Thirteen men and one woman-that was all that was left of all the persons taken from the Mediterranean Sea during the air attacks on the ships suspected of staging the raid on the missile base at Samah. They were taken and separated from the others for one reason only: They looked, spoke, or behaved like Americans. And of the group, the most important and the most intriguing one was the woman.
She was hanging, naked, from manacles bolted to a concrete wall. Her strength had given out days ago-she was no longer able to support herself except for a few brief hours every day, so her wrists were blackened and the flesh had been scraped almost to the bone. Her hair was thin and falling out from dehydration; her ribs protruded so far that they appeared as if they would likely pop right through her skin.
Zuwayy thought she had been very pretty, once. Not anymore.
The lights were turned on as he stepped into the cell. The one lightbulb was like a red-hot poker to the woman's eyes, but she could not shield them. "Any more information, Sergeant?" Zuwayy asked.
"No, Your Highness," the jailer responded. "Her response to all questions is 'Help me, please.' No names, no other information."
Zuwayy examined her. The interrogators had tried every possible combination of physical torture, drugs, deprivation, and disorientation to try to break her. He was impressed. "Very strong, very tough young woman," he said. He was surprised when she opened her eyes and moved unsteadily to her feet. "I see you are awake. How are you feeling today, miss?"
"Help me, please," she muttered through swollen, cracked lips. "Please, sir, help me."
"I will be glad to help you," Zuwayy said. "All you have to do is tell me your name."
"Help me. Please."
"You don't need to resist," Zuwayy said. "Your comrades have told us everything about you. You were responsible for infiltrating and attacking a Libyan military base, then escaping via helicopter to your ship. We know everything. We know you are American commandos, on a secret mission to inspect and, if necessary, destroy our military weapons. You might as well talk. If you do, we will treat you like a combatant instead of a spy and afford you treatment under the Geneva Conventions. Do you know what that means?"
"Please, Your Highness… please, help me, I beg you… "
"I see you recognize who I am? Good! I can guarantee you much better treatment, everything to which a captured combatant is entitled-food, water, clothing, medical attention, and contact with the International Red Cross."
"Please… help…"
"But under the Geneva Conventions, as you know, you must first tell me your name, rank, serial number, and date of birth," Zuwayy went on. "We'll start with your name. That is not a violation of your oath as an American soldier. It is not a national secret. You won't be disgraced or prosecuted by your government, I assure you. Most of your comrades have already told me this information, and that's why they are no longer in here with you-they are being fed, they have seen a doctor, and they have even filled out their Red Cross contact cards."
"Please, Your Highness… please, help me? I beg you…."
This was getting nowhere, he thought-the same mindless imprinted resistance babble for days on end. "Where is that band she was wearing?" Zuwayy asked.
The guard brought it to him. "We have determined it is some kind of power source," the guard said. "We searched her body and found this." He showed Zuwayy a device about the size of a tack. "It is some kind of transceiver. We checked it; it is deactivated. It may have been some sort of locator, perhaps even a communications device."
"Did the others have it?"
"No, Highness. She could be valuable…."
"Or she could be a real danger," Zuwayy said. "If she was missing, she'd be just another casualty-but here, she could destroy us if they found out she was alive."
"Torture doesn't seem to be working, Highness," the guard said. "Maybe we should try nursing her back to health. We can always eliminate her later."
"Perhaps…"
"Help me… please, Highness, help me… I beg you…."
Zuwayy reared back and slapped her across the face with the back of his left hand. There was no blood-her face, in fact most of her extremities, had long ago lost the ability to bleed. "Stop begging to me, bitch! You disgust me, you weak sniveling American whore! What is your job onboard your ship-servicing the real warriors, the real soldiers? Are you the unit's traveling whore? Why are we even bothering with this one? We won't learn any information from prostitutes. Throw her disease-infected body into the trash with the other garbage."
"Please… please, help me…."
"Your name, whore," Zuwayy snarled. "All I want is your name. First name, last name, it doesn't matter. Is keeping that useless bit of information from us worth risking your life? When was the last time you felt your fingers? When was the last time you had a drink of water? We will give you proper medical care and start treating you like a human being and an American soldier instead of a stupid American cocksucker if you will only tell us your name."
No response. She looked as if she might pass out-she was beginning to slump against her chains again. "One last time, bitch-your name. Right now." Again, no response.
She is strong, Zuwayy thought. But they were wasting too much time with her. She was a novelty because she was a woman-one of the few captured-but it was too risky keeping a woman imprisoned in a place like this. "Has she made any contact with any of the others?" Zuwayy asked the jailer. "Talking, tap code, hand signs, anything?"
"No, Highness. When they were together, they did not even look at each other. They never tried to communicate."
Very well-trained indeed. He examined her face once more. Her eyes were ready to roll back into her head; her tongue was swollen and almost black; and blood was seeping from her eyes, ears, and mouth. "Get rid of her," Zuwayy said. "She's practically dead already. Bury her in the desert. The last thing we need is for her to be caught in here like this. Make it quick, and make it untraceable. I want to see the others."
Zuwayy was almost out of the cell when he heard her mutter behind him-and it didn't sound like "Help me, please" this time. He turned and went back to her. She had completely slumped against her chains now. He grabbed her hair and yanked her head up. "What did you say, bitch? Repeat! What did you say?" She muttered something unintelligible. He put his ear as close as he dared to her lips. "Speak up! What did you say?"
Through her cracked lips and swollen tongue, he heard her utter, "M… Me… McLanahan," just before she passed out again.
It was hard, steamy, sweaty work-no other way to describe it; and there was no other way to do it except virtually by hand. At first Patrick McLanahan spelled trie flight crew in the cockpit while the plane was being refueled — they had to use water pumps and fire hoses to get the fuel out of the underground storage tanks, and then gravityfeed it into each of the Megafortress's twelve fuel tanks. Patrick kept one engine running through the entire refueling just in case they came under attack and he had to start all the other engines, but he acknowledged to himself that there was almost no chance of getting the Megafortress off the ground unless they had at least twenty minutes' warning. But in about a day, the EB-52 Megafortress bomber was fully fueled.
King Idris the Second of Libya, Muhammad as-Sanusi, was nowhere to be seen until dawn, out on patrol all night with his "Sandstorm" desert warriors. The effects of the electromagnetic pulse had subsided, so Sanusi could maintain radio contact with his men while taking a closer look at Mersa Matruh. "The destruction is total, my friend," he told Patrick after he returned, putting a hand on Patrick's sweat-bathed shoulder. "The dead are everywhere-it is the most horrible sight I've ever seen. I know you told me it would be safe to go there, that the radiation dissipates almost immediately, but my men refused to go near the place, and I chose not to force them. I am truly sorry, McLanahan. Very sorry." Patrick nodded-he was beyond feeling sorrow or despair. Once the Megafortress touched down on Jaghbub's runway, he was all business again. "Very cool bird you have here, Mr. McLanahan," he said. "Unreal."