Mike picked up one of the dropped AKs and checked the magazine. Full. He visualized the two guards, aware of the screams that were continuing in the other room, flicked off the safety and opened the door.
The officer guide had, fortunately, left. And there were no additional guards. So he simply placed the barrel in the side of the left-hand guard, fired twice and then turned to the right-hand guard and did the same. Neither guard had time to do more than register surprise at the sight of a gas-mask-clad figure stepping out of the room.
Mike wasn’t too sure at what level mustard was lethal. He had vague recollections of people talking about “a touch of mustard” from WWI, so apparently you could get some in your lungs and not automatically die. But he didn’t want any of the girls dying from his mustard contamination. On the other hand… short time.
He hadn’t gotten a good look in the torture room, but he was pretty sure he’d seen at least one guard and a group of unarmed soldiers. So he picked up a spare magazine and stuffed it in his back pocket. Then he stepped to the door to the torture room and opened it.
Amy was surprised that she’d almost gotten inured to the screams. Clarissa had taken two hours to die and, from what she could tell, Rachel was getting pretty close to the end. She’d learned to figure the time from the pattern of the torture. Clarissa had been raped by two of the soldiers, then tortured with electricity and had her skin stripped off in spots, then two more soldiers raped her in the mouth and ass, then she was tortured again and so on. Towards the end they had burned off her nipples with a blowtorch and after that they’d just beaten her with clubs to break her bones. Then they’d killed her by cutting her throat. Amy knew that Rachel was going to die, soon, in terrible agony, because while the soldiers were still raping her, one of the men in the aprons had started up the blowtorch.
She had her head down, just praying. She’d started off praying that somebody would come rescue them all. Now she was just praying that somebody would come before it was her turn. She’d done the math. Depending on what pattern they used, she had either forty-six or fifty-two hours to live. And the last two hours would be really bad. Bad enough she’d rather just die beforehand and get it over with. The one thing she had going for her was that the guards were pretty lax with the girls. When they got to her, assuming none of the others were any good at self defense, she’d have a trick or two for them. With any luck she’d be enough of a problem they’d just kill her. Assuming she could stay sane that long.
She looked up, though, at a scream from the front of the girls and the shot by the door.
“What’s the situation with SpecOps, Don?” the President asked. He’d dropped just about everything to cover this situation and he was starting to get a little ragged at the edges. “Do we have a mission plan to get these girls out?”
“Yes, Mr. President,” the secretary said. “We have the alert Ranger battalion at Fort Bragg rigged and in the air. Delta is on the way and performing mission planning enroute. However, it’ll take time for Delta to get there. We’re going to lose hostages if we wait. So. The best compromise between time to target and available forces is in theater SpecOps units. We’ve got a SEAL platoon staged out of Baghdad International looking at all the intel that we have. They’re the closest, and best trained, team we have for this. Delta is as good as they come and I’d rather use them. But given the time constraints, I’d say go with the SEALs. It’s going to be a high risk mission, though, even for the SEAL team.”
“Why?” the President asked.
“I’ve brought in someone to brief on that,” the secretary said, clearing his throat and gesturing at the major by his side. “Major Andreyev is an expert in advanced HALO, a special forces officer. It was his suggestion on insertion which is being implemented. It is… somewhat unusual…”
“It’s insane, sir,” the major said, in a soft-spoken voice. “But it’s the only thing that might work.”
“Go ahead, Major,” the President said, leaning back.
“Sir,” the major replied, getting up and going to the briefing stand. “The problem is that Syrian Integrated Air Defense System is as advanced as that of most first-world countries. They were defeated by the Israelis in 1978 but it took four days for the Israelis to fully suppress them. The Syrians have been playing against the varsity for a long time, and were positioned to learn all about our air operations during the previous fracas to the south. We don’t have the time to roll back the air defense system prior to inserting the assault team. The need was to place a team on site, before the enemy was fully aware that they were under attack. There is only one way to do so: stealthily.”
“You mean ‘stealth,’ don’t you, major?” the NSA said, wonderingly. “As in inserting them by, what? Stealth bombers? We don’t have enough B-2’s to lift a large assault team! And where would you place the parachutists?”
“Yes, ma’am, I mean stealth,” the major replied, bringing up a Top-Secret schematic of a bomb-bay rack. “Special Forces HALO did a very secret test with the Spirits last year at Nellis. The bomb-rack ejector mechanisms were modified, and an O2 distribution hookah was improvised. In addition, the B-2s are required to modify their climb profile for decompression. On the plus side, it is possible to eject a full SEAL platoon from a bomber, stealthily. Their insertion will be from forty thousand feet, twice normal height and about the maximum a person can handle without specialized equipment that can’t be made available in time. We have already begun the necessary modification on a B-2 that was rotating through Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi, and the SEALs will marry up with their transport there. The down side is that the bomber is visible to the enemy radar as long as the bomb bay is open, discharging the team. It has to offload the entire platoon in a hurry, which won’t be pleasant for the SEALs, in order to avoid missile fire, which is more unpleasant. Given Syrian air defenses, we may lose a Spirit.”
“Authorized,” the President said, coldly. “How soon are they going to be on the ground?”
“The team is supposed to be being briefed about now, Mr. President.”
“You have got to be shitting me!”
Petty Officer First Class Roy Simmons was the Leading Petty Officer of Charlie Platoon, SEAL Team Three. He had had been at Team Three his whole career. He’d gone through the predictable stages. The new meat that thought being a SEAL was just the coolest damned thing in the world but wasn’t quite sure they were up to it. Then when he was “made” in the teams and promoted to PO Third he knew he could lick the whole world because he was a God Damned Frog. Then came the wife, then the kids, then the regular deployments and the advanced training, and now he knew it was just a job. One of the toughest jobs in the world, one that occasionally threw you a damned curve. But at the end of the deployment it was good to get back to the mamasan and forget the blood and the screams and just play with the kids. And he’d thought he’d heard it all until he heard this damned Air Force major lay out this shit in a calm and matter of fact voice.
“Oh, dude!” Roman snorted. “This is going to be so cool!”
“We’re going to be SEAL legends!” Sherman said, raising his arms in victory. “Live or die, we’re going to be fucking legend!”
“This ain’t happening,” Simmons said, looking over at the new meats. The poor guys’ eyes were as round as saucers and they were looking at Roman and Sherman as if they were fucking insane. Which, of course, they were. That was the job of the PO3s on the teams and Roman and Sherman were already legends.