6

Al-Masri ordered his men to bind the Americans’ hands and feet.

Seconds later, they dragged all three paralyzed bodies to an opening not much larger than a manhole back on the streets of Beirut, the city of his youth. The opening was well concealed behind several boulders and beneath thick foliage.

Al-Masri was the first one in. Then his team lowered the prisoners into the tunnel, entered themselves, and sealed and locked the hatch above them.

Checking his watch, al-Masri ordered his men to double-time it back into Lebanese territory. He would bring up the rear. They had been far more successful than he could have possibly anticipated. But time was of the essence. The Israelis were coming. That much was certain.

How the IDF’s sensors and ground-penetrating radar had missed this tunnel he had no idea. Nor did he care. Perhaps the IDF had been distracted by all the effort it had taken to find and destroy the many other tunnels along this border. But once the forces of the Northern Command discovered the Americans were missing, they would quickly figure out they had not been handed through the breach in the fence and carried back into Lebanese territory. They would realize there was a tunnel nearby. They would find it. And they would flood it with fighters, water, or poison gas. If al-Masri and his men were still inside, they would all be history.

In truth, the young operative did not fear dying. What he feared most was failing. His superiors were counting on him to bring them a prize. They needed leverage for the next stage of the plan. The operation depended on getting the prisoners to the safe house in one piece, ideally before noon. So al-Masri directed his three largest fighters to choose a captive, sling him or her over their shoulders, and get moving.

The tunnel was cramped and claustrophobic despite the electric lights that had been hung every ten meters. It certainly wasn’t wide enough for two men to walk side by side. Nor was it high enough to stand erect. That was a serious mistake made by Hezbollah’s engineers because it significantly slowed their pace. Worse, the few fans did not allow proper ventilation. It was, therefore, ghastly hot, a fact that elicited no small amount of griping.

Al-Masri was in no mood to hear it. He ordered the men to shut up or take a bullet in the back. He expected the utmost in professionalism from his team.

Once underway, al-Masri did a quick head count and realized that one of them was missing. “Where is Tanzeel?” he shouted.

Everyone froze.

“Where is my brother?” he shouted again.

Nobody spoke.

Al-Masri, overcome by panic and rage, exploded. “You left him there? You just left him? Are you insane? Do you know . . . ?”

He could not finish the thought. There was no time and no point. There was nothing he could do about it now.

Tanzeel was lost.