“I think so. Car back there has been following us for about ten minutes. They’re keeping pace with our speed.” Stark reached behind him to pull his Beretta from his go-bag as Golzari hit the accelerator.
“Let’s see if he wants to keep up with me,” Golzari said as the speedometer hit seventy, eighty, and then eighty-five miles an hour. The other car kept pace.
Stark looked ahead and saw a truck stopped in the middle of the road. Two people were inside and two were standing outside. One of the latter held a long tube to his shoulder.
“Shit, it’s an ambush! Golzari, slow down!”
“Bloody hell,” Golzari said, decelerating to sixty miles per hour. Force protection rules dictated more speed, but if the men ahead had what he thought they had, the embassy SUV wouldn’t make it through. A quick survey of the almost barren land around him left only one choice for cover—the ruins on the hill. Years of training took over. “Grab the go-bags,” he said calmly to Stark. His own M4 had been at his side with a chambered round since they left the estate. He left the road and sped toward the closest hill. The men waiting in ambush quickly got into the truck and followed, tires throwing up sand and dust. The pursuit car was nearing but still remained a quarter mile behind them.
If they were going to make a stand anywhere, it would have to be the hill, which offered the highest ground and, with the large rocks and oversized building stones, the best protection. Golzari hit the brakes, simultaneously turning the steering wheel so that the vehicle would skid and present its full length to the attackers and offer a possible barricade for defense. He slammed the SUV into park next to a long slope that rose two hundred yards to a cluster of stone blocks the size of refrigerators. A few old columns still stood proud and tall against the azure sky, but most had fallen and crumbled through the long years. “Go!” he directed Stark, who grabbed both bags and leapt from the vehicle.
The loose dirt, pebbles, and stones on the hillside forced Stark to keep a cautious pace. He made a break for an opening between two clusters of ruins and set up a defensive position behind one of them.
Golzari followed Stark out the passenger-side door and trained his M4 on the pursuit car, now only a hundred yards away. He quickly adjusted the rear sight, then took two shots at the driver. One hit, and the car veered away and slowed. Golzari continued to fire rounds into the car and saw a second man slump from sight. The truck came into range, and Golzari emptied his clip toward it, hoping for a lucky shot. Nothing doing; it was time to get under cover.
As he started up the slope, gunfire erupted from the ruins above. Stark was laying down suppressing fire. A few rounds from the attackers kicked up some dust nearby, but Golzari reached the stones unhurt. Stark had discarded his peashooter and was standing ten yards away with his M4, resting it on a shoulder-high stone for stability. When he saw Golzari safely behind a large stone to his left, Stark reached down, retrieved Golzari’s go-bag, and tossed it toward him.
“First car is to the right about three hundred yards,” Stark called out. “Two men up with rifles. I’ve got them. You get the other two. The truck is four hundred yards down and to the left. Four men. I think two have RPGs. What’s the range on those?”
“Paint a bull’s-eye here.”
Stark dropped down and rolled to the right side of his shelter to get a clear view of the slope below. None of the six men—plus the first he’d injured— were moving.
“What do you see, Stark?” Golzari yelled as he reloaded his weapon.
“One of the RPG guys is up and he’s . . . shit! Incoming!” Stark rolled back against the rock and opened his mouth to minimize the change in pressure from the imminent explosion.
Golzari did the same just before dirt and debris rained down from the ruins uphill. Golzari peered around just long enough to see that the embassy vehicle was a smoking shambles. “They got our SUV,” he yelled to Stark. “Give me some suppressing fire again on three. Ready? One-two-three!”
Stark came around on his good knee and began firing to cover Golzari, who popped up from behind his stone to take a shot at one of the truck crew. His aim was off. The man recoiled with an arm wound, still alive. Golzari hoped that would be enough to take him out of the action.
Stark dove back behind cover, but not before he saw the RPG belch flames again. “Incoming!” he shouted again to Golzari.
Golzari hit the ground just as a rocket-propelled grenade destroyed half of the rock sheltering Stark, covering both men with gravel. He dusted himself off and took stock of the situation. “You okay, Stark?”
“Yeah, just give me a minute.”
“We don’t have a minute.” Golzari looked around again to fire his weapon.
“What are they doing?” Stark asked.
“Three firing from the car, two from the truck, plus two injured. They’re not moving away yet. One more thing. They all look like Somalis.”
“Pirates? Here?”
“That’s my guess. That could be good for us. If they were soldiers, they’d know what they were doing.”
“We’re still outnumbered three to one. Feels like the Alamo,” said Stark.
“Or the Knights Hospitaller and the Siege of Malta in 1565,” Golzari countered.
“What’s the difference?”
“The Knights got out.”
“I like that better. How many grenades do you think they have?”
“I don’t know, but it looks like they’re reloading now. Let’s put another few rounds into the truck. Ready on three.” On “three,” both men stood and emptied their magazines at the truck. Another truckbound Somali went down with Stark’s shots. The one Golzari had shot earlier was still flailing about on the ground, holding his arm. The attackers responded with another round. Puffs of dirt exploded up the slope until one found its mark.
Golzari yelled and dropped to the ground, leaving his M4 resting on the rock above him.
“Golzari?”
When the DSS agent didn’t respond, Stark fired a few rounds toward the car and then dropped behind the rock. For the moment, at least, the Somalis had stopped firing.
“Golzari?”
“My arm. Those bastards hit my forearm.”
“How bad?”
“I’ve got a kit in my bag to treat it, but I won’t be able to aim the M4.”
“Too bad. Why don’t you use your Sig or my Beretta? Or can’t you fire a peashooter?”
“Screw you.”
“Tsk, tsk,” Stark shook his head. “Did you learn that kind of language in your posh English school? Treat it. I’ll cover for a while.” He popped back up and fired a few more rounds.
Golzari slapped a trauma pad in a bandage around his forearm as Stark kept firing, moving toward the row of columns on his right to get a clear view of the truck. The Somalis had tried to get the truck up the slope, but it had stalled after a few yards. The men were outside it now, sheltering behind the truck body, but their calves and ankles were visible beneath it. A body shot would be better, Stark thought, but they’re not going to go anywhere without legs. He took the shots. Two Somalis formerly confident of their cover began rolling around in pain.
That meant there were only two left behind the car, though only one was firing. Stark checked to make sure his 9-mm was still secure in his belt, then crouched and peered around further to the right. The missing Somali was running up the far side of the slope, hoping to come up behind Stark and Golzari and put them in a crossfire.
Stark fired another quick burst at the car and then ran toward a ruined column that would give him some cover as he tried to locate the other Somali. As he moved on toward the next column in the line he heard Golzari’s Sig, which both men knew was relatively useless at this range against the remaining Somali at the car. At least Golzari was still firing. Stark bent his head toward what he estimated to be the new position of the running man and, seeing nothing, bounced behind the third column.
“Stark? Where the hell are you?” he heard Golzari call. Stark mad
e his way to the fourth column and peered out again. His target was now crouching behind some rocks. He was looking toward Golzari’s position but still lacked a clear view. He hadn’t seen Stark yet. The Somali moved up another few paces as he continued to exchange fire with Golzari. Thirty yards separated Stark and the Somali. Stark pulled up his Beretta and rested it on the column, using both hands to aim it. He fired one shot, then two more in quick succession. The first shot grazed the Somali’s temple; the second two found their mark and he fell dead.
Stark picked up the M4 and made his way back to the redoubt, signaling Golzari that one more attacker was down. A few bullets hit the stones, their vector indicating that they had been fired from the direction of the truck. At best estimate, two from the car were unharmed and three were dead while three who had been with the truck were injured plus one dead. Injured or not, they were clearly not yet out of the game.
“How do you want to handle this, Golzari?”
“Do you have any clear shots?”
Stark stood and again settled the M4 on the stone, sighting the truck. “One of the downed guys is against the far tire. All I see is a foot. Two are crowded behind the other one.” He shifted toward the car. “Shit, one of them is getting in the car.” Stark took aim from 350 yards at the front right and rear right tires, flattening them as the car limped away. He fired at the rear window, shattering it, but the car continued. He didn’t have another clear shot at the driver. The five surviving attackers were waving their AK-47s after the retreating car.
“You were right,” Stark said; “they’re not professionals. One of them just drove away and left the others behind. I managed to hit a couple of tires.”
“It’s better than nothing. We can’t advance on these guys without cover.” Smoke was still billowing from the shattered embassy SUV, but in the still air it offered no smokescreen to give them cover.
“That smoke should tell folks we’re here, anyway,” Golzari said. “Or maybe it won’t. There don’t seem to be many people out here, and the ones who are all want to kill us.”
“Do you think we can hold them off another twenty minutes?”
“We’ve done pretty well so far, haven’t we?”
“Maybe. Can you fire your M4?”
“Not accurately.”
“I don’t need you to be accurate. Hold on.”
From his own go-bag Stark retrieved his satellite phone and a map of the area.
“This is Highland One Bravo, request immediate emergency extraction. Condition two. Repeat, this is Highland One Bravo . . .” He added map coordinates and then turned off the phone.
“If you can cover me, Golzari, I can get a better view of them. Just keep them thinking.”
“Ready when you are.”
“Go!”
Golzari began firing toward the truck in two-round bursts a few seconds apart, ready to reload when needed while Stark advanced toward the remains of the embassy vehicle, pulling up his shirt to protect his mouth and nose from the noxious fumes. Stark moved diagonally downhill toward the truck, keeping his weapon in firing position.
The men’s voices grew louder as he closed on their location. He crouched low to the ground looking for an opportunity and a line of fire. The change of location was beginning to make a difference. He could see more of their lower limbs. They weren’t returning fire, just trying to figure a way out. He continued to crawl and advance on them, going straight downhill now.
After another forty yards he stopped and waited for one of the Somalis to make a mistake. He didn’t wait long. One of them leaned down below the truck to see what was happening. Stark, without any cover at all, was clearly visible. That sight was the last thing the Somali saw before one of Stark’s bullets took out half of his skull.
Two scampered for the rocks, offering Stark larger targets. With four more shots the Battle of Bar’an Temple was over. The Knights Hospitaller had won.
Golzari descended to the truck as Stark ensured that all the remaining Somali attackers were dead. “Nice work,” he admitted. It was the closest to a thank-you he could generate at the moment. He searched the bodies for anything that might identify them. There was nothing but some money.
“Anything?”
“Small currency. The one who drove away? It looked like Asha.”
“Asha seems pretty central to all this.”
“It was just an accident that I was able to tie him into it.” Golzari was looking over the truck one more time.
“What do you mean?”
Golzari decided it was time to confide in Stark and told him the whole story of his investigation.
Stark was an interested audience. “How many kids go to that college?” he asked.
“About two thousand.”
“Is it just a coincidence that Asha became involved with the deputy secretary of state’s son?”
“Not likely.” Golzari rechecked the currency the Somalis had been carrying and this time noticed foreign currency mixed in. “Russian rubles, Chinese yuan, Indian rupees, Philippine pesos. Want to guess why they’re together?”
“Easy. Those are the most common nationalities at sea—and the ones most commonly taken by pirates.”
Golzari pulled a gold watch from his pocket. “This is the piece that sent us down this path. This is what Johnny Dunner found in the container of khat he picked up in Boston: a watch belonging to a merchant captain whose ship was taken by pirates. It was in an envelope addressed to Asha.”
“This attack certainly fits the pirates’ MO,” Stark noted. “An ambush using a couple of vehicles. A couple of RPGs, some AK-47s, but not the smarts to finish when someone actually fights back.”
“I don’t like the way this is shaping up, old man. Asha and al-Ghaydah, a guy who works—worked—for your friend, Mutahar.”
“Correction. He used family influence to worm his way in. Mutahar never wanted him.”
“Any chance Mutahar is al-Yemeni?”
“None. He could have had me killed anytime and anywhere. Even on the estate.”
“But in the Arab culture you don’t mistreat a guest.”
“Let’s assume that. Why would he have invested in the meetings with the other officials?”
“To find out what you know?” Golzari probed.
“I don’t know anything.”
“Hmm, I’ll leave that one alone for now. Maybe it’s someone else, someone using the biggest shipping company in Yemen to secure knowledge of port activity. Here’s a copy of the list of ships that had checkmarks next to it that I took from al-Ghaydah’s office. You’ll note that they’re all ships that were attacked by pirates.”
“Including the Kirkwall,” Stark commented as he scanned the list.
“The Kirkwall and the two ships it escorted,” Golzari corrected. “Al-Ghaydah was tipping off the pirates. He knew the cargo, time of departure, and next port of call for each.”
“The only time they ever attacked a security ship, though, was when I was aboard.”
“That’s the only variable that I can think of, too.”
“Scotland, the Kirkwall, and now here. I’ve been the target all along.”
“Defense attachés have always been targets, Commander. The terrorist group November 17 in Greece killed a couple of DATTs awhile back.”
“They didn’t attack my predecessor. And in Scotland I wasn’t the DATT yet . . . actually, that’s not entirely right. I had just gotten my orders to return to duty.”
“Do the other factions in Yemen know about your close relationship with the ruling family?”
“Probably. It’s no secret.”
“Maybe they just wanted to make a point to the U.S. government and take out someone in the military.”
That’s when it struck Connor. “No, not just military. The military adviser.”
“You have something?”
“Mutahar’s firstborn, Faisal. He showed up at the estate before you, so he didn’t know you would be there, and he left after get
ting the call about Ahmed’s death. Before you arrived, while we were watching Ali swim, he called me a military adviser.”
“He could be al-Yemeni,” Golzari said. “He has ties to the shipping company. You said he used to run drugs on his own boat.”
“But he was attacked by pirates,” said Stark.
“Was he attacked, or was it a drug deal gone wrong?”
“If he is al-Yemeni, why would he do it? He’s a member of the ruling family. His father is one of the richest men in the country and he’s the oldest son, meaning that he will inherit it all someday. He certainly doesn’t need the money. Unless he has some other motivation . . .” Stark stopped for a moment’s reflection. Then he continued slowly. “I’m remembering another Yemeni son. His father was a rich man who built things for the Saudi royal family. He took a different path and decided to destroy rather than build. He became a terrorist and started his very own worldwide network.”
“Bin Laden?”
“Bin Laden.”
“All right, then, Commander. We have work to do. We need to get back to the embassy. We can take this truck.”
“We have help arriving soon, and it’ll be a lot safer and quicker in the air.”
“Who did you call?”
“Mercs. You know, people like me.”
They limped back up the hill together as the familiar thump-thump-thump of a helicopter’s rotors sounded in the distance.
“You did well, Commander,” Golzari said as he picked up his bag.
Stark extended his hand, “Connor.”
Golzari returned the gesture with his good arm. “Damien.”
Their clasp grew firmer in a final competition of wills.
Mar’ib, 0307 (GMT)
As Ali entered the stable, one of the estate’s workers emerged from a stall and walked directly toward him. In his hand was a piece of cloth. Ali sensed something wrong and took a step backward against his bodyguard. The bodyguard grabbed Ali’s arms and held him. Before the boy could scream, the other man was upon him, pressing the chloroform-soaked cloth against his face. Ali struggled for a few moments, trying not to inhale, but inevitably he did.
The Aden Effect Page 22
