Counterblow

by Ethan Jones

  The Jeep would have to drive along that exact spot on its way to Al-Qudin, which was two kilometers north.

  Javin stepped out of the Nissan and studied the terrain from behind the sight of his AK-104 rifle, chambering the 7.62x39mm round. A small café was to their right and across the highway, its door and windows shut. There was an eerie silence all around.

  He walked slowly, making as little noise as possible. He turned his head to the left, studying the four houses farther south. There was no light on anywhere and no vehicles parked in front of them or by the highway.

  Javin looked again at the café, then to the right along the vast expanse of the parking lot. There was a heap of debris, old tires, the hulk of a large truck, and other construction waste.

  No sign of anyone.

  He looked over his shoulder at Chen, who had the CIS operative’s back. “Do you see anyone?”

  Chen shook his head.

  “Hear anything?”

  “No.”

  He lowered his rifle, the same model as Javin’s, then lifted the night-vision binoculars hanging around his neck and scanned the area.

  Javin did the same, focusing mostly on the highway, in the direction of where they were expecting the Jeep. The night was dark, and there was no moon or other lights. It was the perfect environment for the night vision.

  And for an ambush.

  Javin strained his eyes so much that they almost began to water, but saw nothing. He walked back to the Nissan parked about ten meters away and asked Li, “Where are they?”

  Li tipped his head toward the laptop in his lap. “Five klicks that way.” He gestured toward the south. “They should be here in a few minutes.”

  Javin nodded and walked around the Nissan’s hood. He stood next to it and opened his mouth to talk to Chen, who was still standing out in the open, but then he heard a noise like the rumble of a heavy engine. “Chen, come here, quickly.”

  The Chinese had just dropped behind the Nissan when a convoy of three vehicles—a military Jeep painted in a desert camouflage followed by an SUV and another military Jeep—sped along the highway, heading south. “Who’s that?” he asked in a whisper.

  “Someone important. Gov official,” Javin said.

  “The Syrian regime controls the area,” Li said. “Could be a local commander.”

  “Or an Iranian.”

  Iranian, Javin thought. Like Dabiri, the Quds Force colonel. He frowned. Could it be that Dabiri is in that convoy? Heading toward the Mossad operatives? This can’t be a coincidence.

  He walked around the Nissan, his eyes observing everything. He took the tablet and studied it for a long moment. Then he asked Li, “How do I zoom out?”

  “Here, let me show you.” Li took it. “What are you trying to do?”

  “I want to see the convoy and the Jeep all in one screen. Can you do that?”

  “Sure I can.”

  Li tapped a button, bringing up a virtual keyboard on the screen. He tapped a few keys, then handed the tablet to Javin. “There, it’s the largest I can do. You can pinch here to zoom in and out.”

  Javin glanced at the screen. The Jeep was to the left, barely visible. The convoy was speeding from the right side, going through a couple of curves. Javin wondered if the Mossad team could see the approaching convoy.

  He zoomed in as the leading Jeep came to a slow stop, then parked on the side of the highway. The SUV and the other Jeep followed suit. They were about a kilometer or so away from Javin and his team.

  He said to Chen, “The convoy stopped.”

  “How far?”

  “One klick away.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t know.” Javin looked at the screen.

  “What’s the Jeep doing?”

  “They’re… I can’t tell.” He pinched the screen, zooming out. “No, the other way,” he said to himself.

  He pinched in the other direction and examined the screen. The Jeep seemed to be slowing down as well. Javin looked at Chen, who was following the Jeep’s movements on Li’s laptop. So Javin returned his eyes to the screen.

  The Jeep was now perhaps half a kilometer from the stopped convoy. A handful of gunmen had stepped out of the lead and rear Jeeps. Their rifles were pointed at the oncoming vehicle.

  The Jeep driver would have to turn around or pick up speed, hoping to survive running the gauntlet. Instead, the driver was slowing down. What is he doing? Can’t he see they’re falling into an ambush?

  Then a new thought darkened Javin’s mind.

  The driver knew exactly what he was doing. The Mossad team—or whoever was in the Jeep—wasn’t here to be attacked or to fight the convoy’s gunmen, but to meet with them at this undisclosed location, away from prying eyes.

  Javin almost held his breath as the Jeep came to a slow stop about thirty meters away from the lead vehicle of the convoy. The front passenger stepped out, then the driver, and the two men in the backseat. They had their rifles at the ready, but it seemed to be more a precaution rather than with the intention to open fire.

  The rear door of the SUV opened, and a man stepped out.

  Javin tried to zoom in, but the video feed from the drone hovering at one kilometer above turned blurry. So he zoomed out, and it took the feed a few seconds to clear up. When it did, Javin saw the front passenger of the Jeep fall into a deep embrace with the man who had stepped out of the SUV.

  Who are these people? What’s going on?

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Two Kilometers South of Al-Qudin

  Syria

  Javin gave Chen a perplexed look. “They’re friends? These fighters are in bed with Iranians or Syrian government forces?”

  “It appears that way,” Li said in a quiet voice.

  “Unless this is a tactic to trick them,” Chen said.

  “How so?” Javin asked.

  “They appear to be friends, so they can get closer to them and then attack them.”

  Javin nodded and studied the screen. The alleged Mossad operatives shook hands with some of the men from the convoy and embraced a few others. “That could be the case.” He opened the driver’s door of the Nissan. “Let’s find out what’s going on.”

  Chen slid into the backseat as Javin put the truck into gear. He drove slowly along the house, yanked the steering wheel, and entered a crooked alley behind the house. The alley was hard-packed gravel and dirt, pot-holed and litter-filled. He tried to make as little noise as possible as they drove parallel to the highway, heading toward the convoy’s location.

  In a matter of seconds, they came to the end of the row of houses. They were now in the open, and the convoy was still over five hundred meters away. Javin stepped out of the truck and raised his binoculars. He zoomed in as much as he could, but the magnification only blurred the operatives’ faces. Two of them had gotten into the SUV, along with the man who had first stepped out of it. The other two were moving too fast and were staying with their backs toward Javin, so that he couldn’t make a positive identification.

  He shrugged and looked at Chen. “I’ll have to follow on foot, at least for another hundred, two hundred meters, until I know for sure who they are.”

  “I’ll go with you.” Chen got out of the truck.

  “Good.” Javin looked at Li. “I’ll take the tablet.” He picked it up and showed it to Li. “How do I lock the screen, so I don’t tap the firing button by mistake?”

  Li took it and tapped a few keys. “It’s locked now.” He handed it back to Javin. “Enter this code: CH-4A to unlock it.”

  “CH-4A. Got it.” Javin tossed the tablet in his rucksack, then took the rifle from the backseat. He cocked the AK, the hammer clicking a bit louder than what he had expected. He held the rifle with the muzzle up in a low ready position. “Keep the drone ready, and keep your phone close. I’ll call you if the tablet doesn’t work.”

  “Good plan.” Li nodded.

  “Ready?” Javin said to Chen, who was checking his rifle.


  “Let’s go,” Chen replied in a firm voice.

  Javin hoisted the rifle over his left shoulder, then moved it farther to the side, so that it wasn’t as visible. It wasn’t surprising to see two armed men wandering about in this part of Syria. However, it was a very ungodly hour of the night, and considering the secretive nature of the meeting, everyone would be on high alert.

  Javin looked at the open expanse for the best way to cross the distance. There was minimal cover, as the land was semi-arid, with sparse, low vegetation. There was a shallow ditch along the edge of the highway all the way to a small cinderblock shed about a hundred meters away. “This way,” Javin said.

  He bolted toward the ditch, then lay on his stomach. He set the rifle to his right and grasped the sling, keeping the muzzle off the ground, so no dirt would get in, and letting the front handguard rest on his forearm. He placed the rucksack on his left side and hooked his fingers around one of the straps.

  He kept his body flat against the sand, listened for a long moment, then started a low crawl. He avoided shards from a broken glass bottle and moved forward, pushing his arms and pulling his legs, and alternating as he advanced.

  They had covered perhaps twenty meters when an engine rumble began to draw near them. Javin lowered his head and stopped, while his right hand gripped the rifle’s handle. He listened for changes in the engine noise indicating it was slowing down or for the screech of brakes. None of that happened, and the vehicle continued past them.

  Javin lifted his head and stole a peek. The vehicle was a small white sedan. He then looked in the other direction. The convoy and the Mossad Jeep were still there. He brought the binoculars to his eyes and examined the silhouettes. They were still dark, as all the headlights were turned off. Javin shrugged and looked over his shoulder.

  Chen was following about five meters behind. He gave Javin a thumbs-up, then said in a low voice, “I’m good. Go on. Go, go.”

  Javin advanced, and the pair covered another fifty meters or so. Javin glanced at the shed, which was about six by six, and a putrid smell assaulted his nostrils. It appeared the shed had been turned into an outhouse. He held his breath for a moment, carefully looked around as he came to what looked like a pile of excrement. “Watch out,” he said to Chen. “Crap on the trail.”

  “Yeah, I can smell it. So stinky, I might throw up.”

  Javin crawled around the pile, then avoided a large brown stain on the trail. To do that, he had to move farther away onto the flatland. He did so very slowly and while keeping an eye at the convoy. From this position, he could see the face of one of the Mossad operatives leaning against the hood of the Jeep and talking to a couple of gunmen. Javin brought up his binoculars and examined the man’s face. He resembled one of the photographs that Javin had received from his Mossad contact. The same large nose, broad forehead, and short-cropped hair.

  Javin still wasn’t convinced it was the right man.

  He moved his sight to the gunmen, then began to search for the other operatives just as the bright headlights of a large truck fell upon the first Mossad agent. His face was lit up before he could lift his hand to protect his eyes.

  That split second was sufficient for Javin to recognize the man. He was, indeed, one of the Mossad operatives.

  Javin’s heart began to drum faster. He stopped and lowered his head. “Chen, Chen, I’ve got visual on the target. We have the right people.”

  “Fire the missiles.”

  “Yeah, I’ll light them up.”

  He unzipped his knapsack and pulled out the tablet. He removed his right-hand tactical glove and entered the code. The screen came to life with a dim glow. The crosshairs, however, weren’t positioned in the right place. They were locked on the Jeep, but Javin wanted, instead, to strike the SUV. Considering it was in the middle of the area, and two of the four Mossad operatives were inside the vehicle, a strike against the SUV would cause the greatest damage.

  “Chen, Chen. How do I reposition the crosshairs?”

  Chen crawled next to Javin. “Let me do it…”

  The Chinese hacker brought up the virtual keyboard on the lower part of the screen, then tapped a few keys. “Where should they go?”

  “Over the SUV.” Javin tipped his head toward the vehicle about four hundred meters away.

  A couple of gunmen stepped closer to the Jeep, gesturing for the truck to move along. Its driver was going slower than necessary, and Javin wondered if the driver supposed this was a checkpoint and the gunmen were expecting him to stop and get out of the truck.

  They waved at him to keep going.

  Chen tapped the keyboard, while Javin watched as the crosshairs moved slowly until they stopped over the image of the SUV. The drone’s thermal camera had been turned on, and the silhouettes were lit in red and white marks.

  “It’s ready,” Chen said.

  Javin took the tablet and held it in his left hand. He moved his index finger to the bottom of the screen and kept it hovering over the square box. The firing button. Who are the other people in the SUV? Does it matter? Gunmen meeting with Mossad operatives? He shook his head. They aren’t innocent civilians.

  He drew in a deep breath. He waited another moment, until the large truck cleared the last of the convoy’s vehicles and was at least two hundred meters away from the convoy. Then he thought, This is for you, Yael. And for Claudia, and tapped the square box.

  Nothing happened on the ground, but the box turned green. A grayish dot appeared near the top of the screen, moving quickly toward the SUV. The dot represented the missile screaming toward the target, leaving behind a trail of gray smoke.

  On the screen, the dot was surrounded by a gray aura.

  Javin lifted his eyes off the screen just as the missile struck the SUV. A bright flash of orange, and the SUV turned into a fireball. The massive explosion sent shrapnel over a large area, and smoke began to cover the highway.

  “Target the Jeep,” Chen said and tapped the screen.

  His commands repositioned the crosshairs over the Jeep as the Mossad operatives scrambled for cover behind it.

  Javin tapped the square box again.

  The now-familiar dot rushed toward the Jeep.

  Javin looked at the sky, trying to catch a glimpse of the missile. He couldn’t until an explosion blew up the Jeep. Its back tire flew away, along with pieces of metal and body parts. Tall flames began to leap around the hulk as another billow of smoke began to curl up, veiling the area.

  A couple of gunmen began to run on the highway, toward Javin’s and Chen’s positions.

  The large truck had stopped in the middle of the highway, its high-powered beams cutting a bright swath through the night.

  Why did they stop? Javin wondered.

  He looked through his binoculars at the truck’s cab. Is… is that Wu and Keung?

  “Chen—”

  “I see them. They did come… eventually.”

  A volley of gunfire erupted from the gunmen on the highway.

  Javin couldn’t see who they were targeting, but it was most likely the Iveco truck.

  Its driver’s door opened, and Keung jumped out. He aimed his rifle at the gunmen and opened fire. One of the gunmen fell onto his back. The other one kept firing.

  “Let’s give them a hand and mop up the place.”

  “Should we hit the other Jeeps?”

  “Sure. Wait until the dust clears up, then fire one missile. Save the last one in case we need it.”

  “Okay.”

  Javin set his AK over the edge of the ditch and aimed it at the gunman who was still firing at the Iveco truck. The CIS operative tapped the trigger and sent two bullets into the gunman’s chest. He collapsed next to the other gunman.

  Javin fired a couple of rounds into that gunman for good measure, then looked at Chen. “Cover me.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To the shed, then to the truck.”

  “Got it.”

  Chen fired a long volley as
Javin stepped up to the highway, then darted toward the shed. A few bullets whizzed over his head, but he reached it in one piece. He sought cover behind the cinderblock walls, standing tall, away from a heap of feces on the ground.

  He listened to the gunfire erupting from at least two positions. Then he looked around the corner at a gunman lifting a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and aiming it at the shed. “Oh, c’mon…”

  He bolted behind the shed and away from it.

  Two seconds later, the shed erupted in a burst of cinderblock chunks, dirt, and dust. Javin dove to the ground as fragments landed around him. He coughed, then closed his mouth as he realized what else was mixed in with the dirt and dust covering him. A few bullets zipped around him, so he stayed down for a long moment.

  He slowly rolled onto his back and checked himself. His back hurt, but nothing felt broken. He seemed to have scraped his left knee, as pain shot through his leg. He had also scratched his arms, but nothing major.

  He looked at the convoy through the thinning cloud of smoke. At least four silhouettes carrying weapons were still running around. The flames dancing by the burning vehicles illuminated them brightly.

  Javin aimed his rifle and squeezed off a long volley. One of the gunmen fell to his knees.

  One of the others turned toward Javin, but before he could return fire, one of the military Jeeps blew up in a giant orange ball of flames.

  The drone’s third missile.

  The black smoke engulfed the gunmen. Javin wasn’t sure if shrapnel from the explosion had killed them, so he remained in position, observing the area through his rifle’s scope.

  A gunman began to crawl toward the opposite side of the highway.

  Javin tapped the rifle’s trigger and sent a couple of bullets into the gunman’s back. He stopped moving.

  Javin waited, but didn’t see anyone else crawl or return fire. After a long minute, he stood up and hurried to the highway, bent at the waist. He covered all angles with his rifle as he made his way to the Iveco truck.

  Wu was crouched by the truck’s rear wheel. He smiled at Javin and said, “Sorry, we’re late.”