Authors: Gary Haynes
Tom was in a pit about twice the size of a manhole. He had cramp in his legs and blinked repeatedly, even though the light coming from above was muted. He’d been focussing on images of his farmhouse near Arlington County when he’d heard the gunshots and the blast, and had guessed what was happening.
He looked up now and saw Gabriel crouching over the hole. Gabriel reached down with his free hand and Tom felt weak at first and unsteady on his feet like a newborn foal. But as adrenalin kicked in, he grabbed the edge of the hole, and with Gabriel’s help, found himself lying on the ground, gasping.
He looked over and saw the kid with his hands tied behind his back and tears flowing down his terrified face. The kid hadn’t abused him or spat in his water, but the hole had been dark and suffocating, and if he hadn’t had the GPS tracker inside his stomach lining to give him hope, he knew he would’ve been in danger of going mad.
Gabriel helped him to his feet.
“Thanks, man. I owe ya,” Tom said.
Tom and the other operative exchanged tight nods. The paramilitary put his hand in the cargo pocket of his pants and took out a cellphone and a black-handled knife, with a folded blade, and handed them to Tom. Then Gabriel held out the Glock to Tom and motioned with his head towards the kid, who made a staccato noise as if he was struggling to draw breath.
Tom knew exactly what Gabriel meant.
“I’m not an executioner,” Tom said.
Gabriel shook his head a fraction and raised the Glock. But Tom stepped forwards, shielding the kid with his back.
“Lift him up,” Tom said to the other operative.
He did so and before the kid had a chance to plead for his life, Tom swivelled around and hit him with a right hook, flinging the head back and spinning him to the ground. The impact of the punch had made a sound like a breezeblock being thrown onto a tiled floor, shattering the jaw.
Tom turned to Gabriel. “He won’t be talking to anyone for a while. Now let’s get going.”
Gabriel just shook his head.
Shortly afterwards, when Tom and the CIA men got back to the vehicles, he saw Crane get out of what looked like a twenty-year-old Mercedes. There was no one else around. He knew that people who’d been traumatized by warzones weren’t inquisitive about gunshots. They’d stay where they were, cuddling their children, praying that it wouldn’t get closer and that they’d be spared getting killed in crossfire. Crane looked relieved and moved over to shake hands.
As they did so, Crane put his other hand on Tom’s shoulder. “You know I had me a dog once, a spaniel, it had this habit of getting lost in the woods cuz it loved water like a drunk loves liquor. But it always came home. Good to see ya, Tom. Now we’re going home.”
The little convoy left the refugee camp safely, although Tom flinched when he heard sirens. They were passed by what Crane said were local Sunni militia in pickup trucks, and Tom told himself to shape up. Crane had filled him in on the recent intel on Ibrahim and Tom had nodded.
His father was dead and the man who’d murdered him was still at large. His time in the pit had cemented what he’d already committed himself to: watch Ibrahim die. But finding Ibrahim would also prevent a major terrorist attack, and that alone would have been motivation enough, he believed.
By the time they arrived at the point where they’d left the minivans, it was the early hours of the morning. With no streetlights the darkness was all but impenetrable beyond the weak beams from the worn-out cars’ headlights. They exited the cars, and the foreign assets drove off hurriedly. Perhaps too hurriedly, Tom thought.
Gabriel bent down and touched the earth before walking over to a minivan. He returned with a field night scope.
“Problem?” Tom said, standing beside Crane.
After scanning the crater-ridden road ahead and lowering the scope, Gabriel said, “Yeah. A heap.”
They came from the east. At least thirty Hezbollah infantrymen armed with M16 carbines and Russian AKS-74U submachine guns. One carried a PK gas-operated general purpose machine gun by its handle, a belt of high-calibre 7.62x54mmR rounds hanging down to his knees. Another, a Dragunov sniper rifle with a fixed night sight, which was accurate up to eight hundred yards.
The men looked like experienced fighters. Their kit was high quality, their bodies well-nourished and muscular, their gaits disciplined and confident. They moved in single file in and out of the wrecked cars and fallen chunks of masonry like a gargantuan snake eager for prey.
Tom watched Gabriel position his paramilitaries in a jagged line in the opposite direction to the road they’d travelled down to reach the spot. They hunkered down behind piles of bricks and debris, a burnt-out car, and the remnants of an earlier sectarian barricade made up of concrete blocks, car tyres and odd sections of wrought iron.
The patrol was about sixty yards away now, and as Tom turned to check on Crane he saw that a slick of sweat had broken out across the older man’s forehead. Tom’s father had told him that Crane had been in combat many times, but for him, Tom knew, Beirut held too many injurious memories. His father had added that if Crane had had a choice between going back or lying down in a coffin full of cobras, he would’ve chosen the latter. And yet he had come, and Tom vowed silently to protect him.
He watched as Crane drew his Kimber Eclipse II handgun. He recalled him saying as they rode in a Land Cruiser in Afghanistan the day after the Secretary of State had been kidnapped on his own watch that he had two of the handguns. By the looks of it he’d brought the one chambered in 10mm, which Tom knew bucked like a lassoed steer, the sound of the muzzle blast like a motorcycle misfiring. But it could take an arm off at the shoulder, and Tom figured Crane was well versed in its use.
Suddenly, he realized that he was still unarmed. He walked over to Gabriel who took a spare Glock from a minivan’s glove box and handed it to him, together with an extra clip. After checking the clip in the well, he and Gabriel squatted down and joined Crane, who was now crouching in a crater shielded by a piece of jagged metal sticking out from the barricade above.
With that the sounds of cranking gear changes and powerful engines filled the air. Tom swivelled around and saw two armoured personnel carriers, or APCs, blocking off the dusty street about twenty-five yards down. The heavy back doors opened and around fifteen Hezbollah fighters disembarked and fanned out behind the APCs.
Tom saw those of Gabriel’s men who were vulnerable from the rear reposition themselves, taking what cover they could without being ordered. One ran towards the other side of the road but was hit in the head after a flurry of rounds was discharged. As he fell, at least five more rounds peppered his body, the impact making him writhe as if he’d been electrocuted. There was no doubt that he was dead.
“Don’t think about what just happened. It won’t help. But we can’t win,” Gabriel said. He turned to Crane. “You and Tom need to get out. We can give you cover and hold them off, but even with the sniper, not more than an hour tops.”
“How do they know we were here?” Tom said, feeling wretched.
“One of the assets playing both sides. A tipoff about a group of outsiders in the neighbourhood,” Crane said. “And you’ve still got the GPS inside you.”
Tom figured it was the second scenario, and he knew what Gabriel had said was true and that by the look on Crane’s face, so did he.
But he hated the fact that he’d have to leave good men here to fight and die, or be captured by Hezbollah. He would have volunteered to stay, too, under different circumstances, but if he did, he knew he would be persuaded otherwise, given he was the only man who could positively ID Ibrahim as a Westerner. It wasn’t just a matter of seeing behind any disguise, it was about putting everything together, the gait, the height and weight, the aura, even.
As for Crane, he was too much of a trophy to be taken alive. And someone had to help him escape. He was as tough as weathered leather, but Tom knew he could go into panic mode as the memories started to flood his brain. Gabriel’s team of paramilitaries were a trained fighting unit, and there was no way one of them would leave his buddies behind.
“All right then,” Tom said.
“On my signal,” Gabriel said.
Gabriel used his lapel mic to order his men to open fire and, scrambling out of the crater, Tom and Crane zigzagged across the street towards the scaffolding. The darkness was lit up by a score of muzzle blasts like exploding fireworks as a volley of shots rang out, the rounds ricocheting off the metal bars, causing flashes of sparks, and digging into the ground.
As they got to the side of the concrete building, the noise from the firefight was deafening, the PK machine gun wreaking havoc as the heavy rounds pounded into the barricade closest to them, sending up small clouds of dust and grit and careering shards of shrapnel. The screaming of the dead and injured started, but in the melee Tom couldn’t figure out whether it was coming from the paramilitaries or the Shia fighters. In truth, he knew it would be both.
They ran down the side of the building, in between the scaffolding and the concrete. Tom heard that Crane was breathing heavily and looked over his shoulder. Crane’s face was red and dripping sweat, but Gabriel’s brave men had covered their retreat and, as far as he could tell, had prevented the fighters from pursuing them, at least directly to the rear.
At the far edge of the building there was a muddy stream, which would lead to the Mediterranean, he knew. There was no point in heading east further into Lebanon, and the capital was roughly sixty miles from Israel’s northern border. Their only hope, he figured, was to get to the coast. Crane would have money on him, and in Lebanon money meant a possible exit route. They’d take their chances with a boat owner in the harbour.
They skidded down the bank and waded up to their knees in the foul-smelling water, which was strewn with all manner of detritus. Tom tried his best to block out the diminishing sounds of the firefight, knowing that men were dying so that he might live. In front of him now, Crane seemed to be have gone deep within himself, stumbling here and there, his demeanour a mixture of lethargy and resignation to his fate.
After half an hour, the weapons could no longer be heard or had fallen silent. Crane stopped. “We’ll get them out whatever it takes,” he said.
As Tom looked past him he and saw that the stream appeared to have silted up a little way down. Fallen branches and a rusted fridge hadn’t helped. To the left was a row of windowless concrete apartment blocks, interspersed with waste ground. There could be a road nearby. They might be able to wave down a taxi. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was better than trudging through rancid mud.
As they reached the top of the bank they moved slowly over the stony ground. Tom kept his head up, scanning the buildings. He saw the flash in his peripheral vision, the discharge echoing among the high-rise buildings as if he was standing in the bowl of a quarry.
Crane gasped before letting out an agonized moan and sinking to the ground. Tom turned and saw blood oozing from the entry wound just below the knee. He rushed over and picked him up in his arms, forgetting that he’d been in a pit for two days, forgetting that he hadn’t eaten.
Crane was heavy and he struggled to keep a hold on him as he arched backwards and shuffled the few yards back towards the ridge of the bank. As he got to it a second round hit a boulder less than a step from him and he felt the splintered rock splatter against his leg.
Halfway down the bank, he sank to his butt and eased Crane over to the side. He knew that Crane wouldn’t agree with him, but he was lucky. If the round had hit him in the thigh it was likely that he’d bleed out, especially if it severed the femoral artery. He also knew that despite the state Crane was in, he would have to go after the sniper. If they stayed here they’d get picked up. If they went back the way they’d come they’d likely walk into the Hezbollah fighters. Besides, Crane was in no fit state to walk, and carrying him for any distance just wasn’t an option.
Crane moaned and reached for his lower leg. Tom bent over and held Crane’s wrist before placing it back across his chest gently. Crane’s robin’s-egg-blue eyes were wide, his eyelids fluttering, the obvious pain taking him to the edge of consciousness, Tom knew.
“Don’t leave me, Tom,” he murmured. “Not here.”
Tom took off his shirt and his undershirt. He used the undershirt as a makeshift tourniquet. As he pulled it tight around the wound, Crane let out a long groan.
“I gotta go after that sniper. I got no choice. I’ll come back for you.”
Tom knew there was nothing else he could do to comfort him. There is no comfort in this place, he thought.
He unscrewed the suppressor, thinking the muzzle blast could create confusion in his adversary, and moved.
Duck-walking, Tom had followed the bank down a hundred yards or more and had skirted up to the side of what he could now see was a line of abandoned bullet-ridden blocks that he guessed might be a demarcation line between the Sunnis in the camp and the Shias. He hadn’t known if the sniper had been part of the destructive sectarianism or something else.
He’d crouched behind a thorny bush, his eyes fixed on the third floor of a four-storey, windowless apartment block, peppered with rocket and bullet holes. By the time he’d crawled over the sandy earth he’d convinced himself that the sniper had to be a Hezbollah fighter, whose nightshift consisted of picking off Sunnis at will.
He was squatting now in the dark in the block’s lobby from which he’d glimpsed the muzzle blast, and hoped to hell that Hezbollah hadn’t left a section of concealed fighters there as security for the sniper. The floor was damp and cracked and uneven. There was a concrete staircase to the left, a patch of scorched concrete to the right, where someone had lit a small fire, the remnants of takeouts and a couple of fizzy drink cans about it.
He wasn’t sure if the sniper had moved, so he kept low as he scaled the precarious staircase, each step causing a flurry of concrete dust and dislodged fragments to fall. What he did know was that at long range the sniper had an advantage, no question of that. But at close quarters, a rifle fitted with a scope and a bipod was too bulky to manoeuvre agilely, and that gave
him
an advantage.