by Chuck Holton
Her nerves crackled and danced like the wildest of dervishes. It was all she could do not to twitch with the potent combination of fear and adrenaline.
She’d lived in the Middle East long enough to have seen the abuse committed by some in the military. She’d seen Israeli and Lebanese soldiers harass Palestinians at checkpoints just because they had the power and Syrian soldiers swagger through Beirut, throwing off authority sparks that would consume anyone who challenged them.
And she’d seen the evidence of the Palestinians’ counteroffensive. Ansar Inshallah, Hezbollah, Hamas—it didn’t matter. They all used terrorist tactics to exert some leverage in the uneven struggle for clout, for power.
And here she was, surrounded by fighting men. Granted they were Americans, but they were still soldiers.
A fallen world needs soldiers, she reminded herself. Someone has to protect and defend the good guys, or the bad guys would win. It was like the need for police to curtail local lawlessness. The military was to hold nationalistic aggression at bay if at all possible and to stand against that threat when it became uncontainable.
The van screeched around a corner, throwing her against John who sat on the floor beside her.
“Sorry,” she muttered as she struggled to regain her balance.
“S’okay.” With a gentle push, he righted her.
“The man who escaped the warehouse must have rallied some of his buddies,” Frank said. He was the only one besides John whose name Liz knew. And Doc.
She gazed around the van. One of the men was reloading his weapon. Another was checking the pockets on his vest. She knew from bumping into John that the vest was hard, probably Kevlar. She had dated a guy at UVA who had a Kevlar canoe. Lightweight. Indestructible. She had never imagined being surrounded by the stuff in circumstances like this.
What was she doing here? All she wanted was to find Julie. Instead, she’d seen an unarmed man murdered and a bad guy killed nanoseconds before he was able to shoot her. She’d been in a firelight where several others were killed and red hot shell casings fell on her head. A firefight!
She made herself take several deep breaths.
“You’re doing great,” Doc said from his seat against the opposite wall. He grinned at her, completely relaxed, one arm draped over a raised knee. “Just think of the stories you’ve got to tell your grandchildren. It’ll all be declassified by then.”
“If I live to have grandchildren,” she managed as they tore around another corner, throwing her into Frank this time. “Sorry.”
But the word stories broke through her daze. Yikes! She was riding with a bunch of Special Forces guys as they escaped from terrorists. What a story!
They sped through the darkened camp, bouncing wildly at times, whipping around corners. Liz’s teeth rattled as the van lurched and twisted, and she stopped apologizing for slamming against either John or Frank.
“Incoming!” yelled the driver, the blond Southerner. “Hit the deck!” He stood on the brakes.
Before Liz even had time to grasp the news, let alone react, John had her flat on the floor, his arm firmly around her waist as he held her protectively near. She heard a sound like two tractor trailers hitting head on, and this time she knew better than to look. Instead, she burrowed against John and called on heaven with incoherent prayers.
Oh, Lord! Oh, God! Oh, Lord!
The explosion was thunderous. The van rocked and slewed sideways, but somehow the driver kept control, picked up momentum, and sped on.
She felt John lift his head.
“Sweeney?”
“An RPG,” reported the driver, who sounded much calmer than humanly possible. “Hit the wall next to us. All clear.”
John raised himself to his knees. Liz wanted him back. Having his Kevlar between her and the shooting helped allay her fear.
“Did you see who fired?” he asked.
“Two men down that alley back there. On foot. If they decide to come after us, we’ll have plenty of time.”
Plenty of time? Liz stared at the hand John extended to her. How long could it take the bad guys to get to a car and chase them? Maybe next time they wouldn’t miss. Maybe next time Sweeney wouldn’t see them in time to take action.
She took John’s hand and let him pull her to her knees. Plenty of time? Sweeney was nuts. They were all nuts. They did this stuff on purpose!
She looked around the van at the men resuming their seats. Doc said something that made one guy laugh. There wasn’t one nerve among them, she thought indignantly. Of course she had more than enough to go around, twitching as she was.
“Exit coming up,” Sweeney called.
“Hogan, Rip,” John said as he settled beside Liz.
“We’re on it,” the Latino said.
The van slowed, and the two jumped out, leaving the side door open.
In a minute the van passed Rip as he stood on the edge of what looked to be a downed chain-link fence. She assumed Hogan was standing on the fence on the other side of the van. After bumping over the uneven surface, Sweeney slowed again for Rip and Hogan to jump back in.
“Directions?” Sweeney yelled as he drove across scrubby ground.
“In a minute.” Rip pulled an electronic gadget from a vest pocket.
She didn’t bother to listen as Rip called out instructions for getting to the hockey field. Why should she? She didn’t need to know where they were going. Her car was back in the camp, and she wasn’t driving it anywhere anytime soon, if ever.
U.S. Airbase, Jordan
MARY WALKER OPENED the door to the air-conditioned clamshell that was Task Force Valor’s tactical operations center at H-5. She was running on very little sleep and had been trying to catch a quick nap when the shrill beeping of the secure commlink in her room awakened her. She grabbed the phone and tried to clear the fog from her mind.
The message from her boss had jarred her wide awake. Now it was her job to pass the bad news along to Major Williams.
He was pacing the floor in front of a makeshift table, a radio handset pressed to his ear. The end of a lollipop stuck out of one side of his mouth, the corners of which were firmly set. Word had it the major was trying to give up cigars. “I don’t care what your fuel gauge says,” he said into the handset. “I want you to remain on station until my team arrives at PZ Hockey. You got that?”
As Mary approached, the major put the handset down and barked to no one in particular, “Someone find me a landing strip inside Jordan as close to the Syrian border as possible. Maybe even the Gaza strip. The CSAR bird may not have enough gas to get all the way back here.”
A pair of soldiers jumped up and began surveying the pile of maps lying on the table.
Before Mary could say anything, the major whirled to her. “What now?”
Mary suspected he’d been subsisting on little more than coffee and lollipops since the mission began. She took a deep breath, knowing that given his present mood, he was going to go ballistic.
“Bad news, sir.”
His gaze narrowed. “I don’t want any more bad news.”
Well, you’re going to get it. “Langley just got a call from the White House that the Lebanese embassy is screaming bloody murder because U.S. forces are engaged on the ground in their country.”
“Why are they screaming? They flew our guys in!”
“Yes, well, we both know the agreement was tenuous at best.”
The major grunted. “So you want me to abort pickup?”
Mary ignored the question. “Now that Valor has apparently started a major firefight inside a refugee camp, the agreement is falling apart. It appears that the Lebanese military wasn’t informed of our little foray—and they’re not happy.”
“Of course they’re not happy.” The major continued to pace. “Reverse situation, we wouldn’t be happy either.”
“Beirut’s afraid the Palestinians will call the skirmish a massacre and blame the government for it. That’d stir up all kinds of old animosities.�
� An understatement if ever there was one.
“Just what we need.”
“From what my boss says, the Israelis are calling too, wanting to know what the deal is.” She sighed. Such were the joys of instant communications.
“It’s got nothing to do with them!” The major’s voice betrayed his frustration.
“There’s more, sir. Lebanon is demanding that our aircraft withdraw immediately. They’re scrambling fighters from Beirut as we speak. Apparently the jets have authority to shoot down any foreign aircraft in Lebanese airspace.”
Crunch! Major Williams bit down on what was left of his sucker. He stood silently for a moment, his jaw muscles crushing the remains of the candy. “Wait a minute. I didn’t think Lebanon had any operational fighters. And how do they expect us to get our team out?”
“They apparently have three planes that fly, all of them old Hawker-Hunter F-70s made in Britain. As obsolete as they come, but plenty capable of knocking a Black Hawk out of the sky.”
She could tell what Williams was thinking. Welcome to the CIA. She wished she could tell him this sort of thing never happened, but unfortunately, that wasn’t her experience. In the three years she’d been a field agent, she’d never seen a mission come off as planned.
But they had backup plans. They weren’t going to leave those men out there all alone. She found it ironic, however, that their ride home would have to bail on them or face air-to-air missiles from an ally who had probably purchased them from the U.S. or its other allies.
To Mary’s great surprise, the explosion of profanity she expected from the major at the ruination of his plans never came. Instead, Williams’s countenance changed suddenly. The anger vanished, and a thoughtful expression took its place. Since she knew very few in the military who exercised verbal self-control, she looked at him with great respect, not for his rank and the authority it gave him, but for him as a person.
He turned and snatched up the radio handset from one of the operators behind him. “Yellow-three-four, this is Valor Six. Be advised, we have hostile aircraft en route to your location. We need to know the ETA of our team to PZ Hockey, over.”
A super-calm voice crackled over the receiver. “Wait one, Valor Six.” A tense moment passed during which no one spoke. Then the radio came to life again. “Valor One estimates seven minutes, over.”
The major looked at Mary. “How long till the jets get to them?”
She shook her head. “Less than that. It’s only about ten minutes once they’re airborne, and they left a few minutes ago. I’d say they have less than five.”
Williams looked at his watch and let out a low growl. He yanked the sucker stick out of his mouth and threw it in the trash can. It occurred to Mary that most people would find the major quite intimidating, but he reminded her a lot of her father, a career Marine officer.
The major spread another map out on the table. What Williams said next surprised her even more than the fact he hadn’t been swearing like her father always did in a tense situation. “Okay, Lord, it looks like You want our boys to walk. So be it. But please bring ’em all home.”
He didn’t really say it like a prayer, which to Mary meant folded hands and bowed head. It was more like he was just talking to a trusted superior. The contrast of the gentle prayer with the major’s gruff, football-coach exterior stunned her. One thing was certain. Her father would have never done that.
She shrugged. Calling on the Almighty certainly couldn’t hurt and was definitely more constructive than a string of cuss words. At least now she had an idea why he reacted as he did. Most senior officers always needed to be in control of the situation, and when they weren’t, their personal discipline slipped. Major Williams seemed to be okay leaving those things he couldn’t control in the hands of his God.
Mary wasn’t sure this worldview belonged in a place like this, but she sometimes wished she could trust in something, in Someone like that. Truth be told, the idea fascinated her.
Williams put the radio to his lips once again. “Yellow-three-four, this is Valor Six. Abort pickup. I say again, abort pickup. You and your crew need to get out of Dodge right now, over.”
“Roger, Valor Six. Yellow-three-four aborting pickup, returning to base.”
Williams dropped the radio mike and picked up a SAT phone. He flipped it open and began to dial quickly and deliberately. “On to Plan C. Granted, our evasion and escape route is a long shot at best. They’ll have to implement the plan and head to the coast, where we’ll have the special ops guys from the Sixth Fleet come in and pick them up.” He finished dialing and put the handset to his ear.
Mary wondered if the situation was already beyond their control.
Lebanese Countryside
“PZ Hockey coming up on the left. Sixty seconds.” Sweeney downshifted the van as he prepared to stop.
“Get ready to move,” John said.
Liz wilted with relief. They were finally going to get out of here. She couldn’t believe that less than two hours ago she had willingly driven into a Palestinian refugee camp, confident that since she spoke the language and knew the culture, she’d be able to handle anything that happened. A little puff escaped her lips as the depth of her naiveté sank in.
“What?” John said.
She shook her head. “Nothing. I just can’t believe I’m…here.”
It was his turn to huff now, but she noted half a smile on his lips. “Tell me about it. What are the odds?”
The tall commando near the rear door spoke up with an easy Texas drawl. “Lemme get this straight. Y’all know each other?”
Liz looked at John, not sure where to start. He cocked a sweaty eyebrow. “Well, we met a few years ago at the beach…”
John stopped and put one hand to his right ear. The other men seemed to be listening to something as well. Then a collective groan came from all of them, and several muttered curses under their breath. John spun around and knelt next to the driver’s seat and appeared to be talking on his radio.
Liz knew she’d missed something important. She grabbed the closest arm, which happened to be Frank’s. “What?”
He appeared apologetic, though it was hard to tell in the dark. “The helicopter just radioed that they are aborting our pickup.”
A blanket of barely-contained panic settled on Liz. “What? What does that mean?”
The answer she was hoping for, Don’t worry; it’ll all work out, wasn’t what she got. “It means this mission just got a lot more complicated.” Frank wasn’t even looking at her when he answered. He was watching John, now talking on his satellite phone.
Sweeney stopped the van, and it idled quietly by the side of the road as John conversed with the person on the other end of the line, presumably his superior. She didn’t understand much of what was being said, which wasn’t surprising since they weren’t speaking English but acronym-ish.
She heard the term E&E used several times but didn’t realize that her confusion was apparent on her face until Frank leaned in and said, “Evade and Escape. In other words, we have to get ourselves back any way we can.”
“Any way?” What in the world did that mean?
Frank nodded, his attention back on John, who was saying, “Yes, sir. I understand. Even if they managed to have someone there before daylight, I don’t know if we could get there that quick. No, that’s okay. We’ll just find somewhere to lie low until dark tomorrow, then head back to the coast.”
He had a map spread out on the van floor between the two front seats and was tracing a line on it with a finger. “Okay, I see it. Then once we get there, how do we sig…hello? Can you hear…?” He pulled the phone away from his ear and punched the keypad with an index finger.
Rip spoke from his place in the passenger seat. “Do not tell me the battery just died.”
John didn’t tell him. Instead, he tossed the phone onto the floor.
The rest of the team got the message. The air inside the van erupted with expressions of frustration a
nd disappointment. Liz never knew there were so many ways to curse one’s bad luck.
“Shhh shhh! Hold up!” Sweeney held up a hand for quiet as he cocked an ear out the window. The van fell silent in an instant. Liz strained until she heard what sounded like jets approaching.
“Fast movers,” John said.
Sweeney leaned forward and squinted through the shattered windshield. “You think they’re looking for us?”
Exactly my worry, Liz thought.
John shook his head. “No, the major said the choppers had to abort because the Lebanese government had fighters up ready to take them out. Apparently somebody forgot to tell them we’re supposed to be working together.”
Frank said, “That fireball when the warehouse blew probably got them thinking that the Israelis were attacking again.”
The rumbling of the jets grew louder. Doc, still sitting on his aid bag, let out a low whistle. “Those jets are a whole lot faster than a Black Hawk. I hope our birds got away safely. Makes me kinda glad to have my feet on the ground.”
“Y’all might change your minds about bein’ down here pretty quick,” Hogan said, focusing on something out the back window. “We got three vehicles coming this way, and it looks like they’re in an awful hurry!”
John yelled, “Go, Bobby! Go! Go! Go!”
But Sweeney had already popped the clutch, sending everyone in the back of the van sliding for the rear door. Liz clutched at John as he held on to the front seat. She missed and tumbled headlong into Frank. The scope on his assault rifle caught her squarely in the eye, and she saw stars for a moment. Then Frank pushed her upright. “You okay?”
She held her hand to her eye, trying to stifle tears of pain. “Yeah. Sorry.”
Frank braced himself against the side of the van and pulled something, presumably the thing that held the bullets, out of his gun and checked it, then slapped it back into place.
“You better hold on, kiddo,” he said to her with a smile. “Things are about to get interesting.”
The battered black Mercedes whined and shuddered as Imad Hijazi ground through the gears on the road outside Sainiq. He’d paid off the guards at the checkpoint in order to leave the camp without being hassled, and it had cost him precious time as well as considerable funds. The Americans were getting away, and Imad would not stand for it. They had invaded his home, his domain, and had killed some of his men.
