Syrian Rescue

The opposition cut loose when he broke from cover, arm cocked for the pitch, an overhand fastball.

A bullet sliced at Bolan’s sleeve, missing flesh and bone, as he dove back to cover in the Wrangler’s shadow. There had been no time for him to follow the grenade in flight. He had to hope it did sufficient damage over there to let him make a second throw.

Bolan counted to three, then he heard the blast, followed by screams. No way for him to judge the damage without seeing it firsthand, but he knew pain when he heard it and the gargling sound of voices choked with blood.

How many dead or wounded out of the eight or ten they’d started with?

Still not enough.

Bolan switched the second F1 to his right hand and walked past Azmeh, staying low. “Good job on the first round. Time for number two.”

His guide nodded. “I’m ready.”

“On my ‘go.’”

Another nod.

Bolan could tell fewer Kalashnikovs were on the job, but counting them by sound was hopeless. He would have a better feel for how many opponents he’d taken out when he stepped out into the open a second time.

He reached the Wrangler’s rear end just as someone shot the spare tire into tatters on its tailgate mount. The Jeep already stank of leaking gasoline, its bodywork had turned into a sieve, and Bolan had his doubts about the old vehicle carrying them any farther on his desert mission. When the left-rear tire began to hiss, Bolan knew their ride was done.

It didn’t matter, though. Survival was the first priority.

He glanced at Azmeh, rising from his crouch as he said, “Go!”

Azmeh was quicker this time, firing through the Wrangler—in one open window, out the other—at their adversaries. Bolan had the F1’s pin free as he came around the tailgate, right arm drawing back—and saw one of the opposition sprinting out from cover, rushing toward him with the long tube of an RPG launcher across his shoulder.

“Watch it!” Bolan called to Azmeh, as he made his pitch and dove facedown into the dirt.

* * *

SADEK HAD STRUGGLED with the RPG-29 launcher, loading it from the rear with a TBG-29V thermobaric antipersonnel round as he sat on the hot, hard soil, praying that he got it right and was not about to kill himself, along with all the other men from his patrol.

Sadek was not a genius with technology, far from it. He could field strip, load and fire a fair variety of weapons, and he learned quickly when new ones fell into his hands. But he could not have said what thermobaric meant or how it worked, in scientific terms. He had seen its effects on vehicles and human flesh, a grisly sight replete with screams of agony from living targets as they fried and died. Sadek wished that upon his enemies today, after they had resisted and embarrassed him.

He would be satisfied, feel good about himself again, when they had been reduced to blackened, shriveled husks upon the desert sand.

And he would be a hero then—if he could only find the will to rise and make his move.

That was the hard part, breaking cover under fire and facing down the enemy. Sadek was not a fan of open warfare, but he’d sworn an oath to Allah and his outcast people, which demanded sacrifice.

So be it.

Shouldering the RPG, he took a moment to adjust its 2.7×1P38 optical sight. There would be precious little time for aiming once Sadek had shown himself, but he would do his best and hope that it was good enough.

He had not told the others what he planned to do, preferring to surprise them after some had treated him with disrespect. Let those who questioned his authority be startled and amazed when he saved them. Anyone who challenged him from that point on would face Sadek’s enduring wrath.

Or maybe they would laugh at him for failing, after he was dead. But then, it wouldn’t matter.

Allah promised a reward for soldiers slain while serving Him. If these were to be Sadek’s last moments, he would step willingly toward the open gates of Paradise.

Sadek lurched to his feet, struggling with the extra forty pounds balanced on one shoulder, then broke into a loping run. The moment he was visible, his enemies would do their best to kill him. Whether they succeeded was in Allah’s hands. Sadek’s job was to hold on long enough to aim and fire the thermobaric rocket, sending them to hell.

One of his soldiers shouted something after him, but Sadek didn’t catch it. Gaining speed, be broke around the front end of the truck and angled toward the bullet-riddled Jeep, in time to see one of his enemies coming out to meet him. The man was not firing at him, did not even have a gun in hand, but his right arm was cocked back…

Sadek understood too late. He knelt and tried to aim his RPG, just as an ovoid object dropped in front of him and wobbled forward, trailing wisps of smoke. A scream of rage had nearly reached his lips when the grenade exploded, switching off the lights in Sadek’s world.

* * *

MACK BOLAN HIT the deck and rode out the explosion, heard the shrapnel buzzing overhead and off into the desert’s dry infinity. When he opened his eyes, the runner with the RPG was gone—or, rather, most of him was gone. The F1 had exploded virtually in his lap, steel fragments ripping through his torso like a blender’s blades and shredding him before he fell.

Dying, the guy had still managed to fire his launcher, but the rocket had been aimed skyward as shrapnel and the F1’s shock wave had blown him backward. Whatever kind of round he’d loaded, it flew high and wide, arcing a quarter-mile into the clear blue, then descending several hundred yards behind the Jeep, where it erupted into oily flame on barren ground.

Bolan leaped to his feet and jerked his AKMS off its shoulder sling, charging the truck. His objective now was to catch the remainder of the team off balance as they ducked rounds from Azmeh’s carbine and recovered from the explosion of his other frag grenade.

He charged around the truck’s front end, firing before he had a clear target in sight. His enemies, some of them wounded, hadn’t seen him coming, but they did their best—which wasn’t good enough.

When all of the men were down and out, he called to Azmeh, then stood up and waved. The Arab came across to join him, cautiously eyeing the scattered dead, as if he thought they might be faking it.

When he was satisfied, Azmeh told Bolan, “They’ve destroyed the Jeep.”

No big surprise there.

“Let’s check out the truck,” Bolan said.

He walked around and dragged the body out of the bloody driver’s seat. He used the dead man’s keffiyeh to mop up the blood, discarded it and slid behind the wheel.

It took a moment for the engine to turn over, but Bolan got it running on the second try. It sounded all right—no strange noises beneath the hood, no red lights on the dashboard. Bolan left it running as he climbed down from the cab and circled the truck with Azmeh, checking out the tires, peering underneath in search of leaks. The truck had taken hits, beginning with its windshield, and the right side was scarred with shiny shrapnel wounds, but nothing Bolan saw or heard gave any indication that the vehicle wouldn’t go the distance.

“Better move our gear,” he said, already heading toward the Jeep.

Bolan’s mobile arsenal was still intact, tucked down against the rear floorboard. The transfer only took a moment, then he climbed back into the driver’s seat, with Azmeh beside him.

He still didn’t know exactly where they were going, other than the general direction, but they wouldn’t have to walk.

At least, not yet.

4

Deir ez-Zor Governorate

Roger Segrest squinted at the blinding sun through his aviators, wishing he’d been smart enough to bring along a hat when he was packing for the trip to Syria. Of course, he’d planned on spending nearly all his time indoors, with air-conditioning, and hadn’t given any thought at all to being shot out of the sky over a freaking desert in the middle of nowhere.

Next time, you’ll know, he thought, and nearly laughed aloud. Just smiling hurt, with lips so dry and cracked. Another vital thing he’d forgotten: lip balm. And, of course, sunscreen.

The funny part was that there might not be a next time. He could die out here, from thirst, exposure, snakebite, take your pick. Rescuers, if they ever came, might find him mummified, a desiccated husk with insects living in his empty skull after they ate his shriveled brain. Maybe his friends at State would stick him in the Diplomacy Center Museum, assuming it ever got built. His wife could help them with the plaque.

Thinking of rescue troubled him and made him angry. They’d only been ninety minutes out of Baghdad when the plane went down, but here it was, day two, and still no help in sight. The worry came from knowing that all planes these days had emergency locator beacons on board, airliners usually packing more than one. The anger—most of it, at least—was currently directed at himself.

Segrest had been outfitted with a homing beacon of his own before he’d left DC. He’d put it in his suitcase, which had seemed like the best place for safekeeping until a rocket had ripped the guts out of their plane and left the baggage scattered God knew where.

Of course, the beacon hadn’t been turned on. Why would it be?

“Stupid,” Segrest muttered to himself.

“How’s that, sir?” Walton asked him, standing at his elbow.

“Nothing, Dale. Forget it.”

“Do you want some water?”

Did he ever! Segrest checked his wristwatch and shook his head. “Too early.”

“I just thought—”

“No. Thank you.”

After pulling the dead and wounded clear, doing what little could be done for the copilot, they had sorted through their supplies and rationed the bottled water found in the wreck. It just made sense, not knowing when they’d be picked up.

Or if, he added silently.

The pilot had been killed on impact; his sidekick had a broken leg, an ugly compound fracture; and the flight attendant had gone flying when the rocket hit, slamming his skull against one of the overhead luggage containers. He’d drifted in and out of consciousness for a few hours, then he’d succumbed to his head injury.

And then, the goddamned storm had hit them out of nowhere. Tareq Eleyan had called it a haboob, and hearing that it was a fact of life in Syria had done nothing to lighten Segrest’s mood while the dust and sand buried them, forcing them to dig out of the shattered plane a second time after they’d taken refuge there.

Segrest was worried about rescue, but that wasn’t all. Someone had shot them down, either for sport or with intent. In either case, the shooter was still out there, likely to come looking for his prize and bringing friends along to pick over the wreckage. Segrest wished he knew who’d done it, what their motive was, and what he should expect when they showed up.

Not if, but when.

Trouble was coming. He could smell it on the breeze that kissed his blistered skin.

* * *

THE TRAITOR HAD a headache, a holdover from the crash that seemed beyond the reach of simple aspirin. He did not mind, particularly—life was mostly pain and disappointment, after all—but it annoyed him slightly, since he had been waiting for the rocket strike, strapped in when no one else had seat belts fastened, only to be struck a glancing blow from his own briefcase tumbling from the overhead compartment.

Irony. The spice of life.

He sat in the shade of the Let L 410’s left wing, or what remained of it. At least three quarters of it had been sheared off on impact; it was still better than nothing, though the shade provided only minimal relief from the pervasive desert heat. But, then, what was discomfort when he’d been prepared to sacrifice his life?

There had been no schedule for the strike, no real way to prepare himself beyond keeping his seat belt fastened and pretending airplanes made him edgy.

Which, in this case, had been true.

He had been waiting for the blast, then plummeting to earth, uncertain whether he would die in the explosion or the crash. Imagining a midair detonation had been worse—well, nearly worse—than the reality when it occurred, but no one could suspect that he’d been waiting for it. His surprise had been absolutely genuine. His screams as they descended had been heartfelt.

But here he was, essentially unharmed besides the purpling bump on his forehead and the dull ache just behind his left eye socket. He was thirsty, like the rest of them, but that would pass when his comrades arrived and took the others into custody. He would be treated as a hero of the struggle then.

So, what was keeping them?

Another problem: since he didn’t know exactly where the plane had been before the rocket strike, and he couldn’t calculate how far they’d traveled afterward, he could not estimate the time required for his comrades to overtake them.

Truth be told, he wasn’t even sure who would be coming for him; he had not been entrusted with that information, nor did he require it to complete his mission. After being shot out of the sky, his twofold task was simple.

First, deactivate the aircraft’s homing beacons, following instructions he’d been given prior to takeoff. One had been eliminated by the rocket’s blast; the other had been easy enough to disable in the chaos after touchdown.

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