. To come so far, with escape this close, and to lose them. He wondered briefly if Chief Judiah had family back in Norfolk. It depressed him further to realize how little he knew about the sailors with him.
Beau glanced over his shoulder. He knew what was going through Duncan’s mind. He shouted to draw Duncan’s attention. “Captain, what now?”
Duncan nodded. Good professional training overrode his emotions. His gut reaction was to turn and search for the two, but he knew he couldn’t. His mission was to rescue President Alneuf, and he still had the lives of those on the boat to consider. He pushed the thoughts of Judiah and Yosef to a recess in his mind, to pull forward later when he had the time.
“Get us out to sea, Commander,” he finally said reluctantly.
“Aye, aye, sir,” Beau acknowledged, knowing that if the two weren’t dead, then they were leaving them both to a fate worse than death. He recalled the tortured victims of the village where they had fought yesterday. Hopefully, the two were dead. He pushed the power to full.
Dark smoke spewed from the small stack at the rear of the boat as the diesel engine strained toward its full power of ten knots.
Duncan ran his hand across the top of his head. Once through the harbor entrance, they should be safe.
President Alneuf climbed up from below.
Leaning on the water tank along the centerline of the boat, Duncan hobbled across the deck to where the Algerian president stood, a lost look on his face. President Alneuf searched the faces of the SEALs and the remaining Palace Guards.
“Captain, where is Colonel Yosef?”
“Mr. President, Colonel Yosef, along with one of my men, Chief Judiah, are missing. They blew up the pier to allow us to escape. I am sorry, sir.” Seeing the shocked and sad expression on President Alneuf’s face, Duncan added, “If they’re alive, they’re resourceful and will escape.”
“Do you believe that, Captain?” President Alneuf asked hopefully.
“Yes, sir, I do. I truly do,” Duncan said with as much conviction in the lie as possible. There was no way to escape from the pier.
President Alneuf nodded, recognizing the doubt in Duncan’s words.
President Alneuf looked back at the battle scene, slowly receding, as the boat sailed through the entrance of the small harbor. “It is so sad, Captain. There have been so many deaths in the past few days that death has replaced the Algerian way of saying, “Peace be upon you.””
Duncan opened his mouth to reply, then stopped. He didn’t know what to say, so he touched the Algerian president on the shoulder and left the man to his thoughts. Duncan’s mission was nearly complete. Algeria was not his worry. He went below to check on H.J. and Helliwell.
The two lay across from each other on the bottom of a pair of bunks crowded into a closet-size space.
“How we doing?” he asked.
“Great accommodations, Captain. Sleeps four comfortably, eight intimately,” H.J. replied.
H. J.“s shoulder was tightly bandaged, with her arm wrapped against her side. A red damp spot, where the doctor had sewed the incision shut, identified the location of the wound. The doctor had discovered and removed a bullet. He’d told them that Allah had been with her. The doctor had said two bullets had hit her. Both hits had been at an oblique angle that, luckily, deflected the full force of the impact.
One bullet had passed clean through, missing bone and major blood vessels. The other hadn’t, and it had fractured her collarbone before coming to rest beside the bone. Now H.J. had the bullet in her cammie shirt pocket.
Helliwell’s arm was broken. Duncan guessed Bud had known it was broken ever since the encounter yesterday, but had kept the injury to himself until Bashir produced the doctor. A cast ran from his left wrist to his shoulder.
“Why didn’t you tell me your arm was broken?”
“Wasn’t broken that bad, Captain. Just slightly cracked in two places — clean cracks that will heal in a couple of weeks. Besides, couldn’t have our lieutenant thinking us mustangs were wusses.”
Duncan looked at Heather J. Mcdaniels. “H. J.” where’s your medicine?”
“Here, Captain,” she replied, patting the small bottle in her shirt pocket.
The doctor had given them fifty penicillin tablets each with instructions to take two every four hours. Bud kept his meager supply hidden in his pants pocket, knowing his wounds were superficial in comparison to H. J.“s.
Bud Helliwell raised himself sli
ghtly. “Captain, I’m fine. I’d like to rejoin the group on deck. I can handle a weapon and you can prop me up somewhere.”
“If he’s going to be a hero, then I want to be one also, Captain,” H.J. said. She threw her legs off the bunk and sat up. Her face turned white. She weaved slightly on the edge of the bunk. “Damn altitude,” she said softly.
Duncan shook his head as she fought to stay upright on the edge of the bunk. The muted sound of gunfire coming from the head of the pier could be heard here belowdecks. “Right, Lieutenant. I can see you’re ready to go into combat.” He pushed her gently, and she fell back onto the bunk. “You just came out of an operation less than twelve hours ago for two bullet wounds. There’s nothing to prove, and if we need you, you’ll hear the screams and bloodcurdling yells from above.
Meanwhile, you two rest while you can. We’re under way out of the harbor and, with any luck, we’ll be safely at sea soon.”
Duncan took a deep breath. “H. J.” well done. You’ve handled this mission like any Navy SEAL I’ve served with. You’ve fought. Been in combat. Got yourself at least two Purple Hearts, and I don’t think there’s a one of us who don’t think of you as anything but a Navy SEAL.”
Duncan leaned close, feeling embarrassed, and in a low voice said, “I want to say that I’m sorry about what happened. Being captured and tortured—” H.J., with a fierceness that caused Duncan to jump back and Bud to examine the bulkhead. “Captain, don’t say it. What happened is something I will deal with. Not you. Me! Okay? There’s not a woman in the military that doesn’t know what might happen if she’s captured. Men can’t protect us from it and they shouldn’t carry guilt about it. I know what would have happened if you hadn’t rescued me. Women have known this since Desert Storm when the Iraqis sexually assaulted American women they captured. It’s something each of us has to come to terms with in our own unique way. This is something I can, and I will, handle.”
Duncan blushed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound patronizing, nor for you to think I was insulting you.”
“You weren’t, Captain, and you aren’t. You were just being a man.” She touched him on the arm and squeezed. “You don’t know how happy I was to see you rush through that door. I figured at any moment they would kill me rather than hold me for …” She stuttered to a stop. Then, after a couple of deep breaths, she continued. “This is something a man cannot understand and never will, as much as they may wish to,” she finished softly.
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