Coup d’État

by Ben Coes

Meir removed a small earpiece and inserted it in his left ear.

  “We’re at the main tarmac,” barked Meir. “Send the chopper.”

  The flames from the plane illuminated the south end of the runway, not brightly, but enough for the Israeli commandos to be seen. The attention of the Arabs, however, was on the sliding plane.

  Meir moved the fire selector on his carbine to full auto. Three commandos took up positions to Meir’s right. The other four, to his left.

  One of the wings tore off, dropping with a loud crash to the tarmac. There was a sudden burst of flames as one of the fuel tanks behind the propellers exploded. Flames—black, orange, and blue—shot into the sky.

  Meir began his run across the tarmac. The team of Israeli commandos sprinted into the darkness just behind him They moved in a straight line toward the Hezbollah position.

  As he ran, Meir had a sudden, momentary flash of panic: the situation at Rafic Hariri was moving rapidly beyond his control.

  79

  IN THE AIR

  As the plane descended, the steady, high pitch of the landing gear fighting against the cable grew louder, like fingernails on the proverbial chalkboard. Dewey stared out through the open hatch. The city of Beirut was lit up, a canopy of lights that appeared to be closing in on the descending craft. He could see automobiles, the lights of apartment buildings and offices, people walking beneath lamplights. The ground was coming, he knew.

  Had he done too much damage to the plane? Could the pilot land the badly lurching aircraft? If they hit a building, a field, if they missed the smooth plain of the runway, it wouldn’t matter. Death would happen before Dewey had time to realize it. He shut his eyes and clutched the Glock.

  He heard a siren from somewhere on the ground. He opened his eyes. Out the open hatch, he saw the control tower as the plane barely slipped over it. Inside the tower, panic-stricken workers were running frantically around the glass-enclosed room at the top.

  He gripped the weapon and braced himself in the same instant he was bounced violently back against the wall of the plane. Dewey’s head slammed into the steel brace behind the bench. Then he felt the plane’s fuselage hitting the tarmac. Looking back, he saw flames through the hatch and the black tar of the runway, a line of orange sparks and flames as fuel ignited on the ground.

  The plane slid quickly and began to turn sideways. The sound of metal scraping against metal was deafening. The bottom of the ramp bounced violently, rubbing hard against the ground, until it broke off and tumbled to the side.

  The big cargo plane slid down the tarmac, spinning counterclockwise. It completed one three-hundred-sixty-degree turn, then another, slowing all the while.

  Dewey reached up and uncoupled the seat belt. The front of the hold burst into flames and the steel braces buckled at the sides.

  Instinctively, Dewey checked the magazine on the Glock. It was full. He stepped to the back of the plane and looked out the open hatch. Flames danced at the hatch’s entrance. He saw nothing but darkness at the end of the runway. He heard sirens in the distance.

  Dewey paused a moment, then leapt from the hatch—through the smoldering flames—and landed on the tarmac. He began a sprint down the runway, toward the dark woods at the end of it. His feet were unsteady at first, but then he forgot it all, the dizziness, the blood that now coursed from his nose and shoulder, his cracked rib; he pushed it out of his mind as he ran for his life.

  Dewey was suddenly struck from the side; steel hammered into his ribs. He tumbled to the ground. He rolled, looked up, then saw his attacker. Bearded, long black hair, a submachine gun held sideways. The terrorist smashed Dewey across the rib cage again; he screamed in pain. Behind his assailant were others, too numerous to count.

  As Dewey rolled, he turned the Glock up at the first assailant and fired. The bullet killed the terrorist instantly, his body dropping to the ground.

  Dewey pulled the trigger as fast as he could, shooting at anything he could. He pumped a slug into the chest of one man, another struck the eye of a tall man, dropping him in a mist of brains and blood. He kept firing into the marauding crowd descending around him.

  From the side, Dewey got a sharp kick to his head, while another kick to his hand sent the Glock flying. Someone slammed a boot down on top of Dewey’s head, pressing his face against the black tar. Dewey smelled gasoline. He felt his wrists being forced behind his back. Dewey kicked out, striking someone. He heard a dull crack, then screaming as blood burst from a destroyed nose.

  A terrorist jammed the nozzle of his Kalashnikov into Dewey’s cheek as someone finally succeeded in shackling his ankles.

  “Stop!” screamed another man, and Dewey looked to his left. A tall Arab stepped through the small circle of terrorists. He pulled the nozzle of the Kalashnikov away from Dewey’s face. “Carry him. Quickly now!”

  Dewey felt himself being lifted up from the ground. On the ground, he counted four bodies contorted on the tarmac, blood pooling around them.

  One of the Arabs looked back at Dewey as they lifted him, a murderous stare in his dark eyes.

  A moment later, the staccato thud of silenced machine guns came from up the runway. Dewey turned his head around and tried to get a view. A fast-moving line of black-clothed commandos was running at them. Automatic weapon fire pulverized the air. Dewey watched as the men carrying him fell one by one, blown away by the oncoming hail of slugs.

  Then Dewey felt the hands gripping him let go; his body dropped to the ground, shackled, within a loose, bloody circle of dead Hezbollah.

  80

  BEIRUT RAFIC HARIRI AIRPORT

  BEIRUT

  Meir watched as he ran across the runway as a dark figure leapt from the rear of the burning C-130 onto the tarmac. Partially obscured by smoke, the figure began a desperate run down the tarmac, away from the terminal, in the direction of the waiting terrorists, obviously guessing wrong.

  It was Andreas. It had to be Andreas.

  The Israelis moved in unison behind Meir, a fast-moving, almost silent line of commandos running toward the American. As they came within a hundred feet, Meir watched in the dim light as Andreas was tackled to the ground by the waiting Hezbollah. There was a struggle. Andreas fired a handgun, killing one of the Arabs, then another. He kept firing.

  The Israelis continued a silent run toward the scene, coming at the tumult from the dark edge of the runway. The gunfire from Andreas abruptly stopped. At least four men were now atop the American; two holding his feet down, while a third man bound his wrists and a fourth held a rifle at his head. He heard shouting in Arabic. The terrorists bound Andreas, then lifted him and began to carry him down the runway, away from the plane, toward the fence through which they’d infiltrated the airport.

  The terrorists—and Andreas—were oblivious to the oncoming wave of S’13.

  Meir’s men awaited his go; his shots would be the first.

  Meir leveled his M203 as they came within twenty feet of the scene. He fingered the steel trigger of the carbine, then fired. A spray of silenced bullets flew across the first man carrying Andreas, blowing him back onto the tarmac, then more bullets struck the one next to him, then the terrorists holding his feet. Andreas dropped to the tarmac.

  “Cover three!” shouted Meir, pointing left, down the runway, ordering Bohr to take a couple of commandos and engage the terrorists to the left, at the end of the runway.

  Meir reached Dewey, who now lay on the ground. From his knees, he pulled a combat blade from his ankle sheath as bullets hit the runway behind them. He sliced off Dewey’s flex-cuffs.

  “Israel?” asked Dewey.

  “Welcome to Beirut,” said Meir. “Grab a weapon.”

  * * *

  Unmuted automatic weapons fire erupted from the cement barriers at the end of the runway as Bohr and the pair of commandos moved to face them, firing their silenced carbines at the Hezbollah positions behind the barriers, crouching to avoid bullets, aiming their weapons down the runway where at least a dozen m
en pulverized the air with weapons fire in their direction.

  A violent firefight enveloped the southern end of the tarmac, but the Israelis were out in the open; only the darkness helped protect them, and that would not hold for long.

  Bohr, down the runway now at Meir’s command, glanced behind him toward the burning C-130, then to Meir, who was cutting the American loose. Bullets from Hezbollah were seemingly everywhere around them. He kept his trigger pulled back, but he started to panic amid the onslaught of bullets.

  “Fall back!” screamed Bohr, crouching, realizing that he and the two other commandos were badly outnumbered, sitting ducks in the middle of the runway. Suddenly Bohr was propelled violently backward as a slug hit him in the chest. He was thrown to the tarmac on his back, dead.

  “Ezra!” screamed the Israeli to Bohr’s left, who reached for Bohr, then was himself struck in the neck with a bullet, knocking him to the ground. He screamed as his hands went to the bullet hole and he attempted in vain to stem the blood flow.

  * * *

  Meir heard Bohr yell, then turned to see him hit, then watched as another one of his men, Ben-Shin, went down next to Bohr.

  “Fall back!” Meir screamed over the din to the last of the three, Rabin, who was firing desperately at the terrorists from the ground, on his stomach, next to the contorted bodies of Bohr and Ben-Shin.

  Beyond them, in the dim light, Meir saw a wave of Arabs pouring through the cut in the fence. At the barriers, the nozzles of weapons sparked red like fireworks.

  Meir glanced to the western sky, looking for the Israeli chopper, but saw nothing except for the starry night, now clotted in smoke and fire.

  Next to Meir, Dewey was on one knee, a Kalashnikov in each hand, firing at the terrorists. Four other commandos were on their stomachs, firing back at the cement barriers.

  “Josh, fall back!” Meir screamed again at Rabin.

  “We need to get beyond the plane!” Dewey yelled.

  To Meir’s immediate right, another Israeli, Lutanz, was suddenly knocked to the ground as a bullet struck him in the chest. Meir ran to Lutanz’s side and knelt. His eyes had rolled back up into his head. Meir placed his hand beneath Lutanz’s neck.

  “Jon,” he said. He shook his friend’s head. “Jonathan!”

  But Lutanz was gone.

  Meir didn’t have time to think, to register emotion, to pause, but as he watched Lutanz’s eyes roll white he felt a kick of desperation as he understood he was in danger of losing his entire team.

  As Meir held Lutanz’s head, he was interrupted by Andreas as the American—out of ammunition—pushed his arm away from Lutanz and yanked the carbine from the dead man’s hands, then turned, firing at the terrorists now surging closer.

  “Fall back!” shouted Andreas, glancing at Meir. “Get your men behind the plane.”

  Meir reached down and grabbed Lutanz. He lifted the dead soldier and threw him over his shoulder as Dewey kept firing down the runway, holding off the steadily encroaching swarm of Hezbollah.

  Another explosion rocked the air as a second fuel tank on the C-130 ignited. Orange and black smoke-crossed flames shot up violently from the wing of the plane, less than a hundred feet from where Dewey now crouched.

  Dewey moved his index finger forward and pulled the second trigger of Lutanz’s M203. A grenade lofted into the air, flying toward the Hezbollah stronghold. A terrible blast ripped the ground near the back fence as the grenade burst. He heard screams. Dewey fired the grenade launcher again, the round landed behind the barriers, and again screams echoed down the tarmac from the Hezbollah positions.

  Within the lull following the grenade blasts, Dewey sprinted forward, toward Bohr. He reached the bodies, where he saw that all three men were now dead, including Rabin. He threw the carbine strap over his shoulder, moved the weapon over his back, reached down and, with great effort, picked up two of the dead Israelis and hoisted them onto his shoulders. He ran for his life, with the dead commandos on his shoulders, back toward the shelter of the plane as cover fire from Meir and the others sailed over his head. He passed Meir, running to retrieve the third corpse.

  As he reached the back of the plane’s fuselage, Dewey found three remaining commandos, crouched, sniping terrorists as they came in through the fence cut.

  “We’re running out of ammo!” yelled one of the Israelis.

  The staccato crackle of weapons fire again filled the air as the Arabs regrouped, along with the smell of smoke and burning fuel. The scene was chaos.

  A slug struck the commando to Dewey’s right, knocking him forward, screaming. Dewey crawled to him. He was on his stomach, face down. Dewey flipped him over. The young Israeli could not have been more than twenty-two or -three; he had a gaping hole at the top of his neck where the slug had hit. Dewey tore off the man’s shirt. He wrapped the shirt around his badly bleeding neck, then began to perform CPR, pressing down on his heart in timed rhythm.

  Dewey pushed against the Israeli’s chest, trying to keep the young boy alive. He looked into the boy’s eyes; brown eyes that stared out at Dewey in the light from the burning plane.

  “Hold on!” said Dewey, trying to save the boy who was about to lose his own life saving a man he didn’t even know.

  Dewey had seen fierce battle before. He had watched as men he knew were killed by enemy fire. But he had never been in such a hellfire as they were in now, running out of ammunition, outnumbered and outgunned. Dewey felt no pain or fear. He felt nothing. There wasn’t time.

  He heard rotors cutting the distant sky. It was a chopper somewhere above. He looked up at Meir, now next to him, a shell-shocked look on his face.

  The chopper moved down the runway from the main terminal building.

  “What kind of chopper are we looking for?” yelled Dewey.

  “Panther,” said Meir, looking up, shaking his head. “That’s not Israel.”

  The black chopper moved quickly down the runway from the terminal behind them. It honed in on the Israelis.

  “LAF!” yelled Meir. “Cover!”

  From the chopper’s right side, a minigun began firing rounds on the Israeli position as they dived for the protection of the wing. Bullets rained down on the cement, riddling the tar around them. The chopper circled overhead and around the flaming C-130. It swept back in, and the sound of the minigun cut the air. The weapon pounded the steel wings just in front of the Israeli position.

  From down the runway, Hezbollah moved closer, their bullets dinging the metal of the C-130.

  From the ground, crouched against the fuselage, Dewey, Meir, and the remaining commandos fired blindly up at the chopper, which attempted to move into a position directly above them. One of the Israelis, three feet to Dewey’s right, was struck in the head by a round from the sky. The round tore his head clean off, down to the shoulders, and he was thrown violently back from the fuselage.

  The sound was deafening now. Chopper blades ripped the air. Machine-gun fire was like a drumbeat. Sirens pierced the silences in between.

  Dewey counted three men alive, including him, Meir, and one other commando. The deadly circle was growing closer, Hezbollah to the south, and now LAF from the north, hemming them in by chopper, cutting them off.

  Dewey made eye contact with Meir. He could not have been more than twenty-five years old. He had short brown hair and freckles. He was tan, with a sharp nose. Meir looked at him with a blank look. There was no anger there, nor fear. There was no emotion at all. And Dewey knew that in some way he was looking at himself. Both men knew time was up.

  “I’m sorry,” said Dewey.

  Meir stared back, expressionless. “You would’ve done the same. America would’ve done the same.”

  Dewey had had tough moments like this before, in other battles, with other men, the moments that forged the brotherhood of soldiers. But he’d never felt as close to death. The look, both men knew. It seemed to say: We’ll die this day, at this hour. But we’ll do it together. We’ll do it the way soldiers
are supposed to, believing in something right, fighting against the forces that would destroy us all.

  A loud hissing noise rose above the pandemonium of the battle theater.

  Dewey’s head jerked up. A white comet of movement blazed through the black, smoke-clogged sky. He traced the trajectory of where the missile had come from. In the distance, a single black object, an attack chopper that Dewey recognized immediately: Panther.

  The Israeli chopper lurked like a deadly metallic vulture, moving into the air above the airport with menacing speed.

  The Mistral air-to-air missile fired from the Panther emitted smoke from its tail as it accelerated through the humid Beirut air, its high-pitched whistle cutting through all other noise. It tore into the side of the LAF chopper directly overhead, bright white light mushroomed, then the detonation an instant later as the chopper and everything inside was pulverized mid-sky. Metal and body parts dropped in a fiery wash across the tarmac just behind their position.

  Another piercing hissing noise as a white burst sparked from the Panther, followed by the telltale comet of the Mistral. The missile ripped across the sky in the opposite direction, toward the end of the runway. Hezbollah dispersed in every direction as the missile honed in, but it was futile, they were too late. The missile exploded near the fence in the center of the Arab position. Every terrorist within twenty feet was eviscerated by the blast. The Panther turned its nose and began firing 20mm rounds from the Giat M621 on the side of the chopper, pounding the Hezbollah positions behind the cement barriers, closer to Dewey, Meir, and the other commando.

  Then the Panther turned and swept forward, moving down the tarmac. The chopper descended onto the runway, twenty feet from Dewey and the Israelis.

  Dewey picked up a dead Israeli, then moved with Meir and the other commando, carrying corpses on their shoulders to the Panther.

  Dewey ran, the corpse over his right shoulder, his left hand triggering the carbine down the runway at yet more Hezbollah, who were still attacking.