Mecrats

by C J Klinger

  “No, it’s not that, General. What we were talking about the other night was a solution to their isolation. I think they want me along to help them implement it.”

  General Emerson sat up. “A solution? Would you please explain what you mean, Doctor?”

  Cathy spent the next five minutes explaining the mind-to-mind cords she was making in her lab. She decided also to tell the general about her concerns, which was why she had insisted on refereeing the Mecrats first contacts with each other. She hated saying it, but she played her trump card. “I believe it will make them better soldiers.”

  “I think you’re right, Doctor.” He smiled at her for the first time. “You’re about to go on your first combat mission, Doctor Williamson. I suggest you change into something a little less conspicuous than a white lab smock.”

  Chapter 7

  Abdullah Al Sadad looked down at the two women sitting on the floor in the small room that served as their cell. Their lack of fear irritated him. They should be cowering at his feet begging for mercy, not that he would listen to their pleas. It was important that they die, publicly and with humiliation, especially the nun.

  His hatred of all things western had been born from living in New York City and being constantly subjected to prejudice, abuse and exclusion because his parents were Muslim who had emigrated from Iraq. The hate from his narrow minded neighbors, themselves victims of prejudice had driven the young man into the arms of an Imam who preached the radical version of Islam practiced by the Sunnis in Saudi Arabia. Death to nonbelievers was the common thread. Westerners, especially Americans were the epitome of nonbelievers. Christians, especially Catholics were a direct insult to his version of Islam.

  When his Imam had been arrested, the young man had fled his adopted country and returned to the land of his fore fathers. After arriving in Iraq he had joined a fundamentalist group seeking to create a sharia based state. Because of his ability to speak English and his absolute dedication to the cause, it was not long before he rose to a position in the military leadership. A series of laser guided bombs by the American Air Force had eliminated the rebel leadership and had eventually propelled him to the top. He had stayed there for five years by luck, elusive living and a reign of terror over the territory he ruled.

  Looking at the women who stared back wordlessly, he felt compelled to tell them once more what fate awaited them. “In a few days you will die and I shall be the one who kills you.”

  One of the women looked down, but the other one, the nun kept staring at him. “I shall pray for your soul and ask God to forgive you.”

  Abdullah was furious. “I do not need your prayers, woman, and Allah will praise me for killing you, Infidel.”

  Sister Marie Esmond had become a nun in her twenties after she had lived on the “wild side”, as she described it. She had already lived in hell and was now looking forward to living in heaven. Judging from what the angry man in front of her was saying, that was going to happen sooner than she had anticipated.

  “Then I guess our God, the God of Abraham will have a difficult decision to make when he judges us. Who will have pleased Him, the killer or the healer?”

  Abdullah had not intended to get into a discussion with his next victims, but he found himself compelled to shut this woman up with words instead of his sword. “The prophet Mohamed was very clear about our duty to Allah. You and your faith are an insult to Islam.”

  As many of her fellow missionaries had discovered, Sister Marie Esmond was a formidable debater. “Yet the Qur’an praises Jesus as a holy man. It is odd that you would overlook that.”

  “Shut up, woman. Shut up.” He was furious with himself for letting this weak woman get the best of him in an argument. “You will die, that is all there is to discuss.”

  The petite nun got in the last word. “Inshallah, If God wills it.”

  Abdullah stormed out of the room, an angry cloud on his face. The man in charge of guarding the prisoners moved aside to escape his anger. He and the other guards had not understood what had been said between the women and the ISIS leader because they had spoken in English. They just knew that the vicious man was very upset and the woman, the nun appeared to be as calm as she had been the moment they had brought her and her companion here.

  Abdullah brought his anger under control and motioned for the man in charge of the compound, Youssef ben Baz to follow him outside. They exited the building and started walking around the perimeter. Abdullah calmed himself enough to question the man’s preparedness. “You are sure the area is secured?”

  Youssef had great respect for the ISIS leader, but he was not afraid of him. He was a five year veteran of the war in Syria and before that in Iraq. He hated westerners and Shi’ites equally and he looked forward to the western women’s execution.

  “I am certain, Abdullah. Just look around, the walls are three meters high, the people around here are our people and there is more than four hundred kilometers of desert between us and any western power.”

  Abdullah listened to what his man said. “All that you say is true, Youssef, but these are women and westerners, especially Americans do not think of their women the way we do. They will try to rescue them. I’m sure of it.”

  Youssef nodded his agreement for what Abdullah was saying. “But, the infidels do not know where there are being held, Abdullah. You have led them to believe they are in Deir Ez-Zur.”

  It was true. Abdullah had arranged for information on the supposed whereabouts of the two women to be leaked to the western intelligence services. At great expense, the Islamic State had acquired a supply of ground to air missiles. Abdullah had decided to spring a trap for the hated American bombers that would surely be part of any rescue effort. The Americans would be compelled to mount some kind of rescue effort. This time he would have a little surprise waiting for them. Feeling better about the situation he completed his tour of the compound, satisfied the prisoners were secure.

  Unknown to Abdullah or any of his staff, one of the local women assigned to cook for the guards and the prisoners was a dissident. Her husband had been brutally murdered by ISIS for having worked as a civilian contractor for the Syrian military. Unknown even to his wife, the man had also been an informant for the Mossad. Before he had been taken away, he had confessed everything to his wife and had told her to destroy his secret radio so that she and their children would not be implicated in his crime. After his death, she had found the radio where he had hidden it along with a substantial amount of money, enough to take care of her and their children. Gratitude for her husband’s hidden wealth and anger at the men who had executed him had led her to turn the radio on. Fortunately, it was tuned to the correct channel and when she blurted out her name, a voice had come on and coached her on what to do. Since then, she had regularly supplied the unknown person on the other end of the connection with information about the ISIS in her area. The information was of little value, until she had reported the presence of the two western women captives. She had been instructed to keep a close watch on the compound and to report immediately if they were moved.

  The Mossad had revealed the location to the CIA. The wheels had been set in motion to rescue the women and General Emerson’s experimental group had been selected to conduct the operation.

  Chapter 8

  Dressed in a set of desert colored fatigues borrowed from one of the female army personnel stationed at the base, Cathy watched as a giant C5A set down on the runway. One of the air force personnel assigned to the mission had proudly related the planes’ statistics, two-hundred and forty-eight feet long, a wing span of two-hundred and twenty-two feet, and a maximum takeoff weight of over three hundred and eighty tons. The only statistic Cathy was really concerned about was, could something that big actually get off the ground. Her proof lay in the fact that it was flying when it approached the field, so it must have been able to take off to begin with.

  Groom Lake came alive after dark. Many of the latest flying innovations being dev
eloped by the air force were tested at night and then only when no foreign satellites were direct overhead. It was accepted that all modern satellites could see in the dark, some better than others, but darkness could hide many important details only visible in daylight. The Mecrat hanger had a larger digital clock laid out in a linear, twenty-four hour format. The go hours were marked in green and the no-go periods in red. A plane as large as a C5A would attract a lot of attention from prying eyes so the landing and departure were tightly scheduled within a two hour window of opportunity.

  For this flight the C5A was carrying less than four tons, the combined weight of the five Mecrats and the necessary support equipment to sustain them plus support personnel for the mission. Of that total, their weapons and flight packs weighed almost a ton. With such a light load, the plane could conceivable have flown nonstop to the military base in Israel, but for security purposes they were going to have one midair refueling over the North Atlantic.

  Cathy watched the big plane set down and marveled at how quickly it slowed down. The tarmac in front to the isolated Mecrat hanger on the south end of the base was too small for a C5A to turn around so the plan was to meet the plane on the diagonal taxiway leading from the south end of the long runway. As soon as they were loaded, the plane would proceed to the north end and take off to the south. If all went as scheduled the plane would be on the ground for less than twenty-five minutes.

  The plane grew larger as it came down the taxiway toward them, dwarfing even the huge Mecrats. Unlike its smaller cousin, the C130, the C5A could load from both ends, but the preferred method was loading from the front. As soon as it stopped and before the engines had wound down to idle speed, the nose cone began to move upward revealing a massive cavern that was empty except for the five wooded crates, which would be used to disguise the Mecrats during the transfer in Israel to the waiting C130. Also on board was a forklift, so they would not have to depend on any help from the Israeli military to move the crates.

  Cathy walked up the ramp with the Mecrats. She had the modified communication cables with her and intended to use the fifteen or more hours of flight time to supervise the initial mind-to-mind connection between the individual Mecrats. She had modified her head band into a three way connection. If things got out of hand, she would cut the connection between the two participating Mecrats. Once she was satisfied the two individuals could communicate mentally without overwhelming each other, she would give them their own two-way cable. Eventually they would be able to connect to each other as a group. The scientist side of Cathy was extremely interested in the dynamics of such a group session. When they returned, she would use what she learned with the first five to introduce the communication system to the other five.

  After talking to General Emerson and getting his blessing, Cathy had spent an hour with one of the senior communication engineers on the base. He had felt comfortable that he could work up a low frequency, multi-band receiver/transmitter that would be able to accommodate the brain waves to and from the Mecrats. She was excited at the news and so were the Mecrats. From her own experience, she knew the mental communication between them would rapidly shift from word thoughts to mind thoughts that would be a combination of images, impressions and moods. It had the potential to become a new language, the language of the brain.

  Because of their weight and mass, the Mecrats had to be secured to the deck with straps. The tension in the air eased when Randy started singing, “Working on a chain gang.” The other four Mecrats chimed in with a chorus of, “Oh yeah.” Even Colonel Westover, who was the military leader of the operation smiled. After a minute he held up his hand. “Okay, okay, Sergeant Rucker. You’ve made your point. Sorry we have to chain you down, but it’s for safety reasons.”

  “We understand, Colonel Master Westover.”

  The Colonel chose to ignore the flippant insubordination and continued with his inventory. He circled his thumb and forefinger to the waiting loadmaster who spoke into his head set. The nose cone started coming down and they could hear the engines powering up. In seconds the big plane started to move. The C5A was a freight hauler, not a luxury passenger liner; although it could be configured with rows of seats to carry more than four hundred fully equipped soldiers. Cathy experienced a moment of panic when she realized there were no windows to look out and see what was happening. The only seats were positioned along the sides with the seat backs to the exterior of the plane. It was going to be a long fifteen hours.

  Twenty minutes after touching down, the C5A lifted off into the desert night. As far as the circling satellites were concerned, it had never been there. After thirty minutes of climbing, the load master told the passengers they were at their cruising altitudes and were free to move about. The Mecrats were positioned over the center of gravity in the cargo hold, approximately in line with the inboard engines. They were sitting on heavy duty stools, three abreast facing forward and the other two facing aft with a ten foot separation between the two rows of stools. Each Mecrats was secured at the hip with heavy duty nylon straps that were hooked into brackets in the floor. They were able to bend forward and open their weapons locker which had been placed in front of them. Two of the rats pulled out hand-held machines guns and cleared the actions. They handled the 50 caliber weapons like they were BB guns in the hands of a teenage boy. Normally the guns would have been fed by a belt from a back pack, but this time, because of the back mounted wing packs they would be fed by chest mounted ammo packs. None of their weapons would be armed until they were in the C130. The three other Mecrats were armed with lighter automatic weapons that had been adapted for their size. All of them also had three foot long broad swords. Cathy could not imagine where they had gotten them.

  She walked over to a small, portable kitchen station and poured herself a cup of coffee. As soon as the Mecrats were through with their weapons, she wanted to start the process of inter-Mecrat communication. Cathy believed this inter-communication ability was much more important than it appeared on the surface. She believed the ability to communicate with one another at more than just a verbal level was going to be critical to their long term sanity. Without any experience to support her theory, she also believed the ability to communicate quickly and with complete understanding might significantly contribute to saving their lives in combat. If this mission was a success, and she had little doubt it would be, the military would move quickly to use the Mecrats in other situations that were too dangerous for ordinary soldiers to attempt. Between their secret capabilities and their ability to communicate quickly and clearly with each other, they might survive the increased number of missions the pentagon would send them on. Cathy prayed it would be so.

  While the Mecrats were checking their weapons, the tactical support team started attaching the wing units to their back. The small fuel tank for the jet engines would be filled just before landing in Israel. When the Mecrats were transferred to the C130, they would be ready for battle.

  As Cathy watched the Mecrats ready themselves for battle, she realized how little she knew about what soldiers went through in their chosen career. Most of it was repetitive and boring, checking and rechecking equipment, but Cathy recognized how important those repetitive steps were. Finally after two hours, the Mecrats put their weapons aside. Randy told Cathy they were ready to work on the mind connections.

  Chapter 9

  Cathy awoke with a jolt. She had fallen into an exhausted sleep sitting upright in the uncomfortable seat. The activity in the cavernous plane had stepped up. One of the Mecrats was being untethered, 7Rat, Warren Hillsley according to the stenciled name on his chest plate. As he started to climb into the waiting crate, Cathy noticed a hand painted series of Arabic letters in the middle of his chest plate.

  She pointed at the symbols and asked the man in an air force uniform sitting next to her, “What is that?”

  He looked where she was pointing and without a trace of humor said, “It’s from the Qur’an. It’s Arabic for Isra’il, the Angel
of Death. General Emerson thought it might have a physiological effect on any Islamic fighters they encounter.”

  Cathy was having a hard time comprehending the military mind set, but she could readily understand their desire to take advantage of every possible angle. Watching the Mecrats prepare for battle earlier had vividly illustrated for her just how deadly serious the consequences would be for the loser in any military encounter. It had hit her like a blow to the face when she realized that these four men and woman were preparing to kill people in the next few hours. The apparent casualness of their preparation belied the seriousness of their task.

  Her thoughts returned to the mind-to-mind sessions that had followed their weapons inspection. She was pleased at how well it had gone and gratified by the pleasure it seemed to give the Mecrats. Most interesting to her had been the initial mind-meeting between Randy and Mary McKinsey, one of the two females in the group. She had been concerned about the gender differences, but her worries were baseless when their intimate details were open to each other. It had been more about curiosity than hormones. After the session she was fully convinced that a wireless version of the connection would be an essential element of their future as humans and as mechanized soldiers.

  When the last of the Mecrats was crated, the C5A began to descend. Without being able to see the horizon as a reference point, Cathy found the sensation disconcerting. She focused on what she had learned during the mind-to-mind sessions in an effort to control her discomfort. Even though her doctorate degree was in neurology, she realized how much of her recent interface with the Mecrats had been more about psychiatry than about her neurological specialty. It prompted her to think about returning the John Hopkins to pursue an advanced degree in psychiatric medicine when her part in the Mecrat program was concluded. It suddenly saddened her to think that her connection to the Mecrats might be coming to an end.