Authors: Russell Blake
Joseph shrugged out of the backpack and placed it on the floor. He set to work, first removing a heavy steel case and then another, larger package. He opened the case and removed two glass vials from the form-fitted foam interior, unscrewed the cap of the first one, and poured the contents onto two of the three heavy metal hinges. He repeated the process on the final hinge with the second vial and stabbed a button on his digital stopwatch, waiting patiently. The acid emitted an acrid chemical smoke as it weakened the barrier’s structure.
Three minutes later, he opened the pack and removed what resembled long tubes of modeling clay, taking care to form the charges so they would do maximum damage at the hinge joints. They had been warned that the door was deceptively innocuous, and that it would take hours with a torch or a diamond-bit drill to cut through the lock, but the hinges had a possible weakness – one they were about to put to the test.
Stepping back to inspect his work, he next set detonators into the putty and edged down the hall, followed by Solomon. Joseph compressed two foam plugs and jammed them into his ears before holding up a tiny remote trigger and pressing the button.
The charges ignited in a white-hot blaze, and both men squeezed their eyes shut until it had dimmed. Joseph flipped up his night vision goggles and approached the door. He surveyed the damage, and then mounted an explosive charge to the center hinge position, flipped the toggle switch, and trotted back to Solomon, who joined him in a hasty return to the landing, where they could take shelter around the corner.
They could feel the force of the blast when it detonated, and once the concussive wave had passed, both removed flashlights and returned down the hall, which was filled with smoke. The doorway resembled a wall that had taken a direct hit from a tank shell; the door had blown inward off its hinges. Holding their breath, they trained their beams into the dark expanse. Another set of stairs stretched down into the gloom. The Solomon nodded before he began descending to their ultimate destination five stories below the Baghdad streets.
The final landing was anticlimactic – just a ten-foot-square area with three more steel doors. An electric keypad glowed, still functioning from the battery backup power they’d been assured would last for up to six months. Solomon reached for the nearest one and entered a series of six digits, reading the PDA screen where the numbers were scrawled in shaky script on the same document as the crude blueprint.
The door opened with a hiss, hydraulics easing it inward, and Solomon shined his flashlight beam inside. A single black Anvil road case sat on casters in the middle of the small chamber, Cyrillic script emblazoned on its side in white paint, a heavy electrical cable running from its base to a junction box on the far wall. Joseph approached on hesitant feet, then unfastened the two latches on the lid and opened it. Inside were two blue aluminum cases, no more than thirty-six by twenty-four inches, without markings. Both bore strong black nylon straps fastened through sturdy eyelets to make carrying easier, the rugged single center handles being inadequate for transporting their heavy mass for any sort of extended distance. Thin, flat cables were plugged into special sockets near the bases, running from a surge-protected transformer built into the Anvil housing.
Joseph carefully lifted one of the cases from the neoprene-lined road crate and then, as Solomon trained his flashlight beam on it, flipped open the clasps and slowly opened it. Both men stared in silence at the contents for a few moments, and then Joseph softly closed the lid and moved to the next one. After repeating the process, he unplugged the cables and whispered to Solomon.
“Bingo.”
When they had removed both from the chamber, Joseph handed Solomon two grenades from his shoulder sack and turned to begin his walk back up the steep stairway. Solomon pulled the pins on both, tossed them into the room, and swung the heavy steel door closed. The six locking bolts engaged with an audible clunk, and he spun and hefted the remaining case as he dropped the night vision goggles back into position for the long climb back to the street.
At ground level, the eerie silence of below was replaced by the dissonant reports of automatic weapons shooting no more than a hundred yards from their position – the Coalition forces were on the move, and Iraqi resistance was giving way. Like the fall of Hitler’s Berlin, everyone involved knew that the outcome of the struggle was pre-ordained even as the battle was joined, but there would always be soldiers willing to die for the ephemeral ideas of duty and honor and country. As one set of young men, barely more than boys, charged forward, sacrificing their lives as though the taking of the next block was worth trading for the only time they would ever have on Earth, another set of young men, equally patriotic, defended their native territory with the conviction of the truly righteous – the resulting carnage an oversight of a leadership that hadn’t factored in the cost of taking on an army of willing martyrs.
The three men crept out of the building and took a final glance down the narrow passageway to their left, away from the nearest gunfire, and then darted into the night toward the crumbling tenements a few blocks away.
They’d cleared a block when gunfire erupted and bullets pounded into the walls around them. Without breaking stride, two of the three fired efficient bursts at the muzzle flashes in the windows of the nearest buildings, driving the shooters back into the relative shelter of the rooms from which they were firing at anything that moved.
A round struck the pavement a few yards to the side of the third man, and the ricocheting slug gashed his hamstring. He stumbled but then powered on, firing up at the gunman who had wounded him. When he reached the corner of the nearest building he stopped, out of the field of fire. He whistled; his two companions slowed when they heard the distinctive sound and turned to see that he was lagging behind.
“I’m hit,” he hissed, as Solomon circled back to check on him.
“Where?”
“Leg.”
“How bad?”
“If we had a car, not that bad. But to run out of here? Aghh…!” The wounded man winced as the full extent of the pain hit him.
Solomon reached into the pocket of his cargo pants and retrieved a syringe. He injected half the contents into the wounded man and knelt down to look at the damage. After a few seconds he stood.
“You’ll make it, but we need to get you to a vehicle. Let’s move another block, and then we’ll see what we can find. I’m not going to abandon you here.”
“No. Leave me. You know the stakes – this is far too important. I’ll be fine. Worst case I’ll get three squares in a POW camp for a few months. Get the hell out of here. Now.”
Solomon hesitated, and then adjusted his grip on the aluminum case he was carrying and nodded. “Good luck. We’ll see each other again soon. I’m sure of it. Keep your head down, and surrender to the first Coalition troops you see. They’ll treat you better than your own mother.”
“Easy for you to say. And Mother hates me…”
Solomon grinned, but it was forced. “She’s not alone. Take care. The shot will keep the pain at bay for awhile.”
“I know. Here. Take my credentials and the NV gear,” the wounded man said. He fished out a wallet and handed it to Solomon, then pulled the goggles off his head and tossed them to him.
“See you around, tough guy. I’ll dispose of these,” Solomon said.
“You too.” The wounded man hesitated. “If…something happens, let Mom know I love her, would you?”
“Nothing’s going to happen, but all right, little brother, I will.” Solomon’s eyes were sad but hard behind the night vision goggles. “Don’t do anything stupid. This isn’t our war. Keep quiet, lie low and wait for the inevitable. And shoot any locals who come near you – they’d just as soon cut your throat as give you a sip of water.”
“Yeah. I know the drill. Now go. You know what you have to do.”
Solomon stood to his full, considerable height, shifted the shoulder strap on the heavy suitcase, turned without looking back, and jogged with a fluid gait away from the battle, his precious cargo now the priority above all others.
Chapter 4
Three weeks ago, ten miles south of Eli, Somalia
A harsh wind blew in from the ocean, shifting
Salome
’s hull around in the cove so that it pointed at the shore like an accusatory finger. Camouflage netting covered the superstructure and most of the deck, except for the area where the pirates gathered near the bow. Korfa, their leader, raised his AK-47 over his head as he addressed his men, who were mostly in their late teens to early twenties and also toting Kalashnikov assault rifles. He had a resonant speaking voice and an air of authority that was undeniable, even among the rabble that were his men. Nobody dared to interrupt him or jeer in the manner typical of their interactions among themselves. They stood listening respectfully as he outlined the progress to date.
“The company negotiator is still insisting on concessions, and has taken the stance that because members of the crew were killed, he’s hesitant to negotiate with us.”
An angry murmur ran through the group. Korfa held up a hand, commanding silence.
“This is all posturing. They know that the longer they wait to pay, the more likely we are to accept less than our initial demand.”
“How much are they offering, sir?” one of the fighters nearest the front, a favorite of Korfa, asked.
“We demanded five million dollars. They countered with one. This has now been going on for over two months, and we’re still no closer to collecting. I think that the company has the impression that we’ll gladly accept whatever they offer if they wait us out. To which, I say, we must send a message they’ll understand.”
The men managed a glum cheer, but were far from happy. They’d been expecting their part of a big payday, and each week that dragged on made them increasingly agitated and impatient.
“To that end, I want you to go below and bring up three of the remaining crew members. Any three. I don’t care which. Whoever is the sickest or has been the most troublesome. Nadif, I want you to film this. We’ll have our conduit in Mogadishu send the footage to the company and see if that creates urgency. Because I’m tired of waiting for the rich shipping company to decide what price they put on their ship and their crew’s lives.”
The men cheered again, this time with more enthusiasm, as five of them peeled off and moved to fetch the crew members. Nadif, Korfa’s second in command, withdrew an old digital camera from his pack and checked the batteries while they waited.
“I have enough to film for maybe a minute. At most, two.”
“That’s all we’ll need. I don’t plan on making any long speeches,” Korfa said with a smirk.
The three unfortunates were herded onto the deck, the relentless sun beating down on their pasty skin disorienting them after months in the stinking dark belly of the ship. They looked nothing like the men who’d been aboard when the vessel had been taken. The effects of starvation and abuse had left them little more than walking skeletons, their shambling gait and confused, blinking, unfocused eyes adding to the impression that they were something other than human – alien, nocturnal cave dwellers caught unawares by a hunting party.
Korfa nodded at Nadif and pulled a rusty machete from his belt.
“Tie their hands behind them,” he ordered.
One of the pirates trotted to a pile of line and quickly returned, slicing it into sections with his dagger. He tossed two pieces to his mates and then roughly jerked the first crew member’s arms behind him and tied his wrists. One of the other crewmen still had some fight in him and resisted, struggling, but was quickly convinced of the error of his ways by a hard slam in the head with the wooden stock of an AK-47. Once all three were bound, Korfa told Nadif to start the camera.
“These men are three of the remaining twelve crew. Several have died in captivity. These men today will die because of your stalling. We told you a week ago that you needed to meet our demands or dire consequences would ensue, so this is on you. Each week you delay, three more will meet the same fate. You were warned. Now, see what your games have brought,” Korfa said in his native Somali, confident it would be translated and his meaning made clear.
Korfa approached the first man, who had been knocked to his knees, and without preamble swung the heavy machete blade, chopping through half his neck and eliciting a gushing torrent of blood. He stepped back as the crewman’s heart continued to beat for a few seconds, pumping more spray into the sunlight, and then the body fell forward into a growing puddle of crimson. The pirates hoisted their rifles over their heads in triumph, shaking them and dancing impromptu little jigs as Korfa moved to the next wide-eyed man, who closed his eyes and was muttering a prayer when the blade ended his life.
The final crew member glared at the pirate, who now had blood spattered across his face and shirt, his strong arm muscles bulging from his grip on the machete, and then hissed a curse at him before spitting in his face. Korfa grinned again, and with one hand wiped the phlegm from his cheek as the other brought the machete down, this time on the man’s clavicle, shattering the bone and slicing six inches into his rib cage. The man screamed in agony as blood poured from the wound. Korfa repeated the blow on the other shoulder, watching impassively as the man shuddered in agony, shock beginning to drain his face of color, but his body still alive even as his life seeped slowly away.
“Untie his hands and throw him overboard. Let him try to swim faster than the sharks,” Korfa instructed, and then gestured to Nadif to stop filming.
The men hoisted the dying crewman by his feet, his arms ruined, and dragged him to the side of the ship. One of them severed his bindings and another kicked him in the head, and then three of the pirates pushed him to the edge and over into the water two and a half stories below. Money exchanged hands as the gunmen bet on how long he would last before one of the big marine predators caught his scent and came in for the kill, and for a moment, the men’s faces were animated by the game and the ability to wager on its outcome – or rather, the timing of it.