On making the decision to become an officer, he’d stepped away from personal involvement with the men under him. They were tools, just like the vehicles and weapons he put into the field. He trained himself to think like a strategist and realize that acceptable losses had to be made to attain an objective.
Or to hold on to one, he told himself bitterly. What he was going through now, though, wasn’t anywhere in the neighborhood of acceptable.
The holding assignment Command he currently headed up wasn’t one he’d have wished on anyone. He was in charge of cannon fodder, strictly a time-delay tactic, and he knew it. The losses galled him. He didn’t mind losing men to hang on to something or to reach a goal, but losing them just to run in place was too much.
Only the fact that Icarus and Section Chief Alexander Cody of the Central Intelligence Agency remained within the city as well offered him any solace. With them present, there was a chance Remington could salvage something from the godforsaken mission. The CIA agents searching for their wayward undercover man, missing since the action that possibly precipitated the Syrian attack against Turkey, worked to keep a low profile with all the international media people in place in the city. But they couldn’t stay off the Ranger captain’s radar once he’d identified them.
Remington had assigned teams to keep Cody and his men under surveillance. He’d also set up checkpoints around the city, identifying everyone who came and went to the best of his ability. The United Nations teams and Turkish army entrenched with them helped.
With all the traffic into and out of the city, Remington knew he couldn’t be certain he hadn’t missed the man, but Cody’s agents remained in place. Remington used their presence as a litmus test. If Cody and his team disappeared, then undoubtedly Icarus had disappeared as well.
But Cody was here now. So were his agents. It stood to reason that Icarus was also.
The Ranger captain wanted Icarus, wanted to know why Icarus had run from the agency after he’d sent a Ranger team in to rescue him, wanted the covert agent’s secrets and the power those secrets would bring. If Remington was doomed to ride out the onslaught massed outside Sanliurfa’s borders, he was determined to have something to show for his time. Icarus was a big prize. Remington was certain of that.
The deaths of two CIA agents in Sanliurfa the same night of the attack lent even more credence to that belief. Lieutenant Nick Perrin, the man Remington used for covert activities of his own—including the search for Icarus and the surveillance of Cody’s CIA team—believed that the agents had found Icarus and he’d killed them to effect his escape. If the Rangers still had access to the satellite network owned by OneWorld NewsNet, searching the city would have progressed more easily. They didn’t have that access, though.
Remington directed a few more curses at Nicolae Carpathia, the CEO of NewsNet and the man responsible for the decision to withdraw that satellite access. A leading businessman in his country, Carpathia had received the presidency of Romania on a silver platter when the president had stepped down and named Carpathia as his successor the day before the attack. The satellites on loan from OneWorld had given Remington an edge over the Syrians, who had lost their own access to the limited sources they had when the disappearances had occurred. The satellites would have continued giving the U.S. military the edge inside the city.
CIA Agent Cody had put Remington in contact with Carpathia. At first Carpathia had oozed generosity, saying he was interested in having a Western influence in the Middle East. Then Carpathia had developed an international social conscience less than seventy-two hours later. Remington still wasn’t certain of the reason for that. However the change of heart had come about, the timing roughly coincided with Carpathia’s receipt of an invitation to speak before the United Nations in New York City. President Fitzhugh had helped roll out the red carpet.
In the meantime, the 75th Ranger Regiment bled and died as sacrificial lambs.
Perspiration slid down Remington’s body under the heavy Kevlar and BDUs he wore. Dust and smoke caked his face and exposed skin. His mouth was parched and dry, and he thought he would never again taste anything but dirt.
But his mind worked. No matter what else went on around him, he considered the actions he had open to him. The Syrian army’s use of the American dead left behind from the border conflict had caught him by surprise and he felt embarrassed by that. Armies in the Middle East had used the bodies of fallen comrades against city defenders even back into biblical days.
Remington stared after the Syrian tanks and jeeps that rumbled deeper into Sanliurfa. He regretted the men that died under the onslaught of Syrian armor, his Rangers as well as the United Nations soldiers and the Turkish military. Dying here tonight meant that those men couldn’t die again later when he might need them even more. He was quickly running out of resources, and that fact was an increasing irritation to him.
An AH-1W Whiskey Cobra gunship cut the air over his head. Hovering low, the helicopter presented a fat target to the Syrians invading Sanliurfa as well as the troops stationed outside the city. Three other Cobras flew low over the city, cutting the area into quadrants. Bullets struck sparks as they ricocheted from the helicopter’s sides or punctured the metal and passed through. Enemy small-arms fire provided some danger, but the Syrians boasted .50-cal sniper rifles that were capable of punching through the light armor the helos carried.
“Phoenix Leader,” Remington said. “This is Control.”
“Go, Leader.” Goose sounded
