B008RLW6LA EBOK

by Jack Coughlin

  * * *

  THE MUTED PURR OF the twin-prop Cessna 421 was almost hypnotic to the pilot as he skimmed the private plane along the eastern bank of the Suez Canal. Not a ship was moving down there. Colonel Yahya Ali Naqdi had held his private license for many years, was rated for multiengine aircraft, and had, in a rare moment of weakness, managed to purchase the Cessna for his own use three years ago with money laundered through the Palm Group cover company. He had sold his masters back in Tehran with the idea of using it for covert reconnaissance, when in reality he just loved flying and treasured the feeling of freedom that being in the air gave to him. On his own plane, he was master of his own fate.

  Getting a flight plan filed and the necessary permissions to leave Cairo had been brutally frustrating today. Since no one was really in charge of the airports due to the riots and pitched battles around Cairo, no one wanted to make any decisions. The colonel had to bribe his way into the air, arguing through multiple levels of bureaucrats that his unarmed plane was no threat to anyone, and that he was on a legitimate and urgent business trip for the Palm Group, which had holdings down in Sharm. Yes, he had been given assurances that the Iranians would let him land safely. The lies and money finally won approval for him to go but had burned several hours. It was almost six o’clock in the afternoon, only an hour and a half before dusk, as he neared the end of his flight and saw the canal widen to empty into the Red Sea. He banked slightly and dipped to a lower altitude when Sharm el-Sheikh appeared off of his left wingtip after the trip of slightly more than 230 miles.

  The view was startling. Naqdi could see out to where the broken oil tanker Llewellyn was being held awkwardly in place by anchors and tugboats, surrounded by the sheen of a huge oil slick. Containment rings were in place, but heavy oil had coated the nearby shoreline, and the cleaning process was still days away from even starting. Another large oil slick marked the death waters of the Babr, the first ship to die, and the bow of the destroyed supply ship in the harbor stuck out of the water like a macabre monument. The city seemed quiet, and few people were out along the line of big hotels that dominated the long sandy beaches.

  This is a war zone, he thought. Things had gotten messy. Ripping his eyes from the long line of idled ships that stretched out as far as he could see, the colonel banked back toward the Sharm airport, using the gray columns of smoke that rose from the destroyed ammunition dump as guideposts. He was eager to get on the ground and receive a full tour and updated briefing from Major Shakuri. His usually reliable aide had not been in contact since early this morning.

  The colonel slid his radio headset over his ears, tuned in the military frequency for the airport, and requested landing clearance, which was immediately granted. The little Cessna passed by the charred and skeletal wreckage of the crashed Boeing airliner, made a featherlike touchdown, and taxied up to the control tower. He cut the engines, then pushed open the fuselage hatch and stepped out onto the tarmac. Shakuri was not there. Only a curious sergeant carrying a clipboard filled with papers stepped out to meet him.

  28

  THEY ABANDONED THE MARINA because Kyle believed it might very well be under observation by the police, although they had feigned disinterest in Abdel’s report of the theft of the jet skis. Perhaps, deep inside one of those nearby buildings, a couple of cops with binoculars and a radio were waiting and watching. So Abdel took some time to sweep up glass and debris, then locked up and put out a CLOSED sign, just like the other businesses. The activity kept any attention on him while Kyle crept back out the way he had come in, still unseen. They met at the home of one of Abdel’s cousins, not far from the public park where the executions were held, and El-Din went around the city to collect other relatives.

  By dusk, they had a pickup team—nine men, including Kyle. The size was determined by Abdel selecting only people whom he would trust with his life. The men were all members of the El-Din clan or the extended family, with a collective attitude of retribution. Each had brought at least one weapon, a mix of AKs and SKS rifles and even one old M-14, all with multiple clips of ammunition.

  They were surprised to see the American outsider, and suspicious until Abdel vouched for Swanson’s friendship and explained how he was a tourist with military experience who had been caught in the same vise that clamped them all. His local-style clothing and dirty appearance were explained away as part of his just trying to stay away from the Iranians until he could leave.

  Kyle was lavish in praise of their bravery for deciding to come today, and he freely acknowledged Abdel as the leader. He himself was there only to help and offer advice because he knew a lot about how counterinsurgency works, he said. Eventually, the group accepted him.

  On the other hand, he was struck by the fact that these men were not hardened desert warriors or lethal mountain tribesmen like those he had faced on battlefields throughout the Middle East, the kind of fighter with deep scars and hatreds. These were merchants, workers, fishermen, and city dwellers who had earned their livings from free-spending tourists and lived far from the fighting that roiled Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan. Despite the political revolution erupting elsewhere, their lives had been calm before fanatics had stormed the hotels, killing people, and the Iranian soldiers showed up, almost in the next breath. Since then, their normal lives had vanished. Their eyes and muscles were soft, and their fighting experience and discipline were limited or nonexistent. The youngest was sixteen, the oldest around sixty. None had military training. Would they fight? Some would, some would hesitate, or spray and pray, and some might run away. He would not know that until the shooting started.

  It did not take long for the meeting to collapse into a useless council of war, during which every member of the team gave his opinions, some of which were very wordy and long and, in the end, useless. Kyle bit his lip to remain silent, depending on Abdel to run this show. The kid let them talk until the general opinion drifted inevitably toward pessimism, and he stopped it there.

  “My friends,” Abdel said softly, politely addressing the hardest arguers as everyone remained seated on the scattering of cushions, the carpet, a sofa, and chairs. Some were his elders, which meant he had to step carefully or risk insulting them. “We have now heard all opinions, and the time for talking is done. The choice is simple: We either fight or run away. If we run, the Iranians will remain in control of our city, perhaps forever, and execute our people whenever they want, as they did with Hamid, and as they will do again tonight with others. If we fight, as a group, we can answer the Iranian violence with violence of our own. There have already been some significant attacks that have hurt the invaders, and I admit to you, my trusted family, that I am part of this rebellion. I will continue to fight. They want to own us, and we must not allow it.”

  There was an outburst of enthusiastic support in the room, eagerness replacing concern, words tumbling over other words, and Abdel asked them to gather close and pay attention to the American’s scheme for a surprise attack.

  * * *

  USING A BLACK MARKER on a large piece of cardboard, Swanson mapped out the park and the situation, with Abdel translating. The group peppered him with questions, and several went out to recon the park, returning with new details. There were ten posts in front of the sandbags, but there were twenty people to be executed. “Then they are planning to do it in two groups of ten,” Kyle said. “Twenty would be awkward for a ten-man firing squad. This way, it will be ten soldiers against ten unarmed victims tied securely to the posts. One-on-one easy targets.”

  He pointed to the circles that marked the straight line of the firing squad, marked with the numbers 1 through 10. Then he drew in two lines of X’s, four each, angled to obliquely face the soldiers in a classic ambush pattern. “Abdel will assign your positions,” he said. “This way, you will have a good crossfire. Everyone will be assigned an exact soldier to shoot with your first burst of fire, and an alternate. And do not expect them all to just fall over dead, for a battle never happens that way.
Just keep your discipline and remember your targets, trusting the man beside you to do the same. One of you cannot shoot all of the soldiers, so don’t even try. Once the firing squad is down, take out the few guards who will be standing around. The crowd will panic, and the guards will be slow to react in the confusion.”

  Abdel translated a question from a man who bent close to the map and pointed to the two rectangles representing the armored personnel carriers at the edge of the park. “What about these big tanks with the machine guns? They will slaughter us.”

  Swanson said, “Those are my own targets. I have some stuff that will take them out, and I will hit them at the same time you are ready to open up on the soldiers. They won’t get off a shot.”

  “And when do we shoot?”

  “That is an important point. Do not get excited and pull the trigger too early, or the plan will fail. We all attack at the same time, when the officer in charge of the firing squad calls out, ‘Ready.’ That will leave them locked in position and focused away from you. Abdel takes the first shot, and we all go. Attend specifically to your target first. No shooting in the air or celebrating or any of that until the job is done.”

  Abdel chimed in to close the little session. “Then we free the prisoners, grab some weapons, and leave the area before Iranian reinforcements can arrive.” Abdel had them in hand, for they were all of the same family. With Swanson’s help, they spent some time disassembling and thoroughly cleaning each weapon, right down to the butt plates, including unloading the magazines, cleaning them, and even polishing each bullet. The American said their lives depended on the guns working flawlessly, and the men understood their weapons had become filthy through seldom being used; one weapon had rusted to the point of being useless.

  They drifted apart to have some tea and food, talk among themselves, and have some sleep as the afternoon sun lost its power and fell toward the horizon. Kyle lay down and closed his eyes, wondering how many of these men would live through the coming fight. They knew nothing of war. The Dirty Dozen, they ain’t.

  THE AIRPORT

  COLONEL NAQDI HAD CHANGED from the civilian clothes he wore in Cairo into his regulation military uniform in order to announce his presence in Sharm with the full force of his authority. Insulted that no one had shown up to meet his plane, he stormed into the makeshift office of General Khasrodad bellowing, “What is going on here?”

  Khasrodad unfolded slowly from the chair at his desk but did not salute. He outranked Naqdi by a full grade, but that meant nothing because the man was head of Iranian foreign intelligence operations, and as such was answerable only to the ruling council in Tehran. To challenge him risked losing not only your job but your life. “Welcome to Sharm el-Sheikh, Colonel.”

  There was no handshake, and the men locked stares. They were physical opposites. The colonel stood about five-ten and was a bit thick around the middle, with hair that was beginning to show gray. The general was a hard six-two and 210 pounds, a veteran commando leader who often ran with his men during their harsh physical training. He had led numerous operations, had been wounded in action, and feared nothing.

  “I had expected to be met at planeside upon my arrival, General.”

  “And I assumed that your aide, Major Shakuri, would be doing just that, Colonel. I’ve been busy.” The general swept his arm toward a window that gave a wide view of the airport destruction. The fires at the ammo dump had not yet been totally quelled, wreckage seemed everywhere, and the air was still hazy with smoke. “So I can assume that Shakuri did not show up?”

  The colonel threw his beret on a desk and walked to the window. “I saw this from the air, and the sunken ship in the harbor. Incredible. No, I haven’t heard from the major since early this morning.”

  “Nor have I, Colonel. That, however, is not unusual. He worked out of his own office down in a beach hotel and seldom communicated with me. I will send someone to get him, or you can go down yourself, if you choose.”

  “I would be grateful if you sent a couple of men, General Khasrodad.” The colonel found a chair and made himself comfortable, allowing the general to resume his own seat. “Let’s get right to the point, Medhi. These attacks. Are they the work of local partisans or foreign special forces?”

  “Frankly, we don’t know.” The general spun his chair around and looked out of the window at the damage beyond. “The work has been very professional, but we have no proof, no enemy bodies, and no equipment that would identify any of them. Judging by the kill shots at other locations, we think at least one of them is an experienced sniper.”

  “Could they be from the Egyptian army? They would have the proper training and be able to hide among the population.”

  “Once again, there is nothing definite. If it was the army, the population would be gossiping and talking about it. My intelligence people say there has been none of that, plus the army is supposedly being kept busy in the north by the Brotherhood rebellion.” He had turned back around to look at the colonel. “From what I hear, that fledgling civil war is not going well.”

  The colonel snapped at the mocking tone. “That is not your concern, General.”

  “Yes, it is. If this far-fetched plan to overthrow the government in Cairo fails, then my forces here will be trapped here with no way out. So it is my concern, Colonel Naqdi. Very much so.”

  “You will not report that pessimism up your chain of command! That is an order, General. I am in charge of this operation. The rebellion will succeed, and then your troops will be reinforced and break out of this bottleneck beachhead.”

  “I understand the plan, Colonel. I just hope it works, for the linkup was supposed to happen tomorrow, and it obviously will not. No Brotherhood convoys with food and ammo and big guns are going to be arriving anytime soon, are they?”

  “I admit that there have been a few setbacks, General. Such things are to be expected in any operation of this size, but heavy fighting continues as the Brotherhood army is making steady advances. You will continue to keep Sharm under control until the cities revolt and join the rebellion.”

  “Yes, Colonel.” He had a map of Egypt on the wall of his office, and it was kept up to date according to intelligence reports from a variety of sources. No breakthroughs were shown, no columns moving south, no true advancement. Things were stymied, and Naqdi had not pointed out exactly where the so-called victories had been achieved. “Yes.” He changed the subject. “If something has befallen Major Shakuri, should we continue with these executions tonight? I personally think they accomplish nothing other than driving more people into the arms of the resistance. We didn’t come here to kill the locals, did we? I don’t like the idea of creating a guerrilla movement where none existed.”

  The colonel was adamant. “Of course we must continue the punishment for what they have done. Without enough soldiers to really establish martial law in the city, we must instead make them fear our wrath and thus ensure cooperation. Twenty have been chosen to be shot tonight, is that correct?”

  “Yes. In the park at nine o’clock tonight. All is ready, and I have posted two armored personnel carriers there to support the operation. Should I choose another officer to command the firing squad in the absence of the major?”

  The colonel paced a few steps, deep in thought, then turned and walked to the desk and leaned on it with his fingertips. “Better yet. Let us demonstrate how serious we are about controlling the situation here. You, the commanding general, will take personal charge of the firing squad.”

  The general crossed his muscular arms and rocked back on his heels. “With all respect, Colonel, I do not think that is a good idea. Are you making that a direct order?”

  “Yes. It is.”

  THE PENTAGON

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  MARINE MAJOR GENERAL BRAD Middleton, commander of Task Force Trident, broke into a smile as he listened on the scrambled telephone link that spanned the short distance across the Potomac River to the White House. He raised his beefy hand,
curled it into a fist, and pumped it up and down.

  His operations officer, Lieutenant Colonel Sybelle Summers, was watching with her hands folded in her lap. Navy Commander Benton Freedman, the communications chief, was in another chair, scrolling through a highly classified dump of material that had just been delivered on his laptop. Master Gunnery Sergeant O. O. Dawkins was pouring still another cup of coffee, his inner combat antennae twitching. He looked over at Sybelle, who shrugged her shoulders, her face blank. The general was rarely this happy, particularly during an ongoing operation.

  “No, we haven’t heard much from him at all,” Middleton told the White House chief of staff. “His instructions were to call if he needed us, but he has chosen to go silent.” He listened to a final response, said good-bye, and hung up the telephone with a flourish.

  The general made a show of getting some coffee of his own, keeping his staff in suspense. After a first sip, he checked to make sure no drops had splashed his tie, then turned to them. “Kyle is raising hell in Egypt, and his MI6 partner has come out with a gold mine of intelligence. A fuckin’ gold mine!”

  Back at his desk, he unrolled a synopsis: a couple of big airplanes, an ammo dump that had closed the airport to anything larger than a biplane, an entire motor pool, a goddam ship in the harbor, dead Iranian soldiers all over the place, a high-value prisoner, and Gunny Swanson still healthy and on the loose as of a few hours ago. He had refused to leave when offered the chance. Dawkins gave a low whistle of Marine-to-Marine appreciation.

  Middleton added the firsthand observations from the MI6 agent and her local contact, plus the delivery of an accumulation of computer data that contained thousands of pages of internal reports about the current government, military capabilities, and financial infrastructure, along with detailed intelligence on the operations and personnel of the Muslim Brotherhood and its leaders. The international banks and companies that were the main money funnels were identified, as were specific financiers who were laundering Iranian money transfers, including specific accounts that could be frozen, and some ranking political figures who were being bribed around the world. The Lizard started a rapid-fire read of the documents that had been downloaded to him from the White House and muttered, “Wow. This impacts a lot more than that little adventure in Egypt. We’re talking about their nuclear program and covert activities in Africa and the Middle East. The Egyptians are giving away the store.”