Jason and Camel went storming out on opposite sides of the boulder with weapons drawn.
The black smoke was still thick enough to provide cover for the Arabs, but Jason was relieved to see Al- Zahrani’s awkward, tall form being pulled up the slope by a pair of cronies. The remaining two Arabs trailed behind them, hauling a second polyethylene case.
As Jason and Camel closed in behind them, Meat broke cover to pull up the rear.
Then Jam popped out from the gulch and began sprinting along the ridge in a perpendicular intercept. He had his now-useless AK-74 clutched menacingly in his right hand, knowing the best he could do was intimidate the Arabs, maybe slow their advance.
The dragnet was closing.
When Jason broke through the smoke, he saw that the Arabs had decided against the crevasse and were instead heading for a sizable opening in the cliff face that looked like a cave. Judging by the flames licking the rocky outcropping above the opening and the fresh scars above it where an entire section of the mountain had sheared away and tumbled down the slope, Jason figured that it had been the impact point for the deflected Hydra missile.
Once the Arabs had funnelled into the opening and disappeared from sight, Jason slowed his advance and signalled to the others to take cover. No telling what the Arabs were planning, and chasing after them into a cave wouldn’t be smart.
Could the blast hole be that deep? he wondered. And why would they corner themselves like that?
2
From behind a boulder, Jason scanned the opening with his binoculars. No sign of the jihad quintet, but when he zoomed in, he did notice something peculiar: about two metres into the opening the black void was framed by a rectangular enclosure - like an open doorway. Tighter magnification revealed bolt heads lining the hard, unnatural lines.
‘What do we have here?’ he muttered.
Someone whistled loudly.
Lowering the binoculars, Jason peered over to Meat, who was pointing to a smoking object that lay not far from where he’d taken cover. Even from a distance, Jason could tell that the mangled and blackened rectangular hulk of metal was the door that had been blown clear off the frame he’d just spied. Scoping the object, he determined it to be roughly one by two metres, fat as a phone book, with a wide circular turn-crank like he’d expect to find on a submarine hatch. The door’s unmarred sections showed that it had been painted to match the mountain’s earth tones. Around its edges were remnants from military-grade camouflage netting. Must have been quite effective, he thought, if no one had spotted it earlier. The opening was certainly positioned high enough to trick the naked eye.
Maybe the militants hadn’t intended to slip through the mountains. Maybe they were heading to this place all along. Perhaps it was a bunker.
Then again, Jason had seen the Arabs do a double-take before running into the opening - like they were equally surprised to see it there. Either way, since this was no mere blast hole, there was a strong possibility that whatever had been protected behind that security door ran deep -
He’d read in his field manual that the Zagros Mountains were formed from the ancient tectonic collision between the Arabian and Eurasian plates. The jagged range stretched 1,500 kilometres from northern Iraq down to the Straits of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, with peaks reaching 4,500 metres (even taller than Colorado’s Pikes Peak, he’d noted). Caves and tunnels resulted from the erosion of the softer mineral-laden rocks inside the mountains. The Zagros’s most bittersweet contribution to the region, however, was the sedimentary deposits trapped beneath its eastern foothills - Iran’s massive oil fields.
From out of the cave came a muffled fizzy sound, like a freshly cracked bottle of pop releasing its carbonation. Just as Jason’s eyes found the opening, a blinding glow flashed in the black void beyond the doorframe … the silhouette of a projectile … a resounding
The Americans went for cover as the debris came raining down around them.
A softball-sized stone plummeted down and struck Jason squarely between the shoulder blades, knocking him flat to the ground. The wind heaved out from his lungs in a heavy gasp. Pain jolted up his spine, down his arms. He rolled on to his back, arcing his spine, groaning in pain, seeing nothing but white for a five-count. Had he not been wearing a Kevlar vest under his robe, the stone might have paralysed him.
Fast footsteps crunched along the gravel and came to a stop next to him.
‘You okay, Google?’
He blinked his eyes and drew a steady breath. ‘Yeah, I’ll live.’
Jam helped him to his feet and Jason squeezed his shoulder blades together to coax the pain away.
‘That’s gonna leave a mark,’ Jam said.
Jason noticed that Jam’s left cheek was red and blistered, the curly black scruff sizzled away.
‘You should talk,’ he replied with a wince.
‘I was a bit too close when the missile went off.’ He stroked the tangle of toasted hairs. ‘I needed a shave anyway.’
Jason looked up at the grey smoke cloud spewing out from the ridge. The doorframe was lost behind the collapsed cliff face. He shook his head in disbelief.
‘That was an RPG … right? I mean I barely saw it.’
‘Yeah, it was.’
He shook his head and put his hands on his hips.
Meat, Camel and Hazo jogged over to join them.
‘Everybody all right?’ Jason asked the trio.
‘Super,’ Meat grumbled. When he got a good look at Jam, he stepped closer and cringed. ‘What’s with your face?’ Then he got a whiff of the singed beard and said, ‘Aaah. I hate that smell … burnt hair. Shit, I’m gonna vomit.’ He shook his head violently.
‘You’re one to talk, Dracula. That blood mask really brings out your eyes.’
‘Ha, ha, very fun—’
‘All right fellas,’ Jason cut in. For frontline fighters, adrenaline surges always came with euphoria - at least if you were still standing when the bullets stopped flying. It was the junkie high that kept them coming back for more. But it also made the hyped-up men tougher to rein in. ‘Good to see that everyone’s all right. I’m sure you’ve noticed that we’ve got a new problem on our hands.’ He motioned to the smoking cliff.
Camel pulled out a small round tin from his vest, opened it, and pinched out some chewing tobacco. In passing himself off as an abstaining Muslim, a nicotine patch would have been far subtler, but the chew sure beat puffing away on cigarettes. ‘Looks good to me. The rag-heads went and buried themselves.’ He began stuffing his cheeks full of tobacco.
Jam pulled a hunting knife off his belt and began cutting the singed beard away, since it did stink something fierce. ‘Seems to me they don’t want us coming in after them.’
‘I’d go with that,’ Meat agreed.
‘These caves …’ Hazo chimed in, his tone level and one notch too low. ‘The tunnels can lead anywhere. It’s no good. They could find a way out. Maybe on the other side of the mountain … maybe a kilometre away.’
‘Or they went and buried themselves,’ Camel reiterated before hawking a brown gob on to the rocks. ‘Crawled into a hole. Just like your buddy Saddam.’
The Kurd frowned.
Jason was inclined to agree with both assertions. ‘Let’s have a closer look at that door.’ He waved for them to follow, then strode over to it.
Kneeling beside the door, Jason could feel heat radiating off the blackened metal. He carefully hunted the surface for any telling marks: manufacturer’s stamps, engraved plates, painted emblems or Arabic scrawls, anything. He found nothing. ‘Let’s flip it,’ he told the others. ‘Cover your hands. This thing’s smokin’ hot.’
