“That is correct. I am Canadian, Klossner Welt Ausbildungs security.”
Another pause from the Russian. “We have a Russian officer who speaks some Arabic. Put a Syrian on the radio.”
Court translated this for Van Wyk, and added, “These Russians have something against Canadians, apparently.”
Van Wyk translated for the Desert Hawks officers, and one of them got on the radio to speak with the Russian air assets.
To Court it looked like he’d just outlived his usefulness. There was a good chance he was going to be sent back to the KWA room upstairs because he wasn’t needed here.
He realized the only way he’d learn anything here in the command center was by walking into the other room and right up to the map, so he decided he needed to risk doing just exactly that.
Van Wyk was engaged with the majors, and none of the other men in the commo room noticed him slip away.
Court walked into the room with the map table like he had every right in the world to be there, and he judged the movement of the group of men around the table to position himself where he could see the most. The men were engaged in their conversation; Court wasn’t picking up the words but it seemed to be something of an argument.
He walked the length of the room and through an open door on the far side. Here was a small empty room with a window, but no way out. It would be awkward to just turn around and retrace his steps, but he was the Gray Man; he knew he could pull it off.
Court turned around and walked right back past the map, again as if he belonged, and headed back to the radio room. He’d spent fewer than ten seconds close to the map, and had only looked at it for two or three.
But he saw what he needed to see. The map clearly displayed the city of Palmyra, and a series of concentric circles. Different unit markings were evident around the maps, although Court didn’t recognize all the units.
To the far east it was easy to decipher, because this part of the map was a much more detailed version of the smaller laminated map Court saw on the radioman’s table. Court couldn’t read the Arabic script, but he had seen the location of the Hawks’ position in the refinery and also north in the hills.
Court could also see that there were two more small towns to the east of the refinery along the highway.
To the west were markings for other units, and from what Court had heard in the bar the night before, the SAA was providing the inner line of defense around the Palmyra area.
Inside of the SAA protective ring, the nucleus of the entire map had not been drawn around the city of Palmyra itself, but instead, it looked like it was about a mile or a mile and a half outside the city. And the nucleus was not a circle . . . it looked like the outline of a dumbbell lying at a 45-degree angle. At the center of the entire map, the nucleus around which the dumbbell emanated, was a spot on the M20 highway just a mile or so east from the eastern edge of the city of Palmyra.
Court had no idea what was at the center of this security cordon, but whatever it was, it involved two locations close to each other, and a protected zone between them. Clearly the focus of the entire security operation lay both north and south of the highway to the east of Palmyra.
This was key. He couldn’t just call Voland and have him tell the FSA that Azzam would be in Palmyra at a certain time. The FSA couldn’t flatten the entire city. But if there was some sort of a Russian base a mile or so to the east of Palmyra, and Azzam was planning on visiting it Tuesday, then that might represent actionable intelligence. The FSA might be able to send rocket crews close enough to attack the base, or set up shoulder-fired surface-to-air crews to target Azzam’s helicopter.
Yes, Court now knew the “where.” As for the “when,” it was sometime between tomorrow, which was Monday and when the security cordon was supposed to be in effect, and Tuesday afternoon, which was when Azzam had told both Bianca and Yasmin that he would return to Damascus.
The “what” was not hardened intel. This was all still speculation that this security operation involved Ahmed Azzam at all, but Court had executed many operations in his career on less solid intel than what he’d managed to acquire that corroborated his theory, so he was confident that the president would be coming to this area.
Court stood back by the radios, behind Van Wyk, and concentrated on committing all the information he had just seen to memory. In the middle of thinking over what it all meant, he looked up and was surprised to see Van Wyk looking directly at him.
“Kilo Nine! Pay attention.”
“Yeah, boss?”
“You’re up.”
“What?”
“The Russian’s Arabic sucks, apparently, so you’re back on the mic.”
Court took the radio and began speaking again with the Russians. He looked up to Van Wyk. “They say they can send a pair of Mi-24s for a couple of runs with rockets, but they are low on gas. After about two passes they will have to leave to refuel, and it will take them an hour to return.”
While Van Wyk discussed this with the Syrians, Court thought about this bit of information. Quickly he realized this was intel he needed. He figured the turnaround time to fuel an Mi-24 would be up to a half hour, and certainly not less than fifteen minutes. If the Russian attack helicopters had to fly both ways from the hills north of the refinery to their refueling bladder, and they could make the entire trip, including refueling, in an hour, Court thought there was a significant chance this meant there was a Russian refueling operation set up around Palmyra, and possibly in the “dumbbell” on the map in the other room.
There was nothing scientific about any of this, but all circumstantial evidence continued to point to a Russian base just off the highway east of Palmyra, and less than twenty-five kilometers from Court’s present location.
A Syrian major handed Court a sheet with the latest coordinates for the concentration of enemy forces trying to escape out of the hills. He wanted these exact coordinates relayed to the Russian helicopters.
Court decided to slightly alter the coordinates when he read them out over the radio, with the effect being to send the Russians to a location about two klicks west of the actual position of the Free Syrian Army forces. He wasn’t sure if it would save the guys on the ground or not, but he knew he couldn’t send the helos too far off course, or it would come back that they’d been fed completely incorrect coordinates.
* * *
? ? ?
Minutes later Court and Van Wyk left the command center, and minutes after that the entire KWA strike force was outside the control building, hustling back to their BMPs to leave the relative safety of the refinery and head out with Ali Company towards the east. As Court surveyed the scene around him, he saw bodies in the distance, slumped forms near some storage tanks. He was too far away to know if the people killed had been combatants or not, but he was well aware of the Hawks’ reputation for barbarism against civilians.
He climbed into his infantry fighting vehicle with the others, then looked up to see that Broz was sitting right in front of him. The Croatian still stared Court down.
Court said, “Dude, any time you want another shot.”
Broz clearly did want to start something, but Van Wyk sealed the hatch and looked in at the team. He saw the posturing between the two men. “Broz! Wade! You start fighting in this tin can with me in here with you, and I swear to God I’m going to shoot you both.”
Court and the Croatian both calmed down, but when the vehicle began bouncing on the road, it became obvious that any fight in these conditions would have likely resulted in more comedy than tragedy.
CHAPTER 61