Syrian Rescue Read online

  The next time Fakhri checked his GPS, he saw that they were gaining on their stationary target, after all. The distance left to travel still disturbed him, but he guessed that they could reach the crash site in ninety minutes, maybe even an hour, if they held their present speed and met no opposition or obstructions on the way.

  Fakhri was looking for the aircraft’s passengers, not simply the plane itself. He hoped to find at least a few of them alive, but corpses could be useful in their own way, offered up as evidence of territorial incursion by the US and United Nations. The president could place the dead on trial via the internet; he could protest to UN headquarters, for all the good that it would do, and Russia might take up the case if all else failed.

  The main thing was to find the infiltrators, make sure none had slipped away and take them into custody if they were still alive. That done, he would await instruction from headquarters in Damascus, and obey whatever orders he received.

  Would it be life or death for the invaders?

  Captain Fakhri thought about it and decided that it made no difference to him.

  * * *

  THE OLD, RAMSHACKLE house was not abandoned. Rather, Bolan saw as they approached, it was the centerpiece of a small and struggling farm. Sugar beets seemed to be the main crop, with some olive trees clinging tenaciously to life. The farmer saw them coming, well out from the house, and met them on his front porch with an old Lee-Enfield rifle.

  The last thing Bolan needed was a shoot-out with some complete stranger who might have a family waiting inside the old house.

  The farmer called them to a halt at fifty yards. Azmeh translated the exchange while Bolan scanned the property. The gleam of metal they’d observed from far off was, in fact, a vehicle—a purple, late-fifties era Cadillac Sixty Special, complete with phony air scoops. It was polished to perfection, shaded by a leaning carport, but it wouldn’t hold the small crowd Bolan was hoping to retrieve.

  “He asks if we are soldiers, and for which side,” Azmeh said.

  “Tell him the truth. We’re on a rescue mission.”

  Azmeh passed it on and translated the farmer’s quick reply. “Who needs rescuing?”

  “Wayward travelers,” said Bolan.

  And the farmer answered, through Azmeh, “Why so many weapons, then?”

  “Syria’s dangerous these days,” Bolan replied. “As you know very well.”

  The farmer almost cracked a smile at that but caught it in the nick of time. “What do you want from me?” he asked in Arabic.

  “We need a vehicle. Though not this precious Cadillac.”

  The farmer mulled it over, then called out a name. A boy of about twelve or thirteen emerged, holding a double-barreled shotgun from another century. The old man issued rapid-fire orders, then stepped down off the porch and started toward the west side of the house, leaving the boy to follow up and cover them.

  Around in back, there sat a Ford Ranchero pickup of the same vintage as the Caddy, rusted out in spots, with a long diagonal crack across its windshield. One headlight was missing from its socket, but the tires seemed to be holding air.

  “Does it run?” Bolan asked.

  The farmer answered Azmeh’s translated question by producing a single key and tossing it to Bolan. Bolan caught it, eased into the driver’s seat, and pumped the pedal twice before he turned the key. Beneath the truck’s speckled hood, a Ford straight-six engine growled to life, belching through a hole in the Ranchero’s muffler. The cab would only seat two people, but the pickup’s open bed could take a full load, if and when they found the stranded diplomats.

  “How much?” asked Bolan. Azmeh came back with a well-inflated asking price.

  The pickup’s fuel gauge needle stood at full, but how long would that last? “Tell him I’ll double that,” Bolan said, “if he throws in extra gas and then forgets he ever saw us.”

  That produced a gap-toothed smile. The farmer nodded, barking orders to his young backup, while Bolan climbed out of the Ford and started counting bills into the old man’s calloused hand.

  6

  The traitor focused on remaining calm, avoiding any careless word or nervous tic that might betray him. He had half expected pointing fingers when the sunburned Crusader announced he’d reactivated the aircraft’s homing beacon. He had calculated the distance from the spot where he was sitting to the bag that held his pistol, but no one called him out or even looked askance at him.

  That bought some time, but not too much. There was no deadline for arrival of the FSA squad he expected to collect the infiltrators, but resumption of the beacon’s broadcast meant he had to be alert, watching for anyone who might approach the plane, ready to strike if they were regulars, nomadic traders, bandits—anyone at all, besides his comrades.

  After the American’s announcement, he’d engaged in small talk with the others, voicing gratitude that they might soon be saved. Once he had made the rounds, he drifted back inside the aircraft’s cabin, braving the kiln-like heat, to retrieve his bag. It was a moment’s work to open it, extract the 3D-printed pistol, and conceal it underneath the loose tail of his shirt. Another moment, and he had the shaver open, spilling extra rounds into his palm and slipping them into his pocket.

  Ready.

  Emerging from the plane, he glanced about to see if anyone was watching him and found them all distracted by the news they’d just received. Sani Bankole and the top American, Segrest, were huddled near the LET’s crumpled nose, heads close together as they spoke in whispers.

  Clearly, they knew someone had shut the beacon off; or did they truly think it might have been forgotten during takeoff from Baghdad? The traitor could not trust that. For his own sake, he must treat his enemies as if they all suspected him and were preparing even now to move against him.

  When that move came, from a single foe or all of them at once, he would not hesitate.

  The Liberator pepperbox was simple to operate, but it had no sights, so shots would only be effective at close range. Point-blank was best, if he could manage it. His pistol rounds were subsonic hollow points in .380 caliber. On impact with flesh, the bullets flared to create a sharp petal shape that inflicted maximum damage.

  Head shots were guaranteed fatalities.

  The traitor was considering how long to wait, where he should be positioned for his first shot, when the second-string American cried out, “Look! The dust! Somebody’s coming!”

  The traitor turned with all the rest, followed the young man’s pointing finger toward a dust cloud on the southwestern horizon. Judging distances was difficult out here. A nomad likely could have estimated it to the meter, but the traitor was a city boy at heart. To him, the rising dust plume might have been five miles away, or twenty.

  It was visible and drawing closer. That was all that mattered.

  Friends or foes?

  Reaching around to touch the concealed pistol, he resolved to wait and see.

  * * *

  BASSAM FAKHRI WOULD not have seen the aircraft—or what was left of it—without the beacon guiding him to its location. Even within a hundred yards of where it lay, the outline of its fuselage was still obscured by sand from the recent storm, its open doors mere shadows on the landscape, easily mistaken for the mouths of caves.

  Fakhri saw six men standing more or less in line along the left side of the plane, watching his small convoy approach. One more lay off to the side, beneath a blanket that had been erected as a makeshift tent, to give him shade. The prostrate man had obviously worn a uniform before the crash: he still had on the white shirt, with epaulets. His black trousers had been slit to bare a badly broken leg that someone had tried to splint.

  A crewman, then—no one who concerned Captain Fakhri.

  He did not recognize the others as his staff car stopped in front of them. Fakhri had been informed of their intentions, and he’d been given the orders to capture them, alive if possible. What happened to them after that depended on the instructions he received once they we
re in his custody.

  Stepping from his vehicle with one hand on his holstered Makarov, Fakhri waited for Sergeant Malki to join him, hearing his soldiers unload from their truck and the BTR-152. Atop the armored personnel carrier, one private kept the NSV heavy machine gun trained on the raggedy survivors of the plane crash.

  Two of them stepped forward now. One of them spoke, his accent suggesting a West African background. “Good afternoon, and welcome,” he began, smiling. “We have been hoping someone would arrive to help us.”

  “Help you?” Captain Fakhri answered, with a musing tone. “We have been ordered to arrest you for invading the Syrian Arab Republic. You will come with us to answer charges before the State Security Court.”

  “Invading?” Now it was the other man’s turn to speak. He was obviously an American, accustomed to respect no matter how he trampled on the laws of other nations. “You’re making a serious—”

  The other man turned to him and muttered something, cutting off the rude tirade. When he turned back to Fakhri, he was all smiles once again. “I am afraid there has been a misunderstanding. We are delegates from the United Nations and the United States, attempting to resolve—”

  “You are trespassers,” Fakhri interrupted him. “Meddlers and enemies of our leader. It does not matter who you represent, since you have entered Syria without permission or approval from our government.”

  The African was fighting to retain his smile. “But we—”

  “And this one,” Fakhri cut him off again, pointing to one man halfway down the line, “is not from the United Nations or United States. He is Muhammad Qabbani. I recognize him from the posters charging him with treason, terrorism and subversion.”

  “We have diplomatic immunity,” the African answered, his expression now somber. “Please examine our credentials.”

  “Forgeries, no doubt. And none of that applies to enemies found sneaking over borders. You will come with us. A judge will study your so-called credentials at his leisure.”

  The American could hold his tongue no longer. “I’m an officer of the US State Department,” he declared. “I demand a phone line to contact my embassy.”

  Fakhri stepped closer to the man, his right hand still resting on the Makarov. “If you are wise,” he said, “you will remember that you are in no position to make demands. Now, all of you! Into the truck!”

  The African glanced toward the man lying beneath the makeshift tent. “Our pilot has been badly injured. He needs medical assistance.”

  “Say goodbye to him,” Fakhri advised. “You have no need for pilots now.”

  * * *

  BOLAN’S GPS TOLD HIM they had eighty-seven miles to go before they reached whatever still remained of the United Nations plane. He still had no idea why there had been no beacon in the first phase of his search or why its function had resumed. Both circumstances fueled suspicion, but his top priority was getting to the crash site and finding out if anyone was still alive.

  “Will they all fit in the back?” Azmeh asked when they’d put the lonely farm behind them.

  “I suppose they’ll have to,” Bolan answered. “For a few miles, anyway.”

  The last part of his plan was simple enough in concept: collect the crash survivors, drive them east toward the border, far enough to make them safe from any incoming patrols, then call for air support. Although the US military had officially withdrawn from Iraq, America still had personnel in the country who would send choppers to lift the diplomats, Bolan and Sabah Azmeh out of Syria.

  But he’d be surprised if it went that smoothly.

  The farm was thirty miles behind them, or a little more, when Bolan saw the vehicles ahead, sitting beside the whisper of a camel track that they were following northeastward. Azmeh saw them as well, murmured a curse, then said, “A checkpoint.”

  “When’s the last time that you saw a checkpoint in the middle of the desert, with no road or border anywhere close by?” Bolan inquired.

  “You’re right. Bandits, then.”

  Or stragglers, Bolan thought, maybe deserters from one of the various guerrilla outfits operating inside Syria. Smart money said the people waiting up ahead would all be armed, less interested in his nationality or travel papers than in grabbing anything of value they could steal, before they executed him and Azmeh on the spot.

  “You going to drive around them?” Azmeh asked, not sounding hopeful.

  “Wouldn’t work,” said Bolan. They’d already been in one wild chase across the desert, lost their Wrangler in the process, and he knew the old Ranchero wouldn’t survive a similar experience. “Be ready when I make my move.”

  “I will,” said Azmeh, clearly not encouraged by the prospect.

  * * *

  NASSER AL-KASSAR PEERED into the aircraft’s interior, hot light streaming in through both open doors. The only person still inside the plane was clearly dead, up in the cockpit. Outside, only one remained, and he was incoherent, raving through the fever that consumed him.

  “We’ve missed them, Captain,” Zureiq said, not helpful in the least.

  “I see that, Sergeant. Thank you.”

  Stepping back into full sunlight, still cooler than the cabin with its stagnant air of death, al-Kassar surveyed the site. Where had his targets gone? He saw the marks of big tires, where at least two vehicles had turned before proceeding northward.

  Army? Someone else?

  He approached the dying man and knelt beside him, ducking underneath his blanket tent, peering into his fevered eyes. Whatever blight was raging through his system, it was not contagious. The infection in his shattered leg had swollen it enough to strain the strips of blanket used to bind his splint. A surgeon might have saved his life by amputation, but al-Kassar’s team had no doctor, and he did not have the time to spare.

  He slapped the crewman’s dripping face, lightly at first, then using greater force to make his eyes focus. “Need…help,” the man said.

  “I see that,” al-Kassar answered, using rusty English. “I can help you, but I need an answer first.”

  “Answer?”

  “Where have the others gone?”

  “Others?”

  “From the plane. Who took them?”

  “Soldiers.”

  “Regulars?”

  “Need…help,” the crewman said again.

  Al-Kassar gave up. In his demented state, the man would not know one group of armed men in fatigues from any other.

  “Help you shall have,” al-Kassar said, as he rose and backed away. “Sergeant, help him.”

  Zureiq blinked at him, then replied, “Yes, sir” and drew his pistol. He leaned in, aimed and fired once into the crewman’s skull, ending his earthly misery. The dead man shivered, his good leg kicking, while the other merely wobbled in its clumsy splint.

  “We have a trail to follow,” said al-Kassar, “before the desert blows it all away.”

  And how long would that be? He was so close to victory, and now it might be snatched away from him. Bitterness made al-Kassar spit into the sand beneath his boots.

  He had nearly reached his staff car, was about to mute the nagging GPS device clipped to his belt, when it picked up a second pinging sound. Snatching the reader, al-Kassar saw a second dot moving north from the stationary beacon of the plane. He tried to judge the distance on the small screen, guessing that the second beacon—and whoever carried it—had traveled ten to fifteen miles from the crash site.

  They were within his reach if al-Kassar moved quickly enough.

  “Back to the vehicles!” he shouted at his men. “Hurry!”

  * * *

  EIGHT MEN WERE waiting at the “checkpoint,” four for each of the two clapped-out European SUVs they had arrived in. Bolan recognized a Russian Niva and a Romanian Dacia Duster, both of them sandblasted, showing their age with rust spots, dents and dings, cracked windshields, balding tires.

  The men weren’t much to look at, either. Two were fairly stout, the rest slender, their var
ied heights a discordant musical scale. They were dirty and unkempt, but their weapons, on the other hand, were polished and clean. They held various models of Kalashnikovs, loaded with curved banana clips, ready to rock and roll.

  Bolan slowed on the approach and let the gunmen see him looking at them through the Ford Ranchero’s windshield. Casually, carefully, he raised the AKMS to his lap, keeping it down below the dashboard and the steering wheel, while Azmeh did likewise. Their windows were already down, and both auto rifles were ready with fresh magazines. Once Bolan checked his safety, he was good to go.

  “We don’t have time to bargain with them,” he told Azmeh. “The second their weapons come up, take them down as quickly as you can.”

  “Will they not have us in a cross fire?” Azmeh asked.

  “That’s their first mistake,” Bolan replied, and smiled.

  At thirty yards, the gunmen started fanning out a bit, but not enough to matter. They were trying to intimidate Bolan and Azmeh, cow them from the start to make things easy on themselves. Fear gave them an advantage.

  They were in for a surprise.

  At fifteen yards, still smiling, Bolan asked the shooters on his side of the Ranchero, “What’s up, guys?”

  One of the paunchy ones replied in Arabic, and Bolan nodded in phony understanding. He heard the click of a safety as Azmeh said something to the men on his side of the car. Go time.

  Bolan hit the one who’d spoken to him with a three-round burst, center mass, and blew him back into the sand.

  And then, all hell broke loose.

  Azmeh was firing from his window, short bursts, while his targets tried to scramble. Bolan focused on his own remaining adversaries, who were ducking, dodging, not as ready for resistance as they’d thought they were.

  He caught the second shooter raising his Kalashnikov and stitched him with a burst around belt level, gutting him. The scrawny guy collapsed but still managed to fire a few rounds skyward as he died.