“Without denying a faith in God, that I have never known,” Mike said, then coughed. “I hear the angels call my name, and I am Winter born…”
“Maybe you should back off,” Amy said. “I’d love to hear all of it. But… when we’re out of here.”
“Okay,” Mike said, leaning back and sighing.
“Okay, why tampons?” she asked after a while.
“Tampons and pads are some of the best bandages around,” Mike replied. “If the hole is big, like from a bullet exit wound, you just stick a tampon in and you’re good.”
“That’s sick!” Amy said, then giggled.
“Oh, it’s better than that,” Mike said, shifting around to find a convenient position. “You use tampons and pads for bandages. Before Lycra and Spandex, SEALs use would use king-sized black pantyhose in place of wetsuits in extremely warm water. And there’s an underwater demo firing device that’s supposed to be waterproof, but usually isn’t. The trigger of the device is a ring on the end. The way you waterproof it is to get a condom, an extra large, unlubricated condom with a receptacle tip, that’s for the trigger, and put the firing device in that. With me?”
“Yeah,” Amy said, grinning.
“So, sometimes, a team will be out in some third-world shithole and get a mission to, say, go into an enemy harbor and lay some explosives,” Mike said, grinning back. “So the supply guy, a SEAL mind you, has to go into some third-world pharmacy…”
“Oh, Christ,” Amy said, laughing. “Stop! You’re killing me…”
“And ask for a case of king-sized pantyhose, several cases of tampons and maxi pads. The ones with wings are best; you can just slap them right on…”
By this time, Amy was laughing uncontrollably, bent over her AK with tears running down her face while other girls were drifting to the door to know what in the world, especially given the conditions, could be so funny.
“… and a case of extra large, unlubricated…”
“… receptacle tip…” Amy managed to gasp, holding up a finger to make the point.
“… Receptacle tip, condoms,” Mike finished, chuckling and coughing. “God, I got to quit cracking myself up.”
“What in the hell was that all about?” Bambi asked. “It sounded…”
“Oh, oh…” Amy said, waving her hand. “Oh…” Then she collapsed again.
“Just trying to bring a little levity into the situation,” Mike replied. “Everyone’s going around with long faces like they’re all gonna die or something.”
“Amy?” one of the girls said. “Mr. Ghost?”
“Yeah?” Mike said and coughed again. “Crap that hurt. What?”
“Susie’s on the Internet, she’s on a chatboard trying to get the word out on what’s going on. And Cassie’s figured out the video feed. We can go live over the Internet. We’re trying to get a link to one of the networks.”
“Oh, Christ,” Mike said. “Look, no video of the doorway, okay? Don’t let them get a look at our defenses. Keep the camera pointed at the far wall. Al Jazeera will rebroadcast and somebody will see it up top and know there’s only a couple of us. If you’re going to do this, lie. Get some of the girls and give them guns, just to hold. And… get Fox. Not CNN, not ABC. Fox.”
“You sure?” the girl asked.
“Yeah,” Mike replied and coughed. “Tell ’em if they get anyone but Fox, I’ll kick their fuzzy bunny-hugger ass.”
Chapter Eleven
“Laurie,” Tom Godwin said, sticking his head in the producer’s cubicle. “You have got to see this!”
Laurie Weiner stood up and walked to his cubicle. Tom had an AIM chat up and she tried to make sense of it. Most of it seemed to be about the hostage crisis, which wasn’t too surprising, especially given the name of the chat room: InsideTheHostageRescue. But…
“What was that?” she said, scrolling up.
HostageGirclass="underline" They haven’t been back in about ten minutes. Other than Rachel, so far we’re okay.
DingBat111: That’s good to hear. You hang in there, Girl.
HostageGirclass="underline" We’re trying to get a feed out to one of the networks. We’ve got their video gear. Susie’s figured out how to feed to the Internet. She says she needs a server link point.
“Is this what I think it is?” Laurie whispered.
“Yeah, it looks real,” Tom said, panting.
“GIVE ’EM OURS!” she shrieked. “How did they get free?”
“Some guy named Ghost broke them loose,” Tom said, typing furiously and hitting Send.
FoxieTom: THIS IS TOM GODWIN, A PRODUCER WITH FOX NEWS. EVERYONE GIVE ME A SECOND WITH HOSTAGEGIRL, PLEASE.
FoxieTom: HostageGirl, first of all, glad to hear that everyone is okay so far except Clarissa. That’s already in the news in case nobody told you. Tell Susie, the URL link for Internet vid is 126.10.05 and the password is GoFoxy. Everybody, you can’t link to that, so stay away from the URL. HostageGirl, once you do the link, we should have two way video and audio.
HostageGirclass="underline" Thanks, Ghost said we could only link to Fox. I guess he’s a fan.
FoxieTom: Who is he?
HostageGirclass="underline" I dunno, just a guy. Said he tracked us here. He killed the guards and now… I’ve got to think about what I can say and what I can’t according to Thumper.
FoxieTom: Thumper?
HostageGirclass="underline" He hung nicknames on some of the girls who are helping him. Thumper’s one of them. He also calls her “Bringer of Fire.” He’s… really weird. I don’t care. He save my life, all of our lives. I’ll forgive him everything for that. They’re over by the door singing some song about “How many of them can we make die!” now.
DingBat111: COOL. That’s “March of Cambreadth”! Very good song for what’s going on!
“I’ll look up ‘March of Cambreadth,’ ” Laurie said, “and tell video that there’s a live feed coming in from the hostages. Jesus, I can’t believe I just said that!”
“Power of the Internet,” Tom said, and chuckled, going back to the chat session.
“Welcome back to Fox and Friends, I’m Linda Braums filling in for E.D. Don… Gl… Hill!” the female anchor said. “The following is hard to believe but true. The hostages from Athens have been… partially rescued and are now using the terrorists’ own video and Internet equipment to send out live pictures from the room where they were being tortured. We have a direct link to them over the Internet and are now going to be speaking to them, live. Be aware that… they were stripped as was seen on the horrible video the terrorists already released and they don’t have access to clothing. And we cannot blur out in real time. So… I am speaking to Heather Carter, a journalism student at the University of Georgia. Heather, can you explain what happened?” The view changed to a shot of the face and upper chest of a young woman whose hair was horribly mussed and whose face was dirty but very pretty.
“Well, Linda, it was pretty confusing at first,” the girl said, her face tight. “We’d… been present for Clarissa’s…” She paused and shook her head for a second.
“Ordeal?” Linda prompted.
“I suppose that’s a word to use,” Heather replied, gulping and closing her eyes. “And then they took a break, a fairly long one. I think they’d decided to… take their time to let the word get around. Anyway, they started on Rachel…”
“It’s probably better if we don’t use names of victims, Heather,” Linda said, tightly. “Not until their families can be informed.”
“This is going to get tough,” Heather said, grimacing. “They started on another girl. And they’d, well, they’d done most of the things they were going to do to her, short of some of the end stuff… when the door burst open and this guy just came in and started killing them. I mean, just killing them. One or two shots per person, almost like an execution. Mr. Halal, who was the guy leading them and doing a lot of the torturing, tried to take the girl on the table hostage and Ghost just… played with him. Shot all the other people, acted like he was negotiating, except he was really insulting, and then he shot him through the head. He released some of us and gave us the key and he and, well he’s been organizing our defense ever since. He said this was a WMD facility, by the way, and I trust his word because he also said he used some of their chemical weapons against them. ‘Tossed a VX grenade through the door’ is what got back to me. I don’t know which door. And he blew up the plant or whatever, we heard the explosions, then got ready to defend us. According to Mr. Ghost, the U.S. government is aware of our location and on its way. But we have to hold on until they get here. So… tell them to hurry.” The view cut back to the Fox crew, who were looking pretty stunned.