Blood, Sand and Tears Part VI

[Silktie]

Half a calamity is better than a whole one.
- T.E. Lawrence


Thursday 7 July, before dawn
Tripoli

The ride through the breakers was bone-jarring, and Ruth gritted her teeth. The motion, added to the butterflies swarming in her stomach, made her feel slightly seasick. She was nervous about what lay ahead. It was one thing to go into the field back in England, with the back-up of the whole team and the billions of pounds’ worth of equipment that MI5 had at its disposal. But this was different. She and Harry were on their own, with only each other to rely on. They had no way of communicating with the HMS Liverpool once they reached land, as the Nato Alliance had destroyed all electronic communication capability in their bombing campaigns. If they risked sending any other type of communication, they would give away their presence and their position in Tripoli immediately.

All this meant that they were dependent on a pre-arranged schedule for their extraction. They would be picked up by helicopter on the outskirts of the city just before midnight. If they failed to make that rendezvous, they would be stranded until they could find their own way out. Ruth was also well aware that if there had been any other option, Harry would not have brought her along. But he needed her linguistic skills, as well as the ‘silhouette’ a couple would provide as opposed to two men or a single man. Because of all these complications, Harry exuded a calm, focussed intensity and it provided her with much-needed reassurance that things would work out. She knew, unequivocally, that for the hours they would be in Tripoli, Harry was not the man who had been so supportive the previous night. He was no longer her lover; instead he was the defender of the realm, and all else paled into insignificance beside that obligation.

“Brace for beaching!” Benson called out, and they did as they were told. She glanced at Harry, but could not make out his expression in the darkness. There was a slight reduction in speed as Benson pulled back on the throttle, waiting for the right moment to make his run onto the beach. A wave lifted them and he gunned the craft forward at an angle. It ran onto the sand with a hard bump and a low grumble of the engine, which Benson killed immediately. By the time Ruth had found the release of the harness strapping her into the seat, the SAS soldier was out of the craft and crouched on the sand, scanning the surroundings with his carbine at the ready. Harry was over the side quickly after with a similar weapon in hand. She grabbed the bag and dropped over the side behind Harry’s bulk, and froze. They held their positions for long minutes, tensely waiting, listening. The only sound was the breaking of the waves on the beach. Once he was satisfied that there were no surprise reception parties waiting, Harry tapped the young soldier on the shoulder and handed him his weapon. He helped push the craft back into the water before taking Ruth’s elbow and leading her across the sand towards the tall hotel about half a kilometre away. Behind them they heard the almost inaudible growl as the craft’s engine fired and faded quickly into the distance. They were on their own, in enemy territory.

There was a bite in the air and Ruth fleetingly pondered the extremes of living in the desert – as soon as the sun climbed above the horizon the mercury would rise mercilessly, but in the pre-dawn hour it was chilly. She shivered in her lightweight clothing as she scurried after Harry, who was headed for the shelter of the shack where one rented beach chairs in front of the hotel. He jimmied the lock effortlessly and ushered her inside before closing the door quietly behind them.
“Best wait here until people start to stir in the hotel,” he murmured softly.
She nodded and rubbed her arms in an attempt to get warm. Harry rummaged in their holdall and took out the camera bag. He removed the camera and reached inside once again, bringing out a gun. Ruth’s eyes widened; she had been unaware of its presence. Harry looked around the small shack and moved over to seat himself astride a bench against the wall, then glanced at his watch. They had another two hours to kill. Ruth still stood in the middle of the room, rubbing her arms.
“Come here,” he commanded softly. When she did so, he pulled her down on the bench between his legs and wrapped his arms around her to keep her warm. They stayed like that, quietly waiting for the time to pass. The gun lay within easy reach on the bench next to Harry.

* * *

Two hours later

The lobby of the Marriott was busy as Harry and Ruth strolled in casually. Most of the oil companies doing business in Libya booked their people into this hotel, and there were a number of men and women in business attire milling around, evidently waiting for transport to their offices. They went up to the reception desk, and Harry enquired about booking a room for two nights. He handed over their cover passports, and whilst the clerk had one eye on completing the documentation, Ruth paged through the guide book and quizzed him on what sights were worth seeing.
“But is it safe to move around the city?” she sighed mournfully, putting on her best upper class accent.
“Oh yes, Ma’am. As long as you stay away from military buildings and political gatherings, it’s quite safe. The Old City in particular; I think the NATO countries know they will lose the goodwill of the people if they should bomb the Old City.”
Ruth paged around some more. Harry grunted impatiently, “Look, do you offer guided tours through the Old City?”
“Yes, Sir, there is a daily tour. It departs from here in an hour’s time.” He handed over a pamphlet. The Gurgi Mosque featured prominently on the cover.
“I think it will be better to join a tour than blunder around on our own, darling,” Harry said to Ruth, and thrust the pamphlet at her.
“Can you book us on today’s tour?”
Ruth rolled her eyes, and leaned in to the clerk to confide, “He has no spirit of adventure.”
Harry’s eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me? We’re here, aren’t we?”
“Yes, dear,” Ruth responded, “but only because you have a business meeting tomorrow.”
“For God’s sake,” Harry muttered with a long-suffering look at the clerk. “Come on, we’re wasting this man’s time.”
He marched her off across the lobby, and the clerk watched them go with a smirk, convinced that he’d just met a businessman and his wife of many years, looking for ways to kill time.

* * *

They trailed along with the guided tour for hours on end. Ruth wished that she could be here as a tourist rather than a spook, because Tripoli had a long history dating back to Roman times, and normally she would have found the tour fascinating. Today, however, she struggled to concentrate on the guide’s words. Harry played the bored husband to perfection, but she knew that behind the sunglasses his eyes missed nothing. He noted the presence of every soldier, every likely threat and every possible escape route wherever they went. There were fifteen people on the tour, and Ruth was grateful for the number, as it diluted the attention they received from the guide and their fellow tourists. Harry discouraged conversation by giving short stiff answers to any direct questions, and the others soon lost interest in the boring English couple.

And now, at long last, it was time to visit the Gurgi Mosque. Ruth tamped down her impatience when the guide gathered the little group around him across the road from the mosque, and launched into a detailed explanation of its history. Suddenly she just wanted it all to be over. Harry lifted a water bottle to his lips and took a long draught, before wiping the sweat from his brow. She was glad to notice how steady his hands were. The guide moved on to the do’s and dont’s of behaviour within a mosque, whilst Harry slowly turned his head and observed activity up and down the street. All appeared normal. As the guide began to lead them towards the mosque, Harry leaned in and put his lips to Ruth’s ear.
“As soon as we have the information we should split from the tour group. I’ll fake a work call and we’ll take a taxi to one of the outlying suburbs, and lie low.”
She nodded, and they followed the guide into the cool interior.

Inside it was beautiful, but Ruth hardly noticed. The group was about to split into men and women so that they could enter the separate prayer halls, and she and Harry hung back. When the guide turned his back, they ducked behind a pillar and swiftly moved towards the western wall, where Yushua had told them they would find a plaque indicating the tomb of the mosque’s founder. Their shoeless feet made no sound as they hurried along, making sure to keep the pillars between them and the rest of their group. They reached the wall and Harry moved along it swiftly, his eyes seeking ahead. He found the plaque halfway down the hall. They stopped in front of it and pretended to study the tomb. Yushua had said that he would wedge the information behind the plaque, and Harry stepped forward. Just as he was about to begin probing around it with his fingers, Ruth nudged him, and he noticed the Imam bearing down on them.
“Bollocks,” Harry muttered, and Ruth had no time to think about the inappropriateness of his language before the Imam was upon them.

Harry stepped in front of Ruth, blocking the Imam’s view of her. He greeted the man deferentially, mentally preparing an excuse for their presence in this part of the mosque. The Imam did not give him a chance to speak further.
“You must leave immediately. There is a political march coming this way, and it will be better for Westerners to be clear of this area before it arrives.”
Harry thought frantically; all they needed was a few unattended seconds to search for the information. “Thank you,” he responded. “The rest of our group is by the main entrance, will you warn them at once?”
“It has already been done, your tour guide sent me to look for you.”
“Oh, right then,” Harry said feebly, cursing the sense of responsibility of the guide.

Ruth stepped out from behind Harry, and addressed the Imam in Arabic. “May I ask you a question while we walk?” she asked meekly.
The Imam was greatly surprised to hear her speak Arabic so well. “Of course,” he responded, and as Ruth moved off he followed to be able to hear what she was saying. Harry gave them a few seconds, before turning back and hurriedly searching the plaque. He found the small memory stick wedged into a hollow in the marble at the bottom. After removing it and slipping it into his pocket, he quickly caught up with Ruth and the Imam, and followed them to the door. She looked at him over her shoulder, and he gave her a slight nod.

As they neared the main entrance, they could hear increased noise from the street outside. Their little tour group stood huddled together just inside the door, fear etched on their faces.
“We need to make a run for the bus,” their guide announced.
Harry looked at him incredulously. “That’s crazy. What will we do once we reach it? You won’t be able to drive anywhere, and we’ll be trapped inside. We need to stay on foot, and move towards the hotel.”
A few of the others agreed with Harry, but the guide insisted, and a heated argument broke out. Out of the corner of his eye Harry spotted two men in military uniforms moving toward the mosque.
He didn’t wait around to hear what the group decided. “We have to move,” he told Ruth urgently, and steered her into the street.

They were immediately swept up in bedlam. People swirled past, waving banners and posters, but Harry couldn’t figure out whether it was against or in support of Gaddafi. He grabbed hold of Ruth’s hand. “We need to move towards Al Kamush Road,” he shouted, aware that the masses were moving in the opposite direction. It would be impossible to go against the tide. He stepped into the crowd and allowed it to sweep them along.
“We’ll take the next left and try to double round via the smaller alleys.”
Ruth nodded, and held on to his hand tightly. If she lost him now, they would spend hours trying to find each other again.
“What are they saying?” Harry asked. She listened for a moment to the slogans being shouted all around them, and swallowed hard when she realised what was going on.
“It’s an anti-government rally,” she said with trepidation.
Harry’s face was grim, and he strained his neck to look down the street, but he couldn’t see over the heads of those in front of him. He lifted his eyes to the rooftops, scanning them frantically, and spotted the soldiers spread out along them with cold dread.
“Oh, God.” He pulled Ruth to his other side, putting himself between her and the marksmen he could see.

He desperately looked around, trying to find a place that would afford cover from the men on the roofs. An alarming thought had occurred to him – the possibility that any Westerners caught up in the crowd would be seen as instigators and targeted. They were coming up to the first side street, but his hope of escape was dashed by the armoured vehicle blocking it.
“They’re hemming them in.”
Ruth almost lost her footing as they were shoved hard from the back, and Harry hauled her upright. He concentrated his efforts on keeping her on her feet and shielding her as much as possible from the excited people around them.
And then the first shot cracked over their heads. There was a moment of stunned calm, during which the crowds before them parted slightly and Harry spotted a narrow alley to their left. In a split second total chaos erupted, as people started shoving in all directions, screaming and shouting even louder. The gunfire picked up, and Harry initially thought that the shots were aimed to pass over their heads, but then he saw a few people go down. He roughly shoved Ruth in the direction of the alley, unscrupulously shouldering people out of the way to get there. Ruth heard him grunt and felt him stumble behind her, but then he was pressing hard against her back again, and they broke through and into the alley.
“Move!” he ordered, and when she looked round she saw him grimace in pain. But he gave her no time to react, instead urging her on relentlessly until they burst into a quieter street.

They stopped momentarily to get their bearings, and that’s when she noticed the blood.

tbc