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Aim True, My Brothers

Page 3

by William F. Brown


  “Get back, Barnett, I'll do her; I swear I will!” he growled.

  “A piece of crap like her? That’s okay by me,” Barnett answered. “You do her, and then I do you. One-for-one, so we can keep the cosmic trash in balance.”

  “Say what?” the fat hooker frowned. “Hey, man, you can’t…”

  As Billy-Ray was thinking it over, Barnett inched closer, extended the .38, and pressed it against his forehead. Billy-Ray didn’t like that at all. He jumped as if he had touched a high power line. “One last thing, though,” Barnett added. “When you do cut her, don't go getting any blood on my Nikes. These are the new Kevin Durant model, the ones with the glow strips and titanium springs. That would really piss me off and I’d probably shoot you two, maybe three more times in various body parts just for spite.”

  Billy-Ray’s eyes crossed and he began to sweat as he stared down the barrel of Barnett’s .38. Finally, he swallowed and whispered hoarsely, “You wouldn’t do that, Barnett. You’re a cop, that wouldn’t be right.”

  “Who said I was a cop? I’m FBI, and our rules are different. The President declared DC an official free-fire zone, man. Nobody cares if I shoot you or her.”

  “Free Fire Zone? You’re freakin’ crazy, man.”

  “Yeah, maybe I am. So, here’s the thing, you can go ahead and cut her, or you can drop the knife and let her go. Your choice, Billy-Ray, but make it quick. My shift’s over in five minutes, then it’s a new workweek. That’ll screw up this week’s bonus so I gotta shoot you now.”

  They stood there eye to eye for a long moment glaring at each other, until Barnett heard the box cutter clatter on the linoleum tile floor. That was when Charlie, two more FBI agents, and a dozen DC city cops rushed into the room from various doorways and windows, guns drawn, and began cuffing everyone — Billy-Ray, the two clowns on the couch, the big Skinhead lying on the floor, and the fat hooker. She proved to be the toughest bust of all, screaming at the cops and at Barnett most of all. “You filthy bastard, you coulda got me killed. He was gonna slit my throat, and you just stood there and told him to go ahead and do it. You son of a bitch!” she went on. “And what did you call me? Cosmic trash? I’m calling my lawyer. I’m gonna sue your ass!”

  Barnett ignored her as he picked up the box cutter and the sawed-off shotgun, and headed out the front door. One of the cops, who was trying to pick up the Skinhead lying on the floor, looked at the blood streaming down the guy’s face and asked, “What the hell hit this big goober, Eddie?”

  “A low-flying Giant Supreme,” he answered as he reached down, picked up one of the pizza slices still inside the box, and took a bite. “Not half bad. A little cold, maybe, but not bad,” he added as he walked out the door onto the front porch. Behind him, the FBI agents began examining the crate of guns and bank moneybags. Some of the DC cops hustled the gang out to their waiting police cars, while the rest began searching the house.

  Barnett took a seat on the front steps, set the sawed-off shotgun and box cutter on the step next to him, and took another bite out of the pizza, as a half-dozen TV remote trucks converged on the house, honking, blocking the street, and cutting each other off as they ran over curbs and yards jockeying for position. The truck doors sprang open and reporters with cameramen toting mini-cams and light bars ran toward the house, elbowing each other like jammers in the Roller Derby. Barnett shook his head as Charlie came out, holstered his Glock, and sat down next to him. “Want some pizza?” Barnett asked as he held out the slice of Giant Supreme.

  Charlie looked at the slice and rolled his eyes. “The bimbo’s right, Eddie,” he said. “You really are crazy. How come you didn’t just shoot that clown?”

  “Too goddamned much paperwork.”

  “Paperwork my ass! You keep this up, you’re gonna get yourself killed.”

  Barnett looked down at the shotgun and the knife, then up at the horde of reporters charging at them, and frowned. Camera lights came on, flooding the front porch and blinding them as the sharks crowded in, leaning forward with their microphones and shouting questions at them. For the first time, a look of real concern crossed Barnett’s face.

  “You don’t think she really has a lawyer, do you?” he turned toward Charlie and asked.

  PART TWO

  SOUTHERN LEBANON

  TWO MONTHS EARLIER

  CHAPTER THREE

  Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, July 19, 2:00 p.m.

  There is no place in the world where the Biblical admonition of “As ye sow, so shall ye reap” has more meaning than the Middle East. The reaping would come with the speed and ferocity of streaking Israeli fighter jets, but the sowing began quietly in Beirut, when Ibrahim Al-Bari returned from eight years of bitter fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those who knew the boy barely recognized the man. The thin, aesthetic architectural student in his early 20s had grown into a craggy, powerfully-built thirty-year-old with a thick, closely cropped beard and dark eyes. An outgoing, joking boy with sharp opinions, it was a far more serious and secretive man who returned. His hands were rough and calloused, no longer suited for the drawing board. Like his face, they bore numerous scars, large and small — the mark of too many battles won and lost.

  The jewel of the eastern Mediterranean until the 1960s, every ten years or so, Beirut had suffered its own battles at the hands of others. However, the recent savage fighting in Syria, Libya, and Egypt had actually caused a period of relative peace to descend upon the Lebanese capital, as terrorists, dictators, and even Army generals occasionally need a place to relax and find a friendly bank that was still open. Similarly, many of the radical groups formerly based in Damascus, such as Hezbollah and Hamas, shifted their bases to the relative calm of Beirut.

  Beirut had always been a moderately stylish and westernized melting pot, and Ibrahim Al-Bari drew looks when he arrived in Beirut wearing the distinctive Afghan pokool hat, a shawl over his shoulders, a long scarf wrapped around his neck, and rugged mountain sandals. These were not mere affectations calculated to impress the Hamas leadership, however. Even if they had not heard the stories, one look into Al-Bari’s powerful, dark eyes was enough to convince anyone that he was exactly what he looked like — an elite, battle-hardened soldier and a leader of men. An expert in weapons and tactics, he had risen through the ranks and soon commanded multi-national resistance units throughout the rugged south and eastern Hindu Kush and Pamir Mountains, attacking Afghan Army posts, American and NATO convoys, and government-controlled towns with impunity, never resting, always looking for new targets to strike. His ability to get Pashtuns, Uzbeks, Arabs, Saudis, Egyptians, Taliban, Sunni, and even Shia to set their differences aside and focus on their common objective was unique. Taking a man’s hand and looking into his eyes, he would say, “I care not where you are from, my brother. Follow me, if you want to kill Americans.” As the months and years passed, that was something at which he became very, very adept.

  Beirut had become the operational headquarters of Hamas’s ‘Political Bureau,’ run by Khaled Sayef, a co-founder of Hamas with Sheik Ahmed Yassin, until a Hellfire missile from an Israeli helicopter took out Yassin, his wheelchair, and his bodyguards. Since then, Sayef had chaired Hamas’s military wing and the Izz ad-Din al Qassam Brigades of well-trained guerilla fighters.

  When Al-Bari arrived in Beirut, he came alone with no entourage. He rented a modest room in the old quarter, ate alone in simple neighborhood restaurants, and spent most of his time in the mosque. The presence of a man like him in the city was immediately known, but Al-Bari did not make the usual courtesy calls on Sayef or the Hamas headquarters. However, as with any foreigner, especially a dangerous one, Al-Bari was being closely watched by both Hamas and the Syrian Secret Police who still operated in Lebanon with impunity. Few things were still working in Syria, but Assad’s Secret Police was one of them.

  Weeks later, after his movements had been recorded, reviewed, and debated, the Hamas military council finally summoned Ibrahim Al-Bari to an informal Shura or council
with its top military commanders and committee chairmen. The meeting room was in the rear of Hamas’s headquarters, away from exterior walls and facing out on a small Moorish courtyard, where it would make a difficult target. Small and simply furnished, it featured a long table with a dozen hard-backed chairs set around it. When they ushered Al-Bari into the room, he saw that middle-aged Palestinian men with well-trimmed beards or moustaches occupied eleven of the twelve chairs. They wore western suits with open-collared shirts and expensive Italian shoes, and from their expressions, he knew that heated arguments had been going on in the room for some time. Khaled Sayef sat at the far end, dressed much like the others. Al-Bari had met him briefly years before, but one look at the man’s hands, his gut, and his jowls suggested that the sedentary life in Beirut had dulled his once fine edge.

  The chair at the opposite end of the table was the only one empty. Obviously, that was the one Al-Bari’s inquisitors had reserved for him. However, he rarely did what other men wanted or expected. Instead of taking that chair, he walked slowly down the side of the table to a spot on the floor near Sayef, and sat with his back to the wall and his knees drawn up to his chest. The others were shocked and then outraged by his behavior. They grumbled, fidgeted, and pushed their heavy chairs back, craning their necks to get a better view of this presumptuous upstart.

  “No offense intended, Sheik Sayef,” Al-Bari flattered the older man, “but I have a bad back and one becomes accustomed to meeting more informally in the mountains.”

  “None taken, Ibrahim,” Sayef had to smile at Al-Bari’s disarming manner, “but our only Sheik is our dearly departed brother, Sheik Yassin. I am merely another of his followers.”

  “As are we all,” Al-Bari replied with a deferential bow of his head.

  “You have a fighting record of which all of Hamas is proud,” Sayef said with a thin, knowing smile, pleased at how effectively this mountain fighter had just outplayed a table-full of politicians. “So tell me, what we can do to help you, my brother?”

  Al-Bari looked up and returned the smile. For once, what he had heard about a man might actually be true. Sayef might be someone who understands, and a leader he could work with. “I went to Afghanistan to observe the Americans, to study their tactics, and to learn how to kill them, and I did that.”

  “With impressive results,” one of the other men at the table jumped in. “However, they are still there, are they not?”

  “And they will remain there for a very long time,” he replied with a look in his eyes that could melt steel.

  “Then why did you leave, if there is so much work left to do?” another man asked.

  “Because killing Americans there has become a fool’s errand,” Al-Bari answered.

  “What!” The others around the table exploded angrily, many coming out of their chairs.

  Sayef silenced them with a sweep of his hand. “Tell me why a man like you would say a thing like that, Ibrahim,” he asked, as the others sat back in their chairs, still grumbling.

  “Because it is halfway around the world from Washington, and they do not care. Oh, we killed many Americans; but we killed many more Muslims. We destroyed their country and lost our best young men in the process. In the end, the Jews still sit in Jerusalem and the Americans still sit in Washington, laughing at us. Once again, we missed the mark. If we continue fighting them in Afghanistan, or Iraq, or the Sudan, or even Iran, in twenty years — even a hundred years — we will still be there fighting, bleeding, and dying without having accomplished a thing. No, Khaled, if you want to kill a snake, you do not chase him around through the tall grass. You find his lair, go there, and lop off his head.”

  The others began to curse and grumble again, but Sayef pointedly ignored them, leaning forward with his chin propped on his fingertips until the others finally fell silent. “Clearly, you came here for a reason, Ibrahim. Tell us what you propose.”

  Al-Bari looked around the table at the other faces, and said nothing.

  “All right,” Sayef said as he turned to the others. “Leave us alone for a few minutes, my friends,” and dismissed them with a wave of his hand. From their faces, it was obvious that their opinion of this young man sitting on the floor in his peasant clothes had turned from irritation to outright hatred. They were most unhappy, but they went. When the door closed and they were alone, Sayef rose from his chair and joined Al-Bari on the floor. “We sat like this when I was a boy,” Sayef smiled. “Unfortunately, I now have an old man’s back and a bad knee.” He looked at Al-Bari, and pointed toward the door. “You realize you have made ten new enemies today, Ibrahim.”

  “They can join a very long list.”

  “Perhaps, but making new and powerful ones is always a dangerous thing for a young man to do. Now, tell me what you want.”

  Al-Bari smiled. “You and I are Palestinians, Khaled, born of the same soil. We are not Iranians, Pakistanis, Saudis, or Egyptians. Our holy mission is to liberate our homeland. Striking the Americans in Afghanistan, Iraq, or wherever, is a waste of our precious resources. If we want to defeat the Jews, we must attack them in Israel. All the rest are side shows.”

  Sayef smiled, as he would to a slow child in school. “It isn’t exactly that we haven’t tried to attack them, over and over again, Ibrahim; but they are very well prepared, their borders are formidable, and they are every bit as tough and unforgiving as we.”

  “I have a new plan, something you have not tried.”

  “I hoped you would. So, tell me what it is.”

  And so he did. Ibrahim Al-Bari reached inside his shirt, pulled out a battered map, laid it on the floor, and began to explain. For decades, the modus operandi of a succession of radical Palestinian organizations was to infiltrate small terrorist squads into the Jewish state through Southern Lebanon, Syria, or Jordan, crossing the border to pick an isolated kibbutz in northern and eastern Israel for a quick, violent attack. Unfortunately, the border areas were now defended in depth with wire, mines, tanks, electronics, satellite surveillance, drones, border guards, and hardened Israeli infantry, so that cross-border attacks had become pure suicide. However, there was a new, sparkling, high-rise condominium and shopping complex called The International Center that had recently been completed on the broad sweep of Haifa Bay in north-central Israel, where the young Israeli business and social elite now lived and mingled.

  Al-Bari pulled out a wrinkled photo. “This is torn from an American magazine. I first saw it as I lay in a cave in the mountains. I studied architecture. As I stared at the building, a plan came to me. I know these places. I know how they are built and engineered, and I know how to bring them down,” he stated. “Destroying a showplace like that in the heart of modern Israel will send a message that this land is only on loan from its real owners.”

  It was precisely the target and the statement that Khaled Sayef had wanted to make for years. “But how? It can only be attacked from the sea, Ibrahim. Our young men are brave, but most are sons of farmers and shepherds who grew up in dusty refugee camps, and the only water they know is at the bottom of a well.”

  “Yes, Khaled, but I grew up in a fishing village on the southern coast, my brothers and I. Our father and grandfathers were fishermen. We know small boats and that coast, and we are not the only ones, if you will help me find them in the camps.”

  “It would be a very risky venture.”

  “What isn’t? I need two months. With my two brothers, a handpicked contingent of nine other men I will select and train, and your help, we can bring those buildings down.”

  “Two months, Ibrahim?”

  “I shall train them and I shall lead them myself.”

  This would be the largest seaborn attack Hamas had ever attempted; and if it succeeded, their most dramatic. After visiting many refugee camps, in the end, Al-Bari chose his own younger brothers, Jamil and Ahmed, plus Haidar, a family friend from their village who was betrothed to their younger sister, Kadri, and eight other young men from fishing families in ot
her nearby coastal villages. As Al-Bari well knew, nothing binds a man tighter than blood. They would attack in four small, low-profile inflatable boats with three men in each, leaving in pairs from the small fishing village of Ras Awwali on the southern Lebanese coast. He would command one pair, with Ahmed and Haidar in his boat, while his other brother, Jamil, led the other pair. Once out to sea, the two groups would take separate routes, land on separate beaches, and infiltrate the complex from different sides. It would succeed if one of the two groups, or even one boat, reached the target. Strapped under each boat’s gunnels were neatly wrapped packages of Semtex plastique explosive, and each man had been well trained in its use. Properly placed, two or three of those packages were more than enough to bring one of the tall buildings crashing down with its screaming occupants inside. If all four boats reached the target, they would destroy the entire complex.

  As the chosen day in September finally arrived and the late afternoon sun dropped toward the horizon, Ibrahim Al-Bari gathered his men in their small operations center in the fishing village of Ras Awwali’s old mosque for a final review of the plan, the weather, known shipping activity along the coast, and several new photographs of the target.

  “We will have low cloud cover tonight and only a quarter moon, which should be perfect,” he said, looking deep into each man’s eyes. “We shall be on our own out there, so stay close. We cannot go in too early, or too late. Everyone must be on the beach at 5:00 a.m., precisely. Surprise is everything. You have the weapons and explosives. Be ready to adapt. If things go awry, as may happen, seek a target, any target, and destroy it.”

 

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