Fury in the Gulf (Brannigan's Blackhearts Book 1)

by Peter Nealen

  Childress took the binoculars and settled in, bracing his elbows on the rocks and cupping the binos with his hands. After a moment, which seemed a lot shorter than the time Brannigan had taken, he said, “Yep, there’s a breach in the wall, just about twenty-thirty yards beyond that tower.”

  “You’re sure?” When Childress nodded, the motion nearly invisible in the dark, he muttered, “Damn, you’ve got better eyes than I do.”

  “You’ve got a few years on me, sir,” Childress said, handing the binoculars back.

  Brannigan chuckled softly as he took them. “Santelli was right, you don’t beat around the bush, do you?”

  “Sorry, sir,” Childress whispered back. “I’m trying to work on it. My ‘filter,’ I mean.”

  “Never mind, Sam,” Brannigan said, bringing the binos back to his eyes. “We ain’t in the mil no more, and I wouldn’t be ‘sir’ in the field, anyway.” His mind was already on the problem at hand.

  He was studying the corner tower, trying to see if there was another static security post there. He couldn’t see one, and he’d thought so far that most of the sentry posts had been placed to overlook the city, but he couldn’t be sure. “Did you see if there was a sentry on that corner tower?” he asked Childress.

  “I didn’t see one,” Childress replied. “Don’t mean there ain’t one there.”

  Brannigan didn’t respond, but scanned downward, toward the cliff. It certainly looked sheer; they might have to use the boats. Or, maybe…he squinted. It was too dark to see enough detail, but there might be something like a goat path that they could clamber along. They had ropes and climbing gear; they’d expected to need it to get over the wall. That might just be their way in. Especially if Aziz was still alive, and could get them their diversion at the front gates.

  ***

  The Iranians were being cautious, but they were evidently still relying on the fact that weapons had been illegal on the island for anyone but the Khadarkhi Army for years. The patrol was only made up of four men, armed and loaded out for combat, but with an unarmed populace, they had little to fear, aside from the occasional thrown rock. And from what he had intimated from several of the Al Qaeda fighters’ comments, the first few rocks had been answered with ferocious fusillades of rifle fire. No one had dared throw a rock since, except under cover of the daily demonstrations.

  Aziz was presently standing in an alley, with Abu Sayf and two younger men, both of whom were also wearing the Wahhabi beard and short pants. Aziz still didn’t understand the Wahhabi high-waters. He knew there was some Quranic justification for it, but they just looked ridiculous.

  The patrol was moving down the street, just outside the souk, glaring at anyone who came near them. They were about a half mile from the edge of the demonstrations that were choking every avenue of the Old City.

  Aziz still only had his Makarov, while the other three were carrying a motley combination of weapons. There was an AMD-65 slung under Abu Sayf’s jacket, one of the others was carrying an AKS-74U, and the youngest, whose Wahhabi Beard was a scraggly wisp of hair, had a vz. 23. The message was not lost on him; the jihadis already in place got heavier weapons than he did, until they were sure he was really one of them. That said, they were all watching the patrol, instead of him.

  Shit. Fuck! I could pop it off right here and now, except that I don’t know if the rest are in position yet. In fact, they probably aren’t, because this was just supposed to be recon. Hell, I could be the guy who scragged Abu Sayf. Fuckfuckfuckfuck!

  None of the rest had their hands on their weapons; the firearms were backup more than anything else. The real weapon was hidden inside the market stall that the patrol was getting closer to with every step.

  Aziz was wracking his brain, trying to think of some way to get himself out of this situation without arousing Abu Sayf’s suspicions too much. If the entire city went up in flames that night, it might still be salvageable, but it would be better if it didn’t really get down to blood in the streets until the next night, when he could be sure that the other mercenaries were ready to move. And he had to get clear before then, so that he could report in detail and coordinate the final provocation.

  While he was thinking, he was, entirely unconsciously, staring at the lead Iranian, a wiry man of average height with a short, trimmed beard. And the Iranian noticed.

  The man pointed at the small knot of men standing in the mouth of the alleyway, and shouted. Aziz didn’t speak Farsi, but he could interpret the tone well enough, especially considering that his companions were all wearing the Sunni Salafist Starter Pack. The Iranian lifted his rifle fractionally and started to move toward them, his pace increased with a new purpose.

  Abu Sayf’s eyes had turned to hard flecks of obsidian. Aziz glanced at him, half fearing that the killer might have noticed that he had been the one to attract attention, but the other man hadn’t taken his eyes off the patrol. Instead, staring his blazing hate at the Iranians, the terrorist triggered the IED.

  The pressure cooker had been concealed underneath the tablecloth covering the lower part of the produce stall. Packed with C4 and nails, it was triggered by a command wire leading to a cell phone stashed in the back of the stall, a cell phone which Abu Sayf had just dialed.

  The Iranians disappeared into the ugly black cloud, their bodies pulped and shredded by overpressure and fragmentation as the bone-shaking wham smacked the avenue for nearly a hundred yards in both directions. Fragments and shrapnel blasted deep gouges in the opposite buildings, adding to the flying glass from windows shattered by the blast. The shockwave reached the four men in the alleyway, even though they had all ducked back as soon as Abu Sayf had triggered the bomb. Dust and smoke billowed around them chokingly, smelling of explosives, smoke, fire, and other, less-wholesome things.

  At first, Aziz nearly despaired. It had gone off too well; the Iranians could not have survived that, and there was no distraction immediately available to give him a chance get clear of Abu Sayf and the others. He was about to reach for his Makarov, to try one last attempt to kill all three and run for it, when he heard shouts from down the alley. And they were in Farsi.

  Two more of the Iranians were running toward them, bringing their weapons to their shoulders. Either they were part of a separate patrol that the Al Qaeda jihadists had missed, or they had been a part of the same patrol, who had either gotten separated or were paralleling their comrades. Whatever the case, Aziz thought he’d just found his distraction.

  They were still wreathed in smoke and dust, so the Iranians hadn’t started shooting yet, somewhat to his surprise. They weren’t sure just who the four figures in the haze were, so they were apparently holding their fire. Abu Sayf and his “brothers” had no such compunction.

  Abu Sayf turned, and in one motion dropped to a knee and brought his AMD-65 to his shoulder, opening fire in a long, rattling burst. Most of the rounds went high as the recoil drove the muzzle skyward, but the Iranians reacted, ducking and looking for cover in the alleyway, spraying 5.56 rounds down the alleyway, almost blindly. A bullet snapped far too close to Aziz’ head, and he ducked, pushing past the younger jihadi with the vz. 23 to get out of the line of fire. He briefly considered shooting that one before ducking into the smoke on the main avenue, but then the young man dropped to the street, choking and spitting blood, a crimson hole blasted in his chest, and made it unnecessary.

  Ducking around the corner, Aziz ran for his life.

  CHAPTER 10

  It was getting close to 0400 by the time Brannigan and Childress arrived back at the little gully where they had laid up for the day. Childress exchanged recognition signals with Curtis, who was set up on the lip of the little wadi, his PKP pointed toward the Citadel and the coast road, to their northeast. The bulk of Khadarkh City still glowed to the northwest, but the road was the closer avenue of approach, so that was the direction Curtis was watching. Anyone trying to approach from any other direction had a lot of fairly rough, rocky terrain to cross first.
/>
  Brannigan slid into the slot behind Childress, to find Santelli talking to Aziz in a low murmur. Brannigan gave Aziz’ shoulder a thump. “Glad to see you’re alive, David,” he said. “We were getting a little worried.”

  Aziz looked at him in the dark. “It got a little hairy in there,” he admitted. “There are AQ fighters crawling all over the city, and I think most of them have showed up in the last few days, coming in by water like we did. Abu Sayf mentioned Al Jubail like it was a staging area of some sort.”

  “What’s Al Jubail?” Childress asked.

  “It’s a port on the coast of Saudi Arabia,” Brannigan answered. He rubbed his chin. His stubble was getting thicker, and was presently stiff with dust, sweat, and sea salt. “You think the Saudis are sending them?”

  “I don’t think there’s any doubt,” Aziz replied. “Which really means that unless the Navy moves in in the next twenty-four hours, we really are the only hope those hostages have. If the Saudi response is AQ fighters, then the hostages are fucked, whoever comes out on top.”

  “How soon are they going to move?” Brannigan asked.

  “They’re already moving,” Aziz replied. “I damn near got my ass shot off in the process, either by the Iranians or by Abu Sayf when he saw me running away into the smoke.” He shook his head. “I could have killed that fucker, you know that? If we’d been one step farther along, I could have been the one to put a bullet in Abu Sayf’s fucking head.”

  “Well, we weren’t, and Abu Sayf ain’t the mission,” Brannigan said. “The hostages are.” He thought for a moment, while Aziz sulked. “Do you think you can get back in there to sort of help things along tomorrow night? Or will the risk of compromise be too high?”

  Even in the dark, it looked like Aziz wanted to tell him to go fuck himself. But he finally sighed. “I think I can avoid Abu Sayf, and most of the rest of the minions I got introduced to, at least long enough to start some shit and run,” he said.

  “Wait, you got ‘introduced to minions?’” Flanagan hissed out of the shadows. “What, did they give you the full tour? ‘Hello, random Arab dude we’ve never met before, come meet the family!’ Really?”

  “I might have told them that I was Abdul Rahman al Ramadi,” Aziz said.

  “Who the hell is that?” Santelli demanded.

  “He was an Al Qaeda in Iraq bad boy, about ten years ago,” Aziz said. “He was one of the HVIs we were hunting in Diyala. He was actually something of a pro; he usually only hit military targets and actual strategic installations, always pretty clean strikes. I saw his corpse; figured it was a familiar enough sounding name that they might buy that I was a terrorist, and leave it at that. Turns out that while none of them had ever met him, he had more of a rep in the jihadi sewer than I’d thought.”

  “So, you ID’ed yourself as a Salafist celebrity, and got shown the whole operation?” Brannigan asked. He had to admit, it was hard to believe.

  “I don’t think I got to see the whole operation,” Aziz admitted. “And I don’t think Abu Sayf entirely believed me, either. But I got to see enough that I got brought along on a bombing.”

  “So, that’s why it took so long to get back here,” Hancock observed from the southern edge of the wadi, where he was watching their six.

  “Yeah,” Aziz said. He sounded thoughtful. “I think I know how to get in and cause some chaos,” he said. “Abu Sayf said that the attacks tonight were just the first step. I think they’re going to try to turn the next demonstration into a full-blown riot, maybe even try to storm the Citadel. That would be our chance.”

  Brannigan nodded. “If it works out, I’d agree,” he said. He proceeded to describe the breach in the wall. “I’m not sure if we can hit it from the ground, or if we need to use the boats. I’m half inclined to use the boats; if we can somehow secure them to the cliff, it will make for a faster exfil once we’ve got the hostages.”

  “Faster?” Santelli asked. “Getting a bunch of shell-shocked hostages to climb down a collapsible caving ladder or a rope into a rubber boat rocking on the breakers at the base of a cliff? I wouldn’t expect that to be ‘faster.’”

  “Faster than trying to overland back to the boats on the south end of the island with a bunch of shell-shocked hostages,” Brannigan pointed out.

  “I suppose,” Santelli conceded. “I can still think of about a dozen ways it can go horribly, horribly wrong.”

  “So can I,” Brannigan admitted, “but unless we want to call it quits and give Tanner his money back, I don’t see too many other options.”

  No one else had a better plan. “Let’s get some rest,” Brannigan said. “As soon as the sun sets, Aziz will re-insert into the city, and the rest of us will boogey down south to retrieve the boats.” He peered at the growing lightness on the eastern horizon, over the water. “It’s too late to go get them now.”

  I just hope the bad guys don’t decide to execute any more hostages before tonight.

  ***

  The crowd was already getting agitated by the time Aziz got anywhere near the Old City.

  He was being more careful this time. The first time, he’d been looking to make contact, to get a feel for the atmospherics in the city. He’d gotten that, in spades, and it had soured him on even being seen the second time around. Especially if word of his presence had the potential to get back to Abu Sayf. He didn’t want that psycho to come looking for him, not after he’d cut and run in the alley.

  The first time, he’d been careful on his initial approach into the outskirts of the city, then had started moving openly, appearing to be a regular pedestrian on the streets. This time, he was trying to stay out of sight, especially since he was considerably bulkier under his man-dress, having pulled it on over his combat vest, and he was trying to conceal his AK-12 under his arm. The dark was helping, but if anyone got close enough to get a good look, he was going to have to kill them or risk exposure.

  He had one mission in mind that night. Get to a vantage point where he had a shot both into the crowd, and at the Iranians near the Citadel gate. He would devote one magazine to sowing as much death and chaos as possible, and then he was bugging out, heading for the eastern coast and the rendezvous point.

  It occurred to him that if anything went wrong in the Citadel, he was going to be on his own. That was a terrible thought. He thought he could probably find his way back to the rough area of the pickup, but at the same time, would the Russians really honor the agreement they’d made with Brannigan, if it was only him? Or would they just kill him and figure it was better that way?

  He stopped in the shadow of a compound wall, leaning against the plastered cinderblock for a moment. The thought was an unnerving one. He hadn’t bothered to think about it before. What would happen to him if he was cut off? He started to shake.

  Hidden in the darkness, he turned until his back was to the wall, and sank down until he was sitting. The full import of what they were trying to do had just hit him, and he suddenly didn’t want to move. Didn’t want to go venturing into that powder-keg of a city, where even if the Al Qaeda terrorists didn’t find him, there was every possibility that a stray round or an IED could easily finish him off in a split second.

  What the fuck am I doing here? Why was I ever so fucking stupid as to say, “Yeah, going into a Middle Eastern country with only eight men—seven if you count the fucking pacifist doctor out—to rescue hostages from a company or more of trained soldiers sounds like loads of fun?”

  He wanted to puke. He’d never been so scared in his life. Fuck these guys. If they’ve got a death wish, let ‘em go storm the fucking castle. I should just hightail it back to the boats and run. I bet I could get back to Sir Bu Nair and find somebody who wouldn’t mind taking on another passenger to Abu Dhabi or somewhere.

  He made the decision. The hostages weren’t worth his hide. Neither were a bunch of crazy has-beens who wanted to take a last stab at the glory days. They knew what the deal was. For all they would know, he’d gone into th
e city and gotten killed. It wasn’t like he’d be looking them up later. “Hey, about that mission to Khadarkh! How’d that go?”

  He got to his feet. His knees were still shaking, but, the decision made, he was feeling slightly less sick.

  He took two steps back toward the south, toward escape. Then he stopped. His lips compressed into a thin line. “Fuck!” he hissed. He turned back toward the Old City and the already growing growl of an angry mob.

  ***

  “Son of a bitch,” Brannigan heard Childress whisper. He couldn’t say he disagreed with the sentiment.

  Our timing really seems to suck, so far. They had, once again, neared the checkpoint at the end of the runway right about at shift-change time. He wondered just what kind of shifts the Iranians were really running; this didn’t seem to be at a twelve- or eight-hour mark. It’s probably scheduling by Insh’allah. Most of the Middle East seemed to operate on two timing schedules: “Later” and “Whenever.” Punctuality was not a Middle Eastern virtue. He’d somewhat expected the Iranians to operate differently, but at the same time, he couldn’t say that he was surprised to be proven wrong.

  That didn’t make it any less infuriating, though, to be stuck lying flat on their bellies in the rocks and dirt, trying not to even breathe too loudly, while the trucks full of Iranian soldiers pulled up to the checkpoint and began to unload, calling out to each other with loud shouts in Farsi.

  He actually had a decent vantage point this time. There were two trucks halted near the checkpoint, both Land Cruiser 79 pickups, each with either a DShK or a W85 heavy machinegun mounted on a pedestal in the bed. A tall man wearing fatigues and a patrol cap had gotten out of the lead truck, and was shouting at the checkpoint guards.