Cody's Army (17 page)

“Oh, to be even fifty again!” The old man blinked his nearly sightless eyes. He clapped his hands once and a small boy of
nine or ten ran in. “Take them to see your uncle,” the old one wheezed in English.

“Yes,” the boy said. He leaned in and hugged the old man, who blinked back a tear, then closed his eyes. The boy smiled at
them and hugged Kelly, then held out his hand to Cody

“Dahr, this is Cody, he will be going with us,” Kelly said.

The small boy nodded, turned and walked away. Kelly followed him and Cody was close behind her. They continued through the
building to another alley, down it to a building that had been hit by an artillery shell, and finally through a basement door
under the rubble.

Once in the basement, Cody saw that the area had been cleaned up and that several families lived there. Dahr walked through
without speaking to anyone. No one looked at them as they stepped into a closed room, and Dahr pulled aside a blanket that
covered a door. He took a flashlight from a niche in the wall, and shone it forward. A dirt tunnel extended as far as they
could see.

Now Dahr took Kelly’s hand and led her into the cavern. Cody had to stoop in places to get through, but it was dry and the
air was good. After they had walked an estimated fifty yards, Cody could see light, and soon they were in a room in which
a blanket had been pulled back to let the sun shine through a window and almost directly into the tunnel.

“We’re now on the Amal and Shiite side of the Green Line,” Kelly said. “Here we are in true enemy territory.” As she said
it she took a large kerchief from her purse and put it around her hair. She then put over that a black shawl with a veil that
Dahr handed to her.

“I must look like a proper Moslem woman on this side or I would attract attention,” she said. “Your Western clothes are acceptable
here for a man, and you are dark enough. A blonder man would have trouble.”

Dahr led them out of the room, through several passageways and then into an alley. They walked through three blocks of the
alley, crossing main streets quickly, then came to a door where Dahr knocked. A dark face showed through a two-inch crack.

Dahr said something in Arabic, and the door opened.

“Inside, quickly,” a deep voice said speaking English. They moved past the door and found they were in a modern, well-decorated
living room. The man who had told them to come in held out his hand. He was slight, short, dark brown with black hair and
a patch over one eye.

“You may call me Abu. I know Kelly. This gentleman is…”

“Cody, John Cody.” They shook hands.

“Kelly, fragrant flower, I know why you are here. It is a tragic affair. Most of us wished that it had never happened. It
is bad for all of us. Arafat with the PLO is furious. He knows his movement will be hurt by the similarities in name. The
Amal are unhappy. All of the Shiites believe it was a mistake. Even the Hezbollah think it will hinder, not help, our causes.”

“Then help us end it,” Cody said softly. “Tell us how we can contact Majed Kaddoumi.”

Abu looked at Cody quickly, smiled, then glanced back at Kelly. “A woman so beautiful should not concern herself with politics.
I have told you that before, Kelly. You are welcome to join me here anytime. Your working days will be over. You will have
a life of leisure…”

“Abu, get back to the subject,” Cody insisted. “I have a deadline, it is running out quickly. Where can I find Majed?”

“Mr. Cody, you are insistent.” Abu paused, walked to an alcove and brought back a hand grenade. The pin was firmly attached.
It looked like an old American-made bomb. “We all must be patient, Mr. Cody. This whole section is ready to explode. I don’t
want to be responsible for pulling the pin.”

“Abu, I have twenty-eight hours to meet my deadline.”

Abu turned to Kelly. “You, too, have deadlines, daily ones, as I remember. Do you also wish to see Majed?”

“I must, Abu. It is my work, and it is partly for my country. Remember how you told me one had to be loyal to a nation or
one was cast adrift?”

“I remember.” Abu stared at a picture on the wall. It was a good print of a French impressionist. “Very well. I’ll show you.
Dahr has returned to his home on the other side. This way.”

They left by the same door they entered and were half a block down the street when submachine gun fire chattered from a window
across from them and shattered glass over their heads. They dashed for a doorway and rushed inside for protection.

More weapons began firing, and then a bomb blasted death and destruction down the street.

“It came sooner than I expected,” Abu said. “Out this way!” They ran through the building toward the alley, and had just lunged
from the structure when riflefire flared in the alley. The firing was away from them. They ran from doorway to doorway, moving
away from the fighting.

A jeep rolled into the end of the alley ahead of them. It had a belt-fed machine gun mounted on the center post, and a gunner
began raking the alley with lead.

They each dove behind a large metal trash bin and lay panting in the dirt of the alley.

“It has to be the Hezbollah!” Abu shouted over the sound of the firing. “They would sell their mothers into slavery to gain
the upper hand over the Shiite Amal. They do not have good leadership.”

“Where is Majed, in case they get lucky?” Cody demanded.

“You’re right, I should tell you. But first, let’s get out of here. That door, right over there on the far side. If we can
get to it we’ll be well out of the firefight by the time we get through the building.”

“Not a chance crossing the alley with that machine gun up there,” Cody said.

Before he finished the sentence, firing increased from the far end of the alley, and he saw a dozen fully uniformed men rush
into the space and flatten in doorways and behind cover. For a moment, lead from both sides slammed through the confines of
the ages-old alley.

He leaped three feet from the protective bin to the doorway on the near side of the alley and pounded on the panel. It was
locked. Before he had time to shoot the lock off, the gunfire increased again. He had to get Kelly out of there! She would
do him no good wounded.

He made one surging run to the trash bin and saw Abu standing up behind it, sending signals to the troops working their way
slowly up the alley. They must be friendly. Perhaps they could knock out the Jeep and end the threat.

Before he could work out a plan of action, the decision was taken away from him. He heard the engine whine and then roar as
the Jeep with the mounted machine gun began a mad dash down the narrow alleyway, the .30 automatic weapon firing twenty-round
bursts, sweeping away everything in its path.

There was no place to hide.

TWELVE

C
ody motioned for the other two to stay behind the protective metal trash dumpster. He pulled a smooth hand-grenade from his
pocket and took a quick look around the side of the trash bin to judge how far away the Jeep and its blazing machine gun was.

Still thirty yards. He waited. He jerked the ring and drew out the safety pin from the small hand-bomb and held the arming
handle firmly in place.

The machine gunner had switched to five-round bursts. His barrel was probably overheating. The bullets slammed past them,
jolted into the metal dumpster, careened off the stone and bricks of the buildings, as the Jeep came forward, more slowly
now. The driver and gunner examined each doorway.

Twenty yards.

Still too far. He had to be sure.

“We must do something!” Abu screamed.

“We will in another twenty or thirty seconds,” Cody barked. “Keep your head down.”

Kelly McConnell stared at him with a combination of admiration and bewilderment. She probably had never been in the middle
of a real combat fire fight before.

Cody risked a peek around the trash bin.

The Jeep was ten yards away and stopped.
Now!

He lifted up, pitching the grenade with a stiff-elbowed overhand toss to get it over the dumpster.

He dropped as soon as he let go of the grenade and edged to the outer end of the dumpster, the Uzi safety off and ready for
action. He had a 32-round magazine in the chopper and another in his pocket.

Four-point-two seconds after the arming handle sprung off the bomb, it detonated. The grenade had landed in the rear seat
of the Jeep and bounced upward a foot before the time fuse ran out and the grenade exploded with a cracking, echoing roar.

Cody sprang from around the dumpster and sent a burst of eight parabellums into the Jeep. The gunner on the chatter gun had
been nearly torn in half by the explosion and lay draped over the side of the rig.

The driver had taken a dozen shrapnel wounds but none were fatal. He furiously tried to shift the Jeep into reverse. It was
the first time he had driven the stolen vehicle, and no one had told him about reverse.

Cody chopped him into garbage with a six-round burst into his chest.

There was an eerie silence after the sound of the Uzi’s firing faded away. Then came screams from behind the Jeep, and foot
soldiers swarmed forward, firing as they came. That triggered the opposition at the far end of the alley, and the fury of
the automatic weapons battle climbed to the deafening zone.

Cody dove behind the dumpster.

“You all right?” he shouted to Kelly.

She nodded, afraid to show how frightened she was.

“Where to?” Cody shouted again, this time at Abu.

Abu was calm. He pointed to the nearby door.

Cody lifted the Uzi and blasted four rounds at the lock, saw the door sag as it came unlatched.

“I’ll go first and cover you two,” he instructed. “Then send Kelly, and you come last.”

He surged the three feet across the unprotected area between the dumpster and the wall and landed in the relatively safer
doorway alcove. He looked left. The men who had been firing there had retreated halfway to the street. Automatic weapons still
blasted from the other way.

The attackers were almost to the dumpster.

“Now!”
he bellowed.

Kelly looked at him for reassurance, then stood and hurried across the opening.

A Hezbollah partisan pushed next to the side of the dumpster and fired twice at his only target, Kelly McConnell.

Cody shifted the Uzi upward and with four rounds turned the attacker’s face into bloody, lifeless pulp. He looked back at
Kelly, who staggered the last step toward him, then fell in his arms. He saw blood on her chest. He pulled her fully into
the protection.

Abu spurted across the danger zone, kicked open the door and helped Cody with the girl.

Inside the dimly lit room, Cody slammed the door shut and pushed a chair under the handle. He put Kelly down in a big chair,
in a living room of sorts. He had not heard Kelly make a sound since she was hit.

He pushed the shawl aside and saw blood on her blouse. He touched a carotid artery in her throat. Twice more he tried. There
was no pulse. He pinched her nose, but she was not breathing.

Kelly was dead.

He stared at the pretty face. He had seen a lot of people die, right, but this was a shock. He had never expected it. She
had been so vigorous, assertive, bright and lovely just moments ago…

He kicked the couch, slammed his fist into the cushion, growled a string of curses.

“She’s…gone?” Abu asked in a stunned voice.

“Yes.” Cody picked up Kelly gently, cradled her in his arms and fisted the Uzi in his right hand. “Now get us out of here,
and on the way tell me exactly how to find Majed Kaddoumi, or you’re going to be next.”

“Yes…through here.”

They moved through the unoccupied building, down a long hallway that led away from the fighting, out a door into the street,
across it to an alley, and down that for two blocks. Then Abu stopped in a deep doorway.

“Majed is in his palace, his fortress, to the south, nearly out of the city, in an area called Furn El Chebbak, off the Rue
De Damas near the Beirut River. The exact address is 1194 Rue Hassanein. You’ll need help to find it.”

“I have plenty of help. Don’t get any ideas about telling Majed that I’m coming. If he knows, I’ll come back here and slit
your throat, Abu, even if you
were
a friend of Kelly’s. Now, how do we get back to Kelly’s car? We parked it on the street north of that tunnel under the Green
Line, in the alley.”

“It will take time, but I can bring the car here. Do you have the keys?”

Cody took out the keys and held them. He could feel Kelly beginning to turn cold in his arms. He put her down on the steps,
arranged the black shawl over her blonde hair and adjusted the veil.

“I think I’d better go with you. You could get lost in all of these streets and alleys. Wouldn’t want there to be any foul-ups.
And I’m running out of time.”

An automatic rifle chattered two streets over, answered by a small-caliber pistol of some kind, and then a grenade went off
before things quieted again.