The First Casualty

54

Men and women exited different doors shortly after Isha ended, the small crowd disbursing into streets illuminated only by such light as leaked around edges of closed doors and shuttered windows. In the dark, the four men in loose-fitting thiyaab could have easily been mistaken for Bedouins. The departure of worshipers lasted long enough for each to slip one by one into the mosque’s main courtyard.

Wordlessly, Jason motioned toward two figures, also in Bedouin attire, standing beside the entrance to the minaret. Even in the near total absence of light, it was clear each held something that gave an occasional reflection. Jason had no doubt they were armed.

Stepping back into the deepest shadows given by the wall, Jason removed a pair of night-vision goggles from the billowing sleeve of his thobe. A detailed scan revealed only a pair of gray-bearded old men in the arm waving, head wagging, body language punctuating conversation common in this part of the world. Other than them, his crew and the two guards at the door, the courtyard was deserted.

He gave a low whistle he hoped would blend with the ceaseless breeze’s whisper. No such luck. The two at the door turned, searching as they raised what were now unmistakably rifles, most likely the ubiquitous AK-47. At the same time, Emphani and Viktor glided silently across the sand toward them. The guards turned back just in time to detect movement. One had his weapon raised just as a blur of silver streaked the night like a comet. There was the sound of steel meeting flesh, a grunt and one of the two was on the ground. The second almost got off a shot before there was a single coughing sound, and he joined his companion.

At a run, Jason crossed the distance to the entrance where Emphani and Viktor were dragging two limp bodies out of sight. Even in his hurry, Jason noticed the neat round spot in the second guard’s forehead. Viktor’s skill with a pistol had not diminished since that frigid night in a Washington, DC, strip mall.

He was aware of Andrews next to him as the former Navy man applied a pair of man-size bolt cutters to the chain securing the iron gate on the stairs. Behind them, the other two men were furiously stripping the dead of items that might perfect their own disguises.

The chain made a dull thump as it hit the sandy floor. Andrews whispered, “This place was patrolled regularly today?”

“I watched from the hotel,” Jason responded. “Timed it as every five to six minutes a couple of guys in Bedouin dress walked by this minaret. Far too regular to be coincidence, and I doubt there are that many Bedouins in town anyway. I guess at night they figured no one would notice if they posted guards.”

“You watched all day?” Andrews wanted to know.

“From the time you guys left the hotel. I did take a piss break or two. Listened to Albinoni on my iPod and watched this mosque.”

“Albinoni who?” Viktor asked.

“The sixteenth-century Italian Baroque composer who wrote the Adagio in G Minor.”

“Merci for that friandise, tidbit,” Emphani said. “My life will be complete now.”

Humor and friendly sarcasm had relieved many tense moments in Jason’s career. Warriors were frequently their most witty when facing death. Jason knew it was a healthy relief to the tension that naturally built before the shooting starts.

“Five to six minutes, huh?” Andrews returned to the task at hand. “They might not continue roving patrols since they have men posted. Still, no time to waste.”

Andrews was already quickly and silently making his way up the stairs.

Jason’s last view of the outside was of Emphani and Viktor taking up the position of the fallen men. Ahead, inside the minaret, was a tower of stygian darkness. Glock in one hand, Jason used the other to feel his way along the wall up a spiral. Relevant to nothing, he noted the turns were clockwise going up. Coincidence or was the minaret designed like midlevel fortresses so that a climbing attacker’s right, the side carrying a weapon, would be hindered?

“Jesus Christ on a camel!” Andrews whispered angrily. “There’s a fucking door here. No light coming under it, though.”

Jason produced a penlight from his sleeve, its laser-like beam painting a steel door and its deadbolt lock. “Obviously not part of the original structure,” he observed.

“Brilliant, Artiste! Don’t suppose you brought along an acetylene torch?”

Jason shouldered his way next to Andrews. The stairs’ builders had not planned on two adult men standing side by side. “Got something better, a lot quicker.”

Again Jason went to his thobe’s sleeves, groping until he found a small metal cylinder, a Brockhage battery-powered electric lock pick, available to anyone with 150 bucks plus postage, no questions asked.

Andrews watched for the few minutes before the spinning needle tumbled enough pins and the lock clicked open. He pointed. “You wouldn’t have a decent bottle of scotch in there, would you?

“Huh?”

“Your sleeves. You seem to have everything else we need there.”

Jason ignored the observation. “Cover me.”

Glock in hand, he pushed open the door, hit the floor in a body roll and slammed his leg into something hard enough to blur his vision with blotches of color.

“Shit!” he cursed through teeth clinched as pain shot the length of the still-healing scar. He soon forgot it.

He had lunged into a device that left very little space in a room he estimated as no more than ten by fifteen feet. The machine was encased in roughly elliptical metal housing from which a long protuberance ended in what looked like a giant fire hose nozzle. A sweep of the narrow beam of his penlight revealed a battery of dials above a row of switches and a pair of hand clasps similar to those on a heavy machine gun except there was no visible trigger mechanism. Taking hold, Jason was surprised at how easily the bulky machine could be maneuvered by the grips alone. There must be a swivel beneath the floor.

Andrews was rubbernecking. “I’d say we found what we were looking for.”

“Either that or the world’s largest smoothie machine.”

“Let’s get the job done and get out of—”

Jason’s iPod vibrated.

He held up a hand for silence as he put it to his ear. “Go!”

He listened for an instant, then said, “Get your asses out of there now! No, don’t wait for me and the Chief. Wait at the hotel for thirty minutes, then get the hell out of Dodge if we haven’t shown by then.”

Jason shoved the device back into his sleeve. “At least eight bad guys headed this way.”

Andrews shook his head. “Considering there’s only one way in or out of here, that sucks. My momma always told me to avoid fast women, slow horses, and places with only one way out.”

Jason was looking for an escape route. He saw none. “You might have mentioned that a little sooner.”