by Smith, Glenn
“All right...”
“Wait a second. There is someone, but not by the vehicle. Looks like another guard posted by the door to one of the other buildings. That building itself is surrounded by a tall chain-link fence and does not have any windows. Looks just like a stockade to me, Sarge. I think we might have just found our objective.”
“Good work, Corporal.” He considered the ominous lack of any perimeter security again. The Caldanran Unity Front wasn’t just some ragtag mob of angry Sulaini citizens. It was a well-trained, battle-hardened, paramilitary terrorist force with a well established and well organized command structure. Its members would never have overlooked something so basic as perimeter security in an area they considered to be hostile, and he didn’t believe for a second that they considered any part of Cirra to be anything but hostile to them.
“Ortiz, switch to ultra-violet. Look for a security grid.”
“Stand by.” She thumbed the ‘mode’ switch, and a violet-blue triple-beam energy barrier instantly popped into existence near the edge of the wood line. So bright was its sudden glow at that first moment before the binocs adjusted themselves that it seemed almost as if someone had fired three lasers directly across her line of sight.
“Bingo, Sarge,” she said. “I’ve got triple U-V light beams running horizontal and parallel to each other, approximately one, three, and five feet above the ground. The grid appears to surround the compound wall about eight to ten meters out. Looks like it originates from the guard shack by the main gate.”
“Standard Sulaini military design again,” Dylan commented.
“Probably just stolen from the Sulaini military, don’t you think?” she asked, a hint of real reluctance finding its way into her voice.
“I hope so.”
She hesitated, then asked, “We’re not prepared to go up against one of their regular Army units tonight, are we?”
She sounded scared. She’d seen combat two or three times before, but never against a superior or near equally as well trained armed force. “We’ll be fine, Marissa,” Dylan assured her. “The rest of the platoon has our backs. Just be ready in case we need you early.”
She sighed loud enough to be heard over the comm-link. “You can count on it.”
“I never doubted it.”
With Marissa reassured...he hoped...there was nothing more he could do but wait for the others to report in. Fortunately they began to do so almost immediately.
“Alpha team, in position.”
“Bravo team, in position.”
“Charlie team, in position.”
“Delta team, in position.”
“Echo team, in position.”
“Acknowledged,” Dylan responded. “All teams in position. Let’s do this thing right and go home.”
“You said that already,” Running Horse commented.
Dylan grinned. Leave it to Billy to crack wise when they were all about to risk their lives. “So I did, Billy, but you heard what Ortiz said. Be careful.”
“Always. On my way.”
Running Horse, one half of Echo team, crouched low and crept forward in virtual silence through the deepest shadows as though he were possessed by the spirits of his warrior brave ancestors. As he made his way slowly toward the check point guard shack, the knowledge that Degger, Teezer, and Private Jeffrey Walters, his new teammate, held the three terrorists above the gate dead in their sights comforted him. He didn’t yet know Walters very well, of course, but Degger and Teezer? He’d never met two better marksmen, or two finer people, in his life. He was truly proud to serve with them.
He reached his goal quickly and without being spotted, and hunkered down against the base of the wooden guard shack’s forest-side wall. The door stood to his right and opened onto the dirt road that led into the compound. He reached around the left corner, searching blindly for the main power conduit that had to have run from the guard shack to the invisible security grid’s first amplifier post. He found it easily, then pulled the laser cutter from his belt and quietly got to work. Seconds later, with only a quiet pop to betray its change in status, the grid went down.
“Jee bock to nae?” the guard mumbled.
A shuffling sound came from inside the shack. Then the door opened. The guard stepped out and rounded the corner. Running Horse drove his fist into the Sulaini’s solar plexus like an iron battering ram, forcing the air from his lungs and doubling him over so far that he collapsed breathless to his hands and knees. Then, before he could utter a sound, Running Horse grabbed hold of his jaw and the back of his head and twisted violently. His neck answered with a satisfying snap and his body fell limp and lifeless to the ground.
Running Horse put on the dead man’s hat, lifted him into the shack and laid him gently on the floor, then closed the door and sat down in the chair with his back to the small window that faced the compound.
“Security grid and checkpoint guard neutralized,” he reported—the cue for the other teams to move out from their positions in the woods and approach the walls as near to their assigned towers as possible without leaving the shadows, and to begin their silent ascents.
“Acknowledged,” Dylan responded. “Ortiz, where’s the roving guard now?”
“Left side, moving away from us toward the far tower,” she answered. “He’s about a quarter of the way there, more or less.”
“All right. Bravo team, you’re up first.”
Having already pulled their razor-sharp climbing claws over their boots and onto their hands, Corporal Greenburg and Sergeant Matrewski quietly scaled the wall, slipped over its top about twenty meters to the right of the far left tower—actually, the tower was nothing more than a small makeshift shack that sat atop the corner of the wall—and lowered themselves onto the walkway. They removed their claws, then crept toward the tower slowly, being careful not to make a sound and staying low in the shadows until they reached its side. Matrewski stayed down while Greenburg unholstered his dart gun, slowly rose up on his knees, took aim, and gently squeezed the trigger. They were in the shack to catch the dead guard’s body before it could hit the floor.
If the roving guard could even see the shadowy figure leaning comfortably against the wall in the shack ahead of him, he no doubt believed it to be his comrade, probably drowsy with boredom and possibly even sound asleep. He lowered his weapon as he stepped through the door, right past Matrewski’s position. Matrewski rose up behind him, slapped a hand over his mouth and yanked his head back, and Greenburg delivered a lightning-fast knife-hand strike across his trachea before he even had time to think about struggling. The guard fell limp, and Matrewski lowered the body gently to the floor, laying it next to the other one.
“Bravo team, secure,” Matrewski reported.
Despite his somewhat questionable political views, killing Sulaini terrorists without mercy was apparently not going to be a problem for him.
“Alpha, Charlie, and Delta teams, prepare to move,” Dylan ordered.
“Confirming Bravo team’s status,” Marissa reported. “Roving guard is neutralized. Far left tower is secure.”
“Acknowledged,” Dylan responded. “Alpha, Charlie, and Delta teams, go.” And just a few moments later...
“Charlie team secure. Tower guard neutralized.”
“Alpha team secure. Guard neutralized.”
“Delta team secure. Guard was indisposed but is now neutralized. Made a hell of a mess, too, Sarge.”
“Spare me the commentary, Andolini,” Dylan warned.
“Sorry, Sarge.”
Marissa shifted slightly to observe each team’s situation for herself and confirmed their reports for Dylan. “All primary targets confirmed neutralized, Sarge.”
“Acknowledged.”
So far, so good. They’d gained the wall and the towers without being detected. He could only pray their good fortune would continue.
He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, then said, “All teams, proceed with act two.”
; Dylan had assigned Alpha team—Private Baumgartner and Lance Corporal Frieburger, along with Doc Leskowski, who stayed close behind the other two—to recover the hostages. They descended the near left tower’s steps and emerged inside the compound at the rear of what Ortiz had identified as the likely stockade. Baumgartner then moved to the left, Frieburger to the right. Being a medic, Doc was considered a non-combatant until such time as it might be necessary for him to defend a patient, so he hung back in the tower doorway for the moment. Frieburger would call him forward if and when they needed him.
Peering through the old-fashioned chain-link fence, they could just see the seated guard at the far corner. Baumgartner knelt down as she and her partner raised their pulse rifles and took aim. Frieburger gave Marissa the ready signal.
Marissa slipped her binocs back into their case, then raised her sniper rifle and took aim at the guard manning the spotlight atop the front of the wall. “Alpha team and I are ready,” she reported.
“Walters, ready on the right,” Running Horse’s partner reported, aiming at the crew-weapon gunner on that side of the spotlight man.
Dylan sighted in on the one to the left. “Ready, and... Fire.”
All three of them fired one silenced shot each in almost perfect unison. The crew-weapon gunners collapsed right where they stood, but the man on the spotlight flipped backward over the railing and fell to the dirt road below with a resounding thud.
Startled by the sound, the stockade guard leapt to his feet and raised his weapon, but thanks to Baumgartner and Frieburger he ended up lying face down in the dirt before he could make any noise of his own.
Marissa eyeballed the compound through her scope. “All secondary targets neutralized,” she reported.
“Act three,” Dylan ordered.
As Dylan waited for Marissa to climb down from the tree, Delta team—Lance Corporal Sweeney and PFC Andolini—dashed toward the control panel above the gate, where the crew-weapon gunners lay dead. Baumgartner and Frieburger began cutting into the fence around the stockade, while Greenburg and Matrewski moved to the armory. Charlie team—Private LeClerc and PFC Shin—ran to the soldiers’ barracks to cover the doors on either end.
“Front gate locks are deactivated,” Sweeney reported. “I’m opening it now.”
Dylan and Marissa dashed into the compound and double-timed to the commander’s hut, followed closely by Running Horse and Walters, who broke off halfway there and ran toward what Intel had identified to be the main hall.
Baumgartner and Frieburger finished cutting through the fence and hurried around the side of the building farthest from the center of the compound, where the shadows were darkest, and made their way to the door. The lock was solid but easily defeated. They slipped into the building and found themselves face-to-face with another guard who looked as surprised to see them as they were to see him. The Sulaini raised his weapon, but never got off a shot. He was dead before he hit the floor, so didn’t resist when Baumgartner stripped him of his key cards.
“Building’s clear, Doc,” Frieburger advised the medic. “Come on in.”
Leskowski broke from cover, dove through the opening in the fence, and scrambled around the side of the stockade and into the relative safety of its interior.
There were four makeshift cells, but only one was closed. In it they found a near middle-aged man, alone. He’d obviously been beaten, was dressed in tattered, dirt-caked, bloodstained rags that left him half naked, and was chained to the floor, cringing in the corner in fear.
“We’re here to get you out, Prince,” Frieburger told the frightened future monarch as Baumgartner went to work on the cell door. “How fast can you run?”
“I will run fast that you tell me to run,” the prince assured his rescuers. His English wasn’t too bad, considering, though he spoke it with a fairly heavy accented. “But where am Carrina?” he then asked. “Please! Was you find her? It is unspeakable, what things they was did poor my Carrina!”
“Our people will find her, Highness. Don’t worry. They’ll carry her out of here on their backs if they have to.”
“I thank you.”
Baumgartner easily defeated the cell lock and threw open the door. Leskowski rushed past her and knelt at the young prince’s side. “Are you seriously injured in any way, Highness?” he asked as he ran his medical scanner over him, while Baumgartner and Frieburger started working on his chains.
“I think no. You find?”
Doc shook his head. “Scanner readings look good. You should be fine.”
The prince sighed with relief. “Thank to the gods. But Carrina!”
“Alpha team confirming pickup of Objective One,” Baumgartner reported as Frieburger finished cutting the prince free of his chains. “Negative on Objective Two at this time.”
“What’s his condition?” Dylan asked urgently.
“Physically abused, possibly tortured, but I think he’ll be all right.”
“Is he okay to move?”
“Doc here, Sarge. Affirmative on that.”
“All right. Get him out of here.”
“We’re as good as gone, Sarge.”
Dylan and Marissa had gained entry into the poorly lit commander’s office and were busy grabbing all the documents they could find and sealing them into the water-proof/fire-proof envelopes they’d brought with them. A quick check with Echo team revealed that they were doing the same thing in the main hall. Bravo team was still trying to deactivate the security field around the armory. Charlie team was watching the barracks—still no sign the enemy had become aware of their presence, so far—and Delta team had moved from the wall to the motor pool, where they were busy disabling whatever vehicles they had found there. All but one, just in case they needed a ride out.
“Looks like that’s everything, Sarge,” Marissa said as she stuffed all the envelopes she’d filled into her rucksack. “I’ve emptied every drawer or cabinet I can find.”
“Same here,” Dylan answered as he pulled his pack onto his back.
“Good,” she said as she pulled hers on as well. “Then what do you say we get the hell out of...” She fell silent and turned and stared, unmoving, into the blackness just beyond the lone interior doorway.
“What is it?” Dylan quietly asked, raising his rifle. “What’s wrong?”
“I thought I heard something in there.”
“Like what?”
“I’m not sure. Like...someone crying maybe?”
He stopped with the questions and listened with her to the darkness beyond the doorway. After a moment, he heard a faint moan.
“There it is again,” Marissa whispered.
“I heard it, too,” Dylan advised her. Marissa looked back over her shoulder at him, but she didn’t have to ask. “Let’s check it out,” he said. “Carefully. You’re behind me.”
Slowly, treading as softly as they could, they stepped into the darkness, one on each side of the hallway and staggered, Dylan on the right and in the lead by a couple of meters, brushing the fingertips of his left hand lightly along the wall ahead of him, his rifle raised and resting across his forearm. About three meters in his fingers hit something hard. He stopped to listen for a moment—Marissa kept her distance—then ran his hand lightly over the object’s surface. It felt smooth like polished transluminum, but more like some kind of hard plastic or a more basic metal. He detected no imperfections in its surface that might have been controls. It ran all the way down to the floor and rose overhead to the farthest extent of his reach, where it turned and continued horizontally. A doorframe. A very tall one. Had the front door been that tall? No. Not that he’d noticed anyway. He drew his hand away and paused to listen for another moment.
There it was again...the moan...weak...little more than a whimper...barely audible, but definitely a woman’s voice. And it was coming from the other side of the door he’d just found. Could it be the prince’s consort?
He pressed his hand against the door and gradually increased the
pressure, but it didn’t give. He felt around for a latch or a panel in the wall but didn’t find anything. Perhaps there was something on the other side. He crossed in front of the door and positioned himself on the other side, then felt around again as Marissa crossed the hall and moved forward to the spot he’d just vacated. This time he found a single round button in the wall, right next to his ear.
He glanced at Marissa. She nodded. He pressed the button and the door made the devil’s own noise as it slid sluggishly aside, disappearing into the wall. He waited for a moment, then peeked cautiously into the room. It wasn’t as dark in there as it was in the hallway, thanks to the moonlight that shone in through the single small window in the opposite wall, but he still had a difficult time discerning detail in certain areas, particularly in the back. But as far as he could tell, no one waited for them inside.
Using hand signals, Dylan asked Marissa if she could see his signals well enough to make out his message. She nodded, so he signed his plan to her. She nodded again when he finished.
They entered swiftly, one behind the other, and immediately separated and switched on their rifle-mounted beam-lights, moving constantly as they scanned the entire room. Something moved under Dylan’s light as it passed low across the back wall. He panned back quickly, his finger tightening ever so slightly on the trigger. “Oh my God,” was all he could manage to say when he realized what he was seeing.
Marissa pronounced her half of the room clear and hurried to his side. She added her light to his and almost choked on her sudden, sharp gasp.
A smallish, slender, dark haired young woman—not much more than a girl, really—lay stretched out on what looked like some kind of surgical bed next to a series of ominous looking machines, her eyes rolled back in her head so that only the whites were visible. She’d been stripped naked, had obviously been beaten and probably tortured as well. Her badly skinned hands were strapped to a metal bar above her head and her legs, thighs badly bruised, were spread wide and strapped to the sides of the bed frame just below her knees. A pair of narrow flexible tubes ran from a panel on the front of one of the machines, feeding some kind of fluids into her arms, and a series of what looked like small sensors were fastened to the sides of her head, beneath her breasts, and over her heart, their thin leads running back to another of the machines—apparently some kind of medical monitor. Her belly looked swollen, as though she were at least a few months pregnant, and she was bleeding fairly heavily, or had been at some point, from her vagina, which looked like it had been torn.