“Colonel Yosef and I can set the plastique. All we need is for Monkey and Mcdonald to lay a screen of protective fire from the boat. Once that starts, we’ll plant the explosives and get the hell out of here ourselves.”
“True, but I’ll stay and provide—”
“Captain, your knee is bigger than a house right now. You can see it through your cammies. If we have to run for the boat, you couldn’t make it without me throwing you over my shoulder,” Beau added.
“I could,” Duncan replied curtly. “And the only reason you’d throw me over your shoulder is to use me as a bullet sump.”
“Captain, you need to go, sir,” Chief Judiah added.
A tattoo of bullets laced the top of the flour bags, sending another white shower floating down on the men.
“I’ll stay, Captain,” Beau said. “You go back.”
“No, Commander,” Yosef corrected. “All three of you go back. Cover can be provided from the boat. The boat is ready. Everyone but the two Guardsmen watching the prisoners is on board. Have my men shove the prisoners into the harbor and cast off. We don’t want to take them with us, and I do not kill captives. We’ll set the explosives, run to the end of the pier, and jump toward the boat. You haul us in and, voila, we’re gone.”
“But I can stay and give protective cover,” Beau objected.
“Yes, you can stay, and then there would be three of us who could get shot.”
“He’s right, Commander,” Chief Judiah added. “We’ll be fine. There’s enough plastique here to blow up the whole city if we need to.”
Reluctantly Beau nodded as he accepted the chief’s judgment. He pushed himself up from his haunches. “Be careful, Colonel; Chief.”
Duncan pulled himself up. “Yeah, be careful, and we’ll be waiting at the end of the pier. Just don’t get yourselves shot.”
“We won’t,” Yosef replied.
“Come on, Duncan. Let’s get you on that ugly boat. You’ve always wanted to sail the Mediterranean, and here’s your chance. Monkey, I’ll help the captain. You bring up the rear.”
Beau reached toward Duncan, who jerked away. “Beau, my knee may be gone, but I am still a United States Navy SEAL. I still have one leg and two arms.”
“So what’d you want? Twenty-five-percent disability?”
Without a word, Duncan turned and began an ambling run toward the boat.
Beau and Monkey deliberately slowed their pace to stay with Duncan. The three SEALs weaved along the pier, keeping pallets of merchandise between them and the rebels. Fifty feet later, Colonel Yosef and Chief Judiah disappeared from their sight.
“Okay, they’ve gone,” Chief Judiah said to colonel Yosef.
“Be careful, Judiah, there’s a twenty-meter clearing to cross. This close to going home—”
“Call them, Colonel. They’re are out of sight now. No one around, but us.”
Colonel Yosef pulled a small transmitter from his pocket. Flicking it open, he pressed the prominent red button near the top three times, waited a couple of seconds, then pressed it five times.
“You think that was how they were able to follow us?” Chief Judiah asked, pointing to the transmitter.
“Could have been. But President Alneuf had a cellular telephone and he used it twice last night.”
“Who’d he call?”
“I am not sure. He has never called when I have been within hearing.
Neither have I been successful in seeing what phone numbers he dialed.
Our people would have liked to have had the numbers he used.” “I thought the only phone was the one Bashir lost at the villa.”
“He found another and gave it to him last night while we were at the doctor’s,” Yosef replied, shrugging his shoulders. “I know he spoke English with whoever he called.”
Chief Judiah handed Colonel Yosef one of the explosive squares with the fuse already pushed in it.
“Okay, I’ll set the charges here. You be careful and do it on the other side.”
Chief Judiah touched Yosef’s shoulder. “It was good to see you again, Daoud.”
“And me, you, Zackeriah. Different roads since ‘93, but it’s amazing how many times paths cross in our field. I can’t tell you how hard it was to pretend not to recognize you when you shocked me by appearing out of the darkness at the villa.”
“You would think they’d give us a heads-up. Small field; large world.”
“Sometimes not as large as we would like it.”
The two men pulled the pins simultaneously on the grenades. They tossed the grenades behind them. A chemical smoke curtain spewed forth, screening Judiah and Yosef from Duncan and the others on the boat.
Judiah pulled two more grenades from his satchel and handed one to Yosef.
They looked at each other, grinned, shook hands, and pulled the pins. Standing quickly, they hurled the smoke grenades forward of their position. A minute later the smoke, forward and behind, isolated them visually from both the Algerian rebels and their former comrades.
Three frogmen crawled over the side of the pier behind them. Their black wet suits glistened in the sunlight. Surprised, Yosef swung his gun toward the figures. The lead frogman raised his arms as he pulled his face mask off.
“Shalom, my friends.” “And you are?” Yosef asked. His eyes narrowed. Yosef’s finger tightened on the trigger in the event of the wrong password. They could still make the water carrier if they had to.
“Three dits, pause, five dits, Colonel. We are your passport out of here.”
Yosef lowered his gun, unaware until then how tight his finger had been on the trigger. The three frogmen took cover with them.
“Here is the situation.” And Yosef briefed them on the attacking force and how the Americans and the remainder of the Algerian Palace Guards intended to spirit President Alneuf out of the country.
“We need to blow the pier before the rebels attack in their armored car. If they do, and are successful, then President Alneuf may be captured. Headquarters wants him safely away,” Yosef explained as he held out the plastique toward the Israelis. “All we’ve got is this.”
“Don’t need it, Colonel,” the leader of the Israeli Special Forces replied. “We wired the pier to explode when the firefight started.” He grinned and slapped Yosef’s shoulder. “Sometimes, great minds think alike. If the armored car had attacked, we would have blown it.”
“Good,” Yosef replied, knowing if they had blown the pier, the explosion would have killed Duncan, Beau, and Monkey. “How is this going to work? How are we going to blow the pier and disappear?”
The frogmen unpacked a waterproof bag hauled up from beneath the pier.
“Put on these suits. They’ll protect your body heat. Here’s the plan…”
Yosef and Judiah pulled on the diving suits as the Israeli talked.
Beneath the pier, two sets of aqua lungs waited for the American and Algerian Israeli agents. Outfitted, they followed the commandos over the side of the pier. The frogmen activated the explosions to give them three minutes to clear the area. Three minutes was ample time. Leading the two agents, the Israeli commandos swam toward the underwater shuttle. The leader estimated less than an hour to the Israeli diesel submarine submerged outside the harbor.
“Cast off, Mcdonald,” Beau shouted from the controls of the boat. He bent slightly to check the gauges below the helm.
The water carrier was a small hundred-foot-long boat used to carry fresh water from the reservoirs to the coastal villages that lacked a natural water supply. From the condition of the boat, it looked as if the water carrier had seen many years of service. The bridge, crammed near the bow, gave the boat a fallen-water-tower appearance, with an engine on one end and a control station on the other. Basically, that was exactly what she was. The full load of water drove the waterline to within two feet of the surface. Duncan doubted the craft had much maneuverability, and it definitely had no sustain ability in anything but calm seas.