Adira sat back. “I have seen enough to know that you cannot discount magic. This land has known human habitation for nearly ten thousand years. Long before the machines there was alchemy and sorcery, and there are ancient tomes written by the foremost scientists of their times. The things they included would not make sense in these modern times.” She looked around. “Unless the modern times were being rolled back.”
“And that’s exactly what’s happening here; no music, no women on the streets, education outlawed. Barbarism is rushing to reclaim this part of the world.” He sighed and nodded toward their target.
“Looks wide open. We enter via the next building, and then onto the roof.” Alex finished his coffee. “We should head back. See what the other teams have found for us.”
As the morning began to give way to midday, the streets started to fill with people, and Adira led them quickly to their house. Suddenly the few woman started to scatter, and the remaining men moved to the walls, clearing a path and watching and waiting.
“Heads up,” Alex said, turning back along the street from under his shawl.
Adira turned away, looking in the reflection of a window. From down the street jogged a group of armed men. There were three lines of them — the outside lines all wore black balaclavas. They were strung with ammunition and were armed. The inside men had hands on their heads and were tied together, a rope looping each of their waists. Each of them was barefoot, and many had blood to the ankles, the sharp debris of the roadway uncompromising on bare flesh.
“Hezar-Jihadi,” Adira whispered.
Occasionally one of the soldiers would reach inwards to slap one of the prisoners over the head, urging them on. In among them was a man dressed in the remains of a flight uniform. This one also had the extra disadvantage of being tied to a huge man on both his left and right — a special prisoner. As he approached, Alex and Adira could see a tricolor patch in his sleeve. He was French, then. The man’s mouth hung open, and his eyes were already vacant,in a slack, blood smeared face.
At their rear, one of the men — stouter than the rest — carried a hard suitcase. Alex could tell by its size and shape that it was recording and satellite equipment. It seems there was to be a show.
“They make them run to their execution,” Adira said.
“Enemy fighters?” Alex asked.
“Maybe the wrong religion, maybe a petty crime.” She shrugged. “Who knows? Everything is punishable by death in this city.” She watched them from the corner of her eye. “And the one big prize — a captured western pilot — him they will undoubtedly burn alive.”
Alex was still staring at the lines of men as they jogged down the street and around a corner. “I’ve seen it before. They’ll take them to a killing field, set up their cameras and film it for consumption by their fan boys around the world.”
“And fan girls.” Adira snorted. “Weekly, hundreds of young women flock to this land, even from comfortable homes in the west. They seek to become jihadi brides, or even frontline fighters.”
“A madness,” Alex said, but then shook his head. “No, more an infection that is contaminating the Middle East.”
“It is a madness and an infection. But like all severe infections, it will burn itself out.” Adira shrugged. “We have been dealing with the terrorist mind for decades, you have not. You need to be patient. Guns alone will not solve this problem.”
“Guns will do for now,” Alex said, as he continued to watch the now empty street. “We are the sword and shield.” His words were whispered. “They want a show? We’ll give them one to remember.”
“No, you will not intervene.” Adira came and stood in front of him. “We can call in their position for a strike. But if we intervene, we may put our mission at risk.”
Alex looked down at her. She was right, but logic didn’t matter now. The coiling hate inside him was demanding something more. “Where will they take them?”
She stared, perhaps wanting to argue more, but she saw something in his face that changed her mind. Perhaps she remembered what he could be like. She sighed loudly. “A field, a vacant lot.” She looked up at the sky. “They will want to be away from the city crowds, and will need good light for the filming.”
“So, they’ll be away from their main command, isolated?” Alex smiled grimly, pulling the shawl further down over his face. “Let’s go and enjoy the show.” He spoke quickly into his throat mic. “Sam, on my position, now.”
CHAPTER 6
Yuval Goldmeir, a satellite technician, watched the OPsat satellite’s data feed of his section of the Golan Heights. It was a strategic piece of land, captured during the Six-Day War, and over three thousand square miles of basaltic plateau bordered by the Yarmouk River in the south, the Sea of Galilee in the west, Mount Hermon in the north, and the Raqqad Wadi in the east. He and many others each monitored multiple grids of the vast area, night and day.
Today Yuval Goldmeir’s area of interest was the town of Nawa, close to Syria. He leaned forward, frowning. The analytics built into the geo-security systems had picked something up, and alarms had demanded his attention.
He drilled down to a view position a few miles above ground. There seemed to be a single figure walking alone in the desert, about three miles southwest of Nawa. After rewinding the feed, he could see that the person had skirted the city, but had effectively walked across the landscape.
Goldmeir leaned back in his chair, half turning. “Yev… oy, Yev, what do you make of this?”
Yev Cohen, his closest technician colleague, swung around and craned to see his screen. He shrugged. “Miles away, and only a single person. Forget it.”
“We’re supposed to call in anything strange… and risk analytics has flagged it as a level-one threat.” He circled the figure and then typed some queries into his system. His eyes narrowed. “In seventy-four minutes, this person will walk into the Golan.”
“Then border patrol will pick him up.” Cohen turned back to his own screen.
Goldmeir continued to watch for a few more seconds before commanding the image magnification to drill down even further. The huge weight on the figure’s back now became apparent. The technician’s brows were furrowed as he hurriedly entered more commands, asking it to search for a high energy particle trace. His eyes went wide as a second warning began to flash on detection confirmation.
“A Traveler. I think it’s a Traveler… and radiation is off the scale.” He spun from his desk, his mind spinning. “What do we…?”
Beside him, Yev Cohen snatched up a phone.
The IAF F-15E Strike Eagle came in at just under Mach-1. Its radar saw the target long before the pilot would obtain a visual.
“Target acquired; deploying Vulcan.”
The bottom of the Strike Eagle opened and a multi barrelled weapon lowered. The weapon chosen was the M61 Vulcan, a pneumatically driven, six-barrel, air-cooled, electrically fired Gatling-style rotary cannon, which fired 20mm rounds at a rate of approximately 6,000 per minute. The laser-sighted and the computer-directed gun locked onto the lone figure.
“Clear to fire, Fox-1,” came the mechanical voice directly into the pilot’s headset.
“Firing.” The pilot let loose a short burst of fifty high penetration M56 rounds.
“Good strikes, command. Coming around.” The pilot banked, taking multiple pictures and preparing to head on home.
“That’s a negative on kill shot, Fox-1. We still have movement.” The mechanical voice had a touch of urgency this time.