Syrian Rescue. Don Pendleton
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Название: Syrian Rescue
Автор: Don Pendleton
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Приключения: прочее
isbn: 9781474036962
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How had he come to this?
The answer mocked him: he had volunteered.
“I’ll try to slow them down,” Azmeh told the tall American who called himself Matt Cooper.
“Good luck,” Cooper replied, seeming to mean it.
Given how much they were swerving to avoid incoming fire, Azmeh couldn’t crawl into the rear. The best he could do was aim his AKMS through the hazy back window, hold steady when he fired, and hope the hot brass spewing from his weapon did not fall down Cooper’s collar, burning him and maybe causing him to crash the Jeep.
Azmeh braced one elbow on the low back of his seat to help steady his weapon, which was switched to semiautomatic. He didn’t think he could stop the truck, much less take out its occupants, but if he slowed them down a bit, perhaps Cooper could think of something.
Azmeh’s first shot drilled through the window’s yellowed plastic and flew on, hopefully to strike the truck. Azmeh would have loved to drill its radiator, stranding their assailants and leaving them to simmer through the afternoon and freeze overnight.
That mental picture cheered him, and he fired twice more before an enemy bullet pierced the Jeep’s window. Azmeh flinched and ducked as it struck the roll bar and shattered, spraying the seats with shrapnel. Something stung his left arm.
“Full-auto now, I think,” he said to Cooper.
“Your call,” the American replied, and somehow found a way to wring more speed out of the Wrangler’s howling engine.
* * *
AT LEAST THREE RIFLEMEN were firing at them now, by Bolan’s count. He couldn’t see them well, between the dust, his wobbling mirrors and the Wrangler’s canvas top, but they were gaining, and their prospects for a hit seemed better than Azmeh’s. Bolan was locked out of the action, doing what he could to dodge incoming fire without rolling the Jeep. He hoped there were no wadis hiding out there, waiting to derail them in the next few hundred yards.
Azmeh squeezed off another burst, then muttered something to himself. Before Azmeh fired again, Bolan called out, raising his voice over the wind. “I want to try something. Fasten your seat belt.”
Azmeh didn’t question him. He had to know that they were running out of time and options now. If Bolan couldn’t pull off a surprise for their pursuers, they were toast.
He heard the seat belt click and said, “Okay, hang on!”
Cranking the Wrangler’s wheel hard to the left, he whipped the Jeep’s rear end through a long, sliding one hundred eighty-degree turnaround. The knobby tires spewed sand and gravel, raising clouds of dust.
Before it settled, Bolan scooped up his Kalashnikov and bailed out of the Jeep, leaving Azmeh to follow him as they went to meet their enemies.
Whatever happened next would be on Bolan’s terms.
Washington, DC
“How much do you know about the Syrian civil war?” Hal Brognola had asked Bolan, thirty-odd hours earlier.
“The basics,” Bolan had replied. “The president’s been hanging on for what, twelve years?”
“Fourteen and counting,” Brognola replied.
“He came up through the army, he’s a critic of the West, not much regard for human rights. The Arab Spring surprised him, like it did other leaders in the region. Where they folded, he’s clung to power, with accusations of atrocities against the rebels and civilians. He’s got the army and police, supported by Iran and outside Shi’ite groups. The opposition is a shaky coalition—Kurds, the Muslim Brotherhood, Sufis opposed to Shi’ites, take your pick.”
Brognola nodded. “So, you know the diplomatic picture, more or less.”
“Broad strokes,” Bolan said.
“Okay, well you won’t have heard about the new initiative. It’s strictly classified—which, given the UN’s Swiss cheese security, means only ten or fifteen thousand people know about it. Long story short, a couple of people from State have been talking to Syrian opposition leaders and an undersecretary from UNESCWA. In case that doesn’t ring a bell, it’s the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, concerned with all things Middle Eastern.”
“Talking? That’s the secret?”
“Nope. The secret bit is where they were supposed to hold their latest talks. In Syria, at Ar-Raqqah, east of the capital. They planned to slip in from Iraq, under the radar, have their sit-down, offer the rebels whatever they need to get rid of the president and restore civil order.”
“Not the UN’s usual approach.”
“Not even close,” Hal said. “And that’s why it was on the QT, more or less.”
“When you say ‘was’…”
“They tried it, yesterday, but something happened. No one’s sure exactly what that was. We’ve lost track of the UN flight from Baghdad—radio silence, no SOS to indicate that they were going down.”
“What about the beacons?”
“There were two on board, as usual,” Brognola said. “A distress radio beacon and an underwater locator retrofitted to the standard flight recorder. So far, neither one of them is functioning.”
“That seems unusual.”
“Extremely,” Brognola agreed. “One of the guys from State was also wearing an emergency locator transmitter, but he would have had to turn it on himself. So far, nothing. Could be it slipped his mind, or maybe he’s no longer with us.”
Bolan saw where this was going. “And you need someone to take a look,” he said, not asking.
“Right.”
“What have you got from satellite surveillance, so far?”
“Squat. Before we knew the plane was missing, a haboob blew in from the Sahara, dumping tons of sand all along the projected flight path. If the plane went down, it’s hidden from us now.”
“That isn’t much to go on,” Bolan said.
“Not much, but we need to try. Aside from our guys and the UN delegates, there were people from the opposition on the plane. They’ve been to Washington, been seen around the White СКАЧАТЬ