by Chuck Holton
Then it hit. They had come to rescue Julie! She climbed to her feet as relief surged. She wouldn’t have to do this on her own.
John looked quickly behind the desk. He frowned at Liz, obviously less than pleased to see her. “What are you doing here?”
At least he talks to me now. “Looking for Julie.”
He held a finger to his lips. “Shhh…you’re shouting. Your ears are still ringing from the shooting.”
“Yours aren’t?”
“Earplugs. You mean Julie, your sister, right?”
Interesting that after all this time he still remembered she had a sister.
“She’s here?” He didn’t sound convinced.
“You haven’t been watching the news?”
Recognition splashed across his face. “The hostage? That’s Julie?” John frowned. “But she had an Arabic name.”
So much for the thought that he was here to save Julie. He didn’t even know she was the hostage. “She’s married to a Lebanese man.” Liz sighed. “Or she was. He was killed in that hotel bombing a few weeks ago.”
John held up a hand, then put it to the side of his head. “Roger that. Two KIA, one enemy captured and one civilian. One escaped. No friendly casualties. Relay to Valor Six that we are searching the premises. And get an ETA from the choppers. Valor One, out.”
“Did I mess up your operation?” Liz asked, afraid of the answer.
John shook his head and motioned to the body on the floor. “Who’s he?”
“His name is Azmi.” Her voice caught, and she couldn’t stifle the little tremor. “We were standing here talking, and they burst in and killed him.” Tears filled her eyes. “He was going to get help for his little boy so he could walk again.”
She looked at the picture taped to the wall.
God, who’s going to help Azmi’s son walk now? Another chink in her “all things work for good” theology.
John grunted. “So who is he?”
Liz blinked back the tears. “The night watchman, I think. A man who was supposed to be able to tell me where Julie is.”
“What made you think he’d know?”
“Someone told me that he might be able to help me find her. John, they’re going to kill her soon if their prisoners aren’t released.” Even saying it made Liz’s heart contract painfully.
“I saw that on TV at the hotel.” One of John’s men looked up from his prisoner, who was crying like a twelve-year-old girl and babbling in Arabic. “The kneeling girl.”
“And you came looking for her?” John asked, disbelief written all over his face.
Liz nodded.
“All by yourself? Unarmed? Into South Lebanon? Into a refugee camp? Are you crazy?”
Liz concentrated on the anger his attitude engendered. That way she could forget Azmi lying dead and his son who needed him and the dead Palestinian and the arsenal hanging on John and his men and the still missing Julie.
She scowled. “Well, someone has to look for her before she gets killed. No one else seems interested.”
John shook his head. “You’re lucky you aren’t dead, too.”
She did not appreciate either his sentiment or his tone of voice. Her nerves were raw enough without his yelling at her. “Well I didn’t kill anyone!”
She knew the statement was foolish the moment it left her mouth. He was a soldier. Of course he might have to kill people in the line of duty. It was what soldiers did.
And she couldn’t help wondering how much of her anger was because he’d hurt her three years ago and ignored her earlier today. Make that yesterday. Foolish as it might be, especially considering the circumstances, seeing him roused all of that old pain.
“Oh, and you’re upset because I shot him?” John indicated the dead terrorist. “He’d have happily carved your head off with a dull knife and mounted it on his mantelpiece.”
She looked at him defiantly. “Don’t commit violence to save me.” It was the position with which she had been raised, and she said it to irritate him as he was irritating her.
He tossed her a sarcastic half salute. “Yes, ma’am.” Then he brushed past her and into the darkness of the warehouse, barking orders to the other men.
If Liz was honest, she had to admit that her opinions had undergone a sea change in the last few weeks. The transformation had begun with Julie’s kidnapping, escalated when she saw the pictures of Julie under the sword, and finished its one-eighty when the assault rifle had been pointed at her. Suddenly she did not want to die, and when the despicable man fell under the bullets from John’s gun, she had been very thankful it was him and not her.
Not that she would tell John. He was too full of himself as it was. She looked at Azmi again with genuine sorrow and a growing hopelessness. “He never had a chance to tell me what he knew.”
John’s man, still guarding his prisoner, looked intrigued. “He didn’t say anything at all?”
“He didn’t have a chance to say much of anything. He just sort of looked at that room over there.” Liz pointed. “He got out ‘not’ just as they burst in.”
“John!” The soldier gestured to the room, then looked at Liz. “Stay here, and if he moves,” he indicated the bound man, “kick him in the teeth.” He paused, as if a thought suddenly struck him, then smiled at her. “Oh, by the way, I’m Frank.”
She glanced at the Palestinian on the floor. Kick him in the teeth. Right. Before she could tell Frank what she thought of that idea, he turned and joined John at the faded wooden door.
Liz watched with interest as they kicked in the door and went in low, guns ready. When no shooting erupted, she ran to the room. She had to see for herself what was or wasn’t in there.
Frank turned to leave and found her in the doorway. “I thought I told you to stay.”
She barely heard him. “No Julie?”
But he was gone. Surprisingly, John took the time to answer.
“I’m sorry. The room’s empty.”
Even though she had known deep inside that Julie wasn’t here because there had been no answering cries to her calls, she lowered her head and stared blindly at the floor. John and his men ignored her as they continued their quick and thorough search of the warehouse, and she ignored them.
But hope was hard to kill completely.
So she’s not here now. Maybe she was.
Liz peered around the door hanging drunkenly from one hinge. Nothing but darkness. She reached inside the door and felt for a switch. None. Taking a deep breath, she walked into the room, swinging her hand over her head, hoping to find a dangling cord. When she did, she pulled it, and the room was filled with a weak light.
The cell was small, windowless, and chill. A cot was pushed against one wall, and a pot with a lid sat in one corner, obviously the substitute for a commode if the smell was any indication.
She walked to the cot and placed her hand on the thin blanket covering it. “Julie?”
There was, of course, no answer. Liz dropped to the cot, trying to imagine her sister trapped in this anonymous cell, terrified, alone, her arthritis flaring. With a sigh she rose. As she did, she caught sight of some scratches on the wall beside the cot. She bent to them, balancing herself with one hand on the cot. With her free hand she traced the scratchings.
JFA.
Julie Fairchild Assan! She had been here! Liz felt lightheaded at this confirmation. But when? How long?
Was she here when I interviewed Hanan? Probably. Maybe. How ironic to know that she had been so close and not known, not even suspected.
A head poked in the door. “We’ve got to move, ma’am.”
“In a minute.” She reached to trace the letters again.
John pushed into the room. “Out, Liz.”
“She was here, John! Look. Her initials.”
“Liz, we can’t stay here. We’ve kicked up a pretty big anthill. We’ve got to go.” He put a hand in the small of her back and pushed her gently but firmly from the room.
“Hey!�
� She tried to step away, but he took her by the arm.
“We’re leaving.”
“So go.” She swatted at his hand.
“Fine. Just know that if you stay, you’re going to die. We’re about to blow this building.”
She blinked. Suddenly, she didn’t mind tagging along.
“Hey, Coop,” yelled one of John’s men. “Check this out!”
John went to investigate, and Liz followed. The man moved the beam of a penlight over an empty metal shipping carton, painted green. It was unlabeled. The inside was filled with gray foam padding, with six round holes, each about three inches in diameter, laid out in two evenly spaced rows.
“What do you make of it, Coop?”
John shook his head. “Could be anything. But get pictures. You never know.”
One of the men pulled a digital camera from a vest pocket. He quickly snapped several pictures of the padded shipping container.
“Okay, we’re out of here!” John ordered as the man stowed his camera back in his vest.
Before she realized what was happening, Liz found herself running out of the building behind John. The other black-clad soldiers followed, two of them dragging the bound terrorist and depositing him unceremoniously in a dumpster across the street.
The last man out the door shouted, “Fire in the hole!”
Everyone scrambled into an old cargo van, and just as the door slid closed, the building behind her erupted in a huge ball of black smoke. Liz flinched instinctively as the concussion rocked the van.
“Wait! My car! And purse. And Julie’s meds.”
“Forget your car,” John growled in her ear. “Think about saving your life instead.”
Soccer Field, Sainiq Refugee Camp
JOHN KNELT in the bare dirt of what passed for a soccer field in the refugee camp. He had one hand on the rear bumper of the van, the other holding firmly to Liz Fairchild’s left arm.
“Exfil three-zero seconds out.” Sweeney pressed his finger to his ear to hear his radio better.
“Get ready to move,” John ordered her.
“You’re hurting me!” Her eyes flashed with anger.
He eased his grip a bit. “Sorry. Just stay close to me.” He hated the way she looked at him, as if she’d just found out he was the Unabomber. As if it were his fault she’d been snooping around their objective. Still, he had to admire her courage in coming here, no matter how idiotic the move.
“Hey, Coop, we’ve got company!” Frank came running from where he had been emplacing infrared chem-lights to signal the choppers. He knelt next to John, panting heavily. “Two vehicles coming down the road in a hurry.”
John nodded. “Take Rip and Hogan, and set up over by that stone wall. I’ll stay here with Doc and Sweeney.” He heard rotor blades thumping in the distance. Then his radio chirped. “Valor One, this is Yellow-three-three, over.”
He grabbed his mike. “This is Valor One. Go.”
The pilot of the Special-Ops helicopter came back, his voice dispassionate and unhurried, as if he were calling about a misfiled form, not about dropping a multimillion dollar Black Hawk into a hot landing zone. “This is Yellow-three-three. We are on final at LZ football, and have your IR markers, over.”
The sound of the rotors came closer, but John still couldn’t see the aircraft. He pressed the transmit button in his hand. “Roger, three-three. Be advised, there are two vehicles approaching from the south, possibly hostile. Can you take them out? Over.”
“I see them. Stand by.”
John watched the wildly bouncing headlights as they sped toward the soccer field. They were less than a hundred meters distant when his radio beeped again.
“Valor One, keep your heads down. We’re going to shake them up a bit.”
Three seconds later the black helicopter screamed by over their heads, its stubby wing pods sporting barrel-like rocket launchers.
“Get down,” John ordered Liz, wrapping a muscular arm around her.
A split second after that, flame spouted from the launchers, accompanied by a loud whoosh.
Liz looked up to see what was happening. In the next instant the lead vehicle disappeared in a ball of flame. Frank let out a whoop. Liz screamed.
“Stay down!” John pushed her back to the ground.
The second vehicle swerved around the fireball and kept coming.
The helicopter pulled up and went around for another pass. It probably wouldn’t complete its turn before the car was on them. John watched intently. When the vehicle was only fifty yards away, he raised his rifle and let off a sustained burst, sending several red tracers into the grille of the speeding car. The other members of the team opened up on it as well.
The car skidded to a halt, and four doors flew open. Almost immediately, its occupants returned fire.
John grabbed Liz again and yelled at Doc Kelly. “Get her behind the van!”
The medic took her arm and pulled her around to the side farthest from the incoming rounds.
The helicopter came in for a second pass. This time, however, it hovered sideways directly above John. The minigunner on one side opened up with his 7.62mm Vulcan cannon. A solid line of tracers lit the sky, homing in on the car like a laser beam. Sparks erupted all around the vehicle as hot lead poured into it, ripping the air with a sound like a giant zipper.
John ducked his head as hot shell casings poured down around him. His radio crackled in his ear.
Doc Kelly yelled, “More vehicles coming on this side!”
John jumped to his feet just as one of the rear van windows shattered. Staying low, he charged around the van in time to see men spilling out of the back of a small pickup truck on the north side of the LZ.
He emptied his magazine in their direction, then grabbed his radio to call the chopper. But it had already seen the newcomers. The minigun on that side of the aircraft let loose with a burst that again rained hot brass on his helmet.
Liz made a surprised, frightened sound as shells fell on her, too. And without protective earplugs, the noise forced her to clamp her hands over her ears.
“Under!” John pointed to the van. Liz, eyes wide, slid under the van without a word of protest.
As he slammed home another magazine, a man stepped from behind one of the vehicles and raised a long metal tube to his shoulder.
RPG! John keyed his mike and shouted, “Three-three, pull out, PULL OUT!”
Too late! The rocket-propelled grenade traced a faint line from the end of the tube to the tail of the Black Hawk in a fraction of a second. With a sound like a car wreck in the air, the helicopter lurched and rolled off to one side, its miniguns still spitting flame. As the huge black bird pulled out of its roll and gained altitude, the smoke trailed from its tail section.
Sweeney cursed and dropped the man holding the RPG with a burst from his weapon.
The pilot’s voice sounded in John’s ear again, unfazed as ever. “This is Yellow three-three. We’ve taken a hit and are losing hydraulics. Sorry, boys, but we’re out of this fight.”
John fired a few more rounds toward the vehicles to the north. Then the night fell strangely quiet. There didn’t seem to be any more fire from the south, and the men who had come in the second set of vehicles were either out of commission or keeping their heads down. He looked down at Doc Kelly, who was lying along the side of the van, shielding Liz with his body. “You okay?”
The medic got to his knees and reached a hand down to help Liz out from underneath the van. “We’re okay. What do you say we leave this little party?”
“You got it. Hold tight for a sec.”
Frank, Rip, and Hogan came running from their positions and reported six killed in action from the first set of vehicles.
The major’s voice came over John’s radio, calling from the airbase in Jordan. “Valor One, this is Valor Six, over.”
He keyed the mike. “Go, Six.”
“Any casualties, John? Sounds like you all had your hands full.”
&nbs
p; “Negative friendly casualties. Approximately ten enemy KIA. And we need that CSAR bird in here quick before anyone else shows up.”
“There’s a problem, John. Your aircraft went down in a field about two miles from your location, and the rescue bird is going in to get them now. You’ll need to pull out and proceed to your alternate Pickup Zone, PZ Hockey. We’ll have the CSAR bird pick you up there after they get the crew of the Black Hawk on board. It’ll be a tight fit, but they should still be able to pack your team on board, over.”
“Roger. Pull out to PZ Hockey, over.”
“Do it quick, John. The CSAR bird should be there in about one-five minutes. Also, be advised that Phoenix just came in with a report that Washington is getting angry phone calls from the Lebanese government.”
Already? John’s jaw clenched. Wonderful. “Roger that. Valor One, out.”
He quickly looked over the van, noting the broken glass and several bullet holes. “Hey, Bobby, you think this thing still runs? We’ve got to pull out to our alternate PZ.”
“I think so.” The blond sergeant yanked open the driver’s door. Before he could climb inside, a volley of bullets cracked past their position, one of them starring the front windshield. Liz jumped and gave a little scream. Everyone ducked. Frank, Rip, and Hogan returned fire.
“Go! Go!” John waved Doc Kelly into the van. “And take her with you!”
While Doc pushed Liz into the van and crawled in after her, Sweeny leaped into the driver’s seat and fired up the engines. He threw the van in gear and did a hard U-turn back toward the warehouse, spraying gravel.
“Get in! Go!” John thundered at Rip, Frank, and Hogan. As his men climbed in the side door of the van, John emptied his magazine in the direction of the shooters. Just as Sweeney accelerated, he dove through the open side door.
Lebanese Countryside
Liz sat in the van, her back against the vehicle’s side. All around her were men in black body armor, each bristling with weapons. She could see the bullet-riddled front window and the missing back window—not that she could actually see something that was missing—and the holes where the gunfire had penetrated the van.
