His head throbbed, and he could feel his pulse quickening, straining in his chest, hammering so hard he thought he would pass out; the oxygen mask he wore suddenly seemed constricting, threatening, and he knew he was going to be sick right inside it.
His hands went to the mask to rip it off his face, but his fingers failed, grasping at thin air as his mind collapsed and his vision faded, the thought of innocent blood flying through the air the last thing he saw before he passed out completely, body inert in the jump seat of the jet airplane as it carried him towards Mecca.
Jeb Richards felt the sweat pouring down his face, despite the chill of the air conditioning.
Did anyone suspect anything? Quraishi was gone, vanished into thin air; the Saudi authorities had failed to arrest him, or even to locate him.
He thought he’d managed to deflect the initial enquiries nicely, offering up his own suspicions on Quraishi before he was asked about his meeting. But if the attack went ahead, any subsequent investigation would surely reveal Richards’ prior knowledge.
Or would it? Richards exhaled slowly and picked up his glass of wine, gulping it down as he waited for Clark Mason to arrive. Things were frantic at the White House, but Richards had managed to get a table at the nearby Café du Parc, a little French bistro on Pennsylvania Avenue. After all, he had to eat, didn’t he?
Richards let his mind examine the possibilities. If the attack went ahead, then millions of people would be killed — maybe himself included. What remained of the federal government would be a shambles, and it would take years to rebuild the country; and it would probably never be the same again. In such a situation — if he managed to survive — it was unlikely that anyone would still care about investigating who knew what. They’d all be too busy just trying to survive.
But such a scenario wasn’t exactly reassuring. So maybe he should just make a run for it? Avoid the plague that was coming, take the money he’d been given and escape?
But what if the attack was prevented? Would it be possible for him to create a new life somewhere else, without the authorities catching up with him? Because if he made a run for it, they would definitely do everything within their power to find him.
He poured himself more wine and took a large sip. It was difficult; the best he could hope to do was damage limitation. He would have to hope that the attack didn’t work; and then he would have to hope that his own role would remain undetected. The death of Quraishi would help with that, he realized. His brow knotted in concentration, he understood that he would have to do all he could to help find Quraishi — and make sure that he was not arrested and interrogated, but was just killed on the spot like bin Laden before him.
It would be useful to get Mason’s take on the situation, he thought as he sat back in his chair, scanning the small restaurant. Where the hell was the man, anyway?
It was then that he saw the maître d’ approaching his table.
‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘but I am afraid your guest has just telephoned with his apologies. He won’t be able to make it, I’m afraid.’
Richards said nothing, just waved the man away.
So, Clark Mason had abandoned him already. Was it because of his meeting with Quraishi? Did he suspect a connection, and was severing ties with Richards just in case?
His shoulders slumped and he pulled his tie away from his neck, slurping at his wine to combat the encroaching heat.
He wasn’t an introspective man by nature, nor one to second-guess his own actions.
But, he finally admitted to himself, he might well have made an error of judgment when he decided to play Russian roulette with America’s security.
He just hoped he would live to regret it.
Captain Xie Wei had come back into the sprawling camp with Navarone, even as the rest of Red Squadron’s Bravo Troop led the four thousand prisoners to the relative safety of the western forest.
Both men raced through the camp with desperate speed, jumping over dead bodies like hurdles on an athletics track, their focus on one thing, and one thing only — the small building which housed the children.
Navarone knew they had to rescue them — if they couldn’t, then they were as good as dead. When the B2’s MOPs dropped on the camp, the survival rate would be zero.
Navarone knew it was crazy — he had already risked everything to lead the prison break, and had ensured the hopeful survival of thousands of previously doomed prisoners. But it wasn’t enough; a building full of children couldn’t just be abandoned; it just couldn’t. How would he look his sisters in the eye again, knowing that he’d failed to do everything in his power to help those kids?
Images of his two sisters flashed through his mind, and he felt his legs pumping even harder, speed increasing until at last he was there, Xie just behind him.
In the distance, he could hear the blasts of Claymores and the screams of injured soldiers. And above them all, the sky grew dark as rainclouds moved in, the ominous sounds of thunder rumbling through the valley.
He could see eyes opening wide behind the windows, small hands pushed through the shattered glass, pulling uselessly at the steel bars which held them captive. The pain, the terror, the hopelessness on their faces almost broke Navarone’s heart; but he ignored their cries for help, and raced to the locked door.
The door was steel, and conventional — nothing armor-plated. Navarone pulled down the shotgun he’d brought with him, aiming at the hinges.
Without being told, Xie started shouting at the kids through the window in Korean; Navarone knew he was telling them to stay back from the door.
‘Jake!’ Xie called suddenly, just as Navarone was going to pull the trigger. ‘We’ve got company!’
Navarone looked past the building, saw the first soldiers staggering out of the eastern forest, heading for the prison camp, rifles at the ready.
Shit.
‘Hold them off!’ Navarone ordered Xie, just as the heavens opened above them and the rain began to fall in a torrential downpour.
Navarone pulled the trigger an instant later, already soaked to the skin. He fired four solid slugs, two to each hinge; then kicked the door down with one powerful thrust.
The building before him consisted of only one room, a rough brick dormitory containing about fifty children; at a glance, from about six to twelve years old. Why, Navarone didn’t know, and at that moment, didn’t care; all he wanted was for them to get out as fast as possible.
‘Go!’ he shouted, dropping the shotgun and pointing outside. ‘Go, now!’
It took a few moments for the spell to break, for the children to accept what they were seeing; and then they were pouring towards him, past him, racing out into the camp grounds, heading for the open gate on the far side of the camp.
It was then that Navarone heard the first shots, 7.62mm rounds from the soldiers’ Kalashnikovs; followed an instant later by the return 5.56mm fire of Xie’s Colt M4.
Navarone watched the children flee across the camp parade ground, saw two of the youngest drop as bullets hit them, and quickly pulled his own Colt M4 off his shoulder, stepping around the small brick building to unleash hell on the Korean soldiers who’d shot them.
3
The sounds that filtered through Cole’s earpiece were like pieces of an intricate puzzle he didn’t have a hope of completing; they led only to confusion and helplessness.
But slowly, the mist began to clear and he could at last recognize the sounds as words, although the meaning remained indistinct and far away.
‘Sir?’ the voice seemed to say, although Cole still could not understand what the word meant, or where it came from. ‘Sir?’ the voice asked again urgently. ‘Are you okay sir?’