Jason Elam - Monday Night Jihad

How many of these innocent victims will be killed if we don’t get to Sal in time? Riley wondered.

His foot caught on something that almost made him lose his balance. He looked to his left in time to see an aluminum walker tipping over and an elderly woman go sprawling after it. Resisting the urge to stop and help, he pressed forward-only once looking back to see a young man trying to help the woman back up. Lord, please help these people!

His height gave him a little advantage, and Riley was able to keep a fairly good view of the area around him. Khadi stuck close behind him. All the stores seemed to be abandoned-the employees either fleeing to the back lots or out the exit. Someone bumped hard into Riley’s side, sending a nasty message from his mending ribs to his brain’s pain sensors. He dropped one arm to protect his side.

Up ahead, under a yellow and white awning, something caught Riley’s eye. In the midst of the river of flowing humanity, there was one stationary person pressed against a wall. Riley signaled to Khadi, and they pressed that direction. When they were ten yards away, the man removed his hat, dropped it onto the ground, and rubbed his bald head.

“I think I’ve got a visual in front of the Candy Palace!” Riley yelled into his comm unit.

“Are you sure?” Hicks’s voice answered.

“Negative, not yet! Khadi, cut left and head up the storefronts. I’m going to confirm whether that’s Sal.”

Khadi nodded her approval. “Be careful, Riley.”

Riley pushed ahead, but the mass of people made forward progress difficult. Suddenly the man looked up, and Riley locked eyes with his best friend.

Lord, don’t make me do this! Not Sal! Please don’t make me…

Surprise showed on Hakeem’s face for just a moment before his body went flying backwards as a shot from Riley’s M4 hit him in the left shoulder.

“It’s him! It’s him!” Riley cried as he struggled toward Hakeem.

“I’m on him!” came Khadi’s voice in his ear. “He’s down but still-”

Two shots cut through the noise, and Riley turned in time to see Khadi’s head drop behind the crowd.

“NO!” he shouted just before he felt two sets of arms grab him around the neck and try to pull him to the ground. As he struggled to break their grips, he felt his rifle stripped from his hands. Another hand grabbed for his sidearm.

Riley drove his elbow into the chin of one of his assailants, sending him toppling. A low leg sweep followed by a forearm to the throat dropped the second.

Riley didn’t stop to find out who these guys were, but a quick glance at the first blond-haired man lying stunned on the ground in a Mickey Mouse T-shirt told him they were Good Samaritans trying to take down the guy with the gun.

With his shoulder down, Riley drove the last few feet through to the area that had cleared around Hakeem. The terrorist was struggling to roll his body onto his mangled left side. A detonator lay just out of his reach, but he was getting close to grabbing it.

Riley dove for Hakeem, but Hakeem turned in time to fire two shots into Riley’s chest.

Riley’s ballistic vest stopped the bullets from penetrating his body, but the impact drove the air from his lungs. He landed on top of Hakeem, causing both men to scream in pain.

Blackness threatened to descend on Riley as Hakeem fought to push him off. Finally Riley felt his body being rolled sideways, even as he struggled to find the strength to stop Hakeem.

And then Hakeem was free. He had the detonator in his hand.

Over the sound of the screaming crowd, Riley heard Hakeem gasp, “Not this time, Riley. Allahu akhbar!”

A loud bang and a hot liquid spray snapped Riley out of his semiconscious state. His eyes cleared, revealing the open back of Hakeem’s head. A few yards beyond, he could see Khadi lying on the ground, her gun in her hand.

Riley wanted to go to her but knew that the detonator must still be in Hakeem’s hand or under his body. As he pushed himself up to look for it, a large, dark shape dove past him from behind, clipping his back and knocking him facedown again. When he looked up, he saw Skeeter lying on the ground, gingerly holding a wired metal cylinder. “’Scuse me, sir. I got the detonator. Now go get Khadi.”

Riley nodded to his faithful bodyguard and stumbled toward Khadi. Sliding down next to her, he lifted her into his arms. He could feel the wetness of the blood that had pooled underneath her.

“Medic!” Riley yelled into his comm unit. “Scott, get me a medic!”

Khadi slowly shook her head. “He… he should have known, Riley. Never leave… never leave a sniper breathing.”

Khadi smiled weakly, showing bloodstained teeth, rolled her head into Riley’s chest, and closed her eyes.

Thursday, April 16

Paradisus Playa Conchal

Guanacaste, Costa Rica

The iguana lay on its back on a pool raft, a coconut shell drink in one scaly claw and the words Pura Vida in a speech balloon to the left of his mouth. The orange bucket hat upon which the lizard had been stitched was to Riley the single ugliest piece of headwear he had ever laid eyes on.

“Remind me again,” he called out, “how much did you pay for that thing?”

Scott Ross, who could have been the model used to create this masterpiece, tilted the hat off of his eyes and answered from the middle of the pool, “You can’t place a price on art, my friend. That’s why I snagged a second one of these beauties to take back to Tara.”

“She’ll be thrilled.”

Riley watched as a cabana girl waded over to Scott’s raft with another coconut shell brimming with Yoo-hoo, three multicolored paper umbrellas, two toothpick-skewered maraschino cherries, and one bendy straw. He smiled as he laid his head back on the deck chair, enjoying the coolness of the open-sided cabana’s shade.

Riley was finally getting to the point where he could close his eyes without pictures of Platte River Stadium and Disneyland invading the darkness. But the what-ifs still plagued him-What if I had paid more attention to Sal back in Denver? What if I had dug deeper that Christmas Eve instead of putting a tough conversation off for another day? Why was my first reaction at Disneyland to put a bullet into my friend? Was there no other way? What kind of person does that make me?

“Skeeter,” he said, knowing that this train of thought was taking him nowhere, “what time is it?”

Skeeter, one cabana over, looked up from his copy of Goldsworthy’s The Fall of Carthage-a gift from Scott-and replied, “Five minutes since you asked last. Relax, Pach.”

Riley sat up quickly and gave Skeeter an incredulous look. “Wait a second! You’re telling me to relax? Excuse me, but do you see anyone else around this pool with long pants and boots on? anyone else in this sunny tropical paradise wearing all black? You look like a giant shadow of someone who’s not having a good time!”

“At least it matches,” Scott interjected from the pool.

“What?”

“The all black-at least it matches his piece.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, can you imagine Skeet wearing one of those green and red tropical shirts accessorized with that black nylon shoulder holster? What a horrible fashion faux pas that would be.”

“First off, I am not going to discuss clothing with you of all people-the walking fashion faux pas himself. Second… second, I don’t even remember what this whole discussion is about.”

“Score one for the faux pas,” Scott said as he slipped his hat over his eyes again.

Riley stared after Scott, then leaned back into his chair again, laughing. This trip had turned out to be everything he had hoped for, especially considering that his idea for bringing the team down to Costa Rica for some much needed R and R had initially seemed like it would be a no-go. Most of the members of Mustang team had already been redeployed to their old positions. Jim Hicks had appreciated the offer but declined, saying he was concerned he would get so bored on a beach vacation that he would start trying to stir up rebels to overthrow the Costa Rican government.