‘And so, my friend,’ said the Saudi, ‘how did you manage to outwit the Americans in Jakarta? The whole world is talking about it.’
‘We had God guiding our hands,’ said Kadar.
‘Ah, the man has trade secrets he doesn’t wish to divulge,’ the Yemeni said.
‘Tell us about Indonesia,’ said the Syrian. ‘What is the reaction there?’
‘You’ve seen the television reports. Demonstrations, effigies and flags burned…other western embassies, consulates and businesses under siege…’ the Palestinian said, lending his support openly to Kadar Al-Jahani for the first time.
‘Yes, but…the feeling on the ground?’ the Syrian insisted.
‘My friends, Indonesia is ready,’ Kadar said, nodding slowly, seriously.
The three men smiled at Kadar Al-Jahani. Duat would be pleased, he thought. As he had promised, the bombing had been a risk worth taking.
Dogs began to bark in the street below and one of the Hamas bodyguards closest to the window leaned out to investigate. At that moment, a corpse dropping from the rooftop sped past him and thudded onto the street below, the dead man’s rifle clattering on the road and cartwheeling away.
The guard blinked as his brain attempted to catch up to real time. He watched as Humvees rounded the corner a block away and sped towards the building while, overhead, the air filled with the deafening roar of a large helicopter.
‘Fuck,’ said Kadar as the bodyguard at the window suddenly spun backwards into the room with no head on top of his shredded neck, spraying the wall with blood.
And then the lights went out, plunging the room into darkness.
The Blackhawk roared low over the observation building. The reflected glow from the town below provided enough light for Wilkes to see it bank sharply to the right, inbound for a landing on the target building’s rooftop. Everyone then switched their attention from the night sky back to the computer monitors.
Suddenly, two of the three coloured blobs, men on the rooftop, were propelled rapidly backwards. The third body scribed a small arc then accelerated down the side of the building until it hit the street. Another blob on the second storey sunk to the floor, taken out. Thus, in a matter of seconds, the main sentries had all been sniped.
Another monitor presented a second, more distant view of the building in the green of night vision. He watched the Blackhawk flare and counted thirteen soldiers rappelling from the aircraft onto the flat rooftop. He also counted the individual vital signs of the airborne force — there were thirteen — and noted that the individual heart rates had soared. There are twelve soldiers coming in on the rooftop, and another twelve providing a blocking force on the ground. That’s what Baruch had said. The name of a trooper was provided under each heart rate, all except for one. Number thirteen. That had to be Atticus Monroe. Jesus! Wilkes wasn’t superstitious, but that didn’t stop him having an ugly premonition.
The technician fiddled with a box from which two small sticks projected. He tweaked them left and right, and the angle of the view changed — lowered. ‘Just repositioning one of the Dragon Warriors for a ringside seat,’ he explained. ‘You’ll have to excuse the crude controls. We’re working on an integrated computer control unit featuring touch control pads. But that’s for Generation Two. They’ll probably release that model and drop the price a year into the production run, screwing up the resale value,’ said the technician, snickering.
‘Shut the fuck up,’ snapped Baruch. Wilkes couldn’t have agreed more. On the screens, men were dying. Wilkes shook his head, trying to clear it of the unreality.
The airborne force hit the roof and ran for the stairs. At street level, soldiers jumped from the Humvees. Percussion grenades — two — were thrown in through the front door. They exploded seconds later, the heat flaring bright red, yellow and green on the monitors.
Wilkes heard a woman’s voice shouting instructions: Glukel. There were other voices. Wilkes assumed they were speaking Hebrew — he didn’t understand the words. The tone was urgent but controlled, cool. No panic.
The Israeli troop on the ground went through the front door after the grenades. Samuels’ people. Submachine-gun fire and other small arms fire. Shouts. A scream. Baruch said something into his boom mic. No response. He said it again. Nothing. A barrage of yelling. Two of the vital signs on the monitor were flat-lining. Christ. More screams. A clatter of small arms. On the screen, Wilkes watched ten Israelis come back out the front door, retreating. Two soldiers were dragged and another was carried. Others dropped to their knees behind the Humvees, covering the retreat of their comrades, and emptied their magazines into the front door of the building. All three of the mounted light machine guns on the Humvees began pouring fire into the ground floor through the windows, the doors and even the brickwork. There was shouting, yelling through the ’phones. The sounds of chaos, fear.
Baruch shouted something into the boom mic. No answer. He repeated the question. Again, no answer. He rubbed his face with his hands.
‘Go!’ someone said in English through Wilkes’s headphones. That must have been Atticus, thought Wilkes. He checked the monitors. Glukel’s people were faring better. No flat-lines. The view was in infrared/x-ray mode. flash-bangs. The Israelis entered the target room. A brief gun battle. Red spheres swarmed in like angry blood cells. ‘Target secured,’ yelled Monroe with an accompanying whoop.
Lightning balled in the room. The flashes blinded Kadar Al-Jahani and punched the air from his lungs. He tried to stand, only to be thrown against a wall by a massive force, the power of which momentarily blotted out his consciousness.
He coughed and choked with the dust filling his lungs. Kadar felt himself lifted up, this time by men, and then thrown face-down on the floor. His arms were wrenched behind his back dislocating a shoulder, and a ball of spinning white heat wrapped in the barbed wire of pure pain exploded inside his head. He screamed, but the sound scarcely reached his deafened ears. Vomit seared his throat and made him gag on the mouthfuls of dry grit skinning his insides like coarse sandpaper. Soldiers, Israeli soldiers, were around him. His hands were secured behind his back. Somewhere in Kadar Al-Jahani’s head the reality of the situation found a chink in his armour of disbelief. He was captured.
A massive explosion echoed through the narrow streets as a rocket-propelled grenade blew up the lead Humvee. ‘Jesus,’ said Wilkes, ‘where did that come from?’
Baruch snapped at the technician to reposition the Dragon Warrior. ‘Kakat!’ said Baruch, the veins in his neck pulsing like excited worms. The UAV revealed that the building opposite the target was garrisoned with yet another twenty or so enemy. ‘Fuck!’ Baruch shouted, slipping in and out of English. RPGs ripped through the air leaving smoke trails. The rear Humvee bounced as it exploded in a mushroom of fire, landing upside-down. Wilkes heard the sound of whimpering men coming through his ’phones. Others were yelling. He glanced at the monitor — nine flat-lines amongst the Israeli ground force, Samuels’ people.