SANCTION: A Thriller

by S. M. Harkness

  Vanderbilt looked at his friend, who was still seated at the small round table.

  “I think you may be onto something. Have you had any more luck getting in contact with Imam Nazari’s guy, to set up that meeting?” Vanderbilt asked, still maintaining his winning poker mask.

  “Not yet, he has been unreachable this week, why?” Paine answered as he started to stand.

  “I think it may be good to have a talk with him, especially since he lifted the ceasefire twenty minutes ago.”

  12

  Ramallah, the West Bank,

  Palestine

  Durrah Nejem sat on the couch in her living room, her two daughters seated to her right and left.

  Kingsley walked over to one of the windows in the front of the house and peered through a set of dingy white curtains. He could see Efran Levy pacing back and forth, squawking into his cell phone. All of a sudden the Jewish man stopped. His head jerked up violently and he looked to the house. Alarmed, Kingsley opened the front door and stepped into the hot sunlight.

  “What’s up?”

  Efran’s face had turned a light shade of gray in seconds.

  “Nazari has lifted the ceasefire, we must leave this place now.” He said as he strode toward Kingsley.

  Kingsley stepped back into the house and motioned toward the door at Brad.

  “Time’s up, we have to go.”

  Brad didn’t take his eyes off of the old woman. She was a rock, no tears formed in her eyes, no fear was present. She just sat there next to Saleem’s sisters and remained quiet.

  Tom’s voice broke through his concentration and Brad looked from Durrah to him.

  Kingsley frowned. He had never seen his friend like this. He was non-responsive, belligerent, and reckless. Now he seemed incoherent. Brad was so focused on winning back his brother that he had stopped being Brad Ward and had become something like a machine.

  Efran stood outside the home. He leaned in, making sure not to place even a toe beyond the threshold of the Nejem household. For the first time, Durrah Nejem raised her head. She returned Efran’s gaze, only hers had maliciousness in it.

  Everyone knew that the Hamas had taken a breather during the forced ceasefire. Not a single weapon had been discharged in the previous four months, since Imam Nazari had instituted his peace initiative. The men who constituted the militant wing of the Hamas were itching to start lobbing sixty year old munitions at Israeli forces.

  Brad could see the tension in Kingsley’s face. His friend wanted to get out of there fast.

  There was no way Brad was leaving without questioning Durrah. He bent down to her level, his lips only inches away from her ear.

  “Where is your son?” He asked in Arabic.

  Durrah moved away from Brad and rested her shoulder against the back of the sofa. Again, without thinking, Brad reached around the woman’s neck and cupped her cheek. He pulled her back to him and angled his lips in the same place, mere inches away. This time he shouted.

  “Where is your son?”

  Durrah Nejem’s tough exterior melted and she began to weep. Unfazed, Brad pulled her in still closer and shouted the same question. This time he said it in English.

  “Where is Saleem Nejem?”

  Kingsley placed a boot underneath the coffee table that separated him from the woman and Brad. He jerked his foot up and the coffee table launched into the air. Several items that had been sitting on it, including a dark brown beverage, spilled onto the floor. The large man shoved his right arm between Ms. Nejem and Brad. Brad resisted but Kingsley overpowered him and forced him to the side of the couch. Once Brad let go of his hold on Durrah, Kingsley stood her up and pulled out a pocket knife. He prepared to cut the tie that bound her hands behind her back when a whooshing wind ripped past the front door, followed by a deafening crash. A homemade bomb had exploded next door in the hands of an inexperienced teenager. Everyone in the Nejem house was sent to the ground.

  Kingsley and the Palestinian woman were knocked to their backs. The Green Beret scrambled around in the mess from the coffee table and rose to a kneeling position.

  Brad ran toward the empty doorway and grabbed Efran from outside. He yanked him into the house. Sporadic gunfire erupted all around them. Brad took a broken mirror off of a wooden table next to the front door and held it outside the house. He could see young men running about franticly firing rifles into the air. It was evident that they weren’t reacting to Brad and Tom’s breaking and entering activity but to Imam Nazari’s official lifting of his restraints.

  Brad shifted the mirror around so that he could see what was going on, on the other side of the house. It was the same sight, men running in a hectic dash toward the Israeli line. They threw Molotov cocktails, sticks and rocks, anything they could get their hands on. It was the beginning of an intense mob controlled riot. He pulled the mirror back inside and threw it on the ground. Efran studied his face.

  “We must get out of here. If night falls…we don’t want to be here. We’re not with friends.” The Mossad agent said as he looked at the women on the floor.

  As a Mossad operative, Efran Levy had a mountain of training under his belt. When he said anything that pertained to the Palestinians, it was golden. Brad nodded and crouched down low. He moved over to where Kingsley was still kneeling. His friend had his rifle trained on the only way into the tiny house. Durrah Nejem just laid on the floor in the same position as she had fallen in.

  The sound of small arms fire reverberated off of the gray cinderblock walls of the house, sounding to those inside like the world was to end. The two sisters huddled together on the sofa, their hands still bound behind their backs. Screams and shouts in Arabic mixed into the tin pinging noise of the gunfire. Brad got up from the floor and moved down the hallway, examining the ceiling along the way. He found a two foot by two foot square piece of plywood in the closet of the master bedroom. It was an access point to the attic with a door that led to the roof. Standing on an old space heater he prodded the plywood cover with the tip of his M4 Carbine. He pushed the board all the way up and to the side. He slung his rifle over his shoulder and leapt up to the square hole.

  Brad crouched along a walkway in the attic until he came to the locked door that accessed the roof. He put his shoulder into it and shoved. The door popped open and swung out on its hinges. All along the bright skyline, people shouted from their rooftops and fired weapons into the air. None of them focused on the Nejem home but they were none the less surrounded by an increasingly volatile mob.

  Brad lowered himself back down and jumped off the space heater. He sat on it and tried to strategize a way out of the rapidly exploding West Bank. An idea came to him and he stood up and rushed into one of the other rooms in the house. When they had cleared the place earlier, he had noticed some men’s clothing piled up on one of the two twin beds. He sorted through the pile but didn’t find what he was looking for.

  He searched the closet, also to no avail. Then, in a nightstand against the far wall, he pulled out four head dressings and matching robes. He folded them under his free arm and marched back into the living room. Kingsley looked up when he entered.

  “What have you got Brad? We’re gonna be hurting real bad if we don’t do something quick.” Kingsley asked as he eyed the clothing Brad carried beneath his arm.

  “What is that?” Efran asked.

  Durrah and her two daughters looked up.

  Brad handed one of the robes and head coverings to Efran and tossed the other set to Kingsley. Kingsley stood and stepped into the robe. He then proceeded to fold the black and white checkered square fabric into the traditional Kufiya over his head.

  The clothing was more formal than everyday garb. Brad guessed Saleem or his brother Raza probably wore it, during special events or holidays like Ramadan. He hoped anyone curious about the attire would merely assume they were marking the end of the ceasefire as a reason to celebrate.

  Efran smiled at the idea and quickly dawned the robe. His was mu
ch too long. Brad held up the two remaining articles in his hands and threw him the shorter one.

  “That one will have to do, it’s all I’ve got.” He said.

  Brad put the last robe on himself.

  Durrah watched the spectacle of the three men wearing her son’s clothing. It angered her but she wouldn’t let them know it. She didn’t want to seem effected by their actions. She had already cried in front of the vicious one.

  Kingsley and Brad hid their American weapons under the layers of the robes and walked to the front door. Outside, the streets were pure bedlam. Kingsley stepped through the door and walked out several feet. He shouted in his best Arab accent, along with the crowd.

  “Allah Akbar, Allah Akbar.”

  Efran was right behind him, though he didn’t join in the chanting. The Mossad agent kept his head lowered. His right index finger laid flat against the trigger of a .40 caliber Sig Sauer beneath his robe. Occasionally he raised his head a few inches to survey the members of the mob, as they converged on the Israeli border. He had seen this many times, though it was a new experience on this side of the wall.

  Brad barreled through the mess of the coffee table and picked Durrah Nejem up off of the ground. Riot or no riot, he wasn’t leaving without getting the information he came for. Her two daughters began shouting at him when he wrapped his hand tight around her elbow and forced her to walk toward the door. The DIA agent pulled his nine millimeter pistol out of a leg holster beneath his robe and jammed it into her ribcage. He forced her through the doorway and into the fading sunlight.

  Durrah saw her neighbor immediately and she shouted his name. Brad shoved the pistol harder into her ribs and she gasped for air. She quieted but the neighbor had already seen them. The man approached Brad and Durrah. His AK-47 hung loosely from his hand at his side.

  He spoke to Brad in Arabic.

  “What is this, why do you have Ms. Nejem?” The man asked Brad once he got closer.

  Durrah tried to speak but Brad talked over her.

  “She turned Saleem over to the Israeli pigs. That is why he hasn’t been around for days. He sits and rots in a Jewish prison.” He said in a perfect Palestinian dialect. It was a gamble, to be sure. If the man knew Saleem well, he might be in on the kidnapping and therefore know that Brad was lying. However, if he only knew Saleem in passing, he might have only noticed that he hadn’t been around.

  “It is not true. These are lies.” Durrah pleaded to her neighbor.

  “Let me have her, I know what to do with traitors.” The neighbor said reaching for the woman. His grip on his rifle became stiff. He was prepared to use it.

  “We are taking her to the very people she wants to help so badly, we are delivering her to Israel at the front.” Brad said with mock venom in his tone.

  The man’s eyes lit up. He relaxed his hold on the rifle and slung it around his head so that the strap was running diagonally across his flat chest.

  “Come, you will need a car to get her up to the checkpoint.” He said smiling.

  Brad flagged Efran and Kingsley over. They all followed the neighbor to an old blue Mazda station wagon that was parked in an alleyway. Durrah tried to persuade her neighbor. Every time she opened her mouth though, Brad would yell over her and tell her she had no right to speak.

  The five of them loaded themselves into the car. The neighbor got behind the wheel. Brad was in the seat directly behind him.

  The American agent reached around the headrest in a flash and brought the top of his forearm up and under the driver’s neck. He slid his hand over his bicep on the opposite arm and pressed the back of the man’s head forward with his free hand. The neighbor struggled in his seat to get free but there was little he could do from his position. In seconds he was unconscious. Brad opened his car door and stepped into the alley. He pulled the driver out of his seat and laid him on the asphalt.

  Brad got back in the car, this time in the driver’s seat. He twisted around and looked at Efran.

  “Call whoever you need to. Get that border opened up for us, right now. Tell them we have a valuable prisoner on board.” He said, tossing Efran a cell phone.

  Brad eased the vehicle out of the alley and drove in the direction of the border. He had to drive five miles an hour due to the hectic chaos of the shifting crowd in the streets.

  Kingsley kept an eye on the alleyway, via the side view mirror. He wanted to know if the neighbor woke up suddenly.

  Brad rolled down his window and stuck the barrel of the AK he had lifted from the Nejem house, into the air. He jerked back on the trigger for good show.

  “Allah Akbar.” He screamed.

  The men around the car were too caught up in the frenzy of the moment to even notice the car.

  A young Palestinian boy crossed in front of the car causing Brad to tap the brakes. Efran was on the phone, Kingsley was keeping his chin buried in his chest but his eyes peeled on the alleyway. Durrah Nejem had slumped so low in her seat that Brad had to sit up higher in his, to get a glimpse of her in the rear view mirror.

  “Ok, probably ten to fifteen minutes. Ok.” Efran said into the receiver. He hung up and passed the phone back over Brad’s shoulder. Brad took it and stuffed it into his shirt pocket under the neck line of his robe.

  “Well?” He asked, as Efran stared out of the window at the mayhem that was transpiring around them. They were deep in the lion’s den. If the men around them knew who they were, they would all end up on the nightly news.

  “They are going to call me back when they are sure we can get through. They are communicating. It will take some time I think.” He looked worried.

  “Do you think they will be able to do it?” Kingsley asked.

  “Under normal circumstances, communication between the guard stations and the chain of command is excellent. But whenever this happens, it’s…well…so so.” He replied holding a flat hand out and twisting it in a back and forth motion.

  Brad stopped the car at the top of a gradual incline.

  “What are you doing?” Efran asked; the trepidation in his voice impossible to mask.

  “Take a look at that tower over there.” Brad said, pointing to an observation tower six hundred yards away to the North East of them.

  “A good sniper would make mincemeat out of us at this distance.”

  Kingsley nodded.

  “So we’re going to have to wait for Efran’s friends to come through.” Brad said looking at Efran in the rearview mirror.

  Kingsley spotted the owner of the car staggering out of the alley. His face was contorted with confusion and bright red. The Special Forces veteran jumped out of the vehicle and ran the short distance to the man. As he got closer to him, Kingsley shouted out.

  “Are you okay brother?”

  The man nodded while holding the side of his head. He looked around for his car and the attackers. Most of the mob was further up the embankment in front of them. It was just the two of them. It wasn’t until Tom Kingsley got right up on the man that the Palestinian recognized him as one of the three men that had just robbed him. Kingsley produced the Colt rifle he had been hiding under his robe and stroked the bottom of the butt stock into the man’s nose. Blood squirted out of both nostrils and the man fell to his rear, grabbing at his damaged face with his hands. Kingsley kept moving until he was behind the neighbor. He reached down and grabbed the man by his shirt. He quickly drug him back into the alley, constantly looking around to ensure that no one witnessed the event. In the alley, Kingsley pulled two zip ties out of his back pocket and secured the man’s hands and feet. He then hoisted him up onto his shoulder in an improvised fireman’s carry and threw him into a nearby dumpster. The man hit the metal bottom of the can and began to shout but it was impossible to hear him over the out of control crowd. Kingsley ran back to the car.

  Brad’s cell phone chimed. He pulled it out of his shirt pocket and handed the device to Efran.

  Efran took the phone and answered it.

  “You th
ink we’re gonna get out of this one?” Kingsley asked Brad as he slid back into the passenger seat.

  “You worried about a couple of kids with guns?” Brad asked as he looked to his longtime friend.

  Kingsley hesitated to answer but when he did, Brad could see it in his eyes.

  “You know most of the guys in this line of work are either divorced or headed for it. Charlotte has stood by me all this time. I owe it to her. Besides, eventually you run out of luck out here.”

  “Yeah, maybe it is time for you to retire.” Brad said with a mock chuckle. Tom wasn’t laughing.

  “Yeah, I know what you mean. And to answer your question, I don’t know what I think.” He said.

  Efran handed the phone back to Brad one last time.

  “We can enter at the North Eastern border. The attacks are much less concentrated there and they have armored trucks they are preparing to breach the barrier with.”

  There was something in Efran’s voice that wasn’t quite right. Brad picked up on it but it was Kingsley who said something.

  “And?” Kingsley asked.

  He stammered with his words for a few seconds and then just spit it out.

  “Durrah Nejem will not be admitted into the country. We will not be interrogating her.”

  13

  Palace of the Supreme Ayatollah, Iran

  “And why does Nazari need our help?” The Ayatollah asked his subordinate council members. None of the men in the room were quick to respond. They had all been on the receiving end of abject humiliation by the ‘Supreme Leader’ before; not one of them was anxious to be there again.

  After some time, the Minister of Defense answered.

  “It is not so much that Imam Nazari needs our ‘help’ Supreme Leader. It is more of an opportunity for our people to place themselves in a position of strength in the coming new world.” Anwar Al-Ajlani stated plainly.

  He secretly hoped that the Ayatollah would not support the Palestinian cleric. It wasn’t that he wished Nazari to lose, quite the opposite, he wanted him to succeed. He could safely assume that anyone who had not been loyal to Nazari and his cause before his plans were implemented would be removed from power. This would almost certainly secure Al-Ajlani a high position of authority as the only ranking Iranian to stand by the Hamas Commander. Anwar believed that Nazari’s plan was sure to succeed and under such conviction, defied the Ayatollah’s counsel and the Ayatollah himself; though respectfully.