Ghost

Chapter One

Mike Harmon stuck his laptop in his jump bag and tossed the latter over one shoulder, standing up and stretching his back. He had been sitting in the coffee shop for nearly three hours and he wasn’t as young as he used to be. Fifteen years in the teams had left him with degenerative damage in half the major joints in his body and a back that was compacted enough for a fifty-year-old.

As he wandered out of the shop, he glanced at his image in the plate glass window and grimaced. Brown hair, brown eyes, a “regular” face, neither handsome nor ugly, shoulders a bit wider than the norm, middle beginning to bulge a bit despite regular exercise. Not the most prepossessing figure and certainly not, by any stretch of the imagination, a big man on campus.

He’d thought that going back to college would be a cinch. With both his career and his marriage foundered on the rocks, time to go find some time in the sun. After years of eighteen-hour days, how hard could homework be? And then there were the lovely young coeds, long legs flashing by, skirts swirling and flirting, practically begging to be snapped up by a not particularly bad looking former SEAL.

Well, the homework wasn’t actually that bad, or it wouldn’t be if it weren’t for the classes he had to take. History. How bad could it be? Greeks and Romans and Persians and the Renaissance. Egyptians and feudal lords and maybe memorizing a bunch of dead guys’ names.

Little did he know. That was “old history.” His current major course was “An Introduction to African Pre-Colonial History.” As far as he’d been able to determine, his definition of what constituted “history” and the definition used by the University of Georgia History Department didn’t come from the same dictionary. Sure, the old time historians made stuff up. Livy read like something written by Tom Clancy and Julius Caesar’s Gallic Wars was written with political image in mind with only brief touches on reality, something like a Democratic stump speech. But it had brief touches on reality and it was at least written. Prior to the “colonization” period, Africa had no writing and, apparently, no problems worth discussing. His professor attributed every ill of Africa to the colonialism of the White Man, ignoring the ongoing tribal wars that dated back thousands of years, not to mention the Arab slave traders that benefited from them. He’d had to see the first episode of the mini-series Roots and had been loudly shushed when he started laughing in the first fifteen minutes. Slave traders didn’t get off their boats and go chase bush-bunnies around. They bought them from Arabs, not fucking “Islamics,” Ay-rabs. And the Arabs bought them from the tribes, who were constantly at war with each other.

Sometimes it was all Mike could do to not stand up and punch the stupid bastard, especially when he got started on “modern colonialism,” by which he meant the War on Terrorism. Mike wanted to scream “Have you ever been in Mogadishu you ignorant son-of-a-bitch?” Hell, the conditions in Africa were better when the English and the Germans and even the French and the Belgians had been in charge. He’d read Conrad’s Heart of Darkness a couple of times during down time on the teams. And he’d been in Congo, not that there was any trace of it going in or out. And Congo now was “Heart of Darkness” on fucking steroids. The only thing worse than having the Belgians in charge was having the fucking gomers handling things.

But, of course, the problem with the gomers wasn’t that they were totally fucked up gomers. Oh, no, the problem with the gomers were all the fault of colonialism and “western military adventures.” Well, he’d been on one “western military adventure” in Congo and as far as he was concerned the best thing to do was spray the whole damned place with anthrax, including the fucking gorillas, shoot anyone that tried to leave and start over.

Attitudes like this, of course, didn’t sit very well with his professors. It also didn’t fit very well with the pretty little airheads that were being fed a steady diet of leftist propaganda bullshit. And no matter how he tried, he’d always end up opening up his mouth and pointing out that it was leftist propaganda bullshit. That the problem with the gomers was their fucking culture, which was totally fucked up and had been before colonialization and was going to stay that way until somebody beat some sense into their heads. At which point terms like “militarist” and “baby-killer” and, with the real intellectuals, “myrmidon” would start getting tossed around.

What was funny was that some of the most leftist, ball-busting, bitches seemed to get off on his being a former team guy. There was one little brunette wearing a beret just like that fucking terrorist Che that he swore was getting ready to go down on him right in the middle of the damned argument. But he’d blown her off instead. The hell if he’d get told he was a mindless myrmidon and then fuck the little bitch.

Sooner or later, something was going to give. His really bad side was starting to peek out and that was something he feared more than failure. It violated the warrior code. Courage in Battle, Loyalty to the King, Protection of the Innocent. Sometimes it seemed it was the only thing he had left. He was not going to become a fucking rapist.

He’d always managed to restrain that side of himself, even with the Philipino B girls and the Thailand whores, when it didn’t matter what you did, as long as you paid the mamasan. One of the reasons he’d just left the little bitch in the beret hanging was if he’d taken her home it would have been a grudge fuck, with emphasis on “grudge.” And she’d have gone home sorry and sore. Which was all well and good if it was lined out in advance and agreed to by both parties. But that wasn’t where that particular relationship was going.

So his right forearm got over developed, his anger got hotter and hotter and there didn’t seem to be any release in sight. He very much needed to kill someone. Just about anyone would do, but one of the little airhead bitches was getting even farther up the list than his professors.

Thoughts like that had carried him, unthinking, to the areas by the library and the English department buildings. His path wasn’t even vaguely in the direction of his apartment; in fact it was in the opposite direction. But there were quiet pathways where occasional young ladies wandered by, most of them so totally fucking oblivious they wouldn’t have noticed if he threw a rock in their direction. It was a sick addiction with a very specific name: “stalking.” He’d pick a dark spot, stand still as if he were simply drinking in the night and wait. Sooner or later some brainless bitch would walk past, totally defenseless.

Sometimes, just to get a rise out of them, he’d cough. And they’d notice the dark figure in the shadows, their eyes would get wide and they’d hurry past. He never looked at them then, he’d totally ignore them, but he could tell by their hurried steps, quite often clicking away in their high heels, how much he’d frightened them. Sick, but oh so very fun. And he considered it to be instructional for the little idiots. It might teach them to keep some situational awareness.

He also considered it keeping in training. There were plenty of non-idiots among the girls on campus, girls who knew damned well that college campuses had the highest rate of rape in the U.S. And, nine times out of ten, even with the ones who were alert, he could avoid being seen even standing in plain sight. His team name was “Ghost” and it had been hard earned. It was an ability he’d had even before he was on the teams and one that he’d raised to a high pitch in various third world shitholes. He could just… blend.

If he put on local clothes and spent some time watching local moves, he could move among the populace of half the world unnoticed. A little heavy-set, jaw a little square, shoulders a little broad, but nobody seemed to take that into account. Grow a little stubble, cover his haircut and he was anything from an Arab to an Afghan. As long as he didn’t open his mouth: he’d never had language training and his Arab extended to “where’s the bathroom” and “lie on the floor and put your hands on your head.”

The spot he’d chosen overlooked Baldwin Street, which ran between the English building, Park Hall, and the Military Science Building. He’d thought about going ROTC and maybe bucking for an Army commission. But even with his background his physical damage — he was paid for being “50% disabled” and might go as high as 100% in time — made it unlikely that even the Army would give him a commission. And if he did get one, at his age, he’d probably end up in supply or civil affairs or some such bullshit. Better to eat the shit at the college, get his history degree and go looking for a teaching job. Coach track or swimming, teach history and just… veg.

He stopped vegging as he spotted a nice young quarry, blonde, nice tits in a midriff top, ruffled miniskirt revealing long, shapely legs and black high heels clicking along on the sidewalk heading west on Baldwin. The fashions had come together nicely in the last year with just about everything a heterosexual male wanted to see women wearing being the “in” thing. It was like some over-sexed ancient Greek god had told fashion designers exactly what he wanted them to push. She was probably coming back from some of the clubs over on Broad — she was “club” dressed — headed down to the dorms along Lumpkin. And too stupid to stay to the more traveled and lighted ways. Probably a freshman, he thought.

It was as professional a snatch as he’d ever seen. The custom van slowed down, the door opened, a man stepped out in a trot, the bag went over the blonde’s head, she was lifted into the van before she could even start kicking, the door closed and the van started to accelerate. It took no more than a couple of seconds. As far as Mike could tell there was no one in sight of the snatch, certainly no one in easy view and if you hadn’t been looking right at the girl you probably wouldn’t have been able to process it. Whoosh. The girl was just… gone.

Except the van had to stop at the west end of Park Street, where it intersected Lumpkin, and Mike realized he was already down the hill in a sprint, off the low wall by the sidewalk, his jump bag banging on his back as he accelerated down the middle of the road, no cars in sight and it kept him out of the view, mostly, of the driver. The van started to pull out onto Lumpkin and Mike leapt upwards, landing lightly on the ladder at the back of the van, crouched. If he lost track of the van the girl was going to disappear, probably into an unmarked grave.

He knew that, at heart, he was a rapist. And that meant he hated rapists more than any “normal” human being. They purely pissed him off. He’d spent his entire sexually adult life fighting the urge to use his not inconsiderable strength to possess and take instead of woo and cajole. He’d fought his demons to a standstill again and again when it would have been so easy to give in. He’d had one truly screwed up bitch get completely naked, with him naked and erect between her legs, and she still couldn’t say “yes.” And he’d just said: “that’s okay” and walked away with an amazing case of blueballs. When men gave in to that dark side, it made him even more angry than listening to leftist bitches scream about “western civilization” and how it was so fucked up.

The van was an older modern custom van like Mexicans tended to drive and from inside he could hear the struggle going on and the muffled cries of the girl followed by slaps. While it made one side of him angry as hell, another side was so turned on he could barely stand it. But the good news was unless somebody saw him on the back of the van and vectored in the police, he stood a good chance of being able to kill someone and not go to jail. This was probably a bunch of fucking illegales who’d decided they wanted to party with a coed. And they were going to be seriously fucked up, armed or not, as soon as this damned van stopped. He might even get laid out of it, if not by the blonde, who was going to be pretty fucked up from this experience, then by some girly who’d take pity on the poor hero.

The van headed south on Lumpkin through the university area and towards the south side of town. It was late and if anyone saw him he couldn’t tell. There weren’t even any cars behind the van or he’d have waved at them or something. He wanted to get his mad out by killing some of the bastards in the van, they were ripping cloth now, but he figured at least trying to be the “good citizen” instead of the “vigilante” would be a good idea. He couldn’t bring in the police himself, he’d left his cell phone charging by his bed before going to class and hadn’t been home to pick it up. And unless someone saw him soon, the van would get into darker, and less populated, areas where he might never get spotted.

He kept hanging on to the ladder, swinging through turns, crouched down to stay out of sight, half hoping some cop cruiser would pull up behind them and half hoping it wouldn’t. Most of the cops stayed up towards the center of Athens on Friday and Saturday, closer to the action. And, proverbially, there was never a cop around when you needed them. This time, especially. Not even any fucking cars. The van had gotten off of Lumpkin and into neighborhoods that were mostly dark this time of night. Neighborhoods with speed bumps that were a real bitch to hang on through. The route appeared to be planned and he started wondering if he was really dealing with a group of Mexes. The snatch looked professional, to his trained eye, and the egress also looked professional. Which either made it a group of long term serial rapists, even funner to kill, or… something else.

The van finally pulled into an industrial complex, closed and dark, and slowed through a series of turns. Mike got a look at a dead end, a parking lot with a few cars, a person standing in the shadows and…

He was off the back of the van, tumbling as quietly as he could into a roadside ditch, before his mind fully processed the MP-5 the sentry was holding. He hadn’t seen any phone booths in miles, the buildings around the guarded one were all dark which meant no getting to a phone easily. And a sentry meant that this wasn’t just a simple snatch for pussy, this was… something else.

He dropped the jump bag and leopard crawled down the ditch, heading for the building. The sentry was at the front and his brief glimpse hadn’t spotted one on the side. But there were some windows. He needed more intel before he figured out how to call in support and the windows might tell him something.

As soon as he was around the side and out of sight of the front sentry he leopard crawled across to the wall of the brick building and crouched in the shadows at the base. The window was about eight feet up, which was a long damned jump for a guy who was five ten and a bit out of shape, and he knew he didn’t dare make much sound. He squatted and then sprung upward, his hands clamping onto the narrow sill, the entire evolution completed in near perfect silence. He waited for a moment to listen for reaction, then slowly chinned himself up to the window.

The room was mostly open with some metal boxes that looked a bit like coffins lining the walls. The van was parked inside and there was a container vehicle pulled in with its doors open. The blonde, now sans everything but bra and panties, tied hand and foot with fast-strips and with a gag stuffed in her mouth, was on the ground near a table in the middle. One of the boxes was being loaded into the container vehicle and, as he watched, the doors were closed and the vehicle pulled out. It was a red container with “OCCP” on the back and a symbol like a flower. The doors were dented towards the top. The license plate was out of view. He got all of that in one brief glance and then went back to examining the room.

There were seven subject males of apparent Middle Eastern extraction in view. One was at the table, talking on what appeared to be a satellite phone. Three were standing by the van, between it and the blonde. A fourth sitting in the open side door. There was an additional subject female on a metal table like a surgery or butcher table, naked. She appeared to be unconscious, had had an IV inserted and something like a cloth diaper put on her lower regions. As he watched, two of the subject males lifted her up and lowered her into one of the “coffins.” The IV was inserted into a pouch in the top and the top closed and latched from the outside.

Mike started to lower himself, having seen enough, when he heard a light hiss to his lower right. He closed his eyes, willing his night vision to come back, and then looked down. A man in a light-jacket was pointing an MP-5 at him and gesturing for him to come down.

Mike, briefly, wondered why the guy hadn’t shot him already. In a way the former SEAL wished the target had done so. He was embarrassed. He’d mentally been bitching at the girls on campus about their security and here he’d gone and completely lost situational awareness. It was… annoying.

He nodded at the man in agreement, smiled nervously, dropped down, apparently stumbling on the fall, and rolled into the man’s legs. Reaching up, Mike gripped the barrel of the submachine gun and rotated it upwards, ripping the grip out of the man’s hands at the same time, then slammed it into the target’s stomach before he could cry out. As soon as he had partial control of the weapon, which was attached to the target’s body with a friction strap, he rotated it, pressed it into the man’s chest, rotated the safety lever to burst and triggered three rounds.

The entire action had taken no more than three seconds and the whole noise had been a grunt from the target and the sound of the MP-5’s action. In the middle of taking down the target Mike had noticed, from the ribbed feel of the barrel shroud, that the weapon was an MP-5 SD, one of the quietest silenced sub-guns in the world. Highly illegal in the U.S. without the appropriate permits and uncommon among terrorists. On the other hand, Mike had spent more time with one in his hands than he had with school books, including high school. He searched the target’s body and retrieved three more magazines, checked the level in the one in the weapon, reached up, tugged the collar of his T-shirt down hard, then snugged the weapon into his shoulder and ghosted towards the front of the building.

There was a sentry at the front and this one was apparently a rover. He knew he’d made two mistakes, one in not checking for the rover and one in losing situational awareness. Part of it was eagerness. He really wanted to kill these sons-of-bitches and he wanted to save the girls. From what he’d seen, they were being transported. Where was a big question. But terrorists, as these clearly were, weren’t going to negotiate. If the police tried to handle this like a normal crime, all the girls were going to die. Terrorists of this type would only negotiate so as to get maximum news coverage and then kill the girls in the worst way they could manage.

He did a mental check and decided that this constituted a mission that he could do with a good conscience, if not legally. “Protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic.” Kidnapping was a de jure and de facto stripping of civil rights, and local authorities, however much they were the legal group to handle it, were not going to be competent to do so.

Mike knew it was so much bullshit. But he also knew that if he managed to extract the girls, nobody was going to give a shit how he’d done it. The prosecutor that tried him would get tossed out of office so fast the door would hit him, or more likely her, knowing liberal bitches and their incredible stupidity, in the ass.

Fuck it. If he went for commo, the sentry would be found, the two girls would die and so, probably, would the others, wherever they were going. Then the whole operation would just up and disappear. It was take-down time.

With that in mind, he shouldered the MP-5 and ghosted forward along the wall. Nearing the corner he actually let himself make some noise, as if he was the roving sentry coming up to the corner. No reason to startle the guy until he had to.

When he came to the corner he stepped outward, still at tactical present, and leaned to the left. The target was standing by a personnel door, smoking a cigarette. Marlboro from the drifting smell of the smoke. The cigarette spun out of his lips and into the grass by the side of the entrance pad as the three nine-millimeter rounds impacted with the side of the target’s head.

Twenty-one rounds left but only two spare magazines. Mike stopped at the target and found three more, including the one in the target’s weapon, and stuffed them in his back pockets. The night was quiet, still no sound of alarm from the terrorists in the building. There was probably some sort of rotation schedule for the sentries. Time to get inside the decision cycle.

He gently checked the handle on the door and determined that it was unlocked. Then the decision had to be made, slow or fast. He finally decided on slow and casual. One of the sentries coming in for some reason. He pulled the door open and stepped through looking unconcernedly to either side. The view from the door into the room was blocked by a stack of the “coffins.” When he cleared them to either side, he’d be in view of the terrorists. Time to go tactical again. He lifted the MP-5 to his shoulder and stepped to the side quickly.

Party time.

Chapter Two

“Yes, Hamid,” Hazzah Bud said, nodding as he talked on the phone. “The delivery has been made on time, on my honor. The shipment will be at your warehouse no later than tomorrow night. We had trouble finding sufficient stock, but at the last moment we found a significant amount and not only have fulfilled the first order but have stock left over to start the second. Yes. Yes, we will ensure that the cargo arrives in good condition. Go with God, Hamid.”

Hazzah had been a member of Hezbollah since the outbreak of the civil war in Lebanon. A member of the Joharra tribe, he had fought the Amal and the Hamas, the Irish and the American Marines. He had been one of five potential drivers for the attack on the Marine barracks but at the last minute his best friend, Murtaza Batatu, had been chosen for martyrdom instead. Over the years he had waned in his faith in the jihad and these days he was just happy to awake each morning alive. Martyrdom was for the young. But a job was a job and failure in this one would mean martyrdom for sure.

Bud looked up at Abdul Mohiuddin and shook his head.

“Halal is unhappy that it took so long to round up the full cargo and he already wants more. In good condition.”

“That means we cannot rape these infidel bitches,” Kahf Shishakli said, angrily. Kahf was a youngster among the mujahideen and full of the work of Allah and the chance for martyrdom. A student from the Emirate of Kuwait, majoring in business, his family was fiercely Wahabbist and he had been raised to believe that death in the fight against the Dar Al Harb was the highest of callings. But he was young and the bitch on the floor was pretty. Like all the American whores she went not much more clothed than she was now. All such whores deserved to be raped.

“Are either of them virgin?” Bud said, grinning at the girl on the floor.

“The one who is packaged was not,” Abdul said, settling into the open door of the van, then gesturing at the blonde. “These are all whores, are they not? None of them have been virgins.”

“He said in good condition,” Bud replied, pulling a pistol out of his waistband, and walking over to the blonde. “He didn’t say unraped. I think we’ll rape this one. If she is in bad condition when we are done, we’ll send her soul to Satan and find another.”

“In’sh’allah,” Shishakli said, reaching down to grab the girl’s hair and twist it. “It is as Allah Wills. Women taken in battle are allowed to be raped and these women are taken in the Great Jihad against the Americans. Let us rape them to the Glory of Allah.”

As Mike stepped to the side he heard males speaking in what he was pretty sure was Arabic and then a muffled scream from the girl. He stepped around the coffin, at present, and targeted a male holding the hair of the girl. Three rounds to the chest put the target down, the silenced 9mm rounds punching into his chest cavity and blasting blood and bone out to cover the cowering girl.

Hazzah Bud had been fighting one group or another most of his adult life and had the scars to prove it. But it was a long time since he had had to fight for his life and the attack was unexpected. As Kahf’s chest erupted in blood, he turned towards the faint “thocks” from the silenced submachine gun, raising his pistol as quickly as he could. In his haste, he actually triggered a round into the floor and he prayed to Allah that it would disturb this djinn who had appeared long enough for he, Hazzah Bud, Allah’s servant for most of his life, to live.

Mike shifted to a male holding a pistol in his hand. The male was rotating to the side to fire and actually triggered a round into the ground in his haste. Mike ignored it and serviced the target with a burst, then shifted to the group by the van.

Abdul Mohiuddin grabbed his AK and rolled into the body of the van for cover. If this was an American police assault team they would soon find that those who did not fear death were dangerous to battle! Allah would be with them in this battle!

The one that had been sitting in the doorway was gone, presumably into the cargo area; the other three had reached for weapons that were scattered on the ground. One was raising an AK variant assault rifle and was serviced as was a second reaching for another AK. At that point, an automatic part of his brain told him to cover and reload so he pulled back behind the coffins, ejected his magazine down the front of his shirt, and slapped in another. He wasn’t standing still while he did it, but moving counterclockwise behind the cover of the coffins, looking for another shot.

Murtaza Saqqaf was amazed. He had gotten but one brief view of the assailant and it was not the heavily armored tac team they had expected. Indeed, there appeared to be but one American who had already killed many of his brothers in Allah. It was infuriating!

“There’s only one of them!” he shouted. “We can trap him! Come around the coffins; he is hiding in there!”

There was shouting from the coffins behind him and he ducked into a space between two stacks, waiting a moment. After shouting the person was trying to move stealthily but it was nearly impossible in this echoing room. Mike followed the cautious movement and then took a coin from his pocket and tossed it over the coffins beyond his present position. The metal coin made a loud bong as it hit, too loud really, but the target sped up, actually passing his position in a quiet trot. Mike waited a moment and then leaned out…

There was a metallic sound, like a magazine being dropped accidentally, well down the south wall, and Murtaza sped up, closing on his quarry. Allah was with him and he smiled.

“Allahu Akbar!” he shouted as he spun around the corner and emptied his magazine into the space where the sound had occurred. But there was nothing there and as he realized that, over the ringing in his ears from the firing, he heard a faint sound behind him…

Mike wanted to laugh at the actions of the target but, instead, as the tango turned to check behind him he fired a three-round burst into the “sniper triangle” of the head and upper body, where there were numerous critical blood vessels, then began moving again, heading clockwise to his previous firing position.

Ahmed Rabah nodded as he heard the shout from Murtaza. There had been no flood of police into the warehouse, which meant it was likely to be only one American, thinking he was Rambo and trying to save the Satan’s whores. Well, the mission was probably a failure, they would have to pick up and move elsewhere at the very least. But the purpose of the Warriors of Jihad was to spread fear amongst the infidels of the Great Satan and killing the bitch would do that well enough. So he darted out of the cover of the coffins towards the bitch on the floor. Let the American continue to battle, but even if he was victorious it would be as ashes in his mouth. He had just reached her when he heard the squeak of a tennis shoe from among the coffins and looked up into the barrel of a submachine gun…

When he reached his firing position he saw one of the terrorists preparing to terminate the hostage and he put two bursts into the man’s chest, the blood flying out onto the already blood-soaked girl screaming into her gag. Since there was a significant threat to the hostage, Mike decided to go for a thunder run and see what he could get directed at himself. He moved to a different opening and then darted into the space in the middle of the room.

Abdul Mohiuddin had considered killing the whore on the floor but even if they moved she could still be smuggled out of the country. So he continued to wait in the concealment of the van, knowing that sooner or later the American would have to come into view. Suddenly a man in jeans and a shirt darted into the open area, moving fast.

Abdul had been waiting for that and opened up the back door of the van, dropping to the ground in a crouch and placing his AK against his hip, firing off the clip in long burst at the running figure.

As the door opened on the van to his left Mike turned, then rolled on his right shoulder, coming up in a kneeling position and targeting the muj as 7.62mm bullets cracked the air around him.

Abdul Mohiuddin felt the 9mm rounds thudding into him as so many punches to the chest and stumbled to his knees. He tried to lift the rifle again but it was far too heavy. He tried to mumble a prayer to Allah, but his lungs were full of liquid and he couldn’t get a breath. His vision darkened and all he could feel was fury at this one djinn American who seemed to be invincible. Allah had deserted them…

Mike didn’t even ensure the target was down, just sprung to his feet and sprinted across the area, bullets cracking around him, to dive behind the desk, reloading as he ran.

Sidi Al-Radi looked at his friend Khalil Medein in fear. Both were students from Pakistan at the University of Georgia. They had met at a student rally in support of the Palestinian cause and been recruited as warriors of the jihad that same day. At the time it had seemed a great cause and they had shouted with the others that they were willing to die for Allah.

However, now that they faced death, had seen the blood from their fellow warriors staining the floor, knew that death came for them on squeaking feet, all they could do was crouch behind the desk and hope that it would pass them by…

As he cleared the top of the desk in a one-handed lift, he discovered to his annoyance two of the terrorists crouching down behind it and not even looking for him. They were as surprised as he was, and far, far slower. In a second and a half, two more warriors of Allah had been sent to have a conversation with their God. He suspected that it was not going to be a good one.

His position, however, was very exposed and he lifted himself up again, sprinting forward. There was an open gap in view and he headed for it like a goal line, ricochets whining off the floor around him. Suddenly most of the shooting stopped and he heard a lot of reloading which caused him to grin even in the middle of the mess he’d started.

Terrorists, even trained terrorists, used the “spray and pray” technique of combat. Point the gun in the general direction of the enemy, generally held somewhere near the hip, close your eyes, pull the trigger and hope that you hit something. It wasn’t just terrorists, everyone in the region except the Israelis tended to use “spray and pray.” Which was why, besides body armor and superior training, Western militaries, including the Israelis, didn’t tend to take many casualties from rifle fire while, at the same time, racking up kills by direct fire. Westerners could, and would, target their shooting. Arabs didn’t. And, at the moment, it was saving his life. He just hoped like hell they wouldn’t accidentally, or intentionally, shoot the hostage.

He paused in the gap and counted on his fingers. Started with nine and the two sentries. Sentries down. One with a gun, one holding the hair. One in the back. One in the van. Two behind the desk. Three to go? No. Two. One trying to kill the hostage makes seven.

Rouhi Karim was one of the imported mujahideen, another member of Hezbollah. He had not fought as broadly or fiercely as Hazzah Bud, but he was an experienced street fighter and thought that surely he could kill one Allah-damned American. But twice he had seen the infidel djinn cross the open area in the middle of the room and twice tried to shoot him, emptying two full magazines in his anger to no avail. Now he decided that there was a better way. The infidel feared death and always negotiated for hostages. He reloaded again and left his cover, running into the open area and grabbing the blood-covered bitch by her hair to lift her from the floor. She screamed at the pain but he felt nothing but joy at the sound. Soon the American would be dead and he would give her far more pain…

“American! We will negotiate now!”

Mike peeked into the open area and shook his head at the sight. A teenage muj was holding the blonde by the hair, an AK pointed in the general direction of, well, the floor. Not at her. He shook his head, targeted the terrorist, who was looking in the wrong direction, and put three rounds through his head.

The blonde was in bad shape, covered in blood and apparently choking. He had a choice of helping her or taking down the last tango. Helping her meant exposing himself, and the hostage, to hostile fire. But… choking could kill just as sure as a bullet. The gag was a cloth band with, apparently, cloth in the mouth. He looked at it and clicked out his locking-blade knife. Taking it in his right hand he ran to the girl, slid the razor edge under the gag and cut it off. He hadn’t taken any fire so but he ghosted over between the coffins again.

Silence. The last target, if he was counting right, seemed to be playing the waiting game. Okay, time to see how stealthy “Ghost” could be. He started to move along the wall, heel rolling to side of the foot and then to the ball, one slow step at a time, checking the gaps between the boxes and occasionally getting a glimpse of the now crying, and still choking a bit, blonde. She at least was keeping quiet and down, other than the crying. She’d probably puked at all the blood and been choking on that, and that sort of choke could take your voice away pretty quick. Whatever the reason, he appreciated her not yelling for help or whatever. It would be distracting.

He smelled him before he saw him, the distinct smell of urine with a hint of shit. There was a fair bit of both in the room, the offal and sulfur smell of battle. But this was close and sharp. As he got closer he could hear the breathing, fast, high panting. Sworn to die or not, this was one muj who was scared as hell.

Karem Majali was an agronomy student who had been born in the mountains of Yemen where his father was a minor sheikh. He had been raised to do battle, showing no fear, a warrior for Allah. But while he had sometimes fired his weapon at other Yemeni, and even participated in one of the numerous kidnappings of foreigners in that land, he had never truly faced death. And he found that his belief in Allah was not as strong as he’d thought. All he could think was that this one American had killed, as far as he could tell, all of the other mujahideen, even Hazzah Bud and Abdul Mohiuddin, who were well known warriors of Allah. He seemed to not be human, but some desert formed shedim, an evil demon. Karem tried to lift himself from his hiding place, to rise up and charge forth, screaming God is Great as he should. But his knees would not support him and he realized that he had shit his pants. He could only crouch in his hole, shaking and crying faintly and wishing that he had never left Yemen, had never agreed to join the jihad, had stayed in his dorm instead of going to that Allah-Be-Damned rally. The hell with the Palestinians, anyway, they were filth unto Allah…

Mike peeked around the coffins and tried not to laugh. The tango was huddled by the coffins, AK gripped with white knuckles, shaking like a leaf, looking towards the open area. Mike leaned forward and gently but firmly pressed the warm barrel of the sub-gun into the back of the subject’s head.

“Lie on the ground with your hands behind your head,” the former SEAL said in his very best Arabic.

The target froze for a second, then the AK slid into the open area and he flattened himself to the ground, legs spread and hands on the back of his head, fingers interlaced.

“Clearly you’ve been watching Fox,” Mike said, trying not to chuckle. He grabbed the tango by the back of his collar and yanked him to his feet, pushing him into the open area with the barrel of the MP-5.

“Oh, God. Oh, God!” The blonde had slid as far away from the bodies as her bonds permitted her and now was bent in a fetal position. But she’d looked up at the steps and now her eyes were wide. “Oh, thank you!”

“You’re welcome,” Mike said, kneeing the muj into a kneeling position, then lowering him back face down on the floor.

“Who are you?” the girl managed to gasp between coughs.

“No one of consequence,” Mike said, then barked a laugh. “God, I always wanted to use that line. Do me a favor, and be quiet for a second, okay, honey? I need to talk to this young gentleman.”

There was a pile of tie-ties, plastic handcuffs derived from cable ties, on the table and Mike used two of them to secure the terrorist.

“Is there any way you could let me go?” the girl asked as he rolled the muj over.

“Not at the moment, I’m in a hurry,” Mike said, sliding the barrel of the MP-5 down to point at the tango’s balls. “You speak English?”

“Yes!” the kid said, quickly. “I am speaking good English! I am student!”

“Great,” Mike said, sliding the barrel down to the terrorist’s knee. “Now, here’s the deal. The first time I think you’re lying to me, I’m going to shoot you in the knee. Now, that really hurts and you’ll be permanently crippled. So try very hard not to lie to me. Okay? I’m basically a very bad man and I’d like to hurt you. A lot. But, I’m also an honorable one and if you don’t lie to me, if you give me good answers, I won’t shoot you. Okay?”

“Okay,” the tango said, desperately.

“Where did they take the girls?” Mike asked, mildly.

“I do not know!” the boy said. “All I know is an airport.”

“Hmmm…” Mike murmured then fired a round through the kid’s leg. “Don’t believe you.”

He waited until the screaming, from both the tango and his erstwhile rapee, died down then pointed the barrel at the other leg.

“Care to go for two?”

“I don’t know!” the kid screamed. “They not tell us, tell us not to ask! Maybe is in papers. Hazzah is handling papers! A file, on the desk!”

“Hmmm…” Mike said, going over to the desk. “What’s your name, Blondie?”

“Ashley,” the girl said, whimpering. “Oh, please tell me you’re not going to hurt me!”

“Hell, no,” Mike snorted, searching through the papers. “I’m one of the good guys. Sort of. I’d like to, mind you. Girls all tied up and covered in blood are a real turn-on.”

“What… who are you?” Ashley asked, desperately. “What the hell are you?”

“Nobody you want to remember,” Mike replied, picking what looked like a bill of lading out of the pile. “Look, the police are going to be on this like flies on shit. I’d really appreciate it, as the guy who just saved your miserable cheerleader ass, if you’d tell them you have no clue who I am. I’m a short, tall, fat, thin, blonde brunet with greenish brown eyes. Got it?”

“You’re not with the police?” the girl said, totally confused.

“Oh, come on,” Mike scoffed. “I know you’re an airhead, but use at least one brain cell. Do the police commonly shoot people through the leg to get information?”

“Well, they beat people up,” Ashley said, with relentlessly liberal logic.

“Did those guys beat you?” Mike asked, gesturing at the dead terrorists.

“Yes,” Ashley said, sobbing gently.

“Would you like me to shoot you through the knee so you can tell the difference?” Mike asked, puzzling over the load list.

“NO!”

“Then, trust me, police don’t kneecap people for information. It’s really obvious. It looks like they were taking them to the Atlanta airport,” Mike said, dropping the manifest. “Okay, I’m going to cut part of the way through your bonds,” he continued, pulling his knife back out. “As soon as you work yourself free, call 911 and report all of this. When they get here, remember…”

“Short, fat, thin, tall, blondish brunet?” Ashley said, nodding. “Got it. What about him?” she asked, gesturing with her chin at the gently sobbing and moaning muj.

“What about him?” Mike asked, pulling her upright and applying his knife to the tough plastic. “If he bleeds out or dies of shock, it’s no skin off my nose. Let me ask you, do you really care?”

“No,” Ashley admitted after a moment’s thought.

“Congratulations,” Mike said, changing his mind and cutting the bonds on her hands completely free. “You’re half way to conservative already. Remember, Vote Cliff.”

“I’m not that far,” Ashley said, smiling faintly. “Why’d you cut me free?”

“Give me ten minutes,” Mike said. “After I’m gone. Then call. And tell them Atlanta airport.”

“You’re going to get in trouble for this, aren’t you?”

“It is not inside my normal mission parameters,” Mike admitted without really lying. Let her suggest to the police that he was some sort of spook. “Yeah, if they figure out who it was, I’ll be looking at, well, murder one, torture, you name it. They’ll probably throw the book at me. So… be uncooperative, okay? Just tell them you want to talk to an attorney or, barring that, the news media.”

“What’s your name, please?” Ashley said, leaning forward to drift a kiss across his cheek as he worked on her ankles.

“Look, killing makes me really horny,” Mike said, tightly. “So do tied0up half-naked, damned good-looking blondes. And if you really must know, it’s the Dread Pirate Roberts.”

“What?” Ashley said, pulling her ankles up to her as soon as they were free and rubbing at the marks from the strips.

“Haven’t you ever seen The Princess Bride?” Mike asked, aghast.

“No?”

“Good Lord, woman.” He stood up, shaking his head, and headed for the door. “Rent it. You owe me.”

“I will,” Ashley said.

“Ten minutes,” Mike said, then paused. “Crap.”

“What now?” Ashley said, looking around wildly.

“Well, two things,” Mike admitted. “No wheels and I need to check on the other girl.”

The coffin had not been hit and the girl, who was apparently drugged, was fine. Mike checked her pulse and had to really restrain himself from copping a feel. It wasn’t like anyone would know. Then he looked at his hands, which were covered in cordite residue and blood, and shook his head. Okay, so they’d know. He was already looking at murder one. No, down.

He left the top propped up and searched the pockets of the terrorist who seemed to be the boss on the basis that he’d be the most likely to have his own vehicle. Sure enough, he turned up a set of keys, with an electronic opener, for a Ford. He hunted around and found a couple more MP-5 mags and came back to find Ashley collapsed into the station chair that had been rolled away from the desk. It had a couple of bullet holes in it but she didn’t seem to mind.

“You okay?” he said.

“Now you ask?” she replied. She’d been crying again, but she tried to smile.

“Yeah, now I ask,” Mike admitted. “I’m coming off mission-high. You okay?”

“I will be,” Ashley said. “I don’t want to wait here alone for the police.”

“Five minutes,” Mike said, noticing for the first time that she had a really distinct cleft in her chin. It just made her cuter than before and he had to force down a wave of lust that was truly overpowering. On a whim he decided to take the satellite phone; there was a land-line she could use. Satellite phones couldn’t call 911 anyway, and if she tried she’d get really confused. “At least. I can’t stay, you know that?”

“Yeah,” she sighed. “I really want to know who you are.”

“Well,” he said, grinning, “if you ever see me again, for the first time, be overwhelmed by a wave of lust and need to give me a blowjob right then and there, even if it’s in public. Okay?”

“Sure,” Ashley said, shaking her head. “Men. Maybe not in public, but we’ll talk, okay? This has…”

“Don’t let this put you off of men, God damnit,” Mike said, firmly. “I didn’t risk my fucking life to have you go lesbo. All men aren’t these filth. And if you decide they are, you’re spitting on what I did. Because the good guys want to get laid, too. Understand?”

“Understand,” Ashley said, nervously. “Christ, you sound like my dad.”

“Oh, that’s really what I needed to hear!” Mike said, spinning away. “Five minutes. Minimum!”

“I don’t have a watch,” Ashley said as he disappeared behind the coffins.

“Plenty of them on the bodies.”

Chapter Three

The keys turned out to be for a dark green Explorer and he pulled out of the park quickly, stopping only long enough to grab his jump bag where he’d left it. He thought about evidence he’d left behind. Probably enough to convict him. Fingerprints on the back of the van, if they dusted that. Yeah, they would; he’d left footprints on the bumper for sure. And not even Athens PD was going to miss those. He’d kept all his magazines, expended and unexpended, but there were sure to be prints somewhere. On the coffin, too, come to think of it. Damnit, he wasn’t a natural criminal type. Well, might as well hung for a sheep as a lamb, he wanted to find the container vehicle and make sure he’d read the documents right.

To get to Atlanta from there the quickest way was to get on the 10 loop and take it to 316. That led to I-85 and a couple of ways to get to the airport. He’d never been to the cargo side of the airport but he wanted to eyeball the damned thing.

He took the bypass fast, pushing the Explorer up to nearly a hundred and weaving in and out of traffic. He was going so fast that he nearly missed the exit for 316 but caught it just in time, the vehicle swaying perilously as he decelerated for the cloverleaf spiral. He’d decided that if he spotted the vehicle he was going to do something to attract police attention. Ever since 9/11 aircraft had been heavily controlled. But if the aircraft was controlled by the muj, as it probably was, if it got off the ground it was a flying bomb filled with hostages. Better to make sure the truck got stopped before much more could be done to them.

He was headed down 316, fighting the light traffic and, more importantly, the traffic lights, when he passed the turn for Ben Epps airport. He was concentrated on the road ahead of him but out of the corner of his eye, as he blew through the red light, he caught a glimpse of truck lights up the slope to the airport. A fast head check and he cursed luridly.

“Okay, did the fuckers lay a red herring?” he muttered to himself as he pushed the vehicle up to speed, looking for somewhere to do a U-turn. “Or did I read the damned things wrong?” He was sure the truck he’d seen was the same cargo container. It had the logo and in the brief glance he’d gotten he’d thought he saw the bent part in the door.

There was an opening in the median and he pushed the SUV into a tight turn, cutting off a truck that nearly went into the median with a blast of horn, and heading back to the airport.

There was a sign for cargo, which he hadn’t even realized went in and out of Ben Epps, and he followed it. However, as he passed around the end of the runway he could see a guard post. He wanted to call the police, wanted to report what was going on and direct the proper guys to the right place. But he also still hoped he could avoid arrest. He could probably walk, even on torturing the kiddie tango. But “probably” versus twenty years, maybe life, maybe even death… that “probably” was looking mighty thin.

He took a Y corner to the right and continued past the guard post, headed for an apparent circuit of the airport. He could see the cargo container and this time he got a clear view of the back and the dent. It had stopped by a jet and was already unloading coffins onto a lift-truck.

“Motherfuckers,” Mike muttered. Once that plane got into the air, if anyone tried to catch it, it was going to be bad. Fifty dead girls, by his quick estimate. Maybe 9/11 all over again. Muj weren’t supposed to be able to get control of aircraft coming into the U.S. And he’d spend forever and a day trying to find a number that he could use with a satellite phone. “Hello, overseas operator? I’m trying to find the emergency number of Athens, Georgia, police department. No, Georgia, not Greece. No, the state in the United States, not the country…” No.

He was in a portion of the circle road that was partially screened and he cut his lights and pulled to the side using the parking brake. He put the satellite phone in his jump bag and did a quick mental check of the contents. Besides some notebooks, his laptop and the like, it had an eclectic selection of material. Bottle of water, two power bars, toiletry items, a small thermal survival blanket, small flashlight and a change of underwear and T-shirt.

He opened the door, slipping a toothpick into the stud to keep the interior lights from coming on, and dropped out of the vehicle to the ground, closing the door quietly. He knew what he was planning and he didn’t like it. But he couldn’t contact the police in time to keep the plane from taking off and once it was out of American airspace, tracking it would be problematic. It wouldn’t be headed for anywhere in the Americas, that was pretty certain, so it would have to refuel somewhere. And it was likely that anywhere it refueled, it could get its tail number and transponder changed.

It was pointed basically towards him with most of the activity taking place at the back. There were no lights on in the cockpit so the pilots wouldn’t be looking in his direction. There was a perimeter fence, but that was no problem. The guards might see him, the tangos might see him. Either would probably keep the plane on the ground, good, but also put him in prison, bad. But if he could figure out where they were going, he could vector in a rescue op.

He paused just a moment to think about that one as he crawled to the fence. He had trained for rescue ops, but never actually done one. However, in his training, he’d never once done one clean. No matter what, the hostages always ended up shot to shit. It was one of the team mantras: “It sucks to be a hostage.”

But that was probably how it had to go down. If the police reacted right now, the plane could probably force its way off the ground. Police didn’t think in terms of “it must not take off.” And even if they blocked it, the pilots were probably aware that it was a potential “martyrdom operation” and they’d slam the plane, somehow, and kill the girls.

Follow, recon, lead in support. If he could call 911 direct, he would. But as it was, there just wasn’t time for anything but… stupid heroics.

He’d gotten to the fence and cut the lower section with his knife, then wriggled under, pulling his jump bag and the MP-5 behind him. He was in a dark portion of the field; it was dark most of the way to the plane. Slow or fast? There didn’t look to be many more coffins to load and the pilots might turn up, and look out or turn on their landing lights, at any time. Fast.

He sprinted across the open area, staying low, willing no one to see him, until he reached the nose-wheel. No shouts of alarm, no change in the regular action of loading. The plane was a 727 and he’d briefly studied it, and other, aircraft with a view to taking them back from hijackers. Again, not a primary mission but one that they trained on occasionally. If he recalled correctly, there was a hatch behind the nose-wheel assembly that led to the cargo compartment. From the cargo compartment, the plane could be accessed through a small tunnel, and another hatch. If the compartment was pressurized. They’d have to pressurize it to ensure the girls lived; the coffins had not been pressure sealed nor did they have air. Okay, get into the cargo compartment and he’d be golden.

He lifted himself up into the nose-wheel assembly and found a ledge to stand on. As he did he heard the engines start to whine.

“No pressure, we’re good,” Mike muttered. There was the hatch, appropriately marked. There was just one problem. There should have been an operating lever, actually a sort of horseshoe thingy, on the outside. But this hatch was smooth. Either he’d messed up on his recollection or this one was a different design.

“Motherfucker,” he muttered. “What now?”

He heard an engine approaching and ducked up into the darkness, looking around wildly. When the nose-gear raised, he was going to be squashed like a bug. Even if he avoided that, the way that planes like this climbed, he’d not only be in an anoxic condition, without enough oxygen to stay conscious, possibly so little that he’d take brain damage, but it was likely he’d get the bends. Sudden reduction in pressure is sudden reduction in pressure and just as a SCUBA diver can’t come up quickly after a certain amount of time because of nitrogen saturated in his tissues, being exposed in a plane in a fast climb can cause the bends. In a HALO jump, the cabin was slowly depressurized. This bird wasn’t going to ascend slowly.

There was a ledge that had half of it marked in yellow with the words “Stay Clear” and the rest was just plain metal. With any luck, at all, the plain metal part wouldn’t be filled with nose-gear. The truck sound had been a follow-me that hooked up to the nose assembly and turned the plane around.

He lay down on the metal and pulled out his thermal blanket, wrapping it around himself. Then he hooked the MP-5 to the jump bag and put the latter under his head.

“This is a truly bad idea,” he muttered as the plane started to taxi. He thought about what he could have done. Instead of going into the airport, go to a convenience store and call 911 from a payphone. That might have worked, if they’d reacted quick enough. Too late now. Try the sat phone? They’d just shoot down the plane. Lots of dead girls. He didn’t want that on his conscience or the conscience of the pilot that had to take the shot.

He pulled the jump bag around and fumbled out an aspirin tablet and his water. He took the tablet and washed it down and then put everything away as the plane moved into takeoff position. Sometimes aspirin helped reduce the bends. Anything would help. Oh, his poor abused joint; they were not going to like this.

“God…” he muttered as the engines revved and the plane started to move. “No, St. Michael. St. Michael, patron saint of all warriors of the air and of the sea, we’ve got a really screwed up situation here. These girls don’t deserve what they’re in, no matter how bad they’ve been. And, well, I could use a little help here. I know I’m not the greatest example of your name, but I’m on a pretty good mission and I think that should count for something. St. Michael, patron of paratroopers, protect us all. And please don’t let me get so bent I can’t do my job at the other end!”

The last was shouted over the blast of wind coming through the open nose assembly and Mike really hoped that he wasn’t going to simply be picked up and washed out by it. There wasn’t anywhere to hold on, just smooth metal. Suddenly, the nose came up and they were in the air. Then there was a sound of hydraulics and he could see the assembly coming up.

“And please don’t let me get squashed like a bug!”

“Holy shit.”

Special Agent in Charge Barry Conway had seen his share of murder scenes. The FBI didn’t have murder as one of its jurisdictions, but they got called in on special cases. And this case had “special” written all over it.

“What do we have so far?” he asked the detective from Athens PD.

“We’ve got two witnesses,” Detective Sergeant Jason Nix replied with a shrug. “The female victim, Ashley Winters, is being remarkably uncooperative. Her description of the perp keeps shifting around and she’s not sure she really saw him shoot anyone, including the torture victim.”

“That’s because she’s protecting him,” Conway replied. “Wouldn’t you?”

“I’m not particularly happy with the unknown perpetrator,” Nix admitted. “I’ve got ten dead bodies on my hands, one torture victim and two females who had been kidnapped, one of them drugged, the other one beaten and molested. I want to know what his connection is to all of this.”

“His connection appears to be that he killed most of the terrorists that were involved.” Conway sighed. He liked bank jobs. Tracking down a bank robber was straightforward FBI work. Domestic terrorism, that was okay. You got somebody on the inside, got your intel and rolled them up. Foreign terrorism ops got really complicated really quick. The Patriot Act had helped, at least he wouldn’t have to jump through hoops figuring out which particular action was simply illegal, kidnapping for example, and which was terrorism… kidnapping for example. The way things used to be structured, it was like he had to have two separate brains that were not permitted to link the national security information with the criminal information. If for no other reason, he was a big fan of the Patriot Act. It also meant he could say…

“We’ve got jurisdiction over the case from here. We’ve got terrorism and kidnapping with transit, possibly across state lines.”

“The girl said the perp said that they were going to Atlanta airport,” the detective replied. “It’s the one thing she’s clear about.”

“And did you put out that alert?” Conway said, quietly.

“Not yet,” the detective said. “We’re waiting for some corroboration.”

“Do it,” the FBI SAIC said, bluntly. “Do it now. Before the damned plane gets in the air.”

“Okay, if you say so,” Nix said with a shrug. “But, again, I want to know how this guy knew. I think he was working with them and they had a falling out. That fits the situation better than an unknown superhero rescuing the damsel. That shit doesn’t happen.”

“There you have a point,” Conway admitted.

“This looks more like… well,” Nix stopped and shrugged. “This looks like a really violent bad drug deal to me. I think he was getting shafted by them, maybe he was their lookout or something, and he decided that he could get away by offing all the witnesses.”

“Why keep the torture victim alive?” Conway asked.

“Maybe he didn’t know enough to bother?” Nix said, shrugging. “I’m going to go call in the all points on a cargo container heading for the Atlanta Airport, possibly carrying hostages. You know how many cargo containers move through Atlanta?”

“I’ve actually got that number on my computer, somewhere,” the SAIC admitted. “It’s just part of the background of how lovely my job is since any one of them could be a truck bomb. Call it in, I want to talk to the victim.”

“The torture victim?” Nix asked.

“No, the kidnap victim, the victim victim. The ‘torture victim’ is a fucking terrorist. Period. So he got shot in the leg. See me crying.”

He walked over to where the young lady was sitting in a chair, a frustrated police woman by her side with a notebook open filled with obvious gibberish.

“Hi,” Barry said, smiling as pleasantly as he could. “Officer, could you give me a moment alone with the young lady?”

“Not alone,” the police woman said with a sniff. “That would be a violation of procedure.”

“Then stand across the damned room,” Conway said coldly. “Among other things, we have jurisdiction now and your ‘procedures’ are my procedures.”

When the woman was gone he perched himself on the desk and shook his head.

“You look, frankly, like you’ve been through hell.”

“Thank you, so much,” Ashley responded, pulling the blanket around her more tightly. “I don’t know anything about the guy who did the shooting. I didn’t get a good look at him. Sort of short, sort of tall, medium build, maybe a little thin. Sort of…”

“Spare me,” Conway said with a chuckle. “I’m not after him. I could give a rat’s ass about dead terrorists, miss. Tell me anything you can about what was going on. We’ve got missing girls, girls just like you. These days, the FBI tries really hard to stop this sort of thing and this time we screwed up. They got through. I want to know where the girls are going, how, anything you can tell me.”

“There’s probably a piece of paper on the desk,” Ashley said cautiously. “That might have information. It was a container thing, a truck. Like they load on ships. But… somebody said it was going to Atlanta airport.”

“That somebody might have read that off of the paper or he might have heard it after shooting the terrorist in the leg? Or is that too blunt of a question.”

Ashley looked at him for a moment and then shook her head.

“I don’t know anything about that. Just that you should be looking at Atlanta airport.”

“Ashley, your name is Ashley, right?”

“Yes.”

Ashley, I swear to God I’m not looking for whoever shot up these… assholes,” Conway said, waving around. “But I need hard information. Would you please tell me what happened to get the information so I can verify it and check it?”

Ashley lowered her head and shook it, slowly.

“I think I need to talk to a lawyer,” she said, softly. “Or the news media.”

“Ashley, please,” Conway said, getting off the desk and dropping to a knee. “I’ve got a time issue, here. The girls are being moved. You say to the Atlanta airport. Fine, we’re checking on that. But I need plate numbers, container numbers, a plane number if it’s available. I want to make sure we’re not missing something. Think about the other girls, please. I won’t use the information you give me against whoever saved you, if there was such a person, who might have been a short, tall, thinnish-fat man with a full head of receding hairline.”

Ashley looked up at that and faintly smiled, then shrugged.

“Okay, the terrorist said the girls were being transported to an airport,” she said, getting up and walking to the desk. “But he didn’t know which one.”

“You’re sure?” Conway asked.

“I’m really, really sure,” Ashley replied. “And there’s a paper, somewhere, on this desk that said Atlanta airport. It was some sort of form,” she said, reaching for the papers.

“Let me,” Conway said, holding out his hand. He reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a set of rubber gloves. Then he glanced over the top papers and picked up a cargo manifest.

“Says that they’re being sent to the Atlanta airport,” he said with a nod. “One problem.”

“What?” Ashley asked.

“It’s got so much bogus information, I can tell it’s a fake a mile off. The weight of the vehicle is wrong, way too high, the container number is the wrong number of digits, the license plate doesn’t match the standard parameters. It’s a red herring.”

“Damn,” the girl muttered. “I guess Mr. Wonderful didn’t know it all, then, did he?”

“Not that I know who you are talking about,” Conway replied. He lifted some more of the scattered paperwork then pulled out the drawers. The top, center, drawer was locked but it opened to a screwdriver. He pulled out the file folder in the drawer and opened it, scanning the paperwork. Then he looked at his watch and grimaced.

“What’s wrong?” Ashley asked.

“They left from Ben Epps airport two hours ago,” the agent replied. “Even if we could figure out what airplane, quickly, they’re going to be out of radar coverage. And five gets you ten, the listed destination for the plane is going to be bogus.”

“What’s that mean?” the girl said, worriedly.

“It means they’re gone.”

“I just love waking up to good news in the morning,” President Cliff said, leaning back in his chair and looking around the Situation Room. “What do we know, what don’t we know and what do we suspect?”

“We know that fifty females from the Athens, Georgia, area have been kidnapped and transported somewhere,” the FBI director answered. “One of the persons who was involved in the operation has admitted to being in a terrorism cell. He says that it’s an Al Qaeda cell, but he’s very low level and that information would be suspect without other items. One of the dead terrorists is on the terrorism watch list and has ties to Al Qaeda. We suspect the subject females were loaded on a 727 at Athens Airport. The 727, tail number R2564F, had a listed destination of Rota, Spain. We know that it is outside our airspace at this time and we do not have a lock on its transponder nor did we have a lock by the time the information came out. The females were transported in coffins. One of the two rescued females had already been loaded in one. She was connected to an IV that had a mild dose of Rufinol in it, enough to keep her sedated for up to twenty hours. We suspect that the plane will not head for Rota but for some other location. We suspect that it may have its tail number changed at that location or the girls may be transloaded. We are tracking down the ownership of the plane as well as the background of the pilots. We have alerted Interpol to look for the plane.”

“What about the shooter?” the Secretary of State Powers asked. “Do we know where he is or who he is?”

“We have not, yet, identified the shooter,” the FBI director admitted. “We’re still lifting prints from the scene. The one witness, Ashley Winters, is being notably uncooperative…”

“She’s protecting her rescuer,” Dr. Minuet Kern, the national security advisor, pointed out.

“Obviously,” the FBI director said, dryly.

“I don’t blame her,” Minnie said. “I’d do the same thing in her position.”

“Well, it’s not helping the investigation,” the FBI director said, bluntly. “We need to find this guy and ask him some questions. Notably, how he was aware of the operation.”

“I heard he went through the room like a buzz saw,” Donald Brandeis said. The secretary of defense looked as if he’d had a full night’s sleep, unlike the FBI director and the President, and he grinned at the image. “Just blew them away like they were cardboard cutouts.”

“The shooter appears to be highly trained,” the FBI director said. “Possibly a member of a SWAT team or military.”

“Ten dead terrorists? All of them armed? One of him?” Brandeis grinned again. “That’s not a SWAT team guy, that’s SEAL or Delta. Maybe Ranger. There’s a Ranger base near there.”

“Whoever he is, we’ll find him,” the FBI director said.

“Just like Eric Rudolf,” Brandeis jibed.

“Enough,” the president said.

“Sir?” Minuet said. “This person, whoever he is, has killed ten terrorists and broken up a major operation. If they find out who he is, he’s a target.”

“Good point,” the President said, nodding. “This case goes under national security restrictions as of now. No further investigation by local authorities, all investigation at TS Code Word level only. Understood?”

“Understood,” the FBI director said. “The news media has already gotten wind of the shooting and that kidnapping was involved. What do we say?”

“Just that,” Edward Travali, the chief of staff, said. “There was a shooting involving terrorists who had kidnapped one or more females from the Athens area. Talk to the victims and tell them that it’s really important that, for the time being, they not say anything else.”

“Don’t threaten them with U.S. Code,” the President interjected. “Just try to reason with them. If your SAIC can’t reason with them, have him call me and I’ll tell them why they have to be quiet about this. We don’t want the name of the shooter coming out.”

“And, in a way more important,” Minuet pointed out, “we don’t need them to know that we’re trying to track the shipment. We don’t even want them to know we’re sure there is a shipment.”

“And find the plane,” the President said, definitely. “Find the girls. Where’s the CIA director?”

“The acting director is out of town,” Minnie pointed out. “His deputy was called but he lives out in Reston; he’s still on the way in.”

“Well, he’s missed the meeting,” the President said, glancing at the clock on the wall. “Tell him to find those girls. Call the NSA, the CIA and every other acronym down to the DEA and tell them that their number one priority is to find those girls. Don?”

“Mr. President?”

“We all know that they’re probably headed for one of about six countries,” the President said harshly. “I want plans dusted off for going into any of those six countries, with anything it takes, to get them out alive. Send out some sort of warning order. I want jets warmed up, I want Delta up, I want FAST and the SEALs and Marines and Rangers and everybody down to the Cub Scouts ready. Understood?”

“Understood, sir,” the defense secretary said. “If it’s Iran, Syria or Lebanon… well, it’s not going to be easy, Mr. President.”

“I don’t care about easy,” the President said, his face hard. “I’m not going to go through one hundred and forty-four days of ‘the hostage crisis’ on my watch. Understood? We’re getting them out or we’re taking down the country. We’re not going to negotiate. Nobody does this to the United States. I don’t care if they’re in China. Nobody does this to the United States. Not and lives to talk about it. If they’re in Iran, we’re going to take the mullahs all the way out, once and for all. If they’re in Syria, Basser Assad is going to be buried in an unmarked grave. If they’re in the Hezbollah camps I will nuke those camps to the ground to get them released and if one hair is harmed on their heads those raghead bastards are going to wish that Allah had never let them be brought into the world. Religion of peace my ass.”

Chapter Four

Mike woke up once on the trip, when the plane landed, somewhere, to refuel. “Somewhere” as far as Mike could see could have been anywhere from New Mexico to Afghanistan. There was a whole strip of the world, where he’d spent a good part of his professional life, that looked exactly the same. Even the people all looked the same: dirty, slow and uncaring. He was cold as hell, hyped out for sure. He’d had hypothermia a couple of times before and he knew what it felt like. He slid the thermal blanket back and spent the time trying to warm up before the next flight. It was daylight and hot so he warmed back up pretty fast. He had what felt like a touch of frostbite on one ear, so he pulled his spare T-shirt out of the jump bag and wrapped it around his head. Then he pulled out his power bars and bottle of water and ate and drank it all. Better to carry it in the body than in a bag that might get lost. He’d toss the litter on take-off; in an Islamic country littering was a way of life; nobody would notice.

With that done, there wasn’t much else to do. There was no sound of the girls being unloaded so the plane was going to refuel and go on somewhere else. Where that might be he had no idea. What he would do when they got there… he had no idea. He just hoped it would be at night.

No, there was something he could do. He pulled out the satellite phone, which looked like one of the old “brick” cell phones, extended the antenna and pressed 0.

“International operator, how may I direct your call?”

“Person to person to the duty officer of the day, Special Operations Command, MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa, Florida, United States of America.”

“Bingo! We’ve got a prints match on the Athens shooter. Michael R. Harmon, social 477-98-9023, United States Navy petty officer first class. End of active service is about two years ago. Fifty percent disability pay. That’s all I’ve got from the print run. I can do a standard request for his service record…”

“Pass it up,” the agent in charge said. “And forget you ever heard it. This is all TS Code word level now.”

“Petty Officer Michael ‘Ghost’ Harmon,” the briefing officer said.

Colonel Bob Pierson was the Office of the White House liaison officer from Special Operations Command. When the FBI had forwarded the information on the shooter, it had been passed to his desk with a priority to, quietly, find out everything he could about one “Michael Harmon” and prepare a brief. Now he was sweating as, for the first time, he was briefing the full “War Cabinet” on one minor, separated, petty officer. “Two years of college at the University of Georgia in Athens, mediocre to poor grades, quit and joined the Navy with stated intention of becoming a SEAL. Graduated from Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL school in class 201, was assigned to SEAL Team Three, Charlie Platoon. Operational in Mogadishu, Congo, Sudan. Towards the end of his second enlistment, requested transfer to a training position, which was granted.”

“Why?” the secretary of defense asked.

“That’s not clear, Mr. Secretary,” the colonel answered. “It’s not stated anywhere in his records.”

“Go on.”

“Transferred to the Naval Special Warfare Center, at Coronado, assigned to second phase training. Promoted to First Class Petty Officer while a trainer, after having a real problem with passing the bosun’s course.”

“Explain that,” the President said.

“Yes, Mr. President,” Pierson replied, thinking. “SEALs are trained as commandos. But their actual military skill is in something else, in the case of Petty Officer Harmon it’s as a bosun, which is the guy who handles… well, ‘real’ Navy stuff, how to bring in a small boat to a ship, how to do an underway transfer, how to rig stuff for a storm. Winches and boat driving and paint. It’s not SEAL training by any stretch. So the SEALs have to take time off to study up for the tests that they have to pass to get promoted. And since they don’t do it as a regular skill, they often have problems.”

“Okay,” the President said, nodding. “I’m too smart to get into why they’re doing one skill and listed in another. Go.”

“He spent four years in the training school; his evaluations are mostly top of the list. Various advanced schools, good words from his commanders about his training ability and personal skills. Less… stellar comments about peripherals. If I may?” He picked up one of the sheets of paper and cleared his throat. “Quote: Petty Officer Harmon is an erect petty officer of excellent bearing whose skills as a trainer are beyond reproach. His technical skills in all areas of his primary specialty are of the highest class. He is well liked by peers and respected by his students. Petty Officer Harmon’s greatest weakness is perhaps his greatest strength, a blinding determination to do his duty and an inability to choose his battlefields. Petty Officer Harmon needs to work on his interpersonal and leadership skills. End quote. That was from one of his last evaluations as an instructor.”

“Can somebody translate that for me?” the President asked plaintively.

“He’s a great operator and a great instructor,” Brandeis replied. “And it sounds like he can’t play military politics worth a damn. The kind of guy that when he sees a brick wall, can only try to shove his head through it instead of going around.”

“Colonel?” the President asked. “Agreement?”

“Yes, Mr. President,” the colonel said, swallowing. “I’d concur in the secretary’s evaluation.” He paused for a moment and took a chance. “Even if he wasn’t my boss.”

There was a brief chuckle from the room and the President nodded. “Keep going.”

“He requested transfer back to an operational platoon near the end of his third enlistment,” Pierson said. “Anticipating the question, it’s hard to get promoted to chief if you’re not an LPO, leading petty officer, in an operational unit, and by that time the War on Terror had kicked into high gear. Guys he’d trained would have been coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq telling stories about kicking doors and wasting bad guys. Any SEAL worth the name wanted in on that. He transferred to SEAL Team Five, Alpha Platoon as an LPO. He completed retraining with the team and was evaluated. Again, there was a note about using his chain of command skills. Then, while they were actively deployed, he was relieved from the LPO slot and returned to the states. His subsequent evaluation stated that he had failed to demonstrate leadership skills of a level necessary to be an LPO at this time but that he had potential as a future leader. This, in effect, killed his career. He was transferred back to the local training detachment, but not as an active instructor and subsequently ended his service on terminal leave two years and three months ago. He has drawn fifty percent disability based upon widespread occupational damage, primarily to joints and back, and veteran’s educational benefits for attendance at the University of Georgia for the last two years. His grades were not immediately available.”

“What happened with the ‘leadership skills,’ ” the defense secretary asked.

“I did as much digging as I had time for, Mr. Secretary,” Pierson said. “There was an accidental discharge of a weapon and a wounding of one of the SEALs from the AD. In the report, Harmon stated that he had previously counseled the shooter about weapons safety on entries. From the… tone of some of the other statements, notably from the shooter and the chief, I would venture to guess that it was something like the following. Harmon was a trainer for years and he came back to a platoon that had been working together for some time. The shooter had been in the platoon for his entire career. There is no written counseling statement about his weapons control immediately available but having Harmon, some jerk trainer, tell a guy with lots of operational experience he was doing it all wrong, probably didn’t sit well. Especially since Harmon, apparently, has limited tact. When, in fact, the shooter turned out to be wrong, and Harmon right, the team leadership probably had to make the choice between removing the guilty party from the team or Harmon. They chose Harmon.”

“Politics,” the President said.

“At that level, I’m unwilling to judge, Mr. President,” Colonel Pierson replied. “I’m not going to say, from what I’ve seen, that they were, overall, wrong in their decision from the standpoint of the good of the team and of the military. Sometimes, just being right isn’t enough.”

“There’s that,” the defense secretary said. “I’ve seen it often enough in the Pentagon. A guy who’s right but such an asshole that nobody wants to listen to him. Sometimes I don’t but I know the information’s important, so I team him up with somebody that’s got some political skills. That wouldn’t work on a SEAL team. And it doesn’t matter to this brief.”

“No, sir,” Pierson admitted. “Petty Officer Harmon is a qualified instructor in close quarter combat, survival and evasion, clandestine insertion and extraction, unarmed combat, sniping, international small arms, land and underwater demolitions, Combat Diving including open and closed circuit equipment, airborne operations including military free-fall and static line. He is, from his evaluations, considered high level expert in each.”

“Well, that explains Athens,” the national security advisor said. “Those guys never stood a chance.”

“Agreed,” the President said. “So where is he? I want to shake his hand.”

“We obtained his home of record,” the FBI director said. “There was no one home when our agents went there and his personal vehicle was parked nearby. I’ve authorized a covert entry and search under national security guidelines but I think it’s a moot point. There was a vehicle, registered to the cover name of one of the terrorists, discovered at Athens Ben Epps airport. It had bloodstains on the seat, secondary it appeared, not from a bleeding person, and a magazine from an MP-5 was on the floor. There were prints matching Petty Officer Harmon on the SUV and on the magazine. It was concealed near the pad where the 727 was loaded. Petty Officer Harmon was not found in the area.”

“He’s on the plane,” the President said. “He got on the plane.”

“’Clandestine insertion,’ ” the defense secretary said, grinning. Then his face cleared. “Can he survive on the plane? Won’t he get cold? What about air?”

“Mr. Secretary?” Colonel Pierson said, clearing his throat. “I’m trained in HALO: an instructor for that matter. It depends upon how high they went and how fast they climbed. He would be subject to bends from rapid decompression in the climb and anoxia at altitude. Petty Officer Harmon would be aware of both issues and must have been willing to risk it. He may have entered the pressurized cargo bay for that matter. I don’t have a design on the aircraft available at this time.”

“The surviving terrorist has been cooperative,” the FBI director said. “He stated that, besides ammunition, the shooter picked up a satellite phone that had been used by the terrorist commander. I suspect we may be getting a call from him. Hopefully soon.”

“Now that is a conversation that I want to hear,” the President said, smiling faintly.

“Major Roberts, Command Duty Officer, U.S. Special Operations Command, how may I help you, sir?”

Jack Roberts was a Special Forces officer now imprisoned, from his point of view, in durance vile in SOCOM headquarters. He knew that, at this point in his career, doing a staff rotation was a must if he wanted to get any sort of high rank before retirement. But being the “Assistant Deputy Joint Air Delivery Coordinator” was a far cry from running a group of former muj in southern Afghanistan, tracking down remaining Taliban. Which was what he had been doing. And enjoying the hell out of it, frankly. Being a tribal warlord was just like having a command, but with less paperwork. He’d considered banking some of his pay and going back when he retired. All he needed was about fifty grand in capital. He figured he could get the U.S. government to pay his band to keep doing what they had been doing for income. But he’d also need his retirement pay to live a reasonably decent lifestyle and be able to get back to The World from time to time.

So he cooled his heels and took odd calls from international operators.

“Major, this is not a prank call,” the man on the phone said. “Can you do a trace on me?”

“Who is this, please?” Roberts replied, tersely. “I don’t have time for games, buddy.”

“This is one very lost former operator who is sitting in a damned plane in some third world shithole tracking some kidnapped girls. Have you heard any news from Athens, Georgia?”

“Yes,” Roberts said, sitting up and waving to the staff duty NCO. Calls were automatically recorded but he made a motion to do a trace.

“I don’t have much time. The plane took off from Athens airport and is now on the ground. They’re refueling somewhere in the desert area. It’s day, maybe afternoon local time, I can’t get much of a look around. Just… fucking desert shit, you know what I mean? You got any experience?”

“Lots, son, who is this?” Roberts said, frowning at the SD NCO who shook his head and shrugged. The trace wasn’t locking yet.

“No names, Major,” the man said. “I think I’m looking at murder one, okay? And I’m going to try very hard to avoid going to the slammer. So no names. Call me…” There was a long pause and then a sigh. “Call me Ghost.”

“Ghost,” Roberts said, nodding. “Okay, Ghost, what’s your situation?”

“I survived the first flight,” the man said. “I’m in the nose compartment with the wheel. It’s tight and I passed out, but I don’t think I’m bent or too loopy.” He paused then whispered. “Wait.”

Roberts waited, impatiently, hearing faint breathing from the phone, then a sigh.

“Thank God for shitty mechanics,” “Ghost” muttered. “They were checking the nose-wheel assembly but didn’t bother to get off the ground. Just kicked the tires and wandered off.”

“Well, that means you could be anywhere from Morocco to Mongolia, buddy,” Roberts said with a chuckle.

“Tell me about it,” “Ghost” replied with a faint note of humor. “I’m going to try to track and report. What’s your number?”

“813-715-4279,” Roberts replied.

“Got it on my arm,” “Ghost” said. “They kicked the tires now they’re lighting the fires. I got to go back to my hide.”

“Hang in there, buddy,” Roberts said. “We’ve got a warning order on this. The whole fucking world, at least the good part of it, is going to drop on them as soon as we know where you are going.”

“Good to hear,” “Ghost” said, then snorted. “Go tell the Spartans, right?”

“Yeah, man,” Roberts replied, his face set in a hard grin. “Go tell the Spartans. Well, the Spartans know and they’re coming, unlike the damned Athenians.”

“Please, no French,” “Ghost” said. “Out here.”

Roberts leaned back and looked at the SD NCO with a raised eyebrow.

“Satellite phone,” the E-7 said, shrugging. “Couldn’t get a positive lock on position. The satellites it used were generally servicing the western Mediterranean.”

“NSA will be warmed up for the next call,” Roberts said. “Well, we have contact. The day just got much more interesting.”

“Well, you got to listen to the phone call, Mr. President,” the defense secretary said, smiling. “What do you think?”

“Spartans?” the President replied. “I know, in general, who they are. But what is that about ‘go tell the Spartans?’ The colonel seemed to recognize it. Minnie?”

“Two history buffs,” Kern said, turning her face away for a moment and taking a breath. “In fifth-century BC, a group of three hundred Spartans were dispatched to the pass in Thermopylae, Greece, to hold off an oncoming Persian army. Thermopylae, by the way, translates as ‘The Hot Gates.’ They were to briefly delay the Persians until reinforcements from Athens arrived.” She paused again and shook her head, looking at the table.

“The Athenians debated,” Secretary Powers said, his face hard. “And the forces were never sent.”

“What happened to the Spartans?” the President asked.

“They were outnumbered…” The secretary of state paused and shrugged. “Well, it depends upon which history paper you believe. But they were outnumbered by between ten at the low end and a thousand at the high end, to one. And… they held the pass. For three days. Fighting all day long, every day, in that high, unbearably hot, place. I’ve been there, I’ve seen the tablet.” He had to pause, too, and shook his head.

“I take it they didn’t survive,” the President said, looking at the faces.

“They were betrayed by a Greek who led the Persians around the position,” Powers said, nodding. “Each day they would rise, polish their armor, comb out their hair and bind it up, and then do battle all day long. For three days. Until they were finally encircled and destroyed.”

“It’s… legend in… call it the military circle,” Brandeis, the secretary of defense, said, nodding, his eyes bright. “I’m surprised you’ve never heard of it, Mr. President. The tablet translates in various ways. But I think I like Byron’s translation best.”

“’Go tell the Spartans, passerby,’ ” Minuet said, quietly, her head still down, “’that here the three hundred lie, obedient to their commands.’ The Athenians never came.”

“Well, we will,” the President said. “By God we will.”

Chapter Five

The second time he woke up it was much worse. He had degenerative damage in both knees, his right hip, his right elbow and his left shoulder. Which was why he was on fifty percent disability. All of those joints, and his back, and his head, were screaming. He knew that pain was weakness leaving the body. He’d been in worse pain in his life. Rarely, but he had. Unfortunately, this pain was crippling enough he couldn’t move.

The plane was taxiing through a blacked out airport. That was as much as Mike could tell from his position. He managed to pull his jump bag around and rummage in the medicinal portion. First he pulled out a handful of Pepcid Complete and chewed them up, swallowing them with just about the last of his saliva. Then he took two eight hundred milligram ibuprofen “horse” tablets. He’d taken so much ibuprofen in BUDS that he’d ended up throwing up blood and his stomach was still sensitive to it; the Pepcids were a necessity not a nicety.

When he’d swallowed the pills, he forced his body to move, grimacing against the stabbing pain in his joints. He wasn’t sure if he’d been bent or if it was just the joints reacting to the pressure change. That was a “mild” form of the bends he’d have for the rest of his life every time the weather changed. More damage or simply pain? It didn’t really matter, he had a mission to complete and he had to drive the fuck on.

He had a feeling this was the final destination. More than one refueling stop would be problematic for the terrorists. They’d probably refueled in one of the “lawless” regions of Algeria. That would make this somewhere in the near Middle East. He wasn’t sure 727s had enough legs to make it from Algeria to, say, Pakistan or Iran. Iran was top on his list of probable spots for the girls to be taken. Not only were the mullahs getting really crazy lately, they’d done the “hostage” game with America before.

The plane coasted to a stop and a “Follow-Me” hooked up and turned it around, backing it into position. Mike could hear echoes and realized they were being backed into a hangar. Which would be a pain in the ass to egress. The “Follow-Me” stopped, though, before the plane was fully in the hangar. The doors were partially closed and he could hear voices shouting in Arabic. That changed things. Iranians spoke Persian, Farsi, and it was close enough to Dari, which he’d heard a lot, to tell the difference between it and Arabic. Farsi was more… liquid. Arabic was a really guttural language like Hebrew with a lot of hawking up loogies involved. These guys were hawking loogies so he probably wasn’t in Iran.

He stood up, quietly, and worked his joints, then got down on his knees and took a quick peek, upside down, out of the nose section. Group of guys in blue jumpsuits, like airport workers, unloading the plane from the back, using another one of those lift-trucks. Another cargo truck the coffins were being stacked in. A couple of military-uniformed guards hanging around watching. Two or three civvies watching as well, maybe muj. No guards on the front of the hangar. Why weren’t there guards on the front of the hangar?

He looked at his clothes and rubbed his chin. Not enough stubble, clothes not shabby enough, hair too long. For that matter, the clothes were too well made; the reason everybody in the third world wanted American jeans was that Levis were just better than anything made overseas. But they didn’t “look” right. He couldn’t really pass for a local. A T-shirt was not a normal item to wrap around the head. It disappeared into the jump bag. Jump bags weren’t normal items, nor were MP-5s. Too frickin’ bad.

He took another look, then lowered himself out of the nose assembly and onto the pavement, keeping the nose assembly between him and the work at the rear. The front of the plane was in darkness, probably deliberately to try to keep the Americans from noting it by satellite and wondering.

He shifted his bag to his left and just slowly sauntered towards the doors. Once he was past them, nobody in the group at the rear was going to see him. And, still, no guards in view. Maybe they were trying to act like it was no big deal, unloading a plane in the dark of night with no lights on.

Past the doors he headed for the side of the hangar, MP-5 down. The worst possible thing he could do was kill someone. If the terrorists, and whoever was supporting them, knew the op was blown, they might kill the girls on a whim. Or speed up whatever their plans were. Al Qaeda generally killed their hostages if their demands weren’t met quickly. Nick Berg had found that out. The Philippines had caved but he couldn’t imagine the American government doing the same. Especially since Al Qaeda would make the demands high. And he was pretty sure that they wouldn’t simply slit their throats in front of a camera. There were other things they could do to make the experience more uncomfortable for both the girls and the American public.

But they were being transported, again, “somewhere else.” He had to find out, somehow, where the truck was going. If he called it in they might be able to track it on satellite, but satellites had to be in just the right basket to get a good view. Probably they were retasking all the Keyholes for just that reason, but they still had to be in the right basket.

There was another hangar next to the one where the girls were being unloaded, also unlit and unguarded. He could see guard towers in the distance and a control tower bulking against the sky. He cautiously checked the corner of the hangar, but there wasn’t anyone in the dead space between the two, just a slight channel for water run-off and a bunch of litter. Typical.

He moved down the wall of the hangar cautiously. There would be, were from what he had seen, guards on the far end of the hangar. That end of the hangar, north from looking at the stars which were bright in the clear sky, was near the perimeter fence of the airport. Like most in the gomer zone it looked as if it had been put up in the 1950s and never repaired: sagging and rusted chain link with a single strand of concertina tacked on the top that dangled almost to the ground in places. He slowly moved out from the wall of the hangar, moving over to the adjacent hangar, hunting for a glimpse of what was happening at the front. What he saw, first, was that there was a guarded gate about fifty meters from the back of the hangar. He squatted down and considered the view, thinking. The girls were probably going to be driven out there. The road beyond the gate curved to the left, his direction, then climbed up some low hills towards barely glimpsed mountains. At least that was how it looked from the darkness between the hangars.

There were side doors on the hangars and he was just considering backing up and trying one, to get out of sight and call in if nothing else, when one of the blue clad workers walked around the corner and lit up a cigarette. The man was no more than thirty meters from him and glanced down the narrow alley but didn’t register his squatting figure in the dark. Moving, however, was out of the question. All Mike could do was squat there, catching a faint whiff of tobacco smoke and BO, and hope like hell the guy never spotted him.

One of the guards eventually drifted over and cadged a smoke, the two of them talking in low tones as they puffed on their vile local cigarettes. If there had been a roving guard he would have been done, but the security all seemed to be focused on the rear of the plane and, probably, the perimeter of the airport. As he was squatting there in the dark a small truck drove past, just inside the fence. He guessed that there were more guards out in the other direction, looking for a reaction. But a small team could infiltrate this place in a heartbeat and take down the guards by the plane. Holding the spot would be tough, though, and he considered Panama and rethought the situation. In Panama, in a similar situation, two really good shooters had managed to take down most of a SEAL platoon and had more or less stopped it cold when the SEALs tried to advance across the runway. Fighting on airports needed a special assault mindset, given their lack of cover, and such an assault would probably kill some or all of the girls.

Finally the two gomers left the corner and Mike backed up to the door of the unused hangar. It was locked but the blade of his folding knife sufficed to force the lock and let him in without too much noise. The hangar was dark as pitch and he waited for his eyes to adjust as much as they could. There was some sort of jet, a fighter he thought, in the hangar with various parts pulled off. It looked as if the engine had been yanked. There were a lot of parts strewn around the floor and he moved across the big room carefully. He had to get in a position to cross the open area between the hangars and the perimeter fence. If he could get onto the hills, by the road, he might be able to hitch a ride on the truck as it slowed to climb the first hill. At least he could if he hurried. Still no time to call in. Maybe once he was in position, given time.

He crossed the hangar and found another door on the opposite side. He cautiously opened that one and saw that there was a blank building face on the far side. Not a hangar, maybe a maintenance area or something. No windows on the alley, though. He moved cautiously down the alley and checked the far side. No guards in that area but the open area was a great place to get spotted.

He considered the crossing carefully and really didn’t like it. But. The area was built on a slight rise and he could, vaguely, see that there was a dip between the fence and the hills. And it looked as if it was designed for rainwater run-off. The alley was dipped in the middle to catch water, but it would form a pond if there wasn’t a way out. And he’d seen some storm-water grates in the alley. Probably there was a culvert that led from the alley to the dip.

He backed up and found one of the grates, pulling it up cautiously to avoid too much noise then looked in the hole. Given third world maintenance he really wasn’t looking forward to getting in that hole. The culvert was probably going to be at least partially blocked. He might miss the truck and never know it until he got out. But it was a way out of the airport that was less likely to get him caught, and the mission blown, than even a slow creep across the open area. If he had time for a slow creep.

He dropped into the hole and pulled the grate back over, ducking down and looking in the hole. It was black as the inside of a stomach and it looked as if it was finally time for some light. He pulled the Surefire light out of his jump bag and carefully put the red lens on it, then twisted it on. The culvert was clear as far as he could see so he got down on his belly, rigged up the sub-gun and jump bag to drag behind him and started crawling, knife in one hand and flash in the other.

About the middle of the road he hit his first obstacle, a mess of trash that was too complicated to find even one item that was recognizable. There were a couple of rats rustling in the debris that wanted to contest his right-of-way but he wasn’t in any mood for it. He waved them away, bopping one of them on the head with the Surefire and forced his way past the garbage. It was pretty wet and smelled like hell, but he could live with that. The air was pretty close as well, but there were more grates to let in fresh air. As he approached one by the road he flicked off his light and kept it off, using the faint light from the grates to find his way. He didn’t want a mysterious red light giving him away.

He moved down the sewer as fast as he could, given the need to remain stealthy. The sub-gun clinked against the metal sides from time to time but that was the only major sound he gave off. And except for that one pile of trash the culvert was remarkably clear. He found the far side easily enough but was balked by the fact that it had galvanized metal bars over the end. He should have considered that. They were pretty old, though, they looked as if they’d been installed with the airfield was built and the galvanization had worn off of most of them leaving them heavily rusted, and after a wrestle that left him sweating one of them finally gave way with a slight ping of breaking metal and a grinding noise.

He slid out the narrow gap, ripping his shirt and cutting his skin on the torn metal, then lay in the dip, checking his surroundings. He was below the view from the guard gate but as soon as he tried to climb the hills he would be in view. He also had to consider that perimeter vehicle. He cautiously lifted his head and got a glimpse of the hangar. The truck was still there, the plane, apparently, still being unloaded. The perimeter vehicle, either the same one or another, was in sight but more than a kilometer off. The guards on the gate were looking out as well, but at the road.

He moved cautiously down the gap, in the direction the perimeter vehicle was coming from, looking for a covered way into the hills. As the perimeter vehicle approached he flattened himself behind some low rocks and thought about being invisible. It apparently worked since the truck rumbled past without alarm. As soon as it had gotten a few hundred yards away, on the other side of the gate, he started crawling again.

Finally he reached a point where a shallow wadi came down out of the hills. He was nearly opposite the airport control building, which had some lighted windows and, presumably, people in the tower. But he figured it was as good as he was going to get. He took the wadi in a combat crouch, moving up it as stealthily as he could. He was getting worried about time, though. He had to find the road into the hills and get a good hide position before the truck pulled out. And it would be nice to find time to call in.

Carefully, cautiously, feeling his way in the dark and still trying to hurry, he made his way into the hills.

“The plane was spotted in southern Algeria by a routine KH-11 flyover,” the CIA acting director said, sliding pictures of the plane, being refueled, across the table. “However, when it took off, NSA assets say that its transponder codes had been changed. The new transponder codes were picked up by a Navy destroyer headed towards Italy for refueling. The plane was moving west to east, headed in the general direction of the Levant.”

“Levant?” the President said, looking at the picture.

“Lebanon, Damascus, Israel,” the national security advisor said. “That coastline area.”

“Please not Lebanon,” the President said.

“Well, it was headed in that direction,” the CIA director pointed out. “That doesn’t mean it would land there. Our analysts say that the range of a 727 loaded with only the estimated weight of fifty coffins and girls averaging one hundred and thirty pounds has a range of nearly 2500 miles. That puts it at the edge of range to land in Iran from Algeria. Also, obviously, back areas of Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, what have you, if it turned south and headed down over Libya. The most likely target, however, is either Syria or Lebanon. We’re redirecting what assets we have on the ground to start looking for it in both countries as well as retasking satellite assets to search for it. NSA has not picked up the satellite phone in use, either to us or others.”

“So, ‘Ghost’ is out there, somewhere,” the President said, “maybe alive, maybe dead from the second flight. And so are the girls. And we don’t know where.”

“We will, Mr. President,” the CIA director said. “Somebody will give off an electronic emission we can decrypt or track. Just the plane taking off again in the footprint of a ferret satellite and we’ll know.”

“What’s the status of the armed forces?” the President asked.

“All special mission teams have been put on lockdown,” the secretary of defense said. “Special Operations Command and CentCom have been informed of the nature of the mission. They’re working on a series of possible joint operations. If it’s Iran or Syria, or even Lebanon, penetration of air-defense networks is going to make the mission tricky. It’s going to be hard, for example, to simply sneak a team into Syria or Iran and bring the girls out. Both have significant armed forces of their own and air defense networks that have holes but not huge ones. We’re looking at a series of plans. It all depends on where the plane lands or has landed.”

“But they’re ready to go?” the President asked.

“As ready as they can be without knowing the target,” the secretary said. “The bases in Qatar and Iraq are dialed in and there’s everything from SEAL teams to armored divisions ready to respond. I’ve started a movement of heavy forces towards the borders of both Iran and Syria in the event we need that much support. Bombers are standing by, fighters are standing by, Marines are standing by and a Marine Amphibious Unit has been shifted towards the Levant in case we’re talking about Lebanon.”

“We need to get some sort of statement out,” Edward Travali said. “There’s a lot of speculation about these kidnappings and a lot of fury. The parents of the girls suspected of being kidnapped are on all the networks. Most of them are from conservative backgrounds. Some of my people who have been looking at the conservative political boards… well, you’re looking at a spontaneous war if a planned one doesn’t happen. Not to mention this has raised hatred levels back to where they were post-9/11. The liberals aren’t reacting the same, of course. They’re almost saying it’s the girls’ fault.”

“Typical,” the President said, letting out an angry breath. “Okay, we need to know what we can say. The shooter in Athens was… ?”

“Not a common citizen,” Travali said hastily. “Not just some guy who stumbled on the op and broke it up, although I think that might be what happened. The person has been identified but for reasons of national security and the ongoing kidnapping investigation we cannot reveal his or her—”

“His,” Don Brandeis said. “The news media has at least that much.”

“His name,” Travali said, nodding. “We’re not even willing to discuss the person’s connection to the United States government except to say that he is a former special operations soldier and he was not a member of any U.S. government program. That is, the U.S. government doesn’t pay his salary. We also cannot discuss the investigation except to say that it’s ongoing and the full assets of the United States government are focused on getting these girls home safely.”

“Secretary Brandeis, given all that we spend on intelligence and defense, don’t you have any idea where the girls have been taken?”

Brandeis leaned forward, his hands on the podium, and looked at the newswoman who had asked the question.

“Young lady, is English your birth language?” he asked, his brow crinkling in puzzlement.

“Yes,” the reporter replied, surprised. It was her first attendance at a Brandeis press briefing. She had been sent because of the “human interest” in the current hostage crisis and wasn’t a regular Pentagon reporter. In fact she’d mostly been sent because she looked as if she would have been a target if she was in the wrong place at the wrong time and her network felt that viewers would, therefore, identify with her. She knew something was going wrong, though, by the faint snorts in the room and how her associate, a regular Pentagon reporter, groaned, then subtly shifted away from her.

“And did you go to college?” Brandeis asked very slowly and distinctly, as if talking to a four-year-old.

“Yes,” she said, her lips thinning in anger.

“Then perhaps you could try to parse out a sentence like: ‘We cannot discuss the investigation except to say that it’s ongoing and the full assets of the United States government are focused on it.’ Do you remember me saying those exact words, young lady? Or are you just drawing pretty pictures in that notebook in your hand? A brief of my comments was handed out in advance. Maybe you should look it over and get help with the tougher words from Bill there. But for those of you who can neither read nor understand simple English, I’ll make it simpler. We’re not going to discuss the details of the investigation. If that’s too complicated, we’re not going to talk about what we know. We’re not going to talk about what we don’t know. We’re not going to talk about what we may or may not be planning. We’re not even going to discuss what we know about the weather, just in case you manage to divine something from that comment, correct or incorrect, and give it to whoever stole these girls. Now, young lady, is that clear enough for you or do you have to write it a thousand times on a chalkboard?

“And, by the way, ‘given’ is the stupidest word a reporter can use. It does not discuss any objective reality of a situation but invariably points to the personal bias of the reporter. And, as we both know, reporters are supposed to be unbiased. Fair and balanced and all that. No one ever says: ‘Given that the sky is blue.’ They say: ‘Given that American soldiers eat babies for breakfast.’ One is not debatable in rational everyday terms. Sky. Blue. Sometimes gray, but blue if there aren’t clouds and it is day. An effect of oxygen in the atmosphere. Scientifically provable. Neither is the second worth everyday debate, it is provably wrong, but it’s certainly debated among the press in my experience. So if you’re going to continue to attend these briefings, first learn to read, second learn to listen and third, remove the word ‘given’ from your vocabulary. Otherwise it is ‘given’ that you will not enjoy yourself. Next question.”

Chapter Six

In the first couple of minutes after he’d secreted himself on the truck, Mike knew it was a bad idea. In five minutes he knew it was a really bad idea. After the first hour, he wasn’t sure he was going to survive the really bad idea.

The truck with the girls in it was led and followed by open trucks mounting a heavy machine gun in the back. He had made it to the top of the slope just before the convoy of vehicles reached it. No time to call in, no time to do anything but pick a good hide position and wait. The road switchbacked right at the top of the hill and for just a moment the left side of the truck was out of sight of the trailing gun-truck. And it was going slow, no more than five miles per hour, as he darted out of the darkness by the side of the road and crouched under the bed of the truck.

Container trucks, like this one, had a solid metal support running the length of the container bed. In two places there were narrow gaps, and Mike grabbed one and swung his body up into it as the truck changed gears to negotiate the turn and descent.

He started with his arms and legs wrapped around the metal support but as soon as the truck hit the first pothole his chin slammed into the steel. Then he tried just perching on top but the second time he nearly fell off he rearranged. His stomach was being hammered, his chest was being hammered and given the nature of third world roads it just went on and on. Then the truck got into the flats again and really picked up speed, hurrying down the highway as if there was no tomorrow and slamming over potholes the size of small cars.

The best position Mike could find was with his right hand clutched under the support, his left hand on top, pressing downwards, both legs wrapped around the support and his body flat on it. His balls were being slammed up and down like drumsticks, he was pretty sure he had a crack in his pelvis bone, his chest was being battered, his stomach was being battered but he managed to hold on. He wasn’t sure how long he could hold on, but he was going to stay there till he passed out or the truck did something really stupid. At which point he’d either get run over by the truck or the following gun-vehicle.

Fortunately, before either event occurred, the truck slowed for another guarded gate. It didn’t stop, it was clearly expected, but simply slowed to negotiate the gate, then turned into a large complex. Mike could see what looked like barracks and a large building of unknown purpose. The truck pulled up to a loading dock at the building and Mike heard the door opening. Then he saw feet move along the side of the truck, not just the driver but guards as well.

He desperately wanted to get out of this metal hell, but with guards all around that wasn’t likely to occur. Instead he pulled his legs and right arm up and perched on top of the metal like a leopard in a tree. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it was one hell of a lot better than being there in a moving vehicle. And he was at least mostly out of sight. He could see guard feet and legs and that was about all.

After a few minutes, the guards dispersed and he took a chance and lowered his head, looking to both sides. The loading area was about forty meters long and a guard had been stationed at both ends. The right-hand one was back by the loading dock, leaning against the concrete wall and smoking a cigarette. The left-hand one, however, had moved out about ten meters and was standing in what he apparently thought was a military manner. He was carefully watching the darkness beyond the loading dock. Mike briefly considered trying to sneak past him, but if anyone looked down from the loading dock, likely, or if the guard turned around, also likely, he’d be spotted.

Instead he just hung on in his perch and tried to fight going to sleep. Not counting unconsciousness, he was on a solid thirty-six hours so far and sleep beckoned. He’d done longer times both in BUDS and in training, not to mention on operations, but he was still tired. And sore. And hungry. And thirsty. And cold, the thin air meant that it was damned cold. But he’d put up with all of it before and he slowly put all of it out of his mind and concentrated on maintaining vigilance and waiting for an opportunity to egress his current, lousy, condition and find a better position. With his jump bag and weapon on his back, he couldn’t even call in.

The unloading seemed interminable but finally they were done. He expected the truck to pull out as soon as the doors closed but it didn’t. Instead, the doors behind him, presumably to some sort of warehouse, closed and the two guards were recalled. He found himself more or less alone in an ill-lit loading dock.

He dropped down to the ground, trying not to groan at all the aches and pains he’d acquired, and looked around. Away from the loading dock was an open area, then a chain-link fence about a hundred meters away. There were guard towers along the fence, spaced about three hundred meters apart. To his left was another open area that had the vague look of a helipad. To his right was an open area but he could see the ends of buildings that paralleled the loading area. There was a faint scent of chemicals in the air, harsh with sulfur. He guessed that it was some sort of petroleum processing plant.

He moved left, ducking into the shadow of the concrete wall, until he got to the end of the building, then looked around the edge. The building was about a hundred meters long, maybe a bit more, with concrete walls. No windows that he could see. There was another large entrance, as if for cargo, down the wall about halfway and what might have been a personnel entrance at the far end. There was another building, purpose indeterminate, that started about halfway down the main building and was separated from it by a ten meter or so gap.

There was no moon and this side of the building was unlit. But the starlight was bright and anyone coming out of the second building with adjusted night vision would see him.

Nonetheless, he started down the side of the building, crouched, keeping an eye out for hostiles. When he got about fifteen meters down the wall of the building he noticed a grate in the wall of the building. The floor of the building was, obviously, based on the loading dock, elevated. The grate, however, was at ground level. Mike stopped by it and leaned in when he heard faint mechanical sounds. There was air coming out, tinged even more strongly with sulfur, and various sounds, all indeterminate. Suddenly, he heard Arabic from the tunnel, quickly fading. Air shaft.

But it was below the level of the building. Which was… really odd. Unless there was an underground facility.

Some sort of facility on top as a cover, underground facility underneath. Chemical smell. It was a covert WMD facility, either research or production. And, now, a place to hold the girls.

The grate was fixed in place with large bolts. There was no way he could figure out to pull it off and he was in view of God and everybody here. For that matter, there was a faint tinge of dawn. He had to find someplace to hide, soon. Like a vampire, he needed to be out of sight by dawn.

He moved down the wall of the building, keeping an eye on the grates. Sooner or later, somebody would have to pull a grate for maintenance. And Arab mechanics were notoriously sloppy; they’d be just as likely to prop the grate back up as carefully bolt it back in place. Sure enough, as he reached the shadows of the smaller building, purpose unknown, he found a grate that only had two bolts on it. And they were only hand tight. He quickly unscrewed them and then pulled the grate out, quietly. His hand would fit through the bars so he slid into the narrow tunnel, lifted the grate back into place with only one faint ting of metal and put the screws back on hand tight. Now as long as nobody came along and tightened them down, he was golden.

The tunnel was large enough for him to twist around and point inward and he did so, then crawled deeper into the blackness. This tunnel was more or less silent, not even a sound of fans. He got well into it, then dropped his jump bag and weapon. He extracted the sat phone and crawled back to the opening, keeping an ear out for movement.

He slid the sat phone forward until the antenna was sticking out of the bars and checked the readout. He had barely any signal but it would have to do. Carefully, he dialed the numbers that were still faintly visible on his forearm and hit send.

“Pierson. That you, Ghost?”

“Yes,” Mike said. “Who’s this?”

“My name’s Bob Pierson. I’m an Army SF colonel in SOCOM. I’m going to be your control for the rest of the mission. You call the number you have; if it’s you it automatically transfers to me. What’s your status? Where are you?”

“I’m not sure,” Mike admitted. “I’m in a base in a middle eastern country. Arabic spoken, not Farsi. There’s some sort of large building but it’s got facilities underneath it. Big air vents along the walls, down at the bottom of the building, and some chemical smell. I think it’s a covert weapons lab. The girls were taken in the top facility. I don’t know their current position. I’m in one of the air vents. East side. There’s a smaller building on that side and an open area to the south. Fence and guard towers around the whole thing. Maybe three other buildings to the west but I didn’t get a good look.”

“Wait one,” Pierson said. Then: “Right, NSA has a lock on your signal. You’re in a facility called Aleppo Four. Suspected WMD site, supposed to be a military logistics base. You’ve got about a battalion of Syrian Army ‘elite’ on site, so don’t get compromised. One point I want to cover: FBI pulled your prints so we can drop the Ghost between us two. Your ID is being closely held, though. And don’t worry about charges: The President personally said he doesn’t care about dead ragheads. I was in the briefing when he said it. You are clear of that.”

“Tell the President ‘thank you,’ ” Mike said, feeling an immense wave of relief.

“That’s the good news. The bad news is that we really need to know the exact location of the girls. Guard force, the whole works. You need to find them for us and report back. Can do?”

“That’s why they call me ‘Ghost,’ ” Mike said, quietly.

“Hoowah. You know the mission. Watch your back. From now on, we’ll be eyeballing from the sky but until we know where the girls are, more or less exactly, we can’t do a blessed thing. Find out.”

“Roger,” Mike said.

“How’s your physical condition?” Pierson said.

“Got a tad bent on the last flight,” Mike admitted. “Joints are in bad shape. Dehydrated as hell, which doesn’t help. Hungry. Tired. The usual. I’ll survive.”

“Okay,” Pierson said. “Do what you can. Last item. If you don’t report in for twenty-four hours, you will be considered compromised and any mission compromised. If there is a major alert at the base, you will be considered compromised. Don’t get compromised.”

“I won’t,” Mike said.

“Call us back when you’ve got a fix on the girls,” Pierson said. “Good luck.”

“Will do, out here,” Mike replied, killing the call. He crawled back to his jump bag and stowed the phone, then considered his position. He really needed water. And he didn’t want to go to sleep in this tunnel, where any sound he made might get carried who knew where.

The tunnel continued for about another five meters, then curved ninety degrees downward. Leaving his jump bag and weapon, he scooted forward and looked down. The tunnel continued, with the same width, beyond sight in the faint but growing light from the opening. He fished out his Surefire and checked it again. About ten meters down there was an unmoving fan. From the dust on it, it was nonfunctional and probably hadn’t been worked on in some time. There were only two blades and more than enough room to work past. Furthermore, the width of the tunnel meant that he could “chimney” up and down, pressing his hands and feet against the walls to lower and raise himself. He still didn’t hear anything from below, no mechanical sounds, no voices.

He went back and got his jump bag and weapon, then lowered himself down the chimney, his running shoes squeaking faintly on the smooth concrete walls. The construction was too good to be local and when he got to the fan and examined it he found German names on it. Good old Germans, makers of fine underground lairs for dictators everywhere. It made you nostalgic for the good old days when they were just Nazis and they only made them for their own dictators.

He left his bag and weapon on the fan and shimmied past the stuck blades, then lowered himself further into the gloom. He cut his light as he descended in case it got spotted. But there still wasn’t any sound from below. Finally, he hit another ninety-degree turn and crawled forward in stygian blackness until his questing hand hit another grate. This one was lighter than the top-side ones and slid out at pressure from his hands. He caught it before it could drop and slid out of the airshaft onto a concrete floor.

He turned on his light and flashed it around. Plain concrete corridor with some doors. Nobody in sight. No lights. Ran about thirty meters to a large metal door on the south end. Concrete wall on the north end.

He put the grate back on and went to the door at the south. There was faint light coming from under it and he could hear sounds, machinery in the distance, more of a rumble through his feet than anything, and a sudden blat of a PA system announcing something. Going out the door was clearly not an option.

He moved down the corridor, to one of the side doors on the left and tried it. It was unlocked and he cautiously opened it. Broom closet. With a sink. He considered that for a moment and then tried the tap. The water ran brown at first but then cleared up and he drank deeply, then washed his hands and face. The water was probably lousy with pests and he knew he was courting Montezuma’s Revenge, but he had to have water and he had drugs to counteract the trots. When he was done, he drank some more then left. The door opposite on the right led to an empty room, maybe some sort of unused office. The next one down on the left was locked with a padlock and hasp. The opposite door was another empty office. The last one on the left was unlocked and had a variety of crates and cardboard boxes stacked in it as well as a couple of toolboxes. He opened one of the toolboxes and was happy as hell to find a big damned adjusting wrench. Getting in the other grates just got easier. There was also a crowbar and he started putting that to work on the crates.

Military uniforms, some of them gaudily ornate. Why in the world would anyone have a purple camouflage field uniform? One of the bottom crates turned out to be full of old Russian chemical uniforms, the horrible rubber kind. There was also a box of old gas masks. Both were an ominous sight, but the gas mask filters, at least, were sealed and might still be useable. There were some boxes of just junk from offices, pens that didn’t work anymore, paper covered in Arabic writing. Forms. There was a box of railroad flares, though. His penlight was going to run out of light sooner or later; the flares might come in handy.

He gathered a few things he thought might be useful, including the whole box of railroad flares, and put them in a corner, then went out to the airshaft and retrieved his bag and weapon. He pulled stuff out of his bag, thoughtfully. He didn’t need the laptop, that’s for sure. It was just extra weight. He put that in one of the cardboard boxes. Most of the rest of the stuff he kept and he added some of the railroad flares.

When he was done sorting he took the crowbar and went to the locked room. What he wanted to do was open the lock, or pull the hasp, in such a way as it could be made to look as if it was still functional. He inserted the crowbar in the lock and pulled down, hard. The lock was apparently pretty flimsy and it popped open at the first pull without much sound.

When he opened the door, though, he had to whistle.

“Oh, baby,” he muttered, looking around the room: it was an ammo bunker.

He could see boxes he recognized as holding 7.62x39, the common “AK” round. Lots of those. He hunted around and quickly found a case of a thousand rounds of 9mm. Standard 9mm was not as quiet as the subsonic rounds in the MP-5, but it was ammo. He took four hundred rounds out and stuffed them in his bag then kept hunting. There were cases of frag grenades and he took one. One was usually more than enough with frags. But towards the back he hit real pay dirt: cases of Czech Semtek plastic explosive and, in a clear safety violation that made his skin crawl, a case of Skoda detonators stacked on top.

Skoda weren’t as good as NONEL, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. He pulled open a case of Semtek and stuffed his bag with about ten kilos of one of the best and most stable high explosives on earth, then carefully pulled out a handful of detonators in protective sleeves and, in another safety violation that made his skin, not to mention balls, crawl, put them in his pocket.

He knew that the mission was just to find the girls. But… having the capability to really blow the shit out of the place, not to mention plenty of ammo, finally, just made him happy-happy. At the last minute, he grabbed a few more blocks of Semtek, just to be sure. There was never such a thing as “too much demo” in his opinion.

He carefully covered up his pilfering and reset the lock so it looked as if it was locked, then moved back to his hide. Once there he thought about what he could do next. He hadn’t gotten much of a look at the local workers, but his stubble was getting to proper Mideastern lengths and if he could just find some material he could tie a keffieh to cover his hair. Pants were still wrong.

One of the crates of uniforms, however, had been filled with khaki uniforms and he pulled that one back open and sorted through them until he found a pair of pants that were too big. That was better than too small so he pulled it out and rubbed it around on the dust of the floor. A little crawling would get it properly dirty so he’d look like a local. He put that on, using some string from one of the boxes of office supplies as a belt. He needed some cheap plastic shoes so he could stuff his feet in them and push the heel down like slippers. And a ratty polo shirt. Then he’d look like a local, he was pretty sure.

He was wearing a black T-shirt, unadorned, and that was sort of good and bad. Black was pretty common among muj but not among the workers, at least in T-shirts, and it showed his build. But. One of the khaki blouses worked to cover his build. He cut the bottom of the pants while he was at it and frayed the ends then worked some holes into it and frayed those. Now he looked like either a nineties teenager or an oppressed local worker. He hoped. All except his shoes, which were just too good. And his hair, which was too short and cut wrong.

He knew he had to leave the hide, but not yet. It would be daylight up top and no way to move around. Getting out the door to the corridor was problematic as well. So he had to wait and he might as well use the time wisely. Sleep beckoned, but there were more things he could do. He lit one of the railroad flares, turned off his penlight and got to work.

He took out the Semtek and rolled it out on the ground into sheets about an half an inch thick using one of the railroad flares. Then he pulled out some more uniforms and cut them up for the cloth. Using the sewing kit from his bag, he sewed a sort of harness that would go over his shoulders and around his middle and then stuffed the rolled-out Semtek, with paper separating the sheets, into a sort of bag in the harness. This gave him about ten kilos of high explosive strapped to his stomach. It made him look fat but with some prodding and pressing to get it in place, it didn’t really show otherwise. The detonators were then broken up and strapped to his calves with rigger tape. He always carried a small, half used, roll in his bag. Rigger tape had thousands of uses. Now all he needed was an appropriate target and some electrical current.

He refilled his empty magazines with regular 9mm and secured all of them, and the MP-5, under the khaki jacket along with a few of the flares. He had to break the 5 down for it not to really show, but he could work with that given the situation.

He went to the broom closet again and filled his bottle with water, then drank and drank and drank. Before he filled himself up totally he took some more Pepcid and ibuprofen along with three Imodium AD. Three Imodium would stop up an elephant, but he figured he was going to have worse problems than constipation and the opposite would be a nightmare.

No food but you could go a lot longer with no food than with no water. He needed to carry more with him, but there weren’t any really good containers.

He took one more drink, then went back to his hide and gathered up all his gear. He was as set as he could imagine, given the situation. He carried the railroad flare back to the air shaft, opened the grate, crawled in, closed the grate and moved back to the vertical bend. Once there he set all his stuff in place, set the alarm on his watch for nine hours, put out the flare and lay back to consider the situation. He was reasonably secure, watered up, ammoed up and couldn’t do anything until after dark. And only maybe then. Tonight he’d find the girls and hope like hell that wasn’t too late.

He’d had a busy two days and sleep hit him before he realized it was sneaking up.

Chapter Seven

When Amy Townsend woke up, all she knew was that she didn’t like the situation at all. She was seated on some sort of metal chair, there were bars across her thighs and butt, which she could tell was naked, rather than a solid bottom. It was pretty uncomfortable seat but that wasn’t the worst of the situation. There were metal restraints on her wrists and ankles. The room was echoey, like it had rock or concrete walls, and girls were crying. It also stank, shit and piss and a smell she could only define as “fear.”

Amy was a twenty-year-old student at UGA from Bainbridge, Georgia, working on her nursing degree and letting ROTC pay for it. She was pretty in a square-jawed way with brown hair and pretty green eyes, but many of her friends considered her to be a bit “butch.” She wore her hair fairly short, above the shoulders, and between being in shape from weight lifting instead of aerobics or cheerleading and her standard rolling walk which was anything but feminine, she tended to have a hard time finding guys that could look at her as a female rather than “just another one of the guys.” This despite a rather large chest.

She kept her eyes shut, head down, and moved her ankles slightly. She could move them side to side pretty freely but only forward or back about four inches. When she moved her right foot forward, something pulled on her left. And she felt a yank that wasn’t from her after a moment.

She opened her eyes and looked down. She was fully naked and her ankles and wrists had metal bands on them. The bands each had a ring welded to them, shutting them closed. They weren’t coming off short of a hacksaw. There was a chain, one for the feet, one for the wrists, that ran through metal rings on the seats, which turned out to be more of a long bench, then to the rings on the restraints. She looked to either side and saw she was part of a line of five girls, all similarly restrained. Some of them still appeared to be asleep or unconscious. There was a gap to her left, then another line of five girls. There was another line of girls in front of her as well and the girl directly in front of her was awake, crying, and had apparently relieved herself on the floor, explaining at least part of the smell.

She thought back, her brain getting more and more coherent as whatever drug had been used on her leached away. She remembered being royally pissed that she had been surprised. She usually had good situational awareness but the van had just come out of nowhere when she was crossing a student parking lot, headed home from a late class. She’d gotten one solid kick in when they got her in the van, struggling and screaming as loud as she could, then two men had gotten restraints on her and started stripping her. She’d refused to give in to hopelessness or despair, even when they took her to the warehouse and she saw the other girls and realized that the men were terrorists rather than just your generic serial rapists. She’d seen a couple of the girls stripped, loaded in what looked like coffins and then somebody had stuck a needle in her deltoid and that was the last she remembered.

“We are so totally screwed,” the girl next to her whispered, fearfully. “We are so screwed.”

“We’re not screwed, they are,” Amy said, quietly but definitely, keeping her head down. “I don’t care where on earth we are, there are very violent guys who are gearing up right now to come rescue us.”

“In your dreams,” the girl said, bitterly. “Cliff won’t care, he only cares about the oil.”

“Oh, we so don’t want to be having this conversation,” Amy said. “I’ll bet you a dollar, most of us get out of here. Alive. But you can give up if you want. Feel free. In the meantime, I’m Amy.”

“Britney,” the girl said. She was a short, fine-boned blonde with small breasts and a refined face that was twisted in fear. “God, I’m scared,” she whispered, gritting her teeth. “You know what they’re going to do to us, right?”

“Yeah,” Amy said, slowly lifting her head. There was a single door at the far right end of the room. Two soldiers in purple camouflage guarding it. Who in the hell used purple camouflage? At the end of the room, in the center, was a dais and on the dais was the sort of table she’d only ever seen in nightmares. Metal, like a surgical table, with restraints on it. On the left was a camera, a regular TV news type camera, and lights. In the center of the end wall, directly behind the dais, was a large mirror that was obviously one-way glass. “This is truly going to suck.”

“How can you be so…” Britney stopped and shook her head.

“Because unlike you, I trust the ‘rough men’ that Orwell talked about.”

“What?” Britney said, confused.

“’People sleep soundly in their beds because rough men wait to do violence to those who would harm them,’ ” Amy replied, quietly. “Like I said, they will come for us.”

“They didn’t come for any of the other hostages in Iraq,” Britney said, bitterly. “And how are they going to find us?”

“They will,” Amy said. “If you can’t hold tight to that thought, you’re just going to break long before you make it to the table. And if you do, don’t go crying on my shoulder.”

“Start packing,” Senior Chief Adams said, walking into the room where Charlie Platoon was getting ready for the evening’s snatch mission. “We’re locked down.” Adams was the platoon’s senior enlisted man, and usually passed the immediate “word” while the officers dealt with the rest of the “head shed.”

“What the hell?” PO2 “Spooky” Vahn said, looking up. Vahn was a short little Vietnamese sniper that the rest of the team thought proved the truth that fighting the Vietnamese was a losing proposition. “What about the mission?”

“Scrubbed,” the chief replied. “We’re packing and taking a transport to Qatar. Everybody is scrambling in every direction.”

“The girls,” PO Third Sherman said, high-fiving his buddy PO Third Roman. “We’re going to go rescue us some pussy from durance vile. If that don’t get us laid, nothing will!”

“Navy SEALs,” Roman shouted. “We’re here to get you off! Errr… out!” They high-fived again as the new meats looked at them in amazement.

“Whatever,” the chief said, shaking his head. “All I know is we need to be packed in one hour. So get with it.”

“We’re fully dialed in,” the secretary of defense said. “We’ve got aerospace deconfliction and penetration planning going on, but it’s not going to be easy.”

“Don, if I’ve told you once…” the President said.

“We’ve got planning started on penetrating and taking their airspace, Mr. President,” the secretary of defense said, smiling faintly.

“Now why couldn’t you just say that?” the President asked, sighing. “I mean, we both trained in it, right? So why can’t we just call it that? Never mind. Go on.”

“Aleppo Four is right behind a major air-defense network that extends to Damascus. The airbase that the plane landed at is a fighter base. We’re probably going to see air-to-air combat. And until we get that suppressed, we can’t send in any sort of conventional force. Even if the helicopters or transports get through holes in the SAM belt, they’ll still be cold meat to fighters.”

“And as soon as we attack, Syria will know what we’re going for,” Secretary Powers said. “And if we cannot, in fact, prove that the girls are there, or if they are moved and Petty Officer Harmon doesn’t detect that and we strike an empty base, the international and political repercussions are going to be enormous.”

“We have them definitely tracked to Aleppo Four,” the national security advisor pointed out. “The usual suspects will scream bloody murder. Other than that, I don’t see the repercussions.”

“It will seriously undermine the coalition if we cannot prove they were there,” Powers said with relentless logic. “We need every bit of help we can get.”

“Can we take down Syria?” President Cliff asked. “I mean, all the way down? Full regime change as in Iraq?”

“That would be… extremely hard,” Brandeis said. “We don’t have the forces to hold down both Syria and Iraq. We could probably ravage their army, but taking the cities and holding them would be problematic. We may send heavy forces in to support Operation Immediate Freedom, but I’d suggest a withdrawal immediately after the operation.”

“That leaves us at Iraq, 1991,” Cliff pointed out. “Which is one of the reasons my father lost his office. If we take territory, we hold it. If it’s just a raid, fine. But if we take territory with heavy forces, we hold it and call for a regime change in Damascus. And then scrape up everything we can find to finish the job.”

“Syria not only controls its own territory, but the Bekaa Valley and, effectively, Lebanon,” Secretary Powers pointed out. “Even if we could take Aleppo and Damascus, we’ve discussed the problems with taking the Bekaa Valley and Lebanon. We simply don’t have the troops.”

“Then try to keep it to a very large-scale raid,” the President said. “If we have to send in an armored division, we have to. But try to avoid it. I don’t want to take ground and then give it back. That makes us look as if we lost. To the American people, and to the world. Don’t give the RIFs an inch. And leave behind nothing but ruins. I want that whole facility trashed before we’re gone. Smoking craters.”

“That we can arrange,” Secretary Brandeis said. “Once the air defenses are trashed, we’ll fly C-17s over and drop MOABs on the whole thing. When they’re in ground contact mode, they leave really nice craters.”

“I wish I knew what was happening to the girls,” the President said thoughtfully.

“I think we’ll find out,” Minuet replied. “And we won’t like it.”

Most of the girls had woken up when the first change occurred. Two men in regular camouflage pants and black T-shirts, with masks on their faces, carrying AK-47 variants, came in and relieved the more gaudy guards. They were followed by a couple of unarmed men in similar garb who went to the video equipment and started setting up. They hooked into cables that went to the walls, power and a video feed as far as Amy could see from her position.

Last a group of soldiers, unarmed, with masks on their faces came in followed by two masked civilians and an unmasked man in a suit. He stepped up onto the dais and looked around the room, hands clasped in front of him and smiling.

“Good evening, ladies. My name is Jamid Halal and I’ll be your host for what you’re about to endure. Let me cover a few things before we get started. Some of you are, I’m sure, positive that you’re going to be rescued. You’re not. Not only does the United States government have no idea where you’re being held, but even if they found out, this facility is guarded by over a battalion, that’s six hundred, of the most elite commandos. Not to mention a large group of mujahideen such as these gentlemen,” he added, gesturing to the guards by the door. “Furthermore, it is surrounded by heavy air defenses that will shoot down any approaching helicopters or such. And this country that you are in has an effective air force which is more than a match for the American Air Force. Last but not least, if they do try to rescue you, my friends here,” he gestured at the guards, “will be more than happy to kill every one of you. And so will I. I will be more than happy to put a bullet through each of your heads.” He looked around at the renewed crying and smiled, happily.

“Yes, please, cry. I like it. Soon you will find out just how much I like it,” he added as the two men who had accompanied him opened up their bags and pulled out rubber aprons. “These gentlemen over here,” he added, gesturing at the soldiers, “are from the elite commandos that guard this facility. There are, as I mentioned, six hundred of them. That works out to twelve apiece for each of you.” He looked around and grinned, staring at crying faces, his smile getting wider and wider. “Oh, this is lovely. Such a sight. Please,” he said, turning to the video technicians, “make sure you occasionally get a shot of the audience. They are such a wonderful sight. And,” he added, turning back to the girls, “you’ll, of course, get a clear view of the proceedings. At first those of you in the back may have trouble watching, but as time goes by, you’ll have a better view. We intend to take about two hours with each of you. That is one hundred hours or so. In one hundred hours, your ground forces defeated Saddam Hussein’s forces in 1991. They called it the ‘one hundred hour war.’ This is our one hundred hour war. In one hundred hours, we intend to defeat the United States. For all time. We will break your country on its weakness,” he finished, his eyes finally going cold as he looked at the front row of girls, each of whom was staring at him like a mouse in front of a snake. “I think,” he said, slowly, looking back and forth at the row and then finally pointing to the girl on the left edge of the middle aisle, a short girl with light brown hair and shapely breasts. “I think we’ll start with you.”

“Noooo!” she screamed as the two men in aprons came forward along with a couple of the waiting soldiers. One of the aproned men pulled out a key and undid the lock for her hands while the other slid out the chain. The two soldiers grabbed her by the wrists and held her as her feet were undone, then she was lifted up, screaming, and dragged to the table. The soldiers secured her in place while the aproned men locked the chain back down. At no time had they lost control of the chain so that the other girls could snatch it away.

The camera was brought around so that it could focus in on her face and “Jamid” came around to her, holding out a microphone.

“What is your name, miss?” he asked in an interested tone, very much like a television interviewer.

“Clarissa,” the girl said, her eyes screwed shut and face in a mask of terror. “Please don’t do this to me,” she sobbed. “Please!”

“Clarissa what?” Hamid asked.

“McCutcheon. Oh, God, you don’t need to do this. Please!”

“And where are you from, Clarissa?”

Clarissa just shook her head, too panicked to answer.

Jamid looked nonplussed for a moment, then nodded at one of the men in aprons who reached under the table and came up with a pair of jumper cables. When the first one touched her Clarissa looked up with a muttered: “What’s that?” then screamed and arched when the second touched her skin. She slumped back as the cable was withdrawn, sobbing.

“And you’re from…”

“SNELLVILLE!” the girl screamed. “I’m from Snellville!”

“Well, Clarissa from Snellville,” Jamid said, backing away from her and looking at the camera. “This is the last two hours of your life. We’ll be capturing all of it in living color, and sound. Oh, most definitely sound. Bring over the boom mike, focus in on this lovely young example of American womanhood,” he added, gesturing the camera to the side and then waving at the soldiers who reached for their belts with grins. “And let the fun begin.”

Mike jerked up at the sound of helicopters and banged his head on the low ceiling.

“Fuck,” he muttered, holding his forehead and scooching around in the tunnel. “Shit.” He quickly slid into the chimney and shimmied up, interested to see who was coming in by helicopter. There hadn’t been any explosions so it probably wasn’t good guys.

By the time he made it to the opening, all he could see was a line of guards. But there was a tall figure descending from the now stopped helicopter and he was trying to place the face when he heard the crunching of footsteps approaching. He ducked back into the tunnel, quietly, and watched as two set of camouflage covered legs walked past. The butt of an AK was just visible with one of the men. So now there was a roving guard to contend with.

As he was beginning to draw back into the tunnel, a man came out of the side building and hurried towards the front of the main building. He was heavyset, somewhat fat looking, with brown hair like Mike’s, wearing a white lab coat. But what caught Mike’s attention was the gas mask on his hip and the fact that he didn’t look like a local. If Mike ran into him on a city street, he’d have pegged him as a Serb or a Russian. He had that sallow complexion that the Russian men got from too much borscht and vodka. And he didn’t move like a local. Middle Eastern men strolled, even when they were strolling fast. They walked with weight centered although sometimes with their head down, putting their legs out in front of them, almost a sashay but not as graceful. Europeans tended to walk with weight forward, legs and arms pumping, always looking up, as if to push through resistance. Arabs didn’t swing their arms and kept close personal space to the point of holding hands in public. Europeans tended to spread out more and it was one reason they tended to find Arabs and other Middle Easterners odd and uncomfortable. Middle Easterners would get right inside of what Europeans, and especially Americans, considered to be “personal space” and always appeared a bit effeminate. To American males, it always appeared as if Arab males were coming on to them.

Mike wasn’t too sure what that said about the respective cultures, but that guy definitely was not local. And with the perimeter guards and all the activity, there was no way he could call in until the sun went down, which should be soon given the shadows.

He slid back down to the bottom of the air shaft and tried to be patient. But who knew what was happening to the girls. Nothing good, he was sure. He looked at his watch, willing the sun to go down, and worked some mental exercises. As he was doing that he heard noise from topside and chimneyed up to investigate.

A group of soldiers were carrying something towards a truck, with other soldiers gathering around for a look. As the group spread to lift the object into the truck, Mike got a flash of a limp white arm, a blood-covered torso and light brown hair. Then the body was lifted into the truck and it drove away.

“Oh, those motherfuckers,” he said through gritted teeth. “I am going to so fuck them up.” He didn’t know how long they had worked on that poor girl, while he had been sleeping! But he knew he was on short time now. But they had to be ready to kill the girls at a moment’s notice. And with all the guards and everything else around, whatever happened was going to need something to help it out, a distraction at least. But whatever it was, it had to happen fast.

He slid down to his hide again, gathered up his gear, slid on his “harness” and secreted everything he could around his body. Then he moved back up to the entrance and waited, wrench in hand. He timed the guards and they came around on a thirty-minute or so schedule. By the time they came around the next time, it was dark and he waited until their footsteps had dwindled, then undid the bolts and slipped out of the hole.

He nearly died of fright when he realized the large side entrance now had sentries on it. He was in shadow but they had to be blind not to notice him. He stayed nonchalant, though, casually replacing the grate and using the wrench to apparently bolt it tight, then moving down the line of grates. He passed around the back of the building, aware that at any moment the perimeter guards might appear, until he hit one of the vents that had a smell of sulfur to it. Then he quickly undid the four bolts holding on the grate and slid into the darkness, pulling the grate shut and attaching only a single bolt. As his hand slid into the darkness of the air shaft he could hear the guards approaching.

As soon as he was sure they were clear he slid into the shaft and looked down the drop. This one had a functional fan and he considered how to handle that. However, the power leads were pretty plain, and on top. So he slid down and planted his feet above the spinning blades then carefully undid the power leads with his Leatherman tool. One of them sparked and shocked him as he was undoing it, but it was only a brief jolt and he even managed to hold onto the tool. He moved the leads to the wall, then put his foot on the blades to stop them spinning as quietly as possible.

He slid down the shaft, quietly, watching every move, then shimmied to the grate at the entrance. This one had a filter on it so he couldn’t see through. But he also didn’t hear anything from the other side. He lifted the filter out on his side then pushed out the grate and lowered it. The room on the far side appeared to be some sort of locker room. He slid out into the room, put the filter and grate back on and looked around.

He knew he was on borrowed time, that the girls were on borrowed time, but getting caught was still going to screw things up. Speaking of which, the time Pierson gave him was almost up; he should have called in. Too fucking bad: he was busy. Speaking of which, there was a telephone on the wall. He couldn’t read Arabic, but he knew the numbers and it had an extension number on it. He picked it up and got a standard dial tone. Hmmm…

He checked the lockers, which were unlocked, and found a bunch of laundry that really needed washing. On the other hand, there were some shirts that made more sense, locally, than his black T-shirt and he found a perfect pair of shoes and a keffieh rag. In a few moments, he was the perfect image of a modern major raghead. And what the hell, he had a wrench; a wrench was nearly as good as a clipboard. He balanced the wrench in his right hand, put on an expression of hopeless fatalism, and shuffled to the door.

The corridor beyond, as far as he could tell, headed out. But he didn’t look around because there were guards at the far end. There was a double set of doors, obviously in frequent use from the dirt, almost across from the locker room. He stepped into them and looked around. Ahah. Even better. The room was filled with chemical suits and respirators. He quickly shucked his clothes and pulled on a chemical suit and mask, then picked the wrench back up and stepped through the far door.

He had never been in a chemical plant but this one looked pretty much as he’d envisioned. There was lots of piping on the ceiling and big tanks. There were some people crawling on the tanks and he kept an eye on them as he worked his way along one wall. Suddenly, he heard English and stopped to check a dial.

“Can you people not understand the words ‘quality control’?” a man shouted in a thick eastern European accent. Mike ducked his head around the tank he was using for cover and saw his friend from before waving his arms at two other figures in suits. “The temperature has to be kept to precisely one hundred and fifteen degrees Celsius! Not one hundred. Not one fifty! One hundred and fifteen! The entire batch is ruined! Now we have only the original test batch to show! Am I to explain this to your president? He is depending on this to stop the Americans and you have put us back by six months.”

Interesting, but not really getting him anywhere. Mike kept moving along the wall, trying to look like a worker who was trying not to work, and headed for the back of the facility. He’d noticed that most of the markings were in French, those wonderful people. Where the Germans just built the bunkers, the French built the chemical plants. And here they were, both of the finest lights of Europe, perfectly represented. The point, though, was that he could quite often decipher what was in the tanks. And when he came to one that was marked, quite clearly, H₂SO₄, he knew he’d hit pay dirt.

A pipe ran out of the bottom of the very large tank to a pump, then went vertical across the high room. Mike followed the pipe, keeping behind tanks, until he found where it started to split up. He went around to the rear of the room and cautiously removed his chemical suit, hoping like hell that whatever mix they made in this place wasn’t filling the air, then pulled out a bunch of the Semtek and some detonators. There was a phone conveniently situated near where the pipes branched and, after putting his suit back on, he spent a short time partially disassembling it, then finding some wire in a maintenance area. From time to time he’d look at a gauge or wave his wrench at a pipe, and twice people passed him but paid little or no attention to what he was doing. Finally, he found a ladder and climbed up to the branching, trailing wire behind him. He rigged the Semtek, most of this bunch, at the branch, then ran the wires from the detonator down behind some pipes to the phone. He also ran a wire across to the tank and fitted just about the last of the Semtek behind it.

When all the material was in place he carefully attached the last wire, wincing as he always did. But there was no immediate explosion. Now, as long as the phone didn’t ring, the material wouldn’t detonate. And he definitely wanted to be out of the room before it did.

Demo in place, he casually strolled towards the entrance, wrench in hand. As he was disrobing, the foreigner came into the room, carrying a sample case. He got undressed — his clothing clearly wasn’t in the room — and more or less followed Mike into the locker room, muttering in what Mike took to be Russian.

The doctor went to one of the lockers, setting the sample case on the bench, and took out his clothes. As he was preparing to put his pants on, Mike swung the wrench into the back of his head.

It was a spur of the moment decision but one that Mike didn’t regret. Win or lose, he’d taken the primary intelligence out of the WMD effort. And the doctor clearly had more access than a worker. He might even be able to find the girls. Or be told where they were.

Mike stripped out of his clothes and donned the doctor’s, stuffing the body in the locker. Then he looked in the sample case. There were two things that looked like smoke grenades. One was labeled “Sarin” and the other “VX.” There was a larger canister labeled “Sarin Area Weapon” and a can of what looked like wasp spray labeled “Mustard.” Mike put that together with “test batch” and realized that he was, probably, holding live agents in his hands. That caused him to put the material back in the sample case and close it rapidly.

He picked up the doctor’s glasses and looked in the mirror, trying for the proper expression of distracted and pissed off. The glasses made things a bit fuzzy but he could see well enough and he was pretty sure he’d gotten it right. The Herr Mad Scientist also had a pair of rubber gloves. Those went in the sample case. The last thing he did was pick up the belt with the gas mask and put it on.

He paused in thought, then shrugged, opening up the sample case and lifting out the rack with the samples in it. He still had about a kilo of Semtek left and he molded it into the bottom of the case. The nice thing about plastique was that it looked like plastic. Only a close examination would reveal it. He slid the detonators into his shoes, wincing. They shouldn’t go off. He’d have been fine if they were NONEL; you couldn’t get NONEL to go off without electrical current, period. But he wasn’t positive with Skodas.

With that done, he hid the MP-5 and walked out of the locker room, practically running into a man in one of the purple camouflage uniforms.

“Doctor Chayanov?” the man said in passable English.

“Da?”

“You are late,” the officer replied, grabbing his elbow. “Are those the samples?”

“Da,” Mike answered in his best Russian accent. “Is terrible quality control. All of your people are shit, just shit.”

“Well, you probably need to try not to say that to the president or the Great One,” the officer replied tightly. “Be very polite.”

“Da, I am polite,” Mike replied as they hurried down the corridor. At the far end there was a door on the right guarded by two of the purple soldiers. That led to another corridor, with more soldiers, and the sound of the pumps from the facility on the right-hand wall. Halfway down the corridor was a single-person door on the left. The only door along either wall. This led to another corridor. That one dead-ended in a wall. There were two doors halfway down, with two guards in front of either door. If Mike wasn’t completely turned around, and he had pretty good spatial referencing ability, the door on the left led to his hidey hole. They took the door on the right. The corridor was practically identical to the hidey-hole corridor, which added to the likelihood. The exception was that there was an exit at the far end and two guards were in front of one of the doors. If the design matched the other side, it was the “storage” room. He was taken to this room and stopped.

“You must be searched,” the officer said. One of the guards handed his weapon to the other and then gave Mike a brief pat down, ignoring Mike’s shoes. That was why the detonators were there; shoes and feet were untouchable to an Islamic. The guard looked at the locking blade knife and then gave it back. Then he gestured to the sample case.

Mike opened it up and pointed to the items in it. The guard looked at the officer and asked something in Arabic.

“He asks if these are bombs?” the officer said, glancing at the items uncomfortably.

“Nyet,” Mike said. “Are not bomb. Are poison gas. Samples your leader asked to see.”

“That’s okay, then,” the officer replied, waving at the case and not asking for the material to be removed for further search. “We are very careful of the life of our president.”

“Da,” Mike replied, trying not to roll his eyes. As he closed the sample case, he heard a muffled shriek and paused.

“We are entertaining some American young ladies,” the officer said, looking at him carefully. “They are not enjoying the entertainment.”

“Good, is all American bitches are for,” Mike replied, closing the case.

“Glad you approve,” the officer said, gesturing at the door. One of the guards opened it and Mike stepped into darkness.

Chapter Eight

“Mr. President, I think you should see this,” Secretary Brandeis said, keying one of the overhead video screens. It was an oblique shot, probably from a satellite, of a line of soldiers and a helicopter. Two men were descending from the helicopter.

“We can’t get resolution on faces, Mr. President,” the secretary said. “But from the body shape and clothing, the man on the right is Basser Assad.”

“So it’s not a rogue Syrian operation,” Minuet said. “That’s good and bad to know. The tall one, though, is that who I think it is?”

“Probably,” the secretary replied. “Given his height, movements and the way that he holds his right arm.”

“Makes me tempted to nuke the facility right now,” the President said, darkly. “I’ve heard about the first video tape. Have we gotten the demands, yet?”

“A group calling itself The Popular Front for the Islamic Jihad was the contact to Al Jazeera,” the CIA director said. “They called for a withdrawal of all crusader forces from all areas of the Dar Al Islam. Now, that’s an incredibly broad demand. Arguably, it includes not only all of the Balkans but Spain and Southern France as well. Certainly, they’re referring to all European and American forces in the Middle East. Otherwise, they will do what they have already done to one girl every two hours, until their demands are met. I had analysts go over the video, which is already on the Internet. Several of the girls who were kidnapping victims have been identified from ‘audience shots.’ ”

“What’s the download rate like?” Brandeis asked.

“High,” the CIA director admitted. “It’s flying around the net. And, of course, the news media is all over it like flies on shit. They’re interviewing all the parents of the girls and various commentators are already talking about Stockholm syndrome.”

“Unlikely in this situation,” Minuet said. “Conditions are too extreme. And it takes some time to set in. Any word from Harmon?”

“Negative,” the defense secretary said. “And he’s overdue to check in. But security on the site has been increased. I’m not sure he can get out of his hidey-hole.”

“We give him five more hours,” the President said. “That is two and a half lives. Then we go whether we know where they are or not.”

The room was dark with the only light coming from a sheet of one-way glass. It took Mike’s eyes a moment to adjust.

“Come in, Doctor Chayanov,” a voice said in Oxford-accented English. “You are very welcome. Come watch the show.”

There was a desk set a meter or so from the window and Mike walked to it, setting the sample case on it and glanced through the window. A girl with dark brown hair was being raped and had had part of the skin on her side peeled off. The man on her was rubbing his hands into the exposed flesh as he thrust into her. Even through the thick glass, the screams were clearly audible.

Mike turned away from the scene with apparent indifference. He was horrified and repulsed by what was happening. But, at the same time, hating himself, it turned him on. However, the sexual turn-on was close enough to rage that he could channel it and he was well prepped to explode.

He controlled his reaction and glanced at the group in the room. There were two guards by the door and a short-coupled man, the one who had spoken in English, that he vaguely recognized and thought might be Basser Assad. His eyes widened, though, when he recognized the tall man at Assad’s side.

“I am truly honored,” he said, nodding. “It is a great pleasure to meet you, sir. You have done much damage to the American pig-bastards.”

“As I did to the Russian pig-bastards,” the tall man said darkly. “But as I worked with the Americans to defeat your kind, so I am happy to work with you to defeat them. Allah’s ways are complex, but he gives his servants opportunities such as yourself. What did you bring to Allah’s servants?”

As Mike opened the sample case, one of the guards stepped forward but all Mike pulled out at first was a pair of gloves. He tried to ignore the shrieks at his back as he pulled out the first of the gas grenades.

“Sarin,” he said, setting it down. “Lethal in low concentrations but very short-lived. Which means you can move in the area no more than five hours after dispersal. This grenade will, well…” He turned around and gestured at the room full of naked women. “If I tossed it in that room, there would be no women to torture in less than five minutes. And that is just the time it would take to disperse fully.” He turned back, set the grenade back inside and pulled out the next.

“VX. Lethal at the same level as Sarin, but persistent. Which means wherever it lands, it stays for from weeks to years. Decontamination after VX has been used widely is nearly impossible. For months after dispersal, people opening up a door will die from residue on the underside of the knob.

“This I particularly like,” Mike said, putting the canister back in the case and lifting out the spray can. “It can be painted to resemble the sort of can that is used in wasp spray. Currently, we only have it in mustard gas, which is a very simple material, but we may have it in VX or Sarin soon. The problem is that VX and Sarin need to be mixed to function.

“It is very simple to use,” he added, taking a subtle breath. “You simply point,” he continued, pivoting towards the guards, “and spray,” he added, depressing the tab.

The stream of yellow liquid hit the right guard square in the face then tracked across to the left guard. Assad was wearing a sidearm in a fancy buckle-down holster and was trying to draw it as Mike pivoted to him and hit him in the face.

The tall terrorist had ducked to the side and was heading for the guards, who had fallen to the ground, clutching at their throats and gurgling as the gas reached their lungs and began burning them. Mike stepped around the desk and tripped him, then stamped on his lungs to get him to exhale and sprayed a puddle on the floor in front of his face. Then he stepped back, set the can on the desk and donned the gas mask. First he pressed it down to get a seal, then breathed out. Then he covered the inlet and inhaled, slightly. The mask pressed in indicating a good seal and he released the inlet and took a cautious breath. No scent of sulfur, no burning. Thank God.

As soon as he had it clear, he stepped over to check on the terrorist. The tall man was rolling back and forth, red froth bubbling out of his mouth, trying to scream, the frantic inhalations causing his lungs to melt faster.

“Dulce et decorum est,” Mike murmured, looking the man in the eye as he died, “pro patria mori. You motherfucker.”

Two guards in the corridor, by the door. The door had been soundproofed and the nice thing about mustard was people couldn’t really shout when they’d been hit by it. So the guards probably weren’t even aware that anything had happened.

Mike picked up one of the dropped AKs and checked the magazine. Full. He visualized the two guards, aware of the screams that were continuing in the other room, flicked off the safety and opened the door.

The officer guide had, fortunately, left. And there were no additional guards. So he simply placed the barrel in the side of the left-hand guard, fired twice and then turned to the right-hand guard and did the same. Neither guard had time to do more than register surprise at the sight of a gas-mask-clad figure stepping out of the room.

Mike wasn’t too sure at what level mustard was lethal. He had vague recollections of people talking about “a touch of mustard” from WWI, so apparently you could get some in your lungs and not automatically die. But he didn’t want any of the girls dying from his mustard contamination. On the other hand… short time.

He hadn’t gotten a good look in the torture room, but he was pretty sure he’d seen at least one guard and a group of unarmed soldiers. So he picked up a spare magazine and stuffed it in his back pocket. Then he stepped to the door to the torture room and opened it.

Amy was surprised that she’d almost gotten inured to the screams. Clarissa had taken two hours to die and, from what she could tell, Rachel was getting pretty close to the end. She’d learned to figure the time from the pattern of the torture. Clarissa had been raped by two of the soldiers, then tortured with electricity and had her skin stripped off in spots, then two more soldiers raped her in the mouth and ass, then she was tortured again and so on. Towards the end they had burned off her nipples with a blowtorch and after that they’d just beaten her with clubs to break her bones. Then they’d killed her by cutting her throat. Amy knew that Rachel was going to die, soon, in terrible agony, because while the soldiers were still raping her, one of the men in the aprons had started up the blowtorch.

She had her head down, just praying. She’d started off praying that somebody would come rescue them all. Now she was just praying that somebody would come before it was her turn. She’d done the math. Depending on what pattern they used, she had either forty-six or fifty-two hours to live. And the last two hours would be really bad. Bad enough she’d rather just die beforehand and get it over with. The one thing she had going for her was that the guards were pretty lax with the girls. When they got to her, assuming none of the others were any good at self defense, she’d have a trick or two for them. With any luck she’d be enough of a problem they’d just kill her. Assuming she could stay sane that long.

She looked up, though, at a scream from the front of the girls and the shot by the door.

“What’s the situation with SpecOps, Don?” the President asked. He’d dropped just about everything to cover this situation and he was starting to get a little ragged at the edges. “Do we have a mission plan to get these girls out?”

“Yes, Mr. President,” the secretary said. “We have the alert Ranger battalion at Fort Bragg rigged and in the air. Delta is on the way and performing mission planning enroute. However, it’ll take time for Delta to get there. We’re going to lose hostages if we wait. So. The best compromise between time to target and available forces is in theater SpecOps units. We’ve got a SEAL platoon staged out of Baghdad International looking at all the intel that we have. They’re the closest, and best trained, team we have for this. Delta is as good as they come and I’d rather use them. But given the time constraints, I’d say go with the SEALs. It’s going to be a high risk mission, though, even for the SEAL team.”

“Why?” the President asked.

“I’ve brought in someone to brief on that,” the secretary said, clearing his throat and gesturing at the major by his side. “Major Andreyev is an expert in advanced HALO, a special forces officer. It was his suggestion on insertion which is being implemented. It is… somewhat unusual…”

“It’s insane, sir,” the major said, in a soft-spoken voice. “But it’s the only thing that might work.”

“Go ahead, Major,” the President said, leaning back.

“Sir,” the major replied, getting up and going to the briefing stand. “The problem is that Syrian Integrated Air Defense System is as advanced as that of most first-world countries. They were defeated by the Israelis in 1978 but it took four days for the Israelis to fully suppress them. The Syrians have been playing against the varsity for a long time, and were positioned to learn all about our air operations during the previous fracas to the south. We don’t have the time to roll back the air defense system prior to inserting the assault team. The need was to place a team on site, before the enemy was fully aware that they were under attack. There is only one way to do so: stealthily.”

“You mean ‘stealth,’ don’t you, major?” the NSA said, wonderingly. “As in inserting them by, what? Stealth bombers? We don’t have enough B-2’s to lift a large assault team! And where would you place the parachutists?”

“Yes, ma’am, I mean stealth,” the major replied, bringing up a Top-Secret schematic of a bomb-bay rack. “Special Forces HALO did a very secret test with the Spirits last year at Nellis. The bomb-rack ejector mechanisms were modified, and an O₂ distribution hookah was improvised. In addition, the B-2s are required to modify their climb profile for decompression. On the plus side, it is possible to eject a full SEAL platoon from a bomber, stealthily. Their insertion will be from forty thousand feet, twice normal height and about the maximum a person can handle without specialized equipment that can’t be made available in time. We have already begun the necessary modification on a B-2 that was rotating through Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi, and the SEALs will marry up with their transport there. The down side is that the bomber is visible to the enemy radar as long as the bomb bay is open, discharging the team. It has to offload the entire platoon in a hurry, which won’t be pleasant for the SEALs, in order to avoid missile fire, which is more unpleasant. Given Syrian air defenses, we may lose a Spirit.”

“Authorized,” the President said, coldly. “How soon are they going to be on the ground?”

“The team is supposed to be being briefed about now, Mr. President.”

“You have got to be shitting me!”

Petty Officer First Class Roy Simmons was the Leading Petty Officer of Charlie Platoon, SEAL Team Three. He had had been at Team Three his whole career. He’d gone through the predictable stages. The new meat that thought being a SEAL was just the coolest damned thing in the world but wasn’t quite sure they were up to it. Then when he was “made” in the teams and promoted to PO Third he knew he could lick the whole world because he was a God Damned Frog. Then came the wife, then the kids, then the regular deployments and the advanced training, and now he knew it was just a job. One of the toughest jobs in the world, one that occasionally threw you a damned curve. But at the end of the deployment it was good to get back to the mamasan and forget the blood and the screams and just play with the kids. And he’d thought he’d heard it all until he heard this damned Air Force major lay out this shit in a calm and matter of fact voice.

“Oh, dude!” Roman snorted. “This is going to be so cool!”

“We’re going to be SEAL legends!” Sherman said, raising his arms in victory. “Live or die, we’re going to be fucking legend!”

“This ain’t happening,” Simmons said, looking over at the new meats. The poor guys’ eyes were as round as saucers and they were looking at Roman and Sherman as if they were fucking insane. Which, of course, they were. That was the job of the PO3s on the teams and Roman and Sherman were already legends.

“We’re inserting from a B-2?” Vahn asked. “I want to be clear about that. We’re going to be loaded in the god damned bomb bay? Hooked in a rotating bomb release system and, what? Automatically ejected?”

“Yes,” the Air Force officer replied. “It has been… successfully tested.”

“How many times?” Simmons snapped. “And who in the fuck was crazy enough to try even once?”

“I’ll go, daddy!” Roman said. “Me! Me!”

“Me, too!” Sherman said, grinning.

“Height?” Chief Adams asked, calmly.

“Forty thousand feet.”

That shut Roman and Sherman up. Roman was left frozen with his mouth open and one hand raised in a “number one” sign. Sherman was just openmouthed.

“That’s unsurvivable!” Vahn snapped. “Damn it, I was in Dev Group. You don’t go over thirty thousand!”

“At thirty thousand the Spirit, especially with personnel and equipment in the bomb bay, is marginally detectable, given the radar signal strength that we are expecting over the target,” the Air Force major said. “Again, forty thousand has been tested.”

“Successfully?” Vahn snapped.

“Successfully,” the major replied calmly.

“This ain’t happening,” Simmons said, his head in his hands and shaking back and forth. “This just ain’t happening.”

“In addition, it is anticipated that there may be significant aerial combat in the area of operations,” the major continued with his briefing. “Your position will be noted and AWACs support will attempt to steer such combat into other areas of operation, however, the reason that the Spirit is being used is due to the conditions.”

“You’re talking about a dogfight going on,” Vahn said, with the voice of calm terror. “While we’re in the drop.”

“Yes,” the major said. “Time is of the essence, gentlemen. I would suggest you begin rigging up.”

“Well, with all due respect, Major!” Simmons snapped. “Fu—”

“Wait,” the chief said, holding up a finger. And everyone turned to look at him.

That’s what Simmons remembered. The OIC had just been sitting there the whole time, trying to look frosty and doing a pretty good job even though Simmons knew he was probably on cloud nine with fear. The whacko E-5s were high-fiving. The new meats were terrified. Vahn and he were both really terrified because they’d done enough to know how just completely fucked they were. The mission was shit, no idea where the hostages were, maybe somebody on the inside but no name except “Ghost” and no idea who you’re dealing with, no plan for the building for God’s sake; ground penetrating radar hadn’t been able to get anything more than ghost images. But everybody stopped and everybody turned to look at the chief, even the damned AF major.

“We’re good,” the chief said, nodding. “Let’s get it on.”

“Chief,” Simmons said, quietly. “You sure?”

“Sure,” the chief said, standing up. “I’ve done weirder things.”

“Really?” the OIC asked, standing up as well as the chief headed for the door.

“Yeah,” the chief said, pausing in the doorway. “I was in Class 201.”

“No shit?” Roman asked, his eyes wide. “Jesus, Chief!”

“No shit,” the chief said, his demeanor suddenly cracking slightly and a shiver shuddered through his body. “After that, being shot out of a B-2 at twice the recommended altitude into a dogfight and a mission with no damned plan or even a damned map… well… it ain’t much.”

“What in the hell is Class 201?” Meat Two whispered as the team quietly got up and started to file out.

“Meat, you’re too young to know,” Roman said, his head twitching in horror. “You’re just too young. Maybe if you’re drunk enough to take the horror. God. I knew Chief was tough but, God!” He shuddered again and walked out, shaking his head.

“Normally, Meat,” Simmons said, gently putting his hand on the newbie’s shoulder, “I’d tell you that Roman was as full of shit as a Christmas turkey. But… in this case, he’s right. Sometimes, when you’re a SEAL, you have to be harder than stone. When you’re with a survivor of Class 201, well, you know that they’re not going to quit unless they’re dead.”

Chapter Nine

Mike stepped through the door, kicked it closed and drove the barrel of his weapon into the guard on the left of the door. Then he turned and fired two rounds into the guard on the right, turned and fired two into the guard that was bent over and retching.

The group of soldiers lined up to rape the girl on the table stepped backwards, towards the wall, holding up their hands in placation but he didn’t really care. He just started servicing them.

One of the men in aprons had pulled out a knife and held it to the girl’s throat by the time Mike had killed all the soldiers.

“Put down the gun,” the man said, calmly. He was wearing a suit under the apron and it had gotten spotted by blood. “Put it down or the girl dies.”

Mike looked him in the eye and dropped the magazine out of the AK then reached into his back pocket to pull out the spare. Mike kept looking him in the eye as he raised the weapon to his shoulder and sighted on his forehead.

“Put down the knife, and I’ll leave you the use of your upper body,” Mike said mildly.

One of the other aproned torturers was shuffling around the one holding the girl hostage, knife in hand, clearly headed for another hostage. Mike kept the weapon on the one with the girl until the other had almost reached the line of girls and then swung to the left, putting one round through the bastard’s head and splattering the two girls on that end of the front rank in blood and brains.

He ignored the screams from the girls as he pivoted back and killed the two video technicians and the third torturer who was cowering behind the table, then pivoted back to target the hostage holder.

“I’ll give you this. I won’t put you on that table, I won’t turn you over to the girls and I won’t do more than break your back in the lumbar region. But you don’t get the use of your dick. Take it or leave it.”

“I will kill her,” the man said, angrily. “You don’t understand that?”

“You are one lousy negotiator,” Mike said and put a round through his forehead. The knife nicked the girl’s neck and that was about it. The body slumped backwards. “Never bluff if you’re not even holding cards.”

He walked over to the girl on the table, who even as fucked as she was looked pretty damned good, and looked her in the eye.

“You probably don’t want to see guys at the moment or have them near you, so I’ll get one of the girls to let you go,” he said, nodding, then turned to the room. “Which one’s got the keys?”

“The one that was holding Rachel hostage,” one of the girls in the front rank said, gesturing with her chin. “Who are you?”

“A very bad man,” Mike said, stooping down and going through the guy’s pockets. “Who, in this one case, is willing to be a good guy for a while. But if I don’t get at least a blowjob out of this, I’m going to be mighty pissed.”

One of the girls in the front rank, dropped her head and shook it.

“How can you say something like that?” she shrieked. “You’re as bad as them!”

“Yep, sure am,” Mike said, standing up and holding the keys. “I was in Class 201, you weak-kneed pussies! But if you want to get out of this fucking place alive, and not end up back where you are right now, you’d all better get really damned frosty, really damned quick. Quit fucking crying, quit bitching, quit quitting on me and get GOD DAMNED FROSTY. Because right now it’s just me. And I’m not going to be able to hold this damned place by myself. I’m going to need help. Even nekkid female help will do. And I’m not going to use these damned keys until I get a big ‘HOOWAH’ out of y’all. Because if I can’t get a big hoowah, then you’re totally fucking useless to me, and I’ll just god damned leave you to be raped. Am I CLEAR HERE? Now let me here you give me a big HOOYAH!”

“What?” “What’s hooyah?” “Who? Us?”

“HOO-YAH!”

“Ah, now there was one solid hooyah out there. You all heard it. Now, all of you, give me one great big fucking hooyah, or I’m walking out the door!”

“HOO-YAH!”

“There were some wimpy ones in there,” Mike admitted. “But, overall, I’ll give you a sixty, with the curve that comes up to eighty.” He stepped off the dais and applied the key to the first rank on both sides and then stepped down the aisle.

“Where was that solid hooyah?” he asked, looking at the girls.

“Here,” Amy said, lifting her chin. “What are you, Ranger?”

“Bite your tongue,” Mike said. He unchained that rank and looked at the girl on the far end. “Pull it through, honey. I needs this girl. I wants her and I needs her.

“Okay,” he said, stepping back up on the dais. “Get this girl loose, do what you can for her. I have some errands I need to run. I’d like most of you to stay in your seats or sitting down at least. Do not open that door until I tell you. Some of you bigger girls, drag the bodies over by the door, we might need them later. Waste not, want not.”

“What are you going to need bodies for?” a short-coupled blonde who had sidled past him to get to the girl on the table asked.

“Barricades,” Mike said. “Other than sandbags, there’s not much better than a fresh dead body to use as cover.”

“That is gross,” another girl snapped. “Could you quit being so…”

“Mean?” Mike asked, angrily. “Hard? Macho? Male? Conservative? Overbearing? I just tracked you god damned wenches from the States by getting the bends in the unpressurized nose wheel of an airplane, getting busted up holding onto the underside of a damned truck, getting stuck in holes and getting touched by mustard gas! Not to mention killing about twenty of the fuckers that kidnapped you and were torturing you! Do NOT give me any of your whining PC liberal bullshit! This is why guys like me hate you fucking whiners! We don’t have time for you to go all weepy! Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” the girl said, meekly.

“You,” Mike said, pointing at the solid hooyah. “Name.”

“Amy,” the girl said. “Private Amy Townsend, Army ROTC.”

“Amy will do,” Mike replied. “Call me Ghost. AKs,” he said, turning and pointing to the weapons with two fingers. “Can you use one?”

“Yes, sir,” Amy replied, crossing to the weapons and picking one up. Then she suddenly bent over and gagged. “Sorry.”

“Dead bodies do that,” Mike said, picking up some sort of big bone saw off the floor. “Cover the door.”

He walked out and looked up and down the corridor. Still no sign of reaction. Good. He grabbed the second AK off the guard along with their web gear and slung one of the latter on. They not only had six magazines of ammo, the grenade pouches had fragmentation grenades in them. He shook his head at that. Frags were a good way to frag yourself; he hated the damned things.

He put his mask back on and went in the viewing room. The tall man had quit twitching as had the rest. He pulled the rest of the “samples” out of the bag, and the Semtek, then took the knife to the terrorist’s neck, cutting off the head. It was still pretty drippy when he dropped it in the bag.

He left the two AKs in the room, but took the ammo and went down the corridor to the door that had been a broom closet in the other one. Sure enough, there was a sink. He rinsed off the outside of the sample case, the AK he’d been using, the gas weapons, his gloves, and finally unmasked. The air had a faint tinge of mustard that made him gag, as much from his clothes he suspected as anything, but it was survivable.

He walked back to the torture room and tried the room across from it. It was being used as a storeroom as well. Not much useable except more railroad flares. He realized that they must be used for emergency lighting if there was a power outage in the building.

He put the case of them by the door, putting a few in his back pocket, and left it open. After that he walked back to the torture room. When he got back the room had, remarkably, organized itself. The girl had been taken off the table and was on the floor with two girls trying to staunch her wounds with more or less clean cloth taken from the bodies. The rest of the girls had mostly huddled by the walls, although a couple were puzzling over the video and computer equipment.

“I’m the only one with any firearms experience,” Amy said. She’d put on one of the assault vests and Mike found the sight very fetching.

“That look really suits you,” Mike said. “Really really suits you. Probably too well for my present lackanookie condition.”

“Thanks,” Amy said dryly. “I don’t suppose there are any clothes around?”

“Nope. Okay, ladies, listen up,” he continued, looking at the room. Most of the girls had seated themselves along the walls, as being more comfortable than the seats. “The good guys should be on their way soon. We have to hold this position for a few hours until they get here. We’re just going to hang out here and wait for the good guys. Of course, the bad guys are closer, so we’re going to have to engage them for a time. I need two girls who can run and one more that has guts and has played softball.”

Some of the girls stood up and started forward but most sat down when there were other volunteers.

“Who’s the runners?” Mike asked. “Amy, get the door open and cover down the corridor that way,” he said pointing behind him.

“I can run, and I played softball,” one of the girls said. She was a strongly built brunette with a nice set of hooters that even without a bra stood high and firm. “And my eyes are up here.”

“I’ve made my decision,” Mike said, continuing to stare at the tits for a second, then reaching into his harness and extracting a grenade. “Ever seen one of these?”

“Grenade?” the girl asked.

“Just like a baseball, with some differences,” Mike replied. “Safety pin. Actuating spoon. Place the web of your right thumb over the spoon, maintaining a firm grip,” he said, shoving the grenade into the girl’s hand in the correct manner. “Keep squeezing the spoon. Straighten the pin. Pull pin. Throw grenade. Remember, once the pin is out of Mr. Grenade, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend. Got it?”

“Got it,” the girl said nervously.

“Runners?” Mike asked the other two.

“Yesss,” a slim blonde said.

“Well, we’re probably going to be killing a few bad guys,” he said, pointing to the two dead guards on the floor. “And we’re going to need ammo to do it. Your job will be, when I tell you, to run to the bodies and retrieve ammo.”

“Okay,” the brunette next to her said, looking at the bodies. “That’s not going to be fun, is it?”

“Nope,” Mike said, looking at the three. “You’ve all probably got names like Jenny or Ashley or Chelsea or something. But I can’t keep track. So you’re getting team nicknames.” He looked at the thrower and nodded. “You’re Babe. For Babe Ruth. Blondie is Bambi and brownie is Thumper.”

“I don’t like those nicknames,” Bambi said. “My name’s Britney.”

“You’re fucking joking,” Mike said. “If you had better tits, you could be a dead ringer for her, too. But I don’t really give a rat’s ass if you don’t like your handle, right now, you’re nothing but meat, not even meat. Meat have at least been through BUDS. You’re nobody. I should call you meat one two and three! You have to do something to get a better one. I was Ass-boy for a year after being in 201, so don’t give me shit about handles.”

“Ass-boy?” Amy asked from the door.

“Don’t ask,” Mike said with a sigh. “It’s a long story. I kept trying for Winter born but nobody had a clue what I was talking about. Thumper,” he continued, taking the flares out of his pocket. “If the lights go out, your first job is to light those. Got it?”

“Yes,” Thumper said. “Can I at least be Flower?”

“No. You cannot be Flower. You are Thumper.”

Mike walked out of the room and down the corridor to the doors he’d entered by. He could hold one end of the corridor, but not both. The door had a bolt on the inside but that was not going to hold against even a raghead assault. He knew what would, though, so he opened up the door and tossed the VX grenade through, quickly closing the door and bolting it. There was shouting from the far side, but it quit pretty quick. Then he trotted back to the torture room, cursing his aching knees, and went to the phone.

“Need to make a call?” Amy asked. “And what was that you tossed through the door?”

“You were supposed to be covering the other direction,” Mike said, picking up the phone and dialing a combination. He smiled faintly at the distant explosion. “And it was a VX grenade.”

“A what?” Amy snapped. “You’re joking?”

“Nope, welcome to WMD central,” Mike said, stepping out the door. “Now, the back way is pretty well blocked, what with the VX and the explosives I placed in the production area.” As he said that there was another, louder but deeper explosion. “Secondaries are always nice. But that way,” he said, pointing at the far end of the corridor, “leads, I think, to the surface. And we’re about to get company,” he finished as pounding footsteps were heard on the stairs. “Don’t look at their faces and don’t think of people. They’re just targets. Service the targets.”

“Yes, sir,” Amy said.

“Ghost,” Mike replied as the door opened and he serviced the first guy through the door. He was a muj like the two guards, black T-shirt and camouflage pants, and he dropped like a sack when hit in the chest. But there were more behind.

Mike engaged two tangos in the doorway, one of whom got off some shots, and tracked to service another but he was already down. He heard Amy gagging again and shot one on the landing to stop the first wave.

“Reload!” he snapped, covering the landing. He could hear Amy fumbling the reload but he wasn’t worried about it. “You’ve got rounds left. Toss that one in the room. If it’s dry it goes over your shoulder,” he said, flipping his own out and setting it in the room he was using for cover. “When you’ve got a couple partials, have some of the girls reload them for you. And lay out all your mags where you can reach them,” he added, pulling his own out. “And one frag. No more. Give the rest to Babe.”

“Okay,” Amy said, setting out the magazines. “So, are the SEALs… what? How’d you find us?”

“Like I said, I tracked you,” Mike responded. “I saw one of the snatches and tracked you the whole way. I’m not a current SEAL, I’m medically retired.”

“For medically retired you’re doing pretty well,” Amy said, glancing over at him.

“You should have seen me in my prime,” Mike said with a chuckle. “I would have worn you out.”

“Well, let me get my head together about all this,” she said, gesturing over her shoulder, “and I’ll be the first in line to give you head so good it stops your poor old heart.”

“You’re on, Amy,” Mike said, gesturing with his chin. “Company.”

Chapter Ten

Major Muhammed Tarzi had been looking forward getting off work. The word had gotten around that American bitches were being held in the bunker and that soldiers would be chosen by lot to go down and rape them. As an officer, of course, he had first choice and as soon as he got off duty he was going to head down and get a taste of stuck-up American bitch pussy.

Major Tarzi had visited America several times and had even gone to the strip clubs that were everywhere. But he had never been able to get an American woman to fuck him. They seemed to fuck everyone else, flaunting and teasing in their short skirts and heavy makeup, but not him. He was planning on showing them what teasing got them and enjoying it immensely.

That was until the thud from underground followed by shrilling chemical alarms. His office was in the administrative building, but the sound and vibration carried clearly through the ground.

His first action was to panic as he realized he didn’t know where his gas mask was. So he screamed for his orderly.

“Hasan! Where are you?”

“Major,” the servant shouted, running in the room. “The alarms!”

“I can hear!” he yelled. “Where are the masks?”

“In your quarters, master,” Hasan shrilled, nervously.

The quarters were all the way across the compound and the wind was usually from the northwest, which meant that gas might be drifting between him and the masks.

“Go get them,” he ordered Hasan. “Then get back here with them. If I’m not here, find me.”

“Yes, Major,” the servant said nervously, backing out of the room as Lieutenant El Kheir pushed by him.

“The bunker,” the lieutenant gasped, “the president…”

“What about the president?” the major asked. As the chief of security for the site, anything that happened to President Assad would fall on his shoulders.

“There is firing,” the lieutenant said, finally getting his breath back. “The mujahideen tried to enter and were shot at. Someone is holding the passageway.”

“Wake up the duty platoon,” Tarzi snapped. “Get them over there.” He reached for his phone and called the battalion orderly room. “Call out the battalion!” he screamed. “The president has been captured!”

The second wave was soldiers and Mike engaged them on the landing. The first one stuck his head out to see what was going on and left a red splash on the wall of the landing. This occasioned some shouting and then a group of at least a dozen charged down the stairs, firing as they came.

Mike and Amy engaged with single shots, filling the doorway with bodies, until the group broke and ran.

“Bambi, Thumper!” Mike called. “Ammo run.” He flipped out his magazine, decided that a round or so wasn’t worth it, and tossed it over his shoulder in the corridor as the two girls ran down the corridor to the bodies. Bambi stopped half way and gagged, but then kept going.

“Stay to the left side of the corridor on the way down and back,” Mike called. “And grab some of the grenades. Do not fuck with the pins or you will be two dead ammo grabbers.” He paused, considering the view as Bambi bent over to pull out a magazine from a pouch and sighed happily.

“You okay?” Amy asked nervously.

“Just admiring the view,” Mike admitted. “Dead bad guys and naked girls. It’s like an op in a titty bar. All I need is beer and steak, maybe some heavy metal or Goth music, and this would be perfect.”

Bambi pulled magazines out until her arms were full, then ran back, dumping them by Amy. Thumper, meanwhile, dragged some of the ammo vests off the bodies and carried those, and some loose magazines, back to the room, the vests dripping red as she ran.

“What, I don’t get any ammo?” Mike asked, plaintively. “After all I’ve done for you girls? Nobody loves me.”

“Here,” Amy said, laughing and sliding some of the magazines across to him.

“I think they might try grenades or satchels next,” Mike said as there was another distant thump. Suddenly, the lights went out to a series of screams from the girls in the room. “Thumper! Do you know where your flares are?”

“Got it, Ghost,” Thumper called.

“I call you, Bringer of Fire,” Mike yelled, triggering one of the flares and tossing it down the corridor. “But you’ll always be Thumper to me. Anyway, if it’s grenades, just flatten yourself into the doorway. If it’s a satchel charge, I’ll call ‘satchel.’ Roll all the way in the room, cover your ears and open your mouth, got it?”

“Yeah,” Amy said. “Although my hearing’s already going from this damned AK.”

“Speaking of which, the next ammo run we need to get Bambi and Thumper to get us some more guns,” Mike said. “There’s going to come a time when we won’t have time to reload.” He watched the stairs for a second and then rolled back. “Grenades!”

The frags went off with sharp cracks and then feet could be heard on the stairs. He rolled back up and had to laugh. There were so many bodies on the steps, and so much blood, that the soldiers coming down the stairs, who were lit up by the flare but couldn’t really see beyond it, were having to pick their way forward. It made them perfect targets and before Mike and Amy had to reload the newest wave of assailants had fled.

“Have the girls cross-load this one,” Mike said, sliding his partially spent magazine across after he’d reloaded. “We’ll wait until after the next attack to send out Bambi and Thumper.”

Amy snickered and he looked over at her quizzically.

“Bambi,” she half whispered, half mouthed, “real liberal.”

“Good,” Mike said. “But we’ll make a conservative out of her, yet.”

“CETCOM, General Bulder.” General “Dutch” Bulder had been going nonstop for nearly thirty hours in the scramble to prepare for the upcoming mission. Rarely did the U.S. military snap-kick an operation, but this one was going to be a snap-kick and in any scramble, shit happened. It had been happening nonstop for thirty hours and he was afraid that when they finally did get a “go” on the target, it was only going to get worse.

“General, Major Rischard in Predator Central,” the voice said. “Sorry to break chain, but you might want to look at the take from Drone Four, sir.”

The general keyed his computer to bring up the take from the Predator that had been snuck into the mission area and blanched. Soldiers were running across the compound, heading towards the loading area. As he watched, a blast of smoke blew into the air and the south section, where the loading area was, collapsed into a smoking crater. The gas that washed over the soldiers was apparently toxic, or at least irritating, since they scattered away from it apparently blindly.

“Okay, I’m going to call the NCA,” the general said. “Good call on the direct, Major, you’re covered.”

“Sir,” the major answered, hanging up the phone.

Bulder turned and picked up a red phone.

“I need the President or the secretary, immediately.”

“So is this an industrial accident, or did Harmon decide to start the game early?” the President asked, looking at the take from the Predator.

“Expert in demolitions,” the defense secretary said, shrugging. “Which ever it is, I’ve started the pieces moving. The Spirit is in the air already. The Rangers are about two hours out, so they don’t have an immediate play. The Alpha Strike is coming up and the combat elements of the Fourth ID are moving into jump-off positions near the Syrian border. Normally we set up forward logistics systems but in this case we didn’t to try not to tip our hands. We’re taking an operational risk on that, but one I think is worth it. And we have airmobile and airborne forces standing by to assist, if the situation in the air becomes even mildly survivable.”

“When will we know what is going on on the ground? With the girls I mean,” the President said.

“The Spirit is up and the SEALs are depressurizing,” the secretary said. “That will take nearly three hours, and that’s pushing it to the point that some of the SEALs may get the bends anyway. An hour flight to the target. Some time on the ground. Say five hours. And it will be at least that long to get the full Alpha strike in place.”

“Five hours for them to kill the girls,” the President said, his face white. “Christ, I wish I knew what was going on in there.” He paused, puzzled, and then his face cleared. “Look at that,” he said, grinning.

On the video from the Predator, soldiers could be seen spilling out of one of the side entrances where they’d been gathering. The last two were carrying a body of a camouflage-clad figure.

“He could be a casualty from the damage in the facility,” the National Security Advisor said. “But I’d suspect that he was dead from direct fire.”

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs had been called in to advise since most of the management of the operation was being handled at a lower level. His phone buzzed and he picked it up, speaking quietly for a moment and then hung up.

“Mr. President,” he said, his face working. “That was a report from an analysis team. Their analysis is that there’s a fight going on in reference to that door. Over sixty personnel have entered it in the last forty minutes, but only fifteen have emerged and some of them appeared to be wounded. Their analysis is that one or more persons are resisting, somewhere below ground level.”

“Harmon found the girls,” the national security advisor said. “And found out what was going on. And, somehow, sabotaged the facility as a signal to start the mission.”

“How many troops?” the President asked.

“A battalion of Syrian commandos,” the Chairman answered. “And they’re not, generally, the Keystone Kops you get with most Arab armies. They fought the Israelis to a standstill in the Golan Heights in ’73. And an unknown number of mujahideen.”

“They’re forming up again,” the national security advisor said. “They’re getting ready to rush the door.”

“I don’t normally input at the tactical level,” the President said, “but…”

“I’m making the call now, Mr. President,” the Chairman said, picking up his phone. “More or less to ensure that everyone has the information and knows the target.”

“Get them support,” the secretary said. “Get them support as fast as we possibly can.”

“Target,” Mike said, firing at the first figure on the stairs.

The soldiers were not bothering to pick their way through the bodies and a couple of them, who hadn’t been hit, tumbled down the stairs. But the rest kept coming, firing wildly but filling the air with lead nonetheless. Three of them paused on the landing, obviously picked marksmen, and tried to target the defenders in the gloom as the rest rushed Mike and Amy’s position.

“I’m out,” Amy said, rolling into the doorway.

“Babe!” Mike yelled. “Grenades!” He slowed his fire, dropping three in the front rank, and then felt the bolt lock back. He quickly grabbed another weapon, but by then two of the soldiers were nearly to the door and he had to fire up at them. One of them managed to get off a burst of “spray and pray” in his direction, and he felt a searing pain in his back and chest.

Amy shot the last of them off his back, but the stairway had filled with soldiers again and the marksmen were now firing at Mike and Amy’s positions. He felt another round hit his leg, but he kept firing, willing the soldiers to break and run.

“Babe” had been playing ball since she was five years old. First two years of T-ball and then fast-pitch softball in a brutally Darwinian league. By high school she was considered one of the top pitchers in Georgia, an area that took its women’s fast-pitch seriously, and was going to UGA on an athletic scholarship.

She pitched accurately enough, and hard enough, that she could probably have taken down most of the front rank by simply hitting them with the grenades. However, that would have left the grenades rolling around on the floor to… “frag” Amy and Ghost. She considered the situation for just a moment, using pretty much the same thought process as if she was deciding to throw a grounder to first or second, then pulled the pin and spun her right arm in a whirlwind motion, slamming the grenade upward to ricochet off the roof and back down into the group. Before the first thud, and a cry of pain that could be heard even over the firing, she had spun another up and another…

Suddenly, there was an explosion in their midst and then another and bodies were tossed, screaming, to the floor. With the way clear he could spot the snipers on the landing and he engaged all three of them, hitting one simultaneously with shots from Amy.

The rush had fallen back but bodies littered the hallway, some of them simply wounded. He spotted one trying to crawl up the stairs and shot him, deliberately, in the head, then reloaded.

“More mags to cross-load,” he said, sliding one across to Amy. “There any bandages in the room?”

“No,” Amy said. “Why? Oh, crap!”

“Yeah,” Mike said, sitting up and leaning back. When his back touched the wall he felt like screaming, but he was afraid he’d pass out if he stayed prone. “Fight until you die or drop time.”

“Where have I heard that before?” Amy asked.

“Axes flash, broadswords swing,” Mike quietly sung. “Shining armor’s piercing ring. Horses run on a polished shield. Fight those bastards til they yield.”

“Midnight mare and blood red roan,” Amy replied. “Fight to keep this land your own.”

“Sound the horn and call the cry,” they sang together. “HOW MANY OF THEM CAN WE MAKE DIE!”

“What is that?” Babe asked from the doorway.

“’March of Cambreadth,’ ” Amy replied. “Heather Alexander. Very cool song. That’s the only verse I can ever remember. My dad used to play it.”

“I think I’d like your dad,” Mike said and coughed. His hand came away dark in the flare light, but he was pretty sure it was blood. It wasn’t a sucking chest wound but something had nicked his lung. “Follow orders as you’re told, make their yellow blood run cold. Fight until you die and drop. A force like ours is hard to stop. Close your mind to stress and pain, fight ’til you’re no longer sane. Let not one damned cur pass by. How many of them can we make die.”

“You know the whole song?” Amy asked.

“And lots of others,” Mike said, weakly. “Right now I’m thinking of one by Crüxshadows.”

“Who?” Amy asked.

“Great band,” Mike whispered. “I will not run, this is my sacrifice,” he sang, softly then coughed. “For I am Winter born…”

“Bad song, Ghost,” Amy said. “I really need you to hang in here.”

“I will, Amy,” Mike said. “I will. I hereby dub thee… Bo.”

“Why Bo for God’s Sake?” Amy asked, angrily. “It’s better than Thumper, I suppose…”

“For Boadicea,” Mike replied. “The Celtic warrior queen.”

“Oh. In that case…”

“Of course, she lost,” Mike added honestly. “And was dragged off to Rome in chains. But hopefully we’ll do better.”

“So, sing some better songs,” Amy said. “If you can.”

“How about poetry?” Mike asked.

“I hate poetry.”

“What, your dad never told you about Kipling?”

“Only ‘A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke,’ ” Amy said.

“Shame on him,” Mike replied. “This is the ballad of bo da thone, eerst the pretender to Theebaw’s throne, who harried the district of Alalone. How he met with his fate and the VPP at the hands of Harandra Mukerji, senior Gomashta, GBT.”

“What the hell is that?” Amy asked.

“The opening to the ‘Ballad of Bo Da Thone,’ ” Mike said. “And, speaking of which, there’s a bag in this room. A sample case. If I’m not… viable when support gets here, tell them the interior is contaminated and it’s a personal present from me to the President.”

“What’s in the bag?” Amy asked.

“That’s between me and the President,” Mike said, chuckling and then coughing. “Crap that hurts. All these women around and not a pad or a tampon to be had.”

“Mike,” Amy said, quietly. “I know you’re stressed and I know that things are tough, but we’ve really had a bad time, you know. Could you dial back on the…”

“Sexism?” Mike asked. “Yeah. Now I will. I needed to shock them before.”

“I can tell that you’re really a nice guy…” Amy started to say.

“Hah,” Mike replied mirthlessly. “Don’t be fooled. I’m a very bad man indeed.”

“No, you’re not,” Amy said. “Quit trying to tell yourself you’re…”

“Amy,” Mike said quietly. “There are times when I don’t know whether I’m going to slip all the way to the side of evil. There’s bad in me you don’t know. But I’ll tell you this; if I didn’t have… something that kept me on the very edge of good, I’d have happily lined up with those soldiers to rape you. And dug my fingers into your bleeding flesh to make you scream. I’m not just a little bit bad, I’m just about all the way bad. The sexist comments weren’t all an act. That’s how I really am when the stops are pulled out. The fake part is being a nice guy.”

Amy was quiet for a time and then shook her head.

“I don’t believe it,” she said and then held up a hand to forestall the protest. “Yeah, okay, you have your demons. But… well… I’ll get over what happened. I know I will. And, Mike, if you said you wanted to chain me to a table, just like the one in the room, and act like you were raping me, I’d do it. Because I know that I’d walk out alive and only harmed to the extent that I let you harm me. I trust you. I can just look at you and know I can trust you.”

“I hate that,” Mike said. “I really do. But… yeah, you’re right.”

“You’ve never raped a woman, have you?” Amy asked.

“Depends on the definition,” Mike replied. “I don’t think any of the hookers in the third world are actual volunteers. I keep that in mind when I fuck ’em. It helps.”

“I’ll give you a pass on that,” she said, shrugging. She looked down the hall. “They’re holding back.”

“Trying to figure out another way in,” Mike replied. “They’ll probably try the air shaft.”

“That’s behind us, right?” Amy asked, nervously.

“Yep,” Mike said and grinned. “Let ’em.”

Amy didn’t ask why he was willing to let them try, but she didn’t think the Syrians would like it much.

“In the fury of this darkest hour,” Mike whispered quietly, “we will be your light. You ask me for my sacrifice and I am Winter born…”

“You’re right,” Amy said. “Very appropriate. Is there more?”

“Without denying a faith in God, that I have never known,” Mike said, then coughed. “I hear the angels call my name, and I am Winter born…”

“Maybe you should back off,” Amy said. “I’d love to hear all of it. But… when we’re out of here.”

“Okay,” Mike said, leaning back and sighing.

“Okay, why tampons?” she asked after a while.

“Tampons and pads are some of the best bandages around,” Mike replied. “If the hole is big, like from a bullet exit wound, you just stick a tampon in and you’re good.”

“That’s sick!” Amy said, then giggled.

“Oh, it’s better than that,” Mike said, shifting around to find a convenient position. “You use tampons and pads for bandages. Before Lycra and Spandex, SEALs use would use king-sized black pantyhose in place of wetsuits in extremely warm water. And there’s an underwater demo firing device that’s supposed to be waterproof, but usually isn’t. The trigger of the device is a ring on the end. The way you waterproof it is to get a condom, an extra large, unlubricated condom with a receptacle tip, that’s for the trigger, and put the firing device in that. With me?”

“Yeah,” Amy said, grinning.

“So, sometimes, a team will be out in some third-world shithole and get a mission to, say, go into an enemy harbor and lay some explosives,” Mike said, grinning back. “So the supply guy, a SEAL mind you, has to go into some third-world pharmacy…”

“Oh, Christ,” Amy said, laughing. “Stop! You’re killing me…”

“And ask for a case of king-sized pantyhose, several cases of tampons and maxi pads. The ones with wings are best; you can just slap them right on…”

By this time, Amy was laughing uncontrollably, bent over her AK with tears running down her face while other girls were drifting to the door to know what in the world, especially given the conditions, could be so funny.

“… and a case of extra large, unlubricated…”

“… receptacle tip…” Amy managed to gasp, holding up a finger to make the point.

“… Receptacle tip, condoms,” Mike finished, chuckling and coughing. “God, I got to quit cracking myself up.”

“What in the hell was that all about?” Bambi asked. “It sounded…”

“Oh, oh…” Amy said, waving her hand. “Oh…” Then she collapsed again.

“Just trying to bring a little levity into the situation,” Mike replied. “Everyone’s going around with long faces like they’re all gonna die or something.”

“Amy?” one of the girls said. “Mr. Ghost?”

“Yeah?” Mike said and coughed again. “Crap that hurt. What?”

“Susie’s on the Internet, she’s on a chatboard trying to get the word out on what’s going on. And Cassie’s figured out the video feed. We can go live over the Internet. We’re trying to get a link to one of the networks.”

“Oh, Christ,” Mike said. “Look, no video of the doorway, okay? Don’t let them get a look at our defenses. Keep the camera pointed at the far wall. Al Jazeera will rebroadcast and somebody will see it up top and know there’s only a couple of us. If you’re going to do this, lie. Get some of the girls and give them guns, just to hold. And… get Fox. Not CNN, not ABC. Fox.”

“You sure?” the girl asked.

“Yeah,” Mike replied and coughed. “Tell ’em if they get anyone but Fox, I’ll kick their fuzzy bunny-hugger ass.”

Chapter Eleven

“Laurie,” Tom Godwin said, sticking his head in the producer’s cubicle. “You have got to see this!”

Laurie Weiner stood up and walked to his cubicle. Tom had an AIM chat up and she tried to make sense of it. Most of it seemed to be about the hostage crisis, which wasn’t too surprising, especially given the name of the chat room: InsideTheHostageRescue. But…

“What was that?” she said, scrolling up.

HostageGirl: They haven’t been back in about ten minutes. Other than Rachel, so far we’re okay.

DingBat111: That’s good to hear. You hang in there, Girl.

HostageGirl: We’re trying to get a feed out to one of the networks. We’ve got their video gear. Susie’s figured out how to feed to the Internet. She says she needs a server link point.

“Is this what I think it is?” Laurie whispered.

“Yeah, it looks real,” Tom said, panting.

“GIVE ’EM OURS!” she shrieked. “How did they get free?”

“Some guy named Ghost broke them loose,” Tom said, typing furiously and hitting Send.

FoxieTom: THIS IS TOM GODWIN, A PRODUCER WITH FOX NEWS. EVERYONE GIVE ME A SECOND WITH HOSTAGEGIRL, PLEASE.

FoxieTom: HostageGirl, first of all, glad to hear that everyone is okay so far except Clarissa. That’s already in the news in case nobody told you. Tell Susie, the URL link for Internet vid is 126.10.05 and the password is GoFoxy. Everybody, you can’t link to that, so stay away from the URL. HostageGirl, once you do the link, we should have two way video and audio.

HostageGirl: Thanks, Ghost said we could only link to Fox. I guess he’s a fan.

FoxieTom: Who is he?

HostageGirl: I dunno, just a guy. Said he tracked us here. He killed the guards and now… I’ve got to think about what I can say and what I can’t according to Thumper.

FoxieTom: Thumper?

HostageGirl: He hung nicknames on some of the girls who are helping him. Thumper’s one of them. He also calls her “Bringer of Fire.” He’s… really weird. I don’t care. He save my life, all of our lives. I’ll forgive him everything for that. They’re over by the door singing some song about “How many of them can we make die!” now.

DingBat111: COOL. That’s “March of Cambreadth”! Very good song for what’s going on!

“I’ll look up ‘March of Cambreadth,’ ” Laurie said, “and tell video that there’s a live feed coming in from the hostages. Jesus, I can’t believe I just said that!”

“Power of the Internet,” Tom said, and chuckled, going back to the chat session.

“Welcome back to Fox and Friends, I’m Linda Braums filling in for E.D. Don… Gl… Hill!” the female anchor said. “The following is hard to believe but true. The hostages from Athens have been… partially rescued and are now using the terrorists’ own video and Internet equipment to send out live pictures from the room where they were being tortured. We have a direct link to them over the Internet and are now going to be speaking to them, live. Be aware that… they were stripped as was seen on the horrible video the terrorists already released and they don’t have access to clothing. And we cannot blur out in real time. So… I am speaking to Heather Carter, a journalism student at the University of Georgia. Heather, can you explain what happened?” The view changed to a shot of the face and upper chest of a young woman whose hair was horribly mussed and whose face was dirty but very pretty.

“Well, Linda, it was pretty confusing at first,” the girl said, her face tight. “We’d… been present for Clarissa’s…” She paused and shook her head for a second.

“Ordeal?” Linda prompted.

“I suppose that’s a word to use,” Heather replied, gulping and closing her eyes. “And then they took a break, a fairly long one. I think they’d decided to… take their time to let the word get around. Anyway, they started on Rachel…”

“It’s probably better if we don’t use names of victims, Heather,” Linda said, tightly. “Not until their families can be informed.”

“This is going to get tough,” Heather said, grimacing. “They started on another girl. And they’d, well, they’d done most of the things they were going to do to her, short of some of the end stuff… when the door burst open and this guy just came in and started killing them. I mean, just killing them. One or two shots per person, almost like an execution. Mr. Halal, who was the guy leading them and doing a lot of the torturing, tried to take the girl on the table hostage and Ghost just… played with him. Shot all the other people, acted like he was negotiating, except he was really insulting, and then he shot him through the head. He released some of us and gave us the key and he and, well he’s been organizing our defense ever since. He said this was a WMD facility, by the way, and I trust his word because he also said he used some of their chemical weapons against them. ‘Tossed a VX grenade through the door’ is what got back to me. I don’t know which door. And he blew up the plant or whatever, we heard the explosions, then got ready to defend us. According to Mr. Ghost, the U.S. government is aware of our location and on its way. But we have to hold on until they get here. So… tell them to hurry.” The view cut back to the Fox crew, who were looking pretty stunned.

“Heather, Brian here,” one of the male anchors said, being the first to recover. “Is ‘Ghost’ with the U.S. government?”

“I don’t know,” Heather admitted. “He said he tracked us here, not how or why. Just something about being on an airplane and a truck. Getting bent, whatever that means, in an airplane.”

“Is he special operations?” Brian asked. “Ranger or SEAL?”

“Uhm, Brenda said she thought he was a Ranger,” Heather replied. “She used to have a Ranger boyfriend and he was always saying ‘hoowah’. Mr. Ghost made us all say ‘hoowah’ before he’d release us.”

“He what?” Linda gasped.

“He made us all give him a big yell ‘hoowah,’ ” Heather said, shrugging and bringing nipples almost in view. “He said he needed help and if he couldn’t get a big hoowah, we weren’t worth saving. I think…” She paused and frowned, then shrugged again. “It had been… really terrible. Really really terrible. And a lot of the girls had just gone, like, out of it. I think he was trying to shock us back to reality or something. It helped, in a way, and I’ll never think of hoowah the same again, that’s for sure.”

“Okay,” Linda said, frowning. “I guess I wasn’t there and I won’t judge.”

“Oh, no, judge,” Heather replied. “He’s like some icon of everything girls hate about men. Sexist, overbearing, foulmouthed, insensitive to an amazing degree. And as soon as some of us get over what’s happened in this room, to Clarissa and some of the rest of us, he’s going to get screwed to death. If this is what it takes to keep this,” she said, waving at the room, “from happening, then I’m all for it. Male-dominated society? Screw that, this room, this is male-dominated society. America’s heaven compared to this room, compared to these people. And if it takes guys like Ghost to keep us safe, then I’m all for it. When I get back I’m going to go to the ROTC department and kiss every single person in the building.” She paused and grimaced. “I’m not going to have sex with any of them, because I don’t want to see a dick for a long time, but I’m going to kiss them. Even the girls.”

“Heather,” Brian said, carefully. “It sounds like you’ve had, well, a life-changing experience in more than one way.”

“If you mean politically,” Heather said, frowning, “you bet your ass. I’m a journalism major and a card-carrying liberal. At least, I was. I spoke out against ‘Cliff’s War on Terror’ and protested and all the rest. The hell with that. This is every decent person’s war on terror, every American’s war on terror, especially every woman’s war on these Islamic motherfuckers. Nuke these fuckers. Nuke every god damned one of them. Fuck the ‘religion of peace.’ I won’t shed a tear. And I’m going to vote Republican the rest of my life!”

“MR. SECRETARY! MR. SECRETARY!”

“Calm down!” Brandeis said, waving his hands. “Let me make my statement first. Yes, we were aware that there was an agent in place. We were aware that the girls were being held somewhere in a building we code named Aleppo Four, which was a suspected site of WMD design and possibly construction. We had been in contact with the agent, Codename Ghost. He was to find out where in the facility the girls were being held, because otherwise we suspected they’d be killed while the special operations team was looking for them. We lost contact with him and he apparently determined that the plight of the girls was so severe that he had to take action. He, apparently, sabotaged the WMD facility and somehow made his way into the section housing the girls and rescued them. This is from your news reports; we don’t have contact with him at this time. There was a plan to retrieve the girls that was waiting on his report. When we noted the activity at the facility, we put the plan in operation. It is ongoing at this time. That concludes my statement. I will now take salient questions.”

“Mr. Secretary!” one of the reporters shouted. “How long until—”

“I said salient questions,” Brandeis snapped. “That means questions I can answer. I’m not going to give you a timetable because then the Syrians will have it.”

“Mr. Secretary,” a female reporter said, waving her hand. “The Syrians have denied responsibility and…”

“Lady, I’ve been looking at Predator drone footage for the past hour,” the secretary said, shaking his head. “The Predator has been watching the whole incident. The call was tracked by technical means to Aleppo Four. NSA has traced the video link to Syria. The girls are in Syria. This is an act of war. We’re going to treat it as such. Embeds are going to accompany the relief forces. You’ll be able to see for yourself where the girls were being held. So, please, don’t bother believing the Syrians, they lie about what they had for breakfast. I’m tired of the news media being enamored of the Baghdad Bobs of the world. When we tell you something, it’s the truth or the best we can determine of the truth. Just about everything that you get from our enemies in the Middle East is lies. So would you please quit spreading the lies and maybe spend some time spreading the truth? The truth is, fifty girls were kidnapped by terrorists, not freedom fighters, not militants, terrorists. They were loaded on a plane in the Athens airport, flown to Algeria to refuel, in a section the government has spotty control of, by the way, then flown to an airbase in Syria, transported by truck to Aleppo Four and have been held in an underground room, stripped, tortured, raped and murdered. This is the truth. This is the face of our enemy. This is what the War on Terror seeks to end. And we are going to end this particular battle by pulling the girls out and turning Aleppo Four into a smoking crater. As a WMD facility, a secret one that has been used in an act of war, we could, under our guidelines, do that with nuclear weapons. It would not even count as ‘first use.’ A biological agent is WMD. Chemical weapons are WMD. Nukes are WMD. We consider all of them equal. Keep that in mind. Keep that in the front of your mind. Nukes equal gas equals germs. One single Sarin round used on our people or our troops means we can destroy anything in the supplying country with nuclear weapons and all our nuclear release procedures are satisfied. Just because we haven’t done that in the War on Terror, doesn’t mean we won’t.”

At that the room went silent until one of the reporters raised his hand.

“Does that mean the U.S. intends to use nuclear weapons on Syria?” the reporter asked quietly.

“That means that use of nuclear weapons is fully on the table at this time and is being discussed by such persons as are entrusted to their release by the American people,” the secretary replied. “It does not mean the decision has been made. However, the American people are, justly, furious at this action, especially such an action by a member of the UN Security Council. And the President intends to place a war declaration before Congress. When it is passed, and I suspect it will pass with acclaim, our actions are free. We are, thereafter, free to make full war against Syria at a time and place of our choosing.”

“Mr. Secretary, redirect,” the same reporter asked. “Does that mean we intend to force a regime change in Syria?”

“It means that, at a time and place of our choosing, we can engage in any form of war we deem necessary,” the secretary said. “The government of Syria had better think about that carefully. They not only supported this action, they maintain control of the Bekaa Valley, which is a hotbed of terrorism. We have solid evidence of links to Al Qaeda, not guesses, not rumors, solid evidence of links at the highest level. Syria is going to have a breather after this to consider what they want to be in the international community. And if they continue, in any way, shape or form, on the course they have laid in the past, then, yes, we will force regime change in Syria by any means we determine necessary. We will not ask the UN. We will not go begging the French and Germans to support us. We will wage war with every weapon, every weapon, in our arsenal. That is the determination of the National Command Authority. And we’re not lying, bluffing, kidding or considering. That is the decision of the National Command Authority. They seriously screwed up when they thought they could kidnap young American girls and torture, rape and kill them to force us to withdraw. Nothing, nothing could have been more stupid.”

“Mr. Secretary,” the reporter said, frowning. “One of the tenets of fighting unconventional warfare is that the weaker side tries to cause an overreaction from the stronger so as to get sympathy. And Al Qaeda has stated that they are trying to cause an overreaction from the West in order to bring about the Great Jihad. Wouldn’t the use of nuclear weapons be an overreaction?”

The secretary considered the reporter for a moment and then smiled, evilly.

“Tell that to the Mongols.” There was a stirring amongst the group and he waved a hand and walked out.

“What did that mean?” a female reporter asked her more experienced colleague.

“When the Mongols invaded the Persian Empire,” the guy said, frowning slightly, “which stretched through most of the Middle East, they killed four out of five inhabitants in the region. Laid waste to cities, destroyed wells and irrigation so that civilization could not exist. They killed every single resident of Baghdad, for example. The term was ‘they made a desert and called it peace.’ What he just said was that the President is furious enough to nuke the entire region.”

The female reporter thought about that for a moment, thought about the few seconds, all she could watch, of the video of Clarissa McCutcheon being raped and tortured. She thought about beliefs she had held dear, of attitudes she felt were solid in her bones. She thought about what it would be like to be a woman in that room and nodded.

“Good.” She paused and shrugged. “Do you think they can get them out?”

“It’s going to be tough,” the regular Pentagon reporter replied. “I was talking with some sources. Syria’s got a tough air defense network so they can’t just fly in by helicopter. And whatever they’re doing to hold off the Syrians, sooner or later they’ll get overrun. Trying to take down the defenses in a normal manner would be a several-day job. I don’t know how they’re going to get reinforcements into them although my source did say that there was a plan. He didn’t know what it was, but he’d heard it was really crazy.”

“Well, whoever’s going in to help them,” the female reporter said, “I wish I could give them a great big kiss. And I hope they’re okay.”

“Dude,” Roman said over the team link. “This totally sucks. I’m freezing to death. I can tell I’m getting frostbite on my toes. I can barely breathe from this damned ejector. My left arm has gone to sleep from being slammed into this fucking clamp. And I keep thinking what’s going to happen if my hookah accidentally drops free.”

The team was suited up in HALO gear, cold weather gear for high altitudes with an air bottle and mask somewhat like a fighter pilot’s to provide them with oxygen. But the bottles were small and wouldn’t last the entire time of decompression and flight. So to provide oxygen while they were in the bomb bay a large oxygen tank had been installed and tubes run to each of their masks. If the tube accidentally dropped loose, their oxygen bottle would start automatically. But it would only last so long. And there was no way to fix the problem since they were wrapped up like prey in a spider’s web.

The B-2 Spirit bomber used a rotary bomb release system. Bombs were set in a rotary rack, something like a revolver type pistol, instead of being in a general release vertical rack. The beauty of the rotary system was that, instead of having to simply drop the whole stick, specific weapons could be rotated into position for dropping.

The problem was that the rotary system entirely filled the bomb bay. So the only way to carry the SEALs was in the rotary system. Bombs were raised into the system and then grabber clamps closed on them to hold them in place, until small explosive charges drove rams downwards, forcibly ejecting the payload of each position into the violent slipstream of the high-speed aircraft. In the case of the SEALS, a field expedient wrapper was improvised. After donning all their normal equipment, including a complete tactical loadout of weapons and ammunition, a belly slung payload carrying their ruck of demo, medical and commo and their parachute and reserve, the SEALs normally had all the grace of a pregnant hippo as they waddled to the door. Waddling wouldn’t be required this time, since they had first been wrapped in foam rubber and taped to a metal backboard, then lifted into the bomb bay before the bomb clamp was closed on them. As each SEAL was loaded, the rack was rotated and the next was loaded and so forth, just like bombs, but with more protests. So they were held in place, constricted by their equipment, wrapped in foam rubber, taped to a backboard and unable to move, watching their air lines dangling in front of their faces. In this wonderful condition they awaited the moment when the copilot would operate the weapons release, and the ejector mechanism would fire as the clamps released, launching each SEAL.

“Shut up, Roman,” the chief said. “Focus on the mission.”

“I’m trying, Chief,” Roman said. “But I keep focusing on this hookah line. I mean, they could have rigger taped it or something.”

“Charlie Platoon,” the pilot said over the team net. “In-flight advisory. The agent in place, Codename Ghost, has released the girls and they are now holding a position on the lower level anticipating reinforcement. The enemy forces are attempting to force a door in the south wall, which is now your primary target. We’re at altitude and are proceeding to the destination. The Alpha Strike has gone in and are in the process of suppressing defenses. There will be another Spirit up to give you JDAM support on call. They will be monitoring your platoon radio frequency.”

“Thank you, sir,” the OIC said. “This is a nice plane, but we’ll be happy to get out.”

“So I heard,” the pilot said with a chuckle. “We’re going EMCON at this time. Do not transmit on your team net again until you are released. There won’t be a warning. The doors will open and you’ll be launched automatically. I won’t get back to you before the doors open, so good luck.”

“You heard what the man said,” the chief growled. “Not a word. Chimp down on the radios — full tactical emission control.”

Roman shifted slightly, trying for a decent position, and looked over at the nearest jumper who was one of the new meats. The guy had his eyes closed and Roman suspected he was praying. That was all well and good, but since he couldn’t bitch, there was only one thing to do. He hung his head down, closed his eyes and quickly went to sleep.

“Team,” the pilot said a couple of minutes later. “There’s an intermittent sound. We need to maintain EMCON; we’re entering detection range!”

“Roman!” the chief snapped. “Wake up! And stay awake! You’re snoring!”

Fuck, Roman thought. I hate being a SEAL.

Chapter Twelve

The last rush had included a satchel charge and Babe had had to demonstrate her throwing arm again. But Bambi and Thumper had gotten good at collecting magazines and there was plenty of ammo. Enough that Mike was pretty sure he wasn’t going to be able to use it all. Not before he died.

“Amy,” he gasped, slumping down. “Is there any riggers… duct tape in that room?”

“I think so,” Amy said. “I think I saw a roll.”

“Get Bambi over here with it,” Mike replied, slowly lying down.

When Bambi crept across to him, Mike gestured with his chin at the dark room to his right.

“There’s road flares by the door. Fire one. I saw some pieces of plasticlike folders in there.” He inhaled with difficulty then paused to cough redly. “Get one. Hurry.”

“Okay,” Britney said, creeping in the room and fumbling a flare to light. She found the sheet and came back out.

“Knife in my pocket,” Mike gasped. “Cut away my jacket and shirt.”

Britney got it out and cut away the clothing, revealing two wounds in Mike’s chest. One of them was bubbling air. She half gagged at the sight of the red wound and bone showing, but kept from completely puking.

“Sucking chest wound,” Mike managed to gasp. “Nature’s way of telling you to slow down. Caught it on the last attack. Put the plastic on it, tape it down, leave one edge untapped, so it can drain. You’ll have to roll me over to do the back.”

Britney pulled the cloth further away and laid the plastic on the wound. She was amazed to see it suck in automatically. Then she used the duct tape to strap it down. With all the blood, it was hard to find a place where it would hold but she finally got the plastic secure. She tried to roll Mike over, but he groaned so bad she stopped.

“Thumper,” she called softly. “I need help.”

“I thought I was Bringer of Fire,” the girl said with a grin, then paused when she saw how bad off “Ghost” was. “Oh, no.”

“Get the other one on,” Mike gasped. “Quick.”

Between the two of them they got him rolled over. Just as they did there was a shout from somewhere behind them and then an explosion. Most of the girls let out a shriek and Britney crouched down over Mike, covering his wounded chest as a wave of dust filled the air.

“I put a charge in the ventilation shaft,” Mike gasped. “Get the plastic on.”

The wound on his back was much larger than on his front and he was bleeding profusely, the blood making a large puddle on the floor that Britney’s knee kept slipping in. She wiped some of the blood away with a cut off piece of shirt and slapped on the plastic, strapping it down as best she could.

“We need to get you in the room,” she said, helping Thumper to gently roll him over.

“Fuck that,” Mike said, coughing again. “This is my place to stand. Hand me my rifle and then get back in the room.”

“Look, macho man,” Britney snapped. “You’re bleeding all over the place. There’s only so much blood in the human body. You’re going to die if we don’t get some of it to stay in you.”

“Got any tampons?” Amy asked. “We don’t have bandages, we don’t have medicine and we don’t have anyone else who can shoot. Throw the flare to the far end and then leave him.”

“No, I’m going into this room,” Britney said. “That way I can hand him ammunition and stuff.”

“Okay,” Mike gasped. “Do it.” He laid his head on the AK for a second and then coughed. “Britney?”

“Yeah?” she asked softly.

“You’re good people,” Mike said, coughing. “The reason I did this is I just fucking care too much, okay? I’m a bad guy, I know that, but I care, too. Too much. I’m sorry about what I said.”

“It’s okay,” Britney replied, tears in her eyes. “I think we sort of knew that. You’re going to make it, Ghost. Help’s on the way. Fox said that Brandeis said they had forces on the way. I don’t know how long, but you stay with us, okay? Please?”

“Yeah,” Mike said, taking a breath. “Hold your head up high, for there is no greater love… God, I wish I had a Crüxshadows CD right now.”

“Save your breath, Ghost,” Britney said, rubbing him on the shoulder, lightly. There were more wounds there. There was blood pouring out of him… everywhere. “Save your strength, hero.”

“Gotta fight the dark,” Mike replied. “My way. And in the fury of this darkest hour, we will be your light… we shall carry hope within our bloody hands…” he continued to sing/whisper, coughing continuously.

“Movement,” Amy snapped, triggering a round at the landing.

Mike could barely see the landing anymore, his vision was tunneling out. But he shot at the figures, like ghosts, that moved in the red light, as the pain from each recoil racked his broken body, kept firing and firing until he couldn’t see anymore.

The bomb bay doors opened faster than the eye could follow. Without warning there was a blast of wind that filled the bomb bay.

“Tallyho!” the pilot said over the platoon net. “Good luck!”

The first jumper was Vahn, as the lightest of the group. As the clamps let go he felt the ram against his back thrust him out, and the foam rubber banging against him and then dropping away in the wind, and the wash from the B-2 tumbled him into the maelstrom.

He tucked into a fetal position until he was free, then opened out into a full spread, looking around with the Night Observation Device. With the NOD he could see that there was ground down there but nothing else. There was a high bank of thin clouds they’d have to drop through to get a view of the target. Then he saw a flash of light, rising from the ground, that erupted from the clouds and tracked across the sky. He suddenly realized he was actually seeing a SAM missile targeting the B-2.

“SAM in the air!” he yelled on the tacnet, wondering just what good that would do.

He glanced over his shoulder and could see most of the team in the air behind him. He couldn’t pick out who was who, but a quick check revealed seven members at least. Some of them were picking up to him pretty quick.

The ascending SAM was moving so quickly it was more like a laser than a missile, but suddenly it banked off to the right and went straight vertical before exploding like a firework.

“Lost track when the bomb bay closed,” the OIC said over the net. “Glad it didn’t track on one of us. Form up in a stack. We’re angling southwest.”

The jumpers started to form their stack, maintaining separation, when Roman suddenly broke the silence.

“What in the hell is…”

Vahn looked around and realized he could see something approaching at their altitude and at a high rate of speed. It looked like -

“INCOMING!” Chief Adams screamed.

“Bulldog Four, Bulldog Four, vector bogie, angle one seven five, angels thirty,” the AWACs technician said, then changed to intercom. “Sir, I’ve got a Mig-27 closing on Bulldog Four, but I’m getting a weird intermittent on my screen in the area.”

The group commander in charge of the Aleppo patch brought up the screen and gave it a quick read. He was an experienced officer with hours of managing mock dogfights and this one was going more or less like training. The Syrian fighter pilots were generally chosen for their social position, rather than their skill. For all of that, they were probably the best the third world had to offer. Which simply meant that the F-15s and F-16s of the Combat Air Patrols were having a harder time killing them. So far, no American plane had been successfully engaged by either the Syrian pilots or their much more dangerous SAMs. But anything could change that so he gave the screen a close study, noting the marker for the F-15 and the intermittent radar tracks. He puzzled over those, hooking one for closer scrutiny, then noted the altitude change on the nearly motionless tracks, and blanched.

“Bulldog Four! Bulldog Four! Break left and dive! Say again, break left and dive!”

Bulldog Four was an F-15C, the best damned fighter in the world in Major Mike Speare’s opinion and he was the best damned pilot in the world. And he didn’t have anything on his threat receptors. But he was an experienced fighter pilot and he’d learned to trust the AWACs people in the bones, so without a thought he broke left as hard as he could handle, pulling the Gs up to fifteen and turning his head right to see if he could spot the threat. What he saw, literally, made him piss his pants. Mostly it was just two very wide eyeballs above a pressure mask and a heavily rigged figure dropping through the air. The wing of his F-15 missed the descending HALO jumper by less than five meters.

“Holy shit!” he bellowed. “I almost hit a fucking jumper!”

“All aircraft, be aware,” the AWACs mission officer said. “SEAL HALO team dropping near point 1148, currently Angels 32. All aircraft, avoid 1148 for five minutes and do not fire into region. Bulldog Four, turn right, descend to Angels Twenty and engage bandit point 1273 Angels Fourteen.”

“Bandit locked,” Speare said, calming. “Go Slammer.”

Meat Two, the lowest jumper in the stick, had been nearly hit by the F-15 and the wash from it picked up him and Vahn and spun the two of them through the air like tops. The stick broke apart as it entered the wash, all of the jumpers going into out-of-control condition, which meant being whirled like leaves in a tornado.

“Ruck loose,” Roman called as his rucksack bulging with ammunition and gear broke away from its rigging straps and dropped to the end of its descent line. Since he was spinning through the air at the time, the momentum of the heavy rucksack turned him into something like a bolo, spinning horizontally in the air with blood rushing into his head with the building G forces.

“Holy shit!” Simmons shouted when he saw the ruck coming towards him. He desperately flopped into a position he’d never heard of, basically on his side and banking as well as he could, and saw the ruck flash past his face. He heard a grunt and looked over to see Meat One spinning off, limp and out of control, and the ruck dropping. It had apparently hit the Meat full force and lost most of its momentum.

“Meat One, you read?” The junior NCO got back into position and delta tracked towards the meat who was descending on his back.

“This is Vahn. Meat Two is either dead or unconscious from the miss.”

“Ditto Meat One,” Simmons said, catching up to the jumper and trying to get a look at him. His mask was still attached, which was all that he could say at the moment. “He got hit by Roman’s ruck. Roman, you there?”

“Trying to catch my damned ruck,” Roman gasped. “Okay, it’s official. This job is just too fucking exciting sometimes.”

“Vahn, Simmons, hold onto the Meats until we get to opening, then release. They’ll drop towards the target and the chute will pop on its own at Angels Two. We’ll try to find them and recover them after the mission. Team Check.”

“Chief.” “Simmons.” “Vahn.” “Roman, and I have to say that I take it back, this was a bad idea.” “Sherman, ditto.” “Meat Three, here. With all due respect, ditto.”

They raced through the clouds, descending at nearly 150 mph, and Vahn finally got a look at the ground. They were following the OIC, who was tracking on GPS, but it didn’t matter anymore. Below twenty thousand feet now, they could see the target and even see the smoke still billowing from the fires in the underground facility.

“Be advised, that smoke is hazardous to your health,” the OIC said. “We’re going to go in to the south, just inside the perimeter fence. Spirit in the Sky, I want a JDAMs at point North 23145 East 14315, now, now, now. Given forty seconds, we should be on the ground just after it lands.”

“Sir, this is Meat Three.”

“Go ahead, Johnson.”

“I would like to state that I made a serious mistake when I didn’t ring out in BUDS, sir, with all due respect.”

There were chuckles on the team net and the OIC nodded his head.

“I think we’re all with you there, son,” the OIC said. “With the possible exception of the chief.”

“Nope,” the chief replied. “Gotta agree. This is even worse than 201.” An air-to-air missile flashed by below them and they could see the silhouette of a Soviet style fighter, banking and climbing over the target. “Much worse.”

“Mr. Ghost?”

Mike looked up into a fairly beatific face and a pair of really shapely breasts and smiled.

“Thank you,” he muttered. “Valhalla is real.”

“You passed out,” Britney said. “They ran away again. What do we do?”

“Get in the room,” Mike whispered, trying to move and realizing that he just didn’t have the blood left. He was surprised he could think and his vision was going again. “I’m done. All of you, in the room. Get guns. Amy show. Hold the door. I hear the angels call my name…”

“He’s out again,” Britney said. “Thumper, help me drag him into the room.”

Between the two of them they got him into the torture room and laid out by the dais. Then, with a great deal of trepidation, Britney picked up one of the rifles.

“How do you use this?” she asked Amy.

“First of all,” Amy said carefully, “you put the safety on.”

“What’s a safety?”

“Coming up on pull,” the OIC called. “Spread the stack.”

The thickening air was noticeable as they descended and they had actually slowed. But they were still approaching the ground rapidly. The jumpers rotated away from each other and spread out, Vahn and Simmons moving to position and then more or less tossing the two dead or unconscious jumpers away.

“And… pull,” the OIC called.

Almost simultaneously, seven chutes opened and began banking towards the darkened facility below.

“Oh, Spirit in the Sky,” the OIC caroled. “Where’s our JDAMs?”

As he asked the ground below was riven by a massive explosion and the shockwave slammed into their bodies.

“Thank you, Great Spirit,” Roman said.

“Head for the impact point,” the OIC called. “Ready personals. We’re going straight in.”

There were a series of screams as a massive explosion shook the room and concrete dust drifted down. Amy rolled into the room, her hands clamped over her ears and screaming in pain.

“Amy?” Britney yelled, grabbing her by the arms. “Are you okay?”

“Ow FUCK!” Amy shouted, shaking her head. “The blast must have gotten magnified by the corridor. That really hurt!” She rolled back into the doorway, shaking her head and clearly disoriented. “Babe! Flares!” she yelled, pointing down the corridor. “Flares, Babe!”

Babe picked up three of the flares and triggered them one by one, throwing them to land expertly right at the base of the stairs.

“Are you going to be okay?” Babe asked. When there wasn’t any response she tapped Amy on the shoulder and got a rifle pointed at her. “Hey! Watch it! Are you going to be okay?”

“What?” Amy yelled, shaking her head.

“Can you hear me?” Babe shouted, pointing at her ear.

“Barely.” Amy rolled back into the doorway and shook her head, leaning her chin on the rifle.

Britney’s head came up at a series of popping noises. They sounded like guns, but not the ones that had been firing. Instead of the way the soldiers had been shooting, ripping off long bursts, this was short and sharp, more the way that Ghost fired.

“What’s that?” she asked as one of the long rips started then stopped at a series of short bursts.

“I don’t know,” Babe said, then looked at Amy who was staring intently down the corridor. “AMY!”

The girl looked up and Babe squatted down by her.

“THERE’S FIRING,” she shouted, pointing to the landing. “DIFFERENT FIRING. NOT THE SAME GUNS.”

Amy looked confused for a second and then her face split in a grin.

“LIKE POPCORN?” she yelled.

“Yeah,” Babe replied, nodding.

“STAY HERE,” Amy said. “BE MY EARS.”

“Okay,” Babe said with a nod. But she picked up one of her grenades, just in case.

“Holy. Fucking. Shit,” Roman said. The area outside the entrance was torn by the blast of the JDAMs, which had caught some of the Syrian commandos in its path. But it wasn’t the torn bodies that got that expletive out of him. It was the sight inside the doorway. There was a landing and then a series of steps down to the left. Then another landing and a right angle turn. The second landing was, literally, covered with bodies. There was nowhere for a person to set a foot without stepping on at least one body and in some cases more than one. Some of them seem to have been torn by blasts as well. The entire landing was drenched in blood, the floor covered in it, the walls splashed with it, even the ceiling. “This is so cool! It’s like… Doom or something!”

“What?” the OIC called. The team had stacked on the door to the entrance, while two SEALs pulled rear security and Roman was supposed to be probing, not standing there gawking.

Roman actually paused, speechless, for a moment and then shrugged.

“It’s just fucking bodies, sir,” he replied. “I mean, lots and lots of bodies, piled up on each other. Like a Doom game scene, up to your knees in gore. It’s so fucking cool.”

“Are there stairs?” the OIC asked calmly.

“Uh, yeah,” Roman replied, stepping into the landing. “That’s covered in bodies too.” The area was actually too brightly lit for his NODs, so he flipped them up onto his helmet. That, in a way, made the scene even cooler, since the light was red and made the stairs look like they went straight to hell. He walked down the steps until he got to the edge of the bodies, just above the landing, and quickly peeked around the corner and ducked back. This came very close to getting his face shot off — a round actually hit his NODs, ripping them off his helmet.

“HEY!” he yelled. “NAVY SEALS. WE’RE HERE TO GET YOU O… OUT! SO PLEASE DON’T SHOOT US, OKAY?”

“SEALs,” Babe said, pushing down on the barrel. “SEALs! Don’t shoot, Amy!”

Amy laid the gun down on the floor and bent her head over it, nodding.

“SEALs!” Babe shouted. “Come ahead. We won’t shoot.”

Chapter Thirteen

Roman leaned around the corner again, then ducked back. When there wasn’t another shot he stepped onto the bodies on the landing, watching his footing and trying to see who had been shooting at him. He realized that the attackers had been royally fucked in this engagement. There was no way to see beyond the flare light. They were sitting ducks to anybody in the darkness. He flicked on the tac light on his M-4 and flashed it down the corridor and stopped when it revealed an open door. A door with one naked girl lying on the floor in the prone position, her head bent over an AK lying on the floor, and another leaning out the door and waving him forward. He looked at the tableau for a moment and then quickly turned the light away along with his head.

“Sir,” he said. “We have a problem.”

“Say again, Roman?” the OIC replied. “You’re broken.”

“We have a problem,” Roman said, stepping back up the stairs. “None of these girls have any clothes on.”

“That was in the brief, Roman,” the chief growled. “You should have been listening instead of high-fiving Sherman.”

“Maybe I kinda caught that in the brief, Chief,” Roman said. “But they Don’t. Have. Any. Clothes. On.”

“Roman,” the chief said. “Get the fuck down there and… Oh, fuck it, I’m headed to your position.”

The chief stumped down the steps, ignoring the bodies except to watch his footing and, at one point, catch a short sleigh ride as a pile slid downward, then flicked on his taclight and used it to negotiate his way down the body-strewn hallway.

“This your doing?” he asked the girl slumped over the AK.

“Hers and Ghost’s,” the other girl in the doorway said. “She can’t hear, that blast got her pretty bad. I’m Babe, at least that’s what Ghost called me, for Babe Ruth since I was throwing grenades.”

Even the chief had to admit he was having a hard time not ogling Babe’s well-formed breasts, but he mostly looked her in the eye.

“Did a good job,” the chief said gruffly. “Where’s this Ghost character?”

“He’s… really badly shot up,” Babe said, pulling on the chief’s arm. “He’s over here.”

The chief negotiated his way past a couple of the girls who were around the doorway and bent down over the blood-covered figure. It took him a moment to place the face and then he laughed. A real, honest belly laugh. He leaned down and checked the pulse at the carotid, then took Ghost’s chin in his hands and shook his head back and forth.

“Wake up, Ghost,” the chief said loudly. “Quit fucking off on the job!”

“Wha…” Mike said, his eyelids fluttering open. “Adams?”

“Yeah, Ghost.” The chief chuckled. “What the fuck are you doing here? Don’t you know this is a job for professionals not Ass-boys?”

“Fuck you, Ass-boy Two,” Mike muttered.

“You stay with us,” the chief said, smiling. He dropped his assault ruck and pulled out an IV bag and catheter. With quick, sure, movements he inserted the IV and then handed the bag to Babe.

“Either hold this or get someone to hold it,” Chief Adams said. Then he started digging deeper. And out came a box of tampons and another of maxipads. He heard a loud snort from behind him and saw the girl on the door, AK now at port, shaking her head.

“Where’s the condoms?” she shouted slurrily. “Extra large, right? Unlubricated?”

“We’re not doing underwater demo,” the chief shouted back, grinning. He pulled out a pair of bandage scissors and started cutting away Ghost’s clothes. As he’d come to a major hole, he’d either slap one of the maxipads on it or insert a tampon. From time to time Ghost would moan, but he kept working until most of the major external bleeding was stopped. By the time he was done with that, other members of the team had been deployed in and around the room and the OIC strode in, shaking his head.

“Ladies,” the OIC said, looking around the room and trying to meet the girl’s eyes by the light of the flares and some taclights that had been pointed at the ceiling, “the current plan is for us to hold this position until Syrian defenses are… banged up enough that we can get helicopters in. That shouldn’t be more than a couple of hours. Let us do the fighting, you ladies just chill and try to stay calm. And, uhm…” He paused and shook his head again. “I know what you have been through, some of it anyway, and we’re sorry. But, we’re also men and SEALS aren’t by any stretch of the imagination New Age guys or metromales, and with the exception of Petty Officer Roman we’re not gay.”

“Hey!”

“If any of my men give you a hard time, or are looking in an offensive way, tell me and I’ll do something about it. Like kick his ass. But… there are going to be looks. There might even be comments. If any of them are offensive, tell me or the chief and we’ll deal with it. I’m Lieutenant Reynolds, by the way, Charlie Platoon, SEAL Team Three.”

“Lieutenant?” Babe said, handing the IV bag to Britney and walking over to him. “Can I say something?”

“Yes, miss?” the lieutenant replied.

“Thank you,” she said, and wrapped her arms around him.

Before they knew it, all the SEALs were being hugged and kissed.

“Ladies,” Reynolds said, after a bit. “We have a job to do and we can’t do it if we’re so distracted we don’t know what day it is. So, thank you, too, and kindly let Roman and Meat go.”

“Which one are you?” one of the girls asked, hanging on Roman’s arm.

“Roman,” he replied. “Petty Officer Third.”

“Oh, the gay one?” the girl said and giggled. “Well, if you ever want to try the other way, I’m a Kappa Alpha at UGA. We’re right on Millege, you can’t miss the house. Come on by any time.”

“But, I’m not…” Roman said as the girl walked away.

Meat Three wrapped his arm around the confused petty officer’s shoulder and led him out of the room.

“Face it,” Meat said, giving his shoulder a hug-shake. “These girls have been traumatized. There’s nothing that they’d like more than a gay rescuer, so they can feel safe. You lucky dog.”

“I’m not gay,” Roman protested.

“Pity,” Meat Three replied.

“Meat, Roman, Sherman,” the OIC said, coming out of the torture bunker. “Top-side. Watch for a counterattack. Simmons, Vahn, there’s apparently a ventilation shaft back there,” he said, pointing down the corridor. “Go check it out. Ghost had rigged an IED in it, but it got triggered already. See if you can rig another. Oh, and everybody give up your rations and spare canteens.”

“Why?” Simmons asked, dropping his assault pack.

“Because the girls have had no food and no water for a while,” Reynolds replied. “Share and share alike. Take a look around and see if you can find a sink. But watch your ass, there’s apparently some chemical munitions spilled around here. Make sure the water’s not contaminated, use your strips.”

“How’s Ghost?” Simmons said. “It’s actually Ghost, isn’t it?”

“Apparently,” Reynolds replied. “You know him?”

“Knew him,” Simmons said. “He was a senior team guy when I joined Charlie Three. He quit and went over to training. I heard he’d ETSed.”

“Well, he’s here, now,” the OIC said. “Get to your jobs. We’re not out of the woods, yet. Sherman,” he added, reaching in his assault vest and handing the SEAL a satellite radio. “Call in. Tell them the girls are secure, Ghost is severely wounded, one of the girls is in a bad way. Ask that they control the JDAMs from satellite and Predator since we’re going to be down here. And find out when we can expect extraction.”

“Got it, sir,” Sherman replied, turning for the entrance.

“Meat, Roman, cover him,” the OIC finished, turning back into the room.

“Lieutenant?” one of the girls said. “I’m Bambi. Well, Britney, but…”

“I understand, miss,” the lieutenant replied, trying to look her in the eye. She had perfect breasts, small but very well formed. And… blue eyes. Nice face. Shit, this was too much.

“Amy said that Ghost said that there’s a bag over in the room across the hall,” she said, pulling on his arm and ignoring the looks. “There’s something in it for the President. She said it was contaminated; I don’t know what that means.”

“I do,” the lieutenant said, allowing himself to be led. When they reached the door, Bambi… Britney bent down and pulled out a flare, sparking it to light, and gestured to the leather case.

“I thought I saw it before,” she said. “He sent me in here to get plastic to put on one of the wounds on his chest.”

The lieutenant walked to the sample case and touched it gingerly. It was wet, as if washed down.

“Any idea where he got the water?” the lieutenant asked. He pulled a strip of material out of a pouch and rubbed it on the outside of the case.

“No,” Britney replied.

The test strip said that the outside of the bag was clean. He was sorely tempted to open it and find out what was inside.

“Bambi,” he said, unthinkingly. “Could you leave the flare here and step out of the room?”

Britney nodded and set the flare on the floor, then backed out of the room.

Reynolds picked it up, pushed the door closed and then set it on the pile of boxes in the middle of the room. Then he set the sample case on the ground where the light would fall in it, took a breath and opened the case slowly. What he saw made him blow out his breath in an explosive: “HOLY FUCKING SHIT.”

“Are you okay, Lieutenant?” Britney called, knocking on the door.

Reynolds closed the case gingerly, trying not to breathe and hoping he wasn’t getting hit by neurotoxins, and then opened the door back up. When he took a breath there was a faint whiff of sulfur and that actually made him happier. The contamination was probably mustard or maybe phosgene, which wasn’t going to kill anyone at that level of concentration.

“I’m fine,” Reynolds said, grinning and trying not to laugh. “Do you have any idea where the material in this case came from?”

“No,” Britney said.

“Okay, we’ll figure it out,” Reynolds replied, dropping the case and hugging her. “Sorry, I’m just… tickled.”

“What’s in there?” Britney asked, surprised by the emotional response from the officer who had been so correct so far.

“A surprise,” Reynolds said, grinning. “I’ve got to go.”

He walked to the stairs and made his way up the pile of bodies to where Roman and Meat were covering Sherman, who was hooked into the satellite radio. The radio was smaller than a brick phone, with an internal directional antenna and a headset.

“Who’s there?” Reynolds asked, squatting down and still grinning.

“Admiral Hayes,” Sherman said, covering the mike. “Want to talk?”

“Got your camera?” Reynolds asked, pulling the mike away and jacking the earphone into his ear.

“Yes, sir,” Sherman replied, shrugging off his assault pack and pulling out the small video recorder. “I got some shots of the bodies on the stairs but not of the girls.”

“STARBASE, SIERRA ONE, OVER,” Reynolds said. “Apparently, Agent Ghost wanted to give a present to the President. I totally agree. But I think you should see it, first. We’re preparing for video uplink.”

“Copy SIERRA. This is STARBASE Actual,” the admiral said. “Be advised that the NCA may be monitoring this conversation and video linkage.”

“Oh, I don’t think he’ll mind, sir,” Reynolds said happily. “Sherman, back off. The inside of the case is contaminated. Mustard, I think, low concentration, but I’m going to hold my breath when I open it.”

“Okay, sir,” Sherman said, handing him the camera, which had been plugged into the satellite link, and backing away.

“Here goes,” Reynolds said, taking a breath and then opening up the case with his left hand while shining the low-light camera with a very faint blue light at the case.

“HOLY SHIT!” the President shouted. “Yes! Yes! YES!”

“Oh, man,” Brandeis said, shaking his head. “We have got to get this guy a medal. Barring that, one hell of a lot of money.”

“Put me in contact with them,” Cliff said, looking over at the communications technician.

“You’re on, sir.”

“SEAL Commander.”

“SIERRA Six?” Reynolds asked.

“This is the President. I hate doing direct contacts, I don’t want to be LBJ in Vietnam. But I have to ask. That is who I think it is, right?”

“As far as I can tell, sir,” Reynolds replied, nervously. Knowing the President might be listening and actually talking to him was two different things. “We were told that Ghost wanted it to be a personal present to you.”

“How is he?” the President asked.

“Very badly hit, sir,” Reynolds said. “He’s lost a lot of blood and he’s probably got major internal bleeds. We don’t have blood with us, just IV’s. We’re trying to keep him stabilized but…”

“Okay,” the President said. “The girls?”

“Better than I expected, sir,” the lieutenant admitted. “Some of them are nearly catatonic, but most of them seem to be holding it together pretty well. Ghost had a few of them helping him and they’re particularly good. One of them took some hearing loss when we dropped a JDAM near the entrance, but she’s otherwise okay. She was holding the door when we got here and nearly killed my point. Shot the NODs right off his helmet. Another one was apparently chucking grenades for him. I think, maybe, fighting back was kind of good therapy.”

“I don’t know about times, but somebody’s on the way,” the President said. “You just hang tough, SEAL. Damned good job. I want to see all of your team at the White House, or maybe Camp David, as soon as you get back to the states. Camp David, that way you don’t have to dress up.”

“Yes, sir,” Reynolds said.

“And don’t lose that bag,” the President added. “And try to find the rest of him.”

“Will do, sir,” Reynolds replied.

“Cut this and clear us, I’ve done enough damage…”

“I think he’s clear,” Admiral Hayes said. “I have to add, good job. How was the drop?”

“Not something I want to do again, sir,” Reynolds admitted. “We nearly were mid-aired by an F-15, had a SAM fly by, an air-to-air, watched portions of the dogfight from the good seats, if you know what I mean. We lost two of our meats on the way down from effects from the F-15. Their chutes deployed, but I don’t know where they are or if they’re alive or dead.”

“We’ll get SAR in there, too,” the admiral said. “And dial out the Predator to look for them. Security situation?”

“The JDAM must have convinced them we were serious, sir,” Reynolds responded. “We had some contact on the way in, very light, brushed it aside, and no counterattacks. ETA on reinforcements?”

“According to the Air Force, we’ve dug a hole through their SAM belt and CAP is refueling. As soon as they’re refueled, the 101 will move to your position by helo. Say an hour or so. Egress Ghost and the wounded girl first, then the women, then your team, then the 101 will pull out.”

“Roger, sir,” Reynolds said. “Sir, be advised. The ladies are completely unclothed. Respectfully request… well…”

“The 101 is supposed to be bringing spare clothes,” the admiral said.

“Thank you, sir,” Reynolds replied. “Anything else, sir?”

“Nope,” the admiral said. “I’m looking at the take from the Predator and you’re right, nobody seems to be sticking out their head. There was an armored column headed for your position, but the Air Force savaged it and it turned back. Fingers crossed, we’re looking good.”

“I’ll go tell the ladies, sir,” Reynolds replied. “SIERRA six clear?”

“STARBASE out,” the admiral said. “And make sure you bring the bag.”

“Okay, ladies,” Reynolds said, walking back in the room. “God willing and nothing goes particularly wrong, our reinforcements should be here in about an hour. When they get here, we leave. And they are bringing clothes.”

That elicited applause from the girls and he smiled.

“I’d like to cover some details of the exit,” he said. “We’re going to put Ghost and Rachel on the first chopper. There are medics standing by. I’d like a couple of the ladies who have been with Rachel to accompany her, so figure out who they are. Then we’ll get the rest of you out of here. The stairs, in case you haven’t seen them, are covered in bodies and body parts. We’re not going to have time to clear that; you’ll have to walk on the bodies, so prepare yourselves. We’ll station someone on the landing with clothes so you don’t have to walk out in the open in your… current condition.” He looked around and cleared his throat.

“This might be the wrong time to say this and the wrong thing to say, but please don’t let what happened to you turn you into… something you don’t want to be. We went through a lot to get here and secure the position. I won’t get into the whole story except to say that we had to drop through the middle of a dogfight overhead and I lost two of my men when we were nearly hit by an F-15 fighter. We came here to rescue, Ghost fought to rescue, what you… were. Nice, decent, lovely young ladies who were just… getting on with your lives. This experience is, yeah, going to scar you. But when you get to thinking that all men are horrible assholes because of what you went through, or some friend tells you that, or some therapist tells you that, or some professor tells you that, or, hell, you run into some guy who is an asshole, think about us, too, and Ghost. If you turn your backs on the good guys… well… we’ll still come for you whenever you need us, but it will take all of the joy out of what we do, what we’ve done. This is… what we live for. In the end, you ladies are what we fight and die for. Don’t turn your backs on us, too.”

He nodded at the group and then walked out of the room.

“Sergeant Major Gunther, Third Batt, Rakasans,” the NCO said as he neared the entrance followed by a group of soldiers carrying BDU tops in their arms. “We brought clothes.”

“PO Roman,” Roman said. “My L-T wants us to hand them out as the girls come up. We’ve been around them for a couple of hours now, they’re used to us.” His jaw flexed and he shook his head. “Try to get your guys to not ogle.”

“Already covered,” the NCO said tightly. “Where do you want them?”

“Meat,” Roman said. “Grab an armful and station yourself on the landing. You’re about to be very popular.” Meat grabbed the first two armfuls and headed down the stairs.

“We’ve got enough choppers to lift all the girls and the team,” Gunther said. “Then the choppers will turn around and pull us out.”

“Have fun sitting on this patch,” Roman said. “It’s no fun. We need two stretchers.”

“Incoming,” Gunther said, looking over his shoulder. “Medics! Stretchers!”

“Okay, good stick whoever did it.” Specialist Calvin Thomas was a pretty good medic in his opinion. He was an EMT in New York on September 11, 2001 and volunteered for the U.S. Army on October 1, as soon as they were sure there wasn’t anything left to do at Ground Zero. He’d seen his share of shot-up bodies, both in New York and since. In his expert medical opinion, the guy on the floor should have already been dead. On the other hand, he’d seen people survive that should have died. And people die that should have lived. You just never knew. “Any idea what type he is?”

“O pos,” Chief Adams said.

“You sure?”

“I’m sure,” Adams said. “I know him like a brother.”

“Good,” Thomas replied. “Let’s get him on the stretcher. Then I’ll run some blood and intubate.”

Ghost was lifted onto the stretcher as the medic pulled out a unit of O positive blood. Since almost anyone could take O pos, he had carried it down to the room just in case. He had other types in a cooler in the chopper. He put a blood pressure cuff on the guy’s arm and shook his head at the reading.

“Okay, easy with the stretcher,” he said to the four infantrymen that had accompanied him into the bunker. “And keep your eyes on where you’re going, not the view.”

“The girl goes, too,” Chief Adams said. “And the two girls with her. Her name is Rachel, I don’t have a last. No idea of her medical. Call the two girls with her Bambi and Thumper.”

“Ooo-kay,” Thomas said, shaking his head. “Lift away, boys.”

The stretchers were carried, carefully, up the stairs and then across the open area to the waiting choppers. Bambi and Thumper each gave Meat a quick kiss and then donned the BDU tops, buttoning them hurriedly. They barely had time to scramble into the chopper before the pilot revved the engines and lifted off the ground.

“Is he going to live?” Britney asked.

“Maybe,” Thomas said. “His blood pressure is so low, though,” he added, giving the liter of blood a squeeze. He had one more liter of O-pos and after that he’d be pumping in water where blood should go.

He slid an oxygen tube up Ghost’s nose, then a breathing tube down his throat. He ran a cervical collar around his neck, for what good it would do, and checked the bandages.

“SEALs,” he muttered, looking at the tampons and pads. He put pressure bandages on each of the wounds, right on top of the field expedient bandages. When he was done he checked for a pulse again and blanched.

“Crap,” he muttered, pulling out a field defibrillator.

“Can I assist?” Bambi asked.

“You trained?” Thomas asked. “Not right now. Clear.” He placed the pads on Ghost’s body and set the sensor in place, hitting the on button of the defib kit then sitting back.

“Aren’t you supposed to…” Thumper said.

“Wait.”

“Checking for pulse,” the machine said in a female voice. “No pulse. Charging, charging, stand clear, CLEAR.” There was a sharp whine from the machine and Ghost’s body jerked but didn’t arch convulsively. “Checking for pulse. Pulse forty-five.”

“It does it all,” Bambi said. “I’ve never used one, but I’ve heard of them.”

“I’m leaving it in place,” Thomas said, going back to his bandaging. The liter was about out, so he changed it for a fresh one and ran another IV, after three sticks, to start a standard glucose drip. Anything to get the damned BP up. “Crew chief! How long?” he yelled.

“Twenty minutes,” the crew chief yelled back over the thunder of the chopper. “There’s a field station set up.”

“He doesn’t need a field station,” Thomas snapped. “He needs a damned class one trauma center. If we can’t get some more blood in him, his heart is going to collapse.”

“No pulse,” the machine said. “Charging…”

“Miss, we have to go now,” Reynolds said as carefully as he could. He’d hardly noticed the girl in the back of the room, huddled in the corner, until the rest of the girls were filing out. She had a blank stare that he’d seen in seriously shell-shocked firefight survivors. He knew she wasn’t seeing him, except, possibly, as a male shape.

“Chief,” he called. “See if Babe is still around.”

“I’m here, sir,” Babe said. She was still stark naked but seemed to hardly notice anymore. The SEALs, despite the lieutenant’s warning, had been solicitous to a fault. Yeah, they looked from time to time, but not in a bad way. Like Ghost, she felt she could trust them. But the girl in the back corner clearly could not. If she even noticed.

“Hi,” Babe said, squatting down. “What’s your name?”

The girl looked at her in fear, then shut her eyes and huddled into the corner.

“Okay,” Babe said. “Wrong question. I know why it’s the wrong question, even. It was stupid. But, listen to me, we’re getting out of here. They’re not going to hurt us anymore. We’re safe. The Army’s here and the SEALs and they’re all good guys that aren’t going to hurt us. But we need to go.”

“Chief,” Reynolds called. “Go get one of those BDU tops for Babe and this lady.”

“Roger,” Chief Adams said, striding out of the room.

“We can sedate her,” Reynolds said.

“They gave us drugs to bring us over here,” Babe responded tightly. “If you want her to totally panic, come at her with a needle. If you want me to totally panic, bring out a needle.”

“Gotcha,” Reynolds said, squatting down. “What can we do?”

“If we can get some clothes on her, maybe she’ll calm down,” Babe said.

“I was next,” the girl whispered.

“What?” Reynolds said. “Honey, you’re safe. The bad men are all dead. You’re safe. Please, let us get you out of here.”

“I was next,” the girl said again, looking at the far wall. “I sat next to Rachel. She was my friend.”

“Oh, crap,” Babe said then swallowed. “When they were done with Rachel, she would have been next.”

“I liked Clari,” the girl said, tears forming in her eyes. “She was my friend, too. And they… they…”

“Clothes, boss,” the chief said, shaking his head. “Miss, you’re about the age of my daughter. Could you maybe put on some clothes? I know she started getting funny about being naked when she was ten. And I surely would like to get you out of here. There’s a plane waiting to take you back to the United States. Your family is waiting. Could you please come back to us?”

The girl seemed to focus for a second and then shut her eyes, crying.

“Don’t like to look at the room, do you?” the chief said, handing Babe a jacket and cradling the other one in his arms. “Can you let Babe put this on you?” he asked.

The girl nodded and Babe slid her arms in the sleeves, then buttoned up the front. Then she laughed.

“It’s… a little big,” Babe said, rolling up the sleeves so that the short female’s hands would show.

“Miss,” the chief said, gently. “I know you don’t want a man touching you or even being near you. But getting out of this place with your eyes closed will be tough. Did your daddy ever carry you piggyback?”

“Yes,” the girl said, quietly.

“No man can hurt a girl that’s piggyback,” the chief said. “If I turn around, will you climb on my back? I can carry you out of here. I can carry you all the way home if that’s what it takes. I can carry you around the world, if that’s what it takes. You just say the word. I’ll carry you anywhere, because you look a lot like my daughter and I’d want somebody to help her if she was hurt and scared like you are.”

The girl nodded, her eyes closed.

“I’m going to turn around now,” the chief said, suiting actions to words, “and Babe is going to help you up on my back. Can Babe do that? She’s a girl, just like you.”

“Okay,” the girl said in a small voice.

“Come on,” Babe said, taking one arm and lifting it up so it touched the chief’s shoulder. As soon as the girl’s hand touched, she leaned forward and swarmed onto the SEAL’s back, wrapping her legs around his waist and grabbing his neck so hard it choked him.

“Maybe a little lighter?” the chief gasped. “I need to breathe a little.”

The girl loosened up as the chief carefully climbed to his feet.

“Please take me home,” the girl whispered in his ear, crying faintly and shaking. “Please? I don’t want to be hurt. Please?”

“I will, sweetie,” the chief said, walking carefully towards the front of the room and unconsciously moving his weapon to a tactical position. “And nobody, nobody, is going to hurt you anymore. Let me teach you a song as we go. It goes like this: Out in the wood there’s a band of small fairies if you walk unwary at night. They’re laughing and drinking and soon you’ll be thinking, that you’d like to join in their life…”

Chapter Fourteen

“All of the surviving hostages have been extracted and are on their way to Germany on a medical evacuation flight,” Secretary Brandeis told the packed audience. “They will be given a brief medical check in Germany, then returned to the States. Our first priority is getting them back to their families, although some of them are in poor psychological condition. On that score, they have bonded rather strongly with the SEAL team that was dropped in to hold the position and the team will be accompanying them all the way back to the States. This is at the rather pointed request of some of the young ladies who refused to board the evac plane unless the SEALs went too.

“The person known as Ghost is on the same evac plane and is in critical condition. Military doctors at the transfer point in Iraq stabilized him enough for movement but it’s touch and go. Doctors have told me that we might not know for days, or even weeks, if he will live.

“As to Syria,” the secretary continued, keying an overhead monitor that showed an oblique view of the set of buildings people had come to know, “this is Aleppo Four. A B-2 has been orbiting Aleppo Four continuously since the SEAL team was inserted. All of our personnel have been evacuated. And this is our answer to Aleppo Four.”

There was a brief pause and then the screen flashed white and clicked out to a broader view that showed a boiling mushroom cloud.

“That is the lowest power nuclear weapon in our arsenal,” Brandeis said, coldly. “Before anyone asks the question about ‘won’t that make people accelerate their WMD plans,’ I’ll make it simple. As our President once said: Bring it on. Every insane group of leaders in the world is trying to craft nuclear weapons, poison gas and biological agents. They have been for decades. Despite what the people in the press think, Saddam was working on it very hard. For today, we are not going into Syria. The state of war still holds. We can now confirm that Basser Assad was present at Aleppo Four, apparently watching the rapings and torture from behind a two-way mirror. He was killed by Ghost. And he was not the only person killed by Ghost.” Brandeis keyed the screen again and a body was shown. It was twisted in death and someone in chemical protective clothing was holding the head more or less in place.

He waited until the shouts, from gleeful to horrified, died down and smiled.

“So for anyone who says there was ‘no proven link to Al Qaeda,’ ” Brandeis snarled, “Agent Ghost also killed Osama Bin Laden, who was also watching the proceedings. He killed him, and Basser Assad, with the very mustard gas which was being produced in the facility. Aleppo Four is now a smoking hole. And let all of the terrorists of the world, all the governments of the world who support them, all the governments that are feverishly working on nukes and gas and germs, let all of them know that this is the end result. So, the question that you have to ask is: Exactly how far do I want to go to piss the United States off? Because now you know, that if you go far enough, what you’re going to receive is a smoking hole and an increase in background radiation. If you push us far enough, our answer is simple: nuke them until they glow and shoot them in the dark. No questions.”

Mike’s throat was terribly sore. Then he forgot his throat as various bits of his body started informing his conscious mind just how very glad they were to have someone to complain to, finally. He managed to drag his eyes open and got a glimpse of acoustic tile.

“I was hoping for Valhalla,” he muttered. Or tried to, it was more of a mumble. “Ow.”

“You’re awake,” a bright young female voice said. “Don’t try to talk. Are you in any pain?”

“Uhhh!” he grunted.

“Let me get you some water for your throat,” the voice said, “then I’ll get the doctor and see if your medication needs to be adjusted.”

A tube was inserted in his mouth and he got a brief flash of one of those unpleasant multicolored smocks nurses had taken to wearing. So much for Valkyries and feasting.

He closed his eyes as the nurse squeaked out in her rubber-soled shoes and wondered where he was. The U.S., probably: the nurse didn’t have the “feel” of military nurses. Which meant he’d been out for a while.

“So you’re finally awake,” a female voice said.

The face that leaned into view wasn’t bad, but it was terribly professional. Brown hair pulled back in a bun, more handsome than pretty. Nice eyes, but a trifle cold.

“How are you feeling?” the doctor asked. “There’s going to be a high degree of soreness from the surgery, but is there any intense pain? Pain remediation at this point is important.”

“If I don’t move,” he said slowly, wondering why he couldn’t talk more clearly, “I’m okay.”

“That’s the idea,” the doctor said. “Don’t move. With the level of morphine in you right now, you’d have a hard time anyway.”

“W’ere my?” Mike asked then worked his jaw. “Where am I?”

“You’re in a… special hospital in Virginia,” the doctor said. “And… we don’t refer to our patients by name. You’re Patient 1357. Sorry.”

“S’okay,” Mike replied. “CIA?”

“Somewhat, but primarily military, sort of,” the doctor said, smiling in a way that cut off that avenue of conversation. “I’m Dr. Quinn.” She looked at him for a moment and nodded. “Go ahead and get it out of your system, otherwise you’ll be bothered until you do.”

“Medicine woman?” Mike said, trying to grin.

“See, feel better?” the doctor said. “No relation. I’ll send the nurse back in to take care of your needs. If the pain gets particularly bad, ring for the nurse and we’ll make an adjustment. Let me be clear: Pain is not weakness leaving the body. You can play that game when you’re operational, but when you’re recovering, high-order pain reduces your ability to heal. We want to keep the pain down. Don’t be a hero. If you’re in a lot of pain, tell us. If you move and it hurts like hell and won’t go away, tell us.”

“Got it,” Mike said. “I take it I’m going to live?”

“You’re going to live,” the doctor said, nodding. “There was some infection, but we got that under control days ago. You’ve been unconscious for nearly two weeks. Not in a coma, just unconscious. Not abnormal with injuries as severe as yours. But you’re well on your way to recovery, now.”

“Thanks,” Mike said, working his head. His neck seemed, other than stiffness, to be the only thing that didn’t hurt.

“You’re welcome,” Dr. Quinn said. “I spent nearly ten hours with my hands in various bits of you. I’m glad to see it was worth it.”

The biggest problem was the tedium. In a civilian hospital, he’d probably have been discharged after a few days to a week, basically when the IV came out, which was three days after he woke up. Since this place was “sort of military,” and he had nobody to help him at home, he had to stay. He watched TV and caught some of the replays of the return home of the girls. The government, thank God, had let them get together with their parents before the news media got a crack. President Cliff had waited until the day after the homecoming to go visit, and hadn’t talked to the media on the way in or out, just turned up, spent some time and left. No grandstanding, no politicking. The scene of the girls getting off the plane in Dix was part of Fox’s lead-in. Charlie Three had, apparently, been their escorts back and for some reason the chief had one of the girls stuck on his back like a limpet. That was a major shot in the lead in.

Some general had taken over from Assad in Syria. He had promised that they were out of the WMD game and renounced terrorism, then started playing the Saddam game of denying that there ever was any WMD and they certainly weren’t sponsoring terrorism. All the while complaining largely of fall-out from the, remarkably clean, burst over their soil. All America’s fault, of course. The girls were never there. There was no proof. Show us the proof they were there.

Video footage by news media from the site certainly wasn’t proof. Oh, no. And all the networks but Fox were eating it up and constantly asking “where’s the proof?” Flipping idiots.

Some of the girls were on from time to time and he shook his head at the tenor of the questions. Bambi… Britney was interviewed on ABC. He’d made sure he stayed awake that evening, and the interviewer, some chick, was aghast that she would have actually tried to fight. That she wasn’t viewing herself as a victim. Bambi just about tore her a new asshole. “I’m not a victim. I fought to help all of us stay alive and I refuse to be called or characterized as a victim. I’m a fighter and a survivor. Ghost taught me that.”

The government had gone from giving updates on his health to refusing to speculate whether he was alive or dead. Since he was listening to that from inside a secure — he’d seen the guards outside — military hospital, it gave him a bit of a shiver. But he figured it was for his own safety. Various Islamic groups had pronounced jihad, personally, on the horrible person that would actually kill their Great Leader. Not, by the way, that the Great Leader was dead. Show us the proof. Pictures of a body are not proof. But the man called Ghost was going to be one when they got their hands on him.

He tracked his progress by the stuff that came out and what he could do. IV, drainage tubes, the day they let him walk to the bathroom and he found out how hard it was. He tried to play mental games, remember historical events; he got one of the nurses to get him some books and they all turned out to be romances. He read them anyway and came away wondering just how traumatic it really was for the girls in the bunker. If this was what women read for fun… ?

One day he was puzzling over a scene in one of the “historicals” that didn’t match any “history” he knew, when a colonel in undress greens walked in unannounced. One read of the nametag said it all.

“Good to finally meet you, Colonel Pierson,” Mike said, holding out his hand.

“Glad to see you’re going to make it,” Pierson replied, grinning.

“Am I?” Mike asked with a raised eyebrow. “The government doesn’t seem sure.”

“That’s why I’m here,” Pierson admitted, pulling up a chair. “One of the reasons. You want to be alive or dead?”

“Can we stick with ‘unsure’?” Mike asked.

“For the time being,” Pierson said. “This administration will be more than happy to stay with ‘unwilling to comment upon his mortality.’ But… administrations change. Honestly, you-know-who is probably going to run in ’08 and she’s got a good chance of winning. We both know that.”

“How hard would it be to classify it so the bitch can’t get it?” Mike asked. “The teams won’t talk.”

“Hard but not impossible,” Pierson admitted with a sigh. “Pretty hard to not say that you survived, but we can probably hide your identity.”

“Works for me,” Mike replied. “So what else do you have?”

“Well,” Pierson said solemnly, clearing his throat and picking up his briefcase. “There are a number of forms that I need you to sign. We’re handling the money through the Witness Protection Program…”

“Money?” Mike asked.

“Well, first there’s Osama,” Pierson said, his face cracking into a grin. “There was a Presidential Finding that the President’s words to the news media, ‘dead or alive’ meant that the reward could be paid…”

“Dead or alive,” Mike said and whistled. “How much?”

“Twenty-five million,” Pierson said and grinned again. “It’s being handled through the Witness Protection Program and they’re pretty damned secure, even from presidents. It’s split in various accounts so no one bank person sees a deposit of twenty-five million. But there’s another five million for ‘aid in disrupting a major terrorist operation.’ So your grand total is thirty. There was some quibbling about your medical expenses, which were sizeable, and I’m told that when the discussion reached presidential level it descended to four-letter words. So you don’t even have to pay the hospital bill.”

“Damn,” Mike said, his eyes wide. “What the hell am I going to do with twenty-five, thirty million dollars?”

“Uhm…” Pierson hummed. “Think, rather, what you can’t do. But spend it wisely — most lottery winners go broke. Another reason to spend it wisely is that you don’t want to become too visible.”

“Boat,” Mike said. “A yacht. That way I can move around. I’ll come up with a cover story, but it will look like I’m a drug dealer or former drug dealer spending his ill-gotten gains.”

“That works,” Pierson said. “Now, we don’t expect that you’ll have actual trouble from the terrorists or any future adventures. But there may be repercussions. There is a special program for certain categories of protectees, and you’re a good example, which gives them pseudo-police authority. Effectively, you’re made a special version of the Reserve Federal Marshall. What that means is you can carry anywhere in the U.S., and in a good bit of the rest of the world. And it acts as a Class III permit, so you can carry heavy if you wish. Illegal use is illegal use, but if you can carry it, you can carry it.”

“Good,” Mike said. “I’d been somewhat worried about the tangos finding out who I was before I found out they found out. But if I’m armed in an ambush, that’s a different story.”

“Don’t go Rambo,” Pierson said sternly.

“Don’t intend to,” Mike replied. “But it’s a comfort.”

“Also, in the same vein,” Pierson continued. “You don’t exactly have a ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ card. But some things may come up relating to your… special status. Part of this,” he said, holding up the briefcase, “besides instructions on what you can do with your status and what you can’t and how to handle it, is a number of the Office of Special Operations Liaison. Or, as we call it, Oh-so-SOL. It’s where I work. The phone is manned twenty-four hours a day. If you have problems or questions, call it. You’re also going to be on the military database as a ‘special contractor.’ That could mean anything from a contract weapons instructor to… well, you. However, if anyone brings up your record, all the salient information is Code Word classified, so they’ll probably put two and two together and get something near four. At the very least, if it’s a military or police situation, they’ll recognize you’re not just one of the narod. Don’t use it if you don’t have to.”

“Understood,” Mike said, sighing. “I don’t just get to be myself the rest of my life, do I?”

“Nope,” Pierson said. “When I retire, I’ll be nobody. You’ll always be, at least until the terrorists get worked down to a regional nuisance, the guy who killed Osama. Sprayed him with poison gas then cut his head off. Arguably, you should be surrounded by bodyguards the rest of your life. Knowing you, though…”

“Ain’t gonna happen,” Mike said. “I’m a good enough bodyguard, thanks. That it?”

“Except for the paperwork,” Pierson said with a nod. “And running you over the instructions. Yes.”

“When can I get discharged?” Mike asked. “I have a bunch of money to spend.”

“As soon as this gets cleared up,” the colonel replied. “And we’d really like a written after-action report…”

“Don’t hold your breath,” Mike replied, grunting. “What happens on the mission, stays on the mission. Let’s get started on the rest of it, though. I have people to see…”

It was a shitty day in Athens. A weak cold front was coming through and the light, misty, rain was soaking into Brenda McCarthy’s sweatshirt as she walked up College Street. The conditions fit her mood, which was crappy. The girls had been given A averages for the semester that had been “disrupted” as the administration put it. But since the beginning of this new semester she’d had to contend with being “One of the Syria Girls.” The whispers and looks in class were bad enough. But the experience tended to attract… the wrong kind of guys. Guys that she really didn’t want calling her “Babe.” Guys that, frankly, set off her creep meter.

So it was just adding insult to a screwed up day when some loser sitting at the Starbucks called out to her.

“Hey, Babe, it is Babe, isn’t it?”

She spun around to deliver an angry reply and stopped as the man stood up and took off his sunglasses. She stood still as he approached to where he could speak quietly.

“I don’t like it when most people call me that,” she said, her face working, trying not to cry.

“Well, I don’t know your real name,” the man said. “But some people call me Ghost.”