AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“The garage is beneath the shorter of the two buildings. What if I got you in there with a truck full of C4?”
The wild look in Kadir’s eyes transformed as that switch flipped again. This time to the mathematical side of his brain. The engineer he talked about was still in there.
“It was in bad condition. I remember. The ceiling was sagging, and they supported it with a single steel beam. Many of the original columns were crumbling. The cracks in the ceiling looked deep. Structural.”
“That’s what I remember, too.”
“How much C4?”
“Call it a hundred kilos.”
“Real? Good quality?”
“The very best. So, what do you think? Could you bring the building down?”
The Syrian stared at the phone’s screen, deep in concentration. “That temporary support beam isn’t designed for lateral forces. I could use the truck as a battering ram and knock it out of position before detonating. Would it collapse the entire section? Possibly. The rebar I saw was inadequate and I would wager that some of the structure has none at all. The corruption in the Syrian construction industry is legendary.”
“And the other wing?”
“It looks much more modern, and I doubt it relies on the other building for support. I don’t think a detonation in the garage would have much effect on that part other than the glass sections.”
“Do you remember how many guards there were in the garage when you arrived?”
“Many,” Kadir said. “Perhaps eight. There were a lot of us in the transport truck. As many as twenty in all. A few women and a few weaklings like me, but most were hard men. They needed many guns to control them.”
Rapp nodded. It was exactly what he wanted to hear. As many ashalf the shooters in the facility could be taken out by the initial blast, with another five or so killed in the first few minutes of the assault. That left between five and ten, depending on whether Semenov had been able to replace the men Rapp had killed. Worst-case scenario it was the high number and all of them were safely barracked in the modern section. They’d still have a home field advantage, but lose their numerical one.
“What do you think, Kadir? Do you want to be the man behind the wheel of that truck?”
The Syrian stiffened. After a few seconds frozen like that, he walked over to Rapp, bent at the waist, and embraced him. When he spoke again, the words constricted in his throat. “I knew Allah had a greater plan for me. That my suffering was just a test of my devotion. Now I understand. Thank you.”
CHAPTER 39
MA’ARRATMISRIN
SYRIA
THEstreets of Ma’arrat Misrin were indistinguishable from virtually every other city Rapp had visited over the past three weeks—rubble, blooms of twisted rebar, and people trying to scrape out a future for themselves and their children. There was one improvement, though. The phone taped to Rapp’s handlebars had a CIA navigation app created by overlaying Google Maps with current satellite information on blocked streets, collapsed buildings, and military outposts. It wasn’t perfect, but with a few creative detours and the deceptively capable bike, Rapp and his passenger were making progress.
“I was here before. As a boy,” Kadir shouted over the whine of the motor. He had his arms clamped around Rapp’s waist and was leaning in close to his ear. “It was different, then. The government…”
Rapp tuned him out. The man hadn’t stopped talking for over two hours—rambling through subjects as diverse as the history of concrete, soccer, the war, and classic cars. He seemed ecstatic about the prospect of a spectacular death and had come to believe that Rappmight be something more than human. A herald sent directly from God, but on a greasy motorbike instead of a flaming chariot.
No point in arguing.
The coordinates that Coleman had sent took them to a largely uninhabited area at the far edge of town. The benefit was that it had been spared from heavy bombing and was remote enough that a few new inhabitants wouldn’t attract much attention. On the downside, electricity was supplied by a single frayed cable draped from building to building. Water, it seemed, was courtesy of a glorified rubber hose that traced a similar path.
The warehouse they arrived at took up nearly an entire block with embedded bay doors on three sides and a normal entrance on the fourth. The walls were constructed exclusively of corrugated metal with rust taking hold everywhere that lacked a protective film of graffiti. Anti-government slogans were still legible in places, but now the artwork leaned toward idealized images of Syria’s president. The government was probably spending more on portraiture than feeding the population. But it wasn’t a bad investment. Propaganda had been a constant throughout history for one reason and one reason only: it worked.
Rapp parked next to the southeast bay and hammered a fist into the steel, following a predetermined rhythm. The sound of distant shelling caused Kadir to shift his monologue from Thai cuisine back to the war, but he fell silent when the door began to rise. Perhaps less because of the movement than the two-hundred-and-fifty-pound tower of muscle on the other side.
The Syrian immediately ducked behind Rapp, shoving him forward and attempting to escape. He only made it a couple of steps before Rapp grabbed him by the collar and dragged him past the former Delta operator and into the warehouse.
“He’s a friend,” Rapp said as Maslick retrieved the bike and closed the bay door again.
“Joe, Kadir. Kadir, Joe.”
“Good to meet you, Kadir.”
