Tracks (54 page)

The fire from the courtyard
kept Lennon and his men at bay inside the compound, unable to venture out to
the personnel office where supposedly the safe with the vital organization
information was kept.  Lennon was able to see through to the gate and he
now realized it was opening up and just outside some reinforcements were
jumping out of a truck.

He was looking out as the
hellfire missile hit the truck and anyone around it, then a second and a third
missile hit inside the courtyard and a fourth shattered the side of the
compound, obliterating the entire side of the courtyard knocking Lennon to the
ground.

“Shadow, this is Razor One, I
think we’ve cleared the lot for you.  I’ve got the troop carrier standing
by.  Where’s the LZ?”

Lennon sat up and grabbed the
radio.

“Razor One, this is Shadow,
great job!  There’s an empty area a half click north of the
compound.  Can he land there?”

“Shadow, this is Iguana Two, I
see it,
I’ll
try to land.  Can you make it
there?”

“Iguana Two, this is
Shadow.  We’ve got casualties, we’ll see you there.  Razor One and
Two, can you provide cover?  Check the LZ first - there may be some bad
guys out there. We’ll come out of the gate you just evaporated and head north
along the compound wall toward the LZ.”

“Shadow, this is Razor One, en
route, give us two minutes then come out, we’ll cover you.”

Lennon looked around. 
His people were assembled around him. 

 “OK, guys, we’ve got
cover.  Load up the bodies and wounded and let’s get the hell out of
here!”

“What about the safe?” someone
asked.

“Take a look,” Lennon
suggested, “I think it’s dissolved along with the rest of the yard.”

Lennon was right.  The
entire office side of the courtyard was blown to pieces by the Apache attack.
There was no point and no time to look for the safe.

They ventured out carefully,
Lennon in the lead.  It was mayhem.  The missiles had decimated the
courtyard.  Two large craters had formed in its middle, bodies and body
parts lying uselessly around.  He saw movement and let a long burst of automatic
fire toward where the gate had been.  Several figures were fleeing the
scene.

The Apache hung from above as
the troop exited the compound and marched along a deserted street toward the
LZ.

From her vantage point, hidden
in the alley where they had initially come from, Natasha could see the two
choppers circling the area before the larger one began to descend.

She dared not move.

Several figures had come out
of the garage minutes earlier fleeing in all directions, some carrying others,
looking spiritless and injured.

She had no idea what had
occurred in the compound.  The troopers left her in a hurry not saying
much, leaving her the radio, instructing her to wait in the alley.

Since then she’d heard muffled
shooting and explosions until several deafening explosions shook her and she
began to wonder if anyone would come out of there alive.

The chopper landed, spraying
dust and small pebbles.  Its rotors kept spinning while the side doors
opened and two dark figures with guns jumped out, cleared the spinning blades
and crouched on the ground looking in all directions as if expecting an attack
any moment.

The smaller chopper hovered
above.

The radio crackled.

“Natasha, can you hear me?
Over.”

It was Devlin. 

“Yeah, right here. 
Over,” she replied, pressing the talk button.

“Can you see the
choppers? 
Over.”

“Yeah,
right in front of me.
 
Over.”

“You in the alley we came
from? 
Over.”

“Yes.  What should I do?”

“Stay put! We’ll be with you
shortly.  If you identify any bad guys, let us know.”

“Got it,” Natasha said and the
radio went silent.

It was several tense minutes
before she saw the troop approach, a sorry procession of soldiers carrying
their wounded on their backs and there were almost as many men being carried as
walking.

The two dark figures went into
action pointing the men to the helicopter’s side doors making sure they stooped
under the blades.

It took seconds before the
Black Hawk took off, shielded by the Apache.  The two figures left on the
ground took off toward the alley. 

CHAPTER
FIFTY-TWO

Sam was looking up into the
sky, seeing nothing. He tried to imagine what his son would look like but was
unable to form any picture. He felt for the photos he had prepared in his
pocket.  His heart was racing with excitement blended with fear.

What if they had been
wrong?  What if it was the wrong boy?  Sam tried to work out in his
mind all the possible scenarios.  What if little Sammy refused to
acknowledge him?  After all, his biological son had just been ripped away
from the only parents he ever knew and who was he to decide for him?  The
child would have no knowledge whatsoever of his past.  For all he knew the
people who
raised
him were his Mom and Dad.

He was eleven now.  Not a
child anymore.  It would not be a given that he would play
along.  

Everyone was looking up as the
black dot on the horizon slowly turned into a helicopter.  It was early
morning and the first rays of light were turning the Mediterranean from dark to
misty gray.

Sam felt the tension rise in
him as the chopper came in over the Larnaca Air strip and descended to the
helipad, not twenty meters from where he was standing. 

The boy came out first,
supporting a woman in an Arab gown, who kept tripping on the tarmac.  A
trooper came to their aid on her other side and dragged her along.

It was still misty and gray,
but Sam could see the resemblance right away.  Sammy’s head was closely
cropped but his face was a boy’s image of Michelle.

Tears came to Sam’s eyes as he
moved forward to meet his long lost son.  It was suddenly difficult to
walk.   Copeland noticed Sam’s hesitance and put an arm on his back
supporting him.

Father and son stood staring
at one another.  The boy looked a little confused, the woman next to him
continuously coughing, doubling up as if grieving over a dead relative. 
Copeland went over to her and tried to lead her away from the reunion but the
boy would not let her go.

“I am your father,” Sam
managed to say looking into the boy’s confused large blue eyes.  “You were
taken from me a year after you were born!”  Sam added, seeing the boy more
concerned with the coughing woman now being held by Copeland.

The boy looked around at the
crowd that had gathered around them.  Sam continued.

“We have been looking for you
for over ten years now,” he said in a pleading voice.  “All these people
here helped get you back to me.”

The woman coughed again. 
Dori grabbed her, raising her head towards Sam and the boy who were staring at
one another.

“Tell the boy the truth!” he
said in Arabic.

The woman coughed again then
began to wail.  The boy, looking aghast, went to her, hugged her and began
caressing her hair.

Sam looked dismal.

Dori pulled the boy away from
the woman and stood between them.

“She is not your mother!” he
said slowly in Arabic.  “You were kidnapped from that man when you were a
baby!  You are an American!  Ask her to tell you the truth. 
Your dad's been looking for you for over ten years!"

The boy stood confused. 
He had not yet uttered a word but now he was looking more carefully at Sam who
just stood there looking back.

“Mother, is this right?” he
asked the woman in Arabic.

The woman increased the pitch
of her wail.

Dori slapped her on the cheek
and the boy jumped to her aid but Dori would not let him near her. "You
think we would have gone through all this trouble if this wasn’t true?"
Dori continued in Arabic making a sweeping motion with his free hand directing
Sammy's attention to what was happening around him.

“Tell the boy the truth!” he
demanded again holding Sammy at arm’s length.

The woman became quiet
suddenly.  All eyes were on her.

Then she nodded.

The boy bolted.  He
turned and ran toward an open hangar that housed a silent turbo-prop.  Sam
held up his hand to stop anyone from giving chase. 

“I’ll do it,” he said and ran
after the boy.

He found him crouched against
the hangar’s tin wall, looking dazed, and crouched next to him.

“I’ve dedicated my life to
finding you,” Sam said quietly in English.  “My life completely changed
when they took you.”

The boy had his head down and
was scratching the asphalt with his fingernails.

“The name we gave you is
Samuel Jr. or Sammy, after me.  My name is Sam too.  Our family name
is Baker.  But if you prefer I can call you Amir.”

The boy did not look up but he
stopped scratching the asphalt.

“Then where is my real
mother?” he suddenly asked in perfect English, catching Sam off balance.

“When they took you, they
killed her,” he said straight out, not trying to soften the blow.  “Her
name was Michelle and I’ve got photos of her to show you.”

The boy looked up at Sam for
the first time with tears in his eyes.  The sun had just come up in the
east over the Mediterranean exposing the boy’s face, blinding him for a
moment.  He lowered his head again and sat on the asphalt, his back
against the hangar’s wall.

Sam took out the photos and
sat next to him. The two of them just sat there, staring blankly ahead, not
saying a word until the boy put out his hand and asked for the photos.

*****

Aziz drove the car like a
madman over mini-craters and bumps of Beirut’s coastal highway, trying to put
enough distance between them and whatever posse was sent after them.

He, Devlin and Natasha had raced
through the deserted city streets to where they had hidden the car.  It
was still there, waiting for them in the alley across from the football field
the choppers had landed in.  As he put the car into gear, half the Beirut
sky lit up with flares, a sign they were not going to let the assault pass
without retaliation.  It was going to be a race to the finish and they
were not sure where Rolston, Amar, and Mai-Li were.

The plan had been to reach a
beach 20 kilometers south of Beirut where Lizzy and Jimmy the Driver were
headed with a speedboat, but the encounter had exposed them and no doubt
measures would be taken by the organization’s supporters,
 
mainly
the Shiite-backed Hezbollah who controlled the area south of
Beirut.

Aziz hit the brakes hard, causing
Devlin to almost crash through the windshield.

“Up ahead,” he said, pointing,
and Devlin could see car lights in the distance blocking the road.

Aziz shut off the lights and
turned the car around.  He sped back towards Beirut then veered off after
a few kilometers to a dirt road that climbed east up on a hill range. It was a
rough road.  He switched his lights back on but the car rocked and bumped
into boulders grazing its bottom as Aziz kept his foot on the gas.

It was turning light and they
were nowhere near the rendezvous point.

“We’ll have to ditch the car
and hide for the day,” Aziz said.  “We’ll never make it to the pickup
point.” 

 “The more time goes by,
the harder it would be to get there,” Devlin pointed out.

“It will be difficult at night
but impossible during daytime.  Best wait till tonight,” Aziz surmised.

Devlin glanced back at
Natasha.  She sat there, her beautiful face alert, her blonde hair stiff
with dust, her glistening eyes focused on him.

“What do you think?” he asked
her.

“How do we hook up with
Malcolm?” she asked.

“We haven’t heard from them
since the trouble began,” he said thoughtfully.  “They may be there
already...”

“Or not...” Natasha suggested.

Aziz braked hard again and
Natasha almost landed in Devlin’s lap.  Devlin was about to comment to
Aziz on his driving when he saw the dirt road had ended on the edge of a
cliff. 

Dawn was breaking as they hid
the vehicle as best they could in a small gulley by the side of the road and
took off toward a rocky hill that looked to have good hiding potential.