The Lion's Game (19 page)

But she made no move to leave his side.

So they remained sitting together. Khalil was getting restless.

She began to speak, but he said, “Be still.” He had the disquieting feeling that something was happening that he needed to be aware of.

His mother had once told him that like his namesake, the lion, he had been blessed with a sixth sense, or second sight, as it was also called by the old women. He had assumed that everyone could sense danger or know that an enemy was nearby without seeing or hearing anything. But he had come to understand that this feeling was a special gift, and he realized now that what he had sensed all night had nothing to do with Bahira, or the military police, or being caught in fornication; it had to do with something else, but he didn’t know what it was yet. All he knew for certain was that something was wrong out there.

Chip Wiggins tried to ignore the streaks of tracer rounds sailing past his canopy. He had no point of reference in his life or in his training for what was happening. The whole scene around him was so surreal that he couldn’t process it as mortal danger. He concentrated on the display screens that made up the flight console in front of him. He cleared his throat and said to Satherwaite, “We’re on the money.”

Satherwaite acknowledged, with no inflection in his voice.

Wiggins said, “Less than two minutes to target.”

“Roger.”

Satherwaite knew he was supposed to kick in the afterburners now for a power boost, but to do so would cause a very long and very visible trail of bright exhaust behind his aircraft, which would draw every gun muzzle in his direction. There wasn’t supposed to be this much ground fire, but there was and he had to make a decision.

Wiggins said, “Afterburners, Bill.”

Satherwaite hesitated. The attack plan called for the extra speed of the afterburners, or he stood a good chance that his squadron mate—Remit 22—who was only thirty seconds behind him, would be climbing up his ass.

“Bill.”

“Right.” Satherwaite kicked in the afterburners, and the F-111F shot forward. He pulled back on his stick and the nose rose. Satherwaite glanced above his flight panel for a brief second and saw an elaborate display of lethal trajectories pass off to their port side. “Those assholes can’t shoot straight.”

Wiggins wasn’t so sure about that. He said, “On track, thirty seconds to release.”

Bahira held her lover’s arm. “What is wrong, Asad?”

“Be quiet.” He listened intently and thought he heard someone shout in the far distance. A vehicle started its engine close by. He scrambled toward his clothes and pulled his tunic on, then stood, peeking over the parapet. His eyes scanned the compound below, then something on the horizon caught his attention, and he looked north and east toward Tripoli.

Bahira was beside him now, clutching her clothes to her breasts. “What is it?” she asked insistently.

“I don’t know. Be still.” Something was terribly wrong, but whatever it was could not be seen or heard yet, though he felt it now, very strongly. He stared into the night and listened.

Bahira, too, peeked over the parapet. “Guards?”

“No. Something ... out there ...” Then he saw it—incandescent trails of bright fire curving up from the glow of the city of Tripoli into the dark sky above the Mediterranean.

Bahira saw them, too, and asked, “What is that?”

“Missiles.”
In the name of Allah, the merciful
... “Missiles, and anti-aircraft fire.”

Bahira grabbed his arm. “Asad ... what is happening?”

“Enemy attack.”

“No! No! Oh, please ...” She dropped to the floor and began pulling on her clothes. “We must get to the shelters.”

“Yes.” He pulled on his pants and shoes, forgetting his undershorts.

Suddenly, the ear-splitting shriek of an air raid siren filled the night air. Men began to shout and run out of the surrounding buildings, engines started, the streets filled with noise.

Bahira began running barefoot toward the stair shed, but Khalil caught up with her and pulled her down. “Wait! You can’t be seen running from this building. Let the others get to the shelters first.”

She looked at him. She trusted his judgment and she nodded.

Satisfied that she would stay where she was, Khalil ran back to the parapet and looked toward the city. “In the name of Allah ...” Flames were erupting in Tripoli, and he could now hear and feel the distant explosions like rolling desert thunder.

Then something else caught his eye, and he saw a shadowy blur hurtling toward him, backlighted by the lights and fires of Tripoli. From the blur trailed an enormous plume of red and white, and Khalil knew he was looking at the hot exhaust gases of a jet aircraft coming right at him. He stood frozen in terror and not even a scream could rise from his throat.

* * *

Bill Satherwaite again took his eyes off the electronic displays and grabbed another quick glimpse through his windscreen. Out of the darkness in front of them he could recognize the aerial view of Al Azziziyah that he’d seen a hundred times in satellite photos.

Wiggins said, “Stand by.”

Satherwaite shifted his attention back to the screens and concentrated on his flying and on the bomb-toss pattern that he would execute in a few seconds.

Wiggins said, “Three, two, one, drop.”

Satherwaite felt the aircraft lighten immediately and fought for control as he began the high-speed evasive maneuvers that would get them the hell out of there.

Wiggins was now working the controls that guided the two-thousand-pound laser-smart bombs on their paths to their pre-assigned targets. Wiggins said, “Tracking ... good picture ... got it ... steering ... steering ... impact! One, two, three, four. Beautiful.”

They could not hear the four bombs detonating inside the Al Azziziyah compound, but both of them could imagine the sound and the flash of the explosions. Satherwaite said, “We’re outta here.”

Wiggins added, “Bye-bye, Mr. Arabian guy.”

Asad could do nothing but stare at the incredible thing streaking toward him with fire belching out of its tail.

Suddenly, the attacking jet pulled straight up into the night sky, and its roar drowned out everything except Bahira Nadir’s scream.

The jet disappeared, and the sound subsided, but Bahira continued to scream and scream.

Khalil shouted to her, “Be quiet!” He glanced down into the street and saw two soldiers looking up toward him. He ducked below the parapet. Bahira was sobbing now.

As Khalil contemplated his next move, the roof beneath his feet jumped and threw him face down. The next thing he was aware of was the sound of an enormous explosion close by. Then there was another explosion, then another, then another. He covered his ears with his hands. The earth shook, he could feel the air pressure change, and his ears popped and his mouth opened in a silent scream. A rush of heat swept over him, the sky turned blood red, and pieces of rock, rubble, and earth began to fall from the heavens.
Allah, be merciful
.
Spare me
... The world was being destroyed around him. He had no air in his lungs, and he fought to get his breath. Everything was strangely quiet, and he realized he was deaf. He also realized that he had wet himself.

Little by little, his hearing returned, and he could hear Bahira screaming again, an outpouring of pure, unmitigated terror. She scrambled to her feet and staggered over to the far parapet and began screaming down into the courtyard below.

“Shut up!” He ran to her and grabbed for her arm, but she got away from him and began running around the rubble-strewn perimeter of the roof, shrieking at the top of her lungs.

Four more explosions erupted at the far east end of the compound.

Khalil spotted men on the adjoining roof setting up an anti-aircraft machine gun. Bahira saw them, too, and threw up her arms to them, shouting, “Help! Help!”

They saw her, but continued setting up the machine gun.

“Help me! Help!”

Khalil grabbed her from behind and pulled her down to the concrete roof. “Shut up!”

She fought with him, and he was amazed at her strength. She continued to scream, broke free of his arms and clawed at his face, opening gashes along his cheeks and neck.

Suddenly, the machine gun on the next building opened fire, and the staccato sound mixed with the wailing siren and the thuds of explosions in the distance. Red tracer rounds streaked up from the machine gun and this caused Bahira to scream again.

Khalil put his hand over her mouth, but she bit his finger, then brought her knee up into his groin and he rocked backwards.

She was completely hysterical, and he could see no way to calm her down.

But there was a way.

He put his hands around her neck and throat and squeezed.

The F-111 streaked southward over the desert, then Satherwaite banked hard to starboard and executed a hundred-and-fifty-degree turn that would bring them back over the coast a hundred kilometers west of Tripoli.

Wiggins said, “Nice flying, Skipper.”

Satherwaite didn’t acknowledge, but said, “Keep an eye out for the Libyan Air Force, Chip.”

Wiggins adjusted the knobs on his radar screen. “Clear skies. Gadhafi’s pilots are washing their underwear about now.”

“We hope.” The F-111 had no air-to-air missiles, and the idiots who designed it hadn’t even put a Gatling gun on board, so their only defense against another jet was speed and maneuver. “We hope,” he repeated. Satherwaite sent out a radio signal indicating that Karma 57 was among the living.

They sat in silence waiting for the other signals. Finally, the radio signals began coming in: Remit 22, with Terry Waycliff piloting and Bill Hambrecht as wizo; Remit 61, with Bob Callum piloting, Steve Cox, wizo; Elton 38, with Paul Grey piloting, Jim McCoy, wizo.

Their whole flight had made it.

Wiggins said, “I hope the other guys did okay.”

Satherwaite nodded. So far, this was a perfect mission and that made him feel good. He liked it when everything went as planned. Aside from the missiles and the Triple-A, which in any case had not done him or his flight mates any harm, this could have been a live-bomb training mission over the Mojave Desert. Satherwaite jotted an entry in his log. “Piece of cake.”

“Milk run,” Wiggins agreed.

Asad Khalil kept squeezing, and this had the intended effect of making her stop screaming. She looked at him with wide bulging eyes. He squeezed harder, and she began to thrash around beneath him. He squeezed even harder and the thrashing turned to muscle spasms, then even those stopped. He kept the pressure on her throat and looked into Bahira’s eyes, which were wide open and unblinking.

He counted to sixty and released his hands from her neck. He had solved the problem of the present and all the problems of the future with one relatively simple act.

He stood, put his Koran on the prayer mat, rolled it and tied it, put it over his shoulder and went down the stairs and out the building into the street.

All the lights in the compound were out, and he made his way through the darkness toward his home. With every step he took away from the building where Bahira lay dead on the roof, he was that much more removed, physically and mentally, from any involvement with the dead girl.

A building in front of him was in ruins and by the light of the burning structure, he saw dead soldiers lying all around him. A man’s face stared up at him, the white skin reddened by the reflected flames. The man’s eyes had popped out of his skull and blood ran from his eye sockets, his nose, his ears, and his mouth. Khalil fought down the nausea in his churning stomach, but he caught a whiff of burning flesh and vomited.

He rested a moment, then pushed on, still carrying his prayer mat.

He wanted to pray, but the Koran specifically prohibited a man from praying after he had intercourse with a woman, unless he first washed himself, including his face and hands.

He saw a ruptured cistern pouring water down the side of a building, and he stopped to wash his face and hands, then washed the blood and urine from his genitals.

He moved on, reciting long passages from the Koran, praying for the safety of his mother, sisters, and brothers.

He saw fires raging from the direction he was headed, and he began running.

This night, he reflected, had begun in sin and ended in hell. Lust led to sin, sin led to death. Hellfires raged all around him. The Great Satan himself had delivered punishment to him and to Bahira. But Allah the merciful had spared his life, and as he ran he prayed that Allah had also spared his family.

As an afterthought, he also prayed for Bahira’s family and for the Great Leader.

As Asad Khalil, age sixteen, ran through the ruins of Al Azziziyah, he understood that he had been tested by Satan and by Allah, and that from this night of sin, death, and fire he would emerge a man.

Asad Khalil continued running toward his home. There were more people in this quarter of the compound—soldiers, women, a few children, and they were running, or walking slowly as if stunned; some he realized were on their knees praying.

Khalil turned a corner and stopped dead in his tracks. The row of attached stucco houses where he lived looked strangely different. Then he realized there were no shutters on the windows, and he noticed debris strewn in the open square in front of the houses. But even more strange was the fact that moonlight came through the open windows and doors. He suddenly realized that the roofs had collapsed into the buildings and blown out the doors, windows, and shutters.
Allah, I beg of you, please, no
...

He felt as if he were going to faint, then he took a deep breath and ran toward his house, stumbling over pieces of concrete, dropping his prayer mat, finally reaching the doorway opening. He hesitated, then rushed inside to what had been the front room.