“Waled, my friend, we need to get down to the truck. Follow me.”

  The man didn’t move. Talley leaned down and looked closer at the place he was clutching his side in pain. It wasn’t the running. Blood was trickling slowly from a gaping wound. He’d been shot as they ran. The injury looked bad, and Talley almost screamed in despair.

  So close! We have to get Waled away. Have to!

  He shouted. “I need help here. We need to get this man to the jeep. Give me a hand, fast!”

  Virgil Kane ran up to them, and between them they started to carry the wounded man down to the Land Rover. He nodded a greeting to the trooper.

  “It’s good to see you, Virgil. I didn’t expect anything like this. Without you guys, they had our asses for sure.”

  “Our pleasure, Boss. Who’s the camel jockey?”

  Talley explained that he was a prisoner who’d helped him escape. “He’s one of the good guys, Virgil. He deserves the best we can give him.”

  Talley ducked as a stream of bullets buzzed past them, but the firing was still panicked and wild. They picked Waled up and manhandled him down to the ground. They crossed to the British-built jeep and loaded the casualty onto the truck bed.

  “Stay with him, Virgil. I’ll recall the men. I reckon now is the time to go.”

  “Yeah, it’s pretty hot back there.” He grinned. “I guess we did something to upset them.”

  Talley ran around to the cab where Cate waited behind the wheel. “It’s good to see you Cate, all of you. I thought we were finished. You sure as hell saved my ass this time. I’ll go fetch the men, and I’d suggest cranking up the engine. When we leave this place, it’ll be pedal to the metal.”

  She smiled at him. “It’s good to see you too, Talley. I’ll start her up. You can take it from me; my foot’s going be flat on the floor the second you’re all on board.”

  He nodded and ran over to Rovere. He was fighting off a horde of Yemenis who’d tried to charge across the prison yard. Vince and Jerry poured clip after clip at the soldiers, each shot precisely aimed, and the result was a heap of bodies lying on the ground. Other Yemenis had taken cover, some of them behind the bodies of their dead comrades, and a serious firefight was building. Rovere and Reynolds kept firing short bursts that took a toll of the Yemenis, but more of them were appearing at every moment. It was obvious they’d be in serious trouble if they waited any longer.

  “We’re pulling out, Domenico. Get aboard the Land Rover, and I’ll call the snipers in. We’re out of time here, buddy, so move it.”

  The Italian nodded. “They recovered fast for prison guards. We expected them to fold as soon as we hit them.”

  “They’re not ordinary prison guards. They’re secret police.”

  “That explains a lot. Are you okay? They didn’t break anything?”

  “Nah, I’m fine. Take Roy with you and get out of here. I’ll pull Jerry and Vince in. It’s time to go.”

  Rovere looked puzzled. “You’re not coming with us?”

  “I have a small errand to do, my friend, a minute, no more. Get out of here. I’ll recall those snipers.”

  Rovere shrugged. “You’re the Boss. Come on, Roy, we’re leaving.”

  Talley noticed that Roy Reynolds hobbled away with a pronounced limp. There was no doubt he was in no fit state to be back in the field. But he felt proud that these men had stuck their necks out for him and risked everything to get him out. And Cate, who had rounded up Echo Six to get them into action. How the hell they obtained permission to come on this mission was a mystery he looked forward to getting answers to. But later, for the time being they had one objective, and that was to get the hell out of Dodge. To leave the cesspit that was the Republic of Yemen and return to somewhere more civilized. No, just civilized, there was no ‘more’. Whatever they had in Yemen, it sure wasn’t civilization. He sent a final burst of fire toward the oncoming troops and ran up the ladder to the watchtower. He stared down on Vince and Jerry, who were busy sniping at the hostiles to prevent them from regrouping. They both looked around fast when they sensed the newcomer in the tower, but relaxed when they recognized him.

  “Boss, where are you going?” Vince shouted at him. “We’ve only just rescued you. You should be back in that truck. Give us a few moments and we’re out of here.”

  “I know, Vince. I just want to leave them something to remember me by.”

  The sniper looked puzzled. “You’ll need to make it real fast.”

  “I will.”

  The body of the guard was still slumped on the machine gun. He wrestled him away from the butt of the gun and made sure the weapon was clear and ready to fire. He ejected the 75 drum magazine, made certain it was fully loaded, and snapped it back in the breach. He gripped the firing handles, levered the safety forward to full auto, and sighted along the barrel. They hadn’t noticed him yet. They were so preoccupied with trying to flush out the two snipers steadily whittling away at their numbers. Then he squeezed the trigger and held his finger down, arcing the barrel from side to side, and sweeping away the Yemenis as effectively as if he was using a broom. They went down like wheat before a combine harvester. It took less than ten seconds for the drum magazine to empty its 75 heavy copper-plated steel jacketed rounds, turning the prison yard into a charnel house. The advancing hostiles dropped like infantry during a First World War trench battle, until the few who remained alive were hunkered down or running back from whence they’d come. He shouted down to the snipers, “That’s it, men, we’re out of here.”

  He shinned down the ladder and jumped down to race to the waiting vehicle. Jerry and Vince were ahead of him, and they vaulted into the back, shouting at him to climb into the front cab. He wrenched open the door and climbed into the passenger seat. He closed the door, holding on grimly as Cate floored the gas. The heavy SUV roared away from the prison in a cloud of Yemeni dust. He looked across at her. Cate’s face was pale where it wasn’t smeared with soot and grime, but she stared ahead, fighting the wheel and guiding them to safety.

  “I’ll thank you later, Cate. First off, where are we headed?”

  “Al Luhayya, it’s a small port on the western coast of Yemen, on the Red Sea. There’re a couple of RIBs onshore. We’ll signal them when we’re close, and they’ll take us out of here.”

  “RIBs? You mean the Abraham Lincoln is in on this?”

  She didn’t answer as she fought to keep the vehicle on the road. They’d just hit a long series of deep ruts that caused the Land Rover to veer off the road and into a drainage ditch at the side. It would have damaged a lesser truck, but the British four-wheel drive was built like a tank. She steered back onto the road.

  “Damn right. When you were arrested by the Yemenis, I got through to Alexander and convinced him to do the right thing. He contacted the Qataris at Doha and arranged with a NATO friend of his for a Saudi two-seat F-15B Strike Eagle to fly me all the way back to Salalah, on the coast of Oman in the Arabian Sea.”

  He looked at her.

  Christ, she’s some woman.

  “That was fast. You must have brought out the sixteen inch guns to persuade Alexander to act so fast. I thought he was more of a straight arrow. Why did you go to him? I thought Colonel Hakim was our guy?”

  “That’s true, but you’re wrong about Alexander. I thought the same too once, but look how he bailed us out in Mogadishu with those Super Hornets.”

  “What about Colonel Hakim? Did he play a part in this?”

  She shook her head. “Somehow, Hakim doesn’t seem very enthusiastic. He used to be more gung-ho, but he’s changed since this operation began. He’s just not the same man. It’s not what you’d expect from a commander of Special Forces sending men behind the lines. But whatever the reason, Admiral Alexander sure lit a fire under his people. And here we are.”

  “Yeah, where exactly are we?”

  She smiled. “We’re about thirty minutes from the coast. It looks as if we may have got away with it. It’s not over, though. Not yet.”

  “What do you mean? We completed the mission, Barre is dead, Osman is dead, and we got the hostages out. That’s it, time to go home for R&R.”

  She shook her head. “I’ve been thinking about your arrest here in Yemen. It would have needed a pretty strong demand from the United Nations to make it happen, a demand from somebody very senior.”

  He grimaced. “Surely it was just revenge from the Somalis. They’re upset about our incursion into their pisspot country. Not only that, we cut off a major source of bribes. That’s all it amounts to.”

  “I don’t think so. We know that Jamal Osman was dirty, yet someone high up is still making waves about him being killed. It doesn’t make sense. I think that we’ve missed the main player. There’s still someone pulling the strings, someone highly placed inside the UN. We need to find him,” she said grimly.

  She swerved to avoid another huge hole in the road.

  How is it that in this poorest of countries, with millions of men idling their lives away, they can’t have a few road gangs out filling in the holes? Maybe there’s a religious objection to good roads. There seems to be an objection to just about every aspect of civilized life. Or maybe it’s a cultural objection to good, old-fashioned hard work.

  “Do you have any suspicions? Anyone in mind?”

  She gave him a significant look. “I guess we both have the same idea. But I don’t see how he could possibly be the one.”

  “You mean Colonel Hakim.”

  “Yes. But it’s difficult, not least because he’s an Arab and a Muslim. We can’t just investigate him. It’ll look like discrimination. And frankly, I think it may be discrimination. I know that when you look at Colonel Hakim, you see an Arab, the face of the enemy. He seems too obvious, too easy. Besides, I’m not sure he’s sufficiently senior. He’s NATO, not UN.”

  “Just because it’s too obvious, doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

  She didn’t reply. They’d hit a bad stretch of road, and she fought to keep the vehicle in a straight line. In front of them, they could see a small coastal town. Al Luhayya.

  “We’re heading for a small cove, and it’s about five klicks south of the town. The RIBs are waiting off the beach. It’s a perfect spot to hide the boats, surrounded by palm trees. We should see our turning before too long.”

  “Is it signposted?”

  She laughed. “Yeah, right, we left a marker so we wouldn’t miss it on the way back. It’s a piece of green rag tied to a tree.”

  “Like that?”

  He pointed to a tree thirty meters in front of the SUV. They were closing on it fast. She grunted and pulled the wheel over hard. The tough truck bounced on the springs as it swung through ninety degrees. There was a crunching noise as they hit a small boulder at the side of the track. She floored the gas pedal, and they accelerated away. The going was rough, loose stones, boulders, and chunks of debris. There were even a few skeletons of animals that had died and been abandoned, stripped of all their meat, and left to bleach in the sun. It was weird, like the landscape from some Spaghetti Western. As if Clint Eastwood was about to happen along on horseback, wearing a poncho, and chewing on a cigar. Talley heard someone tapping on the rear window of the cab, and he looked around. Rovere.

  “The Arab is pretty bad, Boss. Going at this speed, the jolting is not helping.”

  “Okay, I’ll see if we can slow down a little.”

  He looked across at Cate, but she’d heard. “I can’t slow down, Abe. Every second those boats have to wait on the beach gives more time for the Yemenis to come across them. They’ll be as mad as wounded bears, and if they find us, they’ll throw everything at us. I’m sorry, we have to keep going.”

  Rovere was listening. He nodded, “I’ll try and make him as comfortable as possible.”

  He slid the window closed, and Talley saw him talking to the men in back. They shifted around to try and give Waled more space, taking off their jackets to use as cushions underneath him. It was a touching scene; they were all travelers on the same path. No east or west, Christian or Arab. They were just men, showing care and concern for their wounded comrade.

  “If he was one of ours, would you have slowed down?” he asked her.

  She didn’t take her eyes of the road, deftly turning the steering wheel to try and avoid the constant procession of ruts.

  “No. We have to make that rendezvous, Abe. If those sailors are discovered, they’ll be imprisoned. Maybe killed. And we’ll be trapped in Yemen. They’ll kill us too. I don’t have a choice.”

  He nodded. “It’s a tough call.”

  “Yes, but one that has to be made.”

  They crested a hill, and in front of them, he could see an expanse of palm trees growing all the way to the edge of the beach.

  “That’s where we’re headed,” Cate said. “Just pray the Yemenis haven’t found them.”

  “We can do better than pray.” He turned and slid the back window aside. “Heads up, we’re approaching the coast. There could be bad guys in the area, so keep a good watch.”

  Rovere nodded. “We’ll be ready for them.”

  The snipers dropped into position, their rifles ready. The rest of the men took up positions around the truck bed. Talley poked his borrowed SCAR out of the passenger window and checked it was ready for use. With the safety engaged. On a jolting road, it was asking for trouble to select ‘fire’ unless you meant it.

  “We’re almost there,” Cate said to him. “If they’re going to hit us, it’ll be here.”

  It was then that he had a sudden thought. “Is Colonel Hakim running this operation? Or did Alexander take charge?”

  “No, Hakim is still in charge. Alexander just got behind everyone and made it happen. It’s not that he’s been shoved aside. It’s just that he doesn’t seem so keen to initiate action. It’s as if he’s holding back.”

  “You think he could have been pressured, somehow?”

  She shook her head. “I just don’t know. We need to get out of Yemen and dig a little deeper. Something doesn’t add up. I agree with that.”

  “No. But there’s a way to find out. If Hakim really is bent, there’ll be a reception committee waiting for us, an ambush. He would’ve warned them somehow. If the rendezvous is clean, it could be we need to look elsewhere.”

  “Providing we survive,” she replied drily.

  She slowed as the beach came in sight. “If they’re waiting for us, it’ll be around here.”

  “Yeah.” Talley looked carefully at the surrounding trees, the rocks, and the sand dunes close to the sea. But there was nothing. Except for two United States Navy RIBs drawn up on the beach at a point where the trees almost ran down into the water. It was as Cate had said; the perfect place to hide in. There was clearly no ambush party waiting for them, and they were in the clear. The four sailors who comprised the crew of the boats were armed with M16A3 assault rifles, the modern variant of the venerable series of rifles that had first seen service in Vietnam. The A3 was capable of firing on single shot and burst modes, as well as fully automatic. If the Yemenis had happened on the sailors, they would have received a hot response.

  She pulled up close to the beach. The men jumped down and began lifting Waled into the first boat. One of the sailors raised his eyebrows. He gave Talley a hard look.

  “A wounded Arab? What gives?”

  “He’s a friendly. Helped me to escape.”

  Talley’s gaze locked on him, and eventually the man relaxed. He shrugged, “That’s good enough for me. They’ll take good care of him on the Lincoln.”

  They boarded the boats, and the helmsmen wound the big outboard motors up to full power. They roared out into the blue waters of the Red Sea, leaving a huge wash that crested in their wake. Talley tapped the shoulder of the man in the bow.

  “How far away is the carrier, sailor?”

  “About ten kilometers, Sir.”

  “That’s pretty close for a nuclear carrier, especially in these waters.”

  “Damn right, Sir. There was a lot of opposition to it, but Admiral Alexander wanted the ship as close as possible for this operation. I guess if the camel jockeys don’t like it, we’ve got a few squadrons of Super Hornets to persuade them otherwise.”

  Talley smiled. “You got that right.”

  I wonder how many times the US and the other major powers have employed the strategy of gunboat diplomacy; pursuing foreign policy objectives by means of conspicuous displays of military power. The implication of a heavily armed warship off the coast is unmistakable, a direct threat of attack, should terms not be agreeable. Do as we say, or we start shooting. Sometimes it works, but other times it only makes the problem worse. There’s a time for talk, and a time for action. The trick is, knowing which is which. Most countries get it wrong. But then again, for countries like Yemen or Somalia, is there any ‘right’ solution? Probably not. They slaughter each other on a regular basis, and quite happily. They aren’t likely to be any less hostile to foreigners.

  The boats reached the Abraham Lincoln. They were helped aboard, and Talley was shown down to the same cabin he’d used before. After a shower and a change into yet another clean uniform they’d laid out for him, he went to locate the sick bay. Waled was lying on a clean bunk. They’d cleaned him up, dressed his wound, and he was linked to a blood transfusion. He looked up and smiled as Talley walked in.

  “My friend, I owe you my life. I shall be forever grateful. I didn’t think you could do it.”

  “And I owe you my life. Without you, I couldn’t have escaped that prison. You’re a brave man, Waled.”

  The Arab shook his head, but his face bore an expression of pride and pleasure at the praise.

  “I don’t think that’s true, Abe. You’d have beaten them with or without me.”

  They both looked around as the sickbay attendant entered the tiny room. No pretty nurses on this ship. The nurse was a tough looking Latino youth. But his concern for his patient was real enough. He approached the bed.