Tracks (57 page)

There was silence in their
little cave as each considered the odds.  The vehicles and armed personnel
Aziz saw meant they were watching the village.  The landing zone could
become a trap if they were detected.  On the other hand, a day and half
hiking to anywhere in such conditions was something none of them could face.

“The biggest issue we have,”
Devlin said suddenly, waking them out of their reverie, “
is
not knowing
when to activate the beacon.  It’s got a little radio
transmitter but that can only reach a few kilometers.”

“So you have to be at the spot
you want them to locate when you activate it?”  Aziz asked.

“Precisely!”
Devlin said.  “If we choose the playground we’ll need to activate the
beacon for as short time as possible so our pursuers will have little time to
locate where we are.”

“Still, once the helicopter comes
in, it’s bound to draw fire,” Natasha pitched in.

“Like I told you,” Aziz
retorted. “Hezbollah does not frequent this village much.  They have
little support here.   So they could be far enough away for the
chopper to come in, pick us up, and take off without drawing any fire.  On
the other hand, if they detect us or are close enough to see the chopper, we
could be in for a firefight.”

“I guess it’s our call,”
Devlin said thoughtfully. “If they received your message, the choppers will
come to wherever we’ll be.”

“I don’t think we have much
choice,” Natasha surmised.  “They’ll have to come here.”

*****

IAF Lieutenant Colonel Gershon
Shemesh found himself for the second night in a row flying his Black Hawk into
Southern Lebanon.  With him was his copilot Captain Oren Gavish. 
Flight engineer Doobie Oz was in back with Colonel Dori, his select group of
commandos, and two military doctors with their medical equipment.

The final go ahead from the
Israeli Minister of Defense was received just minutes ago, when the chopper was
already half the way to its destination, the village of Kfar Matta.

There was complete agreement
that this village should be their target once the phone call from Beirut was
construed to be legit. Looking at the map and aerial photographs of the area,
no one thought their objects would attempt to go anywhere else.

Sergeant Boone recalled he
gave Devlin a beacon, so LTC Shemesh felt confident he could find them. 
The Apaches remained several minutes behind him.  They would cross the coastline
only if he was in real trouble.

The coastline appeared in the
morning mist a half hour later.  Shemesh, who flew at 300 feet over the
water now took the chopper to 3000 feet and crossed the shoreline above the
sleeping city of Damour heading due east toward the Kfar Matta ridge.

While waiting for a beacon
signal he kept looking for places he could land.  The terrain below him
looked rough and he kept wondering if his objects were still at large or Shiite
prisoners by now setting a trap for them.

The village appeared below but
no signal could be detected.  Shemesh flew half a kilometer further east,
then re-tracked and flew back toward the village again, east to west at 500
feet above ground.

The beacon signal appeared as
soon as he made his turn and he heard a voice on the emergency radio bandwidth.

“We’re in the small football
field a half click north of the mosque…” a voice was saying in English. 

Shemesh looked instinctively
for the mosque which would normally be found in the village center, found it,
then
looked to the right of it attempting to locate the
football field.

“Over there…” Gavish called
out, pointing to a small clearing and Shemesh banked his helicopter hard to the
right, descending fast.

Dori’s people became alert, releasing
their safety belts and holding their weapons at the ready.

As the Black Hawk swooped over
the waking village a short burst of tracer bullets suddenly came at them from
below and suddenly they were descending into a hot LZ.

Shemesh saw two vehicles in
pursuit on a dirt road below them, firing up toward him.  He called in the
Apaches but kept descending.  Doobie Oz, his flight engineer opened one of
the side doors and now Dori’s troops were conducting a firefight with the
vehicles below.

The football field was in
sight.  Shemesh had to decrease his speed considerably.  Now Doobie
Oz opened up the other door and more guns joined in the battle.

The Black Hawk was hovering
over the field when three figures emerged from a side of a house and began
running towards the descending helicopter, the figure in back kept turning and
firing a weapon toward some unseen pursuers.  The first figure, a blonde
woman, ran without looking back.  Suddenly she screamed a silent scream
and tumbled to the ground.

Dori was out the door even
before Shemesh could get the chopper on the ground, two of his men following
him toward the fallen woman.  The rest of his men, nine of them, jumped
out and took positions around the helicopter firing at incoming sources.

Aziz reached Natasha
first.  He saw her back wound immediately.  She lay flat on the
ground, not moving.  Dori and his two men arrived seconds later and
without hesitation flung her over one of the trooper’s shoulders.  The
trooper took off with her toward the helicopter with Aziz and the second
trooper covering their backs.

Dori remained crouched, aiming
and firing his weapon at Devlin’s pursuers. He signaled to Devlin who came
running to continue on toward the chopper while he provided covering
fire.  The trucks reached the edge of the playground and stopped dead,
their passengers jumping off and taking cover.

Dori started running back to
the chopper, shouting to his men to hop on board.  A barrage of bullets
hit the side of the Black Hawk but almost everyone was already on board. 
The last trooper was hit but his mates dragged him in as Shemesh disengaged
from the ground.  The side door was left open as the commandos returned
fire.  Shemesh cleared the trees and suddenly everything went quite.

As he ascended toward the west,
he saw the two Apaches sending their missiles toward the football field then
turn and follow his tail.

The two military doctors in
the chopper were fighting to save Natasha’s life.   

EPILOGUE

Winter came early to New York.

By the beginning of December,
the quieter side streets of Lower-East-Side Manhattan were covered with a thin
layer of snow.  The larger avenues were already submerged in slush.

A sudden hush came over the
crowd as the bride and groom came into the reception hall along with a young
boy dressed in a black suit and tie.  All eyes were on them as the three
made their entrance then a loud cheer rose and they were surrounded by friends.

Elena looked stunning, her
dark skin in stark contrast to the white marble dress that flowed from her bare
shoulders.

Sam was smiling brightly in a
tuxedo, shaking hands all around keeping his son, Sammy Jr., close to him.

The four maids of honor,
stunning in their own right, surrounded the bride everywhere she moved.

Christine flew in from Paris a
week before to participate in a two-day conference Black Jack had arranged with
George Metzger, Annie Green and several other supporters of the Center.

Ali came in from Scotland.
With her came Mike Devlin, Rolston, Lizzy, Jimmy, Copeland and Long-John.

Mai-Li had taken care of
things at the office for the last two months, traveling twice to Scotland to
see the gang and especially Malcolm Rolston who did not like letting her out of
his sight for too long.

Natasha was there too, almost
fully recovered.

She had opened her eyes almost
forty-eight hours after being shot in the back.  The military doctors on
board the Black Hawk had saved her life.  The bullet just missed her right
lung but nestled dangerously close to her spinal-cord and was causing internal
bleeding.

Both doctors estimated that
she would not make it to Cyprus or Haifa if they did not stop the internal
bleeding.  So they had to remove the bullet from her body on board.

She was unconscious throughout
and they went in through her wound at her back and managed to remove the
bullet.  The danger there was that they would cause nerve damage but that
was secondary to keeping her alive.

Shemesh did not bother flying
back to Cyprus.  Instead he flew directly to Haifa where medical personnel
were waiting for them at Rambam Hospital, near the Haifa port.

Natasha and the wounded
commando, Ziv Barkan, were whisked away to the operating rooms.  Devlin
remained with Natasha.  Aziz had to be taken into custody by the military
police until his status was determined.

At Rambam they gave her a CT
and an MRI and concluded she did not need further medical procedures except for
some cleaning up and sterilizing the wound.  The military doctors were
commended for performing a clean job in the field, not damaging any nerves.

However, it was not totally
clear why she remained unconscious for so long and everyone breathed a sigh of
relief when she finally woke up.

Devlin was by her side
throughout.  He was joined by Mai-Li and Rolston who arrived from Cyprus
the next morning.  Sam and Elena had to go with Sammy Jr. and the two
other kids to New York.  The photos sent to the FBI were identified and
the families were waiting.

When Natasha woke up, eight
pairs of eyes were staring at her worriedly.  Kessler had just come in her
room when she opened her big blue eyes and smiled weakly.

Devlin filled her in on what
she missed.

The band began playing.

Sam and Elena were invited to perform
the wedding dance to the sounds of Journey’s
Lights in the City
.

Sam had proposed to Elena on
the plane going back from Cyprus.  He had decided he wanted a family for
his son and was not willing to wait.

He bought a makeshift ring in
a duty free shop before they boarded and proposed 35,000 feet in the air. 
Elena was ecstatic.

The wedding ceremony took
place in a small church two blocks away from the Center.  Sam’s family
were all there: his parents Diane and Stewart, now retired; his older brother
Robert and his sister Rebecca with their families;  Michelle’s sisters
Sally and Cindy were there too with their families; and Michelle’s mother Laura
Kent, who made the trip from the west coast for the second time in three
months.

The first was when she came to
see her grandson.

To the families, it was
nothing short of a miracle that Sammy Jr. was found.  All of them had long
ago given hope that such an outcome was possible and they had all viewed Sam’s
attempts as futile though none of them ever dared say it to him.

None of them, including Sam,
knew how to handle the situation.  It felt more like an adoption.

Sammy Jr. was shell-shocked
for a while and it was Elena who helped him get on track.  She took him
everywhere.  Coney Island, the Museum of Natural History, Central Park,
Lincoln Center, and the Statue of Liberty were only a few as she walked the
streets with him and introduced him to the western world.

She took him to restaurants,
fashion malls and movie theaters, bought him books and magazines as he slowly
began to adapt into the new and overwhelming society.  A budget for a
psychologist was provided to him by the state department and Elena found the
best of the lot and took him twice a week for counseling.

Sam, for his part, watched the
two closely and could not be happier seeing his future wife become such a tower
of strength for his son.  He divided his time between the Center
activities and catching up on ten years of missing his son. 

Black Jack was best man. 
He stood behind Sam as his friend and colleague said his vows and looked at the
gathered crowd.  He thought of the late Jose Louis Ortega, their colleague
who lost his life in pursuit of their ambitious endeavor.  He thought of
the late Joe Harley who lost his life while saving his own.  It was a very
dear price to pay.  He thought of the sick man, Rooney, in the Sharm
hospital basement and the act of fate that brought them together.

David Kessler was sitting next
to Devlin, looking on with an amused grin. Black Jack was not sure how the man
managed to get such government support but he proved priceless.  Earlier
he had briefed them at the Center.  Aziz, Amar, and Jaras all received
fugitive status in Israel and were well taken care of by the authorities. 
The Ammad family, Rafik and Nyla with their three children were kept in a high
security facility assisting in the hunt for any Sons of Jihad spies sent to do
damage.  Kessler did not elaborate on the measures being taken to expose
the network.  That was top secret and there were still kidnapped children
in Beirut.  His colleagues Harry Fleming and Doug Collins could not be
present due to their involvement.