Fire Arrow

by Franklin Allen Leib

  Stuart rolled to the dry side of the bed and fell into a dreamless sleep.

  Uqba ben Nafi, 15 February, 1800 GMT (1900 Local)

  Lance Corporal Craig Stevens waited while the small terrorist untied his ankles and motioned him to stand and turn around. Stevens fought the urge to drop the little shit with a kick and then stomp his lights out. He felt the bonds on his wrists release, and he rubbed his tingling hands as the small man motioned for him to walk to the head in the rear passageway.

  Stevens squared his shoulders and marched toward the head, watching the slouching terrorists around the room, making himself different. Stevens had grown up in the ghetto on the South Side of Chicago, a brawling, unruly street kid with a reputation for violence. At five feet ten inches and 160 pounds, Craig wasn’t big, but he was cat-quick, and his smooth, handsome black face was unmarked, although he had a six-inch-long ropy knife scar on his right shoulder blade.

  If it hadn’t been for the fight that left him with that scar, Craig reckoned he would still be on the streets, committing petty crimes or maybe dealing drugs. Craig had been arrested numerous times, the first at the age of eleven, but the overworked cops never had anything solid enough on him to make sure of a conviction, so they usually just slapped him around and let him go. Craig had long since ceased to be impressed by these minor beatings, and he had laughed at the cops’ threats.

  Two years ago on the day after Christmas, a night when the wind blowing in off the lake was wet with heavy gobs of snow, Craig followed a staggering man down a quiet street and relieved him of his wallet. As he turned to leave, he was set upon by four boys, members of a Mexican gang, who beat him and kicked him and stabbed him in the shoulder. Craig was sure they would have killed him, except for once, the cops showed up when you needed one. Craig ended up in the hospital with broken ribs, bruised innards, a big bandage on his shoulder, and, for the first time in his life, a sense of fear and despair for the way he lived. Craig Stevens was seventeen.

  Craig had never known his father, and he hadn’t seen his mother in years. When he needed a place to lie up, he usually went to his sister’s apartment in a housing project called Cabrini Green. When he was tossed out of the hospital he was still almost too hurt to walk, so he went to Clara’s. She was out when he arrived, so he went back down into the street to find something to eat and a place to sit and rest. He felt dizzy after the short walk from the bus stop to Clara’s building. He crossed the street and walked toward a coffee shop on the corner, which suddenly seemed very far away. He was almost there when the world began to spin away from him, and he fainted in the doorway of a storefront.

  Craig awoke lying on a bench inside the store, covered with a thin gray blanket. When he stirred and tried to sit up, he felt his shoulders supported by a fearsome-looking black man in a khaki uniform, Gunnery Sergeant Jack H. Tucker, United States Marine Corps. Craig Stevens had collapsed into an armed forces recruiting office.

  The sergeant had given him soup and let him stay and rest. After an hour, Craig felt strong enough to walk back to his sister’s, but he was fascinated by the sergeant in his neatly tailored uniform as he went about the business of talking to the kids who wandered in from the project and wanted to talk about the Navy and the marines. The office was empty except for Craig and the sergeant as Craig got up to leave. He approached the sergeant’s desk.

  “Hey, thanks, man, for letting me rest up.”

  “No problem, Craig. Feel better?”

  “Sure. I’ll go back to my sister’s. She’ll be home by now.”

  “She in Cabrini Green?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, good. Maybe you come back and talk to me, when you get your strength back?”

  Craig smiled. “You ain’t thinking of talking me into joining the marines?”

  Sergeant Tucker frowned. “You’re in no shape to join my Marine Corps, Craig. The training alone would kill you.”

  Craig snapped into his badass street scowl. “Hey, sergeant, I’m tough! Just had a little trouble in the street.”

  Tucker smiled and looked skeptical. “Maybe. You play any sports?”

  “No time for that shit.”

  Tucker smiled. “Like I thought. Well, if you ever think you could get me to let you into my Marine Corps, you’d have to get into shape.”

  “I’m always in shape, man. Two weeks, I’ll work off this hospital; I’ll be fine.”

  “I run in the mornings, Craig. I start from here around 6:00 a.m. I got a shower in back.”

  Craig grinned despite himself. “Thanks, man. I know how to run already.”

  “Suit yourself. You don’t look strong enough, anyway.”

  “Ha!” said Craig, thoroughly amused. He went out into the icy wind and walked carefully back to Clara’s.

  Two weeks later, he started running with Gunnery Sergeant Tucker. Two months after that, when he could keep pace for the whole six miles, Tucker let him join his Marine Corps.

  The terrorists had removed the outer door from the small two-hole bathroom and had removed the swing doors to the individual stalls as well. The fat one called Amin watched as Stevens sat to take a shit. Stevens fixed Amin with his fiercest street stare and pinned his eyes the entire time he sat. Amin stared back insolently and pointed his AKS at Stevens’s crotch.

  Stevens flushed the toilet. The tiny room stank from so many people using it. He turned to the sink and quickly washed his hands and face. There was nothing to use as a towel. He didn’t want to soil his uniform, so he shook off his hands and wiped them on his sock. He patted his face with his issue o.d. handkerchief. He looked in the mirror at Amin, who still smirked. I’ll bet old Amin really gets off watching the women use the head.

  Stevens didn’t want to stay in the head with so many waiting, but he straightened his field scarf and gave his sharply creased gabardine shirt a quick tuck, pulling it tight around his waist from behind. Gotta look good, he thought; Marine Corps good.

  Amin gestured with his carbine for Stevens to move on to a table where two women in navy uniforms were serving tea and dates and some kind of flat, unleavened bread to the ten prisoners currently allowed to move about. Both girls were pretty, and both looked scared. The terrorist leader leaned against the wall behind the women and watched the hostages, his AKS loose in his hands. He seemed bored. Stevens looked some solid hatred into Walid’s eyes, and he thought he saw the terrorist flinch and look away.

  There are four, thought Stevens, looking around carefully, swinging his arms, doing allowed “exercise.” Walid, the leader. The wimp, Ahmed, who spoke English; Amin, the toilet-watcher; and the other kid Stevens hadn’t heard a name for. Four only. We’re going to have to organize something, find some way to talk to each other. Half of these people are families or women, but there are two other marines and some of these sailors look pretty fit. Six or seven guys out of the sixty-five, and a little leadership. . . .

  Walid stepped from behind the table and shouted something at Lance Corporal Stevens, then swung his carbine at Stevens’s head. Stevens’s arm came up instinctively and warded off the blow. He gasped at the sudden pain in his forearm.

  Little Ahmed rushed up as Walid continued to shout in Arabic. He pointed the AKS at Stevens’s gut, and Stevens felt his stomach muscles tense. Ahmed asked a question of the leader, then turned to the marine. “Walid demands to know why you are looking at us. He says you must return to your chair to be tied up and blindfolded.”

  “I didn’t do nothing,” said Stevens quietly.

  “Come, go back to your chair.” Ahmed’s voice was almost pleading.

  Stevens began to twist his body and swing his arms, staring at Walid, whose face was flushed with anger. “Just a little more exercise, Ahmed.”

  Walid shouted again, and once again swung his carbine at Stevens. Craig moved quickly to his left and grabbed the barrel of the gun and pulled. Walid lost his balance and fell toward Stevens, still holding onto the pistol grip of the weapon. Craig almost had it wh
en Amin stepped behind him and clubbed him down.

  Stevens was stunned, but conscious. He put his hand on the back of his neck and felt the warm, sticky blood. The terrorists continued to shout, and Stevens heard the hostages scurrying back to the metal chairs and saw Ahmed rush to tie them. Amin emerged from a storeroom tearing up sheeting, and he and Ahmed quickly blindfolded the bound hostages.

  Stevens forced himself to his knees, fighting the pain. Walid placed the muzzle of his carbine against the marine’s neck and shouted. Amin and Ahmed picked Craig up by his shoulders, pressed him into a chair, and swiftly tied and blindfolded him. Walid fired three bursts from his AKS into the ceiling above the hostages, causing broken plaster to rain down on their heads. Craig heard hostages gasp. Some were sobbing, as many men as women. Walid began to speak, more softly, and Ahmed translated.

  “Walid says there are sixty-five of you. He does not need so many. From now on, any who do not obey orders instantly will be shot.”

  Walid walked behind Stevens’s chair. Craig couldn’t see him, but he could hear his harsh breathing. I’m going to die, he thought.

  Walid kicked the back of Stevens’s metal chair, sending it and the bound man sprawling. Stevens’s head and neck were on fire. His mind tightened in hatred. He thought of Parris Island and his sadistic drill instructor. I’m not going to make a sound, he thought. I can take this, Walid.

  Walid fired another burst into the ceiling. All around him, Stevens heard the hostages moaning.

  London, 15 February, 1900 GMT

  Stuart showered quickly, shaking off the residue of the fever. He felt weak from the malaria attack, but his mind was clear after nearly three hours of sleep. Alison had returned to the flat while he was dressing, and when told of his sudden recall to active duty, and nothing else, she quickly gathered her things and left without a word. Stuart couldn’t decide how he felt about that. The Wheelus situation had driven his problems with Alison out of his mind.

  Stuart dressed carefully in a quiet gray wool suit, light blue cotton shirt, and dark blue tie bearing the device of the Royal Ocean Racing Club. He would have liked to wear a uniform, but his blues were in storage in New York, and anyway, the rank devices would have been wrong even if the trousers had fit. Stuart took a cab to the embassy and presented his ID and his newly issued orders. The marine guard had him sign the duty roster and sign again for his new ID. Stuart hung the embassy Access 1 ID around his neck and proceeded as directed to the third-floor conference room.

  Men in various uniforms and in civilian clothes were milling around, getting coffee and shaking hands with each other. Stuart nodded to Captain Harris, who was talking with a rear admiral in the front of the room. Stuart waved to Forrest and nodded to Maniero and to Professor Masad. A huge, heavy hand dropped on his shoulder and spun him around. Stuart looked up into a face that seemed to have come from a Frederic Remington bronze sculpture.

  “Hello, White-Eyes!” boomed the bronze giant cheerfully.

  Stuart grinned and shook the hand that dropped from his shoulder. “Why, Rufus Loonfeather! I haven’t seen you since Nam in, I guess, early sixty-eight. I’m glad to see you!”

  Loonfeather grinned. He was a full-blooded Indian of the Dakota Nation, with a nose hooked like the beak of a hawk, dark mahogany skin, and deep-set black eyes. He smiled, his teeth gleaming white as they shone against his dark, thin lips. Loonfeather’s uniform, that of lieutenant colonel in the Army, was covered with decorations and badges. “That’s right, William. The famous battle for Horsehead Mountain. But I’m not glad to see you! You were bad medicine for me that day; I lost many coups because your navy assets chewed up my targets.”

  Stuart laughed. He remembered Loonfeather had liked to put on the accent and manner of a Hollywood Indian, especially when telling war stories. “And I never apologized.”

  “That’s all right; we always expect you to speak with forked tongue. Besides, when I first met you, in that hokey survival school when we were both newly commissioned butter-bars, you and that insane marine friend of yours got me a beating and a trip to the box. Very bad medicine! No, sir, Commander, I’m not glad to see you.” His grin belied the statement.

  Stuart’s own smile faded momentarily. He remembered that marine well; Billy Hunter had engineered their escape from the prison camp of SERE training and had later been killed while under Stuart’s command on the first night of the Tet Offensive of 1968. Before the end of Tet and the counterattacks that followed, Stuart’s small unit of air and naval gunfire spotters had been virtually wiped out.

  The rear admiral rapped on the lectern in the front of the room, and the men quickly found seats and were quiet.

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” began the admiral. “I’m Rear Admiral Wilson, N-2 for Admiral Lee at CINCUSNAVEUR.” CINCUSNAVEUR was Commander in Chief, U.S. Naval Forces, Europe, as only the military could compress it. “You all know why you’re here, in general, so let me go briefly through the Table of Organization, and then we can split up and try to do some useful work.” The admiral went through a series of flip charts, obviously hastily prepared, showing that Admiral Lee was in charge of organizing the task force, reporting to the Joint Chiefs, and that Admiral Wilson was head of Plans. Everybody in this meeting belonged to Plans. Other charts set forth the forces that might be brought into the actual operation, if one were needed. The combat operation was under the overall command of Admiral Bergeron, commander of the Sixth Fleet. The forces included one carrier battle group around the America, one more around Nimitz, now crossing the Atlantic from Norfolk at high speed, and two marine battalion landing teams, embarked on two naval amphibious squadrons that had been steaming off Lebanon, complete with their helicopter squadrons. These forces were expected to do the extraction itself, but several specialized units from the Army and Air Force were also listed, including Airborne units, Rangers, helicopter gunship squadrons from the Army, and fighter-bomber and heavy transport squadrons from the Air Force.

  Clearly enough force to obliterate Wheelus and the entire Libyan military, if it came to that, mused Stuart as the briefing droned on, but we still need a scheme to protect the hostages from the terrorists until they are actually lifted out.

  Admiral Wilson finished with the overview and returned to the detailed chart for Plans. Stuart saw his own name and Loonfeather’s in a box marked “On the Ground Tactics,” along with the name of a Colonel Brimmer, USMC.

  When the admiral came to that box in his briefing, he said that “On the Ground Tactics” was meant to devise ways and means of securing the hostages at the onset of the operation, and of neutralizing threats to them from either the terrorists of the Abu Salaam faction, who were presumed still to be holding the hostages, or from the Libyan forces on the air base. Simple enough, thought Stuart, grinning at Loonfeather, who shook his head.

  The briefing broke for supper, which was sandwiches and coffee served by embassy staff in the conference room. During the meal, Doctor Masad briefed on political developments.

  Doctor Masad was a short, energetic-looking man, slightly stout, and fifty years old. He had weak, red-rimmed eyes behind half-glasses, smooth, sallow skin, wooly graying hair, and a short-trimmed beard. He looked like the professor the briefing list said that he was. He spoke slowly, in Oxford-accented but slightly singsong English.

  “Gentlemen, this part of the briefing is also top secret,” Masad began. “Naturally, the U.S. government would prefer a political, and bloodless, solution to this problem.”

  Doctor Masad drank some coffee, picked up the admiral’s pointer, and referred to his own flip chart, headed “The Abu Salaam Faction.” The professor tapped the chart and looked sad. “These men are fanatics of a particular order, gentlemen. They are Shi’ites of an especially orthodox bent. To die in the defiance of God’s enemies, they believe, will grant them immediate entry into paradise. And to die for Abu Salaam amounts to virtually the same thing.” The professor took another sip of coffee. “Abu Salaam, whose nom de guer
re, gentlemen, means Father of Peace in Arabic [there was a murmur of anger in the room] was born, we think, in Bethlehem, on the West Bank, in 1945. We don’t know his true name. It’s unlikely that he was originally Shia, coming from that area.

  “His early political career began with Al-Fatah, the group headed by Yassir Arafat. But in the sixties, he moved to the side of Dr. George Habbash, a Lebanese physician and the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, where he pledged himself and his growing group of followers to terrorist activities inside Israel. Later, we think about 1980, he abandoned Habbash, considering him too moderate, and moved his group to Libya and into the sphere of Colonel Baruni.”

  Loonfeather got up quietly and brought back a full pot of coffee. The room had become very still, the men totally absorbed.

  “Baruni, and more recently, Khomeini, have spread the doctrine that the true enemy of Islam, the Great Satan, is not Israel alone, but the superpower the Shi’ites view as Israel’s partner and protector, the United States.” Doctor Masad paused and drank some water from a glass on the podium.

  “So his operation has two goals, gentlemen. To embarrass the United States and to publicize the power of the terrorists of Abu Salaam. And, gentlemen,” the professor took off his half-glasses and paused, rubbing his red eyes, “the more violent the end of this drama, the better they will like it.”

  Admiral Wilson rose. “Professor, what about Baruni? Where does he fit in all of this?”

  The professor had picked up his notes. Clearly he had thought he was finished and was glad to be going. He put the notes down. “Admiral, Baruni has been ruler of Libya,” Masad paused and rubbed his tired eyes, “my country, since the coup in 1969. Nevertheless, little is known of him. He was born in Surt, of Arabized Berber parents, in approximately 1942. He was educated by Arab tutors.” The professor seemed to be rushing, and his voice was taut. “He was a member of the Free Officers’ Movement, which studied together in the now-closed Benghazi Military Academy, and later plotted to overthrow, and indeed overthrew, the government of King Idris. He is very religious. He believes he guides a sacred pan-Arab crusade against the Great Satan, the United States. That he supports Arab, and indeed, non-Arab terror is beyond dispute. Whether he has any control over Abu Salaam, we can only speculate.” The professor looked pained.