Echo Six: Black Ops 5 - Strikeforce Syria (30 page)

“I get it." He turned to Rothstein. "You can point out what we need to be careful of when we go in."

“No! I’ve done enough.”

He didn’t reply. The Israeli had lost the right to negotiate when he betrayed his country. He’d go with them, one way or the other, willingly or not.
 

Vince followed Ali’s directions, and after a few minutes driving through the streets of Al Jasan, threading their way past more and more bodies, they pulled up outside the mosque.

“Don’t touch anything!” Talley called to them. “And keep your gloves on. Remember, this place is hotter than hell. Rothstein, show us the way in." He called Brooks, "Admiral, bring everyone. We don’t know what we’ll face down there. I'd like to leave someone here to guard the vehicles, but the whole place is so hot, there’s not much chance of anyone happening along. We'll use a couple of men to bring Ali inside. Rothstein, you can come with me. Let’s go."

 
“No, I…”

He gave the reluctant Israeli a warning glare and dragged him inside. They brought Ali in, and he led them to a door set inside the entrance. It was old and made of plain, unvarnished hardwood. To the casual eye, it looked innocent. But when Ali explained the door release and it swung open, they could see the reverse side of the door was sheeted with plate steel. There was also a rack of NBC suits set against the wall, bright orange one-piece rubberized suits with built in gloves, boots, and a helmet with a Perspex visor. They looked more like aliens hung in a row on a coat rack.

"Just the thing you'd expect to find inside a mosque," Guy said with a smile. "Protective gear in the prayer hall, and a munitions store in the basement. Is this some part of Islam they haven't mentioned?"

"It’s no surprise," Rovere commented. "The Imams have been ordering the faithful to butcher people for centuries, so why wouldn't they pack this mosque with nerve gas, enough to ensure the destruction of Israel? Say a few prayers, and then go out and kill the Jews."

"No Shakespearean quotation?" the former SAS man asked.

 
He shook his head. "The bard would have been lost for words."

A series of stone steps led to the basement. The Syrians had constructed an ammunition elevator, a platform of about a meter square, for bringing the shells to the surface. Guy helped them place Ali on the hoist with a man to support him, and they operated the controls to start its descent. Talley sprinted down the staircase, and Guy followed, dragging his stepbrother. They helped Ali out of the hoist, and he stood, swaying slightly on the floor of the basement.

“I can manage now. Let me go.”

“You’ve done enough,” Talley told him. “You should let us help you.”

He took two steps forward and buckled. Talley ran forward to help him back to his feet. They were in a lobby of about four meters square, with an airlock set in the wall opposite.

"The CX9 shells will be stored in there," Ali whispered, his voice hoarse, filled with pain, "but you need to be careful. They keep a small guard force inside, and when the wind blew the gas back over the town, I’m sure some men would have taken shelter down here.”

"How many men guard this place?”

The Syrian boy shrugged. “I’m not certain, but I’d guess no more than five or six. They may believe the gas was an enemy attack, so they could be waiting to shoot the first people who come down here.”

“Understood. We’ll take it from here. Ali, you'll just have to sit this one out. You have the pistol, so watch our backs.”

They examined the airlock. It could be operated from either inside or outside, so no problems getting in until they reached the other side.

“Guy, we’re going to have to fool those men inside we’re Syrians. We’re wearing Army uniform, but we don’t speak the lingo, and they’ll open fire the second we open the inner door. We’ll have to…”

“I speak the language,” Rebecca said, “and I am also wearing Syrian uniform. Let me go in.”

He only hesitated for a couple of seconds. “You’re on. Here’s the deal. Me, Guy and Heinrich will be with you, pretending to be injured. Overcome by the toxin. You only need to distract them for a few seconds and give us enough time to get to them.”

“Don’t forget what Rothstein said about damaging the biological seals.”

He nodded. “I don’t believe anyone has forgotten what that stuff can do. We just need to get them at close quarters. A rifle barrel pressed into a man’s guts isn’t likely to cause ricochets.”

The other men nodded.

“Right, into the airlock, and try and look sick.”

They opened the outer door and lay huddled on the floor as if badly affected by the gas. Rebecca operated the controls. The outer door closed, and the air evacuated with a loud hissing sound. It took almost half a minute, and then the green light came on.

“I’m about to open the door.”

“We’re ready.”

He gripped his pistol and waited. The door opened, and four nervous Syrians pointed their rifles at them. They shouted angrily, pointing at the casualties, obviously concerned they may introduce contamination to the underground chamber. She lowered her voice and spoke to them in soothing tones, turning them away from the airlock.

The moment they looked away, Talley catapulted to his feet and rammed his pistol into the first man and pulled the trigger. Guy was already on his man, and he shot him dead. Heinrich swung his huge, bloody combat knife, and the third Syrian went down. The last man raised his rifle uncertainly, astonished at the sudden violence. Before he could pull the trigger, Dayan used her own knife, and once again she demonstrated her killing skills. First she slashed across his wrist, and his hand fell from the trigger guard as she severed his nerves. The blade didn't stop but arced around, and at the last second twisted to point upward. She pushed hard and went in under his chin, through the soft tissue and into his brain. She moved aside at the last moment to prevent the jet of blood from staining her clothes, put a boot on his chest, pushing the already dead man away from her.

Talley raced past, looking for more hostiles. A door opened further ahead, and a man stepped into the passage that led through the long basement. He took one glance at the carnage outside the airlock and shouted, "Major Hafiz! They're..."

It was as far as he got. Heinrich whirled and shot him with a short burst from his AKM. Two shots hit the man, but as he fell, the third shot missed and smashed through a heavy glass window set into the wall. Immediately, an alarm began wailing, and an Arab voice repeated a message over and over on the speaker system. It didn't take any imagination to know what he was saying.

"Heinrich, you stupid bastard," Guy shouted. "You've busted something."

Before he could reply, a soldier looked out from the open door, a man wearing the uniform of a Syrian Major. Talley had heard the soldier call a Major Hafiz. It had to be him, the brutal bastard responsible for so many killings. The man who'd ordered the massacre of those people at their LZ. The man he was going to kill. But before he could fire off a shot, the Syrian ducked back inside the room.

Seconds later, two soldiers burst out through the door, their weapons spitting bullets on full auto. The automatic fire smashed into the stonework beside Talley, and he dived for cover with the rest of the men. They were in the entrance to a stone tunnel, some kind of storage facility for conventional ordnance. The walls were lined with wooden crates marked with Cyrillic lettering, Russian, more bounty from the former Soviet Union. At least they could understand the lettering, small arms ammunition, no doubt ready for the attack on Israel. The calibers were marked on the crates, 7.62, 5.56 and 9mm. There were also four boxes of fragmentation grenades, marked 60mm and RGO.

He ducked as a burst of fire ricocheted down the narrow tunnel, and a couple of bullets buried themselves in one of the ammunition crates. Before they could return fire, a voice screamed out in Syrian, and the shooting stopped.

"At least the bastard realized the danger of shooting at an ammunition store," Guy murmured.

"That had to be Major Hafiz,” Talley told them. "He's the Third Corps officer responsible for that massacre where we parachuted in. He's one bad mother."

Guy nodded. "So I've gathered, but before you even think about settling accounts with him, we have a problem. The gas. We can't destroy the CX9 shells without getting ourselves killed in the process. And that emergency alarm is still going off, so it’s possible the gas is leaking..."

He stopped and looked around. They could all hear the sound of the airlock evacuating, so the rest of Echo Six were coming through, but the inner door wouldn't open.

"The door's locked. It won't open," Brooks shouted.

Heinrich went to the end of the tunnel where he had sight of the airlock, and aimed his assault rifle.

"It's nothing. I'll get it open.”

“No…” they shouted in unison, a half second too late. The burst shattered the locking mechanism.

Brooks shouted again, “What was all that about? Are we clear to enter?”

“Hold it where you are, Admiral. We’ve got a problem here. We’re dealing with it.”

“Anything we can do out here?”

“We need Jackson in here to try and rig some charges. Send him in. We’ll cover him, but keep the rest of your people in the airlock.”

“Copy that.”

One of the Syrians had crawled out into the passage, and ignoring his officer’s orders, fired two long bursts that chipped stone off the walls of the tunnel where they sheltered. Talley slid to the opening and returned fire, seeing dust kick up around the hostile. The man flattened himself to the ground, but not enough to prevent one of Talley’s rounds drilling through the top of his head. Blood, bone, and fragments of brain sprayed over the floor.

“Drew, you’re clear. Get in here right now before someone else starts shooting.”

Jackson needed no further urging. He took the short distance between the airlock and the tunnel almost in a single leap, sprawling to the floor as he landed inside cover. He climbed to his feet and grinned. “I’m getting too old for acrobatics, Boss. What’s the deal?”

Talley indicated the boxes of grenades. “Can you do anything with those?”

He nodded. “Affirmative, there’s plenty of explosive here, but the problem is the fuse. It’s like at Sheikh Najjar. I don’t have any remote detonators, and a time fuse will allow the gomers to get to it before it blows. This time, I don’t plan to wait around for the Syrians to come visiting.”

He nodded. “If a time fuse is the only way, do it. I’ll find a way to stop them getting to it.” He turned to Guy. “We have to rid this place of the enemy. If they’re all dead, there won’t be anyone left to screw with Drew’s charges. It’s time to take them out.”

"And the CX9? If we get into a fight down here, you know what will happen. Christ, Boss, it could already be leaking into this place.”

"Nothing we can do about it. Either it’s leaking or it isn’t. But warn Heinrich about indiscriminate fire.
 
Let's hope the Syrians are choosy about what they shoot at. They must know what’s at stake."

He nodded. "We'll soon find out when they open fire." He looked at Heinrich. "You heard all that? We'll charge them head-on. There's no other way we can get to them other than straight down the passage."

The German grinned wolfishly. "I'm ready."

Talley peeked out into the passage and pulled back. “I think the only opposition we have to deal with is in that room half way along. Rebecca, you stay here. If the Syrians are still shooting, you’ll need to cover the rest of the men when they come out of the airlock." He didn't wait for her reply. “Go now!"

He charged out of the tunnel and swerved into the passage, aware Guy and Heinrich were right behind him. A soldier ducked his head out of the door and snapped off a shot. Guy was too quick for him and took the man down with a three-shot burst, and then they were outside the door. Talley jerked to the side as a burst of automatic fire whistled past his head, then swerved inside and shot a soldier who was kneeling and about to fire another burst. Then he stopped. There was one man left in the room, an officer, a major in the Syrian Army. He aimed his rifle at the man, but the officer seemed unfazed. He didn't even have a gun in his hand.

"Get your hands in the air. Are there anymore soldiers left alive?"

The man shook his head. "No, it seems you have killed them all. I am the last."

He still didn't have his hands up. Neither did he seem particularly worried.

"The man told you to get their hands up," Guy growled.

The Major smiled. "I think not. You think you have won, but you have not. You can hear the contamination alarm? It has already gone past the critical stage. Perhaps you do not understand how this system works. If there is a major leak of CX9, the alarm sounds and sets in motion the automatic destruct sequence for this entire facility. For the first five minutes, it can be shut down from inside. But after that, the designers assumed there would be no one left alive, and it cannot be overridden. Not from down here. The only way is to use the command console in the mosque above us, which requires the correct codes to be entered."