"We give you the girls, we go into the bunker" — Akil nodded his head toward the large steel door at the end of the corridor—"and you leave. There is no other solution other than all of us dying."
"We can't make deals with this scum," Dotson hissed.
"We have to have the VZ," Thorpe said.
"She lets my brother go now," Akil bargained.
"Don't trust them!" Terri yelled.
"All right," Thorpe said to Akil.
"You don't have the authority to—" Dotson began, but Thorpe cut him off.
"Trust me."
Terri pressed the gun tighter against Jawhar's head, bringing a yelp of pain. "I'm not letting him go! You can't!"
"Terri, you know me," Thorpe called to the girl. "Do what I say. It's what your dad would do."
"My dad wouldn't let them get away."
"We have to get the nerve gas," Thorpe said. "Thousands of lives are at stake."
Terri was shaking her head, tears flowing down her cheeks. "No. No. You can't let them get away with it."
"Put the VZ down and let the girls go," Thorpe said.
Akil barked an order in Arabic and the two cases of VZ were placed on the floor. "You get the girls when my brother is freed and we are in the vault."
Master Sergeant Grant edged close to Thorpe. "We don't have time for this bullshit. A reaction force will be here soon."
Thorpe ignored everyone but Akil and Terri. "Move down the corridor," he instructed Akil.
The Saudi and his men backed up, keeping Leslie and Cathy between them and the Delta men who moved into the corridor. Terri and Jawhar were now also directly between the two groups. Thorpe, empty hands outstretched, took one cautious step after the other, closing the distance between himself and Terri and her prisoner.
He reached the two. Blood from the torn skin under the muzzle was mixing with the sweat that dripped down the side of Jawhar's face. Thorpe remembered the body in the hotel in the Ukraine. He forced himself to focus.
"Terri." Thorpe kept his voice low. "Terri, you need to trust me.
She was still crying, her head shaking, but the gun hadn't wavered. "You don't know what he's done!"
"I have a very good idea," Thorpe said. "Trust me on this. Please, Terri."
She dropped her hand and Thorpe stepped forward and caught her, keeping her from hitting the floor. Jawhar smiled at Thorpe, then quickly strode down the hall and joined his brother. Thorpe could feel Terri's body shaking as he held her tight.
Akil slid a key into a panel on the side of the door. With a rumble, the massive steel panels slid open. Akil barked at his men, hustling them through until he and Jawhar along with the other two girls were in the corridor.
"We will meet again," Akil called as he pushed his brother through the door, then stepped through himself, the heavy steel sliding shut.
"No, we won't," Thorpe whispered as the Delta men rushed forward, securing the VZ and the two girls.
"We need to get the hell out of here," Dotson yelled.
Thorpe checked his watch and shook his head. "You heard the report. The Saudi choppers will be here in five minutes, the Blackhawks in forty-five."
"So what do you recommend?" Dotson was still upset about the brothers escaping. "Stand here with our thumb up our ass while they sit in that vault?"
"No," Thorpe said. "I have a plan."
"Saudi choppers are three minutes out," Dilken reported.
"This is going to be a mess," Gereg muttered. She raised her voice so the director could hear her. "Sir, I recommend we let the F-14s take out those choppers now."
"Negative," the director replied.
"Damn it, sir!" Parker slammed her fist into a desktop. "You can't do things halfway. Either we go all the way or we shouldn't have gone in at all."
"I am working within the boundaries of the sanction I was granted," the director said. "We will not, I repeat, not, engage Saudi armed forces in combat."
"What happens when they engage our people?" Parker asked.
To that the director had no answer.
"You can clear a homicide with this, Sammy," Dublowski said.
The sheriff stared at the wreck, the metal still hot. "It just exploded?"
Dublowski nodded.
"And you just happened to be driving by?"
Dublowski nodded once more.
"And you say when I run this guy's prints — or more likely his dental records, since it don't look like there'll be much left to take prints from — that this guy will come up as wanted IRA terrorist?"
Dublowski's head bobbed for the third time.
"And," Sammy continued, "this guy killed that Takamura fellow and the paint from this car will match the paint on his car?"
"Roger that," Dublowski said.
Sammy tucked his thumbs in his equipment belt and regarded Dublowski for several seconds from under the brim of his Sam Browne hat. "Spontaneous combustion, eh?"
"That's what it looked like to me," Dublowski said.
"Then why is there what appears to be a downward forced explosion on the trunk?"
"Don't know," Dublowski said.
"This guy was bad?" Sammy asked.
"Very."
Sammy nodded. "Okay. I'm ruling it an accident. Get out of here."
"Have your men stand down," Thorpe told Major Dotson.
The Delta commander was staring at the flight of helicopters rapidly approaching the island from the mainland. Two Cobra gunships were in the lead. "We're not surrendering to these people," Dotson said.
"I'm not asking you to surrender. I just want to talk to the man in charge of those helicopters."
The Cobras — American craft sold to the Saudi military — did a flyby over the compound while the troop-carrying transports settled down on the sand outside the front gate. Dozens of men ran out of the large aircraft, weapons at the ready.
Thorpe walked forward unarmed, hands raised. He strode out the main gate between the guns of the Delta men behind and the Saudis in front.
"I need to speak to Prince Hakim Yasin," Thorpe yelled.
The Saudis had paused in a half circle around the gate, guns pointed. The Cobras flew by overhead once more, then turned and hovered a hundred meters back, the nose guns pointing right at Thorpe.
A man in camouflage walked forward. Thorpe could see the insignia on his collar — a colonel in the Saudi army. "Who are you?" He spoke with a strong English accent.
"I am an American officer," Thorpe said. "I need to speak to Prince Hakim Yasin."
"What are you doing on Saudi soil without permission?" the colonel demanded.
"I will explain that to Prince Yasin."
"No, you will explain it to me." The colonel looked past Thorpe, seeing the black-uniformed Delta men deployed along the wall of the compound. "What of Prince Yasin's sons?"
"They are safe," Thorpe said, "in the vault under the palace."
"You have not answered my question about why you are on Saudi soil," the colonel said.
"We came here to recover some VZ nerve gas and some American citizens kidnapped by Prince Yasin's sons," Thorpe said.
The colonel's eyes flickered past Thorpe, then back to him. "There are—"
"I don't have time to stand here and argue," Thorpe said. "I have something Prince Yasin needs to see."
The colonel snapped a command and held his hand out. A man came running up with a cell phone. The colonel pressed a button, then turned his back to Thorpe. All Thorpe could hear was some rapid speaking in Arabic muted by the sound of the Cobras hovering.
The colonel flipped the phone shut and turned back toward Thorpe. "What is it you wish to show Prince Yasin?"
"For his eyes only," Thorpe said.
"You are not in a position to ignore my question," the colonel said.
Both men turned to the north as another helicopter appeared. This one was painted black and very sleek, the wheels retracted into the body. Thorpe recognized the make — an Aerospatiale SA 365 Panther — with the tail rotor enclosed in the vertical fin at the rear, the trademark of that make.