Echo Six: Black Ops 6 - Battle for Beirut (29 page)

She was here, somewhere, very close.

He ripped open the closet door. Nothing. And then the second. Two terrified faces stared back at him. Female faces. He felt a gush of relief; one of them he knew so well.

"Nava! Thank God, are you okay?"

He reached forward and helped her out.

She jumped into his arms and hugged him tight.

"He didn't hurt you, al Saif?"

She didn't reply, and the other girl explained. "He cut her, hurt her badly. She's gone into some kind of a trance, and she needs medical treatment. I've dressed the wounds as best I can, but there are internal and external injuries that must be causing her a lot of pain. As for the trance, I don't know."

He looked again at Nava. Her eyes were empty, staring straight ahead. But she knew who he was, as she clung to him.

"We'll take care of her. What's your name?"

She gave him a nervous glance. "I'm Rana. I work for Malik al Saif as a cabin attendant on his Gulfstream jet. At least, I used to be. I decided to leave his employment when I saw what he was doing to this girl."

He nodded his thanks. "We'll deal with al Saif soon as we find him. Where is his cabin?"

She led him out into the passageway and pointed to a door almost at the end of the passageway.

"His cabin is easy to recognize. The door is surrounded with a metal frame." He looked at her in puzzlement, and she continued, "Solid gold."

"Understood. Rana, take care of her. I'll pay him a visit."

She nodded. He gently disengaged Nava and put her in the other girl's arms.

He found Guy and explained about the location of the target.

He grinned. "Let's see if he's home."

"Guy, if we find him, he's mine."

"You got it."

They ran along the thick carpet until they stood in front of the door. Sure enough, the surround was gold, with that dull sheen that was a characteristic of the real thing, twenty-four carat. Guy tapped the wood with the butt of his assault rifle, to get an idea of its strength. It was armored. He looked at Talley.

"I reckon the outer skin is hardwood, but there's an inner skin of toughened steel. It's going to be a bastard."

He'd already reloaded his MP7 with the armor piercing rounds.

"I'll try to weaken the hinges. Where's Heinrich? We could do with him."

"He'll be here soon. The girl is helping him to search the yacht. She seemed to think it was important."

Guy nodded. "Whatever. But it'll need two of us to hit it at the same time. Do it."

Talley stepped forward. "Stay back. There'll be some ricochets."

He heard Guy shout something about being careful himself, but he didn't care. He had found Nava, which was his primary objective. Now his primary emotion was blazing anger, a determination to take down the man who'd caused so much agony and death. It had been a long, bloody trail that stretched from the Lebanon, to the palace in Saudi Arabia, and now here in Tyre. And already there were many more bodies littering the yacht and the wharf outside.

The man has to die. It's long overdue.

He put a burst into the top hinge, reloaded, and fired into the lower hinge. The door visibly sagged, but he continued, emptying a third clip into the area around the lock. All it needed was a hard shove.

Guy was ready with three other men. Their assault rifles pointed inward. Ready. Buchmann arrived, racing along the passage with Sumaiyah close behind him. Guy glanced at him.

"We're set. As soon as the door opens, toss in a grenade."

The German smiled and fingered his webbing. Then his expression changed, and he looked puzzled.

"My grenades, they're gone. Where…"

"Forget it," Guy snapped, "We'll manage without a grenade. His mouth opened to give the word to the two men waiting to breach the door. At the same moment, Sumaiyah raced up and flung her arms around both of the men about to assault the cabin. Buchmann was open mouthed, astonished.

"Sumaiyah, what are you doing?"

And then they all saw the two grenades she held, one in each hand. She'd been holding the pins closed, then her fingers opened and they flipped out. Her ugly, scarred face contorted in rage, and she screamed at the closed cabin door.

"Father, you wanted a Shaheed for a daughter, so you will get your wish! I brought them here to kill you, but I have always obeyed you, so my last act will be to die defending you. We shall die together!"

Her face had changed, to a look of crazed determination. There was something more, it was as if a shadow had lifted from her. She looked...happy.

Guy and Talley broke free from their paralysis and shouted at the same moment, "Grenade!"

They all threw themselves flat in the narrow passageway, except the two troopers gripped by the girl. For one desperate moment, they wrestled with her, attempting to free themselves. She screamed, "I'll see you in hell, Father!!!"

The grenades exploded.

Talley felt himself lifted up by the blast, and then the pressure wave flung him back along the passageway, and his body smashed through the wooden door of one of the cabins. He felt the searing heat of the blast, and he passed out. It was only for a few seconds. When he came to, he was able to drag himself to his knees. He peered out into the passageway. The two troopers were both dead, their bodies entwined with that of Sumaiyah. Guy was unconscious, and several more of the men were groaning in pain, as they pulled themselves to their knees.

They were all wounded; the exposed parts of their bodies covered in lacerations from the exploding grenades. Worst of all was Heinrich Buchmann. Not his body, but his soul. He knelt on the floor next to Sumaiyah's body, his face a mass of cuts and blood. A silence had descended after the blast, and his cry was plaintive.

"Why? Why did she do it?"

No one answered him. Talley noticed for the first time ever, the big German was weeping. He left him to his grief and looked at Guy. He was still breathing.

"Guy! Can you hear me?"

He groaned and shook his head to clear it, "I hear you. What the hell happened?"

"The girl, Sumaiyah. She was a ringer, a suicide bomber."

"But why?"

Talley shrugged. "No idea. Some family thing, I don't know. We never will, not now."

"Jesus Christ, did we lose any men?"

"Kerry and Williams. She held them as the grenades exploded. The rest of us are covered in minor cuts, nothing too serious."

The Brit looked up at the cabin door, sagging even more after the shock of the exploding grenades had further weakened it.

"That bastard! He's a dead man."

He got to his feet, gripped his assault rifle, snapped out the clip to check the load, and then squared himself in front of the door.

"I'm right behind you," Talley told him.

He gave a slight nod and charged. He hit the door like a battering ram, and instantly it caved in. With the skill of long experience, he rolled to the right, and Talley went left. A continuous stream of gunfire spat out from the weapon held by the man waiting at the opposite end of the cabin. Talley kept rolling, stopping to bring himself upright and shoot the bastard. But the cabin was furnished along the lines of a Bedouin tent, with curtains and soft tapestries hanging down from the walls, and they were entangled in the unexpected obstacle, caught like fish in a net. The Saudi had a small remote control device in one hand, and his weapon held in the other. He smiled as he slammed a new clip into his weapon, a tiny 9mm Ingram.

He raised the barrel and pointed at Guy first. His eyes narrowed as his finger took up the pressure on the trigger, and then they widened. A third eye appeared in the center of his forehead, and he started to slump, but not before he'd pushed the button on the remote. Talley looked up to see Vince DiMosta standing in the doorway, his long Accuracy International rifle pointing toward the Saudi.

"I thought you were up on the bridge?"

"I thought you might need some help."

Talley nodded his thanks, and Guy gave him a cold grin. They looked around at the Saudi. He'd slumped down to his knees, with his head resting on the floor. Almost as if he was begging for forgiveness to some obscure deity.

Guy finally got to his feet and looked at the dead man. "The world is a better place without that bastard, but it'll be even worse if we don't get out of here. Let's go."

"That remote in his hand," Talley said, "I've got a bad feeling about that."

As he spoke, the entire vessel shuddered and seemed to lift in the water. A muffled explosion sounded from deep in the hull.

"Now we know what it was. The bastard scuttled her," Guy shouted, "We need to get out of here."

They ran into the passageway and helped their fallen comrades to their feet. Buchmann was in a daze, staring at the bloody body of Sumaiyah, and stricken with grief. He dragged him to his feet, and the big German obeyed without any resistance. Talley shouted at them to get out if they wanted to live. The bodies of Kerry and Williams had to be left where they'd fallen. They would find a watery grave when the yacht sunk. The rest of them scrambled up the companionway and out onto the deck. Outside, the wharf was in chaos.

Rovere was busy directing his small fireteam to maintain a stout defense, but they were under pressure from scores of Hezbollah fighters who'd arrived, whooping and shrieking slogans to support their revered leader. They were advancing slowly, despite taking heavy casualties from Reynolds' Minimi and the concentrated fire of Rovere's small team. As Talley watched, more bursts of fire cut through their ranks, and five Arabs were ripped apart by the lethal 5.56mm rounds. The rest of them dived behind bollards and crates that scattered the wharf, but they continued firing. These men were fanatics and not easily scared. Further away, more trucks were arriving, and more men ran to join in the fight. All of them out for the blood of the foreign infidels.

Beneath their feet the deck tilted, as the gaping hole in the hull caused by the scuttling charges was allowing water to gush in. Guy was hurling them down the gangplank onto shore, urging them to hurry before the craft sank from under their feet. Talley clutched Nava's hand, never wanting to let her go, and Rana held her other hand.

Except for Guy Welland, he was the last man to leave, together with the two girls. He then followed them, and they prepared to make a stand on the wharf.

"How many?" Guy shouted to Rovere.

"They're still coming. I reckon we have anything up to a hundred fighters out there. There's no way we'll get past them, not without heavy weapons."

"What about a boat?"

But as he said it, Rovere shrugged his shoulders, looking around the dock. The concrete wharf existed for one vessel only, al Saif's luxury yacht. There was nothing nearby, not even a rowboat. And the yacht itself was almost underwater, the deck awash as it slowly sunk.

"Keep firing. We need to think of something," Guy shouted, "And conserve your ammunition. We've got a long battle in front of us."

Talley said nothing, but after using up his spare clips, he was reduced to a single magazine for his MP7, and he knew the other men were little better off. They all ducked low as the Hezbollah fighters increased their rate of fire, and bullets slashed overhead and impacted on their frail defenses. Lying on the concrete, he slid closer to Guy.

"This is shut ended, my friend."

"We're not finished yet. Keep firing. We'll think of something."

He turned away to direct the fire of the men, and Talley found a place where he could shoot from behind a concrete ramp. He estimated they had five minutes, maybe less. The Islamic fighters were gathering at the other end of the wharf, protected by the stone sea defenses. He knew they'd come soon. These Islamic lunatics cared little whether they lived or died. Their life was a harsh, grinding existence fueled by rabid hate, offset by the fable of a better life in the hereafter. Their greater numbers would overwhelm Echo Six, there was no doubt.

He picked off one man who seemed to be urging the rest of them onward, and his comrades ducked back behind cover. Their leader died, gasping his last breath in a pool of blood, but more fighters were still arriving. Guy raced back to him.

"I can't see a good end to this. How do we play this, a white flag?"

Talley shrugged. "We're not at that point, not yet."

But it's only a matter of time.

Nava still clung to his arm, shivering. Rana was stricken with terror, her face taut and white.

"They'll torture and murder me and her if you surrender."

"They'll probably torture and kill us all if they get their hands on us, but we're not finished yet. Hold it, they're coming again."

This time it was a human wave attack. Their numbers had increased even more, and as one man, a hundred men appeared from behind the sea defenses where they'd sheltered and launched straight into an attack. There was no skill, no tactics, just a savage determination to kill the foreigners, no matter how many of their own people died in the effort. They fired at the enemy and fired again. But Talley could hear the shouts from the men.