“Of course. And what was his decision?”
“Naturally, he would never intrude into your operation, brother. He expresses full confidence that you will resolve this situation, and his attention is demanded elsewhere, on more fruitful things.” Having delivered his message, the old man rose and gave the Syrian intelligence officer a final hug. “Inshallah, the will of Allah be done,” said the imam. He bestowed blessings for al-Shoum’s sons to grow strong in the service of the Prophet, got back into the Land Rover, and was driven serenely away.
Al-Shoum watched the blue SUV vanish back the way it had come. Shit! First that Iraqi pig had tried to sneak in and steal the American general right from under al-Shoum’s nose, and now he was abandoning the search. That would leave al-Shoum alone to take any blame if they escaped.
“What was that all about?” asked Logan, ducking back beneath the tent.
“Nothing,” said al-Shoum. “An old friend who happened to be in the area and wondered what was going on.” Ali Shalal Rassad, who had already lied to the world that his organization, the Holy Scimitar of Allah, was not involved, was washing his hands of the whole mess. The old imam who brought the message was often employed as an unofficial emissary by the Syrian government, which would now be considering doing the same thing to ease international tensions. While al-Shoum sat beneath this tent in the middle of nowhere, the distance from Damascus hung around his neck like an albatross, for he realized that being stuck out here meant that he would not be privy in the final decision-making. Damascus had changed his mission. Instead of making a decision himself, he had been sent off running after a couple of Marines. If a scapegoat was needed, he might be chosen as the sacrifice.
He looked at the sky, where the sun had risen higher. No helicopters in the area. He increased the volume on the radio net. The sooner he captured those Americans, the better, because then he would be on the next chopper back to Damascus, possibly entering the city as a hero. He spun to face the American mercenary, whose help he now needed much more than he had only ten minutes ago. “We are wasting time, Logan.”
CHAPTER 51
THE DESOLATE ROAD LED BACK into a countryside that was green with agriculture rather than the normal desert brown, with ditches on each side to help with the irrigation of crops in a dry climate. Small canals with gates separated the larger tracts of land in a crossing pattern, to feed water from one area to another in a rotating schedule. As the sun crested totally above the horizon, a shining torch that removed the protecting darkness, Swanson found a major canal that apparently spilled into much of the region, with a low level of water. He dropped the truck into four-wheel drive, cut onto a cart path, and bounced down into the big trench.
Middleton grimaced in agony as he was tossed around in the cab, but Kyle kept going until all four wheels were in the water. He plunged ahead into a large concrete culvert that served both as a waterway and an opening through which farm machinery could transit from crops on one side of the road to the other. With a high clearance and only about a foot of water, the truck fit easily beneath the shelter, with both ends deep in shadow. He stopped and turned off the engine, and silence engulfed them. “This is it for the day. No choice.”
Middleton adjusted himself in the seat, eyeing the broad openings in front and behind them. “Pretty exposed.” Kyle started to respond, but Middleton added, “You’re right. Nothing else was around.”
Swanson opened his door and stepped into stale water. “The truck sits up high enough for the water not to be a problem. I’ll go brush over our tracks.” He waded away, back into the daylight, and spent ten minutes covering their tracks from the road into the culvert ditch, then used his binos to examine the fields all around them. Quiet, with no workers, even in relatively cool morning. He returned to the truck and climbed into the back.
Middleton was standing there cradling the AK-47. “Anything out there?”
“Nope. We’re okay for now. If they are not working the crops at this time of day, maybe these fields are just being watered. We might get lucky and not have to deal with any farmers coming through. Let’s look at the map.”
They unrolled it on the roof of the cab, each holding down an edge. “The place where you were being held is called Sa’ahn, over here.” Kyle pointed to a small symbol that denoted a village of fewer than a thousand people, and dragged his finger along a dark line. “We drove all the way over here to where that big highway goes up to Damascus, and then doubled back. I estimate that we are about right here, close to midway between these two big population centers, As Suwayda to the east and Dar’a to our west.”
He stopped talking and both grabbed their weapons when they heard a truck engine. Kyle motioned for the general to watch one end of the culvert while he covered the other. The truck came closer and closer, then rumbled across the bridged culvert and pushed on down the road. “We’ll probably be getting more of that during the day. Farm traffic.”
“So how far are we from anywhere?” Middleton squinted at the map.
Swanson found a scale of kilometers printed on the bottom and measured with his finger. “This road runs into As Suwayda in about forty-four kilometers. About a mile away from where we are now is another small road that goes due south for, let’s see, about seventeen klicks.”
“Doesn’t reach all the way to the Jordanian border,” Middleton observed. “Dead-ends at the next crossing. But it looks like a straight shot from there.”
“I figure that we are about twenty-one miles, more or less, from Jordan,” Kyle estimated. “We can drive closer and hump it tonight if we have to. Just have to get close.”
“Should we get rid of the truck?”
“No. It’s a hard worker and blends right in. Anyway, if we take another one, we alert more people.”
Middleton looked over at Swanson. “What do you mean that we only have to get close?”
Kyle dug into his pack and pulled out the battery-powered satellite telephone he had taken from the dead pilot in the crash. “In a few hours, about noon, we break radio silence and call our guys in the fleet for help. They might not risk coming in just to get me, but they sure as hell will come in to get you!”
“Rank has its privileges, Gunny. Why not call right now and get it over with?”
Kyle sat down and propped his weapon beside him. “When we light up that phone, we expose our position. The Syrians and Washington will be listening, so we want to burn off a few daylight hours to cut into the available search time, but still give the MEU enough of a window to execute a pickup.”
Middleton eased himself into a sitting position, holding his ribs. “You mentioned Washington. Made me think of something. Did anything really unusual or important happen while I was being held?”
“No, sir. I don’t think so,” said Kyle. “I was out of the country and wasn’t watching the news before things started happening pretty fast.”
“Think hard, Gunny. Anything that impacted the military services?”
Swanson lay down, resting his head on his pack. “Nothing comes to mind. I got to get some zs, General, so let’s take two-hour shifts. You wake me up and then you get some sleep. I’m about to fall over.” He pulled his boonie cap over his eyes, then lifted it again. “Yeah, wait. There was this one thing. Senator Miller, the old airborne guy, died of a heart attack while campaigning.”
“Miller? The head of the Senate Armed Services Committee?”
“Yes, sir. Apparently keeled over in his hotel room after a speech.”
“Be damned!” Middleton let out a low whistle, feeling the pieces click together. “Tom Miller was the one person in the government who was more opposed than me to privatizing the U.S. military. We had been working together so that my testimony before his committee next week would block the legislation by turning a bright light on its ugly side.”
“So with Senator Miller dead and you held captive and maybe also dead, what would happen?” Kyle pushed back his hat.
“Not good, Gunny. Not go
od at all. The hearing would probably go forward as scheduled, only with Senator Ruth Hazel Reed succeeding Miller as head of the committee.”
“Does that change things?” Kyle cocked his ear and sat back up.
“Yeah. In a big way. Rambo Reed was the one who wrote the damned privatization bill. If major parts of the military are given to the lowest bidder, it will still involve billions of dollars and an immense amount of political power. Worse, it will set the pattern for other parts of the federal government to be sold off.” The general rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “I kid you not, Gunny, this thing threatens America as much as any terrorist group. So Gates has some of his mercs kidnap me. They plan an ambush to create a military fiasco, but the choppers crash, doing the job for them. Buchanan has sent you in to make absolutely sure I don’t come back. Rambo Reed takes over the committee and pushes the bill through. They’re all in this together. Jesus, Gunny, I’ve got to get back there.”
“Listen!”
The thump of helicopter blades was heard in the distance, but coming nearer.
CHAPTER 52
EACH TIME YOUSIF AL-SHOUM received another report of a white pickup truck being spotted, the position was plotted on the plastic overlay of his map with a red thumbtack pushed into the corkboard backing. After a few hours, the map was littered with the little pins, each a sharp point of failure in his massive search. Several dozen white Toyota trucks had been stopped at checkpoints or by search teams, but all were legitimate, except for one fool who had been trying to steal the vehicle when he was apprehended. It was almost noon when he decided to abandon all efforts to the north and toward Lebanon, peel away some of the strength watching the routes to the Israeli border, and take Victor Logan’s advice. He would saturate the southern region all the way down to Jordan.
With a black marker, he slashed a boundary line from the southernmost point of the border with Israel, curving over to Dar’a, then northeast to As Suwayda and back down through El Adnata to Jordan. It was a kill box that had the look of an inverted cup. They had to be in there somewhere, and he would construct a net of roving search parties and scour the area like a broom.
Members of his staff had arrived from Damascus and he told them what he wanted, leaving it up to them to draw up the grids and issue the necessary orders. One by one, the helicopters and the road units would be reassigned and move into southern Syria. Al-Shoum had never failed, and was absolutely determined to find the elusive sniper. The chase had become a challenge to his pride and his ability, while back in the capital, competitors probably were already measuring his office for their own desks. If the Marines got away, they might be taking his career along with them. That could not be allowed to happen.
The heat was growing. Even beneath the tent, the air was thick and stale and unmoving. He put on his beret and sunglasses and stepped into the sun to have a word with Victor Logan and two mercenaries who had come down from Lebanon aboard a Huey that was parked in the distance with its rotors pegged tight. Logan had told him in advance that the tall man with the dark tan was from South Africa, and that the pilot was a former Russian Spetsnaz commando with big arms that bulged from a skintight muscle shirt.
Al-Shoum paid no attention to their names when Logan introduced them. The mercenary added, “We have two more men driving over from Israel. They should be arriving in about an hour.”
“Good,” said al-Shoum. “Will you be in charge, or do I have to talk to someone else?”
“Anything doing with Gates Global still comes through me,” Logan said, careful not to appear impolite. He had not forgotten to whom he was speaking, and had warned the new men to watch their mouths or they would all end up in a Syrian jail.
Al-Shoum explained the changing search patterns. “There is no need for you to be out flying without a target. It would only waste your fuel and time, for your expertise will be needed soon enough. Brief your team and be ready to move as soon as somebody spots the Americans. When they start to run, as I anticipate, you will go get them.”
Logan shifted the strap of his rifle. “Good plan, sir. We’ll be ready.”
“Very well,” al-Shoum said. “I’ll call you when something turns up.” He turned on his heel and went back to the tent, where more pins had been stuck in the map overlay. He issued a new order: Every Toyota pickup in the new search area would be halted and immobilized until the Marines were found. There was no use counting the same ones twice. The pins seemed to mock him.
“Sir! I’ve got something here!” A sailor at a communications console inside the Combat Command Center of the Blue Ridge remained calm, although it took everything he had to keep from standing up and shouting. The chief petty officer in charge and the CCC officer of the watch moved to the console and plugged in their headsets.
“What’s up, Armstrong?” asked the lieutenant.
“We’re picking up a repeater sat phone signal, sir. Call sign is Long Rifle.”
The bosun tapped a computer to scroll a list of recent call signs. “That’s Gunny Swanson from the rescue mission!”
“I’ve got it.” Lieutenant David Garvey immediately depressed his TALK key. “Long Rifle… Blue Ridge… Do you copy?”
Kyle Swanson gave a thumbs-up sign to General Middleton. “Loud and clear,” he responded. “I have a package and need a FedEx pickup.”
“What is your address, Long Rifle?” The call was encrypted but was still over an open frequency, which required both parties to use code whenever possible.
“Simple Shackle,” Swanson said, then read off a line of numbers in an encoded format specified in the operational orders. The Simple Shackle was a l-to-10 box grid, horizontal and vertical, that could be interpreted only if the recipient had a similar code sheet. The little code in 100 squares repeats hashed versions of the alphabet. Any specific letter might appear in three or four different boxes that are used at random. “THE” might read 1-12-16 on first use, but 36-98-53 the next time. As an added safeguard, it would change at specified times. Even computers as powerful as those at the National Security Agency would have to put in some time to break it.
“How long can our driver expect you to remain at that address?”
“No more than a few hours, then we are going to see March of the Penguins.” The brevity code, also from the original ops order, specified that “penguins” meant south.
“Roger on the March. Come back in sixty mikes to confirm pickup time.” Garvey unplugged. “Chief, I’m going up to see the captain. Keep two men on that frequency at all times.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Chief Petty Officer Dwight Marshall made the personnel arrangements. When Garvey was gone, he switched to a private internal net.
A wall telephone rang deep in the stern of the ship. “Yes?” answered a deep voice.
“Double-Oh. We just picked up traffic from your boy Gunny Swanson. He’s coming out with a package. I think you need to be in on this. I’ll pass the word for a five-man protective detail to bring you up to meet with the MEU XO.” Marshall clicked off, found a Marine, and passed along the instructions. A team saddled up in full combat gear, locked and loaded, and headed down the ladders to escort Dawkins to the CCC. The executive officer of the Marine Expeditionary United would want his top hand in on planning whatever happened next, and no NCIS civilian investigators would be allowed to interfere.
Dawkins pulled on his boots. He had been comfortably whiling away the hours in a secluded area carved out deep belowdecks by creative sailors. It had a locked door, a television set with a lot of interesting videos, access to a nearby head with a toilet and a shower, a comfortable bunk, a tattered easy chair, a bunch of books and magazines ranging from Playboy to Sports Illustrated to Vogue, and shelves holding clean sheets. On a table was a bowl with fruit and candy bars gathered from the mess tables and the ship’s store. He had taken refuge in perhaps the most pleasant place on the entire ship, a hidden love nest to which boy and girl sailors could retreat, grossly violate naval regulations, and f
uck like rabbits.
CHAPTER 53
JACK SHEPHERD OF CNN WAS having an early pint of beer in a Fleet Street pub with a leggy intern from the London office of the Cable News Network. Chrissie Rogers was blond and busty, a twenty-two-year-old journalism school graduate from Nebraska, and she was enchanted with every word the rugged, veteran foreign correspondent bestowed on her in the privacy of a small booth. He was wondering whether to get her in bed before or after an expense-account dinner. The cell phone clipped to his belt chimed and vibrated. He reluctantly answered: “Shepherd.”
“Ah, my friend Jack Shepherd of CNN. This is your friend from Basra.” The unmistakable voice of the Rebel Sheikh was smooth. Jack slid out of the booth and walked outside for privacy.
“Good afternoon, sir. How may I help you?” No use wasting time with idle chatter. If the Rebel Sheikh called, it was for a reason.
“I am sorry to interrupt your afternoon, but I have something for you.” There was a pause. “This is on deep background, of course. My name and position cannot be used.”
“No problem, sir, and you’re not interrupting. I’m always on duty. What are we talking about?”
A gentle laugh. “Impatient Americans. Well, the kidnapped General Middleton of the Marine Corps has escaped his captors, with the assistance of a Marine sniper who survived the crash of the helicopters, a man named Kyle Swanson. The Syrian Army and intelligence forces have launched a wide search to find both of them.”
“Can I go with this, sir?”
“Oh, absolutely, Jack, providing you leave me out of your report. I just received a briefing from Syria. The manhunt is going on even as we are speaking, so you should hurry and get this on the air. Come see me again sometime, Jack.” The Rebel Sheikh gave that little laugh again. “And I really do apologize for interrupting your meeting with the lovely Ms. Rogers.”
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