by Ted Bell
“What was that?” Diana said, suddenly squeezing his hand.
“What?”
“I saw someone. Over there. They ducked behind that clump of grass on the dune.”
Ambrose turned and looked in the direction she was pointing. He saw a solitary figure, a woman wearing a black coat, appear at the top of the dune and make her way toward them. She was walking rapidly and was strangely silent.
“Hello!” he said, but she made no reply.
Then he saw her arm come up and knew in that moment what he should have known a moment sooner. The woman had a gun. And she clearly meant to kill them. Here, in the beautiful moonlight, they were both going to die.
She fired at Diana first. He heard her cry out and saw her collapse on the sand. He thought the woman would turn the gun on him, but, no, she moved rapidly toward Diana, her heels kicking up sand, the small gun held out at the end of her extended arm. She was going to fire at Diana again! Shoot her where she lay. Helpless on the ground!
Ambrose dove.
In the act of diving, he had an impossible choice. To go for the gun or use his body to shield Diana.
In that horrible instant he saw himself reaching for the gun and missing his one chance to save the woman he loved. And so he flung himself headlong toward Diana, face-down, and landed hard atop her body, covering her. He tensed, waited for the burn of the rounds, the hard slam of lead into his back or shoulder or leg. He’d been shot at before. He knew how it would feel.
The first round burned into his shoulder, struck bone, and careened off inside his chest, tearing something. She must have stumbled in the sand, because the next shot was wide of the mark. He heard it whistle past his ear and burrow into the sand. The next one would be to the head. She was close enough now to dispatch both of them with one bullet. She was close enough to—
He just kicked. He had no hope of hitting anything, but neither had he any hope of surviving the next bullet. His foot connected with the woman’s knee, forcing the joint backward with a satisfying snap. She cried out. He felt her go down.
He remembered rolling off Diana at that point, going for the gun. The woman was struggling to get to her feet. The gun was in her right hand, half-buried in the sand. Ambrose, who was feeling a black redness crowding round the edges of his mind, managed to wrench the gun away. She snarled as he tore it from her fingers and he saw her face. He recognized the face. He’d seen it that day in the pictures at Henry’s flat. It was Bianca Moon, of course, the China Doll.
“Don’t move,” Ambrose croaked, pointing the gun unsteadily at the woman.
“You’re going to shoot an unarmed woman, Inspector Congreve? I think not.”
She got to her feet, clutching the wounded knee with her right hand. Ambrose could see her calculating her next move, whether he had the strength to hold on to the gun. He heard Diana moan. He would hold on to that gun if it killed him.
At that moment, all the sky exploded in sound and light.
Red rockets screamed suddenly overhead, arcing hundreds of feet into the air, expiring in a concussion of sound. Massive blue-and-gold fireballs bloomed over the sea; a falling shower of radiant silver sizzled and fried in the sky and then blinked out. He saw the silhouettes of Jock and Susan Barker appear on the dune followed by hundreds of guests come to ooh and ahh. When he looked for the woman, she was gone. Bianca.
“Help!” he cried weakly, “Over here!”
He couldn’t sit up any longer. He collapsed beside Diana and cradled her head in his arms. They were both looking up at the sky. Jock was first to reach them, having seen a starburst illuminate two dark figures sprawled in the sand and one running away. He took one look at Ambrose and Diana and started barking orders at the closest bystanders.
“Look how lovely, darling,” Ambrose said to her, “Chinese fire-works.”
Then he was gone.
Chapter Fifty-two
Masara Island, Oman
FITZ BEGAN TAKING HEAVY FIRE ABOARD THE OBAIDALLAH
just as the first of his men started clambering up out of the hold and onto the deck. Two .50-caliber machine guns on the south tower were raining death from above. One man who managed to survive and make it to the shelter of the wheelhouse was the Italian stalwart Bandini. But the next man up, a tough little Gurhka named Sim, took a round in the head and collapsed back inside the hold. That, and Fitz’s screaming at his men to stay put, was enough to convince everyone remaining to stay below for the time being.
Fitz whirled around, anger glittering in his eyes. Why the hell hadn’t Rainwater blown both towers as soon as the shooting started? Clearly, any hope of surprise had been lost. “Arrow! You copy? What the hell, man? Blow the tower!”
No response.
Fitz, trapped on the stern, peered around the iron hatch cover he was using to stay alive. It was clear at this point that Thunder and Lightning was smack dab in the middle of a major goat-fuck. Rounds were ricocheting off the hatch cover, making an unpleasant hollow, ringing sound. There had to be at least two .50 cals up there, maybe three. Fire was coming only from the top of the near tower. The north tower, thank merciful God, didn’t have clear line of sight at the supply ship’s deck.
But there were three heavy spotlights mounted halfway up the south tower and they were making life hell for the men from Martinique.
“Froggy,” Fitz barked into his lipmike, “where are you?”
“Wheelhouse, Skipper. I’ve got Bandini back here with me. Thought we’d wait this little storm out.”
“Listen up, Froggy. One. I can’t raise Arrow. No response. Something’s wrong or he would have blown the towers. He may be down. Two, the troops are pinned down back here. Getting hammered. Can you take out those fucking spotlights? It’s like daylight back here.”
“Mais oui… I can, if I can get forward.”
“So get forward. Now. Use the foc’sle for cover. Come on, Froggy, we can’t take much more of this!”
“I’m moving—”
“I see you. Now, Bandini, you get up on the roof of the wheel-house with the RPG. You copy that? Take out those fucking machine guns as soon as Froggy kills the lights and you’ve got a shot. Copy?”
“Va bene, va bene,” Bandini said.
“Consider it done, mon capitain!” said Froggy.
Froggy didn’t waste any time. He’d shed his Arab costume, which clearly had outlived its usefulness, and scrambled forward, drawing fire. Rigging was collapsing on the deck around him, brought down by withering hail of lead from above. Meanwhile, Bandini was crouched in the shadows aft of the wheel, assembling his RPG tube. Good.
Fitz stepped out from behind the hatch cover and delivered a sustained burst of automatic fire into the top of the tower. His aim was true. It was enough to distract them long enough for Froggy to get on his feet, take careful aim, and extinguish the powerful spotlights lighting up the decks of the Obaidallah.
POP! POP! POP!
The three spotlights exploded one after the other, extinguished by one of the world’s preeminent sharpshooters. Now it was Bandini’s turn. The Great Bandini had a very simple solution for all of the world’s ills, from cold eggs to unruly governments or bad-mannered insurgents: Nuke ’em.
“Bandini!” Fitz said, stepping out from behind the hatch cover, his weapon on full auto. “It’s all yours!”
Bandini scrambled atop the stacked crates and onto the roof of the wheelhouse. He had the tube on his shoulder and his legs braced. He was an easy mark, but Froggy on the bow and Fitz on the stern were doing a good job of fire suppression, tracer rounds screaming toward the top of the tower. The sudden loss of the spotlights and the heavy incoming fire had momentarily disoriented the gunners.
There was a whoosh from the wheelhouse roof and a tongue of fire licked out the back end of the tube. A trail of whitish smoke streaked upward toward the top of the south tower. The gunners must have seen it coming because there was time for several loud screams before the top of the tower erupted into a brill
iant fireball. A second later, the ammunition went up, sending great gouts of flame skyward. It resembled nothing so much as a giant Roman candle standing at the edge of the sea.
“Go! Go! Go!” Fitz screamed at his men now flying up out of the hold and exploding up onto the deck. They’d all shed their disguises when the shooting started. In their Kevlar body armor and helmets, bristling with weaponry, they now looked like exactly what they were, the deadliest hostage rescue team on the planet.
It was clearly time to hop and pop.
Moments earlier, Hawke and Stoke had still been inside the tunnel.
“How you say ‘Oh, shit’ in Arabic?” Stoke said to Hawke from the top of the steps. Bruce was floating on the surface, his grinning face pointed in the right direction, having sustained minimal damage on the way inside. Hawke pulled the tabs that inflated the daisy chain of five IBS boats they’d strung behind the sub. Each inflatable could carry only seven adults. Somehow, he’d have to get the women and children safely down here and into these boats, and just pray he had enough space for everyone.
Once they’d boarded the hostages, he and Stoke would swim aboard Bruce and they’d make a full-bore run, back through the tunnel and out into the open sea and—
Stoke had run up the stone steps to do a quick recon of the storehouse. Now he was back and he didn’t look happy.
“Jara,” Hawke said, moving the selection lever on his HK 9mm automatic weapon from semiautomatic to fully automatic.
“What’s that?”
“Jara? That’s how you say ‘Oh, shit’ in Arabic. What did you see up there, Stoke?”
“Tangos. Chinese mercenaries, looked like. And there’s a man down on the floor. Couldn’t tell who it was.”
“How many tangos?”
“Four.”
“Did they see you?”
“What do you think?”
“Let’s go get the sultan and his harem and get the hell out of here.”
Stoke and Hawke went through the door at the top of the steps high and low. The flash-bang Stoke tossed into the room took the Chinese mercs by surprise. Stoke dispatched them quickly with his Sig Sauer nine. The gun had a hush puppy attached to the muzzle. Pfft-pfft. Four whispers, head shots, and the four men crumpled. Hawke raced to the body Stoke had seen lying near the door, muttering a silent oath as he saw the man’s face.
It was Charlie Rainwater.
“Aw, shit,” Stoke said. “Is he dead?”
He wasn’t dead, but that was the only good news. He’d been stabbed repeatedly, and there was a particularly severe wound under his left earlobe. His chest was rising rapidly, thin, shallow breaths. Hawke got his hands under the big man, dropping to one knee for leverage, and squat-lifted him up, getting him onto his shoulder.
“Do a quick recon,” he told Stoke. “Then rendezvous with Fitz. I’ve got to get the Chief here back to the boat. Maybe Ali can stitch him up. Pump some morphine and ease his exit, if that’s how it goes.”
With the big man levered onto his shoulders, the last thing Hawke needed was somebody shooting at him. But that’s what happened as soon as he emerged from the main gate and turned left for the docks. Twin .50 cals from the sound of them, up on the south tower. Their fire was concentrated on the Obaidallah. Nobody on the old boat was shooting back, which was bad. It meant he was taking Rainwater out of the frying pan and directly into the fire. It was the damn spotlights up on the tower. If somebody could just—
Somebody did. He heard a succession of three loud pops and the docks were plunged again into darkness. He saw the silhouette of a man standing on the wheelhouse roof with an RPG tube and the trail of white smoke streaking toward the tower. The chattering .50s fell silent a beat before they disintegrated. The remaining north tower wasn’t a problem for now: still no clear line of fire at the docks.
But it would certainly be a problem later when Bruce came racing out of the tunnel on the surface towing a train of helpless women and children. In open water, with no cover, the big fifties on the tower would chew them up alive. Hawke saw that Rainwater had set his charges at the north tower base and jammed an iron rod into the door, sealing it. The men manning the tower were trapped inside.
Hawke bent down, balancing Rainwater on his shoulders, and found one of Charlie’s condom-covered igniters.
He was almost to the boat when the second tower blew. The explosion lit up the sky and helped him see where he was going. He ran into Fitz and his men who had scrambled off the boat and were headed to the rendezvous.
“Holy Jesus,” Fitz said, seeing Rainwater’s condition. Two of his men took the injured man from Hawke, got him into a makeshift fireman’s sling, and headed back to the boat. Captain Ali had already rigged an emergency sickbay on the table down in the saloon. He had iodine, gauze, needles, and morphine. As captain of an offshore trawler, he knew how to sew well enough, long as you weren’t too particular about scars.
“Somebody got him with a knife from behind, Fitz,” Hawke said. Fitz McCoy watched his old friend and partner get carried inside the wheelhouse. His face was clouded with sorrow and anger in the light of the flames from the tower.
“Which means it was someone Chief knew. Rainwater would never let anybody else get that close. Where’d you find him?”
“Inside the storehouse. Four dead tangos, too, but they didn’t do it. No knives on them.”
“Did you see Ahmed? Brock?”
“Negative.”
“It’s one of them did this,” Fitz said, “Maybe both.”
“Let’s go find out.”
The interior courtyard was strangely silent, considering the recent havoc that had taken place here. Fitz signaled a halt just inside the main gate. To the right, a large mosquelike structure with darkened windows. To the left, the old storehouse where Hawke had found Rainwater and left Stokely. Straight ahead, about five hundred yards away, was the fort’s central structure. Rommel’s former headquarters was a massive stone blockhouse, a squat four stories high, and looked to have been built in the nineteenth century. There were period battlements on the roof, a defensive parapet with indentations on all four sides. It looked completely impregnable.
“Holy Jesus,” Froggy said, looking at the thing, “When I packed my bombs I forgot to bring my bunker-busters.”
Fitz whispered, “You’d need a fooking nuke to take that big bastard out.”
“Sorry. Forgot my nukes, too,” Froggy said.
There was a cricket-rattle of safeties being flicked off and the clacking of Kevlar armor in the dark. A giant black apparition was sprinting toward them through the shadows, hugging the wall, coming from the direction of the mosque. Hawke had asked the man to do a quick recon.
“Easy,” Hawke said, “it’s Stokely.”
“Rainwater?” Stoke asked. “How’s he doing?”
“Not good,” Hawke said. “Ali’s doing all he can for him in sickbay. How’s it look out there, Stoke?”
“They want us to waltz right inside, looks like to me,” Stoke said. “Side door to that building is wide open. No guards inside. Nobody standing guard behind that bulwark either, that I could see. You can’t see ’em now, but there are snipers up on that roof.”
“What’s inside the mosque?” Hawke asked.
“It looks like a mosque, but it ain’t anymore. Some kind of dormitory. I heard lots of women. Crying and wailing and shit. Kids crying in there, too, boss, a whole lot more of them than we got room for in the inflatables.”
“We’ll think of something. No guards?”
“Not outside that I could see. All inside with the women and children.”
“So first we take down the main building,” Fitz said. “That’s where we’ll find the sultan.”
“Right. Let’s split up,” Hawke said. “I’ll take Froggy and his squad to the right. You and Stoke take the remaining men around the left side. We’ll rendezvous at the bulwark, up the front steps, and go in shooting. Move!”
“Shuck and jive, mon ami!�
� Froggy said, happy the thing was finally going down.
The two teams took off, hugging the walls at the opposite edges of the courtyard, moving at a half run through moonlight and shadow. When they rejoined under the overhang of the bulwark that stood before the wide stone stairs, weapons were flicked to full auto. Just as they prepared to mount the steps, Hawke suddenly showed the raised flat of his hand.
He whispered, “Nobody move.”
The heavy wooden doors had cracked open a few feet. Light spilled out from inside, silhouetting a lone man. He stepped outside and paused at the top of the steps. He was a tall, elegant fellow, wearing a white linen suit and smoking a cigarette in a slim ebony holder. At his neck, a navy bow-tie. He was Chinese, with a distinctly military bearing, but he dressed in the English fashion. The fact that ten automatic weapons were suddenly aimed at his heart seemed not to bother him in the slightest.
When he spoke, his English was flawless. “Good evening, gentlemen. I’ve been expecting you. Is Alex Hawke there among you? Sorry, everyone looks the same in body armor.”
“Who the bloody hell are you, man?” Hawke barked.
“Quite right. I haven’t introduced myself. I am Major Tony Tang of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. I am currently here as an advisor to the French commander of this garrison.”
“Advisor, my royal butt,” Alex said, taking a step forward and removing his helmet and balaclava. “I’m Alex Hawke.”
“Lord Hawke,” the major said with a slight bow, “The pirate himself. I’m so glad you made it. I was hoping we’d have a chance to chat before you were killed. Won’t you come inside? I’ve alerted the sultan that you’re here.”
“He’s still alive?”
Hawke instantly regretted this show of hope that the hostage had not already been shot or otherwise murdered. This was no time to display weakness or anxiety.