Fire Arrow

by Franklin Allen Leib

  But now I must go to him, he thought, reason with him, even beg him to let me have those hostages!

  Baruni turned and strode back toward the tent and the vehicles. He tilted his head back and smiled his handsome smile. Imitating a gesture he had seen his tank commanders use, he twirled his finger in the horizontal plane, signaling his vehicles to crank up. He was gratified to hear the vehicles cough and roar to life and to see his guards salute smartly as he climbed aboard the lead BTR.

  Tripoli, Libya, 1800 GMT (1900 Local)

  General Koslov paced the floor in his narrow office on the third floor of the Soviet Embassy. “Did you read this, Kolya?” Koslov waved the decoded message at the colonel seated in front of his desk.

  Colonel Nikolai Ivanovich Zharkov nodded, while flicking an invisible mote of dust from his tailored uniform trousers. At thirty-six, Zharkov was young for a colonel in the Soviet Army, and he was very wary of old Koslov, who had been a sixteen-year-old corporal at the Battle of Stalingrad. Zharkov accounted himself a good and thorough officer, but he knew Koslov regarded him as an elitist puppy, rising on party connections. Zharkov had party connections, but he believed they would only see to it that his hard work and political consistency were not overlooked. Zharkov was tall, slim, fair-haired, and blue-eyed, indoctrinated from Komsomol days in the image of the new Soviet man. He secretly despised Koslov as a peasant, but he feared the peasant’s cunning. Any suggestion, any question from Koslov had to be looked at for two or four or forty meanings. “Yes, Comrade General, as you instructed.”

  The general barked once, a laugh. “And what do you think of this directive, first, that we take over the black-asses’ defense of their decaying base against the inevitable American assault, and second, that we set up a Spetznaz commando independent of the Libyans?”

  Zharkov shrugged. He wanted a cigarette badly, but he knew the general had just quit smoking, under instructions from his doctor. “They are orders we can easily carry out, Comrade General.” He let his sentence fall quietly.

  “But not the mission, Colonel?”

  Koslov could fence all day, and Zharkov knew it. He assumed the conversation was being taped and wondered by how many different listeners. “We can certainly improve on the haphazard plan the Libyans have for holding the air base, Comrade General. With as much firepower as the Libyans have in place, we may even be able to thwart an American raid designed to extract their hostages, if we are sure that is what Moscow wants.” Zharkov paused, watching the general, whose smile remained perfectly fixed. “And, of course, we can separate a Spetznaz commando, to await further orders. The problem, Comrade General, is that we don’t really have any idea what the mission for that unit, and indeed for all of us, really is!”

  Koslov smiled. The snot-nosed kid has more sense than I thought. “We understand the delicacy of our position, then, Colonel?”

  Zharkov smiled. Maybe we can get through this thing together after all, he thought. “Of course, Comrade General. Cigarette?” Zharkov produced a packet of English Dunhills.

  “Thank you, Colonel,” said Koslov, taking the forbidden, gold-ringed cigarette. “Perhaps we should talk further over a glass of vodka?”

  The colonel nodded. What the general was suggesting was a walk away from the office, away from the microphones of the Third Directorate, and Zharkov strongly agreed.

  KGB Colonel Sergei Ilyich Ychengko finished decoding the long message from Chairman Nevsky, read it twice, and then placed it in a gray folder with a dark red diagonal stripe and the legend “Most Secret” printed front and back. He placed the folder in the bottom drawer of his desk and locked it. He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples, rumpling his thick gray hair. He leaned back, opened his eyes, shrugged, and pressed the buzzer under his desk, summoning his assistant. Captain Ludmilla Petrovna entered and closed the door silently behind her. She smiled at her superior and Ychengko tried to smile back, but he could not hide his concern.

  Petrovna was a short, strongly built woman, with fine blond hair cut short and parted severely on the left side. She had clear blue eyes under nearly invisible blond brows, an aquiline nose, and thin lips. Her naturally pale skin was pinkish from her repeated attempts to get a tan in the hot Mediterranean sun. She was not pretty, but she was attentive to Ychengko’s needs and fiercely protective of her boss. Since her arrival in Tripoli nine months before, she had done everything she could to become Ychengko’s closest associate and confidante. It was widely rumored in the Soviet compound that they were lovers. When he first heard of the rumors, the colonel had frowned; then he had shrugged and asked Petrovna what she thought. She had simply smiled, and lovers they became, but their relationship continued to have its foundations in mutual comfort and complete trust in each other, reinforced by fear and distrust of everyone around them.

  Comfort and trust, mused Ychengko, as Ludmilla took over the massaging of his temples, commodities far rarer and more valuable than love and sex. He reached up and touched her hands and smiled. “Ludchka, thank you. Your touch has completely cleared my aching head. Now sit; Moscow has given us a delicate little problem.”

  Captain Petrovna sat, completely attentive. “Tell me, Comrade Colonel, how I may help.”

  Ychengko smiled. Always formal, little Ludchka, always correct. Even in bed, she never addressed him by anything less formal than his name and patronymic. “Who is the KGB Third Directorate officer with the Spetznaz, Ludchka?”

  Ludmilla frowned. “Captain Suslov. The zampolit, Comrade Colonel.”

  The zampolit was a political officer, nominally in the Army, but, in fact, an agent of the Communist party, charged with maintaining and enforcing ideological purity among the men of his unit. “The political officer, Ludchka? Isn’t that an odd choice?”

  “Normally, yes, Comrade, but at least a zampolit has a reason to receive communications through other than normal army channels. Also, these Spetznaz troops are highly trained and very close-knit. Any outsider would be noticed as soon as he was assigned.”

  Ychengko smiled. “Except, of course, a political officer.”

  “Yes, Comrade. They expect to have one, and they can’t be too obvious about excluding him from goings-on.”

  Ychengko smiled more broadly and patted Ludmilla’s hand. “Your choice, Captain?”

  She giggled. It was a pleasant sound. “No, Comrade Colonel, yours! My, ah, suggestion.”

  “Is he reliable?”

  “Completely!”

  “I will need to see him, Ludchka.”

  Petrovna rose to attention. “I will summon him at once, Comrade Colonel.”

  “Ask him to meet us for coffee at the little Italian restaurant near the Defense Ministry, tomorrow morning at ten.”

  “At once, Comrade Colonel.” Ludmilla turned and left the colonel’s office, closing the door silently behind her. She telephoned the Spetznaz zampolit, Major Suslov, and repeated the colonel’s request. They both knew the simple private code: The meeting would take place in a filthy Tunisian restaurant near the port at nine o’clock. There were so many listeners.

  Tzafon may Eilat, 18 February, 0300 GMT (0500 Local)

  Stuart peeled off his sodden, filthy uniform and threw it in the big hamper in the head. He showered for ten minutes in the lukewarm water, which made very little lather because of its high salt content. He washed his hair, rinsed it, and did it again. The stench of the mud from the bottom of the reservoir clung to his skin, and he scrubbed himself again. When he was as clean as he could get, he dried himself, wrapped a clean towel around his waist, and returned to his room. The air-conditioning made the cement cubicle cold and clammy, and he shivered slightly as he crawled under the thin blanket on the narrow, lumpy cot. He closed his eyes and waited for sleep. After a moment, he opened his eyes and stared at the low ceiling.

  His body was sore and exhausted, but he was just too keyed up to sleep. As soon as darkness had fallen the previous evening, the SEALs had begun their full-scale drills. With the lights on
in the mock-up buildings and around the tarmac apron, the team had checked and run their routes from the pond to the Ops Building, to the fighters in the revetments, and to the large apron where the two BTRs waited, manned by Israeli soldiers. The SEALs, plus Stuart and Leah Rabin, then made the first of three drops into the pond and ran the whole assault. The first two drops had been made from a hovering helicopter without the parachutes, the last from an Israeli Air Force C-130 that dropped them from 3,000 feet.

  Each time, the SEALs activated their scuba gear and got out of the body bags. Guided by touch and tiny underwater lights on the tops of their helmets, they assembled on the bottom of the reservoir and checked each other’s equipment. Osborne then surfaced, very slowly, and checked the perimeter of the pond.

  The Israelis in the BTRs, and some on foot, had been equipped with powerful flashlights, which they were to use to simulate weapons for the drill - illuminate a SEAL and he was “dead.” The Israelis played the game well, but aggressively. The lieutenant commanding the BTRs seemed to enjoy lighting up the Americans and then laughing too loudly. Hooper was getting pissed off and said so to Feeney and Jones, who were assigned to take out the BTRs, The Israeli lieutenant kept the BTRs moving around the area, making it difficult to set charges. The SEALs didn’t think the Libyans would do that, but they couldn’t complain, since it was plainly the right thing to do.

  The drills were tiring, and they continued to come up with new problems. Jumping through the glass windows of the Ops Building had proved much more difficult than anticipated. Goldstein had actually bounced off on his first try, failing to break the window and breaking instead his own nose against the inside of the plastic visor of his helmet. The next time, he ran faster and jumped higher and struck the window with the butt of his carbine before engaging his face.

  Once inside the building, the men had to adjust from night vision to the bright indoors and shoot only the terrorist cutouts. They addressed this problem by looking through the windows for a minute before entering the building, even though they would then be blind to anyone coming from the darkness behind them.

  The last drop, which Hooper called the dress rehearsal, began at 0330 local time. The group stayed well bunched on the drop and formed up quickly underwater, with the correct gear in each hand. Osborne surfaced carefully and checked the perimeter, then descended back into the black water to communicate the all clear to Hooper and the others. The SEALs surfaced slowly, breaking the surface of the water with no sound, and the teams crawled out and separated. Stuart went with the assault force while Leah accompanied Miller and Osborne to knock out the ready fighters. Hooper wanted the whole job done, with the fighters mined, the BTRs neutralized, the terrorists dead, and all the SEALs inside the Ops Building, less than forty minutes from the time the SEALs hit the reservoir. The last run-through had taken fifty-three minutes.

  The moon was just setting as the teams left the water. Working the deep, crossing shadows on the paved apron was much improved as the men memorized the patterns and established a rhythm for their rush-and-freeze movements, sometimes standing, sometimes on their bellies in the lizard-walk the Americans had learned about the hard way from the North Vietnamese. Hooper and his team were under the windows, in the dark shadows of the Ops Building itself, twenty-two minutes into the drill, and the clicks in Hooper’s helmet radio told him the others were also in position ahead of schedule.

  Hooper’s team, plus Stuart, pressed themselves against the Ops Building below the windows, waiting for a signal from Feeney that he was ready to take out the BTRs. Hooper watched as one of the two eight-wheeled vehicles rolled slowly out toward the runway, while its mate covered it from the shadows. Smart-ass Israeli asshole, he thought, grinding his teeth. I’ll bet he wouldn’t patrol his own home that hard unless he knew something was coming. Fucking hotdog.

  Seated on top of the moving BTR, Sub-Lieutenant Avram Levi called down into the troop compartment as quietly as he could and still be heard above the rumble of the APC’s two ninety-horsepower engines. “Yanni, give me the big light. I see the silly bastards moving toward the Operations Building.”

  Sergeant Yanni Galen poked his head out of the driver’s hatch. “Avi, leave them to it. They know as well as you do that their operation depends on an element of surprise.”

  “I know, Yanni, but they look so silly. They should let Israelis do this job for them; we have the experience.”

  Sergeant Galen sighed and handed up the big flashlight. The lieutenant took it and aimed it carefully at the dark, still lump near the front doors of the Ops Building that he was sure was an American SEAL.

  Lieutenant Levi was thrust forward, stunned, by a sharp blow on the back of his neck. He fell across the side of the BTR, next to the machine gun. As he twisted to look back toward his attacker, he was blinded and deafened as Petty Officer Second Class Feeney, standing on the roof of the BTR, discharged a full clip of blanks into the air. Levi fell back further, hearing as he did the sharp explosions of the SEALs’ stun grenades and the sound of breaking glass, followed by shouts and carbines firing single rounds.

  Feeney lifted the CAR-15 and pointed his own small flashlight at Lieutenant Levi’s crotch, which Levi already knew was soaked with warm piss. The shooting and the shouting behind him gradually subsided, and Levi sat up, grinning crookedly at Feeney. Feeney smiled back and quick-saluted. “Thanks for the realism, Lieutenant.” He jumped off the back of the BTR and ran toward the Ops Building. Levi sat up on top of the machine gun turret and shouted after him. “Good luck, Yank!”

  Feeney waved and dove through the broken window. Pink fingers of dawn colored the eastern sky.

  Hooper showered, then crawled into his narrow bed. His forty-three-year-old body ached in every joint from the running, and the jumping and the crawling. God, I feel mortal, he thought, twisting and stretching his sore back and legs. I have no business leading this mission. I should have chosen one of the nauseatingly earnest young officers in Norfolk, one of the qualified SEAL team leaders. They had all volunteered, although the mission was never officially published. This jump requires men with legs with the bendy strength of young bamboo, not my old sticks.

  Hooper had told himself that he would not have taken the team except the mission had called for a night water landing. A hard-site landing would have been riskier for his middle-aged legs and back. He had rationalized further that night water landings had their own risks, and he had the experience, the combat experience, his younger officers lacked. I bet they’re cursing my name in Norfolk, he thought, massaging his screaming thighs through the thin blanket.

  The truth, Hoop, old son, is that you have grown old without ever growing up. You want to be the cavalry, and you want to rescue the innocent settlers from the bad guys. You want the medal, and the parade, and the girl with the raven hair. You want to be the Catcher in the Rye.

  He swung his legs down from the cot and stood. I need a whirlpool or a sauna. He dressed slowly, hopping painfully to get his ripstop trousers on. Maybe I will feel better when the day warms, like the old lizard I am.

  I was a hero, once, he thought. I led a group of SEALs and a few unattached marines through the red-light district of Da Nang on the first night of Tet, in 1968. We stopped an attack by what proved to be an entire company of North Vietnamese regulars, and turned them into our artillery, my Sealies and I. The Navy gave me the Navy Cross on behalf of a grateful nation and a Purple Heart for my gallant wounds, and I took them, and pinned them on, and went home to my wife in San Francisco. The people of the grateful nation lifted their voices and called me killer and threw shit, real human shit, on me as I limped through the airport on crutches.

  Hooper forced himself through slow knee bends and stretching exercises. He bent over, already feeling looser, and laced his jump boots. I am here because I could never accept that what I did in Nam did not make me a hero. I never got past that point, and now I am bitter and too old to be the cavalry anymore.

  Hooper smiled. That
bastard Stuart looks good, he thought. Four years younger than me, but he looks fresh. He is a successful executive, and it is easy to see that he never thinks of this shit. Of the Shit. Here to teach us method, my ass. He would jump himself if there was a place. As fine a man as ever I knew in Nam, and his wife wrote him a Dear John just before Tet. But he moved on, and grew up, while I froze myself in my youth image of the selfless, heroic commando, waiting for my country to recognize me and give me my triumph.

  Hooper stepped out into the warming haze of dawn, still smiling. That bastard Stuart is going to get the raven-haired beauty, too.

  I am good for this mission. I belong here, and I believe I have the right. One last bugle, one last plea for realization.

  Stuart felt a warm presence against his back, then cold hands caressing his chest and his groin. He was so deeply asleep he thought he was dreaming, then he knew he wasn’t, but he couldn’t pull himself free of sleep. He rolled onto his back, unpinning his right arm, and touched her hair. Leah pulled herself onto his chest and covered his mouth with hers, probing deeply with her hard, moving tongue. She gently squeezed his scrotum and stroked his penis until it awakened and grew to fill her hand. Her mouth still locked on his, she straddled his legs and guided him into her. Stuart still did not feel completely awake, and his body seemed to become aware of the sensations of Leah deliciously slowly. She broke her lock on his lips and smiled, baring her teeth like a yawning cat. She looked wanton, abandoned. She licked his face, then closed her eyes and leaned back, digging her short-clipped nails into his chest as she rode him. She began to moan, softly through clenched teeth, then rose to a squat and increased her pace. Stuart finally felt himself fully awake and engaged. He gritted his teeth to hold himself in check as Leah collapsed on his chest, gasping, begging him to turn her over. They turned over without separating, and Stuart began thrusting deeply, gripping her tightly under her squirming hips.