They located the vault at the rear of the office suite. It was impressive with a solid steel door that had to weigh several tons and was mounted on an impenetrable pierced steel wall. The door didn’t interest them. Chili stood on a chair and used the handle of a broom he found to poke a hole in a tile of the drop ceiling of the vault foyer. He tapped the handle end on the plaster ceiling above and received answering taps from above followed by the pounding of a sledge. Heath was swinging the sledge to mark the spot on the floor where the taps from below reached him. They’d make a hole from above to access the top of the vault.

  Priest and Chili re-joined the rest of the team and paced from the hole punched in the tiled floor by Heath’s work with the hammer. They went at the floor with sledges and picks and pried up the tiles and concrete to reveal the roof of the vault below. Priest had the others, except for Heath, clear out while he assembled a circular-shaped charge from four bricks of Semtex. He laid it atop the ceramic shell atop the vault roof. He and Heath ran detonation cord across the floor and through a doorway into the main hallway of the office block. The walls were granite and marble block. The shape charge would punch a hole in the vault’s concrete case without bringing the building down. Here they would wait until they got a high sign from Blair that a local air strike was imminent.

  The blasts that brought down the bridges rocked the city end to end. Priest and Heath stepped outside and across the street leading the det cord behind them. Priest keyed the detonator and they heard a basso thump from within the bank building that shook dust off the sills along the façade. The muffled blast was lost in the reverberations that reached them from the explosions along the river.

  The cluster bombs of the next strike rained down less than a half-mile from their location. The sounds of sirens and car alarms reached them. No one would pay attention to a gang of men entering a building with all perdition breaking loose. Even if they were seen it would be assumed they were only seeking shelter from the air attacks.

  Up on the second floor they began the brute work of digging the debris away from the top of the vault. They stripped down to undershirts in the heat. They tied cloths around their mouths to filter some of the gray-white fog that filled the close quarters. The blast caused a large section of ceiling above the vault to collapse. A portion of the plaster from the ceiling of the second floor fell as well. They used their bare hands to clear the larger parts and then worked with shovels to dig out the crumbling concrete and powder from the roughly circular crater in the vault’s outer casing.

  The shaped charge bored a neat hole in the concrete creating what was revealed as a six-foot deep channel once they cleared it of broken chunks. The hole was still crossed with a few bent lengths of rebar. They’d need to be cut out with hacksaws. But the steel inner shell of the vault was barely touched except for some shallow pitting.

  They left Woody to watch the crime scene while the rest moved to an empty office suite away from the bank. Pig found a working lavatory and they took turns ducking their heads under the faucet to wash the coat of clinging dust from their scalps and faces.

  Freeman left his overwatch post to Pancho and came to get an on-site update on the heist.

  “We’re going to need a diamond core drill or a thermic lance. Otherwise we’ll have to blow it open. We don’t care what happens to the interior. We’re not here to steal the contents,” Priest said.

  “I’m going to need some guidance from Langley on that,” Blair said. “We need to know the container for the bug would survive something like that.”

  “I thought the plan was to destroy this thing. Blow the safe, kill the bugs,” Pig said.

  “Or the container cracks under impact and lets the bugs loose,” Blair said.

  “We could blow it open with an anti-tank gun like that movie with Clint and the Dude,” Chili put in.

  “Do you run a Clint Eastwood website or something?” Pig asked.

  “I used to watch all those movies with my dad,” Chili shrugged.

  “That might be a way to go,” Priest said.

  “Like the movie? Fire an anti-tank gun at it?” Chili sounded pumped.

  “No, that’s a stupid idea. But you guys should be able to scrounge some serious explosive ordnance, right?” Blair said.

  “The only dump we know got blown up,” Pig said.

  “I’ll bet Gharib knows where there’s some of the good stuff.” Heath added.

  “Now what was the name of that fucking movie?” Chili asked himself.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT

  “I don’t like it. It exposes us. Exposure is bad,” Blair was insisting.

  “We need explosive ordnance. We know where to find some,” Heath was speaking low, containing his impatience.

  They were back in their storefront hide three blocks north of the bank. Woody and Pig stayed behind to keep an eye on the vault. There were more air sorties in the sky throughout the afternoon. They were concentrated closer to the town center and along the river roads. All through the day the ground shuddered under high explosives. The air was weighted with the greasy stink of fuel bombs. The minarets and high-rise roofs were lost in a wall of black smoke. It was all a sign that this was the beginning of a push, not just random reprisal raids. If Assad’s forces pushed closer, Dayr al Zawr would be in range of attack copters and then the killing would begin in earnest. The SEALs needed to be long gone before that happened.

  Priest put forward some intel from the boy Gharib. It didn’t go over with the CIA officer.

  “The boy says that an insurgent group has a hoard inside the Holy Martyrs Church,” Priest said. “Remember? It was our original contact point with Sibrian; the boy’s father.”

  “The kid again? Do I need to remind you that he has an ax to grind with the fuckers holding that church? Can you guarantee he’s not pointing us there for some payback?” Blair said. He turned to where Gharib sat against a wall and gave the boy a hard look.

  “All I know is that he swears there’s a shitload of artillery and mortar rounds stashed there and all we need is two, maybe three for coverage,” Heath said.

  “You’re the one who said you don’t like a lot of exposure,” Priest said to Freeman. “This is one-stop shopping.”

  “In and out,” Chili said.

  “It’s never that easy,” Blair sighed.

  And it never was.

  ****

  The side mission to snag some explosives went textbook from beginning to end.

  When night fell, the SEALs approached the rear of the Holy Martyrs Church along a twisting alley. They were wearing NODs gear and moving in force. Chili was secured a block away in a hide atop the roof of a bus terminal. He’d cover their exfil from there. He followed their progress through the scope atop his Dragunov and watched them until they were out of sight in the church’s rectory building.

  Inside the former priest’s quarters the SEALs found the stocks of mortar and artillery rounds that Gharib promised them would be there. A strong scent of hashish reached them from the main church building. It was party night jihadi style. The mujahideen reacted to the turn of events like frat boys and were getting high. A break for four SEALs shopping for things that go boom.

  There were several rows of shells pre-wired for use as IEDs. Priest rejected all of these. He’d rather take along virgin shells than trust the work of the potheads next door. He picked three Russian-made 122mm honeys that looked fresh out of their packing. They could trust them to be stable. Arty ordnance was made solid so it could be handled by butterfingered cannoneers. The ones the hash-heads had been rigging were dicey. They could go off in transport and turn them all to stew meat in a hot second.

  Chili was mildly surprised to see the team exit from the rectory and retrace their entry path toward him. Total time inside was under ten minutes. A long ten minutes, sure. But without incident or discovery. Heath, Pig and Woody humped rucksacks under weight. They got what they came for. He watched them until they were under his arc of fire and gone. Chili then abandoned his hide to climb down and join them.

  But, as Blair Freeman said, “It’s never that easy.”

  As Chili packed up his sniper rifle and slipped from the shadows to cross the bus terminal roof he was spotted by a man dressed in black.

  ****

  The man in black shadowed the team as they moved from hunter/killer mode to casual armed pedestrians to make their way back to the bank building. Three of the SEALs were burdened by heavy loads on their backs. The follower’s curiosity was burning now. He moved from shadow to shadow. Any sounds of his passage was covered by the thumps of secondary explosions from a day of bomb raids that only let up when the sun went down.

  He dogged them from the church staying well back and using the dark and cover. He saw them enter a faceless block of businesses. He crawled under a rusting Hilux pickup balanced on piles of bricks with its rims empty. From here he could see without being seen. There were no sounds or lights from within the business block. He decided to continue his vigil a while longer. Thirty minutes passed before two men exited the building and were met in the street by what looked to be a young boy. The men were both tall. One of them was a black African. The black man held a hand up with palm extended. The boy slapped the open hand with his own. Both laughed. The two men entered a garage building across the street from the business block with the boy trailing after.

  The watcher began to crawl from his hiding place. His sandaled foot brushed a loose chunk of brick. It slid across the cobbles making a tinkling sound.

  Down the street, the boy stopped mid-step. He whirled toward the Hilux. He was perhaps ten or twelve years old but handled the rifle in his fists like a warrior. The man in black froze in the deep shadows beneath the truck and stared into the barrel of the Kalashnikov that he imagined was aimed squarely between his eyes. The boy remained motionless too; listening and watching, his eyes moving and head cocked.

  From an alley somewhere a dog began barking followed by another further away. The boy lifted the AK higher, turned and trotted into the garage building after the two tall men. The man in black scrambled backwards from under the truck. He ran at a sprint back toward the fires of the city center and the church of Galeeneegeh.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  A BUMP IN THE ROAD

  An alarm went off in the Brussels office of Sarchannes-Osito Securitech EU.

  The alarm took the form of a window opening on the monitor of a security operator in the Asia watch section of the live surveillance wing. It appeared in the middle of the operator’s screen disrupting his progress just as he was entering the Veil of Woe in search of the Golden Arrow of Truth. The window alerted the operator, in French, English, Dutch, Flemish and Japanese, that there was a significant seismic event near an S-O manufactured vault somewhere in Syria. The alert was vague but suggested the operator contact his superior. There was no superior on duty at that hour and the operator was not about to call one at home and awaken them.

  He scribbled a note on a Post-It and stuck it on the frame of the monitor for the next shift.

  DAYR AL ZAWR

  SAUDI BANK

  SEISMIC ALARM

  The operator returned to the Veil of Woe hoping to see that sexy witch that spoke to him on level nine. He was sure she was coming on to him.

  ****

  Highway 7 was bloody hell.

  With the bridges down over the Euphrates and the river roads being regularly strafed and bombed, the refugee traffic had no option but to flee west. Highway 7 was the main artery and so was jammed with foot and wheeled traffic lumbering across every lane.

  In his commandeered armored truck, Roman Timur Tyomkin cursed and sweated and smoked his last cigarette. Unusual for a Russian, he was not a habitual smoker. The smoke cut the smell of old sweat and spoiled blood that filled the truck with a nauseating organic miasma. The driver slapped the horn and stuck his head through the open door hatch to shout dire threats at the mass of civilians eddying around the truck with their belongings. The truck inched around busses and trucks and jitneys as well as countless hand carts and bicycles all piled and strapped with bags, cartons and sacks. There were even a few camels standing with heads craned above the crowd.

  The reception the UN-marked vehicle received as mixed. Some cheered its arrival as a sign that the world was paying attention to the struggle of the Syrian people to be free. Others shook their fists at the ferangi intruders and to hell with their good intentions. On the open highway to reach Dayr al Zawr the reactions were even starker in their difference. They were twice run off the road by aircraft. Once by a MiG that buzzed low enough to shake the road beneath them but tore away without further insult. The next attempt was by a fat attack helicopter that speckled the paint along one side of the truck with a burst of machinegun fire. Fortunately for Roman, the ancient Hind did not stay on target to finish them off with rockets but banked away to return to its main mission.

  Now they moved at a crawl along the highway with the city in sight before them. Actually, most of Dayr al Zawr was obscured by a column of smoke standing atop it, unmoving in the desert air like a tornado caught in freeze frame. Every so often a new bloom of white or gray would rise up to join the main pall. MiGs moved across the malignant clouds like gnats, flashes of silver from their wings shining out against the filthy haze.

  “We go?” the driver said doubtfully.

  “Yes! We fucking go!” Roman growled at him. Once they were deeper into the chaos of the city he’d have to lose this man. For now the driver was protective camouflage. A lone Euro driving an armored vehicle was too tempting a target in spite of his envoy status.

  “Is dangerous,” the driver said flatly.

  “What isn’t dangerous? It’s a war zone. We go on,” Roman said with a shooing motion for the driver to step on the pedal.

  “Very dangerous,” the driver said to himself.

  Roman took a final drag from his final Gitane and ejected the butt through the vent in his door. He had not checked with his masters. He had not logged on to any of his encrypted agency accounts. He was more than forty-eight hours off the system. They would assume at first that he was simply incommunicado due to the resumption of hostilities. That is if they took any interest at all. His role as envoy left him a great degree of leeway to gather intelligence and make intelligence contacts. Unless the United Nations workers he left behind had reached a place where they had access to phone or web. But even then he had ample time as he’d used a cover name to them that he had not registered with the FIS. They could not even be certain of his nationality. To them he was simply Uwe Krol, if any of them paid enough attention to recall the false name he gave them.

  He flexed his shoulders to relieve the tension there and worked his neck until the bones crackled. It was good. He was free and on his own. He only had to make it through the next two hellish hours. He’d reach the bank and retrieve the nasty artifact within. From there it was a simple matter of joining the throngs fleeing the fighting. Once across the border into Iraq or Turkey he had a rich portfolio of contacts who would see him out of the region. He’d chosen Hong Kong as his penultimate destination. From there he would reach out to potential buyers and make an exchange with the highest bidder. Once business was concluded and his secret accounts fattened with cash, he would make his way to an idyllic locale with no extradition and impenetrable privacy laws. He might one day venture forth to visit Bangkok or Paris but only after establishing a bulletproof, and very expensive, new identity.

  Roman was yanked from his dreams of avarice by a sudden jolt. The driver had lost all patience and pulled off the concrete road surface pranging a bus on his way onto the verge. The driver floored it over a high curb and jerked the wheel to bring them onto a rough service trail that paralleled the highway and was occupied only by light foot traffic that leapt from the path of the onrushing truck.

  “If we go then we go fast!” the driver laughed.

  Roman’s face creased in a mock smile that took on its own sincerity as he looked forward to the moment when he put a bullet in this man’s skull.

  ****

  A fog lay over the city growing thicker where the bombs had fallen along the river roads. The air there was unbreathable. Buildings and vehicles burned in lakes of napalm. The flames created a wind as the heat sucked air toward the growing inferno. The sickly gray haze of dust crept over everything and turned the streets into canals for a choking chemical fusion of smoke and fine debris.

  Ma’ruf Haddad, The Fist, himself, led his men through the noxious hell. They wore gas masks to filter out the worst of the detritus in the air. The goggles protected their eyes and, along with their black clothing, gave them the look of video game bad guys. Their numbers were half what they were when they left the mountains of the Herat and half again the number they had at Tal Ada. They lost men in the bombing of the mosque; many of them were lost in the secondary eruption of their own explosives. And some had deserted, going to the souk or to prayer and never returning.

  Those that were left were the most loyal, the most faithful, Haddad told himself. But in his heart he knew that the men who remained were either imagination-free morons or too afraid of The Fist to risk running away. He could live with that. He only needed a cause and his god and enough men to make his will realized. If these were the tools given him then he would be grateful. Haddad was as satisfied to spend these idiots and moral weaklings as he would better men. He would lead them from hate to hate for as long as they would obey his commands.

  They followed the man who had witnessed the ferangi intruders and tracked them back to their lair. The man was a goatherd back in the Herat. In the years since leaving his village he had bloodied his hands many times in Iraq and Libya and now here. He was as hard as his mind was weak and led his brother mujahideen like a dog leads hunters to the kill. The former goatboy kept looking back to make certain he did not lose the rest of the company in the chemical mist. He called out words of encouragement muffled by the rubberized canvas mask.