The Third Target (38 page)

That’s when we heard the muffled sounds of automatic gunfire above us.

“They’re inside the palace,” the king said. “We need to go now.”

The king’s bodyguards absolutely refused to let him take the lead. They didn’t care how long he had served in the army. Nor did they care that he was a direct descendant of Muhammad. Not right now. They had taken an oath to lay down their lives to protect the monarch and keep him alive at all costs, and that’s what they intended to do. Thus, four of the king’s six protectors moved ahead of him to the front of the pack, while two others covered his back. The rest of the assembled agents and duty officers formed a protective ring around President Taylor and President Mansour and Prime Minister Lavi, as well as the queen and the crown prince. Yael and I brought up the rear, with Sa’id in the very back.

The lead agents decided not to take either of the stairwells back up to the top, assessing them as too risky. Instead, they unlocked an emergency escape hatch on the far side of the bunker and ordered us all to climb up what looked like the inside of a missile silo to the main level. The king went after the lead agents and the rest of us followed quickly behind.

“Where does this lead?” I whispered to Sa’id while I waited anxiously for my turn.

“It opens in a service garage on the south side of the compound,” he whispered back. “It won’t get us any closer to the Suburbans, but there are only a few people beyond those gathered with us who even know this route exists.”

The climb up the metal ladder drilled into the side of the concrete silo, three stories high, was all the more difficult with the bulky and heavy backpacks we were carrying. As we worked our way upward, the sound of the gun battle above us reached a fevered pitch. What worried me, aside from whether Queen Rania had the arm strength to make the climb, was how vulnerable we now were. If an enemy was waiting for us at the top, we’d all be dead before any of us could turn around and get back into the bunker. And what if ISIS rebels got into the bunker behind us?

But that wasn’t the only problem. The closer we got to the top, the more intensely hot it became. Within minutes I completed the climb and found out why. The burning remains of the F-16 and the resulting explosions from its suicide mission had created a scorching inferno. The service garage that was supposed to shield us and give us some initial cover was gone. Obliterated. Wiped out in the crash.

The scene at the top of the silo was surreal. I had never witnessed anything like it. It was an image of the apocalypse. Fire was everywhere. Whatever structures had not yet been destroyed were completely ablaze. The flames soared twenty, thirty, forty feet or more into the air. I was immediately drenched in sweat. I could feel the searing heat cooking my skin.

From my right, I suddenly heard screaming. When I turned, I saw one of the king’s bodyguards engulfed in fire. And then I heard a burst of automatic-weapons fire and saw three agents fall to the ground.

“Hit the deck!”
the king yelled in English.

We all instantly dropped to our stomachs. Yael and a Secret Service
agent to my left were the first to return fire. Soon everyone around me with a weapon was firing. Through the leaping flames and the thick, black, nearly blinding smoke, I could make out hazy figures moving here and there. They were wearing black ski masks. They were ISIS, and they couldn’t be more than fifty yards away. I aimed my MP5, flicked off the safety, and fired two bursts, then two more.

The masked men ran off, and I heard a Shin Bet agent yell,
“Clear! We’re clear on this side! Let’s go! Let’s go!”

Turning toward him, I realized four of the agents near me were KIA
 
—two Americans, a Jordanian, and an Israeli. The protective team around the principals was dwindling fast. We were outmanned, outgunned, and running out of time. Our only hope was making it to those armor-plated SUVs before the enemy did or before they captured us and cut off our heads.

I was about to jump up to join them when I saw the flaming wreckage of Marine One at two o’clock. It looked like it had taken a direct hit from an antitank missile. There was almost nothing left.

Then I saw someone creeping behind the burning Sea King. I fired two bursts and was about to fire again, but then Yael was on her feet. She dropped her backpack and ran toward the flames, firing as she went.
What was she doing? Was she mad?
She had no idea who was back there or how many more were hidden by the smoke.

As she disappeared from view, I heard an enormous firefight erupt behind the chopper. She was in trouble. I looked behind me. The principals and their details were racing for the SUVs. Sa’id was with them, flanking the royal family and yelling for me to join them. I looked back toward the chopper as the gunfire intensified. But there was no question
 
—I had to go find Yael. I couldn’t just leave her to fight alone.

Scrambling to my feet, I shrugged off my own backpack and ran headlong into the flames and around the front side of the Sea King. For the moment, I held my fire. I couldn’t see an enemy, and I’d
never forgive myself if I killed or wounded Yael. Amid the billows of smoke, my eyes were watering. I could barely breathe. I was starting to choke. But as I came all the way around to the other side of the inferno, I stopped dead in my tracks.

Yael was not more than thirty or forty feet ahead of me. But she was no longer armed. She had her hands up over her head and was surrounded by three hooded men. Each was pointing a Kalashnikov at her. Why they hadn’t killed her yet I had no idea. But they were screaming something at her in Arabic. She began lowering herself to the ground. Soon she was on her knees, her back to me. The men were still screaming something, but she didn’t seem to be responding.

I quickly checked behind me and to both of my flanks. I hadn’t been spotted yet. And most of the action was well behind me, likely converging against the principals. But I had no idea what to do next. It was clear Yael’s only hope was for me to kill these three
 
—and fast
 
—before more terrorists arrived. But I wasn’t a trained soldier. I wasn’t a sniper or a sharpshooter. The chance of my hitting any of them, much less killing all three of them, without killing her too seemed minuscule at best.

I just stood there frozen. Then one of the terrorists put the barrel of his machine gun on the back of her neck. He barked something at her. She didn’t respond at first, so another one drove his boot into her stomach. She cried out and doubled over in pain but he forced her back up to her knees. She tried to raise her hands over her head again but was clearly having a hard time doing it. I could see now that she was bleeding from her left shoulder. And then one of them ripped her shirt halfway off.

Something in me snapped. I yelled at the top of my lungs and charged them as fast as I could run. I started firing
 
—short bursts, one after another. I might very well kill her, I knew, but it was a chance I had to take. There was no other choice. If I did nothing, she’d be dead for certain. Raped first, probably, and then beheaded. Or crucified.
Possibly dismembered. But she wasn’t getting out alive unless I did something fast.

Two of the terrorists heard me coming and began to turn, aiming their weapons at me. I pulled the trigger. One of them took a full burst of machine-gun fire to the face and went sprawling. The other took three shots to the chest and collapsed to the ground as well. Yael hit the deck, flattening herself against the ground, facedown. As she did, I was afraid the third terrorist would pull the trigger and finish her off. Instead, when he saw his friends go down, he pivoted toward me. I was coming at him full bore. He was about to open fire. I unleashed all the ammo I had left. His gun did fire but the shots went wild, and he went crashing to the pavement as one of my bullets struck home. The next instant I reached the four of them. Throwing down my MP5, I grabbed the third terrorist’s Kalashnikov and unloaded a full burst into his chest.

That’s when I heard Yael scream,
“James, look out!”

I turned but it was too late. Another terrorist was coming around the corner. He had a pistol, not a machine gun, but he got off at least three rounds before I could return fire. One hit me in the left arm, just above the elbow. I spun around and dropped to the ground. The guy kept coming at me and firing, but as he closed the distance, Yael sprang to her feet and tackled him in midstride. They struggled furiously. Yael took two hard punches to the face and then the guy was on top of her. I watched in helpless amazement as she drove her right knee into his groin. I’d never seen a man double over like he did. She added a sharp crack to his neck, then pushed him off her and dove for his pistol. A split second later, she wheeled around and double-tapped him to the chest. He collapsed.

Adrenaline surging, I grabbed my MP5, ejected the spent magazine, reloaded, and scrambled to my feet.

“Come on,”
I yelled.
“They’re leaving without us.”

Yael began running flat out, and I followed.

We retraced our route around what was left of Marine One. On the way, Yael dropped two more terrorists. But to our horror, when we got past the flaming wreckage and back to the silo opening, we saw the rest of our team. They were under withering fire from our right, pinned down in a grove of trees about halfway to the Suburbans.

Yael didn’t hesitate. Without making a sound, she pointed for me to head right. She would go left. I nodded and bolted to the cover of a half-destroyed cement wall on the back side of the palace remains. Drawing no fire, I inched my way forward. Ahead of me was an inferno, the burning shell of a three-story wing of the palace. There were no doors where a double set should have been. I moved closer, pointing my machine gun inside, searching desperately for any signs of movement as my skin baked and my eyes filled with smoke.

Thirty yards to my left, I could see Yael doing the same thing, moving into the other side of the building as the firefight between our team and the ISIS rebels raged another fifty yards to her left. As best I could tell, the rebels were shooting from the cover of this section of the palace. If we could find them, perhaps we could distract
them and give our guys a chance to make a break for the armored vehicles.

Yael pointed to me and then to a stairway ahead and to my right. Then she signaled that she would work her way through the ground floor. A flash of fear rippled through me. That gave me two floors to clear and very little time to do it.

Seeing no one yet, I cautiously worked my way up the stairs. I could hear machine-gun fire coming from above, but I couldn’t tell from where exactly. The stairs were creaking. I was making too much noise. Anyone waiting for me would cut me down in an instant. So it hardly made sense to go slow.

Abandoning all caution, I bounded up the steps, legs aching, lungs sucking in as much air as they could. I reached the top and swept the MP5 from side to side. But no one was there. Then I heard more machine-gun fire, clearer now, coming from the third floor, almost directly above me.

This time I moved more carefully up the stairs, placing my feet on the extreme edge of each step, hoping they would creak less or not at all. Inch by inch I moved my way upward while all around I could hear nonstop gunfire and men suffering horrible, ghastly deaths. The only good thing was that all the cacophony covered up whatever sounds I was making.

As I reached the top step, the gunfire stopped. I froze in place, my heart pounding through my chest. I heard a clatter. Someone was reloading. But in which room? How many were there?

For a moment I hesitated, trying to map out my next action, when gunfire erupted on the first floor. Yael was all in now. I needed to move as well.

Sliding off my dress shoes, I crept down the smoke- and rubble-filled hallways in my socks. Then the shooting began again. It was coming from one of the last rooms at the end of the hall, the rooms overlooking the courtyard, the grove of trees, and what was left of
our team. I wasn’t sure if it was the room on the left or the room on the right. Maybe it was both.

Under the cover of the gunfire, I bolted forward as fast as I could and made my bet. Sliding to a halt, I pivoted and burst through the door on the left and started shooting. An instant later, two snipers had collapsed to the ground. I put another two bullets into each to be sure and then turned around.

Was that it? Was it over?

No. I heard more gunfire coming from the other side of the hall. And now I had lost the element of surprise.

Moving carefully, I made my way to the door just as it began to swing open. I aimed at the center of the doorframe and pulled the trigger. A hooded figure dropped to the floor in front of me.

I quickly reloaded and moved into the hallway. Then I burst into the room across the hall only to find that a sniper had just been shot down by someone out in the courtyard. He was rolling around in pain. I switched to single shot, fired two rounds, and it was over.

Switching back to automatic, I returned to the hallway. It looked clear. I started running, desperate to get back to our team. But then I heard Yael yell,
“James, duck!”

Without thinking, I dove to the floor, just as Yael
 
—crouching in the stairwell
 
—fired a long burst down the hallway over my head. Terrified, I let go of my weapon and covered my head with my hands. Yael fired again. And then all was quiet
 
—in this wing of the building, at least.

“You okay?” she asked, coming up quickly to check on me.

“You nearly killed me!” I said, breathing hard.

“Sorry,” she said. “I wasn’t aiming at you.”

I got up, picked up my gun, and turned to find another ISIS rebel on the floor at the end of the hallway, bleeding out. I had no idea where he’d come from
 
—one of the other side rooms, apparently. I was just glad it was over.

But it wasn’t over. The man was lying facedown as the pool of crimson around him grew. Cautiously, my gun aimed at his head, I walked over to him. Yael warned me not to get too close, and she wasn’t wrong. I could now see that he was still moving, still breathing. Yael came over and was about to finish him off, but something made me stop her. Perhaps it was his enormous size. Perhaps it was the fact that he wasn’t wearing a hood like all the others. But for whatever reason, I drove my foot into his ribs and ordered him in Arabic to turn over. Maybe he couldn’t. Maybe he wouldn’t. But I told Yael to cover me, and I rolled him over myself.

He was a bloody mess, but there was no mistaking who it was.

This was Jamal Ramzy.

In a blinding rage, I moved in and stuck the barrel of my MP5 in his face.

“Where is Abu Khali
f
?”
I yelled.

He was fading fast, but he could hear me.

I drove my foot down on his right knee and he shrieked in agony. In my peripheral vision, I could see Yael growing edgy, her finger itching toward her trigger.

“Where . . . is . . . Abu . . . Khali
f
?”
I repeated.

“You’ll never find him,” he replied through gritted teeth.

“Did you bring the sarin?” I demanded. “Are you going to use poison gas?”

Yael was now the frantic one. “Come on. It’s over. He’s not going to talk. Let’s go.”

“He’ll talk,” I said and fired a single round through his left arm, just above the elbow.

Ramzy’s eyes rolled back in his head. They closed, then briefly opened again and readjusted. Blood was gurgling up from his stomach and dripping down his chin. I didn’t have much time.

“Who’s the mole?”
I shouted.

But Ramzy refused to speak.

“Who’s working for you inside the palace?”
I shouted again.

“Burn in hell,
kafir
!”
he screamed as he spat blood in my face. Then he fell back, and his eyes closed for the last time.

“After you,” I said as I stood.