The situation was now critical. General Rashood and his three-man team were stranded in the middle of a highway, in Israel, with two members of the IDF laying dead on the highway, murdered in cold blood. But the night was dark and silent, and his Hamas fighters were superbly trained for an eventuality that might compromise their mission.
Groups Two and Three were already on the highway, grabbing the two inert bodies and dragging them across into the fields beyond.
"Everyone cross as fast as possible and make for the river," Ravi ordered. "Four men on each body. Drag or carry, whatever's easiest. Keep going. Try to stay in fours, and be ready if anything else happens."
They reached the bank of the river, which ran through a mile or so of swamps, and there they dumped the bodies out of sight in marshy wetland, deep in the bulrushes. No one missed a beat. Ray guessed correctly it would be a couple of weeks at least before anyone found anything. And even then the Israelis would never admit two of their guards had been murdered.
The men from Hamas moved away from the burial area swiftly and silently, moving through the lush farmland at such a pace that they never even heard the Israeli Army jeeps roaring back and forth along the highway looking for two missing personnel.
Ravi picked up a path used mostly by visiting observers of nature and the rich bird population, which has found a home in these northern wetlands.
In fact, he had acquired a map from the Galilee International Bird Watching Society, after enrolling Shakira as a member. She thought he must have gone out of his mind, but he would not tell even her why he needed a detailed knowledge of the secret paths of the birders through this peaceful Israeli wildlife reserve.
She still did not know, but the thirty-five men who tracked him through the night of April 28/29 were astounded at his navigational expertise in the pitch dark.
By half past two, they were officially off the foothills of the Golan Heights and across the river. Before him Ray could pick out the towering crags of the Nimrod mountain, and he began to edge further north, over drier, grassy fields, thus ensuring that his team advanced at a right angle to the highway, moving onto the rock face and then climbing the less-steep slopes up to the hide under the right-hand side of the approach road.
Once on their final advance, they moved into the blessed cover of high woodland, and Ray led them almost straight through, breaking cover within 300 yards of the escarpment. He was obviously hurrying now, because it was almost three o'clock, three hours before the first pink strands of daylight began to illuminate the sky behind them. They had a climb, and then some meticulous camouflage work to complete. Never had the men from Hamas experienced anything like the degree of planning, organization, and execution then-new Commanding Officer provided.
He led them on a zigzag path up the mountain, and they climbed easily, many of them grateful for the brutal three-month training regimen he had imposed upon them, ruthlessly weeding out men who could not cope. Of the sixty volunteers who started out, eighteen had been axed from the program. As they were removed, the standards grew tougher, and men began to feel the pride of the elite warrior.
Two of those who were let go were overcome with that Arab sense of shame, which is unaccountable, and very dangerous. Both had threatened to cut the new General's throat, but Ahmed Sabah had advised them this was probably a poor idea, if they had ambitions to go on breathing. One very tough young brave, age nineteen, humiliated beyond his own tolerance at being asked to leave the program, flew at the General with both fists, shouting, "WHO YOU THINK YOU ARE, YOU BASTARD!"
Ahmed Sabah was furious and complained bitterly all through the forty-eight-mile journey to the big hospital in Damascus where surgeons would reset the young man's broken arm and collarbone. "I've killed men for a lot less," growled Ravi. "Consider yourself lucky."
Thirty-five men now climbed Mount Nimrod, convinced they were following some kind of Divine being sent to them by Allah himself. When they reached the safety of the hide, below the road at twenty after three, they each, to a man, thanked their God for their mission and their leader.
By six o'clock they were invisible, both from the road and anywhere else, protected by layers of brushwood. They were not to know, but this temporary new headquarters was almost a precise replica of another observation post constructed by Major Ray Kerman, five years previously, 3,500 miles away in West Africa, on the north bank of the Rokel Creek.
Thanks to the stash of water back at the RV Point, they all had full canteens, but no food because it was cumbersome and unnecessary. This was a short mission. They drank sparingly and waited. Some of them grabbed some sleep, between guard duties, and by half past ten they were listening for the sound of the decoy vehicle they knew would break down, right above them.
In fact, Ray Kerman saw it before they heard it, moving steadily along the highway way down the valley. He and Ahmed waited right below the chalk line they had made on the surface of the road, and when the old, dilapidated Ford Escort finally labored up toward them, they both watched it move into the very center of the road and then stop dead, bang on the line.
They now knew precisely where the supply truck would stop, and they broke cover, positioning themselves for the kill, Ray on the far side of the road, Ahmed, hidden in a clump of bushes on the near side, above the men.
The twenty-eight-wheeler came groaning up the hill, obviously heavily laden, in a low gear. With a hiss of giant air brakes, it rumbled to a halt, its engine ticking over noisily in the precise spot Ray had planned. The driver hit the horn, but the two Arabs, their heads deep in the car's engine, just waved and did not look up.
The doors to the truck's cab opened simultaneously and the two Israeli soldiers climbed down, and walked slowly to the car, the last steps they would ever take. While one of them leaned over the engine, the other looked on. Which was where they died, instantly, each with a long combat knife through his back and deep into his heart.
At that moment the place came vividly to life. The Hamas warriors swarmed up onto the road from the hide below, and cranked down the steel rear flap. They pulled up the tarpaulin and clipped it high. Within moments they were hauling the big cardboard crates along the floor of the truck to the back end where hands waited to grab them and lift them to the side of the road, then over the edge of the cliff.
General Ravi and Ahmed took two much smaller cardboard boxes out of the trunk of the car and dumped them both in the cab of the truck. Then four more of the raiders dragged the two bodies off the road, pulled off their jackets and hats, and dumped them over the cliff.
The General shook hands with the two Arabs, who jumped back in the car, made a three-point turn, and roared back down the hill to organize their second blockade of the morning, the side-on breakdown which would prevent any other vehicle driving up to the jail.
The men worked fast, sliding, grabbing, and hauling the cargo out of the Israeli Army truck. The stuff was heavy and awkward, but there were a lot of hands and a lot of muscle. They worked in prearranged teams, four men in the truck, four on the ground dragging the cartons out, then handing over to a relay of twelve carriers, rushing the boxes to the side of the road, where twelve more men had nothing else to do except shove the boxes the last six feet and over the edge. This was the kind of operation that could easily have turned into a Chinese fire drill, but it proceeded like clockwork, smart in its efficiency.
Six minutes later the truck was empty, the cargo gone, resting way below the road, in the bracken, along with its dead former driver and guard. One would have to get awfully close to the edge, and peer downward into a specific spot in the low mountain foliage, to see the light brown packing cases, full of eggs, meat, vegetables, and bread.
By now Ravi and Ahmed had changed into the Israeli uniforms and were in the cab with their carbines and two boxes. The rest of the team was piling into the back of the truck, hoods down, MP5s at the ready. It was a bit tight, but they all made it. Then they pulled down the tarpaulin, but left the rear gate dow
n for a quick and easy exit.
Ravi released the brake, rammed the truck into first gear, revved the engine, and slowly began to climb the hill. He wound it up to 30 mph, and two minutes later they drove up to the gates of Nimrod Jail. Ravi hit the horn twice; short, sharp notes, nothing urgent.
Inside the walls, the duty guard casually looked up on the monitoring screen, saw the supply truck, and absentmindedly pushed the button to open the main entrance, returning immediately to his newspaper.
Ravi and Ahmed watched the great wooden doors swing inward. Then the truck edged forward, its engine roaring as it pushed into the inner courtyard. Ravi could see a total of six guards, two on one side of the yard, four on the other. Two of them waved cheerfully and Ravi waved back, noting the men were in a civilian prison uniform, not military, unlike the two patrols he had watched so often outside the walls of the building.
He drove the truck in. Almost. He placed it in such a position that the gates could never be closed until the truck was moved one way or the other. He held his breath and cut the engine, then hit the starter again, buying time, pretending he had stalled and knowing the first wave of his attack was in motion. Eight of his men were already out of the truck, beyond sight of the guards, racing back through the gate, four swinging left, four right.
The first squad found what they wanted within thirty yards: the two-man Israeli patrol, smoking, one sitting on the old castle wall. One single burst from the MP5s cut them down. They never knew what hit them. Seconds later, another burst from the other side of the jail signaled another triumph, as Ravi's team gunned down the other patrol, just two soldiers leaning on one of the heavy artillery pieces overlooking the vast flatlands below.
Over the raging of Ravi's disconnected starter motor, the shots were scarcely heard behind the mighty walls in the courtyard. But the attack was under way, and a single hooded gunman kicked open the door to the interior gatehouse, blew away both men inside, and obliterated the electronic control panel with a fusillade of machine gun fire.
All six duty guards began running toward the gatehouse, and three of Ravi's men, lying flat underneath the truck, shot them all dead in their tracks. Not one of the guards even knew where the shots had come from.
This had all taken less then one minute, and now the Hamas General was leading the way. He hurled one hand grenade clean through the window of the small building on his left, in which four off-duty guards were sleeping. The blast collapsed the entire structure. The shuddering din, in the enclosed yard, alerted the three-man staff in the prison office, from which a door was flung open.
Framed in the doorway was the Governor of the Prison. One of the marksmen under the truck shot him dead, while Ravi, who could see through the window another officer on the phone, hurled in his second hand grenade, then hit the floor as the prison office was blown apart.
Ahmed, carrying one of the cardboard boxes from the cab of the truck, had made immediately for the main gates out of the courtyard into the prison block, and surprisingly found them open. He pushed them both inward, and his two bodyguards, especially trained by the General himself, rushed in, machine guns blazing, cutting down the two duty guards who were both gazing out of the window, wondering what to do, and trying to dial numbers on their cell phones.
Up above, on the second-floor cell-block landing, another guard rushed to the steel rail and looked over, yelling in English, "WHAT THE HELL'S GOING ON?" This was a big mistake because Ahmed's bodyguards looked upward and instantly shot him dead. Which left no active guards on duty in the prison. Nimrod, for the moment, belonged to General Ravi Rashood.
His men swarmed into their designated positions, using keys taken from the work belts of the dead men to open the gates to the lines of cells, in which were incarcerated the most dangerous terrorists in all of Israel. These were forty-seven ringleaders of bombing attacks conducted on behalf of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Islamic Jihad over the past several years. Many of them were well-known Palestinian leaders, but this place contained men who would never be released onto the streets of Jerusalem or Tel Aviv or Hebron ever again.
The Israelis called them political prisoners. In a sense they were. But only in a sense. All of them had found their way into this specialist high-security jail because of diabolical acts of mass murder and killing. And the Israelis were confident the mountaintop site, surrounded by miles of low farmland, would make the place as secure as Alcatraz, the wickedly exposed countryside being as dangerous and unhelpful to a fugitive as the wide, swirling currents of San Francisco Bay.
So far they had been right. And they may still be. General Ravi knew he had time to free the prisoners. But the getaway needed to be as flawless as the attack itself.
He went to work issuing the contents of his cardboard box to yet two more men he had personally trained. He gave them each a high-powered, battery-operated electric drill, each one of which would drive two small round holes into the locking bars of the cell gates. The second box was opened on the floor and he began to take out the reels of detcord, handing each one to a separate man. This stuff was precious, absolutely beloved to both the SAS and the U.S. Navy SEALs. Although it is really just a fuse—light it and stand well back—it is unlike any other slow-burning fuse used by Special Forces to detonate high explosives.
Detcord burns at five miles per second. Wrap a few turns around a good-sized oak tree and that stuff will blast the trunk in two. Its core is called PETN, a slim-line explosive that can be aimed with great accuracy. Detcord explodes so fast, you can hook it up to several targets, join the cord together, and knock down the lot, all at one time.
By now one of Ravi's drillers had reached the top of the open staircase. The second drill was already working the lower level, and the scream of the motors was filling the air. Each driller hung a small precision piece of machined steel over the lock, and drilled into two preset holes, boring two more holes accurate to a hundredth of an inch, straight into the unseen steel locking bar behind the outside shield.
And right behind them raced the guys with the detcord, one on the reel and the other shouting in Arabic into the cell: . . . Hamas! We're getting you out. . . Grab the cord and shove it back through the second hole. . . Hurry!
No short instruction was ever carried out faster. As the length of cord was returned through the hole, an entirely new man moved up to grab it and drag it through, then wrap it around the bar twice more, and cut it to length with the pruning shears they'd used for the bracken. Another man was ready to tie the end hard to the next length coming from the next-door cell.
Ravi intended to blow the locks four at a time. And in strict relays his men drilled, threaded, dragged, wound, cut, and tied the lethal detcord, one task per man. The work proceeded with lightning speed as two of the General's NCOs patrolled the cell blocks shouting clear instructions: "When your detcord's in place, retreat to the far wall of your cell. Lie flat facing the ground against the wall. If there's a mattress, get it against your back, between you and the explosion on the door lock."
Six minutes after the first drillings had begun, General Rashood fired, and the explosions ripped into the first four locks, blasting them to pieces. Each of the doors swung open, and two men rushed into each cell to help the inmate to his feet. Thankfully, they were not manacled and there were no injuries so far. It had taken approximately ninety seconds to liberate each man, but on the lower level, Ahmed was conducting a concurrent operation, and almost immediately there was another mighty blast and four more doors swung open. Following the same procedures precisely, sixteen men were now engaged in walking the eight freed men to the muster point behind the truck in the courtyard.
Reassessing the time, Ravi now calculated he had eight men out in seven minutes. And he guessed they would get faster. That meant forty-two minutes maximum for all forty-seven. He had under a half hour's work, but his mind was haunted by the face of the man he had seen on the telephone in the office. Had he got a message away? And what had he told the Military H
Q? Was there a direct hot line? If there was, it was trouble. If not, there was an excellent chance they'd have time to spare.
He had always known the quandary, the weak spot in the operation. Should he have gone in and knocked out the main electric supply to the jail? Or would this have started off an automatic alarm, which would have damn nearly blown the operation before they even made it inside the gates? He had estimated that was a risk too great to take, but now he did not know whether Israeli Paratroopers were on their way to Nimrod in helicopters.
He had already dispatched two lookouts to the high ramparts of the jail, to scan the skies. They'd been up there five minutes now and could see nothing in the clear blue of the morning. They had principally to look one way. Not east toward the Syrian border, not north to the Lebanon frontier, just south, toward the Israeli military.
The General climbed the gantry to the highest wall of the jail and dialed a number. The lookouts heard him snap, "HIGH ROLLERS GO!"
Back on the ground, fifteen minutes had passed and sixteen men were free. His 2 I/C (Explosives) was now detonating on the upper floor and Ahmed was in command of all explosions on the lower area. Two shuddering bangs in quick succession signaled eight more prisoners free. And still there was no word from the lookouts high above.
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