“More,” el-Din roared down the staircase. “Shoot, shoot, shoot at the infidel dogs!”
Three more grenades roared out on their rockets, trailing fire.
The second salvo was the last. The Big Fifty aboard Sultan chewed into the room in a long rolling burst. When it ended, the three RPG men and their three loaders were dead or bleeding to death.
Meanwhile, on the plaza below, all six of the pickups were either on fire or being riddled with automatic gunfire. A few of the men were still alive, huddling under a truck chassis or behind the stones around the fire pit. A thoughtful observer would note that the scene looked much like the one last night, only the actors were Shabab warriors, not pirates.
Amazingly, the evening fire in the cooking pit was still burning. Its glare competed with the light from the burning trucks. Several of the tires had caught fire, and they burned with little intensity but gave off copious quantities of noxious black smoke. There was little wind, so the tire smoke lay over the area like fog.
The generator in the basement of the lair was still running fine. The lights were still on in the old pile, which was beginning to resemble a burned-out tenement building in Philadelphia or the Bronx.
The marines were advancing toward the town. They had to be careful when they used their weapons so they wouldn’t shoot each other. They came under fire from fighters in the brush and those in buildings or in pickups. Machine guns chattered, RPGs lit up the night, and assault rifles belched bursts.
At the airport, the parachutists were rounding up surviving Shabab fighters. They collected eight who were uninjured and three with bullet wounds. All eleven had their hands bound behind them with plastic ties, and their ankles tied together. The wounded were not treated.
Some of the Shabab warriors had hit the brush, running for their lives. The lieutenant in charge had expected that, and he didn’t have the people or time to chase them. He merely kept some men on guard and hoped the Somalis kept right on running.
Ricardo, Sophia Donatelli and Rab Bishop from the BBC were beside themselves. They could hear the battle going on in the town, but they were stuck in this damned old pile of rocks. They made a corporate decision to move operations to the roof, film what they could, and send it to the satellites whenever they could get the generators running. If ever.
As they raced for the stairs carrying armloads of equipment, they passed by two Royal Marines in battle dress standing near the entrance with their weapons. Ricardo and Rab Bishop did a double take.
“I say, I think the cavalry is here,” Bishop said.
“Damn, we’re gonna get rescued,” Ricardo echoed.
“Let’s adjourn to the roof and get these cameras grinding,” Sophia Donatelli told them. “We can interview the shooters later.”
So they went. The cameras were on, recording muzzle flashes and RPG launchings, when a helicopter went over with its machine guns blazing at the lair.
Ricardo was beside himself.
“We’re going to get rescued,” he screamed into his mike, and the digital camera recorded it on the sound track.
This was the scene when the SEALs on the beach charged the lair. The Big Fifty aboard Sultan laid down covering fire; helicopters materialized out of the darkness and added their machine guns to the fusillade. The cameras on the fortress roof caught it all, for later rebroadcast.
The fusillade stopped as the SEALs gained the lobby. They went up the stairs in pairs, alert for grenades or booby traps. The surviving Shabab warriors were shell-shocked. They offered no resistance, so were quickly immobilized with plastic ties on wrists and ankles, searched for weapons and radio controllers, and left where they lay.
In the penthouse Yousef heard the infidels’ footsteps thundering on the stairs, the shouts, the occasional shots, and knew the moment had come to leave this earth for Paradise.
He pushed the button on the controller that was to trigger the explosives in the basement, the trigger that the Hamas expert had assured him would work. The explosion al-Gaza swore would take him, el-Din and a hundred infidels to Paradise.
He pushed the button … and nothing happened.
El-Din’s bodyguard had seen what the Shabab leader was doing, tossed down his weapon and curled up in a fetal position on the floor. Sixteen years old, he had been herding goats until six months ago, and had never imagined what it would feel like to be on the receiving end of a barrage from automatic weapons wielded by a modern military force. His nerves were shot. He was incapable of even standing.
As the SEALS topped the stairs, they saw Yousef el-Din viciously kicking the boy lying in the rubble, and cursing him and his ancestors. The SEALs swarmed them both, immobilized them in seconds with plastic ties and confiscated the radio controllers.
Outside the shooting was dying down. A burst or two now and then, and silence for long seconds. Then nothing.
In the fortress, people began cheering as the shooting trickled off. When the night was silent they filled the old stone fortress with shouts of joy and cheering.
One of the SEALS found Grafton and me in the basement, ready for anything. The generator was still snoring, the light was on, and the wet-suit-clad man with a submachine gun looked like an apparition from the black lagoon. Still, he was the best sight I had seen in years. I almost kissed him while he tried to salute Jake Grafton.
“Admiral Grafton, Admiral Tarkington’s compliments, sir. He said we would find you and Mr. Carmellini in the basement.”
Even though he wasn’t in uniform, Grafton saluted him back. “The fortress? The hostages?”
“They’re okay, sir. The building is still standing. The Royal Marines secured it.”
Grafton got a sappy grin on his face, grabbed the SEAL, who was built like a middleweight prizefighter, and gave him a hug that nearly crushed him.
We went up the stairs, through the lobby, and walked out onto the plaza. The stench of burning trucks and tires almost gagged me. We were just in time to hear the swelling of jet engines passing overhead.
“Globemasters,” he said by way of explanation. “C-17s. We’re flying the hostages out of here.”
Even as he spoke, two choppers with landing lights ablaze were landing on the roof of the fortress to pick up people and transport them to the airport. They settled in like birds on their nests. Over the water were other choppers, all with their external lights shining brightly and landing lights stabbing the darkness.
Grafton was soon surrounded by officers, SEALs and marines. The senior marine was Colonel Zakhem. He saluted, and Jake Grafton grabbed his hand and wouldn’t let go. Kept pumping it.
I wandered off and found a place to sit. My leg was throbbing and I felt drained. Exhausted.
I looked at my watch. Only nine thirty. The whole damn thing hadn’t taken an hour.
The arrival of the choppers, the news that they were leaving tonight, now, flying home, reduced many of the hostages to tears. Suzanne and Irene cried and laughed at the same time and hugged each other fiercely, then started hugging everyone in sight.
The Sultan’s crew began herding passengers up the stairs to the roof in groups of twelve or so. There they were led to the idling choppers and helped aboard. When the chopper crew made a sign, the passengers backed away to wait for the next one, which was hovering nearby. The loaded chopper lifted off and the next one landed.
Two marine armored personnel carriers pulled up to the door, and the Royal Marines led people out. Someone suggested the women leave first, but Arch Penney nixed that. Families, he said. Keep the families together. So they went in couples, usually holding hands, carrying what little they had. Some were sobbing, all were joyously happy.