Page 30 of The Last Days

  If the plan held and weather cleared a bit more, another two thousand marines and their mechanized equipment would hit the beaches in the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours. And they’d soon be reinforced by a detachment of Rangers and as many Delta commandos as U.S. commanders on the ground in Iraq could spare.

  This was it, the tip of the spear.

  It was the riskiest gambit yet in James MacPherson’s already high-risk presidency, and everyone involved knew there were no guarantees.

  They were at Tariq’s door.

  Bennett rechecked his .357 and tried to steady his shaking hands. He glanced at McCoy. She was double-checking her Beretta as well and trying to slow her breathing. They were as ready as they were going to be. They just hoped these guys were still alive, and that no one else was in there.

  Bennett took the left side of the door. McCoy took the right. They looked each other in the eye, and nodded. As rapidly as she could, McCoy punched in Tariq’s pass code. Bennett then kicked open the door, careful to stay out of the line of fire. The room was pitch-black. Only the flickering flames from in the hallway ceiling provided any light at all. Bennett glanced in, the .357 in his right hand out in front of him, then pulled back. He couldn’t see a thing. Neither could McCoy. No eyes. No movement. Nothing.

  “Ibrahim? Dmitri?” Bennett whispered. “You guys OK?”

  For a moment, it was silent. Bennett whispered again, his palms sweating against the handle of both weapons.

  “Ibrahim? Dmitri? You guys in there?”

  “Jonathan? Is that you?”

  It was Galishnikov’s distinctive Russian baritone.

  “Dmitri?”

  “Da.”

  “Dmitri, it’s me. Erin’s with me. You guys all right?”

  “Da, da, my friend, we are good—never better—and look, we’ve got company.”

  Suddenly, the bedroom filled with light. Startled, Bennett and McCoy

  cautiously peeked in, only to find Tariq and two of his operatives—Nazir and Hamid—kneeling behind the couch there in flak jackets and helmets, with fully locked and loaded M-4 submachine guns in their hands and two portable lanterns sitting on the desk and the cofifee table behind them. Sa’id was huddled in the corner next to Galishnikov, who was also holding an M-4. They were safe after all, and it couldn’t have been a more welcome sight. Both Bennett and McCoy breathed a huge sigh of relief. A fast round of handshakes and hugs ensued, and then the group quickly got back down to business.

  Tariq went first, laying out their escape plan.

  “The hotel is gone. Gaza Station’s breached in at least two places we know of.”

  “Three,” McCoy interrupted. “Jon and I saw an explosion down the hallway just a few moments ago. We took out five guys coming in that way. But there has to be more coming in any second.”

  Tariq rubbed his eyes. He’d already been up all night. His nerves were raw.

  “Well look, all the more, then, we need to get Mr. Sa’id and the rest of you out of here. Mr. Ziegler just talked to Langley. Here’s the plan. SEAL Team Eight is inbound from the Reagan, along with an assault force of marines. ETA is about nine minutes. Maroq and Mr. Ziegler are back in the main control room, destroying papers and equipment and trying to hold off the infiltrators. It’s my job, along with Nazir and Hamid here, to provide security for Mr. Sa’id. Erin, you need to provide security for Mr. Bennett and Mr. Galishnikov. All right?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “The original NEO plan was for us to be airlifted off the top of the hotel,” Tariq continued. “But obviously that’s not going to work anymore. So we’re going with Plan B. I just got off the satcom link with Commander Ramirez with the SEALs. We’ve got to make our way about five blocks through a sewage tunnel that runs under the main street. It’s not going to be the most pleasant experience, but it’s all we’ve got. It’ll take us to a burnt-out cafe we’re code-naming Alpha Zone. Once we get there, we’ll reestablish contact with Ramirez and the SEALs will scoop us up and get us the hell out of here. In the meantime, I’ll take the lead. Hamid brings up the rear. Any questions?”

  “What about Ziegler and Maroq?” asked McCoy.

  “Don’t worry about them. We’ve got a squad of marines coming for them. They’ll be fine. Anyone else? All right, let’s move out.”

  Fires were raging throughout all the main hallways now, but fortunately

  they didn’t have to go far. About halfway down the hallway they were in, Tariq stopped, instructed Nazir, Hamid, and McCoy to set up a perimeter, and pressed a passcode into what looked like an ordinary utility closet.

  A second later, the door electronically clicked open, but inside were no brooms, mops, or buckets. There was another submarine hatch, similar to the one they’d all used to get down into Gaza Station. This one would take them down again, into Gaza’s sewage system, but God willing, it would also take them all out of this hellhole once and for all.

  Tariq punched in another passcode, opened the hatch, then stuck his M-4 with its small halogen search lamp into the silo, scanning it for any signs of life. The good news was there was no one down there. The bad news was the stench was horrendous, and they were going in anyway.

  Tariq reached up onto a shelf in the closet, far above the steel hatch. Finding a large box, he pulled it down and began distributing a gas mask to each person. He put his own on and then helped Said and Galishnikov get theirs on and adjusted. He looked over the group, got the thumbs-up from everyone, nodded, then proceeded down the silo. Three minutes later, they were all together again, slogging through a putrifying combination of waste and slime, illuminated only by the lights on their M-4s, and a small flashlight Tariq had given to Sa’id.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you something, Tariq, ever since we got here,” said Bennett, as the group pressed forward. His voice echoed through the huge steel pipe. “What’s that, Mr. Bennett?” Tariq replied.

  “How did you guys ever build Gaza Station, anyway? I mean, you know, without the whole world knowing about it.”

  Bennett instantly recoiled. He’d just betrayed the name of a CIA safe house. True, these men were friends. They knew most of one another’s secrets. But not all of them. Nor could they. The world had just changed. He had to be more careful.

  Tariq’s stomach tightened, too. He knew the station’s entire history—how the Hotel Baghdad had once been the headquarters for Egyptian intelligence in Gaza since first being built in 1962; how the facilities—including the underground bunkers and tunnels—were secretly offered to the CIA by President Sadat in the spring of 1980, after the Camp David peace accords were concluded; how senior State Department officials, seething with bitterness at the CIA for its failure to anticipate the Islamic revolution in Iran and prevent the takeover of the American embassy in Tehran in November of ‘79 persuaded Carter to turn down the deal; and how the Reagan administration, soon after the release of the hostages from Tehran, secretly reopened talks

  with Sadat and nailed down a deal that neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians ever knew about.

  Galishnikov’s ears perked up. He’d also wondered about the history of this “Gaza Station.” So had Sa’id, and the wheels began to turn.

  Sa’id had always suspected the CIA was operating in Gaza, but he’d never known it for sure. Now he did. He’d been inside. He’d seen some of its layout. He knew its name. He knew who worked there, and some of their capabilities. That could prove to be valuable, could it not?

  Yes, these men had saved his life. And yes, he still needed them to lead him out to safety. But the world had just changed. He wasn’t simply a businessman caught in a cross fire. He was a prime minister. He was going to have to build strong ties not just with the Americans but with his own legislators, with other Arab leaders, with their generals and intelligence offi cials. It was a dangerous neighborhood he lived in, and would now have to govern. He had to work with the Americans, but he couldn’t be their puppet. He needed them to take care of the Islamic mili
tants, and to force—perhaps persuade was a better word—Doron to cut a deal. But there would come a day, no doubt sooner than he’d prefer, when he’d have to stand up to the Americans. Declare his independence. Show his people and the Arab world that Washington was doing his bidding, not the other way around. Kicking the CIA out of Palestine wouldn’t be a bad first step.

  Tariq knew that a significant portion of the $2 billion a year Washington gave to Egypt in foreign aid was to buy Cairo’s continued silence about the facility’s location and purpose. And he knew nearly every sordid detail of the bureaucratic tug of war inside the CIA that had prevented Gaza Station from coming on line for year after frustrating year. Besides the president, Jack Mitchell, Danny Tracker, and a handful of others on the National Security Council, only Jake Ziegler knew as much as he did about the origins and history of Gaza Station. But he didn’t dare utter a word. Not with their lives in grave danger. Not with the new prime minister of Palestine just a few yards behind him.

  Didn’t Bennett get it? This was a world where every mistake could be your last.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Tariq finally said. “I’d tell you. But then I’d have to kill

  you.”

  THIRTY FOUR

  The strike force shot hard and fast into Gaza.

  Twenty choppers. Almost 250 special ops forces. Orders to rescue the new Palestinian prime minister and the American “point man for peace.” Operation Briar Patch was under way.

  “Br’er Rabbit, this is Br’er Fox,” said the pilot of the lead Super Cobra.

  Commander Ramirez in the command-and-control helo, Storm One, adjusted his headset and opened his microphone.

  “Go ahead, Br’er Fox. I read you five by five.”

  “Roger that, Br’er Rabbit. I’ve got the Tar Baby in my sights and it’s swarming with bandits. Please advise, over.”

  “Are the bandits armed?”

  The lead pilot scanned the situation on the ground. The rains were still torrential. And even though it was late morning, the sky remained as dark as night and visibility was minimal. Still, through night-vision goggles and the chopper’s onboard thermal imaging, the pilot was learning all he needed to know to make an assessment.

  “Armed and firing, Br’er Rabbit. I say again, armed and firing. There are several large flashes under way. They appear to be using explosives to penetrate the Tar Baby.”

  “Roger that, Br’er Fox. Commence firing. I repeat, commence firing.”

  The lead Super Cobra took one pass at less than five hundred feet, with two others right behind him. They cleared the target, banked right, then came back around and began unleashing their guns. Tracer bullets lit up the sky and the insurgents on the ground began dropping like flies.

  Five blocks away, Storm Three now swooped in.

  It took up a hovering position just a few feet over a six-story tenement building, the tallest in the squalid, crumbling neighborhood. Out of both sides of the chopper, ST-8’s Red Team jumped out and moved like lightning. Each man knew his job. Each worked in rhythm with his teammates.

  “Go, go, go,” shouted their team leader, a thirty-one-year-old lieutenant from the Bronx, a graduate of Annapolis and the son of two career naval officers.

  Three American snipers took up positions on the roof. Others cut power lines. They shot up the transformer box on the roof, shutting down all the power in the building. At the same time, a breacher smashed through the door to the stairwell, using a sledgehammer and just two swings. Six shooters and their leader—each clicking on their night-vision goggles—now raced inside, weapons up, safeties off.

  The top floor was abandoned, as was the fifth floor below. Only the rats— their eyes glowing red in the flashlight beams of the commandos—counted the dark places home. The SEALs proceeded cautiously through the shadowy stairwells, littered with shards of broken glass, giving away their position with every step. Each man wished they’d had more time to prepare, to send in a recon team to find out just what they were up against, to get precise floor plans and map out every step. They were moving blind and even the Rangers and Deltas in Somalia were better prepared than they were.

  Crunch, crunch.

  Red Four and Red Five were on point, both just shy of their twenty-third birthdays. Their breathing was steady but their hands inside the Nomex gloves were damp with sweat. Moving in tandem—in radio silence, using only hand signals between them and to the men half a flight above them— they worked their way down the central stairwell inch by inch, shrouded in complete darkness. All the lightbulbs were smashed or nonexistent. There were no exit signs. No emergency power boxes. Just the eerie green imagery from their night-vision goggles.

  As they slowly turned the corner, they could see the door to the fourth floor. It was closed. Just a thin slice of light seeped from the hallway. But from what? The building’s power was out. The hallway had no windows. Where was the light coming from? The light moved. Just a little, but both men saw it and tensed.

  Suddenly, two men kicked open the door and began shooting. Two more men popped up from the stairwell below and opened fire as well. Bursts of

  automatic machine-gun fire exploded around them. Concrete shrapnel was flying everywhere. The SEALs hit the deck and returned fire. Nonstop flashes erupted from the muzzles of their weapons as both sides fought viciously for control. Red Six pulled pins on two grenades and tossed them both—one at the door, one down the stairwell at the attackers below.

  “Grenade,” he shouted, and the Americans stopped firing and took cover.

  The explosions were nearly instantaneous, one after the other, and they achieved their intended effect. One of the Palestinian gunmen was killed instantly. Three of the four were screaming uncontrollably. Red Five lifted his head up and peered through the smoke and dust. He could see one gunman engulfed in flames. He fired oflf two rounds at the man’s head and one at his chest. All three hit their mark and the man collapsed down the stairs onto the lifeless body of his comrade in arms.

  “Let’s go, let’s go,” he yelled, grabbing Red Four and helping him to his feet.

  They raced for the smoking hole in the wall where the fourth-floor door had been, and dived through, guns blazing. Red Six and Seven moved past them, down the stairs and burst onto the third floor. More gunfire erupted. Both floors were engaged now.

  “Red Four, Red Four, talk to me—what’ve you got?”the team leader shouted over his radio.

  “Heavy resistance on the fourth floor. Shots coming from the corner apartments. “

  “Red Four, can you take them on your own?”

  A response came back, but it was almost impossible to hear with all the shooting in such tight quarters.

  “Say again, Red Four, say again—can you take them on your own?”

  A hiss of static. The words were garbled.

  “… support, we ca—”

  The whole building seemed to be exploding around them.

  “Say again, Red Four—/ can’t hear you.”

  “… we can’t move, can’t get a better position—need close air support into the corner apartments immediately.”

  “Roger that, Red Four, and stand by one.”

  “Red Leader, this is Red Six, we’ve got the same situation on the third floor. Request CAS into all four corner rooms. Over?”

  “Got it, Red Six—stand by.”

  The team leader turned to his radio operator, as both men remained hunkered down in the stairwell.

  “Get me Storm One now.”

  Ten seconds later, he was on the radio with Commander Ramirez.

  “Br’er Rabbit, this is Red Leader, do you copy?”

  “Roger that, Red Leader. This is Br’er Rabbit. Go.”

  “Sir, we’ve got heavy resistance on the third and fourth floors here, from each of the corner apartments. Request immediate CAS, over.”

  “Roger that, Red Leader. Close air support on the way.”

  “Thank you, Br’er Rabbit,” the lieutenant acknowledged, then radioed t
he rest of his team. “OK, guys, hang in there—hold your ground—air support’s on the way.”

  Less than a minute later, four jet black Little Bird assault choppers took up positions off the four corners of the tenement. Using enhanced thermal imaging, they could see the shooters in each room, on each floor. They confirmed their targets and their orders with the C-2 bird, and got the clearance they wanted. Seconds later, all four began simultaneously unleashing their .50-caliber heavy machine guns through the windows and walls into all four rooms. The snipers never knew what was coming, and a moment later it was over. All was quiet in the smoky, shattered hallway.

  Red Team was back on the move.

  Across the street, Blue Team also fought its way down room by room.

  Three Blue Team snipers hunkered down on the roof, picking off anyone stupid enough to fire a round at U.S. forces or aircraft descending into the neighborhood. Inside, resistance was heavier than expected, and Blue Leader worried the intense gun battle might be catching women and children in the cross fire. It was impossible to tell for sure. Most of the shooting was coming from small cracks in apartment doors, and his men had no choice but to punch back with overwhelming firepower, including grenades and the heavy machine guns on the Little Birds buzzing outside the windows.

  It was a slow, nasty process. But it was critical. They were keeping the Islamic militants who’d taken over the building occupied, keeping their attention off the main event at the cafe across the street.

  Storm Five circled off the coastline, waiting for their signal, while commandos of the Twenty-sixth MEU fast roped onto roofs and into streets in concentric circles around Alpha Zone, the extraction point chosen by Ziegler and Tariq less than half an hour before. They, too, were encountering heavy resistance from random snipers and bands of militants moving about in jeeps and small trucks, just now getting word of the U.S. action and eager to hunt the “Great Satan.”