LITMIR.BIZ

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set to scold Bashar Alama when he emerged, face awash in blood, an ugly gash from a bullet graze above one eye.

      “Youssef?” the wounded soldier asked. “Is that you? I can’t see you.”

      Sadek fumbled for a handkerchief in his pocket, then pressed it into Alama’s hand. “Wipe off your face,” he said. “It’s just a scratch. Each man must do his part.”

      “I will, but—”

      “Be strong!” Sadek urged him, moving on before he had to answer any questions or fake a show of sympathy.

      For his own sake, and for the estimation of his men, Sadek knew that he had to join the fight. But how? Rushing into the no-man’s land between his truck and the old Jeep would be suicide, and he had never cherished dreams of martyrdom. For all he knew, one of his men might shoot him in the back before their common enemies could cut him down.

      So, what else could he do?

      He reached the front of the truck, where one of his young soldiers crouched and peered around the fender, straining for a glimpse of the enemy. Sadek tried to remember his name but drew a blank.

      “What do you see?” he asked.

      “Nothing,” the young man replied. “They’ve gone to ground.”

      “We need to draw them out.”

      “Good luck with that,” the soldier answered.

      Sadek considered striking him for insolence, but then decided he had pushed his luck as far as it would go with these inexperienced, poorly trained guerrillas. Discipline was clearly fading in the ranks, the longer Syria’s insurgency dragged on.

      Sadek needed to make a grand, dramatic gesture to assert himself, to regain whatever measure of respect his men had felt for him before the shooting started and their nerve ran out. But what could he—

      Of course!

      There was an RPG-29 launcher lying behind his seat in the cab, with three rockets ready for loading. All he had to do was reach in, retrieve the ordnance while avoiding Karam’s corpse, load the launcher, then take out his foes.

      One step at a time, Sadek thought, as he returned to the door he had left hanging open. The Vampir and its ammo were in easy reach.

      * * *

      SABAH AZMEH SWITCHED out his empty AKMS magazine and snapped a full one in its place. His hip throbbed from his collision with the Jeep, a stupid, clumsy slip that made him feel like a fool even though it saved his life.

      His jacket smelled strange, and he realized that gasoline had splashed on to his sleeve after he fell, one of their fuel cans punctured by the slugs that might have killed him otherwise. The stench stung Azmeh’s nostrils and made his eyes water, but all that he could do was scoop up dirt in his free hand and rub it into his wet sleeve. He glanced at Cooper and found the tall American scowling at their predicament. Whatever he had planned, turning around to face the truck and stopping there, it was not working out. Unless he had hatched another scheme…

      Cooper shifted, then walked over to the passenger door, keeping low. A burst of hostile fire drilled the Wrangler’s bodywork, one slug caroming off the door near Cooper’s head. He did not flinch as he leaned inside and rummaged through duffel bags. When he backed out, he was holding two grenades.

      Each F1 “lemon,” Azmeh knew, weighed a shade under one and a half pounds. A strong man could pitch one forty-five yards, remaining outside the grenade’s estimated thirty-yard kill zone. But could Cooper drop one behind the stalled truck while under fire?

      “How can I help you?” Azmeh asked, worried that Cooper might suggest he make the throw himself.

      “Give me some cover,” Cooper said. “I’ll tell you when.”

      “Done.”

      Kneeling, one shoulder against the Jeep’s sun-heated fender, Azmeh held his carbine ready, muzzle pointed at the pale blue sky, his finger on the trigger. Full automatic fire would empty his fresh magazine in four seconds flat, unless he controlled it. He’d go with short bursts to frighten his opponents and keep them from dropping Cooper in his tracks.

      He waited, barely breathing, and had started feeling dizzy when the tall American said, “Now!”

      * * *

      BOLAN PULLED THE GRENADE’S pin and dropped the spoon as he began to move. He had about four seconds until detonation.

      The opposition cut loose when he broke from cover, arm cocked for the pitch, an overhand fastball.

      A bullet sliced at Bolan’s sleeve, missing flesh and bone, as he dove back to cover in the Wrangler’s shadow. There had been no time for him to follow the grenade in flight. He had to hope it did sufficient damage over there to let him make a second throw.

      Bolan counted to three, then he heard the blast, followed by screams. No way for him to judge the damage without seeing it firsthand, but he knew pain when he heard it and the gargling sound of voices choked with blood.

      How many dead or wounded out of the eight or ten they’d started with?

      Still not enough.

      Bolan switched the second F1 to his right hand and walked past Azmeh, staying low. “Good job on the first round. Time for number two.”

      His guide nodded. “I’m ready.”

      “On my ‘go.’”

      Another nod.

      Bolan could tell fewer Kalashnikovs were on the job, but counting them by sound was hopeless. He would have a better feel for how many opponents he’d taken out when he stepped out into the open a second time.

      He reached the Wrangler’s rear end just as someone shot the spare tire into tatters on its tailgate mount. The Jeep already stank of leaking gasoline, its bodywork had turned into a sieve, and Bolan had his doubts about the old vehicle carrying them any farther on his desert mission. When the left-rear tire began to hiss, Bolan knew their ride was done.

      It didn’t matter, though. Survival was the first priority.

      He glanced at Azmeh, rising from his crouch as he said, “Go!”

      Azmeh was quicker this time, firing through the Wrangler—in one open window, out the other—at their adversaries. Bolan had the F1’s pin free as he came around the tailgate, right arm drawing back—and saw one of the opposition sprinting out from cover, rushing toward him with the long tube of an RPG launcher across his shoulder.

      “Watch it!” Bolan called to Azmeh, as he made his pitch and dove facedown into the dirt.

      * * *

      SADEK HAD STRUGGLED with the RPG-29 launcher, loading it from the rear with a TBG-29V thermobaric antipersonnel round as he sat on the hot, hard soil, praying that he got it right and was not about to kill himself, along with all the other men from his patrol.

      Sadek was not a genius with technology, far from it. He could field strip, load and fire a fair variety of weapons, and he learned quickly when new ones fell into his hands. But he could not have said what thermobaric meant or how it worked, in scientific terms. He had seen its effects on vehicles and human flesh, a grisly sight replete with screams of agony from living targets as they fried and died. Sadek wished that upon his enemies today, after they had resisted and embarrassed him.

      He would be satisfied, feel good about himself again, when they had been reduced to blackened, shriveled husks upon the desert sand.

      And he would be a hero then—if he could only find the will to rise and make his move.

      That was the hard part, breaking cover under fire and facing down the enemy. Sadek was not a fan of open warfare, but he’d sworn an oath to Allah and his outcast people, which demanded sacrifice.

      So

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