SOAR: A Black Ops Novel

Sam nodded in agreement. “Good idea.” He climbed into the cab, pulled the door shut, turned on the interior light, and unfolded the road map. “Okay, here’s the plan.” His finger tapped the yellow line showing the road they were on. “We’re about here. We roll forward about half a kilometer. We’re still out of sight because of the rise in the road… “ Sam’s finger strayed off the yellow line. “We go west, across the basin.”

Sam saw the dubious look on the driver’s face. “Shoazim, there are no big dunes this far south. We’ll be just fine.”

“We are too heavy for the desert,” the driver said. “Too much weight. Soft sand.”

“I just tested the sand, Shoazim,” Sam bluffed. “We’ll be just fine.” Sam’s finger went back to the map and drew a half circle. “All we have to do is give ‘em a wide berth, then swing back onto the road.”

Kaz said, in French, “What if they see us?”

“If they see us,” Sam answered in the same language, “we’ll deal with it.” Then he swiveled in the front seat until his eyes settled on the X-Man. “Everybody’s documents in order, Mr. Chris?”

Chris patted the upper left side of his photographer’s vest, where he kept the group’s passports and visas in a zipped interior pocket. “Ready for inspection, Mr. Boss Man.”

Sam grinned. But it wasn’t because he was happy. “Mr. Chris” was the private emergency signal he and X-Man had worked out in advance to indicate trouble. “Mr. Boss Man” was the confirmation. Which also meant that as they drove, X-Man’s left hand would be in his jacket pocket, wrapped around the emergency transponder sewn inside the lining. If the situation went south, he’d let Langley know they were in trouble — and more important, where they were.

“Okay,” Sam said. He extinguished the interior light, folded the map, then took one deep breath. His lips were dry. He could feel his pulse racing. But he fought for control so no one would notice his anxiety. “Let’s roll.”

He was specific with Shoazim. “Go slowly,” he instructed the Uighur, “until we reach the dip in the road half a kilometer ahead.”

He waited until the driver nodded in agreement.

“Then turn west, straight into the desert.”

“Chataq yoq,” Shoazim said. “No problem.”

“Then go two kilometers and turn south. After two more kilometers, head east until we hit the road again.”

The driver may have nodded obediently after listening to each sequence. But he obviously had no intention of following Sam’s directions. Because Shoazim drove straight through the dip in the road at forty kilometers an hour, crested the rise, and continued down the far side.

He finally stopped in full sight of the truck and its occupants. “Turn now, Mr. Sam?” he said facetiously.

Sam thought seriously about throttling the driver. “No — go straight,” he said through gritted teeth, resigned to an hour’s delay — probably more.

Shoazim grunted, put the Toyota in gear, and moved ahead.

They were less than fifty yards from the truck when Sam realized how badly he’d misjudged things. He and Kaz had spied half a dozen uniformed men. Now, even in the dark, he realized they weren’t wearing PLA uniforms, just PLA uniform parts.

He’d spotted the easily identifiable Chinese Army hats and jackets through the night vision. But up close, it was obvious they didn’t fit the people wearing ‘em. Not even remotely.

Sam glanced at the driver. Shoazim had obviously seen what Sam had seen, because there was a look of sheer panic on his face. The Uighur screamed something unidentifiable and slammed his foot on the brake pedal without taking the truck out of gear. The Toyota stalled out. Sam yelled, “Dick—”

He hadn’t needed to say anything. The communicator had already slapped the cell phone to his ear.

But it was too late. There was sudden motion on their flanks. A tide of armed men came out of concealed positions on either side of the road. They ran, screaming, at the 4x4.

Their hands were already on the vehicle when Sam saw — holy Christ — that these were Uzbeks, Tajiks, Afghans, Kazakhs.

The first to reach the Toyota wore a red-and-white kaffiyeh wrapped around his head like a Hizballah guerrilla. He stuck the butt of his pistol through the driver’s-side window and hammered at Shoazim’s head as the Uighur screamed and tried to twist away from the blows. Sam’s peripheral vision caught a beetle-browed youngster in a striped Russian uniform undershirt coming at him. Instinctively, he raised his arms to protect his face. The kid grabbed both his wrists, yanked hard, pulled Sam straightaway through the Toyota’s open window frame, leaving a fair amount of skin behind in the process. He punched Sam in the face. He kneed him in the gut. Then he body-slammed the American roughly onto the highway and kicked him savagely.