Tracks (56 page)

Israeli Special Forces and the
unharmed British SAS and US Navy Seals were sprawled around the hangar, trying
to get some rest.

“They were alerted just as we
reached the end of the main corridor near the communications hub,” Lennon
explained.  “We lost the element of surprise and when we attacked they
were ready.”

Both Collins and Fleming
perked up. 

“Why did you attack if you
were discovered?” Collins queried.

“We had no choice.  We
were trapped. They sent a force along the corridor which bypassed us when we
hid in adjacent rooms and there was nowhere to retreat.  Had we not attacked,
we would never have gotten out of there.  They would have brought in more
troops and that would have been the end of us!  The guys fought a heroic
battle!  It could have ended up much worse.”

“We’ll need to brief everyone
all the way up the chain,” Fleming commented.

Lennon nodded.  “And the
families,” he added, turning his head to look at the bodies.

One of the doctors came
over.  He spoke Greek and Elena translated. 

“We’ve managed to stabilize
all five wounded,” he said. “We removed shrapnel and bullets from two with head
wounds, one back wound, and two arm wounds,” he reported.

Lennon nodded again. 

“Yeah that would make sense,”
he said quietly.  “We took a grenade and the Brits were shot at from the
computer room.  Two guys caught bullets and one was wounded from another
grenade when we trapped them in the corridor and they retreated through the
tunnel.”

Fleming motioned for Kessler
and Collins to step aside.

“There’ll be hell to pay for
this you know.”

“We got the kids out,” Kessler
said.  “That should count for something.”

“
Yes
, but we got nothing from the compound
except for six dead commandos.  We didn’t get to the safe or the
communication room and this means we have no trail, not to mention the
political flack we’ll have to face for this.”

The three stood quietly for a
while contemplating what to do next.

“We’ll need to evacuate the
dead and the wounded,” Collins finally said. “I can get a C-130 from Turkey.”

“You do that,” Fleming said,
“and have it stop in London while you’re at it.”  Then he continued to
rave.  “Surely the Lebanese government will appeal to the UN and who knows
where else?”

Kessler was watching Elena
approaching Sam and the boys who were huddled on a bench in a remote corner of
the hangar.

“We got the three boys and the
woman,” he began thinking out loud, “and we got Rafik and his wife.  We
might be able to piece something from that.”

“I doubt the boys will be of
any help,” Fleming retorted, “and the woman probably knows not much more…”

“That’s not totally
true.  I learned a few things from Rafik and Nyla yesterday which can set
us in the right direction.  The boys over there might be useful giving us
descriptions and Arab names of anyone who they met at the compound.”

“Yeah, but they wouldn't
  know
of anyone who was sent and where he was sent
to,” Collins remarked.

“I doubt it,” Kessler said,
“but kids talk and there’s always a chance they might recall something.”

“You think Sam will let you do
it? 
And the other families?”
  Collins
questioned.

“Yes, I think they will. 
We did release their kids for them.  Didn’t we?”

“So what do we do?  Do we
get them to Israel, or do it right here?  We’ve got Sam and the three kids
booked on a flight to New York tomorrow as soon as their travel papers get
signed in the consulate.”

“Let me talk to Sam about
it.  You guys have plenty of bad news to dispense,” Kessler said, and
moved towards where Sam was sitting.

Fleming went to gather the SAS
operatives.  They had three dead and two wounded. Among the dead were their
commander Group Captain Ian Nesbitt, Lieutenant Murphy and Sergeant
Crawford.  They needed to make plans to ship the bodies and notify the
families. 
Their success was
tempered due to
the regiment suffering one of its more
disturbing blows.

Collins met with Lennon and
Boone to make similar arrangements.  It would be a black day for the Navy
Seals as well.

CHAPTER
FIFTY FOUR

The speedboat came in at eight
thirty, its exhausted passengers stepping off carefully one by one into a
waiting Jeep which raced to the airport, a kilometer away.  Sam, Elena and
Kessler greeted them outside the hangar.  Lizzy had already reported the
status en route.  Devlin, Natasha and Aziz were still missing.

“We’ll go back there tonight,”
Lizzy said once he ended his short description of the events.

Dori, the Israeli Special
Forces commander joined in.

“We’ll come with you.”

“There’s only room for three
of you, if we want to make it there and back,” Lizzy stated.

“Not a problem, Sergeant,”
Dori agreed.  “There may be more trouble there tonight than last night.”

“That’s for sure,” Rolston
pitched in.  “There was definitely increased activity on the coastal
highway when we were there, waiting on the beach.”

“What if they don’t show up?”
Kessler remarked.

Everyone looked at one another
but no one knew what to say.

At six that the evening a
black sedan with an American flag showed up and a thin, fragile looking man in
a suit jumped out of the passenger seat.  He hurried over
  to
Collins and took him aside.  Everyone stared
as the two conversed in low voices, then the man disappeared back in the car
which sped away.

Collins walked back to address
the group.

“A phone call was received
from a village in Lebanon claiming our three missing people are hiding near
there.”

There was shocked surprise all
around.

“What village?” someone asked.

“I believe it’s called Kfar
Matta,” Collins said.  “The call actually came from Beirut to our
consulate here.”

“Who called from Beirut?”
another asked.

“The caller was a woman who
spoke good English, said she was a friend of Aziz and that he has called from
this village asking to be extracted.”

All eyes turned to Kessler.

“You think it’s legit?” Sam
asked.

“It could be one of several
contacts he has there.  Did she give a name?”

Collins shook his head.

Dori whipped out a map,
spreading it out on the tarmac.

“Kfar Matta is here,” he said
pointing to a spot on the map. “It’s almost a straight line east of Damour
which is on the coast right here.”

Everyone was attentive. 

“I’d estimate it to be roughly
fifteen clicks from the coast,” Dori continued, “extremely rough terrain
though.  If it’s legit and they are really there, I’d say it’s got to be
done with choppers!”

“We’ll need those Black Hawks
again,” Rolston said, looking at Kessler.

“It’s not my call guys,”
Kessler argued.  “We’ll need authorization from the Air Force and general
staff, if not the Minister of Defense or even the Prime Minister.”

“We can help with that,”
Collins offered.  Fleming was nodding his head in agreement.

David Kessler looked at the
group of people who had gathered around him, all eager to complete the mission,
all capable people who had just risked their lives and were willing to risk it
again.

“How do we find them?” he
finally asked. “We can’t just send choppers to search enemy territory…”

“Mike will find a way,” Lizzy
pitched in eagerly.

“We can’t just leave them out
there!” Mai-Li added.

“And we won’t,” Kessler
reasoned. “I just need a good plan to take up with the top brass or they won’t
approve it.”

“Time is of the essence,” Dori
said.  “Let’s get a Black Hawk up there with myself and my team and try to
locate them.  Worst case - we draw back.  No one can plan for such
situations.  I can convince Gidron to approve it and recommend it to the Minister.”

“What about the Air Force?”
Kessler questioned.

“Gidron will talk to
Ishay.  He’ll convince him.”

Ami Gidron was head of
intelligence.  Dori’s unit was under his direct command.  Ishay Ziv
was chief of the Air Force.

“Well, if we want to get this
done, let’s get moving,” Kessler suggested, seemingly convinced. “Collins, can
we scoot over to your consulate and work this from there?  That way it
will seem you are on board as well.”

“We are!” Collins said in
exasperation, and signaled a jeep with UNIFIL marks to come over.

Kessler, Dori, and Fleming,
joined Collins as the NATO jeep sped off toward the city.

*****

It was ten at night and Aziz
was still not back.

Natasha moved closer to
Devlin, seeking his body heat.  She had been soaking wet when they reached
the top of the ridge after seven hours of climbing through stubborn bushes and
jagged boulders, the last section practically crawling her way up.  The
sweat from the excruciating day had already crusted but she was shivering in
the cool night air.

They had found a spot
overlooking the village, hidden between large boulders from three sides under
thick bushes and branches of a cedar tree.  It was the perfect spot with
room to stretch out and even nap for a while but after five hours on the hard ground
it was getting uncomfortable.

Devlin, lying on his stomach
looking out into the darkness, his weapon next to him, felt her movement and
put his arm around her.  He felt her thin body tremble and looked at
her.  She looked worried, her perfectly symmetrical face inches from
his.  It was dusty and creased with mud but still stunning.  He could
feel her warm breath.

“You think he’s been caught?”
she whispered.

“Damned if I know,” he
answered, a little woozy from her closeness to him.

They could see the village
lights shimmering below them but the trail to and fro was darkened by the
night.

At midnight, Aziz appeared,
causing Devlin to go for his gun as his dark figure suddenly came into his line
of sight.

“I managed a call to Beirut
and asked one of my contacts to call the US consulate in Cyprus where I believe
everyone is gathered now,” Aziz explained, sitting
himself
on the ground crossing his legs, Arab style. He took a backpack off his
shoulders took out a leather canteen and some pita bread with goat’s cheese and
offered it to his companions who drank thirstily and devoured the food.

“I waited for two hours but my
contact never called back.  Well, you know, phone lines around here are
quite unreliable,” he continued, taking a swig from the canteen.

“I was about to start back
when some vehicles with armed men appeared.  They camped out in the
village square near the mosque until about an hour ago.”

“We didn’t see any activity
from here,” Devlin remarked, his mouth half full.

“You couldn’t see it from here
but my friend’s house is near there further down the ridge.”

“So we don’t know if the
message went through,” Natasha surmised, wiping her lips with the back of her
hand.

“We need to assume they got
it,” Devlin said, “and prepare to be pulled out.  Question is: from
where?  This entire area is one big forest with nowhere for a chopper to
land.”

“And assuming we find a place,
how would we signal our position?” Aziz asked.

“I’ve got an emergency beacon
Sergeant Boone gave me before they took off with the choppers.”

Both Aziz and Natasha looked
at him in surprise. 

“Why didn’t you say so?”
Natasha asked.

“Well, we were kind of busy
until now, weren’t we?” he said, smiling at her. “And it wasn’t quite
relevant.”

“I could have asked my contact
to inform them that we have a beacon,” Aziz said.

“True, but it wouldn’t have
mattered much because I intend to use it regardless.  Besides, Boone would
know I have one.  What we don’t quite know is when to turn it on because
the enemy can locate us with this beacon as well.  Now, what do we do
about a landing zone?”

“The closest one would be the
school playground in the village,” Aziz said.  They have a miniature
football field I believe the Black Hawk can land on.”

“A bit risky, isn’t it?”
Natasha commented.

“I’d say very risky but the
nearest place I can think of besides the school playground is by the coast or a
day and a half’s hike from here eastward along this ridge.”