“My name is Ali Husayn and we are fighters from Kata’ib Hizballah,” Harry responded, deliberately keeping his Lebanese rough. Broken. The way an Iraqi fighter would have learned it from his Hezbollah trainers. He’d spent enough time in and around Sadr City over the previous three years to be able to mimic the local accent passably. “After Saddam was overthrown, I fought with the resistance of Muqtada for eleven months—but in the end, he was too soft with the occupiers.”
The detailed lie, that was what always did it, Harry thought, watching the militant’s eyes.
“And you?” the man demanded finally, gesturing across to where Crawford sat. Hale was hidden in the back along with the rest of their equipment, covered up with blankets and assorted trash.
The sergeant shook his head, cupping his hand to his ear as he leaned forward.
Harry chuckled. “Brother Haidar can’t hear you—lost his hearing to a Zionist bomb last week.” He reached over, clapping an affectionate hand on Crawford’s shoulder. “But he is still a hardy fighter and that’s why we were sent here.”
After a moment’s hesitation, the terrorist nodded. “Take the road straight in and report to Commander Bazzi. He doesn’t use radios, but you should be able to find him in Old Town. If not, have someone direct you to Abu Taam or Commander Massoud.”
Layla’s husband.
“Mashkuur ktiir ya khayyeh,” Harry responded, his hand settling around the Range Rover’s stick shift. Thanks very much, my brother. “Every day is Ashura.”
“And every place Karbala,” the man acknowledged piously before waving them on, signaling the man on the back of the technical to let them pass.
11:19 P.M.
Old Town
Bint Jbeil
Pain. Fire coursing through her body like a toxic drug, intense, nauseating pain. Had it been weeks? Or only days—it seemed impossible to remember, the hours blurring together into a dark haze, tears mingling with the clotted blood staining her cheeks. If you ever need out…we will come for you. The face of the American woman flickering before her eyes. Drifting in and out of focus. I will come for you.
And she had called her “friend.” Felt the companionship of another woman in a way she had not known…in so many years. Their lunches together in Beirut—stolen moments away from Abdel’s watchful eye. Moments in the sun, her hair unbound, her face naked. Enjoying a cigarette. The music. A glass of wine.
The way she had when they were first married, in the years before the darkness had entered his heart. Darkness turned now to hatred…exchanging one poison for another.
And the promise echoed through the haze like an insistent drumbeat, along with the far-off thunder of the Israeli artillery. A bloody tear snaking its way down her cheek.
I will come for you…
11:21 P.M.
The emergency beacon Layla Massoud had been given by the Agency was no larger than a small button. Just large enough for a tracker that would give them her location to within fifty feet. Small enough to be sewn into the underwire of a woman’s bra.
Power was the problem, as it always was with micro-trackers, Harry thought, shoving the Range Rover’s door open beside the smoldering, burned-out hulk of a heavy truck. The tracker was only made to last thirty hours from the time of activation.
It had already been twenty-eight. There were no second chances on this.
The streets were nearly empty, a few men running back and forth—messengers in the battle, as it had been done since time immemorial. Then, as Crawford exited the Range Rover from the other side, three young men broke from cover a hundred feet away—running across the open street.
Dressed in blue jeans and printed t-shirts, the trio would have fit in on the streets of Chicago—except for the 81mm mortar they were carrying between them, the shells in their hands.
From somewhere behind them came an explosion as an artillery shell slammed into a house, broken stone and plaster billowing out into the street.
Harry didn’t flinch, adjusting the sling of the FN-FAL over his shoulder as he stared at the men. That was the nature of artillery—a fatalistic thing. It was either going to kill you, or it wasn’t, and nothing in the whole world could change that. A shell had your name on it…and that was it. Game over.
Man is immortal till his work is done.
He glanced over at Crawford as the men spread out the legs of the mortar, chanting “Allahu akbar” as one of them dropped a shell down the tube, a feverish chant building into a crescendo as the shell spat back out from the barrel, whistling on its deadly journey.
He could read the message in Nick’s eyes as clearly as if he had spoken the words. Time to be movin’, mate.
They both knew why.
“I have point,” Harry announced, bringing the buttstock of his battle rifle up against his shoulder as he led his team into an alley between a pair of stone houses, the fetid smell of rotting garbage—of death—filling his nostrils as his jump boots picked their way through the detritus.
They hadn’t taken ten steps before a thunderous explosion shook the street behind them, dust and loose stone showering down from the houses on either side. Harry didn’t need to look back—he knew what had happened—had known what would happen from the moment the mortar had been set up.
Israeli Shilem counterbattery radar had zeroed in the mortar’s location before the shell in flight had even found its target. Transfixing the young militants with return fire before they could even shift positions.
Before they could run.
The callous chuckle from Hale, bringing up rear security, only confirmed his thoughts. “Chalk it up, mate. Three more dead hajjis.”
Twenty meters now, Harry thought, glancing down at the ever-weakening signal of the tracker on-screen. The Agency’s first satellite sweep that morning—courtesy of one of the NRO’s geosynchronous Keyhole spy sats—had shown Massoud’s tracker position over a klick and a half to the east. A compound, low walls surrounding a courtyard at the front of the dwelling. Three guards visible, the Keyhole’s cameras clearly picking up the rifles in their hands.
Then she’d been moved, to somewhere in the buildings at the end of the alley. And now they were going in blind.
11:28 P.M.
The USS Iwo Jima
The Mediterranean
The hard part of running any asset was staying emotionally detached, objective—even as you became their best friend. Five years working as a case officer for the Agency’s Beirut Station and Iraida had seen it all. It was like having children—soothing their fears, their hurts. Terrors, real and imagined.
The women were the hardest, though—the men tended to view you as nothing more than a source of money, of Western luxuries, even as a potential sexual conquest, although they were destined for quick disappointment there.
Their brash machismo made it easy to regard them with the cold detachment necessary for the job. Expendable assets.
But the women were different, Iraida thought, her mind turning back to her recruitment of Layla Massoud as she stared up at the luminous screens lining one wall of the Iwo’s comm center. Trapped in their culture, the women…wanted nothing so much as a friend. And that was the one thing you could not be, despite the fact that your entire success hinged on convincing them that you were. The one line you could not cross.
The line she had crossed with Layla Massoud. Which was why when Nichols’ call came over the commlink, her heart nearly stopped.
“EYRIE, this is EAGLE SIX. We’ve located the tracker—we do not, I repeat, do not have the package. Do you copy?”
11:31 P.M.
Bint Jbeil, Lebanon
Harry could hear her sharp intake of breath from the other end of the line, cradling the phone against his ear as he gazed down at the torn, bloody clothing in his hands. The remnants of a hijab, jeans, a woman’s underwear—stuffed down into an oil drum which someone was using for an incinerator—but they hadn’t gotten around to burning this yet.
“What are you
saying, EAGLE SIX?” In all the years that they had worked together, he had never heard Harmon so rattled. And he knew her better than most…once, they had been more than colleagues. Much more.
“I’m saying they were one step ahead of us, got rid of her clothing to remove any possibility of us tracking her.” Whatever feelings there had once been between them, it was ancient history now. Almost as old as the wall of the ruined house he was leaning up against.
Wasn’t going to get in the way of them doing their job.
“Sat coverage from the KH-11 is coming on-line in three minutes,” Harmon’s voice came back on. “Stay with me and we’ll try to re-assess the situation once we have eyes.”
That hadn’t been the plan. All comms were to be kept brief, and with good reason. While there was zero chance of Hezbollah being able to break the encryption scrambling the call—the Israelis would pick up that there was an encrypted transmission being made…and that alone would result in inordinate attention being paid to their location.
The type of attention that got you killed. “Negative, EYRIE, we’re moving back to—”
A shell slammed into the flat roof of the house just beside them, the shockwave hammering his ears, rubble and masonry cascading down over his shoulders. He could hear Nick cursing, felt himself stumble back from the wall as more of it fell away.
“…did not copy your last transmission, EAGLE SIX,” he heard as he lifted the phone to his ringing ear. “Please repeat.”
“Get off the line, EYRIE,” he growled, cradling the phone against his shoulder as he lifted his rifle to check the scope for damage. Nothing.
He could visualize the compound from the first briefings, the sat photos showing the guard positions. It was all they had to go on—better than anything Harmon could give him from back on the Iwo Jima. “Will advise when we have the package.”
11:34 P.M.
The USS Iwo Jima
The Mediterranean
And then the line went dead, leaving her standing there looking at it. He was right, of course. Leaving a call exposed like that was dangerous. Dangerous to the men she had put on the ground, never mind the risks of provoking an international incident.
But where did they go from here—how were they going to rescue Layla? Perhaps Nichols knew, perhaps he already had the solution, but he wasn’t talking. That’s just who he was—calm, dispassionate, the eye of the storm. Ice to her fire.
It had been a relationship doomed to failure almost from the very start.
“Who put Nichols on this op?” A cold voice startled her from her thoughts and she looked up into the eyes of Rebecca Petras.
“We brought in the personnel we had available in the region—obviously, given that we had to lean on the Brits to round out the team. I believe Nichols’ orders came directly from Director Rodriguez. He’s one of the best.”
A look of caution came over the older woman’s face. “Worked with him in Iraq—last year and again this spring. So let me give you some unsolicited advice…stay as far away from him as possible.”
Unbidden, her mind flickered back to that last morning they’d spent together. The look on his face as he’d tossed the duffel bag into the back of his old Cutlass outside her apartment in Alexandria.
A look which told her it was over between them more clearly than if he’d spoken the words. “I have to do this, Iraida. Maybe in the end it’s all for the best—like Kipling said…‘Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne, he travels the fastest who travels alone.’”
Her own voice, a bitter reply. “And which way are you going?”
He’d never flinched, that same enigmatic smile playing at his lips. “God knows. Time will tell.”
Petras’ advice was sound, if a bit late. “Why?” she heard herself ask.
A shrug. “Nichols is good because he knows how to work people—how to command a dangerous personal loyalty from the men he leads into battle. They’d die for him and you can bet your sweet life they’d lie for him. And one of these days…he’s going to be brought down, along with everyone around him. Mark my words.”
She might have responded, but at that moment a young petty officer stepped up, handing Petras a remote control. “We have the sat coverage up on the screens, ma’am.”
The images started to come up even as he spoke and Iraida saw the older woman’s face change, a curse escaping her lips.
“They’ve already overrun the primary extract point.”
11:47 P.M.
Bint Jbeil, Lebanon
“We’ve got two armed hajjis near the entrance of the compound, on the other side of the gate—both of them taking cover from the bombardment.” Hale’s voice in his ear, his tones clipped. Same communication protocols applied to the two-way radios as the phone. No need to make themselves into high-value targets. “Other than that…clear field.”
Harry raised his eyes from the FN’s scope, glancing across the street and up to the building where Sergeant Hale had disappeared. At two stories—or what remained of them, it was the tallest structure in sight. Giving them an observation point to survey the courtyard.
“Thoughts, Nick?” he asked, leaning back against the wheel of a burned-out jeep, its rubber melted clean away from the rims.
A grin. “You know me, mate. Always been a fan of the direct approach.”
“Go right up and ring the doorbell?” Harry countered, screwing a suppressor into the threaded barrel of his 1911. “Sounds good—want to flip for it?”
Crawford shook his head. “Thought you’d be a natural for it considerin’ you’re the bloody linguist an’ all. Me—I’m supposed to be a deaf-mute, remember?”
Shrapnel rattled against the body of the jeep as a shell slammed into the street not fifteen meters from their position. Shards of metal that would have eviscerated them if they’d been caught in the open.
Not their time, not now—the death angel passing over once more. Close enough to feel the air rush beneath its wings. Time to move. He slung the FN-FAL over his back, tucking the suppressed 1911 under his jacket as he rose from behind the vehicle. “Back my play.”
The direct approach. He could hear Crawford behind him as they trotted across the road, coming up on the compound’s wall from a blind spot.
There were times when the direct approach worked better than anything else—simply because it was what people never saw coming.
The man skulking in the bushes got a bullet in the head for his pains. The man walking right up with open hands…that was the man who got close enough to do damage. Because people didn’t perceive the threat.
Reaching the steel gate, he flung up a hand, calling out in plaintive Arabic, “Please, brothers, let me in—before the next shells come.”
He saw them move, startled—a pair of AKs suddenly trained on his head. Two men there in the semi-darkness—one of them in his fifties easily.
The other one was bigger, but young enough to have been the older man’s son, Harry realized when he moved closer, lowering the assault rifle as he approached.
Perhaps he was. Terrorism was a family thing in this part of the world. “What are you doing here?”
“Commander Bazzi sent us,” Harry responded glibly, taking the chance that the Hezbollah commander wasn’t inside the compound itself—his eyes searching the young man’s face for a reaction as he continued. “He wanted to know if you’d gotten any more information from the woman.”
Recognition. He saw it there in the man’s eyes in the split-second before another artillery shell screamed in, pulverizing the jeep they’d taken shelter behind—dirt pelting down on them from on high. Layla Massoud was inside.
“Hurry, get in here,” the young man admonished, slinging his rifle around his shoulders as he reached through the bars to unlock the padlocked chains holding the steel gate closed. Harry noticed in an absent moment that he was wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with a gun-wielding video-game character and the logo Halo above it. The same shirt he’d bought for his nephew for Chri
stmas.
It was too late to think about that. No time—no time for anything but action as the gate swung back. As Crawford entered behind him.
The Colt came out in his hand, a long black shape in the night. He saw his target’s eyes widen, the suppressor almost touching the man’s chest as he pulled the trigger. Once, twice—the .45-caliber hollow-point slugs smashing through bone, body tissue, deforming and expanding outward as they traveled through the body.
The young man staggered, but didn’t fall—staring down at the holes in his chest as if it belonged to someone else. Disbelief filling his features.
Harry could hear the slide of Crawford’s Sig-Sauer cycling behind him, a deadly cadence. The strangled cry as the older jihadist went down.
Taking care of business.
He didn’t hesitate, raising the pistol to put a third shot between his target’s eyes, the head snapping back from the impact of the round. No remorse.
“Clear.”
He glanced back to see Crawford standing over the body of the older man, his pistol aimed down—his finger tightening around the trigger. There was a loud cough, and then the SAS sergeant looked up.
“Clear.”
Harry keyed his mike, glancing upward toward the building where Hale was providing overwatch. “Bring the Range Rover around and keep it running. We’re going in.”
He felt the pulse of the phone at his side once again, the second time since he’d last talked with Harmon. Typical of the Agency, trying to micro-manage a field op.
The eyes of the man he’d killed stared lifelessly up at him as he stepped over the body, ignoring the phone once more as he and Crawford moved in on the house, weapons drawn. There’d be time to deal with Harmon and Petras later. This op was moving forward—and their window was closing.
Fast.
11:55 P.M.
The USS Iwo Jima
“He’s not answering his phone,” Iraida announced, running a hand over her forehead. A low curse escaped her lips. Autonomy on a field op could be taken too far.
LODESTONE: A Shadow Warriors Novella Page 2