by Jim Case
He picked one of the smaller Marines and they darted out a rear door to the back of the mansion, keeping close to the wall as they slid forward toward a window.
“This should be the first room past the barricade,” he whispered to the Marine. The window stood five feet off the ground. “I’ll give you a leg up and you take a look through the bottom of the window and see what or who is inside.”
He laced his fingers together, forming a step, and the Marine lifted himself to the window. A moment later he jumped down.
“Two Arabs in there loading magazines. Whole pot full of ammo.”
Cody would have used a grenade, but he wanted it to be a surprise visit when they went through the doorway of this room and into the hall beyond the barricade. He unslung the Uzi, pushed it to full auto and motioned for the Marine to give him a hand-step upward.
He edged up slowly until he could see through the window, then pushed the Uzi against the glass and sprayed a dozen silent rounds into the two men working over ammo cartons.
At once he found the window lock, opened it where the glass was broken in, and lifted the window. He squirmed through, then told the Marine to go bring the others.
In the room, he pushed the bodies to one side, found a fully loaded Uzi and four freshly filled magazines. He put the new Uzi over his shoulder and pocketed the heavy magazines.
Then he went to the window and helped Sharon climb through.
She looked at the ammo, found two more magazines for her SMG and waited. When all nine of them were in the room, Cody checked the door. He turned the knob silently and eased open the panel.
The hallway stretched out a hundred feet, but twenty feet down he saw a machine gun on a tripod aimed in his direction, with heavy sandbags holding it in place.
“Any more grenades?” Cody asked Caine.
The Britisher tossed him two, one at a time. Cody had considered trying to pick off the gunners with the silenced Uzi, but the odds were bad. He jerked the safety pin from the grenade, held it in his right hand and eased open the door. His arm was a blur as it snaked out the door and whipped the grenade down the hallway in a throw and roll that should get the required distance. At once he shut the door and waited the 4.2 seconds.
When the concussion of air hit the door from the blast of the grenade, Cody let it swing open. Ten seconds later, when all the shrapnel had landed, he jumped into the hall and hosed down the gun emplacement with twenty rounds from the unsilenced Uzi.
The grenade had detonated just behind the emplacement, shredded the gunner into an early grave, blasted one MG mount off its spot, and tilted the gun at the ceiling.
He heard shouts beyond, and doors slamming. Two men rushed into the hall, but his Uzi riddled them before they could get off a shot. The unsilenced Uzi had more range and impact, since part of the force normally used to expel the slug out the bore was not being swallowed up by a suppressor.
The Marines and their basic room-to-room combat techniques took over as they cleared a room, covered the next man who moved into the upcoming room, and worked quickly down the hall. They found only one Arab, who had a broken leg, with the white bone showing through his calf. He cried quietly on a bunk. After searching him and the room, they left him there for cleanup time.
Sharon waved Cody forward. “Up here!” she yelled.
He hurried to the room and found what had to be the head man’s office. It had a map on the wall with marker pins, a logbook, another list of what could be members or units.
“The most interesting part is back here,” she said.
At the side of the room they found Abdel Khaled’s body.
“He was number two in command, the one who murdered Captain Ward on that cross.”
“If the other terrorists aren’t here,” Caine wondered aloud from the doorway, “where the bleeding hell are they?”
Daylight. Farouk looked out the window from the central wing of the mansion and knew that his cause was lost. The support buildings were all in rubble and burning, his transport was destroyed, most of his fighting men had been murdered in their beds by the barracks blast.
Now the passengers and crew, with some outside help, had taken over the second floor and released all the prisoners. It was only a matter of time. At least he could get away with Tahia to live to fight another day.
Tahia had tears in her eyes as she fired her automatic rifle at the machine gunner in the tower. How had they been able to take over the whole camp, blow up the buildings? Who had done it?
“We must fight until every one of us is dead!” Tahia barked. “We can hold out in here for days. Help will arrive for us. These people only want to get away. We let them go and they will stop attacking us.”
Farouk shook his head sadly. “We are beaten this time Tahia. A strange combination of factors we did not, or could not, control. Come, we must go. There’s a back door here, and a sheltered path downhill. We must hurry.”
A grenade went off fifty feet down the hallway.
Tahia knew then that Farouk was right. She took two more clips for a lighter-weight SMG she picked up and followed him to the door.
He opened it slowly and looked out. All clear. He had taken only a dozen steps down a path that led along the back of the center wing, when a rifle round slammed into the stonework over his head.
He caught Tahia and dragged her down.
They crawled toward the base of a raised planter, working slowly along behind that to a small patch of cedars that had been planted but never watered enough, having grown into a stunted hedgerow barely a head high.
For the moment they were safe. They ran slowly in back of the cedar hedge to the far end of the mansion, then turned downhill. Ahead of him, Farouk found three of his soldiers cowering behind some trees.
“Men, move forward, down the hill,” he ordered. “You three will lead the way to a victory for our cause!”
Two of the men raised their rifles and hurried forward. The third soldier threw down his rifle.
Farouk shot him in the face.
The machine gun, so intelligently placed, stuttered out a welcome as the two PLGF militiamen tried to cross an open space beyond where the generator shed still burned. The buzzing lead slugs drove them back to the protection of a pair of tall cedars.
Farouk lay where he had dived into the dirt to safety behind the big trees. Tahia sat down beside him.
“We are doomed,” she said quietly. “It is over, Farouk. It was over in Athens when Najib informed, when Ali was killed, only we didn’t know it. Why has Allah betrayed us?”
Farouk sighed. He rubbed his hand across his tanned and wrinkled face. “They are learning, these Americans.”
“And we made mistakes, many mistakes, but we have left our mark. Nations know us now.”
“But who are we? Just you and I? If so, then Ali died in vain back in Athens.”
“No! Never even think that! We will escape from here and we will rise again. We will build a new army of supporters and we will make certain the Palestinian cause will triumph!”
Six sleek, U.S.-made jet fighters slashed over the top of the ridgeline at fifteen hundred miles an hour, only a blur as they blasted through the sky. Then they made a long, easy turn and came back much slower.
“Israeli fighters,” Farouk snarled. He watched them. “Now it will be harder than ever to get away.”
“Where can we go?” Tahia asked. “It is too far to walk back to Beirut.”
“Child, I have a surprise that not even Abdel knew about. Quickly now, follow me!”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
Rufe Murphy came in at fence-top height with the captured YZ-24 chopper, took one round in the tail section and lifted up to three hundred feet, where he could get the overall view. He had tried twice to get Cody on the radio but the sarge probably had his receiver turned off.
Caine had done good work with his C-5, Rufe could see by the blackened and still-burning piles of rubble. The main building looked much
as it had yesterday. Cody had not wanted it blasted, or it would have been in ruins already. Rufe could see no targets. Disappointed, he tried the radio again.
“Big man, this is the Rufe, on-site.”
“Hear you, buddy. Just wait and watch, we’re doing some mopping up here. Shouldn’t be too long.”
Rufe held the chopper in a low hover and checked the grounds around the house again, but he wasn’t sure who was who.
The radio rattled again.
He refined the frequency setting and the signal came in clearer.
“Chopper near the deck, do you need assistance? This is flight seven out of the Fox den doing a bit of recreational flying this morning, several thousand above you.”
“You’d be them jet jockeys from down south. Looks like our team is winning. Too chopped up to know which is the good guys just yet. Where are your slow cousins?”
“ETA is about four minutes. You be ready for them?”
“Double-check, Seven.”
Rufe worked the small radio on his lap.
“Groundlings, this is Rufe. Got your ears on down there? Jet set upstairs says the choppers will be here in about three and a half minutes. Where you want them?”
“Rufe, you might not believe this,” crackled Cody’s dry response, “but the area is not secure yet. We need another ten. Coordinate for me, will you, buddy? Out.”
Cody put down the radio. He stood in the main doorway of the mansion and checked the terrain. They had cleared the big palace. The Marines who had been passengers were doing the clean sweep through brush and gardens inside the wall. So far they had smoked out six healthy Arabs who had thrown away their weapons.
As soon as the buildings were secured, Sharon went to the rooms, where she had told the passengers to remain, and made a final count. She had a hundred and twenty three. There were six U.S. Marines fighting with Cody. She had them all!
Near the back of the group of women someone screamed.
“It’s Mrs. Vereen!” a man shouted. “Come quickly!”
Damn, damn, damn! Sharon raged at herself as she ran. The passenger who was a nurse was beside Mrs. Vereen, who had fallen and lay on the floor. Her head nestled in the nurse’s lap as both sat on the floor.
Mrs. Vereen gasped for breath and held her chest a moment, then she saw Sharon and smiled.
“Sharon, most interesting flight I ever took. You are wonderful.”
“Don’t talk, Mrs. Vereen. We have military helicopters coming here from Israel; they should be landing in ten minutes. Then it’s only seventy-five miles to a good hospital in Haifa. You hang on!”
“Sounds like you’re giving me an order,” Mrs. Vereen smiled.
“I am, and don’t you dare disappoint me. We’ll have you out in the first chopper and I’ll send the nurse with you and they will just get you fixed up in no time. Your color is looking better.”
Mrs. Vereen reached out and took Sharon’s hand. “Thank you, Sharon, for what you did for all of us.”
“Now you just hush. We’re going to have a party tonight. We’ll all come to your room at the hospital and make noise and be obnoxious and everything, and you’ll be laughing and remembering all of this.”
The nurse put her hand on Sharon’s shoulder. Sharon looked over. The nurse shook her head sadly.
“Mrs. Vereen won’t be able to make it to the party, Sharon. I’m sorry.”
Sharon looked at her. The elderly face seemed the same, the lips slightly parted, a faint smile. But something had left the eyes, that wonderful spark of life they had known only a few seconds before.
She lowered her head and cried.
The nurse had put a jacket over Mrs. Vereen’s face, and the people around her had unconsciously pulled back from her body.
Sharon turned from the scene. Her eyes found the co-pilot, and she scowled at him.
“Nobody said you had to be a hero, Jenks, but the danger is past, this is strictly routine business. I need you to divide all of the people here into groups of ten. Let men and women be together if they want to be. Groups of ten and bring them all down to the first floor, ten at a time, so we can get ready to load the choppers.”
She had checked with Cody. The plan was to bring in one of the Israeli Chinooks at a time and land right in front of the entrance where a parking lot once had been planned. There would be eight or ten Israeli soldiers on board and they would deplane and serve as security around the aircraft. When thirty former hostages were loaded on the craft, the security would pull back inside the chopper and it would lift off.
She still carried the Uzi machine gun. She gripped it tightly, then fastened it across her back on the sling. She wasn’t about to give it up to anybody.
She saw the small chopper swing over the compound again, drop down and investigate something on the ground, then swing up. That would be Rufe, from what Cody had said; one of Cody’s Army. She heard other choppers then, and in the distance she saw five big twin-top rotor Chinook helicopters swinging around and around in a holding pattern, about a half mile out.
Now all she needed was Cody’s go-ahead to bring in the big birds. She ran out the front door of the mansion looking for him. One of the Marines on the steps said he last saw Cody and two of his Marine buddies running toward the far side of the estate.
She started that way, then heard the firing and ducked down and pulled the Uzi around where she could fire it. No hurry bringing in those birds. The entire area had to be cleared and checked, safe for civilians.
Cody had been at the far end of the mansion when he saw movement to the left of the old generator shack. Something didn’t seem right.
He saw two of the Marines and yelled at them to follow him, then he ran to the fringe of trees and looked down the slope. At the back side it leveled out more and there had been a try at putting in a golf course below, but it never worked out.
There was a vehicle of some kind under effective camouflage netting at the bottom of the slope, almost to the outer wall.
He scanned the territory between the hidden vehicle and where he thought he saw movement. A man lifted up and darted past an open spot to a stunted row of cedar trees that marched its way almost to the bottom of the hill.
Cody fired six shots into the row of trees where the figures had vanished. He had seen three more dash to the same place. He ran forward to a better firing position, found his spot and dropped down in a prone firing position, looking down to see a man already at the hidden rig, pulling off the protective covering: it was a four-man chopper!
Cody dropped to one knee and brought up the Uzi without the silencer, tracing a pattern of slugs around the bird’s engine. Another man ripped off the last of the coverings. Two people ran from the end of the cedars. One looked like a woman. Before he could lift his weapon to fire, Hawkeye’s machine gun chattered out a ten-round welcome.
The woman went down.
For a moment the man hesitated, then he dodged down beside her, behind a small hump that hid them both.
Tahia looked at the blood on her blouse.
“I am not hit! As Allah is my witness I am strong and can continue!” She felt hot tears in her eyes. She could not keep up the lie. “Yes, Farouk, I am hit. Badly, I fear. I—I can’t get to the helicopter, but you must. Go! Go now while there is still time!”
“How can I leave you, Tahia? They will capture you, humiliate you.”
“Go, Farouk! You had sense enough to leave your own brother behind in Athens when he would have compromised the mission. You must do the same thing now. I’m hit too bad to get to the helicopter, let alone live long enough to get to a doctor. Go, now!” She could barely force out the words, the pain hurt so.
Farouk looked at her, then nodded, saying nothing. He left her an SMG he had carried and two extra clips. Then he turned and darted toward the chopper.
One of the men he had sent ahead had the engine started and the rotors spinning.
Tahia watched as he dodged, darted, and stumbled his way to the c
opier. He got through the rifle fire, dove in the chopper door, moved over to the pilots seat and gunned the engine. He had to wait for the engine to become fully warmed up before he could lift off.
She groaned as she tried to move and bit her lip until blood came. She pulled herself up to the top of the small rise, where she could serve as a rear guard. Ahead fifty yards she saw the big American and two men who had joined him. They charged forward.
She triggered two six-round bursts at them, then edged lower as the return-fire came. She rose and fired again, felt bullets whip past her, and then they were gone.
Two minutes, she told herself. Farouk needed another two minutes to make sure the engine would not quit on takeoff. No one fired at the chopper now. She had pinned down the riflemen!
She fired and ducked and fired again, then she pushed in her last magazine. The Americans were up and moving ahead to another spot of protection. She fired until she had only two rounds left.
Tahia struggled to stand on the rise. She put the submachine gun to her chest and screamed, “For the Glory of Allah!” She pulled the trigger.
Cody saw the Arab woman fall just as the terrorist chopper lifted off the sand like some giant, bloated, metal insect.
He jerked the radio from his pocket, flipping the transmit switch.
“Rufe, come in fast!”
“Yeah, Sarge?”
“Did you see that other chopper, the one here behind the mansion? Come in here and pick me up pronto. I’ve got to go after whoever is in that bird!”
“Roger that. Give me twenty seconds.”
When the chopper came in it kicked up a storm of dust and sand. Cody ran through it and opened the pilot’s door.
“Out, Rufe, this one is mine! See you back at the top of the hill.”
Rufe bailed out and stood there while Cody jumped in the chopper, fastened his belt, put the two Uzis on the co-pilot’s seat beside him and lifted off.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
It took him almost two minutes to spot the yellow copter among the barren hillsides and steep ravines below, and when he found it, almost at once one of the Israeli jets made a harassing attack on the terrorist chopper, slamming past it at 600 miles an hour, rocking it in the turbulence, giving Cody time to catch up.