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  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 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 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, 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."

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sp; "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 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 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 Hamid 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.

  Hamid 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 Clar
issa 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," Hamid 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.