Authors: Allan Topol
She had first heard about Grange from Lucy Preston, Senator Preston's wife, in the ladies' room during one of the parties on inaugural weekend two years ago. Lucy had said, "Did you see how Jimmy Grange was looking at us when we walked by? He thinks he's superstud. Jesus, what a scumbag. Always on the make. And our distinguished new president isn't much better."
Lucy's words had made Sarah's blood run cold. Her own marriage with Terry had been less than ideal for years.
Separate lives
was an apt term to describe it. She knew that he slept with other women, younger ones, from time to time. Once she had confronted him with it. "That's what I do," he had said, not sounding the least bit contrite. His attitude was,
Stay if you want. Leave if you want.
She had stayed because she couldn't face herself after severing her ties to her family when she had decided to marry him.
His face red with rage, Terry stopped pacing and turned toward Grange. "We should be sending in a thousand troops, for Christ's sake." He was shouting. "Supported by bombers."
Grange stood up. He refused to be a whipping boy. Terry had lost his sympathy. "The order's been given. The operation's under way." In fact, it wasn't, but Grange figured this was a good closing line as he beat a path to the door.
He was almost there when Terry cut him off and moved in tight, his hands gripping the lapels of Grange's expensive suit jacket. "If this doesn't work and you guys manage not to get Robert killed, which will be a miracle, I insist on being consulted before the next move is planned. Tell the president that."
Grange pulled away. "I'll let him know immediately. Meantime, stay here by the phone from seven on this evening. I'll call you the minute we know something. I hope to be able to tell you that your son is safe and in our hands."
"The way you clowns have planned this, that'll never happen," Terry yelled at Grange as the president's buddy was outside in the hall, beating a path toward the elevator.
Sarah couldn't remember the last issue on which she had agreed with Terry. On this one she did. In her mother's heart, she believed that Major Davis and his unit were never going to rescue her Bobby. Something awful was going to happen to him.
* * *
Maj. Charles "Butch" Davis looked up into the sky and gave a silent prayer of thanks. There was only a sliver of a moon. Even that was almost completely concealed behind dense cloud cover. Darkness was what he wanted. Darkness was what he had.
Butch Davis was thrilled to be on this mission. He had never known his father, a marine captain who had died as a POW in 'Nam, when Davis was only two. If there was one assignment he had yearned for in his fourteen years in the army, much of it recently spent attacking and searching caves in Afghanistan, it was rescuing an American held captive by an enemy. That was his own way of doing something for his father's memory, something no one had ever done for Capt. Warren Davis.
The six members of his special-operations force, an elite counterterrorist unit, were dressed in civilian clothes Ishmael had supplied, their faces colored with charcoal to simulate beards. Each of them was armed with an automatic pistol and a submachine gun. They were moving in two old battered cars along with Ishmael, who sat in the back of the lead car next to Davis, stroking his thick black beard.
The cars bumped over the pockmarked roads cutting through rough mountainous terrain. "How much farther?" Davis said to Ishmael.
"About two miles."
"We'll go the last half mile on foot," Davis said. His voice was calm. "Tell us where to stop."
Up in the front, next to the driver, Lt. Buddy Burns was peering out of the window, his eyes moving rapidly from side to side. "I don't have a good feeling about this, Butch," he muttered to the commander he had served under for two years in a Ranger unit in Afghanistan.
Davis shared Burns's anxieties. The car windows were open. Outside it was still, deathly still. This could all be an elaborate ambush, with Ishmael leading them into it like pigs to slaughter. There was something that bothered him about Ishmael. At some point they might have to cut and run. It would be up to him to decide when that was.
He took the revolver from the holster at his hip and pressed it hard against the side of Ishmael's head. In Turkish he said, "If you've lied to me and it's a trap, you will be the first to die."
The mountain air was chilly, but sweat was running down Ishmael's cheeks. "No trap," he said. "No trap," he repeated for emphasis.
Following Ishmael's instruction, the two cars pulled off the road near a large boulder, which concealed both vehicles. The five, other than Davis, jumped out of the cars, their eyes scanning the area, automatic weapons gripped tightly, ready to begin firing. Davis walked along the road, now dirt, and moved slowly, his gun trained on Ishmael, his eyes constantly roaming over the hostile mountainous terrain. The instant he saw anything suspicious, he would begin firing.
High on a hill, above the left side of the road and behind a rock, crouched Abdullah, an AK-47 in his hand. He had a straight shot at the American walking next to Ishmael. He'd like nothing better than to rip that American apart with bullets, even if the others killed him, which they probably would. But opening fire wasn't an option. He had been given strict orders. He knew what he had to do.
Ishmael had told Davis that there were only six guards in the small prison compound now, in addition to Lieutenant McCallister. Most of them would be asleep.
Davis was fifty yards from the compound. Straining his ears, he couldn't hear a sound. He raised his hand up over his head, signaling for the others to join him.
The plan was to encircle the small stone building and rush it from all sides. As they moved closer, Davis began getting a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. There was no noise at all emanating from the stone structure.
Once his troops surrounded the building, Davis turned Ishmael over to one of the others to guard. "C'mon Buddy," he said to Burns. "You and I are going in. Cover me with a gun. Gimme some light with your flashlight."
His automatic weapon tightly in his hand, Davis raced toward the front of the building. Burns was two steps behind, lighting the way. Uncertain where McCallister was, Davis was afraid to open fire.
The front door was wooden. Davis lifted his leg. With a powerful kick he smashed it open. The ground floor of the building was deserted and empty, devoid of furniture or any object.
On the right side Davis saw a staircase leading down.
Bastards could be hiding there,
Davis thought. He shouted down the steps in Turkish, "Anybody here?" All that he heard was the echo of his own voice. Cautiously he started down the stairs, squeezing the handle of the gun. From behind Burns lit the way.
Davis didn't see a thing. Didn't hear a sound. Nothing. Total silence.
He followed his noseâand an awful smellâto one of the three empty cells, where a toilet pail that hadn't been emptied stood in one corner. A prisoner had been here not long ago, he realized.
As Burns joined him in the cell and shone the light around, something on the dirt floor caught Davis's eye. "Gimme that," he said to Burns, reaching for the flashlight.
Davis moved the beam across the floor until he found what he was looking for. There on the ground, someone had scratched in the dirt the letters
USA.
McCallister had been in this cell recently. Davis was now certain of that. "Go up and bring down Ishmael," he said to Burns. "I want to look around some more. Tell the others to watch the hills around the building. They could be up there, waiting for the best time to attack us."
Minutes later Burns pushed Ishmael roughly down the stairs and into the cell with the initials carved
into the dirt
.
Ishmael was whining and sniveling.
"You lied to me," Davis shouted. "The pilot isn't here."
Ishmael was squatting down, cowering in a corner.
"You were part of a scheme to set this up so they'd have time to move the pilot. Isn't that right?" His voice had a sharp edge. He was furious.
"I know nothing," Ishmael wailed. "I saw them bring the pilot here. I had no idea he would be moved."
Davis shone the torch directly on Ishmael's face, into his eyes. Ishmael couldn't look at Davis. He turned away. The major had interrogated enough prisoners in Afghanistan to know when one was lying to him.
"Where did they take the pilot?" Davis demanded in a menacing voice.
Ishmael shrugged and held out his hands.
"I'm going to give you one more chance," Davis said as he handed Burns his automatic weapon and removed the pistol from a side holster. He pointed it at Ishmael's right knee. "You tell me where the pilot is, or I'll shoot your knees."
Ishmael cried out in fright. He couldn't say a word. That vile Abdullah had forced him to play the role of an informer to trick the Americans. His men were in Ishmael's house now, holding guns against his wife and children. A bloodcurdling cry of anguish poured out of his mouth. "Please, American. I don't know a thing."
Davis wasn't moved. "First one knee. Then the other. You'll never be able to get up the stairs and out of this building. You'll die here in this cell. Just you and that bucket of shit."
Ishmael's face was white with terror. "I don't know," he screamed. "I don't know."
Davis was convinced Ishmael was lying. The man knew far more than he was telling them. He gave Ishmael ten more seconds. When all he heard were more wails, he raised his gun, aimed, and fired twice into one knee, shattering bone and muscle.
"Ah! Ah!" Ishmael screamed out in pain. He rolled over onto his back, holding his blood-soaked knee and continuing to scream in pain.
"Now I shoot the other knee," Davis said, angry that Ishmael had deceived him, "unless you tell me where they took the pilot."
Burns was shining the light on Ishmael's face. Tears were streaming out of his eyes. Davis could tell the man was close to passing out. "Here goes the shot," he called out in a loud, booming voice to make sure Ishmael heard him over the man's cries.
Ishmael stopped screaming. "Istanbul," he mumbled in a barely audible whisper. "Istanbul."
Davis was down on the ground, his face close to Ishmael's, the man's beard brushing against his cheek. "What do you mean, Istanbul?"
"They move the pilot to Istanbul," he whispered. "No more shooting."
Now Ishmael was telling the truth, Davis decided. The Turks had transferred McCallister to Istanbul, where it would be damn near impossible to locate and to rescue him.
Davis turned to Burns. "Get a couple of men. Carry Ishmael upstairs and tie up his leg so he doesn't bleed to death. Then place him on the road we came in on. He'll survive until tomorrow morning. Somebody will come by then, and we'll be long gone from this hellhole of a country."
He removed a satellite phone from his jacket pocket. "I have to call Washington and tell them what happened." He sounded despondent.
* * *
The veins on President Kendall's neck and forehead were protruding and pulsing with rage when he finished listening to General Childress's report of what had happened to the Davis rescue effort. It was clear to him that the Turks were playing games... with his pilot and with the United States.
Kendall may have been uncertain what to do next, but not Jimmy Grange. Before any other members of the crisis team had a chance to offer a suggestion, Grange fired away. "I say we send the Turkish government a note and tell them that they have seventy-two hours to return Robert McCallister. If they don't do that, we'll bomb them back to the Stone Age."
Joyner, sitting next to Mary Beth Reynolds, shook her head in disbelief. The country couldn't possibly go to war with Turkey over a downed pilot, regardless of who in their country was responsible. Grange was such an idiot. How did Kendall tolerate him? But she knew the answer to that question. She had learned long ago that when people had a good Mend, often they would be blind to their faults and follow their advice, regardless of how irrational it was.
She glanced around the room to see if anyone supported Grange's idea. When she saw Chip Morton nodding vigorously and repeating the words, "The Stone Age," she wrote on the pad in front of her,
The testosterone level in this room is off the chart.
Then she slid the note over to the vice president, who smiled and responded in writing.
Boys will be boys.
Kendall wasn't eager to accept the bellicose proposal. "Do we have another alternative?" he asked.
From the other end of the table, Reynolds raised her voice in an unmistakable West Texas accent. "Why not have the professor draft a note for you to Ankara threatening specific actions and giving them a ten-day deadline to return Lieutenant McCallister? For example, we could threaten to cut off all aid to them, and we could threaten a measured and surgical military action, such as the destruction of several of their planes at one of their bases. That's at least a credible threat. Then, during the ten days, we use all our available intelligence resources to try to find out where they moved McCallister, in Istanbul or somewhere else. If we get that information, we mount another rescue effort."
Kendall was furious. He didn't like Miss Texasâwhich was how he referred to his vice president, who thought she was smarter than any of the men in the roomâtrying to usurp his role. He had the perfect response to Reynolds's comment: to dump the issue back on her great buddy, Joyner. He looked at the CIA director. "Do you have the intelligence sources in Turkey to do that, Margaret?"
Kendall knew damn well it was a rhetorical question, Joyner thought with disdain. Having been pushed aside up until now, she refused to be defensive. "We don't have solid assets on the ground to get that information, but the Mossad does."
Kendall snarled. "I've told you more times than I can remember that we're not involving the Israelis."
Reynolds rallied to Joyner's defense. "Why should Terry McCallister dictate this country's foreign policy?"
Kendall was seething. It was time he began following the approach of other presidents, who didn't invite their vice presidents to key meetings. Freeze her out, regardless of the political consequences. He ignored the question and looked in the other direction at the secretary of state. "After this meeting, send the note to Ankara. They have ten days to release Robert McCallister, or we take the actions that were discussed." He refused to attribute them to his vice president.