Dead or Alive

ochre-colored roads of Tripoli skim past the end of the tailgate. Finally the truck grumbled to a stop in an alley whose front and rear entrances were shaded by a pair of date palms. Lieutenant Masudi appeared at the rear and dropped the tailgate. Richards climbed out and led Clark and Stanley down the alley, while Chavez and the others gathered the gear and followed. Richards took them up two flights of stone stairs mounted on the stone wall’s exterior, then through a door into a half-finished apartment. Stacks of drywall lay against the wall along with five- gallon tubs of Sheetrock mud. Of the four walls, only two were finished, these painted a shade of sea-foam green that belonged in an episode of Miami Vice. The room smelled of fresh paint. A large picture window framed by date palms overlooked at a distance of two hundred meters what Clark assumed was the Swedish embassy, a Spanish-style two-story villa surrounded by eight-foot-high white stucco walls topped with black wrought-iron spikes. The building’s ground floor sported plenty of windows, but all of them were barred and shuttered.

Six thousand square feet at least, Clark thought sourly. A lot of territory. Plus maybe a basement.

He had half expected to find a colonel or general or two from the People’s Militia waiting for them, but there was no one. Evidently, Masudi was to be their only contact with the Libyan government, which suited Clark fine, as long as the man had the requisite horsepower to provide what they requested.

The street below looked like a damned military parade. Of the two visible streets adjacent to the embassy, Clark counted no fewer than six Army vehicles, two jeeps and four trucks, each surrounded by a group of soldiers, smoking and milling about, bolt-action rifles casually dangling from their shoulders. If he hadn’t already known it, the soldiers’ weapons would have told Clark everything he needed to know about Qaddafi’s attitude toward the crisis. Having been pushed out of the loop in his own country, the colonel had taken his elite troops off the perimeter and replaced them with the shabbiest grunts he could field.

Like a spoiled little boy taking his marbles and going home.

While Chavez and the others started unpacking the gear and sorting it in the unfinished breakfast nook, Clark and Stanley surveyed the embassy compound through binoculars. Richards and Lieutenant Masudi stood off to one side. After two minutes of silence, Stanley said without lowering his binoculars, “Tough one.”

“Yep,” Clark answered. “You see any movement?”

“No. Those are plantation shutters. Good and solid.”

“Fixed surveillance camera on each corner, just below the eaves, and two along the front facade.”

“Best assume the same for the rear facade,” Stanley replied. “The question is, did the security folks have time to mash the button?”

Most embassies had an emergency checklist that any security detail worth a damn would know by heart. At the top of the list, titled “In Case of Armed Intrusion and Embassy Takeover” or something similar, would be an instruction to fatally disable the facility’s external surveillance system. Blind bad guys are easier to take down. Whether or not the Swedes had done this there was no way of telling, so Rainbow would assume the cameras were not only functional but also being monitored. The good news was the cameras were fixed, which made it much easier to pick out blind spots and coverage gaps.

Clark said, “Richards, when’s sunset?”

“Three hours, give or take. Weather report is for clear skies.”

Shit, Clark thought. Operating in a desert climate could be a pain in the ass. Tripoli had a bit of pollution, but nothing like a Western metropolis, so the ambient light from the moon and stars would make movement tricky. A lot would depend on how many bad guys were inside and where they were positioned. If they had enough bodies, they’d almost certainly have surveillance posted, but that wasn’t anything Johnston and Loiselle couldn’t handle. Still, any approach on the compound would have to be planned carefully.

“Johnston…” Clark called.

“Yeah, boss.”

“Go for a stroll. Pick your perches, then come back and sketch it out for coverage and fields of fire. Richards, tell our escort to pass the word: Let our men work and don’t get in their way.”

“Okay.” Richards took Masudi by the elbow, moved him a few feet away, then started talking. After half a minute, Masudi nodded and left.

“We have blueprints?” Stanley asked Richards.

The embassy man checked his watch. “Should be here within the hour.”

“From Stockholm?”

Richards gave a negative shake of his head. “Here. Interior ministry.”

“Christ.”

There was no use having them transmitted in piecemeal JPEGs, either. No guarantee they’d be any better than what they already had-unless the Libyans were willing to take the shots to a professional printer and have the pieces stitched together. Clark wasn’t going to hold his breath for that.

“Hey, Ding?”

“Here, boss.”

Clark handed him the binoculars. “Take a look.” Along with Dieter Weber, Chavez would be leading one of the two assault teams.

Chavez scanned the building for sixty seconds, then handed back the binoculars. “Basement?”

“Don’t know yet.”

“Bad guys usually like to hunker down, so I’d say they’re concentrated on the first floor, or in the basement if there is one, though that’s iffy-unless they’re really dumb.”

No exits belowground, Clark thought.

“If we can halfway nail down where the hostages are and whether they’re lumped together or split up… But if I had to make a snap call, I’d say enter on the second floor, south and east walls, clear that level, and then head down. Standard small-unit tactics, really. Take the high points on the map and the bad guys are at an automatic disadvantage.”

“Go on,” Clark said.

“The first-floor windows are out. We could handle the bars, but not quickly, and it would make a lot of noise. But those balconies… the railing looks pretty solid. Should be easy to get up there. A lot’s going to depend on the layout. If it’s more open, not too broken up, I say start high. Otherwise, we rattle their cages with some flashbangs, breach the walls in a couple places with Gatecrashers, then swarm ’em.”

Clark looked to Stanley, who nodded his approval. “The boy is learning,” he said with a grin.

“Fuck you very much,” Chavez replied with his own smile.

Clark checked his watch again. Time.

The bad guys hadn’t made contact, and that worried him. There were only a couple reasons to explain the silence: Either they were waiting to make sure they had the world’s attention before announcing their demands, or they were waiting to make sure they had the world’s attention before they started tossing bodies out the front door.

19

SURPRISING NO ONE, the blueprints did not arrive within the hour but closer to two, and so it was not quite ninety minutes before sunset when Clark, Stanley, and Chavez unrolled the plans of the compound and got their first look at what lay ahead of them.

“Bloody hell,” Stanley growled.

The blueprints weren’t the original architect’s set but rather a taped-together photocopy of a photocopy. Many of the notations were blurred beyond recognition.

“Ah, Jesus…” Richards said, looking over their shoulders.

“I’m sorry, they said-”

“Not your fault,” Clark replied evenly. “More games. We’ll make it work.” This was another thing Rainbow did very well: adapt and improvise. Bad blueprints were just another form of insufficient intel, and Rainbow had dealt