Don Pendleton: Syrian Rescue

No, they’d have to fight. The only questions now were when and where.

“Be ready when I give the word,” he warned Azmeh. “Don’t hesitate.”

“I will not.”

Bolan stood on the accelerator, racing over rocky ground that sent jolts through his spine, still looking for a place to make a stand.

* * *

“WHY ARE YOU slowing down?” Sadek demanded.

“I’m trying not to wreck the truck,” Karam replied, tight-lipped.

“We cannot let them get away!” Sadek spat back at him.

Karam had no answer for that, but Sadek felt the truck accelerate a little in response to his tirade. A little, yes, but not enough to suit him.

They had spent the past two days patrolling empty landscapes, wasting time and fuel. Returning to his captain empty-handed made Sadek feel like a fool. It marked him, he was sure, as someone who could not perform to expectations. Someone who should not advance to a higher rank. He hated feeling like a failure, even though the purpose of jihad was serving Allah, not one’s self. Another flaw in Sadek’s character, but one he’d learned to live with over time.

He turned to peer at his men through the cab’s rear window. They were rocking with the truck, clinging to their weapons and their bench seats. Some, the younger ones, were smiling, happy to be hunting, while the more experienced among them were expressionless. The veterans had been through this before, with variations: travelers detained and questioned, then released if they identified themselves as allies, executed if they failed to prove their allegiance. Each enemy eliminated was another victory, however insignificant it seemed.

And this quarry was running. That proved something to Sadek.

He would not allow them to escape.

“Enough of this,” he snarled, lifting his AK-47 from between his knees. He twisted in his seat and eased the rifle through his open window, sling around his right arm to prevent it from falling if his sweaty hands slipped.

“Youssef…” Karam warned.

“We have to stop them,” Sadek said as he tried to aim, a rush of hot air in his face, making him squint.

His first short burst was wasted, rattling off to the far right of the fleeing Jeep. Cursing, Sadek tried to correct his aim, but it was difficult, the door’s sun-heated metal nearly blistering his bare arms while the jolting of the truck made the Kalashnikov’s adjustable iron sights vibrate erratically.

He fired again, four rounds on full-auto, and imagined that he saw one punch a divot in the old Jeep’s fender. An improvement, but he had to do better if he meant to stop them.

Another rifle fired somewhere above him, making Sadek flinch. One of his men had followed his example, shooting at the Jeep. A flash of irritation stung him, then he realized it did not matter who managed to stop the vehicle, as long as it was done. A second rifle rattling overhead made Sadek smile.

The travelers had doomed themselves by running, even if they were not enemies. His men were hunting, and they wanted blood. So did Sadek, if he was honest with himself.

Now, if Karam would only hold the truck steady enough for him to aim…

* * *

A BULLET STRUCK the Wrangler’s right wing mirror, ripping it away. Sabah Azmeh slumped lower in his seat, half turned to watch the truck behind them slowly gaining ground. Two riflemen were aiming across the truck cab’s roof, a third man leaning from the passenger’s window, rifle in hand.

How had he come to this?

The answer mocked him: he had volunteered.

“I’ll try to slow them down,” Azmeh told the tall American who called himself Matt Cooper.

“Good luck,” Cooper replied, seeming to mean it.

Given how much they were swerving to avoid incoming fire, Azmeh couldn’t crawl into the rear. The best he could do was aim his AKMS through the hazy back window, hold steady when he fired, and hope the hot brass spewing from his weapon did not fall down Cooper’s collar, burning him and maybe causing him to crash the Jeep.

Azmeh braced one elbow on the low back of his seat to help steady his weapon, which was switched to semiautomatic. He didn’t think he could stop the truck, much less take out its occupants, but if he slowed them down a bit, perhaps Cooper could think of something.

Azmeh’s first shot drilled through the window’s yellowed plastic and flew on, hopefully to strike the truck. Azmeh would have loved to drill its radiator, stranding their assailants and leaving them to simmer through the afternoon and freeze overnight.

That mental picture cheered him, and he fired twice more before an enemy bullet pierced the Jeep’s window. Azmeh flinched and ducked as it struck the roll bar and shattered, spraying the seats with shrapnel. Something stung his left arm.

“Full-auto now, I think,” he said to Cooper.

“Your call,” the American replied, and somehow found a way to wring more speed out of the Wrangler’s howling engine.

* * *

AT LEAST THREE RIFLEMEN were firing at them now, by Bolan’s count. He couldn’t see them well, between the dust, his wobbling mirrors and the Wrangler’s canvas top, but they were gaining, and their prospects for a hit seemed better than Azmeh’s. Bolan was locked out of the action, doing what he could to dodge incoming fire without rolling the Jeep. He hoped there were no wadis hiding out there, waiting to derail them in the next few hundred yards.

Azmeh squeezed off another burst, then muttered something to himself. Before Azmeh fired again, Bolan called out, raising his voice over the wind. “I want to try something. Fasten your seat belt.”

Azmeh didn’t question him. He had to know that they were running out of time and options now. If Bolan couldn’t pull off a surprise for their pursuers, they were toast.

He heard the seat belt click and said, “Okay, hang on!”

Cranking the Wrangler’s wheel hard to the left, he whipped the Jeep’s rear end through a long, sliding one hundred eighty-degree turnaround. The knobby tires spewed sand and gravel, raising clouds of dust.

Before it settled, Bolan scooped up his Kalashnikov and bailed out of the Jeep, leaving Azmeh to follow him as they went to meet their enemies.

Whatever happened next would be on Bolan’s terms.

Washington, DC

“How much do you know about the Syrian civil war?” Hal Brognola had asked Bolan, thirty-odd hours earlier.

“The basics,” Bolan had replied. “The president’s been hanging on for what, twelve years?”

“Fourteen and counting,” Brognola replied.

“He came up through the army, he’s a critic of the West, not much regard for human rights. The Arab Spring surprised him, like it did other leaders in the region. Where they folded, he’s clung to power, with accusations of atrocities against the rebels and civilians. He’s got the army and police, supported by Iran and outside Shi’ite groups. The opposition is a shaky coalition—Kurds, the Muslim Brotherhood, Sufis opposed to Shi’ites, take your pick.”

Brognola nodded. “So, you know the diplomatic picture, more or less.”

“Broad strokes,” Bolan said.

“Okay, well you won’t have heard about the new initiative. It’s strictly classified—which, given the UN’s Swiss cheese security, means only ten or fifteen thousand people know about it. Long story short, a couple of people from State have been talking to Syrian opposition leaders and an undersecretary from UNESCWA. In case that doesn’t ring a bell, it’s the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, concerned with all things Middle Eastern.”