Killing Ground

by Eric Meyer

  All it took was for one man to tilt his head back and look up, and he’d see them. He held his breath, waiting for the moment when it would all collapse like a house built of tarpaper, and they’d call out a warning. Men would come running, rifles spitting sheets of bullets, and one by one they’d be hit and fall to the ground. The two men paused, perhaps having sensed something, smelled or heard something, maybe. A head started to tilt backward, about to look up. He tucked the AKSU under one arm and used the other to slide the safety forward to fire. Any second, and the man would have to shoot. Have to bring reinforcements on the run, and these were no ordinary men. They were the cruelest foe on the earth. Men who’d long forgotten their humanity in the cause of a Prophet who wouldn’t have recognized them, let alone acknowledge their actions.

  Half a second, and I’ll have to shoot. The others will be ready. Can we take them both and get away before the reinforcements come? We have to. Even though it’ll mean the end of the mission.

  When the head was tilted almost to the point when he couldn't miss them, he started to take up pressure on the trigger. Concentrating, making sure when he fired the guy would go down. The other men would take care of the second man, and all they could do was swing down from the building and race away into the darkness.

  It happened so suddenly, so unexpectedly, even though he'd been expecting it. He almost lost his grip and dropped his rifle. An explosion of noise from the other side of the building, automatic fire, and two explosions from what could only be impacts from RPG-7 missiles. The noise of masonry showering down from where they'd hit was loud, and the two sentries bounded away to head for the fight.

  It was the biggest break he could imagine. The timing was impeccable, and he swung himself at the building, going from window to window. Then he reached his hand onto the roof, ready to swing himself up. He looked back down, and they were coming up fast, like a swarm of ninjas. Except they weren't wearing the traditional black garb of the Ninja but wore civilian clothes. Yet as far as the men on the roof were concerned, they were just as invisible, for they weren't looking behind. The crowd was at the front of the building, and peering over the edge, they took aim and opened fire. The machine gunner was searching for targets, screaming questions at the fighters, but they ignored him. In the end, he shrugged, took aim in the general direction of the shooting, and squeezed the trigger. The hammering of the machine gun was deafening on the rooftop, probably echoing all round the city. The bullets tore into the buildings opposite, with little chance of hitting anything vital. It was now or never, and Nolan checked they were all on the roof with him. They were.

  He said one word, "Go."

  Then he was off, running like a hare, dashing toward the machine gun, and ignoring any risk from the other men still shooting down where they perceived the attackers were hiding. He reached the machine gun without being noticed, and already his men had opened fire. The ISIS swung around to face the new threat, and he almost died. The gunner tried to put up a fight, and he didn't have the time to waste. He popped a bullet into his head, shoved the body off the seat, and climbed behind the breech of the weapon. The configuration was strange to him, although he'd fired plenty of heavy machine guns during his military service.

  After a brief hesitation, during which incoming fire was pinging against the steel shield and ricocheting harmlessly away into the night, he'd worked out the controls to aim and fire the gun. He spun the wheels, and the barrel turned until it was pointing at the fighters. Five were still on their feet and firing at the SEALs. Except for one, who was aiming an RPG. He pulled the firing lever.

  A torrent of 12.7mm bullets hammered out of the muzzle. Seated behind the gun, the noise was deafening, and now he knew what it felt like to use a pneumatic impact hammer to break up reinforced concrete. Except the pneumatic hammer wouldn't have such a devastating effect. Moving the barrel from side to side, it was like a carnival shooting gallery from hell. The muzzle flashes lit up the rooftop like jagged flashes of lightning. Within three seconds, he'd taken down the first man, traversed across, and the last man fell. Not to the rooftop, but three bodies had tumbled down to the ground, six floors. The two men who went down last lay on the rooftop, their bodies torn apart by the gunfire. The man with the missile launcher still clutched his weapon in a final embrace, perhaps intending to take it with him to hell.

  Below, the Kurds saw Will Bryce wave to them from the top, and they were ready to breach the building. He saw them race out from cover, twenty, forty, sixty, eighty, one hundred men, a seething mass. Every man armed, and every man firing repeatedly at those ISIS who tried to withstand the furious assault. They failed, and less than twenty seconds later, the Kurds were smashing into the building. All they could do from up on the roof was imagine what was happening in there. If ISIS thought they could bring a new kind of hell to Syria, it was time for them to think again. Hell had come to them, in all of its fiery fury, and death was stalking the building, seeking out every man to drag down to the depths.

  Will shouted to him. "That's it. They’re possibly all dead. The door to the roof is over there."

  He pointed to a trap door, almost invisible in the darkness. Ryder and Murray were already there, pulling up the hatches. Below the narrow staircase led down to the sixth floor, where they knew Waverley had rented his apartment. Feeling invulnerable against attack, protected by his psychotic hirelings, and now his worst fears were about to knock on the front door.

  They slid down the stairs two at a time, and Ryder led the way along the passage. He wasn't surprised. He knew how much he wanted to sink the blade of his knife into the State Department courier after seeing him murder that girl in Washington. Helen Shapiro, a decent honest girl who'd once saved them on the bloody streets of Kabul. A girl who had her life in front of her, snuffed out by a smooth talking savage. He found the door and didn't try the handle. He stamped a hard boot against the woodwork, and it didn't move. Will joined him, and together the two men tried again. A mass of solid bone and muscle hit the door at the same instant, and nothing happened.

  Nolan reached them and realized what had happened. "It's steel, reinforced steel. I guess Waverley paid them extra for the added security. There's no way we'll shoulder it open. We need something else."

  “Like what?” Ryder scowled.

  “Like an RPG. The one the guy on the roof dropped just before he fired it.”

  He stared at Zeke. “Get it.”

  He raced up to the roof and appeared a minute later with the launcher. “You’ll need to stand well back. This baby is gonna make a big bang.”

  They ducked into a doorway beneath the staircase to the roof, flattened on the floor, waiting for the word. It came a moment later, “Fire in the hole!”

  The explosion was massive in the confined space. The aftershock punched into them, and they choked on the swirling smoke, their clothing and skin singed by the blast of flame that encompassed the passage. Nolan was already moving forward, his eyes wet from the thick smoke. Tears rolled down his face, but he was first through the broken doorway.

  The smoke started to clear, and he quartered the room, looking for Waverley and an innocent-looking aluminum case, filled with bundles of the most respected currency in the world. They weren’t there. No case, no Waverley.

  He turned as they came in behind him, and he shook his head. “He’s gone. Taken the money and run.”

  “Gone where?” Ryder asked, his voice thick with disappointment. Once again, the murdering bastard had escaped his blade.

  He shrugged. “I just don’t know, and I don’t get it. Why would he have left, if he though this place was so secure?”

  Will looked thoughtful. “I’m beginning to wonder. He’s been ahead of us every step of the way, and I have a suspicion he still is.”

  “The Land Cruiser,” Zeke murmured, “It was in the parking lot where we left the Nissan. I’m guessing it’s gone. He never intended to stay here for long, just enough to lay a false trail.”

 
; “Let’s go,” Nolan snapped.

  They raced down the staircase, and the shooting had died down. A few Kurds were mopping up, ensuring the ISIS casualties were all dead. They reached the first floor, and Abdul Karim was standing in the entrance to the building, surrounded by several of his men. When they heard them coming, they leveled their rifles, and the SEALs ran into a dozen gun barrels, all pointed at them.

  "Where's my money?"

  "That's where we're going now. The bastard got away with the money, and we believe we know where he's going."

  He shook his head, his expression as cold as a block of ice.

  “You're not going anywhere. How do I know you haven't taken our money and used my men to give you time to get it out of the building? Do you know I lost seven men during the attack, and I have four wounded? One seriously, and our medic doesn't expect him to live. Now you're telling me it was all for nothing?"

  "That’s not what I’m saying. You have to listen to me. If we hurry, we may catch Waverley before he leaves. Every second we delay gives him more time to escape."

  "No, you listen to me. Tell me where the money is. Until you do, you will remain here, under guard. And if I think you have deceived us, and caused the deaths of those men, you will join them."

  "That's not going to happen, pal. We're leaving, and we're going after Waverley. If you try to stop us, you'll lose more men."

  "And you'll be dead. "

  He shrugged. "If you don't give us a chance to recover the money, you'll assume we've double-crossed you and kill us anyway. You don't have anything to lose, Karim. Either you let us go after him, or keep us here with more deaths. Including yours and mine."

  "You're prepared to die?"

  "That's what we sign up for when we join the SEALs. What's it gonna be, life or death?"

  The two men stared at each other, Nolan and Karim. Each waiting for the other to blink, knowing the bullets were about to fly, and when the shooting started, men on both sides were about to die. Karim would die. He would die. He waited, finger curled around the trigger.

  Chapter Eleven

  Karim blinked first. “It shall be life. Go now, and bring back our money while there is still time. You hear the attacks coming in? We are under fire from all sides. Without that money, we all die.”

  "We'll be back."

  They left the building, into a hell of exploding shells, bombs, and streams of bullets crisscrossing the sky all around them. The parking lot was close, no more than a few hundred meters, but they almost didn't make it. A Turkish Leopard 1 Main Battle Tank was rolling toward them, the huge turret with the 105mm main gun sweeping from side to side, searching for targets. The commander bravely had his head poking out of the turret, no doubt looking for anyone foolish or stupid enough to be out on the streets in the middle of a major battle. Even worse, a battle with more combatants than you could shake a stick at. He spotted them almost immediately, and Nolan saw his mouth open to shout an order to his crew to open fire.

  He shouted, "Cover!"

  They raced off the street and dove into a narrow alleyway, as a line of bullets spewed out from the MG3 7.62mm machine gun. It stitched a long line down the sidewalk they'd just left. He led them down to the end of the alleyway and circled around, staying off the main street, and away from the hungry maw of the Leopard. The parking lot was at the end of yet another narrow alleyway. They rushed across the final stretch of open ground, when Misha came hurtling down the exit ramp in the Nissan Patrol. They leapt aboard, and Nolan shouted, "Go!"

  He didn't go. "Lieutenant, I saw it."

  "Saw what?

  "The Toyota. The white Toyota Land Cruiser, it left the parking lot after the battle started and headed north. In the direction of Turkey."

  "North, you're sure?"

  "I'm sure. But there was something else, something strange. After it drove out of the parking lot, another vehicle left and appeared to follow it. A dark blue Mercedes G-Wagen with two people inside."

  "Did you recognize them? Were they Turks, Syrians, or something else?"

  "I'm sorry, it all happened so fast."

  "Maybe it was nothing, a coincidence. Follow the Toyota. This time, we'll nail the bastard."

  He hit the gas pedal, and they roared away through streets that had erupted into an urban hell. He came to a crossroads, spun the wheel left, hit the gas pedal, and almost immediately stamped on the brake. The Turkish Leopard was driving toward them, the tracks making a loud clanking sound as they ripped up what remained of the tarmac. The commander saw them, and once again that huge turret started to rotate. Misha swung the wheel in the opposite direction, gunned the engine, and they hurtled away from the monstrous threat no more than two hundred meters behind them. The main gun fired too late, and the massive shell smashed into a building behind them, leaving it a pile of broken rubble as they zoomed away. He took a tortuous, twisting route away from the main thoroughfares.

  A building loomed up in front of them, and in the midst of shots and shells, the Yazidi began to point out its importance. "This is the Great Umayyad Mosque, one of the finest in Syria. People say a visit is essential to understand the Islamic culture of the..."

  "Misha, get the fuck out of here."

  "Yes, yes. Of course."

  They continued their mad journey through the rubble-strewn streets, and he explained they were heading for the Al-shokalief industrial area. Once again, he went into tourist guide mode.

  "This was once the prosperous jewel which gave Aleppo its prosperity."

  "Once?"

  "Alas, it fell victim to the civil war. They bombed it, shelled it, and machine gunned people who tried to flee."

  "That sounds like the story of the Islamic world," Will grunted.

  The industrial estate looked like images of Stalingrad after the vast battles of 1942. The buildings were gaunt skeletons of previously prosperous and productive factories. The outlines of rusting machinery showed through gaps in broken walls, little more than scrap value. Zeke Murray was staring out the rear window, searching for any hostile pursuit. He happened to look up at the sky, and he shouted, "Aircraft! Coming in from the southeast. It looks like they have us in the sights. Get off the street!"

  Misha threw the wheel over, and this time he didn't slow. The Nissan went up on two wheels as they took first turn, and he drove through the smashed wall and into a wrecked factory. They leapt out of the vehicle to take cover, and a moment later, a line of heavy caliber shells stitched through the roof of the building. They were out of sight, and the pilot was shooting blind, so he missed. He made a second pass, and then zoomed away to look for an easier target. They waited for no more than a minute before he instructed Misha to get back on the road.

  "If we don't keep after the Toyota, we'll lose him."

  "What about the aircraft?" Misha asked, looking nervous, "If it's still out there, we won't stand a chance."

  "And if we don't go now, we won't stand a chance of catching Waverley. Move it."

  Shaking his head and mumbling curses in some strange dialect, he nosed the Patrol out of the ruined building and bumped back onto the highway. He was heading toward a bridge that would take them out of Aleppo, and half a klick away, and a vehicle was driving off the bridge on the other side. A dark blue Mercedes G-Wagen.

  "That's it!" he shouted, "That's the SUV I saw follow the Land Cruiser out of the parking lot."

  Nolan nodded. "If he's following Waverley, all we need do is follow him. Stay on his tail, Misha. Don't lose him."

  "And if the aircraft returns?"

  "If it comes back, you'll have to drive faster."

  He shook his head in dismay and concentrated on the road. Doing his best to avoid the worst of the boulders and wreckage littered across the tarmac. Outside of Aleppo, the G-Wagen turned off the highway and drove toward a huge, low building. He explained it had once been a vehicle distribution depot for the entire region.

  "Until the aircraft came. Russian bombers, and when they had finish
ed, they had no choice but to abandon it."

  The Mercedes drove down a ramp to an underground parking lot, and they followed. The bombs that had destroyed much of the building had penetrated the floor and dropped debris into the basement, which had once stored most of the vehicles. Some were still there, wrecked beyond any repair, with rubble from where the floor above had collapsed on top of them. The G-Wagen threaded its way through the piles of scrap metal to the far side of the basement area. Misha followed at a distance, and he found the G-Wagen stopped next to the Toyota. Both vehicles were empty and parked next to the entrance to a tunnel.

  "Where does it go?" Nolan asked.

  "Freezone Station, they built the tunnel to connect the railroad terminus with this storage facility, so the vehicles could be transferred underground by rail."

  "They built a tunnel just for that? Why not unload them and drive them across from the terminus?"

  "It was shortly after the Six Day War, in 1967. At the time, the government was worried the Israelis would attack further into Syria, following their victory over the Golan Heights. So they built much of their infrastructure underground, such as this place. Although it was never completed, even though Syria joined Egypt to attack Israel again, during the so-called Yom Kippur war in 1973. Since then, they've generally been at peace with Israel. Unfortunately, it hasn't stopped the Arabs destroying themselves."