“Can I have something else to wear?” Sandra asked.
“I will cover you.”
“And I need to be…” Sandra’s voice cracked involuntarily. “I need to clean myself.”
Badira understood. “I still cannot untie you, but I will clean you.”
Sandra closed her eyes, forbidding herself to cry. “Thank you.”
“You must not forget where you are,” Badira admonished her as she began rooting through the medical bag. “You are not in New York City. You are in Afghanistan, and if you are going to survive here, you cannot be weak. You must be strong or you will die.” She paused to look up. “Do you understand what I am telling you?”
Sandra nodded. “What’s your name?”
“I am Badira.”
“Thank you, Badira. I’ll try.”
Badira went back to rooting in the bag. “I am afraid you will have to do better than that, Sandra Brux.”
CHAPTER 5
As the hydraulic ramp was lowered on the C-130E military transport, Master Chief Halligan Steelyard stood by pensively chewing the end of an imported Cohiba Robusto cigar. His face grew taut as Master Chief Gil Shannon sauntered down the ramp with his SR-25 slung over his shoulder. The rest of Gil’s gear, including the .338 Lapua McMillan sniper rifle and .308 Remington Modular sniper rifle, was stowed in the hold of the aircraft in eight different cruise boxes to be unloaded by the crew. The SR-25 was a semiauto, 7.62 mm, limited-range sniper rifle that could also be used for patrol work.
Gil didn’t do much actual patrol work now that he was attached to SOG, but if the air base was attacked during his stay, he wanted the versatility and all-around knock-down power that a weapon such as the SR-25 might offer him over the standard M4 carbine which was chambered for the 5.56 mm NATO round.
The trouble with the M4 wasn’t with the weapon itself, but rather with the modern ammunition. The 5.56 mm NATO wasn’t the same as the 5.56 round that was used during the latter part of the Vietnam War. The current NATO round was designed to defeat the newest Russian body armor, before breaking up inside the body for the most devastating effect. Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters, however, wore no armor at all, so the round did not break up, or even tumble through the body in many cases, and this too often allowed the M4 rounds to pass straight through an enemy without putting him down. The bad guy might bleed out later on, but that wasn’t much good if he ended up killing you in the meantime.
Gil shook hands with Steelyard. “What I miss, Chief?” They were of equal rank, but the sixty-five-year-old Steelyard had a great deal more time in grade, and Gil respected him more than anyone else he knew, so he was always Chief.
The graying, hard-eyed Steelyard didn’t stand a millimeter taller than 5'6", and he didn’t weigh an ounce over 150 pounds. A veteran of the Gulf War I, he was rock-hard muscle from his ears to his toes. “Gil, I hope you ate a light breakfast.”
“Fuck breakfast,” Gil said, the hair rising on the back of his neck. “How soon do we move?”
“Patience, grasshopper.”
Steelyard led the way, setting a brisk pace across the tarmac. Aircraft came and went all around them — fixed and rotary wing alike. Black Hawks setting down and taking off, a number of the big Chinooks, a few of the battered old Russian Mi-17s operated by the Afghan National Police force. There was even a matte-black Iroquois Huey, without markings or tail numbers, sitting in front of a lone hangar on the far side of the airport.
“That’s where we’re headed,” Steelyard remarked, gesturing with the wet end of the Cohiba.
They climbed into a waiting Humvee, and Steelyard drove them in a circuitous route to the far side of the tarmac where the black Iroquois sat before the hangar. Outside, they could see a pair of bored pilots lounging in the back with their feet up, playing some kind of handheld video game.
Immediately upon their approach to the hangar, Gil noted a pair of black MH-6 Killer Eggs — highly modified Cayuse attack helicopters — resting on wheeled dollies under armed guard inside the hangar. He had only seen the model up close one other time. A pair of black Black Hawk MH-60Ls sat near a pair of MH-60Ks on the far side of the hangar, hidden from general view, also under armed guard.
“I take it SOAR’s here in force?”
“On unofficial extended engagement,” Steelyard grumbled. “You’ll understand soon enough.”
They dismounted the Humvee and entered the hangar where Gil encountered half a dozen of his fellow DEVGRU members checking gear and cleaning weapons. There was an unmistakable tension in the air, and none of the crude jokes or insulting banter he would normally expect, only grim nods. He realized something had occurred since he’d boarded the C-130 late the night before in Oman. He couldn’t pin it down because the tension he felt had an uncommonly hostile vibe to it.
Steelyard preceded him into a situation room on the far side of the hangar where Lt. Commander Perez stood talking with an investigator from NCIS. Gil had never gotten along very well with Perez, so he came to full attention, snapping a smart salute.
“As you were, Gil,” Perez said, almost casually, before giving his attention back to the NCIS man.
That was all it took for Gil to know, unequivocally, that something, somewhere was very definitely fucked up. In the two years that he had been their intelligence officer, the lanky Perez had never called him by his first name. It was always Chief Shannon, and he was never casual. The fucking chip he carried around on his shoulder was too damn big for that.
The NCIS man was a personal friend of Steelyard’s, and more than just an acquaintance of Gil’s. He was a civilian named Raymond Chou, second-generation Chinese. He finished talking with Perez, then turned to shake hands with Gil.
“Sorry you had to cut your leave time short, buddy.”
“I’m here by choice, Ray. What I miss?”
Chou sighed and looked at his watch. “These guys can get you up to speed. I’m already going to have trouble explaining where the hell I’ve been all morning.” He returned his attention to Steelyard and Perez. “Listen, guys, I’m sorry I don’t have any actionable intel for you — nobody does yet — but I thought you should at least see that damn thing.”
Steelyard clapped him grimly on the back. “Indebted to you.”
“Nonsense. But listen, I gotta get that chopper back before the wrong people start to wonder where it went. Just remember that I was never here, and you guys didn’t get that damn thing from me, okay?”
“You got it,” Perez assured him.
Now Gil was irritated. It always took some time to catch up and become “part of the group” again after returning from a leave, but Perez was not a “you got it” kind of guy, and he sure as hell wasn’t the type of officer who conspired with enlisted personnel or noncommissioned officers. In fact, he normally bordered on being a sycophant to the higher brass.
So what the hell was going on?
Chou left the building and Gil stood staring at Perez. “Sir?”
Perez shook his head and looked at Steelyard. “Hal, I’ll leave you guys to it.” He nodded at Gil and left the room.
“Chief, what the fuck?”
“Come on.”
Steelyard led him into the locker room where a laptop computer sat on a bench. He gestured for Gil to have a seat and thumbed the touch pad to bring the darkened screen back to life.
“I want to warn you, Gil. If watching the Towers come down shook you up… this’ll be tough to take.” He started out of the room, then paused and turned around. “And I suggest you leave the volume set where it’s at.”