Assassin's Tripwire. Don Pendleton

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ you do find evidence of perfidy on the part of Hahmir or elements within his government, you do have one more option.”

      “And that is?” Bolan asked.

      “Option Zeta,” Brognola said. “It’s a file in your dossier. Read it thoroughly and memorize the codes. You might need them.”

      “Got it,” Bolan had said. “Striker, out.”

      And now he was here, in Syria, with his boots—and his back—on the actual ground. He would either return the weapons systems to Hahmir’s government or he would destroy them. And along the way he would determine, if at all possible, whether the President could trust the Hahmir regime. But right now, there was the matter of the dead men who had been lying in wait under the ground.

      “This is a problem,” Bolan said, indicating the bodies. He took Yenni’s hand when she offered it, and allowed her to help him to his feet. The freedom fighter draped her desert scarf around her neck, pocketed her lighter and crouched next to him.

      “They are dead,” she said. “And we are alive. This is not a problem.”

      “Not in the immediate sense,” he replied. “But the drop coordinates were known only to your network. These men were waiting for me. Right here.” He knelt and played the beam of his tactical flashlight over the nearest body.

      “Black scarves,” Yenni said. “These are the Wolf’s men.”

      “You’re supposed to be working as an operative for Fafniyal, right?”

      “Yes,” Yenni replied, nodding, “but it would not matter. There is very little trust between the Wolf’s people and all others. If they find us they will kill us immediately.”

      “So somebody knew about the meet,” Bolan said. “Which means our operation may be compromised before it begins.”

      “Someone in the network, or with access to it, intercepted coordinates,” Yenni said. “These men were left to conceal themselves beneath the dirt. They did not know what was coming. Do you think they would have worn oxygen masks and let the sand fleas bite them for just one American?” She held up the mask the nearest corpse had worn on a rubber cord around his neck.

      Bolan had to admit that she had a point, but he was still worried about the implications. There was no telling where the leak came from. The entire process was potentially porous, from Hahmir’s government—which knew that a force of some kind was to be inserted by the United States to track the missing weapons—all the way down to boots on the soil.

      “Your move, then,” he told her. “I’m counting on you.”

      “And I am counting on the Americans. I’ll help you to free Syria. Whether that happens now or twenty years from now does not matter. What matters is that the work is done.”

      “We’ll need to bury these men,” Bolan said.

      “No,” Yenni replied. “There is no time. There are frequent patrols. The gunfire will have attracted one of these.”

      “Fafniyal’s people?”

      “Yes,” she said. “Leave them. I will take their magazines.” She went from soldier to soldier, stripping the bodies of ammunition, adding it to her gear. She also reloaded the little Krinkov.

      “Are we on foot?” Bolan asked.

      “I have a truck half a kilometer east, under a camouflage net.”

      Bolan patted down his web gear. The little ruggedized tablet was right where it should be. He used it to access a real-time topographical overlay of their position against a satellite map of the area. The encrypted tablet also contained the coordinates of the weapons caches. He noted the position of several icons on the screen and read through the captions.

      “We should get moving to the closest target site,” he told Yenni. “Before…” He let his words trail off. He could hear something on the night wind.

      “Cooper,” Yenni said. “Do you hear that?”

      “Trucks.”

      “It is a Fafniyal patrol. We must go quickly.”

      “That’s not all,” Bolan said. “I hear a helicopter.”

      “Not merely a helicopter. It is a gunship. The Wolf makes use of many Soviet surplus Hind aircraft.”

      “Not good,” Bolan said. “But I think I have a plan.”

      “What is your plan, Cooper?”

      “We run like hell.”

       2

      Bolan and Yenni ran east, through the scrub and rocks, toward a defile Bolan had spotted on the topographical map.

      “Where are we going?” Yenni asked. She didn’t seem winded at all, even sprinting alongside him, working harder to keep up with his long strides.

      “I’ll know it when I see it,” Bolan said, casting a wary glance over his shoulder. “Slow down. Pretty soon we’re going to—”

      “You are very slow. You should run faster.”

      “That’s me,” he replied, not breaking stride. “Slow as molasses.” He eased the Beretta 93R from its holster, checked the selector and looked behind him once more. Somewhere high above, the whirring of the enemy helicopter was louder. He couldn’t see the Hind, if Yenni was correct. He hoped she wasn’t.

      Yenni surged ahead of him by a pace, then three. He opened his mouth to warn her.

      She disappeared.

      Bolan dropped in behind her. The almost invisible hole she’d fallen into was nearly as deep as he was tall. He landed heavily on his combat boots, crouching in the dirt. He couldn’t see her in the darkness.

      “I’m all right,” she said without prompting. “You could have warned me.”

      “You could have waited,” he said.

      The “hole” extended in either direction in a straight line. It was five feet wide and five feet deep. In the darkness, against the sky above, Bolan could see Yenni moving to one knee.

      “What is this?” she asked.

      “Leftovers,” he said. “Satellite imaging says these trenches crisscross the area for miles. Immediately after the Arab Spring unrest, when civil war first broke out, the network was dug out by the first rebel forces. From the tactical reports we received—”

      “We?” Yenni asked.

      “From the reports СКАЧАТЬ