Dick Couch - Out of the Ashes

“Hey, leave her alone. Are you out of your mind, you asshole?” Laurie shouted, trying to draw attention away from Sandee as best she could. “We are Americans.”

Makhdoom jumped up from his chair facing Sandee and leaped at Laurie. “Shut up, you woman!” he shouted as he slapped her hard, knocking her, and the chair she was bound to, onto the floor.

The other men laughed, but from her position on the floor Laurie shot back, “Oh, big man, big man!”

The enraged Makhdoom began kicking her chair, sending Laurie lurching along the concrete floor of the blockhouse. The abuse continued, but they were getting nothing from either of their captives, and Jawad Makhdoom became more worried. The prince would not be pleased.

“Feet dry, en route, over,” Volner radioed to the Combat Talon II as it banked sharply back to the west and dropped down to one hundred feet.

“Copy, feet dry, and en route. Good luck, out.”

Volner’s team quickly assembled, buried their chutes and set out in an extended patrol formation. They carried a light combat load of about forty pounds per man. They moved quickly at an easy jog-trot. There was no need for conversation.

“Team’s all up,” Moore said, moving up to Volner’s elbow. Neither man was breathing hard. “Point man has us nine clicks from the target.”

“Roger that, Master Guns,” Volner replied. “I have a good iridium uplink with Op-Center control. No indications our jump was detected.”

“I didn’t figure it would be, sir. This blowing sand makes it hard to see more than a few miles.”

“But we can still run to the sound of the guns, right, Master Guns?”

“You got that right, sir,” Moore replied, mirroring his team commander’s tight smile.

By any standard, Ilya Gorbonov was not an attractive man, at least not now. In fact, on seeing him, most people looked away quickly, not wanting to stare. That was just the way he wanted it, or the way it had to be. Gorbonov was born and raised in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, and was third-generation Russian mob, with “was” the operative word. He had maintained a quiet profile in his neighborhood, serving as a mid- and low-level functionary, not yet a soldier in the organization. He was moving up the ranks, but not as fast as he would have liked. He was ambitious; he wanted more.

But Gorbonov’s rise was stopped, abruptly, when he beat his girlfriend, Maria Domeshev, one too many times, sending her to the hospital with a broken jaw. Unfortunately for Ilya, Maria was the daughter of Leonti Domeshev, a powerful and dangerous Russian mob boss. Knowing the father’s promise that he would kill him slowly was no idle threat, the thirty-four-year-old Gorbonov left town. When he slipped out of Brighton Beach, he was six feet tall, trim, blond, dark complected, and fit. Women, including Maria, had found him attractive. He traveled by bus and put as much distance between himself and Domeshev as possible.

In Salem, Oregon, he had found a plastic surgeon whose practice was failing and who, for the right amount of cash, was willing to transfigure him into a stooped, late-middle-aged man, looking easily like he was in his fifties. Gorbonov now sported unruly black hair, an overgrown beard, and was pushing 220 pounds. Thanks to his surgeries, his skin looked like leather and he had the old-aged shuffle of a man who had been ridden hard and put away wet.

Ilya had not been able to flee Brooklyn with much money, and he had spent much of it on his surgeries. He needed to make a living in the only way he knew how. A former contact in Brooklyn’s tight-knit Lebanese community agreed to keep discreet contact with him via e-mail. Gorbonov had done business with him before, and he had paid him well. That same man contacted him via e-mail when Ali Hosseini Khamenei was looking for a “professional to take care of some necessary business.”

Now living in a small, remote town in Tennessee, Gorbonov had carried out the first part of his instructions. He had checked into a hotel in Silver Spring, Maryland, and there he babysat a supply of sarin gas. He had not asked the Lebanese intermediary how he obtained the sarin he had had delivered to him. He suspected it came from a supply of sarin Syrian officers defecting from Assad’s army had sold on the black market. Gorbonov had also bought a franchise selling costume jewelry from carts in some of the major shopping malls in the greater Washington, D.C., area. Now he waited, but his patience was wearing thin. The Lebanese in Ali Hosseini Khamenei’s employ had paid him a large sum up front, but he wanted his final payday.

At Forward Operating Base Tiger, two MH-60M helos lifted in a tsunami of swirling sand. They would head southeast toward the far southeastern corner of Iraq, rendezvous with the Combat Talon II aircraft, and refuel. There they would wait on high alert for the order to dash across the border into Saudi Arabia to pick up Mike Volner and his team, and, hopefully, the two American captives.

Prince Ali al-Wandi’s helicopter kicked up its own tsunami of sand as it landed close to the blockhouse. Jawad Makhdoom was outside to greet him.

“Have you found out why they were here yet?” the prince barked at his chief engineer.

“Not yet, but we know they are from the U.S. Navy. They have admitted they flew off a ship in the Gulf, but they won’t tell us why they flew over us.”

“But what do they say?”

“They say they were lost.”

“Do you believe them?”

“No, Your Excellency.”

As the prince entered the blockhouse he was seething. How could his brilliant plan have come so undone? The United States had not attacked Syria, nor did it appear that it would. Worse, now some Americans had discovered this site. Had they radioed anyone about it? He needed to know this and he needed to know it now.

Al-Wandi burst into the building. He saw the two women bound in their chairs with their faces bloodied and swollen. Their hair and flight suits were soaked with sweat and blood. One, he had been told, had been knocked to the ground and kicked around and was drifting in and out of consciousness. He walked up to Sandee and stood towering over her.

“So you are the pilot in command?”

“Yes, I’m the command pilot,” Sandee replied. She was clearly in pain, but her eyes flashed with hatred.

“Why were you here, flying over our country?”

“I told your bullies, we were lost. Now, I demand you release us and take us to the nearest American consulate.”

“You demand?”

“Yes.”

Now the prince was enraged. His men had done little to soften these women up, other than stupidly beating them senseless and making them thoroughly angry. That wouldn’t get him what he wanted.

He stepped away from Sandee and looked around the blockhouse, taking a moment to compose himself. Then he walked up to Sandee and began again.

“So, as the command pilot, you make the decisions?”

“I do.” Sandee replied, determined to shield Laurie as much as possible.

“So this other woman is your responsibility?”

“Yes,” Sandee replied, but now a bit off balance as to where al-Wandi was going with this.

“I see. I ask you again, why were you here, flying over Saudi Arabian sovereign territory? I know your military has rules against that.”

“I told you, we were lost.”

“Don’t lie to me!” al-Wandi shouted as he slapped Sandee across her face. She shook it off; her eyes were still defiant.

Al-Wandi looked toward Jawad Makhdoom. “Do you see that board over there? Bring it here, along with some of the bindings you are using on these two women. Then bring me two or three blankets from the living area and put them all down on the floor right here.” He again turned back to Sandee.