by Jim Case
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
Tahia Ahmed watched Sharon Adamson with twinges of envy and respect. The young stewardess was not as old as Tahia, yet she had stood up to Abdel in the plane, and again here in the mountain fortress.
Her strength fascinated Tahia. In the Arab world women were still second-class citizens (and would always be to devout Moslems), pushed around and in many nations treated like little more than animals. Even Lebanese men believed they “owned” their wives. Sharon would put up with no such foolishness, and perhaps Tahia should not, either. Tahia had achieved much more than most Arab women ever would. She was on the team, the takeover team that had captured a multimillion-dollar jet passenger aircraft with 129 hostages!
But the men still told her what to do. She had been in on none of the planning, only the execution. She looked at her watch. There were only a few minutes left until it would be twenty-four hours since the deadline had been issued. Halfway to the final, deadly cutoff that Farouk had given the Americans.
She knew there would be another execution. She had hardened her heart and mind to it, as she had to poor Ali’s fate back in Athens. Allah’s will be done.
She knew the next victim would be the captain of the aircraft. He had proved to be a troublemaker, just as this Sharon had. Because of his importance he had been selected as the next victim. Perhaps the Adamson woman would be the first to die after the forty-eight-hour deadline.
She went about her job now. All of the passengers and crew were to be assembled in a small courtyard toward the rear of the main house. There they would be under machine-gun guard as the captain’s execution was to be videotaped. The tape would be rushed into Beirut and broadcast to a satellite relay station as soon as possible as a second warning to the slow-moving Americans and Israelis.
The infidels would learn! There was no way the Americans could prevent the captain’s death, no way to rescue the passengers. The slow-to-retaliate Americans would cave in again and do what was asked to prevent the death of any more of their citizens.
She unbolted the door to the women’s hostage room and stepped inside.
“You all will get up and follow me,” she snapped in her good English—one of the reasons she had won the job on the takeover. “None of you will be harmed. We are going to the courtyard for a lecture on the eventual victory of the Muslim world over all infidels. Hurry now. Line up by the door.”
When the twenty women were in line, she told the door guard to bring up the rear and keep them close together. They walked without trouble to the court, and she sat them on a low wall that ringed a terrace.
“Why are we really here?” Sharon Adamson asked.
“For the reason I gave you,” Tahia responded. “You would do better not to be so militant in your actions. Those who cause trouble Will be punished.”
“I am responsible for my passengers until they safely reach their destination. That’s my job; I must be concerned.”
“Then do it quietly; keep it to yourself. Do not irritate Abdel, or it could be tragic.”
Guards then came with more lines of the hostages until all 128 were sitting or standing in the courtyard.
Abdel strode in followed by three militiamen who carried a pole. With a shudder, Tahia noticed that the pole had a crossbar. It was a cross, a Christian cross, the kind that was used for executions in ancient times…crucifixions! Not even Abdel would stoop to such a fiendish trick. It must be a device to frighten the next victim.
The cross was lowered into a pre-dug hole in front of the hostages, it was straightened, and dirt was filled in the hole and pounded down until the cross was freestanding.
The hostages had buzzed with surprise and alarm when they first saw the cross.
Then two men came in with a self-contained TV minicamera. It could record color TV tape with the sound. The unit ran from battery packs strapped around the cameraman’s waist like a SCUBA diver’s belt. The cameraman took some readings, judged some shots, and then waited.
The cameraman and his assistant began to shoot as soon as Farouk Hassan walked into the courtyard and stared at the hostages.
“I am truly surprised and sorry that we are gathered here. I had fully expected cooperation with the United States and Israeli governments by this time. They must be reminded that we are not to be toyed with, lied to, or put off. Any blame lies with the two governments, not with the Palestine Liberation Guerrilla Forces.
“You must remember that whatever happens, any blame, and any blood, is on the hands of those negotiators who have not talked in good faith with us. They are the terrorists, not us.”
Tahia saw now that as he spoke the TV camera had been recording his words.
“So, I say to all Americans, to all Israelis around the world, that you must put pressure on your governments to do what is right. The detainees in Israel are there illegally. We chose to fight that illegality with some of the same. We fight fire with fire, blood with blood.
“What you are about to see is not pretty, but it is necessary. We also think it is highly symbolic.”
Sharon sat on the wall, unable to believe what she knew must be happening. They had been brought out to this space in late afternoon to be witnesses to a murder! There was no other explanation. She was not sure if the cross was only a symbol or if it might…. She refused to think further along that line. No.
She watched the Arab girl who had been on the team of terrorists. She seemed to be about Sharon’s own age, perhaps a year or two older. There was a tenderness about the woman that came through even when she was waving a submachine gun, or when it hung over her shoulder on the sling as it did now.
She was Arab dark, black eyes, black hair, an olive skin to shed some of the brilliant sunshine. Sharon wondered how they would have reacted to each other in a more pleasant setting.
Sharon gasped. She could not help it. Some of the women began to sob. Captain Ward was led down a path with a rope round his neck, his hands bound behind him.
“No! No, you can’t!” she shouted.
Tahia swung the muzzle of the SMG until it was only inches from Sharon’s chest. Then she slapped her across the face with a quick, forceful blow. Sharon jolted to the left, caught herself, and stared hard at Tahia.
“They’re going to murder him!” Sharon whispered.
Tahia locked her eyes with Sharon’s. “Probably.” Tahia whispered back, her face stern. “If they do, then you could be next. Do you want that? Control yourself if you wish to help your passengers.”
Sharon sucked back a sob and wiped her eyes. “How can you be so hard, so terrible?” She kept her voice low so only Tahia could hear. “That’s a human being out there they are going to torture! How can you be part of this?”
“Quiet!” Tahia said.
Abdel Khaled had led the procession with the cross and held the rope around Ward’s neck. When he was satisfied that the cross was firm he had Ward stand on a two-foot-high box at the base of the cross. His hands were untied and his arms stretched out. They were at the same height as the cross-beam of the cross.
Sharon looked at the TV camera on the man’s shoulder. It was aimed at the cross now, and she realized all of this was being recorded so it could be broadcast to America!
Abdel had one of his men tie a stout rope around the pilot’s waist, binding him to the cross. Then Abdel had a man hold Ward’s right hand open, its back against the sturdy cross-beam.
The witnesses gasped, some shouted, others cried as they saw Abdel take out a hammer and a large spike and position the big nail over Captain Ward’s hand. The hammer slammed against the thirty-penny spoke. Ward screamed as it drove through his palm and into the cross-beam.
One woman among the hostages fainted. Many were now weeping. The procedure was repeated on Captain Ward’s left hand, then the box was pulled from under his feet. He sagged until his feet nearly touched the ground when the rope around his waist was taken off.
Ward hung by his nailed hands, agony etch
ing his face.
“This can’t be happening!” he screamed in pain. “Not in a civilized world!”
Abdel slapped him four times, rocking his head back and forth. There was no easy way to nail his feet to the upright, so they were tied.
Abdel took out a six-inch knife and approached Captain Ward. He sliced his shirt off, then poised the blade next to the Captain’s right side.
“For the Glory of Allah! For the Palestinians! For the freedom of our brothers in an Israeli concentration camp!” As he shouted the last he drove the blade deep into Ward’s side and slashed downward until the blade grated his hipbone.
The eight-inch wound gushed with blood. Ward had not made a sound. He seemed unconscious for a moment, then his mouth opened and he screamed his death song, a long shriek of agony and disbelief.
Abdel stepped back and looked directly at the camera.
“This American dies because his country’s leaders will not bargain with us. We have heard nothing! America, you have only twenty-four hours left, then one American dies every hour on the hour! We are serious. If you do not talk with us, America will be wallowing in the blood of its innocent citizens because of the stupidity of its President!”
He went back to Ward. The pilot lifted his head once more, tried to speak, but blood seeped from his mouth and a great gush of air escaped from his lungs as he died.
Sharon held her face in her hands and sobbed.
In the Oval Office of the President of the United States, the Chief Executive listened to the diatribe and fought back tears as he saw the American being tortured, then crucified. When the segment that had been taped from the satellite finished, the President gave a long sigh and wiped his eyes, then looked at Pete Lund.
“Did we do the right thing, Pete?”
“Absolutely, Mr. President. No negotiations, no blackmail, no concessions, and if possible no terrorist prisoners. This is the only method that will eventually defeat the terrorists. If they know they must be martyrs when they plan something like this, it will discourage many, and eventually prevent them from continuing.”
“Oh, I agree about no prisoners, but we’re going at it all wrong,” General Will Johnson brayed. “Like I said before, you meet deadly force with superior deadly force. We call in an air strike on West Beirut with twenty Navy Tomcats and let those F-14s wipe out two hundred Shiites. The Israelis do it. We should too.”
“You want to sink as low as the terrorists, Will!” Lund rasped. “A raid like that would kill two-thirds of the women and children.”
The President looked at each man. “I stand by my first decision, gentlemen. The best way to go is covert. We wait and watch for Cody and his team. He still has twenty-four hours. He has communication gear, you said, Pete?”
“Yes sir. He has a transmitter that can reach the satellite and will be relayed to us here, and to our people in Haifa. That’s only seventy-five miles from Beirut. We- can get choppers or jet fighters over Beirut there in minutes. That can be our own or Israeli.”
“Let’s hope he calls. Now all we can do is wait. This is the hardest part.”
“No, Mr. President, the hardest part is for those surviving hostages who are wondering if they will be the next to be tortured and killed.”
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
Cody and Hawkeye, thinking alike, both pulled grenades from pockets and discarded the safety pin at about the same time. Cody raised himself from behind the old Mercedes and threw the hand bomb as far as he could toward the red-beret-topped Shiites who were peppering them with rifle rounds.
The karump of the exploding grenade kept the red hats down long enough for Hawkeye to come up right behind the sedan and get a good throw. Cody’s bomb fell ten yards short, but with a good roll, Hawkeye’s Shiite killer spattered six of the red caps all over the landscape.
Cody and his firing partner began picking off the out-in-the-open troops as some of them tried to move forward, then gave up and raced toward the protection of slit trenches that had been dug around the perimeter of the open space.
Just when Cody thought the attackers were beaten back, a Jeep roared, gears clashed, and a jolting green rig sped from a shed affair, and a machine gun mounted amidship began yammering. Cody took his AK and turned his sights on the Jeep. He got one shot through the windscreen but the rig kept coming forward.
The rounds from the heavy MG laced through the old Mercedes, and Cody and Hawkeye shifted their position to the end. Hawk concentrated on the red berets and Cody slammed round after round at the jolting Jeep. He kept his Russian rifle on single shot to conserve his long-gun ammo.
Caine saw the problem. He had gained the chopper, put down a guard and another militiaman who had been hiding there. Then he turned his silenced Uzi on the red berets and bedeviled them with 9mm parabellum rounds.
When the last of the beret-topped defenders rushed for the perimeter trenches, Caine turned and watched the Jeep. He had six grenades left. He souped up one with half of a quarter-pound blob of C-5 plastic explosive and ran forward to the first cover he could find. The protection turned out to be a dead Shiite militiaman.
The Jeep turned and struck a new angle. The driver seemed determined to get to the chopper, probably to protect it. The closer the Jeep came, the quieter Caine lay. He wanted to look like another dead body. For a moment he thought the rig would run over him, but it missed him by six feet.
Caine had pulled the pin; now he let the Jeep jolt past him, then he lifted up and flipped the C-5-laced grenade into the front seat and saw it roll to the floor.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then a scream shattered the afternoon as both men in the Jeep’s front seat and the gunner on the MG tried desperately to exit the vehicle.
They did, but only with the help of an ear-jangling blast as the grenade triggered the C-5 into a roaring, thundering explosion that decorated half of the courtyard with stray bits of Shiite militiamen and Jeep metal. A secondary explosion detonated the fumes left in the gasoline tank, and then a quiet settled over the parade grounds.
Rufe had silenced his immediate problem, a pair of Shiites who knew how to shoot. He caught one as he came out of a trench, and the other before he made it into the next one. Both went down in sprays of hot, silenced Uzi lead. Then Rufe legged it for the chopper. For just a moment he dreamed of being a defensive end with the Dallas Cowboys.
He had just blocked a pass, knocked it up in the air and then caught it, and he was wide open sixty-five yards to the enemy end zone! Before he made it to the end zone, he saw Caine, who had fallen back to a defensive position at a trench nearer to the chopper. Rufe dove into the chopper, checked out the controls a moment, then started it. The four-place ship had room for five. He let the big rotor spin slowly as the engine caught and purred contentedly.
He ducked down behind the heavy metal protection and let the chopper warm up for two minutes. Then he gunned the engine as a signal to his team that he was ready to fly. Caine got back to the bird first. He used a captured AK-47 and laid down covering fire as Cody, the woman, her child, and Hawkeye made a series of classic retreats toward the spot at which they had wanted to be all the time.
Cody pushed the woman on board and pointed to the far-back area. She squeezed in and crouched there with her baby. Caine jumped in next, then Cody and Hawkeye provided the final covering fire out the off-pilot side as they lifted slowly off the deck. A rifle round punctured the thin plastic bubble on the front, but Rufe punched her in the throttle and they jolted nearly straight up and slanted quickly over the buildings and out of range.
“What kind of armament does it have?” Cody shouted over the roar of the big rotors.
“Six rockets in pods, and a fixed fifty-caliber machine gun,” Rufe shouted back.
“Let’s give them a taste.”
Rufe swung the bird around, hanging just behind the rim of two-story buildings. Then he lifted up, zeroed in on the small headquarters fortress and blasted off two rockets.
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p; The small missiles flew true, jolting through the facade before exploding inside. Half of the building collapsed. Cody grinned and Rufe trained the fixed machine gun on the Shiites scampering around the parade ground.
Rufe blasted until he figured he was half out of ammo and stopped.
“Bus driver wants to know what your stop is,” Rufe shouted.
Cody looked at the woman. He asked her where she wanted off, East or West Beirut. She told him she had some family in the western part of the city. Rufe picked a parklike area near Corniche Pierre Gemayel, a wide street, and let her off. She stood on the grass for a moment, looking at the men.
“Thank you,” she said, her only English.
Cody told her in Arabic they were glad to help. He watched her for a moment. He knew nothing of her background, of her life up to now, but she seemed to represent all of the tragedy that slams down on civilians in any war.
The very people the generals say they are fighting the war to benefit are the first ones to be victimized. He reached in his pocket and took out a wad of Lebanon ten-pound notes, and gave them all to her. She looked at him in surprise, then he told her in Arabic to go and find a place to live in peace. She let tears spill from her eyes as she stepped back.
As the big chopper lifted away from her, Oma Yafi wondered if she would ever see the kind men again. She decided they had to be Americans. They had treated her so gently, with such compassion, had rescued her and saved the life of her daughter.
For just a moment she thought of her dead husband lying in the shop. She should go back and give him a Muslim burial. She could not. If she went back she somehow would be caught up in the war again. She would walk west. She would find a small village that needed a copper worker. She had learned to make pots and other items that were always in demand.
She hurried with her baby to the edge of the park, plunged into the railroad yards. She knew where she was. She would cross the tracks and come out near the bridge that led across the Beirut River, and go to the Sinn El Fit area. From there she could slowly work her way out of Beirut itself into the western hills.