Now, it made sense; how the bombs had slipped past our defenses; why they had been neutralized in such close proximity. The Strike Group had been attacked by one of our own B-2 Stealth Bombers, recognized as friendly until the first bomb dropped.
Chase’s orders were to shoot down the billion-dollar American aircraft before it could seek refuge in Chinese airspace.
171A
AGAINST HIS BETTER judgment, Ryan left the guard alive. This was crazy, attempting an operation like this with no intelligence, minimal weaponry, and no quick reaction force on standby. Head shaking, he watched as Bradley worked on the fence. Wire strips secured the chain-link mesh to each fence post, and although multi-tool wire cutters were not ideal, they bit through the galvanized steel fasteners.
The Marine left the top three strips intact to prevent the mesh from sagging, stowed the cutters in his pocket, and lifted the bottom of the fence. Ryan wriggled under it, pulling the backpacks and rifles along with him. Bradley joined him then eased the fence back into position. If there were any unanticipated roaming guards, they would never notice the penetration.
Advancing low to the ground, they approached the noisy generator. Under the glare of floodlights, handcuffed civilians were being driven into the hospital like cattle into a slaughterhouse.
Ryan moved toward the rear of the property, his back pressed against the building’s rough-textured stucco. He ducked beneath a window and peered around the hospital’s northeast corner. Yellowish incandescent light was streaming down from death’s doorway, and the executioners cast shadows that danced like evil specters.
A tiny body toppled end over end, its head nearly decapitated, and landed with a sickening thump at the far end of the pit. Cheers spilled from above as though a favorite team had scored a goal.
Disgust fusing into determination, Ryan smashed the window with the butt stock of his rifle. Fragments of glass rained down, the noise overpowered by the generator and the ghoulish competition above them. He and Bradley flanked the window, listening, waiting.
Silence assured him of nothing. A disciplined soldier would wait with rifle sights trained on that window. Having no remote-controlled robotic camera, Ryan removed his helmet, balanced it on the barrel of his inherited rifle, and pushed it inside.
Nothing.
He peeked into the small office using night vision, and after visually clearing the room, he and Bradley infiltrated the building. They stole toward the doorway, passing a large desk cluttered with invoices and two rusty filing cabinets that smelled of old, dank papers.
Ryan grabbed the doorknob, turning it slowly, and opened the steel door in one-inch increments, unsure what awaited them. Seeing a dark empty hallway he exhaled, only then realizing he had been holding his breath.
Then he heard something.
Faint at first, but growing louder.
Footsteps were coming down the stairwell. Two sets, one softer, one heavier. Did someone hear the glass break? Did they see us enter the building?
Ryan clutched his tactical knife, cursing under his breath. Without suppressors, the rifles would be a homing signal, drawing a swarm of enemy fighters.
A little girl raced past with a guard at her heels. She slammed headlong into a door across the hall, opened it, and darted inside. She tried to lock it behind her, but the man forced his way into the room.
“No-o-o-o!” she screamed, the single syllable choked with pleading sobs.
“We have to help her,” Bradley whispered.
“She is not part of this operation.”
“For God’s sake, she’s only five or six. And you know what he’s gonna do to her.”
“You really want to jeopardize the mission?” Ryan asked, trying to massage away the onset of a headache. “One life versus potentially thousands of lives? Not to mention our own?”
“It’s only one guy,” Bradley argued. “It’ll take two minutes to dispatch him.”
“And then what do we do with Little Miss? We can’t have her crying or running around attracting attention.”
“So we’ll tell her to be quiet and wait for us.”
Ryan wasn’t sure what amused him more. The ludicrous statement? Or Bradley’s naїveté in believing it? “You haven’t spent much time with kids, have you? Because they don’t typically listen—especially when they’re scared.”
“I’ll get her to listen,” Bradley insisted.
“Even if you did, then what? We drag her with us? Potentially into the line of fire during our exit—”
“Ryan, she’s already dead!”
The girl’s cries grew increasingly desperate, each word a tiny fist pounding inside Ryan’s skull. “Her parents are dead. What are you gonna do? Adopt her? She can’t survive on her own.”
“We’ll think of something,” Bradley mumbled, making it clear he hadn’t thought that far ahead.
“Look, I’m the ranking officer,” Ryan told him. “It’s my call.”
With a blistering glare, Bradley said, “Your call. Your conscience.”
* Moral Dilemma 4A *
Path A: YES, try to save the girl.
Path I: NO, don’t risk the mission and thousands of lives.
I don’t want to decide.
At the end of “Day 20,” a link will allow you to return to this Moral Dilemma and change your mind—if you must.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
( ( ( PATH 172A ) ) )
172A
THROUGH THE DAGGERLIKE streaks of light and shadow, the savage had been difficult to detect. His position was slightly elevated, but he wasn’t moving. Abby increased the tension on the two-stage trigger, and a bullet tunneled through the bastard’s forehead, just above his spotting scope. She didn’t notice the well-camouflaged man beside him until he moved. Like an alligator in a death roll, he spun himself behind the ridge, out of sight and out of range.
Above the agonized ballad of Uncle Dave’s moaning, a voice within Abby shouted, “Move!” The gunman might have seen her muzzle flash. She had to change position. She had to get to her hide.
Skull dragging up the hill, the realization struck. This time, it was real. The consequences of being spotted would not be embarrassment or going back to start. This time, failure would mean death.
Abby’s heart felt like it had divided and spread miniature replicas of itself throughout her body, simultaneously hammering her chest, her throat, her hands, her skull. The numbing sensation made it difficult to move. Uncle Dave’s cries made it impossible to concentrate.
She could feel the creeping darkness engulfing her, chilling her. Soon it would be pitch black, and Abby would be fighting blind ... and deaf thanks to Uncle Dave. She would never hear an approaching footstep or a snapping twig.
Shut up, idiot, so he doesn’t shoot you again! Dear God, please make him shut up!
Abby knew he had been hit since he’d announced it to the world, but Gramps and her mother remained silent. Were they just being smart? Or were they ... ?
The question crystallized the air in her lungs.
Slowly, she retrieved her walkie-talkie. “Gramps?” she whispered, wondering if he could hear anything over Uncle Dave’s bawling.
She tried a half dozen times with no response then continued crawling toward her hide.
“I need help,” Uncle Dave shouted. “I’m bleeding to death!”
She closed her eyes to shut out the despair and pleading in his voice. It was maddening.
I can’t help you, she thought. Not without getting shot, so shut up. Shut up! SHUT UP!
Abby’s eyes snapped open, reeling from a moment of fearful clarity. That’s why the gunman had left Uncle Dave alive: to lure her into the line of fire.
Then an even more terrifying thought snaked through her. In all likelihood, this guy was an IRGC sniper.
173A
NIKKI ADAMS WAS RUNNING ... for her life. Normally, she would have been too scared of the dark, too scared of the creepy basement; but a monster was chasing her.
His footsteps were getting closer.
She ran into a door then gripped the knob with both hands. A monster had tied her wrists together with some plastic stuff that made a zipping sound and pinched her skin.
The knob turned, the door creaked open, and Nikki hurried inside, throwing herself against it. The monster was too strong. He smacked her head with a flashlight, grabbed hold of her dress, and threw her onto a table. Only it wasn’t exactly a table. It was more like that weird paper-covered seat at Dr. Peter’s office, except it was longer and rolling.
He wedged her leg beneath his arm and began taping her other ankle to a piece of metal that felt really cold. He was going to do something bad, Nikki was sure of it, and her parents couldn’t save her. She had seen them get pushed right out of the building.
The monster finished taping both ankles.
“No-o-o-o ... ! Stop it ... ! Leave me alone!”
He pressed a thick piece of tape over her mouth and shoved her backward; then he propped his big gun in the corner and pulled a knife from his pocket. Was this like Hansel and Gretel? Did he eat little kids for supper?
Nikki’s gaze wandered from the blade to the man sneaking up behind the monster. A pair of hands latched onto his head, the knife clanged against the floor, then the monster melted into a puddle just like the wicked witch in The Wizard of Oz!
“It’s okay. He can’t hurt you now,” the man said in a friendly voice. He gently tugged at the tape covering her mouth then said, “What’s your name?”
“Nikki.”
“Nice to meet you, Nikki. My name’s Bradley. I need you to stay here and be quiet. Then I’ll get you away from these bad people. Understand?”
Sniffling, she nodded and watched him leave, closing the door quietly behind him.
Did he lock me in here? What if more monsters come? She began unwinding the tape from her ankles.
It took forever, but she was finally able to hop down off the weird table. Tears dripped from her chin as she searched for the knife. Nikki rubbed the plastic strip against the blade and sawed through it, accidentally cutting herself twice.
That’s when she noticed the monster wasn’t really a puddle. Was he asleep? What if he wakes up?
Nikki shined the flashlight around the room, its circle of light falling on the big black gun. She knew how to use it. She had played her brother’s video game. All she had to do was point it and press the button.
Surprised by how heavy it was, she dragged it behind her and sat down across from the doorway. Nikki aligned the flashlight then leaned back against the wall, raised her knees, and heaved the gun sideways onto her legs. Her belly kept the fat end from sliding, and the bullet end was pointing up toward the door. Her finger grazed the cold shoot button.
I can do this, she thought. The next monster that comes through that door is gonna get shot!
174A
BRADLEY FOLLOWED RYAN into a storage room directly beneath death’s doorway. Barren metal shelving lined the windowless room, and the floor crunched beneath each footstep, crackling like a thin layer of ice. Bradley swept his foot over it as if smoothing sand. It was shattered glass from dozens of fluorescent light tubes.
“Someone had an electricity-deprived temper tantrum,” he whispered, imagining hungry looters finding nothing but useless lightbulbs.
“Not funny,” Ryan said. “If this shit sticks in the soles of our shoes, we’ll be tap dancing down the hallway.”
Smile vanishing, Bradley eased his backpack off his shoulders. He removed twelve bricks of C-4 and a spool of wire with a detonator and shock tube attached at either end.
“I’m not so sure this will be enough to put the building out of commission,” Ryan said as he stripped the green plastic from each brick. “We need a backup plan.”
“Have something in mind?”
“You have a lighter or some matches?”
Bradley stopped molding the bricks and frowned. “You want to set the building on fire?”
“No alarm. No sprinklers. No fire department. They won’t be able to continue operations. At least not here.”
Expressing his objection with a lengthy silence, Bradley resumed molding the explosives. A fire would set the clock ticking, eliminating all flexibility from their timing.
Ryan sensed his reluctance. “You realize that if they’re able to reopen for business, this is all for naught.”
Bradley glanced at the shoebox-sized white blob of explosives. Would it be enough? Could he live with the guilt if it wasn’t?
No, he would have to try again; and next time, it would be more difficult to breach the building. With a resigned sigh, he nodded toward his backpack. “Outer pocket on the right.”
Ryan retrieved a Bic lighter then snapped, crackled, and popped his way to the door. Swearing in smothered whispers, he paused to pick glass from the soles of his wet shoes.
Bradley shuffled his feet, shushing and tinkling toward the exterior wall, pushing glass rather than crushing it, to minimize the shards embedded in his boots. He inserted the shock tube into the fifteen-pound block of C-4, wrapped the connected wire around it like a ribbon, and secured it with duct tape to prevent the shock tube from accidentally dislodging.
His thoughts shifted to Kyle. Was he able to stop the pedestrian traffic? Or were refugees still pouring in? He strained to listen, hoping the quiet indicated a respite from the slaughter.
Bradley positioned the C-4 just feet below the executioners. He unraveled twenty feet of wire from the spool and inched toward the door, feet plowing through jagged particles. Just as he began extracting glass slivers from his boots, Ryan returned.
“We’ve got to move. The laundry area was packed with linens. Even looters didn’t want shitty hospital sheets.”
Bradley scurried down the hallway, unwinding the spool while Ryan guided the wire against the wall, where it would be less conspicuous.
With fifty feet to go, three rapid gunshots boomed.
Where the hell did they come from?
Frenzied footsteps were charging down the stairwell.
“We need to get the fuck out of here,” Ryan grumbled.
“Not without Nikki,” Bradley said, reaching for the doorknob.
175A
HEARING THE HUM OF insect night song and the guttural croaking of bullfrogs, Abby sighed. Uncle Dave’s cries had abruptly ceased. Did he tire of screaming for help? Did he die? Are Gramps and my mom bleeding to death?
Unrelenting guilt boomeranged between her conscience and common sense.
I should try to help them ... but then I’ll get shot ... but I should do something ...
She had been holding back unwelcome thoughts, allowing them to accumulate like floodwaters behind a levee, and now they were about to rupture with destructive fury.
I’m counting on you to keep everybody safe.
And Gramps, Uncle Dave, and her mother had all been shot.
She had let her parents down, let Bradley down, let everyone down.
A layer of sweat blossomed. Her hands began to tremble.
“Snipers don’t fall apart under pressure,” she whispered to herself. “Think, damn it!”
The full moon had just peeked above the eastern horizon, its light barely sufficient to distinguish roadway from woods. Her scope and iron sights were nearly useless, and the nightscope was lying in the street.
Is the sniper equipped with night vision? Thermal imaging?
The possibility undulated through her nervous system until a snapping sound snared her attention. Veiled by the fading twilight, a hunched-over figure with a long gun was creeping along the house. Abby angled her scope toward the target.
Aunt Laura ... Oh, no ... ! How can I warn her without giving away my posit—
A solitary gunshot rendered the question moot.
Abby’s head jerked toward the sound. She repositioned her rifle then grabbed the twine with her left hand, rolling the rough fibers between her fingers.
God, I could really use yo
ur help, she thought, slowly tugging the string.
The AK-47 boomed with successive shots.
Pulses of light winked.
She released the twine, but it must have snagged on a branch because the fully automatic weapon continued spitting bullets until the magazine emptied.
Then she saw a muzzle flash. The sniper had returned fire.
Abby didn’t think. Her rifle barrel instinctively lurched toward the flash, and she fired, regretting it before the sound of the blast had waned.
Another stupid emotional reaction, she thought. There was no way she could have hit him, and she had foolishly risked giving away her position; then an even more dire realization rocked her.
Dumb, Abby! Stupid, stupid, STUPID!
Snipers substantiated “kills” by collecting personal items from their targets. If he located the AK-47, the twine would lead him directly to her.
( ( ( 87% Complete ) ) )
176A
WITH FOOTSTEPS CLOSING, Ryan and Bradley had ducked into the nearest room, a claustrophobic closet packed with portable oxygen tanks.
The Marine was crouched beside the partially opened door, head protruding like a dog enjoying a car ride.
“You see anything?” Ryan whispered.
Bradley leaned backward and gingerly closed the door. “Two guards are in the hallway, searching room by room.”
Ryan rolled his head back then let it fall forward.
I knew that kid was going to fuck up this mission. Why did I let Bradley guilt me into intervening?
“It doesn’t make sense,” Bradley was saying. “They could’ve quietly slit her throat. Why risk the civilians hearing gunfire? And why three shots to take out a five-year-old?”
“We’ve got bigger problems.” Ryan squeezed his aching forehead. “You broke that guy’s neck. Nikki couldn’t do that. They’ll canvas the building. Find the C-4. And us. Now do you get it? Good deeds—no matter how noble—can have unintended consequences. The kid died anyway. And now we’re trapped inside a burning building.”
“And whose idea was that?”
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