Goldstein, the only one not carrying someone or something, ran up to a smooth-barked tree topped by twists of branches and round leaves on a rocky outcrop. He took a knee and waved Moshe over to come see him.
Moshe gave a command in Hebrew, and they lowered the device into the dirt. Ritter bent to rest his forearms on his knees and took his last sip of water from his CamelBak. He pushed his tongue against a loose tooth and spat out a bit of blood. He could smell the ocean on the breeze.
“Do we have dental insurance?” Ritter asked Mike, who shared Ritter’s end of a beam.
Mike pursed his lips, then shrugged.
Moshe ran up to Goldstein, and both went prone. He peaked over the edge, then waved Ritter and Mike over.
The two Americans crawled up to the edge of the rocks and looked to where Moshe was pointing beyond the tree. The bark was white with mottled dark spots, like the paper birch forests Ritter had hiked through in his youth. Unlike those thin birch trees, the Socotran fauna was too wide for Ritter to wrap his arms around, and the top was a rough mass of round leaves.
What’s with this place? Ritter thought.
The fishing village was only a few hundred yards away. Mud huts were scattered around a natural bay. Small wooden boats with mottled white paint bobbed in the water. A much larger boat, the prow jutting several feet beyond the hull and an enclosed bridge towards the aft, was moored alongside a sand spit; one of the ubiquitous dhow ships of the Arabian Gulf. Ritter didn’t see any of the inhabitants in or among the buildings or on the boats, but that wasn’t the strangest thing out there.
A stubby submarine was surfaced in the bay; barely more than sixty feet from bow to stern.
“You care to explain this?” Moshe asked.
“Looks like that’s how the North Koreans got here,” Ritter said.
“How do you know they’re North Koreans?” Moshe asked.
“Does that matter right now? The more important question is, what do we do about it? If that sub has torpedoes, then we won’t get very far even if we do get on that dhow,” Ritter said. He kicked himself for giving away a piece of information. Careless errors like that would come back to haunt him.
Moshe shook his head and peered past Ritter. There was a column of sand and dirt rising from the village. They’d have company soon enough.
“Nothing is ever easy, is it?” Moshe said.
Moshe raised his voice to address everyone. “Goldstein, Netzer, Shall, Americans and I run up and clear the village. Goldstein, you use the AT4 and hit that sub. If it’ll kill a tank, it’ll kill that thing. Shlomo, you shoot anyone with a weapon who isn’t us. Rest of you, stay with the wounded and carry him and that thing when the village is clear.
“Follow me!” Moshe stood up and made his way through the dragon blood and cucumber trees. Ritter and Mike went with him, darting between the trees, watching for movement from the sun-bleached houses.
Ritter stepped over the raised base of a dragon blood tree and stepped on something soft. He looked down and saw a body of an old man, a bullet hole in his forehead. Next to him was another body. And another. Men, women, and children had been dragged from the village and shot right here. Almost two dozen lay motionlessly; blown dust cast a light-brown coating on their dark skin.
A smack on the back from Mike pulled him out of his shock. He’d find who did this in the village, and he’d make them pay for it.
He and Mike ran up to the nearest house. Mike peeked into an open doorway with a mirror at the end of a collapsible wand. Mike gave him a thumbs-up: all clear. Ritter ducked into the house; thin foam mattresses with threadbare blankets were scattered across the floor of the one-room house. A battered wooden table lay on its side, a tin washing bowl overturned next to it. The family must have been dragged from their home in the night before being executed.
A metal clang came from the bay. Ritter looked out and saw the top hatch of the midget submarine open and a sailor’s head and torso emerge.
The sailor yelled in Korean for several seconds before he jerked to the side and fell back into the submarine in time with the sound of a shot from Shlomo’s rifle. So much for a surprise.
Goldstein ran up to the beach and readied the AT4 on his shoulder. The rocket had an effective range of three hundred meters, but it wouldn’t hurt to get as close as possible with their only shot at sinking the submarine.
Gunfire burst from one of the other houses, and Goldstein crumpled to the ground.
Ritter and Mike fired bursts at the open windows, where the shots had originated. Shouts in Hebrew flooded Ritter’s earpiece, and he tore the device from his head.
More shots came from the other side of the village, and lumps of mud and dirt sprang from the wall as the enemy bullets tore through them like paper. Ritter rolled away from where he’d been pressed against the wall an instant before a bullet ventilated the spot.
Ritter looked for Mike, but he’d vanished.
Ritter got to his feet and ran out the door. The Israelis were suppressing the rest of the village with pinpoint shots; none had the ammo for bursts. Ritter ran toward the last house at the edge of the village. He could flank where the hostile fire was coming from or draw fire from the rest of the team.
He lowered his shoulder and charged the closed door. It broke from the crude wire hinges, and Ritter’s momentum carried him — and the door — into someone on the other side. Ritter and the door crashed onto the figure, and Ritter saw black leather boots kicking from under the door. Ritter and the rest of the team wore tan boots.
Ritter fired two rounds through the door, and the struggling ceased. He stood up and charged back out the bare doorway.
He heard shouting as a Korean emerged from between the buildings. He held a Socotran woman against his chest, a gun to her head; she cried and pleaded in a language Ritter didn’t understand. The Korean used the woman as a human shield between him and Mike, who had his weapon trained on the pair.
The Korean was so focused on Mike that he didn’t see Ritter approaching from the side. Ritter raised his weapon to his shoulder and took aim.
A shot rang out, and Ritter watched and the woman screamed, her hands clutching a bullet wound on her thigh. A second shot lanced through her abdomen, and a third shot went through her shoulder. Both the Socotran and Korean fell to the ground. The Korean pushed the dead woman off him and flopped onto his back.
Ritter ran up to the woman, but she was already dead. The Korean lay moaning in the dirt, hit by the same bullets that had killed her.
Mike stood a few feet away, his face a mask of stone.
“Why Mike? I had him,” Ritter said.
Mike shook his head.
Moshe stepped around Mike, smoke rising from the barrel of his Tavor. The Israeli strode past Mike and stomped a boot on the Korean’s chest.
The Korean, metal teeth clicking against each other, tried to say something.
Moshe put a round in his forehead.
“That was for Goldstein,” Moshe said and spat on the dead Korean.
A thunderclap came from the beach. The AT4 struck the submarine right above the waterline. Smoke rose from the impact site, a new formed maw of mangled metal took in the ocean. Anyone inside who hadn’t been killed by the blast would certainly drown as the sub took on water.
Ritter looked at Moshe; all the respect he’d earned during their time together was gone with the death of one innocent.
“Call your people. Get us a location while I load up the boat,” Moshe said.