Strike Force Alpha Read Free Page A

men were not to look at their employer as he was being taken from the car. He was in such a sorry state, Abdul didn’t want his hired guns to see him like this.
    All eyes averted, the chief bodyguard gently eased his boss out and helped him through the apartment building’s dilapidated front door. This was a safe house, a place Abdul had secured years before for just such an emergency as this. His bodyguard produced a key and turned it in the lock. The door sprang open.
    Only then did Abdul straighten up. He wanted to enter the house with dignity; not to do so would be considered bad luck. He shook off the bodyguard and ordered him back to the car. “Watch the entrance until further notice” was the man’s new order. The bodyguard hugged Abdul and departed.
    Abdul stepped inside. Downstairs was only one room, small and dark, no running water, no electricity. It also smelled of sewage. But Abdul didn’t care. The apartment was in such an obscure part of the city, no one would ever suspect he would flee here. Even his closest associates knew nothing about it. Nor did his wife or children. At last he would be safe.
    He took another sniff of the air. What was that other strange smell? And that dripping sound? He retrieved his Bic lighter, located a candle, and lit it. Then he turned around.
     
    They heard his screams out on the street.
    The entire squad of security men started for the door, but the chief bodyguard stopped them with a shout. He pulled a pistol from his belt. Only he would go in—at first.
    He walked through the front door and found Abdul doubled over, vomit covering his shoes.
    Hanging above him was a body. It was a young man; his throat had been cut. The corpse was upside down and strung from the ceiling in such a way that Abdul must have looked right into the eyes upon discovering it. The man’s pockets had been stuffed with wedding pastries. A pool of blood and crumbs had collected on the floor below.
    The bodyguard stared into those dead eyes and then vomited himself. The body was that of Abdul’s youngest son, Hamiz.
    But how could this be? Hamiz was in Jedda, studying at a madrassa under an assumed name. Who could have done this? And who could have known about this place and hung his body here?
    Something had also been stuffed into the dead boy’s mouth. The bodyguard retrieved it with shaking hands. It was a playing card. On one side was the ace of spades, except it was colored in red, white, and blue. On the other was a photograph of the World Trade Center in flames.
    Scrawled below the Twin Towers were the words: We will never forget.
    Mogadishu, Somalia
Two days later
    The place was called the Olympic Hotel.
    It was an infamous building, six stories, whitewashed top to bottom. Nearly a dozen years before, a horrendous battle had been fought near here between U.S. Special Forces and gunmen loyal to local warlord Mohammed Farrah Aideed. Months earlier, Aideed had stolen just about all the food the United States had delivered to the desperate city of Mogadishu. In a place where starvation killed nearly a thousand people a day, food was power. And Aideed wanted power.
    On that early October day, a top-level meeting between Aideed and his henchmen was in progress in the building next to the hotel. The U.S. troops, including members of the United States’ premier special ops unit, Delta Force, as well as many Army Rangers, had descended on the building in a swarm of Blackhawk helicopters. Their orders were to capture Aideed alive if possible, or, at the very least, bring in some of his high-level associates.
    But Aideed’s gunmen had been tipped off that the Americans were coming. They were waiting when the Blackhawks arrived overhead. Aideed’s soldiers were no ragtag army. Many were in league with al-Itihaad al-Islamic, also known as the Muslim Brotherhood. They’d been trained extensively by veteran Al Qaeda fighters and were armed to the teeth.
    Aideed’s men waited for the right moment,