Danielle had no doubt that he would do exactly that. But she’d noticed Goose limping as well. He wasn’t exactly in tip-top condition either.
Give me a car, Danielle thought desperately. A pickup. Please. Something. And quickly. She kept running.
Not many cars sat idle in Harran. Given the town’s poor economic conditions, very few people in the area owned vehicles.
But less than a block farther on, Danielle spotted a forty-year-old Russian delivery van with peeling black paint. The vehicle was definitely on its last legs. Arabic script covered the sides.
When she peered inside, Danielle saw that the ignition was empty. However, there were plenty of wires sticking out beneath the dash. She gripped the door and yanked it open. The old hinges screeched as the door moved. She climbed into the driver’s seat and ran a hand under the seat to make certain the keys hadn’t been tossed underneath.
Then she noticed that two of the wires near the steering wheel were stripped and hanging down. She grabbed them and touched them together. The truck’s engine tried to catch, the vehicle surging forward and shuddering because the clutch was left out.
Encouraged, Danielle pulled herself inside the cab and gazed through the cracked windshield. A rumbling, grinding noise came closer, sounding like approaching thunder. For a moment, she sat paralyzed by the sound, dreading what it portended.
Farther up the street, a mechanical assault vehicle plunged through a small house with a tremendous crash. Pieces of the house clung to the APC as it surged out into the street. Instead of wheels, the vehicle had tank treads that clanked menacingly and chewed through the pavement. It was so low and so broad that Danielle at first thought it was a tank; then she saw that it had no main gun. The Syrian camouflage design, light green and dark green, stood out clearly on the vehicle’s dust-covered hide.
Danielle cursed.
“Danielle,” Terrell said over the headset she still wore that linked her to OneWorld NewsNet, “can you tell us what’s going on? We’re still monitoring you. The cameraman seems to be nowhere near you.”
Gary wouldn’t want to be here right now, Danielle thought as she tried to break out of the paralysis.
A forward hatch opened on the tracked vehicle, and a man popped up like a gopher out of a hole. For a moment the comparison was hilarious, but it didn’t stay amusing for long. The Syrian soldier grabbed hold of a machine gun and spun it in her direction. He started firing too early, though, and the rounds chopped across the street in front of Danielle’s borrowed vehicle and smashed against the building beside her.
Danielle held the two wires beneath the steering column together. Sparks leaped. Heat singed her fingertips, but she held on stubbornly as the engine struggled to catch. For one sickening moment, she thought that maybe the delivery van had been left behind because it was broken down. She pumped the accelerator.
Don’t flood it, she told herself. Flood it, and you’re dead.
The machine gunner spun his weapon toward her again. Bay doors opened behind the forward hatch and revealed nearly a dozen Syrian soldiers.
Then, with a less-than-inspiring rattle of metal, the engine found a life of its own. Danielle shoved the transmission into reverse, revved the engine, and prayed that it wouldn’t stall.
“Danielle,” Terrell tried again.
Ignoring the call, Danielle peered into the cracked side mirror to see where she was going. That was a lot easier than staring back at the Syrian APC. The roar of the machine gun filled the open cab of the van. Bullets tore through the passenger side of the windshield and pieces of glass fell across the seat.
Danielle yelped in fear and took evasive action. The van’s rear bumper scraped a wooden cart that had been left in the street and reduced the cart to splintery pieces. The van bumped and jostled as it rolled over them. The transmission whined loudly.
Daring a forward glance, Danielle saw the line of machine-gun bullets tracking back toward the van. Desperately she spun the wheel and cut away just before the machine-gun fire vectored in on her. Pulling the wheel sharply, she tried to back into an alley. Unfortunately she wasn’t as talented or lucky as she’d hoped. The rear bumper collided with the corner of the building and the van came to a sudden stop.
Hammered by the collision, Danielle ricocheted off the seat and the steering wheel with bruising force. She changed gears and tried to go forward, then realized the van’s engine had died. Still unable to catch her breath, driven purely by survival instinct, she reached for the wires and held them together again.
Machine-gun rounds thudded against the van’s side and passed through without slowing. The sound echoed deafeningly within the van.
Don’t hit the tires, Danielle thought desperately. Please, God, don’t let them hit the tires. Or me.
The engine caught again, easier this time. She shoved the gearshift into first, floored the accelerator, and let out the clutch. The van shot across the street just ahead of a hail of. 50-caliber rounds that would have destroyed the vehicle and her.
22
United States 75th Army Rangers Outpost
Harran
Sanliurfa Province, Turkey
Local Time 0745 Hours
Panic filled Danielle when she realized she didn’t know where she was. In the confusion, she’d lost her orientation. All the houses and buildings along the street looked the same.
Think. You just came this way.
The side mirror showed that the Syrian military vehicle was trailing her. Machine-gun fire sounded behind her. A few bullets punctured the rear of the van and passed through the front windshield.
Danielle cut the wheel to plunge down an alley. The left side of the van scraped against the building. The impact ripped the side mirror off. Bolts bounced off the window. Fighting the wheel, she barely regained control before she crashed into the building on the other side.
The alley was a lot narrower than she’d thought it was. Only inches separated her from the sides as she rumbled toward the street at the other end. The Syrian vehicle was too wide to get through. She took hope in that.
In the next moment, the Syrian APC paused at the entrance of the alley.
Danielle hunkered lower in the seat, expecting the machine gun to open fire again. Instead, the gunner dropped back inside the vehicle. The rear bay doors closed as well. Then the APC surged forward. The tank treads chewed into the sides of the building like a harvester taking down wheat.
“No!” Danielle said in disbelief.
The Syrian war machine was actually gaining on her now. Behind it, buildings toppled into ruin. The APC suddenly transcended in Danielle’s mind to a thing crafted by her worst nightmares. She wasn’t going to be able to escape. The Syrians chasing her were unstoppable.
She reached the next street and cut hard left. The van skidded out of control, the bald tires struggling to find traction. She slewed sideways. A moment later, the Syrian vehicle powered through the final few feet of the alley and cut after her.
Just as she was preparing to abandon hope of getting away, much less of reaching Goose, Gary, and the wounded Rangers, Danielle spotted the house where she’d left them. Goose emerged from the door and looked in her direction.
Danielle knew he couldn’t have been expecting the sight that greeted him, but Goose never flinched. Or hesitated. Smoothly, like he had all day, he reached into his BDUs. After he’d inserted something into his weapon, he pulled the rifle to his shoulder.
Realizing that the sergeant wasn’t going to run, Danielle felt immediately guilty. Instead of helping the Rangers, she’d doomed them.
Local Time 0747 Hours
