Read Online The Third Target by Joel C Rosenberg - Free Book Online
Authors: Joel C Rosenberg
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alone, in the open, being shot at with no one around me who could shoot back, no weapons, and no way to defend myself.
Almost before I had time to think, Abdel dove in beside me, and Omar right behind him. Abdel was shouting something in Arabic I couldn’t quite make out in the cacophony. Omar was breathing as hard as I was. By the way he was shaking, I guessed he was probably just as afraid as I was that his heart was going to explode out of his chest even before he was shredded by bullets and left to bleed to death in an open field. But there was no time to commiserate.
“We can’t stay here!” I shouted.
“Well, we can’t keep going,” Omar shouted back. “They’ll kill us all.”
“We should just stay,” Abdel yelled. “They have to reload eventually.”
“But when they do, we need to move fast,” I yelled back. “I’ll go first, but don’t follow me. We need to break up. Head out in three differentdirections. Pick a building, each a different one. Then we’ll regroup on the front side. Hopefully it will be quieter over there.”
“No, no, we need to stay here,” Abdel shouted at me.
I shook my head vigorously and tried to rally my men. “If we do, we’re dead!”
No sooner had I spoken the words than there was an ever-so-brief lull. This was it, I thought. We had to move now.
“Go, go, go!” I shouted, springing to my feet and running again.
I didn’t look back. I couldn’t. But sure enough, moments later, the machine-gun nest roared back into business. Bullets pulverized the walls all around me, but somehow I burst through the rear entrance of the building, out of the line of fire, unscathed.
Now, however, I really was alone. I could hear mortars and artillery shells landing close by and moving closer. The explosions grew louder, and I both sensed and felt the already-pummeled and fragile building above me rocking and swaying with every concussion. I began to wonder how much more the structure could take. There was no reason I could think of for anyone to be firing directly at it. But what if a shell or two went astray? What if the building were hit? Might the whole thing come toppling down?
It occurred to me that no one back home had any idea where I was. Allen MacDonald, my editor in Washington, thought I was merely heading up to the Lebanese–Syrian border to interview refugees about the latest battles in the village of Al-Qusayr, since that’s all I had told him after he shot down my Ramzy pitch. My mother thought I was going to Beirut to interview a Hezbollah commander. My brother? I hadn’t talked to him in years.
Standing in a long, dark hallway, the floor rumbling beneath me, I had absolutely no idea what was in front of me. But I couldn’t turn back now. So I stumbled my way down the hallway, groping in the near pitch-dark with one hand, my other hand touching the wall, as shards of broken glass crunched beneath me.
I felt something run across my feet and then something else. I immediately kicked the second one away, but a shudder ran down my spine. What were they? Rats? What exactly was I heading into? My imagination kicked into overdrive.
Just then, in darkness so complete I could no longer see my hand in front of my face, I stumbled over something and crashed to the floor. I had no idea what it was, but it was large and yielding and my hands slid along the floor tiles into something wet and sticky and cold. Repulsed, I wiped my hands on my khakis and felt around for the iPhone in my jacket. I pulled it out, punched in the security code, and clicked on the flashlight app. Instantly, I realized I had landed in a pool of coagulating blood. The fact that it was not yet completely dry made me shudder all over again. I turned and pointed the camera behind me and froze as I stared down into the lifeless eyes of a young boy, no older than fourteen or fifteen, shot at least a dozen times, his white, stiff hands in a death grip around an AK-47.
Click. Click. Click. My
Almost before I had time to think, Abdel dove in beside me, and Omar right behind him. Abdel was shouting something in Arabic I couldn’t quite make out in the cacophony. Omar was breathing as hard as I was. By the way he was shaking, I guessed he was probably just as afraid as I was that his heart was going to explode out of his chest even before he was shredded by bullets and left to bleed to death in an open field. But there was no time to commiserate.
“We can’t stay here!” I shouted.
“Well, we can’t keep going,” Omar shouted back. “They’ll kill us all.”
“We should just stay,” Abdel yelled. “They have to reload eventually.”
“But when they do, we need to move fast,” I yelled back. “I’ll go first, but don’t follow me. We need to break up. Head out in three differentdirections. Pick a building, each a different one. Then we’ll regroup on the front side. Hopefully it will be quieter over there.”
“No, no, we need to stay here,” Abdel shouted at me.
I shook my head vigorously and tried to rally my men. “If we do, we’re dead!”
No sooner had I spoken the words than there was an ever-so-brief lull. This was it, I thought. We had to move now.
“Go, go, go!” I shouted, springing to my feet and running again.
I didn’t look back. I couldn’t. But sure enough, moments later, the machine-gun nest roared back into business. Bullets pulverized the walls all around me, but somehow I burst through the rear entrance of the building, out of the line of fire, unscathed.
Now, however, I really was alone. I could hear mortars and artillery shells landing close by and moving closer. The explosions grew louder, and I both sensed and felt the already-pummeled and fragile building above me rocking and swaying with every concussion. I began to wonder how much more the structure could take. There was no reason I could think of for anyone to be firing directly at it. But what if a shell or two went astray? What if the building were hit? Might the whole thing come toppling down?
It occurred to me that no one back home had any idea where I was. Allen MacDonald, my editor in Washington, thought I was merely heading up to the Lebanese–Syrian border to interview refugees about the latest battles in the village of Al-Qusayr, since that’s all I had told him after he shot down my Ramzy pitch. My mother thought I was going to Beirut to interview a Hezbollah commander. My brother? I hadn’t talked to him in years.
Standing in a long, dark hallway, the floor rumbling beneath me, I had absolutely no idea what was in front of me. But I couldn’t turn back now. So I stumbled my way down the hallway, groping in the near pitch-dark with one hand, my other hand touching the wall, as shards of broken glass crunched beneath me.
I felt something run across my feet and then something else. I immediately kicked the second one away, but a shudder ran down my spine. What were they? Rats? What exactly was I heading into? My imagination kicked into overdrive.
Just then, in darkness so complete I could no longer see my hand in front of my face, I stumbled over something and crashed to the floor. I had no idea what it was, but it was large and yielding and my hands slid along the floor tiles into something wet and sticky and cold. Repulsed, I wiped my hands on my khakis and felt around for the iPhone in my jacket. I pulled it out, punched in the security code, and clicked on the flashlight app. Instantly, I realized I had landed in a pool of coagulating blood. The fact that it was not yet completely dry made me shudder all over again. I turned and pointed the camera behind me and froze as I stared down into the lifeless eyes of a young boy, no older than fourteen or fifteen, shot at least a dozen times, his white, stiff hands in a death grip around an AK-47.
Click. Click. Click. My
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