Running the Maze s-5

by Jack Coughlin

  “What is your name?” The demand was almost a snarl.

  The radio went silent. Bonte Ibara had no intention of giving his name to the terrorist leader and possibly being singled out later for blame, or worse, to be appointed leader of the other men down in this hellish battle. The fifty-one-year-old Congolese man, with weathered dark skin and sprinkles of white in his black hair. was a month from the end of a one-year contract as an electrician subcontractor with a Saudi construction firm. Bonte looked over at his friend Guychel Mouko, a heavy equipment operator who had come north with Ibara as a contract worker. They had lived for months on meager rations, sending almost everything they earned back to their families. Both had come to work on a bridge, not to fight soldiers. They were not even Muslim.

  Having survived civil wars in Africa, both had seen many times what bullets and explosions could do to the human body. Let the young hotheads who had never tasted a real fight do whatever they wanted, like that boy who had run forward without looking and stepped on the booby trap. The blast had torn the torso in half, painted the walls with blood and purple intestines, and clouded the corridor with smoke. Only a fool would want to be the first to go into that kind of death trap against an Israeli raiding party. Bonte and Guychel had lagged far behind coming down the stairs and were the only members of their small group still standing.

  “Can you hear me?” The radio squawked, the New Muslim Order man obviously angry. “Give me your name!”

  Guychel shook his head. “No.” He gently removed the radio from the hand of his friend and hurled it far down the corridor, where it smashed into pieces as it bounced and slid along the rock floor.

  Bonte pushed open a door and went inside, and Guychel followed, closing it behind him, then turning the lock on the supply room. They put their AK-47s aside, sat on the boxes, and lit cigarettes. “It will be over soon. Fights this intense never last too long,” Bonte said. “What do you hear from home?”

  Elsewhere in the complex, other workers were making similar decisions to let sudden, deadly violence pass them by.

  * * *

  TEN MINUTES REMAINED BEFORE the inbound extraction birds were due topside. Kyle Swanson could not waste time hanging around in the second level of this subterranean maze. Nothing of value would be gained by forcing another firefight, but he had to do some damage before leaving.

  The pursuing force was already in disarray, and their firing had momentarily ceased, so Swanson intended to make his next move as horrific as possible before they could shake off the feeling that certain death lurked around every corner. Mobility and his pitiless attacks had tilted things in his favor, and he needed to capitalize on that. His brain told him to be patient, to work it through step by step. Slow is smooth; smooth is fast.

  He pressed the latch of the grenade launcher slung beneath his rifle, slid its barrel forward, put the weapon on safe, and removed a stubby, low-velocity 40 mm high-explosive, dual-purpose grenade from his bandolier. The golden dome and olive green body slid easily into the chamber, and Swanson pulled the barrel toward the rear to lock it. Then he broke cover and ran to the corner where his latest corridor intersected with the main hallway. Leaning around, he saw it was clear, and he moved his finger to squeeze the launcher’s separate trigger.

  The weapon bucked with a firm bhoomp as the M-433 HEDP grenade fired, and Kyle spun to the floor behind the concrete wall, curled into the fetal position, closed his eyes, and covered his ears as the grenade hit the stone steps with a stunning explosion and a blinding flash. The earsplitting blast tore a deep gouge into the stairs, spraying out a thick circle of shrapnel and debris that would have killed anyone within fifteen feet. With that echo still vibrating and smoke boiling, Swanson loaded a second HEDP round, moved to the other side of the auxiliary corridor, and took aim through the leaf sight in the opposite direction down the main hallway. When he was sighted on the midpoint of the big doors of one of the elevators, he fired, then again dove to the floor against the near wall as the grenade penetrated the thin-skinned door. A long tongue of red and yellow flame jetted out of the elevator shaft, the aluminum doors blew off, and heavy shards of rock and shrapnel ripped and tore at the cables supporting the elevator. The high-pitched squeal of tortured metal pulling against metal rose above the din of the explosion, and the heavy elevator was twisted and pushed with ever-increasing force against the braided steel cables that had been chipped and sliced. It did not fall but was jammed so hard between the walls and the support girders that it could not move.

  The concussion slammed through the corridor like a broadside from a battleship and bounced Swanson like a ball. Even after the wave passed beyond him, he remained curled up, disoriented, certain that he had been deafened and blinded by his own doing. I was too close! Acrid smoke made him cough, and that automatic physical response brought the rest of his senses back online. The eyes blinked, but his ears were popping like little firecrackers. Nature of the business; part of the game. Spitting out dirt, he shook himself free of layers of debris, and junk fell from his clothing and gear. Using the wall for support, Kyle pulled himself back to his feet, peeled away from his position, and moved out. It had taken three minutes.

  * * *

  IN THE EAST TOWER, Beth Ledford had made good progress, towing the young engineer along behind as she advanced through the levels. In fact, the prisoner—she no longer thought of him as an ally—had been the only real opposition since she had separated from Swanson. She was almost to the top now, in the first basement level, and the main entrance was less than fifty meters away, framing a bright square of light outside. She could smell the fresher air. With less than seven minutes remaining before extraction, she had never felt so totally alert and sharp. There was no sense of panic.

  An unattended line of little golf carts was parked along one wall, with slack cables plugged into power sources to charge the batteries. The corridor seemed clear, and distant explosions told her that Swanson still was going strong over in the other tower; it sounded like a war. She felt she probably could have walked out of this corridor in a miniskirt and high heels and nobody would have paid any attention, because everyone was at the party next door.

  A silhouette crossed at the entrance, and Beth ducked out of sight between the carts and the wall, pulling her prisoner to his knees. He grunted, and she held a finger to her lips to shush him. They were long past the time where he might have anything to say that would be of interest to her.

  The figure at the entrance passed through the cone of light and vanished again. Beth assumed it was a guard who had been left behind to secure that tunnel mouth while the hard fighting raged elsewhere. She could easily shoot him from this angle, but the retort of a rifle would be amplified enough in the tight confines of the corridor and might be enough to draw unwanted attention. She could not expect to just walk the next two hundred feet unobserved while pulling a man along on a leash.

  “Get in this cart. Left side,” she whispered. “Call out or try to escape and I’ll shoot you.” Mohammad al-Attas nodded that he understood, and she dropped the end of the leash but unholstered her pistol. There was a rag on the floor, and she tied it like a kerchief over her blond hair.

  She yanked the cable on the cart from the power strip and climbed in. It was just an ordinary golf cart with a light blue fiberglass body, no more complicated to drive than a child’s wagon. When Beth pressed the accelerator, the vehicle moved forward on a battery-powered engine that was virtually silent. She steered with her left hand, with the pistol in her right, resting out of sight in her lap.

  The guard might have been curious had he seen two people walking out, but he hardly noticed the approach of one of the buglike carts that constantly roamed the bridge and tunnels. Beth shot him with two point-blank taps to the head without even taking her foot from the accelerator.

  NEW YORK

  IT WAS NIGHT IN Manhattan. The neon signs around Times Square took on a bright life of their own, the tourists flocked to the theaters, th
e Royal Shakespeare Company was doing Julius Caesar at Lincoln Center, the Rockettes were stretching out prior to another high-kicking show at Radio City Music Hall, and Jimmy Buffett was jamming with Neil Young in a Village bar. After another workday in the canyons of office buildings, millions of people were on the move again, hungry for entertainment and personal contact, going to restaurants or to their apartments or to the saloons. In midtown, a few blocks from the United Nations tower, three men were seated around a table in a luxury hotel suite that was protected by bodyguards with small machine guns. They all wore serious game faces. “I think we’ve got a Fish,” said one. “Not just a Fish, but fuckin’ Moby Dick.”

  Fred Ellison, chief of the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service, sipped some sweet lemonade before continuing his pitch. Andy Moore of the Central Intelligence Agency and David Hunt of the Federal Bureau of Investigation listened with growing astonishment as Ellison spun his tale of how Undersecretary William Lloyd Curtis of the U.S. Bureau of American-Islamic Affairs had recently stepped far beyond his pay grade and used DSS assets to track an American citizen. “I put a stop to it as soon as I found out, then I read Curtis the riot act,” said Ellison. “At the time, I chalked it up to a mistake in judgment, although he was no glad-handing rookie diplomat. I underestimated him.”

  “Is he a heavy hitter in the administration?” asked Hunt.

  “Absolutely. Former ambassador to Kuwait and Egypt. Heavy campaign contributor to both parties as a civilian, with lots of experience, contacts, and knowledge about the Sandbox countries. He hosts swanky parties that cover as a backdoor channel for communication between Washington and the Islamic world.”

  “Man, we could probably send him to prison just for that security breach, but it’s pretty thin. No real red flags that I see,” said Moore.

  “It became a burr under my saddle,” admitted Ellison. “Not so much that he did it, but why would he do such a stupid thing? So I started showing a special interest in him.”

  “So, since we all work in Washington, why are we here in New York?” Hunt leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.

  Ellison drew out a photo of a middle-aged fat man with dark hair and passed it around. “This man is Mohammed Javid Bhatti, who works for the Pakistani Foreign Office right over at the UN, and he has been showing up frequently, either in person or by phone or e-mail, with Undersecretary Curtis. I ran him by our resident security officer in Islamabad, who got back to me this morning. We’re here because there are too many leaks in Washington. I’ve known and trusted you guys for years, and want to keep this on the down-low.”

  “Javid Bhatti is your Fish?” Hunt looked curiously at the photograph. “Pardon my French, Freddy, but this guy ain’t no Moby Dick. More like a fat flounder.”

  Ellison rapped the table with his knuckles. “No, Dave. Undersecretary Curtis is the Fish. My RSO in Pakistan reported that this flounder, Mr. Bhatti, really works for the New Muslim Order.”

  Moore and Hunt exchanged frowns, and Hunt cleared his throat. “You think this Bhatti and the NMO are trying to manipulate or blackmail a ranking American diplomat?”

  “Worse. I think Curtis is working for them of his own free will. My opinion, the son of a bitch is a closet jihadist.”

  “Why? He had to have gone through a complete security clearance just to get his job”

  There was silence in the room, and the noise of New York drifted up to the fifteenth floor, a muted burble of yells, taxi horns, and a siren from a traffic accident. “I want to do another one, deeper this time. All the way down to the bone because I missed something the first time around. I propose a full-court press on this, guys, but keep it quiet. All three of our agencies have to be involved and cooperate.”

  “What about Homeland Security?” Hunt asked with a slight smirk.

  “Who?” laughed Moore, removing a white legal pad from his briefcase to draft a game plan.

  26

  SECURITY CHIEF AYMAN AL-MASRI of the New Muslim Order remained confident of the outcome of the fight, despite the setbacks. The untrained rabble at his disposal was clearly outmatched by the professionals of the Zionist raiding party, but the trail of bodies on the lower levels and the battle noise in the east tunnel indicated the raiders were still headed topside. If they expected a ride out of here, at some point their rescue helicopter had to arrive, and the enemy would have to emerge from the tunnel to board it.

  In the distance, he had watched a blue golf cart carrying one of his teams emerge from the east tunnel and zip across to where heavy earthmoving equipment was parked. Good men. Finally, some of these cowards were showing the aggressiveness needed to overcome the flaws in the general attack. They had taken a good defensive position behind the big machines without being told, and that action gave him an idea for a final strategy.

  Instead of wasting his fighters belowground, al-Masri decided to reorganize into a pair of strong defensive positions around both main entrances, and simply wait for the targets to present themselves. When they did, he would finish them off.

  “Leave the guard and those other two down at the west tunnel mouth, but gather the rest here,” he told his bodyguard, who radioed the instructions to the other teams. “I will instill the fear of Allah in them, and they will fight!”

  About thirty men had gone into the tunnels, but fewer than ten came out and drifted over to him. Twenty dead? Al-Masri snorted; some of the foreign contract workers were hiding down there to save their skins. He would deal with them later. There was still some shooting below, so others were still engaged and unable to break contact.

  “Now listen carefully, you worthless dogs,” he shouted and took a deep breath to begin explaining his trap. He never finished, because he heard the pounding thrum of approaching aircraft.

  * * *

  IT IS HARD TO kill someone behind a wall, and Kyle Swanson huddled down tight in a small alcove on the first basement level while a tight curtain of bullets whizzed by him. Finally, he had run into someone who knew how to fight.

  Swanson was bottled up in the wide tunnel that sloped up to the main entrance, and he had about a minute and a half left, with the seconds falling rapidly away. Soon, the bird would touch down for a moment and then be gone.

  If he missed the extract, he planned to haul ass back downstairs as fast as possible and crawl out of a firing slit in one of the gun pits. Once in the valley, he could evade, find a new hide, and arrange another pickup.

  He would stick here for a few more seconds and raise some hell to divide the attention of any topside fighters and help the Ospreys come in safely. He could only hope that Coastie and the engineer were ready, although he had not heard from them for several minutes.

  Another fusillade of bullets buzzed his way, sliding and bouncing along the wall, gnawing at his hiding place, and he stuck the CAR-15 out and returned a burst. The other guy was shielded at a corner and was cold locked in on Kyle. There was too much open space to rush the gunman, and if reinforcements came in to help, Swanson would have a real problem. The one thing he could not afford to do was nothing.

  * * *

  THE BRIGHT GLARE OF the sun had made Beth Ledford shade her eyes with her palm when her cart swept out of the tunnel and onto the bridge. Free of the tight confines of the subterranean levels, she found herself in the open, driving across a wide roadway that had broad aprons spread on each side, with high guardrails along the edges. To her left were the cloth cubicles of the bazaar, although the hawkers had abandoned the area when the shooting started. Far to the right at the other end of the bridge, she saw a group of men gathered in a circle.

  She swerved to the apron and parked between heavy excavation equipment, then shoved the engineer out, grabbed his leash, and hauled him down beside a huge bulldozer. As she checked her weapons, she heard the planes and pressed her radio earpiece hard, calling for help, praying for a response.

  “Limo Three-Two. Limo Three-Two. This is Bounty Hunter Bravo.”

  D
uring years of controversial development, the Osprey had gained such a bad reputation that Marines assigned to fly on them grimly called themselves death crews. As the bugs were finally worked out, the twin tilt-rotor aircraft became a gem of the fleet and far surpassed the capabilities of the old medium-lift CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters. A pair of them were a minute out from the bridge.

  Major Sam Jameson, at the controls of the lead bird, was just popping up over the final crest of hills when he heard the message. He responded immediately. “Bounty Hunter Bravo, this is Limo Three-One. What’s your traffic?”

  “Roger, Limo Three-One,” Beth confirmed, trying to control her voice to filter out the excitement and relief that flooded through her. “We’re at the LZ. What is your timeline?”

  The Ospreys clawed for a bit more altitude as the high ground unrolled beneath them, then dropped away into a valley, where a huge man-made structure dominated the far end. “We’re one mike out, and I see the LZ.” The friendly Kentucky twang of the Marine aviator made Beth feel more comfortable. We-uh one mack out, an’ Ah see thuh LZ.

  Ledford, kneeling behind a Komatsu lowboy flatbed trailer, smiled when she was finally able to see the pair of planes. “Limo Three-One. Bounty Hunter Bravo. I see you now. Popping yellow smoke.” She threw the grenade as hard as she could. It hit the roadway, bounced and rolled, and belched a spreading cloud of bright color.

  “Roger, I see yellow,” confirmed Jameson. “Where are you?”

  “Bounty Hunter Bravo and one pax are behind the earthmovers at the west end, next to a blue golf cart.”

  Major Jameson altered the angle of approach and set the computers to perform the almost magical transition from airplane to helicopter. The speed fell away from cruising at 277 miles per hour as the nacelles on each wingtip elevated in slow motion up to a sixty-degree elevation, cut to about sixty miles per hour. Then the props were pointing straight up at ninety degrees, and the plane was at a complete hover, hanging in the sky, balanced by multiple computers of the fly-by-wire systems. Jameson nudged the stick to make minor adjustments.