“Were those stray rounds, or was someone shooting at me?” Ritter asked.
“Not sure… Wait,” Shlomo said over the radio. “Moshe needs me to relocate. Don’t move.”
Ritter saw a flash of light from Shlomo’s scope as the sniper left his over watch.
“Shlomo, give me an update. What the hell’s going on over there?”
No response.
“Shlomo?” Ritter cursed as his battlefield became a much lonelier place. He looked back at the truck and saw a hook dangling from a winch on the front of the Bongo truck. The winch looked as if it had been welded on as an aftermarket improvement. Given the crap nature of the island’s infrastructure, being able to haul a truck out of a rut made decent sense.
A pile of thigh-high boulders ten feet up the road gave Ritter an idea. Better to do something constructive right away than to think of a perfect course of action a few minutes too late.
He reached over the shattered glass and unlocked the winch. The shots from the village had slowed; most sounded like the Tavor he and the Israelis carried. He drew the winch line out and looped the metal cord around a boulder before locking the hook onto the cord.
Two tugs on the line convinced him that it would hold.
A bullet struck up a geyser of dirt on the road and skipped away.
“Friendly to your north,” he said into the mike and got no response. The sound of his voice over the radio was nothing compared to the gunshots from those fighting in the village. “Friendly fire” was always a misnomer for those on the receiving end, but maybe someone had heard him.
He grabbed the dead driver by his shirt and hauled him from the cab. Dead eyes behind half-closed lids made the man look like he was about to drift asleep. Ritter let him fall onto the road like a sack of potatoes. The dead didn’t need gentle hands. Dirt clung to the spilled blood down his right flank as Ritter dragged him a few yards away from the truck.
He looked up and saw a trio of dirt clouds streaking down the east side of the valley wall, not the side he or the Israelis had come from.
“Shlomo, who the hell is that?”
No response.
“Mike, any friendly on this net? We’ve got potential hostiles coming down the east slope,” Ritter said and received only static in return.
Ritter ran to the front of the truck and knelt next to the wheel embedded in the dirt.
If it was the North Koreans, then they knew what was in the truck and might not risk a shot.
He took a snap glance around the side of the truck, and a burst of gunfire split the air next to his head.
Or they’d shoot at him anyway.
Ritter threw himself to the ground and aimed his weapon under the truck. He saw a pair of feet through the gap between the ground and the truck, and fired a single shot. Bullets tore through the lead man’s ankle, and he tumbled into the dirt with a scream.
The man behind him was either too well trained or too indifferent to care and leaped over the downed man. Ritter stood up and found the second man carrying an AK-47 and wearing loose sand-colored robes of a Bedouin. The man tried to swing his rifle around to bear on Ritter, but Ritter had him dead bang.
Ritter fired a burst into his chest and snapped his head around to find the third man. His last assailant had run around the other side of the truck and was six feet away and closing fast.
Ritter lifted his rifle and swung the hard plastic butt around and down on the barrel of the fighter’s rifle. The strike deflected the AK a half second before he fired and sent a blast into the engine block.
Ritter swung the rifle at the fighter’s face and struck nothing but air as the fighter swayed back. The fighter thrust his weapon up at Ritter’s face, and Ritter brought his Tavor back to block the blow. The collision smashed Ritter’s rifle against his face, and pain flared against a cheek as he stumbled back.
The fighter lurched after Ritter and grabbed him by his vest. He pushed Ritter off his feet and landed on top of Ritter. The impact of the man’s two hundred-plus pounds sent the air from Ritter’s lungs. Rough hands wrapped around Ritter’s neck and bored into his throat.
Ritter’s right hand fumbled for the Applegate-Fairbairn on his gear, while his other hand felt to gouge his enemy’s eyes. The big man kept his head turned away. He didn’t need to see Ritter to strangle the life from him.
The assailant’s fingers dug into his throat and cut off the flow of blood to his head. Ritter’s lungs burned with the desire for air and his vision went dark around the edges. His free hand unsnapped the sheath on his combat knife and pulled the blade free. He sliced the blade across the fighter’s forearm, blood traced its path and spattered onto Ritter’s face A gasp of pain later, the fighter pulled his injured arm away from Ritter’s neck.
That moment gave Ritter the opening he needed. He swung the blade up and slammed it into the fighter’s temple.
The blade sank two inches into the man’s skull. Ritter squeezed his blade and the fighter’s head together until the blade sank to its hilt.
The fighter’s eyes rolled around in their sockets, and he went slack. Ritter pushed his bulk off him and leaned over to pick up his rifle lying in the dirt. Blood dripped from his face onto the weapon as he picked it up.
He rubbed the back of his hand against a gash on his face. More blood flowed from the cut along his jaw line, and unseen hot wire of pain.
Someone groaned in pain from the other side of the truck. Ritter found the first man he’d shot crawling across the road, his AK-47 still in one hand.
Ritter put a bullet in the wounded man’s head and chest.
He looked at the man he’d stabbed. The man had the dark olive skin and Arab features that marked him as a Yemeni, not a North Korean.
He didn’t hear any more shots. Either the sudden onset tinnitus from firing his weapon had left him unable to hear the shots, or the battle was over.
“Ritter?” came from the earpiece dangling against his collarbone. It must have come loose in the struggle.
He held it against his ear and keyed his mike.
“Yes.” When he spoke, his face stung as if a snake had bitten it.
“We’re clear here. We stumbled on a fight between Arabs and what looks like a bunch of Koreans. No sign of your package,” Moshe said. “All hostiles eliminated. What’s your status?”
Steam poured from the bullet strikes on the Bongo truck’s engine. The front right wheel that had been bearing most of the truck’s weight burst with a pop.
Ritter held his palm against his split cheek and mumbled, “I’ve got good news, and I’ve got bad news.”
With the truck out of commission, the Israelis had taken wooden beams from one of the more dilapidated homes in the village and tied them into a gigantic hashtag shape. They pushed the nuke onto the improvised carrying frame and lashed it together. Eight men could carry the load at one time, lightening the individual load and hastening their escape, while the rest of the team provided security.
Ritter, a quarter of his face covered by a pressure bandage and his wounded leg burning, readjusted his grip on the wooden beam. He’d insisted on carrying the nuke despite his injuries. One of the Israelis had been hit in the stomach and had to be carried on a stretcher, which left one man to scout ahead.
Ritter’s arms and shoulders ached from the effort, like battery acid was working between his joints.
Men huffed and grumbled as they went over a patch of loose rocks. There was no time to rest, not when the whole island would be after them once word got around. Gunshots weren’t uncommon in the Middle East and surrounding countries. A full-scale battle would bring the curious around quickly enough.
It was a little more than a mile and a half from the village to the fishing village, where the Mossad sayanim were waiting with their ride out of here. What should have been a twenty-minute jog turned into an hour-long ordeal to move the device and the wounded.