by Mel Odom
Lights inside the fort immediately shifted as guards raced toward the front of the structure.
“Well, those Humvees have got their attention. Definitely not in stealth mode.” Pike lay to Bekah’s right. His face, like hers, was striped in cosmetic black to reduce the glare and make them part of the shadows. They wore MARPAT digital camouflage, which rendered them harder to see.
Almost immediately, the al-Shabaab launched an attack, and the Humvees returned fire. Most of the mortars and rockets landed well short of either side, but the machine guns definitely had the range.
“All right.” Heath’s voice was calm over the MBITR. “That’s not going to hold their attention forever, and if Haroun decides to send out a tactical team to recon those vehicles, they’re going to discover this is a feint. Let’s move in.”
Bekah rose to her feet and went forward, trotting to keep pace with the wave of Marines she was assigned to. She thought about Travis and Matthew Cline, torn between staying safe for one and rescuing the other. She focused on the job at hand. That was what she’d sworn to do the day she took the oath.
Marine first.
At the wall, still undiscovered, Bekah shook out one of the padded grappling hooks they’d set up for the assault. The first teams whirled their hooks overhead and let fly. The hooks sailed easily over the wall, and Bekah pulled the slack out of her line.
The crack and bang of the al-Shabaab weapons rolled through the hillside around them.
Bracing her boots against the wall, Bekah swarmed up the line while the next Marine behind her grabbed the rope and steadied it. She halted at the top and slid her rifle into her arms while she hung there. After making certain no one was in the passageway between the inner and outer walls, she threw a leg over the wall and dropped to the hard ground between the ramparts. She had the rifle up at once and held her position while her team and the other teams did the same.
When the second wave of Marines clambered over and dropped, Bekah led her group toward the east gate. She flipped down her night-vision goggles and peered into the courtyard.
Several al-Shabaab were in evidence in the open area, but most of them were heading toward the west wall where the action was. Beside her, Pike was calmly chewing gum and even looked like he was bored. “Shooting gallery. Should be fun.”
“Make sure you keep it tight.” Bekah threw a glance at Tyler and Trudy as well.
All of them nodded.
Heath came up between them. “All right. We’re all here. Let’s roll.” He led the way, with Gunney Towers at his heels.
Bekah followed after Heath with her team dogging her. They didn’t know what the two outbuildings were for. Several jeeps and pickups were parked in the courtyard. Two of the fire teams, backed by some of Daud’s bandits, were assigned to investigate those buildings. Everyone else concentrated on the main building.
Guards along the front of the building had maintained their posts. Heath crept up alongside the building and slipped the knife from his combat harness while sliding his rifle over one shoulder. Bekah turned off the horror screaming inside her mind as she saw Heath move silently forward behind one of the guards.
She had been trained in hand-to-hand combat, had been taught to kill an opponent with a knife, but she’d never done it. The idea appalled her because it seemed so much more personal than shooting someone. The thought was idiocy, of course. Dead was dead, but she hoped she never had to do something like that.
Heath was on the terrorist before he knew it. Placing the knife at his throat, Heath bent the man’s head forward. In the movies, the hero always yanked an opponent’s head backward to expose the throat, but that only flexed the neck muscles and made the cut harder to perform. Pushing the head forward relaxed those muscles. Heath drew the knife across in one smooth motion.
The man grabbed for his throat and dropped the AK-47 that he’d been holding. The noise alerted the al-Shabaab terrorist standing only a few feet away, in spite of the noise along the west wall. Startled, the terrorist turned and brought his rifle up.
Gunney Towers shot the man in the face twice, and the body dropped to the stones.
The half-dozen guards standing in front of the building’s entrance spun quickly and began firing. Heath waved the Marines back behind the corner, held on to the dead man, and withdrew a grenade. He flipped the explosive into the center of the group, swung back around the corner himself, and pushed the dead man from him. He had his rifle in his hands before the grenade went off.
Partially deafened from the close-proximity blast, Bekah surged forward after Heath and Gunney Towers. The two men advanced at a deliberate pace, rifles held to shoulders and knees bent to make them smaller targets. Bekah flanked Heath on the left, and Pike flanked Gunney Towers on the right.
Most of the al-Shabaab terrorists had been killed by the shrapnel from the grenade, but a couple lived and opened fire. Others came from the courtyard, drawn by the explosion.
Bekah found targets in all directions and fired in rapid three-round bursts. Men went down and she stepped in their blood, feeling it slick beneath her boots. A few rounds thudded into her body armor and another round ricocheted from the top of her helmet or caught her NVGs—she wasn’t sure.
The Marines stayed in a group and ducked in through the entrance.
The interior of the fort hadn’t been improved much in the last five hundred years. Evidently when whatever occupying force had left, no one had taken much interest in the place. The big room was lit by large electric lights powered by generators somewhere on the premises.
More al-Shabaab stood guard within, scattered around the room along the second floor. The first floor had no windows, making it easier to defend in case invaders breached the outer walls. But the battle to take the second floor would be hard. The second floor had a lot of vantage points that allowed for snipers. Back in the sixteenth century, those snipers had probably been archers, but the sniper posts were a lot more dangerous with men armed with rifles.
Bullets cracked against the stone walls and the paved floor. Beside Bekah, Trudy went down. Bekah spun at once to check her teammate and saw that she’d been hit in the calf. Bekah glanced up at Tyler. “Get her out of here. Stop the bleeding.”
Tyler nodded and shouldered his weapon. He grabbed Trudy under the arms and dragged her out of the building as bullets cracked the stone around them.
Pike pulled a grenade from his combat harness and yanked the pin. “Fire in the hole!” He threw the grenade onto the stairway landing, where a group of al-Shabaab had collected.
Ducking her head, Bekah ran along the wall, following Heath to the bottom of the stairs and hunkering down. The grenade went off, and bodies slid down the stairs. By that time, Heath was already in motion, sprinting over the fallen bodies and spraying bullets into those men who had survived the initial blast.
“Bekah, take your group and track the generators. Find them and take them out.”
Bekah knew that Heath must not have seen Trudy go down, or that she had assigned Tyler to drag her to safety. Pike instantly joined her, his dark gaze following the electrical lines tacked to the walls. All of the wiring led to a doorway under the curved stairwell.
“On it.” Bekah turned and made for the door.
Heath was at the top of the stairs, firing again and again while Gunney Towers guarded his back. “Indigo Four, you’re with Eight.”
“On it.” The three surviving members of Fire Team Indigo Four peeled off from the group and sprinted after Bekah and Pike.
“We’ve got company.” Pike’s growl barely reached Bekah’s ears, but she caught his nod toward Daud and a group of his men, including the big man, who were accompanying them.
Daud acknowledged Bekah with a nod. “Rats always leave a route they can use for escape. I do not think Haroun will have left himself nowhere to run.”
Bekah silently agreed and continued to follow the thick, snakelike cables bundled into a cluster. She passed through the door to another hall
way that had not been lighted and spotted a group of al-Shabaab lying in wait in the darkness.
35
BEKAH BARELY HAD TIME to throw an arm in front of Pike and get herself back to the safety of the doorway before bullets raked the walls and ricocheted down the hallway. Pike scrambled back as well, cursing the whole time.
Shouldering her rifle for the moment, Bekah plucked two grenades from her combat harness. She pulled the pins from the explosives, counted off a second, then heaved them into the hallway. Pike shadowed her toss with his own grenades a split second later.
Bekah covered her ears and waited. The explosives ripped through the hallway, magnified inside the constrained space. And a cloud of dust and stone fragments vomited out of the doorway in a rush.
The lights in the main room went out, and Bekah realized the explosions must have taken out the electrical cables in the hallway. But lights in the building’s upper stories remained, so she guessed that other wiring paths still existed. She hoped all of the generators were kept in the same area.
She flipped down her NVGs and found them still operable. Then she led the way into the hallway with Pike on her right.
Several of the al-Shabaab waiting to ambush them were dead or heavily wounded. Only a few remained alive and willing to fight. She spotted them in the green imagery afforded by the NVGs and opened fire as Pike did the same. They left dead men in the hallway as they kept advancing at a rapid pace.
Daud was behind her, breathing heavily. He kept his fingers resting lightly on her shoulder, and she knew it was because he couldn’t see in the darkness. The thought of him being there unnerved her, but she concentrated on the job Heath had assigned her to do.
The hallway ran straight another fifty yards, then turned sharply to the right and began a steep descent. There was only enough room for three people to walk side by side. Another group of al-Shabaab waited in the darkness at the bottom, but they couldn’t see the Marines advancing until she and Pike had opened fire and left them sprawled across the floor.
They kept moving forward. Daud stumbled momentarily over one of the dead men, but he maintained contact. Bekah couldn’t help wondering what drove the man so fiercely. Heath had mentioned that Daud had brought in a boy to be treated at the medical facility, but she knew from the intel briefing on Daud that the man’s son had been killed in an attack engineered by Haroun and the al-Shabaab. Vengeance might have brought Daud along, but Bekah couldn’t stop thinking about the boy, and her thoughts kept connecting him with the baby she’d buried and with Travis.
She knew how she’d feel if anything happened to Travis and if she knew who was responsible, but it was more than that. When the boy had tried to smuggle the grenade into the medical clinic in Mogadishu, Bekah had tried to protect him as well. In her eyes, he’d been an innocent, just a tool the al-Shabaab had constructed to carry out their war.
Daud’s hand left Bekah’s shoulder as the glow of electric lights dawned in the tunnel ahead. Before she knew it, Daud ran past her. She tried to call him back, but he wasn’t listening, and the big man and the other bandits ran at their leader’s heels.
Then Bekah heard the generators ahead of them. More than that, the rumble of truck engines punctuated the growl of the generators. Realizing there were vehicles up ahead, Bekah picked up her own pace.
Heath’s voice came over the comm and the connection sounded scratchy, no doubt strained by the stone separating them. “Bekah, we’ve just discovered the building’s been mined. We’ve found two emplacements so far, both of them attached to structural supports. This place has been rigged to bring it down. Do you copy?”
“Copy, Leader. We’re in a tunnel beneath the fort. We’ve found the generators, and there are vehicles up ahead as well.”
“Understood, but you need to clear the building. Haroun has this place wired to implode. We’re pulling out now.”
“Affirmative, but we’re out of the blast zone, I think. Going back would take too long.”
Heath paused just a second. “Good luck then. I’ll see you on the other side.” Then he was gone.
Ahead, the tunnel widened into a cave that held a dozen generators and four jeeps. The noise was intense, and the men waiting in the jeeps didn’t notice the Marines and Daud’s people converging on them from out of the darkness.
Beyond the jeeps, a large tunnel continued, swallowed in darkness beyond where the jeep headlights could penetrate. Daud had been correct. The original builders had designed an escape strategy in the event they were overrun. It was a tactical necessity for any fort that stood out in the wilderness not far from enemy territory.
Bekah lifted her NVGs and followed Daud into the cave. Movement on the right side of the cave drew her attention, and she spotted Haroun emerging from a tunnel there. A dozen men guarded him, and two of them pushed Matthew Cline and one of the other doctors ahead of them. Another man carried a young boy, and Bekah realized that it must be the boy Daud had brought to the camp.
Haroun wasted no time heading toward the waiting jeeps.
Daud took cover behind one of the throbbing generators and raised his AK-47. He fired without warning and Bekah was certain his target was Haroun, but one of the al-Shabaab stepped forward at that moment and the bullet caught that man instead. The harsh crack! of the rifle ignited a powder keg of action as the al-Shabaab suddenly reacted like an irritated wasp’s nest.
“Shoot the drivers!” Bekah took cover behind one of the generators as well, then aimed for the lead jeep driver on the left, hoping to create more confusion. She sighted on the man’s head and squeezed the trigger. Her first shot missed because the man jerked his head around to look over his shoulder, but her second round cored into his cheek and killed him instantly.
When the dead driver’s foot slipped off the clutch, the jeep jerked forward and the engine stalled, causing just enough movement to roll into the jeep beside it and form a logjam.
Pike took out two of the other drivers in quick snap shots. Those vehicles also sputtered and died, ramming into each other.
Rolling around the generator’s side, Bekah went forward, intent on the al-Shabaab guards holding Matthew and the other man prisoner. Pike followed on her heels as they stayed low behind the generators. Bekah spoke over the comm, knowing her fellow Marines—including Pike—would hear her. “I’ve got the man on the left.”
“Cool. Whenever you’re ready.”
“Let’s get as close as we can. We’ll need to get the hostages out of the way.”
The two guards never knew Bekah and Pike were on them till the last second. They reacted instantly then, trying to sweep their weapons up and around.
“Now.” Bekah bracketed the man’s chest and squeezed off a three-round burst. Pike fired a heartbeat behind her.
Bekah’s bullets drove the al-Shabaab man back and down, and he was gone before he hit the floor. The other terrorist went down as well, his face now a gory mask.
Bekah raced forward and threw an arm out to catch Matthew, who stood stunned in the middle of everything with fresh blood staining his scrubs. Her arm went around his waist and knocked him backward into relative safety behind one of the jeeps. Bekah forced him flat on the ground and yelled into his ear. “Stay!”
Matthew nodded and lay fearfully as Pike planted the other doctor next to him. Then the two Marines returned to a standing crouch at the jeep’s back bumper. Bekah pulled her rifle to her shoulder and loaded a fresh magazine into the weapon since she knew she only had a few rounds left.
The assault had set off a miniature gun battle that left more al-Shabaab strewn on the ground. Some of Daud’s men and one of the Marines were down as well.
Bekah estimated that out of the twenty-three al-Shabaab terrorists she had counted in the cave, nine remained. She and Pike and Daud and his lieutenant were still standing, along with two other Marines and two more of Daud’s men.
They were almost evenly matched, all of them taking cover where they could. Bekah breathed frantic
ally, tasting the oily smoke from the generators and feeling it burn into her throat and sinuses. The rasp of her breathing sounded loud in her ears even with the generators banging away.
“Take out the generators.” Bekah lifted her rifle and fired at the generators. Pike and the other Marines opened fire as well. Sparks and flames flew, and the lights in the cave went out.
The al-Shabaab and the bandits panicked, and muzzle flashes tore holes in the darkness. Then Haroun’s voice rose above all the clamor and confusion.
“Stop! Stop shooting! Listen to me!”
Bekah flipped down her NVGs and powered them on. The green imagery chased away the darkness, and she focused on Haroun’s position. The al-Shabaab leader remained hidden behind the jeep where he’d taken cover.
“Haroun.” Daud’s voice was a harsh bark. “You will not leave this place alive.”
Bekah crept toward the front of the jeep she sheltered behind, closing on Haroun’s position. The crepe soles of her boots made no noise.
“I will, Rageh Daud, or I will kill the boy.”
For the first time, Bekah realized she’d lost track of the boy in all the confusion.
“Do you hear me, Rageh Daud? I will put a bullet in his head, and you will be helpless to do anything.”
“The Marines care nothing for that boy.” Anguish made Daud’s voice rough.
“Are you listening, Americans?”
Bekah glanced at Pike and nodded. The Muslim leader wouldn’t like dealing with a woman, and Bekah didn’t want to give away her position.
“We’re listening.”
“I have the building above mined with explosives. If you do not allow me to leave this place, I will detonate those explosives and bring this fort down on top of your comrades.”
“There’s nothing to stop you from doing that once you leave this cave.” Pike sounded cold and hard, like a man who didn’t care about anything. “Me, I’d rather bury you down here than take a chance on trusting you.”
Bekah didn’t know if the Marines on the upper floors had all gotten clear of the building. She knew they wouldn’t just leave her and the others here, and she didn’t know how big the danger zone was. She took another step forward in the darkness, trusting that Haroun and his people were blind as she left the safety of the jeep to get a better angle on Haroun.
