Clandestine-IsaacHooke-FreeFollowup Page 16

  As he neared the exit, Ethan wondered if his cover was blown. Raafe hadn't mentioned him by name. Was it possible he didn't know who the gmail account belonged to? What did the man know?

  Suleman intercepted him on the way out of the compound. "You! Come."

  Suddenly feeling trapped, Ethan joined the militant. But Suleman merely led him to the Mitsubishi L200 pickup. Apparently his cover wasn't blown. Not yet, anyway. As usual, Harb babysat the anti-aircraft gun in the truck bed.

  The Mitsubishi brought up the rear of the motorcade. As Ethan sat there in the passenger seat on the way to the day's checkpoint, wherever that might be, he strove to invent some excuse to divert the truck. He barely recognized the blur of the passing buildings, locked as he was in his own mind.

  Maybe Raafe was lying? Surely her brother wouldn't send Alzena to the executioner's ax. Then again, a zealous Hisbah like him, a man who had whipped his own sister, would think nothing of ordering her death—he was drunk on power and his perceived righteousness. And perhaps Raafe truly didn't know who the gmail account belonged to; that message might have been a lure to draw out Ethan.

  A lone woman wasn't worth dying for, nor giving up access to intelligence that could potentially save thousands of lives. No one else would replace Ethan—that wasn't hubris talking, but the voice of cold, harsh reason. Very few people could do what he did and do it well. Maybe a handful in the entire world. Sam believed she could eventually repurpose other units to act as her Selous Scouts, but the other case officers, paramilitaries and spec-op types lacked one essential skill or the other. They didn't have the language skills. They didn't look Arabic. They didn't have the mental fortitude.

  And yet it was probably his fault Alzena was slated for execution. He was the one who had dragged her into all this. He was the one who had insisted on paying her a personal visit.

  He'd disobeyed key rules of tradecraft by going to her apartment that night. Don't visit an asset who is potentially under surveillance. Don't disobey local customs if doing so puts the asset's life further at risk.

  Don't get involved with assets.

  He owed Alzena her life in repayment for everything she had done, and if he didn't at least try to save her, he'd never forgive himself.

  But that was a selfish reason. It wasn't good enough, when weighed against the potential loss of intelligence. Because even if he did manage to somehow save her, what would he use as an alibi? Without one, his cover would be lost and he'd have to go into hiding.

  There has to be a way to save her while preserving my cover. There has to be!

  Then again, his cover might be lost already. What if Raafe knew everything and was on his way to inform Abdullah at that very moment of Ethan's involvement with Alzena and his role in the scientist's assassination?

  What a mess I've put myself in.

  Ethan pulled out his Android and activated the offline map. The convoy was headed southbound. Clock Tower Square was only a few blocks distant.

  Alzena was there. About to be beheaded at any moment.

  If I want to save her, I have to act now.

  Ethan fingered the Makarov at his belt. If he had to, he could kill Suleman without any misgivings, but what would he do about Harb in the truck bed? Ethan couldn't bring himself to hurt the thirteen year old.

  And then an opportunity abruptly presented itself.

  The passing buildings slowed, becoming stationary as the traffic ground to a halt.

  Suleman shifted impatiently in his seat. "There must be some beheadings scheduled for today." He activated his signal light and looked over his shoulder. "We should have taken the side street." He started to change lanes but slammed on the brakes as a random vehicle pulled up. More traffic arrived and in moments the Mitsubishi was hemmed in on all sides.

  "Where are we setting up the checkpoint today?" Ethan asked Suleman.

  "In front of the Raqqa Museum."

  Ethan regarded the map one last time and then put away his cellphone. He wrapped his hands around the door handle, but didn't open it. Instead, he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, bracing himself. One last moment of calm before the storm.

  He hesitated. There was no time for any fancy planning and exfil routes. Everything would be seat-of-the-pants, and very risky. Did he really want to go through with it?

  He thought of Alzena kneeling on the headblock, her beautiful face contorted in terror as the blade descended...

  Ethan clenched his jaw and opened the door.

  "What are you doing?" Suleman said, a hint of anger in his voice.

  "I have to use the toilet badly," Ethan said.

  "Wait until we reach the checkpoint."

  "I can't hold it. See you at the museum!" Ethan slammed the door.

  Harb looked at him in surprise from his place on the truck bed.

  "What's up?" the thirteen-year-old asked.

  "Diarrhea!" Ethan said over his shoulder.

  He broke into a run, weaving between the stopped vehicles. His two-way radio chirped to life.

  "I will wait for you by the curb," came Suleman's voice. "Hurry up!"

  Ethan slid the volume knob way down, clicking the radio off. You can wait all day.

  He dashed into an alley and pulled on his balaclava. He lowered the Dragunov from his shoulder and detached the PSO-1 via the quick-release mounting bracket, pocketing it. The 4x scope wouldn't be all that useful in the firefight to come, not at the ranges he intended. Without the PSO-1, the rifle looked similar to an AK-47, though the smaller magazine box and longer barrel would give the weapon away to the discerning eye. Still, with luck the militants would report that the attacker carried an AK, not a sniper rifle. Something less to incriminate him.

  He emerged from the alley into another congested street. Ethan recognized the area—Clock Tower Square lay four blocks ahead. The problem was getting there in time through the backed up traffic. The road had been turned into a one-way today, apparently, judging from the southbound vehicles taking up both lanes. He considered jogging it, but when he arrived he would be winded—a bad way to enter a firefight. And it might be too late by then.

  He crossed the street and walked up to the driver-side window of a white Kia Rio stuck in the gridlock. He pointed the Dragunov at the occupant.

  "Out!"

  The thirtyish Syrian immediately opened the door and Ethan yanked him the rest of the way out. Taking his place, Ethan tossed the Dragunov into the empty passenger seat, then turned the wheel to the left and accelerated onto the sidewalk. Pedestrians scrambled away. A shawarma kiosk toppled and the huge skewer of goat meat rolled over the hood of the subcompact.

  Southbound, Ethan drove at thirty kilometers per hour along the sidewalk, his fingers constantly on the horn. Street vendors and pedestrians continued to scurry out of the way. He smashed through more food stands.

  He had chosen the sidewalk bordering the left side of the street because if Clock Tower Square was sealed off, traffic would soon be siphoned to the right onto the only available side street; by keeping to the left, no civilian cars would block his path.

  He could see the tower ahead, looming over the buildings and vehicles. The beheaded peasant statues on top ominously overlooked the city.

  He reached a roadblock of four black Toyota Hilux Vigos; the vehicles were lined up front to back, blocking traffic in and out of the square. Small gaps remained at either end of the roadblock for the sidewalks, allowing pedestrians to trickle inside. Eight militants stood guard.

  Ethan kept the Rio on the sidewalk, aiming for the gap between the leftmost pickup and the adjacent building. His subcompact would fit, but barely.

  Four of the militants on duty rushed toward him and waved him down. One approached the driver-side door while the others blocked his path, AK-47s raised.

  Ethan halted the vehicle and opened his window. "Let me through."

  "Idiot, we almost shot you!" The militant spoke Arabic with a French accent. "We thought you were a suicide bomber! You didn'
t answer your radio."

  "I said let me through!" Ethan revved the engine.

  "Go back you fool."

  "I have an important message for the executioner!" Ethan inched the Rio forward, threatening to mow down the fighters in front of the vehicle. They kept their weapons pointed at him.

  "From who?" the militant said.

  "The sheik!" That was what the Islamic State called the mayor of Raqqa.

  "The sheik?" the militant said dubiously. "Well, deliver your message if you must, but leave the vehicle. This square is packed with people. You might kill someone."

  Just like your executioner is about to do?

  Ethan needed the vehicle for what was to come, so he reached through the window and grabbed the fighter by the collar, dragging him close. "If you don't let me through right now, with the vehicle, you and your French friends will be the ones losing their heads here tomorrow! I guarantee you."

  He shoved the militant away, ducked behind the dashboard, and accelerated. The other mujahadeen blocking his path dove out of the way, but didn't fire. The flanks of his Kia scraped the bumper of the Hilux and the adjacent building. Pedestrians hurried from his path.

  In the right rearview mirror he saw the militants regroup to aim their AKs at his subcompact; he crouched lower in the seat. His window was still open, and he heard the French mujahid shouting at them to stand down. The men must have listened because no bullets came. Lucky.

  Ahead, the crowd was thick around the base of the clock tower. He didn't spot a single woman among them.

  Honking, Ethan slowed to ten kilometers an hour as he plowed his way through. The gathering parted to reveal the lower half of the tower, which was draped in the black standards of the Islamic State.

  He saw the chopping block next to the structure immediately. A decapitated torso lay against it, with a lifeless head at its base. A woman, dressed in black. Her head was still shrouded in its niqab.

  Ethan was too late.

  An overwhelming sense of defeat overcame him. He had driven all that way, prepared to do the worst to save her, and she was already gone. He felt suddenly nauseous.

  He slammed on the brakes and put his head down, remembering her touch, and her smile.

  Why do the most innocent among us always have to die? Why why why?

  He started accelerating again, intending to turn the subcompact around, but more of the crowd cleared ahead of him and he saw that two other headblocks were arranged near the base of the tower. Another woman knelt before the middle chopping block, also wearing a niqab so that her face was concealed. Her head was lowered onto the black stone. The rear portion of her veil and hijab had been lifted to reveal her neck.

  Long scimitar in hand, the dark-robed executioner stood over her. He seemed distracted by the Rio's arrival. Past him, at the final headblock, a mujahid restrained a final prisoner. Some random bearded man.

  Ethan drove in front of the middle headblock, partially shielding the kneeling woman from the crowd's view, and parked. Was it her? It had to be.

  It had to.

  Leaving the driver-side window open, he grabbed the Dragunov from the passenger seat, slung it over his shoulder and, still wearing his balaclava, stepped out.

  twenty-three

  He made a mental note of the crowd-control militants among the throng, easily identifiable by their AKs. Four on the right side. Three on the left, including the mujahid who held the male prisoner. There was no sign of Raafe. Couldn't stand to watch the beheading of his own sister in the end, apparently.

  One of the militants stepped forward, shouting, "What are you doing?" Another French accent.

  Moving slowly, imperiously, like he had every right to be there, Ethan raised a halting hand toward the foreign fighter.

  "Be silent, Frenchman," Ethan said in perfect Arabic. He had noticed that foreign jihadists were treated with disdain by the native-speaking emirs. He thought he'd try to play that up.

  The man froze.

  Good.

  None of them knew who he was, not while he wore the balaclava. Perhaps he could convince them he was some high-ranking emir. Perhaps he could get through this without firing a single shot.

  It was a nice thought.

  The executioner regarded Ethan with a mix of curiosity and indignation. A stern-featured, middle-aged man, he was dressed in a black, flowing robe with a chador-like hood rimming his face. His long gray beard reached his sternum. He looked like a deeply religious man. Maybe an imam.

  Ethan walked past him and gave the executioner a come hither gesture. He approached the clock tower; there was a metal post at each of its four corners, where guardrails once hung. Ethan stepped around the right-hand corner of the tower, out of the sightline of the three militants to his left but in full view of those on his right.

  Ethan peered past the edge. The executioner hadn't moved from his spot. Ethan beckoned again, more emphatically, and finally the gray-bearded man grudgingly came forward, sword dangling from his hand.

  He reached Ethan.

  "How dare—" the executioner began.

  Ethan decided instantly that no words would sway the man. Better to act while surprise was on his side.

  He withdrew the Makarov from his belt and shot the executioner in the thigh.

  Cries of fear and outrage erupted from the throng. Many people ducked.

  Ethan caught the executioner and swiveled toward the four crowd-control fighters on his right, placing the headman firmly between himself and them; the clock tower at his back shielded him from the remaining men.

  Though all four of the mujahadeen had raised their AKs, none of them fired for fear of harming the headman, who was obviously some important religious official.

  Ethan raised his pistol and let off three shots in rapid succession, adjusting his aim slightly to the right each time. Red blooms erupted from each militant's forehead in turn, and they toppled in place like marionettes whose strings had been cut.

  Before he got off the fourth shot, the last muj finally opened fire. Blood spurted from the executioner's chest as the bullets struck. Ethan felt the impacts as his Kevlar body armor deflected the reduced-energy ballistics that passed through the headman.

  Ethan squeezed the trigger and the last tango went down.

  The crowd was in full retreat by then.

  With all four militiamen on the right side down, Ethan tossed the executioner's bullet-riddled body aside like so much refuse.

  He peered past the clock tower's base. The crowd was dispersing to the far ends of the square, preventing the militants at the various roadblocks from reaching the structure.

  The woman remained kneeling before the headblock, as if oblivious to her surroundings, waiting for death to come. The other man slated for execution lay on the steps, blood seeping from a fresh bullet hole to his temple. After seeing that, Ethan did a double take on the woman, worried that she too had been shot by the militants, but he couldn't discern any blood on her niqab.

  There was no sign of the remaining three crowd-control fighters. Wait... on the opposite end of the structure, the barrel of a Kalashnikov abruptly protruded, along with the head and shoulders of the mujahid holding it.

  Ethan ducked just as the muzzle fired. Shards of black rock broke away from the tower beside him.

  Likely the other two militants were making their way around the back side to outflank him.

  Ethan removed one of the RGD-5 fragmentation grenades from his harness. He squeezed the lever, pulled the pin, crossed the two meters to the rear side of the tower, and without looking he tossed the grenade beyond the edge.

  He heard the loud "pop" as the fuze of the grenade ignited midflight, followed by a shout a moment later.

  Ethan retreated, hugging his side of the clock tower, keeping his Makarov pointed at the edge.

  One of the militants raced into view, trying to escape the grenade. Ethan shot him in the forehead.

  The ground shook as the one hundred and ten gram charge of
TNT in the grenade detonated around the bend. The liner could produce over three hundred fragments, lethally shredding anything within a radius of three meters, and injuring up to fifteen meters out from the site of activation. Not bad for a grenade that sold for five US dollars.

  Fragments blurred the air ahead of him and Ethan instinctively looked away, though there was no chance the pieces could reach him where he stood.

  Pistol raised, he leaned past the rear rim. A militant lay on the ground near the base of the tower, quivering, covered in blood.

  Just then, the third militant peered past the far edge to check on his friends. Ethan adjusted his aim slightly and fired. A red dot appeared in the man's cheek and he crumpled.

  Ethan lowered his aim and put the second man out of his misery. The slide on the gun locked open—he'd fired all eight rounds.

  He replaced the spent magazine with the fresh one from his harness, then flicked the pistol's slide-stop lever downward with his thumb. The device returned to its forward closed position, chambering a fresh cartridge in the process.

  The square was quickly emptying. Ethan sprinted toward the faceless woman, who had sat up by that point, though she remained on her knees before the headblock.

  As he reached her, gunfire erupted from the northernmost section of the square. Apparently the crowd had thinned enough for the militants manning the roadblocks there to open fire.

  Ethan crouched beside her, using the white subcompact car as his shield. At that range the AK bullets wouldn't penetrate the vehicle.

  He hoped.

  "Alzena?" he said.

  That featureless black head turned toward him. "Yes?"

  He recognized her voice immediately. It was definitely Alzena, though she sounded dazed. Momentary relief washed over him, but he shoved it aside. He had to remain focused. A cold, emotionless killing machine.

  Keeping low, he helped Alzena to a crouch and brought her to the passenger door. He shoved the pistol into her hands.

  She bobbed her head to look at it; probably didn't know the first thing about firing a 9-mil.