The First Casualty (26 page)

64

Gendarmerie

Timbuktu, Mali

The shots made Captain Elijah Yahya al Wangam of the National Army of Mali nearly drop his morning coffee. Not that shooting in Timbuktu was that rare. Bandits, FNLA, Tuaregs, Islamic Maghreb, all had made an effort at seizing power in the ethnically diverse and, in al Wangam's opinion, ungovernable, northern part of the country within the last twelve months. What these people were fighting over, he could not imagine. Sand, stones, mud buildings, a few sheep and goats with an occasional camel. Hardly worth killing people over. Had the politicians in Bamako the intelligence of a pile of camel dung, they would let these people secede in peace and thank them for it.

Now they were at it again, whoever “they” were; and al Wangam and his woefully small garrison would have to restore the peace. He was reaching for the citizens' band radio just as M'kal, his lieutenant, stuck his head into the room.

“Make sure Paarth is awake and sufficiently sober,” he ordered, referring to the third man on duty that morning, if reporting stumbling and reeking of alcohol could be considered on duty. Yes, he would have loved to fire him, but once again, this decision had to be made in faraway Bamako. “Bring the Suzuki around and make sure the .50 caliber is loaded while I try and raise the off-duty men. We may have a full-scale insurrection on hand.”

Thornbush hedges were common in Timbuktu. Not only did the prickly plant thrive in arid, semi-desert conditions, its armament of thick spikes of thorns made it one of the few living things a goat couldn't eat, thereby presenting a natural defense of the small gardens the locals cultivate with a great deal more optimism than success.

It was from behind one of these natural barriers that Viktor watched the hurried departure of Timbuktu's finest. Three men, two in the truck's cab and a third clutching onto the machine gun mounted on the bed behind, screeched out of the Gendarmerie's dirt parking lot and slid into a turn toward the sound of occasional gunfire.

The driver either did not see or did not understand the peril presented by the series of spike strips Viktor had laid out in the predawn darkness, a series of plastic strips about four feet in length, each with half a dozen steel spikes sticking six inches above the roadway, the same simple, but effective, tool that had ended so many televised high-speed chases.

What happened next would satisfy a fan of true slapstick. The rock-worn tires of the truck somehow made it past the first row, either avoiding them or showing no effect. The second set of spikes not only punctured the tires, the immediate effect was rubber spaghetti. For a second, the steel rims struck sparks against the rocky sand with a grating sound. Then the lug bolts sheared from the torque and strain and one or more of the wheels went its own way.

The truck skewed like a bronco suddenly running out of rope, launching the man standing on the bed into a less than graceful dive. Reversing ends, the vehicle began a spin, sending both doors flapping like those of an immature bird trying to fly. Instead, what became airborne was the truck itself as it dug its nose into a sand dune and flipped onto its back.

Viktor watched he cab's two upside-down occupants dangling from their seat belts as they struggled to get free. He keyed his radio. “Police not a factor.”

65

Sankore Mosque

Timbuktu, Mali

Within seconds of Jason's first shot, Emphani and Andrews shed their Bedouin attire and were scaling the steep slope of the pyramid-like minaret like mountain climbers. A rope was tossed over a beam before each man pulled himself up, retrieved his line, and tossed it over the next protruding wooden log. Slow work, but certainly a better means of attack than the original plan, which had contemplated a frontal assault­ on the door on the other side of the minaret.

Each man carried only a knife and pistol for armament. Were anything heavier needed, the battle would be lost. Also, weight had to be saved for the other objects they carried in their backpacks. Andrews was standing on tiptoe to throw his rope over the next beam above his head when he felt his footing give way. He just had time to lift himself up when the wood beneath his feet snapped off like a broken matchstick.

“How the hell does wood in the desert rot?” he hissed at Emphani who was being less than successful in hiding his amusement.

“There is a rainy season here. That is why it is not quite desert. Perhaps one too many servings of
assab
at dinner last night is at fault, not the wood.”

Andrews started to retort he had eaten less of the spiced meat poured over boiled, cracked millet than Emphani, then realized the absurdity of arguing out here on the side of the minaret and pulled himself up to the next beam.

Inside the minaret, Moustaph watched uselessly as Abu Bakr entered a series of numbers into a laptop as they came to him through the earbuds. The older man felt purposeless in the face of such technology, but was determined to see this, his greatest victory over the infidels since 9/11, completed. He was mentally reviewing the CD already in the hands of Al Jazeera, Kawthar, and other major Islamic television networks in which he explained to the world at large why Al Qaeda and its allies would fight to the death to remove the Crusaders from the land of the Prophet, may Allah give him peace. Even the stations in America would run translations of parts of his speech, including Fox, the one hated most by the martyred Bin Laden, may Allah raise up his soul.

Speaking of whom, Moustaph . . .

These was a sound from outside the minaret, a sound right outside the window like the snapping of a dry twig but much, much louder.

Abu Bakr had heard it, too. Both men struggled to get past the giant nozzle to the window, but there simply wasn't room for one, let alone two adults. The two men had the same idea at the same time: They swung the machine back away from the window and pressed forward to the opening.

For an instant, Moustaph could not believe what he was seeing: Two men, one white, one black, were standing, no, climbing, on the exposed wooden beams below. That devil Peters! But how . . . ? For the whole past day, the American had not left the hotel according to Moustaph's spies. Moustaph had been certain the president's plane, or what was left of it, would be at the bottom of the Atlantic before Peters could figure out a way to prevent it. But now . . . ?

Reaching into his shirt, Moustaph produced a 9-millimeter Makarov, a souvenir of his service with the mujahideen against the Russian invaders of Afghanistan two and a half decades ago.

Abu Bakr knocked his arm aside. “No time! We fire now or it will take minutes to recompute! Get the nozzle back into position!”

Moustaph complied. He would deal with the man's insubordination later.

Emphani and Andrews were on the row of beams just below those even with the window. Andrews tied his rope to the wood protruding overhead, looped the ends around his belt to free his hands and hung his backpack from it. In seconds, he had attached a short hose to something in the pack. A few feet away, Emphani held a knife in a position where it could be thrown at anyone appearing at the window.

“Fire the thing, you insolent son of a dog, fire!” Moustaph snarled at Abu Bakr.

Hose in his right hand, Andrews used his left to raise his body until his eyes were level with the bottom of the window. He was looking into a narrow room almost completely filled with the machine. Jammed into a corner was a small, low table with two cushions stacked upon it and a pot Andrews guessed was designed to hold tea.

There were two men, one of whom had what looked like a Russian pistol in his hand. No time to take him out, just . . .

Ducking his head below the windowsill, Andrews squeezed the grip in his hand. There was the crack of a pistol and the angry buzz of a bullet past his head a split second before a click of a battery generated a spark and the hiss of escaping gas, and, instantly, the
whoosh
of the expansion of superheated air, a much magnified sound of the burner of a gas stove igniting.

There was a duet of screams from inside as a jet of napalm flames licked the room, hungering for its contents at the same time it was glued to them.

Andrews swung down from the window, making room for Emphani, who was reaching into his own backpack. Was that a red blotch Chief saw on the front of his shirt? No time to ask. Emphani was holding a package the size and shape of a book, a little something the Russian explosive expert, Viktor, had concocted. He snatched a string from the parcel and tossed it into the window. Both men hastily rappelled down the side of the minaret, dodging the beams that had made their ascent possible.

From the hotel window, Jason saw smoke belch from the minaret's entrance, an assurance Andrews and Emphani had at least partially succeeded.

He spoke into the mike of the citizens' band radio. “I need a taxi to the airport.”

Viktor's cue. He would be outside the hotel in the Toyota in less than a minute. Jason glanced through the scope and fired two random shots into the mosque's courtyard to freeze the men cowering there.

“Your taxi is here, sir,” Viktor's disembodied voice said.

Jason took one last look through the scope. He had hoped, prayed if you could so define his pleas to an uncaring universe, that he would see Moustaph make a break through that door. Likely, the flamethrower had incinerated the bastard. Still, killing him, putting a bullet into the very face of evil, seeing one of the brains that had plotted 9/11 splattered over desert sands, would be a catharsis, an expurgation of the irrational guilt Jason suffered. Laurin had been on her way to fetch him a cup of coffee that late summer morning. Had it been the other way around . . .

No time for rumination. As much as he wanted to see Moustaph's dark face quartered by the crosshairs of the Leupold, he could not risk the lives of his men on the chance the man had survived the flamethrower's blast or what was to come next.

66

Hotel la Colombe

Rue Askia Mohammed

Timbuktu, Mali

Knapsack on his back, Jason dashed through the lobby, the Barrett in his hands, wiping the smile from the desk clerk's face to be replaced by astonishment. The camera equipment had become as superfluous as the
National Geographic
charade, both left in the room.

Viktor was in the driver's seat of the Toyota truck parked at the front door. “Taxi? Is set rate for airport!”

Carefully placing the sniper's rifle in the truck's bed, Jason climbed into the cab. “First the mosque. And stand on it!”

Emphani and Andrews had shed their backpacks the instant they could spare a hand to wriggle out of the straps. Emphani took a step before his knees buckled.

Without hesitation, Andrews scooped him up, slinging him across his shoulders in a fireman's carry. He immediately felt the warm fluid soaking through his own shirt. “Goddammit, man, why didn't you say you were hit?”

A faint chuckle. “And you would have done what, call 9-1-1?”

Before Andrews could reply, there was an earth-trembling blast and a hot wind strong enough to nearly knock him down. Turning, Emphani still draped across his shoulders, he gaped at what he saw.

The top half of the minaret had simply vanished, leaving a cloud of gray-brown dust slowly settling around the shattered base like a woman putting on a shawl. Tiny metallic parts, the remains of the machine, were distant stars in the early morning light. Viktor was as skillful with explosives as he proclaimed himself to be.

“Jesus Christ on a . . .”

Apparently, his astonishment at the amount of damage done by a pound and a half of C-4 had rendered him unable to describe the appropriate mode of transportation.

The battered Toyota's worn brakes screeched just outside the mosque's courtyard. Jason was yelling and motioning from the passenger's seat.

Burdened with Emphani, Andrews waddled across the sand. “Gimme a hand here, Artiste.”

Jason helped Andrews gently lay Emphani flat in the truck's bed before climbing over the side. “You ride with Viktor. I'll see if there's anything I can do.”

Andrews took one last look. “Poor bastard took one meant for me.”

Jason was unpleasantly surprised how much blood had accumulated in the truck's bed in the few seconds Emphani had lain there. Kneeling, Jason pulled his knife from its leg scabbard and cut away the blood-drenched shirt. A small tide of crimson was flowing down the right arm. It didn't require a second look to see why: A neat hole just below the armpit was gushing blood like an uncapped oil well. Jason used the knife to cut a strip from Emphani's shirt and then to tighten the rude tourniquet. From what he could see, the brachial artery had taken a direct hit. Without medical help in the immediate future, the man would bleed out. Jason had seen worse deaths. A fatal loss of blood meant the victim drifted quietly off to sleep, never to wake. Relatively painless or not, helplessly watching a comrade die was not an experience to which Jason would ever become accustomed.

“How bad is it?” Emphani was whispering.

“Ah, a scratch. You'll be fine.”

It could have been a cough, but more likely it was a weak laugh. “Jason, you cannot lie for
merde.
”

Before Jason could reply, Emphani had grabbed his shirt in a remarkably strong grip. There was nothing strong about the voice, though. Jason had to put his ear next to Emphani's lips to hear.

At first, he thought he couldn't hear. Then it dawned on him what the dying man was saying.

“Harvard?”

Emphani smiled, managed a nod, and lay back flat.

Whatever thoughts and emotions Jason had were interrupted by a frantic tapping on the cab's rear windshield. Chief's mouth was open, yelling something that could not be heard over the rumble of an exhaust long without a muffler, the rattle of a chassis loosened by washboard-like roads and the general clatter of loose objects banging around the bed with each gully, ditch, or pothole. What was clear was that he was over Jason's shoulder. One glance answered the unasked question.

Behind them, almost obscured in the Toyota's dust, was another truck, this one mounted a flashing blue light and filled with armed men in uniform. Apparently, Mali's finest had not only managed to survive the damage Viktor had done, but round up reinforcements as well. Worse, they seemed to be gaining.