Inside Threat (40 page)

“Enough!” a voice called out. A stillness like the eye of a hurricane descended on the scene. But even though the rods had stopped landing, phantom blows kept raining down on Riley's body as his nerves and brain danced, trying to process what had just happened.

Eventually, the contortions stopped, but the pain didn't. It was like nothing Riley had ever felt before, and it made him scared to even breathe in. Then fingers grabbed his ear, twisting it and lifting his head up from the tile. Riley fought down a scream.

“My father is a great man,” Alavi said.

Riley tried to smile, but his face instead contorted in something that was very much not smile-like. “That's . . . what . . . Saliba's mother . . . said.” The semilaughish convulsion his body made sent blood and spit shooting out his nose and mouth.

Alavi threw Riley's head down onto the tile.

“I said enough! We are scheduled to go live in six minutes,” Saifullah said. “I don't want to be delayed by having to wait for him to regain consciousness. Bring him.”

Friday, September 16, 1:30 p.m. EDT

Scott watched Riley entering the cathedral. The small handheld monitor didn't give the cleanest of pictures, but it was clear enough for Scott to know that his friend was in trouble. Two of the terrorist foot soldiers were stationed on either side of the door, and Majid Alavi was waiting for him. Scott's foot tapped nervously, and his forehead beaded with sweat. The rest of SOG Bravo ops—Skeeter, Gilly Posada, Ted Hummel, Kim Li, Matt Logan, Steve Kasay, and Carlos Guitiérrez—watched on a monitor set into a tech bay in their deployment van.

“Careful, buddy,” Li said.

“Get ready, boys. Let's see just how much of a stink Pach can raise,” Scott said.

Everything depended on how much of a distraction Riley could make. He was going to have to make a spectacle of himself, and he was going to have to suffer the consequences.

Scott still hated the plan, but Riley had made sure it was a
fait accompli
with Saifullah—and it did get Khadi out. But the whole premise was just so wrong. The chances of everything falling exactly into place and Riley walking out of that cathedral alive were less than one in ten. In other words, Riley was walking into a death trap.

His anger had still been hot when Riley had shown back up at the command center truck. Now he wished he could have that time back. Riley had hugged him, but he had barely returned the embrace. Instead, he had quickly released him and turned back to the plans laid out on the table. Riley and Skeeter had stepped to a corner of the truck and had a long, low conversation. Scott watched out of the corner of his eye as Riley handed something to Skeeter, embraced him, then walked out of the truck.

Now he was determined to get his friend out of there, even if it was just so he could apologize for being such a jerk.

“Remember, Riley's counting on us. No retreat and no excuses,” Scott challenged his team.

SOG Bravo was one of four eight-man ops teams preparing for the rescue attempt. SOG Alpha was deploying behind the low stone wall on the north side of the church. Charlie team, an MPDC SWAT group, had dropped themselves down behind the southern side. The final team, Delta, would be following three minutes behind Bravo. Although Delta—SEALs on loan from Little Creek, Virginia—were primarily trained in amphibious operations, their skills in counterterrorism and unconventional warfare were deemed to be a huge asset to the operation. It was a comfort to Scott knowing they had his back.

“I wish we had audio,” Li said as Riley began yelling.

“Ooooh,” echoed through the van as Riley went down from a gun butt to the back.

“Tara, get ready to scramble the cell coverage on
go
. I don't want any calls from interested onlookers making it into that building. Carlos, Gilly, get on the doors,” Scott said.
Come on, buddy, what are you going to do? It's not enough yet. It's not enough. . . .

Riley launched himself and drove his attacker back into a pillar.

“Go! Go! Go!” Scott yelled.

The rear van doors flew open, and the eight men sprinted low up the grass on the south side of the cathedral. Just twenty yards ahead lay the crypt-level windows that were their destination. Scott ran with everything he had, launching in the air the last few feet and stopping himself with his back flat against the wall. From here on, the survival of everyone in that church depended on the speed and invisibility of Bravo team . . . and on the HERF.

Word was that the HERF was still five minutes out. That was five minutes no one had to spare. If the HERF was late, Riley was a dead man. And if the HERF didn't live up to its billing, they were all going with him.

The glass on the four-foot-square windows was old, which meant thick and one-paned. As Scott watched impatiently, his team paired up at three separate recesses. The men pulled the backing off of a strong adhesive that had been stretched across pre-sized heavy metal plates. Affixed to each plate were four handles and one thick, round piece of felt.

Two of the sheets were secured in just under a minute. However, Kasay and Guitiérrez were still working on theirs.

“What are you doing?” Scott yelled, more as a chastisement than an actual question.

“It's not going in. We're just a fraction of an inch off,” Kasay said.

“Logan,” Scott ordered.

Logan slid over. He tried the metal plate. “Not gonna work. Either the window's cut smaller or the plate's cut bigger.”

“Let's go with two, then,” Scott said. “Skeet!”

Skeeter stepped up with a small battering ram. One hard hit onto the felt muffler and the metal plate fell inward with the glass attached. The team members used the handles to keep them from dropping to the ground below.

As the team slipped one by one through the windows, Tara said to Scott, “Get in there, Bravo. They've started beating him.”

Don't think about it! Just keep moving!
Scott thought as he tried to put out of his mind what was happening to his best friend. He squeezed himself through the opening, landing his rubber-soled boots quietly on the tile floor below.

“ETA for HERF?” he whispered.

“They're still saying five minutes,” Tara replied.

They said that five minutes ago! Come on, people!

They had dropped into a vast corridor. Quite a few rooms and alcoves branched off; Scott tried to identify them to get his bearings—Resurrection Chapel, Chapel of St. Joseph of Arimathea, Center for Prayer and Pilgrimage. Taking point, his silenced Bushmaster ACR leading the way, Scott moved forward slowly until he found what he was looking for—the Good Shepherd Chapel and, next to it, the pathway up.

Silently, they took up positions on either side of the opening. The stairway itself was a beautiful work of art, filled with arches and angles. Unfortunately, the design left them little visibility beyond two short landings.

“Bravo in position. Delta clear.”

“Delta, roger,” came the reply. Scott knew they should be seeing the members of that team in about a minute's time.

“Scott . . . Scott, it's bad,” Tara said, her voice strained with tears. “They're . . . Stop it, already! Oh, Riley . . .”

“Just give me the facts, Tara! I can't handle anything else! Where is he?” Scott asked.

“Still at the back of the nave. Wait, they're lifting him. . . . They're dragging him.”

“Where're they taking him?” Scott asked, knowing the answer even as he asked the question.

After a long pause, Tara said, “To Wilson Bay, Scott. They took Riley to Wilson Bay.”

Friday, September 16, 1:38 p.m. EDT

Hands went under Riley's armpits, hefting him up. Riley tried to make himself walk so that he wouldn't just be dragged, but nothing was working like it was supposed to. With every click the toes of his boots made over the tiles, pain rocketed up his legs.

From somewhere off to his left, a voice shouted out, “Hang in there, Riley!”

“Shut up,” commanded another voice.

“Stay strong, Riley,” called a third.

“Shut up, I said!”

“We love you, Riley!”

“Jesus is with you!”

“Shut up!”

“Hang on, man!”

“God's got you in His hands, Riley!”

“Don't let them break you!”

“God bless you, Riley!”

“Shut up! I said, shut up!”

The calls continued as Riley was carried through an archway into a small room he recognized from the videos.
Wilson Bay. This is it. Better hurry, Scott.

Riley was flopped down onto a tarp. He looked up to see a camera at the ready.

Hands grabbed him again, and he was leaned in a sitting position against Woodrow Wilson's tomb. Every part of his body was screaming at him, and the weight resting on his battered hips was almost more than he could take.

Saifullah sat on a stone bench across from him. “So, Riley Covington, any regrets yet?”

Riley slowly shook his head. “No regrets,” he said in a voice that sounded like he had been tucked away for the last two days in a seedy bar on a weekend bender.

Saifullah leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “I must admit, you have me baffled. Your reputation is that of a Mr. Perfect—one of those holier-than-thou Christians—but yet you hurl the most offensive of insults at my warriors.”

“Told you . . . don't like being touched.”

Saifullah smiled. “Also, you are a marvelous football player, but you throw your career away over foolishness.”

“
That
is a long story. . . .”
Drag it out. Keep him talking. Hurry, Scott!
“Ever hear of Rick Bellefeuille?”

“And to top it all, in your last act of irrational contradiction, you, a Christian, trade your life for a Muslim—and a woman, no less.”

Riley tried and failed to smile again. “That's seriously . . . one of those you-had-to-be-there stories.”

Saifullah shook his head. “Even now, at death's door, you are making jokes. It makes no sense.”

Riley could feel his strength fading and his mind starting to clutter.
Keep it together. Finish strong.
“Not to you. . . . To me? Perfect sense. . . . It's hope, man. Right here.” He nodded toward his chest. “My body? You can have it. . . . My life? Oh, well. . . . My hope? Sorry, bub. Off-limits.”

“Two minutes,” said Alavi, who looked down at Riley with intense hatred. Riley noticed that he was now the one with the long blade in his belt.

“Well, Riley, I'm afraid your end is at hand,” Saifullah said, standing up.

“Old man . . . one more thing. . . . I forgive you.” The imam stared at Riley a moment, then turned away.

Looking up at Alavi, Riley said, “I even forgive you.”

Alavi responded by bringing his hand across Riley's face, knocking him back to the tiles. Then he began kicking him, one blow after another to his head, his ribs, his gut. Riley wouldn't have believed he could feel more pain, but with each strike, waves of agony like he had never felt before ripped through his already-battered body.

Oh, Jesus, give me strength! You've been here. How did You keep loving? How did You keep forgiving? Help me, Jesus! Help me to die well!

When the cameraman called thirty seconds to air, Alavi stopped. The pain, however, didn't. It was everything Riley could do to suck in a breath of air. He knew at least one of his lungs was punctured, and there must be bones broken throughout his face.

Saifullah took his place in front of the camera. Alavi took a handful of Riley's hair and lifted him up to his knees. The cameraman counted down.