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RESCUE

  A Mini Novel in 5 Chapters

  By Earl Staggs

  Copyright 2016 Earl Staggs

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission from the author.

  Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  RESCUE

  By Earl Staggs

  CHAPTER ONE

  Alongside a dirt road twenty miles east of Abu Dhabi, capital city of the United Arab Emirates, Tall Chambers crouched behind a boulder the size of a jeep. On his left, Mountain Brown rested on his knees. For a man who stood six-eight and carried well over three hundred pounds of tight muscle, that was as close to a crouch as he could get.

  On Tall’s right, crouching easily six feet away, Airman First Class Kevin Mason shielded his eyes with an open hand and looked up at the blazing sun. “Sure is hot,” he said.

  “Shouldn’t be much longer,” Tall said.

  “You’re in a desert, boy,” Mountain grumbled. “It’s the middle of August and it’s ten o’clock in the morning. By noon, it’ll hit a hundred and ten. If you can’t take the heat, get an office job.”

  Tall grinned. Mountain liked to push buttons. Anyone’s.

  “I can take the heat,” Kevin shot back. “Don’t worry about me, old timer.”

  Tall liked it that Kevin stood up to the big man. Kevin was well-built and obviously worked out to stay that way, but was maybe five-eight with boots on and weighed one-sixty at most. Mountain could twist him into a pretzel without breaking a sweat. The kid had spunk.

  Mountain leaned toward Tall and spoke in a low voice. “Who is that boy and what’s he doing here?”

  “Our usual interpreter wasn’t available. The Air Force loaned him to us.”

  “I know we need somebody speaks the language, but Christ! What is he, twelve?”

  Tall chuckled. “He’s twenty-five, not as young as he looks.”

  “Well, I feel a lot safer knowing I have a baby-faced interpreter watching my back. Does he know how to use that rifle he’s holding?”

  “I looked over his records. He’s a qualified marksman, and he’s had some experience in recon ops.”

  “Does he have any idea why we’re here?”

  “No, I haven’t had time to read him in. I need to do that.”

  Mountain raised his M-16 rifle and checked it again to make sure it was ready. “Okay, as long as I don’t have to babysit him.”

  “He’ll be fine.” Tall lifted his binoculars and looked back down the road to his left. Thin swirling dust devils rose from the parched sandy soil and dissipated into gassy heat vapors. He felt like it was already a hundred and ten degrees.

  He saw nothing coming and turned his attention to the other side of the road. He couldn’t see them, but he knew four more of his operatives were there, hiding behind boulders and squatty bushes dotting the flat desert landscape. Ben Goldman was one of the ops. Ben would set off the small explosive device buried in the road when Tall gave the signal.

  Tall scooted over next to the Airman. “Kevin, just so you know what we’re doing here, a bus will be coming down this road any minute. On board is a group of armed Muslim terrorists on their way to a street festival in downtown Abu Dhabi. There’ll be a big crowd, many of them tourists and American service personnel. These people plan to mingle with the crowd, open fire, and kill as many as they can. Our plan is to stop them right here to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  “So we’re going to stop the bus and take them prisoner?”

  Tall raised his binoculars again. “That’s up to them. We’ll give them a chance to surrender, and we hope they do. We want to take them in for interrogation. Some local politicians are supporting the group, and we want to find out who they are. But sometimes, these people choose to die for their cause. If that’s what they want, we’ll accommodate them.” He lowered the binoculars. “They’re coming. About a half mile away.”

  Tall keyed his headset mic. “Get ready, Ben.”

  “I see them,” Ben Goldman responded. “Let’s rock ‘n roll, Tall man.”

  Tall turned back to Kevin. “When the bus stops, I want you to tell them in Arabic to put down their weapons and raise their hands in the air. Tell them if they don’t, we’ll open fire. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “Good. Then I want you to level your rifle on the bus driver. If he tries to move the vehicle or shows a weapon, shoot him.”

  Kevin stared at him for a moment as if shocked he might be involved in a gunfight. He licked his dry lips and raised his rifle into firing position across the boulder. “Copy that, sir.”

  A minute later, the bus, no more than an ancient flatbed truck with bench seats, two slat rails for sides and a ragged canvas roof, drew within thirty yards of where Tall and his team waited. Tall guessed about twenty of them on board, scattered throughout a vehicle large enough for twice as many. They wore Western clothing instead of traditional Arab outfits. To fit in with the festival crowd, he guessed, and he saw four women mixed in with them.

  Tall keyed his mic and said, “Do it, Ben.”

  No more than a second passed before an explosion ripped the still desert air and a wide geyser of dust and gravel spewed upward from the road in front of the bus. The driver pulled to a shrieking, sliding stop just short of the spot where Tall stood behind the boulder. Mountain Brown stepped sideways down the length of the vehicle with his weapon in firing position and stopped at the rear corner. Ben Goldman and three other operatives took up positions along the other side.

  Kevin shouted what Tall had instructed him to say.

  One of the women on the bus vaulted over the side rail and landed on the ground. She wore a black tee shirt and black pants and her dark hair frizzled in all directions. Her mouth was pulled into a tight line and her eyes flashed with rage. In her hand, she held a hunting knife with an eight-inch blade.

  “Infidels!” she shouted with a thick accent. “I kill all you Yankee pigs!”

  Ben Goldman moved to the front of the bus. He said and did nothing, but waited with the others to see what she would do next.

  She moved toward Ben and tossed the knife back and forth from one hand to the other. “Come get me, American man. Come see how I slice you like melon. What’s your matter, dog shit bastard? You left your balls home with your momma?”

  Tall started to say something to her, but felt the vibration of his cell phone and pulled it from his pocket. When he recognized the caller ID, he decided he should answer it.

  “Uh, hello, Tom.”

  “Tall, I’m sorry to bother you, but the President asked me to call you. We have a serious situation and need your help. To be honest, I don’t think even you can pull it off. Is this a good time to talk?”

  “Actually, I. . .uh. . .”

  The woman with the knife turned her attention to Tall and walked toward him, shouting obscenities in Arabic.

  “. . .I’m in the middle of something right now,” Tall said into his phone.

  The woman raised the knife above her head and ran at Tall.

  “Can I call you back in a few minutes?”

  Tall let his M16 dangle on a shoulder strap, pulled a Beretta M9 pistol from his shoulder holster and shot the woman in the chest. She staggered backward a few feet, then forward, and fell face down in front of him.

  The voice on the phone hesitated, then said, “Uh, sure. Yes. Do that, please.”

  Tall slippe
d his phone back in his pocket, shoved the handgun into its holster, and raised his rifle to eye level. He watched the people on the bus and saw some of them slowly lift their hands in the air. Some sat as if frozen. A movement in the third row of seats caught his eye. A man jerked his arms upward and aimed a rifle at him. Tall squeezed off a shot and the man fell sideways and out of sight. He heard a shot from the other side of the bus and saw that one of his ops had taken out another man who’d raised a weapon.

  A movement in the front of the bus then. The driver had a gun. Before Tall could swing that way, a shot blew the man’s head apart. Tall looked at Kevin who had not moved. And had not fired his weapon. He looked toward the front of the bus and saw that Ben Goldman had taken the shot.

  Tall scanned the bus again. All those still sitting upright had their hands empty and held high. They were surrendering.

  Ben Goldman walked over to where Tall stood. Ben was forty-three years old like Tall and well-muscled. A few early years as an amateur boxer accounted for his slightly crooked nose and old scars on his face. He glanced down at the woman’s body lying between them. “Good shot. Who was that on the phone?”

  “Tom Armbruster.”

  Ben chuckled. “No shit. That man has the worst timing in the world. What did he want?”

  “I have to call him back. He said something about a situation. Let’s clean this up and get out of here. Use the bus to take them to the base, and we’ll meet you there.”

  “Got it,” Ben said. He nodded at the woman on the ground. “What’re you going to do with this crazy woman?”

  “I think I’ll leave her here for the buzzards.”

  Ben laughed and motioned for the other team members to follow him onto the bus.

  It took only a few minutes to search those on board, gather their weapons, and secure their hands and feet with zip ties. As the bus drove away, leaving Tall, Mountain Brown, and Kevin Mason standing over the woman lying on the ground, Tall knelt beside her.

  “They’re gone,” he said. “You going to lie there all day?”

  Her head raised. With no trace of an accent, she said, “Well, I can’t get up before the buzzards get here, can I?”

  Tall laughed. “That was a hell of a show you put on.”

  She rolled onto her back. “What can I say? A girl has to have some fun.” She raised her hands and rubbed back and forth on her breasts. “Those rubber bullets are supposed to be harmless, but dammit, that hurt.”

  “Want me to rub those for you?” Tall asked.

  She grinned up at him. “Maybe later. Want to help me up?”

  Tall took her hands in his and pulled her to her feet.

  Kevin Mason, standing beside Tall, said, “Excuse me, but may I ask what is going on here?”

  “Kevin, this is Ellie Gardner, one of our best operatives. Ellie, Kevin Mason. He’s our interpreter from the base.” Tall noticed the Airman giving Ellie the once over as she brushed herself off. All men did that. Ellie inherited a flawless olive complexion and good looks from her Spanish mother and her shapely figure wasn’t lost in the loose wrinkled jeans and tee shirt she wore. She spoke five languages and could fight as well as any man Tall knew.

  Ellie smiled and held out her hand. “Pleased to meet you, Kevin.”

  As they shook hands, Tall said, “A month ago, Ellie infiltrated the group we just took down. That’s how we knew their plans. The little act she put on got her off the bus and out of the line of fire before the fight started. It also demonstrated that we meant business and wouldn’t hesitate to shoot. I’m sure that helped most of them decide to give it up.”

  Tall turned to Mountain Brown. “Mount, would you and Ellie go get our rides?”

  After the two of them walked toward the ravine where they’d hidden their two Humvees, Tall turned back to Kevin. “Why didn’t you take that shot?”

  Kevin wilted under Tall’s intense stare. He turned his head and licked his parched lips. “I. . .I’m sorry. I was. . .” He shook his head and stared off into the distance.

  “Never mind.” Tall spun and walked away.

  A minute later, Ellie and Mountain pulled up in the two Humvees. Tall hopped in the first one beside Ellie. “Kevin,” he said, “ride with Mountain.” To Ellie, he said, “I hope you don’t mind driving. I have a phone call to return.”

  Tall was on the phone for twenty minutes, then rode in silence, thinking about his conversation with Tom Armbruster. Tall reported only to the President, but the President avoided direct communication with Tall’s agency and any others that didn’t officially exist. That was Armbruster’s job.

  The heart of Tall’s agency was a state of the art Intel Center in Washington, staffed by six computer experts and operators who gathered information on terrorist groups in Europe, the Middle East, and other hot spots across the globe. Tall called them his geek troop.

  The agency included the six operatives Tall had with him and nineteen others, most of them former servicemen and women who had served in Special Forces, Rangers, and Seals. Those others were scattered on other assignments. Tall regularly reviewed information prepared by the Intel Center and assigned operatives where needed. When a terrorist group was determined to have definite plans to strike and harm innocent people, the agency stepped in and stopped them by whatever actions were necessary. That included insurgent groups on American soil, homegrown and foreign, who thought the American way needed to be changed by violent methods.

  Ellie parked in front of the US Air Force Administration Building at Al Dhafra Air Base, located an hour outside of Abu Dhabi. Al Dhafra, operated by the United Arab Emirates, was also home to operations of the US and French Air Forces. Tall spotted the terrorists’ ramshackle bus empty and parked a short distance away. He flipped his cell phone open again and called Ben Goldman.

  “Everything go all right, Ben?”

  “Just fine. The prisoners are in lockup. How do you want to handle the interrogation?”

  “We’ll have to let the brass here do that. We have a new assignment. Gather everyone in the conference room and I’ll fill you in.”

  “You got it.”

  On their way into the building, Ellie said, “You have that look on your face.”

  “What look is that?”

  “The one you get when we’re about to step into deep shit.”

  “That about sums it up. You’ll find out in a few minutes.”

  “In that case, I’d better freshen up.” She veered off into a ladies room.

  CHAPTER TWO