The Third Target: A J. B. Collins Novel

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  Adrenaline surging, I grabbed my MP5, ejected the spent magazine, reloaded, and scrambled to my feet.

  “Come on,” I yelled. “They’re leaving without us.”

  60

  Yael began running flat out, and I followed.

  We retraced our route around what was left of Marine One. On the way, Yael dropped two more terrorists. But to our horror, when we got past the flaming wreckage and back to the silo opening, we saw the rest of our team. They were under withering fire from our right, pinned down in a grove of trees about halfway to the Suburbans.

  Yael didn’t hesitate. Without making a sound, she pointed for me to head right. She would go left. I nodded and bolted to the cover of a half-destroyed cement wall on the back side of the palace remains. Drawing no fire, I inched my way forward. Ahead of me was an inferno, the burning shell of a three-story wing of the palace. There were no doors where a double set should have been. I moved closer, pointing my machine gun inside, searching desperately for any signs of movement as my skin baked and my eyes filled with smoke.

  Thirty yards to my left, I could see Yael doing the same thing, moving into the other side of the building as the firefight between our team and the ISIS rebels raged another fifty yards to her left. As best I could tell, the rebels were shooting from the cover of this section of the palace. If we could find them, perhaps we could distract them and give our guys a chance to make a break for the armored vehicles.

  Yael pointed to me and then to a stairway ahead and to my right. Then she signaled that she would work her way through the ground floor. A flash of fear rippled through me. That gave me two floors to clear and very little time to do it.

  Seeing no one yet, I cautiously worked my way up the stairs. I could hear machine-gun fire coming from above, but I couldn’t tell from where exactly. The stairs were creaking. I was making too much noise. Anyone waiting for me would cut me down in an instant. So it hardly made sense to go slow.

  Abandoning all caution, I bounded up the steps, legs aching, lungs sucking in as much air as they could. I reached the top and swept the MP5 from side to side. But no one was there. Then I heard more machine-gun fire, clearer now, coming from the third floor, almost directly above me.

  This time I moved more carefully up the stairs, placing my feet on the extreme edge of each step, hoping they would creak less or not at all. Inch by inch I moved my way upward while all around I could hear nonstop gunfire and men suffering horrible, ghastly deaths. The only good thing was that all the cacophony covered up whatever sounds I was making.

  As I reached the top step, the gunfire stopped. I froze in place, my heart pounding through my chest. I heard a clatter. Someone was reloading. But in which room? How many were there?

  For a moment I hesitated, trying to map out my next action, when gunfire erupted on the first floor. Yael was all in now. I needed to move as well.

  Sliding off my dress shoes, I crept down the smoke- and rubble-filled hallways in my socks. Then the shooting began again. It was coming from one of the last rooms at the end of the hall, the rooms overlooking the courtyard, the grove of trees, and what was left of our team. I wasn’t sure if it was the room on the left or the room on the right. Maybe it was both.

  Under the cover of the gunfire, I bolted forward as fast as I could and made my bet. Sliding to a halt, I pivoted and burst through the door on the left and started shooting. An instant later, two snipers had collapsed to the ground. I put another two bullets into each to be sure and then turned around.

  Was that it? Was it over?

  No. I heard more gunfire coming from the other side of the hall. And now I had lost the element of surprise.

  Moving carefully, I made my way to the door just as it began to swing open. I aimed at the center of the doorframe and pulled the trigger. A hooded figure dropped to the floor in front of me.

  I quickly reloaded and moved into the hallway. Then I burst into the room across the hall only to find that a sniper had just been shot down by someone out in the courtyard. He was rolling around in pain. I switched to single shot, fired two rounds, and it was over.

  Switching back to automatic, I returned to the hallway. It looked clear. I started running, desperate to get back to our team. But then I heard Yael yell, “James, duck!”

  Without thinking, I dove to the floor, just as Yael—crouching in the stairwell—fired a long burst down the hallway over my head. Terrified, I let go of my weapon and covered my head with my hands. Yael fired again. And then all was quiet—in this wing of the building, at least.

  “You okay?” she asked, coming up quickly to check on me.

  “You nearly killed me!” I said, breathing hard.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I wasn’t aiming at you.”

  I got up, picked up my gun, and turned to find another ISIS rebel on the floor at the end of the hallway, bleeding out. I had no idea where he’d come from—one of the other side rooms, apparently. I was just glad it was over.

  But it wasn’t over. The man was lying facedown as the pool of crimson around him grew. Cautiously, my gun aimed at his head, I walked over to him. Yael warned me not to get too close, and she wasn’t wrong. I could now see that he was still moving, still breathing. Yael came over and was about to finish him off, but something made me stop her. Perhaps it was his enormous size. Perhaps it was the fact that he wasn’t wearing a hood like all the others. But for whatever reason, I drove my foot into his ribs and ordered him in Arabic to turn over. Maybe he couldn’t. Maybe he wouldn’t. But I told Yael to cover me, and I rolled him over myself.

  He was a bloody mess, but there was no mistaking who it was.

  This was Jamal Ramzy.

  In a blinding rage, I moved in and stuck the barrel of my MP5 in his face.

  “Where is Abu Khalif?” I yelled.

  He was fading fast, but he could hear me.

  I drove my foot down on his right knee and he shrieked in agony. In my peripheral vision, I could see Yael growing edgy, her finger itching toward her trigger.

  “Where . . . is . . . Abu . . . Khalif?” I repeated.

  “You’ll never find him,” he replied through gritted teeth.

  “Did you bring the sarin?” I demanded. “Are you going to use poison gas?”

  Yael was now the frantic one. “Come on. It’s over. He’s not going to talk. Let’s go.”

  “He’ll talk,” I said and fired a single round through his left arm, just above the elbow.

  Ramzy’s eyes rolled back in his head. They closed, then briefly opened again and readjusted. Blood was gurgling up from his stomach and dripping down his chin. I didn’t have much time.

  “Who’s the mole?” I shouted.

  But Ramzy refused to speak.

  “Who’s working for you inside the palace?” I shouted again.

  “Burn in hell, kafir!” he screamed as he spat blood in my face. Then he fell back, and his eyes closed for the last time.

  “After you,” I said as I stood.

  61

  I just stared at the corpse, not quite believing my eyes.

  Jamal Ramzy was dead.

  “We need to go,” Yael said, turning and heading back up the hall.

  But I wasn’t through. I reached down and checked his pulse. Sure enough. Ramzy was gone. Then I checked his front pockets. I found nothing. I checked his back pockets. They were empty as well. I patted him down, top to bottom. There had to be something. A wallet. An ID. A plan of some kind. But Ramzy was clean. I pulled out my cell phone and snapped several pictures. This was a huge story, and I needed proof. And as I did, I noticed that Ramzy’s enormous left hand was closed tight.

  “James, come on,” Yael shouted, already at the stairs. “We’ve got to move.”

  Instead, I set down my weapon and got onto my hands and knees. I pried open Ramzy’s thick, bloody fingers, one by one. And there it was. A small cell phone. I quickly flipped it open. There was nothing in the contacts section. But the call log showed nine calls that h
ad been made and three that had been received. I had numbers, dates, and times.

  Pay dirt, I thought.

  Yael was frantic. I grabbed my gun and ran. Together, we raced down both sets of stairs and a moment later we burst out the same side door where I had entered this wing. We could see Ali Sa’id beginning to rally what was left of our group and move them from the grove of trees toward the SUVs.

  “Let’s go, you two! Move!” he yelled when he spotted us.

  We retrieved our backpacks and raced to catch up. But suddenly there was another burst of gunfire from our right. I saw two gunmen emerging from the smoke near Marine One. I pivoted and fired three bursts on the run. One of the terrorists fell to the ground, his AK-47 skittering across the pavement.

  The other kept running. He wasn’t shooting at us, though. He was shooting at the royal family and screaming something in Arabic. The others ahead of me were running hard, but at the rate this guy was coming, I feared none of them would make it in time. So I dove to the ground, rolled to a stop, took a deep breath, tried to steady my aim, and fired two bursts, then three more. Yael was running, but she was firing too, and a moment later the rebel fell to the ground.

  “Clear!” she yelled.

  I jumped back to my feet. But then Yael yelled that rebels were coming over the wall about thirty yards to our left. I turned and saw three. One by one, they dropped to the lawn below and started racing for us, raising their weapons and preparing to shoot.

  Prime Minister Lavi reacted first. Shooting from the hip, on the run, the former Israeli special forces commando must have emptied an entire magazine. It was a sight to behold, and it worked. Each of the attackers was riddled with bullets and fell to the ground, writhing in pain. They weren’t dead. But they weren’t coming at us anymore, and for now, that was all that mattered.

  “Come on!” the king yelled. “We have to keep moving!”

  I quickly ejected a spent magazine and reloaded and kept running. I could see the crown prince helping his mother while Sa’id—and now Yael and I—came in behind them. We were all running as fast as we could, but the weight of the backpacks slowed us down. Yael and I were bleeding, too—both quite seriously—but there was no time to do anything about it.

  As we approached the SUVs, however, it was a kill box. Rebels were shooting at us from all directions. One agent just ahead of me, providing cover for the queen, dropped to the ground. He’d been shot four times in the face and legs. Two more agents to my right were killed a moment later.

  Terrified, yet propelled by a surge of adrenaline, I looked to my right and saw the remains of another garage. I could see one of the king’s limos ablaze, but at the moment I didn’t see any rebels. I checked with Yael and Sa’id. They didn’t see any either. But it didn’t matter, we decided. Rebels or no rebels, we had to get to the SUVs.

  Sa’id suggested I fan out to the right. He would go left. Yael would go straight. I nodded and began running. Each of us opened fire and kept shooting until we reached the first SUV. While Sa’id dug through the pockets of the dead driver and retrieved the key, I reloaded, with Yael providing covering fire. Sa’id found the key a moment later, opened the front door to use as some cover, and got the queen and the crown prince safely in the backseat.

  The ISIS rebels continued firing back. Agents were dropping all around me. We weren’t going to make it. Not like this. I finished reloading and saw several terrorists moving through the flames of the garage. I opened fire. A split second later, Sa’id was at my side, firing back as well. But when he asked me where the king was, I realized I had no idea. The last time I’d seen him, he was on the other side of this SUV. Was he already inside? And for that matter, where was President Taylor? Where were Lavi and Mansour?

  “Ali, go find them!” I shouted.

  Yael and I kept returning fire. I certainly wasn’t the most accurate shot of the group, or what was left of it, but all I was trying to do was buy time until everyone could get safely into the vehicles and we could get out of there.

  Suddenly I heard Ali yelling for me to get over to him right away. I fired two more bursts, emptying my magazine, reloaded, and quickly worked my way around the back of the truck while Yael covered me. I could hear bullets whizzing over my head. I could hear them smashing into the side of the armor-plated trucks. I could see round after round hitting the bulletproof windows, though fortunately they refused to shatter. But as I came around the far side of the Suburban, I froze in my tracks. Prime Minister Lavi and President Mansour were lying side by side, surrounded by several more dead agents.

  The king was crouched over them. I couldn’t see what he was doing. Was he trying in vain to revive them or just mourning over them? Either way, it was no use. They were gone. Nothing was going to bring them back. We had to go. We couldn’t stay out in the open like this.

  At that moment, I went numb. I could feel myself beginning to slip into shock, and I couldn’t help it, couldn’t stop it.

  And then, as if through a tunnel, I thought I heard the sound of someone calling my name.

  “Collins, they’re alive!” the king yelled. “They’re unconscious, but they’re still breathing. They both have a pulse. But we need to get them into the Suburban. Cover us!”

  I couldn’t believe it. They weren’t dead? They looked dead. They weren’t moving. But at the very thought, I snapped to.

  Sa’id opened the back of the truck and put down the rear seat to make space while Yael covered his right flank. Then Sa’id helped the king lift Prime Minister Lavi and gently set him inside the SUV.

  Reengaged, I pivoted hard to my left and followed my orders. Firing short bursts in multiple directions, I had no illusions I was going to kill many rebels. But I was determined not to let them get to the king or his family or these other leaders. All I had to do was buy time. The question was whether it would possibly be enough.

  As the king and Sa’id put President Mansour in the back, I continued firing. Then I heard one of the other SUVs roar to life. For a moment I stopped shooting. I looked to my right and saw two American agents peeling off without us.

  “That’s President Taylor!” the king yelled as he covered the limp body of the Palestinian leader with a blanket.

  He was right. It was Taylor in the other truck. It had to be. The Secret Service wasn’t waiting. They’d gotten their man into a bulletproof vehicle and now they were getting him to the airport.

  We had to move too, and fast.

  “Ali, you drive,” the king ordered as he closed up the back. “Yael, you ride shotgun. I’ll sit behind you and work the phones. Collins, get in the back with Lavi and Mansour and cover my family.”

  It was a good plan, and I was prepared to follow it. But as the king disappeared around the other side of the truck to get in behind the front passenger seat, Sa’id was shot multiple times. He cried out in pain. I turned and saw two masked rebels running at us through the smoke. I ducked, aimed, and unloaded everything I had.

  Both men dropped to the ground.

  “Go, Collins!” Sa’id shouted with the last breath in him, stumbling backward. “Don’t wait. Take the king and go!”

  I hesitated. I couldn’t leave Sa’id behind. He’d already saved my life countless times, starting with getting me out of the courtyard before the missiles hit and the F-16’s kamikaze attack. But he wasn’t long for this world—he knew it, and he was right. I had to go. I had to save the king’s life.

  Sa’id fell. I went to my knees to reload. When I was done, I checked his pulse, but Sa’id was gone.

  Yael was now climbing into the passenger seat. She was yelling at me to hurry. As quickly as I could, I pushed Sa’id’s body out of the way of the truck. I grabbed the keys and satphone from his hands, and his MP5 as well. It felt cruel. It felt callous. But I had no choice and no time.

  I opened the truck door, but before I could jump into the driver’s seat, I lurched forward. I’d been hit—not once but multiple times. I couldn’t believe it. I’d felt
the impacts, but I wasn’t in pain. Not yet. But that had to be the adrenaline. I’d feel it soon, and then what? Was this it? Was I dying?

  “Get in, get in!” the king yelled.

  Dazed and confused, it took me a moment to get my bearings. I thought briefly of just slumping back to the ground. I didn’t want to hold the king and his family back. He could drive this thing better than I could. But Yael was screaming at me to stay focused and get in. And somehow—I’m really not sure how—I managed to climb into the driver’s seat and pull the door shut behind me.

  The king then hit a button and locked all the doors.

  “Where is Ali?” he asked.

  “I’m afraid he didn’t make it, Your Majesty,” I said.

  The king just looked at me for a moment, a thousand emotions in his eyes.

  “You’ve been hit too?” he asked.

  “I think so,” I said.

  But as Yael helped me remove my backpack, handing it to the king to get it out of my way, she noticed something. “Look,” she said.

  I looked where she was pointing and saw that five rounds had hit the pack, but none of them had penetrated. Yael told me to turn so she could check my back. She looked me over quickly, as did the king, but they found nothing.

  “You’re okay,” she said.

  “It’s a miracle,” the queen said.

  I couldn’t believe it. “Really? You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure, Collins,” the king said. “But you need to floor it, or none of us is going to make it out of here alive.”

  62

  I turned the ignition.

  The engine sputtered but wouldn’t catch. I tried again, but still nothing.

  “Hurry,” Yael cried.

  “I’m trying—it won’t start,” I said as I tried again and again.

  “Collins, let’s move; they’re coming,” the king shouted.