Читать книгу High Assault - Don Pendleton - Страница 7

Suleiman screamed in protest, but his cry was cut off by the banging clatter of the Kalashnikov on full auto. The boy’s body came apart in chunks of flesh and gouts of blood and most of him ended up spread across the rear bumper and trunk of the limo.

There was a scream so shrill and frantic it cut through the roar of the weapons, and the Hezbollah team leader’s camera snapped back toward the breach point on the limo. Suha Suleiman, looking disheveled and battered, clawed her way out of the swirling smoke inside the limo passenger compartment. Behind her the shell-shocked face of her daughter, Taraneh, stared out blankly.

Suha screeched again as she saw the pitiful pile that was all that remained of her son. She opened her mouth and her beautiful face twisted into a mask of hurt and confusion in marked contrast to the tiny mirror image at her side, who simply stared at the trussed-up image of her father on the road.

“Finish it,” Najafi said into the microphone, and this time his voice was a giggle.

No one on the team hesitated. The terrorists turned their weapons on the wife and daughter of a known Israeli sympathizer. They fired. Michael Suleiman screamed. Green tracer rounds knifed through the roiling smoke. Colonel Ayub felt his heart lurch so painfully in his chest he thought he’d torn it. The woman and girl were punched backward into the vehicle. Suleiman screamed again, but it was only the beginning of the screaming he would do this day.

Brigadier General Najafi moved his finger over and hit the button on the intercom system for the plane, putting him instantly in touch with the pilots of the C-130.

“The package is acquired,” he said. “Put the plane down.”

“Yes, sir,” the pilot answered.

Behind Najafi, Colonel Ayub found his eyes once again drawn to the expensive attaché sitting on the table next to his commander. He thought about what it held. He closed his eyes.

The plane made its descending approach.

THE BIG CARGO PLANE landed on an improved runway controlled by a pro-Iranian Shiite militia. The pilot deftly leveled out and brought the massive bird down on the mile-long runway. As soon as the wheels hit the tarmac the load master in the cavernous bay initiated the cargo-acquisition procedures and the ramp began to lower even as the plane continued to taxi down the runway.

The Hezbollah hit team’s Toyota Sequoia raced out from between two hangars and onto the runway. The ramp lowered into position just a few short inches above the pavement and the SUV, with Michael Suleiman trussed up inside, ran up on the platform.

The vehicle driver gunned the Sequoia up onto the platform and drove it straight into the cargo bay of the lumbering C-130, which was large enough to hold five more just like it. Once the SUV was inside, the load master alerted the pilot and began closing the ramp. Instantly the cargo plane’s mammoth Allison Turbine engines changed pitch and began racing.

Instead of holding down the speed the pilot applied full throttle, and almost immediately the blunt nose of the airplane began to lift. Inside the cargo hold the snatch team waited for takeoff and watched the load master, now in a jump chair, for the all clear to exit their vehicles.

Inside the TOC both Najafi and Ayub surveyed the hold through a video feed, Najafi calmly smoking while his subordinate stood mute and sweating.

Engines screaming, the C-130 completed its stump-and-jump running landing and left Lebanese soil, heading out to the west toward the sparkling blue waters of the Mediterranean Ocean.

As the plane began a smooth ascent, the load master nodded to the Hezbollah agents in the Sequoia. They sprang into action as Najafi came out and stood on the scaffolding leading up to the TOC’s door. Ayub remained in the chamber, studiously avoiding looking at either the attaché case or the dentist chair. It took a considerable amount of willpower.

Outside the door he heard Najafi taunt the prisoner.

“Ah, Michael, so good to see you again,” Najafi said. He looked imperiously down from his perch at the top of the scaffolding. In his mind he was Xerxes surveying the beating of an insolent slave at the hands of his Immortals. The Hezbollah thugs jerked the Lebanese parliamentary member from the back of the SUV. His face was purple and black and swollen. Bloody drool hung in ropes from split lips, and he looked up at Najafi with the dull eyes of a wounded animal.

He tried to speak as he was carried up the steps by the masked gunmen but could only manage to gag. His hands and feet had been secured behind him with white plastic zip ties and his business suit had been torn and splattered with blood. He could only manage mewling sounds as he was shoved through the TOC’s door and thrown roughly into the dentist’s chair.

While the Hezbollah gunners cut the man loose from his restraints and then locked him into the chair, Najafi fitted his impeccable suit jacket on a hanger, then hung that from a hook on the wall. He maintained a calm, playful manner as he donned a blue apron and a pair of black rubber gloves.

“I know we’ve had our difference, Michael,” he purred. “That whole public denouncement of my diplomatic mission as nothing more than a political destabilization operation by Ansar-al-Mahdi was, in particular, quite hurtful—conveyed as it was on your parliamentary floor, in front of television cameras.”

Behind the men, Colonel Ayub took an unconscious step backward as Najafi donned a cotton surgical mask and a pair of clear plastic safety glasses. He came up hard against the cold metal wall of the TOC. He could feel the vibration of the plane through the wall as it climbed toward a thirty-thousand-foot ceiling. The Hezbollah agents were inscrutable observers behind their masks, their weapons still reeking of cordite from their recent use.

“Despite that…unpleasantness,” Najafi continued, “I was so sorry to hear about the loss of your family, Michael. These are unfortunate times. The Koran tells us to turn to Allah and the words of the Prophet in times of trouble.” Najafi stopped, regarded the battered Lebanese secured to the chair in front of him. “But you don’t follow the teachings of the Koran, do you, Michael? You worship this Jesus Christ, like some American lapdog.”

“You murdered my family!” Suleiman screamed. “Killer! You disgusting animal!”

The bruised man pushed up against his restraints, disfigured face twisted into rage. His eyes, almost swollen shut, blazed with hate and anger until they were bright points of light. Bloody spittle flew from split lips over broken teeth, and the veins of his neck stood out in sharp relief, like rivers.

Najafi ignored the outburst. He calmly walked over to his attaché case where it sat on the table and undid the gold relief clasps. The springs were tight and the snap of their release was clearly audible despite Michael Suleiman’s inarticulate screaming. Suleiman’s snarls turned to choking gags behind Najafi and, up against the wall, Colonel Ayub closed his eyes.

Najafi reached into his expensive leather attaché case. The Bosch eighteen-volt high-torque impact wrench was a cordless power drill. Michael Suleiman fell silent as Najafi turned around with the 9.5-inch device in his hands. The power tool was blue with the trigger and brand name printed in a brilliant red. The flat battery pack was secured to the bottom of the drill’s pistol grip like a magazine in a handgun. The drill bit was itself five inches long, grooved like a rifle barrel and colored a dull graphite-gray that seemed to absorb light.

Grinning, Najafi depressed the trigger. The 2.4 Ah batteries surged power at 1,900 RPM, generating 350 foot pounds of torque as specially designed cooling rods absorbed the heat generated by use.

“What could you possibly want from me?” Suleiman begged. “What could I possibly know?”

Najafi released the trigger and watched the drill spin down. His sneer was spread across his face as he called over his shoulder to the visibly pale Ayub. “Why do they always think it’s about information?”

Chuckling to himself, Najafi turned back toward the helpless Suleiman. “Michael, I already know everything I need to know. There are no secrets in Beirut I do not already possess.”

Najafi stepped forward and touched the hard metal of the drill against Suleiman’s left leg. The power tool rested on his vastus medialis, the teardrop-shaped muscle of the quadriceps located next to the kneecap. His gloved finger rested lightly on the red trigger of the cordless drill.

“Then why?” Suleiman asked, his voice a moan. “Just kill me. You murdered my family. I’ve suffered enough.”

“I say when you’ve suffered enough!” Najafi suddenly screamed. His face was a grossly animated mask of anger.

The drill screamed as the leader of Ansar-al-Mahdi pulled the trigger and pushed downward. The powerful industrial drill bit easily into Michael Suleiman’s flesh, burning through skin and tearing into muscle fiber as if they were paper. Scarlet blood splashed as the prisoner screamed, streaking Najafi’s pale blue apron and marking his safety glasses with beads of crimson.

Najafi wore a maniacal grin as he pulled the drill free then plunged it down into Suleiman’s leg again four more times in rapid succession. Colonel Ayub felt his gorge rising as he tried to look away, but the tortured man’s screams drew his eyes despite himself. Blood spilled into the seat of the dentist’s chair and puddled on the floor of the TOC.

Suddenly a satellite phone positioned on the table below the POV cam monitors came to life. Najafi straightened, lips pursed as he let the spinning drill power down. Michael Suleiman’s head sagged on his neck.

“Always with the interruptions,” Najafi snarled. “Always whenever I’m really starting to make progress on a project I am interrupted.”

The phone beeped loudly again.

Najafi sighed, almost theatrically. He turned around and walked toward the table. He stopped, looking down at the heavy power tool he still held in his hands. He turned back toward the helpless and bleeding Suleiman.

“Would you hold this for me?” he asked. “Thank you.”

The drill screamed into life and Najafi carelessly pushed the impact wrench down into the Lebanese political leader’s thigh until it bit into the bone of his femur. The man screamed as it cored into his bone marrow.

The phone rang and without bothering to remove his blood-drenched glove, Najafi snatched it up. “Yes, what is it?” he snapped.

Colonel Ayub, standing only a few short yards away, could hear clearly both sides of the conversation and he recognized the voice on the other end of the connection immediately. It was a voice he feared.

“Is that how you talk to a man in my position, General?” the voice asked.

Najafi’s manner and tone instantly changed. “Of course not, Your Eminence,” he said. “How may I serve you?”

Behind them Michael Suleiman moaned in agony, the noise very loud in the confined space of the mobile TOC. Najafi scowled fiercely and pointed a finger at the Hezbollah team leader. With a slash of his hand he indicated the bound and helpless Suleiman. Instantly the terrorist stepped forward and threw a right cross down onto the prisoner. The knuckles of the man’s hand connected with the sharp prominence of Michael Suleiman’s jaw, and the Lebanese political leader’s head went limp on his neck.

“There has been a change in certain global geopolitical realities that displease the Revolutionary Council,” the voice on the phone said.

“What happened?”

“The Americans in their arrogance have formally labeled our Islamic Revolutionary Guard and the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics command as terrorist organizations. The world press is running with the story now.”

“The Americans’ insolence knows no bounds!” Najafi snarled. “How quickly they forget the humiliation of their embassy hostages on the world stage before that cowboy Reagan came to power.”

“The council agrees,” the voice replied. “This arrogance will not be ignored. Our own parliament is already constructing a resolution labeling the CIA and U.S. Army as the terrorist organizations they are—but that is only our public face.”

“You have something else in mind?”

“We want you to return to Tehran immediately. Your Ansar-al-Mahdi is to be given a new tasking. We’ll leave the Lebanese situation to VEVAK officers for now,” the voice said, referring to the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence.

“As you command,” Najafi said. “I will turn the plane around now.”

“Good.” The line went dead.

Najafi put the satellite phone down on the table and slowly turned to regard the bound Michael Suleiman. The Lebanese prisoner was only semiconscious, eyes dull and blood pouring from his torture wounds.

“Terrorist organizations,” Najafi scoffed, shaking his head with irritation. “You heard that?” he asked Ayub, who nodded. “Those cowboys will soon learn to regret their arrogant presumption.”

Najafi walked over to Suleiman and yanked the cordless drill from the man’s leg. Suleiman screamed. The drill whined to life, spinning at its fearsome 1,900 RPM. Suleiman’s eyes sprang wide in terror and he threw his head back against the chair.

Najafi lifted the drill in an almost offhand manner and plunged it into his captive’s left eye. Michael Suleiman jerked like a man in an electric chair, coming up out of his seat against his restraints, then sagging back down limply and falling irrevocably still.

Najafi yanked the drill free. Behind him Colonel Ayub bent double and vomited on his own shoes as the Hezbollah commandos snickered behind their masks. The Ansar-al-Mahdi commander regarded his subordinate with a look of cool distain until he had finished purging.

“Something you ate?”

“Yes, General,” Ayub said, wiping his mouth.

“Good.” Najafi shoved the gore-drenched power tool into the colonel’s shaking hands. “Clean that so that my briefcase is not stained.” He turned toward his Hezbollah surrogates and pointed at the corpse. “Take this piece of shit down to the cargo bay. I’m going to the cockpit. We’re on our way back to Tehran. When we’re over north Beirut I’ll signal the load master and you dump the body out so it can be found.”

“Yes, General,” the team leader replied.

Najafi turned back toward Colonel Ayub in his vomit-splattered dress shoes. “When you have finished with your valet duties, come up to the cockpit,” he told the man. He paused at the door of the TOC after removing his bloody apron. “We are going to figure out how exactly to show these Americans exactly what terror really is.”

Colonel Ayub nodded and Najafi went out the door. The politically connected military officer felt the eyes of the Hezbollah gunmen on him. He forced himself to stand straight. He looked at the bloody and mutilated body of Michael Suleiman and he forced his features into a mask of indifference despite the taste of his own vomit on his tongue.

“You heard the commander!” he snapped. “Get the body downstairs and wait for your orders.”

But the Hezbollah team was already in motion and they simply ignored the bureaucrat.