Al Jihad

SIX

We finished loading the Humvee and the trailer attached to it before sunset and ate MREs in the twilight. As soon as it was dark, we donned our night-vision goggles and drove toward the oasis. I stopped often to get up on the vehicle's hood, the best vantage point around, and take a squint in all directions.

I parked the vehicle at the foot of the trail. "If I'm not back in an hour and a half, they've caught me," I told Julie Giraud. I smeared my face with grease to cut the white shine, checked my reflection in the rearview mirror, then did my neck and the back of my hands.

"If they catch you," she said, "I won't pay you the rest of the money."

"Women are too maudlin to be good soldiers," I told her. "You've got to stop this cloying sentimentality. Save the tears for the twenty-five-year reunion."

When I was as invisible as I was going to get, I hoisted a rucksack that I had packed that evening, put the M-16 over my shoulder, and started up the trail.

Every now and then I switched the goggles from ambient light to infrared and looked for telltale heat sources. I spotted some small mammal, too small to be human. I continued up the ridge, wondering how any critters managed to make a living in this godforsaken desert.

The temperature had dropped significantly from the high during the afternoon. I estimated the air was still at eighty degrees, but it would soon go below seventy. Even the earth was cooling, although not as quickly as the air.

I topped the ridge slowly, on the alert for security patrols. Before we committed ourselves to a course of action, we had to know how many security people were prowling around.

No one in sight now.

I got off to one side of the trail, just in case, and walked toward the old fortress, the Camel. Tonight light shone from several of the structure's windows, light visible for many miles in that clean desert air.

I was still at least five hundred yards from the walls when I first heard the hum of the generator, barely audible at that distance. The noise gradually increased as I approached the structure. When I was about fifty yards from the wall, I circled the fort to a vantage point where I could see the main gate, the gate where I entered on my last visit. It was standing open. A guard with an assault rifle sat on a stool near the gate; he was quite clear in the goggles. He was sitting under an overhang of the wall at a place where he could watch the road that led off the ridge, the road to the oasis and the airfield. He was not wearing any night-vision aid, just sitting in the darkness under the wall.

The drone of the gasoline generator meant that he could hear nothing. Of course, it handicapped me as well.

I continued around the structure, crossing the road at a spot out of sight of the man at the gate. Taking my time, slipping through the sparse brush as carefully as possible, I inspected every foot of the wall. The main gate was the only entrance I noticed on my first visit, yet I wanted to be sure.

A man strolled on top of the wall on the side opposite the main gate; the instant I saw him I dropped motionless to the ground. Seconds passed as he continued to walk, then finally he reversed his course. When he disappeared from view I scurried over to a rock outcrop and crouched under it, with my body out of sight from the wall.

If he had an infrared scope or any kind of ambient light collector, he could have seen me lying on the open ground.

I crouched there waiting for something to happen. If they came streaming out of the main gate, they could trap me on the point of this ridge, hunt me down at their leisure.

As I waited I discovered that the M-16 was already in my hands. I had removed it from my shoulder automatically, without thinking.

Several minutes passed as I waited, listening to the hypnotic drone of the generator, waiting for something to happen. Anything.

Finally a head became visible on top of the wall. The sentry again, still strolling aimlessly. He leaned against the wall for a while, then disappeared.

Now I hurried along, completed my circumnavigation of the fort.

I saw only the two men, one on the gate and the man who had been walking the walls. Although I had seen the man on the wall twice, I was convinced it was the same person. And I was certain there was only one entrance to the fort, the main gate.

I had to go through that gate so I was going to have to take out the guard. I was going to have to do it soon, then hope I could get in and out before his absence from his post was noticed or someone came to relieve him. Taking chances like that wasn't the best way to live to spend that three million dollars, that's for sure, but we didn't have the time or resources to minimize the risk. I was going to have to have some luck here or we had no chance to pull off this thing.

This whole goddamn expedition was half-baked, I reflected, and certainly no credit to me. Man, why didn't I think of poisoning their water supply when we were brainstorming in Germany?

In my favor was the fact that these people didn't seem very worried about their safety or anything else. A generator snoring away, only two guards? An open gate?

I worked my way to the wall, then turned and crept toward the guard. The generator hid the sounds I made as 1 crept along. He was facing the road.

I got about ten feet from him and froze. He was facing away from me at a slight angle, but if I tried to get closer, he was going to pick me up in his peripheral vision. 1 sensed it, so I froze.

He changed his position on the stool, played with the rifle on his knees, looked at the myriad of stars that hung just over our heads. Finally he stood and stretched. For an instant he turned away from me. I covered the distance in two bounds, wrapped my arm around his mouth, and jammed my knife into his back up to the hilt.

The knife went between his ribs right into his heart. Two convulsive tremors, then he was dead.

I carried him and his rifle off into the darkness. He weighed maybe one-eighty, as near as I could tell.

One of the outcroppings that formed the edge of the top of the ridge would keep him hidden from anyone but a determined searcher. After I stashed the body, I hurried back to the gate. I took off my night-vision goggles, waited for my eyes to adjust. I took off my rifle, leaned it against the wall out of sight.

As I waited I saw the man on the ramparts walking his rounds. He was in no hurry, obviously bored. I got a radio-controlled bomb from the rucksack, checked the frequency, and turned on the receiver.

The Land Rover was in the courtyard. When the man on the wall was out of sight, I slipped over to it and lay down. I pulled out the snap \vire and snapped it around one of the suspension arms. The antenna of the bomb I let dangle.

This little job took less than thirty seconds. Then I scurried across the courtyard into the shelter of the staircase.

The conferees were probably in the living area; I sure as hell hoped they were. My edge was that the people here were not on alert. And why should they be? This fort was buried in the most desolate spot on the planet, hundreds of miles from anyplace.

Still, my life was on the line, so I moved as cautiously as I could, trying very hard to make no noise at all, pausing to listen carefully before I rounded any corner. My progress was glacial. It took me almost five minutes to climb the stairs and inch down the corridor to the radio room.

The hum of the generator was muted the farther away from it I moved, but it was the faint background noise that covered any minor noise I was making. And any minor noise anyone else was making. That reality had me sweating.

The door to the radio room was ajar, the room dark.

Knocking out the generator figured to be the easiest way to disable the radio, unless they had a battery to use as backup. I was betting they did.

After listening for almost a minute outside the door, I eased it open gently, my fighting knife in my hand.

The only light came through the interior window from the floods in the courtyard. The room was empty of people!

I went in fast, laid my knife on the table, got a bomb out of the rucksack. This one was rigged with a chemical fuse, so I broke the chemicals, shook the thing to start the reaction, then put the package— explosive, detonator, fuse and all — directly behind the radio. As I turned I was struck in the face by a runaway Freightliner.

Only partially conscious, I found myself falling. A rough hand gripped me fiercely, then another truck slammed into my face. If I hadn't turned my head to protect myself, that blow would have put me completely out.

As it was, I couldn't stay upright. My legs turned to jelly and I went to the floor, which was cold and hard.

"What a pleasant surprise," my assailant said in highly accented English, then kicked me in the side. His boot almost broke my left arm, which was fortunate, because if he had managed to get a clean shot at my ribs he would have caved in a lung.

I wasn't feeling very lucky just then. My arm felt like it was in four pieces and my side was on fire. I fought for air.

I couldn't take much more of this. If I didn't do something pretty damned quick he was going to kick me to death.

Curling into a fetal position, I used my right hand to draw my hideout knife from my left boot. I had barely got it out when he kicked me in the kidney.

At first I thought the guy had rammed a knife into my back — the pain was that intense. I was fast running out of time.

I rolled over toward him, just in time to meet his foot coming in again. I slashed with the knife, which had a razor-sharp two-sided blade about three inches long. I felt it bite into something.

He stepped back then, bent down to feel his calf. I got my feet under me and rose into a crouch.

"A knife, is it? You think you can save yourself with that?" While he was talking he lashed out again with a leg. It was a kick designed to distract me, tempt me to go for his leg again with the knife. I didn't, so when he spun around and sent another of those iron-fisted artillery shots toward my head, I was ready. I went under the incoming punch and slashed his stomach with the knife.

I cut him bad.

Now he grunted in pain, sagged toward the radio table.

I gathered myself, got out of his way, got into a crouch so I could defend myself.

He was holding his stomach with both hands. In the dim light I could see blood. I had really gotten him.

"Shouldn't have played with you," he said, and reached for the pistol in the holster on his belt.

Too late. I was too close. With one mighty swing of my arm I slashed his throat. Blood spewed out, a look of surprise registered on his face. then he collapsed.

Blood continued to pump from his neck. I had to wipe the sweat from my eyes. Jesus! My hands were shaking, trembling. Never again, God! I promise. Never again!

I stowed the little knife back in my boot, retrieved the rucksack and my fighting knife from the table.

Outside in the corridor I carefully pulled the door to the radio room shut, made sure it latched.

Down the stairs, across the courtyard, through the gate. Safe in the darkness outside, I retrieved my M-16 and puked up my MREs. Yeah, I'm a real tough guy. Shit!

Then I trotted for the trail to the oasis. It wasn't much of a trot My side, back, and arm were on fire, and my face was still numb. The best I could manage was a hell-bent staggering gait.

As I ran the numbness in my side and back wore off. I wheezed like an old horse and savored the pain, which was proof positive I was still alive.

Julie Giraud was standing beside the Humvee chewing her fingernails. I took my time looking over the area, made sure she was really alone, then walked the last hundred feet.

"Hey," I said.

My voice made her jump. She glanced at my face, then stared. "What happened?"

I eased myself into the driver's seat.

"A guy was waiting for me."

"What?"

"He spoke to me in English."

"Well…"

"Didn't even try a phrase in Arabic. Just spoke to me in English."

"You're bleeding under your right eye, I think. With all that grease it's hard to tell."

"Pay attention to what I'm telling you. He spoke to me in English. He knew I understood it. Doesn't that worry you?"

"What about the radio?"

"He knew I was coming. Someone told him. He was waiting for me."

"You're just guessing."

"He almost killed me."

"He didn't."

"If they knew we were coming, we're dead."

Before I could draw another breath, she had a pistol pointed at me. She placed the muzzle against the side of my head.

"I'll tell you one more time, Charlie Dean, one more time. These people are baby-killers, murderers of women and kids and old people. They have been tried in a court of law and found guilty. We are going to kill them so they can never kill again."

Crazy! She was crazy as hell!

Her voice was low, every word distinctly pronounced: "I don't care what they know or who told them what. We are going to kill these men. You will help me do it or I will kill you. Have I made it plain enough? Do you understand?"

"Did the court sentence these people to die?" I asked.

"I sentenced them! Me! Julie Giraud. And I am going to carry it out. Death. For every one of them."