The Sixth Fleet Read online

  “You will have chewed all of this before this evening.

  Be patient. When this is gone there isn’t any more.”

  “Plus, we must not forget that you don’t like Naples because you got mugged last week, Taradin. You!” Anwar’s laughter filled the tiny apartment.

  “The renowned Taradin of Beirut held at gunpoint and robbed by petty thugs who pushed and shoved you while you did nothing but beg.”

  Taradin controlled his anger, as he had for the past two weeks.

  “We both know what is good about visiting Naples, Anwar.”

  “What’s that?” Anwar asked, his eyebrows raised.

  “That eventually we’re going to leave. It is a pigsty. It stinks. The air chokes you with the captured exhausts of its cars and the smoke of its factories and then they prey on everyone including each other, robbing, mugging, and shooting. I have never figured out why the Americans, who love their own comfort, would put so many of their people in this place. My family is safer in the Bekaa Valley, with only the Israeli Air Force to worry about, than they would be here.”

  Anwar beamed.

  “Oh, Taradin, you are never going to forgive them for the mugging. Besides, we know why the Americans are here. Their admirals are here and we can thank Allah for that. If they had kept Rota, Spain, we could never have gotten this close, for it is an isolated farming area. We would have been fingered within hours of arriving.

  They vacated London, praise be to Allah. The British have too much experience with their own terrorists, the Irish Republican Army, for us to be able to target the Americans and avoid their MI-5 at the same time.”

  “No, we are lucky they chose Naples to home port their leaders. The Americans have never allowed history to teach them lessons. They prefer to relearn them.” Anwar chuckled, then, changing the subject, continued.

  “Time to go. Take Kayal, Taradin, and start for Gaeta. Let us hope our practice runs have been enough. Kayal’s Hizballah brother departed Rome an hour ago and will do his job about the same time as you.”

  “It doesn’t take that long to drive to Gaeta, Anwar. Why leave now?” Taradin snapped.

  “Traffic, Taradin,” Anwar replied in a patronizing voice.

  “We’ve always done our practice runs at night when the natives were bunkered safely in their houses, or when those with common sense have evacuated Naples. It’s”—he looked at his watch—“six forty now and the workforce of this medieval city is already clogging the roads of the autopiste for your drive north. You need to be there by ten when the sun is setting. You’ll have to hurry.”

  Anwar walked to the couch. Drawing back, he slapped Kayal with all his might. The man’s head jerked to the side as the sound of skin on skin reverberated within the small apartment. The youth never stopped chewing nor uttered a word as Anwar’s handprint appeared in scarlet on Kayal’s left cheek.

  Anwar laughed, grabbing his stomach as his head tilted back.

  “Stupid people. They all are, Taradin. Khat makes them immune to pain, to the world around them, even to their own comfort. To them, khat is all that is important.

  The brain continues to send the word chew”—he waved his hands in a circle—“to the mouth regardless of what happens to the body.”

  Taradin pushed Kayal off him.

  “Fine, Anwar. For him it is his khat. For you, you have to beat someone. Now, quit hitting him. Every time you do he bounces against me and I have to push him back up. The question is how is he going to drive, drugged on the amount of khat you’ve been feeding him since this morning?”

  “He will. Won’t you, Kayal?”

  “Allah Alakbar!” Kayal muttered, spitting pieces of khat into Anwar’s face.

  Anwar wiped the wet mixture from his face with his left hand as he drew his right back to hit the man again.

  Taradin jumped up and grabbed his arm.

  “Stop it, my friend. We need him tonight and with you slapping and beating him every few minutes to amuse yourself he won’t be in any condition to do it.”

  “Maybe I should beat you instead, Taradin?” Anwar asked, shaking himself free from Taradin’s grip.

  “Remember, Anwar, you may be the leader of this team, but even Hizballah makes mistakes. Do not make one with me. I’m not Kayal. Now, go and make some coffee for him,” he said, pointing to Kayal.

  “Thanks to you he’s had too much khat.”

  At the word khat, Kayal reached out to paw Taradin’s hand. Taradin pushed the hand away.

  “No, Kayal. There is no more khat until we reach Gaeta.”

  Anwar stormed off toward the kitchen muttering Arabic oaths under his breath. Taradin caught the words mother and camel dung. Taradin swallowed his pride. Tomorrow would be soon enough to revenge the insult.

  Too much depended on each of them to begin fighting each other. Besides, Anwar was not an Islamic warrior.

  Islam never condoned either violence or the infliction of pain on the innocent and unprotected.

  It was hard to reconcile Islam with Anwar. The man was a sadist and Taradin hated as well as mistrusted him. Anwar boasted how he had been responsible for the successful interrogation of the American sailor snatched a week ago from Gaeta. It was true that without the information gained from the sailor they would never have known the schedule of the Sixth Fleet flagship, the USS La Sane. Neither would they have known that the commander of Sixth Fleet, Vice Admiral Gordon Cameron, was hosting a social gathering for his staff tonight at a popular bistro overlooking Gaeta.

  It was true. Anwar had been successful in the interrogation, but he took too much pleasure in this unfortunate aspect of war. He continued even after he had the information they needed!

  Taradin had seen the sailor’s body after the interrogation and hated the man he obeyed as the leader for this raid. He spit on the rug. Respect would never be given.

  The sailor’s mutilated body rested on the bottom of Naples Harbor, held down by concrete blocks tied to his feet. He was dead before they dumped him early this morning. If he had not been, Taradin would have killed him as an act of mercy. He wondered briefly how many dead bodies swayed in the currents of Naples Harbor.

  Anwar brought a tiny cup with thick, steaming Turkish coffee from the kitchen. Taradin took it from the reluctant Anwar and held it lightly against Kayal’s lips. He knew Anwar would have shoved the hot concoction into the drugged man’s mouth for the pleasure of watching the skin burn. Taradin was fed up with the constant bestiality. If possible, Anwar needed to accompany Kayal to paradise.

  His last bullet would see to that tonight.

  When Kayal finished sipping the strong coffee the two men forced the Yemeni to his feet and struggled down the stairs to the underground garage, where they wrestled him into the front passenger side of the dark blue Mercedes sedan.

  “There!” huffed Anwar after he shut the door.

  “Damn!

  He’s heavy.”

  “He’s a big man.”

  “Yeah, he’s yours now.” Anwar smiled. “And what good is he going to be in this condition?”

  “Don’t worry; Yemenis are resilient. Keep the khat away from him during the drive to Gaeta and by the time you arrive, he should be in that twilight zone of doing what he’s told without being sober enough to question it. Talk to him on the trip there and keep repeating what he’s to do so he doesn’t forget what it is.” Anwar reached into his pocket and gave an envelope to Taradin.

  “Here is an American Navy identification card with Kayal’s photograph on it and this sheet of paper is what they will ask for at the gate. It authorizes the car to drive onto the pier.”

  “Aiwa, ya effendi, but what does Kayal do when they ask him a question? He doesn’t speak English, you know.”

  “Ah, my friend. You have such little faith.” Anwar handed a folded paper to Taradin.

  “This is a medical slip written on a prescription sheet from the United States Navy Hospital forbidding Kayal from speaking because he has laryngitis
. All he has to do is point at his throat and they will wave him through. Put this sheet of paper in the window of the car. The gate guard will see it. Give these two papers, an American military ID card and a Naples Hospital medical chit, to Kayal and make sure he understands that he is to show it to the gate guard as he drives onto the pier. Understand?”

  “Yes, I understand,” Taradin answered curtly.

  “Do you think I haven’t done this before?”

  Anwar chuckled again, a high-pitched chuckle that grated on Taradin’s nerves and patience.

  “Taradin, I will see you around the corner after you turn the steering wheel over to Kayal. I will be with Qadafa, Sabiq, and Abu Tollah. Said Abu Said will join you at the corner where you get out.” Anwar looked at his watch.

  “Said Abu Said has been there about an hour now observing the Americans. When you arrive, if you do not see Said Abu Said, then keep driving. Don’t stop. Him being there is the sign that everything is all right and nothing has changed. Him not… well, then something is wrong.”

  Anwar opened his arms, as was customary, to hug Taradin. Taradin would sooner hug a tarantula. He ignored the gesture by turning abruptly and walking around the car to the driver’s side. He got in, leaving Anwar standing near the passenger door. Taradin cranked the car and backed out quickly from the parking space, coming as close as possible to Anwar, secretly hoping to see the man jump. Instead, what he got was a sneer from the cell leader, who never moved as the car narrowly missed him.

  As he drove out the exit, he noticed in the rearview mirror Anwar climbing into the front seat of another Mercedes parked in the lane behind where they had been parked. That would be the second vehicle with the assault team. Anwar had not mentioned the other car being here. Probably to ensure they didn’t change their mind. It never ceased to amaze him how untrusting the religious right was of its warriors. From what he had heard, it was the same in the Western world. Only minute differences separated religious zealots of all religions, politically correct do-gooders of America, and the old, decades dead, political commissars of the Soviet Union. Different ideas, skewed perspectives, same implementation methods.

  It was seven thirty before he reached the autopiste, only to find himself bumper to bumper in traffic inching out of the smog-laden city northward, sometimes reaching the mind boggling speed of ten miles an hour. At this rate, it would be morning before he reached Gaeta.

  An hour later Taradin remembered he should be preparing Kayal for his sacrifice.

  “Ah, Kayal,” Taradin said.

  “Tonight you join arms with Allah. How I envy you this opportunity to show your loyalty to the Islamic faith.” He felt silly doing this, but it worked. At least it did the three other times he had driven a suicide driver to his destination.

  The young man lay with his head against the closed window, his mouth open and sweat running down his head from the summer heat that was winning against the car’s air conditioner operating on full power. One eye opened slightly and seemed to focus on Taradin.

  “Then would you like to take my place?”

  Taradin was startled and failed to answer the question. He’d thought Kayal was unconscious.

  Kayal sighed.

  “Of course not. Taradin, I have been preparing to give my life for Allah since … since whenever.

  The khat was nice. I have lived with khat my entire life in Yemen. It affects me less than Anwar thinks, but our Iraqi brethren breathe easier thinking they know everything, including how corrupt and useless we Yemenis are.”

  “You’ve been faking?” Taradin asked in amazement.

  “A little. Khat is doing what it is supposed to do. It calms the fear skulking within the soul and it tempers the nerves as it channels the mind to the great single purpose at hand. Everyone in life has a single great purpose for which Allah put them here. Mine is to die for Him.”

  Taradin reached behind him and pulled the container from the floorboard of the backseat.

  “Here, Kayal.”

  “No, Taradin. I will greet Allah without the fog of khat.

  Save it. You may need it or, better yet, give it to Anwar and tell him I sent it.”

  “I’ll give it to Anwar, my friend. I chewed the stuff once and it made me sick as a dog.”

  Kayal laughed, his green teeth showing flakes of khat stuck to them.

  “Not supposed to swallow it.”

  “Now you tell me.” Taradin increased the car’s speed to sixty kilometers an hour as the traffic thinned out twenty kilometers north of Naples. He looked at the dashboard clock.

  “It’s nine o’clock.

  We’ve been on the road over an hour and a half.

  Hope they’re still there. We were supposed to be in Gaeta by ten and we still have sixty kilometers to go.”

  “Don’t hurry for my demise, Taradin.”

  “Sorry.”

  Kayal leaned back against the headrest and shut his eyes.

  “Allah will provide, Taradin. When events are organized such as this, the complexity of the events themselves produce obstacles. Obstacles that stop most. Obstacles most refuse to jump or go around or beat down. Obstacles that are greeted with thanks so they can rush back to the safety of home to tell everyone what an impossible task it was.

  Secretly breathing easier that they avoided danger for another day and safe in the knowledge their own cowardice can be blamed on others or ‘things’ for their failure. We will succeed tonight. It matters little if we succeed in one hour or two hours. The important thing is that we succeed.”

  “You don’t sound like the young man who spent the whole morning begging for khat, Kayal,” remarked Taradin.

  “I know, but sometimes it is better to let others view you as they think you are rather than show your true self.”

  He sighed.

  “Taradin, I am prepared for what I have to do.

  This has been my destiny since I was sixteen. Forty of us left Yemen to train in the hills of Lebanon under the tutelage of the Ayatollahs. We know what to expect at the moment of martyrdom. Martyrdom and I are one. We have more in common with the Japanese kamikaze pilots of World War II than we have with our fellow Arabs. We understand what drove them and why they chose the path they did.”

  Kayal shut his eyes and leaned back against the headrest. After a minute, Taradin thought he had fallen asleep; then Kayal spoke.

  “Taradin, drive quietly and let me sleep.

  I have to admit, as used as I am to khat, I was ill prepared for the amount Anwar shoved into me today.”

  Taradin acknowledged the request. He was amazed with himself on how his perception of Kayal had changed in the past ten minutes: a disgusting drug-crazed beggar had become a religious prophet destined for greatness.

  He drove the remaining sixty kilometers in silence, periodically checking the motionless figure snoring in the seat beside him. He was impressed how Kayal, a man about to die, was able to sleep. If he had known earlier what he knew now about the man, he would have killed Anwar for the disrespect shown this hero of Islam. He silently offered a prayer to Allah for the man who was to die in Allah’s name.

  * * *

  Taraoin slowed the Mercedes as he turned the dark blue luxury car onto the city street that circled Gaeta Harbor. Ahead, the USS La Sane, flagship of the Sixth Fleet, appeared gray and huge at the north end of the harbor.

  It was “Mediterranean moored”—stern to the pier. On the right side of the ship was the unexpected presence of the submarine tender USS Simon Lake. Taradin smiled. Bargain week at Gaeta, Italy. Two blocks later his smile broadened as a dark silhouette against the port side of the La Sane took form in the shape of an American attack submarine.

  Taking his eyes from the American warships, Taradin scanned the sidewalks for Said Abu Said as he drove slowly along the harbor street. A block before the road curved to the left, toward the entrance to the port facilities, he spotted his contact, leaning against a street lamp. He nearly missed the short, dwarflik
e man, but the raised nod of Said’s head caught his attention. Taradin jerked the steering wheel to the right, earning an angry blast from the driver behind him, and deftly pulled into a vacant parking spot twenty feet ahead of where Said stood.

  Taradin sat patiently while Said Abu Said remained leaning against the pole. Both of them waited a few minutes to see if Taradin had been followed. If so. Said would have walked away, leaving Taradin and Kayal to the consequences.

  Taradin reached over and woke Kayal.

  “We are here, brother.”

  The Yemeni stretched and nib bed his eyes.

  “A last sleep for the condemned, wouldn’t you say?”

  “A last sleep for the hero. Wait here. Said Abu Said is behind us. Let me talk with him and see if we are to continue.

  I’ll be right back.”

  “Sure. I’ve no place to go.” Kayal glanced back to where Said Abu Said stood.

  Taradin turned off the engine. Leaving the keys in the ignition, he shut the door behind him and walked around the car to the sidewalk. He looked in both directions. Satisfied, he nodded at Said, who returned the nod. The two men walked toward each other, meeting three cars down from where Taradin had parked.

  The sound of tires screeching caused both men to turn toward the Mercedes. Said started to run toward the car, but Taradin grabbed his arm and stopped him.

  “No! It’s too late.”

  They watched as Kayal swung the car into the right lane, causing an Italian Flat to swerve into oncoming traffic and clip the left front fender of a car in the other lane.

  Said pulled away from Taradin’s grip. “What’s he doing?” he said.

  “He’s supposed to wait until we are ready.

  Anwar will not be happy.”

  “Anwar is never happy. Be quiet!” Taradin responded.

  “Kayal is afraid we’ll ponder, discuss our plans, and find reasons to call it off. He has taken that away from us.”

  Then he whispered respectfully, “Go with Allah, Kayal.”

  “Anwar and the others are around the block,” Said said quickly, looking at his watch.

  “It’s after ten o’clock. We’re nearly on time. It will be dark in thirty minutes.”