If it he were back home in Wisconsin, there’d be a farmer, a wife, a kid or two inside. Cat to match the dogs, maybe two. They’d be preoccupied, getting dinner.
Dixon pushed himself to his feet, rifle propped in the crock of his elbow. He had the gun and his wits and his hunger. He moved slowly at first, then realized it was better to go quickly; he began to trot forward. If the open field gave him no cover, it meant none for his enemies either. He pointed the AK-47 at the doorway, eyes scanning back and forth across the front of the building, aware he could be attacked from the corners or the lone window.
Twenty yards from the house, he stopped. The dogs began to bark, but he could tell they weren’t barking at him. They’d run behind the house, had seen or smelled something more interesting than him.
Dixon crouched, waiting for something to happen. The small house had no telephone wires, no power lines, no antenna that he could see. No house in America would be this small. Its walls were the color of the dirt— light brown with tinges dark brown, streaks of blood that had dried.
Something moved behind the window. Dixon raised his rifle, waited.
Nothing.
A shadow, or his imagination.
He got out of the crouch, began walking forward, gun moving slowly back and forth across the face of the building, ready.
Nothing.
The dogs had stopped barking around the back.
A figure appeared in the doorway.
It was a woman in a long, dirty white dress. She looked across the yard directly into his eyes, locking him with his stare.
Part of him truly meant to shoot her. Part of him truly realized that he had no friends here, that he could not afford to think of anyone as a civilian.
A larger part could not find the will to squeeze the trigger. He stood stock still, gun lowered to the ground.
The woman raised her right hand. His first thought was that she had a gun. Then he saw she was simply gesturing, raising both arms as if to plead with him.
For help? To come? To go?
In the next instant, Dixon dove to the ground, ducking as gunfire erupted from behind and inside the building.
CHAPTER 25
As varied and multi-faceted as his career in the armed forces had been, Bristol Wong had never once been captured. He hadn’t even studied the phenomenon thoroughly. While he could cite to within a centimeter the target envelope of any Soviet-made missile from Scud to SS-25 ICBM, he had only the dimmest notion of the Geneva Conventions governing prisoners. The various survival courses he had taken, including both Navy and Air Force SERE School, provided relatively skimpy background; it was difficult to duplicate the experience of cold metal being pressed against the side of your neck nearly two hundred miles inside enemy territory.
Actually, the metal, which belonged to the business end of an AK-47, seemed a little warm. The man holding the gun had just finished searching him, efficiently removing his ammunition as well as his personal weapons. He now jerked the barrel of his assault rifle against Wong’s neck, motioning that Wong should kneel on the ground next to the Satcom.
Wong glanced at the Iraqi commander, a squat man in light brown khakis holding a pistol a few feet away. Then he slowly lowered himself to the ground, unsure what the Iraqis intended. The Delta Force com specialist stood two yards away to Wong’s right, three Iraqi AK-47s in his chest. Even if he’d been wearing body armor, any twitch would end the sergeant’s life.
The Iraqi commander told him in Arabic to contact his base and say there was no problem. Wong pretended not to understand.
“What exactly do you wish done?” Wong said in English.
“Tell whomever you were communicating with that there is no problem,” said the man in flawless English.
Wong nodded and bent to the com unit, but before he could touch the Satcom’s controls, a bullet zipped into the dirt about a foot away. He froze, calling on an old Yoga breathing exercise to empty his lungs slowly.
“There is an emergency beacon on your radio, I assume,” said the captain.
“I’m unaware of any,” said Wong.
“Back away from it,” said the man.
Wong straightened and took a step back. The Iraqi’s game intrigued him; he’d obviously had no intention of allowing Wong to use the device but wanted to study his reactions.
“I will shoot you if I wish,” said the captain.
“Naturally.”
“Your job is to make me not wish to do that,” said the Iraqi. “Why are you here?”
“I am a spy,” said Wong.
The captain began to laugh. He told his men in Arabic what Wong had said. An honest spy, he called him. Then he turned back to Wong.
“We shoot spies at dawn,” the captain said.
“I would expect so.”
“What were you spying on?”
“Your defenses,” said Wong.
“And what did you find here?”
“They appear formidable.”
The captain raised the barrel of his AK-47 so that it was aimed at Wong’s head. Technically speaking, that was not as intimidating as it would have been had it been pointing toward his chest; he held the gun with only one hand, unbraced, and Wong realized that even at this range it was likely to jerk off-target. Still, it delivered the appropriate message.
“What are you really looking for, Captain?” asked the Iraqi. “Who are you looking for?”
Who — significant, undoubtedly.
“If I came here knowing what I would find, there would have been little sense in coming,” said Wong.
“How did you get here?”
“I walked.”
The Iraqi captain jerked the gun away and fired into the dirt in front of his feet. The ground was soft enough for the bullets to penetrate and there were no ricochets, but Wong saw that the men who were holding their weapons on the sergeant jumped with the sound. All had their fingers on the triggers of their weapons; the odds against an accidental firing were not particularly good.
“I ask you again, how did you get here?”
“As I said, I hiked here. I would have liked to have run but as you can tell, I am not in particularly top condition; it was more like a walk.”
“You walked from Saudi Arabia?”
“Of course not.”
The Iraqi smiled again. Wong thought he could place the accent in the man’s English around Chicago. He guessed the Iraqi had gone to college or university in Illinois.
“And what did you do before you walked?”
“I parachuted.”
“You’re a parachutist?” The man laughed, as if genuinely questioning Wong’s qualifications.
“I hold a USPA Class D skydiving license, with gold wings, ruby badges and instructor certification,” said Wong. “If you wish I can recite my entire jump resume, beginning with my first free fall on a tethered jump at age ten— an illegal dive, incidentally, for which fortunately there were no repercussions.”
“What the hell are you, captain?” asked the Iraqi.
“I am a spy,” said Wong. “Captain Bristol Wong, U.S. Air Force.”
The Iraqi shook his head, then turned to the sergeant. “And you— are you a spy as well?”
The sergeant recited his name, rank, and serial number. The Iraqi moved his head slightly; one of the men guarding the com specialist crashed his rifle butt into his side, sending him to the ground.
“There is no need for that,” said Wong. “I will cooperate with you. The sergeant is merely an enlisted man of no importance.”