The Arab hit by Joe Miskoski was a mess. The entire top of his cranium from just below the ears and up was a splayed mass of brains and bloody meat. His eyes and nose were gone, leaving only the lower jaw. Taylor noticed the guy must have been seeing his dentist regularly; the teeth were white and even, without a cavity showing. The SEAL searched the pockets, finding nothing; not even an ID card. He supposed that was to be expected, since the dead man hadn't been a member of a regularly enlisted army.
After examining two more corpses, he came to the guy he had killed. He was a skinny kid, maybe eighteen or nineteen. His eyes were open, and his lips were in a sort of combination sneer and grin. Taylor suddenly looked directly at the dead face, almost stepping back when he noticed the victim seemed to be gazing at him. A quick search revealed empty pockets.
When Taylor and Concord met in the middle, they had nothing to show for their efforts. "I'm not surprised," Connie said. "These guys are not the usual raghead mujahideen. They're equipped good, carry them French rifles, got plenty of ammo, and are nourished good. This is gonna be a tough fight before it's all said and done, sir."
Taylor noted that if Petty Officer Concord had killed anybody--and there was no doubt he had--he wasn't going to lose any sleep over it. Taylor affected a grin. "Well, let's get back with the others. Good job, huh?"
"Yes, sir," Connie said. "We done good, alright."
.
THE LZ
1045 HOURS
GARTH Redhawk had turned on the homing beacon of the AN/PRC-112 to bring back the chopper, and the patrol was out in a loose defensive perimeter. Brannigan was inside the formation with Mike Assad, who guarded the three EPWs. The captives squatted unhappily on the ground, still stunned by the suddenness of the attack that had destroyed their unit. Assad had exchanged a few words with them, learning nothing new. They told him they were on their way from Iran to join the small force in the mountains.
Suddenly one of the Arabs leaped to his feet and dashed toward the perimeter, leaping over Bruno Puglisi. He ran wildly across the open ground, heading for the stand of boulders.
"I'll get him, sir!" Puglisi yelled, getting to his feet and going after the guy.
The Arab was fifteen meters ahead of the SEAL, not looking back as he instinctively sought the shelter of the rocky area. When he reached it, he went in between a couple of boulders. Then he shrieked and backed out, holding his hand.
When Puglisi arrived he saw what the trouble was. The cobra, still weaving back and forth in its attack stance, was ready to strike again. The Arab turned around, his hand and forearm black and swelling from the venom. Puglisi winced. "Jesus! You poor dumb bastard!"
The Arab knew the potency of the serpent's venom and realized that he was dying. He sank to his knees and began calling out in Arabic. Now Mike Assad joined them, having left the other two with the Skipper. Mike looked at the guy. "What the fuck happened to him?"
Puglisi answered by pointing over to the cobra.
Assad shook his head slowly. "We got nothing to give him for that."
"I know," Puglisi said. "He'll be dead before the chopper gets here."
"Shit, Bruno," Mike said, "he's only got another five minutes at the most to breathe."
Now the Arab was on the ground, almost delirious as he kept babbling.
"What's he saying, Mike?"
"He's praying for himself."
"We should shoot him and put him out of his misery, man!" Puglisi said.
"I'm not shooting him," Mike said. He turned and began walking back to the perimeter. He'd gone ten meters when he heard Bruno's AS-50 fire. Then the sniper caught up with him.
Neither SEAL spoke as they returned to the unit.
CHAPTER 8
USS COMBS
17 JUNE
IT had been a bad week for the two Arab EPWs brought back from the ambush site by Brannigan's Brigands. When they left their Iranian SF training camp, the fledgling insurgents thought they were on their way to their big opportunity to be conquerors in the name of Allah's glory. But they were only halfway to their first battle site when a bunch of crazy infidels suddenly appeared from nowhere and shot their unit to pieces. And if that wasn't bad enough, after surrendering, one of their buddies was bitten by a poisonous serpent and was put out of his misery with a bullet that turned his skull into something that looked like a shattered vase that had been filled with tomato paste and cottage cheese.
It was most definitely not a good experience.
Then, to make things slightly worse, immediately after the incident with the snake, they were blindfolded and had to sit with their hands bound by plastic strips and wait until an aircraft arrived. They were taken aboard with their captors to go for a flight--they didn't have enough experience to recognize they were in a helicopter--that ended when they landed at some unknown place. After being ushered off the aircraft still blindfolded, the two Arabs were taken into the interior of a large structure. When they were freed from their blinders and bonds, they discovered that their captors had put them behind some barbed wire in one corner of a building. For amenities the EPWs were provided with foam mattresses and a couple of chairs. At least they weren't mistreated, but being uncertain of what fate awaited them did not ease their emotional stress.
After a fitful night, the Arabs were given breakfast, then blindfolded again, and put back on an aircraft for a short flight that ended on a rocking airfield made of steel. From there the pair was led through a very narrow door and taken down steep steps until they were in the depths of some horrible place with engine noises. At that point the blinders were removed and they were separated and placed into small rooms with pipes and valves along the walls. A bright light-bulb that was never turned off glared from the ceiling, and from that point on they couldn't tell if it was night or day.
As time passed they became queasy as the floor where they sat rocked slowly back and forth. They also had moments when they felt this strange prison was actually moving.
.
0730 HOURS
THE name of the EPW sitting in the metal chair was Hamza Qazi. A brilliant light shined straight into his face, and he could not see the man who spoke to him, although he sensed that additional persons were present after he heard occasional coughs and someone clearing his throat. Qazi had been there for more than two hours, though he was unaware of exactly how much time had passed since he was fetched from his hard metal quarters.
The three men in the compartment with the prisoner were Dr. Carl Joplin; Edgar Watson, of the CIA's Iranian desk; and interrogator Fred Leighton, also a CIA operative. Leighton, who had spent much of his boyhood in the Middle East, where his father had been a field operations supervisor for an American oil company, spoke fluent Arabic with such a slight trace of accent that no Arab could determine his exact nationality. Between Leighton's language skills and the probing questions provided by Joplin and Watson, a lot of useful information was being dragged out of Qazi.
He was a Syrian, born and raised in the city of Deir Al Zor, not too far from the Iraqi border. His father was a shop-keeper who sold tobacco, candy, and magazines. The profits were small, but the family was comfortable enough, though frustrated from time to time from wanting better material things in their lives, such as an automobile and a larger TV set. Qazi left school at fourteen to help in the business. During his leisure time he hung out in the streets with a group of boys his own age and played in a local soccer league, where he was considered one of the better players. He was sixteen when he learned about the Jihad Abadi--the Eternal Holy War made up of Shiite mujahideen. Eventually he was recruited into the organization and learned that they disavowed suicide bombings, preferring to train their members in soldierly skills to fight the infidels of the West. This was much more effective in the holy struggle than blowing themselves up to inflict casualties on the enemy. Qazi and his buddies attended meetings and class sessions at the local mosque, where they were thoroughly indoctrinated in the group's philosophy. He was honored when his natural athletic abilities were noted, and he was sent for more advanced instruction at a training site in Iran. This choice of location confused the young Arab, who could not understand what interest the Iranians had in Arab insurgencies, except that those speakers of Farsi were also Shiites.