She felt herself being lifted off the cot. “Isabella. I’ve got you now. You’re safe.”
This was no dream, this was real.
It was Gregg Kaplan.
CHAPTER 33
Kaplan searched the dungeon-like room with his Maglite until the beam of light found the cot. Isabella Hunt was curled in the fetal position. A pit grew in his stomach as he rushed to her.
“Isabella. I’m here.” He said. “You’re safe.”
He brushed her matted, blood-dried hair away from her face. “Isabella? Can you hear me? It’s Gregg.”
“Gregg, she’s been drugged.” Jake said. “We need to get her back to the gliders. It’ll be light in less than an hour and we need to be as far away from here as we can.”
Kaplan scooped her up in his arms, resting her head against his shoulder. “It’ll be okay now.”
“Gregg?” she whispered. “Is it really you? You came for me?”
“It’s really me, here to take you home.”
“I’ll arrange the scene,” Jake said. “Make it look like she overpowered the guard and escaped through a window.”
Isabella groaned as Kaplan lifted her into his arms. “How are you going to do that?” he asked.
“I have an idea. Just go. Get Isabella to the glider. I’ll be a couple of minutes behind you.” Jake ran down the corridor and out of sight.
Kaplan carried Hunt down the same bloody steps. Baraka was waiting for him at the landing, still holding pressure to her wound.
“Is woman okay?” Baraka asked.
“She’s been beaten and sedated.” Kaplan said. “But she’ll live. How’s your neck?”
“Bleeding almost stop.” She said. “Must take woman to small airplane. Baraka is fine. Have friends in Hajjah, can hide there.”
Kaplan carried Hunt out of the Palace and down the winding walkway. At the bottom of the second switchback, Kaplan turned left toward the gliders.
Baraka stopped. “I go now. Good luck, Mr. Kaplan.”
Kaplan stopped. “Thank you, Baraka, for everything. We couldn’t have done it without your help. You have avenged your family.”
The woman hurried out of sight.
With Isabella in his arms, Kaplan ran all the way to the gliders. He found Wiley waiting, the equipment already stowed in the aircraft for their trip to the Red Sea.
“Because of weight distribution she must ride with you.” Wiley said. “Where’s Jake?”
“Jake said he was fixing the scene to look like an escape. How? I don’t know.”
“He’d better hurry or his ass gets left behind.” Wiley said. “Besides, he’s wasting time.”
“Gregg.” A tear rolled down Hunt’s cheek.
Wiley looked at Kaplan. “Be careful.”
“I’ll be fine.” Kaplan slipped Hunt into her seat and strapped on her harness. “We’ll be fine.”
Jake found a metal tray full of untouched food near the entrance to Hunt’s prison cell. He grabbed the tray and flung food on the floor of her room. He ran back to where the dead man lay and smashed the tray against the side of the man’s head — hard enough to break open the dead man’s flesh. Then he ran back to the prison room and tossed the tray on the floor. He needed to make it look like Hunt escaped rather than being rescued.
Metal utensils were on a nearly table so Jake grabbed a knife, smeared it in the man’s blood, and dropped it by the puddle of blood. Next he picked up the dead guard and tossed his body down the stairwell. Now he needed to fake an escape by Isabella.
He moved through each corridor, opening and closing doors until he found what he was looking for. Curled on the floor in a utility closet was a rope. He couldn’t have planned it any better.
He forced open a window, tied off one end of the rope to a column inside the room, and tossed the rope out the window. He turned to leave then realized he should ensure authenticity.
He grabbed the rope and climbed out the window and lowered himself toward the ground. He met the end of the rope ten feet above the ground. No way down but drop. He let go of the rope and fell.
The hard ground sent shockwaves through his legs. His knees buckled as he hit the ground. Get up. The pain radiated along his spine until his head throbbed. Get up. Shake it off.
His headset crackled, then Wiley's voice. "Jake, get down here or get left behind."
He pushed himself up using the wall for balance. He bent over, hands on knees, took three deep breaths, and ran. "On my way."
When Jake reached the gliders, Kaplan had just finished strapping Hunt into her seat. “How is she?”
“She’ll be fine.” Kaplan said. “Now can we get out of here?”
Wiley got in the glider and activated his customized avionics and instrumentation. “Jake, get in and let's go.”
“Gregg, after you clear the edge.” Wiley said. “Climb out at sixty knots on a heading of 2-6-0. We’ll be right behind you.”
“Roger that.” Kaplan’s voice in Jake’s headset.
Jake activated his night vision goggles just in time to see Kaplan’s glider cross over the edge of the cliff and out of sight below. Two seconds later the glider reappeared in a climbing right hand turn.
Jake felt Wiley accelerate their glider toward the edge of the cliff, his specialized electric motors totally silent. The glider crossed the edge of the cliff, a split second of weightlessness, and then the downward G-force pull of the climb. Wiley banked the glider to the right until rolling out on the same heading he gave Kaplan.
Jake took a deep breath. “We might just make it after all.”
“We’re not out of the woods, yet.” Wiley said. “That was the easy part. The hard part is still to come.”
CHAPTER 34
Hashim Khan woke up early from a restless night. Something he’d heard the day before troubled him. Something the imam had casually mentioned when he was reading a Paris newspaper.
He left the solace of his private room and returned to the room where the imam had been reading. He looked at the table where the imam read the paper. But now the table was bare. He checked around the room and finally found what he was looking for in the trash receptacle.
Khan spread the tabloid across the table, leafing through it page-by-page, searching for something, the details of which he couldn’t remember. Then he discovered what had troubled him, a small sidebar article. The planned closure of one of his targets, the closure planned on the day of the attack. It was too late to change targets — he needed another option. Only one came to mind.
The five men he’d picked for this mission were young, naïve, and scared. He’d given them seven days to prepare. Seven days to make their peace. Seven days to live. They’d accepted their mission with pride. They accepted their fate.
But in seven days the target would be inaccessible. He needed to move up the date of the attacks. The young men were ready. They would do their job. He would tell them later that the time frame had changed.
Today they could cleanse.
Today they could shave.
Tomorrow they would die.
The gliders flew in tandem, Kaplan and Hunt in the lead, Wiley and Jake in the rear. The useful life of Wiley’s custom-made batteries was forty-five minutes. In order to gain maximum altitude with the time available, Wiley said best rate of climb was required until the low battery warning light came on. The eastern sky was waking up behind them, slowly illuminating the flight ahead. Soon the sun would show the way. The NVGs had already been turned off and stowed away. Twilight was giving way to daylight.