Syrian Rescue

Prologue

Deir ez-Zor Governorate, Syria

Yaser Jenyat was sick of waiting. It was miserably hot and the dry earth underneath his buttocks was scorching. When he checked his Rolex replica, it seemed the hands were frozen. Had they moved at all since he had checked them last?

“They’ve changed plans, or itineraries,” he suggested. “Maybe someone warned them.”

“Who?” Ziad Dalila asked him.

“How should I know?” Jenyat answered. “Someone.”

“We have orders,” said Malek Hakim.

“We have obeyed them,” Jenyat shot back. “We came, we waited. No one said we have to take up residence.”

“You want to leave,” Hakim replied, “start walking.”

Jenyat tried to spit but found his mouth had suddenly gone dry. “I didn’t say that.” His voice cracked like the sunbaked soil. “We all should go, before a damned patrol turns up.”

“You know these Westerners,” Tawfiq Jandali said. “They’re slow with everything.”

Until they want to kill you, Jenyat thought. Shifting where he sat, his back against the left rear tire of their UAZ-469 off-road vehicle, his elbow grazed the AKM assault rifle standing beside him, almost toppling it before he lunged and caught it, just in time. He glanced around to see if any of the others had observed his clumsiness, but they were busy squinting at the eastern skyline, toward Iraq.

“We’ll wait another thirty minutes,” Hakim said. “If they’re not here by then, I’ll call in for advice.”

No one replied to that. It had not been a question.

Jenyat sipped warm water out of his canteen. He wished they had some shade, that someone else had drawn the so-called “plum assignment,” that he might be anyplace but here. The thoughts of glory he’d envisioned when his name was drawn had long since disappeared, evaporating like the sweat that drenched his shirt.

At least he would not be the one to fire the crucial shot. He understood the basics of the 9K338 Igla-S shoulder-mounted launcher and its 9M342 missile, but he was not competent to aim and fire it, thank Allah. If they had waited all this time only to fail at their assignment, Jenyat was relieved the shame would not be his.

“I see something,” Dalila said, passing Hakim his field glasses. “East-northeast.”

That covered half the godforsaken desert, but Hakim had barely raised the glasses to his eyes when he said, “I see it.” Several seconds later he added, “Yes. It’s them.”

Jenyat rose to his feet, surprised to feel a fleeting tremor in his legs, and reached for his rifle. He would have no use for it, if all went well, but he felt better holding it, sharing the AKM’s potential for explosive violence.

“Get ready,” Hakim ordered.

Tawfiq was even now hauling the Igla out of the UAZ-469’s cargo bay. The tube was painted olive drab, like everything else in the army. It was a little over five feet long, nose-heavy with its pistol grip and its bulbous infrared sighting gear. Already loaded, it weighed thirty-seven pounds, including the warheads. Its maximum operational range was almost four miles, with a flight ceiling of eleven and a half thousand feet.

They had been promised that the target, although capable of cruising at much higher altitudes, would be within the missile’s range. The flight would be a border hop, evading radar on both sides to keep the visit under wraps. Deniability was crucial to diplomacy among the states that labeled themselves civilized.

“Late as they are, how do we know it’s them?” he asked Hakim.

“I see the plane,” Hakim replied. “It has ‘UN’ painted behind the cockpit and on the tail.”

“Praise Allah,” Ziad Dalila said.

“Allahu akbar,” Jandali chimed in, as he hoisted the launcher to his right shoulder.

Jenyat could see the target now, and he heard the whisper of its twin engines drawing closer. He considered praying briefly, silently, but then decided it would be a waste of time.

Squinting, he watched the small white speck, distorted by the heat haze, moving into range.

* * *

“I WILL REMIND you that we must not set our hopes too high,” Sani Bankole said.

Seated across the aisle from Bankole, Roger Segrest almost asked, “what hopes?” but stopped himself. He was a pessimist by nature but had learned to hide it well during his long climb up the State Department ladder to his present post. Most of the people he dealt with daily lived for smiles and reassurances, not straight talk that would drive them all to drink.

Besides, he didn’t have to spell it out. Segrest was confident that everyone aboard the Let L 410 was wise enough to know the truth—namely, that Syria was in the toilet, circling the drain. The country had been bad enough, a nest of terrorists, before its latest civil war erupted, pitting a despotic government against hundreds of rival “liberation” forces. Toss in Hezbollah, the Kurds and ISIS, among other players, and what did you have?

A goddamned recipe for disaster.

Still, there was an outside chance he and the other passengers on this plane might accomplish something, he supposed. Stranger things had happened in the strange world of diplomacy, but they were few and far between.

One of the pilots spoke up on the intercom. “We’ve crossed the border, gentlemen.”

Segrest couldn’t have told the difference, peering out his window at the trackless wasteland below. All deserts looked the same to him: bleak, unforgiving, dangerous.

He idly wondered what their lodgings would be like in Deir ez-Zor. They’d be stuck in the Syrian city for three or four days, unless the talks broke down immediately—as they might, considering the endless grievances both sides advanced.

Make that all sides, Segrest thought. It might have been a relatively simple matter if the only people at the table had been government officials and the rebels who opposed them. Oil, politics and religion changed that, of course, dragging in Lebanon, Iraq, Israel and Jordan, not to mention Russia and his own employer, the United States. They hadn’t heard from China yet, or Egypt, but he wouldn’t be surprised if both of them weighed in before the year was out.

Diplomacy, my ass, he thought, only half listening to their putative spokesman from the United Nations. It was a damned chess game, with better than a dozen players making moves.

“But if we have patience—” Bankole was on a roll, but now the cockpit intercom cut through his platitudes.

“We have a target lock! Fasten your seat belts, gentlemen. Evasive action, starting now!”

Segrest looked out the window, didn’t see a damned thing but the pale blue sky they occupied and the broiling desert. “Target lock” meant someone had “painted” them with infrared to guide a rocket or a burst of antiaircraft fire, but who in the hell—

The Let L 410 shuddered, riding a blast of thunder from the clear sky. The explosion didn’t breach the cabin, but oxygen masks automatically dropped from the ceiling, dangling like weird wilted flowers in front of their faces. Segrest fumbled with his seat belt, fastening it on the third try, as the turboprop nosed over and began to fall.

Even the pilot sounded panicked. “Crash positions, gentlemen! We’re going down.”

1

Deir ez-Zor Governorate, Syria

The Jeep Wrangler was twenty-plus years old and showed it, mangy rust spots peeking through its faded paint, a long crack stretching across the lower left-hand quadrant of its dusty windshield. The canvas roof rattled and flapped. Its seats were sprung, their stuffing visible where seams had split, and underneath a set of worn-out rubber mats, passengers could watch the desert rolling past below, if they were so inclined.

Mack Bolan didn’t care about the Jeep’s appearance or its comfort. Before accepting it, he’d checked the tires—not new by any means, but serviceable—and the 4.2-liter engine, testing out the four-wheel drive, until he was more or less convinced that it would take him where he had to go and bring him back again.

Maybe.

A lot of that depended on terrain, of course, and any obstacles—human or otherwise—they met along the way. So far, they had been making fairly decent time.

The man riding in the shotgun seat was a slender Syrian with a patchy beard, wearing a checkered keffiyeh and faded desert camouflage, the sleeves rolled up, pants cuffs tucked into well-worn combat boots. He had a pistol and a wicked dagger in the waistband of his trousers, hidden by the loose tail of his four-pocket BDU shirt.

The heavy hardware rode behind them, on the Wrangler’s floorboard and backseat.

They had left Highway 7 ten miles north of Al Mayadin, angling northeastward on a road that wasn’t marked on any map, barely a shadow of a line on Google Earth. No one had ever bothered paving it or even laying gravel down. Why waste the time and energy, when desert winds and shifting sand could cover and conceal it within minutes?

“We are in bandit country now,” Sabah Azmeh observed.

“I’m more concerned about the army and irregulars,” Bolan replied.

“They’re bandits, too. They just have newer clothes and weapons.”

That was true enough. Deir ez-Zor Governorate harbored armed forces of various factions in Syria’s long civil war. Bolan was hoping to avoid them all and complete his mission with a minimum of static, but he knew that notion wasn’t realistic; hence, the hardware in the back.

Beyond armed opposition, there was still the desert to contend with—over ten thousand square miles of nothing but sand, stone, scorpions and cobras. Water was scarce, cover likewise, and the only ally he had was riding in the Wrangler’s shotgun seat.

Azmeh spat out a curse and pointed off to Bolan’s left, toward a plume of beige dust rising in the still, hot air. One vehicle, at least, and it was headed their way. “If they’re hostile, we’ll deal with it,” said Bolan. “Grab the rifles.”

Azmeh twisted in his seat and rummaged underneath a tatty blanket covering a portion of their mobile arsenal. He fished out two AKMS assault rifles, their metal stocks folded, both with forty-round box magazines in place, loaded with 7.62×39 mm rounds.

“It’s too bad,” Azmeh said.

“Too bad,” Bolan agreed.

But the encounter was unavoidable.

* * *

“YOU SEE IT?” Youssef Sadek asked his driver.

“It’s hard to miss,” Sami Karam replied.

“Get after them.”

Karam changed course to chase the distant rooster tail of dust, downshifting first, then bringing the GAZ Sadko cargo truck up to speed. Their men in the back would be cursing by now, maybe craning their necks for a glimpse of whatever had drawn them off course.

Karam knew the drill: stop and search anyone they found drifting around in the desert, unless they were Syrian regulars. Karam and his men were Hezbollah fighters, and their party had long sided with the Syrian government.

“One vehicle, I think,” Sadek observed, talking to help himself relax. It was a trait Karam had noticed in the past but did not share.

“Perhaps one,” he replied, to keep from being rude.

“Not large,” Sadek said. “Maybe a UAZ.”

“Maybe,” Karam agreed, scanning the desert that still lay between them and their quarry.

“You can overtake them, eh?”

“I hope so.”

The GAZ Sadko had a 4.67-liter V8 engine, generating 130 horsepower, but the truck could only do so much off-road, on rough terrain, without falling apart or pitching the soldiers out of its open bed like popcorn bursting from a pot with no lid.

Karam fought the steering wheel and grappled with the gearshift, sharp eyes twitching from his target—which was definitely fleeing now—to the ground in front of him, watching out for hidden obstacles. The last thing he needed was to crash against a boulder or tip into a wadi that he’d overlooked.

The one thing worse than meeting unexpected adversaries in the desert would be getting stranded there, long miles from any help. The Sadko had no radio, of course, and while Karam was carrying a cell phone, picking up a signal here would be impossible.

So, no mistakes, then.

“Faster!” Sadek urged him, as if simply saying it would make the truck perform beyond its capabilities.

Karam said nothing, concentrating on the smaller vehicle ahead of them. The gap was closing, though not fast enough to please his agitated passenger. Sadek enjoyed killing—well, who didn’t?—but he sometimes rushed into a fight without considering the possibility of failure.

Closer now, Karam could see that they were following an ancient Jeep, not an official army vehicle. That still left many possibilities, given the Governorate’s state of near chaos. For all Karam knew, they might even now be wasting time and fuel, chasing a party of their so-called friends: the Badr Corps or the Promised Day Brigade—they were too numerous to count on any given day.

Focus on what you know, he thought.

Four passengers at most inside the Jeep, which meant they were outnumbered more than two to one by Karam and his men. Fair odds, but you could never truly judge an enemy until you joined him in battle.

And if you had misjudged him…

Karam had to be prepared when they made contact. Wedged between his left knee and the driver’s door, his AK-47 was already locked and loaded. He could bail out of the truck, firing, or run down anyone who tried to flee the Jeep on foot.

Beyond that, all Karam could do was clutch the steering wheel and pray.

* * *

“THEY’RE GAINING ON US,” Azmeh said.

Bolan could see that in his rearview, and he didn’t care to comment on the obvious. Instead, he asked, “So, any thoughts on who they are?”

“The truck is standard issue,” Azmeh said. “But no flag or insignia. Not army or police, then, but beyond that—anyone.”

That helped a little. Bolan drew a private line at killing cops, regardless of what side they served or how corrupt they were.

The problem now: assuming that he couldn’t lose the truck pursuing them, where could they stand and fight?

The flat, featureless desert offered no concealment, nothing in the way of cover if he stopped to shoot it out. Bolan could see heads bobbing in the truck’s bed, men with rifles who would likely have no qualms about eliminating him. At the moment, Bolan didn’t know who was pursuing them. They might be Syrians or Lebanese, Jordanians or Kurds, Iraqis or Iranians, Sunnis or Shi’ites.

And it made no difference. He had to take them out.

The hardware Bolan had on hand was standard issue, for convenience. His pistol, like Azmeh’s, was the same Browning Hi-Power carried by Syrian army officers. The other arms were Russian, from their matched AKMs to a Dragunov SVD sniper rifle, an RPK light machine gun, an RPG-7 grenade launcher with a mix of warheads, and a case of F1 hand grenades known in the Motherland as limonka for their supposed resemblance to lemons.

First thing, Bolan scratched the long-range weapons off his mental list. His Dragunov was loaded, packing ten rounds in a detachable box magazine, but the rifle was meant for solitary, unsuspecting targets at a distance. He could use it to stop the truck, sure, if he took the driver out or maybe cracked the engine block, but would leave shooters scampering around the desert, no fit job for the Dragunov’s PSO-1 telescopic sight.

It would be down and dirty, then, a bloody scramble with their vehicles as the only cover, in a firefight where the Jeep was nearly as important as their own flesh and blood. If they lost their transportation, their mission was a washout.

Trapped in Syria on foot, they were as good as dead.

Bolan checked the Jeep’s fuel gauge: three-quarters full, two hundred fifty miles or so before the tank would run dry. They had spare cans of gasoline in back, but those were vulnerable to incoming fire, the first thing that a random burst might ventilate. Besides, he couldn’t hope to ditch the truck simply by outpacing it. For starters, it would have a larger gas tank—maybe two, three times the size of the Jeep’s—and even with its greater weight it could outlast the Wrangler in the long run.

No, they’d have to fight. The only questions now were when and where.

“Be ready when I give the word,” he warned Azmeh. “Don’t hesitate.”

“I will not.”

Bolan stood on the accelerator, racing over rocky ground that sent jolts through his spine, still looking for a place to make a stand.

* * *

“WHY ARE YOU slowing down?” Sadek demanded.

“I’m trying not to wreck the truck,” Karam replied, tight-lipped.

“We cannot let them get away!” Sadek spat back at him.

Karam had no answer for that, but Sadek felt the truck accelerate a little in response to his tirade. A little, yes, but not enough to suit him.

They had spent the past two days patrolling empty landscapes, wasting time and fuel. Returning to his captain empty-handed made Sadek feel like a fool. It marked him, he was sure, as someone who could not perform to expectations. Someone who should not advance to a higher rank. He hated feeling like a failure, even though the purpose of jihad was serving Allah, not one’s self. Another flaw in Sadek’s character, but one he’d learned to live with over time.

He turned to peer at his men through the cab’s rear window. They were rocking with the truck, clinging to their weapons and their bench seats. Some, the younger ones, were smiling, happy to be hunting, while the more experienced among them were expressionless. The veterans had been through this before, with variations: travelers detained and questioned, then released if they identified themselves as allies, executed if they failed to prove their allegiance. Each enemy eliminated was another victory, however insignificant it seemed.

And this quarry was running. That proved something to Sadek.

He would not allow them to escape.

“Enough of this,” he snarled, lifting his AK-47 from between his knees. He twisted in his seat and eased the rifle through his open window, sling around his right arm to prevent it from falling if his sweaty hands slipped.