“Will do.”
Hanley added, “I guess I’ll keep one eye on the news for a few days to see what the hell you’re up to. Be careful, kid. Come through whole, okay?”
“I’ll do my best.”
Hanley disconnected the call and immediately put a call in to a number he had stored on his phone. It went directly to a desk at the Pentagon, and a watch officer answered on the first ring and sent Hanley’s call on from there.
While he waited for the transfer, he picked up his fork and took a bite of his sherry-glazed mushrooms. As he looked around the room, it occurred to him that no one else sitting in the restaurant could have possibly guessed that the thickly built man dining alone had just given tacit approval to the assassination of the president of Syria.
CHAPTER 66
Court Gentry sat alone in Captain Anderson’s hooch for twenty minutes, drinking water, eating rations, and waiting. A Green Beret medic came in and cleaned and stitched the vicious cut he’d received over his right ear from the exploding windshield glass in Damascus, then wrapped Court’s head with a dressing.
Finally the captain came through the door, followed by two other members of his A-team. He introduced them as Danny, a master sergeant, and Cliff, a first sergeant. Court did not introduce himself but shook their hands.
Once this was done, Robby said, “All right, mystery man. I’ve been told to hand you over whatever you want, equipment-wise, food-and water-wise, et cetera, and follow your instructions. I am then ordered to forget I ever saw you. Not sure if that means you have friends back at Langley, or enemies.”
“Yeah, our relationship status is complicated.”
Robby said, “We are staying here for the next several weeks, so unless you want to join our op, you’ll need to get extracted somehow. If your friends in high places can scare up transport for you, I’ll certainly get you safely to your LZ.”
Court shook his head. “Thanks, but I don’t need babysitters.”
“Sir, you’re smack-dab in what’s left of ISIS country.”
“Well, that blows. My travel agent said this was a clothing-optional resort.”
All three men laughed, but to Court it still appeared they were regarding him as if he were a unicorn. Robby said, “Seriously, you aren’t going anywhere without a lot of help.” Cliff unrolled a large satellite photo of the area and put it on a table in his hooch. He showed Court where they were in the hills, a few hours’ drive south of the highway where he’d been captured. “The FSA has technicals, but you’ll need a helicopter. The Iraqi border is one hundred twenty-five klicks east. The Turkish border is three times that to the north.”
Court just looked at the Army men. “I’ll be heading northwest, actually. To Palmyra.”
All three looked up from the sat photo. Robby said, “Now why would a smart fella like you go and do a thing like that?”
Court shrugged. “Work.”
Cliff said, “We’ve had our drone up north. Not to Palmyra, but east, over the M20. We’ve been seeing all the activity. A couple days ago the Iranians moved out of the area, then the SAA moved in, and yesterday the militia pushed east along the highway. We even spotted some Russian attack helos. You know anything about what’s going on?”
Court nodded. As far as he was concerned, an American A-team right here a few hours’ drive from enemy lines should know as much as possible about what was going on. “Ahmed Azzam is going to be visiting a small Russian Spetsnaz base located about two klicks east of Palmyra tomorrow, probably in the morning.”
“What Russian base?” the men asked simultaneously, and this surprised Court.
“You don’t know of a Russian base along the M20?”
Court looked down to the photo and put his finger on the place where he’d seen the nucleus of the security operation. “I saw it on an enemy map right here. Just north of the M20 highway. Also, there is something they want protected down here.”
Court remembered the “dumbbell” on the map and traced his finger down. There, displayed on the photo, were a few bombed-out buildings and the unmistakable shape of a single runway. “What’s this?”
“It was the Palmyra airport. It’s been shuttered for years. Since ISIS came in. The SAA hasn’t reopened it.”
“How old is this image?” he asked.
Danny checked the back. “Almost a month. That’s so far out of our sector we haven’t updated it. Mostly we use our UAVs for real intelligence, not sat images.”
Court’s eyes were on the airfield. “Holy shit!” he said aloud, as it came to him. “Not only is that airport back open, but I think the Russians are running it.”
Robby was incredulous. “Where are you getting this intel?”
Court said, “Can’t say. But I can say I’m pretty sure I’m right.”
Robby looked at him. “And you want to go there?”
“I wouldn’t say ‘want to.’ More like ‘have to.’”
Danny said, “Shit, sir, I wanna be you when I grow up.”
Court shook his head. “You really do not, Sergeant.”
Cliff looked to his senior officer. “Hey, Rob. What about hooking him up with the Terp? He’s from Palmyra.”
Robby nodded. “An FSA soldier . . . he’s our interpreter. You met him this morning, sort of. He’s one hundred percent reliable, the bravest and hardest-working kid I’ve ever met. Seriously, I’m going to adopt the Terp when I get out of here, and he’s only a couple of years younger than me.”
“If he knows Palmyra, then I’d really like to talk to this guy.”
* * *
? ? ?
The Special Forces team’s FSA translator was called in over the radio, and he entered the captain’s hooch with a very worried look on his face. Court saw that he was the young man who wore the black Adidas jacket with the white piping that he’d seen earlier in the day. He was in his midtwenties, with a scraggly beard.
Robby said, “Meet Slick. He’s American. That’s all you need to know.”
The young man nodded and shook Court’s hand. “Sorry I hit you on the head when you had the bag on. I thought you were Desert Hawks Brigade.”
“No hard feelings,” Court said. “Why is your English so good?”
“My father grew up in the UK, then moved back to Palmyra. When I turned seventeen I studied languages at the University of Homs. French and English. But only for two years. Then the war came.”
Robby said, “Slick needs to go somewhere in Palmyra, high up enough in a building to where he can see this area here.” He pointed on the photo to where he’d been told by the stranger that a Russian base had been erected. “You know a way to get there?”
The Terp furrowed his eyebrows. “It is very dangerous. Maybe if you sneak across the desert you can get there, but the SAA is all over Palmyra since they took it back from Daesh.”
Court said, “Sometime tomorrow Ahmed Azzam himself will be two klicks east of Palmyra. I want to be close enough to see him.”
An astonished look crossed the Syrian’s face. Thinking a moment, he said, “Maybe we can get into the hills to the north. You will be able to look down onto that land. It’s very flat.”
Court shook his head. “They will be ready for that. This base will have berms and structures built up to protect against that high ground to the north. There’s no way we can set up there and expect to get a look at Azzam.” He spun the map around and put his finger on a point to the west. “But if we can somehow get into the city of Palmyra . . . they won’t be expecting eyes on them from that direction.”
The Terp said, “Of course they won’t. Why would they? It’s full of SAA and pro-regime militia units. I have friends who live in Palmyra; I lived there for three years fighting for it myself, before we lost it to ISIS. Then SAA came and took it from ISIS. Trust me, nobody knows the place like I do. But the FSA can’t go into Palmyra.”
“Maybe not the FSA. But what about a couple of idiots with a long rifle?”
The Terp looked at the Green Berets as if he did not understand.