Chapter One
December 2012, near Aleppo
The radio crackled. ‘Reports that five army jeeps coming towards your position, ETA thirty minutes’, said the operator. He sounded panicked.
‘Shit! SHIT! SHITTT!!!’ I screamed. ‘Get me some fucking backup!’ I shouted back at him. ‘There’s no one within thirty klicks my friend’, he muttered. ‘You’re on your own.’
There was no way I’d be able to take out five jeeps and fifteen plus men. Unless..
If I threw everything I had at them, I may just be able to survive.
You see, I was the only FSA soldier manning a checkpoint at an airport we’d captured a week previously. It held little strategic importance to the Syrian Army so we thought they wouldn’t try to retake it. But obviously, we were wrong.
I dashed to the bunker and took stock of my equipment. I had quite a formidable arsenal here. ‘Two RPGs, a Glock pistol, two claymores, an Browning M2 mounted machine gun, a grenade and a M16 assault rifle,’ I said to myself.
Grabbing the M2, I lugged it to the firing slit in the bunker wall, setting it up so the barrel faced directly onto the road. It fired 800 rounds per minute so I loaded it up with thousands of rounds. Thankfully the airport had been full of ammunition when we captured it so that wouldn’t be a problem.
Going back to the rest of my equipment, I took the Glock and stuck it into the holster on my belt. I slung the M16 across my back, stuffing my rucksack with ammo for both. The RPGs I placed next to the M2, with the grenade.
Then I picked up both claymores and took them outside. One I set up behind some bushes further down the road, the other closer to the bunker. My last line of defence. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
The detonators for both mines I carried back to the bunker, where I crouched in front of the firing slit and peered out, toward the only direction the jeeps could come.
I waited for what seemed a lifetime. Then I spotted a dust cloud. Was it them? Adrenaline pumping, I squinted desperately at the horizon.
The cloud came closer. And closer. Then I made out the dirty green façade on each jeep that could only be the Syrian Army.
‘One, two, three, four.. And there’s the fifth.’ I said to myself.
So this was it.
Strangely enough, I now felt oddly calm. I took a deep breath, then picked up an RPG.
