Echo Six: Black Ops 6 - Battle for Beirut (15 page)

That's fine, provided he waits. If he goes off early, we're finished.

They walked back to the vehicles. Best called to his men, and they left the bus and joined him at the top of the hill where he could point out how he wanted them to mount the diversionary attack. Talley found Drew Jackson and asked him to contact Brooks on the satcom. The Admiral replied almost instantly.

"What's the situation, Commander?"

He explained about the reinforcements.

"You sure you can handle it?"

"If everyone does their job, it should go like clockwork. I'm worried about Captain Best. He's not good at obeying orders."

"He'll be fine," said the Admiral, brushing off his concern, "We have Sea Hawks standing by on the deck of the USS Nimitz. They can be with you twenty minutes after you call them in. Make sure you locate a good safe LZ. I don't want the Navy going crazy because they lost a couple of their helos."

"Copy that. As soon as we have the hostages, we'll call it in."

"Is there anything else you need?"

He thought of the grim desert, rain sodden refugee camp. A night attack in uncertain visibility was not something any capable commander would look forward to. The advantage of night vision gear would be lost; the torrential rain rendered it almost useless. And if there'd ever been a time when they needed that advantage, it was now. The meaning of the Hezbollah reinforcements was clear. They were expecting an attack. They could still contain it, if Werner Best did his job properly. If Zaki Nassif got them in, and if the hostages weren't too heavily guarded.

But it was a whole lot of ifs.

Why am I kidding myself? That refugee camp is a death trap. No military force has ever successfully done what we are planning to do, not in there. Even the Israelis failed.

"Talley, you still there? I asked you if there was anything else needed."

"A squadron of F/A-18s might tip the balance in our favor, Sir. Otherwise no."

"That bad?"

He had a one-word answer. "Worse."

* * *

Jihad Habeeb approached the newcomers. " Salaam alaikum, my brother, your men are welcome, very welcome."

"Alaikum salaam, Sheikh Habeeb," their leader responded automatically, "We came as soon as we got word. How soon are you expecting trouble?"

Habeeb looked around at the torrential rain. "Soon. But come inside, Rashid, and we can talk. If this gets any worse, we'll have to start swimming."

The other man smiled dutifully as Habeeb led the way inside the derelict and broken town that was Masnaa camp. The streets were strewn with garbage and broken masonry, and the entire place stank of sewage. Habeeb noticed his flicker of distaste.

"The stink worries you? Don't worry about it. After you've been here a few hours, you won't even notice."

"As you say, my Sheikh." But the stink didn't lessen.

They passed more houses, many little more than ruins, until they reached a more substantial building.

"This was once the Masnaa branch of the Lebanese bank, but I seized it for my headquarters," he said proudly, "It is one of the few intact buildings left in Masnaa."

He led the way into the building, across the old banking hall, past abandoned, dust-covered counters, and through a doorway that led to a staircase.

He started down the stairs and into a large furnished room, lit with oil lamps. He explained this was once the vault of the bank. "It's probably the safest place in Masnaa," he chuckled, "If the Israelis mount a raid on this place, their missiles can barely dent my headquarters."

"Do they mount many raids?"

"Not recently. But we are always alert to the danger."

"What about cruise missiles?" Rashid asked.

"They wouldn't dare," he laughed, "Come, make yourself comfortable."

They sat down on low couches, and Habeeb clapped his hands. Immediately, a veiled woman brought in a tray of coffee, and she set about serving them. Rashid sat sipping his coffee, waiting for Habeeb to begin. He noticed a video camera set up on a tripod in the corner, facing an empty wooden chair. There was also a battery-operated lamp and a portable television. He wondered if the Sheikh used it to film and watch explicit videos. He knew he would, given the chance. What else could a man do, living in a hellhole such as this one? He turned as Habeeb spoke to him.

"My friend, I called you because one of our people sighted foreign troops landing close to Beirut."

"Beirut is a long way away," he observed.

"True, but the real prize is here, in Masnaa. You know we have the UN Commissioner, Andreas Jensen, held hostage?"

"I had heard."

"Of course. We believe the soldiers may be on the way here. They attacked Hezbollah Headquarters in Beirut and caused a large number of casualties. But we believe they were seeking intelligence, and their real destination is here, in Masnaa. Commander, I want you to reinforce the defenses, but stay out of sight. When the attack comes, the extra fighters will be a surprise. We will destroy them, these foreign infidels who dare to invade our country. And when they're all dead, we will put their heads on spikes to show the world what happens to those who dare to attack us."

Privately, Rashid thought it was the worst possible idea, one that would inflame world opinion against them. But Habeeb was a dangerous man to cross, and he didn't voice the thought. There was one obvious flaw in Habeeb's plan, and he felt obligated to point it out.

"Sheikh Habeeb, about the hostages. If they were coming here to rescue them, would it not be wise to hide them elsewhere? You never know, in the heat of battle the infidels could get lucky. The hostages could be killed, in which case they would be no use to you."

The bearded man grinned, showing blackened, rotting teeth. Rashid moved back a few inches to avoid the rank stench of his breath.

"It is already arranged. Nothing is likely to happen tonight, not in this foul weather. At dawn, we will take them away from here. A United Nations truck brings supplies of food daily, courtesy of the European Union. Without it, we would have to spend the money we need for weapons and explosives for our people to eat. When the truck is unloaded, we will place the hostages inside and take them to a different place. So you see, when the infidels attack, they will die for nothing. But enough of that. While we are drinking coffee, I have some entertainment for us."

Rashid waited. There was a commotion at the door, and two men wearing hoods with holes cut in front of their eyes dragged in an unwilling prisoner. Clearly one of the hostages, a girl, she was struggling in terror. She was dressed in a black veil and robe that enveloped her, so it was impossible to know if she was an Arab or a Westerner. He looked at Habeeb and saw the man was already in a heightened state of arousal, his eyes widely dilated, and a drool of spittle coming from the corner of his mouth. He nodded to the men.

"Get on with it. Sajid, you know what to say. When you are ready, use the knife."

He nodded, and they slammed the veiled female into the wooden chair and tied her wrists firmly. She started to scream, but one of the men punched her hard on the side of her head, and she fell silent. The other man went to the video camera and switched it on.

"This will be an incentive for the United Nations to acquiesce to our demands. Watch, you may find it interesting. When the film is finished, we will upload it to the Internet for the whole world to view."

Sajid started to speak in Arabic. His statement was long and rambling, but the meaning was quite simple. The fate of the girl was an example to the world of what would happen if they didn't comply with their demands. His rant became louder and harsher, and then he pulled a huge dagger out of his belt. He placed the blade of the dagger underneath the girl's throat and continued shouting his threats at the camera. Suddenly, he dragged the blade across her windpipe, and Rashid had to jerk to the side to avoid being splashed by the fountain of blood that spurted out. Habeeb chortled with glee.

"Now they will understand we are serious, my friend. Was it not worth coming here to witness such entertainment?" He turned to the man with the knife, "Pull her veil off, so the world can see who died here this night."

Rashid watched as the executioner uncovered the face of a young girl. Her eyes were wide with terror, fixed in death.

"Personally, I always find the execution of an infidel very stimulating. I shall have to choose a girl to share my bed tonight. Perhaps you would care to avail yourself of another from my entourage?"

Rashid shook his head. This was unexpected. He'd assumed it would be something different, threats maybe, but no more. He felt sick and disgusted by the wanton violence he'd just witnessed on a pretty young woman, even if she was a Westerner. Maybe some of the Islamic hardliners thought it was justified, but it wasn't his way of doing war. Still, he had no choice but to pretend otherwise.

"I think not, Sheikh Habeeb, but I thank you for your generosity. It will be dawn in two hours, and I need to see to my men and make sure they are in position ready for the attack. You are sure they will come?"

"I'm sure. They will run straight onto your guns, and there will be a great bloodletting, such as you have rarely seen."

He did smile then. That was his kind of war, soldier against soldier. Killing pretty girls always seemed an unnecessary waste. Something about it didn't seem quite right. He wasn't entirely convinced the Prophet would have approved. He looked at the wooden chair with the girl's body slumped in it, her blood pooled on the floor. The other men were ignoring her, and Habeeb was busy looking at a rerun of the video. She was gone, forgotten. Yet another victim of the Islamic Jihad that counted its successes by the number of innocents who were slaughtered along the way to fulfilling Mohammed's dream.

He heard Habeeb ordering his men to untie the body of the dead girl and throw it back in with the hostages.

Is there no end to this man's cruelty? I know we are in a holy war, but surely this is not what the Prophet wanted us to do. Killing the girl was bad enough, but the effect on the hostages will be horrific when they see the fate that’s in store for them. It’s as if Habeeb wants to increase the amount of terror and cruelty he inflicts on his captives, but for what purpose? The outside world won't know, so it can only be for his gratification. The man is a renowned fighter for the cause, which is true. He is also sick.

The Lebanon, close to the Damascus border

She awoke with a start, and at first didn't know where she was. She reached up as far she could with her bound hands and felt the steel of the trunk she was confined inside. She knew her nightmares were soon to become reality, and she would be sold as a slave to a wealthy Arab. Her only consolation was that the steel had cooled, which told her it was night.

The car was still bumping along the road, and she felt as if her body was pounded with baseball bats. Then it stopped, and the trunk opened. A man looked inside, a man she hadn't seen before.

"Are you still alive, Christian?" he sneered.

I'm a Jew! Why do they call me a Christian? Of course, the cross that Abe gave me. They believe I'm a Christian. Will that help me, or make things worse? Should I say anything? I don't know, only that nothing could be worse than this.

"I'm alive," she mumbled through lips that were cracked and dry. She had to summon up enough saliva to make her tongue work sufficiently to speak, "Please, I need water."

The man went away without a word and came back a few minutes later. He was holding a bucket of water, and she waited for him to help her drink. Instead, he emptied the water over her with a leer of contempt.

"You wanted water, Christian! Enjoy it."

He laughed, the laugh of a pure one hundred percent, card-carrying sadist. Then he slammed the trunk lid shut, and once again she was sealed into the darkness. Except she was able to lick at the drops of water on her clothing, and on the metal of the trunk. It tasted like champagne.

She lapsed into unconsciousness but woke when the trunk lid opened again. Two men lifted her out and dragged her into a building. They carried her down a flight of stone steps, opened a heavy steel door, and tossed her inside. Her head hit the stone floor hard because she was unable to protect herself. She passed out.

* * *

The first fingers of dawn were beginning to appear in the distant sky. They had maybe a half hour to get inside the camp, locate the hostages, and bring them out. After that, they’d lose the advantage of the darkness, and all bets would be off.

They were crouched next to the old well that Zaki had led them to, but now it was a heap of crumbling stones.

A metaphor for this crappy country.

He wondered about Werner Best. Before they separated, he gave the man specific orders not to start the diversionary attack until he gave the signal. They would only have a short window in which to locate and release the hostages. That window would open when the chaos of Best's attack began, and fighters streamed to man the defenses. It was during the time of maximum response to the attack that they would be able to work their way through the camp almost unnoticed. Afterward, the window would close, and the Hezbollah fighters would look inward. To Echo Six.

Guy waited, ready to descend into the depths to find out if the tunnel that led into the town still existed. Talley took a last look around and then nodded to his number two.

“Get moving. As soon as you see a clear way forward, call it in, and we’ll follow. I’ll leave a couple of men here to secure the exfil.”

“Roger that.”

The former SAS man dropped out of sight. Talley checked his wristwatch and looked at the sky again. Time. The one factor they couldn’t control, and it was about to betray them. Then Guy's voice sounded in his earpiece.

“Echo One, this is Two. We’re in luck. It looks possible to use the tunnel.”

“It’s clear?”

A pause. “Almost. We can move some of the rocks and debris to get through. It’ll be a tight squeeze, but we've seen worse."

"Roger that. I'll start them moving down."

He turned to Rovere who was crouched next to him. He was about to speak when all hell broke loose. The other side of the camp exploded in smoke and flames.

Alpha Six has started the attack! Fuck!

"Shit!" the Italian exclaimed.

"The stupid bastard," Talley said angrily, "He called in the missiles too early. Much too early."

The sky was lit up, as UAV launched Hellfires exploded on the heavy machine gun positions. The Alpha Six machine gunners opened fire, and then the light ‘crack’ of assault rifle fire, and the explosions of grenades added to the melee. The area came alive with shouts, screams, explosions, and worse. The flashes lit up the camp, making them visible to anyone looking their way. Talley shouted at Rovere.

"I'm going down. Get them moving. We'll have to speed it up. I want Zaki right behind me. Without him, we're blind."

Without waiting for an acknowledgement, he grabbed for the rope and slid down to the base of the old well. Guy was waiting for him, with a flashlight pointing ahead to the low tunnel they had to crawl through. In places, it was only inches high, the floor littered with rocks and broken masonry. He gave Talley a grim smile.

"I'll go first. The only way to do this is to pass back the larger rocks in a chain. We'll just have to squeeze past the smaller ones. There isn't time to move them all."

"I'll be right behind."

The narrow space at the bottom of the well was already filling up, as one by one the troopers dropped down. Guy dropped down and scurried into the tunnel. Talley followed him, and started feeding back rocks to the men waiting coming behind.

The air was foul, dark, and dank, and more ominously, water was beginning to puddle along the floor. The torrential rain had flooded over the top of the water table, and it was clear to every man in the tunnel it could only do one thing. Increase.

They pushed on desperately, hurling rocks back, squeezing through narrow gaps, and occasionally having to push and pull each other to get through. He checked his wristwatch. They had already been fifteen minutes in the tunnel, and there was no way of knowing how things were going on the surface. There was only one way to go. Forward.

"I've reached the end," Guy shouted.

Talley crawled the last few meters, and emerged at the base of a low wall, next to what had once been a communal washhouse. It was partly ruined, yet it was still possible to see the stone benches where for hundreds of years, women had brought their clothes to beat them on the stones to clean them. At the same time, they would have taken the opportunity to chat and gossip between each other, before the scourge of the Islamists reduced the town to its lowest common denominator. A resting place for evil men, bent on destruction. And for their women, who had no choice but to struggle to survive.

The old washhouse was on the edge of the small square, surrounded by houses and a derelict coffee house. It was deserted. In the distance, they could see the flashes of explosions and hear the sound of machine gun and assault rifle fire. Occasionally, the fire slackened, and the screams of the wounded and dying were carried toward them on the breeze. The pilot, Zaki Nassif crawled out of the opening to join them, and Talley helped him to his feet. More men were pouring out of the tunnel.

"We have to make up for lost time. The attack started too early. We only have minutes before they regroup. Which way do we go?"

Nassif pointed. "In the corner of the square there is a narrow alley. It will enable us to reach the old bank without crossing any of the main streets."

Talley glanced at Guy. "Did they all make it through?"

"Affirmative, Boss."

"Let's go."

He led the way, racing across the small square toward the dark smudge in the corner that marked the entrance to the alley. They were within four meters of the entrance when they stopped, astonished, as a bunch of fighters emerged, equally astonished. The surprise lasted for a split second. Echo Six were no slouches when it came to a fast response.

They dropped flat into a wide, defensive line, and even as they threw themselves down were already firing at the hostiles. He noticed Guy grip Zaki by the shoulder and drag him down to cover, and then he concentrated on killing the enemy. There were eight of them, and what saved Echo Six was their stunned surprise that the infidels were inside their camp.

It was a one-sided fight. Talley's men were all prone on the ground, an almost impossible target in the dim predawn light. Their gunfire slashed through the Hezbollah men, and although a couple of them got off some shots, their fingers jerking automatically on the trigger as they fell, they all went wide. Within three seconds, they were all down. The area went almost silent as the shooting stopped, except for the sound of running feet. One of them had got away.

He catapulted to his feet, shouting to the men, "They'll know we're here when he gets back. We only have seconds to get to the hostages before they start killing them. Zaki, lead the way!"

Guy stopped him. "Boss, the first place they'll come is here. Why not set up a little ambush. A Minimi and a couple of assault rifles should do it. If we don't stop them, they'll set up a blocking force for when we come back."

He hated the idea of splitting his unit. He'd had to leave men outside to guard the entrance to the well, and this would deplete the force even more. But it had to be done.

"Virgil, deploy the Minimi. Roy, Domenico, stay with him. You know what to do."

He nodded to the pilot, and the Lebanese set off along the alley, with Talley and his dwindling force close behind. They darted through a labyrinth of arcades, narrow gaps between the houses, and footpaths that wound up and down through the town, until he stopped and pointed.

"It's there. That building, the old bank."

"You mean the one with the machine gun nest set up outside."

Zaki shrugged. "That's the one."

Talley turned to Vince DiMosta and Jesse Whitefeather.

"The machine gun crew, take them out, and make it fast."

Both men nodded and dropped down. Twenty seconds after he'd given the order, a dozen silenced shots thumped into the four men clustered around the machine gun. They dropped without a sound, and Talley raced forward, the rest of the men following close behind.

The defenders were alerted, and three men ran out of the building. The charging troopers cut them down with short bursts, and then they were inside the bank. More Hezbollah fighters were racing from inside to man the defenses, and a series of running battles developed, one-to-one, man-to-man. What had once been the banking hall became a blazing hell of gunfire. The heavy thump of the defenders 7.62mm AK-47s intermingled with the sharper cracks of the 5.56mm assault rifles use by Echo Six. And gradually, the experienced armored NATO troopers prevailed. One by one, the Hezbollah fighters fell, until the huge room was a charnel house of wounded and dying Arabs.

Talley could see a heavy steel door ahead of them. It hung open, and behind it he could see a flight of steps. He ran toward it, just as two more Hezbollah fighters materialized from below, carrying a Russian built PK machine gun. They flung themselves to the floor to deploy the weapon on a bipod mount. Seconds later, they opened fire, and Talley's men had to dive for cover. The hostiles were in a strong position, partly protected by the heavy steel door, and almost impossible to approach without being shredded by the heavy bullets.

Guy crawled up beside him. "I think this calls for a grenade."

He started to pull the projectile from his webbing, but Talley stopped him.

"Not possible. If the hostages are down that staircase, the grenade could miss the machine gun and go all the way to the bottom. We'd wind up killing the people we’ve come here to save."

"You're right," his number two admitted, "We need Plan B."

"I'm Plan B." He keyed his mic, "This is Echo One, cover me. I'm going for that machine gun."

Before they replied, he leapt to his feet and raced forward, firing from the hip. At first, the gunners were taken off balance by his lightning move. But then they started to swing the gun around to target the charging man. Talley put every ounce of his strength into reaching them before they opened fire. Then his MP7 stopped firing as the clip emptied, and he slammed in a new one. He had to kill both men before they killed him, and he started to take up pressure on the trigger. And stopped.

His arm had frozen. The sensory nervous system that connected his brain to his trigger finger was completely disconnected. Too late, the PK machine gun was already sighted on him, and in desperation he hurled himself to the side and hugged the floor. The heavy slugs smashed overhead, parting the air where a split second before his body had been. At the same time, a side door opened behind one of the old heavy oak counters, and four more fighters poured into the hall and began shooting at his men from behind cover.

"Boss, hold on. We're coming for you," he heard Guy shout.

"Negative!" he called back. The enemy was firing from two different angles, and he knew anyone coming toward him would be cut to ribbons by the converging streams of fire. With an effort, he rolled on his opposite side and managed to transfer the MP7 to his left hand. He needed to move forward, to take on the machine gun, but to his horror, he couldn't push himself upright with his right arm. It was useless. He started to crawl forward, inch-by-inch, foot-by-foot. At first, the gunners didn't notice him, but then they saw him, and the first burst of fire slashed over his head. One of the slugs slammed into his armored vest, another dented his helmet, and a third ripped an inch of flesh from his right forearm.