The Ethan Galaal Series: Books 1 - 3

by Isaac Hooke

  "We're on the southwest," Doug's voice came over the line. "Got two more tangos, westside."

  Ethan aimed between the balustrade at the original two targets. He lined up his reticule and let off a burst, sliding his weapon over the second target as he did so. He ducked immediately, knowing that the muzzle flash would reveal his position to the other group of attackers. Sure enough, bullets strafed the metal above his head an instant later.

  He heard more shooting below; he low-crawled along the walkway to a different spot, hoping to throw off his opponents.

  The exchange of gunfire momentarily subsided; Ethan approached the rail and swept the room with his scope again. The original two tangos were down. He advanced further along the balcony, keeping his eye to the scope, continually sweeping the first floor. He concentrated on the west side.

  There.

  Another tango, crouched behind a machine containing several horizontal spindles.

  Ethan lined up his reticule and squeezed the trigger.

  The man dropped.

  "Clear?" Doug said over the comm.

  Ethan swept the room one last time, and then the balcony across from him. He spotted a group on the southwest.

  "Confirm your position," Ethan said.

  "The four of us are on the southwest," Doug sent. "Behind the machine closest to the wall."

  "I see you," Ethan said. "Everything else looks clear. But there are a lot of doors and hallways down there where muj could be hiding."

  "Get down here," Doug sent.

  "Make sure your resistance friends don't fire on me," Ethan said.

  He made his way along the walkway at a crouch, pausing occasionally to sweep his rear vector and to peer over the rail. He took the steps to the ground floor and approached the four figures that were crouched behind one of the machines.

  "Coming in from your two o'clock," Ethan whispered.

  In moments he'd joined up with William, Doug, and two of the resistance members. He was relieved that the latter pair hadn't opened fire on him. He didn't have to ask where the third man was—obviously one of the bodies lying on the stone floor belonged to him.

  The group made its way between the machines. Ethan took the lead, followed by Doug and the two resistance fighters, with William bringing up the rear. The moonlight didn't penetrate the shadows there, so they used the infrared lights mounted on their Picatinny rails to illuminate the darkness.

  Ethan did his best to follow the route the doctor had laid out for them. He approached the open doorway that was supposed to lead to the mechanical room.

  He sensed motion inside it. "Take cover!"

  He ducked behind a large machine.

  Gunfire erupted from the doorway; bullets dinged off the two horizontal spindles at the front of the apparatus.

  Ethan leaned past the edge and tossed one of the M84 flashbangs Doug had procured for them. It landed inside the entryway.

  "Bang!" he told his companions. He looked down and away.

  The pyrotechnic charge detonated. He hardly noticed the hundred and seventy decibel bang, which sounded more like a pop to his ears by that point in the gunfight. The flash faded almost instantly, but the grit kicked up by the grenade whipped at his cheek.

  Ethan leaned past the edge of the machine, scanning the doorway through his scope. One man stood stunned and blinded in plain sight just inside. Ethan took him down.

  Ethan hurried forward and pressed himself against the wall that bordered the doorway. William did the same on the opposite side.

  Ethan rolled another flashbang inside. "Bang!"

  He averted his gaze and exhaled slowly. When the pyrotechnic detonated, he swung his torso to aim the A4 into the mechanical room. He went high, William low.

  He spotted another militant running deeper into the room, and opened fire. The man fell with a soft thud.

  "Tangos down," Ethan said softly. However there were several more machines in that room where enemies could be hiding. Boilers. Heat exchangers. Water tanks and pumps. Air handlers.

  The group cautiously proceeded forward; Doug and Ethan searched behind each machine and cleared them in turn while the others provided cover. The operatives encountered no one else.

  As he passed the bodies of the two he had taken down, Ethan noted that these latest men possessed thick jihadi-style beards. Ordinary mujahadeen after all. William was right.

  They reached the doorway leading to the office area.

  Once more Ethan and William took up positions on either side. Ethan took out a flashbang and met William's eye.

  The other operative nodded.

  Ethan threw the grenade. When it detonated, together the two of them aimed their rifles into the office section. Ethan went high, William low.

  No obvious tangos.

  Ethan waved for the others to join them. Doug had one resistance fighter remain at the entrance to the mechanical room, and left another at the entrance to the office section. Ethan turned up the volume of his Hytera radio slightly—if one of those fighters had something to say, he wanted to hear it.

  He advanced. There was little light there, save for a subtle glow coming from underneath a door on the left side. He swept the remaining area using the infrared light from the PEQ-2 mounted to his A4.

  Doorways lined the hall. The closer ones had small vision panels built into the upper portions of the closed doors. The more distant ones were fronted by metallic bars. The furniture had been removed from those latter rooms so that they appeared utterly empty. At the far side, the corridor branched off in two directions, leading to other offices.

  The woman treated by the doctor was supposedly in the second room on the left. Beyond the door with the glow underneath it.

  Ethan slid the vision panel open and looked inside. There was a figure slumped within: it took a moment for him to realize he was staring at a bald head. He couldn't tell if it belonged to a man or a woman.

  Ethan kicked open the wooden door and approached the figure, who was seated at a table. It was a woman after all. Her hands were roped to the surface. An oil lamp burned brightly in the middle of the table, as if someone had been interrogating her only moments before.

  "Sam?" Ethan said uncertainly.

  The woman slowly looked up; her eyes were all sclera, the pupils rolled to the back of her head. It was Sam, though she was almost unrecognizable. Her sockets had sunk, her cheeks hollowed. Bruises marred her otherwise ghostly-pale features. Her fingers were raw where the nails had been removed.

  Ethan rushed forward.

  "We're going to get you out of here," Ethan told her.

  She mouthed something in return, though no sound issued from her throat.

  William joined Ethan, leaving Doug to guard the entrance; together they cut away the cords that bound her hands to the table and her feet to the chair.

  Ethan started to lift her. She felt so light. So fragile. Her mouth was still moving, and when her lips brushed his ear, he finally heard what she was whispering. "They will come for you. Do not let them take you. They will come for you..."

  Doug glanced over his shoulder. "Are you sure it's her?" His attention abruptly returned outside. "Shit, man down! Tangos incoming."

  Doug released a rifle burst.

  Her eyes rolled back down in their sockets and Sam blinked; she stared into Ethan's face with a raw fear he had rarely seen in any living being.

  "They will come for you!" she said, slurring her words. "Do not let them take you!" She shoved him away with surprising strength and fell back into the chair. She turned away slightly.

  "Sam, calm down," Ethan said. "It's us. Sam."

  Doug released another frantic rifle burst, momentarily distracting Ethan.

  "She's reaching for something!" William said.

  Before Ethan could react, Sam sprayed him in the face with a small canister.

  He went blind instantly, mostly because he just couldn't open his eyes. He'd never experienced such brutal pain in all his life. It was as if s
omeone had taken a flamethrower to his face and poured sand and vinegar into his eyes, repeatedly pressing thumbtacks through the lids. His features pulsed in agony, keeping time with his pounding heart. He was choking, too. More than choking. Dying. Like he'd vomited and some of that caustic fluid had gotten lodged in his lungs.

  The fading, rational part of his mind told him that he must have been struck with a Mace or OC spray of some kind. He had a high tolerance to most pepper sprays, but what Sam had just hit him with felt like it had ten times the potency.

  He heard William groaning beside him, so he knew Sam had gotten him, too. Probably in the same movement.

  He realized that Doug had stopped firing.

  "Doug!" Ethan tried. The word came out a terrible howl. Are you hit? he wanted to ask, but only painful grunts issued from his constricted throat. He forced his eyes open a crack, but he couldn't see anything through the blur of tears. Mucus streamed from his burning nostrils—it felt like liquid fire streaming over his throbbing lips.

  The radios crackled to life as one of the resistance members on overwatch outside spoke up. "Get out! They're everywhere! They've been hiding in the surrounding buildings!" He heard gunfire over the comm and the line cut out.

  Before he knew what was happening, multiple batons began to beat him from all sides.

  12

  Ethan didn't recall much of what happened next. He remembered sitting in a chair before a table in a stone-walled room similar to the one where he'd found Sam. He remembered descending into and out of consciousness. He remembered beatings, and a masked man injecting him multiple times over the span of what must have been several days. There was an unmasked Russian, too, who taunted him constantly.

  "You have told us everything," the Russian would say in broken English. Ethan couldn't quite make out his face—his vision was too blurry. "You have betrayed your own assets. Your own country. You are less than dirt." Ethan suspected the man was lying, but he couldn't be sure, as he had no recollection of revealing a thing.

  Sometimes the man went into a disturbing amount of detail about the intel Ethan had supposedly divulged: "You have already told us you work for the DIA, contracting for the Black Widow, whom you refer to as Sam. You have told us you came here to rescue her. That your secondary mission is to infiltrate and subvert the Islamic State from within. This is why we are lenient with you." The man paused. "Do you see, when you cooperate, how well we treat you? If you tell me one of your planned targets, I will let you eat."

  "Target?" Ethan muttered.

  "That's right," the Russian said.

  "I'm here," Ethan struggled to say. "To assassinate..."

  "Yes?" the interrogator said eagerly. "Tell me."

  Ethan smiled, and his swollen lips throbbed. "You."

  The Russian had his captors turn him upside-down and then he repeatedly struck Ethan's feet with wooden paddles. After about five minutes Ethan passed out from the pain.

  Another time, the intel the interrogator claimed Ethan had revealed bordered on the preposterous:

  "Already you have helped us track down ten members of the Mosul resistance. Name three more assets you have anywhere in the Caliphate, and I will let you eat and sleep tonight."

  Given that Ethan didn't know the address of a single resistance member, obviously what the man said was false. Still, the interrogator wanted an answer, so Ethan would oblige him:

  "I have an asset in this very city," Ethan said weakly.

  "Yes?" the interrogator leaned forward anxiously.

  Ethan grinned like a madman. "You."

  What happened next, Ethan couldn't say. He had no memory of any subsequent sessions.

  Instead he found himself lying on a cold stone surface. He sat up, and a wave of dizziness nearly overcame him. His vision filled with stars as his heart struggled to compensate for the brief drop in coronary perfusion pressure.

  He had a splitting headache, one of the worst of his life. Added to that, his throat was on fire—just breathing caused the tissue to hurt. His heart pounded in his chest, though he was sitting still. His body felt absolutely battered.

  It was hard to discern his surroundings because his vision was blurry. Still, he could see enough to know that he resided in a cell. Rusted metal bars blocked any egress. Beyond the bars, torches dimly illuminated dank, stone walls. Beneath him, there was a central drain in the floor, from which emanated the smell of urine and chemicals. He suspected his cell had formerly been a washroom, though the rest of the plumbing must have been bricked up.

  "You look like shit, bro."

  It was William's voice, coming from outside the cell. Ethan squinted, and saw another cell situated across from his own. A grubby, bruised face stared back at him through the bars.

  "William?" Ethan tried to say, but no sound left his mouth. His throat burned worse than ever, and his tongue felt extremely swollen. His lips were parched, cracked.

  "It's the scopolamine," William said. "Dries the throat. Don't try to speak until you've had some water." He nodded toward a small tin cup that had been placed in front of Ethan's cell.

  Ethan crawled forward and reached through the bars, grabbing the cup. His fingertips throbbed in pain when he applied pressure to the tin, and he realized it was because he had no fingernails. Some of the nail beds had dried, others were coated in a sticky red glop; wet or dry, all the beds were tender.

  He drank, but the terrible-tasting liquid seemed to scald his throat, and he swallowed the wrong way. He spent the next minute hacking painfully, until he recovered enough to try again.

  After many small sips his throat felt well enough to attempt speech.

  "Wil—" Ethan said, then caught himself. Wouldn't do to use his real name. He took another sip of water and tried again. "Wafeeq?"

  "Sure." William said the word expressionlessly—the only features of his bruised and swollen face that moved were his lips. "But there's no point in using aliases. They know our names."

  "The... others?"

  William shrugged. "They're here, too. Somewhere further inside. I saw them, as they were dragged past. I was the first to break, apparently, which gave me the luxury of watching from my cell as the rest of you were imprisoned." He smiled wanly. "Sometimes I try calling to them, but no one ever answers."

  Ethan lay back against the wall. His feet were bare and he realized that, in addition to his fingernails, most of his toenails had been wrenched away, too. That explained the throbbing agony in his extremities.

  Ethan lay there, resting for quite some time. He closed his eyes, napped, woke up again. He sipped the last of the water from the cup.

  "What do we know about our captors?" Ethan said, his voice slurring. He found it hard to move his facial muscles. His features must have been just as badly bruised as William's.

  William grunted loudly, twice. It could have been taken for a laugh. "Our captors? They're Islamic State, obviously."

  "They knew we were going to attack that night," Ethan said, fighting through the mind fog.

  "It's possible," William said.

  Ethan rubbed one eye and immediately regretted the action. The lid was swollen and painful.

  "Though it's more likely they simply expected a rescue attempt to come eventually," William continued. "And prepared themselves appropriately."

  "Why would they give Sam pepper spray, then?" Ethan said. "Certainly not to use against their own interrogators?"

  "No," William agreed. "But maybe after the gunfire started, they ran to her cell, injected her up with scopolamine, and told her to spray us when we came."

  Ethan wasn't sure what to believe. Either way, it was certainly a quagmire they'd gotten themselves into.

  He sat back and remained very still. How the hell are we going to get out of this one?

  When he felt well enough to move, he crawled on all fours and began searching the furniture-less cell. He brushed his fingers along the outline of the bricks, testing the firmness of each one, looking for a loose stone.r />
  "There's no way out," William said.

  Ethan searched anyway, trying all the bricks he could reach from the floor. It was a slow, arduous process, given how terrible he felt, and how sore his fingers were. It took a good half hour. He found nothing.

  When that was done, he tested the solidity of each bar at the front of the cell. He tried bending them, exerting his limited strength until his vision was steeped in the glittering stars of oxygen- and glucose-deprived retinas. The bars did not yield.

  He reclined, letting his vision clear. He had to concede that William was right. There was no way out.

  Ethan had the sudden urge to urinate; he held himself over the drain, yanked down his skivvies, and relieved himself.

  "I wouldn't do that too often if I were you," William said. "Gets smelly fast. Try the chamber pot instead. They change it every morning."

  "What chamber pot?"

  William pointed toward an area just outside and to the right of the cell.

  Ethan returned to the bars. Beyond them, a rusty tin pot lay on the stone floor. Ethan grabbed it for later use.

  "And if you're thinking of using that to bash in some heads," William said. "Forget it. They never open the bars. Never."

  Ethan stared uncertainly at his friend. "Am I really hearing these words from your mouth? You're telling me to give up? Just accept my fate? What the hell did they do to you? What the hell."

  William didn't say anything, instead retreating to the darkness of his cell.

  He was obviously broken.

  But I'm broken, too, aren't I? Ethan thought. We all are.

  A British mujahid brought food and water once a day. He was a cruel man, and took a particular dislike to Ethan. Sometimes, when he set the small bowl of rice down in front of the cell, he would open his cargo pants and take a piss in the meal before leaving. Ethan strained the foul liquid from the rice, using the hem of his shirt as a sieve, and forced himself to eat the bitter grains. Thankfully the man never touched his water; even so, the liquid was cloudy and had a slight sewage-like taste. He set some of it aside to clean his nail beds every morning, though he was slightly worried that bacteria in the water might cause an infection.