Syrian Rescue

by Don Pendleton

  “Maybe,” Karam agreed, scanning the desert that still lay between them and their quarry.

  “You can overtake them, eh?”

  “I hope so.”

  The GAZ Sadko had a 4.67-liter V8 engine, generating 130 horsepower, but the truck could only do so much off-road, on rough terrain, without falling apart or pitching the soldiers out of its open bed like popcorn bursting from a pot with no lid.

  Karam fought the steering wheel and grappled with the gearshift, sharp eyes twitching from his target—which was definitely fleeing now—to the ground in front of him, watching out for hidden obstacles. The last thing he needed was to crash against a boulder or tip into a wadi that he’d overlooked.

  The one thing worse than meeting unexpected adversaries in the desert would be getting stranded there, long miles from any help. The Sadko had no radio, of course, and while Karam was carrying a cell phone, picking up a signal here would be impossible.

  So, no mistakes, then.

  “Faster!” Sadek urged him, as if simply saying it would make the truck perform beyond its capabilities.

  Karam said nothing, concentrating on the smaller vehicle ahead of them. The gap was closing, though not fast enough to please his agitated passenger. Sadek enjoyed killing—well, who didn’t?—but he sometimes rushed into a fight without considering the possibility of failure.

  Closer now, Karam could see that they were following an ancient Jeep, not an official army vehicle. That still left many possibilities, given the Governorate’s state of near chaos. For all Karam knew, they might even now be wasting time and fuel, chasing a party of their so-called friends: the Badr Corps or the Promised Day Brigade—they were too numerous to count on any given day.

  Focus on what you know, he thought.

  Four passengers at most inside the Jeep, which meant they were outnumbered more than two to one by Karam and his men. Fair odds, but you could never truly judge an enemy until you joined him in battle.

  And if you had misjudged him…

  Karam had to be prepared when they made contact. Wedged between his left knee and the driver’s door, his AK-47 was already locked and loaded. He could bail out of the truck, firing, or run down anyone who tried to flee the Jeep on foot.

  Beyond that, all Karam could do was clutch the steering wheel and pray.

  * * *

  “THEY’RE GAINING ON US,” Azmeh said.

  Bolan could see that in his rearview, and he didn’t care to comment on the obvious. Instead, he asked, “So, any thoughts on who they are?”

  “The truck is standard issue,” Azmeh said. “But no flag or insignia. Not army or police, then, but beyond that—anyone.”

  That helped a little. Bolan drew a private line at killing cops, regardless of what side they served or how corrupt they were.

  The problem now: assuming that he couldn’t lose the truck pursuing them, where could they stand and fight?

  The flat, featureless desert offered no concealment, nothing in the way of cover if he stopped to shoot it out. Bolan could see heads bobbing in the truck’s bed, men with rifles who would likely have no qualms about eliminating him. At the moment, Bolan didn’t know who was pursuing them. They might be Syrians or Lebanese, Jordanians or Kurds, Iraqis or Iranians, Sunnis or Shi’ites.

  And it made no difference. He had to take them out.

  The hardware Bolan had on hand was standard issue, for convenience. His pistol, like Azmeh’s, was the same Browning Hi-Power carried by Syrian army officers. The other arms were Russian, from their matched AKMs to a Dragunov SVD sniper rifle, an RPK light machine gun, an RPG-7 grenade launcher with a mix of warheads, and a case of F1 hand grenades known in the Motherland as limonka for their supposed resemblance to lemons.

  First thing, Bolan scratched the long-range weapons off his mental list. His Dragunov was loaded, packing ten rounds in a detachable box magazine, but the rifle was meant for solitary, unsuspecting targets at a distance. He could use it to stop the truck, sure, if he took the driver out or maybe cracked the engine block, but would leave shooters scampering around the desert, no fit job for the Dragunov’s PSO-1 telescopic sight.

  It would be down and dirty, then, a bloody scramble with their vehicles as the only cover, in a firefight where the Jeep was nearly as important as their own flesh and blood. If they lost their transportation, their mission was a washout.

  Trapped in Syria on foot, they were as good as dead.

  Bolan checked the Jeep’s fuel gauge: three-quarters full, two hundred fifty miles or so before the tank would run dry. They had spare cans of gasoline in back, but those were vulnerable to incoming fire, the first thing that a random burst might ventilate. Besides, he couldn’t hope to ditch the truck simply by outpacing it. For starters, it would have a larger gas tank—maybe two, three times the size of the Jeep’s—and even with its greater weight it could outlast the Wrangler in the long run.

  No, they’d have to fight. The only questions now were when and where.

  “Be ready when I give the word,” he warned Azmeh. “Don’t hesitate.”

  “I will not.”

  Bolan stood on the accelerator, racing over rocky ground that sent jolts through his spine, still looking for a place to make a stand.

  * * *

  “WHY ARE YOU slowing down?” Sadek demanded.

  “I’m trying not to wreck the truck,” Karam replied, tight-lipped.

  “We cannot let them get away!” Sadek spat back at him.

  Karam had no answer for that, but Sadek felt the truck accelerate a little in response to his tirade. A little, yes, but not enough to suit him.

  They had spent the past two days patrolling empty landscapes, wasting time and fuel. Returning to his captain empty-handed made Sadek feel like a fool. It marked him, he was sure, as someone who could not perform to expectations. Someone who should not advance to a higher rank. He hated feeling like a failure, even though the purpose of jihad was serving Allah, not one’s self. Another flaw in Sadek’s character, but one he’d learned to live with over time.

  He turned to peer at his men through the cab’s rear window. They were rocking with the truck, clinging to their weapons and their bench seats. Some, the younger ones, were smiling, happy to be hunting, while the more experienced among them were expressionless. The veterans had been through this before, with variations: travelers detained and questioned, then released if they identified themselves as allies, executed if they failed to prove their allegiance. Each enemy eliminated was another victory, however insignificant it seemed.

  And this quarry was running. That proved something to Sadek.

  He would not allow them to escape.

  “Enough of this,” he snarled, lifting his AK-47 from between his knees. He twisted in his seat and eased the rifle through his open window, sling around his right arm to prevent it from falling if his sweaty hands slipped.

  “Youssef…” Karam warned.

  “We have to stop them,” Sadek said as he tried to aim, a rush of hot air in his face, making him squint.

  His first short burst was wasted, rattling off to the far right of the fleeing Jeep. Cursing, Sadek tried to correct his aim, but it was difficult, the door’s sun-heated metal nearly blistering his bare arms while the jolting of the truck made the Kalashnikov’s adjustable iron sights vibrate erratically.

  He fired again, four rounds on full-auto, and imagined that he saw one punch a divot in the old Jeep’s fender. An improvement, but he had to do better if he meant to stop them.

  Another rifle fired somewhere above him, making Sadek flinch. One of his men had followed his example, shooting at the Jeep. A flash of irritation stung him, then he realized it did not matter who managed to stop the vehicle, as long as it was done. A second rifle rattling overhead made Sadek smile.

  The travelers had doomed themselves by running, even if they were not enemies. His men were hunting, and they wanted blood. So did Sadek, if he was honest with himself.

  Now, if Karam
would only hold the truck steady enough for him to aim…

  * * *

  A BULLET STRUCK the Wrangler’s right wing mirror, ripping it away. Sabah Azmeh slumped lower in his seat, half turned to watch the truck behind them slowly gaining ground. Two riflemen were aiming across the truck cab’s roof, a third man leaning from the passenger’s window, rifle in hand.

  How had he come to this?

  The answer mocked him: he had volunteered.

  “I’ll try to slow them down,” Azmeh told the tall American who called himself Matt Cooper.

  “Good luck,” Cooper replied, seeming to mean it.

  Given how much they were swerving to avoid incoming fire, Azmeh couldn’t crawl into the rear. The best he could do was aim his AKMS through the hazy back window, hold steady when he fired, and hope the hot brass spewing from his weapon did not fall down Cooper’s collar, burning him and maybe causing him to crash the Jeep.

  Azmeh braced one elbow on the low back of his seat to help steady his weapon, which was switched to semiautomatic. He didn’t think he could stop the truck, much less take out its occupants, but if he slowed them down a bit, perhaps Cooper could think of something.

  Azmeh’s first shot drilled through the window’s yellowed plastic and flew on, hopefully to strike the truck. Azmeh would have loved to drill its radiator, stranding their assailants and leaving them to simmer through the afternoon and freeze overnight.

  That mental picture cheered him, and he fired twice more before an enemy bullet pierced the Jeep’s window. Azmeh flinched and ducked as it struck the roll bar and shattered, spraying the seats with shrapnel. Something stung his left arm.

  “Full-auto now, I think,” he said to Cooper.

  “Your call,” the American replied, and somehow found a way to wring more speed out of the Wrangler’s howling engine.

  * * *

  AT LEAST THREE RIFLEMEN were firing at them now, by Bolan’s count. He couldn’t see them well, between the dust, his wobbling mirrors and the Wrangler’s canvas top, but they were gaining, and their prospects for a hit seemed better than Azmeh’s. Bolan was locked out of the action, doing what he could to dodge incoming fire without rolling the Jeep. He hoped there were no wadis hiding out there, waiting to derail them in the next few hundred yards.

  Azmeh squeezed off another burst, then muttered something to himself. Before Azmeh fired again, Bolan called out, raising his voice over the wind. “I want to try something. Fasten your seat belt.”

  Azmeh didn’t question him. He had to know that they were running out of time and options now. If Bolan couldn’t pull off a surprise for their pursuers, they were toast.

  He heard the seat belt click and said, “Okay, hang on!”

  Cranking the Wrangler’s wheel hard to the left, he whipped the Jeep’s rear end through a long, sliding one hundred eighty-degree turnaround. The knobby tires spewed sand and gravel, raising clouds of dust.

  Before it settled, Bolan scooped up his Kalashnikov and bailed out of the Jeep, leaving Azmeh to follow him as they went to meet their enemies.

  Whatever happened next would be on Bolan’s terms.

  2

  Washington, DC

  “How much do you know about the Syrian civil war?” Hal Brognola had asked Bolan, thirty-odd hours earlier.

  “The basics,” Bolan had replied. “The president’s been hanging on for what, twelve years?”

  “Fourteen and counting,” Brognola replied.

  “He came up through the army, he’s a critic of the West, not much regard for human rights. The Arab Spring surprised him, like it did other leaders in the region. Where they folded, he’s clung to power, with accusations of atrocities against the rebels and civilians. He’s got the army and police, supported by Iran and outside Shi’ite groups. The opposition is a shaky coalition—Kurds, the Muslim Brotherhood, Sufis opposed to Shi’ites, take your pick.”

  Brognola nodded. “So, you know the diplomatic picture, more or less.”

  “Broad strokes,” Bolan said.

  “Okay, well you won’t have heard about the new initiative. It’s strictly classified—which, given the UN’s Swiss cheese security, means only ten or fifteen thousand people know about it. Long story short, a couple of people from State have been talking to Syrian opposition leaders and an undersecretary from UNESCWA. In case that doesn’t ring a bell, it’s the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, concerned with all things Middle Eastern.”

  “Talking? That’s the secret?”

  “Nope. The secret bit is where they were supposed to hold their latest talks. In Syria, at Ar-Raqqah, east of the capital. They planned to slip in from Iraq, under the radar, have their sit-down, offer the rebels whatever they need to get rid of the president and restore civil order.”

  “Not the UN’s usual approach.”

  “Not even close,” Hal said. “And that’s why it was on the QT, more or less.”

  “When you say ‘was’…”

  “They tried it, yesterday, but something happened. No one’s sure exactly what that was. We’ve lost track of the UN flight from Baghdad—radio silence, no SOS to indicate that they were going down.”

  “What about the beacons?”

  “There were two on board, as usual,” Brognola said. “A distress radio beacon and an underwater locator retrofitted to the standard flight recorder. So far, neither one of them is functioning.”

  “That seems unusual.”

  “Extremely,” Brognola agreed. “One of the guys from State was also wearing an emergency locator transmitter, but he would have had to turn it on himself. So far, nothing. Could be it slipped his mind, or maybe he’s no longer with us.”

  Bolan saw where this was going. “And you need someone to take a look,” he said, not asking.

  “Right.”

  “What have you got from satellite surveillance, so far?”

  “Squat. Before we knew the plane was missing, a haboob blew in from the Sahara, dumping tons of sand all along the projected flight path. If the plane went down, it’s hidden from us now.”

  “That isn’t much to go on,” Bolan said.

  “Not much, but we need to try. Aside from our guys and the UN delegates, there were people from the opposition on the plane. They’ve been to Washington, been seen around the White House. If the Syrian army or their playmates bag the drop-ins, it’s a black eye for the States and the United Nations. Makes it look like we were setting up an end run to resolve the civil war.”

  “We were,” Bolan observed.

  “Which doesn’t mean the world’s supposed to know it,” Brognola reminded him.

  Deniability. One of the oldest games in politics, diplomacy and war.

  “Anything else I should know?” asked Bolan.

  “Other than the fact that time is of the essence?” Brognola removed a flash drive from an inside pocket of his jacket, handing it to Bolan. “Files on the missing personnel. Same password as usual.”

  Bolan nodded and pocketed the device.

  “So, as I said, time’s critical, and we’re already behind the game. You have a seven-thirty reservation from Dulles out to London Heathrow, where we have a seat waiting on a flight to Baghdad. You’ll be met there, with arrangements for the crossing into Syria.”

  “Equipment?”

  “Waiting for you at the other end. Top quality. Deniable, of course.”

  “Of course. Special instructions?”

  “There’s a chance you’ll be too late. I’d call it fifty-fifty, given all that’s going on in eastern Syria. In which case—”

  “It’s a rescue mission,” Bolan finished for him.

  Brognola nodded grimly. “That’s the best case scenario.”

  * * *

  ONCE HE’D CHECKED IN and cleared security at Dulles, Bolan found a seat at his gate and opened his laptop to review the files on the USB key.

  There wasn’t that much to them. But running down the list gave Bolan a feel for those w
ho had been aboard the UN flight, matching names to photographs and fleshing out the details of their lives.

  The head honcho on the flight was Sani Bankole, forty-seven-year-old from Nigeria. He had joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at twenty-one and worked his way up from there to his current UN post as deputy undersecretary-general for UNESCWA. His rank carried diplomatic immunity, which, Bolan thought, would mean precisely nothing in the devil’s mix of Syria.

  Bankole’s number two was Tareq Eleyan, a thirty-six-year-old Jordanian. Most likely, he had been assigned to translate and to offer insight on the mind-set of his country’s neighbors to the north. Roger Segrest led the US team. Age fifty-two, he was one of four deputy secretaries from the State Department’s Executive Secretariat. That job normally involved liaison between State and the White House or the National Security Council, but it seemed Segrest was branching out. His backup, barely half Segrest’s age, was Dale Walton, a relative fledgling with eight years at State. He had a master’s from Columbia in Middle Eastern history and politics, and he was fluent in Arabic. Beyond that, there was nothing else of interest in Walton’s dossier.

  The mission’s wild cards came from Syria. Muhammad Qabbani was an old-looking forty, highly placed in the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces. That group, as Bolan knew, was constantly in flux, but Qabbani managed a delicate tightrope act within it, working to alleviate dissension in the ranks, mediating personality clashes between spokesmen for such disparate partners as the Muslim Brotherhood, the Kurdish National Council and the al-Nusra Front, affiliated with al-Qaeda. Qabbani’s second was Rafic Al Din. He’d been imprisoned by the regime for joining demonstrations in the Arab Spring, then caught a break when amnesty was briefly offered in a bid to pacify the West. He’d joined the Free Syrian Army, and the rest of his file was a blank, presumably involving covert work that wasn’t on the record.

  Bolan didn’t care for wild cards, but he’d worked with many in the past—sometimes successfully, sometimes not so much. His present mission, if he found the diplomats at all, would not allow him time to argue or cajole the targets into playing ball with him, accepting orders from a man they’d never met before and never would again. He’d have to pull rank, seize control—a problem in itself.