Abernathy and Porter turned and started running through the enveloping gray toward the eastern end of the bridge. Sanders was right behind. Five hundred yards away members of their remote detachment waited behind a makeshift fortification of demolished cars and the crumbling remains of bombed-out buildings. Behind the precarious team’s position was nothing but the disintegrating skeletons of Rhoda Island’s assailed apartment houses and hotels. The once majestic island near the contested river’s eastern bank was scarcely more than smoldering rubble. Mourad’s artillery barrages had flattened all but a handful of the historic isle’s structures.
“Come on, guys,” Sanders called out as they neared their own lines. “I’m serious. This is really important. How’s it look? ’Cuz it’s critical it be positioned just right. I don’t want to take any chances here. I need to be at my best. You never know when you’re going to turn a corner and find yourself face-to-face with a pretty girl with love on her mind.”
“Sanders,” Abernathy said, “I’m afraid the only women you’re going to find out here at this time of the morning are carrying rifles. And love’s not what they’re looking for. The sole thing they’re thinking about is putting a bullet into that precious beret of yours.”
“That’ll never happen. Not to me. Not a bullet’s been made with my name on it.”
“God,” Porter said, “I’d almost forgotten what it’s like to be twenty-three and believe you’re invincible. So tell me, Charlie, how does it feel to still think you’re immortal?”
“Pretty damn good, that’s for sure.”
“Sanders,” Abernathy said, “why in the world are you worried about meeting women? What’s the matter, your three fiancées back in North Carolina not good enough for you?”
“Don’t forget the pretty German girl who thinks he’s on his way back to marry her,” Porter added.
“Look,” Sanders said, “a guy can never have enough women in his life.”
“Take it from someone who’s on his third wife and speaks from experience,” Abernathy said. “You can have too many women. Just ask my second wife. She’ll be glad to explain it to you. Just like she never stops explaining it to me when I pick up the kids for the weekend.”
The trio was in magnificent physical shape. They swiftly covered the substantial distance across the broad causeway. The instant they reached the eastern bank, all three disappeared behind the makeshift barricades. The overwhelming tension of the previous hour’s exceptionally onerous task and Sanders’s self-assured attitude were too much for them to bear. The results were quite strange, but utterly predictable. The second they were safe they burst into laughter.
Captain Morrow, the A Team leader, was waiting. A puzzled expression came over his face at the sight of the laughing soldiers.
“What the hell’s so damn funny?”
“Nothing, sir,” Abernathy said between suppressed giggles.
They glanced at their disapproving commander. Each soon realized they looked like giddy schoolgirls. The laughter stopped.
“How’d it go?” Morrow asked.
“Piece of cake, sir,” Sanders answered. “Only thing I need is to hook the leads to the detonator, and we’ll be all set. After that, you give the word and boom, no more bridge.”
“Go ahead and wire it up. But don’t blow it until I give the order. I want to wait until the last possible moment to ensure anyone trying to escape Mourad’s army still has a way to cross the Nile.”
“There haven’t been any civilians on it in nearly two hours, sir. Not since that last big Pan-Arab attack. Obviously, the enemy’s cut off the escape routes across the river.”
“You’re probably right, Sanders. Even so, wait for my signal before you hit that switch. If there’s a chance in a thousand of saving one more person, we’ll hold out until the last possible second.”
“I can’t believe when they’re captured,” Porter said, “the lunatics are giving the Egyptians one opportunity to accept Mourad’s brand of Islam and join their side. Men, women, children, it doesn’t make any difference to that sorry old fool’s followers. From what I heard, even the slightest hesitation and a nasty-looking sword the company political officer carries separates their head from their shoulders.”
“At least the Egyptians are getting an opportunity to say yes,” the captain said. “If the Mahdi’s ghouls get their hands on any of us, they won’t ask a single question before the ax falls.”
“I tell you what, sir,” Porter added. “I’m already so sick of all this I’m about to puke. If I see another innocent person’s severed head, I’m personally going on a one-man scouting expedition to locate the Mahdi’s headquarters. If I find him, he won’t get a chance to say anything either before I slit his throat from ear to ear. I’m sure we’d all love to see how his perverted little head looks once it’s dangling from a pole.”
Each of those present, however, realized with millions of the Chosen One’s henchmen closing in, they weren’t likely to get such an opportunity anytime soon. From the looks on their faces, they all understood the grim reality of their situation.
Sanders didn’t care to think about it further. He suspected if he stayed busy, the desperateness of the assignment would temporarily fade. The detachment’s junior sergeant took the wire cutters from his rucksack and stripped the tips from the primer cord. In the dull half-light, he attached the leads to the detonator. It wasn’t until he finished that he realized three of the team’s members weren’t present.
“Where’s Staff Sergeant Donovan’s team?”
“They haven’t come back from wiring the bridge behind us to blow,” Master Sergeant Terry, the team’s senior operations sergeant, said.
“I hope nothing’s happened to them,” Morrow said. “If Mourad’s forces have gotten around behind us and captured the second bridge, we’ll be trapped on this island with no way of escape.”
“I’d be more worried, sir, about being stuck here because Donovan screwed it up and blew the passage behind us by mistake,” Sanders responded.
“Okay, Charlie, that’s enough,” Terry said. “We all know how you feel about Donovan’s demolition skills. Why don’t you cut the guy some slack? We’re short an engineer, so even though it’s Donovan’s secondary specialty, he’s having to fill in.”
The Special Forces detachment was supposed to have twelve men: two officers, two operation sergeants, two medics, two weapons specialists, two communication specialists, and two engineers. Each member was proficient in one of the other skills as a secondary specialty. With such an arrangement there’d be redundancy for every activity. Like most A Teams, however, this one was short a few people. Detachment Alpha 6333 had arrived in Cairo thirty-six hours earlier with only ten men. They were minus one officer and an engineer. Thus far they’d been extremely lucky. In their hours on the front lines they hadn’t lost a single member. Even so, each understood such good fortune wouldn’t last forever.
Minus an engineering specialist, the team’s newest member, Staff Sergeant Donovan, had been forced into performing his secondary skill.
“But Donovan hasn’t done a single practice demolition right since he joined our team last month,” Sanders said. “Captain, why don’t I go back and check on them?”
“That’s just what I need,” Morrow responded. “Send my sole engineer out to search for a missing team. What a brilliant idea. We’re going to need someone to handle all kinds of demolition projects in the coming days. What do you suggest I do if you don’t come back, Sergeant Sanders?”
“If I don’t come back it’ll probably be because I’m dead. So to be honest with you, sir, at that point I’d probably not care much one way or another what you do.” A silly grin came over his face.
“Very funny, smartass. The answer’s no. You’re staying right here to blow this bridge.”
“Even so, sir,” Terry said, “Sanders has a point. Th
ey’re overdue. It’s only six blocks to the other side of the island. Maybe we’d better send someone back to check on them.”
“Okay, Abernathy and Porter, if you think you can stop laughing long enough to help us out here, why don’t you head over to find them.”
“Sir,” Abernathy said, “if you’ll promise to keep Sanders here, we assure you there’ll be no more laughter on our part.”
“Count on it. I’ll tie him to the hood of this car and let the Pan-Arabs use him for target practice if it’ll help this team accomplish its mission.”
* * *
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