Assault Force

As the last of cell phones, pagers, IDs and walkie-talkies were piled in the far corner, Bharjkhan walked up to the woman and jammed the muzzle of his pistol to her forehead. She choked on her shriek, eyes widening in terror and the sound dissolved into a whimper. As she began to collapse, two of his men grabbed her shoulders. Yamil forced her up, barking curses and threats in her ear, shaking her out of her trance as Khajid finished fastening the dynamite vest around her torso. Suddenly there was a vicious curse, and a hostage rose from the group of corralled captives.

Yelling obscenities in Arabic, two of Bharjkhan’s men pummeled the would-be hero’s face and head with the butts of their assault rifles. Blood spurting as repeated blows pulped his nose, they drove the man to the floor, vicious kicks opening skin around the eyes and scalp until he didn’t move.

“If anyone speaks or moves,” Bharjkhan told them, grabbing the pregnant woman’s hair and thrusting her face up, inches from his slitted eyes, “I will kill your colleague here and choose another to take her place.” He let go, grunting for his men to take her out in the hall.

As he moved for the bank of security monitors, he ran a stare over the hostages. There were thirty-six captives, mostly men. All of them had their hands bound behind their backs with plastic cuffs, and had been dumped, facedown, on the floor. His black-clad men were planting blocks of C-4 primed for radio remote detonation around the room. In the event someone attempted to make contact before it all began, Bharjkhan would use the assistant head of security to lure them into joining the group.

The man who had made this part of the operation possible was being removed from the room. Fulfilling the charade, the bit player was squawking questions, pleading cooperation all the way out the door. The act, complete with bleating to at least release the women, had the desired effect on some of the captives. He heard a muffled sob, found two faces twisted his way, hate and defiance in the eyes. Filing away their faces, he decided they were next to be executed should there be any more interruptions.

“Do not resist and none of you will be hurt,” Bharjkhan said, stepping in front of the security monitors. “All of you, just relax,” he added, his tone as soothing and reassuring as he could fabricate.

Checking his watch, ticking down the numbers, he began looking at each monitor. The miniature cameras, he knew, were built into statues, hidden in palmettos and other shrubbery, mounted inside the frames of paintings or mirrors. Safeguarding themselves against invasion of privacy lawsuits, the hotel architects had not fitted any of the rooms or lavatories with minicams, but that wasn’t necessarily a problem. Each floor, he observed, was covered from the south and north ends, double eyes for front and rear watching on each camera. Close-ups came with a twist of a dial on his panel, if necessary. The high-tech spying included the broad scope of the lobby, shopping mall, pool, all playground interiors, bars and restaurants. It was near one hundred percent visual precision, as far as he could tell, in both sweep and clarity. That the building’s designers, he thought, didn’t install cameras in the basement complex beyond the watcher’s lair had allowed them to get in and take down the hostages, but could be a problem—perhaps a fatal one—if commandos responded.

However, breaching their defenses would be suicide. Unless, of course, they were willing to overlook initial devastating casualties. Again, he thought with confidence, no one, once warned, would be that daring, or foolish.

Bhajkhan plucked the handheld radio off his belt. “Abdul! Report.” He scanned the lobby traffic, thinning out as people made their way for bars and restaurants. Spotting two men with black bags in business suits ambling to the desk, he smiled. Four other men he recognized from Team Red were lounging around the lobby, comfortable in big leather armchairs, smoking, reading newspapers or magazines. There would be others, he knew, some of them unseen until it started, but all of them ready for the big event.

“We are sealed in,” came the answer in Arabic. “Should they pass through the motion sensors outside the service doors and stairwells—”

“Yes, yes. I want to know about the elevators,” Bharjkhan said.

“As I feared. Even with our software program tied into the main engineering computer that powers their electricity, with the elevators constantly moving, we still need thirty minutes, perhaps more. We discussed this, the number of cars alone…”

There were eight banks of two cars, staggered at roughly equal intervals, east to west, north to south. Including service cars for staff, he was well aware of the numbers, understood the task. “You do not have thirty minutes,” he growled. “Do it quickly and do not call me until it is done. And I do not want to hear any more about fear. Understood?” He punched off before Abdul could respond.

Bharjkhan felt the heat from anxiety rise, willing Abdul to hurry and complete the critical chore as he looked at his watch. The first sheen of sweat showed on his face. He glanced at the doorway when he heard the head of security cry, “No! Wait—”

He heard a muffled chug from the far end of the corridor, followed by the thud of deadweight. Bharjkhan returned to watching the screens. Just a few more minutes and he would become the great and avenging warrior of jihad he had dreamed about since fleeing the hateful occupation of his country.

6

“Why do you look at me like that? I am not sure if you despise me or…or what.”

Father Gadiz, snapped out of the trance by his brother’s voice, was unaware he’d been searching his face. Just what had he been looking for? The demon mask? There was no veil of diseased and burned flesh draped over Andres. Was there hope that he was not altogether lost? Was there some light still left in the eyes showing his soul had not been completely stained?

“Okay. You went through all this trouble to track me down. I take it you wish to relay a message? Tell me, did Isadora plead for me to come back? All is forgiven, we can live happily ever after?”

The priest felt his jaw clench. Unsure if he felt contempt, pity or anger toward Andres, he watched his brother gulp another shot, wash it back with beer, blow smoke. How pitifully tragic, he thought. All that pain and anger, eating up his soul, a festering cancer. Did he even care? The more he drank to calm the beast inside, the beast only grew stronger, soon enough to snap its chains. He could see that beast now, a warning beacon of rage building in the eyes.

“Speak, Father, please! Your silence is becoming insufferable.”

“You do not even bother to try to hide this shame. It leads me to wonder…” Gadiz said.

Andres snorted. “If it was worth your trouble to come all the way here and try to save my soul from eternal damnation? If when the gates of Hell are slamming on my face I will remember how you warned me so?”

“You would be wise to watch your tongue, Andres. You were once a believer.”

The priest fell silent, weighing his next words carefully, wondering if he should just get up and leave, stung to near outrage as he was by his brother’s mocking. No, too easy, he thought, it was what his brother probably wanted. Further, there was his own accountability to consider, if he didn’t harness the strength to persevere.

Andres, clearing his throat—was that shame flashing through his eyes?—inquired if he wanted something to drink. Oh, how he did, more than ever. He felt every flaming inch of his broken heart, the terrible burning ache with each awful pounding. He was tempted but declined.

Briefly Gadiz recalled the period where he’d indulged what had proved a near-fatal weakness in more ways than one. It had been so close, his own journey toward the abyss, teetering at the edge, so many nights wasted in an alcohol haze, questioning to near despair his own faith, his commitment to souls and to God. The young woman, restless and yearning to leave the village and her husband for the big city, had come almost weekly for confession. At her urging he began private counseling.

Where the Devil, he was certain, had conspired against him.

The woman had agonized over her habitual adultery, he remembered, but blamed her husband for the hateful trap her life had become. He had so despised his own thoughts toward her. He was wracked, worst of all, by such guilt and shame over his own lust, the bottle seemed his only relief from torment. Only the more he sought to drown the voice—the dark half of his own conscience, he believed—the more it urged him on, so persistent he thought he would go mad. He prayed almost nonstop for relief. He did not cave in nor pursue his desire, his only saving grace he was sure. But only when he stopped drinking for good, made his own confession, were his prayers answered. The taunting voice faded to nothing, the urge gradually died altogether.

“Your wife, she prays, but not for your return, Andres,” he said, and saw his brother flinch, no doubt all that monstrous vanity shouting to him that such a thing was preposterous beyond all reason. “Isadora is a woman strong of faith. She is at Mass every day. She lights candles. She says the rosary. Where you live in lavish luxury, indulge all the pleasures of the good life you have acquired through your club or whatever else…she barely has bread and water to sustain her life.”

Scowling, Andres broke eye contact. “What would you have me do? If it’s money—”

“You foolish stupid man,” Gadiz said, jolting his brother with the sudden anger in his voice. “She does not want your money.”

Andres spread his arms, truly baffled. “Then, what?”

Father Gadiz sighed, shook his head, but pushed on, saying, “I know you can see her, even if you have not thought of her in years. Picture her, kneeling before the crucifix or the Virgin Mother, praying for her own soul, but also that your heart will change, that you will renounce your ways and put them behind before it is too late.”

He thought he saw something change in his brother’s eyes, as his body went utterly still. “To her, Andres, your soul is the only important thing. That is how much she loves you. Your return to your wife, of course, would depend on you. But do it, I should warn you, only if your heart is right in the eyes of God.”

He watched as his brother’s features seemed to shrivel, eyes dropping toward his next drink. Were those tears he fought to hold back?

Andres swallowed more whiskey. He quickly hardened back to anger.

Shocked by the depth of his sudden bitter disappointment, the priest stood to leave, then Andres, almost in a panic, said, “Wait. Please, don’t go. I don’t know how to live.”

Gadiz stared at his brother. “What did you say?”

Andres cleared his throat, cracked his knuckles, eyes cast down. “Will you sit with me? Please, brother.”

Watching Andres closely, the priest sensed the torment. He sat.

Andres fiddled with his bottle of beer. “Do you know how much I hated him? How much the mere memory of the man makes me hate him? If I could dig him up…oh, but I’m sure you will tell me you pray for his soul to rest in peace, that God’s mercy knows no limits.”

“I understand your feelings, Andres. I was there. You mention infinite mercy, but likewise God’s justice knows no limits. It’s out of our hands, try to come to peace with at least that much. Are you so dead inside that you can’t even hear yourself? That what you so hate you have now become.”

“Which is what? A drunkard, a philanderer, a hedonistic scoundrel?”

“Yes,” Gadiz replied.

“I never beat Isadora within an inch of her life like he did our mother—or us for that matter. I never even cursed my wife! Yes, I know how that sounds, me trying to justify both my hatred for him and how I am living.”

“That is exactly how it sounds.”

In a harsh whisper, Andres said, “I tried…I wanted only a family. Two…we had two sons.”

“And I have taken that into account, but that does not excuse you.”

Andres stared off into the distance. There was fire in his eyes when looked back. “Why? Tell me, what did they ever do to be taken, and so young, to die so terribly…and from an illness that to this day no doctor can name? And does she, for all her virtue and noble poverty, ever for even one minute feel the kind of anger toward God that I feel?”