A Cold Day In Mosul (2 page)

She shut the laptop and continued to eat. She wondered if he had truly betrayed her, and if so, how much time she had.

"How long have I known you, Abu Mahmud?" she said casually.

"Ten years."

She forced a smile. "Ten years. Am I paying you enough?"

He seemed suddenly nervous. "Certainly. I am very happy."

"You don't want back the old power you used to wield under Saddam?"

He acted genuinely shocked. "Of course not. I'm happy with my lot in life."

"Then why have you betrayed me?"

He turned very pale. "I would never betray you, Umm Aaleyah." That was the name she had given him.

"I had such great plans for you."

She heard a subtle click.

She gazed down the hallway that led to the foyer; the doorknob was visible from where she sat. She squinted. She couldn't be sure, but she thought the knob was turning left and right, as if someone had already picked the lock and was trying to open the door.

But it would not yield, not with the floor-to-ceiling deadbolts engaged. Mahmud must have promised the men he would leave the unit retracted.

"I have to go to the bathroom," Mahmud abruptly announced. He pushed his chair away from the table.

Sam bent over and reached under the hem of her abaya with one hand. She produced the SIG-Sauer P224 subcompact pistol she kept holstered to her ankle.

"How many men are outside?" she asked calmly, retrieving the Osprey 40 silencer from an abaya pocket. The first shot in a silenced pistol was always the loudest, before gas filled the suppressor. Wetting the suppressor fixed that, but she didn't think it would matter anyway.

Mahmud froze when he saw the pistol. "Excuse me?"

"How many men." She screwed the female end of the silencer into the male threads of the barrel.

"I don't know what—"

"Why would you do this, Mahmud?" Sam aimed the SIG at him. "
Why?
You have a daughter. And now she has no father."

"I—"

She squeezed the trigger. A crimson bloom appeared in his forehead and he crumpled in the chair.

Although the pistol was tipped with a silencer, the click-like report was loud enough that anyone lurking outside would know a shot had been fired.

The loud crack of a breaching rifle came from the front of the apartment, and splinters of wood exploded from the door, leaving behind a ragged hole. A thud arose, and the door shook as if a man had hurled himself against it, or kicked it. The threaded rods of the deadbolts held.

Sam smiled grimly.

She considered firing at the entrance, but doubted she would hit anyone outside from her current angle. She turned instead toward the balcony door. Through the curtains that covered the glass windows, she discerned the shadows of two men on the balcony. She unleashed two quick shots in succession; the bullets pierced the glass, taking each man in the head. The shadows toppled.

Another breach round went off in the foyer.

She opened the door to the balcony. The canopy had been torn away. Unbeknownst to Mahmud, she had secreted a thin rope on the balcony, beneath the outdoor area mat. But before she could use it, she had to determine the situation on the street below.

Peering over the railing, she saw several masked men standing guard on the asphalt. One of them spotted her: he shouted, firing an AK-47 burst at her. She ducked back inside and slammed the door, locking it. So much for
that
escape.

If she could attain the rooftop, there was still an alternate escape route she'd planned. But that was a big if.

The blast of another breach round came from the foyer, followed by a loud thud as the front door finally broke inward.

Pistol raised, Sam rushed into the hallway that led to the foyer.

Two masked man entered at nearly the same time. One had gone high, the other low; it was a tactic practiced by experienced soldiers, and it wasn't something she expected of militants.

They hadn't seen her. Scratch that; the closer man
had
seen her, because his eyes widened within his balaclava, but he had no time to react as she squeezed the trigger, striking him in the temple from her position in the hall. She was already adjusting her aim before his body could begin to collapse, and she let off another shot. Both attackers fell like so much dead weight.

The outer hallway was revealed behind them; a militant stood there, leaning against the wall at an angle that put her squarely in his line of sight. His AK was aimed right at her.

Sam dove to the side as the assault rifle unleashed. Brick shards sprayed her body as the thick wall was chewed up behind her.

She retreated to the kitchen, ducking from view of the foyer. She rested her back against the wall, breathing hard. She spared a glance for the balcony, but it appeared empty.

The family room adjoined the kitchen on the other side. She knew militants would be waiting for her there. Even so, she slowly edged across the kitchen and peered into the room anyway.

She sensed motion near the periphery of her vision and immediately ducked back into the kitchen; an assault rifle burst launched more stone fragments into the air beside her.

Fresh shadows moved beyond the balcony door's curtained window.

"We have her!" a voice announced triumphantly in Arabic from the main hallway.

Sam dove to the floor and rolled underneath the kitchen's central table. She leaned to the side so that the hallway was in view and fired two quick shots, taking out the pair of men there.

Another man entered the foyer behind them.

Sam returned under the table and tore away the remote detonator she had taped to the underside beside another loaded SIG. She extended the remote's antenna and turned the device on; a green light appeared in the middle of the unit. She put her finger on the cold, aluminum button situated beneath the light.

The apartment was rigged with plastic explosives. When she pressed that button, the whole place would come crashing down. The table might save her, then again, it probably would not. Maybe that was for the best, however.

If I die, it is Allah's will.

She fought a while longer, but the militants were relentless. They kept coming. For every man she downed, two more arrived.

When she used up the last of her ammo, she pressed the button on the remote.

* * *

Dmitri Ivanovich Pushkov perched on a rooftop in a village some eighty kilometers to the east of Mosul. He fought on the front lines with men he had personally handpicked from the jihadist rabble, men he had turned into the ruthless killing machines they were today. An elite special forces division of the Islamic State he had named
Dubb al-Mujahadeen
. The Bear Warriors. Crazy men, but highly effective.

He could have remained safely behind, four kilometers to the west, in the camp of the other battle sheiks and generals, sipping cardamom-spiced black tea on fluffy pillows while the men fought, but that was not his way. The trenches were his home. Besides, the men respected him more for it.

The enemy was holed up inside a mosque on the opposite side of the village. Their artillery was hidden behind a towering wall, directed by spotters who stood on the walkways. He couldn't get his own field guns into position on the hill to the south of the village, not while the enemy artillery remained intact. He needed a distraction.

He went to the truck. The cab had been filled to the brim with C4. "Osama," he told the driver in Arabic. "You feast in paradise tonight."

The driver had a fervent look to his eye. "Thank you for choosing me, emir."

Dmitri suppressed a smirk. He would never so willing throw his own life away, but such fervency in others had its uses. "Die well." He grabbed the Hytera from a harness on his chest. "Covering fire," he said into the radio.

The mujahadeen lining the rooftops unleashed suppressive fire toward the mosque, forcing the spotters from sight.

"Go, Osama," he told the driver.

The suicide bomber accelerated the truck into the street, driving over the potholes at eighty kilometers an hour. He swerved past several large blast craters, moving relentlessly toward his target. When the truck impacted the defensive wall, the C4 detonated and the entire mosque was obscured by an orange fireball. A large plume of black smoke curled skyward.

"First technical, away!" Dmitri said into the radio.

A pickup truck with a ZU-23 anti-aircraft gun in the bed rushed forward, firing its 23mm shells into the smoke plume.

"Artillery, into position!" Dmitri called over the comm.

Through his Baigish 12x binoculars, he watched as Mitsubishi pickups towed the Type 59-1 Field Guns up the hill to the south of the village.

He returned his attention to the battlefield.

The first technical abruptly flipped into the air, apparently struck by an RPG.

"Second technical, away!"

Another pickup truck swerved onto the street; the mujahid in the back unleashed the anti-aircraft gun indiscriminately toward the mosque.

"Artillery in position," came a voice over the radio.

"Fire!" Dmitri said.

The Field Guns on the hill erupted, spraying the sky with deadly shells. One of them whistled rather loudly during its descent, and Dmitri realized it was going to fall dangerously short. He resisted the urge to seek cover. He had to appear strong in front of these madmen. It was the only way to lead them.

The shell struck some fifteen meters from his own position, spraying concrete from a nearby building onto some of his troops. Another shell impacted the second technical dead on. The friendly pickup spiraled into the air in a spray of body parts and shrapnel.

"Fools," he muttered.

The men operating the Field Guns finally sighted the weapons properly, and the shells began to strike the courtyard interior. In moments it was all over. Some of the enemy spotters had begun to wave white flags—they were immediately shot down. The rest retreated; through his binoculars, Dmitri peered past the mosque and saw pickup trucks fleeing across the desert by the score.

"The village is ours," Dmitri announced.

"
Allahu akbar!
" the men around him shouted. "
Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!
"

"Not Allah, but Dmitri," he said softly.

A black-clad individual approached. "Commander." It was one of his Russian lieutenants, Pyotr. "There is a call for you. It is the
shef
."

Dmitri returned to the Iraqi M1114 Humvee, which acted as his mobile command center, and picked up the Thuraya satphone.

"Yes?" he said in Russian.

"Greetings, comrade," Victor's cheerful voice came over the line.

"What do you want?" Dmitri said. "I'm busy."

"I know you're busy."

He could hear the contempt in Victor's voice. Contempt, spite and distaste, all rolled into one. Dmitri swore he would kill the pompous whoreson someday. But as his employer, Victor did have his uses. For now. But as soon as the man stopped finding well-paying jobs, he was dead.

"I need you back in Mosul," Victor continued. "An unexpected... prize... has fallen into our lap."

one

T
hrough his range finder, Ethan watched the two laser-guided JDAMs slam into the apartment building. The resultant smoke obscured the field of view instantly, while the rumbling explosion drowned out the retreat of the bomber overhead. He raised his head to observe the distant cloud with his own two eyes.

The PRC-153, one of two radios in Ethan's harness, crackled to life.

"Goddamn," William said over the encrypted channel. "Take a good, long look. That was my kill."

"Just because you tagged the building doesn't make it yours," Doug returned over the comm.

"Sure it does," William transmitted. "The boots on the ground always get the credit."

"Right," Doug sent. "Tell that to the Air Force."

"I will," William quipped in return.

Ethan lay flat on the white-brick rooftop, the LRB 20000C laser range finder mounted before him on a mini tripod. Beside him resided Alzena, dressed in combat fatigues and a camo cap. He was training her to use his M24A2 sniper rifle, "Beast."

Sensing his gaze, she reverently lowered the sniper rifle and glanced his way. A native Syrian, born in Aleppo, she was half Kurdish, and looked like a dark-haired, blue-eyed, olive-skinned cover model. With Ethan's help she'd fled the Islamic State's brutal reign of terror in Raqqa, their self-proclaimed capital in southeastern Syria. He had been embedded in IS as a foreign jihadist, and shortly after her evacuation he'd found himself assigned to Kobane; when he'd abandoned the deathtrap of the battle there and crossed over to the Kurdish side, he'd discovered her fighting amongst the rebels.

He returned his attention to the streets below. Abutting the paved roadways were low-lying, flat-roofed buildings made of white bricks, much like the house he perched upon. Roughly half the structures remained intact. The rest, collapsed husks, crowded the streets with their rubble. The macabre, fly-covered bodies of dead militants blemished the debris in places. Ethan hated those flies with a passion; the face-swelling lumps they inflicted could itch for days.

Kurdish fighters were perched on most of the surviving rooftops; a group of them emerged from the clearing smoke near the cratered apartment. Miscellaneous chatter erupted from the second radio Ethan carried, a Hytera TC-610, as the Kurds exchanged unintelligible words in their native tongue over the unencrypted channel.

He glanced at Alzena questioningly.

"They've given the all clear," she explained.

What a punishing last few months it had been. The Kurdish defenders had pushed the Islamic State out of Kobane and were now routing the invaders from the surrounding villages. It was a long, arduous, village-by-village and house-by-house operation, but the Islamic State was slowly retreating, thanks to the relentless airstrikes.

Ethan and two other teammates had stayed to train the Kurds. Officially, theirs was a consulting role, but they couldn't help but fight in the thick of it. They had all been members of special forces teams before contracting with the DIA. For himself, Ethan wasn't going to sit idly by while his trainees fought and died: warriors fought when in war, and that was all there was to it.