by Jeff Rovin
“How will you interrogate the man?” Breen asked.
Grace hadn’t considered that. She swore.
“They have to move Salehi some time,” Rivette said. “Out here, we can target them.”
Williams shook his head, said, “We don’t have ‘some time.’”
“What do you mean?” Breen asked.
“No one knows where Salehi is probably hiding except us,” he said. “We were in the field, we were on his trail, we were given a lead time. That status downgrades in about four hours when the intel goes wide through the global intelligence system.”
Breen seemed to brighten. “That could be a good thing,” he said. “We wait for backup.”
“What, we just sit here and point?” Rivette complained.
“I read about the Supporters of Allah on the tanker,” Grace said. “They do not engage in firefights. They own whatever turf, whatever enemy they have to fight.”
“Not if an M-162 Evolved SeaSparrow missile comes sailing in from the Gulf,” Williams said. “One of our destroyers could punch big holes in those walls.”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” Grace replied. “They won’t let it get that far. To them, we are spotters.”
“If they know we’re even here,” Rivette said.
Breen was looking up at the roof of the warehouse. “We are four people who arrived by helicopter and are standing in the rain. They may be harboring the world’s most wanted fugitive.”
“Exactly,” Grace said.
“Spotters,” Williams caught on. “We can use that,” he said suddenly.
“How?” Rivette asked.
Williams told them. A few moments later, Black Wasp was in motion.
* * *
Ali Abdullah was sitting at a card table, looking at his computer, streaming Al Jazeera. Ahmed Salehi was taking breakfast after having spent, he said, a restful night in his quarters. Abdullah himself had not retired, had not slept much as he watched the clock in anticipation of the launch from Sadi’s tanker—but more immediately, the anticipated attack. It did not seem strange to him that the news he watched showed worldwide intelligence services being uncertain about Ahmed Salehi’s whereabouts or his pursuit. No one knew that the attack on Osama bin Laden was coming until the first shots were fired.
That must not happen here.
His radio came on with the sound of rainfall and wind-rustled canvas. The observer was lying beneath a tarp on the roof. It was one of many with silicone-treated, waterproof fibers that covered exposed vents—except for his, which was reserved for spotters that watched the grounds around the clock. He had a rifle at his side, which gave him an advantage the security cameras lacked.
“Four new arrivals were looking this way,” said his caller. “There’s a woman among them. They are walking toward us.”
“I’m sending two men out,” Abdullah said. “Come down—we may need you.”
The leader turned and went to two men who were napping in folding chairs, their chins on their chests. He woke them by calling their names. The pair were instantly alert.
“Go out, find three men and a woman,” he ordered. “Approach but do not engage. They may be the team we are waiting for—most likely there are others, possibly Saudis in concealment.”
The men picked up their semiautomatics, did not bother to conceal them as they hurried to the door. Abdullah switched the computer to security camera access to see what the spotter was seeing.
* * *
Grace was standing apart from the others, nearest to the door of the warehouse, when the two men emerged. They were incongruously wearing robes and Western windbreakers. They did not come directly toward her but dashed from the building to an idle forklift and hopped into the cab.
Observe from a different perspective, she thought. Running their playbook.
Grace would upset it. She immediately walked over to the door facing away from the warehouse, rapped on the window, and began speaking to them in Mandarin. They might not recognize it, but they would know it wasn’t English. They might let their guard relax just enough.
The nearest man opened the door. Grace reached up and slapped her palm on his arm, her strong fingers grabbing through the two layers of sleeve and digging into the meat of his arm. She turned her hip, he flew from the cab, and she drove her right heel hard onto his gun hand. The metal caused the bones to shatter. Pushing off that heel, she launched herself into the cab and used two open palms to ram the other man’s head into the window on his side. It went through the glass and she immediately reached for his ears and pulled him back through, lacerating his throat. He dropped his gun and, screaming with fear and pain, put his hands over the wounds. She was still holding his ears as she backed from the cab and rammed his forehead into the controls between the seats. On the way out, she put the same right heel down hard on the other man’s temple.
Both were unconscious. A radio came on. A voice was unanswered. Someone was going to have to come out and investigate. Grace picked up one of the semiautomatics. She had not held a weapon in months and it felt unfamiliar—strangely weak. But the forklift offered protection from rain and gunfire, and the broken window was a perfect place to target the door.
She waited.
* * *
Breen and Williams had moved out of view of the doorway. They had circled around the warehouses to the other side and stopped. If the spotter were on the roof of any of the four buildings, he would have to watch two sectors at once. While Williams kept a lookout for Supporters of Allah who might be doing sentry duty outside, Breen had pulled the compact binoculars from under his robe and was studying the rooftops.
“I don’t see anyone on any edge,” Breen said. “If someone’s up there and armed, it’s for long distance. He’d have to move to target the nearby perimeter.”
“They’ve probably got exits we can’t see,” Williams said.
“Probably. We can’t let them slip out the back.”
“Let’s go,” Williams said, starting toward the second warehouse.
* * *
Abdullah could not make out exactly what had happened in the forklift, but the woman’s face was in the window and he could not see his men. He sent one man to get Salehi and rallied the remaining five fighters.
“We are under assault,” he said when their guest had arrived. “Two men down.” He pointed to one man. “Out the back, bring the pickup.” He pointed to two others. “Cover him.” He pointed to the fourth and fifth. “You’re at the front door. I’ll stay with the captain.”
The men moved swiftly and efficiently.
Abdullah was not going to let them get their guest.
* * *
Dhu Basha jogged through the rain along the outside of the warehouse, never straying from the eye line of his comrades who shifted in the doorway to follow his progress. The pickup had been parked so that anyone going to it would have armed backup, watching.
Basha’s own eyes were constantly in motion, his Uzi swinging left and right as he ran. He stopped halfway to the pickup, which was parked on the street between the third and fourth warehouses in a spot directly diagonal from the door of warehouse two.
The two tires he could see were flat. He looked to see who had done it, saw two men standing brashly at the far corner of the last warehouse, not far from the front of the truck. Neither man was armed—they were just standing there. Basha raised his weapon—then spun and dropped, dead. Moments later, the two men in the door flew inward, landing and skidding back in their own blood.
* * *
“And … bonus points,” Rivette said, rising from behind a parked car.
The lance corporal had broken from the others and, running, circled wide around the warehouses through the border of the Saudi-controlled section. His goal was the pickup truck. He could not be sure he would have an actionable target—but the team had agreed they must anticipate a possible retreat. He had not spoken with Breen and Williams, but Black Wasp had trained for the rope-a-dope
scenario: the sniper in a place relatively safe from attack, a juicy target offered to the enemy who, taking it, was vulnerable to a counterpunch.
Rivette did not stay put. Breen and Williams were already in motion toward the open back door of the warehouse. The lance corporal fell in behind, covering them.
* * *
Abdullah heard the shots, assumed his men had fired them, was enraged to see them skid inward. Salehi had been handed a pair of firearms, ready to repel an attack. There were only two ways in and it would only take two men to cover them.
The men from the door had turned at the sound of gunfire. Abdullah held up one finger and pointed to the back door. One man ran over. Abdullah remained in the central command area with Salehi. They crouched behind crates that were filled with cement and had been arrayed for an assault.
The wait was not as long as it felt to the men in the warehouse. They were watching and also listening. The rain on the ribbed steel roof was heavy and constant. That had to be a disadvantage for a team moving toward them. Even with rubber-soled tabi boots, maneuvers in a squall were—
A steady spray of gunfire erupted from the front door. Abdullah had heard the sound just before the shooting started.
“The forklift!” the sentry shouted, turning briefly.
“Withdraw!” the chieftain ordered.
Before the man could do so, he disappeared outside the doorway—moments before the load backrest and mast of the vehicle rammed into the opening, blocking it.
* * *
Grace had started the forklift forward and followed behind the open door. It was parked in such a way as to draw the gunman’s attention to his right. Her goal had been to get closer to the man before he thought to shoot the legs out from under her; she assumed, correctly, that he would target the cab first. By the time he destroyed the rain-covered window, saw that there was no one at the controls, and swung in her direction, she had climbed to the overhead guard atop the vehicle. She lay flat, shielded by the mast. When the man turned to alert the surviving Supporters, she had jumped off, dashed to the left side of the door, and grabbed him by the collar before he could fire again. She pivoted sharply at the waist and he sprawled flat on the ground. Grace dropped a knee to the back of his neck. Except for twitching in his fingers and feet, he did not move.
She had already discarded the other weapon, did not pick up this one, but crouched by the door. She listened for the slap of any feet that might come to investigate the gunfire. None came.
Oudah must have heard it, too, told everyone to stay put, she thought.
Grace was in a hyperalert, predatory state. Tension inhibited the flow of energy and she moved her arms like outstretched wings, with fluid, sweeping White Crane forms. That moved the pooled aggression from her gut, her dontian, the “cauldron,” to keep her from acting on a dangerous impulse. That impulse was to somersault in and tear into anyone and everyone she saw.
But they were armed and it was better to leave a mystery outside the door—something they would expand in their minds, and fear.
She waited, confident that one of the others had taken the SITCOM initiative from their position.
* * *
Crouched at the back door, only the front site and the tip of the barrel extended beyond the metal frame, nineteen-year-old Akram ibn Hayyam was impatient to act. He burned with a need to defend his leader and the great captain, to repel the infidels who dared to set foot in their land. He did not care if he died in the effort. He would be in Paradise and able to bestow blessings on those he left behind.
Hayyam drew comfort from the men who lay sprawled behind him. Their blood honored the soles of his boots. Even now, he listened for them to whisper into his ear, to advise him.
Kill, they seemed to be saying.
The infidels were cowards. After murdering his fellow fighters from safety, they went back into hiding. Hayyam knew that his leader, Abdullah, employed that same approach—they had worked it out for the Saudi scholar, who still must die—but it had never sat well with the teenage warrior. He had beheaded Christians with ISIS, in Mosul, before joining the Supporters of Allah.
It was always warmer when they saw their killer, when they possessed fear.
Akram ibn Hayyam was drawing breath through his nose, his mouth downturned, teeth exposed in a feral contour. They were out there, somewhere, the invaders. He inched the gun forward, following it as slowly as he could with his body.
His hand exploded, the gun flew, he lurched slightly forward, and then a bullet entered his left temple and exited from the right, carrying the front of his skull with it.
* * *
Breen and Williams were at one side of the warehouse, Rivette at the other. They had been waiting behind the wall so as not to be in the line of fire when Rivette took his shot. They also wanted to be able to communicate with Grace, who stood along the same wall, just beside the jammed-up doorway.
There was only one way out now. And one way in. No one filled that opening.
Rivette had been waiting for Williams to look around the corner. As soon as he did, the lance corporal pointed to himself, then to the door. Williams was going to shake his head but realized, once again, that he was not in command. However, Williams’s hand shot up suddenly, urgently indicating for the marksman to wait.
A moment later, Grace’s last hand grenade flew over the forklift and exploded in the warehouse. Gunfire spat from inside, anticipating a charge. She hurried over to the two men.
“Center of the room,” she said. “No cries—probably barricaded.”
“And probably low in manpower,” Breen said. “They haven’t bothered to post anyone else back here.”
“Someone still has to cover the other door,” Williams said.
“I’ll go,” Breen told him.
Williams felt, even more strongly now, that the major was at heart a closet pacifist—here by design, he suspected. A man with a conscience was not a bad thing to have on a team like this.
Rivette came over, stood on the other side of the door.
“You out of grenades?” Williams asked Grace.
“Sadly.”
“At least two prizes in there,” Rivette said. “If Salehi’s inside, boss would’ve stayed with him.”
Williams nodded.
“I don’t like standoffs,” the lance corporal added.
The group started as they heard the sound of falling stone.
“The door I hit,” Grace said, “was not in good shape.”
“Jaz,” Williams said to Rivette, “what do you think about going over there and shooting some more of it down. Make like we’re going to come over it, or follow it in like a tank.”
“Draw their fire and you go in from here,” the lance corporal said. “I like it, but I got a better chance of taking them out if you shoot it down.”
“Yes, but it’s my SITCOM call.” Williams smiled thinly.
Rivette smirked and turned back the way he came, circling the building so he would not have to run in front of the door.
Grace and Williams were standing together, the woman behind.
“How do we do this?” she asked.
“We don’t, I do,” he said.
“Why?”
“I honestly don’t know,” he said while they waited for Rivette to start shooting. He raised his Sig Sauer 9mm XM17 so it was shoulder high, pointed up, ready. “This is terra incognita for me. I just know I have to do it.”
“I can respect that,” Grace said. That was all she said; Williams knew she would honor that and be prepared to move in if something happened.
A few seconds later the drone of automatic fire started chipping at the cinder blocks, drawing fire from inside. Williams knew the terrorists probably did not have a clear target, were looking to create what ISIS had called a “wall of death” in their blind defensive assaults when Fallujah was retaken by Iraqi forces.
As soon as he heard the shooting from inside the warehouse—two, possibly three separate weapons,
Williams judged—he risked a look inside. It was a mental snapshot that he processed immediately, tactically, the way he had done with so many surveillance photos, so many helmet-cam attacks that he viewed and studied at CENTCOM.
There were two men crouching inside an array of crates, about twenty-five feet away. The boxes were on their sides in a kind of maze-like arrangement designed to thwart a full-scale assault. But they were low enough for the men behind them to fire over.
They were low enough for their heads to be visible.
One of those heads was wearing a long keffiyeh. The other belonged to Ahmed Salehi.
Williams felt his insides burn at the sight of the Iranian. He had not bothered to withdraw his face from the door. They were not looking in his direction; they would within moments, though, when they realized that the shooting was a feint. Without hesitating, Williams swung in, aimed his weapon, and fired three rounds into the head covering. The man was lifted bodily to his right and fell. His weapon continued to fire, his finger still locked around the trigger. Bullets ricocheted against the crate in front of him, causing Salehi to scramble backwards, to the narrow end of the crate for protection. He had stopped firing and Williams seized the lull to stride forward behind his gun.
It was pointed at Salehi’s head.
“No!” Williams shouted, thinking that was one word of English the man might understand.
Salehi had already been turning to face whoever had fired the fatal shot at Abdullah. He dropped both guns and raised his hands. Williams saw Rivette climb on top of the forklift, moving his gun around the warehouse to make sure no one else was hiding.
“You’re good!” the lance corporal said, easing in through the opening he’d made. Breen followed.
The Iranian captain stood slowly and faced Williams. His face was a statement of spiritual serenity. Salehi seemed unbothered by the death around him, by the black marks on his soul, by the fact that he had been apprehended. In fact, as Williams approached and Salehi deduced that his captor was American, he almost seemed to relax. It was the look of a man—no, a sea captain—who knew he was about to take a voyage that would last for several years: a trial in America during which governments and other powerful forces would fight for his release. A man who knew that the future would not be about the act he had committed but the multifaceted symbol he had become: avenging Iranian warrior, honorary jihadist, a man who was unjustly treated by Op-Center—whose existence, whose JSOC commandos would be exposed. Salehi’s single-minded defense counsel would see to that. They would defend this creature while he sat with this same look of confident, righteous serenity.