Cody's Army (25 page)

There was no chance he could get the Israeli choppers in before daylight anyway. Rufe had stayed with the chopper, and would
charge into action as soon as Cody called him. They each had small pocket-sized radios that were powerful enough to reach
the European Communications Satellite.

The signal was then multiplied in power and rebroadcast so Rufe, and Washington D.C., as well as the U.S. people waiting with
the Israeli Air Force liaison in Haifa could get it.

Cody had checked twice with the small radio, and he had picked up Rufe with no trouble. Now he had to see what kind of a setup
he had to fight against, do a complete recon, and then work out a plan. At least half of the work should be done before daylight.
That way it would make it easier when the sun brightened this half of the globe.

The physical setup could have been better. The estate had been positioned on the rim of the ridge and flowed down the eastern
slope. The wall probably circled much more than the buildings of the estate that they could see.

He established a base of operations where a small ravine left the ridge and dove under the first wall. With a little work
they could enlarge the opening that the runoff water had eroded and worm inside the compound. He sent Hawkeye one way and
Caine the other to scout the outer wall, report any fixed weapons, any sentries, any more lookouts. He slid under the ten-foot-tall
first wall and checked inside, looking for roving guards, dogs, and machine guns.

A half hour later he came back to the base. He told them he had found two machine guns, manned, both on the inside twelve-foot
stone wall. Six guard towers were built above and inside the wall, but no guard dogs and no roving foot patrols between the
walls.

The other two men had found nothing of importance. The wall kept going for miles, they decided. There were no gunners, no
guards, only the barbed wire. It was probably to help keep the prisoners inside, they decided.

Cody said they would hit the two machine guns first. A thin nylon rope with a fold-out grapple hook gave Cody the first look
at the top of the second wall. It was twelve feet high, made of native stone and mortar, and looked to be three feet wide
at the base. He would go up it fifty feet down from the machine-gun position, which was manned but not lighted.

He threw the grapple and winced at the sound it made as it went over the wall. He waited thirty seconds, heard no response,
and so pulled gently on the line. Too far! Before he could stop it the grapple grated over the top of the wall and fell at
his feet.

A guard in the tower called softly, but got no reply. He gave up.

Cody tossed the grapple again, this time a dozen feet farther down the wall from where he had been. The hooks caught something
and he put all his weight on the line. It held. He put the silenced Uzi on a strap over his back, pulled on his tough leather
gloves, and began walking up the face of the slightly in-sloping wall.

When Cody was halfway up, Caine materialized out of the shadows near the base of the wall and held the flailing loose end
of the line. Cody got near the top and peered over. The top of the wall was nearly two feet wide, smooth. He bellied down
on it, let the line go slack. He felt it tighten as the next man began climbing.

Cody paused, letting all of his senses work for him. He could hear the man breathing in the machine-gun guard tower fifty
feet ahead. He stood up on his rubber-soled boots, checked his balance, then walked forward with the silenced Uzi held in
front of him and ready for action.

The guard was facing the other way, and by the deep, even rhythm of his breathing, Cody knew he was sleeping. He slid the
four-inch straight razor from his fatigue pocket and flicked it open. When he was three feet away, the sentry snored in his
sleep and woke himself up. The guard changed positions, swore softly in Arabic, and went back to sleep.

Cody had not breathed during the small ritual. Now he took a long, slow breath, then stepped forward, clamped his left hand
over the Lebanese terrorist’s mouth and nose, and slit his throat with the razor. After a twenty-second struggle, the dead
man shifted forward a foot, then rested on the small platform on which the machine gun sat.

By the time Caine had scaled the wall, Cody had checked out the field of fire, the amount of ammo, and the target opportunities.
It would work. With the Brit’s help they tilted the dead man over the back side of the wall. They had stripped his shirt and
hat off, and put them to one side.

When Hawkeye arrived a minute later, they knew this was a key firing point.

“Hawk, when it’s nearly daylight, you hightail it back here and man this weapon. The minute we go hard, I want you to hose
down everything in uniform that moves. Get transport first, then the troops. Put on this hat and shirt when you come back.
We’ll take the other MG out and then get busy planting our timed little friends. Next trip we’re going to use radio-detonated
charges.”

“Why didn’t you say you wanted them? I have backup for up to twelve frequencies. I always come with two controls.”

“Good, we’ll use them. Let’s move. Hawkeye, you go get the next machine gunner. He should be about fifty feet down this wall.
Use your knife and leave him in place so it looks like he’s sleeping. Drop out all the ammo, and pull the firing pin on the
MG in case they send up a new gunner. We’ll go down the ladder here and meet you at the bottom of the ladder around the wall.”

Hawkeye walked casually down the top of the wall like a steelworker. Nothing bothered him. He saw the MG position, and almost
at once a small laugh came from it. The voice was soft and accusing. Hawk had not the slightest idea what the words meant.

He simply growled at the man and continued forward with the silenced Uzi ready. He was within ten feet of the sentry before
the man sensed something was not right. Hawkins shot him twice in the chest and he was dead before he could utter a word or
cry out in surprise.

Hawkeye pulled the MG apart as much as he needed in order to take out the bolt and the firing pin, then put it back together.
He dropped the ammo over the outside of the wall and bent the dead guard over his weapon so it looked as if he were sleeping.
He found the ladder and worked down it silently.

Cody and Caine were waiting for him at the bottom of the ladder. They moved more cautiously now. There had to be interior
guards here, foot patrols. They lay quietly at the edge of the green brushy area for ten minutes.

No one came past.

They moved forward toward the first building with lights. It seemed to be a dayroom and dormitory for the troops.

It was built off the ground where the land fell away on the downhill side. Caine snaked under it, planted two charges of quarter-pounders,
both set with frequency 1. He locked in the tabs on his control panel and they moved toward the next building, which seemed
to be some sort of office. Through a grimy window they saw a man sitting at an old manual typewriter, using the hunt and peck
system to write a report.

Six men in the room seemed about ready to go on guard duty. They formed up inside, and a small man with a crisp fatigue uniform
inspected them, then gave a curt command, and they did a left face and marched out the door.

The Englishman vanished under the side of the building. Cody and Hawkins fell into step behind the last man on the guard roster.
Cody reached around from behind him and slit the guard’s throat. He died before he knew he was hurt. Hawkeye hooked his left
arm around the next man’s throat, stopped him, and drove his knife into the guard’s heart.

The next man in line turned and saw a problem in the moonlight. Two Uzi’s came up whispering nearly silent death. When the
last four guards stopped moving, Hawkeye and Cody dragged them into the bushes and hid them—at least they would stay hidden
until daylight. Caine caught up with Cody and Hawkeye as they headed for the main mansion.

Cody guessed it was forty rooms. There were three wings, all double-storied. The captives had to be inside, but Cody’s Army
could do little about them until morning. They pulled back, found another building used as a motor pool. Only one man was
on duty.

Caine looped a strand of piano wire around his neck and pulled the wooden handles on both ends. The thin wire sliced through
the Shiite’s windpipe and both carotid arteries, and he was dead in twenty seconds. Caine stuffed him in the trunk of an old
Fiat. Then he dumped a fifty-gallon drum of gasoline over so the fluid spilled out and puddled on the concrete floor.

“Nice touch, but hold off on the igniter,” Cody whispered. “Let’s see what else we can find.”

The Brit left a half-stick of C-5 there—the gasoline would do the rest—and set the frequency number on his detonation code.

Outside they all paused to listen. A radio sounded softly somewhere, a piano player tried hard inside the mansion, but somewhere
else Cody heard a purring hum.

“Generator,” Cody said. “Let’s find it.”

They moved toward the sound but sound can be tough to trace. After two false leads they found the generator building. It had
been soundproofed, but the throbbing diesel engine could not entirely be muffled.

Cody slipped inside the building, checked the engine with a pencil flash and promptly drained all the fuel out onto the floor.
The diesel sputtered, coughed, and stopped. The lights dimmed in the buildings and on the two poles, then came back bright.

Outside, Caine grunted, “Damn battery backup.”

“Just the same, somebody will come to check the engine,” Hawkeye whispered.

As he spoke, two fatigue-clad soldiers swung down the path from the building that served as the troops office. One of them
opened the door to the generator building and switched on his flashlight.

“What the hell?” he said in Arabic. The other man joined him inside. As they stood looking at the diesel-oil spill on the
floor, twin silenced shots from two Uzi’s blasted the men out of this life.

Caine and Hawkeye dragged them out of the building and down twenty yards, where they rolled the bodies into a gully. They
had saved the men’s AK-47s.

It was 20:00 hours.

None of the dead guards had been found. Evidently the guards who were supposed to be replaced were all sleeping on duty. No
one else had come to look at the generator.

Lights in the buildings were still as bright as ever, but some had been turned off.

“Let’s try one of the wings,” Cody said. “Maybe we can get some of the hostages to a safe place before the shooting starts.”

There wasn’t time. A siren went off.

Cody pointed at Hawkeye. “Get on that MG and watch out for the civilians. Don’t open fire until we go hard. We may have three
or four hours yet, or it could be until daylight. Richard, you and I find a nice comfortable OP up here behind the main wing
and watch whatever happens. I think they must have found some of the guards, or maybe the honcho is worried about running
down his batteries if the generator won’t start again.”

Caine and Cody watched from a good hiding place thirty yards beyond the end of the east wing of the mansion. A man with a
Doberman pinscher on a leash left the center section of the big house. He carried no weapon, but had two men with SMGs on
each side of him as he walked toward the generator shed. One of the guards carried a stream light, a battery-powered light
that could shine for a mile. It lit up the area like noontime.

“Bet the honcho gets mad,” Caine said. “Wish I could blow the generator shed when they all are in here.”

“No, we wait. We don’t go hard until we want to, we take all the advantages we can get. They don’t know anyone is here yet.
I’d bet this outfit has a discipline problem among the troops.”

TWENTY-ONE

I
n the center wing of the mansion’, Mrs. Vereen, the hostage with the bad heart, clutched at the woman’s hand beside her.

“I feel terrible,” Mrs. Vereen said. “Seems this is the way it was just before I had my heart attack.”

“Try to stay calm, Mrs. Vereen,” the woman who sat beside her said. She had taken Mrs. Vereen’s pulse and worked with her
hands around her arm for a moment to try to get some reading on her blood pressure.

“Mrs. Vereen, I’m a nurse, and I’ll do everything I can for you. We’re talking with the leaders now, trying to get you out
to a hospital.”

“You’re an angel, thank you. So many nice people here, like that stewardess, Sharon. You thank her for me for everything she’s
done for all of us, especially if I don’t make it.”

“I promise. But you hush that kind of talk. You’re going to be fine. Now you try to get some rest.”

In another large room where some of the men waited, Co-pilot Jenks sat slumped on one of the folding cots they had provided
for half the hostages. He was not a leader. He was not going to stick his neck out! It was only a job, for Christ’s sake!
He had no ordination to take care of these folks. His responsibility ended when the aircraft touched down safely. Period.

Damn right! Then why did he feel like shit? He had watched Tom Ward be crucified, and something deep down in his gut changed,
something snapped and crashed and withered and he knew that he would never be the same again. Hell, nobody even looked at
him cross-eyed. He had taken off his uniform jacket and his wings. He doubted if the terrorists even knew he had been co-pilot.