by D. I. Telbat
"Don't move, Caspertein!"
The booming voice of Interpol's Oleg Saratov was unmistakable. The English words themselves caused bystanders within earshot to pause and stare. The only Americans bold enough to be in that district were criminals, and even then they usually didn't speak English openly. Westerners were disliked by the general Pakistani public, but truly hated by militant extremists in Karachi. An English speaker was considered fair game for robbers and murderers, or jihadists, which were often one and the same.
"It ain't easy being caught in the middle," Titus mumbled dryly to himself as he guessed he was about to die.
Lannoy looked back at Titus, their eyes meeting. With visible panic on his face, Lannoy spotted Oleg. Titus turned to see Oleg coming up the street behind him. He wasn't alone. There were at least three others with him—surely Interpol officials.
Screaming at his four armed escorts, Lannoy pointed at Oleg's party. Titus stepped deeper into the alley and dove to the ground as gunfire thundered past him, catching the Interpol agents unsuspecting. Trapped between two groups with weapons, Titus drew his Glock and pressed SEND on his cell phone. As quick as the signal could relay to the pirated cell tower two blocks away and bounce back to the explosive down the street, the detonation shook the dust from the concrete and deafened the neighborhood. Visibility was lost for a few minutes as the dust settled.
Lunging to his feet, Titus scrambled into the cloud. Lannoy was still his target, regardless of Oleg's presence. With a little luck, he could have Lannoy gagged and hogtied for a private plane ride back to the Middle East. Corban would eat his uppity words, and Israel would honor him with a dinner and a weekend in Eilat.
But the dust was thicker than Titus anticipated, and though the wounded were scattered across the street, Lannoy and his people weren't among them. Titus cursed as he approached the injured to see that the explosive had turned part of a building into a thousand pieces of concrete shrapnel. Two dozen were wounded and bleeding, yet everyone seemed able to walk under their own power to receive help.
Gunfire started again between the Oleg and Lannoy parties. Since Titus valued his own skin over the value of Lannoy's capture, he thought it best to abandon his pursuit of him. Titus had lived an aimless and careless life, but that didn't mean he wanted to die or risk it needlessly.
One street away, Titus slowed to a walk and searched for a taxi. Emergency personnel rushed past him. If he hurried to the airport, he could be over Eastern Europe by midnight. Forget proving himself to Corban. He had other things to do. If Lannoy was still alive, he could hunt him down after Oleg and Interpol cooled off.
Suddenly, Titus stopped in the street and listened to the gunfire. The battle was raging on. Now he felt guilty for running away. He'd never liked Lannoy, but Oleg had been his friend, even if the man had been an undercover agent. Sure, the only reason Oleg was even there had to be because Corban had notified him that Titus had escaped. But Titus couldn't just run away, not this time. His blood boiled at the thought of the likes of Lannoy killing a dedicated man like Oleg.
Growling to himself, Titus turned around and jogged toward the haze where dust still settled.
"If you get me killed, Oleg," he said with clenched teeth, "I'll never risk my life for you again!"
When he reached the street, he knelt next to the corner of a shop to study the situation. Clearly, Lannoy's goons had been better armed and had overwhelmed Oleg's team, who had probably expected to face only Titus. Oleg's men had been killed in the street, and Oleg was pinned down in the doorway of a second-hand store, his leg outstretched and bleeding.
Lannoy appeared uninjured. He signaled to two of his men still standing, but they responded with gestures that showed they were out of ammunition. Oleg fired two shots desperately down the street, then he clicked on empty as well. Cursing, he threw his gun down, certainly knowing his end had come.
Laughing triumphantly, Lannoy walked confidently down the street, his sidearm aimed at Oleg. In French, he shouted the horrible things he would do to Oleg before he killed him. The words made Titus grimace.
"Luc Lannoy!" Titus called.
Lannoy pivoted and fired his gun automatically. His bullet struck the corner of the building above Titus' head.
"Titus! I thought you were gone." Lannoy looked down at his weapon, and Titus walked toward him, his own gun at his side. "I didn't mean to shoot at you, Titus. Just these Interpol guys."
"Throw down your firearm, or die, now!" Titus raised his weapon and aimed. Lannoy hesitated and started to speak, then pointed with his pistol down the street at Oleg. Firing, Titus' bullet hit the shoulder of Lannoy's gun arm.
No longer laughing, and now knocked to the ground, Lannoy tried to crawl to his weapon that had clattered into the drainage ditch. Titus moved into the street and fired several wide shots at Lannoy's remaining men. With their guns empty and their boss down, they didn't dare stay on the scene. They fled in two different directions.
"Titus!" Lannoy gasped and tried to sit up. "Seriously, I thought you died in Gaza. I wish you had, now. Setting me up like that with Crac Hassad. I was lucky he let me live after he discovered that weapon was a fake. Even bringing Interpol into the deal. How could you not know Saratov was Interpol? You owe me!"
Standing over Lannoy, Titus fingered his gun trigger.
"How about I don't kill you," he said, "and we call it even?"
"I could live with that. Okay, we're even."
"Under one condition: Annette Sheffield. What did you do with her?"
"Come on, Titus!" Panting, Lannoy's face reddened. With his shoulder bone shattered, he held his head awkwardly. "Okay, okay. When the weapon wasn't real, I had to give Crac Hassad something. She was collateral. He said I could have her back if I returned with the real weapon within three weeks."
"So you left an American woman, a female model, with a Muslim fanatic and his boys, bent on the destruction of Israel and all things Western?" Titus holstered his Glock, but drew out the tranquilizer pen he'd used on Corban. "I have dirt on you, Luc, and I'm going to make sure Interpol gets it all."
Titus stabbed the pen into Lannoy's thigh. The Belgian fell to the street, unconscious, his shoulder leaking blood. The emergency responders worked their way down the street, pausing to see to the bystanders as they drew closer to Titus.
Moving toward Oleg, Titus picked up a sturdy cane off the ground.
"Lose something, Oleg?" Titus twirled the cane like a baton. "Seems you just got shot by that fool a couple weeks ago. You should still be in the hospital, not out here on vacation. The coffee's great, sure, but the gunfire really smarts."
"Maybe I missed playing Dodge-the-Bullet." Oleg yanked the cane out of Titus' hand as Titus sat down next to his old partner. "My whole team is dead. I'll be on desk duty until I retire."
"If you would've waited five minutes, I would've had Lannoy, then you could've gotten us both."
"I could still get you both." Oleg's face wrinkled in pain as he applied pressure to his leg wound. "You would've killed me already if you were going to. You didn't have to come back for me."
"I'm not especially fond of being taken into custody." Titus chuckled. "Not that you could, though. There are advantages to being the Serval in a third world country, even if Pakistan is becoming more modernized. You shouldn't have come, Oleg."
"So, what now?" Oleg spit into the gutter. "It's not like you to hunt down someone like Lannoy. You trying for another weapon for the Palestinians? Was Lannoy stepping on your turf?"
Titus watched the paramedics attend to an unconscious Lannoy.
"I guess I was wondering if I could live up to Corban Dowler's standards."
"Thinking of going Christian?" Oleg elbowed Titus. "The world would never believe it. The Serval's a killer, a thief, and a dishonorable scoundrel. And those are the nice things from your file!"
"Then maybe it's time I shock the world in a new way." Titus stood and stepped aside as a medic cut away Oleg's pant leg to examine th
e wound. "After all, you turned on me, and I already forgave you. Maybe there's something good in me yet, huh?"
"That's different." Oleg smirked.
"How so?"
"You didn't want to kill the only man in the world uglier than you. That'd make you the ugliest man in the world."
Titus smiled. He would miss his old partner.
"You got Lannoy from here? I'm on the move."
"Take off. I'll catch you later, Serval."
"Not likely, Oleg Saratov. Not likely."
*~*
Chapter Twenty-Two
Gaza / Israel
Corban sat with Chloe Azmaveth in the front seat of a rented tour bus. Rasht Hassad rested in a seat three back from the front, and Nathan Isaacson and Chen Li sat in two seats in the very back. The couple leaned across the aisle toward each other, their heads touching in prayer.
"It's nearly dark," Corban said softly to Chloe, not wanting to wake Rasht before it was time to move out. The Iranian missionary wasn't in the best physical condition; prison hadn't been kind to him. "We need to beat Colonel Yasof's ground incursion into Gaza if this is going to work right."
"Look at them." Chloe nodded her head toward Nathan and Chen Li. "They don't see each other for months, and now they spend their first minutes together praying."
"It says something about God's love in a relationship," Corban said. "Janice and I could've been spared a lot of heartache if we'd married with Christ at the center."
"The Lord brought you two around when it was His time." Chloe lifted the NL-X1 sniper rifle from the bus seat and settled it on her lap. She was dressed like a Gazan rebel: a checkered headdress, faded parka, and worn jeans. "I'd feel better about this if we had more COIL backup."
"I've got some calls in but we can't wait to see who shows up. India has drawn two COIL teams into the fray, and we have three others in Indonesia, Angola, and Turkey. Like always, God's people are spread thin so we trust on Him more and more."
Chloe stood, her battle gear—pack, canteen and NL-3—strapped tightly for combat. Chen Li, the Hong Kong native and COIL agent of a dozen missions, was dressed identically to Chloe, though armed with a spotting scope instead of a weapon.
"Chen Li, we need to move. It's time. Sorry, Nate."
"No harm done." Nathan led Chen Li up the aisle. "Just make sure we get a honeymoon on the Med, Boss."
"Let's bring Annette Sheffield home, then we'll see what the Lord has in store for you two, huh? Rasht, can you pray for us?"
Nathan and Chloe each held a hand of Corban's. Rasht's English was rough as he completed the circle between Chloe and Chen Li, but his words to God were full of praise and trust. Now was a time to stand on His power and Lordship over all, even over the bullets that might soon be zipping at their heels.
With their prayer of dedication finished, Chloe and Chen Li stepped off the bus and jogged over to a ladder that lay at the foot of the Gazan perimeter wall. Together, the two women leaned the ladder against the wall and climbed up. They'd already shot out the nearest lights, and dusk hid them enough from the many aerial patrols. Besides, the IDF seemed more concerned about people leaving Gaza than entering.
When Chloe reached the top of the wall, she used a grapnel hook and rope to slide out of sight. A few seconds later, Chen Li disappeared after her.
Corban and Nathan checked their watches simultaneously. The plan was to give the women a five minute head start, to find an elevated position near where Crac Hassad was hiding.
"You're sure he'll be there?" Nathan asked for the third time that evening. "I mean, Chloe was Mossad. Israel is her stomping grounds. I'd guess she'd be the one with the inside intel on this crook."
"Chloe's irreplaceable, no doubt." Corban used the bus side mirror to apply a heavy beard that reached down to his chest, and thick-rimmed glasses under fake bushy eyebrows. "But she's not Muhammad ibn Affal. Crac Hassad's contacts in Syria and Iran have been acquainted with ibn Affal for twenty years. It was just a matter of setting up the meet. Hassad's men told me exactly where to meet them, and under this much Israeli pressure, I'd guess Hassad isn't moving around too much."
"And you're sure that stuff will pass the test?" With his toe, Nathan nudged a blue canister on the floor next to Corban's foot.
"It'll pass. Hassad's zeal to kill Israelis has blinded him to certain threats. Between what's in this canister and Rasht, we should be able to get Annette Sheffield back. You ready, Rasht?"
"Ready." The aging missionary stood before Corban. "You look like the Ayatollah in Iran. My brother is a devout follower. May God blind him from the good we are about to do."
"Amen. Let's move."
Nathan led the way up the wall, then Corban brought up the rear after Rasht. For now, Corban and Nathan were both armed with NL-2 machine pistols under their clothing.
Once inside Gaza, Corban caught sight of Nathan, who was a much more adept urban warrior. Corban jogged after him and Rasht. They were quickly among the buildings of the border city of al-Qubbah, which was slowly being consumed by Gaza City to the west.
Corban looked to the sky. Saraph choppers were beginning to patrol closer to the street level, but they were farther south. He hadn't felt it necessary to tell Colonel Yasof where Crac Hassad wanted to meet, and why Corban and his people were opting out of the IDF incursion. After all, it had been agreed that Corban was there for the American Annette Sheffield. She was Corban's priority. Later, if there was room to take Crac Hassad, or to inform the Israelis of his true whereabouts, then he would do his part—if Corban was still alive to do so. The secrecy used against the IDF was to protect the ibn Affal identity, not to spite Israel. The identity had secured many Christians' safety in the past, and Corban prayed for one more successful Muhammad ibn Affal mission.
*~*
Chapter Twenty-Three
Eastern Gaza
Annette stood in the shadows of the tunnel as long as she dared, then she stepped into the lamplight. She cradled the rifle in front of her and kept her black mask pulled down all the way. With purpose, she walked past shirtless men who hacked with shovels and picks at the tunnel walls. It was then she discovered these men were not digging the tunnel anew, for it went on and on. Rather, they were widening it. But why?
The working men seemed to ignore her as she moved beyond the excavation to a part of the tunnel already widened. Several of the diggers had left their packs there. Annette picked up one and found a green army jacket. Tugging it on, she felt more the terrorist part. She also found packaged food and water, which she gulped down before anyone came around to discover her. A meal without a beating for a change!
A man up the tunnel yelled in Arabic, and she dropped the provisions. He gestured and was obviously hailing her. Annette looked back the way she'd come. She had to cross over to Israel. It was her only chance to live. No one even knew where she was, or if she was still alive. Only when she was in Israel could she relax.
But first, she had to do nothing suspicious. It began with this middle-aged man calling to her. Lowering her voice, she mumbled incoherently and approached him. The tunnel dipped down, and when it sloped up again, Annette realized why she'd been hailed. Seven men were using a makeshift cart to wheel an aerial drone up the tunnel! It was clearly marked as a drone belonging to the Israeli Air Force.
The man who'd hailed her took her rifle and gave her orders to do something with the cart. Though she didn't understand, she could guess. He leaned her rifle against the tunnel wall, and Annette joined the men to move the cart wheels over the soft ground. The widened tunnel now made sense. The drone's wingspan was about fifteen feet wide.
Annette did her best to anticipate what the others were doing to move the drone forward, but she still received a whack on the side of the head and a volley of Arabic when she didn't lift her side of the cart over a section of rock. Though the size of a man, she lacked the brute strength necessary, and eventually she was pulled from her cart position and hooted toward the front. In front, she
was given a shovel. After more instructions in unknown Arabic, she grunted a low response, then went ahead to dig away last minute chunks of earth for the wings. Thus far, and by some miracle, she'd escaped discovery.
Going back the way she'd come was unnerving, but she didn't dare throw the shovel down and run down the tunnel. Instead, she dug at the walls where the others ahead had miss-judged the wingspan. The militants who belonged to Crac Hassad had obviously captured an Israeli drone, and the snub-nosed rockets under each wing had Hebrew writing on them. Hassad was up to no good, and Annette didn't like the idea that she was helping them transport the drone under what she guessed was the Gaza-Israeli border.
After an hour of work, they caught up to the main excavation crew Annette had first encountered. Another thirty yards, and they would reach the garage.
A man she recognized from the garage tromped down the tunnel, so Annette made an effort to show she was an aggressive digger, requiring no more interaction. Two of the men who pushed the cart with the drone wore masks still, and others had wrapped their faces against the fine soil that settled on everything, falling constantly from the ceiling. The dirt glittered in the lighting from the hanging bulbs.
Falling back some, she knelt to untie her barely tied laces, and made a dramatic show of dumping dirt out of one boot. But no one seemed to be watching. Now was her chance. She preferred to hide rather than be forced into another job.
Tightening her laces, she rose and walked briskly away from the drone. She would've sabotaged it if she could have, but not with so many enemies around her. She had to get to the freedom of Israel! As she reached where her rifle leaned, she prayed for continued safety. Sure, her whole body was one big bruise from the beatings, and her knee hurt like hot iron, but she was alive!