Syrian Rescue

by Don Pendleton

  The firing stopped then, both men startled by the gunner’s insubordination. After three long seconds, the corporal ducked down to come face-to-face with his captain. “I’m sorry! Please accept—”

  “Go back to shooting,” Fakhri raged at him, already planning how he would reward the corporal for his lapse in military etiquette.

  “Yes, sir!”

  The loud machine-gun fire resumed a moment later, and it seemed the tracer rounds were flying straighter, after all. Fakhri saw two more strike the APC in front of them, though neither slowed it down. He wished they would ignite the gasoline tank and incinerate the vehicle, together with its passengers. Inspiration struck him, and he turned back toward the turret. “Try for the fuel can on the tailgate. You see it?”

  “Yes, sir!” came the crisp reply.

  He knew the corporal was lying. Details were a blur, at best, with so much dust rising behind the APC they were pursuing, but spare gas cans always rode the same position on the tailgate of a BTR-152, on a little metal shelf beside the spare tire. A shooter didn’t literally have to see the can to know where it was located. If he could see the spare—or see the tailgate, for that matter—he could score a hit and light a tail of flame. If only—

  Up ahead, the stolen armored car veered slightly. It lost speed, though the brake lights were not flaring. Fakhri wondered if a bullet might have found the driver somehow, against all odds, but then the APC straightened its course, picked up speed, and—

  “Look! They’re turning!” Fakhri told his driver.

  “Neither one of us is blind,” Malki replied, tight-lipped.

  Another name appended to the insubordination list, but Fakhri let it pass for now, watching the BTR-152 loop through a wide U-turn, its driver matching speed with a concern for tipping over, raising even larger clouds of dust around it. High beams cut a sweeping path through all that dust and sand, veering around to face Fakhri, lancing his eyes.

  They’ve stopped to fight, he thought, and almost smiled before a sudden pang of fear deflated his excitement.

  Why would they stop, knowing Fakhri must have fighting men on board, that they would be outnumbered two or three to one? Why not keep running, maybe find a better place with cover somewhere out here?

  Captain Fakhri’s thoughts evaporated as the other APC’s machine gun came to life, its muzzle-flashes blinking at him, spewing rounds directly toward his face.

  * * *

  EYES NARROWED AGAINST rising dust and grit, Bolan locked his knees and hung on while Azmeh completed the wide turn, bringing them back into line with the chase car.

  When they straightened out, Bolan was ready, crouching slightly, aiming through the graduated sight atop his NSV. He stroked the trigger lightly, sending half a dozen tracer rounds downrange, and then corrected slightly before letting rip with everything he had, a thunderstorm of 12.7 mm rounds flying to greet the enemy.

  The NSV’s strong point was power. It could reach out to two thousand yards, turning men into stew meat before they knew what hit them. Its weakness was the cyclic rate of fire. The standard ammo box, with its disintegrating belt, held only fifty rounds. Full-auto fire exhausted that supply in roughly four seconds, mandating frequent replacement.

  Bolan had used part of the NSV’s first belt at the camp, while taking out the turret gunner on the second APC, and he was burning through the rest of it right now. Below him sat six more ammo boxes, a total of three hundred rounds remaining.

  Would it be enough?

  Maybe.

  He sighted on the charging APC’s wide grill, hood and windshield. Holding steady as his own vehicle stopped, he rattled off the remnants of the ammo box and hoped his enemies were catching hell inside their iron coffin.

  A few more seconds, and they would be sending hell right back at him.

  Bolan unhooked the empty ammo box and tossed it overboard, stooping to hoist another as his adversary opened fire. The BTR-152’s armor, though thickest at the nose, was still vulnerable to the force of the 12.7 mm slugs. He heard them landing, almost randomly at first, and waited for the screams below him that would mark a hit.

  None came before he straightened up, attached the second ammo box, and fed its too-short belt into the NSV’s receiver. Once the hatch on top was closed, he cocked it, sighted on the other APC’s gun turret, and released another swarm of tracers across no-man’s land.

  Taking the gunner out—or better yet, his gun—was Bolan’s first priority. He didn’t think the other APC would ram them head-on, risking damage to itself, since both of them sported the same extended, reinforced bumpers. In theory, they could butt heads all night long, scrambling the brains of their passengers but otherwise achieving squat.

  The gunner first, and then the driver. If he got that far, Bolan could win this crazy game of chicken.

  15

  Sabah Azmeh hit the APC’s brake pedal, coming out of their broad turn, and straightened out the steering wheel. He knew he had it right when headlights glared into his eyes and fiery tracers arced away to either side. Reaching up for the control handle, he dropped both windshield shutters with a loud metallic clang.

  It was the best protection he could manage in the circumstances, knowing that any of the bullets flying toward him now could still penetrate the armored shutters and the so-called bulletproof glass behind them if the rounds scored a direct hit. He could be killed at any second, but he still peered through the narrow viewing slit to watch the light show.

  Azmeh felt trapped, holding the worst seat in the APC right now, and there was nothing he could do about it. Cooper might require his aid, and if that call came, he needed to be ready for it, clear on where his adversaries were positioned and the distance between their vehicles.

  Not that it would matter, if they killed him first.

  He hated feeling like a stationary target in a shooting gallery.

  When the first round pierced his windscreen shutters, missing Azmeh’s face by inches, he dove sideways, sprawling across his own seat and the one he’d vacated to take the steering wheel when Cooper went topside. Azmeh thought of what the tall American had said, about the engine block preventing slugs from reaching him, and hoped that it was true.

  Behind him, from the steel deck, one of the Americans raised his voice to ask, “What’s happening?”

  Azmeh, who thought it should be bloody obvious, ignored him, concentrating on the left foot he had braced against the APC’s brake pedal, hoping that the tremors in his leg did not allow that foot to slip and stall the engine.

  Overhead, there was another break in firing, and he heard Matt Cooper scrabbling for another box of ammunition. That left four, by Azmeh’s count, and their enemy was firing at an equal rate. If anyone was still alive when they ran out of bullets, what were they to do?

  Jump out, perhaps, and fight with carbines, pistols, even hand-to-hand. It would be brutal, primitive, but even in his nearly paralyzing fear, Azmeh supposed it might be best. Better, at least, than cringing in a ventilated tin can, waiting for his life to end.

  Again, the peevish voice called out to Azmeh: “What’s he doing? Can’t we just get out of here?”

  Half turning where he lay, Azmeh snapped back, “He’s risking his life to save yours. Shut up and leave him to it, will you?”

  The release of pent-up anger freed him. Suddenly and irresistibly, Sabah Azmeh began to laugh.

  * * *

  CAPTAIN BASSAM FAKHRI was terrified. He had been anxious many times during his army tenure, frightened badly on occasion during armed engagements, but this was the first time in his adult life that he had felt stark, raving terror. Crouched as best he could beneath his seat, listening to the hammer strokes of 12.7 mm bullets pounding on the BTR-152 and drilling through its armor, Fakhri thought he was about to die.

  And he was not prepared to enter Paradise after his failure on the most important mission of his whole career.

  Beside him, Sergeant Malki was already gone. A bullet through the APC’
s windscreen had slammed through Malki’s forehead, taking out a hand-sized portion of his skull in back.

  He had already tried the two-way radio, but only static answered him. His sat-phone, curse it, was still sitting in his staff car, foolishly forgotten in his haste to follow the escaping prisoners. Fakhri had no way to report his situation or to ask for help. He could not even tell headquarters where he was about to die.

  At least, he thought, General Mourad had gone down first. Fakhri had never liked him, not that anybody gave a fig for his opinion. It pleased him to imagine how the brigadier had felt, seeing his great plan fall to pieces, knowing that his life was at an end. That vision satisfied the captain only long enough to realize that he was wasting time.

  Fakhri decided he had to run, if that was still an option. He could try, at least, leave the prisoners to go their own way and fabricate a story that his soldiers would support once they all realized that he had saved their lives.

  Or would they blame him for deserting in the face of hostile fire, when they were questioned?

  Fakhri struggled to turn, his cramped position on the floorboard shooting darts of pain along his spine, just as another burst of bullets struck the APC. He saw one of his soldiers die, his left arm nearly severed at the shoulder, gushing blood on to the other men nearby.

  “Who wants to stay and fight?” Fakhri called out to the remaining troops.

  Grim eyes in bloodstained faces studied him with fear and curiosity. No one replied. No hands were raised.

  “Or should we just get out of here?” he asked them.

  “Go!” one shouted back.

  “Get out!” another croaked.

  It instantly became a chorus, no dissenters, two or three men pounding fists against the metal floor for emphasis.

  “Right,” said Fakhri. “We’ll be going, then.”

  If he could drive the APC.

  First thing, he had to get rid of Malki’s corpse. Fakhri rose from the floorboard, leaned across his driver’s mutilated form, and opened up his door. Next, he rolled back and used his feet to push the sergeant’s dead weight out and down, into the sand. As soon as Malki was clear, Fakhri replaced him in the driver’s seat, cringing as blood and other fluids soaked his trousers.

  The motor was still running—raggedly, but holding on. He began to back away, still under fire, then switched gears and cranked the steering wheel hard left, into a turn that kept his side from being exposed. It would be madness for the enemy to follow him at this point, when escape was in their grasp.

  Fakhri felt a shout of triumph rising in his throat but swallowed it. They weren’t safe yet, by any means, and would not be until their vehicle was well beyond the other machine gun’s killing range.

  * * *

  BOLAN SAW SOMETHING tumble from the other APC, a limp form falling out the driver’s door. A second later, as the army gunner stooped to reach another ammo box, the vehicle lurched forward, then seemed to think better of it, motor clanking as it switched into reverse and started backing up.

  Retreating or maneuvering?

  Bolan had no time to consider options as the turret gunner surfaced once again, reloading from a crouch that only left his two hands and his face exposed.

  It was enough.

  Bolan squeezed off a burst that emptied his own ammo box, saw blood erupting from the other turret like a fountain as he took the shooter’s head off. What was left of him dropped back inside the BTR-152, his death grip slackening, leaving the NSV machine gun pointing skyward.

  Bolan took the opportunity to reload, snapped the lid down on the NSV’s receiver, cocked it and was ready when the APC in front of him began to make a U-turn, its six tires digging in for traction on the dry hardpan. He strafed those tires and quickly shredded all three on his side. The vehicle slumped like a drunken man, rims grinding into dirt and sand, while Bolan raised his weapon’s sights to rake the right side of the APC.

  Thin armor on the sides was a design flaw, and he took advantage of it, tracing two long lines of 12.7 mm holes between the front side door and the tailgate. He aimed low, guessing that the smart ones would be flattened on the floorboards, the careless ones already dead.

  No screams reached Bolan’s ears over the hammering of his machine gun, but he pictured hellish scenes inside the APC, supported by his prior experience. When armor failed, fighting machines were nothing more than death traps for the troops inside, penned up like cattle in a slaughterhouse.

  He swung back toward the APC’s engine compartment and used up the rest of his belt there, taking the ZIS six-cylinder mill out of action for good. The former chase car lurched and died, a plume of white smoke curling from beneath its ventilated hood.

  Now was the moment to consider his next step. He could drive off and leave the enemy to their fate, whatever that might be, or he could verify that there were no survivors waiting for a chance to snipe at his vehicle when it retreated.

  The decision was made for him, when the BTR’s rear door flew open and a small group of its occupants spilled out with guns in hand.

  * * *

  ROGER SEGREST WAS about to scream. He felt it welling up inside him, tried to swallow it, but didn’t know if he could keep it down. He flashed back to the night terrors of childhood, when he’d awoken shrieking from horrific dreams, drenched in sweat, his sheets soiled, and the sudden light, his father looming over him, wanting to know exactly what was wrong with his defective son.

  This was a lot like that—but ten times worse.

  The difference tonight: he wasn’t sleeping, his old man was ten years in the grave, and people out there in the dark were real and absolutely trying to kill Segrest.

  He took a lull in firing as a signal to escape. And why not, in the circumstances? First, the strangers sent to “save” him from his kidnappers had driven Segrest and the others smack into a firefight, putting them at even greater risk. The one in charge had barked orders at Segrest, as if unaware of his importance back in Washington, clearly forgetting how the pecking order worked, and now the other one was up front, laughing like a lunatic.

  Segrest had never been a soldier, but he knew when he was stuck with crazy people.

  Time to go.

  Without a word to Walton or the others, Segrest rose and scuttled to the APC’s back door. The latch was simple, nothing to it. He was reaching for the handle when a firm grip on his shoulder hauled him backward, and he spun around to find the little Arab glaring at him, almost nose to nose.

  “You stay inside,” the smaller man said.

  “Piss off!” Segrest retorted, shoving him away. “You’re not the goddamn boss of—”

  Suddenly, the man’s chest exploded. Blood spattered Segrest’s face, and chips of bone or something peppered him like bird shot. He was stumbling backward, retching, when he heard the drumming of machine-gun fire again and realized the lull was over, that he’d missed his chance.

  He dropped before the bullets had a chance to cut him down, landed in warm blood. Inches from his face, the Arab’s last expression silently rebuked him; no way could Segrest get the last word in this time.

  He couldn’t argue with a corpse.

  The man had died trying to help him, Segrest realized, and he had failed.

  No point in screaming now.

  * * *

  BOLAN HAD A choice to make. He could reload the NSV once more and take the charging soldiers down that way, or he could leave the turret and go out to face them with his AKMS carbine. Staying with the APC was safer, at a glance, but if they carried hand grenades, it might turn out to be a grave mistake.

  As it turned out, the enemy made Bolan’s mind up for him.

  One man had stayed behind, still fit to wield the bullet-riddled BTR-152’s machine gun. As the others rushed toward Bolan’s vehicle, the gunner opened fire, putting his first burst through the shutters masking Bolan’s windshield. Bolan felt one of the 12.7 mm slugs pluck at his trouser leg before it traveled on into the troop compartment, see
king other prey.

  Before the gunner over there could fire again, Bolan dropped and found another ammo box, sprang up again and started to reload his NSV. The headlights, still glaring out across the desert, let him see the hostile shooter grappling with his own weapon. Reloading? Or had something jammed the other gun?

  Whatever it was, Bolan took advantage of the moment, finished feeding his machine gun, locked it down and crouched behind the sights, trying to make his first rounds from the new belt count. The NSV’s powerful recoil shuddered through his arms and into Bolan’s chest, like a fantastically accelerated heartbeat. Muzzle-flashes hid his human target for an instant, then he saw his tracers striking home, tearing the man on the receiving end apart. The jerky, reeling figure was illuminated by his own light now, his shirt in flames, before he toppled out of sight.

  And then the infantry was after him, Kalashnikovs unloading as they came, their bullets pinging off the armor that protected Bolan from their smaller caliber. He cranked the NSV around to greet them, holding down the trigger, giving everything he had to the contenders.

  Five men on the ground, all desperate to kill him, but they’d jumped into the wrong game with the wrong opponent. The Executioner’s heavy slugs cut through them like a cleaver hacking prime filet, slamming the life out of their bodies as it broke them down into component parts.

  He’d have to check the other APC for stragglers playing dead, but Bolan thought the fight was over. He descended from the turret, looking for Sabah Azmeh, then beheld the scene within the troop compartment: Azmeh down and out, the dazed survivors blinking at him like four moles hauled into noonday sun against their will.

  “Stay put,” he told them in a tone that tolerated no refusal. “I’ll be back.” Bolan was sorry his guide had not survived the battle. Azmeh was a good man, and Bolan had wanted better for him. But he couldn’t dwell on that right now.

  Crossing to the other armored vehicle, he peered inside and found no one who seemed to be alive.

  Any survivors in the grisly mess would certainly be wounded, likely dying by the pint as blood pulsed out of them, and their vehicle wasn’t moving from that spot under its own power, much less resuming a pursuit.