by Greig Beck
“Boss!”
Sam grimaced from the pain, and used his other hand to try and reduce the pressure. “Ease it back, boss. We’re done here.” Sam gritted his teeth, waiting for the bones in his arm to snap. He ground his jaw, groaning.
Alex blinked. He looked down at his hand on Sam’s arm, and then into the big HAWC’s face. He immediately released his grip.
“Job’s done. We need to go.” Sam rubbed his forearm, knowing that if he hadn’t been wearing the HAWC armor underneath his shawl, he might have ended up with only one arm.
“Job’s done,” Alex repeated, looking around at the obliterated bodies. He nodded. “Done.”
They turned at the sound of gunfire to see Moshe and Adira, legs planted, putting bullets into the few fleeing terrorists. Adira’s powerful Barak was blowing apart balaclava-clad heads, and she never missed. It was brutal, but with Alex’s returning clarity, he realized she was tidying up the chaos he had started – there could be none left alive to come after them or call the dog pack onto their heels, when their mission was not yet over.
After a moment, there was no more movement, no more terrorists, no cheering crowd, no Mosul film crew. Only the four of them were left standing, and a nervous-looking French pilot. The other captives still huddled on the ground, hands over their heads. In the sky above, large birds had begun to circle.
Moshe looked up. “Vultures. They find plenty to eat in the days of the Hezar-Jihadi.”
Alex nodded, watching the birds. “Death always draws a crowd.”
Adira slit the bonds of the French pilot, and said a few soft words to him. She then walked calmly toward the camera, and when she was close enough, smiled into the lens. She pulled off a glove, and held up her hand. There was a small blue Star of David tattooed in the meat between her thumb and forefinger. She showed it to the camera and then kissed it.
She spoke clearly in English. “Lions eat Jakals.” Then almost faster than the eye could follow she drew both her guns and fired point black into the lens.
Adira walked over to where Alex, Sam, and Moshe were freeing the kneeling captives, and helping the shocked men to their feet. The pilot followed, staggering, and watched as Adira walked along the line of them, speaking to many in their own dialects. One man in a tattered blue shirt hugged her and shook her hand, thanking her.
She turned. “They’re mostly locals. Seems their crime was to fall foul of these creeps – wrong religion, wrong words, basically wrong anything.”
“Send them home,” Alex said.
The pilot came and stood before Alex. “Merci, thank you.” He looked around at the decimation. “Are you part of a larger force? A rescue mission?”
Alex half smiled, his gray-green eyes staring through the blood still running down his face, but then the blood suddenly slowed and then stopped. “No, we’re alone. And we’re not here to rescue you. So until our mission is complete, you’re a passenger; understand?”
The young man’s face was still bleached of color, except for the bruises and tears to his flesh, evidence of his treatment while in captivity. “Oui, er, yes, I understand. I am Lieutenant Jon-Pierre Duval, at your service.” He saluted, still looking unsteady on his feet.
Sam slapped him on the upper arm, making him stagger. “Well, Jon, it looks like it’s your lucky day.”
The pilot’s eyes were on Alex. The wound on his forehead bubbled for a second or two, and then began to knit closed like a red zipper. Jon-Pierre’s eyes rolled back, and he fell into Sam’s arms.
Alex looked at the big HAWC and shrugged. “Well, you hit him, he’s yours.”
Sam groaned and threw the pilot over his shoulder.
*
The group assembled again at midnight. They’d rested and then had a quick meal of dried beef. Jon-Pierre even looked refreshed, but his eyes were still haunted and his pallor was that of mortuary wax. From mission go-time, there would be no sleep or even rest until they made their way to a rendezvous point twenty miles out in the western desert.
They had pooled their information. Alex stared at Casey Franks, whose shawl had traces of blood all over it. He gave her a hard look, but she simply shrugged and pointed at his own thawb. Alex looked down and grunted; it was now more like a butcher’s apron. He ripped it from himself – the time for hiding was over.
They had decided on entering a building two doors down that bordered an alley. They would find an accessible door or window and break in, making their way to the roof, and then scaling across to their target building. If things went bad, there’d be no cavalry, so the backup plan was to make it to the Tigris and steal a boat. Luckily the dam was upstream, but the smaller river blockages could be worked around.
“What can I do?” Jon-Pierre asked.
“Just stay alive, sucker,” Casey said, checking her weapons. She looked up at him, her hands still running over her gun tech. “And stay out of the way. If things go well, we all go home whistling. If they don’t, you might just wish you were back lashed to that fucking post.”
“That’s not needed.” Adira glared at Casey, who scar-sneered back. Adira turned to the pilot. “You just keep up, say nothing, do nothing, other than what you’re told to do. Understand?”
Jon-Pierre nodded. Adira and her men had on night dark combat fatigues and faces streaked with blackout paint. Alex and the HAWCs were back in their adaptive camouflage suits, that were now as dark as their surroundings. Sam extended the armored hood up and over his face, and began to check and then calibrate the eye lenses’ thermal to night-vision technology.
Each person had fitted silencers to their weapons, and Alex checked his watch one last time. “Time.”
They moved out; all would use the path that Alex and Adira had taken earlier that day – it was the shortest route, and time mattered now.
At the late hour, the streets were near empty. Major roadblocks would be manned and stolen radar equipment would also be watching the skies, but down in the dirt, there was nothing except the odd lonesome dog or fleeing roach.
Casey continually swapped between thermal and night-vision lenses, and Sam sent pulses down the long streets as he checked his motion scanners. Both teams used the sprint and cover approach – each pair sprinting forward to the next place of concealment only when clear, then the next pair would do the same. Each moved fast, silent, and near invisibly within the night-shadows.
Alex was first into the side alley two buildings down from their target. He came to a locked steel grate. Sam appeared beside him, braced and readied himself to launch a mechanical assisted kick to the framework. Alex held up a hand.
“Opens outward,” he whispered. “You’ll wake up half of Mosul.” He reached forward and took the handle, bracing his other hand against the metal frame, and began to pull. After a few seconds, there came a popping sound and then the screech of complaining steel, before the metal locking plate flicked out of the frame and clattered to the ground.
Alex turned and winked at Sam. “Brought my own key.”
Eli looked at Moshe and pointed at the fallen grate, raising his eyebrows. Adira nudged him. “Must have been rusted. Focus, gentlemen.”
Alex entered; inside it was tomb-dark and they switched to night vision. Jon-Pierre placed a hand on the shoulder of Moshe and stumbled after them.
Alex went first up a set of decrepit steps, sensing the sleeping bodies behind each door. On a landing there was a threadbare cat, watching the huge human beings with indifferent eyes, as if it had seen the same thing a thousand times before.
The door to the roof opened with a squeal of rusted hinges, and Alex held up a hand to the group. He went out a few paces and crouched. There was no one on the roof, or any movement close by. He called them out.
Each Special Forces soldier stayed low and took a position up at the small rampart at the building’s edge. They used sensors and scopes to scan the other rooftops, looking for snipers. In the distance they could see a few anti gun batteries, but there was no one manning
them. They would only fly into action if their radar picked up an approaching solid object. Alex doubted they’d be focused on their own rooftops even if they were awake.
He motioned with a flat hand toward the target building, and they moved quickly, but carefully – the ancient rooftops were scoured by years of harsh weather. One wrong footfall and they could end up in someone’s bedroom.
Alex leaped across the first divide between the buildings, then the second, and then ran over to their target building. This one had a new roof, and looked to have been recently reinforced. He called Adira over and pointed to some marks on the concrete.
“What do you think? Looks like the skids of a chopper, wide, possibly a SeaCobra.”
She bobbed her head from side to side. “Close; but I think it is more likely to be a Toufan. They’re direct copies of your SeaCobra but are developed by the Iranian Aviation Industries.”
“Iran? What are they doing here?”
“Why not? It makes perfect sense. They want the world to believe that, like the rest of us, they are fighting the Hezar-Jihadi. But they will covertly back anyone who makes life difficult for the west.” She looked around. “We need to be cautious. The Toufan helicopters are used primarily by the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution, or Sepāh.” She turned to Alex. “You know them as the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.”
“Great.” Alex exhaled, and called the team in close. “Heads up; we might have IRG on the ground.”
“Here? I thought those guys were really only active inside Iran, and just used more as financial muscle outside their borders,” Sam said.
Adira shook her head. “You underestimate them, Sam Reid. The Sepāh now have over a hundred twenty thousand military personnel in all type of forces – land, sea and air. They also control the paramilitary Basij militia, which has another ninety thousand active personnel. And you’re right, they do use their financial muscle, because they have a lot of it – they are now a multibillion-dollar business empire.”
Alex knew she was right. During his own research he’d found that the Iranian IRG were like a state within a state, and had a finger in everything. These days they were already a more dominant force then even the Shia clerical system.
“Damned nightmare,” he said. “Iran and Hezar-Jihadi cuddling up. But it would sure answer a lot of questions about how these militia jihadis get their funding, intelligence, and advanced weaponry.” Alex grunted. “Hammerson is going to be real interested in this.” He looked around, seeking his egress, but there was no visible door or skylight. “Franks, those guys from the chopper must have got in somewhere, find me where. Sam, take some readings. Let’s see if there’s more heavy particle trace below us.”
Casey moved off like a bloodhound, searching the rooftop, looking at the smallest edge or crack until she eventually stopped and crouched. She raised a hand, and clicked her fingers once. Alex joined her. There was a three-foot square cut into the roof, flush with its surroundings – a trapdoor. Alex ran a hand over it.
“Steel, solid.” A single tiny hole was near one end. There’d be no breaking this door or its lock without alerting everyone within a mile.
Sam finished his reading. “Traces of HRE, higher than background normal, but non lethal … as long as we don’t spend the night down there.” He looked up. “This is the place.”
“Good.” Alex pointed. “That’s a locking mech. Cut us in.”
Sam immediately kneeled at the trapdoor. He pulled something like a thick pen from a pouch on his leg, which he then pointed at the lock. A wire-thin red beam shot out, and the smell of burning steel and oil filled the air. Something popped from inside the lock, and then the door sprang up half an inch, still dripping molten steel.
Sam gripped it with his armored glove and lifted. He stuck his head inside, and then eased back. “Clear.”
They moved in fast. The stairs were metal and new, but the rest of the building was mired in dust and the grease from a thousand cigarettes. There were footprints everywhere, proving recent high activity. Alex motioned with one hand.
“Spread.”
The group sprinted off, searched the rooms, and then came back quickly. There was nothing to report.
“Let’s head down to the ground floor.” Alex led them on.
“Down where all the crazy squiggles are,” Casey whispered.
“Ancient Arabic, and I’m betting it’s incantations.” Sam responded.
Casey snorted. “Yeah, and maybe this is Hogwarts.”
Alex turned to glare, and the silence returned. As they eased down an older flight of stairs, staying close to the wall, Alex felt the tingle of a warning on his neck. He couldn’t sense life, or the feeling he got when there was an enemy combatant concealed close by. This time it was more a sensation of something not being right.
“Stay alert. Something’s down there.”
They came off the stairs on the ground floor, and found themselves in a single large room. It seemed most of the inside walls had been knocked down, and save for a few support pylons, it was a dark, warehouse-type open space. Even the windows were bordered over.
“There was someone in here; we saw movement. Be ready,” Alex spoke quietly as he turned. The huge room was strewn with debris, building materials like stacked cinder blocks and flat iron girders were piled everywhere, indicating ongoing construction work. Against one wall stood a small forklift truck. Other than that the room would have been completely empty if not for the line of five long crates – each around ten feet in length – pushed up against a wall. All were open except for one. There was a table near the long boxes, strewn with paper.
“Give me a count.” Alex swung to Sam, nodding to the crates. He wasn’t sure if there was any form of high energy particle waves coming off the boxes, but he could sense something strange had been in them as keenly as if there was light showing at their edges.
Sam finished at the boxes, and moved around the floor, stopping at the forklift. “This thing is registering a spike – it sure lifted something contaminated.” He half turned. “The nukes?”
“Maybe,” Alex said. “Franks, Moshe, Eli, do a perimeter search.” The three took off in different directions. “Sam, Adira, Jon-Pierre, let’s take a look at what they left us.”
Sam and Jon-Pierre headed toward the crates, and Alex and Adira approached the table. There were scraps of paper, strips of cloth, and maps strewn everywhere. Alex took the maps and Adira lifted the papers, frowning as she tried to read the ancient words.
“Doesn’t make sense. It’s all jumbled phrases and lists of items.” She shook her head. “It looks like a recipe.” She lifted a strip of cloth with more of the ancient Arabic calligraphy on it in red. “Al-Rûm.” She frowned, looking up at Alex. “That’s the ancient name for Rome. Is that where this came from?”
“No,” Alex said, spreading out some of the maps. “Soran, Baghdad, Israel – the Sea of Galilee.”
“What?” Adira came over and looked at the map. Her jaw clenched. “So, this is what they were attempting to do – cross the Gaza Strip and explode their bomb near the Sea of Galilee. It is the largest freshwater lake in Israel – sixty-five square miles of water that Israel needs to survive.”
“I think these are targets, destinations. Look.” Alex turned one of the maps to her. It showed both the northern edge of Libya, and the southern tip of Italy. “Misrata.” Alex pointed. “Seems they start here, and travel here.” The map circled Pachino, in southern Italy.
Adira exhaled, her eyes narrowing. “The Hezar-Jihadi are almost in total control of Libya, then it’s just a few hundred miles of uninterrupted Mediterranean Sea to Italy. Takes less than a day by boat. Pachino was ruled by the Arabs a thousand years ago – they never forget.”
Alex grunted. “Seems they’re expanding out of the Middle East.” Alex looked at the crate, still feeling the tingle down his spine. “Wait.” He held up a hand to stop Sam, who was just bending toward the unopened box. “Let’s all see what
’s behind door number one.”
Jon-Pierre stood back as Alex went to one end of the crate and Sam the other. The rest of the team stood watching, curious but alert, guns ready. Both the HAWCs drew K-Bar blades and jammed their chisel ends in to lever up the nails holding the top down tight.
The lid lifted with the sound of groaning wood as it tried to hang onto the metal spikes. It popped free, and they slid it to the side.
“Mon dieu!” Jon-Pierre grimaced, walking backwards.
“Jesus Christ; that is fucking gross.” Casey eased her gun around, her eyes wide.
There was a body lying inside the box, dressed in a flowing shawl. But the figure was far from normal. It was enormous – even spread flat they could see it would have been over seven feet tall.
“What the hell did they do to this guy?” Sam moved slightly to the side of the crate and leaned closer.
The body was heavily scarified, with swirls and script carved straight into the flesh. The wounds were still open.
“Fresh cuts, but no blood.” Adira said. “I think this mutilation was done after death.” She touched the skin and pulled her hand back, rubbing thumb and forefinger together. “Feels like wax.”
“A Traveler,” Alex said. “Just like the thing that strolled into the International Zone.”
“Big fucker. This one must have died before it got its orders.” Casey grimaced as Alex reached into the crate, turning the massive head one way, then the next. Then he grabbed the shawl and ripped it away.
The flowing script was covering its body, but that wasn’t what riveted them. Zippering the body were masses of surgical scars knitting together a patchwork of different skin types. There was darker olive skin sewn to fair, and one huge hairy pectoral, not matching the smooth dark one on the other side of the chest, and a third in the center.
“Notice anything missing?”
“Besides my sanity?” Casey immediately responded. She pointed with her gun. “No belly button.”
