by Mark Greaney
“No. Don’t do it.”
Both men raised their hands.
* * *
• • •
The young Syrian FSA soldier and Court were stripped of their gear, all the way down to their T-shirts and pants; even their shoes were taken off and carted away. The men who did the frisking said little. They moved with efficiency, and as soon as he and the Terp were led off the road, Court saw why.
A long Ural truck stood behind a stone outcropping on the hill, and inside it were over a dozen men. They all looked like FSA to Court, but he wasn’t about to speak to his partner to find out for sure.
The prisoners were surrounded by five more armed ISIS fighters, putting the total number of hostiles here to nearly a dozen.
Court and the Terp were loaded into the truck. A guard standing in the bed lashed their hands behind their backs and shoved them into positions on the floor of the bed, next to other men.
Court looked around. Heads hung low. Some men had been physically beaten, and one older man, he might have been forty but his head was almost bald and what hair he did have was gray, had obviously been shot in the upper shoulder. The wound glistened and bled unattended as the man lolled his head in immense pain with his arms fastened behind his back.
Court and the Terp sat there with the prisoners for several minutes, until another vehicle drove by the hilltop road; it, too, was stopped at the roadblock, and then three more terrified young men were led around the rock and onto the truck.
The truck rolled off in the late afternoon, heading north, deeper into the hills.
Court and the Terp did not say a single word to each other. Court just looked out at the deep fog. The fog that had saved him, and the fog that had condemned him.
CHAPTER 77
Twenty-four-year-old Yasmin Samara held Jamal Medina tight, looking down at the sleeping boy. She was worried about tonight, but Dr. Saddiqi had promised her everything had been arranged by a man in France who was in contact with Bianca.
Yasmin did not know, and she did not trust. But she did not know what else she could do but go along with the arrangement.
Now she stood in the lobby of the doctor’s apartment building, watching the headlights of the approaching vehicle. The doctor had gone outside to make sure everything was safe first, and he said he would wave her forward if the coast was clear.
She watched him lean into the car. After a few seconds the engine was turned off and two occupants climbed out.
She started to panic, thought about running out the back, as had been the plan, but Dr. Saddiqi waved to her.
The car was driven by an Arab-looking couple in their twenties who wore civilian clothing and smiled at her, and the woman even stroked the baby’s head in Yasmin’s arms as the man loaded her bags into the car. Saddiqi wished Yasmin luck and told her inshallah she would be very safe, very soon. The young doctor went back into his building, and Yasmin climbed into the backseat.
The woman sat in back with her and the baby while the man began driving to the south. The woman explained that although there was no reason to worry, the entire city was looking for the boy in Yasmin’s arms. To get through the checkpoints they would have to play different roles. They were sisters, Yasmin was the boy’s aunt, and the driver was the woman’s husband.
Yasmin was handed forged identity papers; her “sister” took Jamal and put him in her own lap.
Between Damascus and the Jordanian border they were stopped four times. On each occasion the husband calmly told the officers that they were heading home to Daraa. It was clear to Yasmin that the forged papers were good quality, because other than shining flashlights into the backseat, even on the baby, they had no problems. Each time their documents, and their stories, saw them through.
Yasmin had never been to the Jordanian border, so she didn’t know what to expect, but after they passed through the Syrian town of Daraa, there were no lights, no buildings. It was just flat farmland, though if anything was being cultivated here now, the young girl could not see it out the window.
To her surprise the driver pulled the vehicle over to the side of the quiet road, parked, and flashed his headlights. The woman playing the part of Jamal’s mother climbed out with the baby in her arms, and she beckoned Yasmin on. They stood there by the side of the road for a moment, and then a sound broke the quiet, coming in from the opposite direction of the glow from the city of Daraa.
Yasmin knew it was a helicopter, but when she looked into the sky she couldn’t see any lights.
The helicopter was on top of them before she saw it; it appeared out of the darkness above the road right next to the car. A satchel was tossed down and the man caught it, then threw it into the vehicle’s open window.
The tires of the helicopter touched the ground and Yasmin was rushed to it by the woman holding Jamal. She climbed aboard and was heaved in by a pair of strong arms and strapped to a seat. Around her were several men in military uniforms, rifles on their chests.
When the young couple and Jamal were aboard and strapped in, the helicopter took off again; it had not been on the ground for ten seconds. They turned around and flew back in the direction the sound had come from, and Yasmin watched while a soldier put a pair of headphones over the baby’s ears. Just then Yasmin saw a flash of light behind her out the door of the helicopter. She looked back to see the car exploding in a fireball on an otherwise quiet farm road.
* * *
• • •
They landed after only fifteen minutes in the air. She was handed back Jamal and told she was safe in Idlib, Jordan, and the man and the woman who’d rescued her disappeared through a doorway.
She and Jamal were ushered to a private room and given food and blankets, she fed Jamal, and every few minutes someone would pop their head in and ask if she had everything she needed.
An hour after she arrived, Jamal was wide awake and in a playful mood. A woman brought a foam cup with some little rocks in it and a lid that had been taped closed. The woman apologized that this Royal Jordanian Air Force base didn’t have any baby toys lying about, but she hoped Jamal would enjoy his new rattle nevertheless.
Yasmin was shaking the toy to Jamal’s delight when Bianca Medina raced into the room, collapsed on her son, and held him tight. Yasmin began to cry and Bianca pulled her into the hug, while Jordanian intelligence agents looked on and wondered just what the hell they were supposed to do with a Spaniard and two Syrians without documents.
CHAPTER 78
Court spent the entire night in a cramped cell with what seemed like fifty or sixty men. He wore an orange jumpsuit, exactly like in his dream the day before, and he’d been given no food or water.
He had managed some sleep, but he woke thirsty and stressed. The cuts to his face and head stung and had been joined by dozens more scrapes and bruises where he’d been roughed up by the guards.
This was not because he’d been singled out for special treatment. He had not. In fact, all the prisoners had been forced to march down a long hallway with their hands tied behind their backs while, standing along the walls, a dozen ISIS men used their feet, fists, and rifle stocks to beat the prisoners as they passed.
Court looked to find the Terp in the crowd. The young Syrian was there, just feet away, his own face black and blue, but his eyes open and alert.
The young man leaned closer to Court and spoke softly in English. “I wish I knew what happened to Azzam yesterday.”
Court said, “If he were dead, these guards would probably be talking about it.”
“True, but if it happened at a Russian base, they could keep it quiet for a day.” He thought it over. “I think.”
Court shrugged. “I guess you and I will never know.”
A guard walked up to the bars and began shouting to all the prisoners in the cell. He went on for a couple of minutes without stopping; Court couldn’t make much
of it out at all, and what he did understand didn’t tell him anything about his predicament.
But he could see the fear and dread in the eyes of the others.
When the man left, Court looked at the Terp. “That didn’t sound good.”
The young man had a similar look on his face, although he tried to hide it. “We will be taken to a lake in an hour. Then we will be shot and we will be thrown in the lake so that it will be fouled with our corpses. Daesh is pulling out of the area, but they want to poison the water. A camera crew will film it all to show the world that ISIS is still fighting in Syria.”
“That’s nice,” Court said, leaning his head back against the wall.
The Terp said, “Somehow I made it through seven years of war without getting killed.” He smiled at the American. “Today I will finally find peace.”
Court said, “Glad you’re cool with it. I, on the other hand, am pretty annoyed about the whole thing.”
The Terp was interested in this. “Why? Is your mind troubled?”
“When they kill me, that means they win and I lose. That means one more of those sons of bitches doesn’t die at my hand.” Court shrugged. “That pisses me off.”
The young man said, “You were a lion yesterday. You are a true warrior. Even if we didn’t get Azzam, we showed him this land will never be safe for him.”
“Thanks, kid. You were pretty badass yourself. What’s your name?”
The Terp smiled. “Abdul Basset Rahal. You can call me Basset.”
* * *
• • •
Three hours later Court knelt by the lake, his head down in accordance with the orders of the men with the guns all around him. Once every forty to fifty seconds he heard the crack of a rifle, and the splash of a man falling into the lake.
A cameraman stood on the edge of the pier, and a second was positioned in a rowboat in the water. The gunmen were mostly behind the prisoners, except for the two walking the condemned up the pier and the lead executioner himself.
Eventually Court felt the guards cut him off the long rope lashing the prisoners together, then they yanked him to his feet by his shoulders. He was pulled through the brush at the water’s edge, his feet just skimming the ground for the first few feet before he found his footing. Cord was wrapped tight around his wrists in front of him.
Behind him Basset shouted to him, but in Arabic, and Court missed most of it.
He’d picked up the words “friend,” “fight,” and “die.”
Yeah, Court thought. That encapsulated the situation well enough.
He heard the crack of an AK’s stock as it pounded into a head, and he figured the poor interpreter had taken another beating for saying good-bye.
Court ignored what was going on behind him and listened to his footfalls on the pier, counting them off. He passed the photographer on his right; the man was bored now, beyond the thrill of killing, just focusing on his job.
Then he looked up to see the executioner beckon him on.
At the end of the pier Court was pushed down to his knees; they slipped in the slime a little, but he caught himself.
The executioner was off Court’s right shoulder; the two guards were each a step behind him, one on the right and one on the left, and from the sound of the movement of the sling swivels on their rifles, he could tell the muzzles of the weapons were within a foot of the back of his head, at 45-degree angles, equidistant.
The executioner himself raised his weapon and the sling swivels told Court where it was in relationship to his right ear.
Court relaxed the muscles in his back and legs, brought his shoulders back and his head up, and fixed his eyes in resolution.
“Here we go.”
Court launched up from the kneeling position, pushing off with his left knee, spinning him in the air to his right. His arms fired out, the cord he’d managed to untie an hour earlier fell to his side. His hands swept around while he spun, and when he faced up towards the sky he arched his back, pulling his head back and down towards the dock, and his fingers clutched the barrels of the guards’ AKs, holding them tight near the front sights. He shoved the weapons up and formed an X with them, and as part of the same movement he jerked both rifles hard.
The executioner had been startled by the blur of movement in front of him but he pulled the trigger now, just as both guards fired their weapons at the exact same moment. The executioner’s bullet passed within four inches of Court’s face, scorching his beard and cutting his lip with tiny bits of unburned gunpowder racing out the weapon’s muzzle at two thousand feet per second.
Because of the X orientation of the two guards’ weapons at the moment their rounds discharged, the men shot each other. Bullets ripped point-blank into one guard’s lower torso and the other guard’s genitals. They both teetered backwards off the side of the dock, and as soon as Court landed on his back on the wooden slats, he grabbed the executioner’s rifle with both hands and yanked hard across his body, tipping the executioner over his body because he was caught by the sling around his neck.
The two guards splashed into the water as one, and just as the executioner shouted out, he, too, fell face-first into the lake.
Court rolled off the dock to his right, following the executioner off the boards. He crashed into and then disappeared under the bloodred surface of the water.
* * *
• • •
Basset had heard the gunshot, then the splash, and he knew it was his time to die.
Then he heard the shouting . . . and the second splash.
He looked up, his eyes focused on the end of the dock just when the American rolled from his back off the pier, fell one meter down, and belly-flopped into the water.
Around him the ISIS fighters began spinning towards the dock, their guns rising in front of them.
Basset had two guards just behind him; they were taking him to die next, after all, and now they opened fire on the lake at the edge of the pier. Both weapons were extended over Basset’s kneeling form, so he stood up between the guns, leapt back, and yanked other men tied to him as he went. The two ISIS gunmen fell to the ground under the scrum of prisoners, and the prisoners kicked and bit and elbowed and shouted as they fought with them. Other men on the rope line fell back or jumped back, knocking into gunmen standing close to them.
* * *
• • •
Underwater, Court grabbed at the eyes of the executioner with one hand while he pulled on the AK with the other hand. The water was fifteen feet deep here, dark and brown, so Court felt his way forward, vying for the rifle before the man recovered and thought to reach for one of the ornamental knives in his belt.
It was clear the executioner did not swim; the panic in his actions had nothing to do with the fact that he was in a life-and-death struggle with another human, and everything to do with the fact he was underwater and unable to breathe.
Court pulled the weapon away as the executioner reached out for it, and then the American spun the barrel towards the thick man, pounded the muzzle into the man’s solar plexus because he couldn’t see him and needed to be sure of his target, and pulled the trigger at contact distance.
The weapon fired; the bullet slammed into the man’s chest and blew out his back.
Court’s feet hit the lakebed now, and he shoved off with them, launching back up towards the surface. His head broke the water and he sucked in a huge breath of air, but instantly he saw he was ten feet from the edge of the pier, and at least four men were running up it now, heading in his direction. The fighter in front opened fire, raking the water around Court with brass-jacketed lead.
Court dove again, kicked his legs, and shot under the pier. Here he spun onto his back while still below the surface, and he reached up with his AK. He kicked along, a backstroke without the arm movements, and he opened fire on the wooden dock right above him, se
nding dozens of rounds up, splintering slats, tearing through the legs and torsos of the men running down to the edge of the pier.
A man fell off into the water on the left, and Court tossed the empty AK in his hands and swam after the rifle that had been held by his newest victim.
* * *
• • •
Basset slammed his head back twice into the nose of an ISIS fighter lying under him on the lakeshore, and when he was certain the man was dazed from the pounding, he drew a knife from the man’s belt. He cut his bindings free in seconds, although he also sliced into his own hand doing so, and then he grabbed the man’s rifle and eviscerated him with a long burst of fire to his abdomen.
Up the row of prisoners an ISIS gunman shot two Kurds at close range and was aiming at a third, but Basset shot him twice in the pelvis, dropping him where he stood. The prisoners alive near the wounded man fell onto him, tearing at clothing and flesh with their hands. One man got the AK off the doomed terrorist while others in the line began untying one another’s bindings by picking at the knots with their fingertips.
Basset and a prisoner nearby both had weapons now, and they poured fire into the ISIS gunmen near the Ural truck as well as those fighting amid the line of prisoners. The ISIS fighters fired back, of course, and soon the man next to Basset went down with a cry of pain.
Basset emptied his weapon and lunged for the gun dropped by the fallen prisoner. He got his hands on it and spun around but saw two gunmen aiming at him from higher on the hill. He knew he didn’t have time to get off any shots before they gunned him down.
Gunfire cracked from behind, and both men launched backwards onto the rocky hillside. Basset looked over his shoulder and saw the American, fifty feet from the shoreline in the bloody water, firing his Kalashnikov, using a floating body to rest the weapon on.
