by Al Ruksenas
Hammad motioned to his men and bolted out of the building in what appeared to be a practiced routine. Caine and Jones followed them. They spilled into the street and dashed for available cover in doorways and behind rubble along the sidewalk. The two American commandos, together with Hammad and one of his men, ducked behind a portion of a wall collapsed from a previous battle.
“Our headquarters were pinpointed yesterday!” Hammad shouted. “It had been calm for some time! In the past two days, we have seen unusual action!”
Machine gun fire punctuated his words and several of his men returned fire in the general direction of the next street. Seconds later another shell screamed in their direction. This time the explosion was louder and the men could see dust and debris from the side of an apartment building across the block.
“Perhaps, someone is mad that you blew up their cruiser!” Ham‐mad exclaimed with a sardonic look at Colonel Caine. “Maybe you killed some leader! They are scarce lately, praise Allah!”
“I’m glad we could help!” Caine replied in the same vein.
“You see, Colonel! We have enough to occupy us here! We have no need to invite the wrath of the United States over a kidnapping, let alone to host targets of our adversaries—like yourselves!”
“You do this pretty well without us!” Caine retorted.
“The shells are from the other side of the Old Airport Road!” Hammad shouted changing the subject. “The machine guns mean someone has crossed over. They’re trying to establish a foothold on this side again! If we outflank them and leave, they will entrench themselves! We must either chase them back across the line or eliminate them!”
A third shell whistled above—much louder this time—and exploded in the side of the apartment they had just left. A shower of debris fell around them and dry dust obscured their sight of the street. They heaved between coughs searching for pure air.
An eerie silence followed the explosion, filled some moments later by the incessant barking of a dog, which was soon joined by the nervous bark of another unseen dog.
Mustafa Ali Hammad motioned to several of his men to provide cover. As they sprayed the next block with automatic weapons fire, Hammad ran to the side of the next building along which was a narrow alley. It afforded a view of the street that ended at the “green line.”
He looked back at Colonel Caine and Colonel Jones and pointed towards a narrow stretch of shrubbery that was a new “no man’s land” between Sunni and Shiite quarters of the city. A hand signal from Hammad brought more covering fire and the two Americans rushed to join him. Colonel Caine unzipped his backpack and pulled out his machine pistol, while Jones did the same from his own backpack. They each then retrieved several grenades to the admiring look of the militia leader and pocketed them in their windbreakers. He checked his own Tokarev pistol in response.
“If we’re going back towards the airport, we’ll have to get past whoever’s out there.” Caine said loudly to Hammad.
“We are presuming it’s someone upset, because you ruined their plans!” Hammad replied.
“Afraid of what we’d find?” Caine probed while looking down the alleyway.
“No, my Colonel! Afraid of what you would not find!” Hammad asserted. ”Whoever did not want you to get this far! To find the truth! I assure you, there is no woman you seek around here!”
Colonel Caine nodded slightly to his partner, then to the militia commander.
“Who would you fight if we weren’t here?” Jones asked.
“Whoever shoots at us! As I said, gentlemen, we are doomed to fight!”
Another burst of machine gun fire from an adjacent street punctuated their words.
“In that building!”
Hammad pointed to a four story structure that was ripped open on one side. It looked like a damaged doll house with an entire cross section open to view with furniture and appliances still in place and portraits hanging askance on walls. In front of the building facing each other were sections of a blue sofa set used for lounging and smoking darzheelies in quiet interludes on watch.
From somewhere inside, machine gunners were firing at them sporadically.
“They are moving around!” Hammad declared. “It is difficult to locate them!”
“What do you do?” Jones inquired.
“We shoot back and forth! We move around until someone runs out of ammunition!”
“Do you advance?” Caine added.
“We don’t have enough men! I told you. I lost eight good men in yesterday’s rocket attack!”
“This reminds me of the setup in Kabul!” Jones shouted to Caine. “What do you think?”
Colonel Caine nodded with emphasis. “Signal your men to give us some cover!” he told Hammad in response. Caine looked back at Colonel Jones who nodded his head in approval.
Upon the militia leader’s signal his men opened fire in the direction of the building. Caine and Jones sprinted to a section of cement block wall standing by itself in front of the building. It had been used as a makeshift planter for flowers and shrubbery. The covering fire ceased and Jones peered carefully around the wall towards the building. His attempt was met with a short burst of machine gun fire, but he had already pulled back.
Caine turned his body sideways towards the militia men arrayed behind them. The militaristic discipline of the casually dressed gunmen led by the slim, mustachioed commander in the bright sport shirt evoked a bemused grin from the Colonel. He raised his hand to Hammad who signaled his men for another burst of covering fire.
Caine and Jones spotted movement on the second story behind an overhanging floor from the level above. The sagging section looked like a massive envelope flap behind which a sniper could find perfect cover. As soon as Hammad’s men had ceased their burst of covering fire, a volley of shots came from the second floor above them.
“Hit and run types?” Jones speculated.
“Likely. Their patterns of fire are too sporadic! Unfocused!”
“We should move in on ‘em!” Jones declared. “Scare ‘em off!”
“Give me some cover to that rubble of the floor beneath them.”
Jones nodded. “I’m right behind you!”
“Now!”
Colonel Jones aimed his Uzi at the second floor and opened fire, while Colonel Caine made a crooked line dash to the building with his pack flapping wildly on his back. He stopped hard at a wall of a living room adjacent to the gaping hole of the apartment above him.
Observing Colonel Jones ready to spring, he aimed his Uzi around the wall and sprayed fire upward into the gaping apartment.
Jones dashed to join him. He grabbed a grenade from the pocket of his windbreaker, pulled the pin and nodded to Caine who again sprayed gunfire in the direction of the apartment above. Jones stepped quickly into the open and lobbed the grenade into the exposed apartment above him.
A momentary silence punctuated the action, broken only by the incessant barking of dogs and the ringing in their ears of their quickened heartbeats pumping adrenalin through their bodies. Suddenly, excited shouts filled the apartment above followed by the inevitable blast of Colonel Jones’ grenade. Seconds later Caine and Jones glanced upward to see amid the heavy dust a man desperately scampering from among the rubble dangling out the building and clambering onto a veranda around the corner of the gutted floor facing the following street and away from the Americans. Close behind him was another man with a badly tattered polo shirt, ripped slacks and an ammunition belt falling from his shoulders as he fled.
Just as they disappeared numerous fragments of wall exploded from the side of the building from rounds fired by Hammad’s men.
Colonel Caine waved in their direction. Everyone listened a moment for gunfire. Silence. He looked over his shoulder at Colonel Jones who was checking the side of the building where the men disappeared. He went to the blue sofa in front of the building and sat down unslinging his backpack with one hand and placing his Uzi next to him with the other. He stretched out his feet in momenta
ry respite.
His partner was looking along the building toward the opposite street and the overgrown greenery beyond, his submachine pistol at the ready. The gunmen of Mustafa Ali Hammad emerged cautiously from cover and entered the building to check for casualties.
Satisfied that the attackers had returned to their side of “no man’s land”, Colonel Jones walked back over large pieces of stucco rubble and sat down on the other couch opposite Colonel Caine. Just as Jones was settling in two large dogs turned the corner of the building where Jones had just been and bounded menacingly toward them. Caine spotted the black heavy set dogs charging them and his surprise alerted Jones.
“Behind you!” Caine yelled and grabbed the Beretta in his belt. He stood up and twirled behind the couch while Jones crouched lower in his sofa, grabbed his own pistol from under his windbreaker and turned toward the approaching threat.
Caine fired a shot over the dogs’ heads to no avail. Jones rested his pistol on the back of his sofa and from a half‐sitting position fired a shot into the closest animal, just as it was about to leap onto him with bared fangs. The bulky body went limp in the air, flew past Jones and came crashing onto the ground just past him in a dead 125 pound furry heap.
The other dog had leaped at Caine, but he deftly ducked behind the sofa and the dog landed past him. By the time the snarling beast could turn, Caine quickly dispatched it with two quick rounds from his pistol. Colonel Caine wrinkled his nose from the unfamiliar stench emanating from the dog.
“This is strange!” declared Mustafa Ali Hammad approaching them. “I don’t remember dogs in these neighborhoods.” He looked at the two hefty animals sprawled grotesquely on the ground. “This seems to be some mixed breed, unknown. Black with brown markings. Dogs in the streets are usually curs. As you know, much of Arab culture despises them.”
“So these don’t belong to anyone?” Colonel Caine asked.
“It is very doubtful.”
“Maybe it’s a new tactic of your—your opposition, whoever they are,” Colonel Jones suggested.
“Why would they risk having dogs about? Success in street combat is in stealth and ambush.” Hammad was pleased that he could still enlighten the obviously competent Americans. “Snipers could risk betrayal by an unwanted bark.”
Jones wanted to retort that they had encountered fighting dogs with vocal chords removed, but let the militia commander have his moment.
Caine gave him a knowing nod.
Hammad called to his men. They filed slowly out of the ruptured building, peering cautiously around them. Several looked curiously at the two dogs lying near the sofas. The militia leader, with Caine and Jones, headed back to the sandbagged intersection where the two Americans had first entered Mustafa Ali Hammad’s enclave.
“We owe you some debt of gratitude,” Hammad said as they walked.
“You can get us to the airport,” Colonel Caine replied.
“Certainly.”
Jones caught the look of his fellow commando, anticipating his next words.
“Like I told you before, Arie. We should have flown in here in the first place.”
“What? And miss the fun of getting here?” Jones replied.
The militia leader failed to see the humor of the situation.
“Our courier will drive you. You will have to forgive our lack of armed escort, but you see how we are preoccupied,” Hammad said sarcastically. He paused thoughtfully, then added: “I hope, gentlemen, that the attack on us and your visit are strictly coincidental. I would hate to view you as a liability.”
“That goes both ways,” Colonel Caine replied coolly.
Hammad did not respond.
The dusty orange station wagon was parked alongside a sandbag barricade where the dark‐haired woman who had brought them was chatting with several young armed guards. Their casual air suggested that the rocket attack and gunfight that had just transpired had never occurred.
“I am sorry that your foray is for nothing,” the militia leader said. “But I think you would be better served to seek your answers at home.”
“We’ll see,” Colonel Caine replied as he climbed into the back seat of the station wagon. He knew that his partner would want to sit by the fiery woman who had verbally dueled with him.
Colonel Jones bade farewell and climbed into the front seat, with a thankful glance at Caine. The woman had already slid behind the steering wheel.
“Give my regards to your General Bradley,” Hammad said with a knowing grin as he waved off the travelers.
The Volvo spun its wheels in the dirt covered street, then peeled off towards the Rue de Damas. The young woman careened around a corner and turned south along the main street that used to be the border between the main rival factions contesting dominance over Beirut and Lebanon in the previous civil war. Battle damaged buildings still marked their route very distinctly.
Just as the woman was about to turn into an intersection towards the Avenue de L’Aeroport, a light brown Peugot screeched out of a small side street ahead of them intending to block the station wagon, while a battered gray Mercedes pulled in front of them from a parked position along the broad avenue.
The two Americans—reacting instinctively—grabbed their remaining grenades from their windbreakers, rolled down the windows, and pulled the grenade pins. Their wordless actions gave the driver the very clear impression that they had experienced this before.
“Don’t slow down!” Jones ordered. “Pull up between them!”
“We’ll smash into them!” she exclaimed.
“Make it their problem!” he affirmed.
She drove the Volvo straight ahead to the surprise of the armed occupants of the Peugeot who had expected her to slow down. The driver quickly reversed to avoid being broadsided, then lurched forward with a sharp left turn to meet the station wagon side by side. The driver of the Mercedes trying to cut her off suddenly realized that the station wagon would smash into his side. He veered back to his right. His armed companions looked at him and shouted something.
The three vehicles were now speeding abreast no more than two feet from each other with the Volvo in between. The attackers trained their machine guns through open windows on the woman and two Americans, but couldn’t fire for fear of hitting their henchmen on either side of the station wagon.
Caine pitched his grenade into the Peugeot. Jones threw his into the Mercedes.
“Go! Go! Go!” each of the officers shouted.
Both cars veered violently away with their occupants yelling wildly inside. The doors flew open and several of the men from the Peugeot and Mercedes dived out, just as explosions ripped the cars one after the other.
As the bedlam ensued traffic in both directions stopped and effectively cordoned off the block‐long battle scene. Bystanders had ducked for cover in doorways and behind parked cars, as if they were used to such interruptions.
By the time the surviving gunmen could gather their wits, the dark haired woman had veered around several stopped cars and sped away with a wicked smile on her face.
They reached Beirut Rafik Hariri International Airport—named after the assassinated former Prime Minister—without further incident. The airport had been a target in its time for competing militias and even bombings by the Israeli Air Force during armed struggles in the first decade of the 2000’s. The United States Embassy still bypassed the coastal airport after arrangements it had made with the Lebanese government to fly helicopters directly to its Embassy compound in the Awkar area of northern Beirut.
So, no one paid much attention to the white Sea King helicopter with U.S. Navy markings and a sash of red paint at its tail rotor when it swooped in from the ocean. It landed at one of the private operator sites away from the main terminal. The Volvo’s occupants were waiting, standing alongside the station wagon.
“How will you return?” Colonel Jones asked with genuine concern, turning his head to the woman. “This orange wagon is a moving target.”
“I
will wait for Mustafa,” she replied. “He is my cousin.”
Colonel Caine picked up the backpacks they had placed on the hood and passed them to his partner with a gesture.
Colonel Jones, in turn, handed them to the woman. Inside were the armor piercing machine pistols and the Uzis.
“Give him these,” Jones said. “With our compliments.”
“And thanks for his information,” Colonel Caine added.
“But he did not tell you anything.”
“I think he did,” Caine asserted. “Until we meet again.”
Caine started towards the helicopter with the blades still whirling. Colonel Jones hesitated and turned towards the woman. They looked probingly into each other’s eyes.