Footsteps walked across the room.
The door slammed and bolted shut.
Isabella’s chin fell to her chest. Pain radiated through her weakened body. Blood dripped from her nose and mouth as her lips formed the words, barely audible to her own ears, “Gregg.”
CHAPTER 7
The SAS strike team had been regimented to perfection. The operation meticulously planned and each soldier knew his task. Jake watched Kaplan drill the soldiers time after time, covering every angle and every possible scenario. If something were to go wrong, each man should instinctively know what to do. Stay the course, don’t over react, and maintain focus.
Underneath the canopy the terrorists used low light kerosene lanterns and flashlights to avoid detection from the air by overflying aircraft or satellites. In the nighttime desert, even the smallest output of light could be seen from miles away.
Team one entered the camp’s perimeter first. Their task was to secure the communications tent, disabling any opportunity for outside transmissions.
Mounted on support poles underneath the netting were floodlights that went undetected during surveillance. A detail neither Jake nor Kaplan had contemplated was about to turn the mission into a tragedy. The floodlights were activated by trip wires randomly strung around the perimeter — tripwires that also went undetected…until the first SAS soldier stepped on the wire.
The area lit up like a football stadium at night, blinding the soldiers wearing the NVGs. The men ripped off their night vision goggles but the initial blast of light had temporarily impaired their vision. Now six men stood sightless in the middle of an enemy camp.
Sitting ducks.
Jake and Kaplan were outside the perimeter when the lights came on. Far enough outside to escape being blinded by the NVGs. The eleven-man team was now a five-man team and Jake and Kaplan were the only ones at camp level who could still see.
Within seconds after the camp lit up, Jake heard the terrorists yelling inside the tents. The six-blinded soldiers dove to the sand and rolled.
“Gregg. We have a problem.”
Kaplan charged forward motioning Jake to watch Yasir’s quarters. “Snipers, fire through the netting. Take out the dorm tents.”
Teams two and three, the teams designated to hit the dorm tents, were deepest inside the camp and the most exposed when the first of the terrorists scrambled into the open.
Sniper rounds peppered the tents.
Screams of agony filled the desert night air.
Jake crouched to a firing stance on one knee. He took aim at the tent closest to his position. Three men ran out, two covered in blood, all firing wildly in the air as they ran into the night.
Jake noticed Kaplan in the same one-knee stance firing into the other tent.
More shots rang out. Silenced rounds continued to spray the tents. The snipers had done their job. The movement stopped and the camp went silent.
“Jake, Yasir.” Kaplan was up and running for the terrorist’s quarters.
Jake moved faster and was waiting when Kaplan arrived.
They stood outside, Jake heard whispering. “Drop your weapons.”
Kaplan looked at him. “What are you doing?”
“Giving Yasir a chance to surrender.” Jake said. “Just like Bentley wanted.”
A voice came through the headset. “Team one operational, communications and supply tents secure.”
“Good. Go help the others. Make sure both dorm tents are neutralized.”
Jake and Kaplan parted the tent doors with the barrels of their pistols.
Kaplan looked in, “Mustaff Bin Yasir?”
Crouched in back were two people, one Yasir. Jake recognized him from the preponderance of photos he’d studied. The other an Asian woman, not Hashim Khan, the American traitor they were looking for.
Yasir and the woman were huddled in the rear, Yasir holding a knife to her throat using her tiny body as a shield.
“No shoot. No shoot.” The woman pleaded.
“Drop the knife.” Kaplan stepped toward the pair, his barrel switching from Yasir to the woman to Yasir.
Jake moved next to Kaplan. “Let her go — now.”
“No shoot. No shoot.” She screamed.
Jake felt his anger swell. He couldn’t be responsible for letting another woman die because he failed to react fast enough.
A sudden clap of thunder blasted in his ears and caught Kaplan by surprise as he watched the pink mist fly from the back of Yasir’s head. The terrorist fell backward into the canvas tent and tumbled to the desert floor.
He saw Jake still pointing his gun at Yasir’s lifeless body, now crumpled on the floor in a bloody pile.
The woman started screaming in a language he didn’t know. After what Jake just did, Kaplan didn’t have time to deal with the Asian woman so he hit her in the head with the butt of his gun rendering her unconscious.
Securing her hands and legs with flex cuffs, he turned to Jake. “What the hell did you just do? Alive, Jake. Alive. Bentley wanted him alive.”
Jake lowered his gun. “He was going to kill her. We need her more than him.”
“How the hell do you figure?” Kaplan pointed toward the unconscious woman. “We don’t even know who she is.”
“Look at her. She’s Asian. Why would an Asian woman be in this camp? Don’t you think that’s a little odd? Whatever her reason for being here is something we need to find out. That makes her our priority.”
“What the hell’s wrong with you, Jake? I don’t know you any more. You’ve gone off the deep end. Ever since Beth died, you shoot everything and everyone in sight. The whole concept of ‘capture alive’ eludes you. You’re careless and irresponsible. And your behavior endangers the safety of those around you.”
“Shut up, Gregg. I did what had to be done. It was Yasir or the woman.”
Kaplan shoved Jake in the chest, knocking him two steps backwards. “You’re no better than an assassin. You’re like, like…Ian Collins. Or worse, Laurence O’Rourke.”
Kaplan saw it in Jake’s eyes, he’d struck a nerve.
Jake raised his pistol, aiming it at Kaplan’s head. “Don’t ever talk to me that way again.”
“Jake, two things you better get through that thick skull of yours. One, you need help. Serious help. When we get back, I’ll talk to Bentley.”
“And two?” Jake asked.
Kaplan heard Jake’s sarcasm. “Two. If you ever point a gun at me again, you better use it…or I’ll kill you where you stand.” Kaplan paused to let the words sink in.
He turned and walked out of the tent.
CHAPTER 8
Jake tightened his seatbelt as the Challenger jet descended into the West Texas desert. It was the same Challenger he flew on to Ireland back in March when he discovered the secret cache of weapons buried beneath the ancient Irish ruins of the Creevelea Abbey. Since March, he’d flown on it numerous times. Bentley sat in the seat across from him and hadn’t spoken a word since they left Langley. For that matter, Bentley hadn’t spoken a dozen words to him since he returned from Australia.
He knew Bentley was upset he’d shot and killed Mustaff bin Yasir, but Bentley’s refusal to even acknowledge his presence upset Jake. Yasir got what he deserved. After all, he was about to kill the woman who Jake now knew was an operative with an intelligence organization of some sort. He learned the woman’s pleas to stop him from shooting were legitimate — she was close to learning the location of other cells. She needed Yasir alive, he was her only connection to Hashim Khan, the handler of the cells.
As Jake discovered after he returned to Langley, Yasir planned to reunite with Khan after the cell’s attack on Sydney. Yasir and the woman had been booked on a freighter owned by the Hilal Shipping Company in Yemen, the same company Isabella Hunt infiltrated, and from which she had disappeared. Too much of a coincidence not to be connected.