by Chris Lowry
Brill dug his fingers into a niche and worked his way up the wall. It was easy going at first, but the last six feet was worn smooth by years of desert wind carrying small grains of sand to abut against the surface, blasting away imperfections and smoothing out edges. He didn't want to go back down so he searched, first with one hand, then the next while his toes began shaking under the strain.
He found a narrow finger hold and grabbed it. If he could get his foot to the spot, it would be enough to reach the edge of the wall. Brill slipped his fingers along the surface back to the original position and slid his foot up toward the spot. He stretched to reach it, but the awkward angle put too much stress on his other leg. He needed to work on his flexibility, he thought as he stared at what looked like the beginnings of his shadow on the wall. Still no time.
He gripped the wall tighter and exhaled as he shoved off with his right leg and reached with his left. He had to use his stomach to lift the leg up, but he found the purchase and locked it in. His right leg dangled free as he relieved some of the pressure from first one hand, then the next. He used his right foot to press against the wall and eased up to gain leverage, then shifted his weight to his left leg.
This was the most dangerous part.
He checked the traction of his fingers and right leg, took a deep breath and launched himself from those three points toward the top of the wall. He used his left leg to power up. The ledge crumbled under his toe in a scattering of plaster.
But the fingers of his left hand gripped the edge of the top. He dangled by one hand and caught his breath, then reached up with the right hand and pulled himself to chin up the wall.
It was a two story drop to the other side and this section of the compound was hard packed sand. A sprawling home spread out in the middle, three wings around a courtyard with a small well. There were other buildings scattered around the inside, perfect hiding places for kidnapped documentarians. The inside of the wall was smooth and bare on two sides, but two of the walls, the front and back, had ledges that ran the length and accessible by stairs that led down to the interior.
Brill crawled on top of the wall and though he could walk faster and minimize the shadow he threw on the ground, he scooted on all fours to give himself time to recover from the climb.
He reached the wooden timbers of the walkway and thudded inside the rebel compound. It was growing lighter each second which meant he was running out of time. He jogged down the stairs and went to the closest building. It was empty. He hurried to three others with the same result. They were being held inside.
Brill studied the three wings, each about forty feet long and twenty feet wide and tried to picture how it would be laid out inside. Without access to prints or even architectural knowledge of the area, he had no way of knowing what he was going to encounter. This trip had already identified two knowledge and training gaps he was going to have to fill when he got done and it pissed him off. Shelby and Barraque shouldn't have rushed the mission in their effort to conduct a favor so a Senator would owe him. It put the mission at risk, it put Brill at risk and that meant he might not be able to save the girl and her boyfriend.
An image of a Angolan rebel with a gold tooth flashed through his head and Brill felt a veil of rage well up inside him.
He put one hand on the wall of the house and leaned against it, working on a quick breath exercise to regain control. Doubt needed to be erased, fear for others needed to be quelled. He breathed in for a four count, held for four, and blew out for four to hold again for another count. He repeated it three times and the rage subsided. It would never disappear but he could control it, compact it into a tiny ball and bury it inside. Another three count and he could think clearly. He was inside the rebel compound on the verge of a rescue mission and he had accomplished it in less than eighteen hours. That was his specialty, that was the reason Barraque sent him in. He was going to save two innocents and kill the bad men that took them, and it started with finding them.
Brill pushed off the wall and resumed his search. He looked for a smoke-stained wall above a window or a chimney, which would indicate a kitchen. The kitchen would have a door, and he could sneak inside from there. The problem he was facing, all he needed to do was a simple series of steps to complete each task and advance toward the goal. Get inside. Locate the couple. Get outside. Get clear.
Then he could face what was coming next.
He saw a darkened portion of the wall above a narrow window stained from years of smoke. It was next to a door at the top of two shallow steps. Brill tried the door and it opened to a dark interior. He stepped through the doorway and closed it behind him, waiting for his eyes to adjust. Step one done.
The room was almost pitch, a long wide common kitchen with a stone stove built into the wall with the narrow window above it. Light slowly eased into the room to reveal the shadows of a plank table just below knee height and covered with bowls of fruit and decanters of water. If he had moved across the room in the dark, he would have tripped over the table and alerted the compound of his intrusion.
As it was, the shadows were still difficult to make out details. He didn't see any sleeping forms on the floor, but that didn't mean there weren't there, lying against the walls.
But he couldn't wait any longer. Dawn was here and someone was going to wake up. Better they do it when he was leaving through one of the gates. Or never if they tried to stop him.
He trailed his finger along the wall and worked his way around to the darkened doorway. It opened into the courtyard revealing a series of doors along each of the three walls. He surmised each was a separate room with the courtyard serving as a hallway and by the look of the fluttering tapestries that served as a transient roof also as a communal gathering area. Brill crossed from the kitchen door to the first one next to it. He pulled his pistol, lifted the latch and stepped inside.
"Who is it?" a voice barked in the darkness in Arabic.
A lamp flicked on to show a naked couple on a mat on the floor. The dark skin man shouted and lunged for an AK-47 rifle resting next to them. Brill leaped on top of him and straddled his chest, shoving his pistol under his chin. The woman squealed and he clamped a hand across her mouth.
"Quiet," he whispered.
The man shifted, a warning he wasn't about to give up. Brill dug the pistol deeper, choking him.
The woman lay her hand on the man's arm, grasping for his fingers in a terrified grip.
"Speak English?" Brill said in a hushed voice.
A third item on his to do list. Learn some key phrases in the language where he was going to be operating.
The man gave a quick nod.
"Where are they?"
The rebel underneath him frowned.
"The journalists?" Brill applied pressure with the gun. "Where are the Americans?"
The man shook his head in confusion.
"No Americans," he coughed. "It is just my family."
He looked like he was telling the truth, but Brill knew that could be a lie. He removed his hand from the woman's face and switched the pistol into it. He wrapped his now freed fingers around the man's throat and squeezed as he shoved the pistol barrel into the woman's cheek. She whimpered and ducked away.
"Where are they?" he asked again.
The man looked up at him with moist eyes and pleaded.
"No Americans are here. Only us."
Brill studied them both.
"Please," begged the man.
Brill climbed up and moved away. He snatched the Kalashnikov, checked the magazine and kept it aimed at the couple as the man wrapped his arms around her and held her close.
"No Americans?"
"No, we do not know of these. Did Ali send you?"
Brill wasn't sure if that was his contact but nodded.
"Ali owes my family money," the man explained in stilted English. "When I tried to collect, he said he would send a man here to end the debt."
The hitman grunted. Ali wanted to use him.
The woman wailed. Perhaps she understood English more than she let on. No matter thought Brill. He wasn't going to kill anyone. At least not in the compound. But Ali's little vendetta cost him time which the girl and her boyfriend didn't have.
Brill lowered the barrel of the rifle.
"I'm not going to kill you," he said. "But I am going to borrow your car."
CHAPTER NINE
The car turned out to be a dust covered bucket of rust that had been a Mercedes in a previous life. Where the paint still showed through it was the color of sand and the Nazi swastika on the steering wheel emblem told Brill it was a relic from a war gone by. He pressed the ignition button and the diesel engine roared to life with a throaty reliable rumble.
He was pleasantly surprised by how well it handled as the car made the return trip to Idlib with zero problems. He pressed the accelerator deeper than he would have normally liked in such an antique but the time was far shorter than it took for him to reach the compound just a few hours before.
Brill located the green door and parked the car on the street in front of it. He stood to one side as he knocked.
The screaming started again before the third rap fell.
The same dark eyed girl opened the door. She had just a moment for her eyes to pop wide when a hand slapped on top of her head and jerked her back out of sight.
Ali leaned around the edge still yelling at her.
"Hello Ali."
The man's eyes doubled in size and he had just enough time to sputter a yelp before Brill reached in and yanked him out into the street. A single shoe spun off of his foot and skittered across the rough stone pavement. Brill shoved his head against the rear passenger panel. It crumpled with a resounding crunch. Ali wailed.
The hitman double checked the street and door to make sure no one was sneaking up on them. He pulled his pistol and stuck it in Ali's nose. The man's wail trailed off to a whimper.
"You set me up."
"No, no," the Syrian started to sputter. Brill clicked the safety off.
"Okay, yes, okay," Ali whined. "I did okay."
"I don't care why," said Brill. "Just tell me where the girl is."
"Aleppo," Ali blurted. "They never moved."
"So you sent me on a personal vendetta."
"I beg you," Ali sobbed.
Brill leaned back so he wouldn't get blowback on his clothes. Movement caught his eye.
The girl knelt next to the wall crying in silence as she watched.
He took two steps to the side to get an angle on the door in case some brave soon to be dead person decided to rush to Ali's aid, but it was just the girl and her quiet tears.
"Who is your fan club?"
Ali stopped whimpering and shouted, waving the girl toward the door and the relative safety of the house. She didn't budge.
"My sister," he cried. "She should not be out without a veil."
The rest was lost in a string of Arabic which she ignored like a practiced pro.
"Don't let her watch you kill me," said Ali. "She should not see this."
Damn it, thought Brill. That was the second Syrian to make a noble gesture for their family member in the last hour.
For a population that suffered piece of shit terrorist groups to exist in their borders and kidnap do gooder documentary crews, it was an admirable trait.
"Where in Aleppo?" he sighed.
Ali mumbled out an address. Brill repeated it in his head and jerked the dazed man out of the gutter.
"Anyone there owe you money?"
Ali shook his head no.
"If I come back here, I'm killing everybody," said Brill. "You. Your sister."
The dog three streets away barked.
"The dog. Nobody here gets out alive if you're lying to me."
Ali's head bobbed out a yes. Brill dropped him next to his sister. he pointed the pistol at one, then the other to get their attention.
"Nobody," he said.
Brill jumped back into the car and backed out of the street. He had to get to Aleppo before Ali recovered his bravery and called to warn them.
CHAPTER TEN
The address in Aleppo led Brill to a house. Somehow, he thought Ali would give him the location of the rebel camp, but either the man didn't know it or worse he was over his fear and had warned them. It was that thought whirring through his head as he watched a man exit the house and march up the street.
As discreetly as a light skinned Westerner could be, Brill followed at a distance in the car. He almost abandoned it when the man he was following turned into a crowded bazaar.
He searched for a place to pull over and leave the car when he saw the man standing in the bed of a pickup truck full of others exit the crowded marketplace. Brill jammed the accelerator to chase them.
A Peugeot crunched into his rear bumper. Brill leaned out of the driver's side window and surveyed the damage. The driver of the car jumped out screaming and ran for Brill. He grabbed him by the front of his shirt and yanked him nose to nose, his acerbic Arabic spraying spittle on the hitman's face.
A click shut him up. Brill pressed the tip of the pistol into the driver's chest and eased him back. The man released his shirt and gently smoothed the wrinkles where his hands had been.
"Glad we had this talk," Brill grunted.
He slammed the gas again and took off with the shrill shriek of tearing metal after his prey.
The truck full of robed men ground down one street and nearly spilled all of them out of the back as it took a curve too tight and popped the rear wheel over a curb.
Brill could hear the yelling through his open window. He was glad for the distraction. While Aleppo was one of the larger cities near the mountains that separated the small country from Turkey, it had nearly zero traffic which made the Mercedes conspicuous.
Add to that the fact that it was being driven by a white man and he was really surprised the truck occupants weren't paying attention to him.
He attributed it to dumb luck, dust on the windshield and the cheap mirrored aviator sunglasses he borrowed from the glove box.
The truck continued for three blocks and pulled into an arched gate.
The turn was unexpected so all Brill could do was continue driving past and hope for luck.
It stuck.
None of the men shut the gate and he didn't see any weapons as they huddled beside the truck. That didn't mean they weren't there, just that the men didn't have them in hand. He needed a longer look beyond what the two second drive by provided.
There was a crumbling building up the street. Brill pulled into the rubble filled driveway and felt around in the backseat. He pulled up a duffel bag full of sweaty clothes, a robe and turban.
"Dumb luck," he muttered and wrapped the turban around his head. He threw the robe around his shoulders and worked the configuration into something that would pass as presentable. If anyone looked too closely, they would see the cargo shorts, hiking boots and loose shirt under the robe, but if anyone was studying him that closely, he was in trouble. He tucked the pistol into his waistband and checked to make sure he could clear the weapon fast if he needed.
He strutted down the street as if he owned it because people often took a strong purposeful walk as proof someone belonged. The studying back at the camp in Langley was paying off. The strut could also do a lot to dissuade curiosity.
People in these neighborhoods were experts in the art of not noticing.
Hell, he thought. That's probably true the world over. Any of his neighbors growing up would be hard pressed to remember him and those that might would never have guessed that the quiet abused kid would grow up to be a hitman for hire. People just didn't pay attention which gave a unique advantage to the few that did.
He spied through the still open gate from the corner of his eye as he passed by and did a quick head count. There were eight of them in a small group talking with
four more off to one side by a fire pit. Four walls, one door, two windows that he could see on the only building inside the walls.
That's where the hostages would be. Locked up and out of sight.
He was going to have to play this fast, loose and a little on the wild side. A style he liked.
Brill crossed over the street and hustled back to the car. He cranked the engine, pulled a U-turn and slammed the hammer down.
The short hundred yards or so wasn't enough time to build up speed and cranking the wheel to hang a tight right into the yard shed even more momentum. But the solid ton of German metal was strong enough to plow through the group like a scythe. Bodies flew and crunched as the men screamed.
Brill cut the wheel and slid sideways toward the door of the house spraying up a fine cloud of dust. He jumped from the car, drew his pistol and ran through the door.
Ambient light leaked through one window to show an empty room with a doorway leading to the second. Brill planted his back to the wall and ducked down to peek around the frame. A frail looking tear stained face with Iowa blue eyes and corn silk hair stared back at him.
"American?" he asked.
She nodded and clinched the bony arm of the man next to her.
"Move, move," Brill ordered and held out his hand to her.
She grabbed it with zero hesitation and held fast to the man as Brill rushed them both toward the door.
"Wait," he held them up and spied outside.
Moans and wails of prayer filled the courtyard as the dust settled. The four men from the fire pit roamed among the broken bodies by the truck offering aid.
"Let's go," Brill hissed and shoved them toward the car.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
He shoved them both into through the driver's side of the car and leaped in after them. It was a mad scramble to rearrange limbs so he could kick the gas pedal and spin the wheel, shooting up a screen of sand and scree and aiming for the hole in the wall to escape. He heard a body bounce off the fender and the scream that followed before making it through the hole and out into the empty street.