Cody's Army (26 page)

Damn it! He should have stood up and protested! He should have taken over where Tom left off, bitching about no food and no
cots and blankets. He should be the one looking out for the passengers!

Jenks huddled lower on the cot, pulled a blanket up around him and tried to relax. He kept shivering. Again and again and
again he saw the nails driven right through Tom’s hands! He could feel the steel piercing flesh! He could feel the ring of
the hammer on the steel spike! He could hear again the rending scream by Tom!

When the knife had plunged into Tom’s side, Jenks had fallen to one side, thinking for a moment that he himself had been knifed.
The real pain of it shot through the co-pilot, and even as he watched his commander dying, the sensation billowed through
him, touched him, changed him into a coward.

He had admitted to the word. He was a coward. He could only tremble, and slide lower on the cot, pulling the blanket up over
his head so no one could see him shaking. Tom Ward was a hero; Jenks was a coward.

In another room in the center wing, Sharon stood in front of a desk and quietly told Farouk what they needed.

“Our first problem is Mrs. Vereen. She’s been a heart patient, and it looks like she’s about ready to have another heart attack.
Her pulse rate is too high, and I’m sure her blood pressure has skyrocketed. She needs to see a doctor—tonight if possible.

“There’s a small town nearby; could I take her there to see a doctor? She should stay, but I promise that I will come back
with your guard and not make any trouble.”

Farouk Hassan watched the woman in front of him. She was pretty rather than beautiful. She did not have big tsaydes, like
many American women, and she did not dress to attract attention. She would be good in bed, he could tell. He pushed his thoughts
off sex and concentrated on what she was saying. When she finished he shook his head.

“No, she can’t go to a doctor. There is no doctor in the village who could help her. She would have to be driven back to Beirut,
and I can’t spare the two men and the vehicle. She must take her chances along with the rest of you.”

“Mr. Hassan, with her it is not a ‘chance.’ If she has another heart attack here, she will die. The odds are good that she
will suffer another attack unless she has medication to prevent it. Any doctor could give that drug to her.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Adamson. It is impossible.”

“You are condemning her to death.”

“Whatever is the will of Allah.”

For a moment Sharon wanted to scream at him. He was hiding behind his religion. Whatever he did was for the glory of Allah.
Whatever happened must be the will of Allah or the god would never let it happen. Rubbish!

She trembled for a moment, working to control her anger. At last she folded her arms in front of her in a basic body language
of defiance and stared hard at the man.

“You must have a wife, a family. Are they well? What would you do if they were threatened? Attack, kill, destroy? These people
on this plane are my family. They are my responsibility. Perhaps I should follow your example. When my family is in danger
I will protect each one. I will attack, kill, and destroy. How can you object if I follow your own rules?”

“You made up the rules, Miss Adamson. Even so, they are rules for the hostage keepers, not for you. Any more complaints?”

“Yes, we need more cots, more blankets, and a humane supply of good food. We are not animals in a cage. We must be fed.”

Farouk shook his head in dismay. “Miss Adamson, why do you continue to do this? You saw that we chose Captain Ward for the
next execution victim when he kept protesting. Doesn’t that make any difference to you?”

“None whatsoever. If we’re out of coffee on board I yell at the captain and the head attendant. If we’re short on beds and
food here I yell at the head man, you. Whatever happens to me, happens. I’m a little bit of a fatalist. But you can bet that
I’m going to fight and claw and scrap to the last fraction of a second if it comes down to saving the lives of my passengers.
What I won’t do is crawl, especially not to a coldblooded murderer like you.”

Farouk sighed. He motioned for an armed guard to bring in his second in command, Abdel Khaled.

Abdel came in and glanced up and down at Sharon. He smiled.

“Has she decided to be nice to us yet, Farouk?”

“Unfortunately, no. She wants more blankets, but she has not once offered to take off her blouse and her skirt to help get
covers or more food for her charges.”

“If I thought it would have worked, that would have been my first ploy,” Sharon said. “The problem is, you don’t have enough
supplies here for your own men, let alone another hundred and thirty of us. Logistics is the word in English; it means supplying
the troops and supporting units. You are a lousy soldier.”

“How would you know that, soft woman?”

“I know. I grew up on army posts all around the world. I can shoot a .38 or a 1911-issue .45 automatic better than you can.
So don’t underestimate me. I’m fighting for my passengers and their right to life. Compare that to your gonad logic and see
where you get”

Abdel looked at Farouk. “Gonad logic?”

“Balls; gonads. She means sex.” Farouk looked out the window a moment, then waved at the guards. “Get her out of here, no
wait. Bring in Hallah. He’s young enough to enjoy it.”

Hallah came in the door of the room with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. He had not shaved since the takeover. His hair
was uncombed.

“Hallah. I have a small job for you. Miss Adamson has been naughty again. She keeps stirring up the hostages and complaining.
I think it would be better if she were locked in a different room. Perhaps you could share your locked room with her, yes?”

Hallah grinned. “She must be punished, that is true. I’ll sacrifice and keep her in my room. To punish her.”

“Yes, yes, now get her out of here. 1 don’t want her bothering me again.”

Hallah grabbed Sharon by the wrist and strode toward the door.

He pulled her out the door and down the hall. Two armed guards followed closely. They went along another corridor, up a flight
of stairs, and then into a master bedroom that must have belonged to the owner.

It was over thirty feet square, with a huge bed in one corner, exercise equipment in another corner, and a Western-style wooden
hot tub in a third. Steam came from the water in the tub.

She heard him say something to the guards on the door, who laughed and walked away. Hallah closed the door, locked it and
put the key in his pocket.

She stood in the center of the room. Someone had spent a fortune furnishing this place. It was gorgeous, and she had been
brought here to be raped. She had a few tricks she learned in the steady stream of self defense and karate classes her mother
insisted she take as soon as she started going out with boys who shaved.

He came up behind her softly, but she heard him. It was where she wanted him. He grabbed her from behind around the waist,
missing her arms. She powered her right elbow backward, smashing into his sternum and bringing a shout of pain and surprise.
He let go of her but she slammed another elbow behind her, hitting just below his rib cage and bringing a gush of air from
his lungs as he bent over.

Sharon spun around, saw his surprise and how he was starting to lift his hands. She kicked with all her might. Her “sensible”
shoes for walking whistled upward, grazed his thigh and then jolted into his genitals. The stiff shoe leather blasted one
testicle north, smashing it into a shattered pulp against his pelvic bone and bringing a shriek of pain from Hallah.

The youth went down in a writhing mass on the floor. Sharon dove on top of him, searching him for a gun, a knife. She found
his knife first, a curved dagger, and just as she had been taught, she struck before she had time to talk herself out of it.
She fisted the blade’s handle, lifted the knife, and drove it downward into Hallah’s chest.

Again and again she pulled the blade free and powered it down into his chest. The first stab grazed his lung and grated against
a rib before it penetrated farther. The second time the blade slid between ribs clearly, sliced into Hallah’s heart and killed
him instantly. The third stab was not needed.

She pushed back from him and saw his eyes staring vacantly. She checked for a pulse beside his Adam’s apple but found none.

Hallah was dead.

She almost threw up. She gagged and rolled away. Tears cascaded from her eyes. She had killed him! She had to beat it down.
Later she could react.

She searched him thoroughly, found a thirty-eight-caliber revolver and two fast loads, fifteen shots. He also carried a derringer,
a small two-shot, smaller-bore weapon that was loaded. She put the derringer and the cleaned-off knife in one of the practical
yet concealed pockets of the stewardess skirt she had been wearing when they were hijacked.

The thirty-eight she kept in her hand. She found the key to the door in his pocket and quietly unlocked the panel. When she
peered out through a thin slit, she saw that there was no guard on her door, and none down the long hallway. Hallah must have
sent them away when he talked to them.

Plan—she had to plan before she did anything. She had a knife and two guns. That should help her get some more weapons. She
had fired a submachine gun on the range. She knew how to keep the muzzle down so it didn’t climb during a ten-shot burst.
She wanted an SMG right now, but first she had to find one, or more. She would work her way to the rooms where the men were
held. On the way she hoped she could liberate more weapons.

She had warned Farouk that she had been an Army brat, but that must have meant nothing to him. Hallah had used the most common
attack approach on women. For weeks they had been taught how to get free. The course had not instructed her how to kill her
attacker. Her army colonel father had taught her that, emphasizing the mental attitude as well as the ability to use a knife
and a gun. She was glad he had taken the time to train her.

Sharon peeked out the door again.

It was time to move.

TWENTY-TWO

G
orman paced up and down in front of a full colonel who leaned back, relaxed, at his desk.

“Why the hell don’t they check in?” he demanded, not expecting an answer. “They need to check in and be sure the damn radio
net works. Then we’ll know if and when we need it.”

The Israeli colonel watched his ally, then sipped on ice water. He was a veteran of the Entebbe raid by Israeli air units
which had rescued passengers held by Arabs.

The two men were at a moderate-sized Israeli air base near Haifa in the northern part of Israel. The base was only seventy-five
miles from Beirut.

“I can’t get over how close everything is out here,” Gorman said. “I drive a lot in Texas and Montana, and you can race along
at eighty miles an hour all day and hardly get out of a county, let alone leave a state. Here a hundred miles and you violate
the air space of six sovereign nations.”

“Relax, Mr. Gorman. They think they are in control. When terrorists believe that, I always smile, because I know they are
not. They are defense, I am offense. Just like in your American football, the offense always has the advantage.” “Sure as
hell hope so.”

“We’re covered, Gorman. You have a hundred and thirty personnel to move. I have Chinook helicopters, CH-47s, that can take
out forty-four fully armed troopers. That means at least fifty civilians can be loaded on each one. We’ve fighter escort,
no problem there.

“We go in with five Chinooks, just in case we lose one on the way in. We could smash up two Chinooks and still have enough
moving power to get our people out. This is not like that thousand-mile-over-the-desert fiasco you people got into before
over here.”

“So damn many things can go wrong, Colonel.”

“Your people thought of that. We’re sending three Cobra gunships, fully loaded, for support. Those sweethearts have two six-packs
in each bird, one out each side door.

“Remember that those babies fire 5.56mm slugs at four thousand rounds a minute out of six rotating barrels. Like the old Gatling
gun. They can plough up the damn ground. Besides those, the six pack, each Cobra has an automatic 40mm grenade launcher and
a variety of air-to-ground missiles it can fire.”

“Sure, except we don’t have a clue where Cody is or even if he’s found the hostages!”

“We monitored that radio check he made with Rufe Murphy. He said: ‘Moving on target, hope to have your support come daylight.’
So he’s on-site and getting ready for his daylight attack.”

“Four men against an army? I knew we handled this all wrong. Let’s make a radio-net check. Cody’s receiver will be off if
he’s on a silent attack. But has to leave his on to monitor anything from Cody. Let’s try it.”

They went to the radio room and sent the call.

“Hunter, this is the Fox. Please respond.”

There was no reply. The colonel took the mike and tried it again. This time an answer came through loud and clear.