“This is incredible,” Alana whispered reverently. For the moment, she forgot the pain radiating from her hands and the noise of the firefight raging outside.
The cave floor was covered with several layers of intricate oriental carpets to prevent cold from seeping through the rock. More tapestries covered much of the walls and gave the chamber the cheery feel of a tent. There were two rope beds on one side of the room, one of them neatly made, the other rumpled. Other furniture included several chests and a large writing table, complete with ink pots and feather quills, which had grown limp over the centuries and wilted over the sides of their solid gold stand. The desktop was inlaid with complex geometric patterns done in mother-of-pearl. Books were stacked on the floor around it and filled an adjacent set of shelves. An ornate Koran had the place of honor next to a tattered, dog-eared Bible.
There was an alcove next to the shelves. It was stacked floor to ceiling with chests. The lid for one of them was sprung, and when Mark shone the light in the crack the unmistakable flash of gold dazzled back at him.
He tried to see if there was an opening behind the chests, but with them so tightly packed it was impossible to tell without moving them. He shoved at the topmost trunk to dislodge it. The trunk wouldn’t budge. If it was full of gold like the lower one, it would easily weigh a thousand pounds.
He gave the light to Alana, who tucked it under her arm because she couldn’t trust her hands to hold it properly.
“There’s no way out,” Mark said, returning to Eric’s side. Stoney had reloaded Murph’s rifle and handed it across. “On the bright side, we’re going to die rich. Must be a hundred million in gold shoved in a closet back there.”
The firing outside remained relentless, although Linda had to be on the move because they couldn’t hear her weapon over the sharp whip-cracks of the terrorists’ AKs. The stern of the
Eric kept whispering “Marco” into the gloom and was rewarded with a return call of “Polo.”
Linda reached the entrance and ducked through long before the gunmen were aware she had moved. “Tell me the good news.”
“We’re rich,” Mark offered. “But trapped.”
THE TWO SHIPS WERE so close to each other that it was impossible to get off a shot, so they had fallen on a deadly stalemate, although the
The corridors inside the frigate were a scene of bedlam, with damage-control teams running in every direction. The air was smoky from a fire in the forward part of the ship, although the antiquated scrubbers were working to clear it. Alarms wailed, and men shouted orders over the strident cry.
It was all music to Fiona Katamora’s ears, as she lay shackled to a bed frame in an officer’s cabin. She had no idea what was happening around her other than that the men who’d kidnapped her were in trouble.
She knew she had been taken aboard a ship after the helicopter flight from the jihadists’ training camp. She could tell from the salty air that wafted through the bag they had placed over her head and from the engine’s thrum and the action of waves against the hull. She hadn’t known which type of vessel until the cannons started firing.
It came as no surprise that Suleiman Al-Jama had been able to co-opt a Libyan warship. More likely, the entire crew were members of his organization.
Explosions wracked the frigate, and with each blast her sense of well-being grew. They would still kill her before it was over, she wasn’t fooling herself about that, but the United States Navy would ensure they wouldn’t have the chance to enjoy their victory.
A particularly loud explosion hit the ship, which seemed to stagger under the blow. When Fiona no longer heard the forward cannon firing, she knew the American warship had blown off one of the Libyan’s main gun turrets.
The door to the cabin was hastily thrown open. Her jailors wore headscarves to mask their features and had AK-47s slung over their backs. Fiona’s moment of well-being vanished as her cuffs were rearranged so her hands were bound behind her. Wordlessly, they yanked her from the room.
Uniformed sailors barely threw them a glance. They were too preoccupied with saving their ship to gloat over their prize. Fiona fell against a bulkhead when another fury of rounds slammed into the ship’s side. The ferocity of the battle so distracted her for the walk down to another, larger room that she forgot to pray.
But when she saw the black cloth hanging across the back wall, the video camera, and the man holding a massive scimitar, the words fell from her lips. There were others in the room, terrorists, not Libyan sailors. One was standing behind the camera, another near him fiddled with the satellite-uplink controls. The rest of the masked men were here as witnesses. She recognized their khaki utilities from the desert base. The man with the sword wore all-black.
The alarm loudspeaker in the mess hall had been disabled, though it was still audible from other parts of the vessel.
“Far from saving you,” the executioner said in Arabic, “that ship out there has pushed up our timeline by a few minutes.” He stared hard at the Secretary, and she returned his defiance. “Are you ready to die?”
“For the sake of peace,” Fiona replied, her voice as steady as she could keep it, “I was ready to die from the moment I understood the concept.”
They secured her to a chair set before the drape. Plastic sheeting had been placed on the deck at her feet. A gag was tied across her mouth to deny her any parting words.
The executioner nodded to the cameraman and he began to film. The lens stayed focused on Fiona for a moment, to make sure the target audience knew exactly who was about to die. Then the swordsman stepped in front of her, holding the ornate scimitar so it was plainly visible.
“We, the servants of Suleiman Al-Jama, come before you today to rid the world of another infidel.” He was reading from a typewritten script. “This is our answer to the Crusaders’ efforts to thrust their decadence upon us. From this unholy woman has come the worst of their lies, and for that she must die.”
