Tom and Alex turned the corner of the house and headed to the door as Ron came sliding to a halt in front of the house between the small rock wall and the house itself. Ron jumped out and took up a position at the corner of the farmhouse with his MP10, watching through his night vision goggles for any movement in the orchard or in the field across the road.
Mike arrived next, alerting Ron he was coming in as he slid the four-wheeler around the far corner of the house, kicking up a small cloud of dust in its wake. Quickly, he and Ron loaded Steve into the rear cargo area where Mike secured him with cargo straps. Then, Mike jumped out and took up a position behind the right side passenger door where he scanned the surrounding fields for any unwanted company.
Pam, meanwhile, had quickly locked the drone in a tight circle again, slipped the SUV into gear and stomped on the gas. The SUV leaped forward and raced across the sandy field just as the headlights of the two pickup trucks began to glow in the distance behind her.
Ron stepped back to the corner of the farmhouse as a streak of light whizzed past him, just missing the SUV. The rocket propelled grenade continued skidding across the ground until it struck the four-wheeler that Mike had borrowed, about forty meters away. The explosion sent shrapnel in all directions, causing Mike and Ron to duck for cover. Luckily, they escaped injury.
“Damn, that was a good little four-wheeler,” Mike grumbled as he moved forward and dropped to the ground under the front bumper of the SUV, scanning the orchard for the shooter.
“Where are they?” Ron bellowed from his spot on the ground against the house.
“Far side of the orchard!” Pam called out over the comlink, having seen the streak and where it had originated. “Shit! Incoming!” she yelled as a second streak raced from the orchard—this time towards her. Luckily, the results were the same as the first rocket propelled grenade. It bounced off the ground several yards short and skidded off into the darkness without exploding in the field.
“I got ̓em!” Mike yelled as he pulled his sniper rifle off his shoulder and began pinpointing the shooter. As Mike honed in on his target, Pam drove as fast as she could, bouncing over the bone-jarring ruts in her frantic race to reach the farmhouse.
A second RPG streaked from the orchard, struck the rear end of Pam’s SUV, and exploded. It blew the rear axle off the vehicle. The SUV bucked wildly before slamming into the ground and skidding to a halt in a cloud of dust. Flames erupted upon impact but faded quickly because the gas tank had been blown off the SUV with the axle. The gas tank landed in the field next to the SUV where it exploded, the burning fuel casting an eerie yellow light for a hundred and fifty meters in all directions. Pam grabbed her MP10 and the laptop as she rolled out of the driver’s door.
“I’m okay,” Pam called as she crawled quickly away from the demolished SUV.
“Move it, girl!” Mike called out as yet another RPG streaked across the orchard, striking the SUV in the rear passenger door and causing another brief, fiery explosion that set fire to the team’s luggage in the back. Between the gasoline fire in the field and the burning SUV, the night was momentarily lit up as if by spot lights. With the orchard bathed in bright light, Mike quickly found the two shooters and eliminated them both with two quick shots while muttering under his breath once again, ‘One shot, one kill’—his private ritual.
As the light from the fires faded, Pam stood up and ran to the large SUV. She tossed the laptop onto the rear seat as she ducked behind the rear passenger door. She quickly brought her MP10 up to bear on the road she had just driven in on.
“Where did those guys come from? I dusted there,” Pam asked as she looked at Ron who shrugged his shoulders.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Tom and Alex had been crouching on opposite sides of the entry door which was slightly ajar, when the first rocket propelled grenade had streaked out of the orchard and exploded. Both of them immediately sprung to their feet and bashed the door the rest of the way open with their shoulders.
Immediately inside the door, they discovered two men lying face down, clearly victims of the gas. One was a heavy set, older man, and the other was a teenage boy. Alex kicked their guns away as he and David moved past them, going further into the house.
The only sound they heard in the house was from the television in the far corner of the first room. It was tuned to what looked to be an Al Jazeera broadcast. The soft glow of the screen was the only light source inside the house except for a candle in the kitchen the next room over. In the kitchen, they found a woman dressed in an abaya and lying face down on the floor. Her age was impossible to tell due to her face veil, though her hands looked very old, covered in wrinkles and age spots. Whatever she had been cooking sat simmering on the back burner and smelled so absolutely horrific, Tom and Alex faked plugging their noses as they passed.
Once in the hallway beyond the kitchen, Alex noticed that even the cockroaches had been subdued by the gas. Dozens of them lay on the floor and crunched under their boots with every step. As they stepped down the hallway, they took up positions on opposite sides of the hall and quickly moved to the first door.
Tom used hand signals to let Alex know to cover him as he slowly twisted the wooden latch on the door. The door swung open quietly, revealing six men lying on beds sleeping. Alex gave them a once over, shining his penlight in their faces, then shook his head side to side signaling that they were out cold.
The next door had no door handle, so Tom nudged it open with his the toe of his boot. It was unoccupied but held a large bed in the center of the room, and it had a wooden pole hung by wires from the ceiling in the corner, serving as a closet. This was the woman’s room judging by the dresses and abayas that hung there.
Outside the house, there was a dull thud, and both Tom and Alex cocked their heads at the sound. When no immediate sounds of weapons fire followed, they moved on quickening their pace.
The next and final door was of far stronger construction than the first two. It appeared to be a solid wood slab with a standard door knob. When Tom tried to turn it, he found it was locked. Alex slid back from the door and crouched as low as he could. Tom stepped to the opposite side of the hall back across from the door. Alex nodded his head signaling he was ready. Tom stepped forward and gave the door a vicious kick, only to have it flex slightly and remain locked shut. The look on Tom’s face said it all. It was a solid metal door painted to look like wood, and it was in a steel frame.
Tom slipped back from the door while Alex stood up and stepped across the hallway. He took aim with his MP10 and fired into the lock, destroying it. He followed the blasting of the lock with swift kick of his own but the door remained in place. Immediately, Alex stepped back and shot the hinges off the door which finally allowed the door to fall away.
Stepping through the doorway, Tom focused intently on the person lying on the bed in the far corner. The person hadn’t moved despite the door being shot away, which lead Tom to assume he also had been overcome by the gas. Alex quickly moved in to check on the person lying in the bed, who was wrapped in a blanket. With Tom covering him, Alex yanked the blanket way.
One look at the man confirmed it was David Ashrawl. He was dead ringer for the man in the photograph they had brought along.
Alex didn’t waste any time. He tossed Tom his MP10, then scooped up the body of Ashrawl, hefting him over his shoulder fireman style, then followed Tom back through the house and out to the SUV.
As the last rocket propelled grenade hit Pam’s SUV, Tom and Alex stepped through the door and broke into an all-out run. Seeing Tom and Alex coming out of the corner of his eye, Ron stood and climbed behind the wheel of the SUV. Tom and Alex arrived at the SUV and dumped Ashrawl in the rear passenger seat from the driver’s side. Pam helped Alex drag and push the unconscious Ashrawl into the center rear seat where they quickly belted him in and climbed in on each side of him. Tom raced around and climbed in the front passenger seat, while Mike hopped in the rear cargo area with Steve. They had
just managed to get the doors closed when the first rounds of thirty cal. machine fire raked the compound and the front of their SUV.
Instinctively, everyone ducked as the bullets caromed off the SUV in all directions, leaving dozens of small dents in the vehicle but doing little actual harm.
Ron reacted first, sitting up and dropping the vehicle into gear. He stomped the gas to the floor and the SUV raced off into the field across the road, moving at a right angle to the on-rushing pickups. Despite the SUV having jumped to sixty kilometers an hour in just over ten seconds, rounds from the twin thirties still clanged off the SUV in a deafening symphony of thuds and pings, emphasizing that this was no longer a stealth operation.
As the SUV roared across the field, Mike pulled the medical kit from its storage compartment and began searching for something to secure Steve with. He found a blow up pillow which he quickly inflated and taped under Steve’s head. That way, Steve’s head wound wouldn’t be exacerbated, and he’d be spared having his head slammed repeatedly against the floor. He most likely already had a concussion from the bullet grazing and didn’t need further complications.
Mike then set about changing Steve’s field dressings. Mike was relieved to see Steve’s head wound had stopped bleeding. It was a deep, wide graze across the right side of his skull, above his ear. As bad as it was, it appeared minor compared to the wound in his side under his arm. To Mike’s dismay, the wound under Steve’s right arm was still bleeding, though not as much as before. He gave Steve a shot of morphine and replaced the soiled field dressings with clean ones and tossed the soiled ones out the window.
Alex, meanwhile, had pulled a canvas bag with a drawstring from under the seat in front of him and put it over Ashrawl’s head. He then tightened the drawstring to just short of strangulation and tied it off securely. At the same time, Pam was busy pulling Ashrawl’s arms behind his back and slipping on a set of flexi-cuffs, securing his arms behind him. Once the bag was tied off, Alex leaned over slipped another set of flexi-cuffs over Ashrawl’s ankles, making it impossible for the man to run or even walk. He’d have to hop away if he tried to escape.
“Where the hell did they come from?” Tom yelled, not expecting anyone to answer. Alex quickly pushed Ashrawl forward almost doubling him over placing his head between his legs.
“Beats the hell out of me!” Ron said.
“I didn’t pick them up on the drone’s infrared scans,” Pam added. “Maybe because the scan lanes are only sixty meters wide at 1500 meters, and we were well under that at eight hundred feet.”
“I had nothing on the heads up display,” Ron added. “They had to have been way back, watching and waiting for us to make our move.”
“How’d they know to be waiting on us? Could they have intercepted our transmissions?” Tom asked. Another streak of white light slipped past on the SUV’s right side of the vehicle. Luckily, it missed them and exploded harmlessly in a shower of dust and rocks in the field.
“Shit! I guess I better start weaving more,” Ron said and pressed down harder on the gas pedal trying to gain some distance between them and the pickup trucks. “They can’t break our encryption,” he added as an afterthought.
The SUV was starting to gain a little distance on the pickup trucks, when Ron noticed off to his left there was a large box truck running on a parallel track, muzzle flashes streaking from the partly enclosed cargo box.
“We’ve got party crashers coming up on the left. We’re going to have to head that way shortly or we’ll find ourselves running across sand dunes, and we’ll most likely get bogged down in them,” Ron informed Tom.
“I thought you had our escape route planned out?” Tom inquired.
“What? I had a plan. I planned on us running like hell and we are. Nobody said anything about getting shot at,” Ron smirked as he punched buttons on the steering wheel. He then turned and grinned at Tom saying, “I’ve got a little surprise for them.”
Ron punched a few more buttons on the steering wheel and a mechanical whining sound filled the interior of the SUV, causing Pam and Alex to exchange worried looks. Then a loud, deep staccato of a thirty caliber machine gun split the night.
“What the hell was that?” Mike yelled.
“A little surprise for our party crashers,” Ron called out.
Tracer bullets raced across the sky and tore into the truck trying to flank them, ripping it to shreds in seconds. Flames billowed out from under the truck as it slowly rolled to a stop and then exploded in brilliant white flash.
“Hot damn!” Ron exclaimed loudly. “We thought it would work! Damn, it worked perfectly without even slowing down. It took us two years of experimenting to perfect the targeting system.” Tom sat stunned, staring at the blaze created by the explosion.
“Oh, hey, I guess I forgot to tell you about the special package that I’ve got on this baby,” Ron almost blushed as he began to explain. “Up top, we’ve got twin thirty caliber machine guns with infrared and GPS targeting systems; they can be slaved together, or I can split them and have them fire in two different directions at once. Then we’ve got two 20mm Gatling guns—one mounted under the front center point, facing front and one mounted under the tow package, facing the rear. They swivel one hundred eighty degrees. It’s also has enough armor plating to make it as tough as a tank. Plus, I can drop smoke grenades if the situation calls for it.”
“Damn, we’re just like James Bond,” Alex joked. “But how are we getting the hell out of here?” he asked in the next breath.
An RPG slammed hard into the ground right next to the SUV, lifting it off the ground and slamming it back down. The SUV rocked to the right thirty degrees, causing the two left wheels to leave the ground for a moment or two before it rocked back.
Once they had all four wheels back on the ground again, Ron punched a couple of buttons on the steering wheel and the heads up display showed the rear view of the pickup trucks closing in again. Ron flipped a switch on the steering wheel and the sound of a buzz saw filled the interior of the SUV. The rear facing Gatling gun let loose a burst of a hundred rounds or so, shredding the lead pickup’s hood and cab, causing it to swing wildly to the right where it crashed into a rock outcropping. Upon impact the gas tank exploded, throwing the men riding in the back into the open field beyond. The second truck raced past their fallen comrades, but held back and began weaving back and forth across the road as the gunner continued to fire the thirty cal. at the SUV.
Ron found his left turn a moment later and swung the SUV violently into the turn. He barely decelerated to make the turn, and once through it, he quickly jammed the accelerator back to the floor, red-lining the engine and speeding off in a cloud of dust. They passed several small farms and were quickly reaching the edge of a town called Tel al-Belda when Ron jammed on the brakes, coming to a full stop just outside of the town. He fired the Gatling gun towards the rear, blowing out the front passenger tire of the still trailing pickup, causing it to skid wildly before crashing into the ditch where it flipped a couple of times.
Tom looked at Ron, wondering why he’d stopped. “You know there are still more pickups coming after us?”
Ron just sat there staring straight ahead without answering Tom. After several seconds Tom pressed him.
“Well?” Tom asked while the rest of the team looked about nervously, listening for Ron’s answer.
“Something’s wrong,” Ron said. He quickly flipped through the buttons on the steering wheel searching for a better view on the heads up forward display. “Pam, what’s the drone showing up ahead?” he asked after deciding she’d have a better view.
“The drone?” Pam answered coyly. “I forgot all about it. Let me pull it up,” she mumbled as she flipped the laptop open and brought up the controls.
“Shit! Hurry up! They aren’t going to wait all night!” Ron shouted at Pam who grimaced but kept her mouth shut.
The drone was still in a tight circle over the farmhouse and it took Pam a minute to acclimate herself
to the drone’s positions on the laptop screen’s map. It took another three minutes to fly the drone southwest towards their current position. When she had closed to within two hundred meters, she switched the cameras to the infrared forward view and zoomed in on the buildings before them.
“There certainly is something wrong here,” Tom mumbled as he looked around in the darkness for any approaching attackers. “No one is closing on us. It’s got to be an ambush!” he shouted.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. That’s why I stopped,” Ron finally explained his actions.
“Where do you need me to look?” Pam called out. A moment later the drone overflew their position at the blazing speed of twenty-five kilometers per hour.
“Get up to 1500 meters and give us an overview. Then keep moving forward until you can see what’s behind those buildings straight ahead,” Ron ordered.
“That wouldn’t be a very good place to put it in a holding pattern. It’ll be in my way.” A voice cut into their comlinks.
“Who the hell is this?” Tom screamed, thinking that somehow the Brigade had managed to hack their system.
“It’s your guardian angel, Nate Popkey, from the Triton. The boss sent me to lend a hand. I’m a minute out and closing on your position,” Nate stated calmly.
“It’s about time. What took you so long?” Ron barked.
“We had to dodge a Syrian missile battery, and then you took the show on the road,” Nate explained.
“I need the building ahead of us checked out and any unfriendlies eliminated,” Ron replied, having had enough of the introductions.
“Roger that,” Nate replied.
“Who the hell is that?” Tom demanded.
“The boss sent us some backup from the company’s ship, the Triton. I forgot to tell you in all the excitement,” Ron answered sheepishly. “But hey, they’re here, and hopefully they can make us a hole to get through.”
Reprisal!- The Gauntlet Page 16