by Jon F. Merz
So I try to be a good boy and listen these days.
Talya wanted to take point again, so I waited until she’d crawled down the stairs toward the exit we’d decided upon. Then I made my descent as well.
Much of what we were doing was long and painstaking. This is the tough work that operators have to do. All you see in movies is the quick, supposedly fun stuff of kicking in doors and shooting bad guys. But before you can even get close to that point, you have to carefully pick your way close to the target without them knowing about it. Speed, aggression, and surprise are critical components of a good op. But you don’t get surprise if you go rushing around everywhere. The speed comes into play once you’ve managed to get yourself on target without anyone knowing about it.
Otherwise, you’re just walking into an ambush. And those suck.
Talya eased her way across the open ground, looking more like a snake than anything remotely human. She wore night vision goggles and I knew that she’d acclimated well to them by now. I was lucky that vampires happen to have amazing night vision, so I didn’t have any problem watching her work her way across the field toward the settlement.
Talya reached the midway point and then stopped her progress. My turn. I crawled out of the house and followed the exact same route she had, trusting that she had used what she thought was the path most covered from view of anyone who might happen to be looking at the open ground. I’d know soon enough if that was the case or not because people would just automatically open up if they thought an enemy was approaching.
Luckily, I didn’t get my ass filled with lead. As I came abreast of Talya, she didn’t hesitate but moved off again. That’s one of the reasons why I loved her so much. When Talya was in the field, she operated with an incredible efficiency. She wasted no time, no movement. Every aspect of her being was oriented toward getting the mission accomplished with as little mess as possible.
No wonder she was so popular with private clients and governments all over the world.
Provided you even had the security clearance to know who she was.
Talya operated under several pseudonyms depending on who you were. She chose her clients carefully and if there was any doubt about bonafides, she simply wouldn’t work with you. If you happened to press your case with her, she would tell you to back the fuck off in a not-so-subtle manner: usually by putting a gun in your face with the hammer already pulled back. Talya didn’t fuck around and her reputation for excellence preceded her. I only knew of one time when someone had tried to set her up. That hadn’t ended well for the people who had tried to kill her.
But I suppose it was better for them that way; if I’d gotten my hands on them…
I watched her snake her way across the remaining open ground until she reached the outskirts of the settlement. I marveled at her stamina, but wasn’t surprised. Belly crawling for over a thousand feet with full kit on isn’t the easiest way to make a living, but she made it look easy. And even though it had been decades since she learned how to do all of this in the Ural Mountains, she looked as spry as ever.
She found a good spot to provide cover fire for me in case anyone spotted my approach and then nodded in my direction.
I started my approach, aware of the growing volume of ambient noise the closer I got to the settlement. Earlier this evening during the call to prayer, we’d counted roughly twenty enemy that had come out to the courtyard and knelt in the direction of Mecca. But that didn’t mean there were only twenty in total. We estimated thirty to be on the safe side.
I wasn’t too concerned about the men in the settlement itself. What concerned both Talya and me more was the idea that reinforcements might be only minutes away. Hundreds of reinforcements at that. As good as we were, not even we could handle such an overwhelming force. Even if we were bolstered by the STA-F hostages. We’d be overrun in moments.
I made it to Talya’s position and we took stock. So far so good. But that wasn’t saying much. We were on the outskirts concealed behind a few rain barrels. They offered no cover and we certainly couldn’t stay there. The settlement consisted of three houses grouped together. We had to check them all to see if we could locate the hostages.
I just hoped they were here. With Hotel Five inbound, we had to get eyes on as soon as possible and if my gut had screwed me over, we were going to be in a real bad state.
Talya nudged me and we moved out.
Time to see just what was going on with the Beard and the rest of his happy detachment of assholes.
11
We made our approach to the first house. No lights were on and we tried the door. It was unlocked, so I led the way in with Talya bringing her suppressed M4 right up over my shoulder to cover our entry. We moved quickly but as quietly as possible.
I heard snoring before I saw the figures in the next room. Five ISIS fighters were sound asleep. I used my hands to tell Talya. We backed out of the room and then cleared the remainder of the house without incident. We huddled up briefly to discuss our options. We could easily kill the five sleeping men in the room, but that course of action was problematic. We still didn’t know if the hostages were even in the settlement. If we executed five men, they would be missed eventually and that would bring a shit storm down upon Talya and me. And frankly, I didn’t like the idea of killing someone in their sleep. I’d do it if I had to. But I’d rather kill a man on his feet when he was coming at me.
We checked the exit from the house and saw nothing happening. Our next location to check was the house immediately across the way. It had two stories, the same as this one, but looked like it had a larger footprint. As we watched, three men came out of the house and started heading toward the house we were in.
Talya and I shrank back away from the exit. I waited behind the door while Talya positioned herself on the other side of the cheap stove in the corner of the kitchen. I could hear the men speaking in low tones as they approached. From what I could gather, they were talking about food.
Then the door knob turned and they entered the building. Talya had the better position and could easily take them out if need be. As soon as they closed the door, I was going to be exposed.
But luck held fast and they headed straight for the room with the other five sleeping men. It was just as well that we hadn’t killed the men when we could have. Everything would have gone to hell in a hurry.
As soon as they were clear, Talya and I got out of the house and headed across the courtyard. I expected a hail of gunfire as we did so, but nothing came at us.
We stacked outside of the second house and made our entry as quietly as possible.
We entered into another kitchen and ahead of us, we saw stairs leading down to a basement. The lights were on in the stairwell. Talya looked at me and swung her NVGs up so she could see in the light. She raised her eyebrows and I nodded. If I was keeping prisoners, I’d want them down in a basement.
Talya took point and we descended carefully. The rickety wooden steps creaked and groaned as we came down. There wasn’t anything we could do to stop the noise. There are times it’s possible to move silently, but this was not one of them. We had to move as fast as we could while still maintaining relative silence. We were trading stealth for speed.
So be it.
As we came down the stairs, Talya suddenly fired a single shot and I saw it take the guard in the center of his forehead. He dropped instantly and then we were scrambling down the steps. Two more guards barely had time to register our sudden appearance before we put two rounds into each of them. The suppressed M4s sounded like a couple of taps on a wooden table. Not exactly the quiet hushed puffs that Hollywood leads you to believe.
In front of us, the basement had been converted into some type of jail. There was just one problem: the cells were empty except for one lone man who looked like he was in his 80s.
There were no members of a STA-F team here.
Talya immediately started asking the man if there were any other hostages here while I search
ed the guards. I found the keys to the old man’s cell as he started babbling incoherently.
“Shut him up or he’s going to bring down a lot of heat on us,” I said.
Talya shushed him and asked him again. I could hear the exchange, but the old man only told Talya that there had been four other men with him. Westerners. But they’d been moved two days ago.
Two days ago was just about when I got news of this operation.
I frowned. I don’t like coincidences. I never have. Something about the idea of timing has always intrigued me and the longer I remain alive, the less convinced I am that things happen randomly. There’s always a reason. Like why move prisoners two days ago when there was no reason to? The basement could have easily done the job quite nicely. But someone had decided to move them anyway.
Because they knew Talya and I were coming?
One look at Talya’s face told me she was already thinking the same thing. You don’t stay alive as long as we have by being stupid and trusting. Not in this business.
“I don’t like this. Not one bit.”
Talya frowned. “We need to get the hell out of here. It’s obvious they aren’t here.”
I turned to the old man and asked him in Arabic. “Did you hear anything else about where they were being taken?”
He shrugged and I saw that he had very few teeth left as he said, “Bi’rar Rayy.”
“What the hell is that?”
The old man kept speaking. “By the airport. A mansion.”
I looked at Talya. The airport was a few miles away. If we were going to head there, then we were going to need transportation. “I saw a truck on the way in.”
She nodded. “You hotwire it and I’ll shoot anything that moves.”
“Let’s go.”
12
We moved back upstairs with the old man following behind in our wake. We couldn’t leave him in the cell so I freed him before we left. I didn’t want him tagging along after us and hoped he’d be okay on his own.
Talya eased out into the courtyard and pointed at the truck. I moved quickly, getting inside and getting under the steering column while she provided cover for me. So far so good, but as soon as I cranked the engine, we were as good as discovered. But we needed the vehicle and there was no time to waste.
It was then that I heard Talya’s M4 start coughing as she picked off some bad guys.
“Now would be a good time to get it going!” she shouted.
I didn’t need any further encouragement and connected the wires that sparked the engine. I came up and slid behind the wheel, gunning the gas. “We’re good!”
Talya hopped into the passenger side and slapped the dash. “Go!”
I threw the truck into drive and we fishtailed pulling out of the courtyard. Gunfire erupted all around us. Talya shot through the back of the cab, which was missing its windshield. She picked off the five men who were racing out of the houses after us.
Ahead of me, the hard tack road wound around to my right and I followed it, trying to put as much distance between us as possible. Bullets splanged off the ground and the fender of the truck, but never came close to hitting either Talya or me. The road curved around again and then we were gone.
“Give me a bearing,” I said. “I don’t know where I’m going.”
Talya checked her compass. “We’re heading east now. About a half klick ahead you’ll need to turn left to head north. The airport is about a mile and a half away.”
I wondered if the gunfire would have been heard all the way over at the airport. The last thing we needed was a welcome party when we arrived. But at this point, the sooner we got there, the better. We had no idea what we’d be facing. We were going in hot unless we spotted a way to ditch the truck without leaving a trail behind for our pursuers. I knew it was only a matter of time before Beard and his men found another truck and set off after us. And Palmyra wasn’t Manhattan; there were only so many opportunities to lose someone following you in a vehicle.
As we sped down the road, Talya was busy with her GPS and phone. I kept an eye on the rearview mirror but remarkably, I didn’t see any signs of pursuit. That didn’t mean they weren’t coming, however. After all, we were in a war zone and even here, every man, woman, and child had a cell phone.
We flew over the first mile and then Talya sparked up. “I think I’ve got something.”
“What?”
“Slow down but not too much. It should be up on the right side of the road.”
“What?”
She pointed. “A small pond. Drive into that and it should buy us some time while they look for our bodies.”
I nodded. “I can slow down as much as you want to let you out.”
“What about you?”
I gripped the wheel. “I need to make sure the truck stays on course. I’ll dive out at the last minute. I should be fine.”
“Don’t forget you’re wearing a lot of gear,” said Talya. “Rolling with that shit is going to hurt.”
“I’ve hurt worse,” I said. “Get ready…”
Talya eased the passenger door open as I shot toward the pond. I’d slowed the truck to about twenty miles per hour. It should have been safe for her to jump out provided she did it right.
I needn’t have worried. I barely said the word “go,” when Talya jumped from the truck, landed and rolled in the dust. She waved and I gave the truck a bit of gas to make sure it would have enough momentum to send it into the pond. I took the truck off the road and through the trees. Branches swirled past the window. It was now or never. I jerked the truck door open and dove out, impacting hard and rolling awkwardly. When I came to rest, I looked up and saw the truck go smashing through a small retaining wall and then right into the pond. We’d had no idea how deep the pond was, but the truck sank pretty fast. As long as it was over the cab, that was a good thing. Anyone tailing us would see the tire tracks and follow it here. Hopefully, they would assume we’d gone into the drink.
It wasn’t a sure thing though and our best defense right now was to disappear.
Talya met me by the road. “You all right?”
I nodded. “You were right. I’m not going to be in a hurry to roll with a vest and mags on any time soon.”
“You’re crazy,” she said. “But I’m glad you’re all right.”
“Me, too.” I glanced back down the road. The moon had come out and it was reflecting far too much light. Light that would silhouette us if we weren’t careful. “It’s only a matter of time before we have company. We need to get moving.”
Talya pointed. “I think we’re about a half mile from the place. We’ll go that way across the fields. Come up on them from behind.”
“And beyond it is the airport,” I said. “If everything goes right, we can get the hostages and be ready to leave when Hotel Five touches down. Which will hopefully be very soon.”
“You want to contact Niles?”
“Not yet. Not until we know for sure about the hostages.”
I could hear the sound of a car or truck somewhere further off. I had no idea if it was related to us, but we couldn’t afford to think that it wasn’t.
“Let’s get moving.”
13
Ahead of us, we had open scrub field and old lots that had been leveled from artillery shelling by one side or the other. Huge chunks of concrete jutted out of the ground. Twisted rebar sprouted like fingers looking to hook your clothing or tear you open if you weren’t careful. I took point moving across the rubble-strewn lot. Moving through the open field was easier, but the rubble provided us with both cover and concealment.
We heard trucks racing by behind us and I gave serious thought to flicking the safety off of my M4. But they hadn’t thrown any light on the area we were moving through and as far as we could see, they were still investigating the truck accident we’d staged. That wouldn’t keep them occupied for long and the sooner we got to our location, the better.
Talya leapfrogged my position and stopped
when she reached the shelled out husk of a building off to my two o’clock. She swung back to cover me as I moved. I started forward but out of the corner of my eye I caught a burst of movement behind Talya. Without thinking, I flipped the M4 up and threw the selector switch down to semi and fired two shots that were muffled by the suppressor. The form behind her dropped and she spun.
As I caught up with her, she was kneeling over the corpse. I hadn’t had time to aim properly, but then again, combat shooting isn’t like at the range. It’s instinctive. Your mind sees the threat and you neutralize it. Spend time trying to adjust for anything and it’s too late. All you’re aware of is a threat and you put it down.
It looked like I’d bagged a fighter of some type. Was he with ISIS? I had no idea, but he was armed with a wicked-looking kukri knife and it was obvious he planned to use it on Talya. If I hadn’t fired when I did, he would have easily slit her neck and she would have bled out.
Talya looked at me and smiled. I nodded. There wasn’t much need for her to gush thank-yous at me. I did what she would have done for me. That’s just how it is among professionals.
We huddled up for several moments and took stock of the surrounding area. We didn’t sense anyone else out in the rubble. The killer I’d put down was probably working alone, out looking for a victim of opportunity. He’d spotted Talya and decided to try his luck. Unfortunately, his luck had run out tonight.
From where we huddled, the area flattened and opened up. About five hundred yards away, I could see the runways at Palmyra airport. The lights were all off, as expected, since the airport wasn’t operational and supposedly under ISIS control. When Hotel Five touched down, I hoped they had a shitload or ordinance with them, because if ISIS did indeed control the airport, they weren’t going to take kindly to a plane landing on top of them.
