His anger had still been hot when Riley had shown back up at the command center truck. Now he wished he could have that time back. Riley had hugged him, but he had barely returned the embrace. Instead, he had quickly released him and turned back to the plans laid out on the table. Riley and Skeeter had stepped to a corner of the truck and had a long, low conversation. Scott watched out of the corner of his eye as Riley handed something to Skeeter, embraced him, then walked out of the truck.
Now he was determined to get his friend out of there, even if it was just so he could apologize for being such a jerk.
“Remember, Riley’s counting on us. No retreat and no excuses,” Scott challenged his team.
SOG Bravo was one of four eight-man ops teams preparing for the rescue attempt. SOG Alpha was deploying behind the low stone wall on the north side of the church. Charlie team, an MPDC SWAT group, had dropped themselves down behind the southern side. The final team, Delta, would be following three minutes behind Bravo. Although Delta—SEALs on loan from Little Creek, Virginia—were primarily trained in amphibious operations, their skills in counterterrorism and unconventional warfare were deemed to be a huge asset to the operation. It was a comfort to Scott knowing they had his back.
“I wish we had audio,” Li said as Riley began yelling.
“Ooooh,” echoed through the van as Riley went down from a gun butt to the back.
“Tara, get ready to scramble the cell coverage on go. I don’t want any calls from interested onlookers making it into that building. Carlos, Gilly, get on the doors,” Scott said. Come on, buddy, what are you going to do? It’s not enough yet. It’s not enough. . . .
Riley launched himself and drove his attacker back into a pillar.
“Go! Go! Go!” Scott yelled.
The rear van doors flew open, and the eight men sprinted low up the grass on the south side of the cathedral. Just twenty yards ahead lay the crypt-level windows that were their destination. Scott ran with everything he had, launching in the air the last few feet and stopping himself with his back flat against the wall. From here on, the survival of everyone in that church depended on the speed and invisibility of Bravo team . . . and on the HERF.
Word was that the HERF was still five minutes out. That was five minutes no one had to spare. If the HERF was late, Riley was a dead man. And if the HERF didn’t live up to its billing, they were all going with him.
The glass on the four-foot-square windows was old, which meant thick and one-paned. As Scott watched impatiently, his team paired up at three separate recesses. The men pulled the backing off of a strong adhesive that had been stretched across pre-sized heavy metal plates. Affixed to each plate were four handles and one thick, round piece of felt.
Two of the sheets were secured in just under a minute. However, Kasay and Guitiérrez were still working on theirs.
“What are you doing?” Scott yelled, more as a chastisement than an actual question.
“It’s not going in. We’re just a fraction of an inch off,” Kasay said.
“Logan,” Scott ordered.
Logan slid over. He tried the metal plate. “Not gonna work. Either the window’s cut smaller or the plate’s cut bigger.”
“Let’s go with two, then,” Scott said. “Skeet!”
Skeeter stepped up with a small battering ram. One hard hit onto the felt muffler and the metal plate fell inward with the glass attached. The team members used the handles to keep them from dropping to the ground below.
As the team slipped one by one through the windows, Tara said to Scott, “Get in there, Bravo. They’ve started beating him.”
Don’t think about it! Just keep moving! Scott thought as he tried to put out of his mind what was happening to his best friend. He squeezed himself through the opening, landing his rubber-soled boots quietly on the tile floor below.
“ETA for HERF?” he whispered.
“They’re still saying five minutes,” Tara replied.
They said that five minutes ago! Come on, people!
They had dropped into a vast corridor. Quite a few rooms and alcoves branched off; Scott tried to identify them to get his bearings—Resurrection Chapel, Chapel of St. Joseph of Arimathea, Center for Prayer and Pilgrimage. Taking point, his silenced Bushmaster ACR leading the way, Scott moved forward slowly until he found what he was looking for—the Good Shepherd Chapel and, next to it, the pathway up.
Silently, they took up positions on either side of the opening. The stairway itself was a beautiful work of art, filled with arches and angles. Unfortunately, the design left them little visibility beyond two short landings.
“Bravo in position. Delta clear.”
“Delta, roger,” came the reply. Scott knew they should be seeing the members of that team in about a minute’s time.
“Scott . . . Scott, it’s bad,” Tara said, her voice strained with tears. “They’re . . . Stop it, already! Oh, Riley . . .”
“Just give me the facts, Tara! I can’t handle anything else! Where is he?” Scott asked.
“Still at the back of the nave. Wait, they’re lifting him. . . . They’re dragging him.”
“Where’re they taking him?” Scott asked, knowing the answer even as he asked the question.
After a long pause, Tara said, “To Wilson Bay, Scott. They took Riley to Wilson Bay.”
Friday, September 16, 1:38 p.m. EDT
Hands went under Riley’s armpits, hefting him up. Riley tried to make himself walk so that he wouldn’t just be dragged, but nothing was working like it was supposed to. With every click the toes of his boots made over the tiles, pain rocketed up his legs.
From somewhere off to his left, a voice shouted out, “Hang in there, Riley!”
“Shut up,” commanded another voice.
“Stay strong, Riley,” called a third.
“Shut up, I said!”
“We love you, Riley!”
“Jesus is with you!”
“Shut up!”
“Hang on, man!”
“God’s got you in His hands, Riley!”
“Don’t let them break you!”
“God bless you, Riley!”
“Shut up! I said, shut up!”
The calls continued as Riley was carried through an archway into a small room he recognized from the videos. Wilson Bay. This is it. Better hurry, Scott.
Riley was flopped down onto a tarp. He looked up to see a camera at the ready.
Hands grabbed him again, and he was leaned in a sitting position against Woodrow Wilson’s tomb. Every part of his body was screaming at him, and the weight resting on his battered hips was almost more than he could take.
Saifullah sat on a stone bench across from him. “So, Riley Covington, any regrets yet?”
Riley slowly shook his head. “No regrets,” he said in a voice that sounded like he had been tucked away for the last two days in a seedy bar on a weekend bender.
Saifullah leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “I must admit, you have me baffled. Your reputation is that of a Mr. Perfect—one of those holier-than-thou Christians—but yet you hurl the most offensive of insults at my warriors.”
“Told you . . . don’t like being touched.”
Saifullah smiled. “Also, you are a marvelous football player, but you throw your career away over foolishness.”
“That is a long story. . . .” Drag it out. Keep him talking. Hurry, Scott! “Ever hear of Rick Bellefeuille?”
“And to top it all, in your last act of irrational contradiction, you, a Christian, trade your life for a Muslim—and a woman, no less.”
Riley tried and failed to smile again. “That’s seriously . . . one of those you-had-to-be-there stories.”
Saifullah shook his head. “Even now, at death’s door, you are making jokes. It makes no sense.”
Riley could feel his strength fading and his mind starting to clutter. Keep it together. Finish strong. “Not to you. . . . To me? Perfect sense. . . . It’s hope, man. Right here.” He nod
ded toward his chest. “My body? You can have it. . . . My life? Oh, well. . . . My hope? Sorry, bub. Off-limits.”
“Two minutes,” said Alavi, who looked down at Riley with intense hatred. Riley noticed that he was now the one with the long blade in his belt.
“Well, Riley, I’m afraid your end is at hand,” Saifullah said, standing up.
“Old man . . . one more thing. . . . I forgive you.” The imam stared at Riley a moment, then turned away.
Looking up at Alavi, Riley said, “I even forgive you.”
Alavi responded by bringing his hand across Riley’s face, knocking him back to the tiles. Then he began kicking him, one blow after another to his head, his ribs, his gut. Riley wouldn’t have believed he could feel more pain, but with each strike, waves of agony like he had never felt before ripped through his already-battered body.
Oh, Jesus, give me strength! You’ve been here. How did You keep loving? How did You keep forgiving? Help me, Jesus! Help me to die well!
When the cameraman called thirty seconds to air, Alavi stopped. The pain, however, didn’t. It was everything Riley could do to suck in a breath of air. He knew at least one of his lungs was punctured, and there must be bones broken throughout his face.
Saifullah took his place in front of the camera. Alavi took a handful of Riley’s hair and lifted him up to his knees. The cameraman counted down.
Friday, September 16, 1:38 p.m. EDT
“From your time with them, did you get any impressions of their ultimate purpose? Are they really going to release the hostages at the end of Ramadan?”
Khadi shook her head and said bitterly, “No one’s getting out of there alive, unless we do something about it. I can guarantee you. They’ll string us along, then blow the place at the end. All I can say is this rescue better work.”
She stood wearily in the command truck. Skeeter had dropped her off here, given her arm a squeeze, then disappeared. She had been quickly whisked inside, where Stanley Porter had been waiting.
He wrapped her up in his arms—gently, but still hard enough to make her wince.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she lied. “Tell me about Riley.”
“He’s in God’s hands now, Khadi. Scott’s getting his teams in place. We need to pray they get there in time.”
Khadi felt her knees buckle. Porter caught her before she could drop.
“Get her something to sit on,” he commanded.
Someone pulled out a stool and set it down.
“Move it to the back.”
Porter helped Khadi to the stool and eased her down. The trailer spun for a few moments before her equilibrium returned.
Suddenly she shook Porter’s hands off her arms.
“Why’d you let him do it?” Khadi demanded, her anger flaring.
“We didn’t have a choice, Khadi. He pulled a gun on us, got on the phone with Saifullah, and taunted him into accepting a trade—him for you.”
That news shook her. She had thought this had been a CTD plan.
“Why’d he do it, Stanley? It’s crazy! It’s a suicide mission!”
Porter squatted down and put his hand on her hand. “We both know why he did it. And that’s why we agreed. There’s no way we could have stopped him. If we had shut down this way in to you, he would have just found another.”
“But . . . but . . .” she sputtered, trying to find another argument. Trouble was, she knew he was right. Tears welled up in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Stanley.”
Porter waved her apology off. “Listen, Khadi, I’ve got a couple people here who’re going to give you the postincident grilling—you know the drill. Obviously, it’s the absolute wrong time to do it, but I need everything you know. If there’s anything that can help us . . .”
“Of course. Just . . . keep me updated on Riley, okay?”
“You got it,” Porter said, giving her a fatherly stroke of her head.
The questioning came from two CTD agents she had seen before but whose names she couldn’t remember even after they reintroduced themselves. She tried to concentrate on giving thorough answers but had a hard time focusing. Every noise, every exclamation from the front of the trailer where the monitors sat drew her attention away.
“Why do you say they’re going to blow the cathedral up?” asked the younger of the two agents.
“That’s who they are. They’re not out for any cause. They’re just a bunch of murdering—”
“The Internet feed is up,” a voice called from the front of the truck.
Khadi leaped up from the stool and ran to the crowd that had quickly gathered.
“Move,” she said. And seeing who it was, the group parted.
As soon as she saw the monitor, she regretted it. The sight of Riley took her breath away. His face looked like a bad makeup job at a high school haunted house. It was so bloody and swollen that she had to strain to recognize any of his features. A random flash of hope told her that maybe it wasn’t him, but she knew the truth. She knew.
A couple of unidentified hands placed themselves on her bruised shoulders, but she barely noticed. She began to feel dizzy and realized she had forgotten to breathe. Slowly, she inhaled.
Oh, Riley, why did you do it? I’m not worth it—I’m not worth this! Why would you sacrifice yourself for me?
Then a phrase Riley used to say to her dredged up from the depths of her memory. “Greater love has no man than to lay down his life for a friend,” he’d say with a big smile—a smile she couldn’t imagine fitting into the jigsaw-puzzle face now before her eyes. Then often he’d follow up with “And then Jesus went out and proved His love by doing just that—dying for us.”
And now here you are . . . dying . . .
Saifullah was saying something, but Khadi wasn’t paying attention. Tears poured down her cheeks as the sorrow and guilt she felt for Riley blended with rage toward Saifullah and Alavi.
Please, Scott, get there in time. Please, Scott . . . Please, Scott . . . Please, God . . . Please, God . . . Please, God . . .
Friday, September 16, 1:38 p.m. EDT
Scott felt the SEALs before he actually saw them—a push of the air, a hand on his shoulder. Turning, he saw their team leader, Schneeberger—no first name offered. Seconds later, Matt Logan appeared at Scott’s shoulder.
Looking at the SEAL who had taken a place next to him and at Logan, Schneeberger said softly, “You saw them setting it up on the video, so no possibility of mistakes. Get yourselves orientated before you disable the device. You don’t want hajji showing up behind you. Get it done, and get back fast.”
Logan and the SEAL, both demolitions experts, nodded and began creeping up the stairs. Kim Li followed Logan, while another SEAL tailed his partner.
Scott nodded at Schneeberger. While still in charge of the operation, Scott had no problem delegating elements to those with more skill or experience. The reputation of this Schneeberger guy was that he was one seriously bad dude who had led combat missions in parts of the world that most people had never even heard of. It’s safe to assume he knows his stuff. Although I wonder if I should let him know that orientated is not a real word.
He glanced at his watch and shifted nervously. What’s taking that HERF so long?
“Tara, sitrep on Riley,” he whispered.
“Don’t know. He’s out of sight. HERF just arrived. Should be online in minutes.”
Schneeberger, who was on the same com line, gave Scott an encouraging thumbs-up.
Come on, Logan! Get that wire disabled. Although the trap that had been laid at the top of the stairs was much more elaborate than a simple trip wire, that’s still how Scott conceptualized it. He was no munitions expert. That’s what I keep Logan around for—that and the fact he makes killer guac.
Two clicks on his earpiece signaled that Logan and the SEAL had completed their mission. Scott gave a sigh of relief. Moments later, the four men reappeared. Scott fist-bumped Logan and Li. The SEALs just retook their pla
ces in their squad.
“Tara, I need the HERF now,” he whispered urgently.
“Less than . . . The Internet feed just went live,” Tara said. “Saifullah’s talking. Alavi’s holding Riley—he has the knife to his neck. Oh, Scott, how is he even conscious—it doesn’t even look like him!”
Scott balled his hands into fists and fought back the rage. I’m so close! I can’t let this happen! I should never have let him go in!
Tara continued to narrate the action on the screen, but Scott wasn’t listening. Please, God, I may not be one of Your church people, but Riley is! Do something! Save him!
Tara’s voice cut through his prayer. Three words—all he needed to hear: “HERF is online!”
“Fire it! All teams go, go, go!”
Friday, September 16, 1:43 p.m. EDT
It didn’t feel like the knife had cut the skin yet, but the constant pressure of the heavy blade on Riley’s Adam’s apple was causing his gag reflex to want to kick in. He did his best to swallow down the physical irritant, knowing that any sudden movements could lead to more permanent damage.
Saifullah stood in front of him, his long robe reaching the tarp below. Help me not to hate this man, Lord. I don’t want to leave this world with hate in my heart.
“Men and women of America,” Saifullah said with a self-righteous blend of smugness and pomposity, “today it is with great solemnity that I visit justice upon a war criminal of the first order. Allah, in his great beneficence and mercy, has granted a second chance to the betrayer of the faith, Khadi Faroughi. My sincerest hope is that she will use this undeserved blessing to mend the error of her ways and follow the righteous path back to the true submission.”
In the midst of the agonizing pain, Riley couldn’t help but smile in his heart. Khadi—safe. That’s all I needed to hear. Thank You, Lord, for rescuing her from this fate. You are so good.
“But where Allah in his wisdom released a minnow, he has used her as bait in order to capture a shark—Riley Covington.”
Inside Threat Page 28