Yael opened the door and let him through, and more billows of smoke poured in with him. She closed the door again immediately and then turned a flashlight on President Taylor. I did the same.
“Mr. President, we’re here to take you home,” the Delta leader said. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine; I’m fine,” he insisted. “Just take care of the kids.”
“Dr. Katzir and Mr. Collins will do that,” he replied. “My job is to take care of you. Now stand back as I get this door open.”
“Did you find the keys?” I asked.
“No—I’m afraid they were blown to kingdom come with everything else on the other side of that door.”
“Then how are you getting in?”
“Semtex—now stand back.”
He pulled out a small piece of the puttylike plastic explosive, attached it to the padlock, and told us all to cover our ears. Then he triggered the detonator. After a small, measured explosion, it was over. The padlock blew apart. The chains fell off. The door swung open. The president was free.
The team leader then handed a small case of the explosives and detonating cords to Yael, who proceeded to blow the locks off all the cage doors. Meanwhile, I rushed into the president’s cage and helped the Delta leader get Taylor to his feet.
“When was the last time you had something to eat, Mr. President?”
“A few days ago, I’m afraid,” he said, standing now in the orange jumpsuit we’d seen him in on the video, his legs wobbly and his hands quivering.
“And to drink?”
“Yesterday, a little—or maybe it was the day before,” he said. “I’m sorry. The days are running together.”
“That’s okay,” the leader said, handing him a small bottle of orange Gatorade. “Take a little of this, in small amounts. But don’t worry. We’ll get you back up to speed.”
“Thank you, all of you. I can’t tell you how grateful I am to see your faces. I never thought I’d see a friendly face again.”
“We’re glad to see you, too, sir. Can you walk?”
“I think so,” Taylor said.
“Good; then I need you to come with me. We’re going to get you out of here. Okay?”
“Thank you—thank you so much. I couldn’t be more grateful.”
The smoke was clearing now, apparently being sucked out by an exhaust system neither Yael nor I had noticed. But the president was still coughing and wheezing. He was also getting emotional. His eyes were welling with tears, and it wasn’t simply from the soot or the stench. He had several days of growth on his face. His gray hair was unwashed and askew. And his mouth and lips were trembling. I was sure he was going to break down and start sobbing any moment. I’m sure I would have done the same.
Seeing how fragile the president was physically and emotionally, Yael insisted I accompany him and the team leader back through the tunnels to the villa.
“Forget it, Yael; I’m staying with you and the children,” I said.
“J. B., the president needs you,” she shot back more forcefully than I’d expected. “You know the way. And I’ll be fine with these kids. Don’t worry. We’ll be right behind you. But move. You don’t have much time.”
I could see she wasn’t going to take no for an answer. So I slung the MP5 over my shoulder and took Taylor’s right arm while the team leader took his left, and we started moving.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” the president said, still on the verge of succumbing to shock and relief.
“It’s an honor, sir,” I said as we began walking.
“I guess I owe you an apology,” the president said as he limped forward.
“No, sir,” I said. “Not at all.”
“Of course I do, Collins,” he said. “I didn’t see it. I didn’t see what was coming or how fast. You did. I should have listened, and I’m sorry.”
“Thank you, Mr. President,” I replied. “I appreciate that. Can I get that on the record?”
“Don’t push it, Collins.”
“Fair enough, sir. May I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“Abu Khalif—do you know where he is?”
“I wish,” he said. “Last time I saw him was when they made the video. But we’d better catch him. When we do, I want to personally flip the switch on him.”
“Wait till you see what’s ahead,” I said.
But first, the Red Team leader pulled out a satellite phone and hit speed dial.
“White House Situation Room,” said the watch officer who picked up the call.
The Delta team leader identified himself and asked to be patched through immediately to Holbrooke. When the watch officer said the VP was busy, the team leader handed the phone to Taylor.
“This is the president of the United States—put me on with the vice president—now.”
64
News of the president’s rescue was relayed back to King Abdullah.
The monarch ordered Jordanian and Egyptian forces to stop their ground operation in Dabiq and to withdraw immediately. Soon we learned that the operation there had been messy, to say the least. Coalition casualties were high, and there was apparently a brutal firefight under way. I had no doubt the king was right to order a retreat. If the president was in Iraq, what was the point in losing the lives of any more coalition soldiers in Syria? The final battle of Dabiq would have to wait.
It quickly became clear the president was badly wounded and suffering from dehydration. For most of the way back to the villa, one of us had to support the president with his arm over our shoulders. He explained that he’d been tortured extensively, beaten on the back, stomach, legs, and feet—anywhere that couldn’t be noticed on camera. The hardest part was getting him through the low tunnel. He was simply in too much pain to crawl and probably wouldn’t have had the strength anyway. So we ultimately resorted to wrapping him in his blanket, putting my bulletproof vest on him, tying the straps from our machine guns to the vest, and pulling him through the tunnel.
It was 7:13 when we finally got the president back to the villa. Sharif was waiting for us and helped us get him out of the shaft and onto a stretcher. A Delta medic was also waiting for us and immediately began administering first aid, including putting Taylor on an IV to rehydrate him and pump some desperately needed painkillers into his system. Ramirez rushed down to the basement to greet the president and take a few quick pictures he could transmit back to CENTCOM, the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon, and the White House Situation Room. These were the “proof of life” pictures everyone in the chain of command had been waiting for.
Ramirez wanted to put the president on the phone with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. But Taylor was exhausted and the general thought better of it. Besides, we were by no means out of danger yet. So Ramirez left us with the medical team and raced back upstairs to keep fighting with his men, ordering Sharif to come with him as they hadn’t a soldier to spare.
I could hear the roar of fighter jets streaking over us, and I could feel the building being rocked by the almost-nonstop explosions of American smart bombs taking out approaching ISIS forces. Part of me wanted to join the general and Sharif and defend our location against the attackers. We had the president. He was in good hands. He was resting. He had a medic. And he certainly didn’t need me.
But just then, Yael arrived with the children. I helped her get them up the ladder one by one, then down to a working bathroom. There Yael and I gave them each a quick sponge bath, dried them off, and wrapped them in sheets I ripped off the cleanest beds I could find. It wasn’t much, but it was all we had.
I scrounged up as many PowerBars and bottles of water and Gatorade as I could and brought them to the bunk room, where we had decided to keep all the kids for the moment. They were trembling, all of them, terrified by the bombs and the automatic gunfire. We held them and rocked them and told them that it was going to be okay. Neither Yael nor I could be sure it was true, and it was clear none of the kids b
elieved us—if they even understood us. But there was nothing else to be done. The choppers were still several minutes out, we were told, hampered by weather and antiaircraft fire.
The medic soon came to check on the kids, and when he did, Yael leaned over and whispered in my ear.
“Go,” she said.
“Where?” I asked.
“Upstairs to fight.”
“No, I’m staying with you,” I said. “You need me, and so do the kids.”
“They need you more,” she said. “And we’ll be fine. The choppers will be here soon.”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely; go—and don’t do anything stupid.”
“Like get killed?”
“Exactly.”
“Okay,” I said, grabbing my MP5 and giving her a kiss on the forehead. “I’ll be back for you soon. I love you.”
Then I left.
As I raced up the stairs, I realized what I’d just said. I hadn’t planned to say it. It had just come out. And then I’d bolted. I couldn’t believe what I’d done or imagine what she was thinking. But I didn’t have time to worry about it.
When I reached the main floor, I learned that three more of Ramirez’s men were dead. One was critically wounded. All were nearly out of ammunition. They were using the AK-47s stripped off the dead ISIS fighters, but even the ammo in those guns was running low.
“Six minutes,” Ramirez shouted. “The choppers will be here in six. We need to hang on till then.”
I found my backpack and pulled out five full mags. “Here, General. This is all I have, plus the one in my weapon.”
“Then keep two and get upstairs,” he said, taking the other three off my hands. “Take the bedroom in the southwest corner. Kill anything that moves, but don’t waste a shot. We’ve still got to get up that mountain.”
“What mountain?”
“The one we landed on.”
“That’s where they’re picking us up?”
“Yeah. Now move.”
“Why not here?” I asked.
“Too dangerous,” he said. “Blue Team will take the president and the kids out first. The rest of us will follow. Now get going. We’ve got men down up there, and more bad guys are coming up that road all the time.”
I did as I was told and raced up to the second floor. I found the bedroom to which I’d been assigned at the end of the hall. And inside I found the body of a Delta member on the floor, shot just minutes before. He looked merely wounded, but I checked. He had no pulse. He was definitely dead. But his body was still warm and being pelted by the driving, freezing winter rain that was pouring through both sets of windows, the one facing south and the others facing west.
Perhaps the storm had let up enough to bring the choppers in, but one could hardly tell. The wind seemed as fierce as the last time I’d been aboveground. The rain hadn’t abated at all, and the temperature was dropping fast.
The room was a disaster. I couldn’t even begin to count all the bullet holes in the walls, door, and ceiling, and the furniture had all been ripped to shreds. But as I moved to the smashed-out windows on the west side, I was even more stunned by the vast destruction of this small village. It seemed every house was ablaze or a smoking crater. What few nearby buildings were undamaged were filled with snipers. I could see the flash of their muzzles and hear bullets whizzing past my head. I took one more glance and then pulled back from the window, images of dead ISIS fighters fresh in my mind’s eye. There were bodies and body parts everywhere, hundreds of them, bullet-ridden, bloody, rain-soaked. And yet the fight was so far from over. More fighters were coming from every direction.
65
I opened fire on a group of five coming over the wall.
In three quick bursts, I killed two and wounded two more. But one got past me. I fired again and again but missed every time and now he was inside the building. Panicked, I shouted to my colleagues over the radio only to hear a burst of gunfire directly below me and confirmation from two Delta operatives that the enemy was down.
Two more fighters now sprinted out the front door of a blazing house. I shot them both before they crossed the street. But up the road to my right, about two hundred yards out, I spotted a white pickup truck filled with jihadists racing toward me. I aimed at them, waiting for them to come within range, but they never got to me. Instead, the entire truck, its driver, and all its passengers erupted in a massive ball of fire, and then an Apache helicopter gunship came roaring past.
More frightened than relieved at that moment, I just stared at the new flaming crater in the road, only to be startled by another burst of gunfire coming from my right. Too close for comfort. I dove for cover as bullets and shrapnel filled the bedroom. When the shooting paused for a few seconds, I scrambled back to my feet, pivoted to the west window, and saw a band of three hooded men huddled behind what was left of a stone wall. I didn’t have a clean shot at any of them and didn’t dare waste any rounds. Still, they were too close not to engage them.
That’s when I remembered the grenades. I drew back against the wall, away from the window, and pulled off my backpack. It was mostly filled with a chem-bio suit and related gear. But there were three grenades at the bottom. I grabbed one and took a quick glance to make sure the three terrorists were still behind the wall. They were, but four more had just joined them. I pulled the pin the way I’d seen Yael do it, then threw a fastball across the courtyard, aiming for the wall so as not to overshoot. It hit just a few feet shy but rolled close enough and detonated an instant later. When I looked again, that section of the wall was gone, and all that remained were charred body parts.
I ducked back to reload the MP5 and heard three shots from a second-floor window across the street. Crack, crack, crack.
This time I could feel the rounds passing by my head. If I hadn’t ducked when I did, I knew I’d be dead. There was a sniper out there that had a bead on me. He was expecting me to pop back up any moment, but I wasn’t going to give him an easy target. I got down on my belly and crawled along the floor, across the glass and the blood and the spent rounds, over to the south-facing window. Then I ejected the spent mag, popped in a new one, steadied my breathing the best I could, jumped out, and aimed for the second-floor window across the street. Two shots. Then I paused. Another shot. Then I paused again and forced myself to wait four seconds. Beat. Beat. Beat. Beat. I saw the barrel of his rifle coming back out the window and I let loose. Three bursts at the base of the window and then a fourth, and suddenly the rifle dropped out the window to the ground below.
I started breathing again. But as I pulled back inside for cover, I noticed in my peripheral vision a white blur to my left and the sound of someone gunning an engine. At once curious and worried, I got down low and crawled on my hands and knees away from my post, out the door, into the hallway, and to another bedroom on that side. Here I found another dead body, this time an ISIS fighter, not a Delta operative, and by the looks of him he’d been dead from the moment we’d arrived, almost ninety minutes earlier. But that wasn’t what I was looking for. Instead, I raced to the window, popped my head up just for a moment, and was aghast at what I saw.
Three white vans were tearing out of the compound. I watched them clear the front gate and race up a dirt road on the mountain. They had to be going seventy or eighty miles an hour. Then I looked toward the summit where they were heading and saw three Black Hawk helicopters coming into view. The cavalry had arrived. The president and the kids were being whisked to safety, which meant Yael had to be with them. And I had been left behind.
“General, this is Collins; do you copy? Over,” I shouted into my headset.
There was no reply.
“General, I repeat: this is Collins; do you copy? Over.”
Again there was nothing.
It made sense to me that the general would be in the van transporting the president to safety. But if the rest of us were going to be next, why wasn’t anyone communicating over the radio?
I knew I had to get back to my post, so I ducked down and raced back across the hallway just in time to see bullets flying everywhere. Facedown on the floor, I kept calling out over the radio, trying to get the general, one of the team leaders, the medic, or anyone from Delta to respond. But nobody did. Why not? Was everyone dead? Or was everyone in those vans racing up the mountain?
I had to buy more time to figure out what was happening. I jumped up, glanced out the window, and focused on three more ISIS fighters running toward the villa from the south. I didn’t hit any of them when I opened fire, but they did scatter and take cover behind the burning wreckage of a van and an SUV. Then they started returning fire. I waited until they paused to reload, then pivoted back to the window and fired two more bursts, one at each vehicle. But before I could duck for cover, I heard two shots from my left side. Then I found myself snapping back and smashing to the ground.
66
I landed on my back.
I’d been hit just below my right shoulder. It was impossible to describe the pain. It was a searing, blinding, excruciating sensation like someone had just taken a red-hot poker and driven it into my chest. I instantly dropped my weapon, and the MP5 went skittering across the floor.
I didn’t scream. I wanted to, but I didn’t dare let the thugs down below know they’d hit me. Instead, I gritted my teeth and fought to stay conscious. If I blacked out now, I knew, no one was going to find me. For all I knew there was no one left in the building. But I had to alert my team that I was in trouble—if any of them were left. I couldn’t just lie there alone and bleed to death. I needed to press the wrist-mounted button to activate my microphone, but it was attached to my right wrist, and the burning sensation was rapidly spreading from my chest down my right arm. It would likely be numb in a few seconds, and there was no way I could make my right hand push the button in any case.
Finally, groaning from the pain, I reached over and pressed it with my left hand.
The First Hostage: A J. B. Collins Novel Page 30
