Instead he just hung on in his perch and tried to fight going to sleep. Not counting unconsciousness, he was on a solid thirty-six hours so far and sleep beckoned. He’d done longer times both in BUDS and in training, not to mention on operations, but he was still tired. And sore. And hungry. And thirsty. And cold, the thin air meant that it was damned cold. But he’d put up with all of it before and he slowly put all of it out of his mind and concentrated on maintaining vigilance and waiting for an opportunity to egress his current, lousy, condition and find a better position. With his jump bag and weapon on his back, he couldn’t even call in.
The unloading seemed interminable but finally they were done. He expected the truck to pull out as soon as the doors closed but it didn’t. Instead, the doors behind him, presumably to some sort of warehouse, closed and the two guards were recalled. He found himself more or less alone in an ill-lit loading dock.
He dropped down to the ground, trying not to groan at all the aches and pains he’d acquired, and looked around. Away from the loading dock was an open area, then a chain-link fence about a hundred meters away. There were guard towers along the fence, spaced about three hundred meters apart. To his left was another open area that had the vague look of a helipad. To his right was an open area but he could see the ends of buildings that paralleled the loading area. There was a faint scent of chemicals in the air, harsh with sulfur. He guessed that it was some sort of petroleum processing plant.
He moved left, ducking into the shadow of the concrete wall, until he got to the end of the building, then looked around the edge. The building was about a hundred meters long, maybe a bit more, with concrete walls. No windows that he could see. There was another large entrance, as if for cargo, down the wall about halfway and what might have been a personnel entrance at the far end. There was another building, purpose indeterminate, that started about halfway down the main building and was separated from it by a ten meter or so gap.
There was no moon and this side of the building was unlit. But the starlight was bright and anyone coming out of the second building with adjusted night vision would see him.
Nonetheless, he started down the side of the building, crouched, keeping an eye out for hostiles. When he got about fifteen meters down the wall of the building he noticed a grate in the wall of the building. The floor of the building was, obviously, based on the loading dock, elevated. The grate, however, was at ground level. Mike stopped by it and leaned in when he heard faint mechanical sounds. There was air coming out, tinged even more strongly with sulfur, and various sounds, all indeterminate. Suddenly, he heard Arabic from the tunnel, quickly fading. Air shaft.
But it was below the level of the building. Which was… really odd. Unless there was an underground facility.
Some sort of facility on top as a cover, underground facility underneath. Chemical smell. It was a covert WMD facility, either research or production. And, now, a place to hold the girls.
The grate was fixed in place with large bolts. There was no way he could figure out to pull it off and he was in view of God and everybody here. For that matter, there was a faint tinge of dawn. He had to find someplace to hide, soon. Like a vampire, he needed to be out of sight by dawn.
He moved down the wall of the building, keeping an eye on the grates. Sooner or later, somebody would have to pull a grate for maintenance. And Arab mechanics were notoriously sloppy; they’d be just as likely to prop the grate back up as carefully bolt it back in place. Sure enough, as he reached the shadows of the smaller building, purpose unknown, he found a grate that only had two bolts on it. And they were only hand tight. He quickly unscrewed them and then pulled the grate out, quietly. His hand would fit through the bars so he slid into the narrow tunnel, lifted the grate back into place with only one faint ting of metal and put the screws back on hand tight. Now as long as nobody came along and tightened them down, he was golden.
The tunnel was large enough for him to twist around and point inward and he did so, then crawled deeper into the blackness. This tunnel was more or less silent, not even a sound of fans. He got well into it, then dropped his jump bag and weapon. He extracted the sat phone and crawled back to the opening, keeping an ear out for movement.
He slid the sat phone forward until the antenna was sticking out of the bars and checked the readout. He had barely any signal but it would have to do. Carefully, he dialed the numbers that were still faintly visible on his forearm and hit send.
“Pierson. That you, Ghost?”
“Yes,” Mike said. “Who’s this?”
“My name’s Bob Pierson. I’m an Army SF colonel in SOCOM. I’m going to be your control for the rest of the mission. You call the number you have; if it’s you it automatically transfers to me. What’s your status? Where are you?”
“I’m not sure,” Mike admitted. “I’m in a base in a middle eastern country. Arabic spoken, not Farsi. There’s some sort of large building but it’s got facilities underneath it. Big air vents along the walls, down at the bottom of the building, and some chemical smell. I think it’s a covert weapons lab. The girls were taken in the top facility. I don’t know their current position. I’m in one of the air vents. East side. There’s a smaller building on that side and an open area to the south. Fence and guard towers around the whole thing. Maybe three other buildings to the west but I didn’t get a good look.”
“Wait one,” Pierson said. Then: “Right, NSA has a lock on your signal. You’re in a facility called Aleppo Four. Suspected WMD site, supposed to be a military logistics base. You’ve got about a battalion of Syrian Army ‘elite’ on site, so don’t get compromised. One point I want to cover: FBI pulled your prints so we can drop the Ghost between us two. Your ID is being closely held, though. And don’t worry about charges: The President personally said he doesn’t care about dead ragheads. I was in the briefing when he said it. You are clear of that.”
“Tell the President ‘thank you,’ ” Mike said, feeling an immense wave of relief.
“That’s the good news. The bad news is that we really need to know the exact location of the girls. Guard force, the whole works. You need to find them for us and report back. Can do?”
“That’s why they call me ‘Ghost,’ ” Mike said, quietly.
“Hoowah. You know the mission. Watch your back. From now on, we’ll be eyeballing from the sky but until we know where the girls are, more or less exactly, we can’t do a blessed thing. Find out.”
“Roger,” Mike said.
“How’s your physical condition?” Pierson said.
“Got a tad bent on the last flight,” Mike admitted. “Joints are in bad shape. Dehydrated as hell, which doesn’t help. Hungry. Tired. The usual. I’ll survive.”
“Okay,” Pierson said. “Do what you can. Last item. If you don’t report in for twenty-four hours, you will be considered compromised and any mission compromised. If there is a major alert at the base, you will be considered compromised. Don’t get compromised.”
“I won’t,” Mike said.
“Call us back when you’ve got a fix on the girls,” Pierson said. “Good luck.”
“Will do, out here,” Mike replied, killing the call. He crawled back to his jump bag and stowed the phone, then considered his position. He really needed water. And he didn’t want to go to sleep in this tunnel, where any sound he made might get carried who knew where.