“My client has not even been arraigned, Lomax!”
“He will be…alone.”
Sammy tried to stand but was held down by the restraint. “No way! Ernie was the one, man.”
“Sammy!” his attorney shouted. “Keep quiet.”
“You shut up! This is my life, man. I didn’t do all this alone. Ernie set it up, man — him and his Rukn bros.”
“Do you want to talk, Sammy?”
“Hell yes!”
Lomax looked to the frustrated PD. “Shall I get a DA in here, and a crew?”
“Go ahead, why not?” he answered, giving his client a glance filled with pity. Stupid kid. “It’ll get thrown out, anyway.”
“You think so?” Lomax walked to the door. “I’m not so sure.”
For the next thirty minutes Sammy Jackson spoke slowly and clearly into the microphone, telling all, while the video camera saved every sickening moment of it.
Fifteen
PENANCE
He was not of Berber descent, which meant he had spent most of his early life in or near the city. The vast openness of the desert was alien then. He had come to appreciate it later as commander of the 3rd. Its location, far enough from Benghazi to render the city lights’ glow an afterthought, made it an ideal spot to stargaze. Stars cast a light all their own on moonless nights, of which this night was not one. There was a small sliver of a crescent high in the sky. It would begin to fade soon. Muhadesh looked to the east. No trace of the coming day was yet visible.
It was quiet and cool. The engine of the jeep was off and losing warmth. Muhadesh felt the little remaining on his butt as he leaned against the hood. He wore his blousy dress greens and the beloved mottled-pattern commando parka. At his side was the World War II vintage Makarov from al-Dir.
“My friend, what would you think of me?” He asked the sky. Al-Dir, the warrior patriot, would shoot him, Muhadesh knew. “You have not done what I have. You killed our enemies.” I killed our people, he added silently, afraid that his friend might somehow appear in the darkness.
The Americans had given him a way to relieve his guilt, to exorcise the ghosts that haunted him, or so he thought. He had no particular love for the Americans, but he did love his homeland. Why, then, had he betrayed it? To avenge those I have murdered, he would answer, knowing there was a more correct response. He had to hide his guilt. Masking his own culpability was essential. I am alive. So many had died because he had chosen life for himself. I could have said no. Yes, he had saved lives with his treachery, but he wondered if the number saved was not hopelessly outweighed by those who had perished at his own hands, and those slaughtered by his students. I am alive, while they are damned to eternal sleep.
Muhadesh walked away from the vehicle. He faced north. The ocean was far away, yet he felt himself drowning where he stood. Again the quiet surrounded him, driving away his thoughts, and then he heard it: faint, still, and far away. It was an unmistakable sound. He slid the right side of his parka back.
It was a world of noise in the blackened cabin. Both side doors of the SH-60 Oceanhawk were fully open, with camo-clad Marines dangling their legs out, their M-16s pointing downward into the darkness. The night-vision goggles on their eight faces looked like stubby binoculars pasted on welding goggles. Each of the two pilots wore them also, as did Dick Logan.
“Pickup in two minutes,” the pilot announced, though he didn’t know exactly who he was picking up — a friendly, he had been told. He was flying at fifty feet in his hastily painted helicopter — he liked the “mean” look of its squat, black body — trying to pick out a man-size object, which was supposed to be there, but might not. He had flown special ops in the Gulf War, over similar terrain, and was familiar with the reality that “packages” weren’t always where they were supposed to be, when they were supposed to be there.
“FLIR is showin’ nothin’,” the right-seater said. The Forward Looking Infrared sensor would pick up any ambient heat, such as that generated by a man’s body, on a narrow track out a few hundred meters to the helicopter’s front.
“Right. Mister, is this guy supposed to signal us, or what?”
“That’s not in the plan,” Logan answered honestly. To either side of him the eight jarheads swept their areas of observation.
They were coming. Muhadesh was not certain until that moment. The pickup procedure had been laid out years before with safety and rapidity in mind, but there was no guarantee. He had ensured that they would come, however. The final answers were tucked away securely in his breast pocket with the other note — a request.
The whop whop of the approaching helicopter now assured him. No longer would he fear tomorrow, or the killing. He breathed deeply. The desert air tasted sweet and dry. His soul would be safe. That was his last concern, that his body not be desecrated by his vengeful countrymen.
Muhadesh undid the buckled holster cover and brought the Makarov up close to his ear. The sound was close now, off to his left. He half expected to feel the rotor wash.
“Thank you, al-Dir,” he said aloud, no longer afraid of today, or tomorrow, but still unaware that his last conscious act was motivated by the fear that was, truly, his soul’s undoing.
“There!” a bulky Marine shouted, pointing with his rifle and reaching behind with his free hand to tap Logan.
“Watcha got, Sergeant?” Logan leaned over against his restraints and pulled one earphone free.
“Over there, maybe three hundred yards. Looked like a muzzle flash.”
“Roger.” Logan patted the flak-jacketed soldier. “Major, one of the troops saw what may be a muzzle flash to starboard. Three hundred yards off.”
“Roger.” The Oceanhawk banked severely to the right, making the landlubber CIA officer grab for a handhold. He was jealous of the Recon Marines who swung easily with the roll of the helicopter.
The FLIR picked it up immediately. ‘Two sources, Maj. Come left.” The co-pilot adjusted the sensitivity of the FLIR. “One small, man-sized. The other’s a truck or something, no doubt.”
There would be no mistakes here. “Let’s sweep the area.” The pilot pulled back on the collective and brought the nose down, giving the SH-60 altitude and speed. He wanted to circle the area of the heat sources to make certain there were no surprises awaiting them. After two full sweeps the pilot brought the nose back around toward the sources.
“Dead ahead.” The co-pilot now had a better vantage point with the FLIR. Altitude gave a higher aspect to the scene, making the picture more obvious, and more ominous. “Just the two sources, but I don’t like it. See that one.” His finger pointed to a ghostly green spot of light on the screen.
The pilot didn’t like it either. “Lieutenant?”
In the cabin the Marine commander leaned farther in to escape the noise of the downwash. He pushed the boom mike almost into his mouth. “Go ahead!”
“We’re showing two sources: one man, looks prone, and a vehicle about ten yards beyond him. The area looks clean. I’m gonna set you down fifty yards this side of the guy. Roger?”
“Roger.” The lieutenant tapped the man to his left on the helmet, the sequence continuing around the cabin until all the Marines were alerted.
Logan felt hopelessly under armed with his seven-shot .45, but it would have to do. Really, he hoped it wouldn’t need to.