The Socotra Incident

by Richard Fox

  “I’m going to check out that truck. See if the package is in there. Cover me,” Ritter said.

  He stepped over the ridgeline, not waiting to talk things over with the protesting Shlomo, and half slid, half stepped down the slope. Dirt and rocks broke loose with each footfall, a dusty avalanche following him. He wasn’t sure whether all the dirt would be a better screen or a “shoot me” sign for anyone watching the valley.

  Once at the bottom, he ran to the truck with his Tavor rifle aimed at the cab. His injured leg flared with pain every time it hit the ground.

  The truck canted off the road, the right wheels dangling inches about the ground. The dusky-skinned driver was hunched over the steering wheel, one arm stuck out over the ruins of the windshield. Ritter opened the driver’s door. The cabin reeked of spilled blood. Blood ran down the driver’s left shoulder. An unseen exit wound on the other side of the driver poured blood over the seat; it ran in rivulets over the front edge and pooled on the passenger’s side.

  Ritter ran to the rear of the truck and looked in the bed. A wide green case was tied down with bright nylon cords. Ritter grabbed one of the handles and shook it. It was so heavy that it hardly budged.

  He keyed his mike. “Shlomo, I think I’ve got it.”

  A bullet snapped in the air over his head. Ritter crouched and took two steps toward the driver’s side. The turn signal burst in a shower of glass as a bullet shattered it.

  Ritter ran to the front of the truck and stepped into the ravine—the truck and the nuke between him and the firefight in the village.

  “Were those stray rounds, or was someone shooting at me?” Ritter asked.

  “Not sure…Wait,” Shlomo said over the radio. “Moshe needs me to relocate. Don’t move.”

  Ritter saw a flash of light from Shlomo’s scope as the sniper left his over watch.

  “Shlomo, give me an update. What the hell’s going on over there?”

  No response.

  “Shlomo?” Ritter cursed as his battlefield became a much lonelier place. He looked back at the truck and saw a hook dangling from a winch on the front of the Bongo truck. The winch looked as if it had been welded on as an aftermarket improvement. Given the crap nature of the island’s infrastructure, being able to haul a truck out of a rut made decent sense.

  A pile of thigh-high boulders ten feet up the road gave Ritter an idea. Better to do something constructive right away than to think of a perfect course of action a few minutes too late.

  He reached over the shattered glass and unlocked the winch. The shots from the village had slowed; most sounded like the Tavor he and the Israelis carried. He drew the winch line out and looped the metal cord around a boulder before locking the hook onto the cord.

  Two tugs on the line convinced him that it would hold.

  A bullet struck up a geyser of dirt on the road and skipped away.

  “Friendly to your north,” he said into the mike and got no response. The sound of his voice over the radio was nothing compared to the gunshots from those fighting in the village. “Friendly fire” was always a misnomer for those on the receiving end, but maybe someone had heard him.

  He grabbed the dead driver by his shirt and hauled him from the cab. Dead eyes behind half-closed lids made the man look like he was about to drift asleep. Ritter let him fall onto the road like a sack of potatoes. The dead didn’t need gentle hands. Dirt clung to the spilled blood down his right flank as Ritter dragged him a few yards away from the truck.

  He looked up and saw a trio of dirt clouds streaking down the east side of the valley wall, not the side he or the Israelis had come from.

  “Shlomo, who the hell is that?”

  No response.

  “Mike, any friendly on this net? We’ve got potential hostiles coming down the east slope,” Ritter said and received only static in return.

  Ritter ran to the front of the truck and knelt next to the wheel embedded in the dirt.

  If it was the North Koreans, then they knew what was in the truck and might not risk a shot.

  He took a snap glance around the side of the truck, and a burst of gunfire split the air next to his head.

  Or they’d shoot at him anyway.

  Ritter threw himself to the ground and aimed his weapon under the truck. He saw a pair of feet through the gap between the ground and the truck, and fired a single shot. Bullets tore through the lead man’s ankle, and he tumbled into the dirt with a scream.

  The man behind him was either too well trained or too indifferent to care and leaped over the downed man. Ritter stood up and found the second man carrying an AK-47 and wearing loose sand-colored robes of a Bedouin. The man tried to swing his rifle around to bear on Ritter, but Ritter had him dead bang.

  Ritter fired a burst into his chest and snapped his head around to find the third man. His last assailant had run around the other side of the truck and was six feet away and closing fast.

  Ritter lifted his rifle and swung the hard plastic butt around and down on the barrel of the fighter’s rifle. The strike deflected the AK a half second before he fired and sent a blast into the engine block.

  Ritter swung the rifle at the fighter’s face and struck nothing but air as the fighter swayed back. The fighter thrust his weapon up at Ritter’s face, and Ritter brought his Tavor back to block the blow. The collision smashed Ritter’s rifle against his face, and pain flared against a cheek as he stumbled back.

  The fighter lurched after Ritter and grabbed him by his vest. He pushed Ritter off his feet and landed on top of Ritter. The impact of the man’s two hundred-plus pounds sent the air from Ritter’s lungs. Rough hands wrapped around Ritter’s neck and bored into his throat.

  Ritter’s right hand fumbled for the Applegate-Fairbairn on his gear, while his other hand felt to gouge his enemy’s eyes. The big man kept his head turned away. He didn’t need to see Ritter to strangle the life from him.

  The assailant’s fingers dug into his throat and cut off the flow of blood to his head. Ritter’s lungs burned with the desire for air and his vision went dark around the edges. His free hand unsnapped the sheath on his combat knife and pulled the blade free. He sliced the blade across the fighter’s forearm, blood traced its path and spattered onto Ritter’s face A gasp of pain later, the fighter pulled his injured arm away from Ritter’s neck.

  That moment gave Ritter the opening he needed. He swung the blade up and slammed it into the fighter’s temple.

  The blade sank two inches into the man’s skull. Ritter squeezed his blade and the fighter’s head together until the blade sank to its hilt.

  The fighter’s eyes rolled around in their sockets, and he went slack. Ritter pushed his bulk off him and leaned over to pick up his rifle lying in the dirt. Blood dripped from his face onto the weapon as he picked it up.

  He rubbed the back of his hand against a gash on his face. More blood flowed from the cut along his jaw line, and unseen hot wire of pain.

  Someone groaned in pain from the other side of the truck. Ritter found the first man he’d shot crawling across the road, his AK-47 still in one hand.

  Ritter put a bullet in the wounded man’s head and chest.

  He looked at the man he’d stabbed. The man had the dark olive skin and Arab features that marked him as a Yemeni, not a North Korean.

  He didn’t hear any more shots. Either the sudden onset tinnitus from firing his weapon had left him unable to hear the shots, or the battle was over.

  “Ritter?” came from the earpiece dangling against his collarbone. It must have come loose in the struggle.

  He held it against his ear and keyed his mike.

  “Yes.” When he spoke, his face stung as if a snake had bitten it.

  “We’re clear here. We stumbled on a fight between Arabs and what looks like a bunch of Koreans. No sign of your package,” Moshe said. “All hostiles eliminated. What’s your status?”

  Steam poured from the bullet strikes on the Bongo truck’s engine. The front right whe
el that had been bearing most of the truck’s weight burst with a pop.

  Ritter held his palm against his split cheek and mumbled, “I’ve got good news, and I’ve got bad news.”

  With the truck out of commission, the Israelis had taken wooden beams from one of the more dilapidated homes in the village and tied them into a gigantic hashtag shape. They pushed the nuke onto the improvised carrying frame and lashed it together. Eight men could carry the load at one time, lightening the individual load and hastening their escape, while the rest of the team provided security.

  Ritter, a quarter of his face covered by a pressure bandage and his wounded leg burning, readjusted his grip on the wooden beam. He’d insisted on carrying the nuke despite his injuries. One of the Israelis had been hit in the stomach and had to be carried on a stretcher, which left one man to scout ahead.

  Ritter’s arms and shoulders ached from the effort, like battery acid was working between his joints.

  Men huffed and grumbled as they went over a patch of loose rocks. There was no time to rest, not when the whole island would be after them once word got around. Gunshots weren’t uncommon in the Middle East and surrounding countries. A full-scale battle would bring the curious around quickly enough.

  It was a little more than a mile and a half from the village to the fishing village, where the Mossad sayanim were waiting with their ride out of here. What should have been a twenty-minute jog turned into an hour-long ordeal to move the device and the wounded.

  Goldstein, the only one not carrying someone or something, ran up to a smooth-barked tree topped by twists of branches and round leaves on a rocky outcrop. He took a knee and waved Moshe over to come see him.

  Moshe gave a command in Hebrew, and they lowered the device into the dirt. Ritter bent to rest his forearms on his knees and took his last sip of water from his CamelBak. He pushed his tongue against a loose tooth and spat out a bit of blood. He could smell the ocean on the breeze.

  “Do we have dental insurance?” Ritter asked Mike, who shared Ritter’s end of a beam.

  Mike pursed his lips, then shrugged.

  Moshe ran up to Goldstein, and both went prone. He peaked over the edge, then waved Ritter and Mike over.

  The two Americans crawled up to the edge of the rocks and looked to where Moshe was pointing beyond the tree. The bark was white with mottled dark spots, like the paper birch forests Ritter had hiked through in his youth. Unlike those thin birch trees, the Socotran fauna was too wide for Ritter to wrap his arms around, and the top was a rough mass of round leaves.

  What’s with this place? Ritter thought.

  The fishing village was only a few hundred yards away. Mud huts were scattered around a natural bay. Small wooden boats with mottled white paint bobbed in the water. A much larger boat, the prow jutting several feet beyond the hull and an enclosed bridge towards the aft, was moored alongside a sand spit; one of the ubiquitous dhow ships of the Arabian Gulf. Ritter didn’t see any of the inhabitants in or among the buildings or on the boats, but that wasn’t the strangest thing out there.

  A stubby submarine was surfaced in the bay; barely more than sixty feet from bow to stern.

  “You care to explain this?” Moshe asked.

  “Looks like that’s how the North Koreans got here,” Ritter said.

  “How do you know they’re North Koreans?” Moshe asked.

  “Does that matter right now? The more important question is, what do we do about it? If that sub has torpedoes, then we won’t get very far even if we do get on that dhow,” Ritter said. He kicked himself for giving away a piece of information. Careless errors like that would come back to haunt him.

  Moshe shook his head and peered past Ritter. There was a column of sand and dirt rising from the village. They’d have company soon enough.

  “Nothing is ever easy, is it?” Moshe said.

  Moshe raised his voice to address everyone. “Goldstein, Netzer, Shall, Americans and I run up and clear the village. Goldstein, you use the AT4 and hit that sub. If it’ll kill a tank, it’ll kill that thing. Shlomo, you shoot anyone with a weapon who isn’t us. Rest of you, stay with the wounded and carry him and that thing when the village is clear.

  “Follow me!” Moshe stood up and made his way through the dragon blood and cucumber trees. Ritter and Mike went with him, darting between the trees, watching for movement from the sun-bleached houses.

  Ritter stepped over the raised base of a dragon blood tree and stepped on something soft. He looked down and saw a body of an old man, a bullet hole in his forehead. Next to him was another body. And another. Men, women, and children had been dragged from the village and shot right here. Almost two dozen lay motionlessly; blown dust cast a light-brown coating on their dark skin.

  A smack on the back from Mike pulled him out of his shock. He’d find who did this in the village, and he’d make them pay for it.

  He and Mike ran up to the nearest house. Mike peeked into an open doorway with a mirror at the end of a collapsible wand. Mike gave him a thumbs-up: all clear. Ritter ducked into the house; thin foam mattresses with threadbare blankets were scattered across the floor of the one-room house. A battered wooden table lay on its side, a tin washing bowl overturned next to it. The family must have been dragged from their home in the night before being executed.

  A metal clang came from the bay. Ritter looked out and saw the top hatch of the midget submarine open and a sailor’s head and torso emerge.

  The sailor yelled in Korean for several seconds before he jerked to the side and fell back into the submarine in time with the sound of a shot from Shlomo’s rifle. So much for a surprise.

  Goldstein ran up to the beach and readied the AT4 on his shoulder. The rocket had an effective range of three hundred meters, but it wouldn’t hurt to get as close as possible with their only shot at sinking the submarine.

  Gunfire burst from one of the other houses, and Goldstein crumpled to the ground.

  Ritter and Mike fired bursts at the open windows, where the shots had originated. Shouts in Hebrew flooded Ritter’s earpiece, and he tore the device from his head.

  More shots came from the other side of the village, and lumps of mud and dirt sprang from the wall as the enemy bullets tore through them like paper. Ritter rolled away from where he’d been pressed against the wall an instant before a bullet ventilated the spot.

  Ritter looked for Mike, but he’d vanished.

  Ritter got to his feet and ran out the door. The Israelis were suppressing the rest of the village with pinpoint shots; none had the ammo for bursts. Ritter ran toward the last house at the edge of the village. He could flank where the hostile fire was coming from or draw fire from the rest of the team.

  He lowered his shoulder and charged the closed door. It broke from the crude wire hinges, and Ritter’s momentum carried him—and the door—into someone on the other side. Ritter and the door crashed onto the figure, and Ritter saw black leather boots kicking from under the door. Ritter and the rest of the team wore tan boots.

  Ritter fired two rounds through the door, and the struggling ceased. He stood up and charged back out the bare doorway.

  He heard shouting as a Korean emerged from between the buildings. He held a Socotran woman against his chest, a gun to her head; she cried and pleaded in a language Ritter didn’t understand. The Korean used the woman as a human shield between him and Mike, who had his weapon trained on the pair.

  The Korean was so focused on Mike that he didn’t see Ritter approaching from the side. Ritter raised his weapon to his shoulder and took aim.

  A shot rang out, and Ritter watched and the woman screamed, her hands clutching a bullet wound on her thigh. A second shot lanced through her abdomen, and a third shot went through her shoulder. Both the Socotran and Korean fell to the ground. The Korean pushed the dead woman off him and flopped onto his back.

  Ritter ran up to the woman, but she was already dead. The Korean lay moaning in the dirt, hit by the same bullets that had killed
her.

  Mike stood a few feet away, his face a mask of stone.

  “Why Mike? I had him,” Ritter said.

  Mike shook his head.

  Moshe stepped around Mike, smoke rising from the barrel of his Tavor. The Israeli strode past Mike and stomped a boot on the Korean’s chest.

  The Korean, metal teeth clicking against each other, tried to say something.

  Moshe put a round in his forehead.

  “That was for Goldstein,” Moshe said and spat on the dead Korean.

  A thunderclap came from the beach. The AT4 struck the submarine right above the waterline. Smoke rose from the impact site, a new formed maw of mangled metal took in the ocean. Anyone inside who hadn’t been killed by the blast would certainly drown as the sub took on water.

  Ritter looked at Moshe; all the respect he’d earned during their time together was gone with the death of one innocent.

  “Call your people. Get us a location while I load up the boat,” Moshe said.

  Ritter nodded and picked up the Korean’s pistol. It looked like a knockoff Makarov, the face of a chubby Asian man with a bad perm and thick-rimmed glasses embossed on the handle. He put the weapon on safe and shoved it into a cargo pocket on his thigh.

  “Need to know” be damned, he thought. I want answers when this is all over.

  Chapter 8

  Their dhow, theirs now that the former owner was dead somewhere on that Socotran beach, stretched the limits of what could be considered seaworthy. Rust and barnacles ran down its fifty-foot length, and the engine burned oil as they cut across the choppy water. Mike sat on top of the nuke, spitting tobacco dip into a decapitated water bottle. Ritter stayed in the wheelhouse and double-checked the GPS with the coordinates Shannon had sent them as they broke anchor. A looming hulk of a cargo ship was on the horizon. Ritter had thought they’d make way to some secure spot on the Somali coast where they’d transfer the nuke to the military. Rendezvous with a merchant ship was unexpected.

  Ritter made out a helipad jutting from the back of the super castle housing the bridge as they approached. Razor wire wreathed the ship, and he saw water cannons mounted along the deck, the kind used to dissuade Greenpeace from interfering with whaling operations. The ship had as big a no solicitors sign as he’d ever seen.