Saunders looked at Court. “These days the desert east of Palmyra is FSA to the north, ISIS to the south, split by the M20 highway. We could be fighting anybody and everybody on this run.”
“Terrific.” Court’s mind was racing. He’d considered himself immensely lucky to be sent by Klossner to live on and work at a base in a Damascus suburb, considering how his target here in Syria was also in a Damascus suburb, albeit on the other side of the city. But now he had just learned that first thing tomorrow morning he would be saddling up and moving out somewhere else in the country entirely.
On top of this, he desperately needed to communicate with Voland and Bianca to find the location of Jamal’s home, and for that he needed a phone or a computer. But phones and computers were off-limits for mercs. Klossner had told him the KWA team leader here was only allowed to use commo equipment in the Desert Hawks Brigade communications room, and even then, only under watch by an English-speaking intelligence officer from the militia group. Court had no expectations he’d be seeing the inside of the communications room himself, so he knew he had one night to think of how to reach out to Voland, because it didn’t sound like he’d get much opportunity to buy a mobile phone and an international calling card in the combat zone where they were heading.
He didn’t know if Jamal had that kind of time, or if Bianca did, for that matter, because Court imagined Drexler would be working hard to locate her in France.
Saunders had peeled his body armor off and tossed it on the floor by the door. He looked over the cuts and bruises he’d picked up during the gunfight earlier in the day. “I promised the new bloke I’d buy him a pint for savin’ me arse. Rally back here in thirty minutes for all who fancy coming with us.” To Court, Saunders said, “Tomorrow morning at oh five hundred we’ll get you kitted up like a proper operator. But tonight . . . let’s celebrate our victory against Al Nusra.”
Court cocked his head at this. “So . . . we can just leave and go out to a bar whenever we want? By ourselves?” The Mukhabarat officer at the airport had told him he was not allowed to travel anywhere without an officer of the Desert Hawks.
“Not exactly, but we’ve sussed out a way to slip off base, and we’ve got a Desert Hawks major complicit in our scheme. He’ll go with us as long as we keep a drink in his hand. And it’s not a proper pub. Sadly, you won’t find too many of those here. It’s a disco, and it’s utter shit, but it’s got booze. Better we go get pissed than sittin’ ’ere all bleedin’ night.”
Court didn’t feel like going to a disco, because he was tired, and also because he didn’t like discos, but the opportunity to learn a tried and tested way to sneak out of the base was just too good to pass up.
“I’ve only got euros.”
Saunders said, “They’ll gladly take euros, so you can buy the first round.”
* * *
? ? ?
Van Wyk, the team leader, showed Court to an empty bunk in the back, and here he dumped his armor, his rifle, and his ruck. He went to the bathroom, took a one-minute shower, and changed into fresh clothes: gray cargo pants, Merrell boots, and a plain black T-shirt. Once he was dressed he grabbed a bottle of water from the little kitchen and headed back into the team room.
Court was surprised to see that Saunders was dressed in casual civilian attire: blue jeans, a polo shirt, even a gold chain around his neck and a bracelet on his wrist. A couple of the other men looked like they were ready for a night on the town themselves.
* * *
? ? ?
Fifteen minutes later Court crouched in the dark behind Saunders and three other KWA contractors next to a building in the motor pool, staring at the fence line of the base just across a gravel road and a small lot full of trucks and cars. A pair of sand-colored Ural-4320 armored trucks lumbered by towards the main gate, well illuminated a hundred meters off to Court’s right.
He was still surprised to be doing this; he felt like he was in the middle of one of those World War II escape films he used to watch with his dad and his brother when he was a kid.
A clean-shaven and thickly built Arab man in uniform stepped around the side of the metal building, just feet from where the men knelt. At first Court thought he and the other men had been busted by base security, but when the man raised a hand up to the group of men in the dark, Saunders called out to him. “Keef halik, habbibi?” How are you, friend?
Court was told the man’s name was Walid, which was a first name, but no one mentioned his surname. He was a major in the Desert Hawks Brigade, and it appeared to Court he was a more than willing participant in all this. He knelt down with the KWA contractors, watched the front gate, and waited to make his move along with the others.
An outbuilding at the edge of the motor pool was only twenty feet from the fence, and this shielded a small portion of the fence from the main guardhouse. Saunders explained that this was their target, and together they waited for the trucks to arrive at the gate. When they did, the drivers each stopped to speak with the guards as they left the base.
The men moved out one at a time; Saunders led the way, sprinting across the road, through the motor pool, to the darkened fence line. Then he ran along the wire before disappearing behind the small outbuilding.
The Dutchman went next, then a Croatian, the Syrian militia major, and then Court. As he crossed the road, a light from a distant Jeep glowed in Court’s direction, but he made it to the lot of the motor pool and ducked down behind an old two-ton truck as the vehicle passed, thus remaining undetected.
A minute later Court was behind the outbuilding with the others, and seconds after that they were joined by a KWA contractor from Argentina. The others waited while Saunders and Walid worked together on a small part of the fence, unfastening links that had previously been cut, then twisted back together individually to make it appear undamaged.
In just a couple minutes’ work they opened a section large enough to crawl through.
It occurred to Court that if any enemy knew about this weak link in the base’s security, they could just as easily exploit it as the men using it to go barhopping. Even though he knew this weakness was good news for him and his mission here in Damascus, he was curious about it.
As Saunders stood back so Walid could crawl through first, Court leaned over to him. “You don’t worry about somebody coming through that hole in the middle of the night?”
“We came down here to fight, and anybody around here with the tactical muscle to find and exploit that tiny compromise would have to be one ballsy fighter. We all keep our rifles and our kit close by.” He shrugged. “What can I say? If you work for KWA, booze is more important than safety. You’ll learn.”
They piled into Walid’s personal vehicle, a new and well-equipped Hyundai Elantra. Court didn’t think a militia soldier, even a midgrade officer, would normally make much money in the Middle East, but since he’d been told the Desert Hawks Brigade was a criminal organization at its core, it came as no great surprise to him that the man had some money.
With six men in the sedan it was a tight fit, but Court was more comfortable now than he’d been on much of the day’s ride in the back of a hot truck. As they headed back towards the Damascus Airport Motorway with Walid behind the wheel, the Syrian tuned his stereo to 107.5, an English-language station, and the DJ played hits from the UK and the United States. Court found it hard to accept the fact that he was in Damascus with West Coast rap blasting on the radio.
Over the next half hour Court was treated to a master class by Walid on avoiding checkpoints in Damascus. He seemed to know where they were all set up, because he’d drive along the main drags for a few minutes, then pull off, roll through back streets, alleyways, or even parking lots, then slip back onto the main drags with his headlights off. He would pick up speed and turn his lights back on, then repeat the process again and again.
The major explained he had no fear of the checkpoints; he wasn’t doing anything wrong that the National Defence Forces personnel that manned them would care about, since they couldn’t give a damn about a Desert Hawks officer sneaking off his base. He simply didn’t want the delay and hassle of the traffic stops and ID checks.
* * *
? ? ?
Court imagined they’d only traveled three or four miles by the time they hit the rustic Old Town Damascus section, but it had taken them nearly thirty minutes of driving. They found a place to park in a lot near the bar on Al Keshleh Avenue in the Bab Touma neighborhood, and the men stepped out of the car and stretched their legs.