“ABORT. GO TO EXFIL. NOW!” McCreary commanded.
Ghost One heard the sounds of guards trampling down the hallway to the bedroom. He looked for another exit. There was only a small changing room beyond the hot tub. The lone exit was the way he entered. He quickly moved toward it and stopped at the sound of men entering the bedroom and fumbling through the closet. Suddenly, four guards poured through the hidden closet entrance. Blocking Ghost One’s exit.
“Donde es El Lobo?” One barked. He ordered another guard to get the girl.
She screamed that El Lobo was dead.
“He’s still here,” the guard said about El Lobo’s killer. Ordering his men to search the entire room. The guard barked a lock-down order over his radio for the villa. Nobody was to enter or leave.
Two additional guards arrived at the entrance.
It’s only a matter of time before they find him, McCreary thought. “Back against the wall,” he ordered Ghost One. “Get out of the way!”
“Z-MAN!” blared over the headsets in the box. “Make him climb!” Trest said over the radio.
“What’s Z-Man?” Douglas asked.
“He’s in a cave. It’ll work!” Baldo said.
“Beacon to Ghost One, climb the wall to the exit.”
Ghost One turned, faced the wall and started to climb. With ease — like a lizard.
“Wha—?” Douglas asked.
“Z-man is the DARPA project that made Geckskin,” Baldo said. “It’s on his gloves and boots—”
“—He’s not cleared for that!” McCreary interrupted.
“He’s watching it now!” Baldo replied. Adding a respectful “sir” at the end.
Ghost One climbed high up the arched cave wall, his gloves keeping him snug against the wall with the high-grip material. A guard shouted to the leader, saying El Lobo was dead and there was no sign of the killer. One tried blaming it on the girl. She was hysterical. When asked who killed El Lobo, she kept repeating “fantasma,” and “cuchillo flotante.” Ghost and floating knife.
Ghost One climbed down the man-made cave wall, head first, agile, like the namesake of the technology enabling him. He quietly stepped from the wall, two feet from the guards searching the cave. Ghost One hugged the wall and slipped behind them, backing up to the entrance. He opened fire in rapid bursts. Killing those closest to him and fanning bursts of 4.6x30mm copper plated steel throughout the room. The men by the hot tub took cover behind fake boulders.
“Pop smoke and exfil!” Ghost One heard over the bone phone.
He removed an M83 smoke grenade from inside his vest, popped the cotter-pin clip and threw it. Smoke billowed throughout the cave. He raced out the bedroom and down the hall from where he entered, gun raised. Shooting guards that entered the hallway. He passed the kitchen and went out the back door. Guards at the gate saw the door move and fired at thin air. Ghost One was halfway across the yard and invisible to them. He ran straight for the wall and scaled it in two running steps. Planting his hands at the top and propelling himself over.
“Go to the DZ!” McCreary ordered. A flashing target appeared in his HMD and he sprinted laterally across a steep hill. He reached the other side and saw the stealth helo — a modified HH-64 Blackhawk, blade spinning and door open — waiting for him.
“Deactivate” McCreary Ordered. Ghost One’s stealth suit powered down on the run, and he appeared to those inside the helo. He climbed in, helped by two PJs, and robotically sat down as they strapped him in his seat. Another man in PJ fatigues and Mich helmet sat opposite Ghost One. He grabbed him by the shoulders and spoke to him face to face. Speaking to those in the box watching through his helmet cam.
“Hell of a mission, ladies!”
“Major?!!” Baldo exclaimed, recognizing Trest in the Mich helmet on screen.
“Did you pussies think I would miss this op?” Trest laughed jovially. Then leaned back and gave the pilot the signal to take off.
“Hit it with everything you’ve got.” McCreary ordered Douglas. “Save the incendiaries for last.”
“Roger that. Target acquired and firing.”
Two Hellfire missiles streaked from the stealth drone, blasting toward the villa. Followed by the more powerful Paveway laser-guided bomb. The hillside lit up in a series of explosions. The final bomb was an incendiary cluster bomb. It hit the remains of the villa and exploded. Sending projectiles in all directions in a quarter mile radius. The projectiles detonated with incendiary munitions hot enough to melt steel. Destroying any evidence of the American-made ordinance that just wiped out the villa.
CHAPTER SIX
ELM
A woman appeared before Hal with hazy and blurred features. His mind unable to push through the fog to see more than her caramel-colored skin and dark hair, softly flowing over her shoulder. She wore a bright white gown. The glow from it consumed any detail. Did I die? Hal thought. Am I in Heaven?
“Relax,” she whispered, pressing a pistol injector to his shoulder. Hal felt a sting in his arm, and her image vanished from his mind.
Hal opened his eyes, searching the room. Gathering his bearings — realizing he was home in the comfort of his own bed. He remembered the pain from the injector and angled his shoulder into view. Spotting a small red dot.
Curiosity drove him to the bathroom mirror. The dot looked like a freckle. Must have been a dream, he thought. Until something under his chin grabbed his attention — a rope-burn winding around the base of his neck. Different from the chin-strap mark he saw before. This was deep with a red and purple bruise. He rubbed it. Hoping it too would vanish from his mind. Instead, the pain in his neck triggered a memory of bouncing streetlights, and the flash of an assailant’s arms swinging a rope around his neck. Another memory interrupted — a calm view of the street, after the storm. His helpless attacker lying crumpled on the ground. Hal shook the memories and cobwebs from his mind. Enough is enough, he thought.
The waiting room of Dr. Stuart Elm was small, bland and sterile. Hal shifted, uncomfortable, in a hard metal chair. He picked up Better Homes and Gardens magazine from the coffee table, felt a thin film of dust on it and set it back down. The place even smelled like it hadn’t been cleaned, or visited, in a month. Hal looked up to a wide poster of a lush, serene jungle. It pulled him into its trance. The clinic door opened, snapping him out. A silver-haired man in a lab coat leaned in. “Harold Sheridan?”
“Hal,” he corrected. Rising to shake the older man’s thin and bony hand.
“Dr. Elm. Stuart. Call me Stu or Stuart.” The man said in a grandfatherly tone. He had a thin wispy mustache that matched the color of his hair and neatly-groomed eyebrows. He wore a bow-tie, giving him a peaceful and approachable demeanor.
Dr. Elm opened the door wide, welcoming Hal into the main clinic hallway.
Once inside the office, Hal felt uneasy. Not from the doctor, or the exam he was there to receive — it was common among airmen, but the room itself seemed odd. Looking more like an attorney’s office than the physician’s exam room he expected. The doctor shining a pen-light into his pupils didn’t help.
“First, I’m going to conduct some physical tests. All normal, and part of a basic mental health assessment.” He turned the pen-light off and held it vertical to Hal’s eye level. “Focus on the tip of my pen, please.” Dr. Elm moved the pen-light from side-to-side, watching Hal’s pupils. He held it still in the center. “Now move your head back and forth and focus on the pen.” Hal did as instructed. “How is your balance, Hal?”