by Mark Dawson
“This is Archangel. I need to speak to Bloom.”
“Copy that, Archangel. Please hold.”
He glanced around the hull of the tank and saw the nearest technical; it was half a mile away and closing rapidly.
“Quick,” Pope said.
“Archangel, I have Bloom. Patching now.”
Pope took a moment to take the phone from his ear and check his coordinates on the phone’s integral GPS tracker.
Bloom’s voice was reedy and distorted by static, but the anxiety was obvious. “This is Bloom. What is it?”
“I’ve been compromised. Two vehicles, multiple tangos. I need immediate backup.”
“Location?”
“I’m at GPS coordinates thirty-six, twenty-seven point one two eight four and thirty-six, thirty-seven point three six two zero.” He repeated it. “Do you have it?”
“Affirmative.”
“Be quick. I’m under fire.”
“Hold your position.”
Pope risked another glance around the side of the hull and quickly wished that he hadn’t. The first technical had pulled off the road so that it could open up a wide angle of fire for the machine gun. They had seen where he was sheltering. Pope heard the chug-chug-chug and scrambled out of the way as the large-calibre rounds rang off the hull. The noise was deafening, ear-splitting clangs that echoed out over the empty desert.
“Don’t hang about,” Pope shouted into the handset, then clipped it to his belt.
Pope was trapped.
He grasped his rifle, shuffled to his right and risked a glimpse around the other side of the hull. The second Land Cruiser was rolling off the road, too, opening up an angle to direct fire from the opposite position. They were going to cover him from the left and the right. He saw three men in the back of the truck, each of them wearing the green camouflage uniforms that the insurgents described as Afghani robes. The familiar black flag flew from a radio antenna atop the truck.
Pope shouldered the rifle, took aim and loosed off a quick semi-automatic burst. The sound of the rounds clattered across the sand, and the driver of the technical slammed on the brakes as two rounds thumped into the wing and the passenger’s door.
The soldier operating the machine gun turned it in Pope’s direction and opened fire. Pope swung back into cover as the big rounds chewed into the asphalt, sending jagged chunks to ricochet off the hull of the tank.
Pope heard the sound of an engine and, his weapon ready to fire again, risked a second glance at the first technical. It was moving, bouncing over the undulating terrain, passing out of range of Pope’s rifle and then turning to continue to the west. They were flanking him. The soldier behind the machine gun swivelled the barrel in his direction and opened fire again. His shots landed short, his aim thrown off by the bouncing of the Land Cruiser as it crashed through a dip. Sprays of sand and stones pattered against the tank and against Pope’s face as he turned away.
He couldn’t stay where he was. They had already compromised his position and he didn’t have long before he was flanked. He hooked his arm through the straps of his backpack, reached up and rested his rifle on the hull of the tank, and then vaulted up after it, his boots finding purchase on the side skirt so that he could clamber up onto the engine compartment. The cupola had been badly damaged by the explosion, and the commander hatch had been blown clear to expose the darkened interior of the tank below. Pope took the backpack and lowered it inside, then followed it into the darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The interior of the tank was dark. The rent where the commander’s hatch had once been admitted a little of the dawn’s light, but it was quickly swallowed and wasn’t strong enough to reach into the deepest corners of the vehicle. It was foul-smelling, too, with the faintest suggestion of cooked meat. Pope knew what it was, and his fears were realised as he tried to find a foothold that would allow him to look up out of the opened turret. His boot landed on something softer than the metal of the hull, and, as he pushed away from it, something was dislodged and fell out of the loader’s chair. Pope glanced down and saw a body, still intact, within the shaft of light that arrowed down; the flames that had engulfed the interior of the tank had incinerated the corpse, rendering him into crumbling ash and blackened bone.
Pope had no time to consider the soldier’s fate, or the luxury of treating his body with respect. He placed his boot on the man’s shoulder and used it to boost himself up just enough to look out. The technical that had flanked him was fifty yards away. The second Land Cruiser had closed to the same range, the tank equidistant between the two of them.
The phone’s speaker hissed. “Archangel, this is Bloom.”
“Copy that. Archangel here.”
“Help is inbound.”
“Copy that.”
“I’m going to patch you through to the operator. In the event that they say anything, you are a UK special forces soldier, codenamed Archangel. You have been conducting forward reconnaissance inside the border and you’ve identified viable targets. Have you got that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Patching you through now.”
There was a moment of static and then the sound of button inputs as Pope was patched into an open communications loop. The static was obliterated by the deafening ringing of large-calibre rounds as they ricocheted against the tank’s armour. He flinched involuntarily. He knew that he didn’t have long. Once they realised that it was just him, and that he was outgunned, they would formulate a plan to take him out. A grenade through the opening at the top of the tank, perhaps. There was very little that Pope could do about it.
“Archangel, this is Bam Bam. Please copy.”
Pope spoke quietly and confidently. “This is Archangel. I copy you loud and clear.”
“Understand you’ve got eyes on two hostile vehicles?”
“Affirmative.”
“We’re coming in from your twelve. Confirm targets are at your previously advised coordinates.”
“Confirmed. Two pickups, technicals, 7.62mm machine guns mounted to the flatbeds.” He recited the coordinates again. “I’m between them. There’s a convoy of ruined vehicles. I’m in the last tank on the eastern edge of the convoy.”
Pope clambered up again and peeked out. He looked to the sky and scanned for any sign of an aircraft. He couldn’t see anything.
Pope heard a voice shouting to him. One of the men had dismounted from the technical to the north of his position. He was calling out in Arabic.
“Stand by, Archangel. This is Bam Bam to JAG25. I am now tracking two vehicles.”
The man next to the technical had a scarf wrapped around his face, leaving just his eyes uncovered. He saw Pope and made a gesture that he should come out of the tank. Pope brought the rifle up and fired a burst in the man’s direction. The rounds fell short, but they had the desired effect. The man scurried behind the Land Cruiser.
“Copy that, Bam Bam.” It was a new voice; Pope guessed, from his call sign, that it was an attack controller. Both the operator and the attack controller spoke in broad American accents.
The technicals opened fire, both of them, and Pope ducked down just below the lip of the hull. The rounds thundered as they crashed into the armour.
The phone’s speaker came to life again: “Two vehicles moving predominantly westbound in the desert. We have our eyes on.”
“Verify the missile is on the left, correct? Confirm that one is coded. Skynet is saying it’s on the right.”
“Confirm it’s on the left, JAG25, and we are coded and set to fire. Understand we are clear to engage?”
“Roger that.”
“Spinning missiles up now. Keep your head down, Archangel. I’ll call back with the BDA.”
If it was a Reaper, it would most likely be carrying four Hellfire missiles or two missiles and two five-hundred-pound bombs. Either way, the insurgents in those two technicals were about to get a very unpleasant surprise. Pope could see the sky through the openin
g in the hull and saw two streaks of light high in the air over the mountains to the north of his position. Missiles, then. The Hellfires could be fired from five miles distant, before the men on the ground would even have heard the approach of the drone.
Pope watched as the missiles arrowed down, dark spots propelled by bright tails of flame, and put his head up to watch as the first vehicle was consumed by a sudden, vivid explosion. The noise of the detonation rolled over the landscape. It was joined a moment later by a second blast as the technical to Pope’s six was also struck.
The explosion resounded against the ridge of the valley, the faint echo rolling back down to the convoy. It faded out and it was almost quiet until Pope detected the sound of fire and then the drone of a turboprop overhead.
“This is Archangel,” Pope called in. “Two direct hits.”
The coordinator said, “Confirm BDA, Bam Bam.”
Pope knew what that meant: the Reaper was going to overfly and evaluate the damage. He glassed the landscape again, and this time he saw the drone. It was flying at a thousand feet, the details of the fuselage slowly coalescing out of the haze. He heard the buzz of the turboprop more clearly now and watched as it angled directly between the two smoking pyres that were all that was left of the vehicles and the men who had been inside them.
“Battle damage assessment,” the operator reported. “I’ve got two wrecks. Direct hit on both tangos. No movement. We got them. You need anything else, Archangel?”
“Can you see anything else? Any other vehicles in the area?”
“Negative, Archangel. You’re clear for five miles in all directions. You’re on your own.”
“Copy that, Bam Bam. Thanks for the helping hand.”
“Ten-four, Archangel. Happy trails. Bam Bam out.”
The drone angled slowly to the east, starting a turn that would take it more deeply into Syria and then back to the north. Its course sent it directly overhead, close enough for Pope to see the two empty hard points beneath both wings. It was, he thought, disconcerting to remember that there was no pilot aboard the drone, and that it was being commanded by an operator at Creech Air Force base, near Las Vegas, more than seven thousand miles away.
Technology, Pope thought as he came out from cover and hoisted his pack onto his shoulders. What a world we’re living in.
He knew that he couldn’t stay in the area. The Reaper operator had confirmed that he was alone, but he wasn’t prepared to gamble that that state of affairs would remain unchanged. The technicals might have been in contact with a command post. Even if they were not, the longer they were out in the desert without arriving at their destination, the greater the chance that someone would realise that something was amiss. And it was obvious that this road was a main route between Aleppo and the Turkish border. The area was contested by the insurgents and the Syrian regime. Another patrol would eventually be drawn in to investigate the twin pyres on either side of the road. The columns of smoke that were rising from the flames would be visible for miles.
He had to get as far away from the road as possible. He checked that he had all of his equipment and lowered his backpack to the surface of the road. He slid down the hull after it, slung it onto his back and set off.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Pope determined to put himself out of sight of the road as quickly as he could. He walked for thirty minutes until he found a wadi, a dry watercourse that followed a meandering route along the floor of the valley from west to east. The bank of the wadi sloped down for two metres, enough for Pope to feel comfortable that he would be invisible to passing traffic. He took out his Magellan GPS and checked his location, and then followed the watercourse to the east.
Pope walked for another hour, occasionally clambering up the bank of the wadi to check his surroundings. He travelled for four miles, observing as the landscape gradually changed. The browns and yellows of the desert were replaced by browns and greens as he made his way into an area that had been irrigated. There were grasses and small trees and then, when he checked again, he saw that he was on the fringe of a large olive grove. There were hundreds of trees to the east, set out in careful lines, with man-made water channels dividing the land into neat parcels. A little water was now evident in the bottom of the wadi, and as Pope continued to the east, there was more. The irrigation channels emptied into it, contributing to a small stream that ran down the centre of the rocky gully. Pope passed into an area where the trees were more plentiful, a curtain of greenery that was pushed all the way up to the water bank.
Pope checked the time: it was eight in the morning. He was starting to feel tired, but much more than that, he wanted to get inside and out of sight.
He scrambled up the loose shale until he was at the edge of the wadi. There were tall grasses here and then trees. He was inside the grove now. The landscape was flat for five or six acres until a steep hill; there were several within reasonably close range. Three hundred feet to the north Pope saw exactly what he was looking for: a large brick building with a corrugated metal roof. It had three wide windows and an opening that offered a way inside. There was nothing to suggest that anyone else was nearby. He clambered out of the wadi, readied his rifle and made his way north to the building. The only noise he could hear was the hungry calling of an eagle high overhead. He moved more carefully as he neared the building, but there was nothing to suggest that it was occupied. He reached the door and paused, listening intently. Still nothing.
He went inside.
It was a storage building. There was a small tractor, a selection of tools and, in a shaded area, large wooden boxes with overripe olives rotting inside them. Pope took off his backpack, rechecked the interior and then went back outside to satisfy himself, finally, that the building was suitable. He took out his water bottle and slaked his thirst. The interior was cool and, save the smell of the rotting olives, perfect for his purposes. Indeed, he thought, the fact that the olives had been allowed to go off suggested that the farm was not being properly tended. Perhaps something had happened to the farmer. The area was contested by several rival factions, and it was not impossible that the war had intervened and disturbed the harvest. While unfortunate for the farmer, it would suit Pope.
He took out the satphone, powered it up and called London.
“This is Archangel. I need to speak to Bloom.”
“Hold, please.”
Pope sat down, using an empty box as a chair, and gazed out of one of the wide windows. The sun was climbing in the sky now, and the heat was ticking up. The sky was blue, powdered with small clouds, and it promised to be a hot day. He was pleased to be inside the coolness of the storage building.
“Archangel?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What’s your status?”
“I’m fine. Thanks for the assistance.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m in country,” he said. “In shelter. I’ll start out again when it’s dark.”
“Do you have transport?”
“No, sir. That’s my first objective tonight. What about the helicopter? Where did they go?”
“Yes, I have intel on that. We tracked them to al-Bab.”
That was unusual. “Not Raqqa?”
“No. We were surprised too.”
“I got some rounds off,” Pope said. “Maybe the chopper was damaged.”
“Maybe. We’ve tasked a satellite now, so we have real-time surveillance. They’ve been taken to a building to the north of the city. I can’t say for sure, but we believe that they’re still there. We think it’s likely that they’ll be moved. They hold all of the territory east of al-Bab. They could follow Route Four to Lake Assad and be in Raqqa in time for dinner.”
“Let’s hope they wait,” Pope said. “Do you have anyone on the ground?”
“Of course. Local sources. We’re trying to find out more. How far are you from there?”
Al-Bab was seventeen miles from Aleppo. It was close. “One hundred klicks,” Pop
e said. “If I can find transport and I can stay out of trouble, I should be able to reach it tonight.”
“Understood. Do you need anything else?”
“No, sir.”
“Check in again when you stop. You need to keep me up to date.”
“Copy that.”
“Good luck, Archangel.”
He powered down the phone and put it in his backpack. He was tired, and when he considered it, he remembered that he hadn’t slept for two days. He pulled the empty crates away from the wall and stacked them one atop the other until he had created a wall behind which he would be able to lie down. If someone came into the building while he was asleep, he wouldn’t be immediately visible. He hid the backpack behind the crates and then lay down beside it. He took out his pistol, put it in his hand and rested his head against the crook of his arm. He was asleep within five minutes.
Chapter Twenty-Four
It was dusk when Pope awoke. He had woken twice throughout the course of the day, but after having satisfied himself that he was still alone, he had gone back to sleep. He had slept for eleven hours in total and felt completely refreshed. He put the pistol back into its holster and took another drink from his canteen. It was already half empty. He remembered the irrigation channels outside. He collected his rifle and, pausing in the doorway, confirmed again that he was alone. As he looked out into the neatly arranged rows of olive trees, he heard the sound of a jet engine high overhead. He glanced up and saw the unmistakeable shapes of two American F-22 Raptors flying in close formation. The jets screamed overhead and disappeared over the hilltops to the north, heading back to Turkey. Pope watched them go. He felt alone and vulnerable.
He made his way to the nearest irrigation channel, refilled the canteen with muddy water and dropped in a purification tablet. He went back to the hut, collected his backpack and took out one of his Meal Ready to Eat pouches and a flameless heater to warm it up. The heater contained finely powdered magnesium alloyed with a small amount of iron, and Pope activated it by opening it and filling it with water. He left the heater to warm and took out his Magellan. He noted his coordinates and then checked them off on his paper map. He was three miles to the southwest of Termanin. He unfolded the map fully and looked at the scale of the journey before him. Al-Bab was around fifty-five miles from his position. To get there, he was going to have to skirt around Aleppo. There was an orbital road that ran around it, and the quickest way would be to follow it around in a clockwise direction and then pick up Route 212 and head northeast. The alternative was to run to the south, circle the city and take Route Four. Aleppo was still held by the government and promised to be safer than going cross-country. It would also be more heavily defended, with checkpoints where his lack of a credible story might mean that he could come unstuck. He might be better to go cross-country and follow one of the minor roads—better described as tracks—that ran to the towns of Anadan, Hraytan and Hazwan.