Rain of Doom

9

Wearing the uniform of a Soviet advisor to the Syrian army, Carl Lyons rode in the open back of the Mercedes troop transport with two Shia militiamen in Syrian uniforms. Akbar and Hussein, in the cab, also wore Syrian uniforms. Syrian army regulation gloves, coats, wool scarves and blankets protected them from the snowstorm. The truck also matched the vehicles of the Syrian forces.

They rode in silence, their weapons in their hands. Beside Lyons, a Browning .50-caliber machine gun stood ready on its pedestal, a belt of armor-piercing cartridges in place. An M-79 grenade launcher and a bandolier of 40mm grenades hung from the pedestal. Black plastic secured with a neoprene snap cord concealed both weapons: Syrian forces did not employ the American-made weapons.

The disguises would be the key to passing through most checkpoints. But if questioned, Hussein carried perfect forgeries of military travel orders.

A hundred meters ahead, Powell and two other Shias rode point in the Land Rover. Powell wore a Soviet uniform; the Shias wore Syrian uniforms and carried military documents. Plastic covered the MK-19 40mm grenade launcher mounted in the back of the Rover, where loaded RPGs stood ready. Powell needed only to twist off the safety-cap wires, cock the launcher and fire the rockets.

Last in the convoy, Blancanales and Gadgets enjoyed the warmth of the trailer as they manned a second set of heavy weapons, another Browning .50-caliber and another MK-19. But these launchers and other weapons would be used only if their documents and disguises failed.

A Shia vehicle passed them without a word. The militiamen stared at the passing Syrians and Soviets with open hatred. Their officer waved; he was the only one who knew that Shias drove the Rover and trucks.

Continuing east, the convoy left all life behind. Their headlights revealed abandoned vehicles and deserted villages. Far away in the storm and night, the incomprehensible war continued. Rockets and shellfire flashed on distant positions. Flares seared the storm clouds.

Able Team's three hand-radios buzzed. Powell spoke to the other Americans through a fourth NSA unit. "Gentlemen, we are now in it. I am monitoring the frequencies on a Syrian army radio, and I am hearing very scary things. There are at least three different army factions calling one another traitors and usurpers. They are fighting one another and — here's the joke — they are also engaging with forces of the Muslim Brotherhood. I guessed the political factionalism. But the Muslim Brotherhood is something else. Last time the Brotherhood rebelled, they seized and defended the city of Hama against battalions of the best Syrian troops. The Syrians destroyed the city. A total slaughter. Maybe twenty thousand, thirty thousand people killed: no one will ever know. If the Brotherhood is back, they're back in force and they're out for revenge.

"I tell you," Powell continued, "the Brotherhood's more than I planned on. Why don't you three reconsider this mission. If you want to go on, okay. But it ain't too late to go back. We could wait for the politics and religion to get straight."

Lyons answered immediately. "We can't. If those missiles get out, we'll have to search every ship and every plane between here and the White House to find them. I say we go."

"How long a wait are you proposing?" Blancanales asked Powell.

"Could be a few days, could be a few weeks before..."

"Forget it!" Lyons interrupted.

"Why stop?" Gadgets asked. "Look at all those fireworks! It's the Fourth of July everywhere."

"We can't risk a delay of weeks," Blancanales concluded. "A few hours, a day perhaps..."

"Then it's unanimous." Powell sighed. "I hoped you cowboys would exercise discretion, as they say. We just might be going into a four-way free-fire zone."

The others waited for Gadgets' jive line, but the electronics wizard said nothing. He just held down the transmit key and laughed.

In the back of the troop truck, Lyons lost patience with his partner and pocketed the radio. He glanced at the two Shia militiamen riding with him. In the darkness, he could not see their faces. Blankets over their legs and feet, they watched the distant firefights. Both held Soviet PKM belt-fed machine guns, the muzzles pointing through the slats of the truck. Their rifles, folding-stock Kalashnikovs, hung from the inner slats, clattering with every bump in the road.

Four-way free-fire zone, Lyons thought. Then he realized why Gadgets laughed. Able Team always went into uncontrolled zones. In New York City or El Salvador or the Bekaa, always the same...

The two militiamen started. Lyons heard the sound also. The not-so-distant thunking of mortar tubes. They had ten to twenty seconds before the mortars hit.

Lyons slipped his Konzak sling over his head and cinched the shotgun diagonally across his back. Standing in the freezing wind, he pulled the plastic sheet off the Browning and secured it to the pedestal with the neoprene snap cord. Ahead, he saw Powell swiveling the MK-19, looking for a target.

White light seared the night. High above the highway, a magnesium flare swung on a miniature parachute.

Mortar impacts flashed ahead, the booms of the explosions coming an instant later. Another flare blazed overhead. A random pattern of mortar hits scored the highway and the roadside, balls of smoke hanging in the night. Spent shrapnel rattled off the truck. Hot metal burned Lyons's neck. He tore at his scarf and a jagged bit of iron fell out.

Switching off their headlights, the drivers of the three vehicles drove by the white flares.

The Land Rover shot through the pall of smoke.

Seconds behind, the Mercedes troop truck bumped over the broken asphalt. Then a mortar exploded behind the truck, and dirt and rocks and iron pocked the wooden slats. A scrape appeared in the cab in front of Lyons.

From a rise to the north approximately three hundred meters away, a rocket launcher flashed, and an instant later the RPG warhead passed behind the Rover and exploded in a long streak on the earth. Powell answered with 40mm grenades, firing single grenades to find the range, then dropping a burst of alternating high-explosive and white phosphorous grenades on the position. Lyons sighted the Browning and raked the ridge with .50-caliber slugs as the Shias behind him fired bursts from their PKM machine guns. Tracers from the ridge and the convoy crossed.

One sparking point moved. An automatic weapon fired from a vehicle, the line of tracers going wild as the vehicle bumped and lurched over a rutted track. Another flare burst into white glare and Lyons saw a Japanese truck speeding for the highway in an attempt to cut them off. A soldier fired a pedestal-mounted machine gun from the back of the truck.

Lyons swung the Browning around and fired. The first burst went low, and a single tracer skipped off the rocks, pinwheeling away into the storm clouds. Adjusting his aim, Lyons saw a tracer disappear into the truck. He held down the Browning's button and counted out ten rounds.

The truck veered to the right and overturned. Powell sighted on the overturned truck and fired a 3-shot burst of 40mm, hitting it with high-explosive, white phosphorous, then high ex again. Spilled gasoline sheetflamed.

Returning his aim to the ridge, Powell fired for area effect. High-ex flashes and white chemical fire splashed the ridge, than a ball of orange petroleum flame surged into the sky as he hit another vehicle.

Lyons saw the silhouettes of a mortar crew and sighted the Browning. A red line of tracers touched the silhouettes. Powell found the crew with a 40mm burst.

No more mortars came. Individual riflemen fired on the convoy, slugs intermittently punching into the wood sidings of the troop truck. All the firing stopped as they left the ambush behind.

Lyons covered the Browning, then glanced back to the Shia militiamen. In the dying flarelight, the leather-faced, middle-aged men grinned and gave Lyons the V for victory. Lyons keyed his hand-radio. "Everyone okay?"

"No problems here," Blancanales responded. "Anyone know who fired at us?"

"You mean," Powell answered, "did we take names? Fuck, no. Ain't killing them good enough?"

"We didn't even get a shot off!" Gadgets complained. "Our guns only cover the road..."

"Hey, Wizard," Powell drawled in his true East Texas dialect. "You just wait. I think you'll get your chance. Any minute now."

A kilometer past Kahhale, a Lebanese army armored personnel carrier blocked the highway. A soldier with a flashlight told the Palestinian drivers of the vans to return to Beirut. Other soldiers manned the machine guns of the APC. Zhgenti did not challenge the orders. He told the drivers to find a way around the roadblock.

A few minutes later, as the vans bumped over a dirt sideroad, Zhgenti cursed. "Storms, revolutions, whores and pretty little soldiers — I must kill those Americans and the world is against me. My superiors will not listen to excuses. What a mess. What a sorry mess this is!"

"Illovich is the one," Desmarais snapped back at the Soviet. "He had them prisoner. He wanted a propaganda event. What a dreamer that old man is. I said he must kill them while he had them because they were vile, tricky, fascist bastards who'd do anything, stop at nothing..."

"Not like you, eh?" Zhgenti leered. "My tricky little Canadian."

The vans came to a village devastated by artillery. No lights showed from the windows of the remaining houses. Nothing moved on the streets of frozen mud. As the vans followed the narrow road, their headlights illuminated pathetic vignettes: bundles of rags and stiff hands, staring faces beneath shrapnel-pocked walls; a Syrian army truck that had taken a direct hit, scorched corpses and skeletons hanging from the flame-blackened hulk; a peasant wagon of belongings still hitched to a frozen mule.

A stout Muslim woman waved to them. Inside Zhgenti's van, rifle and submachine gun safeties clicked off. The woman, using an old blanket as a chador, stood at a crossroad. Behind her, a form wrapped in blankets lay on the snow. The woman ran wailing to the Zhgenti's van.

"Ask her which road will take us to the Bekaa," the Soviet told the driver.

The Palestinian shouted down her wailing. He questioned her repeatedly. Finally she pointed to the eastern road. The driver turned to Zhgenti.

"Her husband's wounded. She's begging us to take her to the highway. Or he'll die."

Zhgenti rolled down his window. Pointing an Uzi with one hand, he fired a burst into the blanket-wrapped old man. An arm reached up and clawed the air.

The old Muslim woman shrieked and beat at the van's door. Laughing, the Soviets and Palestinians fired point-blank into her face. She fell back and sat on the snow, blood gushing from enormous wounds to her head. Zhgenti leaned out and fired a long burst that spilled the old woman's brains. Smiling, displaying all the porcelain and stainless steel of his teeth, the Soviet turned to Desmarais. "Remember, my little French Canadian. Never let yourself forget that I am also a vile, vicious bastard who stops at nothing."

Shuddering with the horror, not opening her eyes, Desmarais answered. "I know, I will not forget."

Pretending to sleep, Lyons stayed low in the back of the troop truck. He held his Konzak assault shotgun under the blanket covering him.

The Syrians paced around the trucks and Rover. Lyons heard Powell talking in Arabic, followed by Arabic voices shouting back and forth, then boots hitting the road. Someone strode away — the boots splashed through the mud beside the asphalt, continued a few more steps. Powell had gone to the sandbagged bunker at the side of the highway.

Clicks came from his hand-radio but Lyons did not dare move a hand to return them, not while Syrian sentries surrounded them. Voices came from the bunker. Then the boots returned and the Rover's engine gunned. Hussein clashed the gears as he shifted and then the troop truck moved. Behind the truck, the diesel of the semi roared.

Lyons finally lowered the blanket from his face. Only dark hills and snow surrounded them. His hand-radio clicked again.

"How'd we get through that?" Gadgets asked.

"I don't know," Lyons told his partner. "I kept a blanket over my head. Ask the Marine. I heard him walk into the guardhouse and talk with someone."

Powell came on with a laugh. "Hey, don't get spooked. I told you this would be tight. It's just started, you hear me?"

"What went on in the guardhouse?" Lyons asked.

"The officer on duty questioned me. Wanted to know all about us. Why we'd risk being on the road tonight, why I, a Soviet, would be with the convoy and what was in the truck..."

"What'd you tell him?" Gadgets interrupted.