by Mel Odom
“Look,” Gary said, “maybe you don’t care about your job, but I do. I think we should-”
Danielle cut him off. “Do you care more about your job than you do about getting back home in one piece?”
“No.”
“Then pay attention.”
“To what?”
“What’s going on around you.”
“We’re rescued,” Gary said belligerently. “All we gotta do is shoot some footage of the UN troops, and we’re home free.”
“Then OneWorld is sending you home?”
“I’ve asked to be sent back home.”
“Did they say yes?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Then they’re not going to send you home yet. They need a cameraman over here.”
“I told them I’ve had enough.”
“Have you stopped and wondered what this is about?” Danielle asked.
“What what’s about? The war? The Syrians have always-”
“No. The reinforcements. Why now?”
“Maybe this was as soon as Carpathia could make it happen.”
“Doesn’t reinforcing Sanliurfa seem like a lost cause to you? What do we need to hold here? There are no oil fields, no natural resources. Most of the civilians have cleared away, and the ones who have stayed can’t be viewed as our responsibility.”
Gary remained silent.
“And if reinforcing this city was a good idea, don’t you think the previous secretarygeneral would have thought of that?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think he would have,” Danielle said.
“Maybe he had trouble selling it?”
“Then how was Carpathia able to sell it to the rest of the United Nations?”
“Don’t know. I’ve listened to the guy talk. He’s awfully convincing.”
Danielle silently agreed. “What if Carpathia wants Icarus?”
“Now you’re scaring me.”
“Why?”
“Conspiracy theories aren’t my thing.”
“They’re not mine either.”
“Then we should be out there on the street interviewing some of those UN soldiers.”
“I can’t do that.”
Gary sighed.
At that moment, across the street, Alexander Cody stepped back into the wan moonlight pouring down from the darkened sky.
“Bring your camera over here,” Danielle ordered.
Outside Sanliurfa
Local Time 2116 Hours
Goose inched across the muddy ground. In his mind, he was just another layer of mud. And he moved slow as molasses, oozing across the slippery ground rather than sliding. Mud caked his face. Half the time when he breathed, he sucked in dirty water from the ground.
His first objective lay eighty yards away. He felt certain the burned and blasted remnants of the tank provided sufficient cover.
Unless those guys gunning for you have moved around. Goose tried to keep from thinking about that. Likewise, he tried to keep from thinking that the unknown gunners were even now creeping up on Miller and Icarus. There was no way you could bring them with you. They’re not trained for this.
Goose dug his boot toes into the ground and started oozing forward again. A sharp stone dug into his face. He didn’t say anything, and he didn’t make an adjustment. He just slid over the stone and kept going.
Long minutes later, he reached the tank. Smoke, diesel, and the distinct odor of burned flesh clung to the broken metal. Goose remained low and got his bearings. The muted moonlight splashed across bodies of the dead. The rain had washed the blood from the corpses, and the thirsty ground had drunk it in. But the horrible wounds remained visible. Torn flesh, limbs that had been ripped away, incomplete heads-all of them lay before him.
Goose steeled himself against the sight. He’d seen worse, but there in the darkness, with only the whisper-soft voice of the rain all around him, he couldn’t remember the last time death had affected him so deeply.
He thought of Chris and the way his son had vanished. He thought of the young Rangers he’d seen die. They were just boys. Not much older than Joey.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. They weren’t supposed to be abandoned behind enemy lines. They weren’t supposed to be left here to die.
My son was not supposed to be taken from me. The anger that had nourished Goose since the beginning of the Syrian attack simmered inside him. His hurt and uncertainty dwindled, but he knew it would be back. As soon as his thoughts turned back to living past the moment, he’d regard the future with as much fear and hate as he had since he’d learned of Chris’s disappearance.
“God took your son,” Joseph Baker had said. “ He took that little boy on up to heaven to watch over him till you get there.”
There aren’t any guarantees that I’m headed there, Goose thought. I got left behind.
“I’m going to heaven,” Baker had told him. “ When I die, when my time comes, even if I last through these next seven years, I’m going to heaven.”
Did you? Goose thought. Is that where you ended up, Baker? He moved toward one of the bodies and searched the man’s assault rifle. It was an AK-47, standard issue. The rifles of the next three corpses were the same.
Lord, You’re gonna have to cut me some slack, Goose thought. Reason dictates that at least some of the men accompanying these tanks as they moved forward would be snipers. Gotta be a range-finding laser here somewhere.
He searched three more mutilated bodies before he found a Russian sniper weapon equipped with a range-finding laser.
Cautiously Goose used his Swiss Army knife to remove the range finder from the weapon. Then he started the laborious trip back to Miller and Icarus.
Downtown Sanliurfa
Local Time 2120 Hours
Excitement flowed through Danielle as she studied the CIA section chief. Her heart thudded.
Cody was barely visible in profile against the doorframe leading to the balcony. Moonlight made the man’s face look bone white. He smoked a cigar and drank straight from a bottle as he stared out through the rain.
For a moment Danielle thought he was staring at her; then she realized he was still focused on the battlefield. His lips moved. She increased the magnification.
She wasn’t an expert lip-reader, but the skill wasn’t as hard as many people believed, and she’d starting picking it up as a girl while spying on her older brothers. It just required concentration, visibility, and some experience. Most people could pick it up easily, which was one of the problems sports networks faced when they stayed in close on an upset player.
Cody’s lips moved again.
“Gary?” Danielle said.
“Yeah.”
“The camera?”
“I’m on him.”
“Tight on his face. I want to see what he’s saying.”
“’Kay.”
Danielle hoped the night lenses could filter in enough light to illuminate the scene.
Cody wasn’t alone. Another man, one Danielle hadn’t seen in the bar downstairs, stood beside Cody. She concentrated on the men’s lips.
“-out there,” the man said.
“You’re positive?” Cody asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“All of them?”
“Yes, sir.”
Cody said something else, but he turned his face away from Danielle.
“We haven’t given up, sir. We’ll find them.”
Cody nodded. “ I want Hander” — no, that had to be Gander — “dead. I do not want him back in this city.”
“Yes, sir.”
Excitement rose in Danielle again. Goose was alive. The thought thrilled her. Tears burned her eyes. Then she concentrated on Cody again, mentally cursing him. There was no guarantee that Goose would stay that way for long.
Across the street, Cody took another drink from the neck of the bottle. “ Tell them to get to it.”
“Yes, sir.” The other man faded out of sight.
> Danielle turned to Gary. “Did you get that?”
“Yeah, but without audio, all you got is one guy talking to another guy in a dark room.”
“Didn’t you read his lips?” Danielle opened her notebook computer on the room’s table.
“No. I’m not a lip-reader.”
“Hook the video feed into my computer. Download that piece.” Danielle stepped back and let the cameraman work. She tried to ignore the infrequent small-arms fire and missiles. The Syrians evidently used them as reminders, ensuring that no one in the city would get a good night’s sleep.
When Gary had the video uploaded to her computer, she played it back. This time she made notes of what she’d read.
Danielle was relieved to know Goose was still alive. She’d felt guilty ever since she saw him fall from the helicopter. She kept playing it back through her mind, realizing how she could have simply grabbed him and halted his fall.
“I want Gander dead.” That reverberated in Danielle’s head in Alexander Cody’s voice.
Danielle copied the video file to her flash drive and headed for the door. “C’mon. We’ve got to find Remington.”
41
Outside Sanliurfa
Sanliurfa Province, Turkey
Local Time 2148 Hours
Goose felt gun sights on him. He froze immediately. Even though he couldn’t see the weapon, he knew someone had a bead on him. He resisted the immediate impulse to move and forced himself to wait to see what happened. He had to trust in the body armor.
“Sergeant,” Icarus called softly, “come ahead.”
Goose let out a long breath, then slid forward again.
Icarus lowered the assault rifle he carried. Miller sat nearby.
“See anything?” Icarus asked.
“Syrians,” Goose replied. “But not the men stalking us.”
“They’re out there.”
“I know.”
Icarus glanced grimly at the expanse of ground separating them from the city. “They don’t have to risk crossing that area.”
“I know,” Goose said as he rose to a sitting position. His back and knee ached terribly. “All they gotta do is hold us here. In the morning, the Syrians can do their jobs for them. They can watch.”
“That’s what they’ll do,” Icarus said. “Carpathia won’t let Alexander Cody rest until he brings me down.”
Goose cleaned the range finder. The power supply was good, but one of the lenses had been knocked out of alignment. “The information you have is really that dangerous?”
“I’ve got documents that link Carpathia’s companies with some of the terrorist groups working with the Syrians,” Icarus said.
Miller looked at the two of them. “What? What are you talking about?”
“The reason those men are lying out there right now to kill us,” Goose said.
“Carpathia? You’ve got to be kidding.” Miller’s face showed disbelief. “That man has done more to unify the countries since the disappearances than anyone else in the world.”
“That’s just cover,” Icarus said. “What he’s really after is something else.”
“What do you think he’s after?”
“All these people left behind in the balance of God’s judgment.”
“That’s insane.”
Icarus smiled wearily. “Is it? A third of the world vanished a few short weeks ago. Is that insane too?”
Miller didn’t say anything.
“If I’d tried to tell anyone before those disappearances took place that they were going to happen, they would have locked me up. Don’t you agree?”
Reluctantly Miller nodded. “But what you’re saying about Carpathia
… what does that…”
“What does that make him?” Icarus shook his head. “If you ask me, I think the man is the devil himself. If not, then he’s part of the blackest evil you’ve ever seen.”
“But he’s working to pull everyone together. To help us see through everything.”
“You’re familiar with the Bible, right?”
“Of course.”
“What is the Antichrist supposed to do in the end times?”
Miller didn’t speak. Goose saw the fear on the man’s face.
Icarus continued. “The Antichrist is supposed to bring the people of the world, those whom God left behind during the time of the Tribulation, together. And in doing so, he will lead them away from God. That’s what Carpathia is doing.”
Goose studied Miller’s face. Although the chaplain clearly wanted to repudiate Icarus’s claims, Goose knew the man was taking them in.
Miller looked at Goose. “Do you believe this?”
“I don’t know what to believe,” Goose said. “I’m not here to believe. At the moment, I’m working on getting us out of this mess alive. I reckon after that moment, the next moment will take care of itself.” But the truth was, he didn’t have enough room in his head to think about everything he needed to think about.
“You got what you went after?” Icarus asked.
“I did.” Goose showed him the range finder.
“What is that?”
The question told Goose that Icarus wasn’t a military man. “It’s a laser range finder. Snipers mount it on a rifle to get an accurate measurement of how far away a target is.”
Icarus frowned. “Knowing how far we are from the city walls isn’t going to help us.”
Goose grinned grimly. “No, sir, I have to agree with you on that.”
“And unless it can help you see those men in the dark, I don’t see that it’s going to be a lot of help.”
“It can’t do that either. But what I can do is use it to let our boys know we’re out here. The trick is going to be doing that while at the same time not alerting those snipers out there to our position.”
Downtown Sanliurfa
Local Time 2156 Hours
“Captain Remington, Danielle Vinchenzo of OneWorld NewsNet is here.”
Remington looked at the corporal. The man stood beside him as if awaiting execution. For a long moment, Remington listened to the rain drum against the tarpaulin roof above his head. He ran the scenarios through his mind, wondering what had sparked the woman’s interest.
In the end, he decided it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to be afraid of her or her interest. After all, he’d just shot a civilian a short time ago. At this point, with everything so unsettled around them, accidents could happen to anyone.
“Bring her,” Remington said.
“Yes, sir.” The corporal walked away, then quickly returned with the woman and her cameraman in tow.
“Miss Vinchenzo,” Remington said. “Make this snappy. As you can see, I’ve got pressing business here.”
“I understand that, Captain, but I think you’ll want to see this.” Danielle started to open her computer.
Remington caught the computer with one hand and kept it shut. Recognizing the fear in her eyes, he grinned a little. Having other people afraid of him was a good thing. It put them off their game. Fear motivated people to move more quickly when he gave an order.
“Why don’t you paint a target on our heads instead?” Remington asked. “Opening that computer out here will reveal us to any Syrian snipers who might be waiting for a clear target.”
Danielle frowned. She didn’t like making mistakes.
“I’ve got something to show you,” she said.
“I can catch it in reruns in the morning.”
She looked at him. “Goose is alive. He survived the fall from the helicopter.”
Relief and distaste warred within Remington. If Goose had died, Remington would have lost a good right hand when he needed it most. Bringing the UN forces and the Rangers together would be a struggle. Having Goose help him would make things a lot easier.
However, Goose wasn’t exactly running on the correct rails these days. And Remington felt jealous of the interest the woman had in Goose’s survival. He knew a lot of the Rangers felt the
same way about Goose that she did.
“How do you know this?” Remington demanded.
“Alexander Cody gave orders to kill him.”
Remington frowned. “You heard Cody give those orders?”
“No. I saw him do it.”
“You… saw… Cody give orders to kill Goose.”
“Yes.” Danielle didn’t hesitate a second. “Look, if I could just show you what I’ve got on this computer, you’ll see for yourself.”
“All right, Miss Vinchenzo. I’ll grant you that you’ve made me curious.” Remington guided her toward a set of stairs that led down into the earth.
Outside Sanliurfa
Local Time 2204 Hours
Goose lay prone in the mud under a bush and aimed the laser range finder at the top of the wall surrounding the city.
“Wait,” Icarus said. “You’re going to shine that around?”
“Nope,” Goose said. “I’m going to direct it at one of the places I suspect our artillery people will have positioned a LADAR.”
“What’s a LADAR?” At Goose’s instruction, Icarus lay a few feet away. In case they were spotted, they need not both be taken out in one burst.
“It’s an acronym for laser detection and radar. Artillery grunts use it to paint targets. I’m betting they’re tagging targets out here despite the rain. Just to keep everyone honest.”
“What good does that do us?”
“If everything works right, I’m going to get the attention of the LADAR ops crews. Then I’m going to tell them who we are.” He aimed the range finder at the top of the wall and slowly moved it along. He watched the readout through the ocular. When it suddenly changed, he knew he’d caught the attention of an alert ops tech. Calmly he switched the range finder off and on in a series of long and short bursts.
Downtown Sanliurfa Local Time 2208 Hours
The bunker held food and water. There was no electricity.
Danielle placed the computer on a stack of metal ammo crates and opened it. The battery power was low, but she knew there was enough to show the video to Remington. She brought the file up and let it run.
“There’s no audio,” Danielle said. “But if you look closely, you can read Cody’s lips.” She enhanced the image and centered on Cody’s mouth.