by Chuck Holton
How long could she hang here? Her legs were already getting rubbery from the exertion of holding on, and her arms begged for a break, but she dared not move.
The guard shifted position slightly, and the pebbles his foot displaced rained down on Liz’s face. A little rock struck her cheek, and she jerked her head away as grit fell in her eyes. That flinch was all it took. With a disbelieving gasp, she lost her hold. She made a desperate grab for a rock, a ledge, anything, and missed.
Back at the gym when this happened, she would cry “falling” and the handsome instructor, Greg, would clamp down on the belay rope, and she’d swing free in her climbing harness, shake it off, and try again.
But here there was no harness, no rope, no Greg.
With a sickening feeling of weightlessness she half slid, half fell, rolling until she hit the ground.
The force of the impact knocked the wind out of her. She lay there looking at the black silhouette of the fortress wall against the starry sky directly above her. She was sure some of the dancing stars hadn’t been there before. She gasped for breath and rolled into a fetal position, all too aware of the fiery pain in her hands, forearms, and knees where she had scraped them as she fell.
She looked up and stopped breathing again, this time by choice. The sentry had stooped and was looking down directly at her. He must have heard her fall.
For a long moment the man squinted into the shadows where she lay frozen. Would he sound the alarm or simply shoot her himself? She closed her eyes and shuddered. A shot rang out, and she braced herself for the impact before she realized the sound didn’t come from above but from the front gate.
Liz glanced up again. The guard now stood, distracted from his search for noises in the night. He glanced quickly down once more, then hurried off to investigate the shot, the occasional red glow as he drew on his cigarette showing his location. Relief left her limp.
Very carefully she sat up. She ached all over, but nothing seemed broken, just badly jarred. Gratitude washed through her. She rolled to her knees and put her left foot forward, preparing to stand. A searing pain shot through her ankle.
Putting her weight on her right foot, she stood carefully, cautiously, her spine protesting vigorously as she straightened. She tried the left ankle again and sighed. Walking was going to be a challenge.
Lord, wasn’t Julie’s RA enough of a problem?
But she had done it. She was inside. Step one was accomplished with relatively little ado. Now all she had to do was find a hiding place before the guard on the wall returned. And find out where Julie was being held. And figure out how to get her safely out.
Piece of cake. Not.
From the bleating and shouting that filled the air, it was clear Anwar was having a very successful run as her diversion. Since there were no screams of pain, the shot that had captured the sentry’s interest must have been fired into the air in the vain hope of moving the goats along. A raucous hee-haw sounded, and Liz smiled. Honey was doing her part, too.
But the goats would be effective only so long. A door in the side of one of the two sheds beckoned, and she limped to it. The shed had no windows and looked like a good place to hold someone captive. The padlock on the door drew her up short. She knocked softly. “Julie? Julie, are you in here?”
Nothing.
She hobbled to the second shed. Another padlock greeted her. Again she knocked and called out for her sister. Again nothing.
She stood in the shadows of the shed, trying to determine her next move. It came to her that she could barely hear the goats. At the same time she realized this, the men began filtering back into the courtyard, calling to each other, laughing over the fiasco with the shepherd boy and his animals.
Anwar seemed to have gotten away safely, and for that Liz was thankful. But how could she find Julie if she couldn’t move freely? She sank to the ground, hugging the deepest shadows behind the shed.
Lord, You can’t have brought me this far only to fail! Help me find Julie. Please!
She watched as the men finished loading the car. The leader in his white robes and his assistant with his haughty step emerged from the cellar. In surprise Liz noticed that a young woman trailed behind them, taking care to remain hidden in the shadows of the cellar doorway.
“Tonight with your trip to Beirut we take another step in our great plan,” the assistant shouted. “For the glory of Allah, may his name be praised!”
The men cheered and shot their rifles into the air. The white-haired man held up his hands in what looked like a blessing. “Allah ak’bar!”
With more shouts and cheers, five of the men climbed into the dented old black Mercedes, four of them holding briefcases.
“Be careful with my car, Mamoud,” the assistant called.
“I will be back by midmorning,” Mamoud assured him as the vehicle began to move. He drove it across the courtyard and out through the main gate.
All those not in the car ran beside it, cheering their comrades on. Even the old man went toward the gate.
Once again the courtyard fell silent, and Liz knew she had another chance. The only other place to search was underground.
Her stomach pitched at the thought of going into the cellars and maybe being trapped down there, but she had no choice. Julie might be there. She looked once more around the empty courtyard, then at the cellar doorway. The young woman had disappeared. It was now or never.
Liz hobbled to the doorway and ducked inside. She found steep steps that led down into gloom, and with her back against the wall, she slowly descended. The stairwell was lit by a forty-watt bulb at the top and another at the bottom where a hallway disappeared into darkness.
When she reached the bottom, she slid along the corridor, peering cautiously into a pair of musty rooms whose doors had long since rotted away. The first was dark and empty, its earthen floor smelling of urine and blood. The next room was hazy with acrid smoke and held a table and two battered aluminum folding chairs. A kerosene lantern cast a dim light on the papers spread helter-skelter across the table. Obviously an office of some kind, but no Julie.
She continued down the corridor and came to a third darkened room where she could just make out several thin woven rugs spread on the floor. A prayer room in which the men of Ansar Inshallah could face Mecca for their five-times-a-day prayers?
Voices echoing in the stairwell froze Liz’s blood. People were coming!
Terrified, she stepped into the prayer room and hugged the wall shared with the corridor so she couldn’t be seen by whoever walked by. Straining to hear, she cocked her head toward the doorway. It seemed to her the conversation paused, and she got the impression that one or all had entered the messy office.
In less than a minute, the movement in the corridor resumed, coming closer to her hiding place with every step.
Oh, Lord, don’t let it be prayer time!
It wasn’t. The men walked briskly past, and Liz let out the breath she’d been holding. They didn’t go far, however. She heard keys jangling and the click of a lock opening. A gruff voice yelled, “Now!” Then she heard the men coming back toward her.
Once again Liz pushed back against the wall, trying to become one with it as the men moved past the open door. Soon she heard them climb the steps, returning to the courtyard.
Now that she was safe, at least for the moment, Liz’s knees gave out. She slid down the wall until she was sitting on a rug. She rested her elbows on her raised knees and dropped her head into her trembling hands. She was definitely not made for clandestine operations. Every instinct she had screamed for her to get out of this terrible place and hurry home where it was safe.
Oh, Lord, You’ve got to get us out of here because I sure can’t.
The Fortress
JULIE FELT HER WHOLE BODY GO WEAK when three men in black masks stormed into her room. If she hadn’t been lying on her cot, she would have fallen.
“Now!” The leader pointed to the door.
Somehow she had
convinced herself that this moment would never come. In spite of her captivity, in spite of the video, in spite of the seventy-two-hour deadline they’d announced, the very idea of being killed by terrorists was so extraordinary, so action movie, so it-happens-to-people-you-don’t-know, that she felt ambushed, taken by surprise as they grabbed her and pulled her off her bed.
Of course it could have been plain old denial.
Like last time, the men dragged her by the arms, putting terrible stress on her shoulders and neck. All she wanted to do was fight them, but her physical limitations overwhelmed her. The pain was so intense that her vision began to go black.
“Let me walk,” she managed. “Please.”
Try as she would, she couldn’t stifle her groans, and in the circumstances, they embarrassed her. These men would misinterpret her involuntary response to her pain as fear. Not that she wasn’t afraid. She was terrified. It was just that her spirit wanted to fight, to spit in their eyes, but her body couldn’t cooperate.
For all the attention they paid to her request, she might have been a carpet they were carrying or a load of dirty clothes. They pulled her up the stairs and across the courtyard where she had a quick sense of fresh air and a brief view of the starry heavens before they dragged her down another set of stairs on the other side of the fortress.
Her last time to breathe clear air and be under God’s majestic nighttime sky.
They didn’t let go of Julie until they pulled her into a small, dark room much like her cell. Then they released her so suddenly that she fell. She landed on her knees, and once again her vision dimmed as shooting pain enveloped her.
After a moment to get her breath, she forced herself to rise, ignoring the urge to throw up, fighting it, refusing to yield to the nausea. She would not humiliate herself in front of these people.
She braced herself with a hand against the wall. One of the masked men stood beside her, watching her every move. Not that he needed to worry. There was no way she could try to escape.
When she felt in control, she lifted her head. Her eyes fixed on the video camera set on a tripod in the middle of the room. She couldn’t pull her gaze from it, as mesmerized as a person hypnotized by a gently swinging object. The same crude handpainted sign hung on the wall in front of the camera. Slay the Infidel!
I don’t want to die, Lord!
Hard on the heels of this prayer, she asked, Does that make me a weak Christian? Should I be rejoicing that I’ll see You soon?
A verse came to her mind. “Even though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you will fear no evil for I am with you.”
She sighed and felt a bit braver.
“You!” One of the terrorists pointed at Julie. “Over there.” He indicated the wall. “Now!” He gave her a push.
Julie stumbled and cried out. Making a disgusted growl, the terrorist dragged her to the wall, placing her in front of the sign.
This is what’s meant by the shadow of death, isn’t it, Lord? It’s not the dying itself, but the darkness surrounding it. It’s the process of dying, whether in a bed with some illness or in an unholy circumstance like mine.
“Face the camera!” He grabbed her arm and turned her.
The world was going to watch her die, and that fact filled her with a strange sense of sadness. She especially regretted that Charles, Annabelle, and Liz would see this terrible thing.
She saw her father, his face alight with the stimulation of a good debate, surrounded by his students during one of the open houses he and Annabelle frequently held.
She saw her mother standing in front of one of her canvases filled with wild swathes of color and joy.
And she saw her sister, dark eyes serious, as she said, “You can do it, Julie. I know you can do anything you set your mind to.”
Lord, I love them all so much. Don’t let me make it harder for them. Help me die with dignity.
She looked beyond the camera and into the eyes of the boy who had videotaped her before. He was the only one without a mask, which she assumed meant he wouldn’t be in the video. As before she thought she saw a flash of sympathy, but he turned away so quickly that she wasn’t sure.
“Why do you do this?” she asked him in Arabic.
He glanced at her quickly, then at the masked man who was obviously the leader. He said nothing but became engrossed in checking his equipment.
In that instant Julie realized that he had no choice, and her heart broke for him.
A generator roared to life, and the room flooded with bright light. Julie blinked and looked away, the intensity of the illumination stabbing at eyes used to a dark cell.
I am the light of the world, and in Me is no darkness at all.
“Kneel!” A hand pushed on her shoulder, and Julie folded. She couldn’t help it. The masked leader came toward her with a knife in one hand and a blindfold in the other.
Lebanese Countryside
“Okay, Bobby. Heads up.” Rip sat in the passenger seat of the pharmacist’s delivery van, holding the map he illuminated with a tiny red LED flashlight. “The turnoff to the fortress should be about a half mile ahead on your right.”
The men of Task Force Valor sped south on a winding mountain road toward the place where the UAV pilot had said they’d find the terrorists’ compound and, please, Lord, Liz still in one piece.
The pharmacist’s minivan was smaller than the van they’d used in their run from the refugee camp, but at least this one had seats in the back. John sat behind Sweeney, who was driving again. Frank and Doc were crammed in next to John, and Hogan was sitting on the floor in the back. With all of their gear, it was a little like trying to stuff a basketball team into a golf cart, but they didn’t have far to go.
“How far is the fortress off the road?” Hogan called.
“About one klick,” Rip shot back. “Sweeney, it looks here like the road leading to it is probably gravel or just…”
“Car!” Frank yelled.
Sweeney jerked the wheel hard to the right to avoid a black Mercedes that came careening around the bend in their lane.
John closed his eyes and braced for the impact. I tried, Liz.
Somehow Sweeney wrestled their minivan onto the sandy shoulder while keeping the vehicle from plunging off the ridge into the valley below. They shuddered to a halt.
For a moment everyone was too stunned to speak.
Doc spoke first. “For a minute there, I was looking about two hundred feet straight down the mountain. Don’t these guys know about guardrails?”
“Well, one thing’s for sure. They don’t know about staying in their own lane.” Sweeney sounded grumpy rather than scared.
“Good piece of driving, Bobby!” John slapped him on the shoulder. He just might make it to Liz after all.
“Valor One, this is Solo Four-Four, over.” It was the radio in John’s ear. “Was that you who almost went in the ditch?”
John keyed his mike. “Ditch, Four-Four? That was a canyon! Where are you?”
“Look out your rear window, over.”
John turned to look. “Here comes the UAV, boys.”
They all craned their necks to look up at the dark sky.
“I don’t see nothin’ but stars,” Hogan said. Then a very large hornet buzzed right over their vehicle. “But I hear it!”
Sweeney pulled back onto the road. He pushed the pedal to the floor. “Do you think that car came from the compound?”
“Probably.” John frowned. “I wonder where they’re off to in such a hurry.” And does it have anything to do with Liz?
John’s radio beeped again. “Valor One, this is Phoenix. Be advised, we are working on getting you out of the country this morning, over.”
“That would be great, Phoenix, but you’ll have to let me know the details later. We’re getting ready to go extravehicular, over.”
“Our turn is coming up, gentlemen,” Rip announced. “Prepare to bail!”
“Roger that, One. Contact me once you
’ve secured the fortress,” she said.
That’s assuming we’ll be able to take the fortress.
According to the information Liz had relayed to the UAV pilot, there were at least a dozen men in the compound, maybe more. He thought of the car that had just flown past. Maybe fewer. John patted his vest to check his ammo supply one last time. Hopefully among the team, they had enough to do the job.
When Sweeney cut the lights and coasted to a stop on the sandy shoulder, Doc slid open the side door and jumped out.
“Rally up one hundred meters to the west of the road.” John said. “Go, go, go!”
Within seconds, the team was out of the vehicle. The men followed John as he sprinted away from the van down the brush-covered hill. About thirty seconds later, he took a knee behind a large rock. One by one, the other men joined him, panting.
John counted noses, then said, “Sweeney, you, Frank, and Hogan take the south side of this dirt road. The rest of us will stay on this side. We’ll coordinate by radio when we’re ready to execute. You guys will be the support element, so on my signal, take out anybody you can see outside who might be hostile. Then cover us while we go in. Once we’re inside, leave Frank as outside security and come on in. We don’t have time to rehearse, but the plan is pretty straightforward. Any questions?”
“We’re all going to have to be very careful where we shoot,” Frank reminded them. “If they’ve got a stockpile of ITEB in there someplace, one stray bullet could send all of us out in a blaze of glory.”
“Good point,” John said. “So no flash-bangs, no demo. Hit what you aim at.”
“That’s my motto in life, bro.” Rip grinned. “Hit what I aim at.”
Six minutes later they had moved to within fifty yards of the fortress. John saw that it really wasn’t as medieval looking as he had expected. The old outer wall was mostly intact, but some money had obviously been invested in a more modern front gate, which now sat partially open. Inside, a couple of low, contemporary looking buildings had been built in what once must have been the courtyard.
