Jack Coughlin - Kill Zone

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.”

THE DESOLATE ROAD LED BACKinto 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 good 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.

EACH TIME YOUSIF AL-SHOUMreceived 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.