No Remorse (40 page)

As they studied the plan, they gulped down the food Fanning had left. It had handwritten notes that had not been included on the copy of the plan Mai had given him.

“Look. Two exits!” Tally whispered, pointing at the two passages running parallel to the tunnel. One led to a concealed exit in the cliffs behind the resort, while the other was a ventilation shaft that ended at the waterfalls near the Kimba peninsula road. There was an exit at the base of the falls that he had not found before.

“The whole crater’s hollow. Mai said Bill had four trusted workers who helped him build the access points and keep them concealed whenever Khalid and Ziad made inspections. Okay, you take the ventilation shaft to the waterfalls. First, find a phone and before you call Wisebaum, call Jog Khoury. He’s here, on a boat called the
Rabi.
Tell them—”

Tally grasped his arm and squeezed it. “What if I’m caught by Colonel Boroni? No thanks. I’m sticking with you.”

He shone the light in her face. She had a determined look and this wasn’t the time to argue. Besides, he might need her. “Okay. Do you think you can shoot this?”

“Put it this way: if I see Khalid or Ziad, I’ll empty the whole freaking clip. Just point the way.”

“Good enough.” He tore up the plan and hid the pieces under the pipes running along the floor of the cavity. Then he ran through the operation of the Spectre.

Tally’s face set in a stoic expression. “I can do it. Let’s go. It’s all or nothing now.”

Sophia was conscious of a male voice speaking accented English as she was wheeled along the corridor, although the injection and tablets had made her drowsy and her pleading was, as usual, ignored. There was a strange, chemical smell, like bathroom cleaner.

“You are very privileged,” the voice was saying. “Allah has chosen you to help keep a very important man alive. Perhaps someday you will be remembered for that, even if you are an infidel.”

Sophia didn’t really understand, but she knew she wasn’t an infidel. “Chrish-yan. Kr-eest-tan,” she said. Christian. But her tongue felt like a squash ball and wouldn’t make the words.

The gurney stopped and four staff hauled her onto a narrow table with two round bright lights above her. Her body urged her to sleep, but she fought it. Across the other side of the room, lying on a second table, was a tall man with long gray hair and a long beard. He looked a little like a weather-beaten Albus Dumbledore from Harry Potter. His body was covered in a sheet, except for an area on his abdomen where lines had been drawn with a marker pen. They turned her head and undid the twill tapes on her hospital gown. They put up a screen below her neck. She could feel the tingle of a pen marking lines on her lower abdomen.

“Let us begin. First, we will—”

A voice she recognized as that of Sheik Khalid came through the speakers. “Please speak Arabic for our guests, Dr. Xi.”

“Of course,” said the man in blue as he raised his mask. He switched from English to Arabic, and Sophia could no longer understand the words as she drifted off into oblivion.

Mac and Tally emerged from the tunnel at the base of the cliffs, about two hundred yards from the resort outbuildings. They could see Colonel Boroni’s men at the end of the beach, near the jetty. But there were no guards at the back of the resort, and any posted on the roof were probably watching the bay. That would make sense. Intruders would not be expected to come from the direction of the cliffs. Still, he was conscious of the cameras on the ridgeline and on top of the resort building as they crawled through the scrubby bush among the sand dunes, making a wide berth around two fire-ant nests. As they passed through the boatshed, Mac grabbed a lifejacket as a make-do noise suppressor.

They entered the laundry.

Two minutes later they left, wearing theater scrubs and surgical masks as the fire they had lit with dry-cleaning chemicals and bed linen quickly grew. Mac was wearing shoes taken from one of the laundry workers he’d shot. They hurried along the corridor and an alarm sounded. They quickly slipped into the air conditioning plant room. A man working on the equipment looked up at them and hurled himself at a weapon resting against the wall. Mac shot him.

“They must have discovered us missing!” Tally said, watching the door with her submachine gun ready as the alarm blared its distinctive tone like an air-raid siren.

He pulled a switch to activate the fire alarm. Now the intruder siren was accompanied by a
WHOOP WHOOP
of the fire alarm. He prayed the surgeons had not already started the operation.

Mac unscrewed a section of air conditioning duct between the compressor and the resort building and lit the two smoke flares he’d found in the boatshed. He shoved them inside the duct. “Ready?”

Tally nodded.

He took a breath and opened the door a crack. After a few moments, two guards came running along the corridor. He pulled back and closed the door. They ran past towards the laundry. At that instant, orange smoke began to billow out of the ventilation ducts in the ceiling.

“Let’s go!”

They ran along the corridor towards the operating theatres, stopping at each intersection to check the way ahead. Around the next corner he spotted three men running towards them, one carrying a fire extinguisher.

“It’s the laundry!” one of the men shouted. “Get the fire hose outside!”

Mac shot them and ran ahead of Tally through the double swing doors into the operating room wing. Tally let out a warning cry. Mac turned in time to see a guard behind him bringing up his weapon. This time he could not avoid a bullet.

Tally fired, hitting the man. She fired again and the man fell, his weapon clattering onto the floor.

“Thanks! “Which way?”

“Left!” Tally shouted.

Mac whipped his head back, avoiding a deafening blast of automatic fire that chipped holes in the tiled wall. He returned fire. Two bearded men wearing traditional white Arab thobes dropped to the floor. Zodhami’s men perhaps? Was Sophia here? Was the operation underway?

They crossed the corridor.

Mac could see through the semitransparent doors people moving around in one of the theaters. “In there!”

Tally shouldered open the door to the theater while Mac ran up the stairs to the observation room. He was about to kick in the door when more men in white robes rushed out with weapons.

“
Y’Allah!
” one of the bearded men yelled.

Mac squeezed off a burst and continued firing as he ran over the two dead men and rammed the door. The hail of metal from his weapon cut another man down. Return fire from a pistol shattered a window partition next to him. He took cover around a corner and fired off the rest of the clip from the Spectre, then dropped the weapon.

Mac held the pistol ready as he scanned the observation room, glancing down at Tally holding the medical team at gunpoint in the operating theater. Orange smoke began to blow out of the vents. Mac scanned the operation room and spotted Sophia. She was unmoving on one of the operating tables. They’d found her! Despite the danger they were still in, Mac felt an enormous relief as he thought of Bob and Elena’s reaction if they knew. But she wasn’t moving. Had they arrived too late? On the other operating table was an old man—Al Qaeda’s second-in-command, Sheik Zodhami.

Tally checked Sophia and signaled him. Thumbs up. She’s alive!

Then he spotted Khalid, playing possum under the dead bodyguard. He went over and kicked him. Khalid grunted a protest.

“Get up, asshole.”

“You have no chance. Best you leave me here and take the girl.” Khalid rolled out from under the bloody bodyguard.

“Sure. We could do that.” McCloud glanced out to see if any more guards were creeping up the corridor.

Suddenly Khalid lashed out with his khanjar. Mac stepped back, but not fast enough. The razor edge slashed his pistol arm. Blood began to soak through the blue scrubs. Mac switched the weapon to his other hand and pointed the muzzle at Khalid’s head. “Give it to me.”

Khalid paused for a moment, shrugged, then handed over the khanjar. “You’ll never get off this island. You will pay in days of pain for this.”

Mac pressed the khanjar to Khalid’s throat. “It would be a pleasure to kill you now.” Spotting one of the Al Qaeda men’s AK-47s, he picked it up and said, “For your sake, you’d better hope we
do
make it. Because if we don’t you’ll be dead. And any lack of cooperation and I will slice a chunk off your face. Now, where’s the other girl? Danni.”

Ziad was walking along the eastern end of the beach discussing with Colonel Boroni and Captain Khan the deployment of their personnel to guard the Yubani Resort, when the intruder alert sounded. He radioed the control center. “Report.”

“The prisoners are gone, brother. They killed two of our men.”

Ziad began to laugh. He had warned Khalid that the Americans were trouble and that he should be allowed to kill them immediately. But Khalid had wanted to keep them as hostages, fearing that his American contact Wisebaum could cause mischief. Now it had come back to bite him. Perhaps this would make His Highness take more notice of him in future.

Then suddenly, the fire alarm began. He radioed security again.

“They have set fire to the building,” replied the anxious voice. “We are evacuating. They are headed for the operating theaters.”

Ziad considered for a moment. This could be a great opportunity. The other guards would probably stop them. But if not, if Khalid was killed, he would move quickly and take control of the enormous wealth and the nuclear canisters they had stored in the fortress. Or if the Americans tried to escape, there may be an opportunity for him to rescue Khalid and save face following the Sheriti episode. He gave orders to Captain Khan and Colonel Boroni, then ran to get into position.

They lined the medical team up in the operating theater with their masks down.

“Which of you are the surgeons?” Mac asked them.

Nobody stepped forward.

Khalid turned and grinned at Mac condescendingly. “As I said, you have no chance, Sergeant. You and her against my men and Colonel Boroni’s? Ha! You are going to regret this, in the hours that I—”

Mac smashed the butt of the AK-47 into his face. Khalid uttered a howl and lifted his hands to his shattered nose as blood poured down his robe. Mac rammed the butt into his fingers. Khalid let out a scream as the bone of his nose was crushed a second time. His eyes welled up with tears.

“That’s for what you did to my nose. An eye for an eye,” Mac said. “Now, you arrogant prick, you begin
your
lesson in respect.”

Fear had replaced arrogance on Khalid’s face. “All right. I will do as you want.”

“Yes, you will, asshole.” He glanced at Tally, who nodded her support. “Now, who are the surgeons?”

Khalid pointed to two men.

“Are these men the surgeons?” he asked, addressing the medical team. Several of the team members nodded.

“There’ll be no more operations here,” he said, and shot the two surgeons in the head.

Several bursts of automatic fire came from outside, clattering against metal equipment. Nobody was hit.

“Tell your men to pull back!”

“Stop firing!” Khalid yelled. His own men had almost shot him. “Get back! Go outside, you fools!”

“Now we move.”

They slowly made their way along the corridor into the deserted lobby. Two of the medicos pushed the gurney with the unconscious Sophia, and two others pushed the gurney with Sheik Zodhami. Four of the medical staff walked ahead of them and four behind.

“Do you believe him about Danni being sold?” Tally asked.

“Don’t know. She could be here, could have been used in a transplant even. Hopefully we’ll see her among the people being evacuated.”

A dozen or so people, medical and nursing staff, other employees, and patients were evacuating. Three attendants were pushing young males in wheelchairs. They had bandages suggesting mainly arm or leg injuries.

“Patients or donors?” Mac asked, prodding Khalid with the khanjar.

“These men are from the crew of the
Princess Aliya
,” Khalid replied, having some difficulty speaking. “Shot when Israelis attacked us on the way here.”

The elevator behind them sounded a
ding
. Mac pulled Khalid behind a huge Romanesque column, holding the pistol at his head. The elevator doors opened and an attendant wheeled a young, semiconscious female out into the lobby towards the exit. She was bandaged around the abdomen. Another woman accompanied them. For a moment, Mac thought the patient might be Danni.

“Who’s that?” he asked.

“Just another guest.”

Tally said, “I recognize them. It’s Rubi, his sister, and Jamila, his wife.”

Mac reversed the khanjar and sliced off Khalid’s left ear.

“No!” Khalid screamed. He sank to his knees. “What have you done?” He picked the ear up off the floor.

Rubi ran over to him and found a cloth to hold against the wound.