Syrian Rescue Read online

  Fakhri supposed that he should phone Colonel Jallo and update his report, but what if this turned out to be a false alarm? A flashing light and pinging noise were nothing, in the scheme of things. No, he would wait until he had the aircraft’s passengers in hand, then log his next report.

  Whatever happened after that, he was a soldier pledged to follow orders.

  Let the hunt resume.

  * * *

  SANI BANKOLE WORE a blue baseball cap with the United Nations emblem embroidered in white on its crown. Pulled low, the bill shaded his face, but the sun beat down on the rest of him, causing him to sweat through his white dress shirt.

  He could survive the heat, of course. It wasn’t sun that worried him.

  Bankole saw Roger Segrest standing with his aide and went to join them, making sure they witnessed his approach and would not think he planned on eavesdropping. Experience had taught him that suspicion was a fact of life with diplomats; they were always alert to subterfuge and double-dealing, whether they were trying to negotiate a cease-fire between mortal enemies or simply passing idle time with friends.

  The news he carried now was bound to put Segrest’s suspicion into overdrive.

  Bankole waited for the two Americans to notice him and break off their discussion. When he had the State Department undersecretary’s full attention, he asked, “May we speak together privately?”

  Segrest frowned, his eyes invisible behind his sunglasses. “Of course,” he said, after a moment’s hesitation. “Dale, excuse us, will you?”

  The aide smiled and complied.

  When there was no one else to hear, Bankole got directly to the point. “I’ve had a conversation with the copilot,” he said. “About our homing beacons.”

  “And?”

  “He gave me their location. One, it seems, was either lost or obliterated when the rocket struck. The other is inside the cockpit, attached to the flight recorder.”

  “Okay…”

  “The cockpit beacon has an on-off switch,” Bankole said. “It’s deactivated on arrival at the aircraft’s destination, then turned on before the next departure.”

  Segrest nodded. “And your point is?”

  “I found ours turned off.”

  Tight-lipped, Segrest replied, “One of the pilots?”

  “No. As you know, one died on impact and the other was disabled. He denies deactivating it, in any case. I cannot fathom any motive he might have to leave us stranded here, particularly since his life may hinge on rescue.”

  “Who is he? Where’s he from?”

  “A commercial pilot from New York. His firm is one of many on retainer to the UN. It is most unlikely that he could have known our mission, much less placed himself in a position to become involved.”

  Segrest blew out a breath and turned to glower at the other members of their party, who were huddled more or less together in the meager shadow of their wrecked, half-buried plane. “You’re saying that we’ve got a mole.”

  “A traitor in our midst,” Bankole said. “It would appear so, yes.”

  “About the beacon…”

  “I turned it back on. It’s functioning.”

  “Okay, so help is coming.”

  “Theoretically,” Bankole said. “In time.”

  “And while we’re waiting, all we have to do is find the traitor,” Segrest said. “At least we’ve got it narrowed down to three.”

  “You would include my aide?” Bankole asked.

  “He’s Arab,” Segrest said.

  “Jordanian. And is your aide excluded from the suspect list?”

  “Dale? Hey—”

  “And then, what of ourselves?” Bankole asked.

  “You’re serious?”

  “Why not?”

  “I know I didn’t do it,” Segrest answered. “And you just told me about the beacon.”

  “Perhaps I was afraid it would be found out, otherwise.”

  “And now you’ve called for help?”

  “Unless I’ve lied about that, too.”

  “I guess I’d better see that beacon for myself,” Segrest replied. “You lead the way.”

  5

  The truck died moments after Bolan locked on to the downed plane’s homing beacon on his GPS reader. They were rolling over flat ground one minute, the next, stopped dead without a warning. Bolan scanned the dashboard for red light, pumped the clutch, and tried again.

  Nothing.

  He climbed down from the cab and walked around to pop the hood. He was a passable mechanic, good enough to keep most auto engines running if he had the parts and tools, but what he saw beneath the truck’s hood was beyond his skill set. In their firefight with the truck’s first owners, a round had bored through the fender and clipped a cable linking the battery to the truck’s alternator. All the time they’d been driving, they had been running down the battery without recharging it.

  “I can’t fix this,” he told Azmeh, who’d joined him to investigate. “I’d need another cable and a jump start. We’re not going anywhere in this.”

  He dropped the hood with a resounding, final clang.

  “So, what now?” Azmeh inquired.

  “We’ve found the beacon signal,” Bolan said. “We can’t stop now. Looks like we walk.”

  “How far?”

  “About a hundred sixty miles.”

  “So, about fifty hours, if we keep up our pace and don’t take breaks,” Azmeh observed.

  Two days, at best, but likely more, since the heat would slow them down. No good. A thousand things could happen to the stranded diplomats in that time.

  “We need another ride,” Bolan said.

  “Yes,” Azmeh concurred. “We need another ride. Where might we obtain one?”

  Bolan stared far into the distance, focusing on the general direction of the homer that had been reactivated moments earlier. “Job one,” he said, “we stay the course. No deviations from the signal unless we spot something, someplace, where we’re likely to pick up another vehicle.”

  “Agreed,” Azmeh replied, without a trace of hesitation. “But if there is no vehicle to be found?”

  Bolan appreciated Azmeh’s calm and the fact that he did not suggest calling for help. The truck contained no radio, and Bolan’s only sat-phone link was to an office halfway round the world, in Washington, DC. Any assistance Brognola could provide would take hours, at least, and they’d lose more time waiting for a replacement vehicle than they would in walking toward the beacon’s flashing light.

  Another problem: there was no one in the country they could trust. If they did find someone who had a working car, they’d likely have to steal it. That would raise the possibility, however slim, of a police pursuit.

  Bolan did not dwell on the setbacks. From the truck, he fetched the Dragunov, one of their ammo bags and the RPG-7, wrestling them all on to slings. Azmeh took the RPK, a second ammo bag and the launchers’ rockets. Heavy laden, both men turned their faces north and started walking at a steady, numbing, ground-eating pace.

  One hundred and sixty miles? It might as well have been a thousand, but the Executioner had no choice. Quitting wasn’t in him. He would press on till he dropped, and then, if he was still alive, he’d start to crawl.

  * * *

  ROGER SEGREST CLEARED his throat and used a handkerchief to blot some of the perspiration from his forehead, then returned it to his pocket.

  “If I could please have everyone’s attention for a moment,” he called out, waiting while the other crash survivors wrapped up their conversations and turned toward him.

  “Thank you,” he pressed on, once everyone was quiet. “I just have a quick announcement, which I hope you’ll think is good news.”

  Here and there, an eyebrow rose. “It turns out,” he said, “that when we crashed, our emergency locator beacon got turned off somehow. Maybe the impact of our landing did it. That’s why nobody’s come looking for us yet. Between the beacon cutting out and damage to the radio, we’re off the
grid.”

  He let that sink in, scanning the five faces, waiting for the mole to give himself away by any small gesture or sudden change in expression. Segrest had conceived the plot with Bankole, aware of the risk. It seemed like the only way they could possibly unmask the traitor. As to what action he might take from that point onward, he had no plan.

  “So, that’s the bad news,” Segrest told them. “And the good news is, I’ve turned the locator back on again. They’ll pick us up in Baghdad now, and probably in Deir ez-Zor. One way or another, someone should be coming for us fairly soon.”

  The questions started then. Dale Walton raised his hand, just like a kid in school, but started talking at the same time. “I thought those black box things were supposed to be unbreakable. How could it just switch off?”

  “Beats me,” Segrest replied. “It’s possible one of the crew forgot to turn it on at takeoff, but we can’t exactly ask them now.”

  As Segrest spoke, he nodded toward the copilot, stretched out against the airplane’s fuselage. The poor guy was out of it, delirious with pain and what Segrest supposed must be the onset of an infection that would kill him if they didn’t get help soon.

  Walton wasn’t satisfied, but he took Segrest’s answer as the best he was going to get. Muhammad Qabbani spoke up next. “I wonder who else might respond now, to the beacon?” he inquired.

  Segrest was ready with an answer, sketched out in advance to light a fire under the mole. “It’s doubtful any of the opposition forces have equipment to pick up the homing beacon,” he replied. “I could be wrong, of course. The military likely has something, for tracking down their own planes if they crash. The good news is, they’re not supposed to know we’re coming.”

  Not supposed to, but almost certainly did.

  “Are we safe here?” Qabbani asked him.

  “I won’t lie to you,” Segrest replied. “I’m hoping that relief comes in from Baghdad. They can get us out, and we can try rescheduling the meeting. If the army shows up first, well, we could have a problem.”

  That was Bankole’s cue. “There is no need for fear. I feel certain they will respect diplomatic immunity.”

  “That’s no help to me or Rafic,” Qabbani answered back. “To them we’re all just rebels. Outlaws.”

  “We’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed,” said Segrest, wondering what must be going on inside the traitor’s mind.

  * * *

  NASSER AL-KASSAR FELT optimistic for the first time since he had been assigned to lead the search for Muhammad Qabbani and the others. He had worried, from the outset, that they all might have been killed when they were shot out of the sky. That would have foiled the plan devised by his superiors—as would failure to find the downed aircraft at all.

  Now, by some miracle, the plane’s locator beacon had begun to function, nearly two full days after the crash. Al-Kassar did not know why it had been silent all that time, or why it had begun to work just now—perhaps Allah had intervened somehow—but he was grateful for the break and meant to take advantage of it to the fullest.

  Sergeant Zureiq’s voice cut into his thoughts. “If I may ask you, Captain, what are we supposed to do with all those people?”

  “That has yet to be decided,” said al-Kassar. He was a bit surprised how easily the lie came to his lips.

  “I only wondered if this was supposed to be a rescue mission, or…”

  Zureiq did not finish the sentence but left it hanging as if he expected al-Kassar to complete if for him. Deftly sidestepping the trap, al-Kassar replied, “My orders are to find them and secure them. From that point, Idlib will decide.”

  The FSA’s commanders had been headquartered in the capital of Idlib Governorate for several years. In fact, the decision had already been made, but it was not something al-Kassar planned to share, at this point, with a lowly sergeant. When the time came, he would issue orders, not debate the matter with his men.

  “The brigadiers are wise, of course,” Zureiq allowed. Two generals shared command of the FSA with a colonel, rotating service as commander in chief. “They understand that we have friends aboard the plane, I’m sure.”

  “No doubt,” al-Kassar agreed. The conversation was beginning to annoy him.

  “Do we have a plan, Captain, in case we reach the site too late?”

  “Too late for what?” Al-Kassar pictured the passengers stretched out beside their aircraft, corpses baking in the desert sun.

  “Well, others may be seeking them as we are, eh? The army, Hezbollah, who knows? What happens then?”

  “We shield them from all harm, at any cost,” al-Kassar replied. “Those are my orders. In the meantime, pray that we are first to find them, all alive and well.”

  “I will, Captain. May Allah hear and heed our prayers.”

  Al-Kassar turned from the sergeant, peering through the open window of his staff car at the endless desert. Soldiers would be eating dust behind him, in the BTR-50 armored personnel carrier and in the Ural 375D trucks. All three of the vehicles had been captured from regular army outposts—liberated, as it were—and they would serve well in the final execution of his secret order.

  Execution. Yes, that was the word.

  The video performance that he had in mind would be sensational—and it would cost the animal at the head of the regime whatever marginal support he still enjoyed outside of Syria. Americans were fond of saying all was fair in love and war.

  Captain Nasser al-Kassar would soon be testing that hypothesis.

  * * *

  THIS WILL BE the death of me, Sabah Azmeh decided. Someday in the distant future, some nomad will find my bones, perhaps my weapons also, and he’ll wish he knew what madness had brought me here.

  Or maybe, he’d just steal the guns.

  Azmeh had no idea how far they had walked since the Russian truck died. The hard-baked soil beneath his feet burned like a bed of coals, searing him through the thick soles of his boots. His legs felt wooden, almost numb. His camouflage fatigues were soaked with sweat. The straps that crisscrossed Azmeh’s torso chafed his shoulders raw, striking new sparks of pain each time they shifted by a fraction of an inch. His throat was parched, and breathing was an exercise in agony.

  A few yards ahead of him, Matt Cooper seemed to bear the torture well enough. His own fatigues were dark with sweat, but otherwise, he might have just begun a stroll across some sylvan glen, with fragrant blooms and burbling brooks on either side. Azmeh began to wonder if the man was human, or a cyborg warrior sent from some top-secret lab to test its capabilities in battle.

  Insane, he thought. The sun has baked my brain. I’ve lost my mind.

  But he was still upright, still plodding forward through the heat haze. What alternative was there? He could walk on, or lie down where he was and die.

  The homing beacon ruled them. Cooper had his GPS device locked on it, and he obviously had no plans to waver from the shortest, most direct course they could manage. So far, that forced march had not brought them to shade or water. As for how much longer he could follow Cooper without dropping in his tracks, Azmeh had no idea.

  Suddenly, as if responding to that thought, Cooper stopped dead. He pointed forward, slightly to his left. “A house.” It reassured Azmeh, somehow, to hear the tall American’s voice croak.

  Azmeh looked for the house, missed it at first, then thought it might be nothing but a mirage. At last, he realized it was real. A house in the middle of nowhere. And more importantly, he caught a gleam of sun on metal near the structure.

  A water tank? A vehicle? Azmeh would welcome either one, and if it proved to be some useless object, he would settle for the shade a building offered. If they were forced to claim that shade by force, Azmeh supposed it would not weigh too heavily upon his conscience.

  “How far is it, do you think?” he rasped, his throat like sandpaper.

  “Maybe a quarter mile,” Cooper replied. “No more than half.”

  Six hundred steps, at least, the way
his feet were dragging now, perhaps eleven hundred. It was daunting, might have made him weep if he had any moisture left to spare, but it was something, an objective, possibly a ray of hope.

  “It’s probably abandoned,” he told Cooper.

  “Only one way to find out.”

  Azmeh nodded, causing pain to flare up from his aching neck and into his temples. Cooper led the way, and Azmeh followed, wondering if this was but a detour en route to hell.

  * * *

  CAPTAIN FAKHRI CONSULTED his GPS once again, mouthing a silent curse as his staff car jolted over rugged ground. “Be careful, Sergeant!” he commanded. “We don’t need a broken axle here.”

  “No, sir,” Malki replied, his voice bland. “Shall I slow down, sir?”

  “No!” Fakhri retorted, even as he recognized the contradiction. “Simply be more careful.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Fakhri hated it when Malki humored him. It made him want to slap the crusty little noncom, which would be a major breach of military etiquette. Instead, he sat and fumed, wondering why his GPS did not reveal his little convoy making better progress toward their target.

  Of course, there were no highways in this portion of the eastern desert, only camel tracks and unpaved roads that blew away each time a sandstorm passed. His party was trailblazing, traveling by what appeared to be the shortest route available, but still too far away to suit him.

  What if someone else was following the aircraft’s homing beacon? Fakhri would never hear the end of it if a United Nations rescue party crossed the border from Iraq and snatched the interlopers before he could take them into custody. There must be rebel forces in the area as well, though he had no idea if any of them knew about the so-called diplomats’ trip. Outsiders always claimed to know how other nations should conduct political affairs and treat their dissidents. They remained safe at home in distant lands while they gave orders, strangling Syria with economic sanctions.

  Captain Fakhri, as a respected military officer, would have no part of such subversive schemes. He had sworn an oath to uphold the Syrian state and its new constitution, established in 2012, which any fool could recognize as the most liberal document in his homeland’s history. Where else did common Arabs have so many civil liberties?