The Last Days

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  Bennett smashed to the floor. Instinctively covering his head with his arms, he tried desperately to shield himself and McCoy from the chunks of ceiling crashing down all around him. Everything in the room shook violently. He could hear the pipes in the bathroom being ripped through the tiles and erupting into a ceaseless spray of water. The lights flickered and sparked, ttien all shorted out, then several more explosions rocked the safe house.

  And then, the explosions stopped. Debris stopped falling. The temperature in the room began spiking quickly. It was getting more and more difficult to breathe. Bennett was numb. Hadn’t he been through this already? Hadn’t

  it all been a dream, a nightmare? Yes, he told himself, yes—both. But this was no premonition. This was no vision of an evil yet to come. This was real.

  “Erin, you OK?” he whispered in the darkness, a rising anxiety thick in his voice.

  “I don’t know. I’m bleeding from some glass, I think. But nothing seems to be broken. How ‘bout you?”

  “Same, I think. I’m OK. Can you walk?”

  “I think so.”

  “Where’s your Beretta?”

  “It’s here, somewhere—what just happened?”

  Bennett didn’t answer. He crawled his way through the broken glass of the television and shattered mirror and picture frames over to Ziegler’s desk. He felt around in the pitch-blackness for the file drawers, then pulled open the bottom one on the right. Sure enough, it was unlocked. And sure enough, they were there—two loaded .357 Magnums and boxes of spare rounds of ammunition, just like in the dream.

  “What are you doing?” asked McCoy, feeling around for her purse and the handgun and spare clips inside it.

  “The other night, I had a nightmare. I saw this exact situation, except you weren’t with me.”

  “What?”

  She suddenly found her purse under the shattered coffee table.

  “The Hotel Baghdad just collapsed. Three huge explosions. I think one of them was a car bomb. Maybe a truck bomb. I don’t know for sure.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I told you. The dream I had the other night—there was a huge explosion. I was in this room. All the lights went out. But I could see Gaza Station filling up with fire and smoke—burst pipes, men firing AK-47s, coming in through gaps in the ceilings. Look, we don’t have much time. We need to get Sa’id and Galshnikov, and find Ziegler and Tariq and anyone on their team still alive.”

  McCoy didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what he was talking about, or what to believe. No one knew Jon Bennett better than she did, but she’d never heard him talk like this. Dreams? Premonitions? It wasn’t like him. It didn’t make sense. But he was right about one thing—they didn’t have much time to get out alive. Worse, they had no idea how to get out. There was no way they could go back up the silo by which they had entered. They had to find Ziegler or his deputies.

  She chastised herself for not getting briefed earlier on all the possible escape options. It was standard operating procedure for every operative at every CIA safe house—planning for every contingency, always preparing for the worst. She hadn’t done any of it. She’d let her guard down, and now it might cost them.

  McCoy felt around in the darkness for the phones on Ziegler’s desk. Finding one, she grabbed one of the receivers and began to dial the control room.

  “Jon, the lines are dead.”

  There was a long silence.

  “Jon, in your dream, did you see how to get out?”

  He hadn’t. He didn’t know. Not for sure. All he’d seen was a shoot-out in the main control room, the one that ended with him getting killed. But he couldn’t tell her that. She’d already done so much for him. She’d saved his life countless times. He owed her as much, and he was determined to protect her at all costs.

  “Just follow me and stay close,” he said, then scrambled over to the door, holding the two .357s out in front of him.

  As he’d done in the dream, Bennett put the back of his hand against the door, just as his father had taught him when they’d stayed in hotels. It was hot—too hot—and he winced in pain and quickly pulled his hand back and blew on it. He silently cursed himself. He should have seen that coming. He could see an orange glow through the cracks in the door frame. The fires had to be close. But they didn’t really have any choice. If they stayed in Ziegler’s room, they were as good as dead. That much was certain. He decided right there. They might not make it out of this place, but at least he was going to die trying.

  Bennett set the pistols down on the floor, took off his right shoe, pulled off his sock, and put it over his left hand. Then using that hand he quickly turned the handle and pulled the door open. A blast of superheated air hit him in the face and he drew back, using the door as a shield. He quickly put his sock and shoe back on, looked around the room and scooped up the guns. The fires in the hallway provided more than enough visibility to see the destruction that had been wrought all around him. Bennett just stared at it all, then looked back at McCoy. Her face was sweaty and glowing amidst the raging flames, but her eyes sparkled with an inner life that he found so magnetic.

  “You ready?” he whispered, his mouth close to hers. “I guess.”

  His face moved still closer to hers. He wanted to kiss her before he died. Now seemed as good a time as any. But suddenly, another explosion rocked the building. They could hear the crackle of automatic gunfire. It was definitely inside the Gaza Station complex, but it wasn’t close. It had to be on the other side, closer to the main control room. But a shot of fear and adrenaline coursed through his veins. He had no way of knowing who was shooting at whom. How was he supposed to defend them if he had to— when he had to?

  They worked their way to the junction of two hallways, staying low to avoid suffocating on the smoke snaking along the ceilings. One of the hallways led to the main control room. Ziegler, Tariq, and their team were

  probably in there, and the urge to keep going in that direction was almost overpowering. They had to find them. They had to find out how to get out of this place before it was too late.

  The other hallway led to Sa’id’s and Galishnikov’s room. They had to find them, too, especially Sa’id. The man was now the prime minister of Palestine. They were all under direct orders by the president of the United States to protect him at all costs. Still, what good would it do to find them if they had no idea where to take them? Couldn’t they come back for those two later, after they hooked up with Ziegler and his men? Bennett froze for a moment. His eyes scanned both hallways, looking for any sign of friends or enemies, as he processed both options. Finding Ziegler first made more sense. It seemed logical, and it was closer, faster. But it was a seduction, a temptation. He knew it. He could feel it. Something was luring him in. Something was warning him off. He agonized as the flames and heat grew more intense. They couldn’t stay still. They had to keep moving.

  Dressed in blue jeans and a black T-shirt, Bennett was on his stomach, on the floor—the only place he could breathe—covered in at least a foot of water. McCoy, in navy blue sweatpants and a thick gray fleece, was right behind him, shivering in the ice-cold water pouring out of at least a dozen shattered pipes. But in less than an hour, she figured, that water would be heating toward a boil. She was coming to the same conclusion. They had no choice. They had to keep moving. They could hear men shouting in Arabic, but hadn’t seen anyone, dead or alive. Not yet. Not a soul. Where were they all? Had all of the Gaza Station team been killed either in the initial explosions or the gun battles that followed?

  Not seeing a single living soul besides themselves was an eerie feeling. All they could see were flames and smoke and the water they were sloshing through. Still, Bennett was actually grateful for the flames—at least they provided some light in this subterranean labyrinth. But the raging electrical fires in the walls and ceilings worried him. It would only take one wire or cable falling into all this water and they’d be electrocuted instantly.

&
nbsp; His eyes—bloodshot and stinging something fierce from all the smoke— searched wildly for escape routes. But their options, limited from the beginning, were narrowing fast. Small but rapidly growing fires seemed to block their path to Galishnikov’s and Sa’id’s room. Now more fires blocked the way back to Ziegler’s room, as well. They weren’t completely trapped, but it was only a matter of time. The only way out seemed to be forward. But something in Bennett’s gut whispered it was a trap, told him to go to the right, through the flames, to Sa’id and Galishnikov, before it was too late.

  Flashbacks from his nightmare came like a strobe light. He remembered

  the gun battle in the control room. He remembered the overwhelming presence of evil he felt, and being trapped in the conference room, where he’d almost died. It was as though sirens were calling him to that control room, luring him forward. Maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe he’d woken up to soon. Maybe it wasn’t a death trap but a road map he could follow better this time.

  Fresh bursts of automatic gunfire—closer, louder, and coming from the main control room in longer bursts—snapped Bennett back to reality. He looked over his shoulder, made sure McCoy was OK, then silently motioned her to follow him down the hallway—now almost completely engulfed in fire—to Tariq’s quarters, to Galishnikov and Sa’id. Maybe it was suicide. But there was only one way to find out.

  Both phones and his pager went off all at once.

  It was well past midnight, but such was the life of a New York Times White House correspondent. Forever electronically tethered to a world that never stopped moving. Marcus Jackson clicked on the light beside his bed and tried to get his bearings. He raced into the bathroom to grab one of the cell phones out of its charger, and just in time.

  ” You wanted to know about Bennett?’ said the voice at the other end.

  “Talk to me.”

  Danny Tracker raced downstairs.

  The hastily scribbled note passed to the CIA’s deputy director of Operations during a crisis meeting in his office bore only a few words—“GS down … L5 … request immediate extract.” But the message was devastating. Everything was suddenly at risk. If it were true—if Gaza Station had really been compromised, or worse, was going down in flames—the implications were unthinkable. Losing a $25 million intelligence gathering facility would be bad enough. Losing Bennett and McCoy, plus Ziegler and his team, would be a nightmare. But losing Ibrahim Sa’id, the newly appointed prime minister of Palestine, would be catastrophic. Everything now hinged on him. He needed to be protected and extracted at all costs.

  Mitchell wasn’t at Langley. He was in an armor-plated SUV, en route from the White House, and his phone was busy. Tracker raced down the stairwell to the Global Operations Center. He tried Mitchell again—still busy. Then he tried Ed Mutschler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

  “Mutschler—go.”

  “General, it’s Danny,” shouted Tracker as a guard opened the door to the Global Ops Center and waved him through. “You see what I’m seeing?” “Gaza Station?”

  “We’ve got to go in now, General,” said Tracker. “Are your guys ready?” “My guys are always ready. The real question is: are they even still alive?”

  THIRTY THREE

  ‘All set?” Bennett whispered.

  McCoy looked down the long hallway at the flames shooting from the electrical wiring in the ceiling. They’d have to get down on the floor on their stomachs in the rapidly rising water, hold their breath, and make a dash for it. It was the only way they knew of to get to Sa’id and Galishnikov, and such as it was, the window was closing fast. Soon the entire hallway would be engulfed in flames.

  “You sure about this?” she whispered back, not really expecting an answer.

  “No,” he conceded. “Not really.”

  “How do we get back?”

  Bennett thought about that for a second.

  “I have no idea,” he admitted again.

  Well, she thought, at least he was being honest.

  “All right,” said McCoy. “After you.”

  Bennett nodded, then got down in the water and began to inch his way forward. It was hard to see, and harder to breath. The smoke was getting thicker. The flames were growing longer, threatening to reach down and lap up the water at any moment. McCoy was right behind him, her hand on his back so they wouldn’t get separated.

  “Ready. Set. Go.”

  Bennett sucked in a lungful of oxygen, then plunged down into the water and tried to hug the floor, pressing against the walls to keep himself from rising in the water up to the flames just inches above him. Six seconds later, he was through. He came up gasping for air and wiping the sooty water out of his eyes. A few seconds later, McCoy came through as well. She came up

  like a swimmer, head arched back, wet hair streaming down her back, her Beretta ice cold but still glued to her right hand.

  The two were soaked to the bone, shivering and short of breath. But they were together, and they were safe, at least for—a massive explosion shook the hallway. A huge, gaping hole suddenly opened up at the far end of the hallway, about thirty yards ahead of them. Concrete and sheetrock came pouring down into the water. A cloud of dust and smoke began moving toward them. Then three, maybe four men dropped down into the hallway. It was hard to see them clearly. But they were shouting in Arabic and both Bennett and McCoy knew instantly.

  “Jon, get down, get down,” shouted McCoy, pushing Bennett’s body back into the water as automatic weapons fire erupted all around them.

  She took aim through the smoke and dust and began firing. The screams were instantaneous, but they came with return fire. Bennett refused to stay down. Flames now completely engulfed the hallway behind him and McCoy. There was no way out.

  Hugging the wall, and staying as low to the floor as he could, he raised his head, lifted both .357s and began firing into the haze and flames and smoke ahead of him. He couldn’t see faces. Neither could McCoy, only shadows and movement. Bullets were smashing all around him. McCoy ducked to reload. Bennett kept firing—first one trigger, then the other, in rapid succession. Before he realized it, he’d unleashed every round from both clips. He was pulling triggers and hearing nothing but metallic clicks.

  McCoy popped back up out of the water, her Beretta reloaded. But suddenly, the gunfire fell silent. No return fire. No shadows. No movement of any kind ahead of them. All was quiet, besides the sloshing of the water around them and more water falling from burst pipes a few dozen yards behind them. Had they killed them all? How many were there? Were there more? Bennett looked over at McCoy, who nodded her agreement. The flames behind them were just a foot or two away. They had to press forward.

  As McCoy covered him, Bennett reached into his pocket to get the other clips. Then he signaled McCoy and the two forced themselves down again into the ice-cold water. With Bennett leading, they began to creep forward. When they got ahead about fifteen or twenty yards, to the corner of two adjoining hallways, they could see what they’d done. Near a pile of rock and concrete and dirt—the remains of the explosion by which the terrorists had breached the station—the riddled bodies of five men they’d just gunned down floated in water as bloodred as the kaffiyahs that covered their faces. Bennett shuddered. He could feel his hands trembling and the back of his throat began to burn, as though he were about to throw up.

  McCoy carefully checked the pulse of each man, her pistol ready to strike if any of them were still alive. But they were gone. Each man held an AK-47 in a death grip. None of them carried any ID. McCoy and Bennett quickly stripped the men of their ammunition, and backed away. As quickly as they could, the two worked their way down the next hallway and reached the door to Tariq’s room. Neither said it. Neither dared to. But the same question worried them both.

  Who would they find on the other side?

  The five SH-60F Seahawks were powered up and ready to go.

  The rugged sixty-four-foot all-weather choppers were originally built for antisubmarine warfare. But these five
—the navy’s version of the famed army Blackhawk—were uniquely outfitted for special operations and assigned to the newest nuclear-powered supercarrier in the American arsenal, the USS Ronald Reagan.

  The first Seahawk—code-named Storm One—was the command-and-control helo, carrying SEAL Team Eight commander Eduardo Ramirez, code-named Br’er Rabbit—a senior intel officer, and two radio operators, one to coordinate combat operations in the air, the other to coordinate op erations on the ground.

  In the second Seahawk—Storm Two—eleven members of Gold Cell or Gold Team, ST-8’s premier counterterrorist assault force, checked their gear and prepared for liftoff. Onboard Storm Three, Red Cell ran through their final checklists, while onboard Storm Four, Blue Cell did the same. Joining these four and bringing up the rear would be a fifth Seahawk, Storm Five, the transport helo and responsible for the safety of the “package”—Bennett, Sa’id, and their team. Some carried M-16s equipped with laser sights and fifty-five-watt halogen spotlights for close-quarters combat at night or inside buildings. Others preferred the M4A1 Carbine, similarly equipped. Those responsible for initial perimeter security tended to go with the SASR .50-caliber sniper rifle. All were loaded up with as much ammunition as they could carry.

  SEAL Team Eight would be the first in—on the ground in less than fifteen minutes. They’d be backed up by the Sixth Fleet and the STRIKFOR-SOUTH command out of southern Europe. On the ground, they’d be joined by two hundred crack fighters from the Twenty-sixth Marine Expeditionary Unit from the USS Kearsarge. Deemed special operations capable—SOC— the Twenty-sixth MEU excelled at rapid-response, high-risk, high-threat missions into hostile territory. In June of 1995, they’d rescued Air Force Captain

  Scott O’Grady, shot down over Bosnia and trapped behind enemy lines. In May of 1997, they’d rescued two hundred Americans out of Sierra Leone. “A certain force in an uncertain world” was their motto, and over the years they more than lived up to their billing. The men and women of the Twenty-sixth MEU lived for this stuff, and once again they were about to step up to the plate in service of their country.