you.”
Dinner was fair; the entertainment was memorable.
Leopole sat at the head table with Kara, his wife, and two sons. The boys were sixteen and nineteen, subdued for the offspring of a domestic warlord but astutely attentive. Leopole inferred that their education had been as practical as it was varied. They spoke excellent English— better than their father — and apparently were equally proficient at French.
As Leopole had predicted, the main courses were chicken and lamb. But Kara was insistent that everyone try a vegetarian dish. “This is
Mrs. Kara smiled appreciatively but said little. She sipped her wine, spoke occasionally to the boys, and otherwise held her own counsel.
Toward the end of dinner, Kara raised his glass. Leopole knew that Druze traditionally shunned alcohol, but apparently the Karas made exceptions for special events. Kara had drunk one glass of Chateau Kefraya throughout the meal, commenting that most wine comes from Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley. That esoterica was lost on the American, whose taste ran more toward single-malt scotch. He did not know that Druze families owned some of the vineyards, which tended to be located on tactically advantageous terrain.
“My friends,” Kara intoned. The conversation dropped off as attention shifted to the head table. “My friends, though we have already met, I take this time to bid you welcome. Not only to my country, but to the cause of my people. In a few days you will be working with many of the militia leaders you have met here tonight. I wish all of us success, good health, and if it comes to pass, good hunting!”
The SSI men returned the sentiment with a hearty response, and the Karas made their farewells for the evening. Leopole suspected that Asala knew little of the planned entertainment, as her husband dutifully escorted her to the exit well before the dancers appeared.
Apart from two bodyguards, both sons carried weapons without concern for them being seen. Salim, the older boy, had a Romanian AK-47 while Walid favored an MP-5.
After a short interval, one of Kara’s men pressed the play button on a Sony Walkman. The music featured strings, percussion, and cymbals, bringing two barefoot dancers onto the floor. The audience erupted in a chorus of masculine shouts and enthusiastic applause. Even Robert Pitney sat up straight to get a better view.
Up on the roof, Bosco and Breezy heard the noise and recognized it for what it was. “How good could it be?” Bosco asked.
“Sounds pretty damn good,” his friend replied. They continued pacing in opposite directions, stepping around Rob Furr and his NVG-equipped rifle.
“How’s it goin’, dude?” Breezy envied Furr the cushy job of lying on a padded shooting mat, looking at a green-tinted world through his Litton scope.
“About going to sleep up here.” He gave an exaggerated yawn, wondering how Rick Barrkman was enjoying the floor show. Then he nodded toward the Druze guards. “I wonder how they like walking their shoes off all night long, waiting for something to happen.”
Brezyinski stifled a yawn himself. He wanted to sit down for a while but knew better. “Something always happens when you’re not ready for it.”
Azizi appeared out of the urban darkness. “The operation is proceeding. You may tell your snipers to open fire in two and one-half minutes.”
Esmaili had been tracking the sentries atop the target complex. Most were rovers, in keeping with the doctrine of unpredictability. But he had spotted two permanent stations through his second-generation-plus Russian device. They would be the most dangerous to his shooters, but because they lacked a good view down the chosen approach, they were low-priority targets.
Since Azizi said that the main attack would come from the east, Esmaili had deployed his men to cover that approach as well as ninety degrees off axis to establish a cross fire. It was only necessary for Larijani and Yazdi to gain fire superiority long enough for the main blow to land, or merely to distract attention away from the street level.
Esmaili keyed his radio. “Two minutes. Acknowledge.”
“North ready.”
“East ready.” Their voices sounded firm.
The Iranian leader watched his digital display tick down the remaining seconds.
“Activity at the main gate!” Larijani was excited about an unexpected development. “A limousine is leaving… no, two vehicles. Turning south.”
Esmaili turned to Azizi. “This is the target? Not the building?”
The courier from Tehran shrugged eloquently. “Forgive me, brother. Secrecy was essential. But your men should proceed as planned.”
Biting down his anger, Esmaili spoke into his handset again.
“North and East, the plan remains. Repeat, the plan remains.” He glanced at his watch. “Begin… now!”
One of the Druze sentries glanced down and recognized Kara’s armored limousine. The Mercedes-Benz S600 had almost every option except self-contained oxygen against gas attacks. The trailing BMW was well equipped — it could run on flat tires a considerable distance — but boasted few amenities beyond minimal armor and a goodly supply of 7.62mm ammunition.
A gunshot split the night air, taking the Druze off his feet.
Across the intersection to the east, another round snapped out. It hit the brick facade of the building just below the concrete lip, forcing Bosco to take cover. Thirty meters away, Breezy turned toward his partner. Noting that Bosco was unharmed, Breezy reached his right hand to his left shoulder and pressed the transmit button on his tactical set. “Rounds fired, rounds fired! North and east corners.”
“Look! Down the street!” Another Druze pointed down the boulevard, noting a speeding Citroen. The gray hatchback was followed by a black Peugeot sedan.
Bosco stuck his head up, took in the situation, and made another call. “Hostiles inbound, Colonel! Two cars. Looks like they’re after the limo.”
Frank Leopole heard the calls and forced his attention away from Jasmine and Bahiya’s molded forms and lithe movements, visualizing the developing situation outside. He stood up, shouting over the music. “Gooks in the wire, people! Saddle up!”
Rob Furr had spotted the second muzzle flash. He put his crosshairs on the spot, confident that it was inside the two-hundred-yard zero on his scope, and remembered to breathe. Prone behind the bipoded SR-60, he made a minute elevation adjustment by flexing his toes on the surface of the roof. As he sweetened up the sight picture, another shot flared in his night scope. He heard the round whip overhead, apparently aimed at one of Kara’s men who ducked amid an exclamatory tirade in Arabic.
He began his squeeze.
The.308 round left the custom barrel as the rifle recoiled straight back. Furr called the shot to himself.
He saw no sign of the shooter but another form was visible, leaning over something on the roof. Furr adjusted the sight picture, placed the crosshairs on the green humanoid form, and pressed the trigger.
Furr sucked in more of the night air, then shifted his scan left and right. Nothing else appeared in his scope. He realized that his pulse was elevated, but his breathing was under control. So were his emotions.
