Bloodstorm

28

Franklin had kept the MP-5 with him when he drove the truck down the street away from the safe house. Now, facing the two Syrian soldiers, he carried the weapon in his right hand by the hand-piece with his finger on the trigger.

He shrugged and screeched and pointed behind the two men. They turned to look, and he brought up the sub gun and sprayed the men with two bursts of three silenced rounds each. The soldiers went down, both dead or dying before they hit the ground.

Franklin turned and ran down the street, the MP-5 in both hands and held in front of him. He finished the rest of the mile in record time, and went to the back door of the safe house as they had told him to do. J.G. DeWitt stood there outside waiting for him.

“Any problems?” DeWitt asked.

“Two,” Franklin said. “Couple of Syrian soldiers came out of nowhere and stopped me coming back from the truck.”

He told the J.G. what happened, and they hurried inside and Franklin told their host.

Yasmin frowned when she heard the story. “This will make problems. What you must do is go back to the truck, put the bodies inside, and drive it five miles down the street. Then come back here. It is the only way. Otherwise we would have soldiers all over this area asking questions, looking for strangers.”

“Franklin, you’re up. You know where the bodies and the truck are,” DeWitt said. “Take Jefferson with you. Then get back here without attracting any more attention.”

The two men picked up their weapons and hurried out the door.

“There’s not much we can do tonight,” Yasmin said. “I know, you want to do the job and get away, but it can’t happen yet. I’m meeting two people tomorrow morning who should have some intel about where the Army has the warhead. Best I can do. Your men can sleep upstairs. Two rooms with mattresses on the floor. Not the best accommodations.”

“We’ve slept on lots worse,” DeWitt said.

“Any idea at all where the warhead might be?” Murdock asked. “Would it be on an Army base, here in town, out in the country somewhere they consider safe?”

Yasmin nodded. “Oh, yes, we know a little. It was flown here by commercial jet and taken at once to military headquarters near the edge of town. They were so afraid of it that they ordered it moved to a safe place until they could get engineers in to look it over and convert it into a drop bomb. My source said the top Army brass were almost paralyzed with fear of the warhead. They are afraid it might suddenly trigger itself and explode and kill most of the people in Damascus.”

“So where did they move it?” DeWitt asked.

Yasmin sighed. “That, my friends, is what we have to find out. My sources say it must have been taken to one of two locations. Both are well outside of the city, but they are in opposite directions, so we must stay here.”

“We’ll do whatever we can,” Murdock said.

Yasmin smiled. “Yes, I have been instructed. But you must be tired. The men can sleep upstairs. The lady will be with me. There are two beds in my room. Oh, I’m sorry. You also must be hungry. I have been stocking up on food.”

“The men will be fine, Yasmin,” Murdock said. “Something in the morning would be good. We know this is a lot of trouble for you. We and the government appreciate it.”

Yasmin sat in a chair, and the two officers and Kat sat nearby.

“Yes, a bit of a problem,” Yasmin said, “but that’s why I’m here. I am a Syrian, but I grew up in Philadelphia. I’ve been here for eight years now, doing what I can. My cover is to teach math in one of the schools. My… my husband was also working with me for the Company, but he was killed three years ago in an operation that went sour. He was not suspected, just an unfortunate who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“No one suspects what you do?” DeWitt asked.

“So far. But I have been deep cover with no activity at all for the past two years. Now I have a chance to help. Yes, I am a trained field agent, as was my husband. We wanted to do something to help bring better relations between the Arab world and the West. We’re not sure that we have.”

“Every little bit helps,” Murdock said. “If we can find that warhead and destroy it, we may be saving the lives of a hundred thousand people. That would be a real contribution.”

Yasmin’s eyes widened. “So many? I heard that the bomb in Chad killed almost thirty thousand. Unthinkable. How could the Russians let such a weapon loose on the world?”

“To our best understanding, the weapon had been stored and hidden in Ukraine, formerly part of Russia, now an independent nation,” DeWitt said. “The government there probably didn’t sell the missile. It probably went into the hands of an unscrupulous person who sold it to the Chinese.”

“That helps me a little. At least a government didn’t loose this terror. Tomorrow morning I will be up early to go meet with my source. I can’t use the telephone. They are closely monitored. I am somewhat suspect since the government knows I was born in the U.S., but it’s routine and thousands of people are monitored. I will be gone when you get up.”

Jefferson and Franklin came in, both breathing hard. Franklin looked at DeWitt and gave a curt nod.

“Mission accomplished, J.G. We drove her six miles more and parked it in a lot with a bunch of other rigs.”

“No problems coming back?”

“No, sir. All is cool,” Jefferson said. “We uptight or on the pad?”

“Some sleeping places upstairs,” DeWitt said. “Better hit them. We don’t know what’s up for tomorrow.”

The two men vanished up a stairway that Yasmin pointed to.

Yasmin stared at Kat for a moment. “I think it’s time for bed for everyone. Kat, that bandage on your leg probably needs to be changed. Let’s go in and take a look.” She waved at the men. “Stay up as long as you want to. Just turn out the lights when you go upstairs.”

They did.

Murdock came awake at 0530 as usual. He had slept fully dressed, except for his boots, as the rest of the men did. He put on his boots, and saw that Ed DeWitt was up and staring out a window.

“She left in a black sedan about an hour ago,” DeWitt said. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“How far do you think they took the warhead?” Murdock asked.

“Forty miles the other side of the suburbs,” De Witt said. “Figures. The government guys must be scared shitless by the hellish device.”

“Might work to our advantage,” Murdock said. “Might mean they wouldn’t protect it with a lot of men, just some buildings and concrete and maybe a mine shaft. They do any mining here?”

“Not much. Some asphalt, gypsum, and phosphate.”

“Hope they don’t stick it down a mine somewhere.”

An hour later downstairs, they discovered a woman in the kitchen ready to make breakfast. Franklin said she’d told him she was “cook” and was ready for their orders.

The SEALs had been warned to stay inside and away from all windows. They ate and then waited, stripping and oiling weapons, but only half of them at a time so they would be ready for any surprise.

Yasmin came back to the house just after 1000. She looked grim as she walked inside. Yasmin motioned for Murdock and DeWitt to come into a small room she used as an office. She wore a dark dress and a hat that she took off and threw across the room.

“Worse than I figured,” she said. “My contact says he knows for sure that the warhead originally came into Damascus on the plane, but then was taken at once to a small munitions factory about thirty miles north of town.”

“So we move again,” Murdock said.

“The worst part is that the munitions plant is on the corner of an Army base used to train volunteers for hazardous duty. They have top-notch fighting men there. Usually about two hundred at a time in training.”

DeWitt scowled. “You’re right. It isn’t a pretty picture. Is there a fence or barbed wire around the Army base?”

“I don’t know. I had hoped it would be an easier target for you. How can you… I mean, with only small arms you have to take on maybe three hundred men.”

“Yasmin,” Murdock said. “Is there any way you could get us a dozen rocket-propelled grenades?”

“The shoulder-launched rockets?” She paused. “I know some counterrevolutionaries who have used them. Let me make a call and inquire about red posters. It’s a key word we sometimes use. That one I can make on the phone.”

While she phoned, Ostercamp set up the SATCOM and contacted Athens. He gave Murdock the handset.

“Yes, Athens. We arrived. Have located the package. Working on some local support. Will move as soon as it’s dark.”

“The contact working?” Admiral Tanning asked.

“Yes. She does a good job. Will contact you after our trip north to the candy factory. Murdock out.”

Yasmin came back with Kat. The two were chattering away like old friends. Yasmin grinned. “Some good news at last. My friends say they can bring us ten, but if you can help them replace them, that would be good.”

“Would money help?” DeWitt asked.

“Incredibly. They have to buy them. The going rate here is a hundred U.S. dollars each. You have Syrian pounds?”

“Right. At sixty pounds for the dollar, that’s six thousand pounds per weapon,” DeWitt said. “Each of our men was given fifteen thousand. So we can cover the cost of sixty thousand pounds.”

“Kat,” Murdock said. “Be our banker. Collect six thousand pounds from each of the men. Get the biggest notes they have.” Murdock took off his thin cloth money belt and gave Kat his six thousand.

“Can they bring the weapons here just after dark?” DeWitt asked.

“I’ll tell them to,” said Yasmin. “Let me get a map and I’ll show you where the munitions factory is to the north. Then we need to figure out some transport for you. We can’t risk stealing another truck. We could all get blown away in a hurry if they caught us.”

“Do you have any friends in the trucking business?” DeWitt asked.

Yasmin laughed. “Oh, yes. I do. And he owes me a big favor. One condition. I get to go along on the raid.”

DeWitt looked at Murdock.

Yasmin smiled. “I can shoot, and I have my own weapon and ammo. An Uzi, as a matter of fact, and three hundred rounds.”

“You just signed on,” Murdock said.

That afternoon as the men slept, or worked on their weapons, Paul Jefferson and DeWitt played chess on a small peg board, and Kat and Yasmin began talking.

“Philadelphia, you told us,” Kat said. “I spent several years in Philadelphia back in the late eighties.”

“That’s when I grew up there,” Yasmin said. “We might even have been there at the same time.”

They traded stories, and Kat told her how she had been on a job with the SEALs before. “Nobody will ever know about what we did. But when the President calls you and says he wants you to do something for him, not many people can turn him down.”

“The President himself?” Yasmin asked. “From the White House?”

Kat nodded. “Not once, but twice now. But the SEALs take good care of me. I had to prove I could stay up with them hiking and swimming. They taught me to shoot. I like the MP-5 the best.”

“My husband taught me to shoot. I’m not sure I learned well enough. It still haunts me that on the night he was killed I could have shot better and maybe saved him. I took two bullets, but I wasn’t seriously wounded. They haven’t let me go on any field missions since.”

Her eyes turned misty and she dabbed at them. “I’ve had this one dream forever. I want to get my hands on a weapon and shoot down five or six Syrian soldiers. They were the ones who killed the love of my life. I deserve to get some revenge. Don’t you think?”

Then she cried, and Kat held her until the sobbing stopped.

“This might be the time,” Kat said. “If Murdock said you could go, you’ll have to stay with us all the way. With that many troops up there, we can use an extra gun.”

Yasmin dried her eyes and sniffed and then blew her nose. They took beers out of the refrigerator and popped the caps, and went on doing girl talk for another half hour.

Then Kat frowned. “Hey, you have any pants? Murdock is gonna flip if you show up for the shoot in that dress.” They both laughed, and Yasmin assured Kat she would dress like a man for the fight.

Just before dark, a fifteen-foot moving van pulled up in front of the house and a man came to the door. He talked with Yasmin for a moment, then he and Kat carried a mattress out to the van. They went inside for more, and when it was fully dark, the SEALs began slipping out the back door and into the big door of the van. They went one by one at staggered intervals, until all ten of them were inside with their weapons and gear.

Yasmin had on black pants and a dark brown shirt. Her hair had been pinned up and covered with a brown floppy hat. They waited in the truck for ten minutes before a car pulled up and blinked its lights. The truck driver followed it for two blocks to a spot where there weren’t any houses. The men in the car quickly delivered the ten shoulder-fired, rocket-propelled grenade weapons, and took the money in exchange.

Two minutes after the truck stopped, it moved ahead again, with Yasmin in front with the driver, and DeWitt in between them.

“Radio net check,” DeWitt said.

All nine of the team checked in.

“So, we’re up and operating,” DeWitt said. “Rest and relax. Yasmin tells me it will take us about two hours to get through the outskirts of Damascus and then the thirty miles on north to the target. Time is now twenty-ten. We should be there by twenty-two ten, and check out the target for eval and planning. I hope we can hit it by midnight. Any questions?”

“Yeah, exfiltration,” Manhanani said. “Can we use this same truck to get toward the border?”

DeWitt repeated the question for Yasmin. She spoke with the driver. They talked back and forth, and then she grinned in the darkness.

DeWitt held his mike toward the agent. “He says if we can get away from the area cleanly, without the truck being shot up or identified with the attack, he’ll be glad to pick us up and take us as close to the border as possible. He is a businessman, and will need to be paid.”

“Sounds reasonable,” DeWitt said. “You know our cash position. Work out something with him.”

To DeWitt it sounded like a haggling process. At last the two stopped talking and Yasmin smiled again. “He’s part of the resistance here, but he has to make a living. He says he can get us almost to the border with Israel for fifteen thousand pounds. That’s two hundred and fifty dollars.”

“Sold,” DeWitt said.

An hour and a half later the truck came to a stop a half mile from a brightly lit compound ahead. They were off the main road and on one that ran along the back of the Army base and the munitions factory. Lights seemed to be everywhere.

“Drive by so we can get a better look,” DeWitt ordered. They drove at a normal speed along the dirt road, and when they were a half mile beyond the plant, they stopped and the driver turned off the lights.

“Let’s hit the bricks,” DeWitt said on the radio. The SEALs and two women helpers left the truck and went to ground in a shallow ditch next to an open field. Two hundred yards down the way a chain-link fence barred their way to the munitions factory.

“There it is,” DeWitt said on the radio. “Now just how the hell do we get inside and find the fucking nuclear warhead?”