The First Hostage: A J. B. Collins Novel (37 page)

70

A few minutes later, a Black Hawk roared into view.

Before I knew it, a team of American special operations forces was fast-roping down to us, as there was no place for the chopper to land on the summit. They put Yael on a stretcher and hoisted her back up to the chopper. I was next. Then Ramirez and his team were brought up.

On board, a doctor and a nurse immediately began working on Yael. They strapped me down on a stretcher right beside her. A young African American Army medic, probably in her early thirties, began assessing my injuries. By the time we lifted off, she had put me on an IV and was giving me several units of blood. I tried to ask questions, but the woman attending to me wouldn’t allow it. It wasn’t my problems I wanted to know about, I told her. It was Yael’s. But she insisted that I settle back and rest during the flight, and she promised me it wouldn’t be long.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“You really need to stop talking, Mr. Collins.”

“Please,” I said. “I just want to know if we’re heading back to Amman.”

“We’re not.”

“Then where?”

“You don’t take no for an answer.”

“No, I don’t
 
—are we heading back to Azraq?”

“No,” she said as she started cleaning the severe burns I had over much of my body.

“Then where?” I asked. “Because I need to talk to the king.”

“That’ll have to wait, Mr. Collins.”

“Why?”

“We’re not going to Jordan.”

“Then where?”

“We’re heading to EIA.”

“Where?”

“Erbīl International Airport.”

“Erbīl?”

“Yes.”

“The Kurdish capital?”

“Yes, sir.”

“But why?”

“I don’t give the orders, Mr. Collins. I just follow them. Except to you. I do give you orders, and right now you need to rest.”

“But I need to get back to Azraq. It’s urgent.”

“Then I’m afraid you just got on the wrong flight.”

I turned to General Ramirez. A nurse was working on him, too, and only then did I realize that he had been shot as well.

“What happened to you?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “I’ll be fine.”

“But you . . . I didn’t . . .”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be fine,” he said again, and he sounded like he meant it.

“You’re sure?” I pressed.

“Believe me, Collins, I’ve been through much worse.”

On that, it was hard to doubt him.

“Can you make them tell me about Yael?” I asked.

“They’ll tell us when they know something,” Ramirez said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means she’s not out of danger yet, Collins. So just stay quiet, let the docs do their job, and we’ll all know soon enough.”

The satellite phone rang. Ramirez was getting stitches and refusing additional anesthesia, but he still took the call.

“Yes, sir. . . . Right now. We’re en route. . . . I don’t know
 
—maybe six minutes, maybe eight. . . . Got it. . . . No, sir, we did not. . . . It’s possible, but I couldn’t say for sure. . . . No. . . . No. . . . I appreciate that, but with all due respect, sir, I need to go back. . . . I understand. . . . Yes, we need to secure it, but my men are back there. We need to get their bodies and get them home to their families for a proper burial. Can you put that together? . . . I’d be grateful. . . . Okay, that’s
 
—sir, what’s that? . . . Yeah, he’s right here with me. . . . No, I think he’s going to be fine. . . . Yeah, she’s here too. . . . I don’t know. Too soon to say. . . . Okay, out.”

“Who was that?” I asked.

“CENTCOM,” the general replied.

“And?”

“They want to know where Abu Khalif is.”

“And?”

“I have no idea.”

“Could he have gotten away?”

“He could be a pile of ashes right now for all I know,” the general said. “Who knows? We need to put boots on the ground, secure that site, and go over it inch by inch. There may not be much left down there. But we’ve got to try.”

“And get your men back too.”

Ramirez nodded. “And get my men back.”

There was quiet for a bit, and then I asked him for an update on Dabiq, wincing as the medic cut away more scorched sections of my uniform to treat the burns on my legs.

“Don’t go there, Collins.”

“Why not?”

“Dabiq is a mess.”

“What do you mean?”

“You should rest.”

“That bad?”

“Really, Collins, you should rest.”

“Just tell me what happened.”

“Off the record?”

“Of course,” I said.

“I have your word?”

“You do,” I assured him, but he didn’t seem convinced. “Look, the
Times
will have plenty of coverage of that fight, but I promise none of it will come from me.”

Ramirez sighed. “It was ten times worse than this,” he said.

“You’re kidding,” I replied, not sure that was possible.

“I’m not,” Ramirez said. “The guys at CENTCOM didn’t have time to go into a lot of detail, but they told me ISIS was waiting for our friends. They launched chemical weapons almost the moment the Jordanians, the Egyptians, and the Saudis got there. Our friends fought well, I’m told, but they took heavy casualties.”

“How heavy?

“You have to remember they went in with a much bigger force than we did.”

“How heavy, General?”

“It was a bloodbath.”

“How many dead?” I asked.

“At least two hundred dead.”

I didn’t respond. I had no words.

“In the end, it may be more,” he said. “The fighting is still under way.”

“I thought the king ordered his forces to withdraw once we found and secured the president.”

“He did,” Ramirez confirmed, “but the bulk of the assault force was already on the ground and moving into the school when the retreat order was given. The men got caught in a wicked cross fire. It seems most of the forces who went in were lost. The rest are fighting their way out, but it doesn’t look promising at this point. At least six coalition helicopters were shot down trying to get the men out. And then there’s the collateral damage.”

“How bad?”

“You don’t want to know,” Ramirez said.

“Yes, I do.”

Ramirez shook his head as the chopper shot across the plains of Nineveh. “First reports indicate all or most of the buildings around the school were filled with civilians, primarily women and children, just like the school itself,” he said. “Once ISIS started using the sarin gas, everyone in the neighborhood was doomed. CENTCOM is saying the civilian body count could top fifteen hundred by day’s end, maybe more. It’s . . . I don’t know; it’s just . . .” The general’s voice trailed off.

“A mess,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “A total mess.”

I lay back against the pillow. The scope of the carnage just kept getting worse. The magnitude of the Islamic State’s evil was like nothing I had ever seen or heard of. I would have thought by this point in my career I had seen it all. But clearly I had not. Where was it all leading? What was coming next? How would it end? I had no idea.

Suddenly the face of Colonel Sharif came to my mind. I couldn’t believe he was dead. I thought of his kids. I wondered who would tell them and when. I wondered how they were going to bear the loss. They’d already been through so much.

The medic leaned over to me and whispered again that I should close my eyes and let myself fall asleep. But how could I? Every bone in my body was in pain. Most of my flesh was burning. I knew I was in good hands. I knew I wasn’t going to die. Not in the air over Iraq. Not in the capital of Kurdistan. Not today. But I was still in enormous pain.

And Yael? She was a different story altogether. I still had no idea what was going to happen to her, and that hurt all the more.

71

A few minutes later, we touched down next to a hangar.

Then the side doors opened and a team of Air Force doctors met us. They got a quick briefing from the medics who had cared for us and took Yael and me off the chopper on our stretchers. I was about to insist that I could walk well enough on my own, but the African American medic shot me a look that told me I’d better not dare cross her now. So I kept my mouth shut, and as they wheeled us both across the tarmac and put us in a waiting ambulance, I suddenly saw something I would never have expected to see
 
—not today, not in the middle of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Air Force One was waiting for us. The president’s gleaming blue-and-white 747 was refueled and ready to go. It was surrounded by dozens of tanks, armored personnel carriers, heavily armed American soldiers and Secret Service agents, and a detachment of the Peshmerga, the Kurdish military force. It was also surrounded by a squadron of American fighter jets.

“I’m afraid this is where I say good-bye, my friend,” General Ramirez said just before the EMTs shut the ambulance doors. “It was an honor to fight with you, Collins. You did a heck of a job.”

“Thanks, General. Can I quote you on that?”

“You can indeed,” he said, though the smile I was hoping to get did not come. There was too much pain and too much loss for both of us. “Don’t be a stranger. You’re part of the family now. Come see us anytime.”

“I’d like that, sir,” I said, having to make do by shaking with my left hand. “Take care.”

“You, too, Collins. Bye.”

He shut the doors, tapped them twice, and the ambulance headed across the airfield. When we got to Air Force One, Yael’s stretcher was wheeled onto a lift device, elevated, and brought into the back of the plane. My stretcher followed close behind. I’d only been on Air Force One once in my life, but I couldn’t help but notice that the press section in the back where I’d sat had been completely reconfigured. It was now a mobile hospital, and several of the Iraqi children who had been rescued from the tunnels were lying on portable stretchers, receiving, no doubt, the best medical care they had ever gotten.

The first person I recognized was Special Agent Art Harris.

“Mr. Collins, thank God
 
—you made it,” he said, rushing over to me immediately.

“You, too,” I said. “I was getting worried about you.”

“Thanks,” he said. “But I’m feeling much better.”

“Someone poison you?” I quipped, only half kidding.

“Nothing so exciting,” he replied. “Just airsickness. But what about you? You look terrible. You going to be all right?”

“We’ll see,” I said, not wanting to talk about myself. “Any news on Jack Vaughn?”

“He was arraigned in federal court a few hours ago.”

“How’d he plead?” I asked, trying to picture the scene of a CIA director being arraigned on charges of treason and espionage, for starters.

“Not guilty on all counts,” Harris replied.

“And the woman and her son?”

“They’ll be arraigned later today.”

“Okay. Keep me posted,” I said.

“Will do,” Harris replied. “You take care of yourself.”

“I’ll try.”

Just then an Air Force officer walked by and insisted Agent Harris take his seat immediately. The crew was kind and couldn’t have been more professional, but it was clear they were feeling harried. They were rushing to get Air Force One off Iraqi soil as quickly as possible, and our arrival had obviously slowed them down and complicated matters. Two nurses locked Yael’s stretcher into place. Mine was locked in right next to her. We were both strapped in tightly and before I knew it, we began hurtling down the runway.

No one said a word. Even the children were quiet, though it occurred to me that they might have been sedated. I’d overheard a Secret Service agent tell one of his colleagues as we were boarding that ISIS forces were now just a few kilometers from the airport. Tensions were high, as none of us knew what ISIS had planned next.

As we lifted off, I reminded myself that the presidential plane had the world’s most advanced countermeasures to defeat ground-to-air missiles. It had also been retrofitted with engines nearly as powerful as those of a spacecraft. Thus, we were now rocketing almost straight up into the sky to get out of missile range as rapidly as possible. The g-forces were making the plane shake something fierce. I wasn’t far from several windows, but I couldn’t watch. My eyes were shut. My fists were clenched. I knew a dozen U.S. Navy fighter jets were flanking us. They were all from the USS
George H.W. Bush
, the Nimitz-class supercarrier operating as part of Carrier Strike Group Two somewhere out in the Med. They were there to get us out alive and well. But I still couldn’t watch.

A few minutes later, we reached our cruising altitude of 41,000 feet. Not long after that, the pilot came over the intercom and informed us
that we were now out of Iraqi airspace. I opened my eyes and breathed a sigh of relief as the entire plane erupted in cheers.

Suddenly I heard a familiar voice coming down the aisle. The next thing I knew, President Harrison Taylor was standing beside me, flanked by several bodyguards. “Mr. Collins, how are you?” he asked.

“Mr. President,” I said, startled to see him at all, much less on his feet. “I’m fine, sir
 
—how are you?”

“You don’t exactly look fine, Collins,” he said.

“Neither do you, sir,” I replied.

“No, I guess I don’t,” he conceded. “But they say I’m going to make it.”

“Glad to hear it, sir.”

“Me too,” he said. “And you?”

“We’ll see.”

Taylor nodded. He wasn’t smiling. He’d been through too much, and I could see the pain and exhaustion in his eyes. He looked around the makeshift medical bay and asked if they were taking good care of me. When I assured him that they were, he asked if there was anything I needed. I said no. I saw him glance at the Iraqi children. He thanked the medical crew standing around us for “caring for these kids who really need our love and attention right now.” Then he took a few moments to shake hands with each doctor and each nurse and thank them personally for all they’d done for him and his team and these children.

Then the president looked down at Yael. “How is she?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “They won’t tell me.”

The president turned to the lead physician.

“Miss Katzir is stable for now, sir,” the doctor replied. “We’ll know more in a few hours, but we’re going to run a series of tests on her right away.”

Taylor nodded and squeezed Yael’s hand. I could see him fighting
back his emotions, and he was not a man known for having much of an emotional side.

“Take care of these two,” he told the medical staff, nodding toward Yael and me. “I owe them my life.” Then he turned to me again. “Thank you, James,” he said softly.

“Don’t mention it, Mr. President,” I replied, surprised to hear him call me by my first name.

“No, really,” he said, looking me in the eye. “You were right about ISIS, about the summit, about the chemical weapons, about all of it. I should have listened to you. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, Mr. President.”

“No,” he said, “it’s not. A lot of people are dead because I . . .”

He didn’t finish the sentence. There was an awkward silence. Then he spoke again.

“Perhaps if I’d listened . . . maybe . . . just maybe all of this could have been avoided.”

I didn’t know what to say. He was right, but I was stunned to hear him admit it. Thousands of people were dead because he’d failed to take ISIS seriously and deal with them earlier on. I had questions I wanted him to answer on the record, and not just for the American people but for me. But now didn’t seem the right time or place
 
—not here on Air Force One, in front of his staff.

Still, I did want to ask him one question: what was he going to do next? ISIS had taken him hostage and broadcast the images of his captivity to the entire world. They had almost beheaded him. They had slaughtered nearly an entire Delta team. They had murdered dozens of American soldiers, not to mention hundreds of Jordanian, Egyptian, Saudi, and Gulf forces in Dabiq. And this was only the beginning. ISIS had scored a propaganda coup of unbelievable proportions. Money and recruits were going to flow in as never before. What’s more, Abu Khalif was still at large. So what was the president
going to do now? How was he going to learn from his failure to deal with ISIS sooner?

But the moment was interrupted. One of the Secret Service agents got a call on his satellite phone and handed the phone to the president.

“Yeah, it’s me,” Taylor said. “Okay, put him on. . . . Hey, Marty
 
—what have you got?”

There was a long silence.

“I
 
—that’s not possible,” he said, and there was another long silence. “What did it say? . . . No, no
 
—not yet. Not till I get back. . . . Okay, let me know. . . . I will. Bye.”

He hung up and handed the phone back to the agent. His face was ashen. I couldn’t imagine what he’d just learned, and I hoped he didn’t tell me. I couldn’t take more bad news.

“That was the vice president,” he said, looking back at me but saying nothing else.

I nodded but didn’t reply. I guess I hoped if I stayed quiet, the president wouldn’t tell me whatever he’d just heard. Maybe it was classified. Maybe it was personal. Regardless, he just stood there quietly for a few moments, looking away. Then he patted me on the shoulder and turned to leave.

I started to breathe again. But then he stopped and turned back to me. Every muscle in my body tensed.

“They just heard from the prison where they’re holding Jack Vaughn,” the president explained, looking down at the floor. “They found Jack’s body.”

“What?” I exclaimed.

“Apparently he hanged himself with a bedsheet in his cell. He’s dead. Just like that. He’s dead.”

No one said a word. I could see the shock in everyone’s eyes. Surely the word had spread through the staff earlier about Vaughn’s arrest. I doubted the president even knew about my involvement in the sting operation that had cemented Vaughn’s guilt, but clearly the
notion of the CIA director being involved in a conspiracy to kill the president had rattled everyone on board. And now this news compounded everything.

“He left a note,” the president said, a vacant look in his eyes. “Don’t ask me how . . .” His voice trailed off.

“What did it say, Mr. President?” I asked after we had waited nearly a minute.

“The note simply read, ‘I’m sorry. Just tell him I’m sorry. I never imagined . . .’ And that was it.”

What did that mean? I wondered. Tell who? The president? Someone else? Why hadn’t Vaughn referred to Claire? Or his children? And “I never imagined”? What was that supposed to mean? That he didn’t know his mistress was working for ISIS? That he didn’t know he’d be caught?

A hundred more questions came rushing to mind, but the president just turned and walked away.