Reaper: Drone Strike: A Sniper Novel Read online

  But a concern nibbled at the back of his mind. Who else could track his location and predict where he might be headed? In this heavy cyber-offensive environment, Harwood wasn’t sure he wanted to think about all the players. The Russians? The Syrians? The Israelis? The Iranians? Any number of terrorist groups that might have been outfitted with cyber capabilities from any of the other countries? Perhaps all of them were tracking him, or maybe none of them gave a shit about who he was or where he was headed?

  Roger. Keep eyes on my route/inform if any bogies.

  Roger. Out.

  With Stoddard back in comms, Harwood pulled the burlap cover over the TacSleeve and began maneuvering through the forest of junipers. The low branches brushed at him, sweeping across his face. The night-vision goggles helped him find the trails through the rocky terrain. Boulders the size of cars poked through the earth, making his descent more problematic than he had anticipated. But he made progress.

  It took him five hours to traverse the fourteen miles. When he reached to within a quarter mile of the location where Clutch’s beacon had gone off the system, he stopped on a small hillock in the valley and observed. The Sabrewing aircraft was crumpled on the ground.

  By now, the sun was edging over the horizon to his back. Everything looked different in the daytime. He knew the saying that everything would be better the next day, but that was not his experience.

  Two Suburban SUVs were parked with their lights shining on the Sabrewing drone. Four men milled about the location, searching. The men were carrying AK-47s and appeared military. They weren’t wearing any uniforms that he could determine. They were most likely from a terrorist organization, probably Hezbollah. He could hear the men talking but couldn’t discern the words. The Sabrewing appeared to have been navigating a gap in the ridge that formed the western side of the Beqaa Valley when it was either shot down or had a malfunction.

  Was Clutch alive? Captive?

  It occurred to Harwood that the men might have thought there were two people and were looking for a second, having already secured Clutch in one of the SUVs.

  He did what any good sniper would do and slowly set up his SR-25, adjusting his scope and lifting his goggles to shoot with the naked eye. Chambering a round, he took a deep breath and placed the crosshairs on the man nearest the Suburban and fired. The silenced weapon was loud in the tranquil valley. The other men lifted their heads in his direction.

  They were quick. Harwood snapped off a second round at a man who had already begun moving. The man fell to one knee, and Harwood used that momentary stop to drill a bullet through his head.

  The other two had maneuvered behind the Sabrewing, but Harwood still had a shot on one of the men, which he took. The man’s head snapped back.

  Three down, one to go.

  The remaining man must have low crawled to the second Suburban, because the vehicle started, backed away, and began turning onto the road.

  Harwood put two bullets into the front driver’s-side window, but the glass didn’t shatter. It spiderwebbed. Bulletproof.

  Harwood stood and ran the remaining quarter mile as the Suburban tore up a dirt trail and onto the asphalt road that led west and north through the gap. It took him a few minutes to run the distance to the other Suburban, and a three-minute head start might as well have been an hour advance lead.

  Breathing heavily, he quickly scanned the Sabrewing, saw that it had endured the wreck in survivable fashion. There were bullet holes in one of the tilt-rotor blade housings.

  Clutch was shot down? Even if so, the interior was not collapsed, and there was no evidence of blood. The aircraft must have auto-rotated safely to the ground. Someone had cut the cargo straps. Had Clutch done this or these men? Backing out, he checked the three men he’d shot, all dead, and retrieved their weapons and cell phones.

  Tossing the gear—including his rucksack—into the passenger’s seat of the Suburban, he punched up the Home function on the dashboard display and saw that he had to navigate north along the base of the ridge that overlooked the valley to the east. Curiously, there was a blue icon on the navigation display that was moving along the same route, only it was about three miles ahead of him. It had to be the first vehicle with the one survivor of his ambush … and possibly Clutch.

  The tracking function was the equivalent of “find my friends” for vehicles, like the military’s blue force tracker. Of course, if he could see them, they could see him unless this was some kind of master vehicle, but he doubted that was likely.

  Harwood navigated the pothole-ridden road at 140 kilometers an hour according to the speedometer, passing fields of wheat with the occasional cluster of single-story brick homes. The Beqaa Valley was not unlike the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. It served as a farming breadbasket for much of Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey. Centuries-old trade routes funneled north and south, with smaller arteries branching off to the ports and cities in the west and Damascus in the east.

  The major difference between the Beqaa and Shenandoah Valleys, in Harwood’s mind, was that the Beqaa was notorious for being a terrorist haven. If Clutch had been spirited away in the other SUV, there was a strong possibility that he was headed to a terrorist camp. The brief inspection of the men he had killed indicated they were armed and dangerous and had done something with Clutch. There was an off chance that Clutch had been thrown from the aircraft during the crash, but that seemed unlikely given the structural integrity of the aircraft. It had landed almost as if it were a glider coming into a French landing zone during the Normandy Invasion. The explosion he heard had to have been something else.

  Harwood slowed the SUV as the map display automatically zoomed in, indicating he was close to his destination. He steered the vehicle to a small depression on the reverse slope of whatever lay a half mile ahead.

  He threw the SUV gearshift into Park and grabbed his rucksack, the three cell phones, and one of the AK-47s. Sliding out of the front driver’s-side door, Harwood ducked low and slid around the back of the Suburban. He found a ditch that was at least five feet deep and paralleled the road. He moved forward in the ditch and found a perpendicular offshoot that climbed up the hill, most likely a water-drainage ditch. He used this funnel as cover and concealment until he had climbed a significant ridge.

  The valley below him was in full daylight now, glistening with the morning dew atop the wheat fields dipping slightly with the breeze. The temperature was in the midfifties, perfect for Harwood’s trek. Fresh-cut hay and horse manure filled his nostrils. He climbed the steep ridge, pulling against rocks, slipping around boulders, and skirting past a refuse area. Piles of empty water and Coke bottles, assorted food packaging, and similar detritus clogged the narrow gulley he had been climbing.

  He low crawled to the top of the southern spine of the gulley and followed that fifty meters up to the ridge. The road he would have taken through the gap was a short fifty meters to his right, beyond the ditch he had traversed. Twenty-five meters to his front was a tan stucco wall with a gate, most likely the path for disposing of trash.

  Voices floated over the wall, the words muffled by the barrier, but barely audible. The men spoke in Arabic, giving Harwood no chance of interpreting the conversation. Both he and Clutch were sanitized. There wasn’t an identifying piece of information on them other than their bodily DNA, teeth, and fingerprints, which would require the captors to have access to U.S. military databases.

  The unfortunate part of his situation was that he had arrived at daybreak, putting him in potential enemy territory under full daylight for an entire day. He considered his options. He could either use the element of surprise and attack now, or he could hole up somewhere and hide until nightfall. The pros of attacking now were that he would continue his forward momentum and maintain the initiative. The biggest con, of course, was that he had little intel on the compound, no idea of the enemy situation.

  Waiting to conduct a raid had its merits. He could recon the location and develop a plan. Of course, wai
ting also meant that he would lose all element of surprise. The men in the compound would figure out quickly—if they hadn’t already—that they had three dead comrades and one live opposing sniper, most likely the partner of the man they had captive.

  It would be foolhardy to rush the compound with no information on what he was up against. Against all his baser instincts, he began to slowly shift so that he could move downhill and seek out a decent hide site. He would prefer to be on higher ground, but for the moment, this compound dominated the plateau above the Beqaa Valley. To his right was the road and flat, windswept land. To his left was fenced-in farmland with horses and cattle.

  As he began easing down from his low perch, Harwood heard a word float over the fence.

  “American.”

  It was sandwiched in the middle of a sentence, a single English word framed by Arabic.

  He froze, making sure that no one was talking to him. He’d not seen any movement from any direction, but with the vehicle parked a few hundred meters behind him on the valley floor, it wouldn’t take an Interpol agent to know that he was somewhere within however far a person could walk in thirty minutes. A mile in this rugged terrain, maybe two in the flatter valley.

  He was lying flat on his stomach with just a sliver of the compound in his view.

  The gate opened, and two men came running directly at him.

  CHAPTER 8

  Sassi Cavezza

  Sassi held Fatima’s hand as they bumped along the road. Fatima clutched Aamina tightly to her chest in her slumber. They had departed at 4:00 this morning, a full two hours before there was enough sunlight to see the treacherous roads. They were in the back seat with Fatima’s head resting on Sassi’s lap.

  Hakim drove because there were multiple checkpoints where his Turkish, Arabic, English, and maybe even Hebrew skills might be required. Fluent in all four languages, Hakim had worked for five years as an interpreter for the highest bidder, which was usually the cash-flush United Nations, filled with its bureaucrats making fat six-figure salaries. Hakim had told Sassi he was making nearly seventy thousand euros a year, which, in his world, was close to millionaire status. He deserved it, she figured. The job was dangerous, and he was constantly having to negotiate and haggle his way through difficult situations.

  On one occasion, they had been stopped at a checkpoint with four men in ski masks and AK-47s, which were aimed directly at her. They emphatically requested “the woman,” but Hakim had stepped out of the car, negotiated with them, paid them some amount of cash, and then they moved along.

  They followed the winding road from the higher ground to the coast. The trail vehicle’s headlights flickered in the rearview mirror every few minutes. The plan was for the Americans to stay a quarter mile behind. She reluctantly had allowed General Cartwright to convince her to allow a two-man team of his soldiers to accompany her so that they could gather the intelligence that had been stolen from her phone. If not for the fact that someone or some entity had violated her electronically, she would not have made the concession. It was heresy to allow military combat personnel on UN missions. Commingling the sacred functions of UN peacekeeping activities with clandestine military missions often backfired on the UN and destroyed its image of neutrality. Today was different, though. She had an uneasy feeling about reentering Ghouta after being chased away yesterday. Fatima’s father had called her no less than a dozen times between last night and this morning, yet she let the calls go through to voice mail. She understood mission security better than most, and she held this morning’s information close. Except for the Americans in the trail vehicle, only Hakim and General Cartwright knew the arrival time in al-Ghouta.

  She hoped. She hadn’t even told Schmidt, hoping that by the time he awoke with whichever UN worker he’d been able to coerce into his quarters, he would be so far behind the information flow it would be too late for him to do anything that could negatively impact the mission.

  They made decent time until the port town of Latakia, which was already bustling with merchants and smugglers ferrying goods along the streets. Old Peugeot cars and flat-nosed Mercedes-Benz trucks zipped along in both directions. Their white UN SUV was conspicuous by its markings on the two front doors and the roof. In one sense, it said, “Nothing to see here but a couple of global public servants.” In another, it said, “Huge target. Harass or kidnap us now.”

  Next, they approached the port town of Tartus, and the sun was beginning to peek above the mountains to the east. Yellow beams poked through jagged sawtooth peaks like ever-expanding triangles. The Mediterranean Sea was a brilliant blue, the sun skidding off its surface in yellow ribbons. Seagulls hung in the air, gliding against the wind, appearing stationary and defying the laws of aerodynamics. Small waves lapped at the T-shaped jetties that punctuated the coastline. They followed the coast road past low-slung commercial buildings and souks with merchants lifting cages and setting up their catch from the morning or fresh fruit and vegetables picked from the fields the day before.

  Traffic was light but building. The gate to the Russian navy base was secured with two soldiers in olive uniforms standing guard at port arms with the AK-47s. The spring morning was cool, and they wore their standard-issue Russian soft cap. Sassi’s throat tightened as they passed the Russians, thinking of yesterday’s interaction and showdown. After another thirty minutes, they hooked due east and wound their way through the mountains, skirting the northern edge of the Beqaa Valley. The sun now was above the mountains, shining spectacularly through a thin layer of clouds. Springtime in Syria and Lebanon was actually quite beautiful when the clouds were simple moisture in the air as opposed to the wafting smoke of bombs and dirt blown into the sky or the acrid fires started by tracer ammunition.

  As they wound along the road on the final thirty minutes, she clutched Fatima’s hand tighter, waking the young girl.

  “What’s the matter, Sassi?” Fatima asked in a tired, soft voice.

  “Nothing, Fatima. We’re almost there.”

  “Have you talked to my father?”

  “I’m about to call him. We wanted to get close to Ghouta before we did.”

  “Why? Because of the bad people?”

  “No, Fatima, it’s just because we don’t have reception until we get close.”

  “Okay,” Fatima said. She laid her head down on Sassi’s leg again and snuggled close.

  Sassi didn’t like lying to Fatima, but she couldn’t tell her the truth. Their movement was off schedule intentionally, and they had not publicized their new arrival time. While in many cases it was standard operating procedure to vary travel times and routes, today was unique.

  The trail vehicle was about a quarter mile away, a metallic speck in the rearview mirror. As they approached the town, two Russian army tanks were just outside the first neighborhood.

  “Tanks,” Hakim said.

  “I see them. The crew are probably asleep. Keep driving.”

  Hakim swallowed and nodded.

  They slowly passed the tanks without incident. As they cleared the first hurdle, Sassi said, “See. Told you.”

  “There’s that saying about counting chickens,” Hakim said.

  “Trust me, I know,” Sassi said. “Those guys behind us still need to get through.”

  “You’ve been pretty quiet about those two.”

  “Nothing to say. The general said they needed to come into the village to see some things, and I told him we could use the escort. It’s borderline, but after yesterday, do you disagree?” she said.

  “No. I’m glad they are there, but I would have preferred to at least talk to them up front, before the mission.”

  “Things are moving fast. Turn here,” she said.

  “I know the way.”

  They made a left and then a right and paralleled the main road.

  “Stop at the fourth house from where Fatima’s doll was yesterday.”

  “Okay,” he said. There was a hint of confusion in his voice.

  Hak
im slowed and stopped, counted with his lips moving, and then pulled up to one house.

  “Here?”

  “Looks right,” she said.

  The homes were small, rectangular, single-story wood-and-brick structures, about one thousand square feet max, maybe a shade deeper than they were wide. Dull gray and brown paint was peeling uniformly across all the houses. Fatima’s house was two blocks away, farther into the neighborhood. It was just past 8:00 a.m., the drive having taken them a bit over four hours. Another advantage to leaving early was that they had missed all the significant traffic in the cities that dotted the road. The Lebanese police and military had barely noticed them. Just another UN milk run.

  She nudged Fatima. “Okay, honey, let’s go.”

  “Are we home?”

  “Almost. We walk from here.”

  Sassi helped Fatima out of the SUV, and Hakim stood from the driver’s seat also. Fatima rubbed her sleepy face with the back of one hand as she carried Aamina like a football with the other.

  “I need to pee,” Hakim said. “I’ll join you in a second.” He disappeared behind the first house as Sassi walked along the road to the east holding Fatima’s hand. They walked past a few chickens pecking next to the road as a rooster crowed somewhere close by. The town smelled of burnt coal, spent from a night of warming homes. Even in May, the temperatures hovered in the fifties at night, even cooler at higher altitudes.

  She retrieved her phone from her cargo pocket and lifted it, using her thumb to find Fatima’s father’s number. The trail vehicle pulled to a stop somewhere behind her, its brakes whining. She shook her head at the amateur mistake. If they really were on a mission, they just woke everyone in the neighborhood.

  Her phone buzzing with the soft dial tone of the Syrian network provider, she lifted it to her ear.