The Corvette stuttered to a halt. Welwood's eyes flashed up to his rearview mirror. The grill of a large truck filled the glass. He watched with disbelieving eyes as the truck inexorably bore down on him, the shiny grill getting closer and closer. His foot hit the gas pedal impotently while the fingers of his right hand scrabbled at the keys, turning them, grinding the starter, but the engine wouldn't catch. Welwood heard the squeal of brakes, tires gripping asphalt, and then the truck hit.
Fiberglass cracked and shattered as the truck plowed over the Corvette. Welwood was thrust forward onto the steering wheel, the entire seat, with belt strapped around him, being ripped from the floor. His chest was crushed, splintered ribs tearing into lungs. The pain was so great from those injuries, he didn't even feel both legs snap as they were jammed up under the console.
Then there was silence. Welwood blinked blood out of his eyes. He couldn't move. He tried to breath, and that only served to cause pain to jab through his chest.
"You all right?" a blurry face appeared in the smashed window next to him. The voice had an accent that Welwood momentarily tried to place, but pain was the entire center of his being.
Welwood could only moan. He faintly felt a pair of hands running across his chest.
"You're all broken up, my friend." The voice was very close to his ear. The hands were pressing against him.
Welwood tried to scream, but the sound was lost in the blood that was now beginning to fill his airway. The hand pressed harder, sliding a piece of broken rib against his heart.
"It's better this way," the voice whispered.
Irish? Welwood had time to wonder, when the bone lanced through the soft flesh of his heart, slicing it wide open.
Chapter Twelve
The noise woke Terri Dublowski out of a troubled sleep. The strip of lighting in the center of the ceiling was always on, giving her no idea of what time of day it was. She didn't move, but lay still trying to identify the noise. Her first thought was that it was a cat. Her neighbor at Patch Barracks had had one, a fat, hairy, ugly thing that had always been a nuisance.
She opened her eyes, still not moving. Her cubicle was ten by ten, with cinder-block walls painted off-white. A toilet and sink were in one corner. The bed was simply a mattress on a spring frame, with a rough wool blanket that she had wrapped tight around her.
Terri sat up, swinging her feet down to the smooth floor. The concrete was warm against her bare feet, a fact that had surprised her when she first felt it. How long ago that was now, she had no idea.
She didn't think her meals even came on a schedule, as there seemed to be long time periods where there was no food, then two or three closely delivered trays under her door. The man who delivered them wore khaki, was dark-skinned and spoke not a word. She had only seen him once. When she had opened the top slot to check when she heard him come one time, he had slammed her food tray against the slot, spraying her with food. She never opened the slot again when she heard someone out there.
Each time the sound of the steel door at the end of the corridor echoed down the hallway she tensed, afraid that she would be taken out again, but as time passed she wished for something to happen.
The low mewling sound came again, muted by the steel door. Terri walked over to the door and knelt next to it. "Hello?"
"It's Mary," the voice she recognized as Leslie's reached her. "I think she's losing it."
"Mary?" Terri called. "Mary?"
The pitch of the cry went higher, the sound echoing down the corridor.
"Mary!" Terri pressed her mouth against the slot. "You have to get control of yourself."
The cry was now a scream, undulating. It went on for almost a minute, then stopped. Then it began again.
"Mary!" Terri pressed against the steel door. "Please, Mary. You have to stop."
"They did something to us," Leslie said.
"What do you mean?" Terri asked.
"Didn't they take you?" Leslie asked.
"Take me?" Terri said. "Where?"
"To the room. Like an operating room. That's all I remember, until I was back in here. They cut me. In my side. There's stitches there."
"What did they do?" Terri asked.
"I don't know. I'm sore and I hurt."
"Me too," Cathy Walker chimed in. "They cut me on my right side."
"Why?" Terri asked.
"I don't know," Leslie said. "Maybe they took something out. Maybe they stole a kidney! I don't know."
"There's something in there," Cathy said. "I can feel it. They put something in me. Something hard. Can't you feel it?"
"I don't want to open the scar," Leslie said. "I don't know."
"Mary," Terri called. "Mary, did they cut you? Did they put something in you?"
There was no answer, only the cries. This went on for almost five minutes, the other girls, Leslie and Cathy, joining in, exhorting Mary to stop, but to no avail.
"Mary!" Terri yelled. "Talk to us, please!"
Mary laughed, a wild echoing sound. "They did it! They put it in me! But I got it out. I got it out!"
"What was it?"
Mary's voice dropped. "But I'm bleeding." She laughed again. "I got it out! I got it out!" She began screeching incoherently.
The sound of the door opening at the end of the corridor cut off their voices abruptly. Terri listened to the footsteps — booted feet — moving down the corridor. A cell door swung open. Mary's keening grew louder.
A voice cursed in a language Terri couldn't recognize. The boots came back down the hallway, Mary's voice with them.
"Leave her alone!" Terri screamed.
Both sounds were cut off as the hallway door slammed shut. Terri slumped down onto the floor of her cell.
Chapter Thirteen
Floodlights illuminated the interior of the hangar-like building. Thorpe estimated a C-141 cargo plane could fit inside. Instead, there were simply rows and rows of oversized wooden benches. At one end of the building about fifty men milled about. Closer by, there was only Lieutenant Colonel Kinsley and a handful of reservists destined for two-month assignments in Europe.
The building was called the Green Ramp and was the launching point for the rapid deployment forces from Fort Bragg. All parachute training jumps conducted by the paratroopers stationed at Bragg also originated in the large building. The benches were designed to hold jumpers with a parachute on their back and a hundred-pound rucksack dangling from straps between their legs. Early in his career, while attending the Special Forces Qualification Course, Thorpe had participated in a jump with the 82nd Airborne staging out of the Green Ramp. The one thing that had been impressed upon him was how early the 82nd prepared for a jump. In Special Forces, a team might show up at the airfield an hour before loading time. In the 82nd, because of the large numbers involved, it was not unusual for the jumpers to be there six to eight hours before the scheduled load time. And to rig four hours before loading, in order to make sure everyone was properly inspected in time.
In Thorpe's experience there were few things worse than sitting around fully rigged for a jump. The weight of the parachute — main and reserve — along with rucksack, load-bearing equipment, weapon, helmet — over a hundred and sixty pounds — rested squarely on the jumper's shoulders. Even sitting, it was a most uncomfortable arrangement.
Thorpe had been visiting Bragg several years previously when an air force jet had crashed into a C-141 cargo plane waiting to take on a load of parachutists. The resulting fireball had killed and maimed dozens of jumpers waiting outside the Green Ramp. The price of training, something Thorpe was familiar with.