Sword of Allah

by David Rollins

  He would have to leave the country. The ensuing investigation would nail him. With twelve percent in a Swiss account, who gave a shit? His wife might be a stumbling block…and the kids were still at school…

  Kalas took a deep breath to clear his head of the negatives. He could start a new life, and leave behind a lot of mistakes. The blonde had finished her business at the bar and was walking towards him with a plate of fruit, on her way back to the pool. Kalas wandered how he could possibly attract her attention without appearing to be sleazy. A timely breeze caught the stack of serviettes on his table and lifted them swirling into the woman’s path. The distraction caused her to stumble and she dropped her plate of fruit. Kalas launched himself from his seat and caught the woman before she, too, toppled to the pavement.

  ‘Christ. Sorry about that,’ he said, helping her to her feet. ‘The serviettes –’

  ‘Oh, that’s okay. Wasn’t your fault,’ she said with an American accent, straightening her sarong. ‘Say,’ she said, smiling, ‘is that a phone in your pocket, or is this my lucky day?’

  Kalas looked down at himself, following her eye line, and saw the ridiculous bulge in his pants. His face flushed hot with embarrassment and he glanced up, expecting to see the woman’s back as she walked away from him disgusted. The last thing he expected to see was a room key swinging from her finger.

  Skye Reinhardt woke with the sunrise and stretched languidly between the cool linen sheets. Her clothes on the floor were like stepping stones to the bed. The man beside her breathing regularly in sleep was a stranger, or at least had been until mid afternoon of the previous day. They’d shared each other’s passion and it felt to her more like an adventure than a one-night stand.

  Skye wanted to shout and punch the air. The plan she’d laid out for herself back home in the States was working better than she could ever have hoped for. The cloying, stultifying life that had threatened to claim her just as it had her parents in the West Virginia town, working as they had at the local university riding out the seventies in a fug of marijuana haze, she’d driven into the earth as surely as one would grind a cockroach under heel. As soon as she’d earned her degrees, Skye had joined the CIA as a researcher. It had taken three years for the overseas posting to come up and she had grabbed it. The Philippines. Skye would have preferred Europe – Paris, in particular – but anywhere would do as long as it was far away from West Virginia.

  Skye propped herself up on an elbow and looked at the man beside her. He said he was thirty-eight. She was twenty-eight. A good age spread. His name was Jeff and he was nice-looking without being pretty; a bit short maybe, but he kept himself in reasonable shape, and still had all his hair.

  The researcher had been hoping something like this – an opportunity for excitement – would present itself. Her heart had beat fast, drumming on her rib cage when she’d seen the three men at the pool. She’d recognised two of them. Not this man beside her, not Jeff, but the other two. She’d recognised them because their pictures were on the Most Wanted board – the dartboard, they called it – beside the water cooler. ‘If you see these men, do not approach!’ warned the line that headed the list of instructions about what exactly should be done. It was a big world out there and Skye never gave a moment’s thought to the possibility that she would see these men anywhere but on the dartboard. The black and white photos of the men were just two out of more than twenty pinned up on the wall. Skye had seen these photos at least three times a day since she’d arrived at the Manila bureau at the start of her twelve-month stay. But they were just part of the general background noise of the place.

  And then she’d seen them at the hotel on her day off. In the flesh. Was it them? No, it couldn’t be, could it? She didn’t know who they were – their names. Nor had she known what they’d done to deserve a place on the dartboard. They were just photos, not real people. What were the chances that they’d turn up in Manila and that she, of all people in this crazy, violent city, would spot them having a drink by her favourite pool?

  ‘Tahiti sounds nice,’ said the man beside her in his sleep, a smile on his lips.

  Skye looked at the ceiling, and traced the movement of the slowly turning fan with her finger. This was her big chance. Of course, she had completely ignored the command that these people should not be approached. But then Jeff wasn’t one of them, one of the photos, she reminded herself. So there was a loophole if she ever needed one. The two men had left and she hadn’t known what to do next. Follow them? She wasn’t a Halle Berry type, she was a political scientist, an academic, a researcher. What was she going to do? Bail them up with a textbook? But she had to do something. Did she work for the goddam CIA or not?

  The man rolled over to face her. He was still asleep, but only just. She felt his hand brush her thigh and an electric shock ran through her. The danger was a thrill. His hand came back, moved up her leg, over the concave curve of her stomach and cupped her breast. She willed her nipple not to respond, but it ignored her, firming like gooseflesh and a warmth glowed in a spot below her belly.

  She had walked to the bar in order to get a better look at the man who’d remained behind. Perhaps if she got closer, she’d recognise him? And then chance had intervened and an opportunity to meet him had presented itself. Literally. She smiled at the memory of the moment – Jeff’s embarrassment – and at her own impulse to go for it, every spy movie she’d ever seen providing her with the appropriate, pre-packaged cues: use your assets, girlfriend.

  After amazing sex, dinner, a night on the town and more amazing sex, Skye was lost. What should the next move be? Of course, she knew what she wouldn’t do – tell her boss who she’d seen, and what she’d done. No. Not until she’d worked this through and come up with something concrete. At the very least, she told herself, she could sneak a look at his passport and jot down the details. Jeff was under her spell and that was a certainty. Skye had always had that effect on men, and this time she’d use it for the good of her country.

  Skye looked at Jeff again. He was kind of sweet in a suburban sort of way, and his Australian accent was cute. Maybe she’d imagined those other two – her subconscious had just willed them to be bad guys. Jeff certainly didn’t seem like a terrorist. He was a money guy, an accountant, she remembered him telling her. And a wealthy one if the way he splashed around the cash was any indication.

  ‘Morning, honey. Thanks for staying,’ he said in a sleepy voice, eyes still closed.

  How unusual, thought Skye, a man who didn’t order a taxi after he came.

  ‘That’s okay,’ said Skye, the words spilling out of her mouth of their own accord, in a husky voice that surprised her.

  He rolled her on top of him in an unexpected burst of strength. ‘I thought you were still asleep,’ she said. Skye felt his organ warm and pulsing against her thigh. She reached down and held him. He was hard and damp from the previous night.

  ‘Fooled you,’ he said. She moved to accept him and, as he entered her, the intense pleasure of it surprised her and caused her to cry out. She breathed deeply, trying to control the power of the feeling between her legs before it engulfed her completely.

  Ramallah, West Bank, Israel

  On a rooftop a good kilometre away, Lieutenant Colonel David Baruch watched the skirmish unfold on portable monitors, together with several other army brass and a bunch of pimply technicians. The picture on it was presented in luminous black and white: infrared. Occasional flashes flared the screen white, overwhelming its ability to present any picture at all for a few hanging seconds, indicating that a massive explosion had occurred. Baruch’s ears confirmed the fact a second or so later as the sound boomed and echoed around the stone and concrete houses like a clap of thunder following the flash. Overhead, two AW-1W Super Cobras prowled the skies, hunting for a clear line of fire for their twenty-millimetre cannons, but failing to find one.

  The Palestinians had chosen to make their stand in the middle of a residential area, and neither pilot wanted to
unleash their devastating firepower on innocent men, women and children. So they circled, looking menacing, but in this conflict no more than expensive bystanders. Baruch made the call and the gunships retired. The situation would have to be resolved by ground forces.

  The colonel concentrated on the screen as the technician cycled through various options and magnifications, demonstrating the Prowler’s direct control capabilities, using cameras to zoom in on individual soldiers, then cutting back to infrared. Points of light danced and sparkled against the building that had become no more than a shell, marking the contact of full metal jackets striking the concrete. Baruch had to admit he’d been wrong. He’d called it a toy, but the battlefield intelligence provided by the unmanned aerial vehicle was astonishing. The UAV circled the building, scribing lazy figure eights in the air several hundred metres above it. The platform was virtually silent (certainly its compact gasoline engine couldn’t be heard above the small arms fire) and, painted low-intensity grey like any other military aircraft, it was almost impossible to pick out against the hot blue sky. Yet the overhead view it afforded allowed a commander to position his forces for greatest effect. This sort of role was usually ascribed to helicopters, but that was an expensive option, even if the aircraft wasn’t shot down, which had been known to happen. At a couple of million US, the UAV was cheap – certainly when compared to a piloted vehicle – and, as such, expendable. Why put another of God’s children in the line of fire unnecessarily?

  The picture transmitted by the Prowler was pretty straightforward. The terrorists, around four of them, were pinned down and cornered. There had been a drive-by shooting close to the temple, and a quick-thinking policeman had commandeered a motorcycle and tailed the criminals from a safe distance, calling in for assistance. The army, on constant alert, responded quickly, but then things bogged down. The fugitives had cynically taken cover in the middle of a densely populated residential area. Baruch did not want the deaths of innocent people on his hands, but so many innocents had died over the years in this unwinnable war. And that’s what it was, unwinnable. It was impossible to tell who was friend and who was foe amongst the Palestinians, and so it was easier to label them all killers. But were he and his men any different? How many lives of innocent women and children had he inadvertently ended in his relentless pursuit of the enemy? He often thought of himself as being like a brain surgeon who operated with a cleaver instead of a laser, hacking away at a tumour rather than delicately burning it away, leaving the patient alive but better off dead. These were the thoughts and images he’d been struggling with for some time, lying awake staring at the ceiling, depressed and impotent beside his wife. But protecting his country was his job even if he was sick of having to wield the meat cleaver.

  ‘Sir…? Colonel…?’ It was one of the American technicians. Baruch realised he’d been daydreaming and snapped out of it. He ignored the young man with the disconcerting nest of green pimples on each cheek and contacted the lieutenant commanding the platoon on the ground. The UAV had done its job. It was a worthy addition to the inventory and he’d make his recommendation accordingly.

  ‘Yes, sir,’said Lieutenant Deborah Glukel into the handset. Baruch’s orders were easier said than done. ‘Benzona!’ she said to herself. Son of a bitch!

  The skirmish had been a vicious encounter. Two of her people were wounded and that was two too many. The proximity of noncombatants meant the gunships were useless, and so were tanks and other high-explosive options. This was a committed enemy. If they stormed the building, more of her own people would be put at unnecessary risk. But there was simply no other option.

  ‘We have to fucking take this fucking building one fucking room at a time. Horah!’ she said, working herself into it. Glukel sucked in the air and blew it out several times, like an athlete at the start of the hundred-metre sprint. Her people knew what to do. She made the hand signals clear and screamed the words out in her head at the same time: ONE…TWO…THREE…GO! GO! GO!

  Baruch saw the platoon move in on the screen followed shortly after by the increased clatter of small arms fire. One of the advancing soldiers fell to the pavement, dropping his weapon and lying still as others stormed the windows and doors. An incendiary hand grenade preceded the troops as they closed with the enemy, gasmasks fixed. The accompanying flare had turned the entire screen white and then it went completely blank, as if the intense light and heat had fused its millions of microprocessors.

  The technicians, at first stunned, hurriedly checked connections and components with increasing panic. Baruch guessed the problem was bigger than a hardware crash. He resisted the temptation to make the banal observation that TV programs always seem to get interrupted at the climax.

  Mushtaq had never tried to shoot down one of these pilotless planes before. His experience told him it would be tricky, but it had proved more than that. Ordinarily, he could hit the worm in an apple from four hundred metres on a still day, especially with this US-made M82A1A .50 calibre Special Application Scoped Rifle. The ‘Special Application’ designation referred to the fact that it was specifically designed as an anti-material weapon, rather than for anti-personnel work. He’d chosen HEAP – high-explosive armour piercing – rounds for the job. Overkill? Perhaps. But he wanted to make sure of success. It was a beautiful weapon: muzzle velocity of eight hundred and fifty-four metres per second, and an effective range of around eighteen hundred metres. But this was no ordinary target. The plane didn’t stay still like a worm. Also, the thing was painted a shade of grey that blurred its edges, made them fuzzy and ill defined, especially with the intense blue of the sky behind it. Just watching it, trying to focus on it, made his eyes watery and sore. His commander wanted one of these things for reasons unknown. Orders had come down from the highest place. And they wanted it with as little damage done as possible, which is why they had brought him in rather than a man with a machine gun. One clean shot. He’d thought about where he’d put the bullet and decided on removing a wing where it met the body – the strongest point of the aircraft. That would bring it down. Simple enough, he’d thought, but in reality, not simple at all.

  He counted the number of explosive-tipped bullets in his case. Twelve. That meant he’d taken eight shots at it and still no result.

  Mushtaq sat at the top storey window behind a lace curtain, four blocks from the fighting, and waited. The owners of this flat had been accommodating but, really, what choice did they have? The man and his wife sat on chairs against the opposite wall, where he could keep an eye on them. They were Palestinian, but not all Palestinians were as committed to the fight as he and his comrades were. They had each other and they had children, their smiling faces beaming from framed photos chequering the wall behind them.

  ‘You have a beautiful family,’ said Mushtaq. He wished he still had his family, but a stray round from an Israeli helicopter gunship had pierced the brick walls of his home and exploded, killing everyone and starting a fire. The Israelis asserted in the nightly television news bulletin that the people killed – his wife and three little children – were just more Palestinian terrorists.

  The man and his wife smiled and nodded enthusiastically. They were scared, and they had every right to be. If the Israelis caught him shooting at them from this place they would blast it to rubble.

  Mushtaq tried to recall his wife and children. He had loved then, but now he only hated. The Israelis hadn’t killed any terrorists that day but they had certainly given birth to one. And Mushtaq wouldn’t rest until he had shot a thousand Israelis dead in return.

  He waited for the grey, ghost-like thing to fly overhead once more. His eyes were watering, but not because of the glare this time. He couldn’t see his wife or children clearly anymore, their faces were fading like those on an old print, and it was this realisation that caused the tears to flow.

  A slight movement in the sky caught his attention. Mushtaq knelt and placed the tripod supporting the barrel on the windowsill. He kept both eyes open behi
nd the yellow shooter’s lenses of his glasses so that he could more easily catch the ghost-like craft in the ten-power scope. The wind at ground level was nil. What was it at five hundred metres, he wondered? The unmanned plane danced in the crosshairs. Mushtaq led it, guessing at its speed, matching it in his head with the known velocity of his bullet, mind, nerve and muscle making untold and minute calculations and adjustments. Instinct squeezed the trigger, his index finger exerting no more than a kilogram of pressure, and the weapon’s stock jolted into his shoulder. At last, Mushtaq was rewarded by a small puff of white on the aircraft’s underside. The HEAP round did its job. The wing parted from the body cleanly,just where he’d aimed, and the two sections began their uncontrolled spiral to earth.

  Lieutenant Deborah Glukel lay slumped on the ground outside the building. Medics rushed towards her in slow motion. Something had hit her in the chest with the force of a sledgehammer. The Kevlar plates in her body armour had done their job, but she couldn’t haul herself out of the firing line. She had just lain on her side, waiting for the headshot – there were no Kevlar plates protecting her face. The pain in her chest was intense and she guessed that several ribs and possibly her sternum were broken. Her platoon had done a good job. They’d stormed the building and killed all but one of the terrorists. She watched four men come and drag him away, unconscious. Those men were Shin Bet. They’d lock-tied the captured terrorist’s hands and feet behind him, blood streaming from his nose, ears and eyes. They dragged him across the broken pavement, threw him in a waiting black Mercedes and sped off.