The Third Target: A J. B. Collins Novel

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  But nothing was working.

  Through the smoke I could see rebels running from all parts of the compound. They were firing everything they had at us. We could hear and feel the rounds hitting the truck. We could see the windows splintering. They had not yet shattered, but it was only a matter of time.

  Over and over I turned the key but to no avail. I began to panic. Once more I could feel myself slipping into shock. My hands were shaking and my body felt numb. My throat was dry. My eyes were getting heavy and everything was blurring. I could hear the king shouting at me, but it was as if he were far away. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. I tried to say something. I tried to explain what was happening. But my brain couldn’t quite send the proper signals to my mouth.

  Then finally the engine roared to life. I didn’t know why or how but I didn’t care either. I hit the gas, and we were moving.

  I’d never driven an armor-plated SUV. But two things became instantly apparent. First, because the engine was powerful, I had all the horsepower I needed. But second, because it was so incredibly heavy, it didn’t handle like a normal truck. I flicked on the lights to find my way through all the smoke. I hit the windshield wipers to clear away at least some of the soot and ash. I was terrified of hitting someone. I knew they were enemies. I knew it was either them or us. But I still didn’t want to plow anyone over.

  The king was my navigator. He gave me directions, guiding me around obstacles even as he powered up the satellite phone and dialed his brother. A moment later, he was shouting in Arabic. I didn’t understand more than a few words. I heard safe and family and something like the palace is gone. I was pretty sure I heard the names Lavi and Mansour mentioned too, but he was talking too fast for me to get much else, and I had to stay focused.

  We hit a speed bump—I hoped it was a speed bump—going almost fifty miles an hour and suddenly we were airborne. I struggled to maintain control as the heavy vehicle crashed back down.

  “There, through that hole!” Yael shouted.

  “Where? Where?” I shouted back.

  “There—on the right!” she yelled.

  Finally I saw it. There was a massive breach in one of the concrete walls that surrounded the perimeter of the compound. It didn’t have a road leading to it. It was in the middle of a large lawn at the bottom of an incline. But I could see the tracks of another vehicle. I had to assume President Taylor and his team had gone this way as well. The only problem was the hole was guarded by at least a dozen rebels, and they trained all their fire on us now. But there was no other way out.

  I gunned the engine and made for the hole, gripping the steering wheel so tightly my fingers and knuckles were white. I forced myself not to duck, not to cover my eyes. We couldn’t stop. We couldn’t go back. We couldn’t look for another way out. There might not be one, and we didn’t have time to try. The moment the Secret Service got the president to the airport, Air Force One was going to take off, with or without us. The only chance we had was to catch up.

  At the last moment, the rebels dove out of the way. So much for being martyrs for Allah, I thought. They’d had a chance to save their own skin, and they’d taken it.

  We barreled through the hole and spilled out onto a side street. I slammed on the brakes, but not in time. We smashed into two parked cars on the other side of the street, sending all of us lurching forward. The steering wheel stopped me. But Yael slammed into the front windshield. The gash over her left eye reopened and blood poured down her face.

  “I’m fine,” she said quickly, seeing the distress in my eyes. “Just get us out of here.”

  “Which way?”

  “Right,” the king said. “Go right.”

  I jammed the truck into reverse, did an awkward K-turn, and hit the gas. We were moving again.

  “Left at the light!” he ordered.

  I made the turn, barely, though for a split second I thought we were going to spin out or roll over. I glanced in my rearview mirror to see if the king and his family were okay. He ordered me to keep my eyes on the road and not worry about them—they’d be fine—so that’s what I did.

  For the next few blocks, we barreled down empty streets, cleared by security for the peace summit. Soon, however, we reentered the crush of daily life in Amman. I was weaving through traffic at forty and sometimes fifty miles an hour. The king insisted I not stop for anything, so I blew through traffic lights praying we wouldn’t be broadsided.

  For a man who probably hadn’t driven himself through the streets of Amman in twenty years, if ever, the king seemed to know the roads like a taxi driver. When we hit traffic, he started telling me to take this side street or that, apparently determined to keep us off the main boulevards and thoroughfares. It worked for a while, but all good things come to an end.

  “Uh, Your Majesty, we’ve got a problem,” I said, glancing in my rearview mirror.

  Yael looked in her side mirror. The king and his family craned their necks to see what was happening.

  We had company. A pickup truck filled with masked rebels had picked up our scent and was following us. Not just following—gaining on us. With all the bullet marks, I couldn’t see out the back window too clearly, but I was pretty sure at least one of the rebels had a shoulder-mounted RPG launcher.

  Yael unbuckled her seat belt, rolled down her window, took her MP5, and began firing at our pursuers, but they immediately moved to their left and out of her view.

  “Climb into the backseat,” the king told her. “Collins is going to let these guys catch up a bit. Then we’ll lower the rear window ever so slightly, and you’re going to fire everything you’ve got at the driver. Got it?”

  “Absolutely,” Yael said.

  Careful not to disturb the Israeli and Palestinian leaders lying bleeding and unconscious in the back, Yael got herself into position, on her knees—her back leaning against the middle row of seats to provide a measure of stability, however small.

  “Ready,” she said.

  I eased up on the gas. The pickup truck surged closer.

  “Wait for it,” the king said.

  I glanced back and could see the rebels closing the gap. This had better work, I realized. And then I saw one of the jihadists raise the RPG and prepare to fire.

  “Lower the window, Collins!” the king ordered.

  I did.

  The king gave the order to fire.

  Yael obeyed. She unleashed an entire magazine into the front windshield of the pickup. I tried to keep my eyes on the road ahead of us, but I couldn’t help but glance back several times. I could see the driver behind us being riddled with bullets, and then the truck swerved wildly out of control until it finally careened off the road and plowed into a petrol station.

  The explosion was enormous and deafening. I could feel the heat on the back of my neck. I quickly raised the rear window as the king directed me onto Route 40—the Al Kodos Highway—heading southwest out of Amman.

  We were now going nearly a hundred miles an hour, and we had a new problem. The king was back on the satphone with his brother, who informed us that there was a police checkpoint at the upcoming interchange with Route 35, the Queen Alia Highway. The checkpoint itself wasn’t the issue. The problem, the king said, was that it had apparently been overrun by ISIS rebels, and they were waiting for us with RPGs and .50-caliber machine guns.

  “How long to the interchange?” I asked.

  “At this rate, two minutes, no more,” the king replied.

  “What do you recommend, Your Majesty?” I asked, not sure if I should try to go any faster or slow down.

  “Do you believe in prayer, Collins?” he said. “Because now would be a good time to start.”

  63

  “I’m out of ammunition,” Yael said. “Does anyone have more?”

  “There’s a full mag in my weapon,” I replied.

  “Where’s that?” she asked.

  “Here,” the crown prince said from the backseat. He picked up my machine
gun from the floor, removed the magazine, and handed it to Yael.

  “We need to get off this road,” the queen insisted, her voice quaking. “It’s not safe.”

  I glanced back and saw the fear in her eyes.

  “No, we have to keep going,” the king replied.

  “But we’re out in the open,” she countered. “The rebels know we’re coming. We’re sitting ducks. Let’s just pull off. Let’s hide somewhere until the army comes to get us.”

  The queen had a point, but it was not my place to say. I just kept driving. We needed a decision, and fast. In the distance, I could see the interchange approaching. I desperately wanted to know what the king was going to say. Would he accept his wife’s counsel, or were we going to try to blow through this checkpoint? That, it seemed, was a suicide mission. And I wasn’t ready to die.

  A second later the issue was moot. Rising over a ridge off to our right were two Apache helicopter gunships coming low and fast. Yael noticed them first and pointed them out to the rest of us. Now we were all riveted on them, and one question loomed over everything, though no one spoke it aloud: which side were they on?

  They very well could be loyal to the king. His brother, after all, was the head of the air force, and we had no doubts about his loyalty. But there were no guarantees. Who were these pilots? How carefully had they been vetted? Did their families have ties to ISIS or al-Hirak? A few hours ago, such a thought would have seemed ridiculous. But that was before a Jordanian air force pilot had attacked the palace.

  The checkpoint was fast approaching. So were the Apaches.

  “What do you want me to do, Your Majesty?” I asked, easing imperceptibly off the gas to give us a bit more time.

  “There’s one more exit before the checkpoint,” Yael said, her window down, her weapon at the ready. “Let’s take it. The queen is right, sir. We need to get off this road before it’s too late.”

  “No,” the king said. “Keep moving.”

  “But, Your Majesty—”

  “Salim and Daniel need a hospital,” he insisted. “They need massive blood transfusions. We can’t stop to save ourselves. We need to think of them first.”

  “We’re not trying to be selfish,” the queen interjected. “But if we die at this checkpoint, they die too. If we live, even for another hour, we might have a chance at saving them.”

  We were quickly running out of time. The checkpoint was dead ahead. So was the exit. If I pulled off, we might all have a shot. What was the king going to do, kill me for disobeying him? I glanced back at the queen. She looked away. She clearly didn’t want to disrespect her husband, but it was just as clear she was not happy. I looked at the crown prince, but he was fixed on the Apaches. They had banked to their left and then swooped around and were now coming straight at us from behind.

  This was it. At more than a hundred miles an hour, I had only seconds to decide. And then in my mirror I saw the 30mm open up.

  “They’re shooting at us!” I shouted.

  I saw a flash. I knew what it was. I’d seen it a hundred times or more, from Fallujah to Kabul. Someone had just fired an RPG. I could see the contrail streaking down the highway behind us. It was coming straight for us. The queen screamed. I hit the gas and swerved to the right just in time. The RPG knocked off my side mirror and sliced past. It hadn’t killed us.

  But the next one might.

  That was it, I decided. I was taking the exit.

  But at that moment I saw another flash, this one from the lead Apache. He too had just fired, and this wasn’t a mere RPG. This was a heat-seeking Hellfire missile. There was no swerving or avoiding it. It was coming straight for us, and there was nothing we could do about it. We were about to die in a ball of fire. It was all over.

  But to my relief, the missile didn’t slam into us. Instead, we watched it strike one of the Humvees at the checkpoint ahead. In the blink of an eye, the entire checkpoint was obliterated in a giant explosion. Stunned—mesmerized by the fireball in front of me—I forgot to exit. I just kept driving. Then we were crashing through the burning remains of the checkpoint, racing through the interchange, and getting on Route 35, bound for the airport.

  None of us cheered. We were relieved beyond words, but we all knew this was not of our doing. Forces beyond us were keeping us alive and clearing the way for us. And it wasn’t just the chopper pilots.

  The Apaches banked hard and came up beside us. One after another, they kept launching Hellfire missiles, clearing checkpoints and allowing us to keep moving undeterred. By now I was topping 120 miles per hour, but there was no way we were going to get to the airport before the president took off. The queen and crown prince had climbed into the back of the SUV. They had found a first aid kit and were doing the best they could to care for Mansour and Lavi. Yael watched for new threats while the king worked the satphone again. He was getting updates from his brother and from other generals. He was organizing a massive counterstrike on the ISIS jihadists.

  Soon we saw one squadron after another of Jordanian F-16s and F-15s streaking across the sky. I had to believe they were headed to Amman to bomb the palace and crush the rebellion. I couldn’t imagine how difficult a decision that must have been for the king, but I also knew he had no choice. He was the last of the Hashemite monarchs, and he seemed determined not to go down like those before him.

  Somewhere along the way, I had ceased to be a journalist. I was no mere observer of history; I was a participant. I could no longer claim to be objective. Yes, this king had his flaws, and so did his government. No, Jordan wasn’t a Jeffersonian democracy. But His Majesty had emerged in recent years as the region’s leading Arab Reformer. Where once the presidents of Iraq and Afghanistan had looked like promising Reformers—battling hard against the Radicals—they had not proven themselves up to the task. This king was different, and my respect for him had shot up enormously in recent days.

  Maybe my brother was right. Maybe the prophecies indicated Jordan was going to take a seriously dark turn in the last days. Maybe that was coming up fast. But I hoped not. I didn’t want the Hashemite Kingdom to fall—not yet, not now. I wanted this king to crush his enemies and help fulfill his destiny as a peacemaker in the region. I wanted him to succeed in making Jordan a model of tolerance and modernity.

  As we sped along Highway 35, against all odds, strangely enough I actually began to feel a sense of hope again. We were still alive. We were safe for now. And I had the strongest sense that the king was going to prevail. He had been blindsided, to be sure. But he had enormous personal courage. He had an army ready to fight back, and he had the Americans and the Israelis ready to fight with him.

  But when we arrived at the airport, those feelings instantly evaporated.

  64

  As I surveyed the devastation around us, all hope disappeared.

  The gorgeous new multimillion-dollar terminal was a smoking crater. The roads and runways were pockmarked with the remains of mortars and artillery shells that apparently had been fired not long before we arrived. Jumbo jets were on fire. Dead and dying bodies lay everywhere. Fuel depots were ablaze. The stench of burning jet fuel was overwhelming.

  Air Force One was gone. The president had left without us.

  The Apaches above us went to work. They joined other Royal Air Force helicopter gunships and fighter jets in finishing off the remains of the rebel forces, some of which were still fighting at the southern perimeter of the airfield. But the Jordanian army was nowhere to be seen.

  To be precise, there was evidence that the army had been here but apparently had retreated. Why?

  All around us were burning tanks and armored personnel carriers. We could see slain Jordanian soldiers everywhere. There were bodies of many ISIS terrorists, too. But why wasn’t the Royal Army in full offensive mode? This wasn’t the Iraqi army. The Jordanians were highly trained, highly motivated, well-led troops. Why had they fallen back?

  None of us said a word, not even the king. We were all aghast. It to
ok us several minutes to absorb the magnitude of the disaster.

  It was Yael who first realized what had happened.

  “They used the sarin,” she said.

  There was dead silence in the SUV. No one wanted to believe her. Surely it wasn’t possible.

  “The mortars and artillery shells that were fired here must have all been filled with it,” she continued.

  I wanted to believe she was wrong. But as I slowly drove through the fire and smoke, it became clear that the Jordanian troops who had fought here had not died of bullet or shrapnel wounds. As we got a closer look at the bodies—hundreds of them—we could see the vacant eyes and twisted, contorted faces. I had seen such horrors before. I had seen them in Mosul just days earlier. This was the work of Abu Khalif.

  There were no words. The queen wept quietly in the back. The crown prince was frozen, his hand over his mouth. The king said nothing either. He just stared at the carnage in disbelief.

  Finally he pointed to a half-destroyed hangar off to our left. I drove there immediately at his command. Under what meager cover it provided, I pulled to a stop. We all knew what we had to do. The crown prince handed us each a backpack. We all put on the chem-bio suits, the gloves, and the gas masks as quickly as we could. Then Yael and I helped the queen and the prince put protective suits on Lavi and Mansour, desperately hoping to shield them from whatever trace of the deadly chemical was still in the air.

  As we did, I could hear the roar of choppers. I turned and saw two military helicopters approaching from the east. They were preparing to land not far from us.

  Just then, two Jordanian F-15s shot right over our heads. A moment later, four more streaked past.

  The king’s satellite phone rang. He answered it but mostly listened, saying only an occasional “Yes” or “I understand,” and then hung up.

  “Who was that?” I asked as I finished zipping up President Mansour’s chem-bio suit.

  “My brother,” the king said as if in a daze.