The Ethan Galaal Series: Books 1 - 3

by Isaac Hooke

  Ethan avoided targeting any positions near Wolf Company. It was one thing to kill men he didn't know, and another entirely to eliminate those he'd worked with, even if they were on the wrong side. He doubted Doug would target them, either, even if he had their serial numbers on his Stingray, because of Ethan's proximity to the company. Besides, they seemed eager enough to kill themselves on their own. Ethan wondered how many of them would be alive when he got back.

  Ethan turned off his phone between targeting opportunities to conserve battery power. When he eventually returned to the forward camp he would have to seek out a diesel generator.

  A DJI Phantom 2 flew over the city at one point. One of the foreign fighters had apparently smuggled the camera-carrying consumer drone into Syria. It flew dangerously close to the front lines; the Kurds must have picked it out shortly after Ethan had, because a few seconds later the off-the-shelf quadcopter scooted skyward, ostensibly to avoid gunfire. Or maybe it was one of the infamous flyaways the model was known for. Whatever the case, the Phantom must have been struck because it lost altitude shortly thereafter and plummeted to the streets below. Ethan never saw it again.

  When darkness fell he returned to his unit, which sheltered in one of the cleared homes. Without proper night vision clip-ons and infrared WeaponLights or AN/PEQ-2s they couldn't continue the house sweep until morning.

  There had been two other casualties that day. Fifteen-year-old Yasiri and big Zarar. Though the latter had been the emir's oldest friend, Abdullah seemed in good spirits. As did the others. Why shouldn't they be? The fallen were enjoying the well-deserved fruits of paradise.

  The men placed heavy blankets over the windows, then Abdullah activated a flashlight. He produced two pairs of AN/PVS-7 night vision goggles from his backpack. He gave one of them to Ibrahim, whom he ordered to the rooftop, and the other to Raheel, whom he dispatched to the front door.

  The rest of the unit prayed. There had been no time to do so during the day—a fatwa allowed them to skip prayer during the fighting, of course.

  Suleman assured them he knew the direction to Mecca. Ethan almost laughed—he was in a war zone, and praying to Allah in the proper orientation seemed the least of his concerns. Then again, God was potentially the only one protecting him from a random bullet or shrapnel fragment to the head.

  After prayer they sat back and ate cold rice with pieces of chicken chopped into it, stored in a canvas bag. Fida'a had apparently retrieved the meal at dusk, along with several canteens of water, traveling back to the eastern perimeter of Kobane to grab the food from one of the delivery vehicles.

  After dinner the militants found spots for themselves on the bare floor and prepared to sleep. Swatting flies, Ethan sat near Abdullah, and watched enviously as the emir produced an AN/PVS-22 Universal Clip-On Night Sight from his pack and attached it to the forward rail of his M16A4, in front of the ACOG 4x32mm fixed mag scope.

  Apparently noticing his jealous gaze in the dim light, Abdullah said, "What? I have given out night vision goggles for the watch to use."

  "But they can't shoot with them," Ethan complained. Not easily, anyway.

  Abdullah shrugged. "If the watch spots something, they will call me."

  Great plan.

  IBRAHIM AWAKENED Ethan three hours later and he took his shift on the rooftop with the NV goggles. The time passed uneventfully. The streets were utterly quiet that night.

  Ethan's face felt itchy, and when he scratched he felt pain. He realized he'd received his first batch of fly bites while he slept. It took all his volition to resist scratching for the duration of his watch.

  When the three hours were up he went downstairs and chose Suleman as the next rooftop watchstander. Though flies buzzed around him, he fell asleep almost immediately.

  Morning came and Wolf Company headed west to queue up behind other Islamic State units, waiting for the latest artillery pre-assault to end. When the barrage on the adjacent neighborhood stopped, the units quickly fanned out.

  Ethan soon found himself in an overwatch position on a rooftop not all that different from his previous hides. His cheeks and forehead felt itchier than ever.

  Aaron didn't check in that morning. Ethan sincerely hoped he was all right. William assuaged his fears, telling him via the encrypted messenger that Aaron probably simply hadn't had a chance to leave his unit yet. Whatever the case, Ethan and William couldn't designate any targets until Aaron contacted them, because their friend might be among any militant positions marked for bombing.

  Around the middle of the day, right after Ethan had switched hides—and before he had a chance to update Doug with his position—the Islamic State lines were abruptly pushed back. Squads and fire teams fled on all sides. The Kurds were making a concerted sally forward: scores of them had been holed up within the nearby homes and apartment buildings, and swarmed onto the streets like fire ants from a disturbed nest.

  Before he knew what had happened, the Kurdish front had swept right past his hide, trapping him behind their lines.

  He watched Kurdish trucks roll forward, towing artillery. Mortar men set up and launched shells at the fleeing Islamic State militants. Kurdish fighters moved from building to building, performing their own house cleaning operations.

  Ethan's radio squawked to life. "Abu-Emad, what is your status?" It was Abdullah.

  He ducked beneath the rim of the building and turned down the volume of his two-way. "Trapped behind enemy lines. You?"

  "The same." Abdullah described the position of his squad.

  Ethan carefully peered past the rooftop edge and surveyed the area through his scope. He couldn't find the squad's location at first, but when the emir mentioned he was two homes away from a group of house-clearing Kurds, Ethan spotted the rundown place immediately.

  "I see it."

  The Kurds were quickly closing on Abdullah's location.

  "Can you help us?" the emir said over the radio.

  Ethan wasn't sure what to do. Should he let the Kurds assassinate his team? In theory the answer was yes. But what about Ibrahim and Harb? A sixteen-year-old and a thirteen-year-old. Just kids. Friends, even.

  Intending to contact Doug, Ethan grabbed his smartphone and USB stick, but as he distractedly telescoped the antenna the Kurds formed up in front of the house where the Wolf Company squad was hidden. There was no time to reach Doug.

  Ethan dropped the phone and lined up his targeting reticule over the Kurds. The men had taken places on either side of the front door, which was slightly ajar.

  The Kurd nearest the door kicked it open; bullets riddled his body from within the house.

  Ethan chose a Kurdish target. His finger twitched on the trigger, but he didn't fire.

  "Abu-Emad, can you help us?" Abdullah asked again, more urgently.

  The Kurds nearest the door unleashed covering fire into the foyer, while another Kurd dashed across the street. When he was opposite the home, the fighter lifted an M79 Osa rocket launcher.

  "Yes," Ethan whispered. He terminated the Kurdish rocketeer, and in rapid succession shot two more men by the doorway. The Dragunov reports echoed loudly from the surrounding buildings.

  He heard a shout from below. A Kurdish mortar man had spotted him.

  Ethan ducked beneath the building's edge. A soft thud drew his attention to the terrace immediately beside him.

  A grenade had landed on the rooftop.

  30

  Ethan snatched up his cellphone and USB stick and then rolled away from the grenade. He fell through the trapdoor and the bomb detonated as he passed inside.

  He landed on the stairs and slid down several steps, jarring his back and neck. He arose unsteadily, dismissing the friction burns to his exposed hands, and descended the rest of the way to the first floor. In the kitchen, he leaped over a table—cognizant that it might be booby trapped—and dove through a shattered window to land in the alley between the home and its neighbor.

  He slunk to the edge of the house and remembered
to turn off his radio before he peered past. At the front of the building, two Kurds had assumed positions beside the entrance. He watched one of the rebels enter high, the other low.

  Ethan doubled-timed from the alley, heading north, hugging the line of houses. He heard the sudden belt-whip of incoming bullets—shards broke away from the bricks beside him.

  He dove into a nearby house, through a door hanging off its hinges. He moved away from the entrance and crouched beneath the broken front window. He lifted the barrel of his Dragunov experimentally, placing it slightly higher than the windowsill...

  The reports of an AK sounded from the street outside and wood splintered from the window frame above him. He pulled the Dragunov back down.

  Pinned.

  He slunk deeper into the house—a rocket propelled grenade detonated in the foyer behind him. The explosion hurled him into the hallway beyond.

  He hurried toward the rear of the home; the back door window revealed two Kurdish troops standing outside, about to break in. He raised his Dragunov to take them out when gunfire erupted from the fore of the house. Bullets zinged past.

  He leaped to the side, into the closest available room. A lavatory. The smell of raw sewage from the backed-up toilet was nearly overwhelming. Hopefully, any attackers coming into the room would flinch at the stench, giving him a half-second advantage.

  He splashed through the inch deep sewage and vaulted into the empty tub. He turned around so that he was lying on his back and then aimed his Dragunov at the entrance. The weapon was overkill at that range, but he had nothing else.

  He heard movement in the hall beyond. The shadow on the wall told him a rebel lurked immediately outside the room. Judging from the shifting of that shadow, his opponent was pieing the room—moving his body in an arc to slowly scan for aggressors, a technique prescribed by many urban tacticians.

  You should have just tossed a grenade, bro, Ethan thought.

  A sliver of his foe became visible in the doorway and Ethan fired.

  The piece of the man vanished from view and Ethan heard a wet thud. Glancing over the rim of the bathtub, he saw the dead Kurd bleeding out on the sewage-soaked carpet beside the entrance.

  Someone shouted unintelligibly in Kurdish nearby. Another shadow appeared on the wall, but before the next man could present himself, gunshots came from the far side of the house. The shadow retreated.

  More shouts. More gunfire. Screams of pain. Two final shots. Silence.

  He heard muted footfalls, and the harsh whisper of guttural Arabic.

  "Brothers?" Ethan shouted in the same tongue.

  "Yes," came the response.

  Ethan abandoned the tub and sloshed through the sewage. Warily, he peered past the doorway. Three Islamic State militants were spread out at different points in the hall. They wore balaclavas with the Shahada written on it. Their assault rifles were aimed at him, but they lowered the weapons almost immediately. Ethan was suddenly glad he was wearing his own Shahada headband.

  Behind the militants he saw the body of another Kurdish rebel. Glancing toward the front of the house, he spotted two more fallen Kurds.

  "Thank you, brothers," Ethan said. "They had me pinned."

  "Come, we retake the line!" the closest man said. He had a Tunisian accent.

  Ethan joined them, glad to leave that foul-smelling bathroom behind; together they cleared the home and then returned to the street.

  Outside, other Islamic State squads ducked from house to house, clearing out any trapped Kurds. He saw some mujahadeen set up a DShK in the middle of the street and open fire at a Kurdish position further to the west.

  He cleared another home with his new group and adopted a sniper position on the rooftop. As he scanned the road he spotted Kurdish rebels all over the place—trapped behind bullet-ridden pickups, Jersey barriers, piles of rubble, or inside doorways. Ethan resisted taking a potshot at any of them. Still, he made sure to keep a very low profile.

  He radioed Abdullah and discovered, incredibly, that both Wolf Company squads had held out, and suffered no casualties. The emir thanked Ethan for the aid he had rendered.

  The fighting continued all that day, proving intense at times, but as dusk approached the militants finally regained the territory lost to the Kurds.

  Aaron checked-in before Ethan was about to shut down for the day. Because of a shortage of men, Aaron had been corralled into the house clearing; when the line had collapsed, he was pinned with his unit, and couldn't activate his RF antenna without drawing attention.

  At that point Ethan realized William and Aaron's original assessments were correct: it was far too dangerous for operatives like themselves to function on the front lines. He decided that after his tenure on the front was done, he'd definitely get the hell out. His final gift to the Islamic State would be the bombing of their new forward camp, whose location he would discover when his unit rotated out of Kobane. He urged William and Aaron to leave sooner, but they refused to abandon him.

  That evening, after he rejoined Wolf Company, Ethan sat near Harb, who read the Quran on his cellphone while he waited for Raheel to fetch supper and water.

  "Salaam," Ethan said.

  "Salaam," the thirteen-year-old replied. Though he smiled, Ethan could sense the weariness in the boy.

  "How was your day?" Ethan said.

  Harb glanced at Abdullah, who lounged across the room, and lowered his voice. "Terrible. Abdullah won't let me fight. He always makes me stay back, guarding the rear."

  Ethan nodded in pretend commiseration. "How would you like to wage real jihad?"

  Harb's eyes widened. "What do you mean, Abu-Emad?"

  "I have been entrusted with a secret operation by the Caliph Baghdadi himself, Prince of the Faithful, and I want you to help me. Would you like that?"

  The youth's eyes widened naively. "Yes! Tell me what I must do."

  "First, you must swear to secrecy on the Quran. No one else can know of this."

  The youth held out his phone, which had the Quran app still active on it, and placed his right palm over the screen. "I swear, by Allah and the Quran, under threat of eternal damnation, that I will tell no one of this mission."

  "Good. I will let you know what to do in a few days."

  Harb's brow furrowed. "Can't you tell me now?" The impatience of youth.

  "No. I said in a few days."

  Harb sighed. "Okay. Thank you, I guess."

  Ethan had resolved to save Harb. The youth was far too young to die. Though how he would explain to the thirteen-year-old that they were going to travel among the infidels, Ethan had no idea.

  He noticed Suleman's suspicious gaze. Had the man been watching him the whole time? Best not to linger beside Harb too long; he didn't need Suleman questioning the youth later.

  Ethan was about to leave when Harb spoke again, his voice little more than a whisper.

  "This operation was entrusted to you by the Prince of the Faithful himself?"

  Ethan nodded gravely. He glanced at Suleman, but the man had returned his attention to the Quran in his lap. Good.

  Harb smiled, though it seemed touched by sadness. "We're going to be martyrs, aren't we?"

  Ethan hesitated, then gave the answer he thought the kid was looking for. "Yes."

  Harb's eyes assumed a distant look. He lay back contentedly. "When I die, all of my virgins are going to look like Brenda Locks."

  Ethan chuckled softly at the irony. "Brenda Locks? The kaffir Hollywood actress?"

  Harb grinned mischievously. "Yes."

  "How does a youth of your age, living here, even know about Brenda Locks?"

  "Oh I know, believe me." He had a sly look in his eye. Ethan suspected one of the older jihadis had been showing him videos on his phone. "Some of the virgins will be blond Brenda Locks'. Some will be brunette. Some black-haired. But they will all be her. Pearl eyes, white skin, supple breasts, forever wet vaginas."

  Ethan shook his head, unable to hide a smile.

  "Ea
ch time I bed her," Harb continued. "No matter what version I choose, I will always find her a virgin again. And I won't have to rest, because my erection will be eternal. Yes, that is quite literally paradise."

  Ethan grinned sadly, because the youth was completely serious. He ruffled Harb's hair and left him to his reading.

  THE THIRD DAY PROVED SLOW. After two useless hides, Ethan decided to try something taller, and ended up at a mosque. He made his way through the burned-out insides, climbing the counter-clockwise spiral staircase of the minaret. When he reached the topmost balcony he found another sniper already using the location.

  The man was lying prostrate on his back, rifle barrel pointed at Ethan. "Salaam."

  "Salaam," Ethan answered warily.

  "What brigade are you part of?" the militant asked in a Lebanese accent.

  "Wolf. Under Emir Abdullah Hazir Al-Afghani."

  Apparently he believed Ethan, because he lowered the rifle.

  "What about you?" Ethan said.

  "Emir Haadi's Swords," the man replied proudly. He shoved the barrel through a gap in the stone banister and peered through the scope. For the first time, Ethan realized the weapon was an M24A2 sniper rifle.

  "I am Abu-Osama," the man added.

  Of course you are, Ethan thought. "Abu-Emad."

  Ethan stepped beneath the muqarnas decorating the roof-like canopy and sat down behind Osama. He didn't want to get too close to the rail in case some Kurdish sniper was milling the balcony.

  "Where are you from?" Ethan said, eying the man's weapon enviously.

  "Amrika." America.

  Ethan resisted the urge to answer in English. "Your Arabic is very good."

  "I was born to Lebanese immigrants in Detroit."

  Ah.

  "Jihad is our duty," Ethan said.

  "Jihad is our duty," Osama agreed. "I made my hegira last year. Traveled to Beirut to meet my two cousins. The three of us crossed into Syria. Operatives from Jabhat Al Nusra helped us through territory controlled by the Assad pig, as well as rebel-owned lands. We joined Al Nusra, but then our commander switched sides to the Islamic State."