Infidels (27 page)

Or
death.

He hit
hard, his brother landing directly on top of him.

But they
were alive.

And he
wasn’t in as much pain as he thought he should be.

His
brother scrambled off him and began to yank him to his feet. Suddenly realizing
where he was, he extricated himself from the bushes then looked for some place
to hide.

“The
alley!” said his brother, grabbing his hand and dragging him. He looked back
for the knife but didn’t see it. Running after his brother, they turned down
the alleyway and froze.

At least
a dozen men stood at the other end.

They
turned and began to run just as the mob gave pursuit.

Bursting
from the alleyway, Pascal spotted a car coming toward them. He started to run
to it when something hit him in the head and he went down.

His
brother turned to help him, but Pascal waved him off.

“No! Run!”

But it
happened so fast.

And it
was already too late.

Red Sea Coast, Saudi Arabia

Red grabbed at his side pocket, fishing his phone out as he signaled
for them to pull over. A text message had just been received, and if they had
lucked into a stray cellphone coverage area, he didn’t want to risk losing it.

“What’s
it say?” asked Jagger. Suddenly he reached for his pocket too. “What the hell,
mine’s going off too.”

Red
looked at the message, reading it aloud. “Thirty minute window for civilian comms.
Stand by for updates, will attempt voice communications. CA.” He looked at
Jagger. “Control Actual?”

“Clancy?”

Red
shrugged, stepping out into the afternoon sun. He had full bars on his display
for the first time since they had arrived in this hellhole and he wasn’t going
to waste it. Jimmy pulled up beside them and everyone gathered around, all with
their cellphones out. “I’m going to keep my phone clear but we need intel.
Atlas, try CNN, Jimmy, BBC, Jagger, al-Jazeera. Wings, check the State Department
website, see if there’s any new advisories. Something big has been going on in
Saudi Arabia and we need to know what we’re dealing with. The rest of you try
to reach out by text to our guys back home, see if we can get some info from
them.”

The team
broke off, all thumbs on phones when his phone vibrated in his hand with a
call. “Hello?”

“This is
Control Actual, we don’t have much time. Status?”

Red felt
a sense of relief wash over him at the sound of the Colonel’s voice. He knew
he’d never abandon them no matter what the Pentagon ordered him to do. This was
just proof their faith in the man hadn’t been misplaced. He put the call on
speaker so they could all hear. “We’re intact with one rescued American citizen
as previously reported. We have the relic with us, two operational vehicles,
heading for a rendezvous point sent to us by a friend.”

“Here’s
the rundown. You’ve been disavowed. Footage of you with the relic was released
to the press and the claim is that American soldiers stole the Black Stone. The
administration has denied all knowledge of this but are trying to work the
backchannels to get the stone into Saudi hands. A civil war has broken out in
Saudi and Muslims are rioting across the world. Thousands are dead, if not tens
of thousands. Copy?”

“Yes,
sir.”

“I’ve
been in unauthorized contact with a Saudi Colonel named Faisal bin Nayef. He
has agreed to take possession of the stone from you, however you have to get it
to him.”

“Where?”

“Mecca.”

Red
frowned, the others having gathered around to hear the conversation. Atlas
tapped his tactical computer. “Four hundred miles north of here.”

“That
will take some doing, Colonel.”

“Sergeant,
if it were up to me I’d say leave the goddamned thing in the middle of the
desert and get your asses to that rendezvous point and home. But there’s more
at stake here. If we don’t get this damned thing back into Muslim hands, for
the world to see, I don’t know how the violence is going to end. Paris and
London along with most of the capitals of Europe are burning. Fatwahs are being
issued by the hour demanding the killing of infidels until the relic is
returned, and nobody at your end seems to want to take it. It’s a Charlie-Foxtrot
if I’ve ever seen one.”

“Sir,
we’ll do whatever it takes to get the relic to this Colonel Nayef.”

“I know
you will, Sergeant. But be careful, I’m not sure if he can be trusted.”

“Why?”

“I gave
him some fake coordinates for your location and instead of a retrieval team
being sent, the area was bombarded. He claims his aide was a traitor, but I just
don’t know.”

Red
could hear the frustration in Clancy’s voice, and he felt it as well. There was
nothing worse than having to deal with someone you didn’t know whether you
could trust.

And
unfortunately the risk this time wasn’t whether they were being lied to, it was
whether they were being led into a trap.

Capture
the Americans with the relic. Red handed.

“If
things are as bad as you say they are, sir, I don’t see that we have much
choice.”

“I don’t
see much choice either. But the first sign of it being anything but an
exchange, you bug out. Leave the damned thing on the road and mail them a
postcard, I don’t give a shit. Just get it close to Mecca so they can carry it
in themselves if need be.”

“Will
do, Colonel.”

“Okay,
you’re to meet Colonel Faisal bin Nayef at the Ibrahim Al Khalil checkpoint at
midnight tonight. Can you make it?”

“It’s
going to be tough. Kane gave us a set of coordinates. We’re supposed to
rendezvous at twenty-hundred hours local. We’re almost at those coordinates. I
recommend half the team head to the rendezvous with our reporter. I’ll lead a four-man
team to Mecca. We’ll be faster and less conspicuous in just one vehicle.”

“Copy
that, Sergeant. Good luck.”

“Thank
you, Colonel.”

The call
ended and Red turned to his team. “How are we for gas?”

“I’ve
got half a tank,” said Jimmy.

“Same,”
replied Wings. “But there’s a few jerry cans in the back that are full.”

“Which
is the better vehicle?”

Wings
raised a hand. “I’d say ours, but then again, I’m driving. You know Jimmy can’t
drive a stick, all that damned grinding can be heard halfway to Riyadh.”

Jimmy
gave Wings the finger. “Bite me.”

“I’m
afraid it might lead to something more serious, and I’m already in a committed
relationship.”

Chuckles
echoed across the desert floor as the age old tension breaker of insulting your
comrade-in-arms did its job.

Jimmy
grinned. “You should be so lucky.” He turned to Red. “But he’s right. The
clutch is shot on this one and she’s burning oil.”

“Okay,
transfer all the fuel we can to Wings’ truck. Atlas, Jimmy, Spock, you’re with
me. The rest of you take Mr. Pullman here to the rendezvous point and get the
hell out of here. Understood?”

“Yes,
Sergeant!”

Atlas
held up his phone. “Have you read this shit?” he asked. “The Colonel was right,
there’s a shit storm rolling across Europe and pretty much everywhere else.”

“Anything
on Paris?”

The tone
turned somber as Red knew they were all thinking of Dawson, Maggie and the
professors.

“Yeah.
It’s the worst hit of them all. The military is preparing for a full scale assault
to retake the city.”

“Jesus
Christ,” muttered Red. “I hope they got the hell out of there.”

Boulevard de la Villette, Paris, France

Maggie yelped from the backseat as something hit their SUV. Dawson
fingered the Glock in his lap as he guided them through the streets, little
traffic on the roads, smashed and burned out cars lining the sides. At major
intersections there were large groups of police guiding them toward the main
evacuation center at Charles de Gaulle Airport, north of the city, but other
than that, the authorities seemed powerless to stop the rioting and looting.

“Look!”

Dawson
turned to see what Niner was pointing at. Two young men—scratch that, boys—burst
from an alleyway, stopping to look in both directions, clearly in distress. One
spotted the car and pointed just as a crowd of thugs brandishing machetes and
other blunt instruments suddenly appeared from the same alley, one throwing a
bottle and hitting one of the boys in the head as they began to run toward the
car. He stumbled and fell, his friend stopping to help as the group descended
upon them, knifes and crowbars flailing as the two boys screamed for help.

Dawson
rolled down his window and pointed his Glock at the crowd, firing four rounds
into them. Several cried out and dropped, the rest scattering as Dawson pulled
up beside the two boys, leaning out his window.

“They’re
dead.” He hit the accelerator as he rolled up his window. He had a pit in his
stomach at what he had seen since they rescued Maggie. Niner was streaming the
BBC through his phone, paired with the radio. Fortunately cellular service was
still functioning in the city though little else seemed to be. According to the
news reports they were listening to, Muslim youths had begun building-by-building
searches, killing anyone who couldn’t cite certain passages from the Koran,
slaughtering men, women and children in their bloodlust. It was something the
world had seen far too often in countries with significant non-Muslim minorities,
but it was usually relegated to Africa.

To see
it here in Paris was unthinkable.

And it
was a level of violence being repeated all throughout Europe, the economically
challenged ghettos, dominated by Muslim populations, effectively ethnically
cleansing themselves and walling out the authorities with roadblocks of burning
tires and vehicles.

And
northern Paris was ground zero for much of this violence.

“We need
to get to the airport and get the hell out of here,” said Dawson as he made
another turn under orders of the GPS. “Shit, now what?”

Ahead
was a large group of police vehicles, barricades set up blocking the entire
road that led to the airport. He slowed to a halt, passport in hand as he
rolled down the window.

An
officer approached, accompanied by several others, MP5’s and other impressive
hardware aimed at the vehicle.

“American?”

Dawson
nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Where
are you heading?”

“The
evacuation center at Charles de Gaul.”

The man
shook his head. “The roads have been completely blocked by rioters. There’s no
reaching the airport, not this way. You will have to try to get out of the city
then get to the airport through the countryside.”

Dawson
frowned, Maggie’s grip on his shoulder tightening. “That could take hours.”

The
officer nodded sympathetically. “At least. We have roadblocks set up throughout
the city to try and reduce the spread of the violence, and the only reason I am
not arresting you now is because of your passports. There is a curfew in
effect.” He leaned over, his face in the window, and lowered his voice. “I must
warn you. The military is preparing an assault. Tens of thousands of troops
with heavy equipment will be entering Paris in exactly one hour. If you are on
the streets then, I cannot guarantee your safety.”

“What’s
the best way to go then?”

The man
stood back up, shaking his head. “There isn’t a good way, there’s just least
bad. North is out of the question. I would go south to the E15 ring road, then
west and into the countryside.”

“Thank
you, officer.”

The man
nodded, his face grim. “Good luck to you, monsieur.”

Dawson
turned the car around and pressed the gas. “If the military is hitting the city
in sixty minutes, we’ve got to get as close to the outskirts as possible then
off the road.”

“Too bad
this GPS didn’t tell you where the Muslims lived,” said Niner, updating the
computer for the E15.

“After
today I have a feeling it will be an upgrade option.”

The
phone rang over the car’s Bluetooth. Dawson and Niner looked at each other.
“Wonder who that is?” He pressed the button on the steering wheel, taking the
call. “Hello?”

“It’s
Jim, are you guys alright?”

Dawson
smiled at the sound of Acton’s voice. “We retrieved Maggie. We’re cut off from
the airport though. We’re now heading south, trying to get out of the city.”

“From
what they’re telling us at this end, you don’t have much time. I can’t say why
over the phone.”

“We
already know. Are you safe?”

“Yes,
we’re on Laura’s jet. Wait, you said you’re heading south?”

“Yes.”

“How far
are you from Orly Airport?”

Niner
began to enter the new destination into the GPS.

“Why?”

“That’s
where we are.”

“I
thought you were at Charles de Gaul?”

“No,
there weren’t enough choppers to evacuate everyone in time so we were part of a
convoy that went south to Orly which was where our private jet was anyway.”

“Why
haven’t you left yet?”

“Frankly,
we’ve been waiting to hear from you.”

Dawson
shook his head, glancing at Niner who grinned at him. “If you have clearance to
depart, you get your asses in the air. Don’t wait for us.”

“There’s
still time and trust me, we’re low priority for leaving. They’re sending the
fully loaded heavies out before the private jets. Get
your
asses here,
and we’ll all fly out of this mess together.”

“Forty-five
minutes according to this,” said Niner, pointing to the GPS.

Dawson
pressed harder on the accelerator. “It’ll be slower with roadblocks and
rioters.”