Their cell phones were no good here, and they didn’t have sat phones. Gaffan did have a flare gun in the Jeep, and they’d agreed he would fire it if he hit trouble. But if Gaffan ran into Hezbollah, he’d have bigger worries than warning Wells.
If this had been an agency-sponsored op, they would have had real communications gear. Bulletproof vests. Gas grenades. Most important, a ride out. Wells had e-mailed Shafer that they were going in and received a simple “Okay” in response. Especially after what had happened a year before, Shafer knew better than to make promises he couldn’t keep.
Even so, part of Wells enjoyed running this way, simple and low-tech. American soldiers hated roadside bombs, called them cowardly because they didn’t offer a target for return fire. But whenever possible, the United States used higher-tech versions of the same tactic, killing its enemies at a distance with helicopter gunships and drone-fired missiles. Rightly so. War wasn’t meant to be fair. But Wells knew that a whites-of-the-eyes fight like this offered a psychic release that killing at a distance did not. One of us is going to die. Better you than me.
The road narrowed into the ravine, the gate just ahead. Wells stopped, listened to the night. He heard only the faint grinding of a truck on the central valley road behind him. The gate was made of heavy metal bars topped by razor wire and was kept shut with a steel padlock and chain. It had been placed at the narrowest point in the ravine and stretched to the steep slopes on either side. It had no signs warning against trespassing. It didn’t need them. It was ominous enough.
Wells flipped on his flashlight, shined the beam low through the bars. He saw nothing metallic, no trip wires or mines, just a shiny piece of plastic. Wells looked hard at it before it resolved into a water bottle. Trash. He stepped onto the bottom bar of the gate and pulled his clippers. He trimmed at the razor wire as carefully as an apprentice at a fancy hair salon. After the first couple cuts, the tension in the wire relaxed. Wells pulled on the ends of the wire gently with one gloved hand and took bigger cuts with the other.
Sixty seconds later, he was through. He looked at his handiwork. In daylight the hole in the wire would be obvious, but if they were still here in daylight, they’d have bigger problems. He tucked away his flashlight and pulled his pistol and walked along the road as it curved left. According to the overheads, the barracks was a mile down. The road here was hardpack dirt and stone, and Wells moved quickly. It was 1:49 a.m. He’d split from Gaffan twenty-four minutes before.
Then he heard the engine.
IT WASN’T A GENERATOR. It was quieter, smoother. A car or truck. Wells trotted south toward the barracks, still invisible. The top of the farmhouse appeared over the ridge to his right, the west. He heard a man on the far side of the ridge walking up to the farmhouse. Why weren’t they sleeping? Had they spotted him? Or Gaffan?
To his left, the ravine was nearly a cliff, too steep to climb. To his right, the slope was flatter and treeless. No place to hide there, either. Wells moved faster. He needed to close quickly. The road angled again. Finally Wells saw the barracks, its lights flickering. He was maybe three hundred yards away. Two black Suburbans were parked nose to tail twenty yards from the building. A third car, a beige Toyota sedan, was farther back. Three men stood around the front Suburban. They had black hair and light brown skin. Probably Saudi. The tallest one wore a long brown gown and looked to be in charge. The other two were dressed Western-style, in jeans and long-sleeved shirts. The tall man pointed toward the farmhouse, then back at the barracks. The other two nodded. Wells was too far away to hear what they were saying.
Wells unslung the AK, threw himself down, crawled ahead. A few scrubby bushes lay between him and the barracks, a few rocks. Not enough. Before he became a spy, Wells had been a soldier. A Ranger. Cover means life, he’d learned. But the land around him was miserly with cover. If he moved too fast, they’d spot him. If he didn’t move at all, they’d still spot him eventually. Two hundred yards was theoretically close enough to use the AK, but in reality he had about as much chance of hitting a home run at Fenway.
To say he was in a tactical hole would be an understatement.
The two jihadis in Western dress disappeared, leaving the tall one. He popped the back of the Suburban, pulled out a plastic bottle, took a long drink. Wells used the distraction to pop up and scramble eighty yards closer. He ducked behind a low rock and scraped his left leg hard as he went down, tearing open his sweats, bruising his knee and calf. Getting too old for this. But that was a problem for tomorrow.
He steadied his breath, sighted through the AK’s hashes. This close, he guessed he had a fifty-fifty shot to take out the tall guy. Then what? The rest would scatter and get under cover. He had to get closer. Another forty yards, at least. He tucked the rifle behind the rock and got as low as he could and waited.
Four men walked out of the barracks and hoisted a duffel bag into the back of the Suburban. Wells heard the clanking of metal as the edge of the bag caught the sill of the truck. Wells wondered why they were moving now. Over the car’s engine, Wells caught a snippet of Arabic.
“He wants us there tomorrow night. twelve hundred kilometers…” Twelve hundred kilometers. Wells would map possible routes in the morning. Assuming he got through tonight. The men turned away, and Wells lost the conversation. If the Suburban came this way, he would have to open up. They would see him as they passed. He was facing at least seven guys, plus one or more up at the house. And Gaffan was still missing in action.
A walkie-talkie hissed. The tall man pulled an old-school handheld radio from his pocket, listened. “Are you sure? All right. Stay up there, then, and watch.” He turned to the man beside him, squareshouldered and stubby. If Wells had to tag them using American army ranks, he’d make the tall one a lieutenant and the short one an E-6, a staff sergeant.
“Bandar says someone is coming toward us.” He pointed south. “That way. He thinks the man has a rifle. You three go and see about it. Remember, don’t shoot him unless you’re sure. We don’t need trouble with the al-Naqbis.”
“Why would one of them come here at this hour?”
“I don’t know, but go.”
The overheads hadn’t shown any sentry posts, one reason that Wells had believed they’d be able to pull this off. It was plain bad luck that the jihadis were moving out tonight, more bad luck that one had gone to the house and seen Gaffan. Not one-in-a-thousand bad luck. These things happened. Maybe one in ten. But bad luck nonetheless. On a mission like this, outnumbered and outgunned, bad luck was lethal. They needed absolute surprise. Instead they were about to start a firefight against a larger force on its home territory.
In happier news, they’d found the right camp for sure. No Boy Scouts here tonight.
THE JIHADIS HAD THEIR backs to him. They were looking at the hill to the south, where the danger seemed to be. Wells dropped the firing selector on the AK to semiauto. He popped up and ran. Sixty yards from the Suburban, he ducked behind a beach ball-sized boulder, the last decent cover between him and the barracks. He could do real damage with the AK from this range. He might even have a chance with the pistol.
At first the barracks blocked Wells from seeing the three jihadis who were going after Gaffan. A few seconds later, he spotted them jogging up the rise behind the barracks in a V formation about ten feet wide. The V spelled trouble. Amateurs would have moved in a row. Trained soldiers created space.
Wells decided he had only one play. He tugged the silenced pistol from his belt, dropped the safety. He breathed deep, sighted at the center of the lieutenant’s back. No head shots. He couldn’t afford to miss. He waited for the jihadis who were going after Gaffan to top the ridge. He counted to three. He squeezed the trigger.
The silencer wasn’t as good as the ones the agency used, but it was good enough. The pistol burped. A hundred seventy-five feet away, a neat hole appeared in the tall man’s gown, halfway up his back, left of the spine. A 9-millimeter round didn’t have tremendous muzzle velocity. Th
e silencer cut it further. Even so, the slug pierced the lieutenant’s skin, dug through his lats, broke two ribs as it spun sideways into the fat lower lobe of his left lung. It stopped there, not an immediately lethal wound but disabling and agonizing.
The lieutenant put his hands to his chest, scratching at the sudden fire inside him. He dropped to a knee and heaved for air in desperate shallow breaths. The three men beside him hadn’t heard the shot and didn’t realize the reason for his distress. They turned to him, leaned in, forming a nice tight target for Wells. One grabbed the lieutenant’s arm, tried to pull him up. “Talib—”
Wells stood and fired, moving the AK left to right across the men. No speeches, no warning, just cutting down unarmed men. Murder. He pulled the trigger six times, two shots on each man. The first two went down hard. The third dove away and ducked between the Suburbans and ran along the outside of the front one. He pulled open the driver’s door and flung himself into the driver’s seat and gunned the engine. The wheels spun, then grabbed. The big truck surged forward.
Wells ran into the road and then stopped and raised his rifle as the Suburban accelerated at him, the guy not swerving, risking his own life to run Wells over. Better you than me. Wells focused, squeezed the trigger twice, dove into the ditch on the side of the road. The Suburban careened past him, nearly clipping his ankle. He landed awkwardly, gashing his forehead.
Wells thought he’d missed. But he turned his head and, through the blood trickling into his eyes, watched the truck accelerate, its V-8 engine roaring, the man behind the wheel as insensate as the steel that cocooned him. The truck skidded off the road and crumpled sideways into the ravine.
Wells stood, mopped his forehead. Over the ridge to the south, he heard shooting and shouting. Both Gaffan and the jihadis had AKs, so he couldn’t guess who had the advantage. He ran for the second Suburban, to put it between him and the barracks. Then he heard footsteps pounding down the ridge—
The farmhouse; he’d forgotten the farmhouse—
He looked over his shoulder to see a man running down the hill, a rifle cradled in both hands. Wells spun, trying to get his own rifle up, but he was too late, the guy had him and was just waiting to get close enough to be sure—
Shots burst from the left. The man screamed and stumbled, dead before he hit the ground, the rifle sliding from his hands and clattering on the hill—
Wells looked left, saw Gaffan. Who said nothing, didn’t give Wells a wave or a salute or even a thumbs-up. Just the briefest nod. Which was enough. They both knew that Gaffan had saved his life.
IN FRONT OF WELLS, the lieutenant crawled toward the barracks, coughing wetly, the red-black stain on his gown spreading down his back. “Talib?” a man shouted from the barracks. A rifle poked out of the doorway and fired wildly, blindly into the night.
Gaffan angled down the hill, slid in beside Wells. “Thank you,” Wells murmured.
“You’re welcome. What happened?”
Wells wiped the blood off his forehead. “I tripped. Looks worse than it is. You got the other three?”
“Yeah.”
“Then let’s do the barracks. The guy in the gown, don’t shoot him. I think he’s in charge. I want to talk to him.”
“He keeps bleeding like that, gonna be a short conversation.” Gaffan nodded at a window at the far end of the barracks. “I’ll get them moving.”
Wells hid himself behind the high hood of the Suburban, twenty-five yards from the front of the barracks. He fired two shots in the air to distract whoever was inside as Gaffan ran for the barracks. Gaffan smashed the back window with his elbow, tossed in a grenade.
From behind the truck’s front tire, Wells waited. The grenade exploded, its blast echoing through the night, blowing out the square front windows of the barracks. Two men ran from the front door, AKs on full automatic, panicked, firing at everything and nothing. Rounds poured into the Suburban, tearing open its windows, splattering its doors with bullet holes.
When the jihadis ran out of ammo, Wells popped up and tore open their chests with twin three-shot bursts. One man died drowning in his own blood from a burst aorta. He frothed at the mouth and muttered incoherently before Wells put him out of his misery with two bullets in his brain. The other was fortunate enough to die immediately and in silence. Wells had no time to comfort them, apologize to them, or pray for their souls. Or his own.
THE LIEUTENANT HAD SLIPPED onto his chest, as though he could breathe through the hole in his back. Gaffan was right. He didn’t have long. His skin was ashen, his gown soaked with blood. Wells turned him on his side, pulled up his chin. He was still conscious, barely. Watery hate filled his eyes when he looked at Wells.
“Stay with me,” Wells said. “Stay awake. Where were you going?”
“Jerusalem.”
“You’re lying. Help us and we can help you. You need a doctor.”
The man spat weakly, drool settling on his chin. Wells tried again. “Twelve hundred kilometers. That’s a long way from here.”
The man’s eyes widened.
“Yes, I heard you. I heard you say Riyadh. You’re going to Riyadh.”
The man smiled. Wells wasn’t sure if the reaction meant he’d guessed right or wrong.
“We’ll find out. We’ll stop you.”
Death clotted the man’s eyes but not his smile. Wells leaned close to hear his last words: “You won’t. It’s too late.”
CHAPTER 16
WELLS REACHED INTO THE POCKETS OF THE DEAD MAN’S GOWN, came out with sticky, bloody fingers and a ring that held two dull metal keys. A tap on his shoulder pulled him up. Gaffan pointed to the barracks, raised a finger: One. Inside.
Wells stepped to the left side of the open barracks doorway. He heard a nervous scuffling, the slow breathing of a man trying too hard to be quiet. Gaffan stood across the doorway. Wells tapped his chest, pointed inside, indicating he’d go in first. He lowered his AK, pulled his pistol and flashlight.
Gaffan nodded: When you’re ready. Wells stepped inside and—
Dove sideways as a half-dozen rounds studded the concrete above him. He cut the flashlight, crawled beneath a cot, fired twice blindly into the corner. He didn’t have much chance, but with the silencer he didn’t have to worry about giving away his position. Gaffan tilted his rifle into the doorway and fired three shots.
“Surrender,” Wells said. The jihadi fired again, banging shots over Wells’s head. “Surrender. Save yourself.”
Wells wanted to keep at least one jihadi alive. With the lieutenant dying, this guy looked like their only chance. But they were short on time. The militia was probably already coming. “Grenade,” Wells called to Gaffan.
“Grenade?” the jihadi said. He sounded young. And spooked.
“Three seconds. One — two—”
“I surrender.” A man stood.
Wells caught him in the flashlight beam. He looked unhurt, aside from minor cuts on his legs. “Raise your hands.” Gaffan covered as the man came forward, hands high. Halfway to the door, the man reached up—
And turned on a naked bulb hanging from the ceiling.
The room was simple and spare, with thirty cots, fifteen against each long wall. Each cot had a wooden peg pounded into the wall above it. Most were empty, but AKs hung from four. Wooden shelves at the back held a mix of Western and Arab clothes, along with several pairs of the heavy leather sandals that Saudis favored. One shelf held a half-dozen copies of the Quran and other books that might have been infantry manuals in Arabic. Four photos of the Grand Mosque and the Kaaba were taped up, no other decoration.
“Lie down. Face-first.”
He did. Gaffan threw handcuffs on him, and Wells pulled him up and tugged him out. Up close, the guy was young and pitiful, with tiny acne scars, a flat, wide nose, and a scraggly beard. He wore plain white underwear and a dirty gray T-shirt. His arms were scrawny and his legs nearly hairless. The runt of the litter. Probably the reason he’d stayed in the barracks.
Outside, he licked his lips nervously as he saw the lieutenant’s body. Wells dragged him away from the carnage, pushed him down, waved Gaffan over. “Guard him,” Wells whispered. “See if he’ll talk. And we only use Arabic when he’s around.”
“What are you doing?”
Wells nodded up the hill at the farmhouse.
“John — listen.”
Wells heard a diesel engine, distant but growing stronger. He nodded. And ran.
HE FOUND THE FRONT half of the farmhouse turned into a makeshift classroom, a dozen desks arranged before twin whiteboards. Wells turned them over, but they were blank on both sides. He imagined lessons about weapons, basic infantry tactics.
A door at the back led to the kitchen. Inside, two refrigerators hummed. The counters were spotless, and so were the glasses and plates that filled the rough wooden shelves. These guys handled KP duty themselves, no need for Halliburton. So far, Wells had found nothing but proof of a well-run camp. The person who’d created this place had been through advanced infantry training and served in a real army for years.
Upstairs, three doors came off the landing. The first led to an empty bedroom. The ubiquitous poster of the shrine at Mecca filled one wall. Shirts and jeans and two thobes hung in the closet. But the room smelled faintly musty, as if it hadn’t been used for weeks.
The second door was locked. Wells tried the larger of the two keys he’d found in the lieutenant’s pockets. It slid in smoothly, and he stepped inside. The bedroom was smaller than the first. A thin black blanket was piled at the foot of the bed, the only sign of mess Wells had seen in the house. A green duffel sat on the floor. Wells reached in and found a dark blue uniform. The uni didn’t have name tags or rank insignia. But on its right biceps, it had a black patch with the words “Special Forces” stitched in Arabic in gold. And on the left, a triangular version of the Saudi flag.
He flipped over the duffel bag. Shiny black leather boots clattered to the floor, followed by a black leather belt, elbow and knee pads, goggles, heavy plastic gloves, and an open-face ski mask. Wells wasn’t sure if he was looking at a real Saudi Special Forces uniform or just a very good copy.
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