by Jason Elam
Scanning the cabin, he could see smoke beginning to pour from the rear windows to his left. However, there was still no sign of movement to the front. They’ll come; just be patient. They don’t have another option.
Suddenly, the front door swung open. Abdullah’s trigger finger twitched, but he stopped himself from pulling back. Then the windows from the rooms on either side of the door shattered. The front door was right in the middle of the crosshairs on Abdullah’s sight. What are you doing, Covington? Come on, let me see your face. I’ve got a little present for you—your girlfriend and your houseboy, too. You know you’ve got to come out, so just—
A shape flashed across his sight. He pulled the trigger but saw only wood from the doorframe splinter. Immediately, gunfire fanned from the two windows, but Abdullah didn’t worry about it. He knew he was too high and at too extreme an angle to get hit by the cover fire.
Looking up from his sight, he saw Riley running full speed up the steep incline of the driveway. Cursing, Abdullah spun the rifle to the right and began firing. Riley dove to the ground, rolled, and then popped back up and continued his flight. Abdullah could see his shots kicking up asphalt and dirt as Riley juked and dodged his way to the dirt road and into the woods beyond.
No! It wasn’t supposed to happen this way! Abdullah thought as he slid down the rope and onto the ground. His M16A4 was propped against a tree. He grabbed it and began running along a path parallel to Riley’s, still keeping himself well inside the woods. Well, not to worry. This is how I wanted it from the beginning. It’s one-on-one now, Covington, and you are overmatched!
7:10 P.M. MDT
The last time Riley could remember running this fast was after an interception against the Bay Area Bandits. Unfortunately, the enemy now was much more dangerous than some adrenaline-hyped fullback. Where’s the bullet going to hit? Will it be a body shot, so I can feel my insides scrambling? Or maybe a leg, dropping me so someone can come up and finish me off at close range?
While those thoughts were going through his brain, the same words were coming out of his mouth over and over again: “Lord, help me! Lord, help me! Lord, help me! Lord, help me!”
Khadi and Skeeter had fought his plan. “It’s a suicide mission and you know it!” Khadi had argued.
“Man, you don’t even know where the hajjis are. You could be running right into them,” Skeeter pointed out.
“That’s if you even make it that far! Right now, every gun is pointed right at this door. They’re just waiting for us to come out.”
“That’s what’s going to make this work,” Riley said, sounding confident, but only half-believing his words. But the phrase “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” kept running through his mind, and he knew he had no choice. Lord, take me if You have to, he had prayed, just let me save my friends. “They’re expecting us to come straight out, guns blazing! But if you guys give cover fire while I go out full-bore on a diagonal, I just might make it to the woods.”
“‘Just might’ is not good enough,” Khadi had said.
“It’s the best we have. Listen, Khadi, in ten minutes this whole cabin will be burning. I’m not thrilled about this. But I’m the one they want. If they see me go, hopefully they’ll come after me. That gives you two a fighting chance of getting out of this. If we just do what they’re expecting, I think we’re all dead.” Turning to Skeeter, Riley said, “You understand me, don’t you?”
Skeeter nodded his agreement, but there was still rage in his eyes. “Yeah, I hear you.”
Riley turned back to Khadi. “I’ve made my decision. It’s how it’s going to be.” Then he put his hand around the back of Khadi’s neck. “I’m going to make it, Khadi. I have to; we’ve got a conversation we need to finish.”
Thirty seconds later, Riley was running out the front door into the great unknown. What was I thinking? he asked himself now as he jumped a fallen tree. Once he made it into the woods, he realized he had no idea where he was going; all he knew was that he was trying to get there fast.
Truth be known, he hadn’t really expected to make it this far. Any moment now he expected to see some Middle Eastern guy jump from behind a rock or an old tree stump and finish him off. But so far there was no one.
Just as he was feeling like his plan might work after all and he could disappear into the trees, his foot caught something and he flew to the ground. Fifteen feet to his right, a flare shot into the air. “Oh, come on! What are the odds?” he said disgustedly as he jumped up and began running again.
Suddenly, wood from the trees around him began splintering up into his face. He could feel blood beginning to trickle down below his right ear. “Lord, help me!”
7:12 P.M. MDT
Just when Abdullah thought he had lost Riley, the flare went off. A smile spread across the assassin’s face. He cut left and soon saw his quarry. Having abandoned his rifle back at the tree, Abdullah let loose with his assault weapon. Covington kept running.
They were going downhill now, both trying to keep their footing while running full-speed. Every ten seconds or so, Abdullah let off another burst. If I could just get him on level ground! The rough terrain was causing him to shake so much that he knew he could never hope to catch Riley with anything but a lucky shot. Time passed, and still Covington kept running.
Up ahead through the trees, Abdullah could see they were coming to another dirt road. Perfect! That’ll give me a flat place to stop and get a clean shot in.
But then Riley did something unexpected. He burst through the tree line, jumped feetfirst as he reached the other side of the road, spun, and opened fire. Abdullah dove for a tree, hitting it with the full force of his speeding body. Something snapped in his side. More bullets whistled around him, forcing him to lie flat. When the firing stopped, he looked up to see Riley back on his feet and running away.
No! Abdullah tried to get up, but his broken ribs weren’t the only damage. Pain screamed from his right calf, and when he looked down he could see blood soaking through his pant leg. He again tried to get up, but then dropped himself. Pine needles poked the back of his neck, and the scent of earth filled his senses. Conserve your energy, he thought. You’ve got a long hike ahead to your car. You’ll still get him. Remember, there’s always Plan C.
Reaching into his pocket, Abdullah pulled out an orange prescription bottle and dropped six Percocets into his mouth. Just ride the wave. Soon enough, you’ll be good to go. Abdullah lay back while his brain turned off his pain sensors one by one. Soon he was asleep.
7:32 P.M. MDT
Riley ran for another ten minutes before he finally allowed himself to believe that nobody was following. Stopping, he leaned his body against a tree, gasping for breath. His lungs could feel every inch of the 9,000-foot elevation, and his muscles were screaming out in protest. He tried to walk off the cramps that were setting in, but his legs gave out from under him.
He lay on the rocky dirt, sucking deeply for air.
He assumed Skeeter and Khadi were all right. He hadn’t heard any gunfire other than what had been fired at him. Who would have believed that stupid plan would actually work? He smiled weakly as he watched the sun dip below one of the high peaks. The sweat evaporating from his body reminded him that with the setting sun would come falling temperatures. Mustering all his strength, he pulled himself to his feet with the help of a nearby aspen.
He took one step, then another, then another. And soon he was slowly moving down the hill. Downhill’s the way to go, he thought. If I keep going down, I’ll run into Silverthorne or Dillon Lake or something familiar. If I can find either one of those, I’ll find safety and Skeeter and Khadi. . . . Yeah, and Khadi.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
FRIDAY, MAY 29, 5:30 P.M. EEST ISTANBUL, TURKEY
Check another city off your “places I want to visit before I die” list, thought a frustrated Scott. Istanbul was one of those mystical spots that he had always dreamed of experiencing—the histor
y, the architecture, the smells, the foods. He wanted to mingle with the people, drink their coffee, smoke a hookah, whirl with a dervish or two.
Instead, here he was in the middle of this ancient city, and the closest he’d probably get to the Hagia Sophia or the Grand Bazaar would be a postcard from one of the hundreds of kids selling them on the street. Sort of like the way you experienced Prague. That was quite a fun little vacation, he mused bitterly. Since that trip, he had been forced to change from sleeping on his left side to his right just so he could put his head down on the pillow.
This was the team’s second night staking out mosques. The questioning of Kamal Hejazi’s wife down in Cairo had been very profitable—particularly when she had been promised a new life in the United States for herself, her three remaining children, and her parents. Kamal had not been a very nice man, and his widow was convinced his activities were responsible for whatever had happened to her firstborn son.
She had told the CIA operative that Kamal had several times walked home with al-’Aqran following the ’Asr prayers at a nearby mosque. Apparently, the old man was very faithful about his ’Asr attendance and usually used the journeys to and from as opportunities to discuss business.
Scott shifted on the vinyl seats to try to get the blood flowing to his nether regions again. The air in the early ’90s Mazda 323 hatchback was stifling, and by the looks of it, the air-conditioning hadn’t worked since the turn of the millennium.
“Ugh,” he said as he took a long pull from a glass bottle of warm Coke. He looked at his watch again. ’Asr is the late afternoon prayer, which means that in the next few minutes, somewhere in this huge metropolis, al-’Aqran will be walking out of one of the city’s three thousand mosques—yes, that’s a three with three zeros, folks! That was another discouraging little factoid he had read about the former Constantinople, née Byzantium. Apparently the government was very adamant that Istanbul should be a Muslim city, so they had started putting up mosques everywhere. Half of the new mosques weren’t even used. Unfortunately, we have no clue which half, thus our chances of finding the right mosque hover just above an old-fashioned crapshoot.
However, Mrs. Hejazi had given one more piece of information that narrowed the odds considerably. Her family had lived in the Eminönü district of the larger metropolis—the “old city” area on the west side of the Bosporus. Sometimes, after leaving a meeting with the leaders of the Cause, Kamal would call her on the cell phone to vent his anger. Whenever he called, she knew that she had a maximum of fifteen minutes to have his favorite food and drink ready for him before he walked in the door. Otherwise, he took his anger out on her in more physical ways.
When they had first arrived two nights ago, Scott and Jim had pulled out a map and determined how far a person could walk in fifteen minutes. Then they had drawn a wide circle around the Hejazi house—a circle that had extended to the edges of Eminönü, the neighboring Fatih district, and the Beyo lu district located directly across the inlet of water known as the Golden Horn.
Just like that, the three thousand mosques had been narrowed to 112—a formidable, but not impossible, number for the ten members of the team, along with the six CIA agents who had offered their eyes but not their guns for the operation.
Surprisingly, the CIA guys had been great. They had helped get the team acclimated right from the time of their arrival at Izmir Air Base, a three-hundred-mile drive south of Istanbul. A safe house had been prepared for the team, and the agents had provided vehicles, maps, and all the intel they could divulge.
Later that first night, over some bottles of Efes Pilsen, two of the CIA agents told about how they had graduated with four of the guys who had been killed when al-’Aqran had broken out of prison. All six of the men were looking for revenge, and they were counting on Hicks and Scott to do the job their superiors wouldn’t allow them to do. A little bit more time with these guys, and I’ll have to change my opinion of CIA spooks.
A knock on his passenger window almost made Scott lose all the warm Coke he had already drunk. He resisted reaching for the weapon he had tucked between the seats as he turned to look who it was. Immediately, he recognized the white-bearded man who had been sitting at the door of the shop Scott was parked in front of. The man was yelling something at him and waving his arms. Although Scott’s Turkish was limited, it wasn’t difficult to get the gist. This shop owner was tired of having Scott taking up his prime street-access real estate.
Scott waved without bothering to roll down the window, started the car, and moved up a couple of spots, making sure there was no angry old guy sitting in front of the shoe repair shop whose street parking he now occupied. Good job keeping control. Pulling your weapon would not have been a good thing.
Everyone had been on edge since the plans for the school attacks had been revealed. The possibility of a large-scale slaughter of innocent children and the ensuing societal and economic ramifications was difficult to even comprehend. Wholesale panic would combine with a passionate desire for revenge to create a perfect storm of anti-Arab backlash. Once that happened, who knew what the global impact would be.
At first when Hicks and Scott were discussing the possible attacks, they had thought that the Cause was committing a major blunder by planning school attacks during the summer. But then Gilly Posada, who had an elementary-aged son, had informed them of the school track system. In many schools across the country, the population of students had outgrown the available classroom space. As a result, the kids were divided into four tracks, each with a different school calendar. This meant that at any given time throughout the year, many elementary schools still ran at full capacity.
Hicks had contacted his superiors at Homeland Security, who were now trying to get warnings out to schools without causing hysteria. The safeguards at most elementary schools were so lax, it would be no problem for a gunman to enter and begin shooting. And even if there was an armed guard, most school district security personnel were not trained to handle a terrorist with an assault weapon. Please, God, if You’re really out there, help us stop this thing from happening! Not for the first time, Scott wished he had the same kind of faith that Riley Covington had.
The doors across the street from Scott’s car burst open. His fingers began drumming nervously on the cracked dashboard. He had parked his car on Ordu Cadessi in the Aksaray neighborhood of the Fatih district. Kitty-corner from him was the main entrance to the Pertevniyal Valide Sultan Mosque. The mosque itself was an enormous structure flanked by two tall minarets. Now prayer time was over, and people began streaming out of the front exit.
From the moment Scott had pulled up, the mosque felt right to him. It was nearly two centuries old—not one of the countless new buildings hastily constructed during the past three decades. Yet it also wasn’t one of the really popular old tourist mosques, like the Blue Mosque or the Yeni Cami. The New Mosque—a strange name for a four-hundred-year-old structure.
But as the worshipers flowed out onto the street, Scott knew he was in the wrong place. What is it? Think! It’s not location. It’s not architecture. What’s bugging you?
It’s the people. They’re too . . . urban. No, that’s not right. They’re too . . . comfortable? Well-off? Maybe that’s it. Al-’Aqran has spent his life living from foxhole to foxhole. He’s not going to hang around with the wealthy or the beautiful people. So where else? There’s Sulukule, with its poor Gypsy population. But I’ve got to think that observing their coarse lifestyle would get on his nerves or at least offend his sensibilities. Balat? Right income level, but its Jewish roots would probably turn him off. Zeyrek? Maybe Zeyrek. Old buildings and ramshackle wooden houses. Perfect camouflage for an ugly, old, one-eyed man. What do we have going on in . . . ?
Johnson! He’s in Zeyrek at the Eski Imaret Mosque. It fits perfectly—a thousand years old, run-down neighborhood, and to top it off, it started out as an Eastern Orthodox Church, which is pretty symbolic for the vision al-’Aqran has for the world. Gotta warn the
boy!
But before he had a chance to speak, Chris Johnson’s voice rang in his ear. “Velvet One, this is Velvet Eight. I’ve got a visual on Scorpion.” Scott had decided for this operation to name al-’Aqran after the English translation of his name—the Scorpion.
“Velvet Eight, Velvet One,” Hicks’s voice replied. “Are you sure?”
“I never forget a face, especially one this mama-beatin’ ugly. It’s him.” When the team had taken al-’Aqran into custody five months ago, Johnson had endured plenty of shifts guarding the man. Scott was sure of his ID.
“Velvet One, Velvet Eight. Ready to plant the dot.”
“This is Velvet One. Do it and be careful, son.”
“Velvet Two here,” Scott broke in. “Give yourself a once-over. You sure you’re still fully hajji-fied?” The CIA boys had given each of them very detailed disguises, but Scott was still extremely nervous about any of the team getting close enough to al-’Aqran to plant a GPS signaling dot on him.
“Dude, my mama wouldn’t even know who I am.”
“Lucky woman,” Kim Li said from his position over in Horhor.
“Velvet One, radio discipline, boys.”
Leave it to Jim to spoil good banter.
“Velvet One, Velvet Eight. I’m going in.”
5:44 P.M. EEST
“Am I surrounded by fools? Must I get on a plane and go do everything myself? Tell me, you two, how am I to lead us in carrying out the will of Allah if I can’t get anyone to simply do what I ask?” The loss of the warrior in the Washington, D.C., subway attack had been a minor irritation. Insha’Allah, it happens. But the capture of the Yamani girl and now the failure of the policeman to kill Riley Covington were more than al-’Aqran could take.
On the old man’s left side walked his young, trusted bodyguard, Babrak Zahir—the tip of his spear, and the future of the Cause. On his other side was Hamad Asaf—a friend for more years than he could remember but lately struggling to accomplish even the most basic of tasks. Each remained close to protect their leader from the crowds of passing pedestrians. Al-’Aqran stopped suddenly, causing Asaf to have to step back to avoid tripping.