She knew she had been taken aboard a ship after the helicopter flight from the jihadists’ training camp. She could tell from the salty air that wafted through the bag they had placed over her head and from the engine’s thrum and the action of waves against the hull. She hadn’t known which type of vessel until the cannons started firing.
It came as no surprise that Suleiman Al-Jama had been able to co-opt a Libyan warship. More likely, the entire crew were members of his organization.
Explosions wracked the frigate, and with each blast her sense of well-being grew. They would still kill her before it was over, she wasn’t fooling herself about that, but the United States Navy would ensure they wouldn’t have the chance to enjoy their victory.
A particularly loud explosion hit the ship, which seemed to stagger under the blow. When Fiona no longer heard the forward cannon firing, she knew the American warship had blown off one of the Libyan’s main gun turrets.
The door to the cabin was hastily thrown open. Her jailors wore headscarves to mask their features and had AK-47s slung over their backs. Fiona’s moment of well-being vanished as her cuffs were rearranged so her hands were bound behind her. Wordlessly, they yanked her from the room.
Uniformed sailors barely threw them a glance. They were too preoccupied with saving their ship to gloat over their prize. Fiona fell against a bulkhead when another fury of rounds slammed into the ship’s side. The ferocity of the battle so distracted her for the walk down to another, larger room that she forgot to pray.
But when she saw the black cloth hanging across the back wall, the video camera, and the man holding a massive scimitar, the words fell from her lips. There were others in the room, terrorists, not Libyan sailors. One was standing behind the camera, another near him fiddled with the satellite-uplink controls. The rest of the masked men were here as witnesses. She recognized their khaki utilities from the desert base. The man with the sword wore all-black.
The alarm loudspeaker in the mess hall had been disabled, though it was still audible from other parts of the vessel.
“Far from saving you,” the executioner said in Arabic, “that ship out there has pushed up our timeline by a few minutes.” He stared hard at the Secretary, and she returned his defiance. “Are you ready to die?”
“For the sake of peace,” Fiona replied, her voice as steady as she could keep it, “I was ready to die from the moment I understood the concept.”
They secured her to a chair set before the drape. Plastic sheeting had been placed on the deck at her feet. A gag was tied across her mouth to deny her any parting words.
The executioner nodded to the cameraman and he began to film. The lens stayed focused on Fiona for a moment, to make sure the target audience knew exactly who was about to die. Then the swordsman stepped in front of her, holding the ornate scimitar so it was plainly visible.
“We, the servants of Suleiman Al-Jama, come before you today to rid the world of another infidel.” He was reading from a typewritten script. “This is our answer to the Crusaders’ efforts to thrust their decadence upon us. From this unholy woman has come the worst of their lies, and for that she must die.”
Fiona willed herself to ignore the rant so in her head all she heard was “Our Father who art in heaven . . .”
SEEING HIS MEN HIT sent a lance of concern through Cabrillo’s heart, but there was no chance to go back now. Rather than consider retreat, he went on single-handedly. None of the Libyan sailors paid him the slightest attention. With a handful of Al-Jama’s terrorists using the ship as their base for Fiona Katamora’s execution, an unfamiliar face in their midst wasn’t cause for alarm. The few men moving around inside the ship were too focused on their jobs. When a fire-control team rushed toward him, Juan stopped running and flattened himself to a wall as any sailor would be trained to do.
“Come with us,” the fire team leader shouted without breaking stride.
“Captain’s orders,” Juan replied over his shoulder, and raced away in the opposite direction.
He found the staircase and rushed down three at a time, bowling over a seaman clawing his way topside. On the next deck, he ran unerringly for the crew’s mess. There were two armed guards posted outside the door. One was looking into the room, the other glanced at Cabrillo but dismissed him as part of the crew because of the uniform.
If Juan had needed confirmation he’d been right about a terrorist presence, it was these two, with their kaffiyehs and AKs.
Ten paces from them, Juan could hear a voice inside the mess saying “. . . killed our women and children in their homes, bombed our villages, and defied the very word of Allah.”
It was enough for him. With a cold fury born of fighting for too long—for his entire life, it seemed—he whipped the compact machine pistol into view. The one terrorist’s eyes widened, but that was the only reaction the Chairman allowed him. Cabrillo’s weapon chattered in his hands, stitching both men across their torsos. One round blew off the top of a man’s shoulder, the resulting blood splatter like obscene graffiti on the wall behind him.
Juan was moving so fast he had to push aside the collapsing bodies to get into the mess. Six armed men stood to his right beyond the sweep of a tripod-mounted camera. Two more were near the video equipment and another stood in front of it, a piece of paper in one hand, a curved sword in the other.
Fiona Katamora sat behind him, her mouth gagged but her eyes bright.
Cabrillo took in this tableau in the first half of a second and made his threat evaluation in the next. The executioner would need to move to make his killing stroke, and the men working the camera had left their weapons on the deck.
Juan skidded to his knees for a more stable firing position and then cut into the six terrorists. Two went down before they knew he was in the room. A third died as he tried to sweep his rifle into his hands. Because of the H&K’s notorious barrel rise on full automatic, number five was a double-tap headshot that sent brain tissue spinning through the air.
Cabrillo had to release the trigger for an instant to adjust. Number six opened fire before he’d drawn a bead. Rounds pinked off the wall to Juan’s right, chipping white paint off the metal and throwing ricochets in every direction.
The Chairman got his sight picture and let fly, drilling the gunman with a steady burst that threw him bodily into a bulkhead. He turned to the swordsman. The guy had the fastest reaction reflex Juan had ever seen. Four seconds had elapsed since he’d fired the first shots. Any normal human would have spent half that processing what his senses were telling him.
But not the swordsman.
He was moving the instant Juan’s eyes had first swept past him. He drew back the sword, pirouetting in a graceful display, and had the blade arcing toward Fiona Katamora’s exposed neck even before the sixth gunmen went down.
Hyped on adrenaline, Juan watched it happen like it was slow motion. He began swinging the H&K’s stubby barrel, knowing it was too late. He fired anyway, and from across the room the videographer pulled a pistol from a holster Cabrillo hadn’t seen.
A line of raging pain creased the side of Juan’s head and his vision went black.
THIRTY-SEVEN
ALI GHAMI GLANCED AT HIS WATCH FOR ABOUT THE DOZENTH time since Qaddafi had started speaking. And he kept looking over at an assistant, who hovered near the front door, a radio bud in his ear. Every time he met the man’s eyes, the aide would shake his head imperceptibly.
Charles Moon’s bodyguard had pointed out the behavior to him, and as he studied the Libyan Minister more closely he saw other signs of his disquiet. Ghami was constantly shifting from foot to foot, or thrusting his hands into his jacket pocket only to remove them an instant later. Many guests were growing tired of the long speech, which was now closing in on a half hour, but Ghami seemed more agitated than bored.
He looked again at his aide. The suited man was turned slightly away, his hand to his ear to listen better over Qaddafi’s droning voice. He turned back a moment later and n
odded at Ghami, a smile of triumph spread across his face.
“Showtime,” Moon’s guard said nonchalantly.
Ghami climbed one of the steps to get the Libyan President’s attention. When Qaddafi cut off his rambling praises of Fiona Katamora, the Minister climbed higher and whispered into his ear.
Qaddafi visibly paled. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, his voice, which had been so compassionate and clear moments earlier, quavering. “I have just been given the worst news possible.”
Moon translated for his companion’s sake.
“It appears that the beloved American Secretary of State managed to survive the horrific airplane crash.” This was met with a collective gasp, and conversations sprang up spontaneously all around the room. “Please, ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please. This is not what it seems. Following the crash, she was abducted by forces loyal to Suleiman Al-Jama. I have just been given word that they are about to carry out her execution. Minister Ghami also tells me they have a way of communicating with us in this house.”
Qaddafi followed his Foreign Minister into the next room, and soon many of the more sangfroid of the guests were crammed into every corner. The guard had Moon hold back so they were still in the entry hall, peering over the shoulders of others. The television had been turned on, its pale glow making the people look like the blood had been drained from their bodies. Several women were crying.
An image suddenly sprang up on the monitor. Sitting in front of a black background was Secretary Katamora. Her hair was a tangled mess after her ordeal, and her wide dark eyes were red-rimmed. The gag tied across her mouth pulled her cheeks back in an ugly rictus, but still she looked beautiful.
The weeping intensified.
A man hiding his features with a checked kaffiyeh stepped into view. He carried a sword with a small nick in its blade. “We, the servants of Suleiman Al-Jama, come before you tonight to rid the world of another infidel,” he said. “This is our answer to the Crusaders’ efforts to thrust their decadence upon us. From this unholy woman has come the worst of their lies, and for that she must die.”
Moon’s guard watched Ghami’s reaction closely. Something about what was playing out on the television had him off-kilter.
Qaddafi picked up the small camera from the television stand and held it at arm’s length. “My brother,” he said. “My Muslim brother who basks in the light of Allah, peace be upon him. This is no longer the way. Peace is the natural order of the world. Bloodshed only begets bloodshed. Can you not see that taking her life will accomplish nothing? It will not end the suffering in the Muslim world. Only discourse can do that. Only when we sit facing our enemies and discussing what brought us to such a state can we ever hope to live in harmony.
“The Koran tells us there can be no harmony with the infidel.
“The Koran also tells us to love all life. Allah has given us this contradiction as a choice for each man to make. The time for choosing hatred is over. Our governments are meeting now so we make this same choice for all our people. I beg you to lay down your sword. Spare her life.”
No one could see the swordsman’s features because of the headscarf, but his body language was easy enough to read. His shoulders slumped, and he let the heavy scimitar fall from view.
Then, from the back of the reception hall, came the sound of running feet, dozens of them pounding across the marble floor.
The plan was falling apart.
Ali Ghami yanked the camera from Qaddafi’s hand. “Mansour,” he screamed at his bodyguard, “what are you doing? Our gunmen are here. Kill her! Do it now!”
Rather than take up his sword again to slice off her head, the figure on the television helped pull the gag from Secretary Katamora’s mouth.
“Mansour,” Ghami cried again. “No!”
Someone yanked the camera away from the Minister at the same time he felt the barrel of a pistol crammed into his spine. He looked over to see an Asian man, Charles Moon’s bodyguard, standing behind him.
“Game’s up, Suleiman,” Eddie Seng said. “Take a look.”
On the monitor, the man Ghani thought was his most trusted confidant pulled the kaffiyeh from around his head. “How’d it go?” Chairman Cabrillo asked, half his head swaddled in bandages.
“I think the term is red-handed.”
The squad of President Qaddafi’s personal bodyguards came to a halt in the entrance to report that they had overwhelmed the security personnel outside without needing to fire a shot.
Qaddafi, who’d been briefed on the operation by Charles Moon earlier in the afternoon, rounded on his Minister. “The charade is over. After receiving an anonymous tip this afternoon, members of the Swiss military raided the house where you’ve been holding my grandson after faking his death in an automobile accident. He is safe, so you can no longer sit like an asp at my breast threatening to strike if I don’t allow you free rein.
“I truly did not know you were Al-Jama. I thought you blackmailed me to attain your current position for selfish gains of power. But now you have exposed yourself to the world. Your guilt is without question, and your execution will be swift. And I will work tirelessly to rid my government of anyone who even spoke of you highly.”
Qaddafi spread his arms to encompass the important people in the room. “We stand united in rejecting your ways, and the failure of your plot to kill leaders from other Muslim nations will serve as notice to others who stand in the way of peace. Take this piece of garbage from my sight.”
A burly Libyan soldier grabbed Ghami by the scruff of the neck and frog-marched him through the stunned crowd.
From the television came a woman’s voice.
“Mr. President, I couldn’t have said that better myself.” Fiona Katamora was standing at Juan’s side. “And I want to assure all the conference’s attendees that I will be at the bargaining table tomorrow morning at nine o’clock sharp so together we can all usher in a new era.”
THE BULLET THAT GRAZED the Chairman’s head in the frigate’s mess had knocked him out for only a second while the single round he’d managed to fire had done something far more remarkable. It had hit the sword as it swung, throwing off the executioner’s aim. The blade had struck the metal back of the chair, knocking it sideways and tumbling Fiona to the deck.
Lying on the floor, Juan triggered off a pair of three-round bursts, killing the cameraman and his assistant. The swordsman had lost his weapon, and he backed away from Fiona, holding his hands over his head.
“Please,” he begged. “I am unarmed.”
“Uncuff her,” Juan ordered. “And remove her gag.”
Before he could comply, the man who’d been threatening her life moments ago wet himself.
“It’s a little tougher facing armed men in combat than blowing up innocents, eh?” Juan mocked. When the gag came off, he asked the Secretary, “Are you okay?”
“Yes. I think so. Who are you?”
“Let’s just say I’m the spirit of Lieutenant Henry Lafayette and leave it at that.” Juan pulled the hand radio from his pant pocket. “Max, do you copy?”
“About damned time you called in,” Max said so gruffly that Cabrillo knew he was beside himself with concern.
“I’ve got her and we’re on our way out.”
“Make it quick. The Sidra’s accelerating, and we’ve only got about two minutes for your extraction plan to work.”
Fiona got to her feet, massaging her wrists where the cuffs had dug into her skin. She kept a wary distance from the swordsman but did the most astonishing thing Juan could imagine. She said, “I forgive you, and someday I pray you will come to see me not as your enemy but as your friend.” She turned to Juan. “Do not kill this man.”
Cabrillo was incredulous. “With all due respect, are you nuts?”
Without a backward glance, she strode from the room. Juan made to follow, turned back on the swordsman, and fired a single shot. He grabbed the script from the deck where it had fallen and noted the frequency
the television camera was going to broadcast on, the final piece of his plan. When he caught up to her, he said, “I couldn’t have him follow us, so I put one through his knee.”
He took her hand, and together they raced for the main deck. The smoke, he noticed, was much thinner. A pair of sailors was on the top landing of the stairs. They didn’t react until they recognized the Japanese-American Secretary of State. As if choreographed, they jumped at her simultaneously. Juan shot one as he flew, and the bullet’s impact was enough to alter his trajectory. The second slammed into Juan’s chest with enough force to blow the air from his lungs. Choking to refill them, Juan was defenseless for several moments, an opening the sailor took to throw a quick series of punches.
Fiona tried to wrestle him off her rescuer, and had she not been through the ordeal of the past few days she would have succeeded, but she was exhausted beyond her body’s limit. The sailor shoved her aside contemptuously and threw a kick that caught Cabrillo on the chin.
From outside the confines of the ship came a roar that rattled the stairwell.
A missile had streaked off a hidden launch tube buried on the Oregon’s deck. It lifted into the growing darkness on a fiery column that seemed to split the sky. The explosive-tipped rocket began to topple almost immediately on its short projected flight.
The sound galvanized the Chairman, and he found a berserker’s fury. The kick had rattled his brain, so he fought on instinct alone. He ducked as the next blow came at him and smashed his elbow down on the sailor’s exposed shin with enough force to snap the bone.
The man screamed when he put weight on it and the shattered ends grated against one another. Juan gained his feet, rammed a knee into the sailor’s groin, and pushed him down the rest of the steps. He grabbed Fiona’s hand, and they rushed for the exit.
The hatch he had used to gain entry into the Sidra’s superstructure was closed, and when he opened it, expecting to see the Oregon hard against the frigate’s side, he saw instead that his ship was a good thirty feet away. In her wake, the rocket’s contrail hung in the air, a twisting snake that corkscrewed into the night.
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