“Now stop – and cut the lights!”
The van screeched to a halt, though before it had come to a full stop, Mac was already outside, his P226 at the ready. The residential street was silent but for the scraping of boots over tightly packed gravel as Jack, Benny, and Minnick moved to positions approximately thirty yards from one another, quickly fading into the darkness of the dimly lit street.
Mac stayed by the van, keeping an eye on both the ends of the street, as well as Angelo’s movements as he moved out slowly from the driver’s seat. In the distance, the barking of a dog carried across the humid Benghazi pre-dawn air.
The silence was suddenly ripped away as a speeding van identical to the one they were riding in with Angelo, approached their location with its headlights turned off. It appeared to be doing at least sixty miles an hour. Mac knew that very soon the van’s high beams would be turned on in an attempt to momentarily blind them.
“I need one of you to get yourself behind that incoming. Be ready.”
Mac made out the form of Jack moving swiftly down the street, hiding along the way where he could find a tree or shrub to do so. The van was now less than fifty yards away and closing fast.
It was at that moment Mac heard Angelo attempting to sneak behind him. He had been expecting this from the Italian as soon as he noted they were being followed out of the Benina airport. Nobody who was to have been as integral to the assignment as Angelo could have been so oblivious to being tailed. The only question in Mac’s mind now was if he would keep Angelo alive, or simply kill him dead now.
“Angelo, don’t make the mistake of underestimating me. Anyone who has done that, finds themselves leaving this earth soon after.”
As predicted, the approaching van turned on its headlights. That was Mac’s cue to hit the ground, rolling almost too fast for the eye to follow as Angelo strained to see what was in front of him. Mac fired a single round into Angelo’s right wrist, causing the Italian to drop his gun and cry out in shock and pain. Mac was already up and running to the back of their van as the other van’s occupants began firing in his direction. Soon their gunfire was met with return fire from each side of the street as Minnick and Benny emerged from the shadows then almost immediately followed by Jack squeezing several rounds off from behind. It took Mac’s team no more than ten seconds to kill the five men from the other van.
Walking back to the side of their own van, Mac saw Angelo’s body crumpled against the rear tire, his chest heaving for air. Given the blood soaking through the front of his shirt, it appeared he had taken a bullet from one of the men firing from one of the other vans. Mac leaned down and looked Angelo in the eyes before delivering a hard slap across the man’s face.
“I need you to focus Angelo, ok? Who did you make this deal with?”
Angelo’s stared back at Mac, his face expressing the shock over the realization he was dying.
“Angelo – who are you working for?”
The Italian found a fragment of whatever courage he may have once lived his life with, raising his head from his chest and sneering back at Mac as he spit out a response in Arabic.
“Fuck you American pig. There’s nothing you’ll do to change any of this…it’s already done. We win – you lose.”
Angelo’s last breath was cut short as his lungs filled with his own blood, and a gurgling rasp wheezed from his throat as his body slumped to the side and onto the street.
Mac stood up as his mind raced to assess the situation. The safe house was not an option – Angelo clearly had no intention of taking them to any such place, and besides, they had no idea where it was. Angelos’s final words were spoken in perfect Arabic, though the accent was not Libyan. Mac had spent years learning that language, and had worked throughout the Middle East. The accent was unmistakably Turkish, which though somewhat similar to Arabic, was its own language. What that meant as far as who Angelo may have been associated with, Mac had no idea and at present, it didn’t really matter. His job now was to relocate and keep his men as safe as possible until further options presented themselves.
“Benny, Minnick, check the bodies. Look for any identification – and be quick.”
It took no more than a minute for Minnick to report back.
“Nothing Mac. The van is the same as ours, but there’s nothing in it, and no identification on any of the bodies. I took their weapons. They were all carrying brand new, matching Makarovs. What are a bunch of Libyan thugs doing carrying Russian handguns Mac?”
Mac didn’t know, and at that point, he didn’t care. His job was to get him and his men the hell off this street.
“In the van – let’s go.”
The other three in Mac’s team followed the order without speaking. Like Mac, they too already fully understood how dire the situation already was, and the fact that in their immediate future, it was likely to get much worse.
As he drove slowly back onto the main road, Mac could hear Jack’s sarcastic remark from behind the driver’s seat.
“Are we enjoying our stay in Benghazi yet?”
Mac ignored Jack’s words, his mind struggling to come up with a viable plan, though each time he returned to a question that remained blaring back at him, its implications chilling the former Navy SEAL to his core.
Can I trust Tilley – or was he part of this? And if he was, then why?
Without Tilley’s help, his team’s chances for getting out of Benghazi alive were greatly diminished. Tilley was the one who lined up Angelo, but that didn’t mean Tilley was involved in whatever Angelo was. He could be though.
“Shit.”
Mac didn’t intend to say the word out loud, but after he did, Minnick, who sat in the passenger seat, nodded in response.
“Yeah – shit. That about sums it up doesn’t it? And you’re probably thinking the same thing I am, aren’t you? Can we trust Tilley to help bail us out of this mess, or was he part of it?”
Benny leaned forward, his head emerging from the darkness of the van’s back seat.
“Bullshit. Tilley had nothing to do with this. I heard that Angelo speaking to Mac in Arabic. He wasn’t Italian, or if he was, he was a Muslim first. Tilley got burned by whoever Angelo really is the same as we did. We can’t afford to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater Mac.”
Mac was heading back to the Benina airport. With all of the matching U.N. vans located there, they would be able to blend in enough to buy them just a little more time – enough time for him to decide whether or not to risk reaching out to Tilley for help.
The airport security remained as non-existent as when they had left it. Mac simply drove past the gates and into the primary facility area, parking the van next to a row of three other identical vans.
“What do you think Jack? Do I give Tilley a call?”
Jack remained motionless in the back seat, his eyes closed as he focused on his breathing as Mac waited patiently for a response. Finally Jack opened his eyes and offered a thin smile back at Mac.
“We don’t have much choice at this point Mac. The way I see it, either you call him, or I will. He’s our best shot right now of getting out of this shithole.”
Mac didn’t take Jack’s words as a sign of disrespect. In fact, they were just the opposite. They cleared Mac’s head of options, and made the decision a simple one – he had no choice but to reach out to Tilley. Mac took out his cell and dialed Tilley’s direct contact number, the one used only for assignment emergencies.
Tilley picked up the call on the second ring.
“What’s wrong? This seems early for a check in.”
Mac paused as he considered his words carefully.
“We’ve been compromised. The Italian contact was bad. No safe house available.”
Now it was Tilley’s turn to pause. Mac waited him out, staying silent as well.
“Any casualties?”
“Affirmative – but the team is fine.”
Mac could sense Tilley’s indecision over the phone.
“Ok…
give me thirty minutes. Hold on and call me again in thirty minutes.”
Tilley hung up, leaving Mac to wonder what Tilley could come up with in thirty minutes that would bail his team out of a situation thousands of miles away in Benghazi, Libya.
“What did he say Mac?”
Mac looked over at Minnick, who was calmly cleaning his glasses as he asked the question.
“He said he wanted me to call him back in thirty minutes.”
Minnick’s brow furrowed as he considered Mac’s words.
“Why have us wait thirty minutes? Why doesn’t he call as soon as he has an option in place for us?”
Minnick said what Mac had been thinking. Tilley’s response felt like a stall. Mac had intentionally avoided telling him their current location. Tilley was smart though, smart enough to guess that Mac would return their van to the location that offered them the most cover – the airport.
Mac’s eyes scanned the vehicles around them. A plane similar to the one they had arrived in was preparing for take off no more than a hundred yards from where they were parked. In just a couple more hours, the place would be crawling with people as the day’s business was fully underway. The bodies of the five men and Angelo had likely already been discovered. The van that had been left in the street was the same one they were sitting in now. They were common to this airport. That meant it would be the first place the authorities would go looking.
They needed to move.
“Ok, you three stay put. I’m gonna find us different transportation.”
Mac left the van, walking between vehicles as he searched for one that would allow them to drive into the main part of the city undetected, something without a United Nations badge on it. Some three hundred feet inside the airport’s main entrance, Mac spotted four empty taxis parked alongside a row of white single wide trailers. The vehicles were basic black four door sedans with the words “Benghazi Comfort Taxi” prominently displayed on each side. Mac figured if there were already four of the taxis parked here this early in the morning, the city streets would be teeming with them within the hour.
The first taxi was locked, as was the second. The driver’s door of the third taxi opened and Mac spotted a single key hanging from the ignition.
Bingo.
The car started easily, though Mac could smell the body odor of its regularly assigned driver. Whoever it was, they needed to invest in a hell of a lot more deodorant. Pulling the car away from the other three, Mac drove it slowly toward the parked United Nations van where his team waited.
He left the car running as he stepped back outside and motioned for Jack, Benny, and Minnick to get into the taxi. Mac’s eyes scanned the area to see if anyone had noticed them. The airport remained relatively quiet even as Mac spotted what appeared to be an approaching passenger jet approaching from the skies.
“Ok – let’s go.”
The taxi left the airport without incident and within minutes Mac was driving around a massive roundabout, his taxi one of more than a dozen matching vehicles doing the same. Mac’s phone rang – it was Tilley. He hadn’t waited for Mac to call after all.
“Are you on the move?”
Mac considered the question, then lied.
“No - the airport.”
“Ok…listen carefully. Hadaik – Area Fifteen. Villa Four. Only one of you enters. Ask to speak to Ella. We’re still operational. Do you understand? We’re ok. Ella will take you to where you need to go. Call to confirm when you get there.”
Tilley hung up, leaving Mac to ponder if he should follow the instructions and drive to the address given.
“He wants us to head out to Hadaik, Area Fifteen, Villa Four. Meet a woman named Ella. Says we’re still operational. Give me some feedback boys. What do you think?”
Minnick, sitting in the passenger seat, was the first to respond to Mac.
“We do it. I thought about what Jack and Benny said. Until we know for sure otherwise, we have to trust Tilley Mac.”
Mac punched in the address given to him by Tilley into the taxi’s dashboard GPS. They were seven miles from the location. Outside, the streets of Benghazi were quickly becoming increasingly congested. Seven miles in this traffic was going to take some time.
“Three cars back. Black SUV.”
Mac’s eyes looked in his rear view mirror, following Benny’s description. A large, American-made SUV was in fact three cars behind them, its darkened windows making it impossible to see its occupants.
The taxi shot forward, passing several cars on the right side as Mac pushed down hard on its accelerator while watching to see how the SUV would react.
“Definitely following us Mac.”
The SUV moved quickly to the left side of the road, coming within inches of hitting several other vehicles as it neared their taxi. Whoever was driving it was well trained.
Mac moved the taxi back to the center lane and slowed down again, trying to keep at least one other vehicle between them and the SUV. The GPS indicated they were still six miles from the address Tilley had given them.
“To hell with this.”
Mac mashed the taxi’s accelerator all the way to the floor, swerving between several other vehicles before veering off onto a side street. The car’s engine howled in protest as its speedometer indicated nearly eighty miles an hour.
“Still there Mac - hundred yards and closing.”
Both Benny and Jack had drawn their handguns as they looked out the taxi’s back window.
Mac kept the accelerator to the floor as they approached nearly a hundred miles an hour.
“Hold on.”
The taxi’s tires screamed against the pavement as Mac pulled the wheel hard to the left and onto another side street, barely missing a row of parked vehicles and causing Mac to almost lose control as he frantically pulled the taxi back toward the center of the street.
Jack’s Alabama drawl called out from the back seat.
“Hey! Keep it on the road badass.”
Mac responded to Jack’s quip by raising his right middle finger as his foot again slammed down on the accelerator.
“On your right Mac, forty yards - dumpsters.”
Mac saw where Minnick was pointing to. A row of ten or so large green metallic dumpsters. The SUV could no longer be seen directly behind them as Mac pulled the taxi directly behind the dumpsters and slammed on the brakes, bringing the car to a sudden stop.
Only a few seconds passed before the SUV was spotted driving slowly down the street Mac had just pulled off of. As the SUV began to pass the dumpsters, Mac put the taxi in reverse and inched the car backwards, always keeping the dumpsters between them and the SUV’s line of sight until the SUV had finally passed them completely as it continued heading down the street.
“Nice driving Louisiana.”
Mac chuckled at Jack’s compliment.
“Thanks Alabama.”
IX.
Mac waited another few minutes to make certain the SUV didn’t return, and then proceeded to drive back onto the main roadway and toward the address Tilley had instructed them to arrive at. Ten minutes later, they arrived at a squat white building with a single palm tree that loomed over the right side of the aging structure. A sign hung over the door that read, “Libyan Media Freedom Network”. An older, tan Mercedes 300 was the only vehicle parked in front of the building.
Minnick pointed toward the palm tree.
“They have a security camera just to the left of the tree, half inch security bars across the two windows, and the door looks to be a newer Ceco model. Whatever this place is, they’ve taken precautions to protect the people inside.”
Mac parked the taxi in an alley about three hundred feet away from the tan Mercedes. That way if the SUV that had been following them found it, their location inside the Libyan Media Freedom Network building would be difficult to determine. There were at least another seven buildings within similar distance from the parked taxi.
“I need you three to set up a perimeter
shield, nearest one to be no more than sixty feet from the entrance. Want one of you within eyesight of this location here. If that SUV comes back and checks out the taxi, I want to know who we are dealing with – are they Libyans, CIA, whatever.”
Jack offered to remain near the taxi, while Benny and Minnick took locations nearer the parked Mercedes as Mac began to walk toward the building’s entrance. He paused to allow the security camera plenty of time to see him before pushing a small white intercom button housed just to the left of the door. Minnick had been right – it was an almost brand new Ceco security door.
“I’m here to see Ella.”
A short buzzing sound emitted from the top of the door frame, indicating Mac could now pull the door open. Just inside the door was a small six by six room where another door matching the one outside was located directly in front of where Mac stood. Another security camera was housed in the upper right corner of the small room.
“Who sent you?”
The voice came from a small intercom placed in the low ceiling just above Mac’s head.
“Tilley.”
The second door opened, leading to a surprisingly well lit and expensively furnished waiting area. Two armed men dressed in matching black dress shirts and khakis stood approximately six feet apart from each other looking back at Mac. They each carried X95 assault rifles, perhaps the most common weapon of choice for Israeli Special Forces. It was a weapon that carried light, but still packed a serious punch, allowing fully automatic, thirty two round capabilities.
Each of the men was slightly taller than Mac, and at least ten years younger. Their dark eyes regarded Mac without emotion, a sign of a well trained soldier.
Mac heard heeled steps approaching from a hallway that opened up from the back left of the room from which emerged a blonde woman of medium height and athletic build. She appeared to be no more than forty years of age, with a somewhat long and narrow face, full lips, and wide, dark eyes that sat under high arching brows. Her hair fell casually over her shoulders as she stopped to look at Mac.
“Mr. Walker?”
She spoke his real name, proving to Mac she was in fact in contact with Tilley. Mac nodded his head once back at her.
MAC WALKER'S BENGHAZI: The Complete Collection Page 5
