Gideon's War / Hard Target

Simpson looked nervously back to the south.

“Are we clear?”

“Yes, sir,” he said, before speaking into the phone. “Sandpiper Seven this is Uncle Bob. Our air asset is down, but our primary is uninjured. Hostiles are in pursuit. There’s a quay about three klicks west of KM International. I need our water asset there for immediate exfil. Prepare to exit hard. Out.” He folded the phone and shoved it into his pocket.

Gideon draped Simpson’s arm around his shoulder, supporting him as he hobbled down the deserted highway. Blood had soaked through Simpson’s pants and was leaking onto the road, leaving a trail. Gideon didn’t want to say anything, but if Simpson didn’t get to a hospital within the hour, he was going to bleed out.

They had about fifty yards to go when the jihadis appeared on the highway behind them. Turbaned men armed with AKs were jammed in the back of a white pickup. Some hung over the side.

“Make a break for it, Mr. Davis,” Simpson said.

“Shut up, Simpson,” Gideon said. “I told you, your star’s not going up on that wall. At least not today.”

Simpson was in no shape to argue. The jihadi vehicle was accelerating toward them.

From the far side of the canal, the gun boomed from the turret of the SMDF vehicle. But the pickup truck was going too fast to make an easy target, and the armored vehicle’s shells were landing short of it.heiÑ€†

“Hustle up, Simpson,” Gideon urged. “We’re almost there.”

Simpson was trying, but the bullet that hit his leg had hit bone. With every footfall, he grimaced in agony until Gideon was forced to support nearly all of his weight.

Behind them, the jihadis in the pickup truck began shooting.

“Hang on,” Gideon shouted. He crouched and planted his shoulder in the pit of the CIA man’s stomach, lifting him off the ground.

“My God, Simpson, how much do you weigh?” Gideon said as he staggered toward the boat. He was trying to keep Simpson distracted, afraid if he didn’t then Simpson would get all heroic and try to get off Gideon’s shoulder—making it impossible for either of them to make it to the docks.

Out in the bay Gideon saw a boat tearing toward them.

“That’s our boat!” Simpson grunted.

It was a large, powerful boat—something like a cigarette boat—and it spewed a rooster tail a good twenty feet in the air behind it. The seas looked unusually heavy, and it went airborne occasionally, clearing one wave before slamming into the next.

“Put me down,” Simpson said feebly. “You won’t make it if you—”

“Two forty? Two forty-five?”

“Two fifty-five,” Simpson said.

The speedboat was getting closer now, decelerating as it drew toward the quay. Gideon could make out three figures in the boat, all of them armed. He waved at the boat and it steered toward him, still carrying enough speed that it looked as if it would slam into the dock. At the last moment it nosed around sharply, digging into the water and throwing up a wave that sloshed up onto the deck.

Gideon crossed the final strip of concrete, pounded across the last few feet of wooden decking, and eased Simpson over the gunwale.

The captain of the boat had a cigarette in his mouth and a Sig Sauer on his hip. The other two men stood in the bow, MP5s at the ready.

Behind him, Gideon could hear the thump-thump-thump of the heavy machine gun mounted in the back of the jihadi pickup truck. Gideon vaulted himself over the the gunwale and landed on his feet next to Simpson.

“Get Mr. Davis to the airport,” Simpson shouted to the boat captain.

The captain slammed the dual throttles forward, and the boat tore away from the quay as the CIA men kept up a continuous barrage with the MP5s. Before they had made it more than fifty feet, the white pickup truck accelerated straight toward them. They were close enough that Gideon could see the driver, slumped over the wheel, half his head blown off. The truck blasted off the end of the dock and plummeted into the ocean.

As they crossed the canal, Gideon spoke to the captain of the boat: “Drop Simpson off over there so he can get medical treatment.” He pointed to the armored SMDF vehicle.

“Yes, sir.”

As the powerful boat accelerated forward, GideoncloÑ€† verbalized the plan he had been forming since the chopper went down. “Could this boat make it to the Obelisk in this kind of weather?”

“She’ll take you to the gates of hell, sir,” he said laconically. “But without authorization . . .” The captain trailed off, looking questioningly at Simpson.

“Absolutely not,” Simpson said. “Mr. Davis is going straight to the airport and flying directly back to Washington, D.C.”

“Give me your SAT phone,” Gideon said to Simpson.

“Excuse me?”

“Dial the embassy, then give me your phone.”

Simpson grudgingly complied. Gideon identified himself to the operator at the embassy and asked to be patched through to the president.

Within a minute, he was speaking to Alton Diggs.

“Gideon,” the president said, “I am glad to be talking to you.”

“Thank you, sir. Can you give me an update on the Obelisk?” Gideon said.

“Then you already know about your brother. And about Earl.”

“Yes, sir.” Both men shared their personal concern for Earl Parker’s life, then Gideon repeated what he’d seen on CNN, and what he’d been told by Simpson.

“I’m afraid it’s gotten worse.” The president continued after a tentative silence. “I ordered a SEAL team to take back the rig, but the mission failed. And now we’ve got twelve hours left to meet demands that we can never accommodate. To make matters even more difficult, there’s a typhoon about to hit the rig. Our meteorologists are saying the Obelisk will be socked in for the next fifteen hours.”

Gideon did the math. By the time the typhoon passed, the hostages would be dead.

The president quickly added, “But there may be a brief window for us to act.”

“How?”

“Assuming the eye of the storm passes directly over the rig, we are going to drop a Delta Force team directly onto the deck of the rig. They’re getting ready to take off from Hawaii.”

Gideon took a moment to process the president’s report. If Tillman was on that rig, the Delta Force guys wouldn’t be there to take him prisoner. They’d be there to take him out.

“Mr. President, there may be another option,” Gideon said.

“Another option?” the president said dubiously.

“Let me go out there myself.”

“Go out where? To the rig?”

“Yes, sir. Let me talk to him.”

“Your brother has made it very clear he’s not negotiating.”

“Not to me he hasn’t. Once I’m face-to-face with him, maybe I can talk some sense into him.”

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“For God’s sake, Gideon, your brother tried to kill you.”

Gideon said nothing, silenced by the stark truth of this. “Besides,” the president continued, “even if I authorize this, you’ll never make it out there. I told you, the rig’s about to get swallowed by a category five typhoon.”

“At least let me try to make it out there. With respect, sir, I think I’ve earned that chance.”

This time it was the president who remained silent. “Whatever’s going on with my brother, there’s something we’re missing, some reason behind what’s happening that we can’t see yet. I haven’t figured out what it is, but I will.”

Still, the president offered no response. So Gideon laid the rest of his argument on the line. “As I understand it, Mr. President, unless we take back that rig, you’re going to be put in an impossible situation by McClatchy and his congressional cronies, and frankly by most of the people who put you in office. You’ll be forced into a war you don’t want to fight. There is zero downside to you letting me try this.”

When the president finally spoke, his voice sounded weary and frayed. “Fine. If your brother is willing to talk to you, you have my blessing.”