Page 1 of Edinburgh Escape
Prologue
“Take point, Rook,” Callum McCall whispered into his headset. “Nae need tae barge in like a bull.”
“I’m not barging,” Rook responded, moving forward on silent feet, one building corner at a time, his green heat signature visible through Cal’s night vision goggles.
As the newest man on the British SAS team, Rook was smart, light on his feet and as green as Nessie’s toenails. The boy, in his early twenties, had only just completed the rigorous SAS training. This mission to Syria was his first assignment. Fortunately, he was eager and willing to take direction from the more experienced members of their team.
Rook took his position at the corner of a building and knelt, aiming his rifle forward to provide cover for Taff.
The team’s Welshman, smaller, wiry and fast, pushed forward, leapfrogging past Rook to the next corner.
Cal held his rifle close to his chest and pushed away from the side of the building.
With Rook and Taff covering their forward movement, Smudge, Yeti and Bazza joined Cal, heading for the center of the small township.
The intel they’d been given indicated a particularly heinous ISIS leader was holed up in an old Greek Orthodox church at the town center. All they had to do was get in, get the leader and get back out. Easy, right?
Cal’s lips twisted wryly. It was the easy assignments that proved to be anything but easy. One more street up and one over from Taff’s position would be the targeted structure.
Cal motioned for the others to continue forward. Bazza took point, followed by Yeti. When Smudge neared the last corner, blending into the shadows, Cal hurried to catch up to him.
Dusk had long since given way to night, with the first stars blinking to life in the heavens above, barely visible between the rooftops.
So far, they had met with no resistance. Not a single sentry stood guard along the streets or the roads leading in or out of the little town.
Cal’s gut knotted. It didn’t feel right. If there were an ISIS leader somewhere in the town, they’d have guards monitoring roads leading in and out. They’d have people on the rooftops, armed and ready to shoot.
Instead, they’d made it all the way into the little town without any skirmishes.
Once he stood beside Smudge, Cal glanced around the corner of the building and frowned. No one moved. No guards at the door. No civilians moving around. It wasn’t midnight yet. All night operations in small Syrian towns that Cal had been involved in had had at least one civilian roaming around in the late hours. And any operation they’d been involved in, that revolved around terrorist cells or enemy strongholds, had sentries.
There was no way they could walk right into a building and capture an ISIS leader with nobody challenging them.
“I’m going forward,” Smudge said.
That sense of foreboding deep in Cal’s gut increased tenfold. “No, let me,” Cal said.
Smudge shook his head. “I’ve got this if you’ve got my six.” Before Cal could argue with his teammate, Smudge slipped into the shadows of the building and darted across the street toward the building intel had identified.
Cal knelt at the corner, his M4A1 rifle pressed into his shoulder, his night vision goggles in place, searching for the green heat signatures of the enemy. Smudge was the only heat signature Cal picked up.
His teammate made it across the open space and pressed his back against the building they would eventually have to enter.
Taff slid in behind Cal. “I’ve got you covered.”
Cal nodded, rose, looked both directions and toward the rooftops before running across the road. Smudge eased around the side of the building.
Soon, Yeti and Bazza joined Cal and Smudge at the building. Taff and Rook would remain nearby, providing coverage and early warning should enemy forces move in while the rest of the team breached the building, located and extracted their target.
Smudge appeared at the opposite corner of the structure from Cal. “The front is the only entrance,” he whispered into Cal’s headset. “I’m going in.” Keeping to the shadows as much as possible, Smudge eased toward the front entrance.
From the opposite side, Cal moved toward the door, arriving at the same time as Smudge.
Cal reached for the doorknob. It twisted easily in his hand. As he pulled the door toward himself, Taff’s voice sounded in his ear.
“Holy shit! Rook! Behind you! It’s a trap! Abort!”
Before Cal could react, the world exploded around him. The door he’d just opened slammed into him, knocking him flat on his back. The entire front of the building crashed down on him, crushing the air from his lungs and making his world go black.
