The Empty Quarter

by David L. Robbins

  LB had nothing he could add to his remarks that wasn’t a guess. He went with what he knew for certain.

  “You’re the best-trained and best-prepared rescue team in the world. So screw it. Let’s go. Hoo yah?”

  The unit as one answered, “Hoo ah!”

  Zooming above the dunes at three hundred knots, it was fifteen minutes to the LZ. The loadmasters set to work freeing the GAARVs from their cargo strap restraints, shoving the packed vehicles and cargo chutes over rollers and into position. The GAARVs would be pushed out first, with the team right behind them into the night. LB helped Wally into his container, checked his straps and buckles, then popped him on the shoulders.

  LB took a seat beside Berko. The young officer was occupied checking everything twice: his ammo, carbine, radios, parachute, bootlaces.

  The lieutenant’s smile came quickly, then fled at the same pace. His hands fluttered over his equipment.

  LB pushed the young CRO’s arms down. “Stop it.” He ran a quick check over the kid’s gear; everything was in place.

  “You’re good, sir.”

  Berko puffed his cheeks and seemed to settle. LB had done this for every pararescueman on the team at one time or another, and many others over the years. Told them they were good, then leaped into trouble beside them to try and make sure it was true.

  Chapter 21

  Hadhramaut

  The Empty Quarter

  Yemen

  Josh opened the car door and left it open, to rise behind it with the Kalashnikov. In the sand beside the road, the tribesmen greeted him with their six automatic weapons aimed his way. Khalil spread his hands at him to say, What are you doing?

  Josh raised the blue force tracker high. He and Khalil were well lit in the spill of the many headlamps, ten yards away from the Sai’ar. Josh steadied his voice at the tribesmen.

  “I’m holding a signaling device. There’s an armed American force waiting at the Saudi border. I’ve just sent word for them to come. They’re on their way. Before they get here, let us go.”

  The fat spokesman stepped forward, shielding his eyes from the lights.

  “Let me see this device.”

  Josh held it out. “You can come look.”

  The spokesman, surprisingly good-natured for the circumstances, waved the suggestion off with a laugh.

  “No, no. I will believe you from here, sayyid.”

  Josh set the blue force tracker inside the car on the dashboard. This freed both hands for the Kalashnikov.

  “If the Americans come, none of you will survive.”

  “And if the Abidah arrive first, none of you will. It seems we have a race, sayyid.”

  Josh had no idea if the PJs could get here from eighty miles away in time to do anything more than retrieve his body. But he had to play this out.

  From a pocket, the qabil produced a cell phone. He showed it.

  “In fairness, you have called your rescuers. I will call mine to find out where they are. It may help you decide how to wager.” The tribesman hesitated before dialing. “Or I will be generous. We will let you and your driver go in exchange for the Saudi woman. The two of you will live.”

  “No. All three of us go. Here.”

  Josh tossed the last million riyals at the man’s feet.

  The big Sai’ar scratched the stubble on his chin. He made no move for the money in the sand.

  “I have a daughter married into the Abidah, sayyid. A son who wishes to. I will madden the Abidah enough for letting you two go. I will not make it worse. Now wake her. And leave her.”

  “We’ll wait.”

  Khalil flung up his arms, frustrated.

  “No. I will not die in the desert for a Saudi woman.”

  Josh didn’t remove his eyes from the Sai’ar, or his hands from his gun. Khalil the chameleon was playing some gambit, the rebelling servant.

  For the tribesmen to hear, Josh snapped in Arabic. “Be quiet. Get back in the car.”

  Khalil glared hard at Josh. He uttered in English, “Do you believe the Americans will get here in time?”

  “No.”

  “Then there is no other way.”

  To wait was to die. Leaving the princess behind was to fail. To escape on his own was to sentence Khalil to death. Nothing presented itself but to fight.

  The diplomat’s role on this mission had come to an end. Josh licked his lips, suddenly dry. He answered, returning to English.

  “All right. But both of us.”

  “Truly?”

  “Yep.”

  “Then as Allah wishes.”

  “On your move.”

  Again, Khalil shouted at Josh in Arabic. “I will give them the woman.”

  Josh let the moment sink in for the Sai’ar before nodding with pretend disgust.

  The tribesmen relaxed, congratulating each other, no wish to spill blood. A few took their hands off their weapons while Khalil yanked open the Mercedes’s rear door.

  Inside, the kidnapped princess did not stir. Her bare hand, furled on the seat, seemed to beg to be left with the tribesmen. Josh looked away. He couldn’t be conflicted right now.

  Khalil stepped inside the opened rear door, using it for cover just as Josh had done with the front door.

  Khalil straightened, as if he’d forgotten something. With his back still to the Sai’ar, he asked Josh in English.

  “What is it you Americans say when you jump out of airplanes?”

  Prickles went off in Josh’s ribs, in his fingers on the submachine gun.

  “Oh shit.”

  “No, not that.”

  Beyond the cars’ lights, nothing struck Josh’s eye but dark desert and armed men.

  “Geronimo.”

  “Yes, Josh Cofield. Geronimo.”

  Khalil flashed inside his jacket for the pearl-handled pistol. He wheeled in a two-handed firing position. The report beside Josh’s head bashed his ears. One tribesman took the first round in the center chest, staggered, and tripped to the ground.

  The Sai’ar were never trained for this; they were just greedy men with guns. They knew only to point and pull their triggers, and this was likely the first time they’d done it at men shooting back. The six Sai’ar remaining stayed in their row, packed and reacting a second too slow.

  From the waist, Josh let off a long, deafening blast of the Kalashnikov. He swept across their torsos. The big gun kicked, but he was ready and held the muzzle down. Two more tribesmen collapsed, firing high. Josh released the trigger to duck behind the thick Mercedes door. Khalil stayed erect, emptying his Beretta, trading bullets with the two crumpling tribesmen.

  In the middle, the fat, unarmed qabil dove for the sand. His three remaining comrades, jarred to their senses, leaped out of the way of Khalil’s firing and lit up their own guns. Bullets bored into the car all around Josh. The tearing steel shrieked, holes punched through the upholstery. One bullet ripped across his midriff, an angry sting, another grazed his right forearm below the Kalashnikov. He’d never been wounded before; that luck was gone. In the frenzy of the fight, Josh gritted his teeth to block the pain and adrenaline shock. Another tribesman dropped to his knees with Khalil’s bullets in him. The man went down firing, until Josh silenced him with a short burst. The pair of Sai’ar left standing in the open stopped shooting to turn and run into the night. Khalil squeezed off empty clicks, smoke trickling from his barrel.

  “Shoot them.”

  Josh did not. Khalil’s gun arm collapsed to his side. He wavered on his feet, patting his pockets, then stumbled. With a crimson hand, Khalil caught himself on the peppered frame of the rear door. In the sand, with the fighting paused, the fat qabil raised his head. He leaped up nimbly to follow his clansmen into the dark.

  Josh darted around the driver’s door to catch the failing Khalil, propping him
under the armpits. He felt the empty holster in one hand, a damp warmth in the other. He hefted Khalil onto the backseat beside the quiet princess and peeled away the jacket to expose a wound below the right collarbone. Josh grimaced while he lifted Khalil’s sweater to peek at the ragged exit wound. Both holes drizzled blood. Josh’s own injuries were not as severe but bit at him and bled into his clothes as he kneeled beside Khalil. He yelled over the ringing in his ears.

  “You okay?”

  Khalil pushed at Josh.

  “Drive.”

  A dozen holes perforated the rear door. Broken glass tinkled inside the frame when Josh slammed it shut. Four dead Sai’ar lay in the sand; in the headlamps of the trucks, on the wasteland of the desert, they looked executed. Their killing gave Josh pause. He didn’t know which of the four were his doing, which were Khalil’s, and would have stared longer at the dead men but Khalil shouted at him.

  He tossed the Kalashnikov onto the passenger seat; a few spent rounds that had bounced off the opposite door rolled on the leather. Josh jumped behind the wheel. His door had been drilled many times, too. The wound in his side asserted itself, raw and pinched when he sat. The groove in his right forearm stung when he shifted into gear. Josh peeled around the parked pickup trucks, then stomped on the gas. He had no window to roll up, nor did Khalil, and the inrushing wind added to his franticness after the shootout.

  He’d sped several hundred meters, unscrambling his thoughts, before he realized that his left headlight had been busted. Josh’s view of the road was cut in half. This made him think that he should have shot up the Sai’ar’s trucks. He marveled that none of the Mercedes’s tires were blown, and as his head cleared he wondered, too, that he wasn’t dead. He checked the rearview mirror. The road behind stayed dark except for the fading headlights of the roadblock; the al-Qaeda husband was surely closer but not there yet. Should Josh turn around and knock out some tires? If he went back, he’d have to deal with the last two armed Sai’ar. Josh made the strategic choice to keep speeding toward the Saudi line and the PJs he’d called out.

  He put his attention on the driving. The gashes in his waist and arm throbbed, nagging. In a few more miles, with enough clear distance behind, he’d pull over to wrap Khalil’s wounds and his own from the first aid kit in his backpack. Josh checked the rearview to begin measuring how far and fast the Sai’ar were disappearing.

  His heart sank. Miles back in the desert clarity, one of the pickup trucks swung its headlights to the east, and followed.

  Josh hit the gas. He looked in the mirror for Khalil but did not find him. Josh glanced quickly over his shoulder. Khalil had slumped toward the princess.

  “They’re after us. Can you make it? Maybe another hour.”

  Khalil sat bolt upright. Across the front seat, he thrust a palm dripping blood.

  “She’s hit.”

  The Mercedes was speeding at a great clip. Josh couldn’t stare but for a moment at the black blot spreading across the rear seat and the lap of princess Nadya.

  Chapter 22

  Above the Empty Quarter

  Yemeni airspace

  Only red bulbs burned in the cargo bay to preserve the team’s night vision. In this crimson light, the faces of Berko and Wally were bathed in the greenish glows of their little computer screens. LB and the PJs waited, each one quiet and gathered into himself.

  The HC-130 powered low over the desert, a smooth, blacked-out flight through unruffled air. The pilots flew by instruments and NVGs14 without cockpit or wing lights. LB sipped from a water bottle and checked his watch. 2310 hours.

  He offered the bottle to Berko beside him, but the young CRO stayed fixed on his screen. LB didn’t kibitz and kept his own chin down, gnawing on how little information the team had before leaping into the desert. All they knew was that a green dot had stopped on a desolate road and was engaged with an unspecified and likely serious threat. LB rested his arms across the M4 strapped to his left side, barrel down, wondering how much he’d need the gun tonight.

  Berko’s head jerked up. Lit from below and wide-eyed, his face seemed spectral. He shouted over the engine hum.

  “The package is moving.”

  Berko scanned the PJs for a reaction and got less than he expected. Wally never looked up from his own monitor, busily on the horn with the pilots. Berko dipped his head again. LB leaned over now to look down on the screen with him.

  The pinging dot sprinted east along the N5. Speed exceeded 80 mph. While LB watched, another emerald 4 was transmitted. The threat, whatever it was, hadn’t abated, even on the move. This looked like a chase.

  Berko tapped the screen.

  “Things are getting tougher.”

  LB did his own reckoning but wanted to hear Berko’s assessment of his first mission.

  “How so?”

  “They’re moving fast. It could be a pursuit. Wally’s talking to the cockpit trying to figure out a new LZ to intercept them. But the GAARVs can’t do that kind of speed. If we miss them, we don’t get a second shot.”

  “You think we should do two drops? Split up the GAARVs, double our chances?”

  Berko looked up, figuring the tactical question.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “The threat’s unclear. We don’t know what force we’ll need to counter it. We should stick together.”

  On the SADL, the icon marking Kingsman 1 quickly approached the green dot sliding east. A decision on where to drop the rescue team had to be made in the next few minutes.

  “Tell Wally what you think.”

  “He’s got it.”

  “Tell him.”

  Berko, a big kid in a lot of equipment, bounced on his seat to turn his shoulders to Wally.

  The two conferred, heads together under the thrum of the cargo plane’s engines. Wally listened and nodded, patting Berko’s shoulder. He thumbed the PTT for the ground-to-air freq to consult the cockpit, then stopped. Wally jerked visibly, looking down at his computer screen. He pointed to his monitor for Berko, who checked his own screen and saw it, too. Berko tried to scratch his head under his helmet.

  “What?”

  Neither answered LB.

  Something had gone off the tracks.

  The whole PJ team was watching. Mouse and Quincy shrugged together, dramatically, to also ask, What?

  LB poked Berko. The lieutenant raised a finger for patience, but LB dug an elbow into the kid’s Kevlar armor. Berko struggled in the seat to turn the monitor back where LB could view it.

  He indicated a spot just behind the moving green dot. LB could read a satellite map and didn’t need the prod. He pushed Berko’s hand out of the way.

  The car was doing over 100 mph and had run right through the crossroads. The ping hadn’t turned north onto the secondary road like it was supposed to, out of Yemen the way the mission called for. Instead, the diplomat and the princess were dashing farther east on the N5, into the elevated ground that edged the desert, speeding toward the outpost village of al ’Abr.

  The package was racing in the wrong direction. Away from the Saudi border, away from rescue.

  * * *

  14 night-vision goggles.

  Chapter 23

  Hadhramaut

  The Empty Quarter

  Yemen

  The road ran straight and Josh flew along it. He risked only short glances to the backseat.

  Khalil’s right hand had gone useless and lay like a child in his lap. With his good hand, he hiked up Nadya’s long, blood-soaked burqa. Her calves gleamed white in the subdued light of the desert. Khalil drew the hem higher, grimacing with pain, or perhaps the humiliation of a Muslim man baring the skin of an unconscious woman. Josh, too, felt the invasion on this unknown woman’s flesh. But the blood coursing out of her pooled on the gray leather bench, and just like the last several minute
s, he saw no choice. Josh turned around to face the streaming road. The gash in his forearm challenged his grip on the wheel. He drove as fast as he dared.

  He shouted over the gusts pouring in the open windows.

  “How bad is it?”

  In the rearview, Khalil stayed hunched over Nadya. When he did not answer, Josh yelled his question again. He centered the Mercedes on the white stripe and looked back.

  Khalil gathered the skirt of the burqa higher, exposing the princess’s scarlet-smeared thigh. The fabric was sopping with blood; the copper stench of it whipped on the wind in the car. Josh turned back to the road to correct the one-eyed Mercedes’s drift toward the sands, frightening himself even more. He couldn’t slow down, not with the Sai’ar on his tail. He chanced one more look backward.

  One-handed, Khalil tugged the blood-heavy cloth above the princess’s left hip. Just below the pale stretch of her panties, a coin-sized hole bled a rivulet into the crease where her leg joined the torso. Khalil lifted the burqa enough to inspect the exit wound on the inside of her thigh, bleeding even more intensely than the entry. Without attention soon, this looked like a death sentence.

  Josh spun to the windshield. Nadya remained unconscious; her hand on the seat rested unaware in a pool of her own blood. Josh racked his brain for what he should do next. Tell Khalil to wake her? What was the right thing, the moral thing? He drove at dangerous speeds ahead of armed tribesmen who’d try to kill him if they caught him. He had no clue how soon the PJs would get there. He was unsure how badly he himself was bleeding, or Khalil. No question, the princess didn’t have much time before she bled out.

  If they kept moving, she was finished. If he pulled over to tend to her, he’d be in another gunfight in minutes, by himself. Khalil was too badly hurt.