Syrian Rescue Read online

  Bolan’s experience with other members of the diplomatic breed enabled him to profile these men with fair precision. Even in this extremity, they’d be suspicious of outsiders turning up out of the blue and giving orders. There could be resistance, possibly defiance from the men he’d been assigned to save.

  Closing the laptop, Bolan made a private resolution not to fail.

  It was a do-or-die assignment. Fifty-fifty. Right.

  * * *

  Baghdad International Airport

  THE AIRPORT’S SINGLE terminal was crowded as Bolan deplaned, shouldering his carry-on. Greeters were lined up with signs on the far side of passport control, and Bolan recognized his contact from Brognola’s flash drive. Sabah Azmeh was holding a piece of white cardboard with “COOPER” written across it.

  “That’s me,” Bolan said, as he approached the smaller man. Azmeh wore a blue blazer over khakis and well-worn loafers.

  “Mr. Cooper, excellent!” He beamed, but there were still formalities to be observed. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with but a single step,” he added.

  “Not all who wander are lost,” Bolan replied, completing the exchange.

  “Indeed.” Still smiling, Azmeh pumped his hand three times, then let it go. His grip was strong and dry. “Do you have other luggage?”

  “Just this,” Bolan answered, hoisting his lone bag.

  “Perfect. A man who travels light, yes? We’ll find our vehicle outside and then perhaps collect some heavy baggage.”

  They headed out to the parking lot and got into the Wrangler. Once they were on the move, with Azmeh driving, Bolan asked him, “Was there any problem with the hardware?”

  “No, no. Nothing whatsoever. Weapons and explosives are as common in Baghdad today as vegetables. Perhaps more so.”

  Bad news for residents whose only goal was to get on with normal life, but good for Bolan when he’d traveled halfway round the world unarmed. He’d grown accustomed to flying unarmed, but working the streets of a city like Baghdad without hardware made him feel naked.

  On their way to meet the weapons’ dealer, Bolan filled out Azmeh’s sketchy dossier from Stony Man. His guide was twenty-eight, a Syrian expatriate who’d lost his parents and three younger siblings to a chemical attack at Ghouta in August 2013. Prior to that, the Syrian police had killed his older brother, leaving Azmeh as the sole survivor of his family. Despite those losses, he seemed fairly cheerful—or he’d learned to fake it. Instead of joining rebel forces to unseat the regime, Azmeh still hoped his homeland might achieve stability without more slaughter. To that end, he’d signed on as a native asset of the CIA and volunteered for Bolan’s mission when it came around.

  Bolan was cautious, hoped that Azmeh wasn’t lying to him, and that no one from the Company was playing games behind the scenes, pursuing some agenda they had kept from Brognola. When they’d stocked up on hardware, clothing for the field, and everything they needed to survive the desert, it was time to roll. Bolan got behind the wheel, following Azmeh’s directions as they headed westward to Syria. Checkpoints at the border would have stopped them dead, but that was where the Jeep paid off, churning cross-country through the open desert toward the invisible line between countries.

  3

  Deir ez-Zor Governorate, Syria

  Bolan hit the ground running, clutching his AKMS, using the Jeep’s roiling dust cloud as cover. He tracked the charging truck by sound at first, then saw it looming through the gritty haze.

  Never mind disabling the vehicle. The only way to stop or divert it, this close to impact, would be to nail the driver. Bolan stood his ground just long enough to aim a short burst at the dirt-streaked windshield, then he leaped and rolled aside before the hurtling juggernaut could crush him. He scrambled to his feet and fired another burst into the driver’s door as it swept past him. The driver lurched and slumped, but Bolan couldn’t tell how badly he was wounded, if at all.

  Regardless, the truck was slowing down. Bolan dove back toward the Jeep, his only standing cover. Better for the Wrangler to absorb a few more rounds than for him to take a hit at such close range.

  And guns were blazing now, no fewer than six or seven from the truck bed. To Bolan’s left, Azmeh had joined the fight. As the dust began to settle, Bolan saw his adversaries jumping from the truck and scrambling for the cover of their own vehicle, firing wild bursts as they ran.

  The truck was rolling on without them, slower by the moment. Finally, its motor hitched and stalled, most likely from a lack of gas while it was running in third gear. That meant no driver managing the clutch and stick shift. Bolan hoped he’d killed the stranger, but he wasn’t taking it for granted.

  He counted eight men on the ground, plus a shotgun rider in the cab. Make it ten if the driver was still fit for action.

  When the truck died, it provided solid, stationary cover for his enemies. They couldn’t rush him safely over the thirty yards of open ground between them, but they could snipe around the tailgate, across its hood, or wriggle underneath and try to sight him from a worm’s-eye view.

  The Jeep was taking hits now; time was on the opposition’s side. Still, nothing had come close to nailing Bolan—yet.

  If the enemy had a working radio, how long until reinforcements could arrive?

  Azmeh was scuttling backward to the Jeep now, trading fire with hidden opponents. Their bullets kicked up spurts of dust and sand around his feet as he retreated. Bolan saw trouble coming, but he didn’t want to call out and distract his comrade in the midst of battle.

  Azmeh ran into the Wrangler’s left-rear fender, grunting from the impact as he lost his balance and went down. The tumble saved him, as a well-aimed burst cut empty air where he’d been standing a second earlier. The bullets smacked into plastic fuel cans instead.

  Bolan returned fire, pinning down the rifleman, while Azmeh rolled and crawled behind the Jeep. He wasn’t safe, just covered for the moment.

  Meanwhile, they were both pinned down.

  * * *

  “YOU MISSED HIM!” Sadek snarled, kicking one of Haaz Gemayel’s legs where they protruded from beneath the truck. “What’s wrong with you?”

  Gemayel scooted backward, rising to his knees. He glared at Sadek, index finger on the trigger of his AK-47. “He fell down! That’s not my fault, and I don’t see you helping.”

  “I didn’t have a clear shot,” Sadek answered.

  “Then get down here with the rest of us,” Gemayel sneered before he ducked back under the truck.

  That one was trouble, Sadek thought, a lazy bastard who defied authority when he believed he could get away with it. Why he had volunteered to fight in Syria remained a mystery.

  Sadek had already lost one man. Sami Karam was dead or dying in the cab, struck by bullets through the windshield and another burst that had raked his door when Karam had failed to run his killer down. Sadek had bailed when the truck stalled, taking a moment to confirm that Karam wasn’t moving before abandoning him.

  At a time like this, if someone was not fit to fight, what good were they?

  Sadek himself had yet to fire a shot since exiting the cab, but that was his prerogative as leader of the team. He had been chosen to command and supervise, not do the dirty work himself. Of course, he’d killed before and would not hesitate to jump in if he had a clear shot at the enemy, but was it wise to risk a leader’s life unnecessarily?

  Sadek heard bullets strike the truck like hailstones, clanging into sheet metal. Someone cried out in pain under the chassis, a pair of legs thrashed briefly, then their owner started worming backward in fits and starts. Sadek was set to scold Bashar Alama when he emerged, face awash in blood, an ugly gash from a bullet graze above one eye.

  “Youssef?” the wounded soldier asked. “Is that you? I can’t see you.”

  Sadek fumbled for a handkerchief in his pocket, then pressed it into Alama’s hand. “Wipe off your face,” he said. “It’s just a scratch. Each man must do his part.”

&nb
sp; “I will, but—”

  “Be strong!” Sadek urged him, moving on before he had to answer any questions or fake a show of sympathy.

  For his own sake, and for the estimation of his men, Sadek knew that he had to join the fight. But how? Rushing into the no-man’s land between his truck and the old Jeep would be suicide, and he had never cherished dreams of martyrdom. For all he knew, one of his men might shoot him in the back before their common enemies could cut him down.

  So, what else could he do?

  He reached the front of the truck, where one of his young soldiers crouched and peered around the fender, straining for a glimpse of the enemy. Sadek tried to remember his name but drew a blank.

  “What do you see?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” the young man replied. “They’ve gone to ground.”

  “We need to draw them out.”

  “Good luck with that,” the soldier answered.

  Sadek considered striking him for insolence, but then decided he had pushed his luck as far as it would go with these inexperienced, poorly trained guerrillas. Discipline was clearly fading in the ranks, the longer Syria’s insurgency dragged on.

  Sadek needed to make a grand, dramatic gesture to assert himself, to regain whatever measure of respect his men had felt for him before the shooting started and their nerve ran out. But what could he—

  Of course!

  There was an RPG-29 launcher lying behind his seat in the cab, with three rockets ready for loading. All he had to do was reach in, retrieve the ordnance while avoiding Karam’s corpse, load the launcher, then take out his foes.

  One step at a time, Sadek thought, as he returned to the door he had left hanging open. The Vampir and its ammo were in easy reach.

  * * *

  SABAH AZMEH SWITCHED out his empty AKMS magazine and snapped a full one in its place. His hip throbbed from his collision with the Jeep, a stupid, clumsy slip that made him feel like a fool even though it saved his life.

  His jacket smelled strange, and he realized that gasoline had splashed on to his sleeve after he fell, one of their fuel cans punctured by the slugs that might have killed him otherwise. The stench stung Azmeh’s nostrils and made his eyes water, but all that he could do was scoop up dirt in his free hand and rub it into his wet sleeve. He glanced at Cooper and found the tall American scowling at their predicament. Whatever he had planned, turning around to face the truck and stopping there, it was not working out. Unless he had hatched another scheme…

  Cooper shifted, then walked over to the passenger door, keeping low. A burst of hostile fire drilled the Wrangler’s bodywork, one slug caroming off the door near Cooper’s head. He did not flinch as he leaned inside and rummaged through duffel bags. When he backed out, he was holding two grenades.

  Each F1 “lemon,” Azmeh knew, weighed a shade under one and a half pounds. A strong man could pitch one forty-five yards, remaining outside the grenade’s estimated thirty-yard kill zone. But could Cooper drop one behind the stalled truck while under fire?

  “How can I help you?” Azmeh asked, worried that Cooper might suggest he make the throw himself.

  “Give me some cover,” Cooper said. “I’ll tell you when.”

  “Done.”

  Kneeling, one shoulder against the Jeep’s sun-heated fender, Azmeh held his carbine ready, muzzle pointed at the pale blue sky, his finger on the trigger. Full automatic fire would empty his fresh magazine in four seconds flat, unless he controlled it. He’d go with short bursts to frighten his opponents and keep them from dropping Cooper in his tracks.

  He waited, barely breathing, and had started feeling dizzy when the tall American said, “Now!”

  * * *

  BOLAN PULLED THE GRENADE’S pin and dropped the spoon as he began to move. He had about four seconds until detonation.

  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.