‘That’s correct, you won’t be staying here,’ said Naseem. ‘I have an apartment on the first floor as well, with a back door exit and van waiting outside at all times. This place is for our observers on the roof. I took you here in case there were more car bombs.’
‘All right, then,’ said 30K. ‘Let’s get down there, check it out, and order up some pizza.’
‘Pizza?’ asked Kozak in disbelief.
Naseem answered for 30K. ‘As a matter of fact, there is a Pizza Hut at the port, and they will deliver.’
‘I know,’ said 30K. ‘I saw it on Google Earth.’ He glanced at Pepper. ‘Double pepperoni?’
Pepper sighed. ‘Nah, pork’s illegal here anyway. Probably just a salad.’
Another explosion close enough to shake the building sent Naseem darting for the ladder.
The Ocean Cavalier was running ahead of schedule and would dock at the Port of Aden at exactly 3:41 a.m. local time. Current time was 9:04 p.m., and Ross was satisfied that, for the time being, the team was safe. Kozak had deployed the drone, which was now in a fixed position on a rocky escarpment overlooking their position. They had marked all the friendly forces within an eight-hundred-meter perimeter and were closely monitoring the comings and goings of any pedestrians brave enough to hit the streets. There had only been a few, mostly police or fire personnel. No hostile contacts identified thus far. The bombing had stopped, and Naseem maintained his argument that Harak forces were responsible. This wouldn’t be the first time they had targeted police and military checkpoints along the main highways.
That four men could devour a half dozen extra-large pizzas within fifteen minutes was a testament to the superior appetites of America’s Special Forces operators. Go big or go home. Even Pepper had succumbed to temptation and ripped into his pie like a honey badger who’d been starved for a week. They’d ordered two veggie lovers, two cheese lovers, one gunfire lovers, and one called the supreme leader or something like that, Ross had mused.
Now they were lying back, rubbing their swollen bellies like pregnant women and burping up toppings, when Kozak gaped at the drone’s remote monitor, leaned forward, and said quite evenly, ‘Holy shit.’
30K and Pepper were up on the apartment building’s roof within thirty seconds of Kozak’s report. They were joined by three of Naseem’s Republican Guard snipers, who were dressed in black fatigues and fielding Dragunov SVD rifles with attached night-vision scopes. The night was warm, the city lights shimmering out to the calm waters of the Arabian Sea unfurling like a black carpet in the distance. There was something strangely calm in the air as the drone of distant traffic faded and the barking mutts once scavenging through the endless alleys settled down for the night. A chill rippled across 30K’s shoulders.
He made another sweep, surveying the rooftops through his rifle’s scope, his chest tightening as he did so. ‘Ghost Lead, this is 30K.’
‘Talk to me, 30K,’ said Ross over the team net. They’d donned their Cross-Coms, plates, helmets and web gear, and the boss had made a point of avoiding optical camouflage, at least around these guys. Better they thought of the Ghosts as another Special Forces team and nothing more.
‘Boss, I’m patching you into my rifle’s scope,’ said 30K. ‘You see we got snipers on the buildings there, there, and over there, to the north. See these two guys up there? And check this out. Look at these bastards over here. And that guy way up there, on the clock tower.’
‘They’re wearing desert fatigues. Are they Naseem’s guys?’ asked Ross.
30K asked one of the snipers, who shook his head, then he confirmed that with Ross.
The bottom line was that Harak forces had posted snipers all over the rooftops in Crater. That, in 30K’s opinion, could mean only one thing.
He lowered his rifle and told Ross that they should get the drone out near Queen Arwa Road, the one leading through the mountain pass and over to the container port in Al Ma’ala — the only good route to reach the port without hiking across the mountain.
Or more precisely, their best escape route.
‘I know what you’re thinking, bro,’ said Ross. ‘Good call. I’ll see if we have a Keyhole in position.’
‘Drone’s heading out now,’ said Kozak.
30K shifted along the rooftop and came up alongside Pepper, who turned to him and said, ‘The sons of Noah called this place the land of milk and honey. Did you know that?’
‘What?’
‘Gilgamesh came here to search for the secret to eternal life.’
‘Did that pizza fry your brain?’
‘Wise men gathered frankincense and myrrh from the mountains here.’
‘Pepper, what the hell?’
‘Dude, this is sacred ground, and these guys here, they’re just turning it to shit.’
‘You mean because they built a Pizza Hut here?’
‘No, you idiot. I mean they keep fighting. You heard the man. The north and the south. It’s never gonna end. I can almost feel God here — and he ain’t happy.’
‘Maybe they should have a pizza party. Everybody loves pizza.’
Pepper almost smiled. ‘You should trade in your rifle for a briefcase and become a diplomat.’
‘Yeah, that’d work. I’d start a war everywhere I went. Funny thing is —’
30K broke off as Kozak’s voice crackled over the radio, his tone urgent:
‘Ghost Team, this is Kozak. I put the drone up on the highway — and we need to get the hell out of here! Right now!’
30K cursed, lifted his rifle, then trained his scope on the highway, panning northwest until his heart sank. He shot to his feet and rapped a fist on Pepper’s shoulder. ‘Come on!’
FORTY-TWO
Ross had deployed the second drone himself, taking the UAV to one thousand feet in a broad sweep of Crater’s south side. Superimposed over the streaming video was a city map identifying the roads and landmarks so that when the drone reached Al-Aydarus Street along which ran the mosque of Abu Bakr al-Aydarus and adjoining cemetery, he quickly designated the potential targets near the chipped stone wall below.
Men were rushing from a line of pickup trucks, carrying launch tubes, bipod support assemblies with heavy, round base plates, and optics and elevation/traverse controls through a pair of wrought iron gates and on to the cemetery grounds. The grave markers extended in somewhat haphazard rows for five hundred meters eastward, but these men kept close to the entrance, taking up positions along the perimeter wall, where there were no trees or tall buildings to get in their way.
‘Oh, are these clowns serious?’ Ross muttered as he zoomed in with the drone’s camera.
One group had already assembled their weapon, and a data box opened in Ross’s Cross-Com to display an ID and specifications:
L16 81mm mortar, standard used by British armed forces. US version known as the M252. Capable of firing smoke, High Explosive (HE), and illuminating rounds.
A good crew could launch fifteen rounds per minute, and it appeared these men were setting up as many as ten mortars within the confines of the cemetery. A second group was already transferring metal ammo cases the size of foot lockers across the cemetery, each one containing four to six rounds, Ross assumed. The cases were being piled up beside each firing position. Some teams had thrown open latches and were removing the projectiles, arranging them on the ground, their small fins and broad nose cones making them resemble atomic bombs from the 1950s.
‘Naseem! Get in here!’ Ross shouted.
The man rushed into the small kitchen, where Ross had been sitting with the drone’s remote. ‘I’ve got ten mortar teams out near the mosque and cemetery.’