Текст книги "Treasure"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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His eyes found several wide tears in the plastic. Too late he saw the ropes running from the top of the glacier down through the openings. Too late he swung around to voice an alarm over the ship's communication system.

He came to a dead stop before he uttered a sound.

There was a man standing in the doorway.

A man who wore all-black dress; hands and what little face that showed through the ski mask were also blackened. Nightvision goggles hung around his neck. He wore a large bulletproof chest piece with several pockets and clips holding both fragmentation and stun grenades, three murderous-looking knives and a number of other killing devices.

Machado's eyes suddenly squinted. "Who are you?" he demanded, knowing full well he was staring at death.

As he spoke he made a lightning snatch of a nine-millimeter automatic pistol from a shoulder holster and snapped off a shot.

Machado was good. Wyatt Earp, Doc Holiday and Bat Masterson would have been proud of him. His shot struck the intruder square in the center of the chest.

With older bulletproof vests, the pure force behind the blow could snap a rib or stop a heart. The vests worn by the SOF men, however, were the latest state of the art. They could even stop a 308 NATO round and distribute the impact so it left only a bruse.

Dillenger shuddered slightly from the bullet, took one step back and pulled the trigger of his Heckler & Koch, all in the same motion.

Machado wore a vest too, but the older model. Dillenger's burst tore through and riddled his chest. His spine arched like a tightly strung bow and he staggered backward, falling against the Captain's chair before dropping to the deck '

The Mexican guard raised his arms and shouted, "Don't fire! I am unarmed-"

Dillenger's short burst into the throat cut off the Mexican's plea, knocking him into the ship's compass binnacle, where he hung suspended like a limp rag doll.

"Don't move or I'll shoot," Dillenger said belatedly.

Sergeant Foster stepped around the Major and looked down at the dead terrorist. "He's dead, sir."

"I warned him," Dillenger said casually as he slipped another clip into his weapon.

Foster kicked the body over on its stomach with his boot. A long bayonet knife slipped out of a sheath below the collar and rattled on the deck. "Intuition, Major?" asked Foster.

"I never trust a man who says he's unarmed-"

Suddenly Dillenger stopped and listened. Both men heard it at the same time and looked at each other, puzzled.

"What in hell is that?" asked Foster,

"They were a good thirty years before my time, but I'd swear that's a whistle from an old steam locomotive."

"Sounds like it's coming down the mountain from the old mine."

"I thought it was abandoned."

The NUMA people were to wait there until the ship was secure .

"Why would they stoke up an old locomotive?"

"I don't know." Dillenger paused and stared distantly, a sudden certainty growing within him. "Unless . . . they're trying to tell us something."

The detonation on the glacier caught Hollis and The team by surprise.

His team entered the dining salon immediately after a wild shootout.

His dive team had sliced their way through the plastic and found a tight passage between the fake cargo containers. They had passed wanly through a doorway into an empty bar and lounge outside the dining salon, fanned out, dodging pillars and four men covering the stairs and two elevators, and surprised Machado's Mexican terrorist team.

All but one terrorist was down. He still stood where he'd been hit, hate and vague astonishment reflected in his dying eyes. Then his body collapsed and he fell to the carpet, staining its rich, thick pile a deep crimson.

Hollis and his team advanced, warily stepping over and around the bodies. A blood-chilling of the ice wall sounded throughout the ship, rattling the few undamaged bottles and glasses behind an ornate bar.

The Special Operations men stared uneasily at one another and at their Colonel, but they stood firm and ready.

"Major Dillenger's team must have missed one," Hollis mused calmly.

"No hostages here, sir," said one of his men. "All appear to be terrorists."

Hollis studied several of the lifeless faces. None of them looked like they came from the Middle East. Must be the crew from the General Bravo, he thought.

He turned away and pulled a copy of the ship's deck layout from a pocket and studied it briefly, while he talked into his radio.

"Major, report your status."

"Met light resistance so far," replied Dillenger. "Have only accounted for four hijackers. The bridge is secure and we've released over a hundred crew members who were locked in the baggage hold. Sorry we didn't find all the charges."

"Good work. You did well to disarm enough to keep the glacier from collapsing. I'm heading for the master staterooms to free the passengers. Request the engine-room crew return to their station and restore power. We don't dare hang around under the ice cliff a minute longer than we have to. Watch yourselves. We took out another sixteen hijackers, all Latins. There must be another twenty Arabs still on the ship."

"They may be on shore, sir."

"Why do you say that?"

"We heard a whistle from a locomotive a couple of minutes ago. I ordered one of my men to climb the radar mast and check it out. He reported a train rolling down the mountain like a bowling ball. He also observed it run off a nearby pier that was crowded with two dozen terrorists."

"Forget it for now. Let's rescue the hostages first and see to the shore when we've secured the ship."

"Acknowledged."

Hollis led his men up the grand staircase and moved, quiet as a whisper, into the hallway separating the staterooms. Suddenly they froze in position as one of the elevators hummed and rose from the deck below.

The door opened and a hijacker stepped out, unaware of the assault. He opened his mouth, the only movement he was able to make before one of Hollis's men tapped him heavily on the head with the silenced muzzle of his gun.

Incredibly, there were no guards outside the staterooms. The men began kicking in the doors, and upon entering, found the Egyptian and Mexican advisers and Presidential staff aides, but no sign of Hasan and De Lorenzo.

Hollis broke open the last door at the hallway, burst inside and confronted five men in ship's uniforms. One of them stepped forward and gazed at Hollis in contempt, "You might have used the door latch," he said, regarding Hollis with suspicion.

"You must be Captain Oliver Collins?"

"Yes, I'm Collins, as if you didn't know.

"Sorry about the door. I'm Colonel Morton Hollis, Special Operations Forces."

"By Jesus, an American!" gasped First Officer Finney.

Collins's face lit up as he rushed forward to pump Hollis's hand.

"Forgive me, Colonel. I thought you might be one of them. Are we ever glad to see you."

"How many hijackers?" asked Hollis.

"After the Mexicans came on board from the Geeral Bravo, I should judge about forty."

"We've only accounted for twenty."

Collins's face reflected the ordeal. He looked haggard but still stood tall. "You've freed the two presidents and Senator Pitt and Miss Kamil?"

"I'm afraid we haven't found them yet."

Collins rushed past him through the doorway. '-They were held in the master suite just across the passageway."

Hollis stood aside in surprise. "No one in there," he said flatly.

"We've already searched this deck."

The Captain ran into the empty suite, but saw only the rumpled bedclothes, the usual light mess left by passengers. His stiff-backed composure fell away and he looked positively stunned.

My God, they've taken them."

Hollis spoke into his crophone. "Major Dillenger."

"Dillenger took five seconds to respond. "I read you, Colonel. Go ahead."

"any contact with the enemy?"

"None, I think we've pretty well rounded them up."

"At least twenty hijackers and the VIP passengers are missing. You see a sign of them?"

"Negative, not so much as a stray hair."

"Okay, finish securing the ship and have her crew move her out into the fjord."

"No can do," said Dillenger solemnly.

"Problems?"

"The murdering bastards really did a number on the engine room. They smashed up everything. It'll take a week to put the ship back in operation."

"We've got no power at all?"

"Sorry, Colonel. Here we are, and here we sit. These engines aren't taking us anywhere. They also wrecked the generators, including the auxiliaries."

... Then we'll have to take the crew and passengers off by lifeboat, using the manual winches."

"No go, Colonel. We're dealing with genuine sadists. They also trashed the lifeboats. Bashed the bottoms out."

Dillenger's dire report was punctuated by a deep growling noise that emanated from the glacier and traveled through the ship like a drum.

There was no vibration this time, only the growl that turned into a heart-stopping rumble. It lasted nearly a minute before it finally faded and died.

Hollis and Collins were both brave men-no one would ever doubt it-but each read fear in the other's eyes.

"The glacier is ready to calve," said Collins grimly. "Our only hope is to cut away the anchor chains and pray the tide carries us out into the fjord."

"Believe me, you won't see ebb tide for another eight hours," said Hollis. "You're talking to a man who knows."

"You're just full of cheery news, aren't you, Colonel."

"Doesn't look encouraging, does it?"

"Doesn't look encouraging," Collins repeated. "Is that all you have to say? There are nearly two hundred people on board the Lady Flamborough.

They must be evacuated immediately."

"I can't wave a wand and make the glacier go away," Hollis explained calmly. "I can take a few out in inflatable boats and call in our helicopters to airlift the rest. But we're talking a good hour."

Collins's voice came edged with impatience. "Then I suggest you get on with it while we're all still alive-" He halted as Hollis abruptly swung up a hand for silence.

Hollis's eyes narrowed in bewilderment as a strange voice suddenly burst over his earphone.

"Colonel Hollis, am I on your frequency? Over."

"Who the hell is this!" Hollis snapped.

"Captain Frank Stewart of the NUMA ship Sounder at your service. Can I give you a lift somewhere?"

"Stewart!" the Colonel burst out. "Where are you?"

"If you could see through all that crap hanging on your superstructure, you'd find me cruising up the fjord about half a kilometer off your port side."

Hollis exhaled a great sigh and nodded at Collins. "A ship is bearing down on us. any instructions?"

Collins stared at him, numb with disbelief. Then he blurted, "Good God, yes, man! Tell him to take us under tow."

Working feverishly, Collins's crew slipped the bow and stern anchor chains and made ready with the mooring hawsers.

In a feat of superb seamanship, Stewart swung the Sounder's stern under the Lady Flamborough's bow in one pass. Two heavy rope mooring lines were dropped by the crewmen of the cruise ship and immediately made fast to the survey ship's deck bitts. It was not the most perfect tow arrangement, but the ships were not going for distance across stormy seas, and the temporary expedient was accomplished in a matter of minutes.

Stewart gave the command for "slow ahead" until the slack was taken up from the tow lines. Then he slowly increased speed to "full ahead"

while he looked over his shoulder, one eye on the glacier, one on the cruise liner. The Sounder's two cycloidal propellers, one forward and one aft, thrashed the water as her great diesel engine strained under the load.

She was half the Lady Flamborough's tonnage and never meant for tug duty, but she dug in and drove like a draft horse in a pulling contest, black exhaust pouring from her stack.

At first nothing seemed to happen, and then slowly, imperceptibly, a small bit of froth appeared around the Sounder's bow. She was moving, hauling the reluctant cruise liner from under the shadow of the glacier.

Despite the danger, the passengers, crew and Special Forces fighters all tore away the plastic sheeting and stood on the decks, watching and willing the struggling Sounder forward. Ten meters, then twenty, a hundred, the gap between ship and ice widened with agonizing slowness.

Then at last the Lady was clear.

Everyone on both ships gave a rousing cheer that echoed up and down the fiord. Later, Captain Collins would humorously call it the cheer that broke the camel's back.

A loud cracking sound shattered the celebrating voices and grew into a great booming rumble. To those watching, it seemed as if the air was electrified. Then the whole forward face of the ice cliff toppled forward and pounded into the fjord like a huge oil tanker being launched on its side. The water seethed and boiled and rose in a ten-foot wave that surged down the fjord and lifted the two ships like corks before heading out toward the open sea.

The monstrous, newly calved iceberg settled into the deeply carved channel of the fjord, its ice glinting like a field of orange diamonds under the new sun. Then the rumble rolled down from the mountainside and echoed in the ears of the stunned onlookers, who couldn't believe they were somehow alive.

At first there was complete confusion, with much shouting and wild shooting. The Egyptians had no idea of the size of the force that fired on them in the dining hall during the passage of the . They snuffed the lights and shot at the earlymoming shadows until they realized the shadows weren't shooting back.

The dirt roads between the wooden buildings took on an eerie silence.

for several minutes the Egyptian hijackers made no effort to leave the dining hall.

Then, suddenly, a half-dozen men-two from the front and four at the rear of the building-broke from the doors, scrambling, crouching, and diving headlong behind predetermined shelter. Once in position, they laid down a circle of fire to cover the rest of the men, who then followed on their heels.

Their leader, a tall man wearing a black turban, directed the men's movements by blowing sharp biceps on a whistle.

After a rocky start, the Egyptian terrorist team was everything Pitt was afraid of-highly ed, practiced and tough. When it came to house-to-house street fighting, they were the best in the world. They were even well led. The leader in the black turban was competent and methodical.

They searched building by building, working toward the crushing Mill until they half-circled it like a crescent. No haphazard assault by Animar's hand-picked killers. They moved with stealth and purpose.

Their leader caned out in Arabic. When there was no reply, another terrorist shouted from a different location. They were hailing the guard and mechanics inside the crushing mill, Pitt guessed correctly.

They were too close now for Pitt to risk revealing himself at the window. He removed the terrorist's ski mask and clothing and threw it in a pile on the floor, then rummaged through a pocket of his ski jacket and retrieved a small mirror attached to a narrow stretch handle. He eased the mirror above the window sill and extended the handle, twisting it like a periscope.

He found the target he was looking for, 90 percent concealed, but enough showing for a killing shot.

Pitt turned the fire-select lever from FULL AUTO to SINGLE. Then he swiftly raised up, aimed and squeezed the trigger.

The deadly old Thompson spat. Black Turban took two or three steps, his face blank and uncomprehending; then he sagged, fell forward and pitched to the ground.

Pitt dropped down, lowered his gun and peered into the mirror again. The terrorists had disappeared. To a man, they had dodged behind buildings or crawled furiously under abandoned and rusting mining equipment. Pitt knew they weren't about to quit. They were still out there, dangerous as ever, waiting for instructions from their second-m-command.

Gunn took his cue and pumped a ten-round burst through a wooden door on a shed across the road. Very slowly the door swung open, pushed by a body that twisted and dropped.

Still there was no return fire. They were nobody's fools, thought Pitt.

Now that they realized they were not up against a superior force but by a small group, they took their time to regroup and consider options.

They also realized now that their unknown oponents had captured their helicopter and were holed up in the crushing Mill.

Pitt ducked, scurried over and crouched beside Gunn. "How's it look on your side?"

"Quiet. They're playing it nice and easy. They don't want to dent their helicopter."

"I think they're going to create a diversion at the front door and then make a rush through the side office."

Gunn nodded. "Sounds logical. About time we found better cover away from these windows anyway. Where do you want me?"

Pitt looked up at the catwalk above. He pointed at a row of small skylights encircling a small winch tower. "Climb up and keep watch.

Yell when they launch the attack and welcome them with a concentrated burst through the front door. Then get your ass back down here. They won't have any scruples about peppering the walls above the chopper."

"On my way."

Pitt moved around to the side office, paused at the threshold and turned to Giordino and Findley.

"How's it coming?" he asked.

Giordino looked up from shoveling a pile of leftover ore for a barricade. "Fort Giordino will be finished on schedule."

Findley stopped work and stared at him. "F before G, Fort Findley. "

Giordino looked at Findley morosely for a second before returning to his work. "Fort Findley if we lose, Giordino if we win."

Shaking his head in awe, Pitt wondered why he was blessed with such incredible friends. He wanted to say something to them, express his feelings of gratitude for risking their lives to stop a band of scum when they could have bolted for the boondocks and hid out until Hollis and his team arrived. But they knew: men like this needed no words of appreciation or encouragement. There they'd stay, and there they'd fight it out. Pitt hoped to God none would die uselessly.

"Argue about it later," he ordered, "and ready a reception committee if they get past me."

He turned and entered the damp and musty-smelling office He checked his Thompson and set it aside. After quickly building a barrier with two overturned desks, a steel filing cabinet and a heavy iron potbellied stove, he lay down on the floor and waited.

He didn't wait long. One minute later he came to unmoving attention as he thought he heard the faint crunch of gravel outside. The sound stopped and then came again, soft but unmistakable. He raised the Thompson and propped the grips on the filing cabinet.

Too late, Gunn gave a yell of warning, when suddenly an object crashed through the window above the door and fell, rolling across the floor. A second came right behind. Pitt dropped low and tried to burrow into the steel cabinet, cursing his lack of forethought.

Both grenades went off with an ear-bursting blast. The office erupted in a great roar of shattered furniture and flying wood and yellowed paper. The outer wall was blown outward and most of the ceiling caved in.

Pitt was dazed by the concussion and the deafening clap of the twill blast. He'd never experienced an explosion in a close proximity before, and he was stunned right down to his toes.

The potbellied stove had taken the main force of the shrapnel, yet held its shape, the rounded sides perforated with jagged holes. The file cabinet was bent and twisted and the desks badly mutilated, but the only apparent injuries Pitt could find on himself were a thin but deep cut in his left thigh and a five-centimeter gash on his cheek.

The office had vanished and left in its place a pile of smoldering debris, and for one apprehensive moment Pitt had a vision of being trapped in a blazing fire. But only for a moment-the rain-soaked old wood of the building sizzled a bit in several places but refused to ignite.

With a conscious effort of will Pitt switched the Thompson to FULL AUTO, and aimed the barrel at the splintered remains of the front door. Blood was streaming down the side of his face and under his collar. His eyes never flickered as a barrage of automatic fire came pouring over his head from the guns of four men who charged through the shattered openings in the outer wall.

Pitt felt neither remorse nor fear as he fired a long burst that blew away his attackers like trees before a tornado. They threw up their weapons, arms flailing in the manner of ftenzied dancers on a stage, and spun crazily to the debris-piled floor.

Three more terrorist fighters followed the first wave and were as ruthlessly stopped by Pitt-all except one, who reacted with incredible swiftness and flung himself behind a smoking, shredded leather sofa.

Cannonlike blasts went off in Pin's ear as Findley dropped to his knees behind him and pumped loads from his shotgun into the lower base of the sofa. Leather, burlap padding and wood sprayed the air. A moment of quiet, and then one of the terrorist's arms flopped lifelessly beyond the sofa's carved feet.

Giordino appeared through the smoke and gunpowder fumes, grasping Pitt under the arms and dragging him back

"Must you always make a mess?" he said, grinning. Then into the crushing-mill area and behind an old ore car.

his face softened with concern. "You hurt bad?"

Pitt wiped the blood away from his cheek and stared down at the crimson stain spreading through the fabric covering his leg. "Damn!

A perfectly good pair of pants. Now that really pisses me off."

Findley knelt down, cut away the pants leg and began bandaging the wound. "You were lucky to survive the blast with only a couple of cuts."

"Dumb of me not to figure on grenades," Pitt said bitterly. 'I should have guessed."

"No sense in blaming yourself." Giordino shrugged. "This isn't our line of work."

Pitt looked up. "We better get smart real fast if we want to be around when the SOF guys arrive."

"They won't try another assault from this direction," Findley said. "The blast knocked down the stairway outside.

They'd be sitting ducks if they tried scrambling up ten feet of broken timber."

"Now might be a ripe oportunity to burn the helicopter and get the hell out of here," Findley said unhappily.

"The news gets worse, and it gets better," Gunn said, dropping from a ladder to the floor. "I saw another twenty of them charging up the railroad track like a prairie fire. They should be here in another seven or eight minutes."

Giordino looked at Gunn suspiciously. "How many?"

"I stopped counting at fifteen."

"The opportunity to flee the coop gets even riper," muttered Findley.

"Hollis and his men?" asked Pitt.

Gunn shook his head wearily. "No sign of them." He paused to draw a deep breath and turned to stare at Pitt.

terrorist reinforcements, they were ed by four hostages with two guards. I could just recognize them through my binoculars. One was your Dad. He and a woman were helping two other men along the tracks."

"Hala Kamil, bless her," Pitt said with vast relief. "Thank God, the old man is alive."

"The other two?" asked Giordino.

"Most likely Presidents Hasan and De Lorenzo."

"So much for early retirement," said Findley gloomily as he placed the final piece of tape over Pitts bandage.

"The terrorists are only keeping the Senator and the others alive to ensure a safe escape," said Pitt.

"And won't hesitate to murder them one by one until we hand over their helicopter," predicted Gunn.

Pitt nodded. "Without a doubt, but if we surrendered, there's no guarantee they wouldn't murder them anywayThey've already tried to assassinate Hala twice and most certainly want Hasan dead too."

"They'll call a truce and negotiate."

Pitt looked at his watch. "They won't haggle for very long. They know their time is running out. But we might gain a few extra minutes."

"So what's the plan?" asked Giordino.

"We stall and fight for as long as it takes." Pitt looked at Gunn. "Were the hostages surrounded by the hijackers?"

"No, they were a good two hundred meters in the rear, trailing the main party up the rail-bed," Gunn replied. "They were herded by only two terrorists." He stared back into Pitts green eyes, and then nodded in slow understanding. "You want me to take out the guards and protect the Senator and the rest until Hollis shows?"

"You're the smallest and the fastest, Rudi. If anybody can get clear of the building undetected and circle around behind those two guards while we distract them, you can."

Gunn threw out his hands and dropped them to his sides. "I'm grateful for the trust. I only hope I can pull it off."

"You can."

"That leaves only three of you to hold the fort."

"We'll have to make do." Pitt awkwardly rose to his feet and limped over to the pile of terrorists' clothing he'd tossed on the floor. He returned and held it out to Gunn. "Wear this.

They'll think you're one of them."

Gunn stood there rooted, reluctant to desert his friends.

Giordino came to his rescue by laying a beefy hand on the smaller man's shoulder and steering him to a maintenance passage that dropped beneath the floor and ran around the giant crushing mill.

"You can get out through here," he said smiling. "Wait until things heat up before you make your break."

Gunn found himself half under the floor in the passage before he could protest. He took one last look at Pitt, the incredibly durable, indestructible Dirk Pitt, who gave him a jaunty wave. Peerrd at Giordino, old steady and reliable, whose concern was masked by a lighthearted expression. And finally Findley, who flashed a sparkling smile and held up both thumbs. They were all part of him and he was heartsick at leaving, not knowing if he would see any of them alive again.

"You guys be here when I get back," he said. "You hear?"

Then he ducked under the flooring and was gone.

Hollis paced beside the postage-stamp-sized landing pad that the Lady Flamborough's crew had hurriedly fabricated over the swimming pool. A Carrier Pigeon helicopter settled onto the pad as a small team of men waited to board.

Hollis stopped when he heard a fresh outburst of gunfire from the direction of the mine, his face reflecting concern.

"Load and get 'em airborne," he shouted impatiently to Dillenger.

"Somebody's alive up there and fighting our battle."

"The mine must have been the hijackers' escape point," said Captain Collins, who paced at Hollis's side.

"And thanks to me, Dirk Pitt and his friends stumbled right into them,"

snapped Hollis.

"any way you can get there in time to save them and the hostages?" asked Collins.

Hollis shook his head in grim despair. "Not one chance in hell.

Rudi Gunn was thankful for the sudden downpour of heavy rain. It effectively shielded him as he crawled away from the crushing mill under a string of empty ore cars. Once clear of the buildings, he dropped down the mountain below the mine for a few hundred meters, and then circled back.

He found the narrow-gauge tracks and began walking silently on the crossties. He could see only a short distance around him, but within a few minutes of escaping the terrorists' assault on the crushing mill, he froze in position when his eyes distinguished several vague figures through the rain ahead. He counted four sitting and two standing.

Gunn faced a dilemma. He assumed the hostages were resting while the guards stood. But he couldn't shoot and check his assumption later. He would have to rely on his borrowed terrorist clothing to bluff his way close enough to tell mend from foe.

His only drawback, and a vital one, was he only knew two or three words of Arabic.

Gunn took a breath and walked forward. He said, "Sa ," repeating the word two more times in a calm, controlled voice.

The two figures who were standing took on more detail as he approached, and he saw they held machine guns lowered and pointed his way.

One of them replied with words Gunn couldn't interpret. He mentally crossed his fingers and hoped they had asked the Arabic equivalent of

"Who goes there?"

"Muhammad," he mumbled, relying on the prophet's name to carry him through, while lazily holding the Heckler & Koch across his chest with the muzzle aimed off to the side.

Gunn's heartbeat calmed considerably as the two terrorists lowered their guns in unison and turned their attention back to their guard duty. He moved casually until he was standing alongside them so his line of fire would not strike the hostages.

Then, while keeping his eyes aimed at the miserable people sitting on the ground between the track rails, and without even looking at the two guards, he squeezed the trigger.

Ammar and his men were on the verge of total exhaustion when they reached the outskirts of the mine. The persistent downpour had turned their clothes sodden and heavy. They struggled over a long mound of tracks and thankfully entered a shed that once housed mining-equipment parts.

Ammar dropped onto a wooden bench, his head drooped on his chest, his breath coming in labored gasps. He looked up as Ibn entered with another man.

"This is Mustapha Osman," said Ibn. "He says an armed group of commandos have killed their group leader and barricaded themselves in the crushing mill with our helicopter."

Ammar's lips drew back in anger. "How could you let this happen?"

Osman's black eyes registered panic. "We had . . . no warning," he stammered. "They must have come down from the mountain. They subdued the sentries, seized the train and shot up our living quarters. When we launched our counterattack they fired on us from the crushing-mill building."

"Casualties?" Ammar demanded coldly.

"There are seven of us left."

The nightmare was worse than Ammar thought. "How many in their assault party?"

"Twenty, maybe thirty."

"Seven of you have of them under siege," snarled Ammar, his tone heavy with sarcasm. "Their number. This time the truth, or Ibn here will slit your throat."

Osman averted Ammar's eyes. He was frozen in fear. "There is no way of knowing for certain," he mumbled. "Perhaps four or more."

"Four men did all this?" said Ammar, aghast. He was seething but too disciplined to allow his anger to take control. "What of the helicopter?