By Dawn's Early Light

by Grant R. Jeffrey

  Dickerson and Reed caught the lines and lowered themselves to the skids, each man leaning his entire body weight on the ropes as the Knesset’s rooftop came into view. Forty feet above the roof, the chopper hovered while Reed and Dickerson stepped back, positioning the ropes between their boots, then kicked themselves free of the skid and dropped out of sight. Devorah stood, mentally counting to ten between the others’ descents, then finally grasped the rope herself, caught Berger’s eye, and stepped out into nothingness.

  The pebbled gray rooftop seemed to rise at an alarming rate, and the night air struck her face like a cold slap. Then, suddenly, she was on the ground, her hands warm from the friction of the rope. Without wasting a moment, she tossed the rope free, snatched the Uzi in both hands, and followed the others, who were moving like shadows through a maze of air vents and hulking air-conditioning units. Dickerson had already blown the access door by the time she arrived, so she and Berger slipped down the metal stairs as silently as they could.

  Inexplicably, her thoughts drifted to her father, who would still be sitting in the synagogue, lifting his prayers for Israel’s safety among the nations. For half an instant she wondered if he would think to pray for her, then she remembered that very few people in Jerusalem knew anything about the situation. If all went well, they would never need to know of it.

  Moving with the grace and skill of trained dancers, the members of the assault team broke off and moved to their assigned positions. Devorah doggedly followed Reed, Dickerson, and Phillips, then paused in the service hallway and waited for Berger and Navron to cut the lights. She let the Uzi rest in its sling as she pulled her NV goggles from her vest and fitted them over her balaclava hood. Holding the eyepiece over her forehead, she looked up at a bank of fluorescent lights in the ceiling. Almost immediately, the lights went out.

  She pulled the NV goggles over her face then gripped the Uzi, blinking as her eyes grew accustomed to the oscilloscope-green tint that now illuminated the hallway. Reed held up his hand and lifted two fingers, his sign for the Congo line formation. Devorah knew it well—all counterterrorist teams were drilled in several standard approaches to hostile spaces. Each team member had to know whether to go right or left, to shoot low or high. Without a plan and a pattern, operators could end up shooting each other.

  They moved into the hallway, assumed their high/low positions, and froze, each operator scanning the space. Devorah saw no movement, only emptiness. Reed lifted his hand again, pointed in the direction of the government room, then drew an S in the air. He wanted to enter this hallway in the snake pattern, one man following another. It was risky for the point man, but safer for the others . . . and Reed was taking the point. She felt her heart rate increase as they swept down the dark hallway.

  A score of questions rose to her brain as she followed Phillips and glanced over her shoulder every five steps to be sure no tangos moved behind them. What if one of the terrorists decided to step out in search of a restroom? What if one of the hostages tried something desperate and accidentally set off a grenade? She knew what to expect from professional soldiers, but terrorists didn’t play by the rules and hostages were hopelessly unpredictable.

  Thirty feet shy of the doors leading into the government room, Michael stopped and pumped his fist twice. Dickerson stepped forward and aimed an infrared scope toward the corridor ahead. From studying the blueprints Devorah knew they were outside a storage room. The government room and the hostages lay at least twenty-five feet further down the hall. She glanced down and saw movement on the infrared screen, faint red blips surrounded by a fuzzy white aura.

  “So far, so good,” Reed whispered, shifting his sniper rifle from one hand to the other. “The hallway appears clear.”

  “Wait.” Devorah leaned forward and pointed toward another blip, one moving westward and located farther north than the others. “Who is that?”

  Dickerson flashed an appreciative smile. “A lookout, no doubt. Caught in the dark, and as suspicious as a navy wife by now. He’ll be expecting us.”

  Michael glanced at Dickerson. “Can you take him out when he turns the corner? Silently—we can’t alert the others.”

  “Piece of cake.” Dickerson handed the infrared scope to Devorah, then straightened and pulled his suppressed submachine gun from its sling. Devorah heard the click of the MP10’s safety as he flicked it downward to full fire.

  On the scope, the blip changed direction. It was now moving southward, straight toward them. Devorah looked up and could see movement in the green-tinted night beyond. A man crept there, a SMG in his arms.

  “Now, Dickerson.” Reed’s voice was a jolt of energy, sending the lieutenant two steps forward. Devorah heard a soft double tap—pfft pfft—then a sound like a bag of potatoes falling to the floor. She looked up and squinted through the darkness. The man in the distance had fallen.

  The lieutenant’s southern drawl interrupted her thoughts. “Clear to advance, Captain.”

  Without another word, Reed gestured to Dickerson, sending him to the north end of the hallway to secure that position, then he motioned Devorah and Phillips forward. When they were still ten feet from the entrance doors, Reed looked at Devorah and held up the flat of his hand, indicating that he wanted her to hold her position and make certain no tangos approached from the southern hallway.

  She nodded and turned to face the corner they had just rounded, crouching in a firing position as Reed and Phillips moved toward the double entrance doors to the government room. Though she kept one eye on the hallway she had been assigned, she couldn’t help being fascinated by Reed and Phillips.

  Silently, Reed stepped up to the wall separating him from the hostages and pulled out an electronic device that led him to a hollow spot in the plaster wall. Satisfied, he nodded to Phillips, who stepped forward with a black drill.

  Devorah watched in silence as the noiseless drill whirred, sending a thin plume of plaster smoke into the air. After a moment, Phillips stepped back while Reed approached the hole and extended his hand. Like a nurse supplying a surgeon, Phillips pulled a slender ten-inch rod from his tactical vest and snapped it against the captain’s gloved palm.

  Reed slipped the tube into the drilled hole, then fastened a wire to the end of the cylinder. Phillips produced a small black monitor, which Reed connected to the wire. He then knelt down and focused on the monitor’s screen, and, as an afterthought, looked up and gestured to Devorah.

  She cast a quick glance over the empty hallway, then rose from her crouch and crept forward, peering over Reed’s shoulder. Like a tiny television, the screen displayed the interior of the room. She could see all thirty hostages, some in chairs, some bound and sitting around the circular table—and five gunmen, each carrying an automatic weapon. The most agitated man, apparently the leader, also carried a grenade in his clenched first.

  “A fisheye lens,” Dickerson whispered, grinning up at her. “Neat gadget, huh?”

  Devorah didn’t answer but stepped back to reassume her position. It was a wonderful spy device, but the IDF had similar tools. And what was the point? Reed had promised to end the situation without casualties, but so far he hadn’t done anything the IDF counterterrorist team wouldn’t have done. Though there were only five terrorists inside the room, any attempt to rush the doors would certainly result in an explosion. The leader wouldn’t hesitate to trigger the grenade.

  As if he had read her mind, Michael tapped the screen and spoke in a rough whisper. “What sort of grenade is that?”

  Dickerson leaned closer and squinted at the jerky image. “It looks like a Swiss HG 85 electronic fragmentation hand grenade—they’re nasty little beasties. They’ll bring down anything within one hundred meters of the detonation point.”

  “Trigger?”

  “A self-destruct button. Right on top, within easy reach.”

  Devorah shifted her gaze back to the hallway and felt fear burn the back of her throat as something moved in the emerald darkness. Her finger cove
red the Uzi’s trigger, ready to fire . . . then Reed’s voice scraped like sandpaper across her ears. “Roger that, Miles. We’ve got you in sight, so come on down.”

  Moving in a single line, Miles, Berger, and Navron crept down the hallway toward the government room. As Navron and Miles moved toward Reed, Berger knelt at Devorah’s side.

  “Where’s Webb?” She was almost afraid to ask.

  Berger leaned closer, the narcotic scent of his tobacco assaulting her nostrils. “Left him to guard the stairs. We took out two tangos on the first floor.”

  Devorah exhaled in relief. Eight tangos in, three dead, five in the government room. All terrorists present and accounted for.

  Silently, Reed pointed to Devorah, Navron, and Berger, then gestured toward three spots in the wall and made a twisting gesture, as if he were turning a doorknob. Devorah nodded, understanding that he wanted mouse holes blown in the wall. She released her Uzi, allowing it to dangle on the sling, and pulled a handful of Primacord from a pocket in her tactical vest. Moving to the wall, she stuck the explosive to the wall in a rectangular shape, then pushed a blasting cap into the upper right corner. She worked quickly, determined to observe everything going on around her.

  Murmuring into the radio microphone, Reed called for Dickerson, who jogged back without a sound. Then, by pointing to his men and touching the monitor, Reed assigned each of the four SEALs to one of the terrorists on the screen. Understanding his silent signals, the operators nodded and moved along the wall, each man keeping a wary eye on the video display as the terrorists paced back and forth in the room.

  “We’ll get them.” Michael looked at Devorah, mouthing the words, but she understood him as clearly as if he had shouted in her ear. What she didn’t understand was how they were supposed to incapacitate these men while on the other side of a wall the leader held a grenade within killing distance of thirty of Israel’s most influential political leaders.

  Gripping the detonator control in her left hand, she grabbed the grip of her Uzi and brought it up to point at the ceiling, then backed ten feet away from the wall. She checked her watch: 2232. Fear blew down the back of her neck when she realized they had been in the building fifteen minutes. Terrorists with any training whatsoever would require sentries to check in frequently, and these madmen were certain to expect a radio report from the dead guy in the hall or the two lookouts on the first floor. More important, the Sayeret, her people, were preparing to storm the building at 2245. If Reed and his men didn’t hurry, they might all end up in the rubble of the Knesset.

  From their backpacks, the SEALs pulled weapons she had never seen before. They were shaped like rifles, but with narrow barrels, scarcely wider than a pencil. Each man flipped a switch, activating some sort of mechanism that lit the shooter’s face with a green glow. Adjusting her position, Devorah stared at the closest man, Miles, and saw that this weapon featured a small infrared screen, enabling the shooter to discern thermal body images through the wall. By comparing the moving infrared blips with the video screen, each man was able to distinguish between his assigned target and the others in the room.

  Devorah blinked in wonderment. She had no idea what these men were doing, but this was not the time or place to ask. She would take mental notes and pass them on to the intelligence community later. Though the Americans were usually generous with their technology, they had not offered to share anything like this.

  The four SEALs, each operator still tracking the movements of his assigned enemy, waited for Reed’s signal. He stood and lifted his hand, looked right and left to check his men’s preparation, then brought his hand down in an abrupt movement.

  Devorah flinched as a sharp crackling sound filled the air. Twenty seconds passed, then she heard sounds of distress from the room beyond. She cradled her weapon and aimed it toward the wall where she had planted the charges. She cut a quick look to the video screen and saw that four of the terrorists, all but the leader, had dropped their weapons and fallen to the floor. The agitated leader’s face had darkened with anger, the hand with the grenade flailing in frustration.

  Michael raised the sniper rifle, then jerked his head, urging Devorah and her men forward. “Blow the holes,” he commanded, his voice filled with a quiet menace all the more intimidating for its control. “I’ll take out the leader.”

  Devorah pressed the button on the detonator, then turned her head as the section of wall imploded, sending a cloud of white dust and smoke into the air. Her feet carried her forward and through the opening, and she fell to one knee, covering the fallen tangos with her weapon, while the grenade-wielding leader stepped forward, his eyes blazing, his hand lifted defiantly.

  “Drop your weapon!” he called in Arabic, his face a glowering mask of rage. “Drop your weapon or—”

  Before he could complete his sentence, a single shot cracked and a faintly pink cloud bloomed around the terrorist’s head. Carried by momentum alone, the man spun in a slow circle, then buckled at the knees and collapsed on the ground. The shiny grenade slipped from his hand and rolled over the carpet, landing only a few inches from Michael Reed’s boots.

  Devorah took a wincing breath, then exhaled slowly. The device had not been triggered. It couldn’t have been; Reed’s shot had gone through the control centers of the brain, instantly killing all motor function.

  “Clear!” The call came from the men scattered through the room. “Clear!” “All clear!”

  “Sergeant Major.” Reed wore a crooked smile when he turned to face her. “Why do you look so surprised? I told you we could handle this with no casualties—well, almost none.”

  Her heart seemed to have stopped dead when the grenade rolled toward him, and it now resumed beating much faster than usual, as if to make up for lost time. “What took you so long?” she stammered, staring at the grenade.

  “Must have been all those years behind a desk,” he answered, his voice dry.

  Reed moved past her, back out into the hall, as Devorah lifted her NV goggles and stared at the chaos in the room. The other four terrorists lay on the floor, their faces as pale as death, their khaki shirts and trousers mottled with sweat. The hostages were clapping, shouting, embracing in a sea of relief. One man came toward her, chanting Hebrew words of blessing as he drew her into his arms and patted her on the back.

  Devorah smiled numbly, quietly accepted the man’s thanks, then slipped back out into the hall. Reed was facing the wall and talking to the command post on the radio, telling the Sayeret to stand down and send an ambulance. The situation had been resolved. Four terrorists were safely in custody for questioning, and all thirty hostages and eight assault team members were alive and well.

  Just like he’d said they would be.

  Michael thanked the members of the SEAL Team Three, made each of them promise to look him up if they came through Fort Meade, then stood back as the Little Bird lifted off and swung away into the night sky. The operation had been a complete success, and tomorrow the Israelis would thank him.

  But the victory had not been won without cost. Even if only a skeleton story were reported in the press, by tomorrow morning the world would know that American soldiers had been brought in to help resolve the situation. While the Israeli lieutenants in the command post were plenty grateful to have their necks rescued by American SEALs, the higher-ups might not feel so appreciative. And Sam Stedman, still facing a tough political battle at the polls, would undoubtedly come under fire for authorizing the use of American troops.

  The weapons were another touchy subject. The thermal guns they had used to immobilize the four terrorists were still classified. The concept of a thermal weapon—one which could raise an enemy’s body temperature to a ripping 106 degrees—had been on the drawing board for years, but few people outside SpecWar forces knew a prototype had actually been developed and tested. Yet tonight he had displayed the gun and its capabilities before several Israelis, including Devorah, who would undoubtedly want to know more.

  He wasn
’t surprised when she offered to drive him back to his hotel after their after action review. “I can take a taxi,” he offered, gesturing at the still-crowded street. “It’s late, and you’re probably exhausted.”

  “My father will know Asher and I left the synagogue.” She looked up and gave him a tired smile. “And I think he would like to hear about what happened tonight. You began the evening with his hospitality—why don’t you end it with him as well?”

  Michael fell silent, torn between common sense and an inexplicable desire to please a woman who had proven her mettle in the last hour. He had often privately wondered how a woman would perform as a member of an assault team, and tonight he had seen that Devorah Cohen, at least, could pull her weight.

  He nodded slowly. “I’ll come, if only for another piece of that delicious challah.” He gestured toward the street. “But I think you’d do a fine job of telling the story.”

  “You’ll tell it better.” A secretive smile softened her lips as they began to walk. “And I can’t wait to hear all the details.”

  The windows in the rabbi’s house were dark, but Devorah assured him her father would still be awake. “The lamps are controlled by a timer, since turning them on and off would violate the Sabbath,” she explained as she led the way up the cobblestone walk. “He would usually be asleep by this hour, but I’m sure he’s still awake. He doesn’t rest when there is trouble afoot.”

  As Devorah rapped softly upon the door, Michael slipped his hands into his trouser pockets and shivered slightly in the chilly air. The adrenaline that had flooded his body was ebbing away, leaving him feeling drained and empty.

  The golden glow of a streetlight illuminated the porch and shone upon a small silver container that had been mounted at eye level beside the door. Leaning closer, Michael could see a piece of rolled parchment visible through a tiny glass window in the center of the receptacle.