“I need to be alone. I want to walk back to the hotel.”
“No way, Claire. Too dangerous. C’mon, I’ll drive you back.”
“I’m okay, really. I just need to be alone. Don’t worry about me.”
Before he could argue any more, she gave him a peck on the cheek, then started walking down the street. She glanced over her shoulder once and saw Maloney watching her. He was leaning against the Toyota while he fumbled with the key. He gave her a wave, and she waved back.
She was half a block away when she heard it.
The sound of the explosion and the concussion arrived together, rocking her like a blast of wind. She whirled in time to see the Toyota’s hood and other assorted pieces clanging off the building across the street.
The car was a fireball. The flaming pyre gushed thirty feet into the air, illuminating the cobbled street in an angry orange glare.
Her first instinct was to run to the burning automobile, try to help. Do something. Maybe Vince had somehow survived. Maybe…
She ran a few steps, then stopped. He’s dead, you idiot. And you’re next.
In the glare of the fire she saw figures, silhouettes. Heard voices yelling in Arabic.
She turned and ran. One of her high-heeled leather shoes caught on the cobblestones. She fell, banging her elbow and knee on the rough-surfaced street.
Behind her the voices were coming nearer. She heard running footsteps. Bystanders? Witnesses? Police?
Killers.
She yanked off her shoes and jumped to her feet. Ignoring the pain of the stones on her bare soles, she ran down the yellow-lighted street. She heard them running after her.
An image was floating through Gus Gritti’s mind. In his fatigued imagination he could see his hands wrapped around the windpipe of the dumb sonofabitch who was responsible for putting him and his marines in Yemen.
The only problem was, there were multiple dumb sons of bitches. One was a two-star squid Battle Group Commander who didn’t know an amphibious assault from a circle jerk. Another prime candidate was the pissant civilian tea sipper who thought marines were as expendable as Kleenex. Gritti would happily strangle either of them.
Another volley of AK-47 rounds pinged off the boulder where he hunched down next to Plunkett. The incoming fire had slackened, becoming more random. Darkness had come, and Gritti guessed that the Sherji would either make an all-out assault on the perimeter, or they would back off and wait for the next wave of helos.
“What’s the count, Master Sergeant?”
“Seven wounded, three dead, not counting the chopper crews. Two on the first Cobra and one the second. Three wiped out in the Stallion.”
“Where’s Tillman?” Lieutenant Tillman was the weapons platoon commander.
“One of the wounded. Sergeant Gonzales reports that he has the north perimeter stabilized.”
Gritti listened for a moment to the sporadic sounds of gunfire. He heard a single sharp crack of a heavy-caliber gun.
“Have the sniper teams deployed yet?”
“One in position with the Barrett,” said Plunkett. “The second is getting set up now.” The Barrett M82A1A sniper rifle was an extreme-range weapon. It was carried in several pieces by members of the team. The rifle’s massive .50-caliber slug could spread terror by picking off unsuspecting targets — officers, vehicles, antennae — more than a mile away.
That was exactly what Gritti wanted now — some old-fashioned terror among the Sherji before they got their nerve up for another assault.
He still didn’t know what they were up against. How many more did Al-Fasr have out there? Was another wave coming? He was getting assurances from Rivet Joint — the four-engined RC-135 intelligence-gathering jet in orbit offshore — that no heavy equipment was being deployed toward the marines.
Yeah, bullshit, thought Gritti. After this sucker trap, he had zero faith in the battle group’s intelligence sources. At the moment he was willing to believe only what he could see, which included the knowledge that his marines had killed at least fifty Sherji during the initial assault. He also had seen the Hornets decimate another unknown number with their cluster bombs and twenty-millimeter cannon. Al-Fasr’s artillery and most of his armor had gone silent after the bombing.
Now what? Warlord still wasn’t saying whether the TRAP team was being lifted out, reinforced, or to be included in an all-out sweep through Al-Fasr’s stronghold.
Gritti had never felt so frustrated. He didn’t want to sit inside the perimeter waiting for the Sherji to make the next move, but he was too short on perimeter defenses to risk sending out patrols.
“Stay here,” he said to Plunkett. “I’m going to check on the wounded.”
There was a tiny lapse between transmissions. That was to be expected, Babcock assumed, when your call was scrambled, bounced off a satellite, and then unscrambled.
“You have not kept your word,” he said.
“I gave my word that we would not retaliate after the air strike if you did not send in an assault force. But then you sent in an assault force.”
“That was not an assault. You already know that the marine team was sent for no purpose except to retrieve the downed pilots. No other objective. Now the situation has become very complicated. The President has no choice except to order a strike.”
For several seconds Babcock heard nothing on the secure telephone. He wondered if they had been disconnected. He heard only the tinny background hum of the satellite uplink.
“This can still be resolved,” he heard Al-Fasr say. “My agents in San‘a report that they are almost ready to initiate the coup. When they give the signal, my troops will seize the military headquarters and the government broadcasting station. We expect no resistance. I will control the Republic of Yemen.”
“Fine. What about our marines on the ground? They have to be lifted out.”
“It will be possible within a day or so.”
“We don’t have a day or so. I’m telling you, the United States will not tolerate letting its soldiers be trapped by an enemy. If you resist another recovery attempt, I cannot be responsible for what happens. A massive strike will follow.”
Another silence of several seconds. “That would be a grave mistake, my friend.”
Babcock was losing patience. “Why are you complicating this? Why are you keeping our marines pinned down in Yemen?”
“To insure that your government keeps its word. We are at a crucial moment in this adventure, Whitney. I must be certain that the United States will not betray us at the last moment and install one of their puppets in San‘a.”
“You have to trust us. You have no choice.”
“Choice? Oh, I have many choices. It is you who has no choice, not if you wish to have a presence in Yemen after I control the country.”
“Just tell me that we can retrieve the marines. There must be no more ambushes, no resistance.”
“Soon. I will inform you.”
The tinny sound of the satellite phone abruptly ended. Al-Fasr was gone.
For a while Babcock stared at the silent phone in his compartment. More than ever, he had the feeling that he had made a pact with a terrorist. It was possible that someone would someday uncover a record of these negotiations with Al-Fasr. He would be judged by history as the visionary statesman who secured America’s energy supply for the next decade. Or he would be pilloried as a traitor.
Which? It depended on what happened in the next four hours.
Al-Fasr emerged from the communications bunker, his eyes adjusting to the darkness. The temperature in the Yemeni highlands was balmy, the air dry and cool. He was wearing his usual working costume — tailored olive flight suit, polished boots, sunglasses. On his hip was the ever-present SatPhone and the nickel-plated SIG Sauer semiautomatic pistol.