As planned, DeWitt went in first, diving to the left. Fernandez dove in to the right a moment later. Lights were still on in the house.
“Clear, right,” Fernandez said.
“Here too,” DeWitt said.
Two more SEALs charged through the door and down the hall they knew was there. Two enemy riflemen came into the far end of the corridor, only to be met with a hail of SEAL lead that put them down and crawling back around the corner. DeWitt guessed that the prisoner would be held on the second floor. The stairs were in the center of the house off the hallway. He and Fernandez rushed past doors the others would clear, made it to the stairs, and started up. A stutter of a submachine gun came from the top of the steps.
DeWitt took a round to his left arm, and jerked back out of sight. Fernandez hadn’t started up the steps yet; now he undid a fragger hand grenade from his webbing, pulled the pin, and leaned around the wall far enough to throw the bomb to the top of the steps. It hit, bounced once against the top wall, and exploded.
The two SEALS stormed up the stairs, their weapons aimed ahead and fingers on triggers. There was no response. At the top of the steps they found two soldiers dying of their wounds. They kicked away their weapons and charged to the first door along a hall that had four. DeWitt kicked in the door. The room was empty.
Fernandez took the next room, tried the doorknob. Locked. He rapped on the door, standing to the side against the wall. Four rounds blasted through the light door. Fernandez stepped back, unpinned a grenade, and held it ready. Then he kicked in the door and threw in the grenade in one move, and dodged behind the hall wall again.
When the shrapnel from the grenade stopped flying, DeWitt charged into the room. His Bull Pup chattered off two three-round bursts; then Fernandez ran into the room and found it clear, with two officers who must have just been getting up from their beds. They wouldn’t have to worry about sleeping ever again.
The two SEALs rushed out of the room and to the next door. Before they could try for it, a dozen rounds blasted through the door. “Might be our man inside,” DeWitt said. “No grenade.” The door was locked. DeWitt kicked in the door and leaped to the safety of the wall. Twenty rounds whistled through the opening and into the wall opposite it. DeWitt checked around the door jamb from the floor level. Just one man in the small room. He had his officer’s jacket neatly hung on a chair back with the gold star on the shoulder boards polished bright.
DeWitt flipped in a grenade and when it exploded, the two SEALs moved to the last door on the hallway. It was double and had a nameplate on it they couldn’t read.
No response from inside. Fernandez kicked in the door and barely got out of the way to the wall, but no gunfire came from the room. Fernandez checked the room from the floor level. He grunted, stood, and walked into the room.
There were three civilians standing there, all holding their hands in the air. On a chair facing them sat a man in a rumpled business suit. On the dresser lay a medical kit with six syringes and a dozen small vials of fluid.
The man in a white doctor’s coat said something, and indicated the man sitting in the chair.
“Franklin, get your ass up to the second floor, last room, we need your Arabic,” DeWitt said on the radio.
DeWitt stepped forward and looked at the man in the chair. It was Cullhagen; he’d seen the man’s picture. He was a bear, almost six feet four and 250 pounds. Dark curly hair spilled down into his eyes and he had a three-day beard. He seemed to be dazed, probably drugged. Franklin ran in a few moments later before DeWitt could talk to the man.
“Ask them what they’ve done to this man,” DeWitt said.
The doctor looked up at the Arabic question and responded briefly. “He says questioning him, that’s all.”
“What drugs did they use?”
In response to that question, the doctor hesitated, then pointed to the tray and showed them one vial. Franklin looked at the label, and shook his head. “No idea what it is.”
“Ask him how long for the man to recover from the drug.”
The doctor held up his hands and said he didn’t know. DeWitt hit the man in the jaw with his fist, jolting him backward against the wall. “Ask him again.”
Franklin did. The doctor cowered back and mumbled an answer.
“He said about four more hours.”
“We don’t have four hours. There will be choppers and troops all over this place within an hour.” DeWitt looked at the vials on the dresser. “Ask him which one of these drugs will bring him out of the other drug state.”
Franklin did, and the doctor lifted his brows.
“Tell him if he tries to use the wrong one to kill the prisoner, I’ll tear his tongue off, gouge out his eyes, rip off his balls, and make him eat them. Tell him that exactly.”
As Franklin repeated the words to the Libyan doctor, the man’s frozen smile faded and a look of stark terror replaced it. He began to tremble, then sagged against the wall.
“Search all three,” DeWitt bellowed. They found a small automatic, three small knives, and two pills.
The doctor motioned to the box of drugs. “He says the one with the blue label will bring the prisoner around in ten minutes, and leave no harmful effects.”
“DeWitt, you have the subject, can he travel?” Murdock asked on the radio.
“Not yet, maybe in ten minutes. Your situation?”
“We’re through the fence, mopping up. Found half a dozen more guards. Most of the others seem to be out in blocking positions. We control the area. You really smashed that personnel carrier.”
“Good old TNAZ.”
De Witt looked back at the doctor. “Tell him to do it now. Any problem and he’s a dead man, very slowly and painfully a dead man.”
Fernandez had tied the other two civilians’ arms behind them with plastic strips and sat them down along the far wall. The doctor picked up the medication, put it in a syringe, and went toward Cullhagen. DeWitt grabbed his hand.
“Do it right or you’re dead.” He put the Bull Pup muzzle against his head and said, “Bang.” The doctor almost fainted. He nodded, pushed the needle into Cullhagen’s arm, and injected the drug.
Two minutes later the CIA man began to recover. Five minutes and he looked around, scowled, and started talking, but they couldn’t understand him.
DeWitt frowned and called Murdock to come up. They watched Cullhagen and whispered to each other.
“Is he going to be lucid enough to travel with us?” DeWitt asked.
“Or do we put him down?” Murdock asked.
“I didn’t want to make that decision myself,” DeWitt said.
Twelve minutes after the injection, Cullhagen coughed, looked up, and blinked. He rubbed one hand over his face and stared at the doctor standing in front of him.
“Like I told you, you sonofabitch, I’m not going to tell you a damn thing. I don’t know anything. I’m a fucking driver who got pulled into this assignment because our regular guy got the — do you believed it — mumps.” He looked around, grinned when he saw the SEALs. “Well, different uniforms. Our side, I hope.” He held out his hand to DeWitt. “Cullhagen here. When the hell does the chopper get here to take us out of this pigsty of a rat fucking hole?”
“Sir, as soon as you can walk and carry an AK47 rifle and forty rounds.”
Cullhagen blinked, shook his head. “Damn glad to see you guys. Let me walk around a little. Don’t hurt these guys, they weren’t half bad. They had an Army interrogator coming in. He’d have pulled my asshole right out my nose before he was done with me. Let’s get moving.”
“It’s seven miles through the sand,” Murdock said.
“Hell, I did two tours in Nam. I can hike fifty miles with a fifty-pound pack. Let’s go.”