by Ward Larsen
Slaton eyed her briefly, and saw one problem. “You’d better hide that.” He pointed to the front of her abaya. Somewhere in all the running and pushing, a necklace with a Christian cross had worked its way free at her neckline. Sarah tucked it back in, but not before kissing it once. Slaton hoped she’d added a prayer with the kiss.
“All right, then,” he said. “Let’s go!”
FORTY-NINE
Slaton led Sarah down a narrow street. He knew where the square was, having studied the town’s layout in preparation, and was sure he could find it without referencing the map. Bursts of gunfire sounded behind them, north of town, punctuated by the occasional explosion. The sporadic nature of the exchanges suggested that Aaron and the others were so far having success keeping the Hezbollah fighters, and any government troops who’d joined them, tactically off balance.
Sarah was doing well, moving quickly but not in a way that would draw attention. A learned skill, he supposed, for a Christian girl growing up in the Islamic State. Rounding a corner, he saw a pair of men in the distance; both were armed and running north. Slaton kept Sarah, who was dressed conveniently as a local, between him and the two soldiers. One of them might have glanced their way, but soon both disappeared behind a building.
The square came into view, and Slaton guided Sarah into a shadowed corner. “Is this the place?” he asked.
“Yes. There, at the far end—the low wall.”
Slaton looked and saw the wall at the far end of a wide open square. He also saw a new problem—ten or twelve civilians milling about precisely where she’d pointed. He saw two rifles, but it wasn’t a military unit in any sense of the word.
“Who are they?” she asked.
“Probably locals. They heard the gunfire and they’re wondering what’s going on.”
Slaton lifted his weapon and sighted it on the group.
“You can’t just shoot them!” Sarah protested.
“I’m only looking.” Slaton stepped his reticle through the crowd one by one. He saw two AKs, and an old man carrying what looked like a scimitar. Great, he thought, we successfully engage Hezbollah, only to get beat down by a freaking neighborhood watch.
He said, “Could you find it quickly?”
“Yes, I think I know the exact place.”
“So if I fire a few rounds in that direction, get them to scatter for a minute or two … could you retrieve it?”
“But you might hit someone by accident.”
Slaton took his eye away from the scope, and said in a level tone, “I don’t hit things by accident.”
“You can’t know that—there are children out there.”
Slaton tried not to roll his eyes. “Look, I really am a pretty good shot. Now get ready to—”
“No, there is a better way!”
Before Slaton could respond, Sarah turned and dashed into the square.
He backed into the shadows, cursed, and trained his gun on one of the men who was holding an AK. His finger poised on the trigger.
Halfway to the crowd, Sarah began shouting as she ran. Whatever she said, it was in Arabic, a rudimentary language for Slaton. He caught a few words, but missed the meaning. Soon every set of eyes in the crowd was on her. Slaton watched a mother grab a young teen and haul him off by the wrist. A young woman was next, and soon it became a stampede. Twenty seconds later the square was completely empty. He watched Sarah kneel near the base of the wall, and used his scope to scan for threats as she ran back toward him.
She skidded to a stop in front of him no more than a minute after she’d gone. Sarah held out her open hand, and in it was a white memory stick.
“Okay,” he said, “that was good.” Slaton took the stick and pocketed it. When Sarah turned to go, he said, “What did you say to them?”
She smiled. “Only the truth. I shouted that the Israelis were invading.”
* * *
The rendezvous west of town almost went well. Using his NVGs, Slaton spotted Aaron and the others in the shallow wadi. Uday had apparently been given a short course in driving an ATV, because the fourth vehicle, the one Slaton had been driving, was parked with the others in a stand of brush fifty yards away. They gathered in the wadi’s natural recess, and Slaton told everyone they’d recovered the data. Aaron briefed the egress plan. It all took no more than thirty seconds—but that was thirty seconds too long.
The first burst sent everyone to their bellies in the natural trench, and soon heavy fire was raining in all around. Slaton pushed Sarah’s head low. The incoming barrage was coming from their left flank. Aaron ventured a look with his goggles, and had no trouble identifying the source.
“There’s a Hilux stopped on the road,” he said, referring to the Toyota truck that was a favorite of militias and warlords across the world. “Looks like it’s mounted with a fifty-cal.”
“Range?” Slaton asked.
“Twelve hundred, maybe a little less.”
Rounds pinged off nearby rocks. “The gunner’s not bad.”
“Unfortunately.”
Both men looked at the ATVs. It would take thirty seconds to reach them over open ground, twice that to mount up and get clear.
“Do you think he’s seen them?” Slaton asked.
Before Aaron could answer, one of the ATVs rocked under a hit, the seat bursting in a cloud of fabric and foam.
“Yeah, maybe so,” said Aaron. “I’m not sure where this guy came from. We pulled the bulk of the force north of town.”
“I expect they’re all headed our way now.” Slaton peered up over the ledge and spotted the technical. “The driver was smart to park so far away. At a thousand-plus meters our MPs are worthless. All they have to do is keep us pinned down and wait for help.”
“We brought one long gun,” Aaron said.
Slaton looked at Matai’s ATV where an HTR 2000 Barak was mounted. He exchanged a look with Aaron, who said, “You’re the shooter.”
“Right.”
Slaton began moving. He crawled the first ten yards, but the ATVs were on relatively high ground. He jumped up and made a dash for the weapon. There was a brief lull as the gunner adjusted his aim; then rounds began pounding the desert all around. Tiny explosions of dirt and stone filled the air, and stands of brush got shredded. Slaton lunged for the rifle, pulled it free, then sprinted back and literally dove into the wadi. Back in cover, he instantly began moving perpendicularly, away from the others. The best shooting platform he could find was a flat stone shelf at the edge of a rise. The telescopic sight was made for night work, and he had no trouble acquiring the gunman on the Toyota’s high bed. The man was partially masked by an armor plate, but his head was clearly visible. That was all Slaton needed.
The earth was still exploding to his right, but Slaton tuned it out. He felt the familiar calm settle. His breathing slowed, his muscles relaxed. In the green glow of the scope he registered smoke coming from hot-barreled .50-cal. Slaton used it to estimate windage. Old equations came into play, bullet drop and crosswind corrections. Tried-and-tested rules he’d used countless times before.
In places like Gaza.
On targets like Ali Samir.
He began the slow pressure on the trigger, not squeezing for an instantaneous shot, but giving the rifle a say in the matter, a steady window in which it could do its work. The gun kicked, and Slaton quickly reestablished his target in the scope. He found the Hilux, then the .50-cal. There was no longer anyone behind it. A hit, most likely, but he really didn’t care. The incoming fire had stopped, and no one else was taking up the gun mount. For the next two minutes that was all that mattered.
He pulled away from the sight, and with his naked eye he saw two trucks coming up the road behind the Hilux. They roared right past the Toyota, never hesitating.
“Go, go, go!” Slaton shouted.
Aaron was already prodding their charges toward the ATVs, while Tal and Matai covered the rear. Small-arms fire began crackling in the distance. Suddenly a grenade exploded fifty yards away, on
an angle toward town. Slaton reckoned it had been delivered by either Tal or Matai—not a strike against the enemy, who were well out of range, but an effort to confuse them and avert their eyes. A little fog of war.
The trucks were getting closer, and all at once they stopped and men began pouring out of each. Whether they were Hezbollah militants or government troops was immaterial. Within seconds they all began shooting from a range of two hundred yards.
Slaton and the others had covered barely half the distance to the ATVs when the fusillade began. At first there were only stray rounds, hunting and ranging, but soon the barrage began to thicken and gain focus. Something slapped Slaton hard on the back, and he realized there was no one around him—he’d taken a round in his vest. He regained his balance and ran directly behind Sarah, hoping to shield her. A scream from behind caused him to stop and look back. He saw Tal rolling on the ground. Slaton reversed and helped him to his feet. Tal was bloodied and grimacing, but his legs started churning again. By the time they reached the ATVs, Slaton was dragging Tal along, a strong hand under his armpit. The first RPG hit, erupting a shower of dirt.
Aaron had already done a damage assessment on their vehicles. “One bike took a hit! The others look operable!”
The very contingency they’d considered ahead of time.
Everyone mounted up, Aaron and Matai each with one of their subjects, and the injured Tal quite literally riding shotgun next to Slaton. In a loose line they rocketed out into open desert, drawing a fresh hail of gunfire. Soon the barrage began to lessen as magazines ran empty. Two minutes later they were out of range.
Aaron throttled up and took a straight-line course back to Israel.
Speed was life.
FIFTY
Gabrielle Baland was sleepy, and trying to stay awake through her favorite television novella, when she heard an insistent knock on her door. She blinked and ran a hand across her thinning pewter hair. She wasn’t expecting anyone, certainly not at this hour, but all the same she rose to answer it.
She looked at her door and was surprised by how far away it seemed. What would once have been a few effortless steps had become something of a project. Gabrielle crossed the flowered carpet as quickly as her seventy-six years allowed, shuffling past walls full of framed memories, and using counters and chairs as handholds. She lived in a pensioner’s flat, one bedroom and a kitchen centered on a small main room, a few fusty pieces of furniture that would certainly outlast her.
On reaching the threshold, she propped herself straight using a cane from the hat rack—her arthritis medication had run out, and her knees were acting up. That thought in her head, she opened the door hoping to see the delivery boy from the pharmacy. Instead, Gabrielle encountered an unfamiliar woman of about forty. She was dark-haired and tall, and smiled in a most engaging manner.
“Madame Baland?” the woman queried in flawless and pleasing French.
“That’s right.”
“My name is Jeanne Arnette. I was a friend of your son’s many years ago.”
“My son?”
“Why yes, Zavier.”
The woman seemed attentive when Gabrielle said, “Oh, yes … my Zavier. Have you heard from him?” she asked hopefully.
Jeanne Arnette gave her a curious look. “Actually, no—I was hoping to locate him through you.”
Gabrielle shrugged, and her mouth went to an upturned U. “I’m sorry, but I can’t really tell you much. He’s become a very important man in Paris, or so they tell me. I haven’t seen him in years.”
The woman standing outside her door seemed to deflate a bit, and said, “I’m sorry, madame. I myself have not seen him since we were children, but a mutual friend mentioned that you lived here and … well, I thought it might be fun to catch up with Zavier. I hope there was not a falling-out between you?”
Gabrielle sighed. “I suppose you could call it that.” She heard voices on her television chattering in the background. It occurred to her that her show had become very boring. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”
The woman smiled. “Why yes, that would be very nice, thank you.”
* * *
Baland sat alone in his office. He was staring at the far wall, where a map of the Middle East hung crookedly—it had been dislodged earlier that day when he’d taken down a photograph of his daughters. There was a better map in Michelis’s office, so he’d left the old one where it was. Oddly, it struck him that the blue and brown cartography seemed more true now that it was off-kilter.
It was well within Baland’s mandate to request a satellite feed from Syria. If he was lucky, and the orbital gods were with him, he might be able to watch the mission in Nawa play out in real time. The problem was that he couldn’t make such a request without an explanation. The truth, of course, was out of the question—that he had dispatched an Israeli assassin to collect an ISIS defector who knew far too much about the incoming director of DGSI.
So Baland sat in his office and waited. Waited while somewhere in a cold and faraway desert events took place that would shape his future. How has it come to this? he wondered. His fifteen-year career, once seemingly destined for the stars, was wobbling on the precipice of failure. No, he thought, not failure. If his secrets were divulged, it would be nothing short of treason. A lifetime in prison. How does a man explain something like that to his daughters?
The girls were increasingly in his thoughts, as was Jacqueline. Their marriage hadn’t been perfect, but who could claim that? He’d had a good run: challenging job, steady pay, good family life. All put at risk the day Malika had come into his life. As if that weren’t enough, she’d brought Slaton to Paris, who in turn had introduced Mossad into the equation. And there it was, he thought. Everything come full circle—Israel. The country responsible for murdering his parents so many years ago was again his tormentor. Malika and Uday, even the kidon—Baland could deal with all of them. But how could he conceal his catalogue of deceits when an entire country was involved?
He pushed away from his desk and padded over to the map. He stared at the small brown strip of land between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea, birthplace of so many of the great religions. Hanging tilted on his wall, it looked terribly insignificant. And perhaps it was.
He circled his desk, trying to re-form his scattershot thoughts. It was like trying to put back together an exploded grenade. With a trace of discomfort, that imagery stayed with Baland a bit longer than it should have.
* * *
The team paused for a detailed accounting of injuries at the first stop, which came immediately after they crossed the Bravo line into the U.N. buffer zone. Tal had taken a round in his right arm. He was in moderate pain, but the bleeding was under control. Slaton and Aaron had suffered damage to their vests but, tomorrow’s bruises aside, had come through unscathed. Uday and Sarah had escaped with no more than scrapes and contusions, and for him one minor shrapnel puncture in his hip. Uday also complained of sore ribs, which he attributed to taking a rifle butt to the stomach earlier in the day. Matai was miraculously untouched.
The moon had risen in the east, looking down with equal benevolence on the land of the Jews, the land of the Shi’a, and, somewhere far to the north, what remained of the Islamic caliphate. The team got back under way at a more sensible pace, and when they arrived at the safe house Bloch was there to greet them. At his side were an emergency-room physician and his assistant, both of whom immediately went to work on Tal.
“Mossad keeps a medical team on staff now?” Slaton asked as he dismounted, watching them lead Tal away to the safe house.
“They’re contractors,” Bloch said. “One of Nurin’s more practical initiatives.”
“That’s one point of view,” Slaton said flatly. He shrugged off his vest, lifted his shirt, and inspected the damage in the ATV’s side mirror. He saw a large red welt on his back. A roll of his right shoulder guaranteed pain tomorrow. He made a more deliberate inspection, and was happy to find no other injuries. He’d seen
it before—operators so deep in the grip of adrenaline they didn’t recognize serious wounds until they collapsed in the debrief.
On the way back to the safe house Slaton encountered Aaron and Matai, and the usual salt-edged post-firefight banter ensued. Aaron good-naturedly accused the legendary sniper of doing nothing more than laying down cover fire, while Matai mumbled something about boots and quicksand. Slaton took it all in the spirit in which it was intended, and gave back in good measure.
He caught back up with Bloch, and found him talking to Uday in the main room. Sarah was standing to the side looking shell-shocked. Slaton walked over to her with all the calmness he could muster. Their relationship to this point had involved a good deal of shouting and pushing—nothing short of abuse under any other circumstances.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, adding a less than convincing smile. “Thank you for helping us.”
He returned her smile. “You did well. It was quick thinking to hide the data stick, and you were clever in getting it back.”
She shrugged. “I’ve been living under the Daesh for over a year now. One learns how to get by.”
Slaton nodded. “I’m sorry about Faisal.”
Her brow furrowed back to despair, and the resulting lines seemed more etched than they should have been in such a youthful face. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said. “I know what would have happened to us all if you hadn’t come.”
“Did you leave family behind in Raqqa?”
“No, my father and brother…” The lines grew ever deeper. “I have only my mother now. I pray she is in Jordan. As you know, we are Christians,” she added, as if that explained something. Tragically, it did.
“Well … you’re safe now.”
Uday and Bloch came closer.
“You have the memory device?” Bloch asked.
Slaton retrieved it from his pocket and held it out in an open palm. Everyone stared.
Contained within the little plastic stick was an invaluable roster of terrorists. Information that would soon be leveraged by Western intelligence agencies to decimate ISIS and its networks. There was likely no more valuable ounce of plastic and circuitry in all the world.