Seal team six extra size.., p.103
SEAL Team Six Extra-Sized Holiday Bundle, page 103
Gharib could see that these were dangerous men. They were certainly armed. They moved like predators. But the hate was not there. He did not feel that frisson of pent-up righteous rage that clung to the jihadist like a scent. He stood well back in the shadows and watched through the dusty glass as they moved by. They walked in a deliberate order like wolves on the trail of game. A man to lead and a man to follow and the rest spaced between with clear lines of fire.
They were military or ex-military. Not so unusual in a war zone. Most of the men in the FSA were defectors from Assad. The rest of the ranks were filled with fighting men from across Islam both professional and amateur. These men tramping past had nothing about them to distinguish them from the thousands of others occupying the city. Only these men were not simply on the move. They were on a hunt.
And the make-up of the group was unusual; not wrong, just unusual. They were uniformly tall. They wore beards of different lengths and one man was very obviously European with shaved head and only the beginnings of a proper beard. They were all dark from the sun and there was a black man with them.
The sum of all the details made Gharib curious enough to push aside the caution the last two years had taught him. He ducked back from the window and crawled through the rubble to the next cellar. Gharib slung his rifle from his shoulders and adjusted the straps of his ammo vest. He stooped to exit into the courtyard behind the row of stores. Black-clad women were boiling water to launder clothes in steel drums. They hung camouflaged pants and blouses on lines strung between the buildings. They chattered to one another and a boom box played music low from a windowsill.
Gharib walked without speaking past the concealment of the hanging clothes. He entered an alley and followed it out to daylight, stopping just before the place where it opened on the avenue. The boy stood silent in the shadows and watched the six men step past. They moved to the wide sidewalk across the lane to avoid the passage of a truck broadcasting the words of the Prophet from a speaker mounted atop the cab.
Traffic on the street was light. The occasional truck or motorbike raised dust on the avenue. There was foot traffic on the sidewalks and the concrete median that ran down the center of the avenue.
The boy waited until the men had passed on the opposite sidewalk. He slipped from the alley as a rattling bus sped past ahead of a black fog of diesel smoke. The men walked a few more blocks following the tide of armed pedestrians moving west. They matched the pace of the others; not overtaking them or falling too far behind. The strangers were making sure they did not mix in with other groups. They were avoiding casual contact but doing so in a way that only a keen observer like Gharib would take note of.
The group turned a corner off the avenue and into a narrower street dark with morning shadows. Gharib waited until the last man was out of sight and sprinted for the opposite walkway. He skipped and danced to avoid a beeping moped that missed him by inches. He gained the far walk and trotted for the corner only slowing to an idle stroll as he reached and turned the corner. His eyes adjusted to the gloom of the cross street. It was only broad enough to allow the passage of a single vehicle. He found the men hiking along a walkway that was little more than a curb to allow passage of a jitney puttering past them.
Gharib paused to adjust a sandal strap to give the strangers more lead before following them. He would keep them in sight but give them no cause to notice the skinny boy with the big Kalashnikov out for a ramble behind them. The sandal ruse completed, he followed at a pace to match his quarry. He watched them walking with purpose toward a far intersection where the sun beat down on another broad boulevard ahead. They moved without turning in the same marching order as before. A man on point with the others in the group spaced between the lead and the final stranger bringing up the rear.
Something was different. The man walking rear cover was different. It was the black man. Why the change?
He counted the men again. One…two…three…four…five…
Where was the sixth man?
Gharib stopped on the curb. His hand slid up the smooth wood of his rifle stock toward the trigger. A hand like a steel vise gripped his wrist. An arm snaked about his neck and cut off his cry. His sandals left the curb as he was yanked back into the dark of a doorway with a violent jerk. He gasped for air but his windpipe was pressed shut. He could hear the sudden rush of his heartbeat in his ears then it grew fainter as the arm dragged him further into an alcove. His heels squeaked over tiles. His hands felt as though they were miles away at the end of tingling arms. His vision was going red around the edges.
He was a warrior. He was a survivor. In a world of war he was a child of war. He was good enough and fast enough to last this long.
The man breathing softly in his ear was better. Faster.
****
Gharib came awake with a gasp. He did not remember losing consciousness. He lay on a hard tiled floor. When he tried to rise he was pressed back by a giant hand on his chest. It was the big black man.
“Settle down, son,” the man cooed in accented Arabic.
Gharib’s ammo vest and rifle were gone. He sensed the knife he wore at his back was missing from its sheath. He laid back. Above him birds fluttered between the rafters of a roof open to the sky. He was in an apartment building that had been gutted in an earlier bombing. He could hear voices coming from the other side of wall that managed to remain standing. No words were clear to him. Despite the hushed tones he could tell it was a heated discussion. He glanced to the black man crouched by him. The man was not threatening, not angry. He regarded Gharib with a professional calm that sent a chill up the boy’s spine.
The boy struggled to sit up and the black man grabbed a fistful of his shirtfront and shoved him back in place. The shirt tore open. The black man fingered the silver cross that lay on Gharib’s t-shirt. He held it closer, the thin chain dangling.
“Is this your cross?” the black man said.
Gharib only glared.
“Are you Christian or did you take it from a Christian?”
“I do not steal.”
“You don’t?” the black man smirked. “Where did you get the rifle? Your birthday?”
“It was my father’s,” Gharib said meeting the man’s dark eyes.
The unseen conversation ended. Gharib could hear boots on the cracked tiles. Two men came through a doorway. They were among the men he had been following. One man smiled. The other had hard eyes of gray and a face that looked like a mask. Gharib turned to the smiling man and searched his face for any evidence that the smile was real.
“Why did you follow us?” the smiling man said.
Gharib said nothing.
“He understands Arabic. We were just talking. I think he’s Armenian,” the black man said.
“Is that true?” the smiling man said in an east Armenian dialect.
“Yes,” Gharib answered. Hearing his own language, even mangled by this stranger’s tongue, made him relax a bit. But not by much.
“Why were you following us?”
“You are Americans,” Gharib said.
The man with the cold gray eyes shifted at that.
“How do you know that?” The smiling man’s smile faltered.
“My father was waiting for some Americans,” Gharib said.
“What’s your family name?”
“Sibrian,” Gharib said.
“Your father was Hagop.”
“Yes.”
The smiling man turned to the man with gray eyes and they spoke in a language Gharib could not follow. It was not English. He was learning English and heard none of the words he knew.
“Do you know why your father was meeting us?” The smiling man turned back to Gharib and continued in his horrid Armenian.
“He was to take you to the hospital. There is something there you need to see.”
“And why would he tell you this?”
“Because I am a fighter too. I want blood for our blood too. I will take you to where my father was to take you.”
Another discussion between the Americans.
“How do we know we can trust you?”
Gharib touched the cross at his throat.
“Because I swear that you can. Because I will keep my father’s word as well. And if I wanted to betray you I could have shouted to the gunmen on the street at any time. They kill men for far less reason,” Gharib said in Arabic so that they could all understand.
The men conferred again.
“You can come with us. Show us the best way to the hospital,” the smiling man said and held out a hand to help the boy to his feet.
“No,” Gharib said, remaining where he was.
“No?”
“I go nowhere without my father’s rifle. A man is not a man without a rifle. And I want my knife back too.”
The black man laughed at that. Gharib knew that he was safe with these men.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A WALK IN THE PARK
“Cheer up, Priest,” Chili said. “The kid is good cover.”
Priest only grunted, never taking his eyes from the boy. Gharib was trotting to keep up with Blair’s longer strides. The agency officer had taken the kid on like a pet.
They were navigating across a broad square created by the convergence of five avenues. Only one of the cross streets was navigable by traffic, which tore past unheeding of pedestrians. The rest of the square and feeder streets were packed with market stalls and food carts side by side. Lamb cooked on grills, bread baked in ovens and blenders whirred to make honey and fruit concoctions. There were stalls for vegetables, figs, rice and dates as well as CDs, cassette tapes, DVDs, t-shirts, books, cigarettes and bottled water. War was good for business.
And guns. Peddlers and smiths had set up in stalls walled with stacks of ammo crates and lined with tables piled with AKs, AKMs, SKSs, RPGs and even more exotic weapons from Europe and Asia. There were oddities like 10 gauge fowling gun replicas right down to the fine engraving. A pair of reproduction Bisley Colts hung in a fast draw holster from a rack inside a stall looking like they were waiting for Clint Eastwood to come by and pick them up.
There was USA military-issued ordnance here too. Rifles and handguns and even a Ma Deuce heavy in cherry condition complete with tripod and extra barrels. It was either looted from American stores in Iraq or sold black market by Uncle Sugar’s “allies.” Former Iraqi army rifle, barely used, only dropped once.
The sounds of the square were startling after the silence of the rest of Dayr al Zawr, or “Deir Azzor,” as Gharib told them it was called by the locals. Music competed from a hundred speakers in a cacophony of discordant beats and keening voices. Atop that were the shouted conversations of men bickering over prices. And, as always, the occasional rifle shots into the sky.
The Americans and their new mascot wended through the crush and across a boulevard to the city’s largest park. It was probably something from a picture postcard at some point in the past. All that remained now were the marble fountains and stairways and even they were cracked and discolored. The fountains were dry but for a thick greenish scum at the bottom of each. The trees had been cut down long before for firewood. The grass was worn down to red dirt. Tents were in evidence everywhere and each had a hibachi out front and lounging jihadis all around. A ditch was dug at one end of the park for a latrine. One of the team wondered aloud if they’d taught the Afghans to use it.
The SEALs and company arrived just as the loudspeakers atop the mosques surrounding the park squelched into life. The recorded call for Dhuhr, mid-day prayer, burbled from each. They joined some of the others in the encampment and went through the pantomime of bowing eastward, knees in the dirt and palms extended. Most continued smoking and talking. For religious zealots proclaiming their lives for God, these guys showed little interest in their own religious practices.
But the SEALs were dutiful and did the deed. Gharib knelt as well but Heath could see that the boy kept a hand to the cross concealed beneath his shirt the entire time. The kid had balls.
Prayers over, Gharib led them to a place at the corner of the park where there was enough room for them to set up their own camp of sorts. The boy stood close to Blair and spoke low in Arabic.
“I will not point. But if you look over my shoulder you will see the hospital you seek,” Gharib said.
Blair did so and could see a complex across the boulevard that ran by the park. It was the building they’d studied in the sat photos back at Dam Neck. It was a white structure of modern design that was six stories in height. There were plywood sheets in place of glass on some upper floors but it was otherwise free from any war damage. A three story parking building stood next to it with a connecting walkway from the roof to the hospital. The trees around both remained intact meaning that the building was under the protection of someone. They would recon that night using NODs gear when their attention would not be so noticeable to the jihadis all around. There was already far too much interest being shown in the newcomers.
They strung a couple of groundsheets up for shade and took turns napping while others kept turn on watch without appearing to be doing so. Blair gave the boy some coins and crumpled bills and Gharib returned with bags of fresh-squeezed juice and paper-wrapped sfiha; a sort of small pizza of spongy bread topped with cheese and meat swimming in grease. The SEALs and agency man ate only with their right hands in the accepted way.
“You know we’re all going to have the galloping shits after this,” Chili said low.
“I can’t even taste garlic anymore,” Pig grinned, gravy running down his chin.
“Grease and carbs. All a growing boy needs,” Heath said before shoving a wad into his mouth.
Gharib wolfed down three sfiha and drained a juice bag. It was the most food he’d eaten in a week let alone in one sitting. After sucking his fingers clean he lay back on the dirt and belched thunderously. Chili summoned up an extended burp lasting a good ten seconds. The others let fly except for Priest. Pig closed the competition with a fart that sounded like a rifle shot. Some men in the surrounding groups smiled from where they lounged about. The SEALs were just some more of the boys now.
“Where are your family?” Heath said to Gharib.
“My mother and sisters went to Iraq. They are in a refugee camp, I guess,” the boy shrugged.
“Your father let you stay?”
“No. I was to go with my mother. But I ran away. I am not a coward. I would not leave my father and uncles alone.”
“Your father’s brothers?”
“And my mother’s. They are all dead now. They are dead because they followed the Christ.”
“So, you have no one left?” Heath asked.
“I have you, unker.”
Oon-kehr.
Friend.
The day grew warmer as the sun rose. The SEALs kept to the shade for the all-day siesta the rest of the jihadis were enjoying. The civil war was stalled now as there was a cease-fire on. The two sides were joined in a circle jerk with diplomats from other countries meeting in Geneva to bring an end to the fighting. The Assad regime thought that total annihilation of the rebels was the only pathway to peace. But they were grateful for the vacation from world headlines for a while. The Free Syrian Army and their terrorist pals were using the time to regroup, rest and re-supply. The peace process in Syria was a cynical charade that would only last until one side or the other grew impatient with it. It suited the SEAL insertion’s needs. Things were quiet for now and no one was hustling them along to join the fighting.
The only sounds from the park were muttered conversations and the buzz of flies. The Americans conserved movement and stayed hydrated.
Chili lay wishing he could strip off a layer or two of clothes. He was sweating through them in the oven heat of midday. There were two reasons he couldn’t. Hardcore Koranpackers got all in a lather over naked flesh of any kind. And his many tats were a dead giveaway. Kind of hard to explain to Mustapha and Abdul why he had a SEAL eagle and trident on his chest. The team would just have to endure sodden underwear like all the others close around them. Chili dozed off thinking that Manny had had the right idea. As a practicing Jew, their late brother was free of any ink. And once he grew a beard, Manny looked as at home among these assholes as any mujahideen could.
The team awoke with a start at a bone-rattling roar. The ground trembled under them. They reached instinctively for weapons. Blair was on his feet swiveling his head around for the source. Priest spoke harshly and they all settled down. All around them the jihadis went on sleeping or talking without interruption. The echoing rumble died away in the sky.
“A pair of Mirages flying low,” Priest said. He’d been sitting up keeping watch. Rumor was he never slept.
Given the non-reaction of everyone else to the jets passing over at rooftop height, it was a regular occurrence. Assad’s fighter jocks buzzing the rebels for shits and giggles was just another day in the struggle. Or maybe it was to remind everyone on the ground what they were up against when the cease-fire ended.
The squirrelly reaction of Blair Freeman and the SEALs went unnoticed by the others. All remained as they were but for one man seated under an umbrella across the park. The man had been watching the strangers since they arrived. He took an immediate interest in these tall men and the boy who accompanied them. His gaze narrowed when he saw them awaken like guard dogs at the sound of the passing jets. Then he smiled a gap-toothed smile of mild amusement; a smile that never reached as far as his watching eyes.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE DRUMS, THE DRUMS, THE DRUMS
It was the noisiest cease-fire in history.
Maghrib, the evening prayer, was hardly over when the pops of rifle fire began to sound from across the city. Gunfire erupted sporadically from the streets around the park. It waxed and waned like the buzzing of cicadas on a summer night. Chants of God’s greatness rose to the havens. Every once in a while a burst from and an anti-aircraft gun crossed the sky with red tracers. Multi-colored tracers looped upwards from all over looking like falling stars in reverse. It reminded the others of the Fourth of July back home. Chili was a southern boy so it reminded him of every holiday on the calendar. His dad and uncles fired fireworks off on birthdays, God bless ’em.
