The Towers (28 page)

“You … you'd better take charge. Chief.” The jaygee was gasping, his tone mingled relief and resentment. Teddy knew he'd pay for this. But right now he wasn't going to waste worry on it. He rolled back over the wall, scuttled on hands and knees along as someone in the oncoming armor figured out how to fire the machine gun. Slugs whacked around him, cracked past, but no one seemed to be hit. Yet.

“Stand by … blast area clear…” The last two antitank rockets fired with a sound between a thud and a hiss, with a cloud of blasted-up dust that sparkled in the greenlit darkness. An explosion; another cloud; but no evident effect on the target.

That was it. Nothing was left to stop the oncoming monster. It turned for the point the antitank weapon had fired from and rolled forward a few yards before hesitating again. Teddy turned his back to it and fired out a mag into the flashes from the compounds to either side. They all seemed to be aiming high. The bullets hummed and sighed above them. Firing blind, into the night. He was about to order fall back and cover, each man firing out his magazine in turn to cover the retreat of his buddy, but suddenly realized something. That was why the BMP was proceeding so hesitantly. The driver couldn't see them.

“Cease fire. Cease fire!” The order leaped from mouth to mouth along the ragged wall. Teddy followed it with the word to pull back toward the ditch. “Covering fire, but only on the compounds,” he told the 240 gunners. “Fall back through the compound, head for the alternate LZ. Everybody look for the ACC. We got to find the ACC.”

“He's back here” came an unfamiliar voice. Teddy rolled into the ditch, popped up, oriented, and hit the bone mike again. “Send him to the ditch, goddamnit! Where the fuck's he been?”

“Had a close shave. Roof fell in, knocked him cold.”

“Well, get his ass up here! Now!”

The controller was hustled up. A bandage patched his temple, but he seemed to have his shit together. The distant drone of the big aircraft changed pitch and grew louder. The BMP roared and slewed anew. Its gun boomed again.

A bolt darted from the heavens and exploded. When the boiling murk settled, the tank lay like a stepped-on toy, burning fiercely. Teddy kept his reticle on it, but no one emerged. The flames grew. There were no more infantry out there, just shapes fading back toward the fields and compounds beyond.

He remembered the shot-down helicopter. “Ski, take four guys and the corpsman over and secure the crash site. Survivors out, bodies out, rig for demo. I'll be over in a couple'a minutes.”

The drone of the Spectre retreated, floating out over the valley, echoing from the hills. The battle of titans had ended. The crackles and booms from below were waning too, as if taking down the armor had climaxed the action. Another 53 was lining up on the field. Abort? Go to the alternate? Teddy decided for the primary. He straightened, keeping a stone wall between him and the field in case someone out there had a sniper rifle. He sent Scooper out to pop a strobe for pickup. Then pulled out a PowerBar and wolfed it, going over the mission objectives. Get Dollhard on the first bird out, with the prisoners. Sanitize. Retro everybody else. He and Verstegen would be last off the ground.

A last bullet whined disconsolately overhead. Fired at long range as the enemy pulled out. He rubbed his face, sagging, realizing only now how exhausted he was.

Light armor. Heavy machine guns. Probably a hundred enemy, all told. A helo shot down. If the guy in the BMP had known how to drive it, the Talibs could have rolled up the platoon. Not one guy in the garage had surrendered. They'd fought to the end. It didn't make him feel good about what would happen once they got these dudes cornered, where they couldn't retreat. It would be bloody. Grunt-side work, for the Green Monster. Marine shit, not SEAL duty. Next time: claymores, AT4s, antitank mines, and have a heart-to-heart with Verstegen about who actually called the plays when they were in contact.

The ACC, slumping past, burdened with gear. “You okay, Chief?”

Teddy gave him the big grin, bent over, still sucking the dusty, freezing, smoky air. From the wadi came the wailing of the prisoners as they were herded up toward the chopper and captivity. “Just another easy day, buddy. Just another … easy day.”

 

13

Sana'a

TO
Aisha, the moonless night seemed twice as dark without a countersurveillance element supporting her, without contractor escorts, with no one in the car with her except for Hiyat and the other Yemeni women.

Her friend from the mosque did not look nearly as youthful or beautiful as she had at the
tafruta
. Her dark eyes were shadowed; her swan neck sagged her head against the window. Gaida was driving. Jalilah sprawled in the passenger seat. Aisha wasn't sure whose Mercedes this was. Probably Hiyat's husband's. He built houses overlooking the city, on steep slopes no one had thought could be built on. When Aisha had gotten in, they'd clung to each other. Hiyat had wept, but without passion. As if tears held no relief anymore.

“He was such an obedient boy,” she kept muttering. “So … good.”

Aisha sat itching beneath full Kevlar, pistol holstered under a dark burka, Doanelson's personal number already predialed in her cell. Tim Benefiel was trailing them some blocks back, but just now she was seriously doubting if this meeting was wise. Going out against orders … tonight could be the end of her career.

The women were vying to bombard her with opinions. “Hiyat's right,” Gaida spat. “These Salafis, they're not Yemeni. We knew God before foreigners came along to tell us how to pray. And now they blow us up? It's got to stop, that's all. My husband went to their meeting. He told me. About how we had to restore the caliphate, how the Jews and the Americans had to be stopped. I told him, I don't know any Jews, but I know an American, and she's just like us.”

Jalilah said, “Still, I don't know if this is smart. Taking her to them? What if they decide we are
murtadd
and kill us? Such things have happened in other lands.”

“If you allow it, they'll happen here too,” Aisha told them. “You're brave to do this. Many more must know about them. But they keep silent, I guess.”

Gaida said, “Oh, we all know them, yes. They leased those apartments. They paid with riyals, Saudi money. The whole year, one payment. They bought air conditioners. Trucks. They have women in. And a guard in the hallway, with a gun. It's in a bag, but we all know it's a gun.”

Which meant the PSO had to know too, Aisha thought. Did that make what she was doing tonight more or less dangerous? But if she'd gone through channels, gotten host-nation clearance, the people they were going to see would have disappeared. Warned, by the very officials who were professing their cooperation. She had no diplomatic immunity. If the PSO apprehended her, she'd be subject to arrest, a nasty spy trial, or PNG'd—declared persona non grata. None of that anything to look forward to, career-wise.

But what should she have done? Huddled behind the embassy walls, as Caraño wanted? Let Yemen go down the same drain as Sudan and Somalia?

“What kind of bag?” Aisha asked, trying to ignore a little voice insisting, Homegirl, you are way out of your depth. “A black gym bag?”

“That's right. How did you know?” The older woman frowned, and Aisha reminded herself, Shut up. Let them tell you. Don't tell them.

“We knew,” Hiyat moaned. “But our husbands told us not to make trouble. So now Husayn is dead.”

What Aisha found most astonishing was not that she was out here, but that they were. Most Yemeni women were illiterate. They had no health care, not even midwives. These three were wealthy—they had doctors, no doubt; their husbands were rich. But even so, driving was forbidden, and the way Gaida was swerving from lane to lane showed she hadn't had much practice on an actual street. Even being out at night, with other women—this had to take a courage Aisha could only dimly grasp.

“No more mothers should cry,” she told them. “We'll end this. Where exactly are we going?”

“You will see, you will see,” Gaida said, chewing on a fold of black cloth as she slewed around a corner, tires shrieking. Aisha was glad traffic was sparse. If anything had been coming in the other lane, they would have just front-ended it.

*   *   *

THE
car eased to a stop behind one of the gingerbread high-rises in a thickly populated quarter. She took a quick look around as they got out, but couldn't see the mosque dome; couldn't make out, from the dim cutouts of the mountains, exactly where they were. Somewhere west of the Old Town, but inside the 60 Meters Road that ran like a beltway around the southwest. She counted five stories of lit windows. Craning back, she made out lights at the top too, archways, the writhe of palm leaves in a light breeze. A sun-cheating rooftop garden.

Two women stood waiting near overflowing trash cans, muffled to the gills in black and strangely faceless in the dark. Gaida exchanged hushed words with them. Then one waddled forward and without a word took Aisha's hand. Thick, powerful fingers padded with calluses explored hers. Dark eyes flashed from a featureless shadow.

“She comes with us?” An accent Aisha didn't recognize, the voice roughened, careless.

“Yes.”

“
They
do not know?”

“No. To them she will be one of yours.”

The heavyset woman harrumphed, looking Aisha up and down like a poor cut of meat. Then turned and waddled away. A square of light appeared as a door opened, revealing dimly lit steps.

Heading up.

She turned to see all three of her friends standing beside the car. Making no move to follow. “You're not coming?” she muttered.

“
We
can't come, Aisha. They'd notice us.”

“And our husbands—”

“They are all men, you see. These Salafis.”

She saw; oh, yes. But what about her? “They won't notice
me
?” she whispered.

No response from the shadowy figures beside the chromium sparkle of the Mercedes. At last, a barely audible mutter. “You will see. But be careful.”

The heavyset woman called angrily. Aisha flinched; hesitated. And at last turned and followed her to the stairs.

*   *   *

THE
kitchen was extremely small, hot, and, with four women working furiously, crowded. A single overhead bulb flashed off boiling pots, gleaming trays, plates of hummus, chef's knives dicing tiny chilis. A fan with a bent blade went
clack-clack-clack
but didn't cool the air. Aisha smelled mint and chives and coriander, garlic and cardamom, coffee and cumin. And the women themselves, powerfully unwashed under many layers of unlaundered black cloth. Small bowls crowded the sideboard. A teapot whistled on an electric plate. The women hardly spoke, bustling about as if each knew in advance where the other was going to step. But whenever Aisha made a move, she bumped into someone. Eyes studied her from within basketlike masks. Their hands were African black, much darker than her own. Prespiration ran down under her dress. She panted in the steamy heat. The women explained nothing, said nothing, just worked. They were making
salta,
a heavily seasoned meat stew, and
shafout
with
lahuh
bread, like pita bread soaked in a spicy buttermilk sauce. A tray held dates, honey pastries, Turkish-style cakes, walnut and chocolate cookies, sweet egg breads. A refrigerator chugged. If not for the fear in her belly, she might have felt hungry.

She finally guessed who these women must be. The Al-Akhdam were black Yemenis, descendants of Ethiopian slaves. More like the untouchables of India than anything else. Their very name meant “servant” or “slave,” and they were confined to tumbledown ghettos, restricted to trash collection, sewer work, when they could get work at all.

And cooking, of course. Just like her grandmother's mother, back in Carolina. Their flat, quick gazes cut her like honed knives. The largest and oldest seemed to be in charge, but the youngest looked no more than twelve. Whom did they belong to? She didn't even want to ask, to upset whatever arrangement Hiyat had made to slip her in among them. She seized a rag and began wiping countertops, sinks, stovetops. The worn cloth snagged on congealed grease. She blinked sweat from her eyes. She couldn't catch her breath. What the hell was she doing?

A bead curtain clacked and swayed, cutting the room beyond into strips of color. Still scrubbing, she eased between the women, toward it. Peered through.

This room was brightly lit. Eight or nine men sat on a figured carpet, listening with rapt attention to something being read aloud. The air was thick with some unfamiliar perfume. Some wore Saudi-style robes. Others, slacks and Western-style shirts. Not all were bearded, but all had a focused, humorless look. Most were in their twenties. Only one, sitting in an easy chair, was older, the back of his head tinted with gray. He faced away from her, so she couldn't see his face. He was the one reading, in a droning singsong.

Her vision shifted, narrowed. Weapons lay beside each man or leaned in the corners. AKs, mostly, and a few pistols. Curved magazines lay about, and gray-green boxes of Chinese-made cartridges.

She wondered if there were antitank missiles somewhere too. In a closet, in a crawl space. Under a carelessly thrown rug.

A heavy hand on her shoulder, pulling her back. “Do not look at them,” the older woman grated.

“I'm sorry.” Aisha dropped her eyes. Stepped back.

A clap of the hands. “Bring us coffee,” a male voice called peremptorily. “And tea.”

The big woman held her gaze. The hand tightened on her shoulder. “You take tea,” she said slowly, in that unfamiliar dialect. Spacing her words, so Aisha understood. “Follow her.” She jerked her head, and Aisha found herself looking down at the twelve-year-old.