Echo Six: Black Ops 5 - Strikeforce Syria (11 page)

It was easy, much too easy, but it had to be the place. Maybe the Syrians assumed their people were invisible to overhead surveillance during the hours of darkness. More likely the man in charge didn’t know his business. He marked the position of the compound, and then overlaid a grid of the streets. It was time to head in. Rovere was hunched over the wheel, trying to avoid the worst of the Syrian potholes and ruts.

"We’re about one klick from Sheikh Najjar. When you hit the junction, swing left and then take the first right. Pull up as soon as you've taken the turn. We need to see where the sentries are deployed.”

He took out the tablet again. For some reason, most of the soldiers had disappeared. There were just two sentries manning the gates to the walled compound. It occurred to him it was the end of the night, and they'd come at just the right time, between shift changes.

Perfect!

He gave Rovere the route that led to their target.

"There are two sentries on guard outside the gates. Smash straight through. We'll hit them hard and take them by surprise. Jesse, Vince, be ready to take out any hostiles who get in the way."

"Roger that.”

The Italian increased speed and hurtled around the bend, as the two snipers maneuvered into position next to the cab windows. The big truck raced through the empty streets, past factories and warehouses, many of them derelict. Rovere took another corner almost on two wheels, and ahead of them Talley saw the target. Two soldiers were leaning against the high gates.

Sloppy! They’re asking to be hit.

Without turning his head, Domenico shouted, "Is that it, the target?"

"You got it. Drive straight in, and don't stop for anything. We’ll hammer these people so hard and fast they won't know what hit them."

At least, that’s the plan, unless they’re waiting for us. There’s only one way to find out.

* * *

"They're coming, Sir."

Major Hafiz nodded and kept his face expressionless. It wouldn't do for these peasants to see any kind of emotion, yet inside he felt exhilarated. The much-vaunted NATO Special Forces were about to meet their deaths. It would be his triumph, a victory that would ensure promotion, and the admiration of his President.

"Bring out the prisoner, and release him from the manacles."

Two soldiers ran to the back of the building and returned with a man. He looked like the victim of a severe auto crash. He was battered and bloody, his uniform torn, and one arm hung at an odd angle, broken. He walked with a limp; one leg was obviously injured. Hafiz gazed at him in satisfaction. The Jew would be no problem, not after the treatment they'd given him. He would obey, unless he wanted the torture to become worse.

"Your friends are on the way, Jew. You will walk outside the gate and welcome them."

Beckerman’s body was on fire; in excruciating agony from the torture they’d subjected him too. He was no fool. He knew exactly what they wanted from him, to be a sacrificial goat and to invite his comrades to walk into a trap. He also knew his life was ended. They’d never allow him to walk out of this place alive. He felt the agony intensify as Hafiz took hold of his broken arm, and he was unable to prevent himself from screaming in agony.

"Get out, Jew, and wave to your friends. Let them know the area is clear. Go!"

Hafiz gave him a hard push, and he staggered out of the door and into the courtyard. The Syrians had a multi-barreled anti-aircraft gun deployed in the courtyard, a Russian ZSU-23-4, mounted on a tracked mobile launcher. Mounting four 23mm autocannons, the weapon was formidable against low-flying aircraft. But against an unarmored civilian truck, it would tear it to strips of shredded metal. Beckerman staggered to the front gates, and a soldier pushed him out into the street. He staggered again, lost his balance, and fell to the ground. He briefly lost consciousness, and when he came to, realized he must have hit his head on the tarmac. He climbed back to his feet and had to make an effort to steady himself and stand upright. He heard the roar of an engine and glanced behind him. One of the sentries had emerged to cover him with his assault rifle. He was weary, in agony, and knew he had nothing left to save, except his soul. He watched as a battered wrecking truck roared around the corner and saw a soldier staring out through the windshield. It was Talley. He took a last glance behind him, and then walked out into the center of the street. He used the last of his strength to wave his arms frantically and screamed out a warning.

"It's a trap! They're waiting for you with an anti-aircraft gun. You have to turn back. If you…"

The burst of gunfire smashed into him, and he was dead when he hit the dusty road surface.

Sheikh Najjar – The Third Day

Saturday 10
^th
May

"It's Beckerman!" Rovere shouted.

"I see him."

Something's wrong, badly wrong. The Israeli looks as if he's been wounded. Or tortured!

He was shouting a warning, and then through the open window, he heard a single word. ‘Trap’. And then Beckerman went down in a hail of gunfire from an assault rifle.

"Don't stop, Rovere! Keep going. They're waiting for us."

"What about Beckerman?"

"Forget him. He's dead, just get us out of here!"

The Italian was about to ram the gates, but he swung the wheel back over, and the truck bounced on worn springs as it altered course to head away.

* * *

The commander of the ZSU knew they’d have to move fast, and he’d instructed the crew to keep the engine idling. When the guards on the gate warned that the target was turning away, he ordered them to advance. The sentries failed to open the gates in time, but the ZSU driver ignored them, and smashed through, chewing up one of the sentries under the grinding steel tracks. The vehicle emerged onto the street, flinging aside a cascade of broken timbers and steel. One of the sentries failed to jump out of the way in time. The gun commander heard a shrill scream that was abruptly cut off, as the man was chewed up by the racing steel tracks.

Too bad!

He looked to his left and smiled. The enemy truck was moving away at high speed, and the street was a cul-de-sac. He had them.

"Driver, advance. When they pass the bend, they will see the end of the road is blocked, and they’ll be forced to stop. As soon as the target is stationary, open fire and kill them."

"Yes, Sir," the man answered enthusiastically. Until now, they'd only used their cannon against civilian targets, never against a foreign enemy. Today, they would become heroes.

* * *

They clung on as Rovere managed to get the truck back on an even keel. He kept the accelerator pedal pressed down hard as they swerved into the bend, and once more the unwieldy breakdown truck threatened to topple over. But he righted it and kept on until he saw the end of the street. Rovere cursed.

"It's a fucking dead end! What you want me to do?"

Talley thought hard. The ZSU was behind them and would be up with them soon, of that there was no doubt. Together with the supporting infantry that always accompanied an anti-aircraft artillery unit, and any number of troops mounting the ambush. But the real problem was the gun. They were nearing the end of the street, and he had to make a decision. Rovere was looking at him, waiting for an order.

"We’ll abandon the truck, work our way through the buildings, and try to get out of here. We'll head for Aleppo. It's a big city and with any luck, we can lose ourselves there."

“And then?”

He stared back at Rebecca. “I don’t know.”

Domenico jammed on the brakes, and they stopped a few meters short of the end of the street. Even before the wheels ceased to turn, the men were scrambling out. Talley led them into a nearby factory that looked derelict and abandoned. Before even making it to cover, the ZSU opened fire, and they were assaulted by the roar of the heavy shells slashing into the truck, reducing it to a pile of scrap metal. The gunner hadn't seen them get out, and they were able to crawl out of sight behind a concrete wall and work their way across to the empty building. There was no door. It had long been taken away. Probably by scavengers looking for scrap metal, but at least inside the building they'd be out of sight. The last of the men scrambled inside, and Talley peered out through a tiny opening that had once held a glass window; in time to see the four barrels of the ZSU aimed point blank at their position.

"Flat on the floor! They’re about to hit the building."

He dropped down and snaked across the floor. Rebecca was alongside him, moving silently. Behind her, Guy and Buchmann followed and then the rest of the men, but they were only partway through the building when the hurricane of heavy cannon shells smashed through the thin skin of the building. The noise was awesome, an incredible demonstration of the ferocious power of the heavy gun. Cannon shells burst around them. Only their helmets and ballistic vests saved them from serious injury, but they suffered casualties. Talley felt a sliver of steel stab through the lower part of his leg, and he knew most of them would be hit in some way. Suddenly the gunfire stopped, either jammed or out of ammunition. They had a chance.

"Keep moving. We have to get out the other side before they start firing again. Run!"

They jumped to their feet and sprinted for the other side of the building. They went out through a gap in the wall to the open space outside. They could hear shouted orders as soldiers rushed along the street outside the perimeter wall. It was obvious the Syrian commander was throwing a cordon around the entire area, as would any half competent commander. He led them away from the ZSU, just as the guns started firing again.

The shells were penetrating the rear skin of the building, blasting huge holes in the fabric. They emerged at the rear of the derelict factory, but it wasn't entirely derelict. The yard was shrouded in pipes and tanks.

An oil refinery!

Talley looked around for an escape route, but their options were limited. Behind them, the ZSU was busy demolishing the building they’d just left. Ahead was the oil refinery, and almost certainly about to go up in flames at any moment. To their right, an unknown number of hostiles soldiers. There was only one option.

"We're heading left, and keep away from the refinery. If they keep firing into the tanks, it'll blow."

Guy caught up with him. "If we go left, we're heading right back to that ambush at the CX9 plant."

He nodded. "There’s no choice. They’ll be calling for reinforcements from the guard around the CX9 facility. And the stupid bastards are about to blow themselves to hell if they keep hitting that oil refinery. It’s just a matter of timing."

He glanced across to where the heavy cannon shells were ripping holes in the oil tanks. Pools of oil were already beginning to form on the concrete. Guy grinned.

"I get it. When this place goes up, they’ll be incinerated."

They kept racing toward a crumbling stonewall that divided the factory yard from the plant. As they ran, Rebecca came up to Talley.

"Abe, what are you doing? Half the Syrian Army is guarding that plant. We climb that wall, and they'll shoot us down like dogs. It'll be a massacre."

He didn't answer until they were crouched in the shelter of the solid stone barrier.

"This is our best chance. I'm counting on their commander having sent a lot of their troops after the gun to finish us off, so when the refinery explodes, it’ll take them all with it.”

He knew it was a desperate measure, but they had nowhere else to go. Beckerman had given away their mission to the enemy, although Talley couldn’t blame him. The poor devil gave his life to warn them of the ambush. Even so, he doubted they had any hope of assaulting the weapons plant. The best they could hope for was to just to get away, to survive. But the Israeli girl was skeptical.

"How do you know the Syrians aren't still there, waiting for us? We could climb this wall and drop into a hurricane of enemy gunfire."

"I don't…"

And then it came to him.

The Albatross. Is it still overhead? Or has its time run out, and it's flown away for the remote desert?

He took out the pad and switched on. He was immediately rewarded with an overhead view of the area, and he zoomed in. The wall came into focus, and he saw himself crouched behind it with his squad. The Syrians were deployed fifty meters away on the other side of the wall, as if they were waiting for them. A long line of troops, lying prone on the ground, with their assault rifles cocked and loaded, and ready to open fire. On each flank he could see a belt-fed PK light machine gun, which could spew out six hundred rounds a minute; heavy 7.62mm rounds, enough to chew his people into little pieces. He zoomed back out and saw the ZSU turning in the street. Farther away, an entire company of Syrian infantry was advancing, picking their way through the factories, climbing over fences and walls to reach them. It was a shut ended situation with no way out; when the oil tanks exploded.

The ground moved, and a split second later they were hit by a blast of superheated air. Smoke roiled around them. Thick black smoke and fragments of steel rained down on their helmets and armored vests. The series of explosions lasted for almost a minute and then stopped, but the air was still boiling with black smoke, choking dust, and stone fragments. Guy was beside him, wiping the blood from his face where a shard of steel had gashed his forehead, and blood had poured down to obscure his vision.

"How bad is it?"

"It's nothing, probably looks a lot worse than it is. I don't know about the others."

The blast had partially destroyed the wall. Fragments of rock had tumbled down over some of his men, but the effect had shielded them from the blast rather than do any serious damage. One by one, he helped his men to their feet. Their wounds were only superficial, like his. He thought about their next move.

Whatever it is, it has to be now. The blast will have taken the Syrians by surprise, so it will have to be now before they recover.

He took a chance, and peered over the wall now a half-meter lower, and he cursed. The wall had shielded the enemy infantry from the worst of the blast, and although some were dusting off the debris that had fallen on them, little had changed. They were still ready to shatter his men with concentrated bursts from their machine guns and assault rifles, the second they climbed the wall. He had to assume the ZSU was unharmed too. The vehicle was armored, and it was unlikely the explosion had done more than scratch the paintwork. The Syrians patrolling the other side of the refinery may have been hurt in the blast, but there was no way of knowing how many had been put out of action. He sank back down behind the wall, finally accepting the inevitable. The explosion had given them no advantage. They were still surrounded and still trapped.

"It doesn't look good,” Rovere said quietly.

"Not really, no. Any sane person would surrender. There doesn't appear to be any other option."

Rebecca's expression was grim as she gave him a fierce glare.

Tough. We're beaten, completely and totally beaten.

He lifted the tablet to check the feed from the Albatross. By a miracle, it was still on station, and he saw the ZSU out in the street, waiting to head off an escape attempt. The patrol at the other end of the refinery had been hit hard, and their numbers were reduced by about a half. But that still meant fifty men were on the way, armed with assault rifles and machine guns, and the other side of the wall, the soldiers waited for them. It couldn't have been any worse. Yet as he watched, it did get worse.

Another large contingent of armed troops, maybe two hundred men, was racing toward Sheikh Najjar. They'd come in from the other side and were about to turn the corner and link up with the men behind the refinery. The new men raced around the bend, stopping when they caught sight of the Syrian infantry. Then they charged straight at the soldiers, who seemed to panic and start to run.

What the hell?

And then it dawned on him they must be Syrian rebels. As he watched, the screen suddenly changed. The Albatross was running low on power and started to head out, but he’d seen enough. He switched off and turned to the men.

"We may be okay. The cavalry just arrived. Syrian rebels."

A few of them cheered, but he held up his hand. "They’re only carrying light weapons, so we're not out of trouble yet. They’re about to run into that anti-aircraft gun."