Acts of Vengeance

CHAPTER FOURTEEN SAN‘A

Claire saw the battered white Toyota swinging around the corner. As Maloney rolled up to the front of the Al Qasmy, he reached over and opened the right door.

“I know a restaurant not far from here,” he said. “Off the street and quiet.” His face looked puffy, as if he hadn’t gotten much sleep.

She kept her silence while he weaved along the cobbled streets. Maloney, she remembered, loved intrigue. Whatever he had to tell her, he was going to milk it for its full dramatic value.

The restaurant was a hole-in-the-wall called Al-Salah, in a narrow side street about eight blocks from her hotel. The windows were curtained, and an awning covered the sidewalk in front. Half a dozen Yemenis looked up from huddled conversations as they entered. Maloney led her to a back table.

He waited until the drinks came. He looked around, then said in a low voice, “There was another airborne operation today. A team of marines went in to pick up a downed pilot, but they came under fire and now they’re on the ground too.”

Claire listened, barely able to breathe. “You said something about the lucky guy.”

“Another Hornet was shot down supporting the marines.”

She took a deep breath and waited.

Maloney said, “What is your guy’s name?”

“Maxwell. Sam Maxwell.”

He hesitated, and she could tell by his expression what was coming. “Claire, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but that’s the guy.”

“Is he…”

“No details. They think he ejected okay, but no word yet about his situation.”

Claire’s mind raced through the possibilities. If he was alive, he may have joined the marines on the ground. Or he was captured.

Or killed.

As these thoughts played in her mind, the anger swelled up inside her. “What the hell’s going on, Vince?” She knew she was speaking too loudly. The cluster of Yemeni men across the room looked up in surprise. They had probably never heard a woman raise her voice in anger. “Why are they letting this… this half-assed little bandit, Al-Fasr, get away with this? Why don’t we—”

“Ssh-shh.” Maloney was holding his finger to his lips, looking more nervous than ever. He nodded toward the Yemeni men. They had all halted their own conversations and were staring at them.

Claire turned and glowered back. “To hell with them,” she said. She swung back to Maloney. “To hell with all of them. Since when does the United States have to bow and scrape to thugs who kill Americans?”

Maloney’s nervousness ratcheted up another notch. “Look, Claire, I know how you feel. This is a very dangerous situation we’re in—”

“Dangerous for who? Are you state department people afraid you might lose your precious little jobs if you speak up? What about those Americans out there in the hills getting shot at by” — she paused and glowered again at the gawking Yemenis — “a bunch of Stone Age ragheads?”

At this, Maloney winced. She knew she sounded hysterical, but right now she didn’t give a damn. Sam Maxwell was in trouble, and nobody was doing diddly about it.

Maloney had his notepad out, scribbling something on it. He ripped out the page and slid it to her. “This is the phone number of the embassy security office and the address of the front gate, written in Arabic. If this thing blows up — and I predict that it will — get yourself there immediately. Give this to a driver you can trust and go to the front gate. The sentries will know you by name. Don’t tell anyone at the hotel where you’re going; don’t take luggage. If there’s an air evacuation, you have to be inside the embassy compound to get on it.”

“You really believe this place will blow?”

“If Al-Fasr comes to town, yes.”

“And you think he will?”

“Yes.”

“Then why don’t you just get out now while you can?”

Despite his inebriation, Maloney seemed thoughtful. “You will find this hard to believe, but I still have a tiny sense of duty left in me. You know, the old death-before-dishonor thing. I intend to stay at my post.”

Claire nodded and finished her drink in silence. She was sorry she had flared up at Maloney. He was still her best friend in this hostile country.

They pecked at dinner, neither of them hungry, and made small talk about everything except what was on their minds. He paid the bill and they left. Passing the table of dark-eyed Yemeni men, Claire glowered again at them.

Outside, darkness had descended over the city. The air had turned chilly. She could see Maloney’s white Toyota parked a couple hundred meters down the street.

Maloney said, “I think you should come with me to the embassy compound.”

“What for? Is this another proposition?”

“You’ll be safe there.”

For a moment, she considered. Maloney meant well, even if he was potted. It wasn’t his fault that she was distraught, worried sick about Maxwell.

“I need to be alone. I want to walk back to the hotel.”

“No way, Claire. Too dangerous. C’mon, I’ll drive you back.”

“I’m okay, really. I just need to be alone. Don’t worry about me.”

Before he could argue any more, she gave him a peck on the cheek, then started walking down the street. She glanced over her shoulder once and saw Maloney watching her. He was leaning against the Toyota while he fumbled with the key. He gave her a wave, and she waved back.

She was half a block away when she heard it.

The sound of the explosion and the concussion arrived together, rocking her like a blast of wind. She whirled in time to see the Toyota’s hood and other assorted pieces clanging off the building across the street.

The car was a fireball. The flaming pyre gushed thirty feet into the air, illuminating the cobbled street in an angry orange glare.

Her first instinct was to run to the burning automobile, try to help. Do something. Maybe Vince had somehow survived. Maybe…

She ran a few steps, then stopped. He’s dead, you idiot. And you’re next.

In the glare of the fire she saw figures, silhouettes. Heard voices yelling in Arabic.

She turned and ran. One of her high-heeled leather shoes caught on the cobblestones. She fell, banging her elbow and knee on the rough-surfaced street.

Behind her the voices were coming nearer. She heard running footsteps. Bystanders? Witnesses? Police?

Killers.

She yanked off her shoes and jumped to her feet. Ignoring the pain of the stones on her bare soles, she ran down the yellow-lighted street. She heard them running after her.

An image was floating through Gus Gritti’s mind. In his fatigued imagination he could see his hands wrapped around the windpipe of the dumb sonofabitch who was responsible for putting him and his marines in Yemen.

The only problem was, there were multiple dumb sons of bitches. One was a two-star squid Battle Group Commander who didn’t know an amphibious assault from a circle jerk. Another prime candidate was the pissant civilian tea sipper who thought marines were as expendable as Kleenex. Gritti would happily strangle either of them.

Another volley of AK-47 rounds pinged off the boulder where he hunched down next to Plunkett. The incoming fire had slackened, becoming more random. Darkness had come, and Gritti guessed that the Sherji would either make an all-out assault on the perimeter, or they would back off and wait for the next wave of helos.

“What’s the count, Master Sergeant?”

“Seven wounded, three dead, not counting the chopper crews. Two on the first Cobra and one the second. Three wiped out in the Stallion.”

“Where’s Tillman?” Lieutenant Tillman was the weapons platoon commander.

“One of the wounded. Sergeant Gonzales reports that he has the north perimeter stabilized.”

Gritti listened for a moment to the sporadic sounds of gunfire. He heard a single sharp crack of a heavy-caliber gun.

“Have the sniper teams deployed yet?”

“One in position with the Barrett,” said Plunkett. “The second is getting set up now.” The Barrett M82A1A sniper rifle was an extreme-range weapon. It was carried in several pieces by members of the team. The rifle’s massive .50-caliber slug could spread terror by picking off unsuspecting targets — officers, vehicles, antennae — more than a mile away.

That was exactly what Gritti wanted now — some old-fashioned terror among the Sherji before they got their nerve up for another assault.

He still didn’t know what they were up against. How many more did Al-Fasr have out there? Was another wave coming? He was getting assurances from Rivet Joint — the four-engined RC-135 intelligence-gathering jet in orbit offshore — that no heavy equipment was being deployed toward the marines.

Yeah, bullshit, thought Gritti. After this sucker trap, he had zero faith in the battle group’s intelligence sources. At the moment he was willing to believe only what he could see, which included the knowledge that his marines had killed at least fifty Sherji during the initial assault. He also had seen the Hornets decimate another unknown number with their cluster bombs and twenty-millimeter cannon. Al-Fasr’s artillery and most of his armor had gone silent after the bombing.

Now what? Warlord still wasn’t saying whether the TRAP team was being lifted out, reinforced, or to be included in an all-out sweep through Al-Fasr’s stronghold.

Gritti had never felt so frustrated. He didn’t want to sit inside the perimeter waiting for the Sherji to make the next move, but he was too short on perimeter defenses to risk sending out patrols.

“Stay here,” he said to Plunkett. “I’m going to check on the wounded.”

There was a tiny lapse between transmissions. That was to be expected, Babcock assumed, when your call was scrambled, bounced off a satellite, and then unscrambled.

“You have not kept your word,” he said.

“I gave my word that we would not retaliate after the air strike if you did not send in an assault force. But then you sent in an assault force.”

“That was not an assault. You already know that the marine team was sent for no purpose except to retrieve the downed pilots. No other objective. Now the situation has become very complicated. The President has no choice except to order a strike.”

For several seconds Babcock heard nothing on the secure telephone. He wondered if they had been disconnected. He heard only the tinny background hum of the satellite uplink.

“This can still be resolved,” he heard Al-Fasr say. “My agents in San‘a report that they are almost ready to initiate the coup. When they give the signal, my troops will seize the military headquarters and the government broadcasting station. We expect no resistance. I will control the Republic of Yemen.”

“Fine. What about our marines on the ground? They have to be lifted out.”

“It will be possible within a day or so.”

“We don’t have a day or so. I’m telling you, the United States will not tolerate letting its soldiers be trapped by an enemy. If you resist another recovery attempt, I cannot be responsible for what happens. A massive strike will follow.”

Another silence of several seconds. “That would be a grave mistake, my friend.”

Babcock was losing patience. “Why are you complicating this? Why are you keeping our marines pinned down in Yemen?”

“To insure that your government keeps its word. We are at a crucial moment in this adventure, Whitney. I must be certain that the United States will not betray us at the last moment and install one of their puppets in San‘a.”

“You have to trust us. You have no choice.”

“Choice? Oh, I have many choices. It is you who has no choice, not if you wish to have a presence in Yemen after I control the country.”

“Just tell me that we can retrieve the marines. There must be no more ambushes, no resistance.”

“Soon. I will inform you.”

The tinny sound of the satellite phone abruptly ended. Al-Fasr was gone.

For a while Babcock stared at the silent phone in his compartment. More than ever, he had the feeling that he had made a pact with a terrorist. It was possible that someone would someday uncover a record of these negotiations with Al-Fasr. He would be judged by history as the visionary statesman who secured America’s energy supply for the next decade. Or he would be pilloried as a traitor.

Which? It depended on what happened in the next four hours.

Al-Fasr emerged from the communications bunker, his eyes adjusting to the darkness. The temperature in the Yemeni highlands was balmy, the air dry and cool. He was wearing his usual working costume — tailored olive flight suit, polished boots, sunglasses. On his hip was the ever-present SatPhone and the nickel-plated SIG Sauer semiautomatic pistol.

He needed a walk in the night air to consider these recent developments. This last dialogue with Babcock was worrisome. The Americans would not wait much longer.

One part of Al-Fasr almost welcomed such a development. The U.S. Navy would execute one of their classic tactical air strikes, using all the wrong weapons and employing tactics used against adversaries like Iraq and Yugoslavia. It would be a pigeon shoot.

With his concealed air defense assets — the three remaining MiGs, an arsenal of SA-16 air-to-air missiles, and a battery of fifty-seven-millimeter AA guns — he would take a heavy toll on their strike fighters.

What if they also sent in an assault force?

He would be forced to yield territory, of course. But northern Yemen was perfect guerilla country, and the Americans had no stomach for close-in fighting in these hills. Nor would the citizens of the United States tolerate planeloads of their young men returning home in body bags. A ground war in Yemen was not on their list of options.

But he couldn’t allow a strike. Not yet. Not until the long-standing business in the Gulf of Aden had been settled.

Where was Manilov?

His last communication from the submarine had been early yesterday. The Russian had signaled that he would be in a position to attack this morning.

And then nothing.

Who was this Manilov? Al-Fasr had never met him. Hakim, the agent who had secured the contract with the Russian, had been convinced that he was reliable. The submarine captain, according to Hakim, possessed a hatred of the Americans that nearly equaled Al-Fasr’s.

Now Al-Fasr was not sure. In his experience, Russians were unreliable. They were temperamental romantics whose passions came and went like the tides. Today they hated Americans, tomorrow someone else. Vodka and corruption were the only constants in Russia.

Nothing had happened in the Gulf, according to his source aboard the Reagan. The radar operator on the guided missile cruiser Arkansas had reported a disappearing contact — a possible submarine — but the subsequent search had turned up nothing. For good reason, Al-Fasr had not solicited more information from his source about the contact. The source aboard the Reagan was uninformed about the Russian submarine and its mission.

Al-Fasr was concerned. Had the Russian captain been intimidated by the firepower arrayed against him and decided to run? Or were the American antisubmarine forces so effective as to thwart any attempted attack?

As he walked, he kicked at loose stones, thinking about the absent Russian submarine. Everything depended now on Manilov. Everything that Al-Fasr had planned for so long was waiting to come together, like electrons of an imploding atom.

He walked past the row of camouflaged bunkers that contained racks of missiles. Beneath a retractable screen, a huge dish antenna pointed at the sky and the constellation of satellites that served Al-Fasr’s bank of communication devices. He could make an instant connection with any commercial telephone in the world, receive any televised newscast, conduct encrypted and scrambled conversations with anyone he chose.

Except Manilov. What the hell was happening?

She knew she was running away from the hotel, but she had no choice. She came again to the Al-Salah restaurant. For a second she considered dashing inside, asking for help. Then she saw the Yemenis come out — the same grim-faced men who had stared at her. They were watching, pointing, gesturing with their arms. One of them yelled.

Was he yelling at her, or giving directions to someone else?

The footsteps behind her were louder, closer.

A hundred yards away she saw a dimly-lighted T intersection. She sprinted toward the corner, then peered left and right. In either direction, the street narrowed and angled off into darkness.

Which way?

To the right. She rounded the corner and bolted down the narrowing lane.

She felt her heart pounding in her chest, her breath coming in short, heavy rasps. She wasn’t a runner, never had been; hated it, in fact.

In a darkened doorway she heard something — a hissing noise. Cat? Rat? The spike of fear sent another surge of adrenaline through her. Her foot banged into an object, something metallic, a trash can, she guessed, sending it clattering into the darkness.

Behind her, the footsteps were louder, drawing nearer. She heard men’s voices, heavy breathing. How many? Who were they? What did they want?

The narrow street meandered left, then right, twisting like a snake between the ancient buildings. She was lost, running without direction, plunging into the darkest heart of Yemen.

Another intersection of narrow lanes. To the left she saw a glimmer of light. She turned the corner, and saw a faint illumination somewhere ahead, around the bend in the lane.

She couldn’t keep running. Her need for oxygen was critical, and her legs had become numb and wooden. It occurred to her that she should have asked Maloney for some sort of weapon. A gun, a knife even, to hell with legalities. She could have concealed it in the leather pouch she wore under her blouse where she kept ID cards and money and her passport.

Too late. The most lethal instrument in her kit was a tube of lipstick.

The dim light ahead was moving, casting a ray of light against the front of an ancient plaster wall. As she rounded the corner she saw that the yellow glow came from the headlights of a clattering automobile. It was stopped at the junction a hundred meters ahead. For what?

She slowed, suddenly more afraid of the car than of the running footsteps behind her. The car wasn’t moving. It seemed to be waiting.

Drawing nearer she peered at the rickety vehicle. It was a rusty Peugeot, a diesel, judging by the clacking engine noise and the stench of exhaust. On its roof was an object, a dimly lit marker with Arabic lettering.

A taxi.

She saw the driver, a hawk-nosed man wearing a checkered kaffiyeh. As she ran to him, he regarded her with dark, interested eyes.

She reached inside her blouse, zipped open the leather pouch, and pulled out a folded piece of paper, the one Maloney had given her at the restaurant.

She thrust it at the driver. “American embassy,” she said between gasps. “Please, please, take me there.”

She heard the running footsteps in the lane behind her. The driver heard them too. He gazed at Claire, then he held the piece of paper up to the light.

The footsteps were loud, almost there. Wheezing voices, someone barking orders in Arabic.

“Please,” she said. “They want to kill me.”

The driver peered at the running figures coming toward them. He had dark, penetrating eyes, like the men in the restaurant.

Maloney’s words came back to her. They hate you. They hate us all.

The driver looked at her. Abruptly he reached behind him and opened the passenger door.

There were four of them, running toward the taxi at full tilt. The first was reaching for the door handle just as the driver shoved the Peugeot into gear and floored it. In a shower of dust and dirt and diesel fumes, they sped down the street.