by Niv Kaplan
A knock on the door drew her out of her reverie.
“Breakfast at the bunker at 0900!” someone yelled from outside. She fetched her watch and noted they had less than an hour.
Breakfast ‘at the bunker’ meant at the Intelligence bunker with Harley and company, otherwise they ate in their room.
Showered and dressed in military fatigues, both women marched into the Intelligence bunker at the indicated time, Mai-li feeling sore and apprehensive.
The crew was all there eating and Harley greeted them purposefully. A small buffet serving traditional English breakfast of eggs, grilled tomatoes, grilled mushrooms, beans, hash browns, and black pudding was erected at the far end of the bunker along with pots of coffee and tea, away from the electronic equipment. Ali loaded her paper plate and poured black coffee for herself and Mai-Li who settled for the hot beverage only.
The small talk muted as Harley stood up to speak.
“I owe each of you a pat on the back for a job well done last week,” he opened. “There wasn’t much time to elaborate with all the running around we did this week but we couldn’t have done better than we did and that is all that matters in my book. No casualties and no unnecessary complications. That’s all we ask for. Now we can look ahead.”
The crew all nodded in agreement. It was an attitude Harley had assimilated into his outfit. Success, and failure, belonged to all because at the end of the day everyone contributed, even the ones who remained behind.
“We’ve more or less completed preparations for Kashmir,” Harley went on. “I plan one last exercise tonight before we go on leave.”
“We are yet to finalize the schedule and travel arrangements but in principal we all fly to India, different routes, different airlines, and meet in New Delhi at the Taj Mahal hotel there."
He looked around again. Everyone nodded.
“The Indians have agreed to assist us and will be supplying us with weapons and gear. Unlike our last assignment, we will not be taking anything with us. No thermal cameras and no video links. We take nothing that will give us away since most of us will need to pass several sovereign borders and security checkpoints on the way.
“The Indian Special Forces will provide all our needs and escort us to the Kashmir border. Copeland’s prepared a list of items which will be sent ahead to India on our behalf. I suggest we all review it to make sure nothing was overlooked.
“We operate as a force of twenty-one people. Devlin, Lizzy, the seven Scorpion team members, and myself cross the border and perform the job like we’ve been training. Malcolm with the eight Red Tape team members are backup. You wait at the border crossing and pray we stay out of trouble.
“Ali, you and Mai-Li stick close with the media. Once the shit hits the fan, they’ll be at our heels. If we’re successful, I’d like you to make sure they get the right angles. You’ll both have British media passes.
“We’ve done nothing if it’s not photographed and videotaped,” he stressed, pointing at a large map Long-John had displayed.
“We travel north from Delhi to Kathua, enter Kashmir and advance along an annex of the Beas River toward Jammu. The Pakistani border will be close by to our west.
“Our target is just past this small village here, roughly ten kilometers north-west of Kathua.”
He suddenly looked at Mai-Li.
“The photos and video clip Mai-Li provided of the children in cages were taken near here.” He drew a line with a pencil where the village lay and marked a road that led past it toward the labor camp.
“This road leads to the target area, here.” He continued circling the area on the map with a red marker. “Mike should be familiar with the surroundings once we are there.”
“In Kashmir, we travel only at night. We won’t even attempt to camouflage ourselves there. They’ll detect us westerners a mile away.
“The Indian Special Forces will meet us in Kathua with supplies, weapons and gear, thermal cameras, and detailed maps of the target area. Once over the border, we hide our weapons, use deserted roads if we can, but remain combat ready. Any hitch and we shoot our way out of there.
“Past the village, we do exactly as we trained. If everything goes smoothly, we free the children, lock up their captors, let our Indian escort photograph and videotape the scene for the media and clear out. We disappear and retreat back the way we came in. Malcolm, you position yourselves by the river right on the border. The short wave radios should be sufficient to alert you if need be.
“Any questions?”
Ali spoke up. “I’m not clear on the media role, Joe. Where exactly do we wait?”
“The Indian media will pitch camp at Kathua. They will not be allowed across the border. It is our job to bring back photos and video for them.”
“What happens to the kids?” Jimmy the driver asked.
“We point them to where they need to go. We cannot afford to escort them though we may need to consider taking a few with us to prove our point.”
“They’ll be hunted down by those animals,” Mai-Li protested.
“Possibly, but if the world acts quickly, many will eventually be saved. Once we get the photos and videos and maybe some of those kids out, it will be your job, Mai-Li, to make sure, not only that word gets around to the right places but that the right officials act on it.”
Harley felt confusion in the room.
“Look people, there is no simple way to stop this thing. This operation is a drop in the sea if you consider the numbers of children abused by this organization. Our only chance is for world opinion to force the relevant authorities to act and terminate this disease. We bring them the evidence they need to act upon.”
“I say we bring out as many kids as we can,” Devlin asserted.
“I second that,” Lizzy joined.
Everyone was nodding around the room.
“So be it,” Harley agreed, “provided it does not alter our plan and put us in danger.”
“It’ll slow us down on the way back,” Jimmy pointed out.
“I can live with that,” Harley said scrutinizing his ranks. Putting added risk on a mission was against his policy but it was a crucial moral issue in this case, which he presumed would add authenticity.
“Malcolm, get your men ready for tonight,” he said after several silent moments. “You’re Red Tape.”
“Mike, you’re Scorpion. We want perfection this time. I’ll be joining you.”
Harley shot a glance at Mai-Li.
“We get a four-day leave starting tomorrow – if all goes well tonight. Long-John and Copeland, you need to get the list to me before we leave. Dismissed.”
Everyone got up on cue and began filing out of the bunk. Ali, who noticed ‘the glance’, pulled Mai-Li along.
“He’ll find you. Don’t worry,” she said as they made their way back to their hut.
“I’m not sure I want him to find me,” Mai-Li complained.
“Quite difficult in a place like this.”
“I can’t offend the man.”
“No need to. Just tell him what you feel. He’ll understand,” Ali observed.
As they walked, Mai-Li had her nose down to the ground.
“I don’t know what I feel. I need time.”
“Take it, then. Join me at my parents’. Tell him you’ve made plans.”
Mai-Li slumped on her bed in turmoil when they reached the hut, terrified of disappointing Harley. Uncertain of what she felt for him she realized she was in a jam. He had been nothing but a gentleman with her. Agreeing to take on Lambda-B where no one else would, then diverting to help bring out Clair and Ibrahim, allowing her entry into his secret realm, complimenting her… helping her climb the tree… kissing her… she felt attracted to him in some ways and was flattered by his attention but he was so much older. What kind of relationship could evolve from this? And what happens when it’s over and they part ways?
She fell asleep without resolution. Ali put on her training suite and went out t
o train the noontime crew.
CHAPTER THIRTY
The next time Black Jack ventured into the courtyard his eyes could not open.
A week in the pitch-black dungeon caused a blinding effect as soon as he staggered into the open air, the bright Sinai sun high overhead. He held on to the soldier who escorted him, moving gingerly toward the infirmary.
Surprisingly nonplused for a man who had just spent a week in solitary confinement in a damp cell no bigger than a large closet, Jack would normally have wanted to venture out on his own but for his crippling knee injury and his eyes unable to adjust.
Nurse Juman cleaned and applied first aid treatment before Doctor Shalabi entered to examine the knee. He looked it over then applied gentle pressure on a few spots, causing Jack to grind his teeth. His eyes were beginning to adjust and the first thing he noticed through a graying haze was that his knee’s color was a dark shade of purple, almost black. He tried to read the doctor’s impressions and whether or not he should worry and thought he detected quite a concern.
After he had thoroughly examined his condition, trying to determine the anticipated effects of a week in solitary confinement under such horrific conditions, Doctor Shalabi called both nurse Juman and the escorting soldier for a conference outside the treatment room. Minutes later the doctor and nurse walked back in accompanied by the prison commandant.
Doctor Shalabi briefly reported his prognosis in Arabic, which Jack just managed to grasp.
“His overall condition is relatively fine both physically and mentally,” the doctor reported. “He runs a slight fever but I’ve detected none of the usual malnutrition or trauma signs of a week in that terrible place.”
The commandant seemed annoyed with the doctor voicing his personal misgivings but held himself in check for the moment.
“But if we don’t operate on the knee, he could lose his leg,” the doctor diagnosed bluntly. “Though it did not spread above the knee, there are clear signs of edema and clotted hemorrhaging which, left untreated, could lead to gangrene and further, losing the entire bottom part of the limb. He is quite lucky to have survived this far but if we don’t…”
“Alright, I heard you the first time,” the commandant cut him off irritably. “What hospital do you recommend? This is going to cause me a lot of trouble.”
“Closest and best equipped is Sharm,” Shalabi informed confidently.
“But the security arrangements stink with all the goddamn tourists over there. How long is all this going to take?”
“I can call them in advance to prepare an operating room. Barring any emergency, they should be able to prepare in advance. If all goes well, recovery should take three days at the minimum.”
“Three days!” the commandant exclaimed. “I can’t afford this prisoner staying there three days. I’ll need half my already stretched force to escort him. That’s a twenty-four hour round the clock shifts in an insecure place. Not to mention if word gets out to the media through these reckless doctors and nurses!”
“You trust his health to us, Commandant, Sir, and if you bring him back here too early and the area gets infected, you’ve done nothing!” Shalabi retorted standing up for his profession, who he knew despised military brass most of all. These were the people whose job was wounding people, which he had to fix.
“Two days is all he gets to recover, Shalabi,” the Commandant hissed pointing at Jack, “and they better be ready for us when we get there or we’ll be turning right back.”
The commandant stormed out of the room mumbling to himself, slamming the door shut behind him, causing a tray of drugs to fall to the floor.
Nurse Juman hurried to pick up the fallen receptacles, each filled with the different medicine and prescription pills. She nervously arranged them on the tray and put it back in its place, glancing periodically at the doctor who, in disgust, raised his hands in the air and turned to prepare a large syringe intended to stop the clotting in Jack’s knee.
Jack closed his eyes and bit his lip as the doctor administered the needle in several places. Jack remained in the treatment room for ten additional minutes to make sure there were no ill effects to the treatment. Finally Nurse Juman sterilized and bandaged the knee. Jack was escorted to the patient room and given the last available bed at the far end by the lone barbed window.
As he lay on his back, he became aware of all the things he had craved to see and feel while in the dungeon. The mattress felt like heaven. The bright shining light through the window; the people around him; inmates or not, at a certain point down in the gutter, he wished he was among them. Anything was better than being shut in like an animal. Thoughts about his upcoming trial were quickly replaced by craving very basic things such as light, air, a decent toilet, and most of all, fellow people. It was not a matter of missing the company of people. Jack had often preferred to be on his own, sometimes making three or four days treks in the Catskills, just to get away. It was a fear they would forget him there forever and no one would discover his fate. After the second day he began to worry they would never let him out. It was his biggest mental challenge, which he constantly tried to rationalize to himself and constantly failed. It suddenly seemed so simple to just leave him there and throw away the key. It would certainly save everyone a lot of trouble.
He had persevered with his exercise sessions of sit-ups and had reached a count of over one hundred and fifty respectively for each session, still the cell was becoming smaller and smaller as time went on; more cramped, more humid, and more threatening. The stench of his bodily wastes had become unbearable.
The one bright spot was the provision of water. At least they understood that without it, he would never survive. Twice a day he would get a fresh bottle rolled under the iron door. Food was administered sporadically. It was stale and anything but nutritious. Jack preferred to exploit it to a minimum and only for the sake of keeping his sanity.
Though he could distinguish between night and day he soon lost his sense of time and could not figure how long he had been there. When they finally came to release him, he actually thought they had come a day early.
He felt feverish. The doctor had told the commandant he had developed a slight fever, but in fact it was quite a high fever that remained constant his entire confinement time. He silently thanked the good doctor for insisting on the treatment in a conventional hospital but wondered what it would be like to go under the knife of his captors. A knee operation was no walk in the park not to mention the administration of anesthesia, which had always terrified him.
Before he fell asleep, Jack realized that at least for the moment, he was content, something he could not imagine being possible not two weeks before. An Egyptian prison in the middle of the desert was maybe the last place he would ever have imagined himself feeling content. But there it was, having survived the dungeon; the patient room in the infirmary was paradise. Everything was relative.
He slept the entire day and night before they woke him for breakfast the following morning. The nurses were distributing fresh vegetables, cottage cheese and pita bread on plastic trays, a cuisine Jack had not had in a while.
He looked around the room. There were ten beds, five each side. He could not see the face of the man facing him, apparently still asleep, but all the rest were propped up in their beds, and were hungrily chewing on their food. The rumors about the infirmary Jack had heard in the cellblock were true. It was the one place everyone wished to get to. It had a reputation which he now understood having met the doctor and Nurse Juman. They were good people in a rough neighborhood. The inmates respected it and the infirmary became a neutral zone of rest and recuperation. But to get there, one needed to be very sick or be cut up pretty badly.
Jack noticed all the patients had large bandages over some part of their bodies or limbs. There were no sheets. Just blankets and the brown mattresses. The year-round heat in A-Tur dodged the expense. Compared with the cellblocks, no one complained.
The room was a rectangula
r, gray and brick-built, keeping it relatively cool, with modest first aid and emergency equipment set up among the beds. A sentry sat on a stool by its entrance, directing traffic. No one was allowed in or out except the nurses and doctor. All inmates were escorted to and from the room and that included the toilets.
The patients consumed their meal in minutes. Then all raised their trays for more, which they never got. Jack took his time, savoring the experience but glances from the patients forced him to quicken his pace. His next bed neighbor, a large middle-aged convict with one swollen eye, nearly shut, and bandage across his chest followed Jack’s every bite until he was done.
Jack, still feeling feverish, watched Nurse Juman collect the trays while the inmates simply slid back to their original position for more recuperation. The one across from Jack never touched his food. Doctor Shalabi came in to check on him and Jack understood the patient was suffering from a concussion.
He watched the activity for a while. The line of inmates coming for treatment was growing long outside the room. Now and then the nurses would bring out a patient for checkup at the doctor’s. The lucky ones remained in the patient room for another night.
Jack dozed on and off the entire day until supper. It was made up of canned meat, bread and jam, and more cottage cheese with tea for dessert.
It was dark outside when they awoke him.
Disoriented and confused he followed a soldier, hopping on his one good leg to the waiting ambulance where they put him on a partially propped wheeled bed facing back, and fastened both his legs with belts, leaving the knee in the clear.
Two soldiers joined him in the back. An officer-in-charge sat in the front next to the driver. Doctor Shalabi rushed to at the last minute handing the officer the needed paperwork assuring him the Sharm Hospital were waiting to operate as soon as they arrived. The prison gate was pushed open and the antique brown ambulance began its journey leaving the prison behind flickering in the dark.
Jack had been to Sharm el Sheikh before. It was a famous tourist town at the tip of the Sinai Peninsula, on the fork of the Gulf of Suez and Gulf of Aqaba. In the days of Israeli rule in the seventies, it had begun to make a name for itself for its majestic coral reefs, the fishing, deep sea diving and overall ambience with the Sinai high mountains in the background. It had perfect vacation weather – hot and dry all year – and all the ingredients for a vacation of any kind especially in the winter. A little further south, right at the tip, was a national diving park known a Ras Muhamad, where the coral scenery dropped a dead eight hundred meters to the sea floor with all the known coral wildlife possible. Snorkeling was enough to see plenty, but it was a diver’s paradise, putting the Australian Great Barrier Reef to shame.