The Land Rover was gone. Thorpe ran after Mikael, the AK-74 in his right hand. His boots slammed into the pavement as he settled into a fast pace, his lungs gasping for air.
"Shit!" Mikael exclaimed as two explosions reverberated back to them. "Come on!" he urged, running even faster.
Thorpe forced himself to pick up the pace. There was a glow ahead. Gunfire echoed. Thorpe knew from the sound they weren't too far.
They rounded a bend in the road and saw the firefight. The lead Land Rover was on fire, flames shooting up a hundred feet into the night sky. The second one sat in the middle of the road, men hiding behind the doors, returning fire at the two vans blocking the road.
The third Land Rover was backing up. Straight toward Thorpe and Mikael. The driver spun the wheel expertly and the Land Rover was now pointed toward them. Mikael threw his AK-74 to his shoulder and fired a long burst. The bullets hit the windshield in an explosion of glass.
Brakes screeched. Thorpe had the stock of the AK tight in his shoulder. The Land Rover's headlights were blinding him. He fired a quick three-round burst, then another, taking out both lights. Silhouetted against the burning first truck he saw the back doors of the truck swing open.
Someone was firing back, hiding behind the right door. Thorpe recognized the profile — Akil. Another burst of green tracers from the Saudi's weapon lanced out. Jawhar was firing from behind the left door.
Thorpe heard Mikael grunt and out of the corner of his eye saw the Mossad agent stagger back a few steps. Thorpe returned fire at the muzzle flash. Green tracers cracked by his left ear and Thorpe dove to the pavement, rolling twice and firing again from the prone position.
Thorpe looked to the right. Mikael was on his knees, trying to bring the AK up to fire again. Akil was sighting in on the Israeli. Thorpe rolled and grabbed Mikael, dragging him off the side of the road into the drainage ditch. A line of bullets snapped by overhead.
"Stop them." Mikael was looking down at his chest in amazement, watching the blood flow out of three bullet holes. "Stop them," he repeated.
Thorpe started to poke his head up to take a look, but bullets tore up the edge of the road inches away and he ducked down. He heard a door on one of the vehicles slam. The firing from the front was dying down.
"Stop them!" Mikael was on his knees, staggering to his feet, bringing his weapon up. Thorpe reached for him when a line of bullets smashed into the Mossad man's chest, blasting him backward and causing Thorpe to dive for cover once more.
The Land Rover roared by, Akil spraying a full magazine out the window, then it was gone. Thorpe had his back against the side of the ditch nearest the road. Mikael was lying at his feet, empty eyes staring up into the dark sky.
Chapter Twenty-six
Dublowski didn't wince as the medic sewed up his scalp. He looked up as the door to the infirmary opened and Colonel Giles walked in, accompanied by the Delta Force commander, Colonel Patten.
"What the hell is going on?" was Giles's way of greeting Dublowski. The sergeant major had returned to the Ranch after talking his way out of being held by the Special Forces patrol at Camp Rowe. Upon arriving at the Ranch, he'd gone to the infirmary to get his head looked at.
"Sir." Dublowski started to nod at the retired colonel and only succeeded in ripping the last stitch out. The medic cursed at him and slapped him on the back of the head in the best tradition of Special Forces medicine, and replaced the stitch.
"Colonel Giles has filled me in on what he knows," Colonel Patten said. "Which isn't too damn much. Who the hell shot at you out at Mackall?"
Dublowski almost shook his head and caught himself at the last moment. "Don't know, sir. Whoever it was, was good. Patient. I think that it was the same person who killed Warrant Officer Takamura."
Colonel Patten sat down. He was a tall, thin man, similar in build to Giles. He'd earned his combat infantry badge as a young lieutenant in Vietnam in 1973 and had served in Special Operations units for over twenty-five years. He'd been a seasoned captain in Delta at the Desert One fiasco and a Special Forces group commander during Desert Storm.
Patten was well respected by the men who served under him not only because of his background but also because he had made it very clear when taking over Delta that this was his last assignment in the army. He had no desire to go anywhere else or be promoted, and because of that, his focus was men and mission and not career, a rather unusual find in the modern army.
"I don't understand what's going on," Patten said.
"I don't either, sir," Dublowski said. "But I expect to hear from both Major Thorpe and Colonel Parker soon, and hopefully they'll have more information."
Giles turned to Patten. "I'm going to go to D.C. and give Parker a hand. If she's trying to deal with Langley, she may be in over her head."
Patten nodded. "Keep in touch."
Thorpe looked around the emergency rally point and the faces he saw reflected the failure he felt.
"They knew we were there," Aaron said. He was the leader of the first two vans and the assault team that had been brought in from Israeli for this mission. With the death of Mikael, Aaron was in charge of the survivors. Four of the eight men had been killed, their bodies stacked in the only surviving van.
"We destroyed two of the Land Rovers," one of the commandos noted.
"And one got away," Aaron shot back. "With two briefcases of VZ and our primary human targets, Akil and Jawhar." He looked at Thorpe. "They got away past you."
Thorpe said nothing, knowing there was nothing he could say. It was true. Akil and Jawhar had driven past him, and Mikael had died right next to Thorpe. He knew, in the Israeli’s eyes, he should have died before allowing the last Land Rover to escape. And in his own eyes, with time to reflect, he realized he would feel the same way.
"What now?" one of the men asked.
Aaron spit. "The scum are in Romania, probably already on board their aircraft. They are beyond our reach." He glanced at Thorpe, then away. "Akil and Jawhar and the VZ are someone else's problem now. Our exfiltration helicopter will be here in twenty minutes. Get the bodies ready and rig the van for destruction. We're going home."
It was only seven in the morning, but Parker had already made a half dozen phone calls from a secure line in a friend's office in the Pentagon. She'd also received a call from Thorpe on his secure SATPhone that had made her mission all the more imperative.
She'd left the Pentagon via the freight entrance, walked several blocks away along the Potomac and then hailed a cab to get to her present location.
Right now she was close to CIA headquarters at a strip mall, outside a local coffee shop. A blue, late-model BMW with tinted windows pulled up to the coffee shop. A tall woman got out and quickly walked inside.
Parker crossed the lot. She stood next to the driver's door of the BMW. The door to the shop opened and Kim Gereg walked out, a cup of coffee in her hand. It had taken four of those calls for Parker to find out about this habit of the chief of Operations.
Gereg saw Parker but didn't break her stride. "Excuse me," the C/O said as she unlocked her doors with a remote entry.
"Ma'am." Parker held out her military ID.
Gereg halted. She looked at the ID and then at Parker. "What can I do for you, Colonel Parker?"
"We need to talk."
"Reference?"
"Two suitcases of VZ that just left the Ukraine in the hands of two terrorists."
Gereg stared at Parker for a few seconds, then peeled back the lid of her coffee. She nodded toward the car. "Get in. You've got my attention."