by Dalton Fury
It was soaked in blood.
Curtis’s eyes had been closed when Kolt flashed the light, and Kolt thought the CIA man had bled out. He called Digger forward, and the medic entered the bathroom and knelt over Curtis. The young Delta operator started to reach to check for a pulse but the CIA man lifted a pistol up weakly from under the bloody towel.
Digger pulled it out of the man’s hands as he called out, “Boss?”
Kolt shut himself and Digger in the bathroom with Curtis and flipped on the lights. He checked the thigh wound along with Digger by carefully removing the towel. Instantly dark blood pumped from the hole in Curtis’s pants. The thick string tourniquet Curtis had applied wasn’t getting it done.
“That does not look good,” Curtis announced in a tired and hoarse whisper.
Instantly the medic pulled a tourniquet out of his chest rig and wrapped it above the wound, cinching it tight, almost into Curtis’s crotch.
“Ahhh!” Myron Curtis groaned as Digger cut off the field-expedient tourniquet Curtis had applied. Then he recovered and looked at Kolt. “Everybody else?” he asked.
Raynor just nodded his head. “We haven’t found Denton. But there is enough blood in the lobby by the door. I expect his body is out in the parking lot. We’re gonna check.”
“Son of a bitch.” Curtis winced again as Digger shoved Curlex into the wound down to the bone. Then he said, “They came from nowhere, I swear to God. I heard a crash in the travel agency, something breaking. I yelled out to Murphy, but he didn’t answer.” Curtis closed his eyes as he talked. It had happened not fifteen minutes earlier but he seemed to have to concentrate to remember the details. “Then those fuckers just came pouring up the hall.
“I got hit early, but I took this guy down.” He motioned to the dead man five feet away on the other side of the toilet. “I heard Wychowski get shot. Buckley dumped a whole magazine at them and they seemed like they were backing off. He went after them, or out to look for Denton, or something.” Curtis groaned weakly. “I heard them shouting in Farsi. It’s the Quds Force guys, no doubt about it.” He winced again. “Motherfuckers.”
“Digger, check the dead guy for pocket litter,” Kolt ordered, and Digger scooted over to frisk the dead man. “How many, Curtis?”
“Enemy? I … I don’t know. Five? Six, maybe, including this one.”
“Where’s your terp?”
Curtis looked at Raynor with confusion. Then he put his head back against the wall and shrugged his shoulders. “Done in by a fuckin’ terp.” He shook his head back and forth like he couldn’t believe it. “He was vetted, too!”
“Some are better than others.” Raynor flipped off the overhead light and opened the door. In a whisper he spoke to the entire team. “Listen up. No way to know if there are observers across the street or even if the hitters are hanging out for a smoke in the parking lot. We know the alley is clear, so we go out the way we came in. But first we find Denton.”
Curtis said, “I need to call Cairo Station.”
Kolt shook his head. “We’ll get to it. First priority is making sure we don’t have an AMCIT hostage on our hands.” An American citizen hostage, especially an employee of the CIA, would just pour gas on the fire that this incident had already become. “Second priority is getting the hell away from the safe house.”
“But — ”
“Curtis, you need to trust me on this.”
Myron Curtis closed his eyes. “It’s your show, Racer. I’m dead anyway.”
“Stop whining, you’re not dead yet,” said Digger. He’d finished with the tourniquet. He looked up to Raynor. “What about the intel, boss?”
Kolt nodded and said, “Look, Curtis, we can’t do anything for your men. We’ll have to leave them behind. But what needs to be destroyed here in the safe house?”
“There is a black Pelican box with the secure laptops, phones, and our creds already packed. It has a red cross painted on the top.”
“Okay, Slap, find it and grab it. Drop a thermite on any gear you can’t carry out of here,” Kolt said.
“We’ll need to carry him out,” Digger said, still tending to Curtis’s wound.
Kolt nodded, slung his MP7 across his back, and, along with Digger, they hefted Myron Curtis over Raynor’s shoulder.
They moved slowly down the hallway and out of the travel agency, and even more slowly down the stairs. Slapshot located the Pelican box while Hawk led the way, followed by Kolt carrying Curtis, and Digger at the rear. In the lobby Hawk looked out the front window.
“Denton,” she said, then turned away. “He’s done. Part of his head is gone.”
At the rear doorway, Kolt lowered the wounded man, checked on him briefly, and said, “Slapshot?”
Slapshot had returned with the Pelican case, which he passed off to Digger. “Got him, boss.” Kolt needed to be in charge of their escape, something that would be exponentially more difficult while carrying a man on his back. The bigger operator hefted the CIA man confidently and securely back.
The door to the rear alley of the safe house opened quietly, and then Hawk spun out, her rifle trained on the darkness, but she did not actuate the weapon light. Raynor followed her out the door. Slapshot was the third operator into the alley, heavily laden with a man slung over his shoulder.
And Digger brought up the rear.
They headed up the alley at a brisk walk, their muzzles sweeping the windows on both sides as well as the exit of the passage just ahead. Soon the Americans were back in their panel truck, heading north toward downtown Cairo. As they drove, Curtis mumbled again that someone needed to call Cairo Station immediately.
Then he passed out.
Kolt asked, “How is he?”
Digger looked up. Blood shone on his latex gloves all the way up to his wrists. “He’s got a bad bleeder. Hard to tell. Needs a hospital.”
“How soon?”
Digger cocked his head. “How soon? What do you mean?”
“I mean, how bad is it?”
“I … I don’t…” The young Delta sergeant did not understand. “Fuck, Racer, it’s a clipped femoral. Those are never good, why?”
“I need to know if he can last an hour before getting any more medical attention.”
Digger answered slowly, “His golden hour already started. I’ve got the bleeding stopped. I can’t sedate him or his BP might drop too low. He’s in a world of hurt, and it won’t get better on its own.”
“Can he make it another hour?”
Digger shrugged. “Boss, only the Lord knows. Not my call. My medical advice is he needs higher care ASAP.”
Kolt nodded. He weighed the options. It was his call and he knew it. He was torn between saving Curtis or saving thousands if they took care of the SAMs. Either way, there were no guarantees for Curtis. But they might never have intel this good on the missiles again.
Kolt crawled quickly to the front of the van. He leaned up to Hawk and said, “Back to the dinghy.”
She cocked her head. She could not believe what she’d heard. But Kolt just nodded at her and turned away.
Cindy made the next left.
“What’s up, boss?” Slapshot asked. He assumed they would be heading straight for the U.S. Embassy in Garden City.
But Kolt said, “Listen up. If the Iranians know we’re here, it’s safe to assume the Libyans do, too. We can contact Webber, but going to JSOC to request a full assault team is a nonstarter. Besides, the Libyans aren’t going to wait around for that. They will be out of the city by sunrise.”
Slapshot shook his head. “Let’s not do that.”
Digger agreed. “No need for those company guys to have died for nothing.”
Kolt was way ahead of them. “Okay. I just want to make sure we are all in for the right reasons.”
They all nodded in unison. Kolt looked hardest at Cindy. He had to be sure she was good with it, too.
“We’re going to hit Maadi Land and Sea right now with what we’ve got. Still no author
ity to enter anything more than the warehouse, but we can do that.”
It was quiet for a moment, until Kolt said what was on everyone’s mind. “More than ever, this hit needs to be delicate. But if we screw this up, attract the attention of the Libyan nationals, and this hit turns into a block party, never forget that you have the right to use lethal force to save your life or your mate’s.”
“We know the rules,” said Slapshot.
The Delta men weren’t targeting personalities or hunting humans on this one, but they knew it was a distinct possibility that things could get messy in a hurry, and none of them were disappointed on that score. Not after seeing five CIA men gunned down in cold blood.
Hawk had been concentrating on driving, but now she blurted out, “Racer, there are only three of you. You will need me to — ”
“Yeah,” interrupted Kolt. “We will need you to come along.”
Slapshot leaned close to Kolt. “Is she ready for this?” he asked. It wasn’t a sexist comment, more a questioning of the specific training she had received as a member of the Operational Support Division.
“I don’t know.” Then Kolt said with a tint of sarcasm, “It’s her or Curtis here.”
“I’m ready,” she said. Her voice was not as confident as it could have been, but she was definitely resolute about going.
Kolt said, “We change up the hit. We’ll split into two teams. Digger and Slapshot from the water, no change. Me and Hawk take the main entrance at the east. Simultaneous. Stay on comms. All four head for the warehouse, try to get under the guards. Suppressors and inside voices, although I’m not going to pretend we’re going to make it with stealth alone.”
The rest of the team said, “Understood.”
TWENTY-FIVE
They returned to the dinghy at 0350, twenty minutes late for their designated H-hour. Hawk parked in the boathouse parking lot and took off her veil.
Curtis had awakened. In the dim light of the back of the van, Raynor crawled past Digger and Slapshot and knelt over the injured CIA man. “How you doing, man?”
The CIA man’s voice was stronger than before. “I’m shot, Racer. How do you think I’m doing? Where are we?”
“Listen. I need you to hang in there. We have one chance to fix things. Right now. We don’t do this tonight, Saleh and his men will pull up stakes, and the Quds Force will slip away with the SAMs. I know you don’t want that.”
Curtis looked up at Racer. “I’m listening.”
“It’s obvious the Agency has somehow been compromised. If we drop you off anywhere that Cairo Station knows about, then Saleh’s people will know men made it out of the safe house. They’ll be ready for us. On top of that, if we call JSOC or Langley right now, they will pull the plug on this hit. We have their intent, we’re on the ground, and it’s our call.”
Curtis blinked hard. “Are you saying what I think you are saying?”
“What I’m saying is … my medic tells me you can hold on for an hour. That’s enough time for us to get in and out of there, and then get you some better medical care.”
“Holy shit,” said Curtis. He looked down at the wound in his leg and the tourniquet on it. “I’ll lose the leg, won’t I?”
“No,” said Kolt. “I mean … I don’t think so. I’ve seen men wear a tourniquet for three, even four hours, and still keep the limb.”
“You’re bullshitting me.”
Kolt wasn’t, but he also was not as certain as he tried to make himself sound. “Look. I don’t know for sure. I don’t know you’ll make it. I just know we can get the damn SAMs out of the hands of the Iranians. I need you to let me do that.”
Curtis squinted away a new volley of pain. “You’re going to do it anyway.”
Kolt nodded. “Yeah, probably, but I’d like your blessing.”
The black CIA officer smiled a thin smile, and sweat on his brow ran down his temples. “Fuck. It’s the right fucking call. I sure as shit would do it to you.”
Kolt smiled in response, but immediately his face rehardened into stone. “We’ll be back to the van in an hour, or else we won’t be back at all.”
Curtis nodded. “Leave me a pistol. If you guys don’t make it and they head out into the neighborhood to look for your ride … well … I’m not letting those sons of bitches take me alive.” His words were slurred a bit, but he was still in command of his senses.
Kolt nodded. It was a bit dramatic, even for the circumstances. But he’d do as Curtis asked. “Slapshot, pass me one of those frags from the glove box.”
Slapshot opened the small door and pulled out one of three fragmentation grenades. The safety and pull-pin were taped to prevent accidental detonation. He passed it to Digger, and Digger handed it to Kolt. As Kolt passed it to the wounded CIA officer, he said, “Digger tells me you are going to wish you were dead in a little while. You need to suck up the pain and ride it out. But if they come for you, this you don’t have to aim. Don’t let them take you alive.”
Curtis nodded. It was clear he was already in agony. “Get the fuck out of here and go get those SAMs before I blow us all up.”
* * *
Digger and Slapshot rolled out of their wooden boat and into the water just fifty yards from the dock behind Maadi Land and Sea, but they held on to the small craft and they let the current of the Nile River push them along, closer to their destination. They kept their weapons and C-4 in the boat, but even with the weight of the extra magazines, they had little trouble staying upright as they bobbed in the swift current alongside their boat.
Once they arrived near the pier that protruded a dozen meters into the river, they grabbed hold. While Digger held the boat and one of the small pilings, Slapshot wrapped a rope already affixed to the rusted bow cleat of the dinghy around the piling, and then hitched it back to the boat. Even with the significant current, the boat would only drift under the dock and stay there until the two Delta men needed it again.
Slapshot was first out of the water. He raised a handheld NOD monocular and checked the immediate area to the best of his ability by peering over the wooden decking, then heaved himself quietly out of the water and rolled onto the deck. Quickly he moved forward a few feet, then came to a crouch behind a cluster of wooden mooring pylons extending out of the water. His NOD was whited out when he faced the bright exterior lighting of the office building, but when he turned to the warehouse he was able to see a single armed sentry walking a route near the northern portion of the metal structure.
He decided quickly that, as long as no one flashed the pier with a spotlight and as long as he and his mate were careful not to let themselves be silhouetted from the lights of a passing boat, they would remain invisible until they got to the gate in the metal fence.
Digger appeared behind Slapshot a moment later, and the two dripping-wet men moved toward the gate without exchanging a word.
* * *
On the Kornish al Nile, Major Kolt Raynor walked quickly along the dark sidewalk a half block south of the entrance to Maadi Land and Sea Freight, Ltd. He had changed clothes; now he wore a black turtleneck and dark jeans, and his footfalls were softened by black running shoes. His hands were empty, and across his back he’d slung a small black duffel bag.
He stayed tight against the trees in front of the fence, keeping himself shielded from the gatehouse just ahead as he came closer to it.
“One minute,” came Slapshot’s voice in Kolt’s earpiece. Raynor just nodded to himself as he checked up and down the street to make certain the area was quiet. It was after four in the morning; there was little risk of passersby happening upon the scene.
Across the street and on the other side of the entrance to Maadi Land and Sea Freight, Cindy Bird staggered slightly on the sidewalk. She wore a black tank top that showed a hint of her cleavage and muscular bare arms, and dark blue jeans. Her hair was strewn across her face. She was crying openly, using the back of her arm every few yards to wipe hair and tears from her eyes as her thick sobs echoed on th
e quiet street.
A white woman with bare arms and partially bared breasts stumbling and weeping down a predawn street in Cairo. It grabbed the attention of the sentry at the front gate of the shipping concern, to say the least.
She stepped onto the tree-lined sidewalk and up toward the freestanding gatehouse next to the driveway.
A suspicious guard with a heavy mustache and angry eyes stared at her while fingering the MP5 sub gun on his chest. He picked his walkie-talkie off the table in front of him and brought it to his mouth.
“La mo’axza,” she said. Pardon me. It was not the customary Muslim greeting, but it showed the man that the woman spoke Arabic.
He took the walkie-talkie away from his mouth and hooked it back to the strap of his weapon and, with his hand still on the grip of his submachine gun, he watched her from the shack.
Cindy wiped tears from her eyes and smiled meekly at the guard. The man noticed her easy demeanor, but even more he noticed her bare shoulders. His eyebrows rose slightly, even as his eyes remained dark. “What do you want?”
In Arabic Cindy replied, “Yacht Club? Is this the Yacht Club?”
The guard shook his head, and his hand lowered from his rifle. “No.”
“Yacht Club?” she asked again.
Now the guard stepped out of the shack and pointed up the street in the direction of the Yacht Club.
“I have been attacked, I need help,” Cindy said in Arabic, bursting into a fresh bout of sobs after doing so.
The guard hesitated, and then brought his walkie-talkie back to his mouth.
As the guard pressed the talk button on the side of his radio, Kolt Raynor appeared behind him, having slipped through the darkness along the gate. As Cindy watched, Kolt grabbed the guard from behind as he slapped a tight rear naked choke to cut the guard’s airway. After three seconds of trying to shake Kolt off, the guard’s knees gave, and the Egyptian jolted forward, his eyes fluttering. Cindy half caught them both as they fell, and then she and Raynor rolled the unconscious man back into the guard shack.
Hawk pressed the button to open the gate, and by the time she stepped out of the shack Raynor had both MP7s out of his bag. Hawk took one, along with a small shoulder pack with six extra magazines of 4.6mm ammo, and her interteam radio and earpiece.
