“Who do they think killed him?” I asked.
Mazool shook his head. “No one knows. Death is no stranger in this small village, but children here die from disease or accident, not bullets. This is not Latakia.”
A kid shot in the head, and in the area supposedly hosting the Scorpion. Coincidence? It might be, except that I believed in coincidences like I believed in pixie dust. “Can you convince them to take us back to where the body was found?”
“I will try.”
“Tell them ISIS will avenge his death.”
“I have told them they are very lucky. He is now in Paradise.”
“And they bought it?”
“It is true.”
“Right.” If it was true then the kid had to share it with all those assholes who were there because they blew up innocent people, which would take a lot of the shine off it in my book. Mazool went off to ask around for a guide while I loitered with Taymullah and took in the local color, which was basically a monotone of black niqabs and men dressed in dirty beige pants and smocks, with a few dusty goats and a brown donkey. It was a mean, hard existence. It wasn’t impossible to see how the promise of an eternity spent sitting around a fountain with virgins eager to become trollops would be seductive.
Mazool returned with the kid whose cheek was dissolving, and his father Hakim, a painfully thin man with skin the color of an old tobacco pipe bowl and teeth worn down to yellow stubs. Hakim seemed able to talk without moving his lips. I called up Bo over the comms and the vehicles met us at the end of town. The older kid, whose name was Labib, Hakim, Mazool and I climbed up on the bed of the Toyota. Labib directed Farib through a maze of ancient wadis that had eroded the bedrock until, eventually, we pulled up at a pile of rubble beside a small depression in the flinty earth. I noted several hunks of rubble were partially stained black with sunbaked blood. This was the place.
Hakim and Labib were clearly upset to be at the hurried gravesite, hugging each other, both weeping tears that ran down their shirtfronts. It was hard not to be affected by their grief. All these people had was each other, their goats, and their belief in Allah. Not a lot, really.
I left them to it for a while and took in the area, which was utterly deserted, a little flat ground at the base of a heavily eroded rock shelf.
With Mazool interpreting, I eventually asked Labib if he knew the area well.
“Yes,” Mazool said. “The three brothers would come here all the time.”
The surroundings were dry, like everywhere else, but some vegetation was managing to grow where the deeper fingers of rock met the desert floor. Vegetation meant moisture. I asked if the boys brought goats here, and the answer was yes. Goats need more than food, as do jihadists. “Ask him if there is water nearby.”
I didn't need Mazool’s translation. Labib nodding his head was enough.
“Where?” I asked.
After Mazool asked the question, the kid said a couple of words and pointed up the hill.
“What did he say?”
Mazool looked at me, excitement in his face. “He said, ‘in the caves’.”
Fifty
Ronald V. Small @realSmall
America does not torture people. But if you’re a terrorist and we catch you, life will be very very painful for you.
Li’l Wilson lowered the binoculars. “Four of them, Sam.”
“What are they?” Nanaster asked.
“Mil twenty-fours.”
Hinds. “Gotta be carrying at least a platoon of Spetsnaz,” said Nanaster. “Question is, what are they doing out here – same time, same place as us?”
“Could be something to do with their missing president.”
“Could be.”
“They’ll know we’re here for sure,” Ronan added.
The helicopters were tracking low over the desert a couple of miles away, across the plain. There would also be some high altitude lookdown overwatch – a drone, a satellite, or a high-flying MiG. The Hinds would know they weren’t alone in this part of the desert – that was a certainty.
“We’re headed in the same direction,” Ronan continued. “We’ll cross paths for sure.”
No one wanted to be anywhere near the Russians when they were carrying out a mission. They played a little too fast and loose with dumb ordnance for anyone’s liking. And with ISIS holding their president, they’d be extra juiced.
“Better to be loud and proud, boss,” Wilson said unnecessarily. “Don’t want there to be mistakes.”
Nanaster nodded and held her hand out for the glasses. Wilson passed them across. The Russians had no beef with the US Phoenix program, or any similar programs conducted by other nations, if only because a few less terrorists in the world suited everyone. However, it would be safer to go in after the Russians were done and gone. They might even do our job for us. Might. Be helpful to know exactly why they’re here.
“What do you wanna do, boss?” Ronan asked. “You wanna wait?”
Nanaster considered the options. Wait - ordinarily, that’s exactly what they’d do, but not this time. “Our breathers are Priority Alpha. We have to make sure. Let’s get the drone up, see where those Hinds set down – they might continue north for all we know. Meanwhile, we got a job to do.”
***
The look-down feeds from the Predator illuminated several large screens with moving real-time footage, provided in both the visual light and thermal ranges, from altitudes ranging from 51,000 feet to fifty feet. The resolution at fifty feet was astonishing and still amazed Schelly given that the bird itself was loitering at close to its ceiling at 50,000 feet above the desert floor. You could read the nametag on a uniform. The feeds were overlaid on terrain features provided by ground-mapping databases so that assets could be tracked against ground features in all weather and light conditions. Other screens transmitted data from the Predator’s various sensors, both flight and environmental, to deliver a total and accurate picture of every second of ground activity. It was getting on towards dusk and, when the sun went down, the imaging would switch to low light, delivering pictures in outline rather than in solid color, lending a ghostly feel to men and machines alike. There, was however, no sound. And when the tracer started to fly and men began to die, Schelly knew from past experience that the utter silence would simply add to the terror. She wrung her hands unconsciously. In space, no one can hear you scream.
“It would be helpful to know who’s who,” said Epstein, squinting up at a screen.
Schelly agreed, but there was nothing she could do about it. She could, however, set the scene. “Madam Secretary, I can't point out individuals because the unit’s fluorescing strips are obscured. But making up the numbers are the two Russians, plus the three fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces. It seems the group has also now picked up some local villagers and they’re taking them somewhere. Why, I don't know.”
A door opened somewhere and in walked Andrew Bunion, on his cell. He motioned that everyone should just continue what they were doing, as he muttered into the phone.
“So that’s what we’re looking at here?” Epstein asked, momentarily distracted along with Schelly. They returned their concentration to a screen displaying the view from one hundred and fifty feet overhead.
“Yes, Madam Secretary.”
“No sign of the CIA’s meddling?”
Schelly ran her eyes across the screens showing various resolutions. There were heat signatures all over the place – human and animal … For all she knew some of those signatures could be a Phoenix unit. It would be impossible to know until the shooting started.
“Did I hear the Company’s name mentioned?” Chalmers asked as he strolled into the Situation Room. “Oh, Madam Secretary. My apology. I didn't see you there. Mr Bunion …”
The president’s special advisor nodded acknowledgement, put his hand over the phone and said, “The president.”
Schelly glared at Chalmers. How did you know about this? What is it about you that reminds
me of hair oil?
“Ah, Associate Deputy Director Chalmers,” said Epstein. “Good of you to join us. I really don’t want to see a SAD team in the area. Things are complicated enough.”
SAD, as in CIA Special Activities Division. That’s appropriate, Schelly thought.
“Ma’am, with respect, and as I have stated to Major Schelly on numerous occasions, those operations are well outside my purview. I have nothing to do with that program.”
“Thank you, Mr Chalmers, but we all know how these things work.”
“Madam Secretary, I’m … I’m at a loss,” he said.
“Take a seat, why don't you?”
“Thank you. I will.” He walked over to Schelly. “This one taken?” he asked, a hand on the seat beside her. Schelly ignored the question. He was going to sit there anyway. “We can watch history in the making, eh?” he said, almost but not quite nudging her.
Touch me, jerk, and I’ll break your arm. Six bright green triangles entered the search area from the southwest, diverting her attention, each triangle dragging a small box of information with it. “The Russians, Madam Secretary. Six Hind helicopters.”
“If the Kremlin truly believed their president was somewhere here,” Epstein observed, “they’d be directing thousands of assets to the area.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Schelly replied. But they arrived at the same conclusion I did, at least with enough conviction to divert at least these assets north. Let’s see where they set down – if they set down … Schelly shifted her eyes to a monitor that showed the view closer to the ground as the helicopters altered their heading to a more westerly course. The Hinds flew on steadily for several minutes. “They’ve landed outside the town of Ghasaniyeh, a little over seven miles to the northeast of Quickstep,” she said, her stream of consciousness finding voice.
Bunion set the phone down in front of him, folded his arms and scowled up at the screens.
“Plenty of separation,” Chalmers observed, full of confidence.
What are you so self-satisfied about? The CIA deputy was amused about something. Schelly just knew, even from the minimal dealings she’d had with this guy, that his good humor spelt trouble for Cooper, if not his mission. His personal issues with Cooper required failure for Quickstep at the very least, and to hell with the rest of the world. Schelly scribbled two words on the pad in front of her and angled it towards Chalmers.
“Marco Polo?” he said.
Yeah, stick that shit where the sun don‘t shine, asshole. You know I know Phoenix is your baby. They had better not show up.
Footsteps on the hard flooring alerted Schelly to a new arrival – Ed Bassingthwaite, on edge as usual.
“What is it, Ed?” Epstein asked him.
“A word,” he replied and took the SECDEF to a far corner in the darker recesses of the room. His hands were thrust deep in his pockets, and his shoulders hunched.
Bunion watched them, his scowl unchanging.
Hearing the agitated murmur between them, Schelly wondered what the problem might be, but only for a moment. Quickstep was on the move again. A number of unidentified heat signatures appeared on the screen, moving in fast from the west. Vehicles – pickups. “Who’s that?” she heard herself ask. Her eyes flicked to the screen with the view from 50 feet. The vehicles were flying black flags – ISIS.
Bassingthwaite finished his impromptu meeting with Epstein. “Have we found the Russian president?” he asked Schelly, dragging her attention from the monitors.
“No, sir.”
“Well, we’d better.” With those three words the SECSTATE left, in a hurry to be somewhere else.
Schelly glanced at Epstein, whose look of general concern seemed to have risen to a new level.
“It’s the Russians,” said Bunion, silent till that moment.
“You know about this?” Epstein asked him, massaging her temples.
Bunion nodded.
The SECDEF turned to Schelly. “Hackers on the dark web are using the Cheget codes as a template to crack the Russian nuclear defense network algorithms.”
“We predicted this would happen,” said Bunion. “We’re doing it, too. It’s a hell of an opportunity.”
Epstein continued. “Yes, but now the Kremlin is threatening to take their nukes offline completely, effectively shutting them down.”
The expression on Schelly’s face must have suggested she was thinking that might be a good thing, because Epstein added, “The Duma is concerned that we might take this opportunity to launch a first strike, while they’re defenseless. Maybe if the shoe was on the other foot, that’s what they would do to us. Maybe they’ve gamed this out, who knows? The point is, Russia has not been exposed like this since the Cold War began back in 1947. The Joint Chiefs believe the level of paranoia is such that there’s a very real threat the Kremlin may launch a pre-emptive strike against us, before they shut down their nukes. Rodchenko, the Russian ambassador, says his people are convinced this is some kind of grand plan we’ve cooked up, starting with the take down of President Petrovich, to wipe them out once and for all. Did I mention paranoia?”
Schelly was flummoxed. “Whaaat?”
“Yes, so I hope your people on the ground are good, because things could turn black and crispy around here if they’re not.”
Bunion’s phone rang. He picked it up. “Yes, Mr President …”
Schelly caught a glimpse of Chalmers’s face out the corner of an eye. His smirk had been replaced with a look of uncertainty, but there was no pleasure in it for her. Things were getting worse moment by moment. This was further confirmed with a review of screens showing the changing situation on the ground in northern Syria. Yet more idents were entering the picture, these were closing with Quickstep 3 from the north. The Hinds had landed and were now taking off, heading east – backtracking. The number of moving figures on the ground suggested the helicopters had set down close to fifty combatants. A cold dread spread into the pit of her stomach. Spetsnaz.
Fifty-one
Ronald V. Small @realSmall
If you leave America to fight with the Scorpion, we will send the rest of your family to Syria whether they want to go or not. WATCH OUT!
The day was coming to an end, which was a relief because it was one of those days, the sort you wished you’d stayed in bed and missed. I don’t know what we were thinking. Actually, that’s not true. We were thinking caves in the area meant this was the perfect place for the Scorpion to hole up. We were also assuming that the murder of the boy shot in the head for reasons unknown was somehow connected – that he had wandered into the path of the world’s most wanted man and paid with his life. The boy’s mysterious death, the flies, the flesh-eating disease, the search area, the caves … Pixie dust, right? The Scorpion was near – had to be.
I heard Bo say, “We got company coming from the west. Vehicles.”
“What?” I replied, the news unexpected. “How far? When?”
“Sorry, Major. They’re close – minutes away.” Bo explained, “Had the Raven at a low altitude. I missed ‘em.”
“What sort of vehicles?”
“Pickups. Tangos.”
I turned to Mazool. “Tell Labib and Hakim to go. Right now.”
Mazool acted quickly and the two Syrians made a run for it.
I squinted into the fading light. We had flags, but not as many as the approaching vehicles. It was as if a large murder of crows was flapping toward us across the desert.
I reorganized the towel wrapped around my head to better hide my face and the fact that I was wearing battle comms. “Assalamu alaikum,” I said into the mike by way of reminder, and Alvin replied, “Wa alaikum assalam,” which surprised me. “Thanks, Alvin,” I said, and then added, “Look happy, everyone.” A shadow stood beside me; Natasha, all in black, only her eyes visible. She didn’t look happy. Maybe black wasn’t her color.
Mazool grabbed a fistful of the niqab and pulled her several paces behind me. “A wife stands behind her husband,”
he whispered hoarsely.
None of your fancy pants equality nonsense in the 6th century, right?
Five pickups rolled in, all Toyotas of varying age. They were loaded to the gills with fighters armed with AKs, rocket launchers, pistols, swords and the most eye-wateringly pungent body odor imaginable. The pickups swept around us and squealed to a stop, enveloping us in a cloud of grit.
Mazool took the lead, raising his AK to the sky and shouting “Allahu akbar” with much excitement. This proved my earlier point about two words for all occasions, but I held off pointing out I told you so. You often have to put a sock in it around here. Anyway, I followed his example, which my guys, Taymullah, Farib and Igor also emulated. Shouts of “Assalamu alaikum” and “Wa alaikum assalam” were given and received. Happy, happy, happy … The jihadis jumped down and we all hugged, united by religious insanity, unwashed funk and so forth. And then we all stood around looking at each other with varying degrees of suspicion while Mazool and Taymullah spoke to the leaders.
Two fighters walked past Natasha and me to check out the ambulance. They walked around it, kicked the tires like half-hearted buyers, and returned to their vehicles, eyeing off Natasha like she was some Victoria’s Secret model. She was, but how the hell did they know that given she was completely hidden within a badly fitting black bag?
One of these fighters looked at me with a grin and said something. I nodded and grinned right back. I think he spoke Dutch, which is double Dutch to me. He was dark, but didn’t look particularly Middle Eastern, and that reassured me. These were foreign fighters. That would make the fact that there were Americans present far less significant.
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