It was clear the executioner did not swim; the panic in his actions had nothing to do with the fact that he was in a life-and-death struggle with another human, and everything to do with the fact he was underwater and unable to breathe.
Court pulled the weapon away as the executioner reached out for it, and then the American spun the barrel towards the thick man, pounded the muzzle into the man’s solar plexus because he couldn’t see him and needed to be sure of his target, and pulled the trigger at contact distance.
The weapon fired; the bullet slammed into the man’s chest and blew out his back.
Court’s feet hit the lakebed now, and he shoved off with them, launching back up towards the surface. His head broke the water and he sucked in a huge breath of air, but instantly he saw he was ten feet from the edge of the pier, and at least four men were running up it now, heading in his direction. The fighter in front opened fire, raking the water around Court with brass-jacketed lead.
Court dove again, kicked his legs, and shot under the pier. Here he spun onto his back while still below the surface, and he reached up with his AK. He kicked along, a backstroke without the arm movements, and he opened fire on the wooden dock right above him, sending dozens of rounds up, splintering slats, tearing through the legs and torsos of the men running down to the edge of the pier.
A man fell off into the water on the left, and Court tossed the empty AK in his hands and swam after the rifle that had been held by his newest victim.
* * *
? ? ?
Basset slammed his head back twice into the nose of an ISIS fighter lying under him on the lakeshore, and when he was certain the man was dazed from the pounding, he drew a knife from the man’s belt. He cut his bindings free in seconds, although he also sliced into his own hand doing so, and then he grabbed the man’s rifle and eviscerated him with a long burst of fire to his abdomen.
Up the row of prisoners an ISIS gunman shot two Kurds at close range and was aiming at a third, but Basset shot him twice in the pelvis, dropping him where he stood. The prisoners alive near the wounded man fell onto him, tearing at clothing and flesh with their hands. One man got the AK off the doomed terrorist while others in the line began untying one another’s bindings by picking at the knots with their fingertips.
Basset and a prisoner nearby both had weapons now, and they poured fire into the ISIS gunmen near the Ural truck as well as those fighting amid the line of prisoners. The ISIS fighters fired back, of course, and soon the man next to Basset went down with a cry of pain.
Basset emptied his weapon and lunged for the gun dropped by the fallen prisoner. He got his hands on it and spun around but saw two gunmen aiming at him from higher on the hill. He knew he didn’t have time to get off any shots before they gunned him down.
Gunfire cracked from behind, and both men launched backwards onto the rocky hillside. Basset looked over his shoulder and saw the American, fifty feet from the shoreline in the bloody water, firing his Kalashnikov, using a floating body to rest the weapon on.
Basset spun back to the ISIS men scrambling around the hillside and he fired, and by now two more prisoners had taken weapons and were in the fight.
* * *
? ? ?
Court staggered out of the water when the crazed shoot-out was over, then fell into the salty mud.
Basset limped over, holding on to his own right forearm with his bloody hand. The young Syrian had been shot in the arm and the foot, and he also bled from where he’d cut himself. But he ignored his injuries, dropped to his knees next to the American, and put his hand on the man’s back. “My friend! We did it! You did it! But more Daesh will surely come. We have to go!”
Court looked up at him, coughed lake water, and vomited into the dirt. “How . . . how many did we lose?”
Basset helped Court to his feet. “I don’t know. Many. But many more of us are left. We will take the truck and go.”
“Go where?” Court asked. He barely had the energy to stand.
“Anywhere!” Basset said with a wide smile.
“I like this plan,” Court said, and then he dropped face-first into the mud.
Basset called some men over to help move the American to the truck.
CHAPTER 79
Captain Robert Anderson sat in the main cabin of the UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter as it streaked impossibly low over the dark desert landscape, and he steeled his stomach to what was about to come.
Over the cabin intercom he’d been notified by the pilot that they were moments from hitting the hills, and when that happened, this low and fast flying was going to make life difficult for him and the eight other men here in the back of the helo.
Of course he knew the computers on board kept the machine from slamming into terrain, but he also knew that every time he flew nap-of-the-earth he got nauseous.
He almost never puked, but he always felt like he was going to puke.
Just as he told himself to put the motion of the helo out of his mind, his headset came alive again.
“Captain, we got a FRAGO comin’ in from the JOC.” A FRAGO was a fragmented order, meaning an addendum to an operations order in place. Their current order was to leave Syria, to head north straight up towards the Turkish border as fast as possible, and Anderson hadn’t expected any FRAGOs to interfere or delay this order, because his Joint Operations Center had seemed very insistent he carry it out as soon as possible.
Anderson said, “Roger. Send FRAGO.”
The captain listened to the transmission for over a minute, then made some notes on a pad he kept in his load-bearing vest. A smile grew on his face. “Copy all. Zulu out.”
Seconds later, the UH-60 banked to the northwest, picked up even more speed, and entered the hills. It lurched upwards to miss a steep rise, and Robby Anderson immediately regretted eating the two candy bars he’d downed not twenty minutes earlier.
* * *
? ? ?
A half hour after receiving his FRAGO, Anderson and the rest of his twelve-man A-team leapt out of their two helos in a rugged mountainous area to the northeast of Palmyra. He knew they couldn’t remain on the ground for any time at all without endangering his men and his helicopters. Fortunately, he had no plans to hang out here for the rest of the evening.
With his weapon on his shoulder, he and his team pushed forward into a walled structure, where they found a large Russian Ural truck parked alone. The men cleared the area, making sure there were no hostiles, and then Anderson himself climbed into the bed of the vehicle. He found a man sitting Indian style, his hands in the air, and another lying on his back with his face partially bandaged. Anderson illuminated him with the flashlight on his rifle and confirmed he had the two he was looking for. “ID confirmed. I need two up here to help me move them.”
The two men were carried off the truck and into the back of the helo; less than three minutes after landing, the helicopter rose into the air, then returned to its stomach-wrenching nap-of-the-earth flying to the north.
* * *
? ? ?
Inside the Blackhawk, the new passenger prone on the deck lay still, until a Green Beret medic held smelling salts under his nose.
Then the man lurched a little, and opened his eyes.
Captain Anderson knelt down over him. “Sir? Sir? Can you hear me?”
The American Anderson only knew as Slick seemed to come to his senses quickly. “Oh, hey, Robby. What’s goin’ on?”
“You know. Not much. The usual.”
The man smiled a little, and looked around. “Yeah.”
“You’ve lost some blood, and you’re probably dehydrated. We’ll fix you up.”
“Thanks.”
Robby nodded. “Had a rough couple of days, I see.”
“The usual. Where’s Basset?”
Basset waved from the other side of the helo when the American looked his way. A medic was tending to his bloody forearm, hand, and foot.
Robby said, “He called my command about forty-five minutes ago and gave us your coordinates. We just happened to be passing through, so we swung by to pick you up.”
“Passing through?”