Echo Six: Black Ops 5 - Strikeforce Syria (9 page)

Fifteen minutes later, he had most of it. The man was an Israeli! A Jew sent into Syria to locate and destroy the plant at Sheikh Najjar.

Thank God the Jew failed to reach his target, but he couldn’t have been alone.

The Jew claimed there was no one else, but Hafiz knew that was nonsense; he would have been part of a team of commandos, Special Forces.

How many men?

There was a simple way to find out. The man did not yet understand the determination of Major Hafiz, but he was about to find out.

“How many men came with you?”

“None, I swear it.”

The Major pulled the trigger. He watched the prisoner’s face contort in agony, although he ignored the piercing screams.

Watching a man’s agony is so…satisfying.

“I will ask you one more time.”

The rest of the story came tumbling out, twenty NATO troops and two Israelis. They’d flown in an aircraft that was shot down by a Syrian missile. Did any of the others survive? The man didn’t seem to know, but he had to assume some did. In which case, he would need to hurry. His orders were to join the attack on Aleppo, but he would divert his unit to reinforce Sheikh Najjar. He would prepare a warm welcome for any enemy troops foolish enough to believe they could succeed in an assault on the facility. A welcome they would never forget for the rest of their short lives. If this man thought he knew what pain was, he was wrong. Hafiz would demonstrate real pain when he had the rest of the enemy soldiers in his hands. He felt a stirring in his groin as the images rushed through his brain. Screams, bloody bodies, gore. He didn’t know why he enjoyed it so much, but he was fatalistic about it, enough to calmly accept what he was.

Pain is pleasure.
 

“Corporal, toss this piece of filth into the back of your truck. Then turn it around. We’re heading toward Sheikh Najjar.”

“Sheikh Najjar?”

Hafiz sighed.
 

Are these peasants all as stupid?

“I won’t say it again, Corporal. Move.”

“Sir!”

The man rushed away, and Hafiz returned to his command jeep where his driver and radioman waited.

“Sergeant Awad, send out a message to the column. They are to turn around and follow us into Sheikh Najjar. Quick man!”

He leaned against the side of the vehicle and lit a cigarette while he waited for Awad to pass the word. He’d been looking forward to massacring the rebels, but this was so much better, NATO Special
Forces, no less.

They’ll be a good catch, and this Jew will help lure them into my trap.
He smiled to himself,
How long before they address me as ‘Colonel’ Hafiz? Not long, surely. Not long at all.

* * *

They slogged across the desert sands, moving as fast as possible, so as to reach some kind of cover before the dawn’s rays betrayed them to the enemy. Talley's leg was starting to trouble him, and he swallowed Tylenol, all he would allow himself to reduce the pain without dulling his mind. But the pills had little effect, and by the time they halted just before dawn, his leg was on fire. They were in the shadow of a steep dune, and he slumped thankfully to the ground. Guy raced up to the top to survey the route ahead. He was back in a few minutes, his face grim.

"There's a road just over that next dune, about three hundred meters away, and a Syrian Army checkpoint another two hundred meters further along. We can't get past until we've taken care of it."

"We hit them, and they'll know we're here," Talley pointed out.

"They already know we’re here. They shot down our aircraft. Anyway, we don't have a choice. They're across the line of march for Sheikh Najjar. We could maybe detour around them, but it’d take too long, and it would be dawn long before we reach our destination."

He nodded. "I’ll come with you."

Guy looked at his leg. "You should rest that leg. I'll take someone else."

Talley sighed. "Maybe you're right. I'll lead the men to the top of the dune, and as soon as you’ve disposed of the Syrians, we'll be ready to push on. Who will you take with you?”

"I will go with him."

They both looked at Rebecca. Despite her diminutive size, she managed to look warlike in her camo kit, ballistic vest, and helmet. On a different girl, it may have looked almost humorous, as if they were just playing soldiers. Not with her. She had a grim expression on her beautiful face, and her body was tensed, almost like a coiled snake ready to strike.

Maybe it won't be such a bad idea to see what she can do. When it comes to serious action, I'll know if I can depend on her.

He nodded his agreement, and the two started climbing up the dune. Talley followed them more slowly, limping, and the rest of his men came behind. If the attack failed, they’d be needed to finish off the Syrians. When he looked up again the two had disappeared over the summit. He stopped them just short of the top and peered over. They had a portable generator, and he could hear the quiet beat of the gas engine that powered the checkpoint lights. Two soldiers were leaning against the hood of their vehicle, an old Russian-built UAZ 469, the four-wheel drive utility widely used by former Soviet bloc countries, as well as the many nations they'd supplied over the years with weapons and equipment. The road they guarded was little more than a track through the desert, and wide enough to allow the passage of light vehicles in both directions, or heavier traffic, like armor, in a single direction.

They'd slewed the UAZ so that it blocked the road, but they didn't look as if they expected anything to arrive soon. The way they lounged, smoking cigarettes and talking quietly, suggested they were not expecting trouble. He saw Guy and Rebecca slipping through the shadows, visible from their elevated position but following a route that kept them out of the line of sight of the soldiers. They maneuvered to a point only ten meters from the two Syrians and waited. The soldiers suddenly jerked around to glance away from them. Probably Guy or Rebecca had thrown a small stone to divert them. As the men's heads turned, they leapt forward, and Talley was rewarded with a demonstration of Rebecca's skills. She was like a charging leopard, racing forward in a fast, fluid, and flowing movement that almost defeated the eye.

One moment, she was crouched down in cover, the next she was behind one of the soldiers with her hand held close to his neck, the blackened combat blade all but invisible. She transferred her forward momentum into a lightning slash of the blade, and the man was dead before he hit the ground. A fraction of a second later, Guy’s target followed him. Talley turned to his men and nodded.

"Let’s go."

They slid and tumbled down the steep dune. Guy nodded as they came up to him.

"I took a look around. There's no radio, so no one is likely to call up and get suspicious when they don't answer."

"That's good news." He turned to Rovere and Reynolds. "Toss those bodies in the jeep and drive it out into the desert, somewhere they won't find it too soon. As soon as we've covered our tracks, we can press on." He checked his wristwatch.

The delay at the checkpoint means there's no way we can reach our destination before dawn. Unless…

"Belay that. Lose the bodies, and we'll use the jeep. It'll be a tight squeeze getting us all in, but we should make it."

They raced off, and he turned to Guy. "Make sure you cover any signs of the killing. Sooner or later, their people will come looking for them, and if they see blood in the sand, they'll know we're not far away. With the two men and the vehicle missing, they'll assume they drove off somewhere. Deserted, maybe, or gone to find a couple of women to rape. That’s their style."

"Copy that," he acknowledged. They brushed sand over the two telltale blood patches, and then more men joined in to start sweeping and smoothing their backtrail. Footprints in the sand would give them away, as sure as sending the Syrians a greetings card.

* * *

The journey in the battered Russian SUV was uncomfortable, to the point of being excruciating. Rovere drove, and Talley was squeezed next to him in the front. A man's knees pressed into his back, and a pair of boots rested over his shoulder. Rebecca was also sitting in the front, next to the door. Because she was smaller, she'd managed to avoid the worst of the discomfort. He thought about her kill and turned to give her his opinion. Maybe it would start to break the icy shell with which she seemed to surround herself.

"That was well done back there. Guy is fast, and yet you were quicker. I guess you've done this a few times before."

A pause, and when she spoke, she didn't turn her head to look at him.

"I have killed many enemies of Israel. It’s nothing special, not anymore."

Her voice was cold, calm, and unemotional, the voice of a killer.

"It doesn't worry you?" he persisted, seeking out her humanity. "There's something about taking a man's life with a knife close-up. It's…brutal. Not so easy as shooting him."

She turned her head toward him. "These people are determined to destroy my nation, to create a second Holocaust. Why would I have any difficulty killing vermin like them? They are no different than the Nazis who massacred my people during the Second World War."

He nodded. "I guess not."

Talley assumed the conversation was over. He was surprised when after several minutes she spoke again.

"Do you know what it's like, Commander?"

"Being a Jew?"

Her mouth moved into a tiny smile. "I meant to be an attractive woman in an organization run by men. Many of who think females exist for their amusement. It is not easy, and sometimes it is impossible to be treated as a normal person, and not regarded as a gaudy trinket.”

She meant treated as a man. Maybe she was right. He'd felt the enormous pull of her beauty, and yet he’d seen her deadly killing skills. Except the two didn't go together, like a square peg in a round hole. It wasn’t…normal. Yet she was a soldier, like him, like the rest of the people in his unit. It was just, well, the usual male prejudice toward a pretty woman.

"I'm sorry, maybe we made a bad start." He gave her a smile, hoping she didn't misinterpret his meaning as an advance. "How about we try again?"

She thought for a few moments, and then returned his smile. "Fine with me, Commander."

"It's Abe."

She didn't reply, but he was sure he saw her give a tight nod, or maybe it was just another pothole in the road that had caused her head to move.

What is she, sex object, lesbian, asexual, or maybe a female warrior who has no time for the temptations of the flesh? Fair enough.

Rovere kept his foot down on the gas pedal, and they swallowed the distance to the outskirts of Aleppo. Finally, they crested a rise, and in front of them could see the lights of the city in the distance, about four kilometers along the road. He braked to a stop next to a signpost in Arabic.

"According to my calculations, we're on Route 20, and we turn off for Sheikh Najjar in about half a kilometer. There's likely to be patrols and checkpoints from here on in."

Talley nodded, trying to recollect the map they'd seen back at Lod Air Base in Israel.

"Beckerman said something about a man in a village close to Sheikh Najjar, called Marran. It would be better to talk to him first.”

She interrupted him. "Mahmoud Khalil, yes, he works for us."

"A Muslim?" Talley asked, surprised.

"Of course. Fortunately, he is a Muslim with a liking for Israeli gold. We pay him well."