Trident's First Gleaming: A Special Operations Group Thriller (10 page)

Chris stretched out his two- to three-round bursts to five-round bursts. Sonny’s verbal tirade increased in volume. One of the smoldering shells bounced off Sonny, hit Chris in the neck, and landed inside his shirt on the flesh of his shoulder. It burned, but he had more pressing issues to deal with. He nailed the driver in the nearest jeep. Although the road curved, the jeep didn’t. It headed for an off-road rendezvous with a tree.

“AQ is after you, not me, buddy,” Chris said. “You better start doing some explaining or start doing some walking.”

“I’m the one driving,” Sonny pointed out.

“I’m the one shooting,” Chris said coolly.

Sonny shook his head and scowled. “AQ is trying to imbed themselves in Syrian antigovernment forces, but I kind of distracted them. Now AQ wants my head on a stick. You can guess my opinion on the matter.”

Chris didn’t inquire further; instead, he refocused on the enemy. The AQ vehicles kept coming. Another jeep took the previous one’s place. Al Qaeda loomed large, Leviathan with too many heads to hack off. He and Sonny needed to break contact and escape. He shot as well as he could, and Sonny pushed the van as fast as he could, but they couldn’t escape the beast.

_______

T
he tangos in the nearest jeep pressed forward more militant than the others. Their AKs rattled without pause, even as a small pickup truck pulled up alongside the jeep. A tango standing in back of the truck seemed to be wielding a rocket-propelled grenade.

“RPG!” Chris warned. He tried to shoot the RPG thug, but he rushed the shot and accidentally hit a tango sitting in the passenger seat.

The RPG launched with a swoosh, a white tail of smoke trailing behind it.

Sonny pinched a tight curve to the right, Chris falling against Sonny. The rocket passed their van on the left side and pounded the trees with an explosion, its shockwave knocking the van.

Chris crawled away from Sonny, but now the same tango in the back of the pickup truck brought out another RPG to launch. Something told Chris that, this time, the RPG wouldn’t miss. He felt like a little bug about to be stomped by a giant. He said a silent prayer.

Meanwhile, bullets hammered the van. Their shooting concerned him, but the RPG concerned him more. A near miss from a bullet wouldn’t kill him, but a near miss from an RPG would.

The van slowed just before they hit a hairpin turn to the left. RPG Thug couldn’t take a clear shot, but the van was too top-heavy, and its side wheels caught air. “We’re gonna roll,” Sonny warned.

Chris struggled against centrifugal force by making his way to the outer edge of the passenger seat, hoping to redistribute some of their weight and prevent them from tipping over. He didn’t know if his weight would make a significant difference, but he did whatever he could to survive. The two-wheel ride seemed to last a minute but was probably only a few seconds. The van came back down on all four wheels.

The road straightened again, saving them from another two-wheel adventure but giving RPG Thug an easier shot. The straightaway gave Chris an easier shot, too. Aiming through the truck windows at RPG Thug’s upper body, he squeezed the trigger.

Click.

Oh, Lord.
In all the excitement, he hadn’t noticed he’d run out of ammo. Frogmen called it a
dead man’s click
for obvious reasons. Although he couldn’t catch his breath, he felt a strange serenity. He regretted not being of more assistance to Hannah, and he regretted not having time to tell his congregation good-bye.

Lights from a large truck illuminated Chris and Sonny, approaching them head-on. Sonny veered to the side, narrowly avoiding it. The truck slowed but hit the smaller pickup with a horrific crack.

The al Qaeda jeeps didn’t lose a beat, and the vehicles behind continued their pursuit. Then another tight curve shook the heat off al Qaeda’s firepower. Chris’s right index finger depressed the button on the side of his rifle to eject the empty magazine. Simultaneously, his left hand drew a full magazine and inserted it firmly into the HK416. As the van slowed and swerved, the jeep sped up. The van didn’t tip onto two wheels this time, but the jeep gained on them. Chris seated a new bullet in the chamber of his rifle.

After Sonny pulled out of another hairpin curve, the jeep closed the gap. The decreased distance suited Chris fine for shooting. When the road straightened into the middle of a small town with buildings on both sides, Chris let out a controlled three-round burst, pounding the jeep’s driver. They pursued for a moment longer before slowing. Sonny accelerated, pulling farther away, but more al Qaeda overtook the decommissioned jeep.

“What’d you do to piss these guys off?” Chris asked.

“They were born pissed off.”

Upon exiting the small town, they gained elevation, climbing the mountain into the woods. Although al Qaeda outnumbered Chris and Sonny, they could only fit two vehicles abreast on the road. Now they only followed single file, and they seemed hesitant to near the van. But they still followed.

“We’re nearing Turkey,” Sonny said as they reached the top of the mountain.

“If we stop now and head out on foot, al Qaeda will spread out in the woods and outflank us,” Chris said. “Even if they don’t catch us, they’ll make so much noise that they’ll alert nearby border patrol units and we won’t be able to sneak into Turkey.”

“If we stay on this road, we’re five minutes away from getting trapped between the Turkish border crossing station and AQ.”

“We could try to lose them, but on these country dirt roads, we’re more likely to lose ourselves in a dead end that isn’t on the GPS. If you have an idea of how to get out of this, now would be a good time to let me know.”

Sonny didn’t respond.

The sky became lighter as they sped down the northeast side of the mountain. With a rocky terrain to their left and a hundred-meter plunge to their right, there was no room for a missed turn. A medium-sized pickup truck and sedan attacked from behind, rifles blazing. The truck rammed into the back of the van, pushing it toward the cliff. The van’s wheels spun in loose gravel as it slid toward the edge of the drop-off. Somehow, Sonny kept the van on the road. Chris fired at the AQ driver but struck wide.

The truck came in again to ram them, but this time, Sonny swerved into the left lane and slammed on the brakes. The AQ truck passed on the right, but the sedan rear-ended Chris and Sonny. Chris lost his balance and bumped his head on the windshield.

“Aagh!” He regained his firing position and stitched up the driver in the sedan. Another one down.

Chris glanced out the front of the van to see where the AQ truck was. Sonny sped up and pressed the front right corner of his bumper into the left rear corner of the truck, just behind its tire. Then he turned hard into the truck. Its rear tires lost control and slid. The more the driver accelerated, the more he spun out and lost traction, until Sonny pushed him off the cliff, narrowly turning away before the van went over with them.

A large truck tried the same technique on the van from behind. Chris plugged the driver with one shot, and Sonny sped into a curve in the road. The large truck continued forward, soaring off the cliff. Chris felt his heart rise to his throat as if it followed AQ down the plunge.

When they reached the road at the bottom of the mountain, Chris counted four AQ vehicles still behind them. Sonny sped through a small farming community while Chris faced their rear, exchanging fire with the enemy.

Chris turned around to see how close they were to the border. They’d already reached the straightaway to the Kasab Border Station. Ahead, one lane was open, and two others were barricaded. A car sat idling in the open lane. Sonny stomped on the accelerator and punched through the nearest barricaded lane.

Chris faced the rear again. AQ came directly behind, shooting everything in its path, including the border station. Soon a Turkish border patrol SUV pulled out and pursued AQ. Shooting broke out between them, and minutes later, the chase spilled into the town of Yayladagi. Turkish police seemed prepared for trouble and joined in the chase.

An AQ rifle sprayed in Chris’s direction, and the air around him lit up with a
snap-crackle-pop
. Chris ducked.

Sonny cursed. “Shoot these monkeys!”

Chris tried to regain a firing position. “Turkish border patrol and police in my background. Don’t have a clear shot.” Al Qaeda continued shooting at everything in front of and behind them. Rounds punched through the dash and the windshield of the van. Wind roared through a hole in the glass the size of a horse’s patootie. He couldn’t shoot, but he could navigate. He took the GPS out of his thigh pocket and turned it on.

Abruptly, Sonny turned wildly to the left, throwing Chris into the passenger door. One of the hubcaps rolled off behind the van.

A beat-up white truck cut them off, then, and Sonny whipped around it, causing an oncoming car to squeal to a stop. The road dipped then rose, and all four tires caught air. When the van came down, its bumper scraped the road, shooting sparks into the air. Its engine whined.

“I need some directions here!” Sonny spat out the words.

The GPS finished calculating their location. “At the next street, turn right,” Chris said.

Sonny tried to slow down for the turn, but he was still going too fast and ended up in the opposite lane, scraping a parked car. Sonny stomped on the accelerator, and the engine roared. The van tugged forward.

Chris looked behind—AQ was still there.

“Did we lose them?” Sonny asked.

“Nope. Still on us.”

Chris turned to the front and saw an elderly woman crossing the street. Sonny drove around her. Chris turned behind to see if she made it across the street, but AQ drove through her like a plastic doll. There was no time for silent prayers or emotion for her.

“At the next street, turn right.”

“You’re taking us in a circle,” Sonny growled.

“The Turkish border patrol and cops want al Qaeda more than they want us. I’m giving the cops what they want.”

Sonny turned right. He avoided hitting any more parked cars but did lose another hubcap. The van picked up speed and caught air again. When the van came down on its bumper, the bumper fell off and crunched under the van’s wheels.

Al Qaeda fired a barrage of lead, and smoke rose from the engine. “What’s that?” Chris asked.

“Trouble.”

“Turn right again.”

At the next road, Sonny did as Chris instructed. They’d driven 180-degrees and were heading south to Syria, but now more law enforcement converged on al Qaeda and were shooting at them without any love.

“Another right,” Chris said.

Sonny turned the steering wheel, and they traveled down the same streets again, continuing in the clockwise direction. The police presence continued to grow. AQ must’ve seen the writing on the wall because they finally stopped shooting at Chris and Sonny and broke off from the deadly circle. The border patrol and police ignored Chris and Sonny, going after AQ instead.

“See?” Chris laughed, and Sonny joined in.

Then their smoking van came to an unexpected stop. “This van was becoming an eyesore anyway,” Sonny said.

“I’m gonna need some new wheels.”

Sonny looked down at his poncho. “I need some clothes.”

“Enjoy your shopping spree.”

“Enjoy your donkey-killing spree.”

Chris concealed his HK416 in the travel duffel, exited the van carrying the bag on his shoulder, and walked swiftly away from the vehicle so no one would connect him with the bullet-riddled van. He looked down at his GPS and touched the tracking icon. While it began calculating Switchblade Whisper’s coordinates in relation to him, he looked up from the monitor and noticed a taxi heading their way, so he flagged it down. When he turned back to see if Sonny wanted to share the ride, he was gone. For a moment, he wondered if Sonny was real, but there was no way those bullets and RPGs were anything but.

The taxi stopped next to the curb, and Chris hopped in. The GPS unit showed the Switchblade Whisper on the move, heading on a northerly route about an hour ahead of him. Chris didn’t know many Turkish words, so he told the driver in English to head north on the highway, but the man didn’t understand. He tried Arabic. The driver understood Chris that time. Chris looked around to see if anyone noticed him leaving in the taxi. At the moment, no one seemed to be following him.

He leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes for the first time in what felt like ages. Hannah’s face permeated his mind.
Where are you, Hannah?
He didn’t want to believe that she was dead, but so much time had passed, the likelihood became more difficult to dispel. She had trusted him to help her, and he was determined to follow through on his promise.

Jim Bob had said he thought she was probably hunting down the Switchblade Whisper, and if she was still alive and free, Chris’s guess was the same. If the Chinese were transporting the Switchblade Whisper by vehicle, as Chris had surmised, they might drive the whole way to China, but driving would take too much time, and they’d have to risk customs and immigration inspections at multiple border crossings. Maybe the Chinese planned to link up with a ship. Going by sea would still require considerable time to reach China, and if that was their plan, they probably would’ve already sailed from Syria rather than drive out of their way to Turkey. It seemed flying out of Turkey was the most probable method of extraction.

He forced his eyes open and leaned toward the driver.

“Keep heading north,” Chris told the man in Arabic. “There’s a little something extra in it for you if you hurry.

At the mention of a bonus, the driver smashed the accelerator down to the floor, and the taxi punched forward. Chris fell in and out of a light combat sleep along the way—his senses were ready to wake him at the sign of anything unusual. Just north of Iskenderun, the sun glistened off the ocean to his left. On the edges of his consciousness, he and Hannah ran barefoot and carefree on the ocean-cooled sand.

Chris awoke as the taxi stopped in front of a three-story building decorated with faience panels at the main entrance and capped with a triangular roof. He checked his GPS to figure out exactly where he and the Switchblade Whisper were. According to the GPS, Chris was at the Adana
gar
, a railroad station in the city of Adana, but the Switchblade Whisper had continued north on the highway, and now he was only half an hour behind it, but the clock was ticking, and he was losing the time he’d gained.

“Why are we stopping here?”

“I can’t go farther today,” the driver said.

Chris argued with him, but the driver refused, so he paid him and got out of the car. He checked for Turkish authorities on his six but saw none. He smelled bad, but a Turkish woman stared hungrily at him, and he realized he didn’t look nearly as ragged as he thought he did—or he smelled like a kebab. She had two small children and more luggage than she could handle. He wanted to take a minute to help her with her luggage, but he didn’t have time to spare.

Then he hailed a new taxi, and the driver gave him a discount to take him over five hundred klicks northwest, passing Ankara, Turkey’s capitol. He looked down at the GPS. The
SW
symbol stopped moving at the Esenboga International Airport. Panic churned in his belly. If the Chinese boarded a plane, he’d lose them, and he still didn’t know where Hannah was.