Angels of Wrath

Thar was a small town on the other side of the border. Iraqi intelligence officers there had prepared a list of half a dozen suspicious vehicles, all with single drivers. The theory was that the vehicle would go over alone and wait for Khazaal to slip through, a practice often employed by criminals and others trying to escape the country without documentation. The Mercedes would have been thoroughly searched before being allowed over the border.

Two shadows came from the rocks. “You see a face?” asked Rankin.

Fouad shook his head.

Rankin looked over at Guns, who was using his satellite radio system to talk to Corrigan back in the Cube. The radio had a “local” discrete-burst mode for short-range communications with other team members on the ground and a longer-range mode that used satellites to communicate. The latter was easier to detect; though the transmissions were encrypted and virtually unbreakable, the presence of the radio waves could lead someone to the user.

“Where are we, Guns?” asked Rankin.

“I just uploaded the video. They’re looking at it.”

“What’s the UAV see?” Rankin asked. A Predator robot aircraft, or “unmanned aerial vehicle,” was orbiting overhead, helping with the surveillance. It would follow the vehicle to a spot where it could be ambushed.

“Nothing so far.”

“Tell Ferg what’s going on.”

“Already have,” said Guns.

“Hold on,” said Rankin. “There’s another car coming.”

* * *

The trick was to let the Mercedes get far enough from the border area so that any of the local smugglers and Syrian spies nearby wouldn’t be tipped off but to not let it get so far away that they couldn’t stop it. With two cars, the task became more complicated, especially once the two vehicles got on the nearby road and headed in different directions. Ferguson and Thera staked out the first car, which was moving northwestward; Rankin and Guns followed the second, traveling two miles to the south.

Just to make things even more interesting, a third one appeared soon after the second made its pickup. Two Rangers were detailed to follow that one, staying close enough to trail them but not take them unless ordered to do so by Ferguson.

The first car took a turn off the highway onto a packed dirt road in the direction of an abandoned military outpost a few miles west of the border. The road wound around a series of dry streams, or wadis, and loose sand traps. Since they were on motorcycles, Ferguson, Thera, and the two Rangers traveling with them were able to sprint ahead and check out the site. Ferguson sent the Rangers down the road to watch, in case his hunch about where the Mercedes was going proved wrong. As he and Thera approached the camp, Fouad warned that a Land Rover was parked in front of one of the buildings. The Iraqi had taken over for Guns and was watching the Predator’s video feed. The vehicle had not been there in the afternoon’s satellite snapshot. Ferguson and Thera got off their bikes and went to scout the base. A low ridge sat to the south about a quarter mile from the fence. Standing at the top, Ferguson could see most of the base area.

“There,” Ferguson told Thera, pointing to the second building in the row. “You can just barely make out the shadow inside.”

“How many people?”

“At least two.” He pointed to the road beyond the complex. “Maybe they’re forming a caravan here. Or maybe waiting for a plane. You could land our MC-130 on that road at the back there.”

Ferguson dropped down, sliding to the bottom of the hill. They were no more than fifteen minutes ahead of the Mercedes; if they were going to take it here, they had to get a move on.

“What we have to do is take out the guard by the gate, then the person or persons in the building,” Ferguson told Thera. He took the M203 grenade launcher from his pack and stuffed a dozen plastic shells in his pants pockets, which were already bulging with magazines for the MP5N submachine gun. His vest had concussion and smoke grenades, along with ammo for his pistol and slugs for his shotgun, which he had over his right shoulder.

“Are we taking these guys prisoner or what?” asked Thera.

“Khazaal’s the only one we have to apprehend alive,” said Ferguson. “But, yeah, we dunk these guys if we can. Have your gas mask ready. Crossbow?”

Thera held up the weapon, which was very similar to the type used by deer and other game hunters in the States. A marriage between a miniature rifle and high-tech bow, the weapon fired a titanium arrow over fifty yards, was as accurate as a rifle at that range, and would send its missilelike arrow through the side of a skull. It could also fire two different types of nonlethal ammunition: a syringelike dart with a fast-working anesthetic and a lollypop-shaped hard plastic arrow that was supposed to stun someone struck with it. The anesthetic was related chemically to sodium thiopental, the barbiturate commonly known as truth serum. It worked even quicker though it left the subject feeling as if he or she had a full-body hangover. Thera didn’t trust the lollypops and had left them back at the base camp.

“Wait until I’m outside of the buildings if at all possible,” Ferg told her. “But if you have to shoot, shoot. He doesn’t have a vest. Shoot at the chest.”

Ferguson jogged to the west side of the base, taking advantage of the wadi near the fence, which obscured the view. He found a hole under the fence and crawled into the compound between the two warehouse buildings at the southern end of the compound.

Thera used a drainage ditch to cover her as she closed in on the guard. She found a brace of weeds thirty yards from the entrance and got into firing position. The guard, clearly bored, stood with his gun down against his leg. She took a grenade out just in case — no sense fooling around if she missed — and put her MP5N within easy reach.

“Thera, where are you?” hissed Ferguson in her ear.

“Here,” she whispered. “Just tell me when.”

Ferguson hunkered on his haunches. There was no sign that there were more people than the guard and the one whose shadow he’d seen in the large building to his right. The building had a window at the back; he was tempted to try and get in that way but decided it was too risky. Nor did he have anything to use to booby-trap the exit.

“Thera?”

“Yeah?”

“After you take out the guard, I want you to get to the west side of the southern-most building, all right? There’s a window there. You think you can cover it?”

“Yeah, but—”

“No but. Wait until I’m ready if you can.”

Thera steadied the crossbow, zeroed in on the guard. She’d first used a bow when she was twelve years old, hunting with her father at his cabin in the Catskills. He was a New York City detective back then, two years divorced from her mother, a much heavier drinker than now. She could feel his hand on her shoulder, gripping gently, his thumb pressing as the buck walked toward them in the field.

The guard turned toward her. Suddenly he started to bring up his rifle. Thera pulled the trigger on her crossbow. The weapon made a whispery thwang as it shot. She watched through the scope as the arrow struck the guard flat in the chest. He shook, stunned, not quite comprehending what had happened. Then he started to grab at the arrow, stopped, raised his gun again, then fell off to the side, knocked unconscious by the massive dose of synthetic narcotic in the warhead.

Ferguson heard Thera’s heavy breathing over the radio and realized she’d shot the guard. He moved up the side of the building, reached the corner, and glanced toward the front. He saw no one. He checked the grenade launcher — he figured he would hit anyone coming out in the chest with the tear-gas round, which would knock them down at very close range — then knelt on one knee to wait for Thera.

Thera ran to the stricken guard, made sure he was down, then grabbed the dart and his rifle and went to the back of the building. Ferguson caught a glimpse of her as she ran.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Let me catch my breath.”

“Not enough time. Use the gun if you have to. Get your mask on.”