SUV.
“They’re taking cover,” said the controller in the EC-130K, interpreting the images from the Global Hawk.
“Start the tape,” said Rankin.
A crewman aboard the aircraft turned off the jamming gear. In its place, he began broadcasting a prerecorded set of radio signals that made it sound as if a platoon-sized group was maneuvering outside the walls. The voices were in Arabic, and the frequency was the same as that used by the Syrian army. “Commander Suhab” was mentioned several times in the brief conversation, just distinct enough for anyone recording to make out.
“Ready on the machine guns,” Rankin told Grumpy. Two men with automatic rifles had come out, crouching near the entrance.
“Sure I can’t hit them?” asked Grumpy, hunching over the weapon’s tripod.
“No,” said Rankin.
“Shame,” said the marine, firing at the road.
Ferguson and Guns rolled off the hill on the sturdiest bikes he’d bought.
Even thirty yards away they could feel the heat.
“How long is it going to burn for?” Guns asked.
“Not sure. Guess I should’ve brought a fire extinguisher, huh?”
The flames settled for a moment but then flared into a fireball. Ferguson got off the bike and reached into the oversized knapsack he’d taken with him for their small chain saw.
“Going to be hot as hell, Ferg,” said Guns as the flames died down.
“Yeah. But I’m kind of in a hurry.” Ferguson walked around the truck, trying to figure out where the briefcase would be.
A flare shot up from the castle, illuminating the night. The gunfire there intensified.
Ferguson triggered the saw blade and started in on the roof and then the door. Rather than pulling it out he was able to kick it to the side and down, singeing but not burning his boot. The scent of burned flesh hung over the car, overpowering all of the other smells, even the exhaust from the buzz saw.
The briefcase was right near the rear door, attached by a handcuff to the guard’s charred wrist. Guns grit his teeth together and grabbed hold of the briefcase, pulling on the chain hard enough to snap several bones in the dead man’s hand and free the case. He dropped it on the ground and spun to his knees, his stomach suddenly queasy.
The briefcase was barely a foot and a half wide and less high, no thicker than a large paperback book, Ferguson picked it up, examined the lock, and look out his picks. The lock took some work — forty-five seconds — and Ferguson had to balance the small case upright on his knee. When the clasp snapped open it fell, spilling most of its contents to the ground.
A jumble of gold chains, watch bands, necklaces, and loose jewels spilled out. There were sapphires, a number of small diamonds, emeralds. Most were fairly small, but that would only make them easier to sell. There were some gold rings and chains as well. Ferguson guessed conservatively that they must be worth close to three million dollars, maybe considerably more.
It was also a lot more than Khazaal would need to travel in Syria or to hire Vassenka.
Ferguson scooped them back into the case, then took a quick snapshot with his digital camera. Guns got his stomach settled and came back.
“Wow, that’s a lot of gold,” said the marine.
“Yeah. Hang on to it for me,” Ferguson told him, handing him the case.
“Me?”
“Don’t trust yourself?”
Unsure what else to do with it, Guns stuffed the briefcase beneath his shirt.
“We have to get out of here,” said Ferguson.
“Hey, you forgot that,” said Guns, pointing to a bracelet on the ground.
Ferg scooped it up with one hand and grabbed the chain saw with the other. “We have to get out of here. Now.”
Van Buren secured his seat belt only a second or two before the 737’s wheels hit the cement runway. The plane settled with a jerk, the pilot fighting a rush of turbulence as he brought the plane onto the unfamiliar runway. His official flight plan had him landing at Damascus, but they’d been rerouted with the help of an agent there who had bribed a controller to order the pilot to hold pending a military investigation of another plane on the runway. The 737 pilot had then declared a fuel emergency and been rerouted here. The fact that Damascus had ordered the rerouting meant no questions would be asked about the plane’s sudden arrival.
If questions were asked, any one of the forty-two heavily armed men in the rear of the plane would gladly provide an answer, complete with explosive punctuation.
Van Buren threw off his restraints as the jet trundled onto a taxiway. He went forward to the cockpit, where the copilot told him that the controllers had directed them to a hangar area near the terminal ordinarily used by Syrian National Airlines for its weekly flights to Damascus and Cairo.
“They say we can refuel there. It’s about a mile from your target,” said the copilot. He showed Van Buren the location on a simplified diagram of the airport they had prepared before the mission. The plane’s crew were contract workers on retainer for the CIA.
“We want to get out before we get there,” Van told him. “Just in case they have any people working at the hangar. Can you swing it?”
“Not a problem. There’s a holding area just up ahead,” said the pilot. “We’ll stop there long enough for your people to slip out, and claim we’re getting our bearings if anyone asks. You’ll be a half mile from your target.”
“Let’s do it,” said Van Buren.
Grumpy fired through half the box of belted ammo before stopping. “Nice gun,” he said of the H&K machine gun, picking up a second to fire from the hip.
Rankin grunted. So far, the pseudobattle belonged to the attackers, who had clearly caught the small force inside the castle by surprise. But that wasn’t going to last forever; the defenders had very powerful motivations, beginning with the briefcase of jewels. The two men at the gate to the old fortress had been joined by six or seven more. As soon as Monsoon’s gunfire stopped they sprinted down the road, sprawling on the ground.
“Give them another blast, and let’s get out of here,” Rankin told him. He pulled up his mike as the gun spat shells at the road. “Jammers still off?” he asked the controller in the EC-130.
“Roger that.”
Rankin had prepared a series of improvised explosive devices and rigged them to detonate with the help of the radio controllers in the toy cars, a simple but effective trick he’d learned from
“Here they come,” said Grumpy, jumping up from the now bulletless gun. He ran and grabbed the bike, kick starting the small engine.
Rankin was already rolling down the hill. When he got to the road he slapped the switches on and detonated his bombs. The hillside began popping as if it were the Chinese New Year.
As the attack on the castle wound down, Thera and Monsoon launched a raid of their own. It began with two garbage cans hauled innocently down the street by Monsoon, who placed them near the mosque wall and walked away. Thera, having doffed her
A moment later, a fire in a box at the rear of the pickup truck began cooking off bullets. Fed by oily rags and a collection of gasoline-drenched cardboard and wood, the fire in the truck worked itself into a bonfire, igniting the
