Apocalypse Burning (13 page)

“Please,” the man said fearfully, “I have done nothing. I swear to you. I have done nothing. You must let me go. I will sing your praises to Allah.”

Even under the circumstances, the man’s English was pretty good.

“Who is he?” Remington asked.

“Abu,” Hardin answered. “Got a last name I can’t pronounce.”

“Alam,” Abu said. “I am Abu Alam. I am nobody. A gnat on a camel’s rump. I assure you, sir, whatever was done was not done by me. I offer you a thousand apologies.”

“You’re sure this is the guy?” Remington asked. He already knew what Hardin’s answer would be, but sometimes it helped to throw more fear a captive’s way.

“Yeah.” Hardin spat tobacco juice between his boots, then covered it over with dirt he scraped from the floor. “I’ve been trading with him over the last few days. Almost since we got here. Reason I noticed him, he was selling used American goods and making change with American currency.” He spat again. “You know, Captain, we left a lotta dead men behind us when we retreated from the border.”

Surprise lit Abu’s face. “Those things! Those things—” He stood up from the chair.

Moving inhumanly fast, Hardin slapped the man back into the chair. Abu hit with enough force that he would have fallen over backward if Hardin hadn’t put a foot on the chair’s seat between the man’s legs and pushed the chair back down.

Abu covered his face with his hands and screamed. Unfortunately for him, his shriek wouldn’t penetrate the massive stone-lined walls. Besides being a place that guards wouldn’t go, it was the reason Hardin had selected the place.

“Abu,” Remington said.

The man stared at Hardin fearfully.

Opening the flap on his holster, Remington took out his sidearm and shoved the barrel against Abu’s forehead, resting it between his eyes. Hardin and the other Rangers stepped back. Their hands automatically went to their assault rifles. If Abu tried to reach for the pistol, Remington knew his Rangers would kill the prisoner before he could even close his fingers on the weapon.

“No,” Remington ordered as Abu’s eyes widened and he started to move.

Abu froze. He sucked in a rattling breath.

“Now do I have your attention?” Remington asked. He pushed so hard against the pistol grip that the barrel of the gun was beginning to bruise Abu’s flesh.

“Yes,” Abu whispered.

“The minute I lose your attention,” Remington said, “the minute I know you’re lying to me, I’m going to pull this trigger and walk away from here.” He paused, letting his words have their effect. “Do we have an understanding?”

“Yes.” Tears slid from Abu’s eyes and mixed with the blood on his face.

“Corporal Hardin,” Remington said.

“Yes, sir.”

“How do you think Abu came by those American supplies and the American money?”

“Two options, sir,” Hardin responded. “Either he took those things from the American dead we left behind—which makes him a carrion feeder who needs to be eliminated—or he got those goods trading with the Syrians who took them from our dead, which makes him a danger to our men who needs to be eliminated.”

“Abu?” Remington asked.

“Yes?”

“Where did you get the money and the items?”

Abu swallowed hard. “From trading, Captain.”

“Trading with who?”

“Other traders. Men the corporal has traded with besides myself.”

Remington knew Hardin always connected with the local black market whenever they were in the field. The Ranger captain also suspected Hardin managed illegal enterprises in the United States as well. Until Goose had caught Hardin stealing from a dead marine after the planes and helos had dropped from the sky the day of the disappearances, Hardin had always stayed one step ahead of any legal entanglements. A lot of Hardin’s luck these past few years, though, had been due to Remington interceding on Hardin’s behalf.

“What about the Syrians?” Remington asked. “Have you been trading with them as well? The Syrian military?”

Hopelessness filled Abu’s sad eyes. “Yes, Captain. Yes, I have.”

“Good,” Remington said. “I’m not going to ask if you stripped the corpses of American fighting men to take their goods.”

Desperately, Abu tried not to show his evident relief.

Remington filed the information away, though. If Abu had been on hand to steal from the dead military men, he’d been working the trade routes often.

“I’m not even going to ask if you’ve been giving the Syrian military information about our operations here,” Remington said.

If he hadn’t been in obvious pain from the beatings he’d gotten, Abu would have looked ecstatic. “Thank you, Captain. You are most gracious and wise.”

“What I am going to ask you for,” Remington said in a calm, level voice, “is information about the Syrian hard sites.”

Abu started to speak.

Remington cut the man off, talking slowly and softly. “One lie, Abu. Just one. And they won’t find enough of your skull to drink out of.”

“Captain, I have not been everywhere among the Syrians.” Abu swallowed again.

“But you have been among them?”

“Yes.”

Remington reached into the pocket of his BDUs and took out a folded map. “Do you know how to read a map?”

“Yes. Though I am no scholar.”

“I don’t need a scholar,” Remington replied. “I just need a guy who can speak and point. You can do that, right?”

Abu nodded. Nervously, he wiped at the blood streaking his face. He only succeeded in smearing it.

Remington shook the map open with one hand, using his other hand to keep the M9 in place against Abu’s forehead. “The Syrians have a fuel dump. A place where they’re stockpiling gasoline and diesel to supply the armor they’re pushing north.”

The existence of the supply line was a no-brainer. The distance between the Syrian-based command post and Sanliurfa necessitated a new staging point, as did the fact that the Americans and Turks and U.N. forces had booby-trapped their own fuel stores in the city. When the order was given to evacuate Sanliurfa, Remington would make sure that no fuel would remain in the city, even if he had to leave the city burning like Nero’s Rome. He didn’t plan to leave any useful equipment behind either. He knew his enemy would be unwilling to place their supply lines in plain sight of a potential fly-by discovery by an American or Turkish pilot. The Syrian command would want their fuel stores hidden.

Remington placed his thumb on his pistol’s hammer and rolled it back. The clicks as it locked into place sounded ominous in the quiet cellar.

“I’m thinking,” Remington said, “that there are caves out there in the mountains that the Syrians are using. Either to the west or the east of the route they’re using to get to Sanliurfa.”

“Caves,” Abu said. “Yes, there are many caves.”

“Have you seen the fuel stores?” Remington’s plan was thin, but if successful—even though there would be “acceptable losses”—his plan would net the defenders of Sanliurfa a few more days’ grace. The present military engagement could turn around in minutes if he could buy enough time to convince Turkey and the U.S. to invest more troops in the Sanliurfa theater of operations.

Abu licked blood from his lips. “I know where the Syrian fuel stores are, Captain.”

Remington held out the map, careful not to occlude Hardin’s field of fire. “Show me.”

With a trembling hand, Abu shoved a forefinger at the topographical map. “There.”

Looking at the map and estimating the distance, Remington saw that the Syrians were west of the road into Sanliurfa. “Are the fuel stores in caves there?”

“Yes. But that is not all that is there, Captain.” Abu shivered. “There are also the ruins of a city.”

Remington examined the map again. “There’s no city on the map.”

“Captain, several cities in this part of Turkey died out hundreds and even thousands of years ago. This place is a very old place. I am told some of the first cities in the world were here.” Abu shrugged. “Only Allah knows if this is true. But I do know the bones of an ancient city are there. The Syrian dogs have dug hiding places in that dead city to store their gasoline and diesel.”

Lowering the map, Remington looked at the man.

Abu held his gaze fearfully. He licked his lips again. “Please, Captain, I swear in Allah’s name that I am only telling you the truth.”

After waiting a beat, Remington said, “I believe you.”

Relief flooded through Abu. He almost collapsed in the chair. “Thank you, Captain. You will not regret this.”

“No,” Remington said. “I won’t regret it.” He pocketed the map, holstered his pistol, and walked away from the man. “Hardin.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Make certain I don’t regret this.” Remington thought his voice sounded cold and distant and alien even in his own ears.

“Yes, sir.”

Silhouetted by the electric torch behind him, Remington saw the long black shadows on the stone wall in front of him, saw the shadow of the man seated in the chair and Hardin’s shadow as he stepped forward with his assault rifle ready. In that instant, Abu must have realized that he was the only one outside of the Rangers who knew Remington was planning to target the Syrian fuel depot. He traded with the Syrians. Releasing him was out of the question. How could Remington trust the man to keep his silence?

“No! Captain! Please! I beg you! Cap—”

A quick burst of gunfire hammered Remington’s ears as he started up the wooden steps. The muzzle flash momentarily erased the shadows on the wall to his left, even as the bullets permanently erased Abu Alam. When the shadows returned, the dead man’s shadow was missing. Only the shadow of the empty chair stood between the Rangers.

“Thank you, Corporal,” Remington said without turning around.

“Yes, sir,” Hardin said.

“Stay here until we make arrangements to get rid of the body.”

“Yes, sir.”

Outside the burned-out husk of the building, Remington slid his sunglasses back on. He tried to control the nausea that squirmed through his stomach, but he failed. The image of Abu’s shadow getting eradicated by the muzzle flash from the M-4A1 bounced around inside his skull like a pinball. Sour bile tainted the back of Remington’s throat. He managed to hold off the worst of it until he reached the alley; then he bent forward and threw up.

The gut-churning purging left him weak, shaking, and lightheaded, but the feeling soon passed. He hadn’t wanted Hardin to see that reaction in him. The sickness over one more meaningless death was a weakness in himself, and Remington hated it. But he’d had no other course of action. He had to hold the city. The Joint Chiefs had trapped him into taking the steps he had.

During his years as an officer, he’d seen men die horrific deaths. He had found their bodies after violent passings. But he had never so coldbloodedly ordered an execution. There had been times when he’d had a chance to take a person alive, and he’d given orders not to risk his men, but he’d never had a man killed who had been so defenseless.

This time, though, he’d walked into that cellar knowing he was going to leave a dead man behind. He hadn’t thought it would bother him. He had told himself that it wouldn’t. He was only doing what he had to do, and he expected himself to do it.

The life lost in that cellar could save the lives of dozens—maybe hundreds—of the men in his command. He forced himself to remember that. He wasn’t a murderer. He was a man in command accepting the responsibility of that command. An officer who accepted the burden of keeping his men alive and able to fight. Abu had to die so that his men had a chance to live.

And also so that he had a chance to win with the losing hand he’d been dealt by the powers that be. In the game of war, losers died. Winners lived and got to fight another day. And they had a chance at glory. Captain Cal Remington didn’t intend to blow his chance.

His stomach spasmed again but nothing came up. He felt certain there was nothing left to lose. He cursed his weakness. It wasn’t like he’d had a choice in whether or not to kill Abu. The Joint Chiefs had pushed him into killing. They’d sat back on their duffs and played war games, sacrificing
his
unit because they were afraid to risk what they were ordering the Rangers to put on the line every minute of every hour of every day that the 75th occupied the city.

He wiped his mouth with a handkerchief, then turned and walked back toward the waiting RSOV out of sight around the corner. A quick scan of the street showed him no one was around to witness his loss of control.

He thought about Corporal Dean Hardin waiting down in the cellar so patiently with the dead man. Hardin didn’t act like killing the man had meant anything to him, hadn’t even flinched when Remington had told him it would be necessary.

There was still, Remington knew, a huge difference between himself and Hardin, but the Ranger captain didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. He only knew that the difference existed.

Remington was glad he had men in his command like Hardin, men who would see every nasty job done that needed doing and wouldn’t hesitate about getting it done. Goose and men like him—which most of the Rangers tended to be with their sense of fair play and honor, even on terror-ravaged battlefields fighting enemies fueled by insane rage and selfish fear—wouldn’t do what Hardin had done.