Bruno Puglisi, holding his SAW, squinted his eyes in his eagerness to sight something ahead. "See anything yet, sir?"
"Affirmative!" the lieutenant answered. "One o'clock!"
Petty Officer First Class Connie Concord, leader of Bravo Fire Team, shifted his view to the right a degree or so. "Yeah!"
Paul Watkins, acting on orders from Brannigan, went to half-speed and then one-third-speed. When they drew close enough, they could see it was a tanker heading on a course of two-two-five. She was riding high enough in the water to show she was empty.
"Probably headed for the Persian Gulf to make a pickup," Brannigan remarked. "Okay, Watkins. Bring her about."
"Bring her about, aye, sir."
"Lieutenant Rivers, give us a course back to the Daly."
"One-niner-two," Veronica reported.
"Got that, Watkins?" Brannigan asked.
"Course one-niner-two, aye, sir."
The Battlecraft, her first patrol now over, headed for hearth and home. Up on top, Petty Officer Garth Redhawk, a rifleman in Alpha Fire Team, was not happy. "I was hoping for a little more excitement."
His team leader, Chief Matt Gunnarson, glanced over at him. "I thought you Indian guys were the patient types."
Redhawk shook his head. "Not when it comes to fighting."
.
POLICE HEADQUARTERS
BALBANDIN, PAKISTAN
23 SEPTEMBER
0830 HOURS LOCAL
THE mud brick building was a typical provincial lockup with two large cells separated by a single corridor between them. Mike Assad and his four al-Mimkhalif companions rested uneasily in one of the confinement areas without the benefits of mats or blankets. The only thing they had plenty of since their capture had been beatings--the first within a half hour after they surrendered; the second before boarding the trucks for the trip to the jail; and the third when they arrived and got off the vehicles. Even the two men who were wounded received their share of physical punishment. Now the most seriously injured mujahideen seemed to have gone into shock. He had taken a belly wound when a paratrooper's submachine gun stitched him across the body. Mike and another man tried to help the poor fellow, who had lost a large amount of blood, but their rudimentary ministrations did him little good. The Pakistani police had grudgingly provided some dirty rags for bandaging the wounds, but it was obvious he was not going to survive long without proper medical treatment.
Now, sitting in the bare cell, Mike observed his companions rather dispassionately. They had been full of fervor during the sermons bellowed at them by the clerics in the camp, and danced around shouting pro-Islamic slogans that promised death and hellfire to Westerners and fallen Muslims. These demonstrations of outrage included the burning of crudely made American and Israeli flags that were then leaped on and trampled by the ferocious untried rookies.
This was something Mike hated to do, but he participated as was expected of him. He had learned during his SERE training that if the enemy wanted him to chant, "The American Flag is a dirty old rag," he was to go ahead and do it. His job was to stay healthy and maintain his cover. Any unwise demonstration of patriotism would accomplish nothing but compromise the mission.
The previously defiant mujahideen, after being caught in the murderous cross fire of a cleverly laid ambush, were crestfallen and frightened. They hadn't even had time to kill any of the enemy before the paratroop detachment opened up on them. What was supposed to have been a quick but bright victory had turned into a noisy scene of death as bursts of automatic-weapons fire plowed into them. They had been stunned into inaction by the unexpected onslaught.
No food or water was provided for the prisoners during the first twenty-four hours of confinement, and the police had begun to pull them out of the cell one by one for interrogation. Mike knew the reason behind this method; a comfortable prisoner can be a defiant prisoner under even rigorous interrogation. But someone who is stunned, hungry, and thirsty is aware of the power his captors have over him. It gives the captive a feeling of isolation and hopelessness.
Each of these periods of questioning had gone on for close to an hour, and when the captives were dragged back to the cell, they showed signs of additional mistreatment above and beyond that which they had already endured. Mike was the last, and when they pushed him out of the cell block, he fervently hoped the cops had expended most of their energy beating his predecessors.
He was wrong.
The two guards who had fetched him shoved him into the interrogation room, sat him down in a chair, tied him to it, then took turns punching him in the face. They didn't hit him hard enough to break his jaw or nose, but when they finished smacking him around, blood poured from his nostrils and his face was badly bruised. The initiation process didn't stop until an officer entered the room. He walked to a spot in front of the prisoner and glared at him with all the hatred he had for the foreign troublemakers in his country.
"Where are you from?" he asked in Arabic.
Mike knew he would never be able to pass as a citizen of an Arab country, so he quickly spoke up, saying, "I from America."
The Pakistani sneered. "Hakkan--truly?" Then he asked in English. "Where in America are you from?"
"New York," Mike replied, using his cover story. "I lived in Buffalo."
The Pakistani's eyes opened wide. "By Allah! You are an American!"
"Yes, sir."
The Pakistani laughed loudly. "So you are what they call a Johnny Jihad, eh? Well, my fine fellow, we have special instructions on what to do when we get our hands on a Johnny Jihad." He spoke over Mike's head to the two policemen. They also roared with laughter, and one slapped him hard across the back of his head.
"Is it really necessary to punch me so much?" Mike asked.
"Of course it is," the Pakistani said. "We will turn you over to the American Embassy and you can go home where they will coddle you and read you your rights, then put you in a nice comfortable American penitentiary with color television. We hear they even bring in whores for the convicts' enjoyment." He scowled. "But until you get there, we'll make your miserable life a hell on earth."
It took all of Mike Assad's inner strength and self-control to bear up under the beating that followed. He could tell they weren't hitting him hard enough to cause permanent damage, but it hurt worse than if they were trying to really kick his ass bad. He wasn't going to faint or pass out under open-handed slaps and kicks to his shins.
The three Pakistanis wore themselves out after twenty fun-filled minutes, and Mike was untied and dragged to another part of the jail to be thrown into solitary confinement.
Chapter 5.
PATROL BOAT 22
SOUTH CHINA SEA
VICINITY OF 7deg NORTH AND 110deg EAST
25 SEPTEMBER
1600 HOURS LOCAL
COMMANDER Carlos Batanza sat on the bridge of Patrol Boat 22 waiting patiently for the expected contact with the SS Jakarta and its arms shipment. He leisurely smoked a cigarette as his executive officer supervised the watch on duty.
Batanza was proud of his vessel even though she was a third-hand purchase by the Filipino government. She had begun her career as a minesweeper in the Royal Navy, where she proved her worth to the Queen's sailors during ten years of service done mostly in the North Sea. Eventually she was sold to Singapore, who converted her to a support ship for mine-countermeasures missions. After a short but useful career in that nation's navy, she was purchased by the Philippines and redesignated a patrol boat to be used in antismuggling operations on the Philippine Sea, the South China Sea, the Pacific Ocean, and the Celebes Sea.