The net effect was to portray a nation on the brink, although Jet was skeptical of the media’s agenda. Sensationalistic reporting spiked ratings far better than the truth, and she had no doubt that the spin was contrived for maximum effect.
Response from the rest of the world was more balanced, although condemnation was immediate, as were expressions of solidarity with the U.S. and Israel. Interesting to Jet was the Israeli response, which was almost a non-response, in keeping with its policy of broadcasting little about its strategy. The fact was that nothing had happened other than a group of crazies making wild threats, which didn’t justify commentary. Throughout its history there had always been accusations and threats – this was nothing new. The country was surrounded by countless groups that wanted to wipe it from the planet. Commenting every time one of them issued a press release would be a full time job. Jet wondered why the Americans were so different. Perhaps because they had been insulated from physical danger for generations, other than the difficult-to-internalize threat of the Cold War. Whereas she had grown up with rocket attacks and suicide bombers and hate as daily occurrences, the Americans had enjoyed the distance that only geographical insulation could provide.
She shook her head as she read and watched. So much of the world was out of control with danger and violence. Peace and safety were the exception rather than the rule. It was no surprise that eventually some of the violence would be exported to America. The planet was shrinking seemingly every day, and the barriers to contagion, whether from the flu or the disease of war, were now minimal.
Alan was right about one thing: this was rapidly spinning in an ugly direction, and the terrorists couldn’t be allowed to pull off their threat. She just hoped that they would get lucky before it was too late. The stakes had never been higher, and there was no room for failure.
Chapter 28
Dust blew down the streets of Sa’dah in northern Yemen, the perennial blanket of arid soil adding to the misery of the inhabitants, which was already considerable given the state of tribal war in which the region had been embroiled for years and the constant battling of various rebel forces vying for supremacy over the mountainous area. A sour smell wafted on the breeze, a combination of sewage, garbage, and unwashed bodies. Sa’dah, the capital of the state, was as war-torn as most of the beleaguered country, and had seen periodic skirmishes between government forces and Houthi rebels, who now effectively controlled the town of fifty thousand. A pawn in a deadly territorial chess match, it existed in an uneasy state of peace – until the next attack came unannounced.
Iran had long been alleged to have been the primary support mechanism for the rebels, a charge lent credibility by the presence of the Iranian navy in the Gulf of Aden, ostensibly to battle Somali pirates but largely believed to be active in arms trafficking to the Houthis. Hezbollah, a terrorist organization also widely understood to be supported by the Iranian regime, was rumored to have supplied personnel to train the rebels in coastal regions, and a week didn’t go by when accusations of covert arms drops by Iranian naval forces in the Red Sea along Houthi-controlled coast didn’t surface anew.
An uneasy breeze chilled the few residents trudging along the dirt roads outside the city center as an occasional vehicle rolled by, often filled with gunmen staffing the security checkpoints set up by the rebels on the main roads in and out of town. A mangy dog trailed by four thin puppies, starving from neglect, nosed through piles of garbage near the entries of the clay-colored homes in search of sustenance, the canine family’s survival dependent upon foraging in one of the most desolate and impoverished wastelands on the continent.
Jet and Alan had now spent almost five days in Yemen, beginning in Sana’a and ultimately leading them into the deadly northern states, following up on information gathered by the Mossad’s network of informants. Rumors abounded at all times, and the intelligence was considered to be highly unreliable, but yesterday they had gotten a lead on a house on the outskirts of Sa’dah that was purported to be the Righteous Light’s provisional headquarters. Neither of them had much hope that the intel was sound, but they didn’t have any other leads to follow, so they had packed into an SUV accompanied by Umar, a local driver and longtime Mossad asset, and worked their way north, their covers as journalists writing a pro-rebel exposé hopefully ensuring that they wouldn’t be killed out of hand.
Once they arrived in the dismal mountain city they waited until it was dark, and then they retrieved the stash of weapons they had secured in a compartment under the cargo hold and took up position near the walled compound. Unfortunately there were no nearby structures they could use as surveillance positions, so they were largely blind – and in a small community like Sa’dah, anyone nosing around to find a vacant dwelling would trigger alarms. Northern Yemen was among the least desirable places on earth to live, and there was exactly zero demand for real estate – not surprising given the sporadic outbursts of violence by armed factions that were endemic to the area.
Jet wore the traditional abaya, niqab, and hijab – the black full-body robe, veil, and headdress favored by Yemeni women – and the shapeless folds easily enabled her to hide an MTAR-21 assault rifle with a silencer in its depths. Their plan, such as it was, amounted to watching the home from a distance, with an occasional pass by Jet in her native garb should they see anything suspicious.
When they drove down the dusty road that ran in front of the compound, they spotted two armed men, each sitting on the roofs of the adjacent houses with weapons. In northern Yemen, possession of an assault rifle didn’t in and of itself mean anything, but armed sentries deployed around a suspected terrorist hub did. Jet and Alan exchanged glances as they continued on their way in the dark.
“Interesting. Don’t see any other nearby homes with guards on the roof, do you?” she asked.
“Nope. Looks like there might be something to this,” he confirmed.
“So what do you want to do?”
“I’d say wait and see what happens.”
“How do you want to play this? It’s not like we can get easy line-of-sight.”
“Let’s return on foot and find someplace where we can spend the night with the house in view. If nothing happens by first light, we can come up with a new plan,” he said.
She looked at him.
“Not really very elegant, is it?”
He nodded, conceding the point. “You got something better?” he asked, afraid of her answer.
“Well...”
~ ~ ~
A tapestry of stars glimmered overhead in the clear night, the slim crescent moon’s soft glow providing scant illumination as the hour crept towards dawn. An hour before daybreak, a dilapidated brown sedan pulled down the dusty track and rolled to a stop a few yards from the house perimeter wall. Two men got out and approached the front entry, and when the door opened Jet could see with her night-vision goggles that the man inside held an assault rifle.
With a quick glance at the street, the man beckoned the new arrivals inside, and once they had entered, scanned the area again before closing the door.
“I don’t think we’re going to have much more time unless we want to come back tomorrow night and hope that the bad guy brigade is holding an all-hands meeting. I say we hit it now.” Jet was still peering through the goggles from their position in the SUV three blocks away, magnification set on ten.
Alan was torn. If this was in fact the terrorists’ base and the leader wasn’t there, they would have lost their only chance to catch him. He said as much, and Jet shook her head, the goggles waggling as she did so. Umar sat impassively in the driver’s seat, watching the compound.
“That assumes that he’s not in there right now, and further assumes that he would be coming back. For all we know he’s a thousand miles away right now. Hell, he could be disembarking in Moscow from a private jet, on his way to get the bio-weapon, as we speak. Face it, Alan, this isn’t going to get any better, and it’s a crappy situation, but it’s the one we have,
so we need to make the best of it. I think it’s now or never.”
“I hate to just rush into a situation we know nothing about,” he objected.
“Me too. You know me. I’m all about planning. Only sometimes the situation is fluid and you don’t get the luxury.”
He considered their options and then nodded.
“Fine. Here’s what we’re going to do.”
~ ~ ~
The two armed sentries watched the woman approach, wearing the traditional head-to-toe black of the devout, carrying a sack bulging with goods of some sort. When she was fifty yards away, she lost her grip on it and the bag hit the dirt with a thump, miscellaneous odds and ends spilling out. She hastily stooped down to gather her things, fumbling with the scattered contents, and when she stood the nearest could see that she hadn’t been able to get everything.
The silenced and flash-suppressed MTAR-21 burped three shots and the first guard’s head disintegrated. The second was grappling with his weapon when a tiny red dot appeared on his neck and another silenced volley sizzled from the opposite end of the street, cutting him nearly in two.
Jet waited in the road, senses tingling, ears straining for the slightest sound, but the area was quiet again, empty except for her and Alan, whose muffled footsteps thumped towards her as he jogged from his hidden position.
The bag of garbage had distracted the sentries just long enough for Jet and Alan to gain a slim advantage, but from here out they couldn’t depend on anything being easy. Alan moved down the side perimeter wall until he was near the entrance, and then Jet removed her veil and robe and placed them carefully to the side of the entry before slipping her MTAR’s strap over her shoulder.
“Ready?” she whispered, the ear bud picking up her question.
“Go,” Alan responded.
She sprinted for the twelve-foot high wall and ran sideways up its face for a few yards, her right foot finding a joint where a structural beam ended, and used the cranny to propel herself to the top, her hands reaching overhead for a hold. She grappled till her fingers found a grip and pulled herself over, landing on the inside in a crouch. She whipped the MTAR back around into firing position and swept the area, ready to shoot. A two-story dwelling occupied the far end of the courtyard and she could see lights on in two of the windows.
Jet moved to the door next to the gate and hissed into her ear bud. “Opening the door.”
She leaned against the bolt and slid it free, and Alan slipped in, his MTAR also ready for action, its futuristic form hinting at its deadliness.
Jet pointed at the house and motioned to the front door, then pointed at him and gestured to the rear of the two-story structure. Squinting in the gloom, she hesitated and then edged next to him.
“I’m going to try the second story first. If I can get in, they’ll never expect it. Stand by for my signal by the front.”
Before Alan had a chance to respond she was off, tearing for the house at flat-out speed. She threw herself at the wall near the side, repeating her sideways run, and pushed off, twisting in mid-air, and clutched at the second-story stone window sill. Alan watched as she seemed to defy gravity, swinging her torso ever up, and then pushed open a window and slid through in as much time as it took for him to make it to the front door.
Jet took in her surroundings in a heartbeat: an empty bedroom with a cool tile floor, door closed, a travel bag with an assortment of robes on a chair near the bed. From downstairs, the murmur of male voices drifted upwards, audible even through the heavy wooden slab.
“I’m in. Room’s empty. You want to try to get in this way, or go around the back and look for a way in?” she breathed into her ear bud.
“Round back,” Alan replied curtly.
She stepped to the door and brought the MTAR around into firing position, one hand on the grip and trigger, the other reaching for the door latch. Carefully, she twisted the lever, and then hesitated – the hinges were ancient, and there was a fifty-fifty chance that they’d creak when she opened it.
Jet took two deep breaths, the oxygen thin at their altitude of over six thousand feet, and then pulled it open a crack; then after a few seconds, another few inches. The hinges protested, but not loudly, and she hoped that the men downstairs were so engrossed in their discussion they wouldn’t notice. They were directly below her, the second story consisting of three bedrooms and a landing with a concrete and mortar half-wall running its length, the area over the living room and dining room open, creating an atrium effect.
The bedroom door at the far end of the hall opened and a man exited, yawning and scratching himself. His eyes were widening in disbelief and he was preparing to yell when a razor-sharp steel blade flashed through the air and lodged in his throat, his mouth still open and working spasmodically like a landed carp; a gush of blood poured from his lips as his knees buckled. She darted to him, catching him as he fell forward, and his eyes glazed over as she laid him gently down for his final rest.
She waited for a few seconds as he lost consciousness and then a leg jerked, scraping the tiles beneath his feet. A voice called from below.
“Amir? Hurry up. We need to get going soon.”
She heard a muffled comment and then some laughter.
She stood and considered her options, and then another call for the dead man decided for her.
“Amir? What’s going on up there?”
~ ~ ~
Three men sat at a crudely built round wooden table, sipping tea and chewing qat, their guns by their sides leaning against the walls or the fourth empty chair. One of the men, Hamid, the second-in-command, glanced at the stairs again, annoyed with his companion for running late.
“Ami–”
His cry was interrupted by a body falling from the upper floor, the table exploding with a crash as Amir’s inert form slammed into it. The men toppled backwards in their chairs in surprised fright as they scrambled for their weapons.
The man closest to the rustic kitchen reached his AK-47 first and was bringing the barrel up when the red dot found his forehead and the deadly MTAR spat forth its lethal load. Brain and part of his skull splattered the wall behind him and his partner screamed in horror as he clutched for his rifle. Another burst of slugs tore through the second man’s torso, shredding his robe as he jerked like a macabre puppet before falling to the floor. Hamid had his hands on his weapon when another figure plunged from above, the dead man’s sprawled body cushioning the drop, and then a woman dressed all in black was facing him, the wicked snout of her weapon pointing squarely at his chest.
“Don’t. It’s over. Let go of the rifle. NOW!” she screamed in Arabic, raising her gun for emphasis. “Drop it or you’re dead.”
She saw it in his eyes, the split-second calculation, the sidelong jitter, and then the image seemed to slow to a crawl as he scowled, dropping to one knee as he wrenched the Kalashnikov from its resting position against the wall and tried to cock it in preparation to fire. Jet stepped forward and slammed him in the side of the head with her weapon and his neck snapped back, the rifle clattering uselessly at his feet as he went down hard, his head hitting the stone floor with a sickening smack. A pool of blood began spreading behind his skull as if in slow motion, and then time resumed its normal pace – the sudden violence finished, everyone lying still, Jet the only remaining body in motion.
Her ear bud crackled.
“What’s going on in there?” Alan demanded in a hoarse whisper.
“It’s over. One’s still alive, but I don’t know for how long. I’ll get the door for you,” she said in her normal speaking voice, and she thought she saw a flicker in the surviving terrorist’s eyes as he heard her speaking Hebrew.
“That’s right, you spineless dog. Looks like you aren’t so tough when your targets have a gun in their hands, huh?” she spat at him, then took four long strides to the front door and threw it open.
Alan stepped in, gun at the ready, and when she shook her head, lowered it as they approached Hamid�
��s collapsed form.
The blood beneath Hamid’s head had expanded to a puddle four feet in circumference. Alan looked down at him without pity, and their eyes locked, hatred radiating from the terrorist’s with startling intensity.
“Where is Saif al-Diin? The game’s over,” Alan snarled.
Hamid glared at him, unable to move.
Jet shouldered her weapon and moved towards him, then reached below his head to raise it so she could staunch the blood flow, but then withdrew her bloody hands when she felt the soft back of his skull. She glanced at Alan and shook her head almost imperceptibly.
“You have failed. Where is he? Where is the bio-agent?” Alan demanded, then pulled his commando knife out of his pocket and flipped it open.
“I...have failed? It is you who have failed. Soon your filthy country will be begging for mercy along with the Americans,” Hamid hissed.
“Lies. You’ve lost. It’s just a matter of time before we eliminate your great leader like the fecal speck he is,” Jet spat, rising to her feet, walking to one of the dead men, and wiping her hands clean on his robe.
“Ha. In just a few days you will feel the wrath of the righteous. And then it is you who will learn what hell really is. Your people will cry as their flesh falls from their bones. I have nothing to fear, and am going to my reward. But you will watch as your world collapses around you...” Hamid warned, his energy waning at the end.
“One final time. Where is he? If you don’t tell me, I’ll ensure your last minutes on the planet are your worst. You will die like a dog, but not before begging for mercy,” Alan said, and then waved the knife close to the terrorist’s right eye. “Do you want to go to your virgins in the afterlife blind and disfigured? I can arrange it.”
Jet 03: Vengeance Page 18