Syrian Rescue

by Don Pendleton

  Ahead of them, the taillights vanished.

  Fakhri blinked and found his eyes were not deceiving him. The red pinpricks were gone.

  “What happened?” he asked Sergeant Malki.

  “I don’t know, sir. Maybe they saw our lights go off?”

  “You’re asking me?”

  “No, sir. A thought.”

  “What if we lose them now?”

  Reluctantly, his driver said, “It’s possible.”

  “Fuck! We’re losing them. They are escaping as we speak.”

  “What would you have me do, sir? Shall we stop and listen?”

  “Listen?”

  “For their engine, sir.”

  “Listen,” Fakhri repeated through clenched teeth. “What if they’ve switched their engine off?”

  “At least they would not be escaping, sir.”

  Fakhri’s mind reeled, hearing such lunacy. But could he think of something better?

  Agonizing seconds passed, their APC still rolling eastward at its best speed, given the terrain. Fakhri was tortured by the possibility of missing their quarry, passing right by them in the darkness without ever noticing.

  What else could go wrong?

  “Screw this,” he said at last. “Turn on the headlights!”

  * * *

  “THEY’RE BACK!” the Arab gunman called down from his turret. “The lights are back!”

  “I see them,” said the driver, sounding more relaxed than any human should, under the circumstances.

  Roger Segrest watched him, wishing he could ask a dozen different questions, but the driver frightened him. Segrest had seen him shoot men, heard more screaming as the armored vehicle ran over them, and when the driver had told them all to lie down and be quiet, Segrest didn’t have the nerve to argue with him. This was not some flunky he could pull rank on and push around. The man was homicidal, highly trained—and he was saving Segrest’s life.

  Or trying to, at least.

  Lights on their trail meant a pursuit, which meant more fighting and a possibility that Segrest could be injured, even killed. He cursed the mission that had brought him here, where he could glimpse the end of his life.

  If I get through this shit, he promised himself, I’m done.

  He’d pack it in, go back to teaching history at some posh university, and start working on his memoirs. This ordeal would be a gripping chapter, and if he came out sounding more heroic than he’d ever been…well, what would be the harm in that?

  “Sir, who are these people?” Dale Walton whispered.

  “Hell if I know,” Segrest answered softly. “But at least they’re on our side.”

  “Are they?”

  And how was he supposed to answer that? The driver and his buddy had come out of nowhere, suddenly appearing in the army camp as if they’d sprung up from the desert sand itself. They’d taken charge, mowed down the men who had been holding Segrest and his fellow diplomats against their will, and snatched them out of there.

  So far, so good, but Segrest still had no idea who they were or who had sent them, where they planned on taking him or why. Was this in fact a rescue, or another kidnapping? What should he think of men who killed so ruthlessly?

  They’re soldiers, Segrest reassured himself. But whose?

  Not Navy SEALS or Green Berets, that much was obvious.

  They could be mercenaries working under contract—but again, for whom? Segrest knew that his government used private contractors for dirty jobs around the world, to fill in where the military couldn’t go and thus preserve deniability. Something he took for granted, working for the State Department, and which rarely bothered Segrest as he went about his normal rounds in Washington. But this was different; the blood was real.

  And why did he feel guilty about still being alive?

  “We’re going eastward,” Sani Bankole informed him. “Iraq, perhaps?”

  That worked for Segrest, and it helped explain the cryptic words their driver had exchanged by radio with someone he called “Backfire.”

  Segrest allowed himself a spark of hope but didn’t let it flare out of control. He would feel safe again when they were all behind barbed wire, surrounded by Americans and waiting for a flight back to the States.

  Until then, he was just another moving target in the hostile night.

  * * *

  BOLAN HAD TRICKED his enemies, hitting the kill switch for his taillights, running dark just long enough to make them nervous back there in the chase car. And they’d bitten.

  But after confirming their pursuers hadn’t given up the chase, Bolan still had the same life-or-death dilemma: flee or fight?

  Their pickup out of Baghdad would be in the air by now, or very shortly, but that left an hour yet to go before contact. Bolan didn’t know what they’d be flying, but he couldn’t count on armored gunships swooping to the rescue, and it felt wrong leading enemies to crash the party when they might kill good men he’d never met.

  The other side of that coin: he could stop, turn back and face whoever was following them. He didn’t doubt that he could pull it off with Azmeh’s help, but if their vehicle was damaged and could not proceed, it meant a long walk to Iraq with no pickup and hostiles snapping at their heels along the way.

  Bad choices, with no third alternative, but Bolan couldn’t put it off much longer. The headlights in his wing mirror seemed to be a little closer than the last time he had seen them. They weren’t gaining rapidly, but they were hanging in there, ready to stick it out for the long haul.

  Bolan did the calculations swiftly. If he turned around right now, the chase vehicle would be within range of his NSV machine gun. Barely, but that was better than nothing. As far as aiming at that range with open sights, his target close to a mile and a half downrange in darkness—that would be a crapshoot. He might stop the camp’s staff car, one of the trucks, but if the hunters were inside the second BTR-152, it was a different story.

  The enemy needed to be closer for decisive hits, and that would mean exposing his ride and its passengers to equal danger.

  If they were in the APC.

  The bottom line: he didn’t know what they were driving, and he couldn’t know until they’d closed to killing range. He didn’t want to take that risk, but if he led a hostile armored vehicle to his pickup site and the collection team showed up in something like your basic Huey chopper, with no armor anywhere except beneath the pilots’ seats, he’d be responsible for the ensuing carnage.

  Choices.

  And he’d have to make one soon.

  14

  “The border’s coming up in…five…four…three…”

  Jeff Baxter finished off the countdown as they crossed the line and entered Syria, skimming the desert floor at thirty feet to frustrate any radar outposts in the neighborhood.

  “We’re in it now,” Ward Simmons said from the copilot’s seat.

  Behind them, Craig Rowe whooped into his mic.

  “This isn’t a hunting party,” Baxter answered back. “Just keep your eyes peeled.”

  “Roger that,” Rowe answered, grinning.

  They were riding in an Aérospatiale SA 330 Puma out of Baghdad. The chopper had a range of some three hundred sixty miles, no sweat on that score, and a maximum speed of 159 miles per hour. Their service ceiling was close to sixteen thousand feet, but they wouldn’t be coming anywhere near that altitude this time around, with the hush-hush proviso from Backfire.

  Stealth was essential for the people they were going to collect and for the whirlybird itself. The Puma had no armor, and it was officially unarmed, though Rowe was ready with an FN Minimi light machine gun chambered in 5.56×45 mm NATO. Besides the Minimi, all three crewmen were packing Glock 22s, the .40 S&W models, with a pair of Heckler & Koch MP5 SMGs in reserve.

  Unarmed my ass, thought Baxter. As if anyone would enter Syria that way.

  Baxter didn’t know who they were picking up or why they needed a lift back to Baghdad, and he couldn’t care less. As a
contract employee, he flew where he was told, made pickups and drop-offs without asking questions, and smiled all the way to the bank. His life had travel and adventure, with enough time off to spend some of the money he was paid for taking risks.

  Like now.

  Once they were in Syrian airspace, anything could happen. If MiGs caught a whiff of them, it wouldn’t even be a fight, with the jet fighters’ vastly superior weapons and speed. Baxter could try to dodge incoming fire and might succeed in the short run, but anyone who backed the Puma against jets must be an idiot with a death wish.

  It would be half an hour, give or take, before they reached the pickup zone. Their orders were to grab whoever made it to the site but not to wait around for any stragglers. Getting caught in Syria meant more than losing personnel, as everyone aboard the chopper knew only too well. It meant exposure, something that the Company despised and would not tolerate. If they were nabbed across the line and managed to survive, there would be no rescue attempts and no exchanges. Langley would deny all knowledge of them, naturally, and the Puma’s crew had no ID on board. Their chopper, if dismantled and examined, could be traced back to its registered owners in Zurich but not one step beyond.

  They were, for all intents and purposes, inside the Twilight Zone.

  And whether they would make it back was anybody’s guess.

  * * *

  THE BTR-152s HAD no reflectors on their tailgates, but when Sergeant Malki switched the headlights on once more, Fakhri made out an image, like a ghostly echo of his own vehicle, ahead of them. It trailed a rooster tail of dust and seemed intent on speed, rather than evasion.

  “More speed!” Fakhri barked.

  “Captain—”

  “More speed!”

  Malki did what he could, pressing the APC’s accelerator pedal to the floor, hunching forward as if his thoughts alone could squeeze a few more miles per hour from its straining 110-horsepower engine. It was futile, as Fakhri understood too well, but still he ground his teeth and muttered curses as they failed to close the gap between themselves and their quarry.

  “Corporal!” he shouted to the turret gunner. “Fire for effect!”

  Malki glanced over at him, no doubt thinking that the range was too extreme, but he said nothing. Overhead, the NSV machine gun belched a short exploratory burst, its tracers arcing off beyond the reach of Fakhri’s headlights, then began to hammer steadily, its hot brass raining down into the APC.

  They might be wasting ammunition, but they were also challenging the fugitives, alerting them to the futility of fleeing. Where did they expect to go? Did they believe a Syrian vehicle under fire would be allowed to cross the border and seek refuge in Iraq, if they could even reach that goal? They had another eighty miles or more to go—nearly two hours at their present speed—and Fakhri meant to hound them every yard along the way, unless they turned to face him.

  Then, what?

  He had them outnumbered and outgunned. Four of those inside the fleeing APC were mere civilians. Even if they’d picked up weapons from his camp, they would be inexperienced at combat. Any military veterans among them would be years—perhaps decades—beyond training and active service, weakened over time by desk jobs and the soft lives of professional negotiators.

  But the other two or three…

  They worried Fakhri. Not only because they’d crept into his camp unseen and snatched his captives out from underneath his nose, but for the way they’d taken down so many of his men, hijacked the APC, and managed their escape while under fire. That told him they were brave, skilled and totally professional.

  His soldiers, on the other hand, were mostly young conscripts serving their mandatory eighteen months in uniform, fed up with war against their fellow countrymen. Some tens of thousands of soldiers had deserted since the civil war began, including dozens of generals. Fakhri kept close watch on his men each time they left their barracks, even those who’d reenlisted for a five-year stint, uncertain whether he could trust them.

  And he swore, if any of them tried to run tonight, he would annihilate the cowards with his own two hands.

  * * *

  SABAH AZMEH DROPPED down from the open turret as a ragged line of tracers rattled overhead. A couple of the bullets struck the APC’s tailgate, but the pursuers were too far away to inflict any serious damage.

  So far.

  Bolan had made his choice. He would not lead the enemy to intercept his rescue flight. That meant a showdown in the desert. There were serious risks and they’d lose precious time, but he saw no alternative. Evasion only burned more fuel and put them farther from the pickup site.

  Azmeh slid into the shotgun seat, lowered his voice and asked, “What do we do?”

  “Get rid of them,” Bolan replied, as two or three more rounds connected with the APC, dimpling its armor.

  “And the helicopter?”

  Bolan shot a quick glance at the simple dashboard clock. “We should just about have time to meet it, if we wrap this up in ten or fifteen minutes.”

  That could be a lifetime under fire, and he wasn’t sure if he could trust the four civilians not to bolt in panic when the APC started taking full-on hits.

  “Can you drive this thing?” he asked Azmeh.

  His guide nodded. “Let’s switch.”

  It was an awkward move, hard not to stall the APC’s engine, but they got through it, losing speed in the process.

  Bolan turned to his passengers. “Who wants to survive and see their families again? Come on. I want a show of hands.”

  Four hands went up. Four worried faces stared at him.

  “We have to stand and fight,” he said. “That’s it, the bottom line. I want you all down on the floor. Stay flat, no matter what happens, unless we catch on fire. Then pile out through the back. Understand?”

  Four dumb nods. Segrest seemed on the verge of saying something, but he didn’t get the chance.

  “Right, then,” said Bolan, turning back to Azmeh. “I’ll be in the turret. Bring us back around, as sharp as you can turn it without rolling. Aim the headlights back their way, then drop under the dash. The engine block should cover you.”

  “But I—”

  “Whatever happens, keep an eye on them,” Bolan instructed, thumb cocked toward the rear deck, where the diplomats were busy lying down and covering their heads with folded arms. “Don’t let them out unless you think the vehicle’s about to blow. If that happens, you’re on your own.”

  “And you?”

  “Won’t matter, then. We’re all in,” Bolan told him. “Betting everything we’ve got.”

  Azmeh nodded. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  “Give me a second to get up there,” Bolan said, “then do it.”

  Leaping for the open turret, Bolan took the NSV machine gun’s grips and hung on as the BTR-152 slowed slightly, then began its jolting U-turn back to face their enemies.

  * * *

  ROGER SEGREST WAS furious and terrified, the two emotions grappling for control of his mind and body. Lying facedown on filthy steel, where countless combat boots had left their smears of mud, sand and God knew what else, Segrest thought he was about to die. He felt a pressing need to void his bladder, clamped his thighs together in response and crossed both arms above his head for whatever protection they might offer.

  Not much, he supposed, if armor-piercing bullets found their way inside the vehicle. He might not be a soldier, but he’d toured battlegrounds after the fact, seen armored cars and trucks burned out and shot to hell, still reeking of their former occupants. He’d seen what bullets did to flesh and bone.

  The last thing Segrest wanted was to die here, in this desert wasteland, six thousand miles from home. But there was nothing he could do about it now. He had to trust the soldiers who had rescued him, do as the man in charge commanded, maybe use the time he had left to sort through his life and find some fleeting trace of inner peace.

  That almost made him laugh out loud, but they were swerving now, ma
king him drop one hand to clutch a strut beneath the bench seats to keep from sliding across the floor. The driver took them through a rough one-eighty, facing back the way they’d come, while his companion manned the turret, nothing but his backside and his long legs visible inside the APC.

  Risking his life for Segrest and the others, yes. It was what soldiers did to earn their meager paychecks. Segrest definitely yearned to see the last of Syria, but not if that meant being shot to ribbons and going home in a plastic bag.

  The gunner had instructed them to stay flat, no matter what happened, unless the APC caught fire. That prospect frightened Segrest more than being shot. It was a nightmare come to life.

  Dale Walton lay near Segrest, their heads almost touching. The aide muttered something underneath his breath. A prayer? Segrest had no idea if Walton was religious, didn’t delve into the private lives of his subordinates unless there was a problem that affected job performance, but it still surprised him.

  What was it religious people liked to say? No atheists in foxholes. Segrest seriously doubted that, and personally, he thought it was hypocritical to ask some deity for help at times of crisis when you had ignored him or her for most of your life. It smacked of childish desperation, rather than devotion.

  No, Segrest decided, he was not going to pray. Instead, he’d focus on his wife and children, hoping that they loved him and would think of him with fondness if—

  The big machine gun overhead exploded into action, and his mind shut down.

  * * *

  “THEY’VE TURNED THEIR lights back on,” Sergeant Malki said.

  “I’m not blind!” Fakhri snapped. His mind was racing, filled with clashing questions. Had the fleeing driver feared crashing his stolen vehicle? It was a real threat in the eastern desert, where rain was rare but fell in torrents when it came, cutting channels through dry, hard-packed soil.

  Was the driver taunting Fakhri? And if so, to what purpose? He only made his vehicle a better target with the lights on.

  “Hold steady! Aim, you idiot!” Fakhri shouted up at the gunner.

  His corporal, caught up in the excitement, called back, “You hold steady! How can I hit anything, the way this thing is jerking under me?”