Quiet murmurs rose up. Predictably, most seemed enthusiastic about the idea.
“Don’t get too excited,” Rapp said. “We were going to slip out of town without getting anywhere near an ISIS patrol. Now we’re going to have to go looking for one.”
“Perhaps the rest of us should stay here,” Yusef offered. “You could get a vehicle and come back to pick us up.”
Gaffar reached out and slapped the young man hard in the back of the head. “Does he look like a bus driver to you?”
Rapp motioned for calm. “Because of all the debris, getting a truck back here isn’t going to be possible. And even if it was, it would attract too much attention. We go together and we get out of here together. Understand?”
More murmurs. Less enthusiastic this time.
“Gaffar, what’s our best bet for picking up a patrol?”
“If we go north about a kilometer, we’ll get to the edge of the territory that’s regularly patrolled. And it puts us in a good position to escape the city without being seen.”
“Then lead us out. I’ll take over at the rear.”
Shada followed on Gaffar’s heels, with the others respecting the intervals that Rapp had insisted on. Yusef, still leaning heavily on Mohammed, was the last to set out. Rapp paced them at a distance of thirty feet.
He kept an eye on his six, but the danger of being flanked was pretty minimal. His position at the end of the column was intended primarily as motivation and it seemed to be working. Every minute or so Yusef glanced back and each time his pace surged.
The buildings around them remained dark but were becoming less and less dilapidated. The rubble that made stealthy movement so difficult gave way to smooth dirt, and empty window frames evolved into ones protected by shutters and glass.
Rapp heard a gentle crack above and he swung his Glock in the direction of the sound. Sighting over the silencer, he spotted the outline of a cat leaping between a series of open rafters. Otherwise, everything was silent. ISIS had instituted curfew and blackout protocols, and the local population wasn’t inclined to defy either.
There was a vague glow becoming visible to the north and he stopped, turning his head to try to pick it up in his more light-sensitive peripheral vision. It turned out to be unnecessary. The sound of a car engine began to emerge from the same direction.
Rapp accelerated to a jog, passing the others on his way to the front of their ragtag column. As expected, Gaffar had stopped, taking cover behind a shattered fountain.
“It’s one street to the east,” he said, as Rapp knelt and motioned for the others to hold their positions.
“Seems like they’ll go for the edge of town and then double back on the street in front of us.”
“That would be my guess, too.”
“Then this is as good a place as any,” Rapp said. “If the opposition looks manageable, we stop them here.”
“And how do you define ‘manageable’?”
Rapp examined the road and the buildings on either side. There wasn’t much they could use to their advantage. Only surprise and the fact that the ISIS men would be unaccustomed to resistance from the locals.
“I assume you don’t have a silencer.”
“No. A revolver with five rounds. And a knife.”
“In that case, anything over eight men will be risky.”
“Eight? Are you sure?”
“You think we can handle more?”
“I was thinking less.”
“Don’t turn nervous on me, now, Gaffar. We’ll flag them down and I’ll go out there and try to make a few friends, get them to lower their guard. If you use my Glock, they’re not going to hear much and they won’t react right away. I—”
“No,” Gaffar said firmly. “We both know this is a terrible plan. I will go. Your accent is not from this region and you’re far more accurate than I am. Besides—and I mean no offense—you are not a man of great warmth. I, on the other hand, am loved by all.”
“Is that right? I didn’t know that about you.”
“Ask anyone,” he deadpanned as the hum of the ISIS patrol truck reemerged. “I have a very fine personality.”
“Then let’s put it to use,” Rapp agreed. It was undoubtedly the better strategy, but his knee-jerk reaction was always to take on the most dangerous part of an op.
“Mohammed is armed also,” Gaffar said. “Should we solicit his help?”
“Not a problem for me, but do you really want him shooting in your direction?”
“I suppose not.”
Illumination from a single headlight began reflecting dimly off the buildings to their right, and Gaffar took a deep breath. It shook slightly when he let it out.
“You all right?”
“Of course.”
He’d been Iraqi regular army, trained by the Americans, and was solid in every way. But strolling into a group of heavily armed ISIS psychopaths would be enough to shake anyone.
Rapp dug around in his jacket and pulled out a pack of Marlboros. He held them out along with a pack of matches.
Gaffar grinned. “You are truly a gift from God. May Allah smile on you.”
“And you.”
With that, the big man walked into the middle of the street and held up a hand in greeting, squinting into the glare of the truck bearing down on him. It began to brake and Gaffar watched with calculated boredom, cupping a hand around a lit match and bringing it to the cigarette in his mouth.
The pickup skidded to a stop about twenty feet in front of him and the men in the back jumped out. All were shouting and all had AKs aimed in Gaffar’s direction.
The men in the cab were slower to abandon the vehicle, but when they did, Rapp was able to get an accurate head count. Seven. They were on.
“What are you doing out here?” the driver demanded. “It’s curfew.”
Gaffar tossed the match casually on the ground before taking a long drag on his cigarette. “General Masri sent me. We had intelligence that Mohammed Qarni and his band were hiding out in the abandoned part of the city. I don’t think it’s true, though. I was able to find no trace of them.”
He started forward, ignoring the weapons trained on him, and shook a cigarette out of the pack for the driver. He accepted and Gaffar lit a match.
“They may have fled the city,” he continued. “If so, I suspect the desert will do my job for me.”
He held the pack out and the men around him approached hesitantly. Rapp watched carefully over his suppressor, taking in how each of them moved, how they handled their weapons, their level of alertness. By the time they all had lit their cigarettes, he’d designated each one with a priority. Of course, the unpredictability of battle would inevitably throw a wrench into his order, but it made sense to go in with some guidelines.