by Larry Bond
Lying on his back, Rankin saw it twist to the right. A black finger curled around the side and then it keeled over, moving sideways through the air like a kid’s balloon that had just gotten a pin it. The warhead exploded with a tremendous thunderclap. The framework of the building was on fire, ignited by the same flame that had run up the fuel line from the train car. Thick black smoke furled out across the yard.
“Guns! Guns!” yelled Rankin. “That was a great idea. Guns!”
“Over here,” said Guns, opposite where Rankin expected him to be. The marine fired a fresh burst at the spot where the machine gun had been, but the Iraqis had retreated as soon as the missile launched and were now running to escape. The AC-130 droned in the distance, an angry bee late to the picnic.
“Guns?” Rankin, hobbled by his wounds, pushed in his direction.
“Down!” yelled Guns, spotting a figure with a pistol. He fired his M4 too late; the other man ducked as he fired.
Rankin went down. The bullet had missed, but the jerk to his knee was too much and he lost his balance. He dropped his gun as he fell. Before he could roll onto his stomach and retrieve it, the other man kicked it away.
It was Vassenka. The Russian extended his pistol slowly. “I hate Americans,” he said, taking aim, “but I love watching them die. Slowly. With great pain. I do this for free.”
A shot rang out from behind Rankin, then another. The bullets hit Vassenka in his chest. Staggering, he looked up, surprised.
James fired twice more. Vassenka sunk to his knees, then fired his own gun, striking James in the chest before collapsing.
Guns ran over and kicked the pistol from Vassenka’s hand. All four of James’s bullets had struck the Russian, but they were.32 caliber, small slugs in a big body. One had hit him close to the neck, and blood pumped steadily from the wound.
There was a chance he might live if someone stopped it from bleeding quickly. Guns took his weapons, stuffed them in his belt, then left him to die.
Rankin crawled over and cradled his friend’s head in his arms. “James?”
“Hey, Stephen. I got tired of waiting, man. I hope you don’t mind that I set the thing on fire. I figured you guys were in trouble.”
Unlike James’s gun, Vassenka’s pistol fired a large, thick slug. Blood was surging from the wound into James’s lungs and chest cavity.
“You saved my life,” Rankin told him.
“You should have thought of that, Stephen. Just set the damn thing on fire. You’re a bright guy. You should’ve thought of it. Not me.”
“I should have thought of it, James. You’re right.”
“I thought it was going to explode.”
“The rocket? It went off course.”
“The grenade,” said James, remembering. “I really thought it would go off.”
“So’d we all.”
“I wanted to die, man. That’s why I went with you guys. I just wanted to be gone. And since that time, so many times, I might have done something worthwhile, but what am I?”
James began coughing.
“You’re a hero. You saved my life,” Rankin told him. “You saved a lot of people’s lives.”
James closed his eyes, slipping away. “I really thought the grenade was going to explode.”
ACT VII
It is done.
— Revelation 16:17 (King James Version)
1
THE RED SEA
Ferguson could see the Sharia about a mile ahead. The yacht sat dead in the water, not moving. Nor was there anyone topside. A large tarpaulin flapped on the deck at the stern, covering several large crates. So maybe Birk hadn’t sold the missile after all, or at least hadn’t gotten around to delivering it.
“You sound disappointed,” said Thera as Ferguson described what he saw.
“Not necessarily,” he told her. “Come up slow. Remember, the guy who owns that tub is an arms dealer. He could have anything short of a nuke aboard. He might even have that.”
“You sure we should go aboard ourselves? Why don’t we just call in backup?”
“Who are we going to call?”
“The navy comes to mind.”
“It’ll be next week before they can spare someone.”
Ferguson picked up his shotgun, deciding to stick with nonlethal bullets as his first choice. But he strapped on the waterproof backpack with the MP5N just in case.
They circled around the Sharia without seeing anyone. The anchor line was extended into the water.
“Let me get off, then you pull away,” Ferguson said. “I’m worried about booby traps.”
“If you’re worried about booby traps, why don’t we just wait for the navy?”
“If we wait and then this turns out to be nothing, how would I show my face at the next bar fight?”
Ferguson went over to the side, watching the yacht. He stepped, up then swung over the side, jumping across to the platform at the fantail. Once on the deck, he looked at the tiedowns to the tarp, trying to find booby traps. He couldn’t see any, nor did the detector find any bugs or radio devices. Ferguson walked up to the bow, then went back along to the cabin area.
“Birk?” he yelled. “Yo, guess who.”
No one answered.
“Hey, you dumb Polack, what are you doing?” Ferguson shouted. “Did you ever hear the joke about the Polish guy and the Irish guy and pig?”
Ferguson stepped down into the galley area and through the enclosed space to the ladder that led down to Birk’s suite of living quarters.
“Birk!”
The door to Birk’s cabin was ajar. Ferguson could see part of Birk’s bed, its covers taut and neat.
He pushed the barrel of his shotgun into the crack and edged the door open. Mildly surprised not to find Birk’s body on the bed, he slipped into the cabin. It looked pretty much exactly as he remembered from the other day.
Back topside, Ferguson took out a knife and hacked off the lines holding down the tarp. The two crates below the plastic were empty.
“How are we doing?” yelled Thera from the other boat. She’d cut her engine and was drifting toward him.
“Not so well,” said Ferguson.
“Should I come aboard?”
“No, I’m just about done here. Come up alongside. I’ll be right back.”
Ferguson went up to the bridge area, looking for a logbook or some other records. None were visible, and the only chart he could find was a generic map that looked as if it came from a geographic atlas; it surely wasn’t t he sort of thing a sailor would use to plot a long trip. Birk, who thought he was a real sailor, would surely have used real charts.
Ferguson looked around for a gun locker, interested in a grenade launcher or something large enough to stop another boat. Birk had stowed a variety of weapons on his first yacht, partly for defense and mostly to wow visitors. Most likely, thought Ferguson, he would have done the same aboard the Sharia.
There were lockers in a storeroom next to the main lounge. In one there was a kit for an SA-7. Designed as an antiair weapon, the lightweight shoulder-launched missile would home in on any heat source, and Ferguson thought he could use it against a ship if necessary. His credit was good enough that the arms dealer wouldn’t mind if he borrowed a few items.
He surely wouldn’t; his body had been stuffed into the longest of the lockers, right over a cache of grenade launchers.
2
BAGHDAD
Corrine watched the president as the audience of Iraqi government representatives rose to applaud. His gaze mixed confidence with just a touch of bemused awe, as if he were wondering to himself why everyone rose in his honor. The suggestion of humility had stood him well in politics, but it was not part of the polished act of being a politician; Jonathon McCarthy really was a humble man, or in his words, “one who knows where he stands in God’s eye.” It was a perspective, he had told her during his presidential campaign, that helped give him strength during difficult times.
That hadn’t
made sense to her then, but now she saw part of what he meant. McCarthy could see himself as one small step in a long march toward a goal, a view that helped him persevere against great odds but a difficult one for a powerful man or woman to take. It must be nearly impossible if you were president.
“Thank you, Mr. Prime Minister, cabinet members, parliament,” said the president, beginning his speech. “It has been a long, difficult journey here since the dictator was deposed and incarcerated three years ago. There has been a great deal of suffering in this country and more pain than words can say.”
Corrine listened as he continued, talking about the hope of democracy and the need for Iraq and other countries in the Middle East to find their own path to the future. “Religion will play an important role, as it always has, throughout the world, not just in the Middle East but especially in the Middle East,” he said. “Islam is built on strong traditions of justice, of kindness, of strength, which are essential to the future. It also, like many religions, has given rise to fanaticism from time to time. So has Christianity. So has Judaism. Islam is not the destructive, backward-looking religion that some — in the West as well as the East — have tried to pretend. And the countries whose people embrace it must shun that path and look to a hopeful, positive future.”
The hall rose as one. Corrine watched the president savor the moment.
“The path will be a difficult and winding one, full of hard and bitter retreats and reversals,” he continued. “We must persevere. All of us — Iraqi and American, Muslim and Christian, Jew and nonbeliever — must persevere and put aside our differences, avoid the temptation to destroy, and instead build toward the shining future that lies ahead…”
3
THE RED SEA
“We missed it,” Ferguson told Thera back aboard the diving boat. “Either it’s in one of those tankers we passed, or it was delivered on shore somewhere.”
“Maybe Birk never had it. Maybe that’s why he’s dead.”
“Nah. Birk doesn’t lie. Especially about stuff like that.”
Ferguson took out his sat phone and called the Cube to talk to Corrigan. Rather than getting the photo interpreter to look at the satellite reconnaissance again, he asked for Thomas Ciello.
Corrigan gladly handed him off.
“Thomas, this is Ferg. I need you to pull out a series of satellite photos on the area where we are, going back say a week. Fifty miles one way or another. First I want to know if there are any ships that have been in more or less the same place over that time or at least during the last few days. Then I need you to look at the deck of the ship today; see if you see anything different.”
It took the analyst about five minutes to bring the photos up on his screen. In the meantime, Thera pointed the boat northward and set the throttle to full.
“There is a ship,” Thomas told Ferguson. “There’s an old tanker about five miles north of you that’s been anchored there for three or four days. There’s something on the shore side of it, maybe a small boat, but it’s hard to see because of the angle.”
“Get me a GPS location. Then give me Corrigan.”
Corrigan came on the line after Thomas passed along the reading.
“I want you to call the Saudi military and the government,” Ferguson told him. “Tell them Mecca’s being targeted by a missile on a tanker in the Red Sea. Use the open channel to make sure it goes through. No scramble. Do it right now.”
“Are you sure, Ferg?”
“Do it, Jack. Now.”
* * *
As the tanker came in sight, Ferguson coiled a long nylon rope around his arm, adjusted the mask and snorkel, then slipped off the edge of the diving boat. The line unfurled until he was about ten yards aft and to the starboard side of the craft, then tugged and began pulling him forward through the water. He waited until he could see the bow of the tanker, I hen untangled his hand and let go of the rope.
As the diving vessel continued northward, Ferguson swam toward the ship.
Neither Thomas nor the photo interpreter who’d looked at the satellite pictures earlier had said that the small boat near the tanker was the boat that had been rented with Thatch’s credit card. Ferguson was actually just guessing, though when he saw the name painted at the stern was Jericho lie figured his guess had been pretty good.
Ferguson had put on flippers, but he was also wearing a Kevlar vest beneath his wetsuit, and though it was considered relatively light for the protection it offered, it still slowed him down. As he swam toward the boat, he heard voices floating down from the tanker. The Jericho itself was empty. A metal ladder for swimmers was bolted at the stern. He climbed up over it and into the vessel, then unzipped the MP5N from the waterproof pack he’d lugged on his back. He clipped a pair of the smoke grenades in the belt from the pack at his chest and took out the Beretta pistol as a backup. He stuffed two extra magazines for the MP5 in his pockets and prepared to say hello to whoever was above on the tanker.
One line fore and another aft held the Jericho in place against the ship. Ferguson went to the line near the bow, tugged gently, then began hauling himself up the tanker’s flank.
Out on the diving boat, Thera cut her speed and turned toward the channel, making a slow, lazy turn back south. She couldn’t see much on the tanker from where she was, though she did see one sailor at the side watching her.
She had to do better than that. Letting the boat drift, she went to the forward deck and peeled off her outer clothes, revealing her bathing suit.
The rope holding the Jericho to the tanker came off the side through an oblong opening about a foot high and two feet wide. When Ferguson reached it, he craned his head toward the ship, trying to peer through, but the metal structure prevented any view of the deck. He had to go over blind.
Ferguson took a breath, then pulled himself up over the side.
Thirty feet to his right, a stubby, aircraftlike missile sat in the middle of the deck. Two men were working on one of the wings.
Ferguson lifted his MP5N and fired a brief burst into the air.
“Hello! What we want to do is move away from there,” he shouted. “Back up! Now, boys.”
The men threw up their hands. Ferguson glanced toward the super-structure of the ship. There were two or three people there, and at least one other sailor near the rail on the opposite side of the ship.
“Who are you?” yelled a man.
“That’s my Siren missile,” said Ferguson. “I want it back.”
“Where exactly do you want it?” said Ravid, emerging from a hatchway on the deck to Ferguson’s right.
“Raise the pistol at me, and I’ll shoot the missile,” Ferguson warned, guessing — correctly — that Ravid had a weapon in the hand he had down by his side.
Ravid held the gun up but not aimed at him. “You would die for Islam?”
“I don’t quite look at it that way,” said Ferguson. He kept the MP5N aimed at the missile. “You really think it would be a good idea to drop a Siren missile on Mecca?”
“It’s a start. I only wish it were a nuke.”
“Because some crazies killed your wife and son?”
“She was a Muslim,” said Ravid. “It didn’t save her.”
“I’m sorry. This isn’t good, though. You can’t just kill people, right? The people there are as innocent as your wife and kid.”
“No, they’re not.”
“God wouldn’t want you to kill innocent people.”
“There is no God,” said Ravid. “So you’ve dogged me the whole way?”
“Not the whole way. Tell me you didn’t blow up Thatch.”
Ravid frowned.
“Just an accident?” Ferguson took another sidestep on the deck. He’d been working to try and get close enough to Ravid to roll and knock him off balance, but it wasn’t going to be easy.
“There are no accidents.”
“Oh, sure there are.” Ferguson took another half step. “People die in bathtubs all the time.”
“This isn’t going to make you feel better.”
“Oh, yes, it will.” He fired, striking Ferguson in the chest and side, the bullets piercing his wetsuit.
Ferguson, protected by his bulletproof vest, pitched himself downward and fired his gun. His bullets caught Ravid across the chest as well, twisting his aim wide and sending him back in a stagger.
Revenge would be so sweet, thought Ravid. All these years he had pretended to be one of them, and now he would have his revenge.
He fired his gun and gave the order to fire the missile. But his last shots were unaimed, and the words a bare whisper. Ferguson fired another burst, striking him in the head. Ravid tried to talk but choked, his last thought dying on his tongue: So sweet, revenge.
By the time Ferg got to his feet, the others had scrambled for cover. He ran past the missile launcher to the other side, looking first for them and then examining the launcher, trying to think of how he might disable it. A thick wire ran off one side of the metal base. As he reached into his pocket for his phone to call the weapons expert, the missile ignited. Surprised by the rumble, he turned and emptied his gun into the billowing smoke, but it had no visible effect; the missile shot off the ship.
“Use the SA-7,” he yelled to Thera. “The SA-7!”
Then he dove headlong into the water below, arcing down to the waves.
Thera had already sighted the Siren with the weapon even as Ferguson dove. The surface-to-air missile leapt from the launcher, trailing the thick oval of flame and smoke heading toward land.
As an early cruise missile, the Siren had one great vulnerability: it was basically a slow and lumbering airplane, and presented a fat and juicy target to even a rudimentary air-to-air missile such as the SA-7. But Thera had given the siren too much of a head start. After a few hundred yards the SA-7 stopped gaining on its target; it began to steer right, then faltered and disappeared.
