“Viper Four Seven, Ranger Two Six; we have the other aircraft on scope and the two F/A 18s engaging at this time. I think you are home free now. Good luck, Special Unit One, or is it Big Apple? I can never remember all your call signs.”
“Thanks, Two Six. You can call me anything you want as long as you keep showing up when we need you,” Duncan replied.
“Roger. Tell Congress the next time you’re on the Hill. The mission commander from Ranger Two Niner sends his compliments and as soon as they let him out of the hospital, he expects to be back in the saddle.”
“My best to the Ranger Two Niner crew. We owe them.” The good news about the crash of Ranger Two Niner was that the cockpit crew had kept the damaged aircraft airborne long enough for everyone but them to bail out.
According to the news reports, the pilot even landed the aircraft, but the damage was so severe, it blew up as it stopped at the end of the runway, killing the three in the cockpit.
“James One, we will stay with you until Algiers, and then after we refuel, its back to recover our fellow Marines,” Viper Four Seven interrupted, referring to the two dead pilots in the Cobra the rebels shot down.
Duncan eased himself down gradually, resting his back against the cab.
Once his butt touched the bed of the truck, he straightened his leg and rubbed his right knee lightly, feeling the swelling. His thoughts turned to Reston, his wife, and a dead dog he forgot to bury. Maybe he was better off in Algeria. Bud and HJ were exchanging friendly barbs with each other about beer cans, women, blonds, bubbas, and hairy armpits. It seemed to Duncan that HJ was just going through the motions of the verbal duel. He missed most of the comments but nodded in recognition that the two had developed a close bond, hopefully, the kind of bond warriors need in battle. Ground combat was different from war at sea.
At sea, you had little choice. You fought because you were restricted to a ship engaged in combat. On the ground, it was a different story. You could always run, and running was a gut reaction that hit everyone who ever raised a rifle and fought. Why didn’t more run in combat? Duncan knew. Most figured it out after a decade or so of military service. You didn’t run because your comrades depended on you. You would let them down if you ran. You’d lose face with your fellow warriors, and few could live with the knowledge they ran and, by fleeing the carnage, left their friends. Amazing, Duncan thought, pulling his carbine across his lap and bracing his hand on the truck bed to steady himself as the truck continued its weaving and bouncing trek toward Algiers. You may go into combat for God, country, and family, but you stayed because of a bond between you and those fighting alongside. Sure, there were other things to help you overcome the fear: stiff, uncompromising training and your own self-expectations carried a lot of weight, but the real, primordial reason was you fought for those who fought alongside you. That was the intrinsic bond between warriors.
The truck hit a large pothole, bouncing all of them off their haunches.
Duncan went a few inches in the air and landed hard on his butt. He heard Gibbons groan beside him. “You all right?” Duncan asked.
“I’m fine, Captain,” Gibbons replied in a high voice. “But, I think the strap between my legs may be a tad too tight.”
EIGHT
Duncan sipped lukewarm coffee as colonel Bulldog Stewart briefed the situation in Algiers and the latest developments. The Marine Corps colonel had been notified while Duncan and his group were escaping along the floodwater ditch that the USS Kearsarge Amphibious Task Force would not be relieving the Marines occupying Algiers. The newly arrived Task Force had been ordered to stand ready to make best speed for the Sea of Japan off the coast of the Koreas. Duncan leaned against a metal office desk as the colonel paced back and forth. Bulldog had his orders to evacuate Algiers in the next seven days. What the hell was going on, he wanted to know, and Duncan could only shake his head and agree. The world was falling around their heads. Here they were stuck with some fifty-odd missing American hostages, a major conflict — others would call it a war — in Korea, and not enough personnel, weapons, or ammunition to resolve both crises at once. All they could hope for was to rescue the hostages and leave the North African coast to its own solution. “Let the Europeans handle it” was a favorite theme for the American newspapers, college professors, and CNN. Of course, the European news media had their own perspective, broadcasting a never-ending cycle of rhetoric about the world’s only remaining superpower abandoning Europe just as radical Islamic terrorism had reached its borders.
Duncan put his cup down. “Sounds like a mess, Bulldog.”
“It is, and it’s our mess for the time being. We’re not going to get the French and the British to help us.”
“Thanks for giving us a couple of hours’ sleep and a chance to shower.”
“That was a narrow escape you had, Duncan. But we need what information this fat Bedouin has and hope we haven’t pulled you out here on a wild-goose chase.”
Duncan shook his head. “No, if Bashir says he knows where the hostages are, then he knows. I spent a week with the man in the desert last month when we rescued President Hawaii Al neuf. He smells, his clothes are dirty, and he has a laugh like fingers down a blackboard, but the one thing he does know is information. He found a doctor in the middle of the Sahara who saved the life of one of my officers. Bashir took a large, dilapidated truck, which we expected any time to give up the ghost, and avoided rebels who were searching Algeria for Alneuf. Without him, we would never have escaped. No, I trust him.” Duncan mentally crossed his fingers.
“Glad you do, Duncan. The man has been a pain in the ass. If it hadn’t been for his claims and him knowing the names of you and your SEALs, I would have chucked him on the outskirts of Algiers and let him take his chances with the rebels.”
Duncan nodded. “I think there were times as we sought a way out of Algeria that the same idea passed through every one of us.” Duncan straightened, put his cup down, and looked at Bulldog. “Well, shall we go see my old friend?”
“The rest of your team is at the building where we have the Bedouin.”
* * *
“Ah, my old friend, Captain Duncan James,” said Bashir as Duncan appeared through the door. A bright smile spread across the huge face of the Bedouin.
Colonel Bulldog Stewart, United States Marine Corps — and damn proud of it — followed Duncan into the small room.
“I am so glad to see you and so glad you were able to come.” Bashir stood, his huge frame overshadowing the straight backed chair behind him. The familiar thobe covered the large man’s body. The thobe was the traditional Arab desert robe designed to reflect the hot sun while allowing the air to circulate within it.
“I have been kept locked up like a common bandit, waiting for you to arrive, my friend.” Bashir leaned toward Duncan and whispered, “Your country must get psychiatric help for these Devil Dogs.” He tapped his head several times, his eyes shifting between Duncan and Bulldog, who stood near the door. “There is something not quite right up here.”
The small room in which the Marines had placed Bashir had a single glazed window, and its sparseness was broken only by a small wooden table and three chairs. A cot, strengthened with boxes jammed beneath it, was arranged against the far wall. Light, rectangular spaces on the white walls revealed where, at one time, pictures had decorated the room. Duncan surmised the pleasure he showed hid the anxiety Bashir had experienced imprisoned here these past few days.
Duncan shook the two hands clasping his. “Bashir, you fat bastard,” he replied softly, a small grin breaking. “What the hell do you think you are doing not telling the colonel where they are holding our American citizens! You’re lucky the Devil Dogs managed to contain their patience this long. I think, my friend, it is a new record for them.”
Bashir’s eyes darted to the colonel and back to Duncan. “Ah, Captain, it is you I needed to see,” he confided softly, licking his lips nervously as he shook Duncan’s hand.
; “Bashir, the colonel is trustworthy. Whatever you have to say, you can say aloud. He isn’t going to shoot you. But you need to understand that we already have one dead because of you.” Duncan broke free of the clasp. “If you had told the colonel the whereabouts of the hostages, we could have saved him.”
“No, he was already dead.” Bashir pulled the long trail of his full-length, dingy thobe from over his shoulder and wiped his nose. He saw the questioning look Duncan gave him. “Oh, Captain, do not be angry with me,” he pleaded. “The American hanging from the light was dead before the rebels hung him. They do not want to kill the Americans. They only want you to leave.”
“That’s bullshit!” Bulldog erupted. “They kill innocent women and children as if they were dogs.”
Bashir jumped at Colonel Stewart’s outburst, staring at the Marine colonel’s sun-worn face. The sharp lines of the cheekbones and tight neck gave the Marine Corps officer a hard, no nonsense look. Bulldog locked eyes with Bashir and slightly narrowed them, causing Bashir’s gaze to whip back to Duncan. “Can we speak alone, my good friend?” he asked, glancing at the Marine Corps colonel again to find the piercing eyes glaring at him. Bashir attempted to whisper with a deep bass voice that trembled slightly, “Your friend scares me with his evil stare. I have heard of these Devil Dogs.”
Bulldog narrowed his eyes further and deepened the furrow of his eyebrows, pulling the short hair on top of his head forward. The colonel’s expression knowingly enhanced by the skintight face stretched across the skull and jawbones beneath.
“Bashir, my friend Colonel Stewart is in charge of all the Marines in Algiers.” He waved his right hand in a wide circle. “He should scare you. Right now, the only thing standing between you and thousands of angry Marines is this man. Thousands who want to take you out and hang you like the American was hung from the streetlight.”
Bashir burst into nervous laughter. “Oh, Captain James, you are trying to scare poor Bashir? I would never have come to find you if I thought the Marines would kill me. Americans do not kill civilians unless it is by mistake.” He wiped the sweat from his forehead and then blew his nose on the tail of his thobe. When Duncan failed to reply immediately, Bashir looked up, his eyes wide. “They don’t, do they?”
“We need your help, Bashir. If you know anything, tell us.”
“I understand, my Captain, the frustration I brought, but I have a message for you that I was ordered to deliver only to you. You are a true friend of Hawaii Alneuf, and the message is from him.”
A message from the deposed president of Algeria? Alneuf was sequestered somewhere in London, where the British spirited him after they rescued them from the sinking water carrier. Duncan ran his hand over the top of his head and turned to Bulldog. The United States government would want to know what the message contained. Even an old captain being forced to retire like him could appreciate the importance such a message might hold. Could Alneuf have changed his mind and want to defect from the British to the Americans? Doubtful. All the man would have to do is grab a London cab to Gloucester Square and walk into the American embassy. England wouldn’t try to stop him — or would it?
“Colonel, I’m sorry, but can I have a few minutes alone with this fat bastard?” Duncan asked.
“Captain, you hurt my feelings,” Bashir said, touching his hand to his chest. “Twice you have called me fat. I am weight challenged and a few inches too short. Would they allow you to say such things in America?”
The deep booming laughter Duncan and the other SEAL members had come to recognize and hate echoed off the vacant walls of the small room.
“I’ll be outside if you need me, Duncan,” Bulldog said. He curled his thumb at Bashir. He pulled his pistol out and examined it closely. “Let me know if you need a firing squad. So far, we have sold over five hundred raffle tickets for the pleasure.”
They waited until the door shut behind them.
“Raffle tickets?” Bashir asked.
* * *
Outside, Bulldog Stewart stomped into a side room, where a couple of Marines from Second Radio Battalion sat hunched over in front of a receiver with a portable CD recorder beside it. He nodded at them, lifted his right hand, and whirled his index finger several times before pointing at the speaker. The corporal put the headset on and flipped a switch, piping the conversation between Duncan and Bashir onto a speaker. Bulldog leaned forward and turned it down slightly so he could hear without the speaker being heard next door. He would tell Duncan later. Well, maybe he would.
* * *
“Okay, Bashir, what is the message, and where are the hostages?”
“He is selling raffle tickets for the opportunity to shoot me,” Bashir said incredulously. “I am telling you, Captain. The man needs help.” He tapped his finger against his head several times.
“Bashir, you came here telling everyone that you know the location of the American hostages. You get everyone energized to rescue them, and then you shake your head like a petulant child and refuse to tell them, insisting on only speaking to me.
They had to go to Naples, fly me out to the aircraft carrier and then into Algeria, where I was promptly shot down. While you waited, an American was tortured, killed, and his mutilated body hung from a streetlamp within a block of the vacant American embassy. Tell me why you think they wouldn’t want to shoot you.”
“I know, I know, my friend. Nevertheless, believe me. The American died of illness … maybe a heart attack.” He shook his head while his hand made a downward motion. Grabbing the tail of his thobe again, Bashir wiped his sweating face. “Your doctors will discover the truth when they do their autopsy.”
Bashir pulled the chair he had been sitting in earlier under him and sat down. Duncan pulled a chair out from under the small wooden table, turned it around, and straddled it backwards, facing the huge straddle-legged Bedouin from across the table.
Bashir’s booming laughter filled the room.
Duncan covered his ears. “What is so funny, Bashir’? Someday that loud laughter is going to get you shot, my chubby friend.”
“I am not laughing because I find this humorous, my Captain. I am laughing at the irony of having to give myself up to American Marines so I could find you.” Bashir leaned forward and reached under the table, pulled out the hidden transmitter the Marines had installed, and palmed it in his hand.
“It seems your friends do not trust you, either, Captain James,” Bashir said. He opened his fingers so Duncan could see the transmitter.
“They are doing no less than I would have, if I had thought of it.” Duncan lied. What the hell, Bulldog? he thought. We need this information.
Bashir’s huge hand folded over the hidden transmitter. “I will put it back after we talk. President Hawaii Alneuf sends his respects to you and his apologies for abandoning you at sea in favor of the English.
While he knows Americans rescued him, he also knows the Americans would never have supported him in returning to Algeria. He would have become a waiter in some Middle Eastern restaurant like the Vietnamese generals and leaders became waiters in American restaurants after the fall of Vietnam.”
“Bashir, you misunderstand me. I could give a shit whether Alneuf hightailed it to London or took a job waiting tables in Washington. My job was to rescue him. We accomplished that mission at great cost. We lost a good chief petty officer, and you lost a professional warrior who could have led your country’s war to reclaim Algeria.”
Bashir chuckled and then burst into laughter. The big man rolled back and forth on the small wooden chair. It would not have surprised Duncan if the chair broke. He wished it would, and one of those wooden legs would impale the fat Bedouin. Bashir’s double chin bounced up and down to a laughter that only a bass voice, a deep set of lungs, and strong emotions can bring out.
“Bashir, if you don’t stop laughing, I’m going to rip your lips off.”
Duncan put his hands momentarily over his ears. The room was small, and the unusual voice this
man possessed made the room shrink. He made Duncan think of that Italian opera singer from the ‘90s — the name escaped him — but with a beard, Bashir and the Italian could have passed for twins. “When this is over, you should consider becoming an opera singer.”
The laughter stopped abruptly, and Bashir leaned forward to touch Duncan’s hand. “But, they are not dead, my friend. Both Colonel Yosef and your chief are alive.”
Duncan half stood from the chair. If they were still alive, then the rebels had them. If Bashir knew where they were, then he needed that information. SEALs never leave other SEALs behind.
“Where are they, Bashir? Are they with the hostages?” Duncan asked, leaning forward and putting a hand on the table.
Bashir shook his head. A deep sigh escaped him. “No, they fooled you Americans as they fooled us. Most times we feel Americans are naive, but in this instance, we both were taken by the Israelis.”
“Israelis? I don’t understand,” Duncan said, crossing his arms on the back of the chair. If they weren’t dead, then they were captives. No way the two of them could have escaped the pier and evaded the rebels for this long. And what in the hell did Israel have to do with it? Duncan’s expression showed his confusion. It made no sense to him. Was this just more Arab rhetoric?
Bashir leaned forward and touched Duncan’s arm. “Captain, they were Israeli spies.”
Duncan sat back and grinned. After a few seconds, he leaned forward, crossing his arms on the back of the chair. “Right, Bashir. Don’t give me that. You sound like the rest of the Islamic world. Whenever something happens, and you don’t understand it, blame the Jews.”
Bashir shook his head. He touched his chest and shook his head. “No, it is true. The British told President Alneuf that Colonel Yosef and your Chief Zackeriah Judiah were … are members of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service. According to the British, your CIA knew about Chief Judiah but had an understanding with the Israelis to leave him alone.”
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