Black Mountain

SIXTEEN

Alex and Adira had time on their hands while they waited for their documents to be produced. Adira wanted them to stay indoors and undercover, but the sun-filled sky, the ocean and the golden sands of Hauza beach across the road were too much for Alex. He needed to be outside. And even though Adira refused to be convinced it was a good idea, she relented. Alex spent hours in the water, diving below the warm surface, opening his eyes as he swam, enjoying the clarity of the Red Sea. Adira never joined him, preferring to remain on the beach as lookout. But was she his guardian or his supervisor, he wondered.

He ran a hand through his short hair, shaking out the water, and sat beside her on the towel, exhaling contentedly. ‘Beautiful,’ he said, gazing along the shoreline.

Adira lifted one edge of the towel and dried his back, then leaned forward to kiss his cheek. He smiled, looking into her dark eyes. He wanted to trust her, but wasn’t sure he could anymore.

A prickling sensation at the back of his neck caused him to turn to look at the promenade. The small cafes there did a busy trade selling sodas, ice-creams and coffee. He frowned as the crowds of men, women and children seemed to slow, as if time itself was stretching — and then he saw the explosion in his mind, a second before it actually occurred.

He threw himself over Adira on the sand just as one of the busiest cafes was engulfed by an ear-shattering, orange ball that opened like a giant boiling flower. Debris and body parts blew outward, and splintered wood shot overhead in a wave of hot air mixed with blood and small gobbets of flesh. Wreckage rained down around them — remnants of people whose laughter and dreams were now shredded and burning. Screams and moans filled the air.

Alex stared at a small red-black puddle soaking into the sand beside him and the ache in his head intensified and turned to a clenched fist of pain. Anger surged inside him as he realised it wasn’t over yet. No sooner had the debris settled on the ground before gunfire rang out over the top of the screaming and the wail of the sirens and alarms set off by the explosion. Four men burst from a van at the head of the promenade, huge packs strapped to their backs, their faces concealed by black and white keffiyehs. They dashed along the promenade, yelling and firing their weapons. Any surviving men were shot; the women and children were dragged towards one of the major hotels along the seafront.

Alex stood up, incredulous at how the calm and beauty of the beach had turned into a hellish maelstrom in seconds. The aggressors fired in all directions as they pulled their captives up the hotel steps. Two Egyptian policemen opened fire with their pistols, but had little chance against men carrying modern assault rifles spewing 800 rounds per minute.

‘Harah!’ Adira cursed. ‘Khaybar rifles — must be Hezar-Jihadi. Come on!’

She jumped to her feet, grabbed Alex’s arm and dragged him with her. They sprinted along the sand, Adira intent on getting them out of the danger zone. Panicked tourists ran in all directions, many falling as machine-gun fire raked their sun-bronzed bodies. The air was filled with the smell of military-grade explosives and the baked-copper scent of burnt blood.

An inflatable boat roared into the shore, beaching itself in front of the remaining terrified civilians. More attackers leaped out, two of them carrying rocket-propelled grenade launchers on their shoulders. They started up the beach towards the hotel — it was a pincer assault; professional, planned and coordinated.

One of the terrorists came upon a man, obviously wounded, lying next to a woman who was sprawled lifeless on a beach towel. The man was shielding a child; Alex could see her small body huddled beneath him, hands clasped over her ears, her face pressed into a towel. The terrorist screamed something and raised his weapon at the man’s chest. At such close range, the bullets would easily travel through the man’s frame and into the body of the child he was trying to protect.

Alex yelled, and pulled free of Adira’s grasp. Close by were the broken remains of a beach umbrella, its two-inch thick shaft sawn off by gunfire. Alex drew the spike from the sand and threw it with all his strength. The rigid pole with its steel tip travelled the fifty feet to its target almost faster than the human eye could follow. It struck the terrorist in the neck, continued through flesh, cartilage and bone, and landed the same distance again down the beach. The terrorist remained upright for a second, daylight visible through the large hole in his neck. Then his arms dropped to his sides, his knees buckled and his lifeless body fell sideways to the sand.

Alex looked from the fallen man to his hand, wonder on his face.

More gunfire brought his attention back to the attackers racing up the beach. The two men with the rocket launchers had already made it to the hotel foyer, but a third man had stopped to look back at his dead comrade. His dark eyes, visible between the layers of cloth wrapped around his face, widened, first in disbelief, then with a volcanic fury.

Alex’s fists balled, his own anger building. It surged through him like a wave of energy. Without realising it, he took a step forward.

‘Not here!’ Adira screamed into his ear.

Her words penetrated the red mist that was starting to cloud his vision and reason, and he saw her logic. An unarmed man in bathers was no match for professionals carrying modern gas-powered automatic assault rifles.

Alex grabbed Adira and sprinted to the cover of the promenade and the shelter of the side streets, roughly pushing her in front of him, ignoring her protests. They dodged flying projectiles that sped past like deadly metal wasps, but as they leaped from the sand to the concrete walkway Alex felt a thud on his shoulder. He staggered and grunted in pain but kept going until they’d rounded a corner. There, he let go of Adira and pressed his body up against the wall. The yelling from the front of the hotel receded as the remaining terrorists disappeared inside the large marble foyer.

Adira peered back around the corner, then turned to Alex with anger creasing her face. She wrenched his body away from the wall to look at the hole in his shoulder. A blood smear stained the white stonework.

‘Acch! You’re hit.’

The blood flow slowed but didn’t stop. Alex could feel the projectile embedded in the meat of his deltoid muscle; he knew it needed to come out or the wound wouldn’t close.

A single muffled shot rang out — this time from inside the hotel, higher up. He angled his head to look at the upper balconies.

Adira put her hand on his chest and pushed him back against the wall. ‘No, Alex, you must not even think it. We can’t afford to get caught up in this — not here, not now. Our documents must be ready by now. We need to leave — get out.’

He shook his head slowly. ‘I can’t. You know I can’t. I need to help those people.’ He gently took her wrist and moved her hand away. ‘I think this is who I am, and I know what I have to do. You go back to the room. I’ll be there soon.’

Adira stood close to him, examining his face. He could tell her mind was working furiously, probably thinking of ways to dissuade him from getting involved. She clenched her hands into fists and muttered something in Hebrew through gritted teeth. After another second, she said with a deadly calm, ‘I’m coming with you.’

Alex nodded and said, ‘Good,’ then scanned the street. He picked up a glass soda bottle from the ground and, holding it by the neck, shattered it against the wall. He handed the jagged top part to Adira. ‘Get the bullet out.’

Adira didn’t flinch. She took the piece of glass, then pushed him around so he faced the wall. ‘Lift your arm slightly. That’s it. Now hold it.’

She dug the glass into his flesh and twisted, hard. After a few seconds of agony for Alex, the large bullet popped free and clattered to the ground. Alex immediately felt a tickling sensation as the skin around the wound knitted together. Amazing, he thought, and rotated his arm.

‘Thanks,’ he told Adira, and grinned. ‘You’ve got a delicate touch.’

He walked to the edge of the building and peered into the now deserted street. Bodies and debris lay where they had fallen. A few seagulls had returned to pick through the destruction. Alex hoped they were scavenging food from the destroyed stalls, not feeding on their former customers.

‘Let’s go,’ he said without turning.

Staying close to the hotel’s façade, Alex and Adira moved quickly towards the magnificent marble foyer. On the way, Adira retrieved the fallen policemen’s handguns. She expertly checked the clips, and offered one to Alex. ‘Berettas — 9 millimetre. Both clips nearly full. Small, but they’ll do.’

Alex shook his head so she kept both for herself.

Alex concentrated on the doorway. The sliding glass doors had been wedged open in the blast. He focused on the darkened opening, blanking out the surrounding sounds of the ocean and occasional shriek from inside the hotel. He sensed a man hidden behind the reception desk — armed and ready, his mind calm and cold. It was probably the terrorist team’s lookout and first line of defence.

Alex backed away and breathed into Adira’s ear, ‘Man behind the desk.’

Adira made a sound in her throat. ‘As expected. The rest will be rigging explosives to themselves, their hostages and perhaps their surroundings. You saw their full backpacks? One word from this man and they could detonate everything.’ She looked around, then shook her head. ‘The Egyptian police will be here soon. Leave it to them. We must not be seen.’

Muffled gunfire came from the third floor.

‘We can’t go in the front without starting a firefight,’ Alex said. ‘And they’re the ones with the big-calibre guns and backup.’

He looked up along the roofline of the three-storey building, and then towards its rear. They didn’t have much time. Adira was right: the Egyptian police would arrive soon, and they’d cordon off the entire block so no one, other than their negotiators, could go in or out.

He turned to look at Adira. He could see she was angry — as much with him as with the terrorists, he suspected. But she was armed and ready to do as he asked of her.

‘We have time,’ he said. ‘It’s still early in their operation, and we have one element in our favour — they won’t be expecting someone from above — or not yet anyway. It’s our, and the hostages’, only chance. You neutralise the lookout while I —’

She shook her head furiously. ‘No! Where you go, I go.’

Alex put his hand softly on her shoulder; her skin was still warm from the sun. ‘You need to neutralise this guy, then meet me on the third floor. We’ll come at them from both angles. I’ll signal you when I’m in.’

Adira’s eyes burned into him and he could see her jawline was rigid. She looked ready to swear at him, but instead said, ‘What signal?’

‘You’ll know it.’ He bent and kissed her lips.

She said something softly in Hebrew, but he didn’t understand.

He jogged to the rear of the building, and turned to see her crouch behind an enormous Mercedes-Benz for cover. He knew that she’d only given in temporarily. Signal or not, he guessed she’d walk in the front door, guns blazing, within the next few minutes. Adira Senesh made her own rules.

At the back of the hotel, tables and chairs stood around the sides of an enormous kidney-shaped swimming pool. Scattered towels, sunglasses and spilled drinks attested to the speed with which the holidaymakers had either scattered or been rounded up following the initial assault on the hotel. Alex picked up a large towel, threw it over his shoulder, and spotted a pair of oversized sunglasses. As he was about to grab them, he noticed a man in wet bathers hiding in a hedge of young ornamental olive trees.

‘Yours?’ Alex asked.

The man nodded jerkily.

‘Can I borrow them?’

Another nod.

Alex tucked the sunglasses into the waistband of his swimming trunks, then examined the building’s structure. Drainpipes and window ledges gave plenty of handholds, and within a few minutes he stood on a third-floor balcony peering into an expensively furnished room through a fine gauze curtain. Alex opened the balcony door and moved quickly across the empty room to the main door, intending to put his ear to it to get a sense of what was happening beyond it. However, as soon as his fingers touched the wood, a series of images unfolded in his mind, like watching a movie — except here his hyper-senses were the camera. A corridor led to an enormous room at the front of the hotel with a view of the beach. This was where the terrorists had herded their captives. A single armed man patrolled the corridor, checking rooms and windows.

Alex leaned his forehead against the wood of the door and concentrated harder. He could hear faint screams and the thud of bodies falling. The image sharpened and he realised that the attackers were separating the men from the women and children. If they held them in different rooms, his task would be all the more difficult. There was no more time; Alex needed to be inside that room right now.

He lifted the towel to his head, as if drying his hair after a shower, took a deep breath and pulled open the door.

The terrorist on patrol spun towards him, his eyes wide and nervous. Alex could tell he was young, his beard barely a few wisps on his cheeks, perspiration dampening his keffiyeh. Surprise kept him from speaking at first, but then he began to scream at Alex, raising his gun towards him.

Alex dropped the towel, raised his hands and yelled, ‘Français! Français!’ packing as much fear as he could into the word. He saw that the young man’s gun was shaking. This was the unknown factor in the plan — if the terrorist pulled the trigger, it was all over. But if he decided Alex was no threat…

Alex stooped to make himself smaller and made his raised hands tremble. He kept his eyes wide and fearful. The terrorist moved cautiously towards him, then drove the barrel of his gun into Alex’s stomach. Alex doubled over and the youth grabbed him by the hair and pulled his head back. He was grinning now.

‘Holiday over for you, monsieur,’ he hissed in Alex’s ear.

He dragged Alex to his feet and shoved him towards the large doors at the end of the corridor. He turned the door handle and kicked him roughly inside.

At first, Alex’s arrival was greeted with startled silence, and then the yelling began. The four terrorists in the room pummelled him on the back and shoulders with their guns, kicked his ribs and screamed at him in a language Alex didn’t understand. Their anger had a hard and brutal edge, either because Alex had somehow been missed during their search of the hotel, or simply because their taut nerves needed an outlet.

Pain blossomed deep inside Alex’s head, not from the blows but from something within him struggling to break free. He suppressed it, and tried to concentrate on gathering information while he could. Down on his hands on knees, he glanced around: the women and children were on one side of the room, sitting cross-legged, hands on heads. The men were on the other side, same position, but their faces showed signs of brutality. A side door was open, and Alex could just make out the pile of bodies inside the room. Perhaps the terrorists had executed a few of their captives as a warning to the others to behave. It had obviously worked, as the thirty or so captives sat mute and unmoving, barely even glancing over to where the terrorists were beating Alex.

One of the men grabbed him by the hair and dragged his head upwards. Alex went with it, upright onto his knees. He needed to see what he was dealing with. He took it all in within a few seconds. The bad news was that every man was armed with an Iranian Khaybar rifle — gas-rotating, automatic and powerful. No aging AK-47s for this group — they must be well financed. Two RPG-27 Tavolga grenade launchers — expensive Russian disposables. One was mounted at the window, the other was leaning against the wall. Worse, all the men were wearing bomb belts with enough C4 to blow off the top of the hotel. Near the wall, a table was piled with spare ammunition clips for the machine guns — this was a siege armoury. Details about the weaponry flooded Alex’s mind — the firing rate per second, projectile velocity, jamming potential. He didn’t pause to wonder how he knew; he just processed the information and was glad for it.

Three things in particular would inform his action plan. One: the ignition switches for the terrorists’ bomb belts were wireless handhelds, which were still on the table beside the ammunition, not yet activated and bound to the men’s arms. Two: the C4 packets were stamped with the letter ‘T’, meaning they were a tannerite mix and could be high-velocity detonated. And three: he had arrived in time — none of the hostages had yet been strapped with explosives.

In his peripheral vision, he saw a gloved fist being raised. There was laughter as the punch came down hard on his cheek. He dropped to the floor again. He heard a whimper and looked across the room to see a small girl surreptitiously watching him, her face streaked with tears of terror. She had obviously seen what had happened to other people the attackers didn’t like. He tried to smile at her, wanting her to understand that he’d be okay… that she would be okay, but whatever was building inside him was screaming to be released and he couldn’t make his mouth do what he wanted.

Someone grabbed the towel draped around his neck, tightened it and used it to pull him upright again. Alex had all the information he needed now, and came to his feet smiling.

The man who was obviously the leader of the small group, furious at Alex’s indifference to the brutal treatment, screamed at him so loudly that spittle flecked Alex’s cheeks. He drew a handgun from his holster and backhanded Alex across the face with it. Alex shut his eyes as the savage blow caught him on the cheekbone. Its force should have been enough to fell the largest of opponents, or at least to shatter his jaw. But Alex opened his eyes and smiled. It was not a smile of mirth or pleasure. It was cold and hinted at vengeance and a promise of retribution.

The leader’s own satisfied smile became a scowl. ‘Qui êtes vous?’ he hissed in thickly accented French. ‘Who are you?’

Alex responded in English, without thinking, and without knowing where the words came from. ‘I am Alex Hunter, the Arcadian.’

The beast inside him tore free from its chains at the same moment as the leader lifted the gun to point it at Alex’s face. ‘American,’ he screamed in a hate-filled voice, and pulled the trigger.