Now absolutely nothing made sense as he stood with his accuser, both of them cuffed, wearing Day-Glo prison jumpsuits and about to board a one-way flight on the torture shuttle.
Hunter laughed for the first time in days.
One guard was close enough for Hunter to take out, but the other two stood at a distance with their AKs pointing at the prisoners as they shuffled toward an American-flagged Gulfstream V, registration number N379P. Hunter had always wanted a chance to fly the latest Gulfstream, but somehow he didn’t think he was going to get his wish today. His arms cuffed behind his back made escape difficult, but not impossible. The Rubicon guards hardly knew what they were doing and most of them were foreign nationals imported from low-wage countries, no doubt a Rubicon cost-saving measure that padded its already fat margins.
Back when there was at least some limited cooperation between Force Zulu and the OGA, Hunter and his teammates had prepared dozens of suspected terrorists for rendition flights. They called the process “a twenty-minute takeout” because that’s all the time it took to package a prisoner for a safe flight. In contrast to the Rubicon staff, Hunter and his teammates had takeouts down to a fine art. Dressed in black with their faces covered like ninjas, they communicated with one another through hand signals. He had always kind of enjoyed doing it because of the slick teamwork involved-and because he was convinced they were packaging another bad guy who wanted to harm America. The rendition team took a blindfolded tango into a small room, shoved him to the floor, cut off his clothes and conducted a full body cavity search. Afterwards, they removed the blindfold and snapped a photograph before what Hunter thought was the grossest part: they shoved a sedative up the tango’s ass. Then they diapered him, stuck him in a prison jumpsuit, shackled him, and shoved an earplug headset on him. As soon as they had bagged the tango’s head in a long, dark hood, the takeout was ready for pickup.
The thought of takeout made Hunter hungry. Chinese. Man, he’d love some cashew chicken right about now.
The poorly trained Rubicon guards hadn’t thought of diapers, so he yelled at one he guessed was Filipino. “Dude, do me a favor and unzip my pants and hold my dick. I’ve got to go bad.”
“Piss your pants,” the guard said.
Hunter motioned toward the Gulfstream with his head. “That looks like one of those fancy executive jets. You really want me to whiz on the leather seats?”
“I not touch your dick.”
“Up to you if you want to smell piss for the next few hours.”
The American supervisor sighed. “Hold on. As soon as I cut you out, you have to immediately put your hands in front for me to cuff you again. You take as much as a second to think about it and you’re full of lead.”
Another guard kept his AK aimed at Hunter and he knew the time wasn’t right, but he could work with arms zip-tied in front. The guard sliced through the cuffs and Hunter complied while he fastened him back up.
“Do it yourself now. Hurry.”
“Thanks.” As Hunter turned away from the group and fumbled with his zipper, he heard the other guys requesting the same accommodation. Peeing on the sand, he focused on the rush of relief, knowing he had to grab every little pleasure he could. Things were only going to get worse.
They were individually marched onto the plane and chained into their seats, but their hands were left fastened in front and the hoods were left off. GENGHIS was placed in the seat directly behind Hunter. He wanted to know Stella’s plan immediately, but he couldn’t risk the guards noticing any communication between him and GENGHIS. He would have to be patient and wait for GENGHIS to find the right opportunity to inform him.
When they hit cruising altitude, the guards passed out more MREs and threw them bottled water. Whatever they were going to do with him, they didn’t intend to starve him into compliance. He ripped open the white plastic pouch. Just his luck-it was a frickin veggie burger in BBQ sauce. He devoured it and asked for seconds to try to regain his strength. They were stupid enough to give him another. This time he was luckier, he thought, as he read the outside of the pouch: meatloaf with gravy. Then he tore it open and a package of Charms fell out and onto the floor.
“Crap,” he said to himself. Unlucky Charms, It seemed that whenever someone in crew had eaten the Charms hard candy packed in an MRE, they had been ambushed or nearly had bit it from an IED. He had heard so many freaky stories about those cursed things, he couldn’t understand why the Pentagon hadn’t banned them. He kicked them under the seat in front of him.
The Gulfstream seats really were leather and Hunter felt comfortable for the first time in days-for the first time since he had been snuggled against Stella’s soft body. She was all he could think of as he stared at the LCD view screen and watched the movement of an airplane icon along the projected flight path, south to the Persian Gulf, around Iran, then back north across the Pakistani air corridor. Stella had been so smooth, so wet.
Suddenly, it sunk in what he was looking at on the monitor. The flight plan overshot Afghanistan-they were headed deep into Uzbekistan.
“Okay, asswipes,” the American guard said over the intercom. “We here at Air Rubicon know that you have a choice in your rendition flights and we’re pleased you chose us. In a few minutes we’ll be playing our Halfway to Hell game. The captain will be giving us important information on total miles flown, airspeed, headwinds and all that crap and whichever one of you can guess the closest time to our halfway mark, wins his very last cold beer. But before that, we’re giving you your last shot at democracy and you get to choose the movie.” He held up two DVDs. “We’ve got Bourne Supremacy with Matt Damon or the documentary Manchurian Candidate with Denzel Washington.” He read the plot descriptions and the cover blurbs. “Okay, which flick will be the last one you ever see in your lives? Raise those cuffed paws if you want Bourne.”
One of the guards snapped a picture with a digital camera of the prisoners with their cuffed hands in the air. They were far from professional and probably didn’t have the training to handle any serious resistance, Hunter noted. He was pleased, too, that the dim lights for the movie would make it easier for GENGHIS to slip a message to him.
“Last call for Bourne,” the guard said.
Hunter’s choice was clear. One of the guys who had consulted on Bourne was a friend of his and even though they had some problems with their sniper weapons, some of the scenes were so realistic, they still gave him chills. He really didn’t want to humor the guards by voting, but just in case it was his last movie, he raised his hands for Bourne.
A few minutes later, Hunter was getting into the chase scene in Goa, remembering one he had once had in Myanmar, when GENGHIS started kicking his seat. He was using Morse code.
Hunter couldn’t figure out how the movie got to a crime scene in Berlin, but he didn’t care while he concentrated on deciphering the message: “B-L-K-M-G-M-T.”
Hunter moved his elbow back and forth between his body and the airframe where GENGHIS could see it, sometimes pulling it back quickly, other times leaving it there for a couple of seconds. “P-L-A-N?”
“N-O. C-A-P-T-U-R-E-D.”
“F-”
Chapter Sixty-Eight