Ghost Series - Ghost Part 5

"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 areclearof that."

"Tell the President 'thank you,'" Mike said, feeling an immense wave of relief.

"That's the good news. The bad news is that wereallyneed 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 h.e.l.l, 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 n.a.z.is and they only made them for their own dictators.

He left his bag and weapon on the fan and s.h.i.+mmied 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. n.o.body 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 h.e.l.l to find a big d.a.m.ned 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 theworldwould 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 b.a.l.l.s, 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 s.h.i.+t 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 s.h.i.+rt.Thenhe'd look like a local, he was pretty sure.

He was wearing a black T-s.h.i.+rt, unadorned, and that was sort of good and bad. Black was pretty common among muj but not among the workers, at least in T-s.h.i.+rts, 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 a 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 theoppositewould 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 h.e.l.l 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 b.u.t.t, which she could tell were naked, rather than a solid bottom. It was a 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, s.h.i.+t and p.i.s.s 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 p.i.s.sed 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 cla.s.s. 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, wesodon'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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s and a refined face that was twisted in fear. "G.o.d, 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 inpurplecamouflage guarding it. Who in the h.e.l.l usedpurplecamouflage? 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 gla.s.s. "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, theywillcome 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 s.n.a.t.c.h mission. "We're locked down." Adams was the platoon's senior enlisted man, and usually pa.s.sed the immediate "word" while the officers dealt with the rest of the "head shed."

"What the h.e.l.l?" 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 p.u.s.s.y from durance vile. Ifthatdon'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 aeros.p.a.ce 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 airs.p.a.ce, Mr. President," the secretary of defense said, smiling faintly.

"Now why couldn't you just say that?" the President asked, sighing. "I mean, we bothtrainedin it, right?

So why can't we justcallit 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 b.l.o.o.d.y murder. Other than that, I don't see the repercussions."

"It will seriously undermine the coalition if we cannotprovethey 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 sc.r.a.pe 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-s.h.i.+rts, 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 Hamid 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 havenoidea 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 theydotry 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 bemorethan 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 howmuchI like it," he added as the two men who had accompanied him opened up their bags and pulled out rubber ap.r.o.ns. "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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "I think we'll start with you."

"Noooo!" she screamed as the two men in ap.r.o.ns came forward along with a couple of the waiting soldiers. One of the ap.r.o.ned 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 ap.r.o.ned men locked the chain back down. At no time had they lost control of the chain so that the other girls could s.n.a.t.c.h it away.