The men charged through the blown door. Quinn heard gunfire. Pulling his Glock, he chambered a shell then patted his pocket, checking for the spare magazine. He could only watch and wait; he was no match for what had smashed into the building.
Keep your head down, Abdul.
Commotion downstairs woke Abdul with a start. An explosion shook his bed, and he sprang to his feet. Ghazi’s gruff voice barked orders. Abdul grabbed his clothes and rushed across the landing to Adiba’s room. Since his return from Jaffa, the doors were no longer locked, although they were still prisoners. Adiba sat up in bed, eyes stretched wide.
“Get dressed,” he said as he pulled on his jeans. She jumped out of bed in her bra and panties and snatched up her clothes. Theirs were the only rooms on this floor. Nowhere to hide, and he didn’t dare go downstairs, so when they were dressed he sat on her cot and pulled her close. She shook so much her teeth chattered. “They’re not here for us. Just sit tight.” Abdul said. He hoped he was right.
By 4:03 a.m., a raging gunfight vibrated through the building. Adiba covered her ears. The noise was terrifying. Then, suddenly, it stopped. Abdul checked the time again: 4:05 a.m. Two minutes, it seemed longer.
When Adiba began to speak, Abdul put a hand over her mouth and signaled for silence with his finger to his lips. He crept to the door, and when he pressed his ear against the thin wood, he heard the stern voice of command.
“Dawson. Two wounded for extraction. You three, come with me.”
Abdul was shocked. He’d expected Hebrew not American.
Then, in passable Arabic this time, the same man shouted, “Stand and show yourself!”
Some of Ghazi’s people must be alive.
The American screamed, “Drop your weapon, now!” A moment’s silence preceded another short burst of automatic weapons fire. Then silence again. Blood pounded in Abdul’s ears.
A second American shouted, “Captain? Holy shit!”
An unnatural quiet descended for five beats of Abdul’s racing heart before being pierced by a series of high-pitched shrieks that sounded hardly human. Adiba scurried across and pressed herself to his body. Her breath came in quick, shallow pants. He put his arm around her without lifting his ear from the door.
Abdul checked the time, 4:10. He whispered, “We should wait. We don’t know who’s still downstairs.” Adiba nodded and squeezed his arm. He kissed her forehead and pulled her close. She tasted of salt. Silence enveloped the building. He checked his watch again. Time was standing still.
“Five minutes, let’s give it five minutes,” he whispered.
By 4:14, nothing had changed, and he began to breathe easier. Then he heard someone moving downstairs. Abdul’s heart sank. He had dared to hope the Americans had killed the terrorists, and he and Adiba would walk away from this terrible situation and go back to their lives.
Her eyes went wide. She heard it too.
Someone was downstairs.
“Abdul! Abdul!”
A man shouting; he thought he recognized the voice, but how?
“Abdul. Adiba!”
This time he was sure. “That’s Quinn,” he said.
“Quinn. How?” Adiba whispered.
“Dunno, but that’s him all right.”
Abdul opened the door, poked his head out.
“Quinn, is that you?” he shouted.
“Thank God. I thought you were dead for sure.” Quinn charged up the stairs, three at a time.
Abdul and Adiba stepped onto the landing.
“You okay?” Quinn asked, and he spanned his long arms around the two of them and pulled them into a bear hug.
When he released them, the big man said, “Hi, Adiba. I’m Quinn. Come on. We need to move. Someone’s bound to show after that racket.”
They followed him downstairs. Abdul scanned the office: papers scattered everywhere, walls ripped apart where rapid-fire weapons had strafed them. Abdul couldn’t believe guns created such havoc and destruction.
Abdul pointed to the large man spread-eagled over the side of his upturned metal desk, chest torn open and covered in blood; in his hand he held an aerosol can. “That’s Ghazi.”
Stinky slumped against a filing cabinet with part of his face missing and chunks of his flesh splattered over the filing cabinets behind him. The card players lay across each other on the ground, blood pooled around them. Two men in black combat gear, nigh-vision goggles still strapped to their faces, blocked the door leading to the hallway. Another, dressed the same, sprawled near the aerosol in Ghazi’s outstretched hand.
“Come on, let’s go.” Quinn stepped over the dead soldiers and stood in the hallway, waving impatiently.
Abdul turned to follow, but he heard a noise. “Wait, what was that?”
“Come on, Abdul. No time.”
“Listen.” Abdul held up his hand for silence. The sound was familiar to him. Maybe that’s why he had noticed, because his mind recognized the patterns, unmistakable to any Muslim.
Someone was saying morning prayers.
Abdul moved toward the open door at the rear of the office. He had never been through this way. Stepping around the dead soldiers, he stopped at the threshold of a large laboratory, one hundred feet square with dozens of equipment-covered worktables and computer stations. Five feet inside the room, another man in black combat gear knelt with his back to them. Abdul wasn’t sure whether he was alive, but he didn’t see any blood. He prodded the soldier’s shoulder with his foot and shouted. “Oi!”
The man toppled, slowly, like a vase tumbling from a shelf. His body remained rigid, locked in the kneeling position. When he hit the ground his neck twisted around. Abdul stared but couldn’t fathom what he saw. Where the soldier’s face should have been was a mass of black foam. Abdul checked a second soldier, a few feet farther into the room and flat on his back. A black block of charcoal, bigger than a basketball, protruded from his flak jacket in place of his head. Two more of the invading soldiers lay dead beyond him with heads and faces distorted and disfigured by the same black compound.
A hand slammed onto Abdul’s shoulder, and he jumped a mile.
“Come on. These soldiers will be missed. The Israelis have plenty more where they came from,” Quinn said.
“I heard them talking, Quinn. They weren’t Israeli. They were American,” Abdul said.
“What? Well, whoever. Let’s go.” Quinn stared past Abdul at the four bodies and the black charcoal and muttered, “I’ve seen this movie before.”
“What about him?” Abdul pointed across the room. Past a line of flip-charts covered in math symbols and diagrams. Past a glove box. Past a row of tables crammed with computer equipment. On the far side of the lab, one hundred feet from the door, a solitary figure knelt on a prayer mat with his back to them, bobbing up and down in supplication and singing in a low, rhythmic voice.
“It’s a kid,” Quinn said. He shouted. “Hey! Are you okay?” The child ignored him. “Fuck it. Let’s get out of here.”
“We can’t leave him,” Abdul said.
Quinn sighed and pushed past Abdul. “Come on then.” He jogged across the lab. Abdul followed.
Adiba appeared in the doorway behind them. “What’s happening?”
Abdul shouted over his shoulder. “There’s a child over here. We have to help him.”
Adiba stayed where she was, staring at the fallen soldiers and their ravaged faces.
Quinn reached him first. He banged the boy on the back and shouted. “Hey! Kid!”
The kid jumped and turned to face them. But this was no child; he had a heavy beard and dark caterpillar eyebrows. Lost in his prayers, he’d apparently been unaware of their presence. Abdul spoke to the man in Arabic.