“He’s …” She forced herself to talk, she wanted to help him, and herself, by sharing. “He’s done it to me three times. Questions, beatings, strip and … and him …”
They stopped talking when they heard shouting upstairs. Their guard woke up and went to the stairs and spoke to someone above him. They could hear him climb the steps. “It’s Mokhtari,” Mary whispered, translating for the doctor, “I got the words ‘shooting a prisoner.’ “
“I heard the word ‘guard,’ ” Landis said. “It sounds like Mokhtari went on a rampage.”
Neither gave words to the new terrors that started to work at them.
The report detailed how Nasir Askari broke after seventy-three hours and twenty-two minutes in Primary, a new record. The technicians were changing shifts Friday evening and almost missed the first clues of rapid, agitated movements followed by muffled groans. By Monday morning the report was complete, much of the data correlated and verified, and on Allen Camm’s desk.
“Susan,” Camm said, “top drawer. I’m surprised at the number of Islamic Jihad over here. They really have a grip on what the Joint Special Operations Agency has been doing.”
“Well, we’ve put a dent in their organization. They have it right about the JSOA, though — terrorists should worry about them. Maybe we can change that and make them worry about us too.” Camm said nothing. “We’re expecting the Islamic Republican Party to give the IPRP some of the POWs in exchange for their support on the Council of Guardians. We’re moving Deep Furrow into place to rescue the POWs that are exchanged.”
“How?” Camm asked.
“They’ll be moved by an airliner. We plan to hijack the plane in transit and kidnap the POWs. It will look like a splinter group of the Islamic Republican Party did it as a protest against giving the POWs away.”
“How many POWs will be exchanged?”
“Probably about half, we figure.”
“Good. Real good. Keep on it,” Camm told her. He was feeling better and better about his prospects.
The Huey hovered beside the approach end of the runway until the tower gave it clearance to taxi to the ramp. It flew a few feet above the ground until it was near building 201, then settled to earth. Stansell and Chief Pullman jumped down and ran out from under the rotating blades, their heads ducked. They were just back from an early Monday morning inspection of Texas Lake and headed for Stansell’s office.
“How is it going at the lake?” Bryant asked when they entered the trailer.
“Lots of action out there,” Stansell deadpanned, “someone seems to have stirred the pot.”
Bryant could sense the new upbeat in Stansell. “The F- III crews are here and waiting in Intel.”
Stansell headed for Intel, but the surge of confidence that had been building burst like a popped balloon when he walked into Dewa’s office … “It’s been a long time, Mark,” he said, shaking Lieutenant Colonel Mark Von Drexler’s hand. He had met V.D. when they were cadets at the Air Force Academy and had learned to dislike the man for the way he used and manipulated other people to get a leg up. A real operator and angle man. Trouble …
It was a casual meeting, an Army four-star general running into an Air Force two-star that worked for him. “Simon,” Army General Charles Leachmeyer said, “haven’t seen you around lately. Drop in and talk when you get a chance.” Both men knew it was more than polite chatter. Simon Mado followed Leachmeyer into his office and closed the door behind them.
“Dammit, Mado, there’re at least four Russian agents moving — around Fort Bragg watching Delta Force. I thought the idea was to get them looking at your troops at Nellis.”
“They haven’t bit on Task Force Alpha. Stansell’s got them buried out of sight in the desert.”
“I thought we were going to do a controlled leak to keep that from happening.”
“You know the President ruled that out.”
“Look, Simon, I’ve pushed your career. I was the one that got you assigned to the JSOA and made sure you got the right visibility. How often does an Air Force officer pick up a sponsor from the Army who plays poker with the President of the United States? Now repay the goddamn favor and get behind Delta Force. They’re the experts at rescue missions. They’re my experts, and they better be yours.”
Mado felt shaken when he retreated from Leachmeyer’s office. What the hell did Leachmeyer expect him to do? He slammed through the set of doors that led to his own office, stopped at a major’s desk. “Hal, remember that message you sent out a few days ago ordering GBU-15s shipped to Turkey for exercise WARLORD?” The major nodded and braced himself — he had seen Mado in one of these moods before. “Stop action on that and ship twelve GBU-12s instead.”
“What priority you want me to give this, sir? I’ve got seven other projects in the mill that all needed to be done yesterday—”
“Major, what in the hell do you think you get paid for?”
“Well, make up your mind what you want,” the major mumbled at Mado’s retreating back. He marked his notepad to get the message out. “Looks like a low priority to me.” He decided it would be easiest just to let the order for shipping the two-thousand-pound GBU-15s stand and he’d get a message out ordering the twelve five-hundred-pound GBU-12s shipped when he had a breather. He wasn’t about to get bent out of shape over some goddamn exercise and a pissed-off general who went up and down in his moods with the weather.
CHAPTER 20
Any movement was intense pain for Nesbit, even blinking his eyes. He could hear the guards working as they pried Jefferson’s body out of the Box. Mokhtari had ordered the two bodies — Jefferson’s and the guard’s — be left in the basement, and rigor mortis had set in after a few hours. All the guards had to parade through the basement, witnesses to the punishment for disobeying the commandant’s orders while Nesbit hung on the ropes.
“Sergeant Nesbit,” Mokhtari said, standing behind him, “I’m tiring of this. We end it now or you will join them.” He drew out his pistol and pulled the slide back, let it snap closed, chambered a round. The metallic crack filled the room.
The sergeant took to heart Jefferson’s last words, a message the man had died for. Still, he hated to seem to be giving in … “I was a command post controller, in charge of the command-and-control equipment that linked us with higher headquarters …”
Mokhtari keyed a cassette recorder as the sergeant talked. When he was satisfied the sergeant was finished he turned off the tape recorder and motioned for a guard to jerk on the rope that suspended Nesbit from the ceiling. “We will continue tomorrow,” he said, leaving Nesbit withering in pain. He went directly to the basement in the administration building and ordered his interrogation team to gather for instructions. Hauser would also be talking today, he was confident, and his nightly report to the Council of Guardians would be most complete.
“Colonel, I just don’t know …” Duck Mallard kept looking at the captain standing in front of them. Rather than discuss the matter in front of the young officer, Stansell asked him to wait outside. The captain saluted and left the trailer.
“All right, what’s bothering you, Duck?” Stansell asked.
“I know we can use an AC-130, Colonel. A gunship like that gives us awesome firepower … But that’s the Beezer, Hal Beasely.” “Is he a good pilot?”
“The best, a natural. I knew him as a lieutenant before he went to gunships. He was infamous then, still is …”