by Eric Meyer
We talked for half an hour, discussing various ways to get to Mukhtar and kill him. The two alternatives were to shoot our way through to his room, or to take him when he emerged. The problem with the second option was if anything went wrong, he'd get away. Somehow, we had to get rid of the guards and get to him while he was still inside. In the end, we agreed to set up the M-60 out of sight and then lure the guards onto it. It was a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but we had to hit them hard and fast, and get in the room inside a few seconds. Pop the Mad Mullah, and then get out fast, almost before the echoes of gunfire had died away. We needed someone to drive the Mercedes out of the parking garage and be ready for when we emerged from the hotel, with the engine running. I looked at Isra.
"That's a job for you. A beautiful girl sitting in an expensive Mercedes SUV won't attract any attention."
He preened at my description of him as a beautiful girl and nodded. "No problem."
"Winter, you and me need to be ready. As soon as the guards are down, we rush in and take him."
She nodded, and I turned to Sabrina. "I need you to clear this room, and get rid of any evidence we've been here. Wipe down every surface we may have touched, so the cops can't trace us to this place."
"They'll have our images on CCTV," Winter pointed out.
"That's right, but CCTV images don't come up on international databases. Not like fingerprints."
I looked back at Sabrina. "Can you do that? Soon as you're done, go downstairs and join Isra in the SUV."
She regarded me for a few moments and then nodded. "Of course, but I would prefer to be with you."
"Clearing the room is far more important. Just do it and then get to Isra, and be ready for us."
"I will clear the room," she agreed.
I couldn't relax. The plan was crude and simple, so I couldn't see any reason why it shouldn't work. Except… There was always the unforeseen. We were in the center of a city, surrounded by tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people who all owed fanatical allegiance to Mukhtar. Added to that were the legions of cops, military, and even Taliban Fedayeen, sworn to protect him with their lives. All we had were two washed-up vets, Niall and me, an Agency operative with a track record that would have done credit to Niccolo Machiavelli, and a hissy cross-dresser. As well as Mukhtar's own daughter who'd sworn to see him dead. Our chances were, well... not good.
We had less than an hour to kill before we went into action. My gaze happened to fall on a bottle of booze someone had put out on a tray, Bourbon, my drink of choice when I felt the need to escape from reality; like now. I took a step toward it, yet something in the back of my head was holding me back. Since I'd left my shack in Rockport, I hadn't touched a drop of the hard stuff. A couple of cold beers, sure, that was 'de rigueur' for operations in Sandland, but the real hard stuff, I'd left alone. I guess I hadn't felt the need, until now.
I took another step toward the bottle. What would it hurt? A couple of shots would take the edge of my pre-mission nerves, and I'd make better decisions for it. I thought back to my months of drunken stupor, roaming the beach, staring at the waves rolling in with their reminders of the corpses I'd left in my wake. But this was different. Back then, I'd polished off booze by the bottle, not just one or two drinks. It had all changed, and besides, I needed it. If I faced reality, I'd know that this would be the last chance I'd ever have to enjoy the taste, the feeling as the alcohol trickled down inside me, and the world didn't seem such a bad place.
Tomorrow would be too late. Our corpses would be laid out on some mortuary slab, bearing the marks of gunshot wounds and probably knife wounds where Mukhtar's supporters had attacked our dead bodies to express their fury.
Another step, and I put my hand on the bottle. And another hand gripped my wrist, a slim, delicate hand that could only belong to Sabrina.
"Please, Schaeffer. Not today. We need you."
"Listen, it's not what you think. I just…"
That was as far as I got. She leaned forward and kissed me, a kiss that seemed to transfer every ounce of warmth and passion from deep inside her. It went on for long moments, and my mind went through a kaleidoscope of emotions. Surprise, love, and lust were all in there, and the desperate need I'd felt for the contents of the bottle receded. We pulled apart and she looked me in the eye.
"Promise me until we get out of Cairo, you’ll leave it alone. We need to have you at your peak, and booze will only slow you down. Promise me."
I shook my head, which was still befuddled and bemused with her sudden show of passion. "Christ, if it means that much to you, sure."
"Just until we get out of Cairo. After that, it's up to you. I won't hold you to anything."
There was something in the way she spoke that worried me. Her words, I couldn't make it out, but there was a kind of subtext, a message that I wasn't getting. If I hadn't known better, I would have said there was death in her words. Not life. Not the life she'd looked forward to leading once her psycho father was sent to the Islamic paradise. Not the life that our passionate embrace hinted at either. Only death. I must've been wrong, maybe it was missing out on a couple of shots of Bourbon. Although I couldn't fault her on that, I needed my head clear. I checked my wristwatch and looked around the room. They were all waiting.
"It's time. Let's go."
Isra minced out of the room to head down to the parking garage and take care of the SUV. Niall picked up his M-60 and draped a couple of ammunition belts around his shoulders. He looked like Rambo, without the steroid-inflated six-pack. Winter sneaked a look out of the door and affirmed it was quiet. There was one hour before Mukhtar was due to speak, and it was as if the whole of Cairo was holding its breath. She led the way, her pistol ready to use at a second's notice. Niall followed, and I brought up the rear.
We started up the staircase and reached the top floor. We all nearly hit the floor when we heard the sound of gunfire coming from outside, and then we worked out it was firecrackers. They were having some kind of a celebration for the arrival of their bloody messiah. It was the best cover we could possibly have, a stroke of luck.
We worked our way along the thickly carpeted passage until we reached the turn. Around the corner we could hear Mukhtar's guards chatting amongst themselves.
"They're saying he'll be leaving in about thirty minutes, to head down to the square," Winter informed us.
I nodded. "Time for you to do your stuff."
Niall was backed into a doorway, to brace him against the furious power of the machine gun once it opened up. I took the MP5K from under my coat and made sure the safety was off. Winter held her pistol ready, looked at us, and then ran around the corner to confront the guards.
She started shouting in Arabic. I couldn't understand what she said, but the meaning was simple. 'There's a shitstorm right around the corner. Get off your asses and come and sort it out.' There's nothing like the God's honest truth. An M-60 is one helluva shitstorm.
At first they didn't respond, but she turned and fired a shot back down the passage, as if they were under attack. Still they hesitated, shouting and arguing amongst themselves. Then she cracked a shot over their heads, and I heard her shouting in English, "Come on, you lazy, stupid Arab motherfuckers, haul ass!"
Then she fled past me, her voice still shouting so they'd know she was moving away from them.
That was more than enough. They followed. One moment, the passage was clear, and the next, a half dozen vengeful Arabs charged around the corner and came right at us. I was behind Niall to give him covering fire if necessary, but at first, it wasn't needed. He pulled the trigger, and the building reverberated to the crashing noise of 7.62mm rounds chopping up the air and everything else in their path. The Egyptians went down like wheat before a scythe, and not one of the four men fired a shot. The Fedayeen were different, men who were hard and bitter fighters, veterans of a hundred brutal battles. Almost before the second and third shots had left the M-60, they'd dived to the carpet and had started
returning fire.
Their AK-47s were more adaptable in an urban situation, like the hallway of a luxury hotel. Niall had to flatten himself against the doorway, and I stood opposite, holding the MP5 and pointing it in the general direction of the enemy, firing bursts to keep them from getting any nearer. If we'd been out in the open, the machine gun would have made short work of them. But in the confined space, they had the advantage, and the steady bursts of 7.62mm rounds chewed up the plasterwork around us. Winter was further back, sheltering behind another bend in the passage, and she periodically leaned into the line of fire and cut loose with a few shots from her Mini Glock.
We were getting nowhere. We were lucky that the firecrackers outside would hide the noise of gunfire, at least for the time being. But we were no nearer to our target, and until we killed the two Taliban Fedayeen, we were likely to stay in the hallway until either we ran out of ammunition or the cops turned up. I was trying to work out a way to get past them when Niall made his mind up, loaded a new ammunition belt, and ran straight at them, the gun barrel blazing.
It was heroic, scarcely believable. He threw himself at the hostiles, ignoring the incoming fire and spitting bullets, and firing from his machine gun like some fire breathing dragon. First one of the Fedayeen went down, riddled by a half-dozen heavy rounds, and then the second screamed in agony as another burst tossed him to one side, as if he was no more than a heap of old, discarded newspaper.
But it wasn't all one sided. Before Niall's bullets tore him apart, the second shooter managed to score a couple of hits. One hit the former priest in the hip, causing him to flinch as he ran forward. It was the second bullet that did the damage. The machine gun burst caught the fighter and jerked his AK-47 upward, so that a follow-up burst intended for his guts hissed around his neck, and one bullet went through. Niall dropped to his knees, the machine gun forgotten as he clutched at his neck, sucking in air. I went to help him and was horrified to see bubbles around the wound. I turned to call for Winter.
"Man down, I need you here! You have to help Niall."
She ran toward us and knelt to examine his wound. Niall was making piteous noises as he tried to breathe, and Winter looked up, caught my gaze, and gave a slight shake of the head. I felt everything going red, and I looked up and screamed, "No!!!"
We'd been together for so long, Niall and I. The original Hunter Killers, along with Brad and Manuel; first Brad dead, then Manuel, and now Niall dying in front of me. It was too much; as if my life rocketed past me in a matter of seconds, all the bodies, all the death, all the misery; the booze, the heartaches, and a few successes.
As if in a dream, I picked up the M-60, shouldered a spare ammunition belt, and started running, heading for the door of Mukhtar's room. When I reached it, I didn't stop, just smashed into it with my shoulder and spun across the room, coming up on one knee and bringing the machine gun to the aim position.
I saw my death displayed in front of me like candy on the counter of the corner store. Except this candy was poisoned, and the wrappers carried a message in a single word. Death. The target stood right in front of me, Mullah Mukhtar. In his hand, he had a Makarov 9mm pointed at my guts, just as my M-60 was pointed at his guts. Several feet to his left, there was yet another Taliban fighter, a Fedayeen with an AK-47 aimed at me, and to his right about ten feet away, another Fedayeen with an AK-47.
I couldn't take them, not in a million years. Sure, I could drill the Mad Mullah full of holes and save everyone a world of pain. But it would be the last act of my life. The final curtain, the finale before everyone walked out and started forgetting about Ma Schaeffer's favorite son. My finger itched to pull the trigger, to join the target in death. And between us, I could swear I saw the shadowy outline of the Grim Reaper, reaching out with both arms to take us with him and join together in death.
In that frozen moment, every single detail of the enemy seemed to become sharp and clear, so I could see the faint tic in the right eye of one of the fighters. I could smell their odor, rank and unclean, the stench of Afghanistan. Even the uneven line of stitching on Mukhtar's robe stood out in sharp relief. I'd no doubt the other men were experiencing the same kind of enhanced reality. Mukhtar stared me in the eyes, and I could see his knowledge of what was to come, his death and my death. I started to take up the pressure on the M-60’s trigger for the final act of my life, but Mukhtar broke the silence.
"You! I thought after we killed your friend Olsen, you would have gone into hiding. I was wrong. It seems you have come here to die, just like him. The other man, the body in my villa, he was one of yours, too?"
My brain was tripping out. How the hell did he know about Brad, and Manuel?
"Why?"
He grimaced. "Your death squad in Afghanistan, what did they call you? The Hunter Killers, I believe. How melodramatic, and yet you caused my people a great deal of trouble and much loss of life."
"We were soldiers, Mukhtar. It's what we were paid to do."
"You were assassins," he spat back at me, "You deserve to die."
My brain was spinning faster than a Las Vegas roulette wheel. It was almost impossible that the Mad Muller had tracked Brad down to Fort Drum. Without help, that is. But who, who would have betrayed us? Betrayed Americans to a deadly enemy; a man responsible for killing so many in Afghanistan? It was incomprehensible. There was something else. Mukhtar was no fool. He'd dropped the bombshell and used my confusion to his advantage. I'd lowered the barrel of the heavy machine gun, and my befuddlement had allowed one of his Fedayeen to draw a bead on me. Another second and I was dead, with not enough time to take Mukhtar with me. I felt bitter bile rising in my stomach, the thought that my last act in life would be failure.
Chapter Ten
Cairo, Egypt
"Father!"
She came past me to stand next to him, and the Fedayeen relaxed slightly. Sabrina. He glared at her, his face a snarling rictus of hate.
"You! You have allied yourself with the infidels! You will die for this shame."
She took hold of his arm and seemed to pull close to him, as if she needed comfort and reassurance. The guards looked wary, but he gave them a slight nod. This was as it should be, his wayward daughter coming to him to apologize and look for absolution.
He couldn't have been more wrong. Her right hand held him tight, and her left dived inside her robe and came out holding the Mini Glock 9mm pistol. It was out of sight of the guards, but I could see what she was doing. And that the moment she pulled the trigger, they'd cut her down in a spate of fury.
"Sabrina! No, don't do it! We can…"
She pulled the trigger. The clip carried ten rounds, and she kept pulling until the firing pin clicked on empty. Mukhtar jerked backward, his eyes opening in astonishment and then agony. As she stopped shooting, the two guards, the Taliban Fedayeen, opened up. They totally ignored me and fired long bursts from their AKs; bursts that almost cut her in half, until the guns were empty. She crumpled to the ground with only a slight cry. It sounded to me almost like a cry of satisfaction, of relief that something that had been hurting her for so long was gone. But everything has its price, and now she had paid, in full.
The room went silent, and we looked at each other. The two guards were too shocked and stunned to reload. The room swirled with smoke from scores of spent rounds, so it was difficult to see the opposite wall through the haze. Both bodies lay on the floor, and somehow in death, father and daughter, Mukhtar and Sabrina, appeared to clutch each other. And then the red haze descended in front of me. She'd been more than special. Sabrina was the finest person I had ever known; the bravest, the most honest, decent, and humane creature who ever walked the earth. And they'd killed her.
In a single, fluid movement, I aimed the M-60 and pulled the trigger. I had no idea how many rounds were in the belt, but the noise inside the room was like a jackhammer, a thundering roar of repeated gunshots that were almost enough to take out my eardrums. The two Fedayeen ceased to resemble human beings. The
y tried to reload, but even if they'd succeeded, my rage was enough for me to smash through their feeble attempt at defense.
I was death incarnate. Killing was never an act to be enjoyed; rather it was something to be undertaken as a last resort, to rid the planet of a murderous enemy. But now it was something different. The last round fed into the breech and spat into the bloodied and broken bodies jerking in front of me to the impact of the heavy bullets. The roar of gunfire ceased, and I could hear something else, a high-pitched scream of intense anger.
I grasped it was me, for something died in me when they killed Sabrina. It was as if they’d murdered the best hope for their shithole country, for their savage, vengeful religion. And the one person I would have gone to the ends of the earth for.
My hearing started to recover from the shattering noise, and I felt a hand touch my shoulder. I swung around fast, but it was Winter. Her face was grim.
"I'm sorry, Schaeffer."
I didn't know what she was saying at first, and then it came to me.
"Niall?"
She nodded slowly. "He didn't make it."
"He was one of the best, no, the best. They killed Sabrina."
"I know, but she got the Mad Mullah before she died."
I took her by the shoulders and stared into her eyes. "You think that makes a difference? She was worth a thousand of him, a thousand of anyone."
"You loved her." Her reply wasn't a question.
"Yeah, I loved her. I loved everything about her, what she was, what she meant. She was everything."
She said she was sorry again, and I didn't reply. We stood staring at the carnage for a few moments. My mind was numb. I knew there was something I needed to work out, and I didn't know what it was.
"We have to go. This place will be swarming with cops and military any second. Isra is waiting in the basement with the Mercedes. We have to get out of here."