A Cold Day In Mosul (30 page)

You're not going to get away, my old enemy. Not this time.

thirty-two

E
than drove the Sonata northeast along the dirt road. Large swathes of grass dominated either side of the dirt road, interrupted by gravel beds and eroded loam and clay.

Almost free.

Earlier he'd returned to the Mosul-Baghdad highway and crossed the median to head northbound, putting the Al Hadar region and its desert wasteland behind them. After a few kilometers he'd turned onto a rural road to head east through the green steppe, and followed that a short ways before Sam instructed him to take a bumpy dirt path through the grass. He'd stayed on that all the way to the river. Nearing the Tigris, he circumvented a large village, driving through an abandoned barley crop that was overtaken by weeds. Eventually the greenery became too dense for the vehicle and they'd abandoned the Accent to proceed on foot through the riverside foliage.

Following Sam's GPS, they reached the Tigris riverbank and loaded all of their equipment into a tiny, bowl-shaped reed quffa someone had left on the rocks. They poled across the river. On the other side a beige Sonata awaited, courtesy of one of Sam's assets in the country. They loaded inside and drove past a date plantation that was part of a small village; soon, the Tigris and the thick band of green that surrounded it was well behind them, replaced by the beginnings of foothills.

The vehicle struck a shallow depression, jolting the passengers and bringing Ethan out of his reverie.

"Watch the road," Sam said peevishly.

"Sorry." Ethan concentrated on the route. Ahead, grassy knolls rolled to the horizon, where the wide ridge of smoke demarcating the Eastern Front blotted out the sky. Kurdistan lay beyond that evil-looking smudge.

Far to the south, smoke plumes clustered around the city of Tikrit, two hours north of Baghdad. That was the Southern Front, where the Islamic State Sunnis battled the Shia militias who had combined to form
al-Hashd al-Shaabi
, or the Popular Mobilization Force, sponsored by the Iraqi government—also predominantly Shia. Ethan didn't look that way very long. His path lay to the east. He was leaving behind that war-torn country. For good, hopefully.

Tiny villages occasionally abutted the route. He cautiously drove past them, wary of ambushes, but the places proved abandoned.

Ethan slowed as he approached the next village. The road leading past it had been completely blocked off—pickups were parked end to end across the route. Maybe fifty armed men were crouched in front, behind, and inside the vehicles.

Ethan halted eight hundred meters away and turned to Sam. "Why didn't you warn me about that blockade with your eye in the sky?"

"Wasn't there when I checked the route earlier," Sam said. There was a hint of guilt in her voice. She had been typing something, probably to her superior, and likely hadn't been watching the video feed as intently as she should have.

"There have to be at least fifty men out there," Doug said from the backseat. "Not your typical Islamic State checkpoint."

Sam touched her earbud. "Captain, got some GPS coordinates for you."

Several of the vehicles broke away from the blockade and accelerated toward them.

"Belay that," Sam said into her comm. "Target is becoming a convoy. Relaying updated kill information."

Ethan did a U-turn and accelerated the hell away.

Threads of light ate into the road behind him as a technical open fired with its anti-aircraft guns.

Ethan floored the accelerator.

"What's the range on those ZUs?" William asked.

"Two klicks," Sam answered distractedly.

A rocket detonated not far behind the vehicle.

"Sam, about those airstrikes..." Ethan said.

The pursuers abruptly stopped firing.

Ethan realized why an instant later: on the twisting road ahead, a Soviet Ural accelerated toward the Sonata. Beyond it, Ethan could see a line of five Humvees stretched out at intervals of roughly two hundred meters, blocking the retreat vector.

Ethan couldn't simply leave the road and drive into the foothills—the Sonata wasn't built for that kind of terrain, and the Humvees would easily overtake him, assuming the vehicle didn't get a flat from some rock or crash into a gully.

"I think we need more than one airstrike," Ethan said. "As in, a whole lot more."

"On it," Sam returned.

As the Ural grew closer, it quickly became obvious the Lancer wasn't going to come through for them.

"Hang on!" Ethan floored the accelerator, heading straight toward the Russian vehicle.

"Ethan..." Sam said.

He kept his attention focused on the Ural. At the last moment he swerved off the dirt road. He and the others were momentarily tossed about by the rough terrain; the grass and gravel fought his steering, and it took him a half second longer to veer back onto the road than he'd intended, but he had done it—the military truck was behind them.

He played chicken with the next vehicle, a fast-closing Humvee less than a hundred meters away. Again he swerved off the road at the final instant.

The driver side door of the Sonata was sprayed with bullets from the passing vehicle. None of them hit Ethan, or so he hoped—the adrenalin flowing through his veins in that moment might have masked the pain.

He veered back onto the road.

Up ahead the next Humvee began to slow, allowing two other Humvees to pull up alongside. The three vehicles matched speeds, forming an impenetrable bastion. If he wanted to go around them, he risked traveling into the rough terrain for longer than a few seconds. Not the best idea. But perhaps he could move them to one side and improve the odds...

Ethan accelerated onto the shoulder of the road, driving half on the dirt, and half on the grass.

The three Humvees altered their course accordingly, drifting so that the center vehicle lined up with his. The leftmost vehicle drove down the middle of the road, and the rightmost completely off it.

With only seconds to spare, Ethan spun the wheel far to the left, veering back onto the road; he hit the grass on the other side as he raced past the leftmost Humvee. The opposing vehicle swerved, trying to cut him off, but the Sonata was already passing by.

Gunfire riddled the right side of the car.

Still off-road, Ethan hit a small gravel berm and the Sonata jumped into the air; he was pulled against his seatbelt as a terrible grating sound issued from the undercarriage.

Fighting the pull of the grass and gravel, Ethan veered back onto the road. "Everyone all right?"

"Peachy," Sam responded.

He heard pistol fire from the backseat as William and Doug returned fire at the Humvees behind them.

Sam opened her window and let off some shots at the last Humvee up ahead.

Ethan swerved past.

The military vehicle tried to broadside them but managed only to ding the rear. It was enough to send the Sonata drifting. However Ethan recovered easily enough and returned to the road. He kept the accelerator floored.

Glancing in the rearview mirror, he saw that most of the Humvees had already reversed course and were in pursuit. The Ural stood out near the center of the group, bearing down like an implacable freight train.

"Sam," he said. "Now would be a good time for those airstrikes."

That was when he realized the Sonata was pulling to the right: one of the tires had been punctured.

That explained why the pursuing vehicles seemed to be gaining so quickly.

In the rearview mirror, he watched a rifle-toting soldier lean out the passenger side of the lead Humvee.

"Incoming, six o'clock!" Ethan said, ducking in his seat.

Automatic gunfire sprayed the rear window. A few of the bullets pierced through to the front windshield, poking large, spidery holes.

"Hang on," Sam said.

Before he could ask why, several fireballs enveloped the road behind the Sonata, consuming the Humvees.

"About time," Ethan said.

The next village lay just up ahead.

He glanced in the rearview mirror: from the smoke plumes the Ural emerged, along with three of the Humvees.

"Your bomber only got two of them," Ethan complained. He wondered how many of the Sunni militants farther back had survived.

He turned into the small village. He kept an eye out for another possible getaway vehicle—not that he had the time or tools to hot wire anything. All he saw was a rusty white Toyota pickup without any tires.

"The mosque!" Sam said. "We'll make our stand there."

Unlike many of the smaller villages he had passed, this one actually had a mosque. The white-brick, cigar-shaped building was the tallest structure in the area. Basically a standalone, three-story minaret.

Ethan slammed on the brakes in front of the building. He popped the trunk and exited the Sonata; from the arms cache in the rear compartment he grabbed Beast II and an A4, along with an ammo bag he'd prepared earlier using an empty rice sack—it held grenades and extra magazines. Sam and the others scooped up the remaining A4s and ammo bags.

Incoming fire sprayed the vehicle as the Ural pulled up.

"Get to the mosque!" Ethan said.

He ducked behind the Sonata and provided covering fire as the others raced into the building. A Humvee arrived and he divided his attention between it and the Ural.

Suppressive fire erupted from the building behind him.

That was his cue.

He broke from the Sonata and covered the short distance to mosque. William, in the doorway, paused to allow Ethan across his line of sight.

He burst inside and the two of them shut the door. There was no lock of any kind. Bullets riddled the wood. They overturned a nearby shelf, blocking the entrance.

"Useless," Ethan said.

"Yeah," William agreed.

"Sam?"

"Upstairs."

The two of them sped across the small, furniture-less congregation area and climbed the steps two at a time. The staircase spiraled along the inner wall, with the central area left open. It was rail-less—one misstep would see them plunge the entire distance to the floor.

He passed an abutting alcove on the second floor that contained a bed and study for an imam. The room didn't have a window: useless from a sniping perspective.

He kept climbing, and as he neared the third-floor balcony he heard shooting.

"Coming in!" Ethan warned. He didn't need Sam or Doug to accidentally shoot him.

On the balcony the other two operatives were lying prostrate behind the balustrade: they unleashed hell onto the street below. The firecracker-like reports of their rifles reflected from the minaret wall, blocking out all other sounds. The stench of cordite hung in the air.

"Watch our back," Ethan told William during a break in the shooting.

William nodded. He perched beside the balcony entrance, aiming his A4 down the spiral staircase.

Ethan slid Beast II from his shoulder and low-crawled to the edge. The balcony afforded a good view of the street. Two more Humvees had pulled up; Sam and Doug had the tangos pinned behind the vehicles.

There was no sign of the men from the Ural and the first Humvee. He suspected William would be busy soon.

Through Beast II's scope, Ethan spotted the backpack of a tango crouched behind one of the rearmost Humvees. He waited.

The target lifted his head.

Ethan squeezed the trigger.

He worked the bolt, feeding a fresh cartridge into the M24's chamber. The kill dropped into plain sight beside the Humvee. The dead man wore a soldier's helmet and had no facial hair.

Russian, a part of Ethan's mind processed above the chaos.

He had his left eye open for situational awareness. In his peripheral vision he saw Sam with her laptop open beside him; the thick satellite antenna pointed skyward. She alternated between sniping and typing.

Ethan found another partially-obscured target. He waited for the Russian to fully present himself, and then squeezed.

Bursts of gunfire erupted from behind as William defended the staircase. 

Ethan picked out another target and fired. The balcony shook as a grenade, probably thrown by William, detonated inside the minaret.

The surviving pickups from the other town started to pull up, joining the Humvees, and the militants in the beds unloaded en masse. The unorganized jihadists spread out recklessly, with no regard to their individual safeties, making for the nearby buildings. They should have used their own vehicles for cover instead of throwing themselves out into the open like that.

There was a profusion of easy targets, and though Ethan did his best, he couldn't hit them all. Sam and Doug sprayed their A4s left and right, bringing down swathes of the fools.

Ethan worked the bolt after each shot until he'd used all ten rounds, then he replaced the magazine with a spare from his ammo bag.

A technical pulled up. Ethan eliminated the gunner before the man could fire the deadly ZU at them.

Bullets came in hard and fast as multiple militants abruptly opened fire from the different buildings, forcing Ethan and the others to retreat from the edge.

When he peered again over the balustrade, he discovered that those Russians previously hidden behind the Humvees were gone. The militants had lain down covering fire for them.

Another mujahid was manning the big gun on the technical. Ethan had time only to duck as the enemy opened fire.

Threads of gunfire tore into the balustrade. Shards of stone rained down on him.

The floor shook as a grenade detonated somewhere inside the minaret.

"That was my last frag!" William shouted behind him. "The tangos keep coming!"

Ethan and the others abandoned the railing to help defend the balcony entrance. When he reached William, Ethan cooked a fragmentation grenade and threw it into the minaret.

"Fire in the hole!"

The floor shook as the grenade detonated.

He aimed down the spiraling stairs, but before he could do anything more, the world spun out of control.