by Tom Clancy
The inside of the warehouse is a firestorm. I take cover behind more junk on the side and see that the two Russians are perched behind strong cover, firing at us with impunity. Another dead Shin Bet lies on the floor, and the rest of the team is firing from behind whatever protection they can find. I take aim with the Tavor and shoot, but the two targets are very well protected. The one mistake they made, though, is that they have no way to escape. Eventually they’re going to run out of ammo.
Then one of the Shin Bet throws a grenade at the wall where a Russian is holed up. When it explodes, I hear the man cry out in pain. The Russian, obviously wounded, makes a last ditch attempt to kill some of us. He stands — it’s the one called Vlad — then steps from behind a refrigerator and wildly fires his AK-47. The Shin Bet easily pick him off, and the man falls, hitting the floor with a splat.
The smoke from my grenade has begun to clear, and the other kidnapper continues to shoot at us. This time I take one of my own frag grenades, set it to explode on contact, and toss it toward him. When it goes off, the Russian’s gunfire ends abruptly. All is quiet for a moment. I hear the captain give an order, and two Shin Bet run to inspect the damage. They rummage around and eventually pull Yuri’s limp body from the junk. They drag him to the clear area and toss him to the floor. Another splat.
I move to the dead kidnappers and look at their faces. I don’t recognize them.
“Search the rest of the building,” the captain orders his men. He approaches me and asks if I know them.
“I’ve never seen them before,” I answer. “They called each other Vlad and Yuri.”
“We’ll be able to identify them soon enough.”
I turn back to the rubble of the fallen staircase and realize that someone is missing. “Where did—? There was another one here earlier,” I say.
“My sergeant tells me they got one of them in the back. Shot him when they came through the windows.”
I move toward the back rooms and find the body of the kidnapper in question. He’s a young man, shot several times in the chest, but he’s not Eli Horowitz. One of the Shin Bet is going through his wallet and papers.
“You have an ID on him yet?” I ask.
“Yes, sir. His name is Noel Brooks. Lived in East Jerusalem.”
I join the search through the rest of the building but stop momentarily to consult Carly’s blueprint.
“Hey, there’s a trapdoor to a basement in this place,” I tell the men. I point and lead them in the direction where I believe it to be. Sure enough, I find it near the back entrance. One of the soldiers opens the large trap, revealing a set of stairs descending to a dark basement. I follow two men down and switch on my night vision.
The place is moldy and dusty. It’s full of scrap metal and pieces of broken bathroom fixtures — sinks and bathtubs. The air is foul and I can’t imagine anyone being down here for more than ten minutes. The Shin Bet soldiers shine flashlights around the room and look behind some of the junk.
“Nothing here, sir,” one of them says.
“Yeah,” I say. “Carry on, I’ll stay and take a closer look.”
The men ascend the stairs and disappear. I stand in the center of the basement and slowly circle in place. Just for grins I switch my goggles to thermal vision in the hopes that I’ll catch a breathing body. Nothing. However, just before I switch back to night vision, I notice some heat signatures on the floor. I bend to examine them more closely and realize they’re not heat signatures at all but rather footprints left on the dusty floor. I switch to fluorescent mode and pick up more indications of disturbance in the dust. I can now trace an imaginary line along the footprints that leads to a corner of the room where more dilapidated kitchen appliances are piled. There’s a lot of junk in-between so I shove stuff out of the way, making a clear path to the area. Eventually I have to climb over a pile of rubble to get there.
I see three old refrigerators, several sinks, two stoves… all of it appears to be from the sixties or seventies. I open each of the refrigerators and find them empty. I try the stoves next and there’s nothing inside them. I’m about to give up when I notice that a bathtub is leaning sideways against the wall, tub-side in. I reach over and pull the thing down.
Inside is Eli Horowitz, cowering in fright. My Tavor is in his face faster than he can blink.
“Don’t shoot!” he cries.
“Get the fuck out of there and keep your hands where I can see them.”
The young man scrambles out of the tub and raises his arms. With one hand I frisk him. I don’t find anything, but I’m intentionally rough on his groin. He winces but stays silent.
Once I’m satisfied that he’s unarmed, I grab him by the shirt collar and lift him off the ground. His eyes widen with fright as I growl, “I ought to kill you right here. I ought to snap your neck in two and leave you to rot, you filthy little shit.” I swear I’m about to do just that, too, but the look of fear in the kid’s face stops me. He may be twenty-three years old, but right now he looks thirteen.
I let go of his shirt and he falls to the floor. He grovels in front of me, muttering, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
“Get up, asshole.” I pull him to his feet and shake him. “Pull yourself together.” He sniffs, wipes his nose, and nods.
I bring Eli Horowitz upstairs and take him outside. The Shin Bet’s vehicles have been brought to the warehouse, and I see Sarah sitting in the back of one. I lead Horowitz to Captain Weiss and say, “Here’s a live one for you. I think you’ll find he’s willing to tell you everything.”
Horowitz’s eyes move to the car where Sarah sits.
“Please, sir,” he says to me. “I’d like to tell her I’m sorry.”
“I don’t think so,” I answer. “You’re lucky I didn’t cut your balls off when I found you.”
But Sarah calls out, “Eli!”
She opens the car door but remains sitting, a blanket around her, and gestures for us to come over there. What the hell, I think. I take the boy to her but keep a firm grip on his neck.
“Sarah,” he says. “I’m really sorry… for everything. I didn’t… I really didn’t think…”
My daughter manages to find the strength to stand and face him. Before he can finish his meandering thought, she spits at him.
“Screw you, Eli,” she says. Then she falls back into the seat and wraps the blanket around her.
“I’ll take him from here, sir,” one of the Shin Bet says. Horowitz is handcuffed and led away.
* * *
After an overnight stay in Tel Aviv, I pick up Sarah at a military hospital located at Ben-Gurion Airport. The doctor tells me that she’s undernourished and very weak but otherwise in pretty good shape, all things considered. Sarah had undertaken a hunger strike for nearly a week but wisely kept drinking fluids. If she hadn’t done so, she’d have been severely dehydrated and very ill. With a few days of rest and a slow buildup of food intake, she should be back to health in no time.
The psychological effects, however, might take years to overcome. The two Russians, who were identified quickly by the Mossad, apparently tortured her to get my contact information. I won’t detail what they did, but suffice it to say it involved pliers and a hammer. Thank goodness nothing is broken or maimed — just a lot of bruises that will eventually heal.
Eli Horowitz spilled his guts as soon as the Shin Bet had him in custody. He revealed that he worked for the Shop and there had been a standing order to find me and eliminate me. The only way to do so was through Sarah. I made a full report to Lambert, who is now making arrangements to keep a permanent bodyguard on duty for my daughter, no matter where she is. I realize the odds of this happening again are small, but I’ll certainly rest easier.
As for the Shop, the Swiss-Russian International Mercantile Banks in Zurich and Baku were cleaned out, and everyone associated with them has been interrogated and/or arrested. Unfortunately, the top thugs of the organization, including mastermind Andrei Zdrok, have escaped. No one kn
ows where they are, but I’m sure we’ll hear from them sooner or later. A major concern for all of us is how our security might have been breached. The Shop had a hit list of Splinter Cells — how did they get it? I’m sure this will be a priority for me in the near future.
The Shadows is a crippled organization. Nothing was left of the shopping mall complex — or the Babylon Phoenix — and over a hundred of the men working there were killed. It’s unclear if the terrorists have the capacity to regroup and elect a new leader, but one thing is for sure — they’ll have a much harder time obtaining funding. The Turkish came out of the situation with egg on their faces, but in the end they owned up to the mistakes made with regard to Namik Basaran, aka Nasir Tarighian. The Iranian government sent the Turks a congratulatory note, thanking them for uprooting Tarighian and doing the job of getting rid of him. It saved Iran the trouble. Ironically, though, they didn’t send the U.S. a thank-you card.
Later in the morning Sarah and I board a military jet to take us to Washington. A couple of young U.S. Marines push her in a wheelchair and lavish her with a lot of attention, which she loves. She’s beginning to eat and, more important, starting to smile and laugh again. She’s tough, like her old man, so I expect her to bounce back relatively quickly.
We settle into our seats and wait the obligatory twenty minutes before the plane is ready to lift off. Sarah takes my hand and rests her head against my shoulder. She yawns and then sighs heavily.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” I say. “If anything had happened to you…”
“Shhh,” she whispers.
I chuckle and say, “All right, I won’t make a big deal out of it. At least not until we get home.”
As the plane lifts off, she says, quietly, “I love you, Dad.”
I answer, “I love you, too, kid,” but she’s already asleep.
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