Hoda and Jake Page 9

  “Jessie?” She sat up, exposing more of herself. “You can put the shotgun down. We won’t hurt you. Or your father.” Hoda was doing fine, Jake reflected; he could see it in the boy’s eyes. She was getting to him.

  Hoda tossed her head, one hand sweeping her lustrous raven hair from her face and back over her smooth shoulders. It was deftly done, not too theatrical. That’s it, Hoda. Reel him right in.

  Scraping noises, another thump from outside.

  Jake said with quiet urgency, “Jessie, I have to pee.”

  “No!” the boy tried to bark. He lifted the muzzle, which had been slowly lowering.

  “Jessie, be reasonable. I can’t not,” Jake said. He nodded toward the bathroom door, off to Jessie’s left.

  “Okay,” the boy said, and took a step toward the window. “Get out over her. Go that way.” In other words, give Jessie a clear field of maneuver and fire. Jake did as he was told, right down to actually using the toilet. He’d left the door open a crack, could see Jessie when he turned back. Hoda was talking, and the Winchester was practically pointed at the floor. It was time. It would be bad for Jessie, but it couldn’t be helped.

  And then Jake witnessed something that would stay with him the rest of his life. Hoda rolled to Jake’s side of the bed, the window side to which Jessie had retreated. She let her nightgown ride up sliding her legs out of bed, exposing her sensational legs, and stood close to the boy, letting the side lighting from the window highlight her shape. Closing on him, she said something, soothingly, which Jake couldn’t make out because it was obscured by yelling from the other room. Hoda touched Jessie’s arm with her chest, pressed.

  And then simply took the shotgun from his hands. The boy didn’t resist. Neither did Hoda back instantly away.

  “There, isn’t that better?” Hoda said, still motherly. She put the Winchester on the bed, returning instantly to engage the boy as she had. Jake was out of the bathroom with all the speed he possessed. Jessie realized that was happening, but it was too late. Jake almost had a flash of temper—this callow child had made his beautiful wife, this Muslima, debase herself. But he had the shotgun now, and Hoda backed away from Jessie, falling o the bed and burying her face in her hands before buttoning her nightgown.

  “Guess this was your lucky day,” Jake told Jessie. He pulled the bolt on the shotgun—no shell came out; there hadn’t been a chambered round!

  But there was now.

  Ignoring the child, Jake cracked the door, peeking into the kitchen. Abdul Hassan was tied to a stout kitchen chair, one with arms, by long tie wraps—flex cuffs, some police departments called them—and a man stood in front of him, wielding a shotgun. It wasn’t a Winchester like the one in Jake’s hands, but a Browning. It was a nice gun, Jake knew, a really nice gun. Expensive. Likely stolen.

  “Yes, you did, you sand nigger,” the man was shouting. “You killed my wife!” He added a few expletives, reflecting a vocabulary one would expect of a redneck thug.

  Jake took a good long look at Jessie’s father, searching for any signs of drug withdrawal or other instability. He saw none, only raw rage. That was good; rage he could deal with, but you never knew what an addict was likely to do once the fit was on him. The question was: would he shoot?

  Jake went to his bed table and extracted his Sig-Sauer, jacking a round home and handing it to Hoda.

  “I’m going in there,” Jake said simply. “Confront him. If he shoots me, kill him.”

  “Jake—”

  “Hoda, this is what I do. I’ve had guns pointed at me before. You’re a good shot. If he opens up, drop him. End of story. Got it?”

  She nodded. Then, impulsively, she kissed him. The kiss turned searing, but he broke it off and turned to the door again. In less than a second he was gone, out the other side with the door pulled almost completely to behind him, obscuring the bedroom from the kitchen. Jake moved quickly to his right, toward the front door. That opened’s Hoda’s field of fire, while separating the angle between Abdul and the perpetrator. What was his name again? Jake had forgotten, and didn’t waste time remembering.

  “We’ve got Jessie,” Jake said calmly. “Put your weapon down.”

  The man swore, turning his Browning on Jake. But he didn’t shoot.

  “Stay out of this. It’s between the doc and me.”

  “You broke into a house where I live, with guns. This is New Hampshire. If you don’t put that weapon aside, I will personally kill you. And don’t forget your boy. Jess just might catch a stray bullet in the head. You never know.”

  “You—you can’t do that.”

  “I can do it, I have done it, and I will do it,” Jake said. Hoda was amazed at her husband’s cool courage. It was, in truth, an amazing demonstration.

  “So he”—the Browning waved at Dr. Hassan—“gets away with murder. Is that it?”

  “We can talk this over,” Jake said. “We can talk and talk. But I’m warning you, if that trigger finger of yours gets itchy, you will be very dead.” He’d already tripped his own gun’s safety.

  There was a pregnant pause. The perp was in a quandary. It was then Jake was pretty sure his gambit was working.

  “Have you ever killed anyone?” Jake asked. There was no answer. “I have. Several. I don’t see much to it. But most people, they don’t see it that way. They hesitate. They know better. They’re civilized. Me? I’m an animal. A predator. You think Dr. Hassan killed your wife? He’s saved more lives than people you know.” Jake’s eye narrowed. “I’m telling you right now. If you don’t put that Browning aside, I will end your life, and my partner will blow Jessie’s brains all over the bedroom wall. Is that what you want?”

  There was not a sound. Browning Man said nothing, but the moving of his jaw muscles, the fleeting of his eyes back and forth among Dr. Hassan, Jake and the bedroom door spoke volumes. Jake sounded so cold, so sure. No one could doubt his sincerity—except Hoda.

  Fifteen seconds passed in silence. An eternity.

  “Dad!” Jessie. From behind the door.

  “Jessie!” Dad.

  “Dad!”

  Silence.

  “What’s it going to be, Cowboy?” Jake.

  Browning Man slowly stepped forward, put his weapon on the table, behind Dr. Hassan and halfway to Jake. With equal slow ease, Jake reached forward and picked it up.

  “It’s okay, Hoda,” Jake called. The bedroom door opened, and Jessie stepped out, followed by Hoda. Jake had a kitchen knife, cutting the tie wraps on Dr. Hassan, who did not rise from his chair: tension him pinned there.

  For the first time, Jake Holman realized he was standing in the middle of the kitchen in his underwear: Hoda handed him his pants. Their eyes met, and Holman laughed, a deep, tension-relieving laugh that belied his demeanor a moment ago.

  “I’ve faced down some bad guys in my time,” Jake said to his fetching wife, who had put on a robe. “But never in the altogether.”

  Hoda thought, but did not say, he looked pretty good in the altogether. However he looked, it had been a wonderful performance, warm-hearted man to cold-blooded killer. A fine act—so long as an act it was. She thought again, wondering about the man she married.

  In a matter of minutes, Jake and Hoda had Jessie and his father bound to chairs, just as her father had been. Jake dialed Sergeant Lane’s cell and the state policeman actually picked up.

  “You’d better come over to our house,” Jake told him. “We’ve rounded up the usual suspects. Uh-huh. Bring the paddy wagon and some help. No, everything’s fine. Yes, we’ll all make statements. See you soon. ’Bye.”

  ***

  A week later Maryam came home, to great jubilation. Hoda worked all day preparing food, intent on making a statement to her parents, not to mention her husband. She had waited on her father hand and foot in the intervening time, and they visited her mother in Hanover every day.

  Dr. Hassan’s attitude toward Jake was decidedly different. From his position in the operating room, Abdul Hassan had
seen a good many crises come and go, seen reactions by surgeons vary across the lot. How they performed when things went their way was not the measure; how they performed when things went wrong certainly was. And to his mind, James A. Holman—as this young man politely introduced himself one day when negotiating for his daughter’s hand—could handle himself when things went very wrong.

  The dinner was festive and light. As it wound into the evening, Dr. Hassan awaited the right moment.

  “Mr. Holman.”

  “Yes?”

  “May I call you Jake?”

  Jake almost spilled his water. “I’d be honored.”

  “I speak English,” Abdul continued. “But not as well as you. Sometimes saying things like this is very difficult for me. But I think it is time to say I have misjudged you. You were very brave when those bad people broke into our house.”

  “It was Allah’s will, doctor,” Jake said. And meant it.

  “Alhamdulillah,” Abdul said.

  “Mash’Allah,” said Maryam. She seldom saw her husband like this; his humility made her proud.

  “Tell me something, though,” the doctor asked.

  “Anything I can.”

  “Were you acting? When you threatened to kill that man?”

  “No. To protect you, I certainly would have killed him.”

  “And his son?”

  “If necessary, yes. But his boy was just that. A boy. It was the mother in Hoda that soothed his savage beast, a beast put there by a savage father.”

  “Well, Alhamdulillah,” Hassan said. “And I think you can consider yourself part of our family now. Welcome.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Now,” said Dr. Hassan after a pause, and a glance at the women, “isn’t it time you two explored, as you say, the ‘mother in Hoda’?”

  Old School

  Jake Holman’s Toyota Landcruiser fairly flew over the road, pressing 70 kilometers per hour, in a race with destiny. The road was fairly good, but better since this was a country not known for its perfect roads. In fact, lately it wasn’t known for perfect anything.

  This was Syria.

  Syria’s hemorrhaging agony was no secret to the world, but so far Jake Holman’s mission was. The CIA agent was acting as liaison between the Free Syrian Army and a new element in the war: real armor. Some miles behind Jake’s Toyota, seven French-built AMX-52 Leclerc main battle tanks made their best speed to follow his reconnaissance, hearing his English voice on the secure radios he’d brought with him from the States. Smuggled in from Turkey, the radios were a vital link with the tanks, driven along a different track by Syrian freedom fighters who had trained in the Leclercs for two months. Who paid France for the tanks was murky in Jake’s mind, but he didn’t care. They were here, and so were two trucks of weapons that might stem the tide against forces arrayed against them.

  The Toyota crested a rise, and Jake pulled off the road. He got out with the powerful binoculars and swept the land below carefully. The next high ground was about 20 kilometers away; that was the objective. Arrayed in the shallow low ground in between was the town they were to defend, a hub on the lines of communication for munitions and fighters in, and refugees out, the town was sought by both sides. At the moment, the freedom fighters had it, and the government intended to get it. To that end, satellite imagery and drones based in Langley said, some seventeen tanks and several hundred of President Bashar al-Assad’s infantry soldiers were moving south. They were fifty clicks and more to the north of Jake’s far hill.

  Seventeen to seven, not good odds. Except.

  Except the Israelis did pretty well against a Syrian force several times their size, twice, thanks to better tanks and better gunnery. And the Assad tanks were older Russian ones. The Leclercs were state of the art, one hit from their 120-millimeter smoothbore main tube would make any Syrian burn. Jake’s only question: could the inexperienced FSA gunners make their shots count?

  No dust, no other signs of enemy activity. Jake hopped back in the Toyota and raised his counterpart in the lead tank. A French Foreign Legionnaire who volunteered for the job, Captain Guy Caron spoke good English, and when he didn’t Jake’s French was pretty fair. Jake rattled off the salient facts, and the Toyota raced for the far side.

  Jake reached it a little more than 30 minutes later.

  By the time the tanks’ throbbing reached his ears, Holman had circumnavigated the hilltop, planning the defense. He was making a rough pencil sketch in his portfolio when they arrived. The first step in the military planning process, Jake knew: Plan use of available time.

  Holman was a onetime—and still Reservist—warrant officer in the U.S. Army. Ranger qualified and assigned to Special Forces, this job was closer to the SF field than most he did for his parent, the Central Intelligence Agency. Most of the time, his wife of just less than a year, an American-born doctor of Egyptian extraction, couldn’t gauge the danger of his jobs. But she knew he was headed for Syria, and her Arabian heart knew fear.

  “Be careful, Jake,” she’d said to him, tears streaking her beautiful cheeks.

  “I always am,” he said cheerfully.

  “No, you’re not. And I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” Jake said. Why was it the second person to say that always had their thunder stolen? It didn’t seem to have the same effect. But that couldn’t take away from his love. He adored Hoda.

  The Leclerc column was arriving. Caron climbed down from the lead tank, joining Jake at the Toyota. Jake showed him the sketch, Caron made some suggestions Jake readily adopted, and the French officer hurried off to relay instructions to the tank commanders, Jake’s sketch in hand.

  Jake began a second sketch, with squares to represent each tank, then detailed circles behind them for the mortars, and ovals for the machine guns just under the hill crest. There was a bundle of picks and shovels in the trucks that accompanied the tanks. They’d be handy now.

  For hours they worked, and in shifts ate a hot meal produced by the chemical field fires in the rations, fires that burned with no smoke. That had to be done before darkness, for if there was no smoke the bright light of those fires could be seen for miles after sundown.

  Now came the diplomacy. Jake and Caron contacted the Syrian leaders. Elected by their men, the Syrians were in charge; Jake and Caron merely advisers. But they were professionals, and the Syrians respected that. They especially liked Jake, who as a practicing Muslim prayed with them five times every day. That delayed work, but any alternative was unthinkable.

  Caron and Holman asked the Syrians if they could address the troops. They could.

  “Gentlemen,” Jake said, using his command voice. “You are about to make history. Those people don’t know we’re here, but we are about to inform them.”

  He waited for Captain Caron to translate; 20 years coming up through the ranks in the middle East gave him command of Arabic.

  “Tankers, you have to make every shot count. Troopers, you have to support your tanks. Protect them. Keep them supplied with ammunition. You’ve been briefed on the role of the three center tanks in reserve, in case we are flanked. Remember that.”

  “The Leclerc tank is a front-line battle tank. It’s main gun can reach them before theirs can reach you. We know the ranges. Use the aiming tools, and do what you are ordered to do. Stand firm, stand tall, and you will fight well.”

  “Triple-A gunners,” Jake went on, meaning AAA or anti-aircraft artillery. “The same holds true of the Rheinmetall 20 mm Twin Anti-Aircraft Cannon. They don’t know we have those. But we only have two, and ammunition is limited. They will have helicopter gunships. Save your ammunition for those. If there are jets, you can’t hit them.”

  “Captain Caron, do you have anything to add?”

  “D’accord,” Caron said. “My unit is the Légion étrangère, the French Foreign Legion. We have proven through 300 years that numbers do not always affect the outcome. Courage, pride and tenacity do. And blood. No one knows better than a Syrian
the cost of war. Some of you will die. Those who do not must keep on fighting. Free Syria!” He raised his fist in the air.

  “Captains,” Caron finished, “take charge of your troops.”

  Dressed in various combinations of civilian clothing and uniform parts from across the world, the Syrians went to their foxholes and embrasures, to their tanks and the two twin-barreled 20-millimeter German anti-aircraft guns.

  There, they slept. Guards were posted for the perimeters. Caron and Jake took turns dozing and checking on the perimeter. Jake kept scanning out in the killing zone for any signs of the enemy, such as glowing tank exhausts, but saw nothing. Gradually, the sky lightened in the east.

  “Almost time for fajr,” Jake told Caron.

  “Oui.”

  Morning prayer.

  Minutes later, the men all spread their prayer rugs toward Mecca, and one of them led the two raka’ah of the morning devotion. Jake found it hard to concentrate, frankly glad when it was over. He made duaa, asking for success in battle, and Allah’s watchfulness over his wife and her family if he was killed.

  Full light came minutes after that—and with it the telltale dust on the horizon below. Caron and Jake got up, intending to move the men to their vehicles and holes, but they were already on their way at the behest of their own leaders.

  Jake counted the dust specks out there. Sixteen. No, seventeen. Intelligence was right. Caron was rigging the French optical rangefinder next to him, on a tripod.

  “What’s it give you?” Jake asked. He was feeling surprisingly cool, though there were some butterflies. Only a madman didn’t get those.

  “About fifteen kilometers,” Caron said.

  “What say, engage at twelve?” That was well within the range of the Leclerc’s GIAT CN120-26/52 smoothbore cannon.

  “Oui.”

  “Let me know.”

  “Oui.”

  Holman turned to the radio telephone operator behind them. “Black Six to Red One,” he said, and the RTO repeated it into the mic, on the battle circuit. “Load sabot. Target is tanks. Prepare to engage on signal.”