A Long Gray Line Page 4

  Mike nodded. He was in total agreement with McArdle’s assessment. He pressed the transmit button. “Lisa, we’re ready now. What’s your ETA?”

  Lisa replied immediately. “I’m fifteen seconds away. Lots of people are starting to gather in front of the building, Mike. You guys better hurry.”

  “Thanks, Lisa. We’re on our way,” Mike replied while grabbing some magazines from the fallen ISIS fighters.

  Turning toward McArdle, he said, “Go downstairs and make sure we’re clear. I’ll get the girls.”

  When Mike entered the bedroom where the girls were, he thought they seemed relieved to see him.

  “If you want to live, follow me.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Ar Raqqah, Syria

  “We’re coming down,” Mike said into his mic.

  “You’re green but it’s getting busy down here,” McArdle replied.

  Even though the sound of gunfire was a frequent occurrence in Ar Raqqah, rarely did it last for so long at the same location. Within minutes, if not seconds, armed men attracted by the violence would fill the place.

  “Stay close to me,” Mike said to the two women behind him.

  Mike reached the ground floor and saw McArdle—an AK-47 in his hands— standing on the side of the road scanning for potential targets. Lisa had parked the SUV a few meters off to his right.

  “We’re coming out,” Mike said. He reached the SUV and opened the rear passenger door to let the two women in. “Let’s go. In here.”

  Tires screeching nearby attracted Mike’s attention. A pickup truck had turned onto their street. Its high engine revolutions told him all he needed to know.

  “Hostile, black pickup truck, two hundred meters back,” Mike warned.

  Mike heard McArdle’s AK-47 go off. The pickup truck veered hard to its left and crashed into a parked car. Two men got out and started returning fire from the middle of the street. Mike brought the sights of his AK-47 onto one of the ISIS men’s torso and pressed the trigger. The man dropped his weapon and clutched his right side with two hands. Seeing this, his companion took a few steps back before turning around and sprinting toward safety, leaving his friend behind.

  Coward.

  Mike took an extra second to adjust his aim before shooting the running man in the back. The man collapsed face first onto the street.

  “Time to go,” yelled Lisa from inside the truck.

  Mike sat next to the girls and closed the door at the same time McArdle opened the driver’s door.

  “Move over, Lisa,” McArdle said. “I know the area best.”

  Lisa tried to slide over to the passenger seat but Mike saw that her burqa limited her movement.

  “Damn thing,” he heard her say as she reached the passenger seat.

  McArdle accelerated down the street and took the first right.

  “We can’t go back to your apartment,” Mike said.

  “I know,” McArdle replied reaching into his pants. “I was tired of the place anyway.” He gave Lisa his phone and said, “Dial star-zero-zero-zero-eight.”

  “What will that do?” she asked.

  “If they don’t know I’m a mole yet, they’ll know soon enough,” McArdle replied, as he once again pressed on the accelerator. “That will make sure we haven’t left anything compromising behind us.”

  “How big of a boom?” Lisa asked.

  Mike knew what his wife was thinking. If the apartment went up in flames, how many innocents would be killed? It was a valid question.

  “It doesn’t matter, Lisa,” McArdle replied. “The whole building is occupied by ISIS fighters. No families live there. Trust me.”

  Mike could see his wife was debating what to do. She turned around and looked at him. He nodded. You can trust him.

  Fewer than thirty seconds later, a loud explosion split the air behind them. From the back window, Mike saw a plume of smoke go up.

  “Holy shit, Frank!” he said.

  “That should buy us a few minutes,” McArdle replied.

  “Where are we going?” Mike asked.

  “I’m not sure yet,” McArdle said, taking his phone back. He dialed a number. “But I have an idea.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Ar Raqqah, Syria

  “What did you just say?” Lisa Walton asked. “Are you nuts?”

  “It’s our only chance,” McArdle replied. “Your primary extraction plan is a bust and so is your secondary.”

  Both plans assumed that McArdle would have been able to keep his cover. But that hadn’t happened. With his cover blown, or at least partially blown, McArdle’s death would have been certain if he had gone back to his ISIS handlers. They had managed to get out of Ar Raqqah without any other incidents but Lisa was convinced that some ISIS elements were pursuing them. It had been too easy.

  “I’ve already contacted their area commander,” continued McArdle. “The Kurds will help us.”

  Lisa was worried about the two women at the back. They hadn’t spoken much since their rescue, but with gentle probing, she had learned that their names were Mira and Sonia. Mira was an American citizen while Sonia was French.

  “What will happen to them?” she asked.

  Even though he was driving fast, McArdle glanced at her. Lisa sensed the former Ranger was a little annoyed with her.

  “Trust me, Lisa,” McArdle said. “I know what I’m doing.”

  “Frank’s right, honey,” her husband said. “The Kurds are different; they’re a little bit like us actually.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “The Kurds are somewhat liberal when it comes to women’s rights. They have women acting as commanders in some of their field units,” Mike explained.

  That was news to her. She had no idea.

  “So the plan is to join them? Why would they help us?”

  “What do you think I’ve been doing with ISIS?”

  Lisa assumed McArdle had been collecting intelligence and passing it along back to the IMSI headquarters. But she wasn’t sure. All Mapother had said was that the IMSI had an asset within ISIS, and that this asset would help them catch Mouin Bashi.

  “What don’t you enlighten us?” she asked.

  “Mapother believes the Kurds are our safest allies in Syria. My mission is to feed them as much actionable intelligence as I can.”

  “That’s why you know they’ll help us?” her husband asked.

  “I’ve only been in the country for a short while but my intel has been good. They’ve used it more than once,” McArdle replied.

  Lisa studied the map she had pulled out of the glove box. She placed her index finger where she thought they were and then said, “We’re about twenty kilometers north of Ar Raqqah. Aren’t the Kurds at least sixty kilometers from here?”

  “There has been a lot of fighting in recent weeks,” McArdle explained. “The Kurds have been really aggressive and they were successful at gaining some ground.”

  The northeastern part of Syria was controlled mostly by the Kurds. Lisa knew the United States had helped them much by providing weapons, training and even air strikes to back some of their ground assaults.

  She wasn’t a Syrian specialist but she knew not everyone agreed with Washington when it came to the Kurds. Some people thought that supporting the Kurdish forces in Syria was actually undermining the American government’s strategy for Syria by raising Kurdish hopes for a self-governing zone, thus antagonizing Turkey, another ally.

  Her heart skipped a beat when her husband yelled, “RPG! RP—”

  The RPG round hit short, just in front of the front left tire of their truck, but slammed the vehicle with shrapnel, dirt and rocks. The front tires were shredded and Lisa saw McArdle fight to keep the vehicle going. But they were going too fast and he lost control. The truck swerved to its left and was hi
t by a vehicle coming from the opposite direction.

  The impact shattered all the SUV’s windows and sent it spinning into a ditch at high speed. The last thing Lisa saw was Mira, her body acting as a projectile across the SUV, her head blasting through the already smashed windshield.

  _________________________

  A strong odor of gasoline jolted Lisa awake. She looked behind her but her husband was gone. Directly to her left, Mira was halfway through the windshield, her neck twisted in an impossible angle. In the driver seat, McArdle was regaining his senses.

  “Frank, you okay?” she asked.

  “I think I’m good,” McArdle said. “What’s that smell?”

  “We need to get out of here,” Lisa said. She tried her door but it was jammed. She couldn’t get it to move an inch. She used her elbow to remove the last pieces of glass left from her window.

  She had her head and shoulders outside the vehicle when someone grabbed her and helped her out. It was Sonia.

  Lisa nodded her thanks. “Stay here. You’ll be safe.”

  An AK-47 started firing. The sound indicated the shooter was close. Mike? The ditch they had crashed into was about three meters deep and quite large. She took off her burqa and started to crawl out. Her husband was on the edge, firing the AK-47.

  He must have sensed her movements because she saw him glance back.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  “I’m good and so is Frank.”

  “Keep your head down. There are at least half a dozen hostiles less than one hundred meters to our front,” he advised her. Her husband reached for his pistol and placed it to his left. He fired a few more shots of the AK before leaving two spare magazines next to the MK23. “Take this, Lisa, and protect our left flank in case they manage to cross the road.”

  She continued to crawl until she was next to Mike. She took his MK23 and checked the magazine. It was full.

  “Where are they?” she asked, as McArdle reached their position.

  “They’ve taken cover in the ditch across the road. I saw at least six of them but there could be more of them I didn’t spot,” Mike said.

  McArdle jumped in and said, “They’ll need to cross the road if they want a direct shot at us.”

  They all ducked as bullets whipped the air just inches above their heads. The crescendo of fire increased and Lisa said, “They’re making a move.”

  Lisa estimated there were at least three or four Kalashnikovs firing at a high rate. And she knew why. The enemy wanted them to keep their heads low as they outmaneuvered them. They needed to do something. She raised her head just enough so she could see above the edge of the ditch and saw two men dashing across the road eighty meters to their left.

  She shouted a warning to Mike and McArdle and engaged the two men, even though she knew they were most probably out of range of her pistol. Mike fired his AK-47 in their direction and she saw one of them fall.

  “I’ll take the other one,” McArdle said.

  “Go with him,” Mike told her. “Leapfrog together until you get into contact. I’ll hold the rest of them from here.”

  Lisa crawled down the ditch and followed McArdle.

  _________________________

  “He can’t be far,” Lisa said, putting a knee down. Her pistol was up as she covered McArdle’s advance.

  McArdle sprinted past her and crouched about fifteen meters from her position.

  Where is he? The next leg up would be tricky. The ditch curved to the left and even though McArdle would be covering her, she’d be advancing blind once she passed him.

  Behind them, the firefight was still raging. It was hard to know who was firing as everyone was using AK-47s. She hated that Mike was by himself but she understood the need to flush this guy out. Being flanked was never a good option.

  “Go slowly, and slice the pie just like you’d do in a house,” McArdle said as she passed his position.

  Her heartbeat accelerated and her hands trembled slightly. She felt so vulnerable. She knew McArdle would go up the ridge a little in order to provide some covering fire if needed, but she still didn’t like it.

  The sudden clatter of two AK-47s right behind her made her jump. She turned around in time to see the jihadist’s body being jerked around as McArdle emptied his magazine into him. The jihadist fell into the ditch, his body riddled with bullets.

  She looked at McArdle, startled. He had just saved her life.

  “He climbed over the ridge,” McArdle explained while inserting a fresh magazine into his AK-47. “He probably guessed we’d be approaching using the ditch as cover. He wanted to surprise us.”

  “And he almost did,” Lisa said. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it,” McArdle replied. Then he collapsed and fell to his side.

  Lisa ran to him. “Are you hit?” But she knew the answer before he even replied. His pants were soaked in blood.

  Shiiiiit! The wound didn’t look good. So much blood in so little time meant at least one bullet had hit a major artery.

  “I’ll be fine,” he said waving her off. “Get to Mike—he’ll need all the firepower he can get.”

  McArdle was right, but at the same time, she couldn’t leave him there to die. His wound was too high for a tourniquet to work and direct pressure was inadequate to stop the bleeding from such an injury. What she really needed to do was clamp the artery.

  “You can’t,” McArdle said, his voice wavering. He had probably seen the desperation in her eyes. “Stop wasting time and go to Mike. He needs you.”

  The AK-47s were now firing on automatic.

  “I’ll be back,” Lisa said to him.

  He grabbed her arm. “Take it,” he said, pointing to his Kalashnikov. She picked it up and ran to Mike’s position. “Friendly,” she yelled as she approached her husband from his left side.

  Mike was in the process of reloading when he saw her. “Where’s Frank?” he asked her.

  “He’s badly injured,” she replied.

  Her husband didn’t say anything for a few seconds and Lisa knew better than to interrupt his thoughts. Instead, she risked a quick look across the road. She quickly dropped back when rounds flew mere inches above her head.

  At least they’re not trying to cross the road, yet.

  When her husband spoke, it was in a decisive tone. “Listen, Lisa, there are at least four of them left and they’ll get reinforcements soon. When this happens, we won’t be able to hold them back.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “We’ll run out of ammo in no time,” Mike said.

  There was no contest there. She had fewer than two full magazines left.

  “We have no vehicle,” Mike continued, “but they do.”

  “You’ve seen it?”

  “It’s five or six hundred meters behind them. A white pickup truck.”

  She was beginning to understand what her husband wanted to do. It was suicidal. But so was staying put. At least, if they gained access to a vehicle, they had a slim chance at saving McArdle.

  “You want to lead a cavalry charge of two across the road?” she asked.

  “If we don’t do it, they’ll try to flank us again, but with more men the next time around.”

  They had two AK-47s and two pistols. Worse, they were two against at least four known enemy combatants.

  “How do you want to do this?” she asked her husband, smiling.

  CHAPTER 15

  Twenty-three kilometers north of Ar Raqqah, Syria

  Mike couldn’t believe how fierce his wife was. She’s a true warrior.

  She had accepted his plan without batting an eye. She must have known that the odds were stacked against them but she didn’t seem to mind. From what Mike could see, the only things that mattered to her were to save McArdle and to kill the bastards across th
e road. But for his plan to work, he needed Sonia’s help too. Good sport, and probably aware Mike and Lisa were her only chance, she had agreed to lend a hand.

  Keeping their heads low, the three of them ran to McArdle. The former Ranger was still breathing but it was evident he hadn’t much time left. Nevertheless, he managed to smile when he saw Mike.

  “I’m about to pass out, brother,” McArdle said. “We’d better do this now.”

  Mike wasn’t even a bit surprised that McArdle knew exactly what he wanted to do. The man was a fighter.

  “You and Sonia will provide us cover fire from this position. Lisa and I will dash across the road and kill them all.”

  “She knows how to fire this thing?” McArdle asked.

  “I’ve watched videos,” Sonia replied, crouching down next to McArdle. “I point and I shoot, yes?”

  “You got it,” Mike said. “Control your fire. A round or two every second will do the trick.”

  She didn’t need to hit anything. His hope was that the ISIS fighters across the road would keep their heads low when Sonia and McArdle started shooting. They only needed a few seconds to cross the road. If they were lucky enough to survive the passage, Mike’s plan was to slaughter the ISIS men at close range.

  “We’ll be back for you,” Mike said, locking eyes with McArdle.

  “I know, man,” McArdle replied, his voice getting weaker.

  Mike looked at his wife. She was checking the P226 McArdle had given her in exchange for her AK-47.

  “You ready?” he said, his MK23 at the ready.

  Her answer couldn’t have been clearer. She got up and started sprinting toward the other side.

  _________________________

  Mike caught up with Lisa in five strides. No way he was going to let her take the lead on this. The good news was that they hadn’t been fired upon yet. For a second, Mike understood how Captain Winters must have felt when he led the charge against the Germans in Holland. It was terrifying to be in such a vulnerable position. That was pure craziness.

  Three quarters of the way through, the AK-47s fell silent. Had they run out of bullets? Did McArdle pass out? It didn’t matter. He and Lisa were all-in. They couldn’t stop so they ran faster. Mike thought he saw some kind of movements a couple of hundred meters past the ditch but a head suddenly popped out right in front of him. The eyes of the jihadist standing in the ditch—now fewer than five meters from him—opened wide as he realized what was happening. Mike instinctively fired three rounds point blank range before jumping over him feet first into the ditch. The landing didn’t go as planned and he fell hard on his shoulder next to the fallen man. A wave of pain reverberated through his side. Lisa’s landing was more gracious and she immediately engaged another jihadist ten meters away. Her bullets hit their mark and the man’s head snapped back.Mike painfully got up and scanned their rear. There were no other ISIS men in sight.