The DIA agent was counting heads when he spotted a pair of badly bruised legs through one of the breezeway’s large empty window frames. The rest of the torso was obscured by part of a wall. It was his first glimpse of a hostage. He watched closely for several seconds as the victim struggled to remain standing, their damaged leg muscles wobbling under the strain of their own body weight. With one of the students in the kill zone, things would be infinitely more complicated. Brad raced down the stairwell and headed back to the street.
The rain was back and falling in sheets, making it impossible to focus on the abandoned medical building on the other side of the road. The Golan Hospital was visible only as an outline, with its series of broad first floor windows appearing as dark ominous holes. Brad pulled the MP-5 around to his front. Walking toward the open area, he kept special attention on his peripheral vision. He got to the edge of the building where the apartment complex met a pedestrian sidewalk.
Brad rounded the corner and jogged to the end of the block. An adjacent building blocked the view of the administrative portion of the hospital, where Saleem’s men were staying. He crossed the street and doubled back so that he was close to the breezeway but still covered by the tall structure that adjoined it.
Brad crouched low and slugged his way forward. He stopped just below one of the giant bay windows next to a broad, stone staircase.
He pulled two flash bang grenades out of his cargo pocket. He set one of them down on the asphalt, while he prepped the other. He yanked the cotter pin out of its home and tossed the grenade through a bay window directly above his head. The flash bang had a time delay fuse, its user had anywhere from three to five seconds before detonation. He picked up the second grenade and ran to a set of stairs opposite the ones that he had leaned against. He could hear the confusion above, as Saleem’s men tried to process the sudden appearance of the device.
He closed the twenty yards and heard a loud pop. An obnoxious bright light followed the disorienting sound as he pulled the ring on the second flash bang and threw it up the next staircase. It spun on the landing and detonated in front of two of Saleem’s men who were still stumbling from the effects of the first grenade.
Brad hurdled the first three steps from the side, as Saleem’s white Land Rover pulled up behind him.
The agent brought his weapon up in front of an armed Arab that was just beginning to regain his sight. The kidnapper pulled the trigger to his AK-47 squeezing several rounds off harmlessly into the aging concrete floor. The bullets hit the ground and skidded past Brad as he stepped forward. Brad jerked the trigger on the MP5 twice and released it. Two rounds landed squarely in the center of the man’s chest. The man fell backward, tripping over his opened cot and spilling himself onto the ground behind it.
Another man, also trying hard to focus in his dazed state, brought his weapon up. Brad loosed two more rounds. Red hot metal sliced through the man’s shirt and he toppled easily. The Defense Intelligence agent swept through the common area quickly, moving from target to target with the ease of a veteran special ops soldier. Saleem’s men were not only ill prepared to respond to Brad’s attack but they were full of fear, their motor skills fleeing in their time of need. The young men bumped into each other as they scrambled for an exit, rather than engaging their common enemy.
Brad counted rounds as he fired. The MP5 held thirty. He had eight shells left by the time he’d dispatched the last terrorist on the breezeway. He pressed a release button on the barrel receiver group. The magazine fell to the floor with a clang and he jammed a fresh one into the magazine well. Brad knew better than to go deeper into the compound without a full load. He stepped past the hostage that was tied to the pillar. It was an older man who’d been beaten badly.
“Where are the rest of the students?” he asked.
“Uh…. They’re in the…” the man stuttered badly. The last thirteen seconds had shocked and numbed every sense in his body.
Another captor sprang from his hiding place at the end of the breezeway. Brad dropped to a knee and fired. The MP-5 jumped as three rounds barked out of its tip. The man fell in a heap, his Russian rifle banging on the ground behind him.
• • •
Saleem jumped from the truck as soon as he saw him. The stranger moved with a purpose and skill that spoke of training that none of Saleem’s men could boast of.
The Land Rover coasted into the lower half of the building, slamming into the short staircase and screeching its tires on the wet asphalt. Saleem ran around to the back of the building. He’d expected to catch an intruder tripping his sensor on the road, or wandering the outskirts of the city but he was somehow, unprepared for a frontal assault.
The stranger’s deliberate and calculating shots shocked him as he bolted down the sidewalk. They came two at a time, almost rhythmic in their delivery; pop-pop, pause, pop-pop, pause, pop-pop. The skill and bravado that undergirded his attack could only mean one thing; and Saleem hadn’t planned for dealing with the Americans this quickly.
The Palestinian ran as fast as his skinny legs could carry him. His heart jumped in his chest and heaved as he took giant strides around the perimeter of the building.
• • •
Brad waited. Staying on his knee, he rotated around keeping the gun level and the butt stock firm against his cheek. He scanned the area for survivors; he saw none.
He stood up and walked back to the hostage on the pillar. He kept the MP-5 trained out in front of him, its barrel permeating heat.
“Who…are…are you?” the man on the pillar asked.
“I’m here to get you guys home. I need to know where the students are, right now.” Brad said.
“That room there.” The man said pointing with his head to a door at the end of the breezeway.
The door was locked. Brad jerked the MP-5 up in the air and brought the stock’s butt plate down hard. The knob clanged loudly and dangled loose in the door hole. He stepped back and drove his right boot into the door. It burst open and slammed against the wall behind it.
Brad rushed in, barrel first.
The students were gathered in a mass at the center of a dark, damp room, their faces scored with tension and grief. They’d heard the gunfire, the scuffling and falling of bodies. They had no idea what was going on. Fear had formed a tight envelope around them.
Brad lowered the rifle and stepped further into the room. He looked into the sullen and worn faces that stared back at him.
“My name is Brad Ward. I’m here to get you out.” He said gently.
Tracy Peters looked into the man’s eyes, something about them was very familiar. After a few seconds, she drew her hand up to her mouth and covered her lips. She felt an intense sorrow as she realized that this man had come for his brother, who lay lifeless in the next room.
She stepped forward, reaching for Brad.
Brad had a strange feeling come over him as the girl stepped out from among the group. He scanned the students several times. Matt’s face was not among them. His heart rate increased as he looked back to the girl. Tears flowed freely over her cheeks as she apologized with her eyes. He could feel his face growing hot with anger. He knew before the girl said anything. Matt was gone.
Tracy was in front of him now. Her head was moving back and forth. She was speaking to him but he couldn’t hear her words. It felt like a dream. He had never before felt the weight of so much loss in a single moment.
• • •
Saleem slipped through the door, his AK-47 aimed chest high. The American had his back to him.
The frustrated Palestinian squeezed and held the trigger down. A piercing staccato bounced off of the walls as 7.62MM rounds rained a fearsome fire down around the students. They scattered under the onslaught, heading like ants in every direction.
Four bullets walked up the backside of Brad’s left tricep. Neat circular patterns formed, gushing a reddish brown trail of blood and highlighting where muscle, sinew and bone had just been torn and chipped.
He swayed, spun around and dropped to his side, landing on his thigh and right arm. Without contemplating it, Ward aimed the German rifle at the enraged body of his attacker and applied pressure to the trigger. The gun burped a volley of shots, one after another.
Saleem Nejem grabbed at his torso, letting go of his own weapon in the process. The terrorist’s body jerked and flailed in the air as a series of bullets penetrated his upper body. He reacted to each bullet with a micro spasm as rounds pelted him in his abdomen, chest and shoulders. A bullet entered his throat and Saleem fell over dead.
The last thing that went through Saleem Nejem’s mind was that he had failed.
29
Nazari smoothed his palms against the taught, supple leather of the Gulfstream’s wide passenger seat. He was smiling to himself, silently basking in his accomplishments. His eyes were closed and his head was against the back of the chair. He heard movement in the aisle beside him and opened his eyes. Nazari stared in disbelief. Ben Schweitzer towered over him, the Israeli’s face constricted with malice. Nazari reached inside of the chair’s arm for an alert button.
Ben reared back and lifted his right leg. The bottom of his shoe smacked the side of the cleric’s face with a thud. A slug of saliva flew out of Nazari’s mouth, along with a bloody tooth that landed on the seat next to him.
Nazari’s head reeled from the assault. Ben stood there and waited for the Imam to recover.
“I know who you are, Abdel. The Israeli government knows of your plans,” he said. “You’ve failed.”
Nazari snorted, then laughed aloud.
“My plans are complete. I have already succeeded. You have tasted your last day.” Nazari said, resisting the urge to massage the flesh around his jaw.
“Where is my guard?” He demanded.
“Dead.” Ben said plainly.
Nazari sat back in his chair and looked up at Ben. An indifferent expression covered his face but his hands were white at the finger tips, the blood forced out of them by a nervous grip on the ends of the armrests.
“How do you think this is going to end? Do you really believe once we land, that my men are going to let you live?” He asked.
Ben grabbed him under the arm and yanked him out of the cushy chair. Layers of expensive Egyptian cotton danced around the cleric as his robes swayed about him. Ben had expected the religious leader to be soft to the touch; the result of years of studying and little else but the Israeli felt hard slender muscle beneath the formal attire.
“Have a look at what I was thinking.” He shouted into Nazari’s ear, shoving him into the wall next to an oval viewing window. Ben lifted the shade and forced Nazari’s face against the flexible double walled plastic.
Nazari didn’t know how Ben had managed to sneak aboard his private plane. He couldn’t have imagined the Israeli overpowering his personal body guard either but the sight below made those feats seem simple, silly even. Nazari gasped.
The cleric gazed out over the white, beige and terra cotta roofs crammed in and around Tel Aviv, Israel’s capital city. Two F-16’s followed the Gulfstream from a distance off the starboard wing, the Star of David featured prominently below the commanding pilot’s name and rank.
The corrupt Imam would be the crown jewel for the Israeli government, the Jewish states own Geronimo.
“You do realize, this will only make us fight harder,” the cleric said quietly, his eyes still observing the city below.
Ben grabbed him by the arm and forced him into his chair. Removing a fat roll of gray duct tape from his back pocket, Ben stretched out a swath three feet long and began wrapping the roll around Nazari’s chair. He did this until the man was tightly bound.
“You won’t become a martyr or a rallying call Nazari, you will become a great mystery. No one knows we have you.” he said dispassionately. “Few will know what happened to you.”
Ten minutes later the aircraft was on final approach. Ben had taken the seat directly across from Nazari so that he could burn the Imam’s last moments of freedom into his memory.
“You’re going to waste away in a secluded Israeli dungeon. I’ll make sure you get a television delivered to whatever hole you’re dropped in. That way you can witness the failure of everything you’ve tried to do here.” Ben said smugly.
Nazari didn’t look up; he had nothing to say. As far as he was concerned, his plans hadn’t been thwarted in any real sense. Every detail of the plan had already been initiated, either by him or one of his trusted men. As second in command, Hassan Bishara knew what to do.
The sixty million dollar airplane touched down roughly at Ben Gurion International airport and taxied off of the runway under a tight security escort of armored Suburbans. The aircraft rolled to a stop at the end of a long stretch of concrete. A set of hangar doors parted to reveal a large empty building and a small ground crew. The pilot shut down the aircraft’s twin turbine engines and waited, as the crew pulled a tug up to the nose gear and connected a long cylindrical tow bar. The mechanics pulled the corporate jet into the hangar and shut the doors behind them.
When they’d stopped, Ben got out of his seat and opened the passenger door toward the front of the fuselage.
Mossad agents rushed to the staircase and climbed into the jet. Nazari shut his eyes as the reality of the situation closed in on him. He was surrounded by men that he had spent his entire life trying to exterminate. Men who represented a race that he believed to be unworthy of existence. These same men had spent their lives learning to defend their country against men like Nazari.
Israeli agents continued to file into the aircraft until they were plumb against the other side of the fuselage and all the way down its length. They climbed over the expensive interior of the airplane careless as to the damage they might cause. They found the body of Nazari’s guard in the galley, bound and gagged, but very much alive.
One of the younger and more zealous of the Mossad agents smacked the bottom of his TAR-21 magazine against the locked cockpit door.
“Come out,” he shouted above the garbled din of the other voices in the small space.
Ben placed a flat hand against the cockpit door and looked the agent in the face.
“She will come out when she can.” Ben said calmly.
“Now,” the man said a little louder. He didn’t take his eyes off of Ben as he slammed his weapon against the cockpit door again.
Ben was about to reach for the man’s exposed throat when the boarding team’s commander reeled in his dog.
“Do as he said.” he barked to the young agent.
The man recoiled at the voice of his superior.
There was a metallic click as the cockpit door’s slide lock fell into the unlock position. The door was slowly cracked open and Emily Stansborough peered through it.
“Ben?” She called nervously.
Schweitzer stepped in front of the crack, shoving the young agent out of the way.
Emily was pale. She had never flown a jet as large or as sophisticated as the Gulfstream. She had gotten her pilot’s license in her sophomore year of college and had been a novice flyer ever since. Now, the commotion outside the cockpit door as well as the menacing vehicles and men that surrounded the plane were enough to make her apprehensive about exiting her private room.
“It’s okay. They’re with us.” he said comforting her.
She nodded but didn’t say anything. She had come to trust him in the last forty eight hours.
Just as she was about to step from the cockpit, one of the other Mossad agents slammed the cockpit door in her face and threw his hands up to the crowd of men that surrounded Nazari in his chair. They quickly backed up.
Ben was about to protest when he saw him. The opening in front of the lowered aircraft door was cleared instantly.
Ben cleared his throat as the man climbed the staircase and stopped at the landing. Though Ben didn’t mean to, he began smoothing the bottom of his wrinkled shirt around his belt. The man looked directly at Ben and nod
ded.
Nazari stiffened in his seat.
The man stood opposite Nazari. His slightly plump body, a stark contrast to the Imam’s lean physique.
“Hello Abdel. It has been a long time. I was trying to remember the last time we met on the way over here. I had figured it to be in Quneitra, around ’73 is that right?” The man asked insincerely. He didn’t care when they had last met.
“You look very surprised to see me Bishara. Or is it because I know who you really are?” The cat and mouse game was not interesting to the Imam, he just stared.
“While one of my men was diverting your plane to Tel Aviv, the Americans told me everything. They know who you are too. They’ve been tailing you for the last six months. They even know about your son. They’re working on catching him; with our help, of course. You’ve been busy, old friend.” The man said sarcastically.
The Mossad soldiers all knew who Abdel Bishara was. He had been an extensive part of their historical training. His influence had reached far into the Israeli world, by means of his militant disciples. While Yasser Arafat was known as the Father of Terrorism, Bishara was known as the uncle. After decades of silence though, Bishara was believed to have died.
“I don’t associate with dogs. I am not your friend.” Nazari spat in Arabic.
One of the Mossad agents stepped forward to punish Nazari’s careless words but the Israeli Chief of General Staff raised his hand and the agent stopped.
“I suppose you believe the rhetoric you preach.” He replied.
“I find it fitting, that all you have left are words.” the General said, as he walked over to the chair next to Nazari’s and sat down. The men in the cabin stared on, stunned by the high ranking official’s presence.
The Chief of General staff, Israel Stein, had been a hardened soldier in the Israeli Defense Forces. He had joined to serve like all the other men and women who were of age but unlike many of them, had stayed on long past his two year requirement. He had been in the Yom Kippur War, where the man who now sat in front of him had made himself famous, along with more than half a dozen lesser known conflicts.
SANCTION: A Thriller Page 25
