Brilliant streaks of red and white flares darted skyward, some going off like giant fireworks while others drifted back to earth beneath small parachutes that painted ghastly white or scarlet red shadows that stretched and danced. Taghavi’s Iranians advanced almost in step, easy on their triggers but mowing down any armed opposition. Smoke grenades burst to cover the advancing troops; then stun grenades were bounced into the lobby and other ground-floor entrances to detonate with sudden crashes that immobilized everyone inside.
The flanks circled the hotel, with the opposite ends closing together almost shoulder to shoulder, and when the raiders realized that they were now the ones under attack and tried to escape, there was no hole to be found in the security cordon. They were killed one by one, or in small groups, and those who tried to jump from windows were shot when they hit the ground.
The Iranians took control of the ground floor within four minutes, then went through the hotel room by room, methodically clearing the spaces and taking down any gunmen they found. Their orders had been clear: Once the hotel was recaptured, the soldiers switched into a friendly mode toward the surviving civilians. Medical personnel rendered first aid until emergency services ambulances arrived and were allowed to enter. Even the few police cars that showed up were given protection, and the cops were allowed to take over crowd control. Several photographers were escorted into the hellish scene to document what they found.
During the counterattack on the Blue Neptune, the raiders at the other hotels stopped shooting and fled into the night, so that by the time the rescue parties of Sharm police accompanied by Iranian soldiers arrived, little fighting was encountered, although still more flares zoomed skyward, smoke grenades loosed clouds of color and weapons were fired to maintain the façade of fierce fighting.
It took about an hour to clear all of the buildings. Then the Iranians stood aside and let the civilians and the medics mop up the carnage among the civilians while the Iranian troops collected the bodies of the impostors dressed like Egyptian troops. The corpses would be hauled back to the ship for disposal far from curious eyes.
Lieutenant Taghavi radioed Major Shakuri. “We’re done, sir. Mission accomplished.”
THE AIRPORT
Good luck for him, bad for them. Kyle saw the pair of headlights approaching along the service road, then heard the growl of the engine, and he rolled into a ditch until the car drove past. There were two soldiers in it, the passenger laughing at something the driver had said. Swanson got out of the ditch and resumed his journey, breathing easily and watching the taillights grow smaller before they flared bright when the driver hit the brakes.
It came to a halt only fifty yards from the runway, not far from the golden glow of landing lights bordering the right side of the approach path, and that illumination compromised their night vision. Kyle slowed his pace and angled his head down and away so the glare would not affect him as much. The soldiers got out and stretched, looking around but seeing nothing of interest because Kyle had flopped back into the ditch and was crawling forward on his hands and knees while listening to them talk. He lowered to his belly, slithered even closer in a measured stalk, dumped his gear, and pulled a razor-edged knife as he waited for the roar that he knew would come.
In less than two minutes, the next big plane came settling in, angling toward the runway while the pilot kept the nose up like some prehistoric giant bird, and the sudden howl of the engines drowned out all normal sound. It was only natural for the two guards to turn and watch it land. It was just as natural for Swanson to use that moment to break cover and kill them both.
He first took the guy on the right, who was standing a bit behind the other, with his head conveniently tilted far back, looking up at the plane. Kyle snaked his left arm over the exposed shoulder and brought his forearm hard against the nose and mouth. A kick behind the right knee forced the man off balance and arched him against Kyle, who snatched up and back hard to stretch the neck even more. A single, rapid left-to-right deep tear with the blade took out the windpipe and main arteries with a ripping sound, followed by a gush of dark red blood. The sound was lost in the roar of the plane engines, but the sudden blur of motion caught the attention of the other guard.
With his surprise gone, this would have to be a scramble kill, and Kyle launched an unrelenting attack with deadly purpose. The body of his first victim was still against him, so Swanson kicked and threw it directly into the startled second soldier. He followed in immediately and hard, taking the man to the ground while stabbing wildly around the body between them, slashing the stomach and legs of the man on the bottom. Swanson violently pushed aside the first victim and mauled the second, who was already in shock and great pain, with his upper body now exposed to the assault. Swanson clamped his left hand over the man’s mouth and pushed the point of the knife deep into the stomach, up behind the ribs and into the heart area, then twisted hard and sawed and cut and watched impassively as life left the man’s eyes and the bowels and bladder let go. Kyle pulled the blade free, wiped it, and rolled the corpses into the ditch. They would be discovered easily, but that was unimportant.
By Kyle’s count, that airplane had been the eleventh big transport to land, and he had no way of knowing if it was the last or if more were coming. He could still see distant lights in the sky, though, and since Omar had confirmed the airport was closed to civilian traffic, it was logical that at least a couple more Iranian aircraft were on the way in the initial lift of troops. They had been arriving at the rate of one transport every fifteen minutes. He would proceed on that assumption and try to slow things down and let the Iranians know everybody was not playing by their rules.
Swanson understood that he was acting without orders, going on instincts that had been honed in battles of years past. One of his personal mottos was that it was sometimes better to ask forgiveness than to seek permission, and he was doing what he thought was in the best interests of his country. It was not the first time that he had run an unauthorized mission. Covert missions were run all over the world, all the time, and this one just happened to fall into his lap. The paperwork would just have to catch up. Official condemnations might erupt later, but any negative fallout would go elsewhere, while Kyle shuffled out the back door as an unseen force.
Meanwhile, he was right here, right now, with a window of opportunity, a bag full of explosives, and nobody asking questions.
17
Swanson sprinted across the runway, shifting his gaze from the landing lights of the approaching plane to the faraway terminal that was crowded with assembled troops. He did not really have a plan other than wreak some havoc, and the easiest way to do that was to blow some shit up — set the decrepit fuel tank truck afire, crater the runway, or even attack the tower. The most bang for his buck would come from the fuel truck, for it did not matter whether or not it was full of aviation gasoline. The trapped vapors from the last load would be more than enough to amplify the explosion, which would distract the attention of the pilot, and after that, who knew?
The U.S. armed forces had learned a lot about improvised explosive devices, the lash-up planted charges that the bad guys had popularized to face the mechanized American military during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not that hard to make, an IED could pop a Humvee apart like a firecracker under a turtle. He ran to the truck with a brick of C-4 plastic explosive already in his hand. A sharp knock on the round fuel tank resounded with a dull thud, indicating that it still contained a good amount of fuel, which made him smile.
He crawled beneath the truck and secured the C-4 directly below the tank so the explosion would point upward, like an erupting volcano. The ignition sequence would come from a blasting cap triggered by a cheap cell phone, all of which had been part of the Lizard’s kit of supplies. With that done, he punched nine digits of the ten-digit telephone number into his satellite phone, then crawled back from beneath the filthy belly of the truck, glancing over his right shoulder. Another cargo plane coming down fast, w
ith its landing gear already extended and the engines growing to a howl that made his insides shudder. Swanson did not look at his watch as he ran, for the exact time was unimportant. Either he made it back to the ditch in the next few seconds, or he would be cooked alive by his own inferno. The hard concrete of the runway gave way beneath his pounding boots to softer dirt as the noise of the approaching plane screamed even louder.
Five more steps at a dead run and he hurled himself forward and rolled into the depression. The plane engines were close and deafening as the big bird rode toward touchdown. He planted his face in the dirt, held the sat phone up high, and pressed the final digit of the cell phone number that would trigger the booby trap beneath the truck. In the millisecond prior to the connection, he hoped that Sir Isaac Newton was right with his First Law of Motion: Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it. That meant that the heavy airplane going better than a hundred miles per hour and pointing away from him would normally maintain that momentum and direction until the brakes were applied and the thrusters reversed. Another external force was going to change that orderly line of movement, and Kyle’s bomb sparked just as the aircraft was almost directly beside the tanker truck.
The sudden explosion sheared off part of the left wing, tore away an engine, bounced the plane straight up off the runway again, and started it into an out-of-control forward cartwheel while still moving at about a hundred miles per hour. It slid and skipped in a typhoon of golden sparks and lateral trails of flame; then the entire tail section snapped away under the structural stress. The wreckage finally came to a slow, agonizing stop about halfway down the runway, with the front half plowing into the open field beside the concrete strip. There, it settled for a heartbeat before it went up in a whoosh of flames.
Huddled in the ditch, Swanson had opened his mouth and put his hands over his ears as the concussive wave of the blast shook him, then curled into a protective ball while debris from the dying plane splattered the runway like deadly rain. When things quieted, he looked up and saw the aircraft carcass burning hot. He climbed to his feet and hurried to the patrol car, turned on the engine, and drove away with no lights. Although he heard distant screams, no thought was given to how many people he had just killed. That was the job. Just a little shock and awe to start the day, fellas. Welcome to Egypt.
* * *
The safe house was a furnished apartment on an upper floor of a high-rise building about two miles from the west gate of the airport. A cluster of similar office and apartment buildings had grown up in the space as Sharm el-Sheikh had flourished on the tip of the Egyptian peninsula, drawing in tourists, businesses, and new residents who smelled money. Parked cars and small trucks lined the curbs, and Swanson dumped the stolen auto among a clutch of older vehicles parked in a line in a small lot of sand and downtrodden weeds. Numbers had been scrawled on some windshields with whitewash; it was a used car lot just like those that can be found anywhere in the world. Leaving the keys in the ignition, he was confident that it would soon be stolen.
A siren was wailing urgently at the airport as he shouldered his bag and, sticking to the walls and shadows, walked to the rear of the high-rise and took the service elevator up to the twelfth floor.
The British intelligence service, MI6, had purchased the condominium during an advance sale even before the building was completed because it provided not only a safe haven but also put eyes on the airport, just as there were similar observation posts near the port and the oil transfer stations. The place was leased to a traveling business executive who did not exist, all bills were automatically paid through a local bank, and the pantry and refrigerator were kept stocked. Kyle rapped three times on the door and heard someone come, then pause to check the TV security camera screen. The heavy steel door swung open easily on oiled hinges. “Come in. Quickly,” said Omar. “Something has happened.”
Large windows in the apartment faced the airport, and Tianha Bialy was at the tripod of a long telescope that was focused on the inferno burning beside the runway. Plumes of fire-retardant foam and water were being sprayed onto the wreckage. “A plane has crashed,” she said.
“I see that,” responded Kyle. “What else is happening?” He dropped the bag and went into the kitchen to get a bottle of cold water.
Omar was watching the scene through a pair of binos. “Some of the troops on the ground responded out there along with the usual emergency vehicles. The others are still moving into formations. There is no real sign of panic.”
Kyle joined them at the windows. “Have any other troop carriers landed since the crash?”
“No. The next one in the landing pattern climbed back to altitude and I guess will lead the rest of them in an orbit to await orders. It does not look like the runway has been permanently impaired, so they might have enough fuel to stay up there until things are cleared away. Are you hurt?”
Tianha looked up for the first time and saw that Swanson was filthy dirty, with dark streaks of dried blood painting his tunic. “My God, Kyle, you look awful!” She looked back at the fire, then at him again. “Did you have something to do with that?”
“No, of course not. I was just doing some recon and ran into a couple of guys and we had a disagreement. Anyway, I didn’t have an antiaircraft gun on me. That looks like an accident. Did you report to London?” Deflect. Answer a question with one of your own.
“Yes. They were to pass everything on to Washington. I’m to stay put and continue to feed information.”
“Sounds about right,” Swanson said, chugging the last water from the bottle. He took the sat phone from his pack and headed for the bedroom. “So I had better check in, too. Time for E.T. to call home.”
CAIRO
Well, now. Someone was not playing by the rules, and Colonel Yahya Ali Naqdi of Iran’s Army of the Guardians had an idea who the troublemakers might be.
Major Mansoor Shakuri, his chief of staff, had telephoned from Sharm in a panic to report what appeared to be a deliberate attack that had brought down one of the incoming Iranian transports, with the loss of about two hundred soldiers. Tension and worry laced his voice.
Distance between the action in Sharm and the colonel’s desk in Cairo had the merit of allowing him to stay on the big picture of the overall invasion, while the major was swept up by emotion. The attack on the hotels had been carried out without any real difficulty, and the force from the beach was right on schedule. The number of troops at the airport was gradually increasing and the major said the runway would soon be open again to accept the remaining aircraft. Security was being increased to prevent further attacks.
The deaths of some two hundred soldiers was not a true disaster, for the colonel had estimated that even more might have been lost before the foothold was secured. It was the way they died that grabbed his attention. According to the major, a fuel truck parked by the runway detonated just as the plane was landing beside it, and the disaster resulted. That was no accident. Fuel tanks don’t just conveniently blow up when a military airliner passes over.
Naqdi spent a while settling down the excited major and encouraging him to continue his good work, promising that he would not be held responsible for what had happened. Their daring attempt to bring down the Egyptian government, close the Suez Canal, control the oil flow, and pose a direct threat to Israel was fraught with risk.
All the while, the colonel’s disciplined mind had been thinking about other things, particularly some soft messages that had been vibrating along the Egyptian underground intelligence web; the man known as the Pharaoh should come out of hiding and make his presence known. The contact whom the powers in London and Washington and Cairo wanted the Pharaoh to meet was an agent of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, and the accompanying schedule showed that the fellow actually was in Sharm. That was expanded with later information that an MI6 agent wanted the meeting. CIA and MI6 agents on the loose in Sharm, and a killed airpla
ne; too much to be a coincidence.
The colonel instructed Major Shakuri to launch a manhunt for an American named Kyle Swanson and a British woman by the name of Tianha Baily but did not tell him why.
THE SAFE HOUSE
“Are you staying in trouble, I hope?” The deep voice of Major General Bradley Middleton rumbled firm and decisive over the satellite phone, although he was thousands of miles away in the Pentagon office where he commanded Trident.
“Yes, sir. I think you might say that.”
“Good. Well, Gunny Swanson, I have you on the speaker here, and the rest of the team with me. Give us a sitrep.”
Kyle had been putting his thoughts in order ever since he saw the first boats hit the beach. “A large force of Iranian troops has invaded Egypt and seized control of Sharm el-Sheikh. They did not bring any heavy weapons that I could see, but some small artillery pieces might be arriving by boat or plane. Another force attacked the tourist hotels hard, with unknown casualties. They were dressed like Egyptian army but neither looked nor acted that way. I think they were plants. We now have eyes on the airport, where one of about fifteen troop-carrying planes crashed on approach. The runway was partially blocked. That’s about all I know at this point.”
There was a momentary silence on the other end; then the general spoke again. “You are certain that the soldiers are Iranian.”
“Without a doubt, sir. I met a couple of them up close and personal. Their ID cards said they were with the Revolutionary Guard.”
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