Havoc - v4 (43 page)

He ordered that the construction lights ringing the pit be lowered into the tunnel and for more wire to be readied. He also ordered someone back to his tent for a shirt, his Geiger counter, and a set of scuba tanks in case they needed them. It took ten minutes to get everything in place. Al-Salibi had changed into more practical clothes and joined him in the ancient tunnel along with two of his most trusted fighters.

Every square inch of the walls and the ceiling where it hadn’t collapsed were covered in two-thousand-year-old glyphs depicting the Egyptian creation stories and commemorating Alexander’s journey through death. The natural pigments were as fresh and vibrant today as the day the master artisans had applied them. One of the fighters nudged his comrade to show him how he could scratch out the faces of the gods with his trench knife. They shared a laugh at the senseless desecration.

Poli tied the scuba tanks to the rope and started up the tunnel carrying one of the halogen lights high over his head. In his wake the shorter Saudis were forced to half walk and half swim to stay with him.

“We have to act now,” Ibriham said. “They will load the alembic onto a boat as soon as they bring it to the surface.”

“We have a boat of our own.”

“You do? Excellent. How long will it take to get it?”

Mercer thought through the timing, added a thirty-minute cushion, and glanced at his watch. “By two A.M.”

“The boat might be necessary,” Ibriham mused.

Mercer shifted his gaze to Cali. “Can you do it?”

She looked defensive. “Trying to protect me again?”

Mercer was. He didn’t want her anywhere near the fighting. They’d been lucky so far but this went beyond anything they’d faced since meeting in Africa. Having her with them when they took on Poli’s men wouldn’t make a dent in the odds so there was no sense putting her in danger. Then he asked himself if he was doing it for her or him. He remembered Tisa lying bloody in his arms as they were lifted off a sinking ship by a rescue helicopter. She never heard him say he loved her. “Do you really want to be here if our attack fails?”

“Do you?”

“No, but I feel a responsibility here.”

“And you don’t think I feel it too,” Cali shot back.

“Cali, this isn’t about protecting you. I lost someone I cared very deeply for. I can’t go through that again.”

She touched his cheek tenderly. “I’ll do it, but Mercer, I’m not her and you can’t always be there as my knight in shining armor. Okay?”

“Thank you,” was all he could say.

“I’ll come charging in at exactly two o’clock.”

Ibriham said to her, “If you see one of their boats attempting to escape, stop them.” With a whispered order from him, one of his men gave her an automatic pistol while others handed over some of their weapons and ammunition to Mercer and Booker Sykes.

Cali gave Mercer one last look but didn’t kiss him. “Good luck.”

“You too.”

“Man, you’ve got yourself a handful,” Booker remarked quietly after she faded into the darkness with Book’s GPS. “She is one fiery redhead.”

Mercer said nothing, trying to put the awkward exchange out of his mind and focus on what lay ahead. He didn’t care that they were standing feet away from perhaps the greatest treasure in human history, the value of which was incalculable in the monetary sense. Even more important was the insight the tomb would give on perhaps the greatest military mind who ever lived. Alexander the Great had single-handedly drawn the map of the ancient world, establishing boundaries that were still in effect today. All Mercer thought about at that moment was preventing Poli Feines and his sponsor from getting their hands on the Alembic of Skenderbeg. Let the archaeologists have their day when it was over. Tonight was about preventing genocide.

“What’s your plan?” he asked Ibriham again.

“Ten minutes before Miss Stowe is to return, we attack the compound.”

“What, just a frontal assault?”

Ibriham nodded. Mercer and Book exchanged a look and shook their heads.

Booker said, “We can do better than that.”

By one thirty the revelry infecting the camp had yet to die down. Men still talked animatedly as they peered into the hole, no doubt excited by the promise of so much death. Only a few had drifted back to the tents, where they were kept awake by celebratory gunfire. Mercer and Devrin were in position fifty yards from the kitchen while Booker had made his way around the encampment toward the lake’s edge. His job was to take out the houseboat. If he failed, the guard on board could turn the camp into a slaughtering ground with the machine gun they’d mounted on the boat’s rail.

For the first time in his life Mercer found he was eager for a fight. He wanted revenge on Poli, on Al-Salibi and on the men who thought wholesale destruction was their god’s greatest desire. The adrenaline pumping through his body was as familiar and rousing as an addict’s drug of choice. Even with the darkness he felt he could see perfectly. He could feel the barest whisper of the breeze against his skin and hear the muted lapping of wavelets on the shore. He could smell the spices from the kitchen as though he were standing at the stove.

The gun Ibriham had given him was a Heckler and Koch HK416, a compact 5.56-millimeter assault carbine with a detachable 40-millimeter grenade launcher. In the pockets of his cargo pants he carried four extra twenty-round magazines and two additional grenades. Although unfamiliar with this particular weapon, he was more than confident of his abilities with it.

He checked his watch for the fifth time in five minutes, more anxious than nervous. Booker would be slipping into the water about now. He looked toward the lake but couldn’t see his friend, whose skin blended with the night.

Keeping low so only his eyes appeared above the surface, Booker Sykes moved easily through the water. The houseboat was only fifty yards from shore, and while the gunner was still awake, he wasn’t looking around the craft, only at the celebration he was certainly disappointed to miss.

Book cut a wide circle around the boat to come at it from the seaward side. Light spilled from a window on this side of the boxy vessel and he could hear Arab music being played on a cassette deck. He edged closer to the stern, away from the guard. The boat was wooden-hulled and slimy. He reached for the railing that circled the low deck, moving slowly so water didn’t drip from his clothes. Rather than heave himself up, he slipped a leg through the railing’s stanchions and slowly rolled onto the deck. He made no sound and his motions had been so smooth that his added weight didn’t rock the flat-bottomed houseboat.

The square superstructure took up most the deck space, leaving a narrow catwalk ringing three sides of the boat. Only the back deck, where the machine gunner stood vigil, was open space. Booker padded aft, ducking when he reached the lighted window. Moving a millimeter at a time he positioned himself so he could see through the grimy glass. Two Arabs were at the dining table reading their Korans while a third was asleep on a threadbare sofa.

Booker eased himself down again. He’d expected there would be more than one man on the houseboat, but he hadn’t expected four and he didn’t know if anyone was asleep in the cabins. During a combat mission Booker was able to keep a precise clock ticking in his head so he knew the time almost to the second. He had two minutes before Ahmad’s men broke cover and started their assault.

He didn’t know how many men he’d killed in his military career. In just one night in Mogadishu he estimated a hundred rebels had fallen under his guns, but the ones he remembered, eleven of them, were the ones he’d taken with a blade. His nightmares were filled with every detail of their deaths, from the smell of their last meals to the heat of their blood. He could still feel the stubble on his palm from the sentry he’d taken at a drug lord’s hacienda. He could still hear the wheeze of air when he severed the throat of a North Korean sailor guarding a mini-sub packed with explosives. And their eyes. The eyes were always with him, asleep or awake.

Slowly, so it made no more sound than an infant’s sigh, he withdrew the knife given to him by one of the Janissaries.

Mercer slithered under the side of the kitchen tent. He’d heard only one man snoring inside. With the moon nearly set, the tent was pitch black. He waited a moment for his eyes to adjust. There was a gentle glow from the stove’s pilot light that allowed him to discern the layout of the tent. There were actually two stoves, several large plastic drums of water, and serving tables. A cot was against one wall, a single figure sprawled under the sheet. The cook’s clothes lay in a pile next to a small prayer rug. An AK-47 hung from the tent pole.

Moving silently Mercer approached the bed. He found the man’s kaffiyeh. He had no idea how to properly wear the traditional headscarf so he just draped it over his head and wrapped the tails to hide his face. He checked his watch. One minute.

Though the man was part of a terrorist cell, he was just a cook. Mercer imagined he’d been given these duties because he wasn’t a capable fighter. And no matter how Mercer tried to rationalize it in his head, he simply couldn’t kill him in cold blood. So when he smashed the butt of his HK into the man’s skull, he checked his swing just enough to render him unconscious. He bound the cook’s wrists behind his back with the Kalashnikov’s sling and was just about to stuff a greasy rag into his mouth when he sensed motion. He whirled, bringing up his assault rifle, but it was only Devrin.

“You are taking too long.” He saw what Mercer had done and quickly strode over to the side of the bed. He looked down at the unconscious cook, then glanced at Mercer. “This is why you will never defeat them,” he said and unceremoniously plunged a knife into the cook’s chest. “They ask for no quarter so you shouldn’t give it.”

He wiped the blade on the sheet, resheathed the knife, and together they exited the back of the tent.

Booker came to the edge of the superstructure. There was about eight feet of open deck between him and the machine gunner. He had twenty seconds. He crept forward, lifting his feet no more than a fraction of an inch from the Astroturfed deck. Book came to within a foot of the guard and he still hadn’t felt his presence. He kept leaning against the rail and watching the celebration on shore. Sykes was grateful he’d never see the Arab’s eyes.

He moved no slower or faster in those final seconds, simply took another practiced step and prepared to reach around the guard’s head with one hand while the knife in the other was poised to open his throat.

A casual voice called from the open door to the cabin. The guard turned to answer. He saw Booker no more than a foot away. With reflexes honed through decades of training, Booker lashed out even before the guard realized what he was seeing. Sykes drove the blade into the Arab’s neck and ripped outward, tearing through muscle and blood vessels so nearly half his throat was slashed open. Blood fountained from the ragged wound, splashing across the deck and into the water.

The man inside called again. Booker let the body fall and tried to swivel the Russian-made fifty-caliber so it pointed at the cabin door, but the gimbal only moved through thirty degrees.

Another guard appeared at the doorway. Booker threw his knife in a desperation toss because the weapon wasn’t balanced for throwing. The butt end hit the bridge of the man’s nose, breaking the delicate bones. As he reeled back roaring in pain, Booker kicked at the machine gun and grunted when it swung freely. To get the proper angle he had to jump over the rail and hang off the side of the boat. His finger found the trigger as a third guard appeared at the door. Booker was ahead of schedule by eleven seconds but there was no help for that now. He pulled the trigger and the big gun came alive in his hands, empty brass casings arcing into the night. The heavy slugs blew the guard back through the doorway, ripped the door off its hinges, and shredded the cheap wood superstructure.

Unable to see where the other gunman was inside the houseboat, Booker let go of the railing and dangled by his grip on the machine gun. Even with the superior firepower, he knew he was too exposed to counterfire from inside the boat or an astute sniper on shore. He cross-drew the Beretta pistol Ahmad had given him and aimed at the fifty-caliber’s ratcheting bolt. Before he pulled the trigger a pair of guns opened up from inside the cabin. There had been more men than Booker had seen. With bullets whizzing by, Book fired five rapid shots. The machine gun fell silent as the bolt jammed in the ruined receiver. The plan had been to use the weapon to cover Ahmad’s assault but he had to settle for denying Poli’s men from using it themselves. He took a deep breath as he dropped off the boat and began swimming away from the craft a good five feet under the surface so he would create no wake.

As soon as he heard the machine gun out on the houseboat bellowing its deadly tattoo, Mercer started running boldly across the camp. He wasn’t dressed exactly like the Arab fighters but he hoped the kaffiyeh would give him anonymity. The men had instantly ended their reverie and reached for their weapons, their gaze directed at the dark houseboat.

Mercer was halfway to the sheltered hole they’d dug down to the tunnel when Ibriham Ahmad’s Janissaries engaged. Two of them appeared on the hill above the encampment as if defying the Qaida terrorists. They took down several of the confused men before anyone even saw they were there.

In seconds thirty AK-47s roared as one and the crest of the hill disappeared in a hail of gunfire and kicked up dirt. Mercer could only trust Ahmad’s men as they caught the Arab fighters in a withering crossfire. The ground exploded at his feet as bullets flew in every direction. He had another thirty yards to go when the officers began to organize their men behind natural cover positions. Their return fire became more disciplined and Mercer could only detect three of Ahmad’s men still in the fight. So far no one had paid him any attention but there were two men guarding the excavation who hadn’t left their posts. They stiffened as Mercer came closer.