by Eric Meyer
He looked irritated. “This is a State Department affair, and I can assure you no one knows what we’re carrying.”
“Except the Kurds. You have no way of knowing how secure they are.”
“We won’t have any trouble from the Kurds. Why don’t you drive? You’re wasting time.”
“You’re in charge.”
“Yes, I am.”
They drove for an hour, and each time Nolan glanced in the back, Waverley’s forehead was furrowed in thought. Maybe he was taking the possibility of an ambush seriously. After the first hour, he ordered them to stop at the next wayside coffee stall.
“I have to make a call. More confidential business.”
“Knock yourself out. John-Wesley, you heard the man.”
“I heard him.”
Fifteen minutes later, they reached a roadside stop, a shambolic Turkish version of a traditional American diner. They’d converted a bus by removing the wheels and using it as a makeshift building. If they’d painted over the bus company logos, and removed some of the corrosion, it may have even looked rustic. Instead, it just looked rusty.
They stayed in the vehicle to guard the money while Waverley went inside and bought himself a coffee. He came back out and walked around the other side of the makeshift coffee stall, presumably to make his call. He was gone for some time, almost a half hour. Eventually, he came back and climbed into the vehicle, still holding the remains of his coffee in a plastic cup.
“We can carry on. I’ve spoken to my people, and they don’t see any trouble.”
Ryder nodded, and in a single movement started the engine, rammed the lever into gear, and stomped on the gas pedal. They lurched forward, and from the back they heard a cry of anger. Nolan glanced around, and he’d spill coffee over his hitherto immaculate shirt and pants.
“You seem to be in trouble. A pity we don’t have anything to wipe away the spill.”
He shot him a furious glare. “You did that deliberately!”
Ryder didn’t even turn his head, but his voice dripped with sarcasm. “Apologies, Mr. Waverley. I wouldn’t dream of it.”
He didn’t reply, and they drove toward the Syrian border in silence. Approaching the Turkish side, Nolan checked it all out, finding nothing untoward. Just the usual bored soldiers, demanding papers and passports, and hardly bothering to look at them before they waved the vehicle on. Ryder stopped. They passed over their papers, and got the nod to go through. The Syrian side was different. Soldiers standing around, but two men were staring intently at the Toyota, and they didn’t look like soldiers, more like bandits. They both wore the tunic of the Syrian Army, but their pants were mismatched, and their weapons not the normal assault rifles. These were stubby machine pistols, Heckler and Koch MP5s. The weapon of choice for many elite troops, Special Forces operators. And bandits.
They were about four hundred meters away, and he murmured to John-Wesley to halt.
“We’re in no man’s land.”
“Stop right here.”
Waverley started to object. “Get this vehicle moving. That’s an order.”
“Yeah, right away. I just need to stop for a moment. Call of nature,” he grinned.
The courier raised his eyebrows in exasperation while Nolan opened the rear door, moved the tarpaulin aside, and pulled up the rifles. When he climbed back into the cab, Waverley leaned over to see what he had.
“Where did those come from?”
A shrug. “They were already in there. I guess they assumed we’d need them.”
“Your orders were to use sidearms only.”
“Sure, but I think it was more of a guideline than an order. Don’t worry, it’s just a precaution.”
Ryder drove slowly toward the border post, and they were waiting for them. The door to the guard opened, and a man stepped out carrying a light machine gun, a Soviet built PK. He leaned it against the side of the hut, and he didn’t look like he was about to use it, but the two guys with the MP5s were different. Two soldiers moved in either side of the Land Cruiser. They wound the windows down, and they asked for their papers.
They handed them over, but the soldiers didn’t even look at them. One man pointed to an area at the side of the crossing. “Drive there, and wait for inspection.”
They took their documents back, and Ryder drove slowly forward, angling in the direction they’d indicated.
“It’s nothing, a routine search. Nothing to worry about.”
The two SEALS swapped glances, thinking the same thing. It wasn’t nothing. It wasn’t routine, and there was plenty to worry about. Halfway toward the open space, two more men stepped through a gap in the fence that surrounded it. They stood waiting, and they also carried machine pistols, as well as Uzis, but Nolan would have bet every cent he had the men weren’t from Israel.
Like the other two, they wore the correct uniform jacket, but the rest of their clothing was a mismatch. Like they’d dressed hurriedly in borrowed clothes. The kind of thing men would do if they were masquerading as regular soldiers to stage an ambush. They walked toward them, blocking the Toyota, so Ryder couldn’t get past them without them opening fire. Then they waited, in the relaxed way of men who’d done it many times before. It may have worked, but for one important factor. The two men in the Land Cruiser had also done it many times before.
“About now, John-Wesley.”
Ignoring the shout of anger from the back, Ryder floored the gas pedal, and the vehicle shot toward the two men. They brought the Uzis up to their shoulders and took aim. Too late, Nolan leaned out of the passenger window and emptied half the magazine of his M-16 into them. One went down, knocked over by almost ten 5.56mm bullets. The other man jumped aside, avoiding the gunfire. As the Toyota grazed past him, he jumped for the safari rack on the roof.
Nolan saw him pull himself on top, and he didn’t hesitate. Leaving the M-16 in the cab, he climbed out the window, grabbed for a handhold on the rack, and went after him. The guy was trying to use his MP5, but on top of the lurching SUV, and trying to hold on with one hand, he struggled to bring it to bear. Nolan dragged himself on top, and the guy swung the weapon at his head to use it as a club. He dodged, simultaneously dragging out the combat knife he’d tucked inside his coat. He stabbed at the hand holding the stubby assault rifle. The guy jerked it back and made another try to club him over the head. The SUV lurched again, and this time it was Nolan who had to grab for support. He took the blow on the shoulder and almost dropped his knife.
Frantically, he held on and sized up his opponent for another strike. The guy had changed tactics and wrapped his legs around the frame of the safari rack, so he’d have both hands free. He was just out of range for the knife, and Nolan had seconds to respond before he emptied the magazine of 9mm bullets into him. He had one move left, and he put the blade between his teeth, and using both hands to grab the frame of the rack, launched himself forward.
His boots collided with the guy, and he screamed in panic as he started to go over the side. One leg had lost its grip on the rack, and the other was sliding away. He could have saved himself if he’d used both hands, but one held the Uzi, and he was determined not to let it go. Nolan could have waited for him to topple from the rack, but he had other ideas. This was the second encounter that could only have been targeted at that huge amount of money they were carrying, and Admiral Jacks had been wrong. He needed guns, and plenty of them.
He put out a hand. “Give me the gun!”
The guy’s eyes were desperate, and automatically responded to what he assumed was an offer of help. He released his grip on the Uzi, and Nolan slung the strap around his neck and nodded. “Thanks.”
“Help me!”
“Sure, like you were here to help us. You’re a Muslim?”
“Of course.”
He hit him with one boot, his grip released, and he slid into the road. There was a loud scream as his legs went under the wheels, and he saw him lying in the road, his body a bloody ruin.
“Welcome to Paradise.”
He started to climb down from the rack, but they weren’t done. A storm of bullets made him duck down and dive inside the cab. He looked back to the border post, now half a klick away. The two men with assault rifles had opened up, and the guy with the machine gun joined in. The effective range of a PK is around one kilometer, maybe one and a half kilometers on a good day, and with an operator who’d been around.
“Ryder, pedal to the metal. Get us out of here.”
“I’m going as fast as I can. Can’t you feel it? They hit one of the tires!”
In the furious fight he hadn’t noticed, but now the Land Cruiser was lurching and bumping along, with one of the rear tires shredded. “I feel it, but don’t stop, not for anything.”
“Boss, I’m going as fast as I can, but you need to do something about that machine gun. He’s getting awful close.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
He leaned out of the window and took aim with the M-16. The lurching vehicle was a terrible platform for accurate shooting, but Nolan was a former Navy SEAL sniper, and he instinctively adjusted for the lousy ride. He had to lead his shots, taking aim, and waiting for the next lurch. They hit a pothole, and with the rear wheel running almost on the metal rim, they nearly turned over, but Ryder held it, and for a few seconds they were on level ground.
He sighted on the machine gun and fired. The box magazine held twenty rounds, and he kept the trigger squeezed until the firing pin clicked on empty. The Toyota half rolled as it hit another bump, and he missed by a matter of inches. But it was enough for the machine gunner to leap to his feet and start running, leaving the weapon unmanned. The other two men were still firing their assault rifles, and he flattened himself on the roof, unable to reload the M-16. Something dug into his chest, and he’d forgotten about the Uzi. He assumed the magazine was full and the selector on full auto. Pointing it in the general direction of the shooters, he squeezed the trigger, and emptied yet another magazine.
He knew his shooting was lousy. Besides, the stubby 9mm was notoriously inaccurate at any range, and yet by some stroke of luck, at least one of the bullets found the target. The guy staggered as the lead tore into him. He dropped his rifle and fell. It was enough for the other man, who took off like a frightened rabbit. He wasn’t surprised. Those guys weren’t professional soldiers. They were thugs, bandits, maybe even mercenaries. Guns for hire, and not in the business of getting killed for whatever they were being paid.
He swung down into the cab with both weapons. The Uzi was useless, out of ammo, but he still had a spare magazine for the M-16, and he reloaded. The firing stopped.
“I think we’re okay now. Try to make another kilometer or two, and we’ll stop and change the wheel.”
“Copy that,” Ryder murmured, unfazed by the brief action.
In the rear, Waverley was anything but unfazed. “You stupid bastards. If you’d done what I said, we wouldn’t have had any trouble.”
“Mister, they were waiting for us at the crossing. Even a blind man could see it.”
“I disagree. It was just coincidence.”
“Maybe, but I’ve been doing this for several years, and one thing I’ve learned is to hate coincidences.”
He grunted an inaudible reply and slumped back down on the rear seat. They stopped when they were out of sight of the crossing and changed the flat tire in record time. Then they drove away and were making better time, until the courier informed them he wanted to make another stop.
“What for?” Ryder grunted, “In case you didn’t notice, the Lieutenant swapped a few shots with those guys back there. They’ll be pissed, and I mean pissed. The sensible move will be to get out of here as fast as possible.”
“And I say we have to stop, as soon as you see another coffee shop or roadside stall. I need another coffee because someone spilled the last one all over my pants.” Nolan glanced over and held back from smiling when he saw the dark damp patch spreading around his crotch, “Besides, I need to make another call.”
“Uh, huh, State Department business I’m guessing.”
“You guessed right. And there’s something else. I need to change my pants.”
They drove for another twenty klicks, deep into Syria, albeit the Kurdish-controlled region of Syria. A harsh place where harsh men did battle on a daily basis; Kurds, Turks, ISIS, Syrians, as well as the mishmash of crooks, bandits, and murderers who always seemed to be active in Islamic countries. They finally found a suitable place to stop. This time, it was more substantial than a simple shack at the side of the road; a brick-built restaurant, together with a gas station, restrooms, and even a store selling food and drinks.
Waverley climbed out of the Land Cruiser the moment it stopped and disappeared without a word, clutching a clean pair of pants he’d pulled from his pack. Nolan glanced at Ryder.
“After what happened back there, we can safely assume they know we’re here, and they know what we’re carrying. We were lucky we took the M-16s off those guys back at Incirlik.”
“We were lucky, sure, but I’m asking myself why were they there? That was Turkey, a NATO airbase. What the hell’s going on?”
“I’ve no idea, but one thing I do know is we’re a target. We’ve been attacked twice, and this is no longer a simple mission to protect the money. The situation is hot, and my guess is we’re gonna do a lot more fighting before we get to Aleppo.”
“Amen to that.”
They climbed out of the vehicle to stretch their legs. There was still no sign of Waverley, and Nolan glanced toward the restrooms, but he must have still been inside. He looked around, searching for any threats after the firefight at the border, but there were no signs of any hostiles. All he saw was a pretty girl, a backpacker, and she was walking toward him with a wide smile on her face. She walked right up to him and stopped.
“Hey, Mister, I don’t suppose there’s any chance of a ride? I’m heading to Aleppo.”
She was a sight for sore eyes. Shorts, scuffed hiking boots, and a cotton T-shirt that did little to hide her more obvious charms. Her skin was pale olive, smooth as silk, and she was short, maybe five feet two inches, and her dominating feature her eyes, two dark, liquid pools, perfectly setting off her dark, lustrous hair.
They were engaged in a mission on behalf of the United States State Department, and he was about to say no. Less than a second later, he’d changed his mind.
Waverley will be pissed, no question. And the idea of pissing off the miserable bastard is appealing, apart from the sheer pleasure of having such a pretty passenger in the Land Cruiser.
He glanced at Ryder, who shrugged.
“Sure, why not?” He held out a hand, “My name’s Kyle Nolan, and this is John-Wesley Ryder. We’re waiting for another guy who’s inside, but we’ll be leaving soon. Why don’t you climb in back?”
The smile broadened, and it was so warm he almost broke out in a sweat. “That’s mighty kind of you.”
She opened the rear door and seated herself on the rear seat. Minutes later, Waverley reappeared, without the stain on his crotch. He did a double take when he opened the door.
“Who are you?”
“The name’s Rachel, Rachel Dayan. Your friends said you wouldn’t mind giving me a ride, as it seems we’re going in the same direction. I’m headed toward Aleppo as well.”
He scowled. “It’s out of the question. We’re on official business, and we can’t carry civilians.”
She pouted. “You guys look like civilians to me. Look, I’m just an ordinary girl hitchhiking my way south, and all I’m asking is for a ride. I mean, come on, look at me.” Waverley looked at her, and something stirred in his eyes, “There’re three of you, big strong men, and I can see two of you are carrying enough hardware to start a war. What harm could I do?”
Waverley made up his mind. “Very well, stay there, and we’ll take you all the way to Aleppo.” He paused, “Provided you behave yourself.”
“Sure, that�
�s a promise.”
None of them had any idea what he meant by telling her to behave herself. Was he worried she’d produce a ghetto blaster and start playing rap music? Either way, he seemed satisfied, and he climbed into the seat next to her. Ryder started the engine, and they drove away. They’d been driving no more than five minutes when Nolan heard a small cry from in the back. When he turned around, he saw her pushing Waverley away from her, and she muttered something to him. Some kind of a warning, but he took no notice, and the next moment he positioned his body on top of her.
Before he could intervene, Waverley screamed in pain. She’d brought up her knee into his groin, evidently no stranger to having to fend off unwelcome advances. He positioned himself on the other end of the seat, as far away from her as possible, and Nolan stifled a laugh. The guy’s pride would be injured as much as his groin, and it wouldn’t take much to make him even more unbearable than he was already.
He twisted the other way and looked at Rachel Dayan. “We have a way to travel, so why don’t we pass the time by you telling us why you’re traveling across such a dangerous region.”
Her eyebrows rose. “You mean traveling down through Syria? That’s easy. I’m Israeli, and I’m on my way home after spending several months bumming around Europe. I decided to add myself an adventure, so that’s why I’m traveling through a war zone. Turkey, Kurdistan, Syria, and I’ll probably cross the border into Lebanon. I could cross into Israel over the Golan Heights, but they’re always swapping bullets and shells in that region, so I thought I’d play it safe.” She paused and grinned, “Okay, maybe not safe, but not as dangerous as the other way.”
She chatted some more, telling them about her home on a kibbutz, and about her tour around Europe. Eventually, her conversation petered out, and Nolan was left with his thoughts.
Something was badly wrong with this mission, and he didn’t think Waverley was taking it sufficiently seriously. Of course, he didn’t know about the attack back at Incirlik, but they’d almost lost their lives crossing into Syria when those guys ambushed them. It had come close, much too close, and carrying such an enormous sum of money, several million dollars, he had little doubt they’d try again. The question was what to do next. He briefly considered talking to Waverley and spelling it out. After all, the guy was a civilian, with no military experience. On the other hand, he was also a murderer, which made him about as trustworthy as Osama bin Laden sitting in the pilot seat of an aircraft.