Guns wasn’t under direct fire and managed to move forward on his elbows and knees, trying to find an angle where he could see what was going on. He reached the end of the row and saw the machine gun in the distance, but not the gunman, who had found a spot between two large stacks of cement blocks. He pulled out one of the two small grenades he had and tossed it in a high arc; the grenade hit the ground a yard behind the man and exploded.
By then Guns had pulled out his sat phone. “Corrigan. We’re in the lumberyard. We’re taking heavy fire. This has to be the place.”
“There’s an AC-130 gunship en route, no more than ten minutes away,” said the desk man. “Van’s right behind them. Get out of there now!”
“Tell the president not to land.”
“He’s on the ground already and in the city. Get out of there!”
“Rankin!” yelled Guns. “We have to stall them. AC-130’s on the way.”
“Let’s circle. You go wide right. Once that gunship shows up, get the hell away.”
“No shit,” mumbled Guns. He dashed between the rows of wood, expecting bullets to start spraying again. He could hear machinery working in the direction of the building and a truck or something headed in his direction. It was a forklift with a load of cement bricks at the front and four or five men behind it.
Guns ducked as they began to fire. He took his last grenade and threw it in their direction. As it blew up he dove across the open alley, rolling behind a pile of sand. He ran to the side, hoping to flank anyone who’d survived his grenade.
Meanwhile, Rankin worked his way to the fence on the opposite side of the yard. The building sat about fifty yards away, beyond a hodgepodge of lumber and building materials. He caught sight of three or four Iraqis bunkering down, going in Guns’s direction. He hesitated but let them go; his first responsibility was preventing a launch before the gunship arrived.
Moving mostly on his hands and knees, he managed to work parallel to the rear of the building, where he could see through the open wall. The tractor of a large truck sat at the edge there, its motor running.
The missile sat on a trailer with a girderlike gantry, fully erect, behind it. The cylindrical finger sat below the blue tarp of the roof, a simple but effective menace.
He was fifty yards away. Two spotlights sat across from him inside the building, facing the ground beyond the rocket. Their beams were overpowered by the daylight. Rankin realized that they must have been turned on hours before; the Scud must be ready to fire.
Rankin rose to throw his grenade. As he did, a burst of gunfire caught his side and leg, sending him pirouetting to the ground. The grenade, its pin gone, flew up from his hand. He watched it hover there, unsure where it would go. He couldn’t move.
He’d been paralyzed two years ago as well, but then not by a bullet but by fear. More than fear: by the certainty that he was going to die.
They all saw it. And they all felt the same thing, except James.
James, the guy who was just there to write about them, just along for the ride. He jumped up, bounded onto it, saved them all.
And it didn’t explode.
This one did, but it fell on the other side of a huge pile of sand Rankin had fallen behind. As dirt flew everywhere, Rankin pulled up the Uzi and fired back in the direction of the man who’d shot at him. The man tumbled to the ground.
Rankin struggled to get up. His vest had protected him against the bullets that hit his side, but two bullets had hit his leg, both in his calf, and it collapsed under him. He rolled against the dirt, off balance and dazed.
On the other side of the yard, Guns worked to get behind the forklift. The driver was slumped against the wheel, and there were other bodies on the ground near it. Two Iraqis turned the corner behind it, moving cautiously forward, unaware that he was behind them. He waited until he had good shots on both, then fired, cutting them down. The marine climbed up on a stack of bricks, peering around to make sure no one was hiding in ambush. Not seeing anyone, he jumped and ran to it, throwing the dead driver to the side and jumping on. Climbing in behind the wheel he accidentally got his foot on the accelerator and the truck jerked forward. He let it go, steadying his speed — the engine didn’t move very quickly — and wheeled down the next aisle. The wall of cement blocks on the front provided good cover, but it was impossible to see without peering to the side. He turned again, heading in the direction of the sideless building where the missile was being readied.
The front of the vehicle began to shake. Guns realized he was being fired at and jumped off the back as the fusillade intensified. A machine gun — an M60 set on a bipod — joined the four Iraqis firing M16s from near the building, chewing the bricks into dust.
Guns got to the next aisle, ducking behind a pile of bagged stone. As the gunfire continued, he climbed up and burned a box of bullets before the machine gunner managed to return fire. As he slid down to the ground he heard a rumble and thought it was the AC-130 approaching.
It wasn’t: the missile had been ignited and was building pressure to launch.
32
Thera took a swig from the water bottle, letting the cold liquid run down the sides of her mouth. The heat was already building; it was going to be a hot, muggy day.
“How much farther?” she asked Ferguson. He was up at the how, listening over the phone as an aide hack in the Cube told him what they saw on the new satellite photos.
“Ten more minutes,” he told her, taking his glasses and studying the horizon.
They’d passed two medium-sized oil tankers and a host of small dhows. The interpreter had spotted a boat that looked somewhat like the
Not a good sign.
Ferguson was just about to put his phone back in his pocket when it began to ring. He saw an odd string of numbers on the face and opened it carefully, as if it might explode.
“Ferguson.”
“Hey, Ferg.”
“Michael. How’d you get the number?”
“I persuaded an old friend that it was important.”
“OK.” The only old friend it could be, Ferguson knew, was the general. “What’s up?”
“Aaron Ravid’s wife and son were killed by Islamic extremists eighteen months ago by a suicide bomber. He was taken out of service, but for some reason they called him back.”
“Why?”
“I’m afraid that you would have to take that up with someone else.”
Ferg could guess: it must have had to do with Meles. The Israelis didn’t have too many agents with good access in Syria. New faces were one thing; a deeply planted, well-experienced agent was something else. They’d weighed the risks and called him back.
“Michael, thank you,” said Ferg, ending the transmission.
33
Rankin began shooting at the building, pouring the rest of the Uzi’s 9mm slugs at the steaming cylinder. He fired until the magazine was empty, fired even as the missile began to lift off the pad.
Then a sharp crack split the air, and he heard the sound of metal being torn apart. A ball of flames shot
