by Isaac Hooke
With his right arm, he braced his other rifle—the A4—against the steps, and forced himself up. He heard shouts outside.
"He's on the roof!" came the Arabic words.
He heard the characteristic tumble of a fragmentation grenade on the rooftop above.
Ethan was far enough from the trapdoor to consider himself safe, so he chose to stay on the stairs. He swiveled to face the foyer, lay back against the steps, and balanced the A4 on his chest while he set the fire selector to semi-automatic. Then he raised the rifle awkwardly with his good hand, pointing the muzzle toward the main door across from him.
An explosion rocked the ceiling as the grenade detonated, sending a blast of displaced air down through the trapdoor.
Ethan scarcely batted an eye. He kept his rifle arm extended, leaving a slight crook in the elbow. He tried hard to maintain a pistol grip of sorts on the A4, with a straight wrist so the force of the recoil would transfer into his arm rather than the joint. The unbalanced weight was difficult to sustain, however, and he found himself using his right leg to help support the barrel.
The silhouette of a crouching man appeared in the doorway.
Ethan centered the muzzle on the muj's torso and fired one-handed. The trigger guard banged against his fingers and he felt the recoil energy transmit into his elbow, but he hit the target.
The man dropped like a fly.
A grenade bounced inside. Ethan hauled himself to his feet and raced through the hole in the ceiling. The bomb detonated, sending a fireball through the trapdoor behind him.
He low-crawled westward, toward the side street, and peered over. Militants milled below. Ethan immediately ducked.
He heard movement in the room below.
Staying prostrate, he spun around and aimed the A4 toward the trapdoor.
So this is the end, he thought. Surrounded by mujahadeen, going down in a blaze of glory.
There were worse fates. He was doing what he was born to do. Fighting on the side of good against radicals who sought to destroy the world. This was the good fight.
The best fight.
The sound of artillery fire ripped through the air. Bright threads of light drew his attention to the side street. In the distance, from the Kurdish lines, a pickup truck roared over the potholes. A ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft gun was mounted in its bed, and it fired directly into the militants who had him surrounded.
Another technical advanced from a parallel road, also from the Kurdish positions. It too unleashed havoc with a ZU. Ethan flattened himself, knowing how notoriously inaccurate the weapon could be when fired from a moving vehicle.
The gurgled screams of mujahadeen filled the air as the 23mm shells tore through them at a firing rate of over four hundred rounds per minute. The rooftop shook as some of the rounds collided with the side of the building.
The first pickup surged past and Ethan heard the screech of braking tires, followed by a loud crash. He thought the vehicle had plowed into the upended Jersey barrier.
The second technical pulled up behind it, judging from the sound.
Their anti-aircraft guns continued firing sporadically.
Ethan heard the burst of an AK-47 downstairs, followed by a single rifle report from the street. Another AK salvo. Another rifle crack. He kept his A4 aimed at the hole in the rooftop.
The exchange continued for about half a minute, with the rifle reports sounding successively closer. Then the stairs creaked below.
Ethan held his A4 steady on the trapdoor...
A head appeared; before he fired, a familiar voice bellowed: "Death Adder coming up!"
Ethan slumped. "Damn it, Wil, I almost popped your head off."
William climbed onto the rooftop. "I've been trying to message you."
"Phone's dead. How the hell did you find me?"
William ignored the question. "Can you walk?"
"Yeah. It's the arm that's busted."
William helped him to his feet, though he accidentally wrapped a hand around Ethan's injured bicep in the process and he nearly blacked out. "Sorry."
William led him downstairs. "As to how we found you, we've been listening in on the radio chatter, but we also had one of the Predators zoom in on the neighborhood. Wasn't hard to pinpoint your location—we just looked for the biggest firefight in the area."
Ethan emerged from the shop, feeling like he was walking in some sort of dream. He was vaguely aware that the pickup, a battered and muddy Kia 4000S, had turned around. In the truck bed a Kurd manned the anti-aircraft gun, guarding their rear, releasing 23mm bursts down the street every few seconds.
William led Ethan around the front and opened the passenger side. Ethan lethargically hauled himself into the seat with one hand. William squeezed in beside him and shut the door.
Ethan wasn't sure in the dim light, but he thought the driver was Doug.
"How's it hanging?" Definitely Doug. He floored the accelerator, sending the Kia leaping forward.
Ethan was too stunned, and too battle-weary, to speak. The adrenaline hangover and the throbbing pain in his bicep didn't help matters. Only moments ago he had come to terms with his own death. But he was going to live. He was actually going to live.
"We would have come sooner," William said. "But the damn Kurds made Aaron and I undress when we reached the front lines. They thought we carried suicide bombs, even though Doug told them we were on their side. Aaron couldn't fully undress because of the leg wound, and when the Kurds realized how badly he was injured they finally let us through."
"The bastards can be a little hard-headed at times," Doug admitted, swerving around a blast crater. "But they're fierce fighters."
The pickup jolted savagely over a series of potholes. The Kurd in the truck bed continued to fire the ZU in controlled, likely inaccurate, bursts.
"How's Aaron?" Ethan asked finally.
"Safe," William replied. "He's got a Kurdish surgeon attending him. One of the best, apparently. He's going to be fine. Like you, Ethan." William wrapped a brotherly arm around his neck. "You made it. We all did."
* * *
Doug and William brought Ethan across Kurdish lines, eventually dropping him off at a courtyard set among a ring of mostly intact apartment buildings. The area apparently served as some kind of command and control center.
Ethan sat on a Jersey barrier by a campfire as a Kurdish corpsman cleaned the wounds on his bicep. The corpsman didn't suture either puncture, instead leaving them open to drain—after he was done cleaning, he applied a field dressing and removed the Quick Cuff.
Ethan drank the water the man provided him, and sipped soup from a cup. He rested for a moment, and listened to the distant sounds of battle that periodically disturbed the night. He was feeling better, thanks to the analgesic the corpsman had given him, but also incredibly drowsy. He drank a Red Bull someone offered, and that helped perk him up.
On the Jersey barriers around him sat other Kurdish fighters, their faces subdued. They looked identical, feature-wise, to their Islamic State equivalents, though their skin was slightly more olive than other Arabs, and none of them wore beards. Also, the fervent, knowing look common to the mujahadeen was not present among any of them, though a few possessed haunted expressions. One fighter was a woman.
Some of the men spoke quietly among themselves, obviously about Ethan, judging from their sidelong glances. Unfortunately he didn't understand Kurdish, so he had no idea what they were saying.
One of the Kurds raised his voice, gazing right at Ethan as he spoke.
The corpsman translated in broken English: "He says you look strange for an American."
Ethan studied the Kurd. He was an older man, gaunt and bent. Crow's nests lined his eyes, sharp ridges climbed his forehead. He looked like a street vendor. Probably had been, before the war.
"For missions like this," Ethan said. "They want Americans who look strange. That way we fit right in."
The older man spoke again and the corpsman translated. "The battle emir
says if he met you in the field, he would mistake you for Islamic State scum and shoot you down."
Ethan bared his teeth in a smile. "Tell your battle emir he could certainly try."
The corpsman translated, and the battle emir erupted in a hearty guffaw.
Ethan was about to stand, as he was eager to check on Aaron, when Doug arrived.
"I have someone here who would like to meet you," Doug said.
The operative stepped aside and Ethan felt his heart quicken.
It was her. He'd recognize those penetrating blue eyes and that breathtaking face anywhere.
Alzena wore a hijab without the veil, but instead of an abaya, she had on desert digital combat fatigues. She also carried an assault rifle slung over one shoulder. An M16A4 in fact.
"You're a soldier now?" Ethan said in disbelief, reverting to Arabic.
She shrugged, taking her place on the Jersey barrier beside him. "You thought I would flee my country without a fight?"
Ethan considered her words, then grinned. "Yeah."
She frowned. "You don't know me."
Ethan became serious, and nodded slowly. "No, I don't."
The other woman at the campfire asked Alzena something in Kurdish; Alzena looked abashed for a moment, then answered in the language. The other woman grinned mischievously.
Ethan felt one of his eyebrows rise in disbelief. "You're Kurdish?"
"Half Kurdish," Alzena corrected him. "On my mother's side."
"Interesting."
"Like I said, you don't know me."
Ethan stared at the campfire.
"So, here we are," he said into the uncomfortable silence that followed.
"Here we are," she agreed.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw her raise a hesitant hand, lifting it toward him, but then she pulled it back. She tried again a moment later, this time seeming surer of herself, and rested a palm over his knuckles.
Ethan gazed into the pools of her deep, sapphire eyes; he wasn't entirely sure if the flickers he saw there were reflections from the flames, or her own fiery spirit.
"Fight for us," Alzena said.
Ethan looked away, exhaling deeply. "I already have." He slid his hand out from under hers and wrapped it around the stock of the M24 beside him. The feel of the fiberglass and carbon-fiber reinforced polymer foam comforted him.
"Fight for us," she repeated.
Ethan felt the ground rumble as a stray mortar landed beyond the ring of apartments. "I fight where I'm needed."
"You are needed here," she said firmly.
He pressed his lips together. "Here."
He glanced at the others around the campfire. Kurdish refugees turned soldiers. Muddy faces. Dirty fatigues. Haunted eyes.
They stood against ruthless oppressors who wished to thrust a radical interpretation of a peaceful religion upon them. They needed training. They needed guidance.
They needed hope.
Ethan's fingers involuntarily tightened around Beast, and then he released the weapon entirely.
He met Alzena's gaze.
"I'm only staying for the baklavas," he said.
She grinned. "What about the fatteh?"
"And the fatteh," Ethan agreed. "Can't forget the fatteh."
She launched herself at him. Her hug seemed stronger than any embrace he had ever felt before.
Staring into the flames, Ethan held her with equal fervor. Another shell exploded in the distance.
I am needed here.
This is the end. Thank you for reading!
Since you received this book for free, I'd really appreciate it if you left a review on Amazon via the following link: http://amzn.to/1GKjriF
The number of reviews an ebook gets has a big impact on how well it does. Anything will do, even one or two lines. Thank you!
Isaac
postscript
You can keep in touch with me or my writing through one—or all—of the following means:
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My website: http://isaachooke.com
My email: [email protected]
Don't be shy about emails, I love getting them, and try to respond to everyone!
about the author
USA Today bestselling author Isaac Hooke holds a degree in engineering physics, though his more unusual inventions remain fictive at this time. He is an avid hiker, cyclist, and photographer who resides in Edmonton, Alberta.
His experimental genre-bending action novel The Forever Gate Compendium was an Amazon #1 bestseller in both the science fiction and fantasy categories when it was released in May 2013, and was recognized as Indie Book of the Day. His military science fiction novel, ATLAS, became a similar bestseller one year later. ATLAS 2 came out in December, 2014, and ATLAS 3 in June, 2015.
Clandestine, his first foray into the thriller genre, was released in April, 2015. The sequel, A Cold Day In Mosul, came out in July 2015.
You can follow Isaac on Twitter @IsaacHooke and his website IsaacHooke.com.
BOOKS BY ISAAC HOOKE
Thrillers
Clandestine
A Cold Day In Mosul
Military Science Fiction
ATLAS
ATLAS 2
ATLAS 3
Science Fiction
The Forever Gate Compendium
Visit IsaacHooke.com for more information.
table of contents
prologue
one
two
three
four
five
six
seven
eight
nine
ten
eleven
twelve
thirteen
fourteen
fifteen
sixteen
seventeen
eighteen
nineteen
twenty
twenty-one
twenty-two
twenty-three
twenty-four
twenty-five
twenty-six
twenty-seven
twenty-eight
twenty-nine
thirty
thirty-one
thirty-two
thirty-three
thirty-four
thirty-five
thirty-six
thirty-seven
thirty-eight
thirty-nine
forty
forty-one
postscript
about the author
www.isaachooke.com