Chapter 61
At dark the winds and rain subsided. Nabeed climbed to the deck, spoke abruptly to the captain, and opened the wooden crate.
Nash was soaked, frozen, nonresponsive. But he wasn’t dead, yet.
Nabeed and Franco stuffed old, dirty blankets around Nash’s body and tried to revive him.
He groaned and mumbled and that was enough for them.
They secured the lid and left him in his box.
The deckhand was frying fish on a burner below.
Nabeed turned on his sat phone and called London.
—
The small harbor was still when the boat crept silently into a slip, leaving no wake behind.
The captain climbed out and walked the wooden piers until he was certain no one was present.
It was almost midnight. An hour passed before headlights appeared from the village.
A four-wheel-drive truck stopped at the edge of a boat ramp.
Minutes later it left with the wooden crate in its bed and two men tucked beside it, wrapped in blankets and braced for another miserable ride, but at least they were on dry land.
—
Pascal Goff was snoring off his two-pint pub dinner when his phone startled him at 2:05 Saturday morning. It was his drinking buddy.
“Sorry for the hour,” Cully said. “Just got off the phone with my contact, a man I’ve never met and hope to never meet. Urgent warnings all around. The bad guys will execute Rae Claire Russo at high noon today, London time. It will be messy and recorded. I’m sorry.”
“Got it. Thanks for the call.”
“This is the end, Pascal. Be quick. I’m sitting by the phone.”
Pascal called Washington.
—
Twenty minutes later, a faint signal pinged on a U.S.
spy satellite waiting fifteen miles above the city of Algiers.
Forty minutes after that, a sixteen-man platoon from SEAL Team 7 scurried into two helicopters on the deck of the carrier and took off in the darkness.
Fifty-two minutes later, they landed at a French air base ten miles west of Algiers.
The platoon boarded a French C-140 cargo plane, and began their wait.
—
At 5 a.m. Eastern, the president walked into the Situation Room and said, “Keep your seats.”
The first briefing was about the signals.
On a huge map with blinking lights, the analyst tracked the signals and pinpointed the latest as somewhere in the Algerian desert, one hundred miles southeast of Algiers.
Two and a half hours had passed since contact.
They were certain it was from “Peacock,” code name for Stuart Nash.
He had left a trail from Marseille and was now on dry land again.
The problem was obvious: it was dark and their satellites had picked up no movement in the desert. There was also some cloud cover, a rarity, but one could always expect the worst. Now it was midmorning over there, but still no movement.
The next briefing was about SEAL Team 7, all armed, loaded, ready to roll.
The next briefing was about the ransom. The president listened for a moment, then simply said, “Pay it.”
Goff was immediately notified and he called Cully Pratt with the news. Within minutes, Pratt sent an email with the precise wiring instructions. Though it was Saturday, a private bank in Singapore was open and awaiting the expedited wire.
—
Nash was in a metal cage in a dark room.
He was thawing under layers of smelly blankets that felt like burlap.
As his eyes began to open and slowly focus he tried in vain to string together a thought or two.
The first one was about water to quench his excruciating thirst. His wrists and ankles were bound and numb, but not as painful as before.
Or was he simply beyond the pain? He could not remember his last bite of food.
He had no concept of time or place. His neck was stiff and sore from the injections. How long had he been drugged?
Where was Rae Claire and what were they doing to her?
Click, click. Count to three hundred. Click some more.
A lot of good the little bugs had done, but what else did he have? Maybe someone out there was listening.
Click, click.
—
The C-140 began shaking as its engines came to life. It jerked and rumbled to the end of the two-mile-long runway, then took off like a tortoise trying to sprint. Grudgingly, it gained altitude and became airborne.
On board, the commander gathered the team for another briefing. He ended with “Get ready to jump, boys.”
At 6,000 feet, they jumped and quickly came together in formation as they free-fell.
At 2,000 feet they peeled off, pulled their chutes, and landed as one unit.
Their two troop carriers landed five hundred yards away.
They were met by a recon team that briefed them with the facts as they knew them.
They were about three miles away from the target, though the target was not visible.
It appeared from the air to be thoroughly camouflaged. Their drones were moving into place.
—
At Camp Echo, Stuart Nash was yanked from his cage by some rough guys and pushed around.
Still bound at the wrists, he could barely move.
A hood went over his head and he was shoved outside where his bare feet hit the sand.
He took a step up and someone said, “Get in!” Someone yanked an elbow and he wanted to scream, but instead fell onto a bench.
Evidently, he was in the back of a truck. It began to move.
Someone coughed and Stuart said, “Anyone there?”
“Who are you?” The voice of an American.
“Zack Peacock. Who are you?”
“Paul Tanner.”
“Paul Tanner. Where are the other two?”
“Right here,” one of them said. “Alan Stockman.”
“And I’m Jason Snyder,” came the third voice.
“Glad you’re alive. I can’t see because of this hood. Are you hooded too?”
The truck hit a bump and the bodies bounced against one another. “Yeah, we’re hooded.”
“Quiet!” another voice barked.
“Asshole has a gun,” Tanner mumbled.
“Where are we going?” Stuart asked.
“Quiet!”
The truck appeared to be in a hurry. The driver didn’t slow for curves or bumps and the four Americans cursed as they were thrown together.
Click, click, count to three hundred. Click off.
—
A drone found the camp. From a hundred yards above, its infrared cameras scanned the buildings—six in all.
Another drone joined it and they watched but saw no signs of life.
There was a truck partially hidden under a shelter.
The SEALs surrounded the camp and waited for someone to move.
Five minutes, ten, fifteen. The order was given to go in and search the buildings.
Above the door of the first was the sign Camp Echo.
Beside it, the SEALs froze and gawked at a horrible sight. A figure hung from a rope strung between two poles. It appeared to be a woman, with a black pointed hat a witch might wear, and a long black robe that fell below her feet.
The buildings were empty. The captain reported to their commander. The men gathered around the woman, who hung perfectly still, her face covered by a mask. In real time, they watched in the Situation Room, and on the carrier, and back at the air base.
—
The truck stopped after a long hour. The tailgate opened with a bang and the guy with the gun barked, “Out!” He grabbed Nash, who was the nearest, and flung him to the ground. The sand was thick and hot.
“On your knees!” he demanded as he hit each one with the butt of his rifle.
The four were terrified. “Don’t do it, asshole!” Paul said.
Jason said, “They’ll hound you to hell and back.”
Alan said, “You’ll be dead in a year. Don’t do it!”
A truck door slammed nearby.
Seconds passed as the four Americans pulled at their wrists and braced for whatever was coming. “Don’t do it,” Paul begged again.
His hood was suddenly pulled off, and there stood Alfie, a rifle strapped over his shoulder, as if he had never used it.
He walked to Paul, took his wrists, and with a pair of wire cutters snapped the plastic bands.
Paul took a deep breath as he instinctively rubbed his wrists.
Alfie backed away, then tossed the wire cutters onto the sand in front of Paul.
He smiled, gave a half salute, and hurried to the truck.
The driver was waiting and they sped away.
Paul yelled something joyous as he cut the bands from his ankles, then freed the others.
The truck was out of sight. As they hugged and wept, the four Americans backed away from the road and hid behind a dune.
They had no idea what to expect or where to go.
They were dressed in matching brown robes like Franciscan friars, but with no shoes.
Alan led them up a taller dune, and there in the distance was what appeared to be a small village.
Civilization, or another trap? Friendlies or radicalized zealots? They had no way of knowing and were not taking chances.
—
Following orders from Washington, they cut her down as cameras rolled. It wasn’t Rae Claire. It wasn’t anyone. It was nothing but a dummy stuffed with straw and newspapers. Someone’s idea of a sick joke, or was it a clever but crude gimmick to buy more time for their escape?
—
The four friars stayed away from the road, which was nothing more than a trail of worn ruts, and crawled from one dune to another, inching closer to the village, which seemed to be fading away from them.
The distant thumping of a chopper stopped them cold and they lay in the sand, their brown robes giving them cover.
When two helicopters finally came into view, Nash sat up for a good look.
He said, “It’s our boys. Relax. They’re here.”
“How do you know?” Jason asked.
“They’re tracking me.”
“What the hell?”
“It’s a long story. I’ll be happy to explain it all over some beers,” Nash said, though he knew that was unlikely.
The choppers got louder and lower. Nash said, “It’s two French Panthers. Means we couldn’t get airspace. Always a problem with the Algerians.”
“Who the hell are ‘we’?” Paul asked as they stood and began waving.
“Again, it’s a long story.” They were yelling and waving as they jumped up and down. One Panther hovered while the other touched down. Two SEALs rushed out in the swirling sand, grabbed Paul and Jason. One yelled in an East Texas drawl, “Get your asses on board!”
The friars wasted no time following orders.
—
In the Situation Room, they watched in real time and in muted anticipation as the Panthers touched down at the U.S.
base near Algiers. When the engines finally stopped and the props wound down, the doors opened and the four hostages stepped onto the tarmac.
They were wrapped in blankets and wore borrowed boots, but they were all smiles and laughing about something.
Alan Stockman, Jason Snyder, Paul Tanner, and Stuart Nash (alias Zack Peacock).
There was plenty to celebrate, but where was the girl?