Globusz^® Publishing 

After four hours of sleep and a relaxing breakfast at a small cafe in Ismailly, Henry followed the direction that Hoskins gave him and drove to the terrorist checkpoint building. He got out of his car holding a map and hoping to appear like a lost tourist. It did not take long before two young guards came out of the building and approached him with their rifles at the ready.

“Please don’t shoot,” Henry said, “I just need directions to Sheki,” he said as he held up his map and hurried to get back in his car like he was scared for his life. Henry held some dollar bills out the window and said, “Please don’t shoot me, I just wanted directions, I would pay you.”

The guards looked at each other and laughed before one of them put his strapped rifle over his shoulder and grabbed the money from Henry and told him to get out of the car so he could give him directions.

Henry laid the map on the hood of the car and called the first soldier’s attention to it. As the soldier leaned over to look at the map, Henry pulled a pistol out from under his coat and put a bullet into the other guard’s leg the minute he looked away from them. He then quickly turned his gun on the startled guard that was next to him.

“I need you to drive me up to your camp, if you do as I say you will live, but if you’re going to cause me trouble I’ll kill you right now.”

The soldier dropped his rifle to the ground and put his hands in the air.

“Get in your jeep, you’re doing to drive,” Henry said as he and the soldier walked around to the side of the building. The soldier went to the driver’s side staring at Henry with his hands held above his head, and with one quick reflexive move the soldier sent a throwing knife directly at Henry, who was expecting as much, but was still nearly caught off guard. He was barely able to move out of the way as the sharp blade caught the fold of his jacket. Henry instinctively fell to the ground and fired a volley of shots under the jeep and into the lower legs and feet of the knife throwing guard who immediately collapsed to the ground in a crippled heap.

Henry walked around the jeep and said, “What’s with you people and knives anyway? And what the hell don’t you like about this coat? Take that shirt off before you get it more dirty than it already is.” Henry put on the soldier’s shirt and hat and grabbed a knapsack from the trunk of his rented car and threw it into the back of the jeep. He reached into the glove box of the jeep, pulled out a first aid kit and threw it over to the soldier that has one bullet in his leg.

“You’d better crawl over and patch him up before he dies,” Henry said as he pulled the radios from both men’s belts and tossed them and their guns far into the wooded area before he got into the jeep and drove up the mountain road.

Driving slowly and looking at the directions that Hoskins gave him, Henry got to the summit of the mountain and saw two armed guards out in front of the cave entrance. He pulled the jeep off the side of the road hoping that the guards did not see him, or thought that he was one of their comrades. He reached into the knapsack he brought and pulled out the parts for a small laser-guided rocket launcher that he quickly assembled. He left the jeep and worked his way west of the cave entrance and onto a small ridge where he had a good unobstructed view of both the cave and the paramilitary camp that was located in the lower valley on the side of the mountain. He sat down on a large boulder and reached into the knapsack for a missile that he loaded into the launcher. He placed the launcher on his shoulder and adjusted the scope to focus in on the cave. Henry took his time and sighted in on the two guards and the area in front of the cave, and he noticed that the guards were lackadaisically walking back and forth in front of the gate at the mountain road entrance to the cave area. Henry waited until they were directly in line with the mouth of the cave and then squeezed the trigger on the launcher. The missile soared across the range and directly into the cave entrance before the two guards had time to realize what had occurred. The projection of the blast from the cave literally blew the two guards out of their shoes, over the gate, and a hundred feet down the mountain. The explosion sent a large plume of smoke and dust into the sky.

Instead of waiting for the smoke and dust to clear so he could check the damage, Henry loaded another missile into the launcher and turned his attention to the soldiers’ compound. Using the launcher’s scope, he scanned the grounds around the camp until he found what looked like a barracks. He saw a group of uniformed men running around trying to figure out where the explosion came from. Fortunately the billowing smoke and dust from the cave was being blown out of their sight and down the eastern side of the mountain. Henry saw an officer at the camp ordering some men around and saw a few of the soldiers opening a door that led underground. Henry locked his scope in on the door hoping it led to their ammunitions supply and sent the missile flying. Several smaller explosions soon followed the explosion from the missile before culminating in a massive blast as the underground arsenal erupted and shook the earth. This sent the rest of the soldiers running in all directions to escape the fire and shrapnel caused by the explosions. Henry sent the next missile at the barracks and another at the garage that ignited the fuel tank next to it raining fiery debris that engulfed the small fortification.

With one missile left, Henry looked back to the cave where the smoke and dust had finally cleared. He silently cursed to himself when he saw that he literally blew the roof off the cave entrance, but in its place he saw the strong metal door that was used to protect the occupants in the inner rooms of the cave from this kind of attack. He scoped the area of the doorway looking for the best place to put the missile. He checked around the archway of the door, looking for a crevice that might allow him to get the missile in deep enough to rip off the door and cause major damage inside. With not much to work with, Henry settled for a crack in the outer cave wall near the doorway that would hopefully cause enough of a tremor to bring part of the mountain down and bury the door and the occupants forever. He loaded the last missile, put the launcher back on his shoulder, and focused in on his target. He put the crack in the wall in the crosshairs of the scope and slowly began to squeeze the trigger, but then he stopped. He thought that he saw something move near the target, so he refocused the scope in on the same area and waited to see if anything moved again. After a minute, he finally saw it again. The steel door had a round steel plate that was mechanically controlled from the inside to give the occupants an airway or peephole to check outside. Obviously someone was still in there and they were wary enough to not keep the window open too long. Henry watched patiently while the peeper opened the steel window for maybe five seconds before he closed it back up. He watched and waited as the occupants got braver and the five seconds now became ten. He put the window in the cross hairs and waited for the steel plate window cover to slide open. Henry relaxed his trigger finger by thinking of how nice it will be if they have a large cache of explosives inside the cave. He turned on the laser control and refocused the crosshairs directly on the peephole. When the steel plate slid again, Henry launched the missile. He continued watching through the scope as the projectile shot directly into the hole. Henry stood up to survey the blast, and he was disappointed because the explosion appeared at first to be muted by the strength of the steel door. He started to gather up his gear and got ready to leave the area, when all of a sudden the mountain over the cave exploded like an erupting volcano. Henry figured that the fire from the incendiary missile finally caught up to some hidden oxygen tanks or explosives. The bottom line was that the private cave hideout of Tariq Amin was now nothing more that a large crater in the side of the mountain.

Henry got into the jeep and drove up to the cave area dodging the large rocks that now riddled the road. He then drove down the road from the mountain cave to the terrorist compound. When he got near the camp he parked off the side of the road and proceeded on foot through the camp, on the alert for any survivors. He found that most of the soldiers were burned alive when they tried to escape in their vehicles that were engulfed in flame when the missile hit the fuel tank by the garage.

Henry went into the now roofless barracks that was still smoldering. He went through the soldiers’ lockers looking for an oxygen mask that he was thankful to find. He put on the mask and made his way past the line of burning bunk beds and lockers until he found what he’s looking for. He kicked in the door that had the name ‘Tafar Rusolin’ on it. He went in the office and rifled through the dead man’s desk and scanned every piece of paper he could find, but nothing of interest jumped out at him. Thinking that Rusolin was probably smart enough not to leave any clues lying around, Henry decided that he’d better leave the barracks in case there were any explosives in the still burning building. As he moved to the doorway to leave the office, he stopped when he saw something that looked familiar. On the wall on the left side of the office door was the same picture of the lady that Tafar had in his wallet. Henry pulled the picture from the wall and smashed the frame and glass on the desk. After he pulled the picture free, he eyed it closely and saw the same Arabic writing on the back. He stuffed the picture in his bag, hurried out of the building and left the camp. He drove from the compound back up to the cave area that was still smoldering and stopped to admire his work. He saw the dead body of a soldier lying in the steel-framed doorway and thought, “What a tremendous waste of life and money.”

Henry stepped on the gas and headed down the mountain checking his map as he drove. His next stop was Tariq Amin’s home in Ismailly to solicit a charitable art donation.