Arctic Wargame - Страница 2

“Time to go, man.”

“Justin, how did you…” Abdul sat up slowly and stared into Justin’s eyes.

“Bashir gave me a key and a knife.”

“Bashir? When did he come?”

“Tell you later. Let’s go. Can you walk?”

“Yes, yes, I can.”

Justin unchained Abdul’s bruised legs and helped him to his feet. Abdul leaned against the wall before taking a few unsteady steps.

“I’m good. I can do this,” Abdul said.

“OK, follow me.”

“First, give me that.” Abdul pointed at the assault rifle.

“Bashir said we need to break out in silence. Too many fighters for us to kill them all.”

Abdul held the AK-47 in his hands with difficulty and fumbled with the safety switch. Finally, he switched it to full automatic. “Just in case,” he mumbled.

“Let’s go.”

Justin threw a glance down the hall and signaled for Abdul to follow him. They moved quickly to the end of the narrow hallway, their bare feet tapping lightly on the concrete floor, grains of sand gritting their toes.

“We go to the first floor, then left,” Justin said as they came to a spiral staircase.

“Then what?”

“Left through the hall until we reach the courtyard. We have to go through the door taking us to the house next to the prison. Bashir will wait for us at the main gate.”

“What? That’s Bashir’s plan? There’s always a group of guards in the back.”

“He said there should be only one, two at the most, and we have to get rid of them quietly.”

“That’s impossible. They’ll see us as we go outside and kill us.”

“Maybe they’re dozing off.”

“If not, we shoot first.”

“No. We’ll have the rest of the Algerians coming after us.”

Justin winced as his left foot landed on the coarse surface of the first stair. He took two more steps and turned his head. Abdul nodded and followed behind him. Holding the dagger ready in his hand, Justin continued down the stairs. He reached the bottom. The hall forked right and left. A light flickered from the right. Justin stepped back, gesturing for Abdul to stop.

“What’s that way?” Justin asked in a hushed tone, pointing toward the light.

“A kitchen and a dining area. And someone’s awake.”

“Don’t worry about it. We’re slipping out the other way.”

Justin glimpsed again toward the dim light, then to the opposite side and began creeping down the hall. He saw a door about twenty steps ahead and figured it was the one opening into the courtyard. Pressing on, he quickened his pace. Abdul’s feet shuffled loudly behind him.

“Quiet, quiet, Abdul,” he said.

“That’s not me.”

Justin turned his head and looked over Abdul’s shoulders. He stared right into the eyes of a man standing five or six steps behind Abdul and pointing a pistol at them. The gunman was of a small, thin stature, clad in a white robe and a black headdress.

“Stop or I’ll blow your head off,” he said in Arabic.

The gunman’s voice crackled abruptly. Its unexpected high pitch startled Justin. The pistol shook in the young man’s hands.

“He’s just a kid,” Justin whispered to Abdul, who was preparing to turn his rifle toward the gunman.

“I will shoot you,” the young man squeaked, this time louder. “You, turn around with your hands in the air,” he ordered Abdul.

Abdul swung on his heels, firing a quick burst.

“No,” Justin shouted.

Bullets went through the gunman. Two large purple stains appeared on his chest as he collapsed over a chair.

“No, no, no,” Justin cried. “He was a kid, just a kid.”

“Who was going to blow our heads off,” Abdul replied.

“We could have talked to him.”

Abdul shook his head. “No time for talk. Now run.”

Before Justin could say anything, someone kicked open the door behind him.

“Down,” Abdul shouted and pointed his AK-47 toward the door.

Justin fell to the floor, while Abdul kept his finger on the assault rifle’s trigger. Bullets pierced the bodies of two guards who entered the hall. Loud cries and barking orders came from two stories above. Rapid thuds of heavy boots echoed throughout the prison. Justin pulled out the Beretta from a pocket of his tattered khakis. As soon as two men running downstairs entered his sights, he planted a couple of bullets in each man’s neck.

“Go, go, go. Move, move!” he yelled at Abdul.

Abdul checked the door and fired a short burst into the courtyard. A few shrieks confirmed he hit his mark, and he dove outside. More gunfire followed. The reports of assault rifles echoed in the night. Heavy machine guns hammering in the distance pounded the urgency of their escape into the Canadian agent. After trading his Beretta for a high-powered AK-47 next to the body of a dead guard, Justin joined Abdul in the courtyard.

“This way, quick,” Abdul called.

Justin followed the Libyan beyond the arched gate, now wide open. The bodies of three men lay sprawled across the sandy path. As Justin dashed inside the house, a few bullets whizzed past his head, boring deep holes in the mud brick walls.

“Faster, faster, come on,” Abdul shouted.

Justin noticed Abdul was panting and stopped for a closer look.

“What’s wrong?” Abdul asked.

“Did they get you?”

“No. Don’t stop.”

The corridors of the house were pitch-black, but the moonlight trickling through barred windows guided their steps. They slid around a few stone benches set along the walls. Justin kept looking around for a way to climb to the roof, like Bashir had advised, but Abdul kept pushing them deeper into the maze of narrow halls snaking in all directions.

“We need to get to the roof,” Justin said.

“No, they’ll make us out. Up there we have no cover.”

“So how are we getting to the main gate?”

“I know a shortcut.”

Abdul went through a couple of doors straight ahead then turned left. The maze of covered streets in Ghadames stretched for miles. The town, at the edge of the Sahara Desert and just seven miles from the border with Algeria and Tunisia, was built over the ground but with a roof on top, to keep out destructive sandstorms and sweltering heat waves. Skylight openings and arched windows drew in the faint glow of the moon.

Whiz, whiz.

Two bullets struck the wall only inches away from Justin’s head. Their airwaves swept over his face and dust flew out of the ricochet holes.

“Stay away from the windows,” Justin shouted at Abdul.

“OK. We’re almost there.”

Abdul slowed down after a dozen steps and waited for Justin to catch up to him. Standing by a small doorway, he pointed outside. “You can see the town’s gate, right over there.”

Justin followed Abdul’s hand. The tall archway stood about two hundred yards away.

“We’re not gonna make it.” Justin pointed at a white Toyota truck parked about ninety feet to their left. Four men wielding assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades were positioned behind the car, barricading the fugitives’ only escape route.

“Cover me.” Abdul slammed a fresh magazine into his rifle.

Justin pointed his weapon toward the truck and sprayed a barrage of bullets. One man plopped to the ground. Another started twitching and pulling at his left leg. The last two crawled to the rear without returning fire.

Abdul bolted toward the Toyota, as fast as he could push his weak frame. Justin ran after and kept firing until he heard the hollow click of the gun’s hammer striking the empty chamber. He ducked for cover behind a small wall to his left then inserted a full magazine into his weapon. Gunfire erupted from the barricade. Bullets scraped the wall and the ground around him. Moments later, there was a brief moment of relative calm, and Justin took a quick peek.

“They’re all dead.” Abdul climbed inside the Toyota.

Justin ran toward him, glancing only once at the row of houses behind them. “You’re wounded.” He pointed at Abdul’s right side.

A bullet had pierced Abdul’s body a couple of inches underneath his ribcage.

“Flesh wound. Nothing serious,” Abdul replied. “Get in.”

Justin jumped into the passenger’s seat. Abdul stepped on the gas pedal. He raised a storm of dust as the Toyota bounced over bumps and ruts, swerving toward the main gate. A second later, a torrent of bullets thudded against the truck’s tailgate and the cabin’s doors. A group of men were firing at their truck from the houses’ rooftops. Justin shot back. One of the men fell over the wall. The rest withdrew beyond his sight.

“There’s a car behind us,” Abdul said.

Out of the corner of his eye, Justin took in a Jeep gaining on them. “I’m empty.”

“So am I.”

Justin looked at the back seats, but there were no weapons or ammunition. His eyes moved to the end of the truck, where he saw a RPG launcher and a wooden box loaded with grenades.

“Got it,” he said.

He crawled to the back seat and squeezed through the small window, landing against the rails. He snatched a grenade from the box and checked the RPG launcher before attaching the grenade to the front of the weapon. He shouldered it with a swing, struggling for balance on one knee, and then he pulled the trigger, just as the Toyota veered to the left.

The projectile screamed out of the weapon. A plume of gray smoke billowing from the weapon’s blast cone engulfed the truck. Justin coughed and heaved. As the smoke cleared, he saw the grenade exploding into the dome of the town’s mosques, tearing it to shreds. The six-story-high minaret went tumbling to the ground like a sandcastle swept by a strong wave.