by L. J. Martin
“Stand by your phone,” and I disconnect.
I hustle back to Skip and find him leaning on the wall with eight or nine dead bogies on the floor in front of him. Bo and I carry him down to the clearing between buildings, and I wave some of the American women hostages over.
“If there’s a nurse among you, have them help this guy who’s risked all to free y’all.”
“We have three nurses and a retired doctor with us,” a gray-haired buxom woman offers.
“A chopper is on the way. Find a way to light a landing area at least a hundred feet across.”
“We will. Thank you, young man…”
“Take care of my buddy.”
Then as I slip and slide down the cliff to the escarpment, I call Toby. “Where’s Ji Su?”
“Three minutes out.”
“Tell her they are lighting a landing zone on the top of the mountain. She’s to take Skip to the nearest good hospital and any women she can haul with health issues, then return to a spot I’ll advise. We’re heading into Libya.”
“You got it.”
“If Waddy beats me down, tell him he and Abby are to come up and guard the ladies. And I want you to stay.”
“Bullshit, I want to go with you guys.”
“Need you here, pardner. No time to argue. Can’t leave the ladies with mercenaries I don’t know.”
“All right, but know I hate it.”
“I’m blowing the road, so it’s shank’s mare. I don’t want bogies driving up. Leave the rocket launcher and one mortar with Waddy and Abby.”
“Shank’s mare?”
“Climbing…afoot…walking.”
“Got it.”
I cross the top of the escarpment to the road, then search for a deep crack and insert the five pounds of C4 and a timed detonator set for three minutes, then hustle away down the road. If the good guys are coming for the women, they’ll come in choppers. Only bad guys will arrive in wheeled vehicles.
I’m halfway back to the Land Rovers when the mountain behind me explodes, raining rocks over a hundred-foot circumference.
When I reach the Rovers, I go straight to my new buddy, Sa’id, who’s still bound to the steering wheel.
“How you doing, bro?” I ask.
“I am fine, considering I’ve had nothing to drink while you were killing people at the palace.”
“I found the women. They are free.”
“So, you have won this one. You will lose the next.”
“I find it interesting you have not asked about your lady friend, Alia. About whom you’ve been so worried.”
“Was she there?” he asks, looking a little surprised.
“You know fucking well she wasn’t. She’s with the two dozen women who were flown away just after they landed in Morocco.”
He shrugs but says nothing.
So, I pull my k-bar and run a finger over the sharp blade. “Do you know what a capon is, Sa’id?”
“Capon?”
“It’s a rooster that has had its nuts cut off. You’re about to become one if you don’t tell me where they’ve taken those two dozen women and who had Alia’s cell phone?”
He eyes me for a moment until I slip the blade between his thighs that he’s holding so tight together I have to force the blade down. “Who has her phone?”
He blanches, then speaks rapidly, “All cell phones were to be collected and given to the driver of one of the vans. It is here somewhere.”
“And where is Alia?”
“She was to accompany and care for the young women.”
“Where?”
“The sheik…the sheik will kill us both.”
“He won’t have a chance because I’m going to cut your nuts off and let you bleed out right here. Where are the young women?”
I force the blade closer to his crotch.
“Stop, stop. The sheik is at his palace near Wadi Al Hayaa in Libya, Five hundred kilometers from here. The young women have been taken to his harem. I know the place well.”
Just as he finishes, my SAT phone rattles, “Reardon.”
“It’s Harry,” the voice announces.
“Did you get permission to come in country?” I ask.
“No, but the President has ordered the Marine Corps and a team of SEALS to rescue the women, and has informed Algeria if they interfere, they will no longer have an air force and the 6th Fleet will likely drop a few shells the size of Volkswagens into the palace.”
“Good, but two dozen of the young ladies are not here. I will leave one SAT phone with my two associates, locals who can be trusted, who will guard the women until the cavalry arrives.”
“Have them call me on this number and we’ll coordinate the pickup. Two CH-53E Super Stallions will be on their way in an hour. They’ll carry fifty-five each without crowding. Along with four AH-1W Super Cobras flying close cover backed by a half-dozen F-16s, two Wart Hog A10s, and a SEAL team. The President and the 6th fleet are serious. Algeria has been advised to ground all aircraft or lose them. Where the hell are you going?”
“Libya, a place called Wadi Al Hayaa, five hundred clicks southwest, where this asshole Sheik Ali Hassan has added two dozen young unwilling American girls to his harem.”
“Oh, that’s just fucking great. Now you’re gonna get our tit in a crack with Libya?”
“Gotta do what you gotta do. I’ll expect some help shortly after I beat you there.”
“Hell, you can’t beat us there driving.”
“Jet Ranger will beat you there. I have a hell of a head start. Speaking of that, we’re a blue and white Jet Ranger heading southwest from here. We’d appreciate not getting shot down, should those F16s stumble on us.”
Harry sighs deeply. “I’ll advise. This President still gets red in the face when you even mention Benghazi, so I’m sure he’ll have no problem pushing this mission into Libya.”
“Gotta go,” I say, as Abby and Pax jog up.
“All good?” Pax asks.
“Nope, we’re two dozen short, including Connie and my client.”
“So, where?”
“Libya.”
“Good,” Pax says. “I got a bone to pick with those pricks, called Benghazi.”
Sheik Ali Hassan is incensed. He had decided to begin again killing the women, at least until he discovered he was in possession of the gold, but his Colonel did not answer the phone. He had no idea who it was who answered but was sure it was an infidel.
He wonders, now that he has two dozen of the women under his control, maybe he should begin killing them himself. However, he knows better than to call again from his palace. If they can trace a SAT phone, and he is sure they can, then it is too dangerous.
Instead he will enjoy the infidel women, then send one of his minions two hundred miles away, or more, to make the call—unless, of course Al-Wakim recovers the gold.
59
Ji Su arrives and sets it down perfectly in the center clearing between the palace and the Mosque, her rotors only a couple of feet from palm fronds. She loads Skip, who’s bitching so much I know he’ll be okay. Three women shy of heart medicine pile into the back seat of the Jet Ranger, and Ji Su is off to an Interco Petroleum camp—and back in forty-five minutes. We load up. Even leaving Abby and Waddy some defensive weapons, we still have a .338 Lapua and one Mortar with six rounds, plus our carry weapons. We crowd into the Ranger, Pax, Bo, Sa’id—who knows the target—me, all our gear, and head out.
Ji Su does some calculations, then turns to me. “Two hours and ten minutes to Wadi Al Hayaa, if I keep the pedal to the metal, but they better have fuel at the airport twenty clicks from there, or we’ll be counterrotating before we get back.”
“Task one, get there. Task two, get the ladies. Then we’ll worry about catching a few camels back if we have to.”
“Easy for you to say. My credit card’s on the bird rental, and I don’t know if it’ll stretch for nearly the mil to replace this one if this sheik decides to keep her.”
/> “Pax will back you up,” I say, and catch an elbow in the ribs from my buddy.
“Okay. I like you better than he does, so I’ll back you up.”
And I get another elbow.
While in the air I call Taj. “Sir, new mission. Seems two dozen of the younger women have been taken to the palace of the guy you made via the SAT phone call. Sheik Ali Hassan in place near Wadi Al Hayaa in Libya, I’m told five hundred clicks from this Sweet Water. We’re headed there now and any intel you can give us might keep us alive.”
“Do you have a laptop?” he asks.
“Ji Su, our pilot has one.”
“Do you have a hot spot on that SAT phone?”
“I do.”
“Then get hooked up to her laptop and advise me of her e-mail. I’m sending you the last Google flyby on the place, some SAT pics if I can snake them, and anything else I can conjure up.”
“You da man. I’ll shoot you an e-mail as soon as I’m hooked in.”
Connie tried to sleep in the hard, twin-size bed provided. She had wormed her way around until she was in a room with Simone, much to Patty and Gretchen’s objection. They wanted to all stay together as if hugging each other would solve all their problems. She lay awake until she heard some commotion outside her room, fished her .380 out from inside the thin down mattress she’d been provided, strapped it to her thigh, put on the wrap she’d been given and peeked outside.
A young girl, one of the chosen ones, probably no more than nineteen or twenty, was being escorted to her room. Two women in burkas had her between them. She was bleeding from a nostril and her eyes were reddened. Then Connie’s vision sunk to the girl’s thighs, which she caught a glance of and could see were covered with blood.
One of the women saw her watching and snapped at her in broken English. “She will be fine…good…get well. You not worry. You are older. Young first.”
It was all she could do not to pull the .380 and put both burka bitches out of their misery. She watched until they deposited the young girl in her room, then closed the door as they returned to their stations near the rose-colored entry door.
She wondered how many were younger than Simone, and if the Sheik was only ‘entertaining’ one per night. Maybe his well-stocked clinic provided him with Viagra?
If she knew Simone, the girl would not go softly into the night. She’d likely cause the fat Sheik and his minions to, at the least, beat her into submission, or at the worst, bury her in the desert.
Where the hell was Mike? Where the hell is the American military? How long would it be before she’d have to protect one of the girls and kill a couple of these desert slime-balls before they killed her?
Then she had the worst thought. Maybe Mike was killed back on the boat? That brought a tightness to her throat and moisture to her eyes.
She took some solace knowing that if they did get him, he got a few of them first.
Then the door opened, before she’d had a chance to disrobe, and the two burka clad women stood there.
“Who Simone?” one asked.
Simone was stirring awake, but Connie bent over her and said in a low tone that was unmistakable. “Keep your mouth shut. I’m going.”
The younger woman rubbed her eyes, not fully awake, but said nothing as Connie followed the women out and closed the door behind her.
Ji Su kept a close eye on the GPS coordinates, only flipping on the landing lights for a second or two when she spotted a flat spot that looked clear. And it was. She sat us down two clicks from the five-hundred-foot-high hill that was crowned by the Sheik’s palace and compound. The place was almost totally dark, at least if any windows were lighted you could not see inside as a result of the twelve-foot walls surrounding. Looking at the aerials, I figured ten acres were walled in.
Taj had emailed every piece of intel he could dig up on Hassan’s lair. By the time we arrived, we knew all the aerials could tell us, and all Sa’id remembered about the interior. Taj had tapped into an e-mail account and found an invoice for an extensive alarm system. And one for five thousand rounds of .50 cal ammunition, among many other things. Of course, Sa’id had not been allowed into the harem, but he knew where the door was located.
Nor had he been in the Sheik’s private area, only in the guard’s quarters which were located on the far east end with the compound wall being the east wall of the dormitory style building.
He had been in an entertaining area, where a hot tub was located next to a lap pool, and, next to it, a dance floor where the sheik enjoyed belly dancers. Beyond it was a platform for musicians.
It is well past the witching hour when we touch down. It will take us twenty minutes to reach the compound. There are three entrances. Double doors that will accommodate vehicles, faced both the north and south, the north road being paved and lined with cypress, the south only a two-track. Inset in those doors are pedestrian doors to allow ingress and egress without opening the much larger ones. There is a third door, this one only a passthrough to accommodate foot traffic. It faces west, the direction from which we’ll approach.
If we have any chance of surprise, we have to get in well before light.
The hill is basically barren of growth, with the exception of a few planted cypress, and only a pathway leads to the west-facing pedestrian door.
There are no lights burning that we can see, save for a small light on top of the wall at each corner, and one flanking the main gates facing north.
I catch movement in only one of the towers—the one near the gate.
We leave Sa’id, cable ties binding wrists and ankles and, in turn, binding him to a chopper skid strut, with Ji Su watching over him. We also leave her with a half-dozen grenades just in case we need her to make a bombing run, but it will be a last resort, since I saw the invoice for .50 cal. It can make short work of the Jet Ranger, and Ji Su, if the shooter has skills.
We position Pax two hundred yards from the walls in a steep walled wadi that will offer him protection in case anyone sees the muzzle flash from the mortar he is entrusted with. He has a half-dozen rounds, hardly enough to hone-in on a specific target. But the harem, where we presume the women are held, is, supposedly, on the west end, and there are five acres and a big chunk of palace on the east end. A couple of rounds from a mortar, even if poorly placed, will be a hell of a diversion. We also leave Pax with a Lapua, and at this range, he can shoot the nuts off anyone on the walls or who pursues us—if they aren’t already eunuchs.
Glancing at my watch as we reach the pass-through door, it’s 0136. I decide we have lots of time, if we use it wisely.
The door is not chained but is locked from the inside. I try to peek through the keyhole but have no luck, then realize the key may be left inserted into the ancient lock. There is a two-inch void at the bottom of the door, and the slate from the inside protrudes out. Now if the door isn’t barred as well as locked?
“We couldn’t be that lucky,” I say to Bo, and he shrugs, not knowing what I’m talking about. “I saw this in a Bogart movie.”
I have a folding knife in my pocket, a good one made by Leatherman with lots of tools. I pop open a corkscrew and shove it into the keyhole from my side. Damned if the key doesn’t clatter to the slate on the far side.
Two swipes with the barrel of my M4 and I have the key on my side, into the lock, and she opens with a squeak loud enough to wake the proverbial dead. We stand stark-still for a moment, waiting for guards to come at a run, but nothing.
If Sa’id hasn’t led me astray, it is about one hundred yards to the north-facing door to the courtyard and, inside it, a courtyard and another door to the harem. He remembers it as a beautiful rose color, flanked by red and yellow bougainvillea. It is fifty paces to the building, and we’re able to keep our backs to the wall as we move along. Two doors are passed by, but neither of them painted rose, rather both the same whitewash as the walls. In the distance, another fifty yards or so, lights emanate from some large windows, striping the courtyard with th
e shadows of their mullions, but they are dim.
I am a little surprised that the rose-colored door is unlocked.
So, we walk right in. No one is in the outer courtyard, then a scream rattles our backbones and puts us back-to-back, panning the shadows with our M4’s, hunting a target.
The scream will shame a banshee, then a bird the size of a turkey, only with a much longer tail, beats wings over the harem courtyard wall. I realize we’d been peacocked. The damn birds are among the best watchdogs in any land, but again, no one comes running. If you live around peacocks, you grow used to those piercing cries.
Still, it takes a moment for both of us to settle down, then we move to the second rose door, this one, we hope, leading into the harem itself.
As we reach it, it opens as if we’re being welcomed. However, it’s a very surprised Alia. I recognize her from the ship, snake a hand out and have her by the throat before she can run. She has an AK slung over her shoulder but has no time to bring it into play. I don’t enjoy hitting women but give her a straight jab between the eyes and she’s out. I put her on her belly in the courtyard and cable tie her hands and ankles in a hog tie, then use her scarf to muzzle and blindfold her. Sa’id will be pleased, if any of us live to ever be pleased again.
We enter, and realize we’re in some kind of dormitory housing, not a harem. We begin to clear all six rooms, if the doors off the hallway are any indication. And they are, living quarters, probably for guards.
So, where are the guards?
60
“You are not the singer Simone,” the Sheik snaps as Connie is led before him. She studies him, and thinks he’s not only unsteady, but slightly demented. His eyes seem to have trouble focusing. His speech is slightly slurred. He turns, raises a small plate and does a reasonable job of balancing it on one knee, closes one nostril and, through a straw, snorts a line of what Connie presumes is cocaine. No wonder the fat fuck can stay awake and play into the morning hours. Of course, he can sleep all day if he wishes. The burka-clad women who led her from the harem have been replaced by two burly guards. Then the sheik turns his wrath on the guards.