by Don Mann
He pointed upward. At four o’clock, the stairway was completely blocked by a collapsed wall, so he turned left into a hallway and then into a large apartment that had been completely burned out. Ran in a crouch to the front windows, past the burnt remains of sofas and rugs, a child’s crib, a cracked flat-screen hanging precariously from the wall. Akil followed.
Below and slightly left sat a jeep and a Toyota pickup with a nasty-looking .50 cal machine gun mounted in its bed. Several men with beards were crouched around the front of the jeep, firing automatic weapons. The jeep flew a yellow flag with the green logo of an arm raising an assault rifle and over it in Kufic script “Party of God.”
“Hezbollah,” Akil whispered.
Crocker hated those fuckers, having tangled with them before in Lebanon. He was aware that the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia had come to Assad’s aid in the south and east. At least they weren’t encountering Assad’s army. Not this time.
The pickup was in the process of turning and backing up so that the .50 cal would have a clean shot down the street at the school.
Crocker pointed to the .50 cal and raised the RPG-7 to his shoulder. Then he pointed at Akil and signaled for him to deploy downstairs. Akil nodded and hightailed it, clutching his 416 and pushing a grenade into the M320 launcher on its lower rail.
Crocker knew he’d have only one shot before he gave away their position, so he loaded in a 40mm PG-7VR rocket, aimed carefully, and fired. The round glanced off the roof of the truck and hit the guy manning the .50 cal square in the back. The following explosion had the red aura of a direct hit.
Goner!
The hajis below turned and directed their fire at his window. With bullets tearing up the concrete and brick around him, Crocker quickly reloaded with an OG-7V fragmentation charge and fired again. This round hit the back of the jeep, causing it to lift off its rear axle and flip over. The resulting shrapnel downed most of the terrorists around it like a set of bowling pins.
He wanted this over as soon as possible, so he ran down the stairway as fast as his legs could take him. Through the drifting smoke he found Akil on the street, mopping up.
Pop-pop-pop!
A shot to the head finished off one Hezbollah terrorist. Two in the chest silenced another.
“Nice shot from the window,” Akil said poking him in the chest with his elbow.
“Like picking off ducks in a pond.”
Crocker was fired up to the max, wanting to get out of Idlib as soon as possible. Back at the school, he saw Davis on the radio talking to Ankara Station, his hair matted across his forehead, his eyes bloodshot, his frustration growing.
Because the weather had cleared and Assad’s air force maintained complete control of the airspace, it was deemed impossible to rescue Black Cell and the sarin canisters by helicopter without taking a tremendous risk. A downed U.S. or NATO helo in Syrian territory wasn’t something the White House appeared willing to tolerate. Still, the military maintained that they were looking for a safe LZ while they waited for approvals.
“Where does that leave us, sir?” Davis asked into the transmitter.
“Up the creek without a paddle,” groaned Mancini, who sat near the window reassembling his M7A1 assault gun.
“We’ll inform you of new developments,” Grissom answered over the radio. “You’ll do the same. Over and out.”
Crocker didn’t like the situation at all. It seemed to him that every minute they remained at the school, their risk of being discovered—either by another Hezbollah patrol wondering what happened to their colleagues or other Assad fighters—increased. FIBUA (fighting in built-up areas) was a hairy proposition and one they weren’t equipped for.
“What did Ankara say about moving?” Crocker asked.
“They want us to stay put until dark,” answered Davis.
Not happening, Crocker said to himself as a column of black smoke continued to rise from the burning vehicles on the street.
It wasn’t clear whether Hassan’s pregnant girlfriend, Jamila, had inadvertently tipped off the Hezbollah fighters or they had tracked Hassan’s cell phone. All that mattered was that someone had made their current location. And they were sitting ducks.
“Romeo, what are you looking at?” Crocker asked into his head mic.
“Yo, Deadwood. Nothing moving,” Akil replied from his lookout spot on the third floor. “Clear as far as I can see. Over.”
“Keep looking. Over and out.”
Suarez offered MREs to the schoolteachers huddled in the corner. The meals consisted of bean-and-cheese burritos, cheese spread, crackers, powdered Gatorade, a HOOAH! bar, utensils, an accessory pack containing sugar-free chewing gum, a waterproof matchbook, and seasonings, all individually sealed in plastic, and a water-activated exothermic heater made of finely powdered iron, magnesium, and salt. When mixed with a small amount of water, the solution reached a quick boil that produced readily usable heat.
Before Suarez had a chance to show them how to use it, the women had ripped into the burritos and HOOAH! bars. The latter were an apple-cinnamon variant of Clif energy bars. The food seemed to calm their nerves.
Crocker, meanwhile, had medical duties to attend to, examining the cut on Jamila’s forehead, which was superficial, then cleaning and bandaging it. She had droopy dark eyes, a round, pale face, and shoulder-length straight dark hair. He poured her a cup of water from one of the Camelbaks. As she drank, she clutched her abdomen and moaned.
“What’s going on down there?” Crocker asked gently, checking her pulse, which was more rapid than normal. Little beads of perspiration appeared on her forehead. Her temperature was above normal, too. She didn’t answer, and continued to chew her top lip and hold her stomach. He saw a large wet area near the bottom of her long dark skirt.
Suspecting that she was on the verge of going into labor, he asked, “Your water broke, didn’t it? How long ago?”
He saw a tear slide down her face and land in her lap. He used a wad of clean gauze to dab her eyes.
“I’ll help you, but I need you to tell me what’s going on,” he said gently. “You understand English, don’t you?”
She nodded without looking up.
“When did it break?”
“In…the car,” she muttered with a strong accent.
“I need to touch your stomach. Is that okay?”
She nodded again.
He felt along it, carefully. The muscles were hard and the fetus had dropped, indicating that she was already in the early stages of labor.
“It’s all good,” he said. “The pain has just started?”
“Yes.”
“Where do you feel it?”
“It starts here, in the lower back, and moves to the front.”
“How long does it last?”
“Maybe twenty seconds.”
“The pains occur at regular intervals?”
“Yes.”
“How far apart?”
“Maybe five minutes. Maybe more.”
“Okay. Drink, relax. We’ll take care of everything.”
Before he could make a decision, he had Hassan to attend to, carefully extracting the shrapnel from his forearm, disinfecting the wound and bandaging it. He wanted to scold him for the added complication, but what was the point?
“You’re fine,” Crocker said, “but your girlfriend is going into labor.”
The young man immediately tensed up again. “Not now. No!”
“She’ll be fine, Hassan. But I need you to think. Is there a hospital or clinic nearby?”
“No, nothing.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yes. Yes.”
He heard combat in the distance, which added to his sense of urgency. Akil, from the third-floor lookout, reported that the fighting seemed to be happening south of them. He also reported the presence of helicopters.
“Romeo, I need you down here,” Crocker said into the head mic. “I’m sending Manny up to relieve you.”
&
nbsp; “Semper gumby, boss.” Always flexible.
Crocker asked Amira to sit with Jamila, give her water, and measure the time between contractions. Then he had Davis and Suarez load the trucks while he huddled with Hassan and Akil and looked at the Garmin GPS and available maps. They were of limited utility.
Not wanting to get into a debate with Grissom and waste more time, he called Janice, who was still in Yayladaği, on the secure sat-phone.
“I need you to do something for me and not tell Ankara,” said Crocker. “If you’re uncomfortable with that, let me know now.”
“Fine,” she answered. “What do you want?”
He gave her their current location, then said, “We’re looking for a place to hide for the next four or five hours until it turns dark—hopefully away from the city, which seems to be where most of the action is. Preferably north or northwest.”
“Got it.”
Janice came back five minutes later with the location of an abandoned chicken farm twenty-five kilometers west of Idlib, off Highway 60.
“That work?” she asked.
“I think so.”
“I don’t need to remind you that you should approach it with caution, but I will.”
“Thanks.”
“Let me know if you need an alternative.”
“I will.”
“Crocker, NSA and TA (threat assessment) are reporting a lot of rebel and government activity around Idlib, so watch the roads,” she added.
“We will, Janice.”
“One more thing: this call didn’t take place.”
“No, it didn’t. I owe you one.”
The problem would be getting to the farm undetected during daylight. He was sure that Ankara Station would strenuously advise against it. Given the fact that he would be delivering a baby soon and didn’t want to do it in a compromised location, he decided to risk moving. The other members of Black Cell agreed.
Hassan was the only one who objected. Crocker asked him to cooperate and stay calm, but the kid continued to act like a nervous father-to-be.
They set out at normal speed—Crocker, Akil, Hassan, and Suarez in the lead truck, and Jamila, the two schoolteachers, Mancini, and Davis in the Mercedes Sprinter—navigating bomb craters and local roads piled with rubble.
The small groups of armed men they passed didn’t seem to pay much notice. They looked young, hollow-eyed and exhausted.
“SFA rebels,” Hassan pronounced, “waiting for the next bombing run or counterattack.”
Up ahead they spotted a column of smoke rising from the middle of a row of houses. Gathered around were a small group of angry people chanting in Arabic, “The people want to execute you, Bashar! The people want to topple your regime!”
A beat-up white-and-red civil defense truck blocked the road. A man Hassan identified by his white helmet as an unpaid volunteer explained that the regime was dropping barrel bombs out of low-flying jets. Their job as civil defense workers, he said, was to uncover the bodies and get the wounded to a house that served as a clinic.
Crocker decided to give them the balance of the medical supplies they were still carrying. The grateful men thanked them with several Allahu akbars, and they continued.
Another five minutes of passing through narrow streets, and a wider road with a public park appeared ahead, with a large soccer stadium on the right. “The turnoff should be a couple of klicks from here, on the left,” Akil said.
Davis through the comms reported that Jamila’s contractions were now three minutes apart.
“Good,” Crocker responded. “We still have time.”
“Problem,” grunted Akil, pointing to a roundabout that marked the intersection with a road that circled the outskirts of the city.
Through the windshield Crocker saw a roadblock. One of the jeeps that formed it flew the Free Syrian Army’s green, white, black, and red “independence” flag—the official flag of Syria before the Ba’athist coup of 1963 that had brought the Assad family to power.
Crocker said, “Slow down. Tell them we’re looking for Captain Zeid. They might be able to help us.”
Just in case, he held his 416 in his lap and told the men in the Sprinter to lock and load.
Akil spoke in Arabic to a young fighter with a peroxided Mohawk. He looked like a skateboarder, and had an Element brand sticker affixed to the stock of his AK-47.
“Who are you?” the kid asked, the AK balanced on his right hip so it pointed skyward.
“Humanitarian workers from Canada, carrying a pregnant woman and some wounded civilians back to Turkey,” Akil responded. “We’re looking for Captain Zeid, who is supposed to escort us back to the border.”
“You know Captain Zeid?” the skinny man asked.
“Yeah. He’s been helping us.”
“No more, brother, because he’s dead. Killed in a gunfight with some Assad thugs last night.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Yeah, man, tragic. Like everything else.”
Akil glanced back at Crocker, who gestured that he wanted to keep moving.
“You know anyone else who might be willing to escort us?” Akil asked.
“Not today, brother. We’re on alert. Assad’s got his killers out. Some crazy ISIS motherfuckers hit the Abu al-Duhur air base last night. They’re looking for them.” He pointed to the slogan on the Element sticker and said in halting English, “Make it count.”
“You, too, brother.”
Past the roadblock, they found a dirt road on the left that led them to a clump of trees with a small house and a string of chicken coops behind it, along with the nauseating odor of chicken feces and putrefying birds.
“This must be the place,” Akil announced as he tied a scarf over his nose.
“It’s disgusting,” said Hassan.
“Nobody’s gonna look for us here,” Akil responded.
Just to make sure, Crocker got out with Suarez to recce it. They found no one.
The smell was a powerful deterrent. So was the completely ransacked state of the coops, main house, and outbuildings. They chose a barn with a partially intact roof to hide the trucks, then camped out in the farmhouse and quickly established sat-phone contact with Ankara Station.
Nothing had changed. Decision makers in D.C. were still dragging their feet. They wanted Black Cell to remain at the school until they could be rescued. There was logic to their argument. Black Cell had recovered the sarin; they were now safely in FSA-controlled territory. Aside from the threat of being discovered by Assad’s air force, they seemed relatively safe.
But Crocker’s instincts told him that D.C. and Ankara weren’t taking into account the wildly unpredictable situation on the ground. Boundaries and alliances were shifting constantly. No one, except ISIS, seemed particularly interested in holding territory, since most of it had been destroyed and looted, and most of the residents had fled.
“Tell ’em, boss,” Mancini argued. “Explain the situation. Maybe they’ll send a helo now that we’ve got a pregnant woman.”
When Crocker got on the sat-phone and told Grissom that they had moved from the school to a chicken farm outside the city and were carrying a woman who was going into labor, the station chief became apoplectic.
“Screw you, Crocker. If you can’t obey orders and keep us informed, we can’t help you.”
“Sorry you feel that way, but I have to trust my own judgment.”
“Your judgment sucks, Crocker. A pregnant woman? Who do you think you are, Mother Fucking Teresa?”
“It was unavoidable. But I have no time to explain.”
Anders, when he got on the line, was slightly more understanding. “Be sensible, for Christ’s sake. Leave the woman if she’s an impediment. Don’t move again until it turns dark. And before you move, check with us.”
“Okay. What’s the status of the air rescue?”
“Nothing’s happening, Crocker, until it turns dark.”
“That’s not what I’m asking. I’m asking if
it’s been approved.”
“Approval is still pending. HQ continues to consider all circumstances and contingencies. I’ll inform them now of your new location, see if that changes anything. We’ll let you know when and if we get the okay. Stay safe.”
“We’ll try.”
He took a deep breath and sucked it up. Dissatisfaction from HQ, Anders, and even the White House was something he’d dealt with before. He knew how this worked. If the mission turned out to be a success and he delivered the sarin, he’d get scolded and given a slap on the wrist. But if the mission went south, he’d be seriously screwed. Possibly court-martialed and dismissed from the service.
He couldn’t worry about that now. There were practicalities to deal with, including the fact that Jamila’s contractions were growing more frequent and intense.
Hassan was practically hysterical when he found Crocker on the front porch. “We need to leave immediately and get Jamila to a hospital in Turkey.”
“What about the clinic they were taking the wounded to in Idlib?” asked Crocker.
“It’s even more disgusting than this. Don’t you think I thought of that? Are you serious? Why are we staying here? Why are we waiting?”
“We’re not waiting, Hassan, so calm the fuck down. You brought us this situation, and we’re going to find a way to deal with it.”
“How? How?”
“How do you think?” Crocker retorted, checking his watch again. “Deliver the baby.”
“Here, in this disgusting place? Are you crazy? Jamila will die. The baby will die, too. And both their deaths will be your fault!”
Crocker reached out and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Listen to me,” he said evenly and with authority, even though he wanted to slap him. “You’re going to be a father soon. You need to start acting like one.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you need to help your girlfriend by calming her down and acting positive, even if you’re scared to death.”
Hassan looked like he was about to cry. “How can I look at her, when she will see the truth in my eyes? The midwife who examined her yesterday said that the baby had not turned. It isn’t in the right position. She said she needs a surgeon or an obstetrician.”
