Under Siege (27 page)

An Arab man about thirty-five looked out. He was clean shaven and wearing a T-shirt and blue jeans. His brow wrinkled.

“Yes?”

“Good afternoon. My name is Don Stroh, and we need to ask you a few questions.”

“Why?”

“We’re looking for some friends of ours. We thought you might be able to tell us if there are any Arab Friendship Groups in town.”

The man closed his eyes and he took a deep breath and let it out, then opened his eyes. “Just because I’m Arab doesn’t mean I know anything about other Arabs. I’m into computers and work here from my home. I’ve done well since my wife and daughter and I came here five years ago from Saudi Arabia.”

“Fine. Do you know of any Arab groups here in Durban?”

The man looked away, sighed again. Then he looked
back. “I hate what they are doing. Despise them. They are cowards masquerading under the name of Islam. I am Moslem, but what they do has nothing to do with our religion. Yes, I can give you two names and locations. The first is an antique shop down on Bennett Street. The second is just outside of town where a man named Fathi is the leader. He’s on Concord Street, 1515. I remember that address. Don’t let them know that I told you about them.”

“We won’t. We also want to pay you for your trouble.” Stroh took three one hundred dollar bills from his pocket and handed them to the man.

“No, I can’t take your money. It is enough that perhaps this one small blot on the Arab community here might be destroyed. I wish you well in your search.” He smiled and then closed the door.

Back in the car, Murdock slapped Stroh on the back. “Now, my fishing buddy, you have earned your wings. Damn nice work back there. You know that the address he gave us is the third one on our list. Let’s go and see what this Fathi guy looks like.”

It took them forty-five minutes to drive across town and out to its edge. They found the street, turned the wrong way, and doubled back to get to 1515 Concord. Murdock stopped the car four houses away and DeWitt’s rented sedan stopped a house in back of Murdock.

He used the Motorola.

“We have a good ID on this place. Single house, no fences around it. House right in back of it and an alley. Small garage at the side with two cars in the long driveway. Won’t be dark for an hour yet.”

DeWitt broke in. “We wait for dark. Hey, wasn’t there a McDonald’s back there about a mile?”

Nearly an hour later the eight men left the fast food restaurant that looked identical to those in the States. With
DeWitt were Doyle, Prescott, Canzoneri. and Van Dyke. They climbed in the same cars they had come in and drove slowly back to the target house. This time they stopped six lots away. Murdock radioed for DeWitt to drive his men to the far side of the house after dropping off Van Dyke with Murdock.

“When DeWitt is in place, we move in slowly,” Murdock said. “Our tan outfits might give us away, so keep under cover whenever possible. DeWitt, cover any doors on your side and the rear door. We’ll take the front and this side. The house is too big to get everyone with flash-bangs. We’ll get in place and wait a half hour to see if anyone exits. Then we’ll play it by ear.”

“You going in hard?” DeWitt asked on the radio.

“If we can determine there are two or three of them in the front room, we’ll use the flash there, then dig out the rest of them wherever they are in the house. They’ll be ready and shooting.”

“Roger that,” DeWitt said. They all had on their radios. A short time later, “We’re in position,” DeWitt reported.

“Moving up toward the place now,” Murdock said as he eased up to the wide porch across the front of the house. He had Van Dyke beside him and Mahanani covering the side of the house with Stroh. This side had two windows that could be escape zones. Murdock held one of the MP-5 submachine guns. He checked his watch.

“Change of plans. We’re going up to the door, now. Watch any windows on the sides.” He motioned to Van Dyke and they stepped over a small railing to the porch and moved past heavily curtained windows to the front door. Murdock put his ear to the wood and listened. He held up three fingers, then four.

Murdock whispered: “Remember, the First Lady could very well be in there. No harm to her, if so.”

Murdock took out a flash-bang grenade and pulled the
safety pin, holding down the arming spoon with his other hand. He nodded at Van Dyke, who was on the doorknob side of the door. He reached out and gently twisted the knob. The door was locked. Murdock studied the door handle and latch. It was fifty years old. He handed the flash-bang to Van Dyke, then backed off to the edge of the eight-foot-wide porch and surged forward, jumping and kicking out hard with both boots right at the door lock. The door smashed inward and Van Dyke lobbed the flash-bang inside the moment the top of the panel fell.

Murdock dropped to the porch on all fours and dove sideways to the wall. Van Dyke hugged the other wall. Four-point-two seconds later the flash-bang went off with six piercing strobes of light that came in brilliant flashes guaranteed to temporarily blind anyone who didn’t cover up the eyes. Then the series of six extremely loud explosive sounds blasted through the room to disable the ears.

When the last thundering sound came, Murdock and Van Dyke stormed inside. From a doorway ahead in the well-lit room a submachine gun chattered off six rounds. Murdock dove to the left and Van Dyke to the right. Murdock targeted the muzzle flash with six rounds of his own. He saw three people in the room, one of them the president’s wife. She sat on a big chair, her hands over her ears, her eyes tight shut. One large man rolled on the floor moaning and holding his ears. The other man was behind a -low table. He had fallen forward onto stacks of U.S. $100 bills, moaning and shaking his head, his hands holding his ears. He suddenly reached under the table and came up with a pistol, but he didn’t have time to fire it. Van Dyke put two rounds in his chest and he flopped backwards. Van Dyke then jumped to the other writhing man on the floor and put plastic riot ties around his ankles and wrists.

Murdock came to his feet and darted to the doorway
ahead where the gunman had fired. The man lay on his side, blood gushing from a head wound. The First Lady stirred, moved her hands, and stared blankly ahead, her eyes not working yet.

Murdock peeked around the corner of the door to find another room, a dining area with a formal table and eight chairs. He heard footsteps on the floors upstairs. How many? He wasn’t sure. Two at least. There was no open stairway. A door near the wall to the left was a possible. Neither of the dead men nor the live al Qaeda was Badri. They had seen his picture. Van Dyke knelt beside the First Lady whispering to her. She smiled and nodded. He stayed near her, his Glock raised and ready.

Murdock waved at Van Dyke, getting his attention. He pointed to the First Lady, then stabbed his finger at the front door. Van Dyke nodded and whispered to Eleanor Hardesty. She nodded and stood on trembling legs. Then she steadied and took Van Dyke’s arm and they walked quickly out the front door.

Murdock listened to upstairs footsteps again. The sound of breaking glass came as a surprise. Where from?

His earpiece spoke to him. “We’ve got someone breaking through an upstairs window,” DeWitt said. “He’s dropping to a shed in back. Now he’s on the ground and running. Our shots missed him. I’ve put Prescott and Doyle on him. One Glock and one MP-5. He’s heading down an alley back here.”

“Anyone else hear or see any more terrs?” Murdock asked.

Nobody answered. The footsteps came again from upstairs.

Murdock moved silently to the door against the wall and opened it without a sound. Steps led upward. He listened. Feet shuffling. He reached for a flash-bang. He had already used the one he had. He grabbed a fragger and
pulled the pin, then eased up the stairs. He lifted the MP-5 in his left hand and aimed it upward.

A stair tread squeaked as he stepped on it.

Sound of footfalls, then a black object came over the railing at the top of the stairs. Another flash-bang. Murdock fired at the same time the other man did. Bullets chipped the wall next to him, angled downward into the floor. Murdock fired twelve rounds before he let up on the trigger. The sound of the flash-bang in the enclosed space was deafening, literally: His ears rang and then he went deaf. He couldn’t hear a thing. He looked upward. Nothing.

Slowly he moved up two steps and waited, the grenade still in his right hand.

Two more steps. Listening. Nothing.

Two more steps.

He saw a flash of something that darted across the opening above, then was gone. He went quickly up the rest of the steps and peered around the railing when his head was floor level. Light came in through four windows, with one broken out. It was one large room with three beds and two dressers. One mattress had been pulled off a bed and leaned against the wall. He watched it. No movement. Was someone there? Slowly his hearing came back.

He checked the rest of the room. One of the dressers shook just a moment, as if someone had pressed against it. The movement came again. The mattress was a ploy to get him in the open. Murdock judged the distance to the dresser. It stood two feet from the wall. He let the arming handle fly off the grenade, held it for two seconds, then lobbed it toward the dresser.

The fragmentation hand grenade exploded just as it vanished behind the dresser. Murdock ducked down the steps for the explosion, then came charging into the room, the MP-5 aimed at the dresser.

He heard a moan, then a scream of pain. Murdock
edged toward the dresser. It had been blown another foot from the wall, the top drawer pushed outward and a small headboard splintered. His hearing was normal again. He listened but heard no more sounds.

Slowly he came up to the dresser and looked around it, then he jerked his head back. A submachine gun stammered off six rounds from behind the dresser. Most were caught by the shattered wood, but two broke through and one took Murdock high in the right thigh. He pressed forward, pushed the MP-5’s muzzle around the end of the dresser, and hosed down the area with twelve rounds.

A low moan seeped into the silence after the roar of the submachine gun quieted. Murdock edged forward and poked his head out to look behind the dresser. He jolted it back, then nodded and took a longer look. The terrorist lay with the submachine gun across his chest, his face a mass of blood and bullet holes. Murdock hurried down the stairs.

“Stroh, do you have the package in one of the cars?” he yelled into his Motorola.

“Yes, indeed. And everyone is resting easy.”

“DeWitt, any report from your runner?”

“That’s a negative, Commander. Prescott reported that the man has a submachine gun, so they are keeping tabs on him but not pushing it. Doubt if we could find them now if we tried.”

“Try. Take the other car and track them. Radio contact all the time. We need that last man. I think he’s Badri.”

“It’s done.”

“Stroh, send Van Dyke back in here. We’ve got some cleaning up to do. There is paper all over the place. The kind that’s green and has Ben Frankin’s portrait on the front. There are two big bags we can use. One hasn’t been opened.”

“They knew we were coming,” Stroh said. “The chief of police and one national security man said they would cooperate.”

“Be just as well if we could be gone before they get here
anyway. Give us five minutes. If the police come, ease away with the First Lady. How is she doing?”

“She’s great, but worried about you guys in there.”

Van Dyke ran into the room and they stuffed the loose hundred dollar bills into the opened case, then held it together and both left the house and walked down six houses to the car, each lugging one of the bags with five million dollars in it. They had just put the cases of money in the trunk and stepped inside the car when they heard the first sirens.

Stroh drove away from the sound, circled the block, and found his way back to the main street. Stroh looked at Murdock.

“Anybody hit by all that firing?”

Murdock shook his head. “Nobody but me that I know of. I took one in my right leg. An in-and-out, so no big worry.” He chuckled. “This rental car outfit is going to wonder why they have blood on their front seat.”

Mahanani growled. “Pull over the car, CIA big shot, so I can take a look at the commander’s leg.”

It took Mahanani five minutes to find the bullet holes and patch up his commander. Murdock used his Motorola.

“DeWitt, any luck with the runner? Where are you?”

“Not sure where we are. Both our men are still on the runner. He’s getting tired. May try a standoff soon. He’s been shooting and lights have been coming on. Surprised the cops aren’t here yet. We’ve come about half a mile so far.”

“Stay on him. We’re clear and the First Lady is safe. Now get that man you’re after. It has to be Badri. None of the men I saw in the house could be him. We need to put him down and dead as soon as possible.”

Derek Prescott peered just over a trash barrel in the alley and checked out the area ahead. Houses on both sides. Unpaved alley with a cross street two houses ahead. The terr had vanished into some boxes and stacks of lumber behind a house and Prescott couldn’t see him. The man had a sub-gun. He’d fired at them several times.

Robert Doyle crouched just behind him. “Wish we could throw a fragger,” Doyle said. They had been cautioned not to use the hand bombs in the residential area. The terr fired three rounds at them. One ricocheted off the can and the other two missed. Prescott returned fire with a three-round burst from his MP-5. They listened but heard no cries of pain.

The terr moved again. They could see his dark form slide from the boxes and race down the street. A house right behind the terr kept Prescott from shooting. Both SEALs stormed after the man. He turned and fired again, this time only two rounds and Prescott thought he could hear the weapon’s receiver lock open. Was the terr out of rounds?

The man ahead ran with renewed energy, came to a small park, and darted into it and slid behind the trunk of a large tree. The SEALs approached cautiously.