The male population of Dayr al Zawr had doubled in the days since the civil war began. It more than tripled after the cease-fire started and rebel units andmujahideen sought it out as a place of sanctuary during the downtime in the fighting. The imam of this mosque could expect weekend blockbuster business every night until the shooting started again. And the SEALs chose their arrival to be on a Friday when any mosque was at its busiest.

  Woody looked from under his brows for Priest and Blair. He found them standing along the wall behind the raised dais of the minbar with faces lowered. The imam was speaking from his place on the dais; droning on in a singsong recalled from the words of the Prophet. Woody’s hands were suddenly slick on the stock of his AK as he felt a rumble in his lower gut. The rumble rose to sound like two cats fighting in an alley.

  Not now, please Jesus, he thought. Not the time for a latrine break or, worse, an accident.

  Clamping his sphincter shut and locking his jaw tight, he concentrated on studying the crowd. There were a lot of gunmen here piously rapt in the words of the imam. Rifles and rocket launchers were close to hand or hanging in combat slings. The sharp mix of gun oil and spent powder competed with sweat, stale tobacco and lamp smoke. Woody tried to picture standing armed to the teeth in his church back in New Jersey. Nope, Father Kenney would not stand for any of that crap. Keep your loafers on son, but leave the piece at home.

  And how would this crowd react if they knew four Satans were standing close enough to touch?

  It was hot in here. The close-pressed bodies were raising the temperature. Woody felt sweat running down his back in rivulets that soaked into his waistband. The cloth of his keffiyeh clung to his neck like a second skin. The air was a rich funk of body odor and kerosene fumes. Woody felt a headache building and his vision blurring at the edges. It was dehydration. His epic shit drained him of the fluids he needed. Soon the sweating would stop and the chills begin. He pressed his eyes tight and snapped them open again. He was not going to fuck this mission up because he had the trots. That was not going to happen.

  He sensed Heath stirring. He raised his head to see Priest and Blair moving along the wall and out of sight through a portal at the other end of the big room. There was only dark beyond it. Heath turned to meet his eyes for a half beat. “Stay on me,” the man’s dark eyes told him. Woody’s lower tract rumbled noisily just as the imam paused in his oratory to take a breath. A few of the bearded men around him turned to see who could be the source of this offense. But one guy smiled as his amused eyes studied Woody. He raised eyebrows at Woody and his mustache raised to show a toothy smirk.

  Heath edged out of the crowd along the back wall. Woody turned to follow. They were to exfil the way they came in and join Chili and Pig to provide outside cover if everything went to shit. The other two were in place for the sneak into the hospital building.

  Someone shouldered through the row in front of him. Woody brushed past but the guy was still on his heels as he made for the exit arch behind Heath. At first he thought it was someone taking their cue to leave the prayer service early. Then Woody realized the guy was talking to him. He turned to see the smiling old guy who thought his stomach noises were so funny.

  Woody’s guts were on fire and all he wanted was cool evening air. He made it out through the entry room forgetting to retrieve his sandals. The guy kept after him until they were both out on the walk in front of the mosque. The guy was yattering away in rapid fire Arabic and holding a white piece of paper out to Woody. Not one word of what he as saying made any sense to Woody. All I want to do is find a nice quiet place to take a shit, he thought. The guy grabbed him by the wrist and Woody jerked back. An interested crowd was stopping to form around them. It was street theater and something to break the monotony. Woody looked around for Chili and Pig but couldn’t see them in the dark of the street after being in the lit mosque interior. The guy, still smiling, was speaking louder and stabbing the rectangle of folded paper at Woody.

  Two guys in black broke the circle and made to move toward the pair. Woody’s hand went to the pistol grip of his AK. These newcomers were barking orders that Woody could understand. They were telling everyone to back up. They gripped their rifles across their chests. Their eyes gleamed from black keffiyeh. The ring of onlookers melted back. Woody heard a voice in his ear. Chili.

  “Got your back, bro.”

  A brand new knot tightened around Woody’s bowels. This time it was tension and he wasn’t shy to admit it. Him and three others SEALs were about to throw down in Jihad Central. The only good news was that Priest and Blair were clear to complete the core mission goal. This might even buy them a useful distraction.

  As the pair in black stormed closer a boy trotted in front of them holding open palms before them. The kid was asking the pair for cigarettes. Not asking, insisting like they owed them to him. The crowd closed in again anxious to take in this new development. The pair in black tried to push past the kid but his begging hands were everywhere. It was Gharib. He dodged their slaps until a backhand fist caught him across the head and he tumbled to the sidewalk. The pair was stepping over him when a hand seized Woody’s wrist.

  Heath. And the big black man was smiling like payday.

  “This man is a doctor! He saw that you are sick,” Heath said in Arabic slow enough for an idiot to understand.

  Heath plucked the paper from the still-smiling doc’s hand.

  “He wrote down his name and office number at the hospital. He wants you to come see him.”

  The doc beamed.

  Rather than answer, Woody clapped a hand over the keffiyeh cloth covering his mouth and mimicked retching. Heath thanked the doctor graciously and ushered Woody through the ring of now laughing lookee-loos. The pair in black just stood watching after them, ignoring Gharib who had scrambled to his feet and wriggled away between the onlookers as the crowd broke up.

  “My sandals,” Woody croaked. Heath was frog-marched him away down a side alley by the collar.

  “I got your fucking sandals,” Heath hissed in his ear. “Now let’s get your white ass out of sight.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  PALMYRA, SYRIA

  ROUTE 90

  The highway was a nightmare from a purely tactical standpoint. Roman saw ambushes everywhere along its length.

  Roman rode in the rear of a rattling Russian-built armored truck in the middle of the convoy of transport vehicles. It was familiar to him from his days in the mountains and deserts of Afghanistan. The squeal of protesting shock absorbers and the smell of hot metal brought back unpleasant memories of past actions; ambushes in countries much like the land they were traversing now. He closed his eyes and images of blood-splashed walls and the whine of spalling lead leapt to his mind. The many monotonous hours of discomfort and seconds of pants-shitting terror were recalled without his bidding. He felt a trickle of sweat down his back despite the nighttime chill of the open desert coming in through the vents.

  They made their way eastward down a four-lane asphalt strip that looped around the ancient oasis town of Palmyra lying to the south. That sad collection of hovels was again in the hands of Assad forces after weeks of bitter fighting. This offered scant comfort as it only meant that there were rebel forces loose in the region hungry for payback. Any traffic on the roadway would be a tempting target for any khat-chewing jihadi with an anxious finger on the trigger of an RPG launcher. The high sand berms to either side of Route 90 would provide a free field of fire and cover.

  And to any vengeance-minded son of a bitch watching from concealment the OPCW convoy was practically irresistible. Twenty trucks and armored vehicles were racing through the night three lengths apart from one another and straddling two lanes. Though they traveled at their maximum safe speed it felt to Roman as if they were crawling. The view through the slits oozed by at a glacial pace. The mostly Russian-made trucks were assigned to the UN mission and so were whitewashed to proclaim their neutrality to all combatants. All the hastily applied coat of white accomplished was to increase their visibility in the moonlight. What did the United Nations flags fluttering from their aerials say to a mujahideen other than, “here are ferangi, infidels, offered like lambs to the butcher?”

  Certainly, the current cease-fire added to their fragile sense of safety. But this was a brittle and extremely temporary truce. It was due to be broken by one side or the other and the bloody reprisals that followed from each offended side would reveal the “peace process” as the farce it was.

  The Syrians gave the convoy a close air escort for a time. Two Gazelle gunships did accompany them for the first hour or so. They had turned back as their fuel ran low. They were promised that more gunships would arrive to fly cover for the rest of the way to As Sukhnah. So far, these had not arrived. The caravan of trucks continued on blindly to whatever lay ahead on the road and on the empty land around them.

  Unmindful of their danger, the other passengers in Roman’s truck dozed on the bench seats or absorbed themselves with personal electronic devices. The dark interior of the crew cabin took on a ghostly glow as the international collection of bureaucrats checked emails, played games or adjusted music playlists. Here they traveled by night across a strip of road that bisected a country at war with itself and these saintly peacemakers consumed themselves with trivia. They were connected to all but the universe of danger they moved through. Or perhaps they were all too aware and sought escape into a virtual womb where all was familiar. In any case, they were here to save the world and all they could see was the view from the tiny screens in their hands.

  We could all be dead in an instant, Roman thought to himself. And their only regret will be not touching the “send” button in time.

  They had little interest in their Russian traveling companion and that perfectly suited Roman’s purposes. One of the UN apparatchiks interested him however. A Swede with hair cropped short like a boy and long tanned legs visible thanks to her rolled-up khaki shorts. He had caught her studying him with an appraising glance on a few occasions when she thought he was not looking, and one time when she made sure that he was. But Roman would have no time for that until the game was over and the prize located. Too many times he had allowed himself to be distracted by a pretty face or a firm ass. He must harden his heart to see this through to the end. He must become a monk.

  Roman had convinced his masters in the FIS to allow him to act as an observer, an envoy, to this mission. They acceded to his request as he had the background and languages needed and another report on the search for chemical weapons could not hurt in the end. Moscow was still very much concerned with keeping its ass well covered even in the reign of Putin; where personal gain was of more concern than national security.

  He chose whichever convoy would bring him closer to Dayr al Zawr. This particular outfit’s ultimate goal was As Sukhnah where unreliable records indicated a stockpile of concentrated sarin liquid concealed in an underground government facility. Roman could not confirm whether the deadly nerve agent was stored there or not. It did not concern him. What did concern him was manufacturing a scenario that would allow him to travel east from Sukhnah and further down military road 20 to the larger city a few days further along the Euphrates. But first they must get through this gauntlet to the relative safety of the military road and more open country.

  The armored truck at the lead of the column slowed to drive well around a battered wreck. It was a suspicious Mercedes truck sitting on rims along the verge of the road. All abandoned vehicles were suspicious. The fat wheels of the armored troop carrier rumbled over the concrete median strip to give the derelict a wide berth. The heavy Ural cargo carrier followed and the rest of the convoy closed up behind to make the sudden change in course.

  In a searing flash, the abandoned Mercedes turned into three tons of liquid shrapnel. Six artillery rounds concealed in a ditch beneath it ignited simultaneously— set off by an Iranian-manufactured Djinn radio detonator. The force of the blast tipped the Ural over on its side and slid the heavy transport across the concrete median in a shower of sparks. The concussive wave shattered the glass in the next three vehicles in line as well as punching them through with hot scraps of shredded steel lashing through the air at supersonic speeds.

  Slewing around through a pall of oily smoke, the lead-armored truck sprayed wild fire from the machine gun in its turret. Tracers arced up to rip along the ridge of the berm that ran down one side of the roadway. No targets were in sight but the guns raked the empty ground anyway. Flares leapt into the night sky from tubes angled along the sides of the troop carrier. These burst hundreds of feet in the air to illuminate the road and surrounding desert like noon.

  Truck after truck, the convoy slammed to a halt behind the growing cloud of smoke from the blast. It filled the space between the berms like a creeping tide.

  “Drive!” Roman screamed. “Drive, goddamn you!”

  He clambered over the wriggling bodies of the UN wonks. They had all been pitched from their seats when the vehicle braked. They squealed like puppies frightened at a thunderstorm as he kneed and elbowed his way through them to the drivers at the front. The pretty Swede’s face was pretty no more. Now it was twisted into a mask of anxiety. They had a right to their fear. This was a terrible situation, a nightmare scenario that would only worsen if they did not keep moving. He met a soldier, a young Syrian with eyes rolling madly in his head, clambering toward and past him. The soldier climbed up on the step to man the gun turret mounted mid-body. He mewed prayers as he passed. Roman heard the 20mm chain gun atop their truck begin to pound away as he struggled to the pair of seated men before him. Pound away at what?

  Roman’s hand had just touched the driver’s seat back when a second concussive wave lifted the rear of the armored truck shoving it forward violently. Roman’s boots left the deck and he sailed between the front seats to slam into the unupholstered steel dashboard. A flash of brilliant orange light streamed in through every viewport. A second blast from behind. Someone was boxing in the convoy, crippling it before and behind. Grabbing it by the nose and tail as hyenas will when bringing down an ox. Once that was done the real slaughter could commence.

  Just like Kabul.

  Just like the Khyber.

  Well, he’d be damned and gone to hell if he escaped all that shit only to die that way on another day.

  What he did not know was that a second IED had gone off behind them. It caught the armored truck bringing up the rear of the convoy in its circle of fire and steel. The front wheel assembly was torn off and the truck went down on its nose digging a hundred-foot furrow in the road surface before coming to a stop. Escape had been cut off front and rear. That was the signal for the rebels to rise from concealment. They opened up on the stalled chain of vehicles with automatic weapons and grenade launchers from either side of the highway.

  Roman was up off the dash and shoving a pistol under the jaw of the driver with the feral expression of a caged beast.

  “Drive, motherfucker,” he snarled. “Put your fucking foot down and drive us through this now!”

  Whether the driver understood his words or not, Roman would never know. But the Syrian caught the message loud and clear and stood on the gas and clutch alternately to plow into the blinding wall of smoke closing the road before them. He climbed up the gears, transmission howling beneath them, until he got them moving at maximum speed through zero visibility.

  Roman planted his feet and held on. They struck something hard with a shriek of metal on metal filling the cab. Then they were canted wildly to the right, center of gravity shifting dangerously. The driver had found one of the berms and was angling along it at a tilt of dangerous degree. He eased back on the throttle and down the slope to the road surface. Small arms fire rattled like hail on the exterior. It was answered by the chain gun above and behind them. Smoke bled through every chink in the truck’s armor. The heat within became suffocating but still Roman held the barrel of his Sig to the driver’s sweaty neck.

  “Keep moving!” he shouted. “Do not stop for anything!”

  A cry from behind. Roman glanced back to see the young soldier drop from the turret lifeless; half of his head was gone. One eye stared sightlessly from the gore. Blood and brains sprayed the civilians on the floor as the soldier dropped among them. Their whining rose to animal pitch. Something to write on your Facebook status,Roman thought with a grim smile. If you live.

  The noise fell away behind them as they made bumpy progress. Cool clean air was streaming through the holes punched through the plexi of the viewports. Roman kept the barrel of his handgun dug into the driver’s neck like a spur. He leaned to look out the windscreen and saw only open straight road before them. The ground to either verge fell away until the road surface was raised like a causeway across the desert. Only when he was satisfied that they were fully clear of the ambush area did he pull back the Sig and allow the driver to ease off the pedal.

  Roman, bathed in sweat under his body armor, sank to the steel floor between the seats, and sucked in a lung full of sweet desert air. He turned to regard the soldier in the passenger seat for the first time. The man sat slumped in the seat with arms limp at his sides. A ragged hole had been punched in his face collapsing his cheek where a jagged bit of shrapnel had scythed through the viewport and then his brain to lodge in the seat back where it still smoked in the cloth padding.

  “We wake up in the morning never knowing what the day may bring, yes?” Roman said to the driver, speaking to him in Arabic for the first time.

  The driver only nodded and laughed, a high trilling giggle, at the awesome relief of finding himself alive after all.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  SNIPE HUNT

  Blair Freeman followed Priest’s lead as they slipped from the main chamber of the mosque.