Three terrorists rode in the ambulance and three more followed in another vehicle, a beat up looking Honda Accord. Kyle and Annette were pressed up against each other in the back of the ambulance. Kyle initiated ultrasonic conversation. “Are you alright, my love?”
“Never better, my long suffering husband. I’m sorry for this mess I have gotten you into.”
“What mess? Everything is going according to plan. I have already reported our good fortune to our handlers. They are very pleased with our progress.”
“That may have been a mistake. How do you explain it to them? They don’t have any idea of our hidden hardware.”
“We didn’t plan this very well,” mused Kyle. “We need to invent a secret assistant. He took photos and emailed them. He calls on his cell phone and gives progress reports.”
“How did such a manly man as you get to be so smart? That is brilliant. I have several extra satellite phone accounts just for such an occasion. I will have Deep Throat call in right now. He can tell them to read their email.” Annette dialed the number of her handler.
“Hello, this is Nura,” responded the handler.
“Do not hang up,” commanded a gravelly masculine voice. “My name is not important. I am a friend of Awad and Nida. They are in grave danger. They have been abducted by six armed men. They were blindfolded, tied up and taken in the ambulance they arrived in. It headed south followed by an eighties vintage Honda Accord, license number AG 213. I have a GPS; I will follow at a distance and report my location. I have taken digital photos and will email them to you as opportunity arises. I will call back in a few minutes.”
The terrorist caravan headed out of town and towards the mountains. Eventually it stopped at the end of a dirt road and the group proceeded on foot up a steep path. Along the way, Annette kept a detailed GPS map of their journey. She communicated with her worldwide network of computers that she had spawned, entering through the “back door” that she had programmed into each unit. She wanted to be sure that their location was not lost. She also emailed photos of the kidnapping and photos taken along the route to her handlers as if they came from her “friend”.
After abandoning the ambulance, she could no longer depend on its cameras for surveillance. The blind fold had covered the camera in her hair. Kyle had a camera on top of his head that was not obscured, but it was not currently showing useful information. After a 37-minute hike, they entered a cave. They walked for five minutes into the cave and stopped. Awad and Nida were forced down onto steel folding chairs and their blind folds were removed. Video and still digital cameras were mounted on tripods in front of them. A young man that had not been part of the kidnapping party began taken pictures of them. Both Kyle and Annette looked around using their own eyes as cameras to capture images. Annette transmitted the images to her network of computers but not to her handler. After the picture taking, the lead terrorist, the one with the scar on his face, returned. “Now that we have photographed you we can rough you up if we want, even torture and kill you,” offered scar face in a very businesslike voice.
“Allah will punish you for what you are doing,” offered Nida. Scar face slapped her viciously across her right cheek with the back of his right hand.
“Hold your tongue woman or I will cut it out!” threatened scar face.
“What are you doing, Annette? You will get us killed.” Kyle knew that pain was nothing to Annette but being mutilated and maimed or killed was another matter. Couldn’t she just wait for the rescue party?
“Relax, Kyle. I know just what I am doing.” Using only her facial expressions Nida seem to insult and belittle scar face. He grabbed her by her hair thrusting her head back and stared at her angrily. That was just what Annette wanted. Using her 104 transmitters in phase array mode, she severed scar faces right retinal nerve from the retina. The action was painless and scar face did not realize what had happened. When Annette severed the left retinal nerve, the lights suddenly went out for him. He actually believed that the lights had been turned out since in a cave when the lights go out there is total darkness. He let go of Nida and started shouting for someone to turn the lights back on. One of his accomplices ran into the chamber.
“What’s wrong, Mohamed?”
“What do you mean, ‘What’s wrong?’ Someone turned out the lights.”
“What are you talking about? The lights are on. Are you blind?”
“Apparently I am.”
“How can this be? What happened? Your eyes look fine.”
“They may look fine to you, but I cannot see.” By now, the second man was close enough to Annette for her to destroy one of the tiny bones in his left middle ear. That hurt and the man cupped his hand over his left ear and instinctively rotated his head to the left as if something had struck him from in front of him. Annette proceeded to destroy his hearing in his right ear.” The man cried out in pain.
“What is wrong, Ali?” shouted Mohamed, confused as to what had happened. Ali ran from the room screaming. Annette scooted her chair closer to Kyle’s and began burning through the plastic tie that bound Kyle using her highly focused radio waves. When Kyle was free, he approached the blind man and swatted him with the steel chair that he had been sitting on. He took the man’s knife and AK47 and rushed to Annette’s side. He cut Annette lose and handed her the knife. Annette removed the cameras from their tripods.
“Shoot out the lights Kyle. I can guide us out of here in the dark.” Annette placed her right hand on Kyle’s left shoulder so that she would not lose him in the dark. Although she could locate him using radio communication she saw no need to take chances. After Kyle had put them in darkness, Annette advised, “If you see any artificial light, shoot it.” They could hear shouting coming from another part of the cave. “I will leave your hands free to shoot so follow the directions I give with my hand on your shoulder. I will steer you.” Using her perfect memory of the cave layout Annette guided them from the chamber, keeping to the edges of the cavity. Two men approached with flashlights. Kyle let lose a burst of automatic weapon fire at the lights, mowing them down. He had never taken human life before, but he was not going to risk Annette’s life by being timid. He would make his peace with God later. As they approached ceiling lights, Kyle shot them out. They continued walking in total blackness. After what seemed to Kyle like an eternity, they began to see natural light. “This is where we need to be most careful,” warned Annette. “There may be guards outside of the cave.” In fact, there were two guards and they had heard the gunfire. As they ran into the cave, their bodies were distinctly outlined by the light behind them. Their eyes were adjusted to the bright light of outdoors while Kyle and Annette were adjusted to the darkness. It was an easy matter for Kyle to take them out with a burst from the weapon that he carried.
They exited the cave and hurried down the hill towards the vehicles. Their “friend” called Nura and informed her that Nida and Awad had escaped and would be heading down the mountain. They did not want to be mistaken for terrorist. Kyle and Annette flew down the mountain, reaching the vehicles in a fraction of the time it took them to make the ascent. The keys were gone from the vehicles, but Kyle produced a spare key from inside his left sock. Annette took the AK47 from Kyle and shot out the tires of the Accord. She joined Kyle in the ambulance and they hurried down the mountain.
“It’s a wonder we were not killed!” shouted Kyle to Annette in English.
“I know, I'm sorry. We may have pulled it off, but it was still a bad idea. I was very selfish to put you in this kind of danger.”
“To put us in this kind of danger. Do you think that I could ever be happy without you? You have totally spoiled me. I thought that Sharon was a great wife, and she was, but no woman could ever come close to you.”
“Why, thank you Kyle. You’re a mighty outstanding husband yourself. What other husband would have allowed himself to be kidnapped by terrorists just to please his wife?” After 15 minutes of driving, they were met by CIA agents coming
up the road. They stopped briefly and shared information and then headed back down the road. They returned to the hospital and remained vigilant but acted like nothing had happened. They fabricated a cover story in which they removed a small toy from a child’s throat.
The CIA was able to capture Mohamed. They had to shoot what was left of the other terrorists in the firefight. The CIA agents had no idea how Mohamed had lost his sight. They wondered if the blow to the head had anything to do with it. Losing his sight had humbled Mohamed and made him much more receptive to interrogation. The cave was also full of valuable information. Annette kept the memory chips from the cameras but disposed of the cameras themselves. As they lay in bed together that night holding each other, Annette suggested, “Let’s just go home. We will tell our handlers that we were terrified and want to go home. I think that we have done enough for our country and this country for a while.”
Chapter 29 – Hard Time Leaving
The agency was extremely disappointed but was accustomed to agents losing their nerve in the field, often with much less provocation. Arrangements were made to return Jorge and Maria to the states. On their last morning in Afghanistan, Annette and Kyle were subdued as they dressed. “Let’s wear our body armor until we get to the states,” suggested Annette.
“You won’t get any argument from me,” responded Kyle. We may sweat like pigs, but I, for one, want to get home in one piece.” A vehicle came for them the next morning. Annette and Kyle decided to stay in their Awad and Nida characters. As the driver exited the vehicle, Annette scanned his face and checked it against her databases. He was a local that contracted with the CIA. He should not know Annette and Kyle’s civilian IDs. “Greetings, I am Rafi. I will be driving you to the airport. Shall we get loaded?” While Rafi and Kyle loaded the luggage into the trunk, Annette used her transmitter/receivers in a probing phase array mode as well as her natural senses to study the vehicle. The aged Mercedes ran on diesel, a definite advantage in case of an explosive attack. Diesel is much less flammable than gasoline and can only be made to explode under precise conditions. The window glass was bullet resistant. The under carriage was armored but more so in the front. They should not ride in the back. Rafi was clearly more concerned about protecting himself than his passengers. As Annette walked around the vehicle, she clandestinely placed small cameras in key areas.
“Rafi, when I return to my homeland I will not be permitted to drive. May I please drive to the airport?” asked Nada with pleading eyes.
“Only if I may join you in the front; I get car sick in the back.”
“Wonderful, Awad will join us in the middle.” Annette was determined to get Kyle home in one piece and she didn’t mind using Rafi’s rotund body in lieu of a side air bag. The three squeezed into the front seat. Annette proceeded on the way to the airport with the utmost caution. She thought about stories of soldiers who were killed just before their tour of duty was to end. She did not want that kind of ending for Kyle. She was less concerned about herself since she was already living on borrowed time. Annette used all of her senses, cameras, transmitters and receivers to search for any dangers, hidden or overt. Along a long rural stretch of highway, several times she swerved into the oncoming traffic lane to keep distance from an area of soil that looked like it had been recently disturbed. Other times she drove on the shoulder to put distance between them and possible dangers on the far side of the road. Rafi gave her frustrated looks at times but said nothing. Kyle drifted in and out of sleep. Annette slowed as she approached an area where the soil was disturbed on both sides of the highway.
“Why are we slowing?” asked Rafi.
“I don’t like the looks of the shoulders on either side. I will have to drive down the middle. I suggest that we slouch down for added protection.”
“I will do no such thing,” protested Rafi. Annette and Kyle slid down in the seat so that their heads were below the level of the windows as they slowly proceeded down the middle of the highway.
“This is absurd,” protested Rafi. “You cannot even see to drive.” Rafi reached across to grab the steering wheel. Just as he grabbed the wheel, both sides of the road exploded simultaneously. The sedan’s windows imploded and the roof of the car ripped up and back leaving the Mercedes looking like an open can of sardines. Annette was protected from flying glass by her Kevlar lined burqa. The hood and veil shielded her delicate face. Kyle was completely shielded by Rafi’s now dead, corpulent body. In addition to the glass, the explosions pushed inward the entire structure of the car. The doors bulged inward shoving Annette even tighter against Kyle and making a hasty exit impossible. An off road vehicle came roaring from behind a bluff. Angry men brandishing automatic weapons leaped from the vehicle as it slowed to a stop. They circled the Mercedes without approaching closer than eight meters. A large truck that had been just ahead of the Mercedes stopped and backed up to the impact zone. The men quickly rolled up the rear door of the truck and lowered a ramp. A man leaped into the back of the truck and pulled out a steel cable that they hooked to the frame of the Mercedes. An electric winch whined as it pulled the car into the truck.
Annette had been in constant communication with her network of computers, but when the truck door slammed shut, she lost communication. Not sure if they were under surveillance, Annette used ultra sonic communication. “Kyle, I just lost all communication with the outside world. Whether intentional or just by natural construction this truck bed is forming a Faraday cage. We may be in real trouble this time. I am so sorry.”
“It’s okay, Annette. We are not dead yet. You didn’t force me into this. Up until your creation, I led a pretty boring life. If it is our time to go, at least we had some excitement and did some good along the way.” As they conversed, Annette estimated speed and direction as best she could, based on sounds and other non-electromagnetic indicators. It sounded like they had entered a highly populated area. The truck finally stopped. The couple could hear the creak and rattle of a metal door being opened and then the truck proceeded a short distance and stopped. The engine went off. The couple could hear metallic scraping noises and great activity around the vehicle. Finally, the rear door opened and men wearing what looked like beekeeper suits lowered the ramp and attached a cable to the Mercedes. As the car was dragged from the truck, the couple could see that a fine-mesh copper net had been draped over the entire truck. The truck was sitting on a copper pad that extended out beyond the edges of the net. Even outside of the truck, they were in a Faraday cage.
A tall, lean man, who appeared to be in charge, approached from outside of the net. “Mr. and Mrs. James, we are so pleased that you could join us,” he said in English and in a calm and inviting voice. “Oh yes, we know who you are. We are not nearly as stupid as you must think we are! Did you really think that a little skin coloring would make us think that you are Arabs? Typical American arrogance. We are going to enjoy so much watching you die slowly.”
So, this is it, thought Kyle. Well if he was going to die, he wanted to go out like a man, not a sniveling child. “Let’s not go down without a fight, my love. Do we have any weapons?”
“Just our computers and bodies.”
“I don’t suppose that the car will start or move?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, we don’t even have any tires.”
“Does the radio work?”
“Great thinking Kyle. I will check. Try to shift Rafi over a little so I can turn it on.” Kyle very slowly and carefully shifted Rafi’s body to the right just enough to expose the radio controls. Annette turned the radio on with zero volume and adjusted the turner to FM 100. She turned up the volume slightly and transmitted a single low volume beep. After hearing the faint beep she changed her transmission to produce silence and turned up the volume on the radio. Based on communications before they were put into a Faraday cage and based on their estimated location, there was a CompuSonic computer, one of her offspring, within transmission range if she could get through the net. Every on
e of her children would be on high alert listening for a signal from her on frequencies already established and using established encryption. In the voice of the leader and in Pashto came the command over the radio, “Lift the net for me.” The men all looked at the leader with a quizzical expression on their faces. “Don’t just stand there, lift the net.” The leader had hesitated several seconds before he figured out what was happening. Two of the men lifted the net. The leader in frustration shot them with the pistol that he carried at his side and the net dropped back down. It had been long enough. Annette had determined her location and sent out an SOS within milliseconds. Help would be on the way. Fear came across the face of the cocky leader. He had lost the advantage.
“They realize that I got a message out, Kyle. They will either move us or kill us. Let’s not wait around to find out. Can you get Rafi off of you?”
“I can do better than that. Be prepared to use your weapons and to run for the truck cab.” Kyle maneuvered himself under Rafi so that he could launch Rafi with a sudden extension of his powerful legs. He would use 80 percent of his full strength. The men suspected that Kyle was up to something but had no idea what. They gathered to his side of the net to see what he was doing. Suddenly Rafi’s body flew up out of the car and up against the net. The men in a panic started shooting the body.
“Stop, you fools!” commanded the leader. “You’ll destroy the Faraday net.” The leader looked back at the Mercedes. It was empty. The diversion had allowed Kyle and Annette just enough time to get to the truck. They were just entering the cab. “Shoot the Americans,” he commanded. The men shot into the Mercedes not realizing that Kyle and Annette had moved. The leader shot with his pistol, hitting Kyle in the back. Kyle’s body armor prevented serious injury. Kyle and Annette made it into the cab before the assailant got off another shot. The keys were even in the ignition. Annette started the engine and threw the manual transmission into reverse. She popped the clutch, spinning the rear tires. The truck rammed into the Mercedes, sliding it across the floor. Men were scrambling everywhere. Annette sped forward pulling the net off of the front of the cab. Apparently, the men had been informed of Annette’s powers because they ran for their lives when they saw the net come off. The truck windows were rolled down and Annette reached out to stick a camera on the roof of the cab. The leader had grabbed an AK47 that one of the men dropped. Kyle knew the drill and slid down out of view as did Annette. Using the camera for vision Annette tried to run down the leader who was firing relentlessly at the truck. He was much more agile than the truck and easily evaded them. Annette headed for the closed steel door. It burst open against the momentum of the truck. Annette knew that the radiator and engine had taken many hits. They would not be able to drive far and would leave a trail of smoke. That was okay; she knew exactly where they were.
The Computer Who Loved Me Page 27