The First Casualty (24 page)

56

Sankore Mosque

Timbuktu, Mali

There was the sound of feet on the staircase. Jason turned the door's dead bolt.

“Swell,” Andrews observed dryly. “They can't get in but we can't get out. Stalemate.”

Jason went to the window and peered out.

“Thirty or forty feet down,” Andrews said. “If you're lucky, a broken leg is all you'll get. At least until those assholes outside that door find you.”

“You always this optimistic, or just having a bad day?”

His answer was the click of the knob turning, followed by beating on the door.

“How long you suppose until they get whoever has the key?” Andrews asked. “Any chance you can turn that machine around and blast them?”

Jason shook his head. “I don't think the power source is in this room. Besides, if this thing can bring down an airliner, I don't want to be that close to its beam or whatever when it strikes something.”

Voices from the other side of the door were audible. Jason caught a few words his limited Arabic vocabulary allowed him to understand.

“At least they're not trying to break the door down,” Andrews noted.

“No. They've probably sent for the man with the key.”

“Now who's the optimist?”

Jason holstered his Glock and went to the window again. He stuck his head out. “I don't see anyone down there. They must all be in the stairwell.”

“So? It's still too far to jump.”

“Who said anything about jumping? The reason this minaret could be built higher than a couple of stories is the wooden beams sticking out of the side. C'mon.”

The beams, though massive, were virtually invisible at night. Spaced in rows about ten vertical feet apart, they jutted about half that distance from the sides of the minaret. Jason recalled the rows being regularly spaced so that one telephone pole–size piece of wood was exactly above the one below except for the ones on the end of each row, which diminished in number as the pyramid-shape grew increasingly narrow as it rose.

Dangling by his arms from the sill of the open window, Jason's feet hung in space as they searched for traction. This wasn't going to be quite as simple as he had hoped. Reluctantly, he loosened his grip, holding on only with his fingers. The extra inch or so helped. The tips of his toes touched a solid surface but he couldn't stand on it flat-footed. He was going to have to chance it. He took a deep breath and let go.

He found footing on the wood but he was losing his balance. He tried to steady himself using his arms like a tightrope walker but to no avail. He fell and for one terrifying moment was certain he would plunge to the ground below. Instead, one hand grabbed the beam. In seconds, he was chinning himself up and was sitting astride it.

Now what? He certainly wasn't going to try free falling again in hopes he might be lucky enough to grab another of the wooden poles. Careful of his balance, he took off his belt. He looped it around the beam, holding both ends.

“Artiste!” A hoarse whisper from above. “How the hell do you get from one of these beams to the next without falling?”

“Good question. Hope to have an answer for you in a moment,” Jason replied and swung into the void.

For an instant that seemed an eternity, he swung through the darkness before his right leg smashed into the beam below with an impact so painful he feared he might have broken a bone. Belt in one hand, he used the other arm to hold on to the wood until he could place the belt in his teeth and then use both arms to pull himself onto the protruding beam.

Andrews had obviously heard him. “What happened?”

“Use your belt to swing down to each beam.”

Minutes later, both men were on the ground, concealed in the shadows.

“Think it's safe to head for the hotel?” Andrews asked.

“If we're going to move at all, I'd suggest doing it before they find we aren't still in the minaret.”

The two men set out, resisting the temptation to run, thereby attracting the attention of whoever might be in the deserted streets.

Andrews gave a look over his shoulder although someone could have been an arm's length away and not be seen in the darkness. “They must know where we're staying. You suppose they plan to attack us there?”

“If they were going to do that, they already would have. I think they may be afraid of attracting attention to the fact Al Qaeda, or its North African affiliate, the Islamic Maghreb, is operating in Mali. They don't want a fuss until they are finished—or nearly finished—with their business here.”

“Emphani spoke with some of them while he was at the mosque this morning. From the accent, he's pretty sure they aren't from anywhere in North Africa. His guess is Afghanistan.”

“Al Qaeda on the half shell.”

“Hell, Artiste,” Andrews said, “we knew that coming in.”

Viktor and Emphani met them at the door of the hotel.

Jason took in the small lobby. “Where are your bags? I thought I gave a direct order to hit the trail if the Chief and I weren't back in half an hour.”

Emphani smiled holding up his wrist so Jason could see his watch. “Five, no, six minutes remain.”

From the looks the African and Russian exchanged, it was obvious they had had no intent of deserting their comrades, orders or not. As a former officer, Jason appreciated loyalty, but not at the expense of disobeying orders. An overabundance of allegiance to one's fellows contrary to orders had gotten more than one man killed. On the other hand, he gained nothing from chewing out Viktor and Emphani.

“OK, I've got things to do for tomorrow and so do you, starting with checking your equipment. Plus, there's a change in our strategy.”

Although the four deemed a direct attack in the hotel was unlikely, they moved their equipment and weapons into Jason's room, the one with the best view of the town, in general, and of the mosque, in particular. Like the veterans they all were, three were disassembling and cleaning a variety of firearms for the fourth or fifth time since arriving in Mali.

Jason was assembling the .50-caliber Barret M82A1 sniper rifle. It was not an attractive gun. Matte gray, its muzzle rested on a bipod while its unique recoil absorption system and side vent gave it a bulk uncommon to rifles. Instead of a stock, its rear end was no more than a loop of metal behind the pistol grip and trigger.

“What is kill range?” Viktor wanted to know as he walked around the weapon.

Jason was carefully attaching the Leupold Mark 4, a stubby but efficient scope, one of only two that could absorb the abuse delivered by such a large bore rifle. “It's been used effectively at three thousand meters, one-point-one miles.”

“Originally used as an anti-matériel weapon, if I recall,” Andrews chimed in. “In fact, there's a selection of ammo.”

Jason placed two of the bulky ten-shot magazines beside the gun. “That's why I brought extra clips.”

Emphani stuffed a fist into his yawning mouth as he stretched out on the floor beside the bed. “A long day. I sleep now.”

Jason shook his head. “Not until we go over the new plan for tomorrow.”

57

31° 16' N, 30° 27' W

Air Force One

41,000 feet

North Atlantic

5:21 a.m. UTC (Formerly Greenwich Mean Time)

The 747 had become Air Force One five hours earlier, once the president stepped aboard. A breakfast of eggs Sardou, sausage bread, and grits had been served to all, the latter drawing the usual disparaging comments from the would-be elite press corps from the northern and West Coast media and retorts from those based in the Southeast. The chicory-laced coffee had been shipped to the White House directly from Baton Rouge, and was a favorite among those who liked their morning beverage to have the viscosity of used motor oil.

Many of the newsies had dozed off; the president's staff didn't dare. All too frequently, one or more might be summoned from their aft quarters to the office just behind the presidential suite. Woe betide the person who appeared with red-rimmed eyes and face puffy from sleep rather than crammed with every bit of information relative to his or her duties during the trip at hand.

In the cockpit, Colonel Wild Bill Hasty undid his seat harness, stood, and stretched. He put his hand on the copilot's shoulder. “Major, I'm going aft for a few minutes. Take a leak, shake hands with the passengers.”

The latter practice reflected that of a time when air travel was both pleasant and gracious, passengers treated much like honored guests, a time as far distant as twenty-five-cents-a-gallon gasoline and civility in politics.

Major Patterson looked up. “OK, Colonel. I've got the ship.”

Hasty stopped at the cockpit door, looking at the screen in front of a blonde woman whose otherwise curly hair was tethered in a tight bun, the flight engineer with twin bars on each shoulder. “Captain, how far out are we from radio contact with Gibraltar Center?”

She didn't look up. “That would be Hamid intersection, sir. I'd estimate forty-six minutes.”

58

Sankore Mosque

Timbuktu, Mali

At the Same Time

Only a sharp eye could have detected any lightening of the dark in the east. The brightness of Venus, the morning star, alone announced the approach of dawn. Already, a few worshipers, mostly elderly, had gathered in the mosque's courtyard, robes and shawls drawn tight against the early-morning chill. They filed into the courtyard and lined up at the fountain-fed trough of water for
wudu
, the ritual ablutions required before prayer.

It would be almost an hour before the first of the five daily prayers,
Fajr
, the predawn worship service, began. Only a flickering gas lamp illuminated the protocol of the righteous. First, plunging the hands into the trough three times, being certain water ran between the fingers. Next, water applied three times to the mouth, sniffed into the nose, and then rubbed on face, arms, and feet as the worshiper recited the Arabic for “I witness that none should be worshipped except Allah and that Mohammed is his slave and messenger.”

Once so cleansed, men and women used separate entrances, the latter clad so that only face and hands showed from garments intentionally bulky enough to make the shape of the body indistinguishable. Among the last to enter the courtyard were two men with the
cheche
, the indigo blue veil worn by Tuareg men. Had anyone noticed, they would have found it strange neither did more than mimic the rites of purification even though they stood beside the trough. Stranger yet, they made no effort to enter the mosque, edging toward the doorway to one of the minarets where half a dozen men in Bedouin dress also showed no inclination to join the worshipers inside. It would have been obvious to the keen observer that something unusual was taking place, something that had little to do with the religious service inside.

Six football fields away and up a steep slope, the 50-caliber Barrett's bipod rested on a table, its muzzle only inches from the hotel room's open window. But for the moment, the rifle was ignored. Jason was holding a Speedtech SM-28, a calculating device about the size and shape of a photographer's light meter, but serving a far different purpose.

A 9-millimeter pistol shot at fifteen to twenty feet, a .30-30-round from a hunter's rifle at a deer fifty yards away, if properly aimed, were likely to find the mark. A shot from nearly half a mile's distance with a projectile varying from 440 to 700 grains was another matter. Wind velocity, for example, could push a bullet right or left of the target. A hundredth of an inch deviation every hundred feet would make the difference between a hit or miss at the yardage from which Jason would be shooting. Friction with the air would slow down a bullet significantly over long distances, heavy or humid air more so than lighter, dry air. Distance, weight, temperature, relative humidity all needed to be ascertained and figured into the equation. Add the fact that no sound suppressor system yet invented would dampen the crack of a high-powered rifle bullet shattering the sound barrier and the conclusion would be that the first shot was most probably the most effective. No sane target would stand still awaiting the second.

The next ten shots in the clip would likely be for matériel, not personnel.

His calculations complete, Jason used a pair of night-vision binoculars to scan the mosque's courtyard. He could easily see Emphani and the Chief and was relieved no one seemed to be paying them particular attention, not even the six Bedouin-dressed men none-too-subtly guarding the entrance to the minaret. They seemed more interested in cupping hands around a lighted match to ignite the single cigarette they shared like an Indian peace pipe.

And why not? Earlier that morning, they had departed the hotel, uniformed similar to the other home-bound members of the establishment's night crew. An observer would have seen nothing abnormal. At least, that was the plan—an apparently successful one if the inattention of the men at the minaret's door was any indication.

Reaching into a pocket of his cargo pants, he pressed the button on a miniature transmitter. “Chief, you got the guys in Bedouin costume?”

A voice made metallic by the tiny electronics but still recognizable as Andrews replied through the set wrapped in his turban-like headgear, “Got 'em, Artiste. Any word from the Roosian?”

“Not yet. But he's not supposed to move for another”—Jason consulted his watch—“twelve and a half minutes.”

“Let's hope he gets his job done. We're royally fucked if he doesn't.”

“Any reason to think he won't?”

“Depends on whether he found another bottle of that South African vodka.”

“Black Horse?”

“Yeah,” Andrews agreed, “the shit tastes like it came out of a horse, all right.”

Jason's experience had been the no amount of vodka seemed to diminish Viktor's capability, but it didn't hurt to be sure. “Kremlin, you online?” Jason asked, using Viktor's code name.

No answer.

“Kremlin . . .”

There was nothing but a whisper of static.