The Genesis Cypher (Warner & Lopez Book 6)

by Dean Crawford

  ‘They will find us,’ Talal said. ‘We have nowhere to run but back into Syria.’

  Lopez said nothing as she watched the elite troops methodically begin combing the terrain for them. Ethan’s idea of drawing the helicopter away from the girls until the Apaches could arrive had been a good one, but now that they had effectively been abandoned to their fate they were stranded on the wrong side of the border.

  Lopez didn’t know why the Apaches had turned back at the last moment and she couldn’t think of a good reason why they would. Having crossed Lebanese airspace on a covert mission to rendezvous with Ethan and the team, to pull back a quarter of a mile from their destination was crazy in the extreme. They could have completed the extraction within minutes and everybody would have headed home happy for drinks and medals. Now, Ethan was in the hands of the Russians and Lopez was facing the tricky task of figuring out a way to smuggle the girls out of the area and then across a highly dangerous border without being spotted.

  ‘We’ve got to go,’ Talal urged her. ‘They will find us.’

  ‘I can’t leave Ethan behind,’ Lopez snapped in a harsh whisper. ‘They’ll kill him.’

  ‘They’ll kill us all,’ Talal pointed out reasonably, ‘and I can’t get these girls out of here safely on my own.’

  Lopez looked at the four girls, huddled in the shadow of the trees and hugging each other. Their fearful white eyes stared about them, listening to their voices as she and Talal argued about what to do.

  ‘The Russians can’t stay out here for much longer,’ Lopez reasoned. ‘They’ll be forced to head back to Homs eventually, because the only reason that helicopter can be flying this close to the border unchallenged is if the Russians paid off the Lebanese border guards. If we can lay low for long enough and avoid being captured, we can walk to the border – it’s only a half mile away.’

  ‘And then what?’ Talal pleaded. ‘You think that they’ll welcome us with open arms and wave us through a checkpoint? The DIA has abandoned you, both of you. Any credentials you may have had before are worthless now and you’re as likely to be arrested and sold into slavery yourself!’

  Lopez felt her shoulders slump as she realized that Talal was correct. Human trafficking in Beirut had reached record levels since the Syrian civil war, the International Security Force’s Vice Squad completely overwhelmed with cases of abductions and enforced prostitution. The plight of Syrian girls was well known, but the sheer scale and volume of corruption meant that few of them were ever rescued from their grim fate. Lopez looked at the girls and her heart plunged.

  ‘We can’t let them be abducted again, they won’t survive,’ she whispered.

  ‘Then let us leave,’ Talal urged her, ‘now, while we still can!’

  Lopez reluctantly crawled into the shade of the trees and took the hand of the oldest girl. The girl looked it seemed directly into Lopez’s eyes and willingly took her hand, as though she recognized that Lopez was an ally. The girl then took the hand of her closest friend, and the remaining two likewise linked their hands.

  Lopez knew that they couldn’t understand her, but she spoke as softly as she could in the hopes that they would know she was trying to help them.

  ‘We’re going to try to keep you safe,’ she said. ‘I don’t know if we can, but we will try.’

  Lopez squeezed the hand of the oldest girl, and to her surprise she saw a faint smile touch the child’s sculptured lips as she replied.

  ‘We know, saydati.’

  Lopez’s eyes flew wide in surprise. ‘You speak English.’

  ‘I do, but only I,’ the girl replied. ‘We must hurry.’

  Before Lopez could respond, the girl stood and practically dragged Lopez with her through the trees. Lopez allowed herself to be led as the girl travelled north, away from the Russians through the dense foliage clogging the banks of the river. Although Lopez had absolutely no idea where they were going, the incredible confidence with which the girl led her was such that she complied without resistance.

  ‘What is your name?’ she asked her as they moved.

  ‘I am Sofia.’

  ‘I’m Nicola.’

  Sofia smiled. ‘I know.’

  Lopez began to feel like she was the younger and more vulnerable of the two as she was led through the copses of trees. She could hear the Russians behind them, making no effort to conceal their presence. She figured that they were probably hoping to flush the girls out quickly and carry them away.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Lopez asked her.

  ‘To safety,’ Sofia replied.

  ‘But we’re heading back into Syria.’

  ‘Yes,’ Sofia replied, ‘but not for long.’

  Lopez and Talal exchanged a glance but said nothing as they were led ever closer to the main highway where they had first ambushed the Russian convoy. She could see smoke rising from damaged vehicles, and the flashing lights of emergency vehicles as the victims left at the scene of the crash were treated or loaded into body bags.

  ‘We can’t get too close to the road,’ Lopez warned Sofia. ‘There may be other people looking for us and for you.’

  ‘There are other people looking for you,’ Elena confirmed, ‘and they are very dangerous.’

  Lopez was about to question the sense in approaching such dangerous people when Sofia raised one hand and slowed. Lopez moved into a low crouch alongside her, Talal and the other girls following suit as they moved slowly through the brush to where the river flowed quietly alongside the bank.

  Lopez caught sight of four black inflatable vessels just as she heard the sound of a rifle mechanism somewhere ahead of them in the bushes. She froze, as did Sofia and the rest of the little group, and then a familiar voice growled at them from the bushes.

  ‘Lopez.’

  Lopez almost collapsed in relief as she heard the voice. ‘Mitchell?’

  From the bushes emerged the big assassin, dressed entirely in black fatigues and with his M–16 rifle cradled in his grasp. He moved toward her, staying low as he saw the girls with her.

  ‘Thanks for screwing up our ambush,’ Mitchell growled. ‘We had everything under control until you and Warner showed up.’

  Lopez shot him a dirty look. ‘That’s what you get for going AWOL with Jarvis instead of staying with Ethan and I.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Mitchell conceded as he looked around. ‘Where is the great white hunter anyway?’

  ‘He got caught,’ Lopez said, ‘gave us the chance to get away and now the Russians have him.’

  Mitchell frowned. ‘What happened to your support? We thought that the Apaches picked you up?’

  ‘They turned back before they reached us,’ Lopez admitted. ‘Something’s gone down in DC and we’ve been burned.’

  Mitchell looked at the four girls and then nodded as though he’d expected something like that all along.

  ‘Trust is not something to be expected from the government,’ he replied simply. ‘We have room for you all but we can’t move until the Russians have pulled out.’

  Lopez eyed the team behind Mitchell. ‘You could take them down, you’ve got superior numbers.’

  ‘But we don’t have a ride out of here like you did,’ Mitchell reminded her. ‘Our mission is to extract them through Lebanon to the coast and leave from there, quietly.’

  ‘Your mission?’ Lopez asked. ‘And what the hell are you doing out here anyway?’

  Mitchell smiled.

  ‘Fighting the good fight,’ he replied. ‘Jarvis says hi.’

  ‘The hell with that traitor.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re saying or what we’re doing,’ Mitchell cautioned her. ‘I’d wait until we can show you before you swallow the DIA’s lines.’

  ‘Well excuse me,’ Lopez replied tartly, ‘I didn’t realize that pinching thirty billion dollars was an act of charity.’

  The sound of Russian voices rose up behind them.

  ‘You can sound off about this later,’ Mitchell snapped in a whis
per. ‘Right now, we have to disappear.’

  ‘Take the girls,’ Lopez said, ‘and Talal here. I’m going back for Ethan.’

  Mitchell rolled his eyes, white sockets vivid against his dark skin. ‘We don’t have time, you can’t take on an entire troop of soldiers alone and the Russians will be here any moment. Leave this to us.’

  ‘You’re going to leave him behind,’ Lopez accused before Mitchell had even begun to move.

  The big man glared at her.

  ‘Things have changed. You said the DIA burned you? Well, now you don’t have anywhere to go. The best thing that could happen to you both now is that you die out here.’

  ‘How the hell do you figure that?’ Lopez uttered.

  ‘Because somebody, somewhere in the government wants that to happen. If you survive this attack, they’ll try again.’

  Beside Lopez, Sofia spoke softly. ‘There is another girl still with the Russians.’

  Lopez stared at her. ‘There’s another one?’

  ‘Yes,’ Sofia nodded, ‘Elena. She is the best of the seers. We cannot leave her.’

  Lopez shot Mitchell an expectant look, and the big assassin sighed and rolled his eyes.

  ***

  XXXV

  Ethan knelt on the sand, his hands tied behind his back and a blindfold wrapped tightly over his eyes. He could hear the sound of the Russians clattering their way through nearby trees, trying to scare the girls out of hiding. Ethan maintained the hope that they had fled north back into Syria at the first opportunity and put as much distance between themselves and the Russians as possible.

  A dull pain throbbed through his skull from where the Russian oaf had slammed his boot into Ethan’s face, and he could taste blood in his mouth. Ethan sighed softly as he reflected on the fact that he was getting a bit long in the tooth to be taking this kind of beating on every other deployment, not that there would be any more. The DIA had deliberately abandoned them despite being literally within a few hundred meters of their position. Ethan had no doubt that somebody, somewhere had chosen to deny them the rescue that they could so easily have provided, and that provoked a fierce rage that threatened to burst from within him in a cry of anguish. There could never be any justification for what the DIA had done and Ethan promised himself that this would be the last time he would work for them. Damn it, even in his worst moments Jarvis had never willingly abandoned them to death, always managing to figure out a way to give them a fighting chance for survival no matter how harsh the odds.

  Ethan heard foot falls nearby and the sound of a truck approaching on the road somewhere behind him and to his left. The vehicle’s brakes squealed as it came to a halt and he listened as a door opened and closed. The sound of Gregorie’s voice was just audible, and then he heard both men approaching him where he knelt.

  The cruel barrel of a gun pressed hard into the back of his neck as a heavily accented voice whispered harshly in his ear.

  ‘You so much as sniff in a way I don’t like, I’ll blow your brains out all over your face.’

  The blindfold was loosened and pulled away, blinding desert light blazing into Ethan’s eyes as he squinted and struggled to focus on his surroundings. He became aware of a circle of troops surrounding him, their weapons held at port arms as they watched him with uncaring expressions.

  The gun was removed from his neck as Gregorie tossed the blindfold to one side and moved away, a pistol held in his grip and pointed at Ethan. From the other side appeared a new face that Ethan recognized, somebody high up in the GRU called Mishkin.

  ‘Ethan Warner,’ Mishkin uttered as though spitting something unpleasant from his mouth. ‘I have heard much about you and I must say it’s a pleasure to meet you, especially in these circumstances.’

  Ethan’s eyes adjusted once more to the light and he offered a grim smile to the Russian.

  ‘Can’t say the same.’

  ‘I don’t blame you!’ Mishkin chortled as he gestured to the Spetsnaz soldiers surrounding them. ‘You’ve killed several of their friends during your little escapade out here, and I honestly cannot imagine what they’re going to do to you, alone and without any of your American friends to support you.’

  Ethan shrugged.

  ‘Mission’s accomplished,’ he said simply and then threw in a lie on impulse. ‘The girls got away. They’re long gone now.’

  Mishkin peered at him and then smiled again.

  ‘You’re a clever man, Mister Warner, always thinking fast. But I don’t believe for a moment that those girls are more than a half mile away and we will find them. As soon as that sun sinks far enough, our gunship’s Infra–Red cameras will find them easily enough in the cooling deserts. They’ll probably welcome us with open arms because they’ll be freezing half to death within a few hours, but of course we don’t really want to wait that long do we?’

  Mishkin moved closer to Ethan, put his hands on his knees and bent down to look him in the eye.

  ‘Sadly, the Geneva Convention does not apply out here in the deserts of Syria. In fact, not many rules apply at all. So I’ll ask you just the once Mister Warner: where are the girls you stole from us?’

  Ethan smiled up at Mishkin.

  ‘Bite me.’

  The Russian sighed and stood back as he turned to Gregorie. ‘Let your men find out which one of his testicles he’d like to hang on to. With luck, his screams will bring his little friends running to help him.’

  Ethan heard a rumble of anticipation among the Spetsnaz soldiers as Gregorie’s wide jaw split in a cruel grin and he reached behind his back. From a sheath that ran down the length of his spine beneath his shirt he drew a huge, twelve–inch long combat knife that shone in the sunlight. Its steel blade flashed as Gregorie examined it with delight and then turned to his men.

  ‘Flatten him out!’

  The soldiers rushed in and one of them side–kicked Ethan in the chest. The blow sent him sprawling onto his back on the dust as his lungs convulsed inside him, pinning his arms beneath his back as the other soldiers grabbed his shoulders and ankles.

  Ethan saw Mishkin gesture to the truck they’d arrived in, and from the back of it he saw two more soldiers appear. Between them was another young girl, her hands tied behind her back and her eyes blind and unseeing.

  ‘You didn’t think we’d, how do you say, put all our eggs in one basket did you?’ Mishkin asked.

  Ethan watched as the girl was marched down to join them, and Mishkin spoke in accented English to her.

  ‘Elena, your friends have disappeared and this man knows where they are,’ he said to her. ‘I suspect that you have forseen what will happen here, but just in case you’re not sure I will explain. If you do not tell us where the other girls are hiding, this man will be eviscerated one painful step at a time.’

  Ethan saw the girl’s expression crumple in disgust and horror as Mishkin went on.

  ‘Tell us, now.’

  Ethan strained against his captors as he spoke to the girl. ‘Don’t tell them a thing, you don’t owe me anything and…’

  Gregorie’s thick hand clamped across Ethan’s mouth and slammed his head back down against the sand. Ethan squirmed against them and tried to warn the girl not to speak but he could see the tears welling in her sightless eyes.

  ‘Where are they?!’ Mishkin screamed at her.

  The girl flinched but she said nothing, distress twisting her dark features. Mishkin glared at Gregorie and nodded.

  Gregorie crouched down and pressed his thick knife against Ethan’s crotch, still smiling.

  ‘Left, or right?’ he asked as he removed his hand from Ethan’s mouth.

  ‘You do anything to me, you’ll never see those girls again.’

  Gregorie shrugged. ‘Left it is then.’

  The big Russian leaned it and Ethan felt the blade press painfully against him and then two gunshots ripped the air it seemed right above his head. Two of the watching Russian soldier’s heads exploded as the bullets smashed through flesh and
bone and a scream went up in Russian as Gregorie hurled himself away from Ethan and bursts of clattering gunfire ripped into the Russian soldiers with terrific accuracy.

  Ethan rolled away from them as best he could, thumping awkwardly over and over across the shore as he tried to get clear of the gunfire. Bullets raked the shore around him and he looked to the north to see swiftly moving figures dressed in black advancing up the river bank through the trees.

  Mishkin and two of his men dashed for the cover of his truck with the girl pinned between them and leaped inside, Gregorie joining them as the truck turned in a cloud of diesel smoke and accelerated away from the firefight. Ethan looked to the Hind helicopter and saw the massive blades beginning to turn as the pilots hurriedly began starting the engines, a deafening turbine roar blasting from the exhausts.

  Four figures rushed past Ethan, putting more rounds into the fallen Russian soldiers as they passed. Two of them dashed to the side of the Hind and tossed black objects high up onto the fuselage, the objects sticking to the metal. The soldiers sprinted away toward Ethan, and on instinct Ethan turned away and tried to bury himself in the sand as the huge helicopter lifted off in a roiling cloud of dust blasted at him by the downwash from the immense rotor blades.

  Ethan saw the black–suited soldiers hurl themselves down into the sand around him, and then the he heard two dull thumps from the direction of the gunship. A cloud of gray smoke and debris burst from the massive engines and then suddenly he heard a shrieking cacophony of metal grinding upon metal. He looked up and saw the gunship’s engines literally tear themselves apart, the huge rotors breaking up and spinning away through the air as debris and shattered engine components blasted away from the helicopter in all directions.

  The Hind whined as though in its death throes and spun out of control as it plummeted out of the hard blue sky two hundred meters away and smashed into the desert. Ethan saw a huge fireball billow from the impact point as a deafening explosion ripped across the river and a vast expanding ball of oily black smoke smeared itself across the blue sky.