Apocalypse Unleashed Read Free Page A

Achmed told Goose. The village continued to burn. There was nothing anyone could do to save it.
    “Who?” Goose asked.
    “Niyazi.”
    Goose reached into his BDU pouch and took out his PalmPilot.
    He brought up the file they’d assembled on the local warlords and showed the image they had of Niyazi to Achmed. “This man?” Goose asked.
    Achmed nodded. “This man. Very bad man. He likes to kill.”
    The files Goose had read on Niyazi agreed with that. Although the Turkish military hadn’t liked sharing all their information with the United States Army, they’d done so once it became apparent that sharing was necessary.
    “Why did he attack the village?” Goose asked as he put the PalmPilot away.
    Achmed shook his head. “I don’t know. Normally he is not in this place.”
    “Not in what place? Here?”
    “Not here,” Achmed agreed. “Niyazi stays to the north. Many kilometers away.”
    “Something brought him down here,” Donner said.
    “I don’t know what that might be,” Achmed replied. “We are a very poor village. It is known. Everyone knows how poor we are.”
    Goose looked around the village and silently agreed. Except for a few goats and little patches of vegetable gardens, there wasn’t much to the village. Over the past weeks, he’d traveled with a convoy by the village at least a dozen times. They’d never bothered to stop.
    “You ask me,” Donner said, “and I don’t mean to be rude about it, but this place ain’t worth the powder it would take to blow it up.”
    A bad feeling twisted through Goose’s gut. He turned to Donner. “Gather the men. We need to get rolling. If Niyazi didn’t hit this village out of spite or to get something, he was just using it as a diversion.”
    Understanding filled Donner’s liquid eyes. “The convoy.”
    “Yeah,” Goose agreed. “And we ran off and left it unguarded.” He turned toward the nearest Hummer, ignoring his aches, bruises, and burns.

    United States 75th Army Rangers Temporary Post
Sanliurfa, Turkey
Local Time 2114 Hours

    “Captain Remington.”
    Tired and frustrated, Cal Remington looked up from the computer screen he’d been studying. The army captain was six feet four inches tall with broad shoulders and short-clipped dark hair.
    “What is it, Private?” Remington snapped.
    “Got a problem with the convoy, sir.” The private was young and baby-faced, one of the geek army that had moved up quickly as the military had become increasingly reliant on technology.
    “Which convoy?” There were currently three out. Remington checked the time on the bottom of the computer screen. Two, he amended. One of them should have reached its destination by now.
    “Harran, sir.”
    Goose’s convoy. The thought that something had gone wrong there irritated Remington. Then again, he didn’t know if it was the thought that something had gone wrong or the thought of Goose that irritated him most.
    “What’s wrong with the convoy?” Remington asked.
    “It’s under attack, sir.”
    “By whom?” Remington stood and walked out of his office. The private led the way through the computer workstations that had been set up and now ran off noisy generators.
    “We don’t know, sir.” The private gestured to one of the large LCD computer monitors.
    Remington studied the screen and saw satellite imagery of the convoy racing across the rugged terrain toward Harran. Only the four supply trucks and two support Hummers remained together. Six units were MIA.
    “Where is the rest of my convoy?” Remington demanded.
    “Sergeant Gander pulled most of the support vehicles off the convoy, sir,” the private said.
    “Why?”
    “There was a village on fire, sir. Sergeant Gander wanted to see if they could help.” The private gestured to another monitor.
    Remington made out the burning houses and the six Hummers parked in front of them. His irritation with Goose turned into fullfledged anger.
    “Who authorized this?” Remington demanded.
    “No