Two of the rounds burned into the man’s neck, spilling him to the side, cutting his right carotid artery, which pumped blood out in a huge spurt with every heartbeat, jetting the raw red blood eight feet across the room.
The third round in the burst missed the guard, slammed over the bed, and hit the old terrorist in his forehead, hammering him back onto the bed, spreading blood, brains, and chunks of his brittle skull over the pillows.
Lieutenant Ebenezer’s eyes went wide. He lowered the weapon slowly, went forward, and took one last look at the man.
“I think we’re done up here,” Murdock said. “Let’s go see what Ed has found downstairs.”
Murdock stopped by the first room they had entered on the third floor, and saw Bradford standing and taking a few steps.
“How you doing, Bradford?”
“Not the best, Skipper, but I can walk. Hell, I’m about five minutes from fit for duty.”
“Let’s go downstairs and find DeWitt.”
Murdock held his arm as they went down the steps. That put a strain on the shot-up side, and Bradford winced with every step but didn’t utter a sound.
They found DeWitt with most of his squad at a building attached to the main house but with a separate entrance.
“No windows and only one door,” DeWitt said. “Figured it had to be something special. Nobody has gone out or tried to get in since we found it. Big padlock on the door hasp.”
“Easy. Put about six rounds around the hasp and blow it out of the wooden door,” Jaybird said. The others stood back as the big mouth of the platoon went to work. It took him only three rounds before the hasp spun out of the wood and the door hung ready to open.
Murdock nodded to his second, who reached out, stayed against the wall, and swung the door open. Nothing happened. The inside was dark. DeWitt shone his flashlight past the doorjamb from the ground level and into the dark room.
They heard some jabbering from inside. Lieutenant Ebenezer pushed up beside DeWitt and shouted something into the darkness.
An answer came back, and Ebenezer grabbed the flashlight and charged inside the room. A moment later he found a light switch and turned it on.
Murdock and Jaybird had surged in right behind Ebenezer, their trigger fingers ready.
More shouting, and Murdock tried to get his eyes used to the sudden light after the darkness. He saw three cots with men on them. Ebenezer was embracing them one by one, and shouting in a language not English or Arabic.
He turned, and his face billowed with a smile.
“These men are Israelis, we thought they were dead. They are a special Mossad team sent in two months ago to find a man ready to flee this land and bring with him some vital information.”
23
“Let’s get these guys out of here and in a friendlier spot,” Murdock said, looking at the three Israelis on the cots.
“Chained down,” Ebenezer said.
“Bolt cutters, who is packing?” Murdock said on his Motorola.
“Yo,” somebody said, and a moment later Fernandez came into the room and worked on the chains. He cut the loops in the medium-thick chain and had the men free quickly.
“Clothes?” one of them said. They all wore only underwear shorts and T-shirts. The SEALs searched the room and found the Israelis’ clothes in a big wooden box.
Each man asked for a weapon. Jaybird gave up the spare MP-5 he had carried. Bill Bradford gave up his sub gun, glad to get rid of the weight. He gave the Israeli six extra magazines. Jefferson handed over the .45 auto he carried under his left arm and four filled magazines.
“How you doing?” Murdock asked Bradford. Mahanani had redone the bandage and given him a shot of morphine.
“I’ll make it, Cap. You just point me in the right direction.”
Murdock talked with Ebenezer. “We have the three men. You want to go after the target they came after?”
“Absolutely. We’ve accomplished our main, let’s give this a try. Plenty of time before we head back to the boat.”
“Where are the reserves they should have here? Will there be a counterattack of some kind?”
“Doubt it. We wasted enough out there on guard duty so the rest are hiding their tails anywhere they can until daylight.”
“Where is this turncoat?”
They talked with the three Israelis. Two spoke good English.
“His name is Najjar Hanieh. He had been a shoemaker, but he had such a perfect drawing skill that they used him to illustrate and draw diagrams for their terrorist plans. He has a small shop in the business area and lives behind his store.”
Ebenezer held up his hands a minute. “Names. This is Commander Murdock and Lieutenant DeWitt. These three lucky men are Adir, Yehudi, and HADERA. That’s enough to remember. Adir, you know how to find that little store?”
“With my eyes closed.”
“DeWitt, you take the lead with Adir and your squad. Alpha will back you. Let’s move.”
They left the area like ghosts in the night. In ones and twos, slipping from one building to another, they worked two blocks to the main business street. Halfway down it they went into an alley. Murdock held his men at the mouth of the alley, spread out in a defensive position. He didn’t believe that the Arabs here would roll over so easily once they saw a little blood.
DeWitt and his squad led the Israelis into the alley, and were almost to the back door of the turncoat’s shop when gunfire sounded ahead of them and they dug into the dirt of the alley, behind one old truck parked there and in some building offsets.
The squad returned fire, aiming at the muzzle flashes less than fifty yards ahead.
“Cover us,” Ebenezer said. Then he and Adir lifted up and dashed ten yards ahead and behind a building. Then they ran up to a smaller one beside it. All were made with common walls. The shorter one had a door that Ebenezer kicked in. He ran inside. Adir charged along right behind him.
“This is the right place?” Ebenezer asked. They were in a storeroom, and saw steps leading to the left.
“Let me go first,” Adir said. He slipped up the steps quietly and tried the door at the top. It was unlocked. He edged it inward and called softly.
“Najjar. Najjar, wake up, we are your friends.” His Arabic was excellent. He repeated the words again, and this time they heard some sounds inside. Then steps came toward them.
“Adir? Everyone said you were dead.”
“We’ve come to take you out of here. Get ready to travel. You have ten minutes to get your clothes together and what you can carry in your pockets. I’ll handle the briefcase filled with terrorist plans and targets that you promised me.”
Najjar struck a match and studied the face in front of him for the time it took for the match to flame out.
“Yes, I can come. They told all of us that the three Israeli spies had been caught and were beheaded.” He paused. “Yes, I am glad to see you. Wait.”
In the alley outside, Ed DeWitt kept up fire at the gunmen at the far end of the alley as long as they fired back. When they stopped, his men stopped.
At the other end of the alley, Murdock looked at the street and buildings. There could be a company of Palestinian Authority policemen out there. But were there? He figured not. There’d been no advance hint that anyone was coming. The Israelis said they had been captured two months ago. The PLO would tend to let down their guard after two months. But who were the gunmen at the other end of the block? How did they know that the attackers would come here?
Then he knew. Somehow they’d found out about the three spies being rescued, and they must know who the spies had come to rescue in the first place. Now all that mattered was how many men the Arabs had been able to throw together to stop them. It wasn’t a good feeling. He got on the net and told the others what he had figured out.