Soon death would be his eternal companion. He was afraid; no he was concerned, not so much over his impending death, but of being alone. There would be no one to mourn him. The Israelis would list him as missing in action. The Palestinians would celebrate his death. His friends in America would know nothing of his passing. If only he could have died fighting in his jet and not tortured in some God-forsaken place half way around the world.
From birth his life had been one violent storm after another. It seemed he would die in a city destroyed, just like the one where he had been born. In July 1980, Beau’s family had moved to a small rural area just north of Brownsville, Texas. A month later, Hurricane Allen devastated the community. On August 9th, the day Allen came ashore, Beau’s mother, Beverly, struggled through labor for more than twenty-four hours before giving birth to her son, Beau. He and his family had survived that violence.
It would be different for him now.
He watched catatonically as Sharafan moved the knife farther along the same finger. His thoughts flashed to his three brothers. A vision of home, Texas, and friends filled his mind — his best friend, Ruben Alonzo. He wondered if Ruben would be mad because he had not written. He thought of the times they went on missions and the way Ruben would imitate Scotty the Flight Engineer on the old Star Trek television series. It saddened him to know he would not see his friend again. Of them all he would miss Ruben most.
Pain jerked him viciously back to the present. The same finger lost another portion to the second digit.
“Talk!” Cobra demanded. Then calmly he smirked and said, “You have many fingers.”
Finding new strength and determination in the pain, Beau tried to respond calmly like nothing mattered. “For everyone there is a time to live and a time to die. This is my time.”
For a moment Sharafan was surprised but he hid it well. “Yes, this is your time to die. You will suffer now.”
Dreary eyes stared at Sharafan, “Sadness and death have been my life.” Beau managed to smile as he caught Sharafan’s eyes with his. “You will be giving me relief in death. Finish it.”
This had never happened before. No one had ever wanted to die but this American before him, strangely, looked forward to death. He knew he was about to kill the American but the misery of his victims added additional pleasure to his work. The question was how to do that? With sadistic pleasure, Cobra bent over the helpless American, eagerly anticipating the next finger. He paused and stared upon his prisoner.
“Before you die, tell me your name.”
The pilot hesitated but it no longer seemed to matter. “Beau Gex,” he mumbled.
Cobra jerked at the impact of the words, as though he had been slapped in the face. He stumbled back.
“You!” His mind raced and words failed him for a moment. “You are the American they call the Mongoose,” he stated more than asked. But he already knew the answer to his question as it was greeted with an affirmative nod.
The American! The man branded a traitor, mercenary, and coward in his own country while Israel praised him as a hero. The same man hunted as a terrorist and murderer by the Syrians and the Lebanese. The same one who had become an “Ace” during Operation Iraqi Freedom over the skies of Lebanon in 2003. Now he, Rasht Sharafan, had him. Beau Gex would be punished for those crimes. There was a fatwa on the head of this pilot, and the punishment was death.
So this was the American. Another time Sharafan had almost succeeded in killing him but had failed. For more than five years the American had fought with Israel.
“You fight for revenge? Your family died in a shop in Rome?”
Pulling his head up to see his interrogator, Gex wondered why the sudden interest. Moving close, Cobra looked his victim straight in the eye. It was the first time he had come face to face with the condemned man. This time Gex would not escape. “I want you to take two secrets to the grave with you,” said Sharafan with cruel pleasure. A devilish smirk filled his face. He knew the secrets he held would do more damage to Gex than any physical pain he could inflict. Death itself would be easier to handle than the information about to be revealed.
“Which secret do I tell you first?” He paused for a few brief moments, and then his own sinister laugh filled the old room. “Soon I will be part of a massive invasion that will bring your country down,” he said, pounding his chest with his fist.
“Liar! The United States has satellites. They will know,” screamed Beau.
Cobra grinned sadistically when he saw the anguish. “I speak the truth and like I know, now you also know. Your country is weak-kneed like a newborn foal. And we, the Coalition, much like a cougar, are on the prowl. Nothing can be done. We lost in the Iraqi war of Desert Storm but we learned much.” He laughed. “The war of 2003—your Shock and Awe—was only a test: a sacrifice so you could be tested. We gained the answers from Iraq in Desert Storm and Enduring Freedom. Now we dig deeper holes to hide our equipment.”
Again Sharafan laughed. “As for your satellites, we let them see what we want them to see. We have made a ‘Trojan Horse’ and your country is accepting what they see with open arms. The United States of America is fat on itself. No one believes an invasion is possible. But it is. Secrecy worried us the most, but seven years after your Desert Storm we realized our dreams could be fulfilled. You remember what happened.” The last words were more of a statement than a question.
With a wicked smile, Sharafan continued. “India tested the atom bomb. Five times they tested! The United States never knew. We understood then the United States was weakening both militarily and with their intelligence gathering. If India could keep the bomb testing hidden, then it would be no problem for those we trusted to keep the invasion a secret. We realized an invasion of the United States was possible so we put our plans into action.
“In 1999 we began assembling our personnel. The first test was New York and the Pentagon in 2001. We succeeded beyond all expectations. We were still worried about leaks when three years later one of your ‘child prodigy computer hackers’ broke into your secret Pentagon files. If not for the publicity, we would never have known.
“One of our experts immediately attached to this child’s home computer via the Internet. Never was anything so easy. The young man had his system open to everyone. We downloaded everything he found only hours before the Pentagon arrived and disconnected the system. There was nothing of interest except one thing: a list of coded names. It took a year to break, but we found they were names of American operatives in all the Middle East countries.
“At first we planned to destroy them all when I hit upon an idea: Cry wolf. Since the United States had become the shepherd of the world, we would leak false information about the invasion to these operatives. Simultaneously, we leaked accurate information on things we were willing to sacrifice. The plan was perfect. Two years ago we leaked information about the invasion. Because other reports had turned out to be false, the operatives now were hesitant about releasing this news.