"Hold on!" Thorpe yelled. "There's some girls being held captive there."
Dotson glanced at Thorpe, then back to his men. "Priority one is to secure the VZ. Priority two is to kill Jawhar and Akil. If you see some girls, grab them and bring them out."
"What about exfil?" Grant asked.
"North end of the island is our exfil PZ. Only problem is our choppers won't be there for two hours after drop. Let's hope we secure the island and the enemy's help doesn't show before then."
The Lear's tires touched the runway; the plane bounced very slightly, then settled down, racing down the concrete. Thrusters reversed and it slowed a quarter mile short of the end of the runway. The plane turned and taxied for the hangar to the left front of the palace.
The palace contained over twenty thousand square feet. A central three-story-high main structure made up the bulk of it, with two one-story wings coming off on either side. The entire compound was surrounded by a ten-foot-high reinforced concrete wall topped with razor wire. Several guards were awaiting the plane as it came to a halt and the door opened, extending stairs down to the ground.
Akil bounded off, a metal briefcase in each hand, Jawhar right behind.
"Is everything ready?" Jawhar demanded.
The head guard nodded. "Yes."
Without another word they strode through the gate.
Chapter Thirty-two
Dublowski checked the readout as he drove down Chicken Plank Road — the glowing dot was still centered, which meant the bug was still working. He glanced in his rearview mirror. Nothing there. Yet.
Terri reached out with her toe and nudged the body. There was no response. The man's eyes were open and unfocused, his chest still. A pool of blood surrounded him. She took the extra magazines from the pouch on his belt along with the ring of keys and turned to the door of her cell.
She took several deep breaths, then edged out of the door.
"One minute!" Master Sergeant Grant's yell was grabbed by the wind swirling in the open back ramp of the Talon and swept away, but every man's eyes were focused on the single black finger he held up in the air and knew what it meant. Everyone hit the timer on their watch, set for two minutes, the time the HE hummingbirds would hit the wall.
The light above Grant's head glowed red. Behind the plane, the surface of the Red Sea looked like a flat, unbroken, black piece of glass.
They crowded forward on the ramp, Thorpe in the middle of the group. He slid the night-vision goggles down over his eyes and turned them on. Everything now showed up in a brightly lit green world.
"Get ready!" Grant yelled.
Thorpe put his hand on the rip cord for the drogue.
The light flashed green, a searchlight in the goggles. "Go!" Grant screamed and then he was gone. In a flash the men began disappearing off the ramp. Thorpe pulled the cord, the drogue popped out and then he was pulled off the ramp in an instant.
He was immediately jerked upright as the three canopies were pulled out of the backpack by the drogue and opened. Thorpe barely had time to glance up and make sure he had good canopies before he looked down, seeing the top of the palace level with him and then the large pool in the back directly below.
He hit water, submerged. His boots touched the bottom of the pool and he pushed up, surfacing underneath one of the canopies. The night-vision goggles shorted out and he was blinded. He ripped the goggles off, then fought with the canopy as it settled down around him, trying to pull him under.
Thorpe drew his knife and sliced through the nylon. He kicked toward the edge of the pool.
It was very quiet after the sound of the plane and with the earplugs in. Thorpe pulled himself over the edge of the pool, started to stand, then fell over as some of the lines to the canopy were caught on his vest. He used the knife to cut the cords.
A light went on near the low wing of the house to his left. Two men came running out, yelling in Arabic. Thorpe fired a sustained burst, killing both, the only sound the working of the bolt and the expended brass tinkling onto the patio. He saw another abandoned parachute to his right, just inside the wall. A man dressed in black was moving parallel to Thorpe, toward the door the two men had just come out of.
Thorpe ran forward in the same direction. There was a rattle of automatic weapons fire from a watchtower on top of the wall near the main gate to the left. The team had the element of surprise for about forty seconds.
The Delta trooper hit the wall on the right of the door, putting his back against it. Thorpe hit on the left.
Thorpe dimly heard a beep. He threw his arm across his eyes.
The first wave of hummingbird missiles hit. Two into the compound wall, hitting square on and blasting chunks of concrete into the air, leaving two gaping holes. The third hit the body of the Learjet. The secondary explosion from the refueling truck next to the jet lit the night sky with a tremendous fireball.
The Delta troopers who'd landed outside the wall poured through, breaking into assault teams as they'd been trained.
Thorpe kept his arm over his eyes through those explosions. Five seconds later a hummingbird flew over the compound scattering sixty flash-bang grenades. The cacophony of sound and searing light totally overloaded the senses of all the guards outside.
Thorpe pulled his arm away, looked across at the Delta solider, who whipped off his night vision goggles. The Delta man pointed at his own chest with one finger, then at Thorpe with two. Thorpe nodded, holding his MP-5 at the ready.
The Delta man dashed into the doorway, across to the left. Thorpe followed to the right.
"Who is it?" Jawhar demanded.
Akil was staring at the video screens that showed the outside of the palace. He could see parachutes draped here and there, dark-suited men closing on the building, his guards blinded, deafened and overwhelmed. The attackers moved with the precision of expert soldiers.
"Probably Israelis," Akil said. He could see that the Lear had been destroyed.
"They wouldn't dare!" Jawhar protested. The rattle of automatic gunfire came down the corridor. They were in a large room, about forty feet square. The two girls were locked down on gurneys; the doctor was nervously glancing up. Akil waved his gun in the man's direction and he continued with his delicate task.
Akil pulled out his cell phone and punched in a code, then he flipped it shut. "Help will be here from Father in forty minutes," he said.
The firing was getting closer.
"Forty minutes?" Jawhar had his titanium case out, running it nervously through his fingers. "They will be in here in a minute!"
"While you were away playing, I prepared for this," Akil said. "The vault is finished downstairs. We lock ourselves in, no one can get to us before help arrives. Are you done?" he demanded of the doctor.
"Yes."
"This way." Akil led them toward a set of double doors.
"The NSA has picked up a SATPhone transmission from Nabi Ulmalhamah," Dilken reported.
"How far out are the Blackhawks?" Gereg asked.
"An hour and twenty minutes," Dilken answered.
"Too far," Parker said. "They're going to get caught on the island."
"The F-14s?" Gereg asked.
"They're circling over the Red Sea, five minutes’ flight time away," Dilken said.
"You can't send those F-14s in," the director said.
"We can't abandon those men," Gereg responded.
Thorpe fired a quick burst to suppress anyone who might be down the corridor. He moved into the corridor, muzzle of his weapon leading the way — the corridor was empty. Thorpe glanced at the Delta trooper who was with him. The man shrugged, then held up a finger for Thorpe to follow him down the short corridor. The few remaining guards were giving way quickly, withdrawing faster than the Delta men could clear their way in.