Outsourced

by R. J. Hillhouse

  The heavy wind had wiped away traces of any footprints, but they could see indentures in the sand where someone had climbed down the back side of the dune. The trail stopped on the flat desert floor where the wind had erased it.

  “Look at this,” Hunter motioned for Iggy as he pointed to the ground beside Pete. “The blood preserved a footprint.”

  “Camille was wearing Merrell hikers,” Iggy said as he squatted by the fly-covered body and studied the print. “That’s from some kind of a sandal. No tread.” Iggy stood. “We’ve got to get out of here. Keep an eye out for anything else unusual while you help me grab the stuff.”

  “We can’t leave her,” Hunter said as he wrestled the Makarov from Pete. The bones of the fingers snapped. His Day-Glo prison coveralls had no pockets for him to stick the gun in, so he held onto it.

  Iggy reached for the rucksack and saw something that had blown against it. As he leaned over to pick up a small green booklet written in Arabic script, a bullet crackled nearby.

  “Hit the deck!”

  Both men dug into the sand and pointed their AKs in the direction the bullet had come from—the same direction someone had taken Stella.

  “See a target?” Hunter said.

  “Negative. So wherever they are, they’re at an angle where they can’t get a shot unless we stand up.” Iggy slipped his arms into the pack’s straps. “We’re going to creep over there, then run down the dune and pray they can’t get into a good firing position in time.”

  Several rounds flew over them. Hunter couldn’t see anyone, but fired a burst anyway to discourage the shooter from moving to a better location.

  Iggy reached for the walkie-talkie. “GENGHIS, this is TIN MAN. We’re taking fire. Do what you can to cover us. We’re coming in.”

  “Understood,” Ashland’s voice crackled through the radio.

  “We’ll be vulnerable most of the way,” Hunter said.

  “You have any better ideas?”

  “No, sir.” Hunter fired more rounds, then began crawling as fast as he could.

  The sun scorched Camille’s skin and she regretted peeling down to shorts and a T-shirt, but she was sure she would be more modestly clothed soon enough, if the tangos didn’t kill her first. She sat upright in the back of a pickup truck, surrounded by four young men with AKs. They all wore the telltale beards of the Muslim fundamentalists and spoke Arabic with one another. A cross-eyed one wore a T-shirt silk-screened with a picture she recognized from the wall of Omar’s Electronics in Ramadi. Her translator had told her which one he was, but she couldn’t remember now if he was Abdullah or al-Zahrani. Not that it really mattered which faction of al Qaeda had kidnapped her.

  She could pick up only a word here and there, but pretended to understand nothing and wished she hadn’t heard the mention of jihad so frequently. Her arms and feet were bound with a heavy, scratchy rope and she saw no immediate options for escape, but she kept reassessing.

  A white Toyota truck passed them going the opposite way, toward the airstrip. She coughed from the dust that blew in its wake. It honked and some of the men in the back waved their AKs at them while others fired joy shots into the air. Well over a dozen tangos were squeezed into the truck bed and four or five more into the cab. This was the third pickup they had met and she hoped to god Hunter was getting them out of there and not coming after her. But she knew he would come. And she had little doubt that he would be too late.

  She watched the sky for the Gulfstream.

  Carrying his IV bag, GENGHIS wobbled toward the body of the dead Bushman. He grabbed the corpse by the arm and tugged. It barely moved. He plopped to the ground, light-headed, breathing hard. He raised his head toward Ashland. “Get your ass over here.”

  “I’m no harm to you. And none of us can get out of here alone, except Stone. Free me. You need me.” He held out his bound hands.

  “They didn’t leave me with a knife. It’d be my pleasure to shoot the zip-cuff off you. Hold out your wrists.” GENGHIS aimed his sidearm at Ashland’s wrists.

  “No, no, no. I saw Black using shears from the medic’s bag. I’ll retrieve them. And we might need every bullet.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  A few minutes later GENGHIS was lying in the aisle of the Gulfstream hooked up to a second IV bag that Ashland had found onboard, when he heard Iggy call for backup. The bleeding was under control, but he was feeling light-headed. Ashland set down the walkie-talkie and picked up an AK-102.

  “You’re not going to be able to help them with that—too short range,” GENGHIS said as he grabbed for the IV needle in his arm.

  “Leave that in. You need it,” Ashland said.

  “Fine. But they need a long-range marksman. Help me to the door and hand me the one with the scope.”

  GENGHIS pulled himself up using the armrest and grabbed the IV bag from the leather seat. Ashland hurried to support him under his arm and help him walk down the aisle. GENGHIS lowered himself onto the floor in front of the cabin door, dropping the plastic IV bag beside him. Ashland picked it up and hooked it on the bracket for the emergency flashlight instead, then handed him the Dragunov that Camille was carrying earlier.

  “Check the rucksack for extra clips,” GENGHIS said as he pulled off the magazine and checked the cartridges. Eight were left. Russian ammo was foreign to him, but he trusted that Camille always worked with the best equipment and had probably acquired match-grade rounds.

  “Here.” Ashland handed him three.

  GENGHIS grabbed them and loaded two 7.62 rounds as fast as he could while he watched the distant dune. Iggy and Stone were skidding down it and no targets were in sight—yet. He set up the rifle’s bipod and looked through the scope, estimating the wind and ranging to the top of the dune. He adjusted the dope.

  Several seconds later, he was tweaking the settings when a man with an AK came into sight above Iggy and Stone. He moved him into his crosshairs and fired. The man dropped, but then two more replaced him. As quickly as he could, he acquired the mark, squeezed off a round and without a breath, aimed and fired again just as the son of a bitch hailed bullets at Iggy and Stone.

  Bullets flew past Iggy and the sand was getting softer, pouring in on top of his foot with each step, making it harder for him to pull his leg up. Just as a round zoomed too close to his head, his leg pulled out of its binding and his stump waved in the air. Flapping his arms to catch his balance, he tumbled to the ground and slid down the dune. He looked back. His dumb leg was stuck in the sand, fifteen feet above him.

  The tangos were appearing as fast as GENGHIS could take them out and the growing collection of dead bodies seemed to do little to discourage them. GENGHIS had seen it before. The fuckers were determined to get to their seventy-two virgins. He pulled off the magazine and shoved more rounds into it.

  Iggy saw Stone glance back, then turn around to help him, but Iggy waved him on. Using his elbows to pull himself along, Iggy dragged himself through the sand to his leg. Bullets kicked up sand all around. When he got to it, he took the knife from his ankle holster and sliced off his pant leg above his knee, cursing himself for wearing long pants. As he strapped it on, sand got into the sock over his stump. With a good seven hundred yards to the plane, it would rub blisters that would plague him for days.

  He climbed to his feet and ran.

  “Permission to come aboard.” Hunter shouted from the base of the Gulfstream’s stairs, waiting so he didn’t shake the plane because it didn’t take much to spoil a long range shot. Iggy hauled ass down the tarmac, a good four hundred meters away.

  “Okay, now!” GENGHIS said as he refilled the mag. Hunter climbed up the stairs, taking two at a time.

  GENGHIS fired off more rounds as Hunter stepped over him. GENGHIS said, “The fuckers keep coming. We’ve got to get out of here.”

  Ashland moved back so he could pass. He paused and said to Ashland, “As soon as Iggy’s onboard, throw that switch to retract the airstairs, then turn the lever to secure the door
.”

  Hunter hurried onto the flight deck. The dead first officer was still strapped in. Hunter flipped on the APU as he climbed over the captain’s body into his seat.

  As Iggy zigzagged down the runway, he could feel his stump rubbing raw against the sand that had come between him and his artificial leg. The stump had sweated so much, it felt like it was sloshing around in a bowl of water. The hot air seared his lungs, but the bullets skipping off the tarmac around him made him push harder.

  It only took one, he reminded himself.

  GENGHIS chambered a new round, retargeted and fired in less than five seconds—a personal record, but it wasn’t enough. More and more tangos crested the saddle and he couldn’t drop them all before they started heading down to the tarmac. He gave up on eliminating them as they came into sight and picked off the ones who were closest to Iggy. He was only a couple hundred meters out, but the hordes were gaining on him. They were running and shooting without aiming, but with enough rounds in the air, even a stray bullet could find a mark.

  “Hand me an AK and keep ’em coming,” GENGHIS said. They had salvaged four from the Rubicon guards.

  The tangos were now within five hundred meters and Iggy was within one hundred. GENGHIS stood, the damn IV dangling from his arm. He saw bright flashes of light and became dizzy. He steadied himself on the bulkhead as he breathed deeply. He took the assault rifle and aimed as best he could, given the iron sights, the distance and the wind.

  GENGHIS laid down a curtain of fire while Iggy dashed toward the airstairs. He emptied the weapon in his hands and Ashland passed him another one. Iggy ran up the stairs and GENGHIS extended his arm, grabbed Iggy’s forearm, and pulled him inside.

  “Go! Go!” Iggy yelled to Hunter.

  GENGHIS threw the switch to raise the stairs and then he leaned outside and stepped onto the top stair while they were retracting. They were the type that the bottom part of the stairs folded over onto the top when they were halfway up and GENGHIS figured he could get off a couple more shots and jump back inside before they started to double over on themselves. Suddenly, the plane lurched and GENGHIS slipped.

  The IV catheter ripped away from his arm and blood gushed from the vein. He grabbed for anything and latched onto a bar. Struggling to hold his legs up above the fast-moving ground, he reached for the bar on the opposite side. His muscles strained and blood was everywhere.

  The bottom half of the airstairs was folding down on top of him, threatening to squeeze him to death. Bullets cracked through the air around him and he wished to god one of them would hit him. Dying in combat was supposed to be GENGHIS’ fate, not being smashed in stairs. He became dizzier and dizzier as blood drained away and the ground streaked beneath him.

  GENGHIS let out a scream and pulled as hard as he could just as everything faded to black.

  Iggy climbed out on the airstairs, gripped the chrome with his artificial hand, trusting the microprocessors wouldn’t fail him now because he couldn’t feel if he had a good grip or if the contraption had let go. Only if the suction broke and the artificial limb pulled off his body would he feel anything and by then it would be too late.

  The ground was a blur as he leaned out of the plane. He reached under GENGHIS’ arm and pulled as hard as he could, leveraging the force of his own body weight, and yanked GENGHIS back inside. Blood smeared on him as the aircraft lifted into the sky.

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Kyzyl Kum Desert, Uzbekistan

  Camille searched for landmarks along the route, but all she saw were endless sand dunes, mounds of tailings. After fifteen minutes, the ground opened up into the largest open mine pit she had seen in her life. All of Baghdad, Ramadi and Fallujah could’ve fit inside with room to spare. It dropped down four to five hundred feet in wide terraced steps. She couldn’t see any equipment and some of the benches seemed to have collapsed down to the next level. When she thought they had finally passed it, it opened up again into a smaller pit, partially separated from the larger one by a high ridge of solid rock.

  There was no mining equipment in the second pit and she thought it was completely abandoned until something flapping in the high winds caught her eye.

  Camouflage netting.

  The pickup turned down a switchback road and began its descent into the mine. A dozen structures were clustered along the north wall of the crater on the wide upper bench. Most of them were oversized tents being whipped by the high winds, but there were five buildings and more were under construction. They looked like they were made of plywood and had scrap metal for roofs. Beyond the building sites, a firing range was set up on the far side of the compound and she could see obstacle courses with coils of barbed wire.

  She was being taken into a terrorist training camp—into SHANGRI-LA.

  Paradise had never looked so hellish.

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  The boom in Iraq is just the tip of the iceberg for the $100-billion-a-year [private security] industry, which experts say has been the fastest-growing sector of the global economy during the past decade.

  —The San Francisco Chronicle, March 28, 2004, as reported by Robert Collier

  Above the Kyzyl Kum Desert, Uzbekistan

  GENGHIS lay on the cabin floor, bleeding and breathing rapidly. He was barely conscious and slipping. Iggy dragged him partially into the galley so he’d have room to work. GENGHIS was covered with so much blood, it was impossible to be sure where it was all coming from. Using his combat knife, Iggy sliced open his prison coveralls to search for worst bleeders. He kept the knife close in case he needed to use it against Ashland.

  GENGHIS seemed to be bleeding only from the earlier gunshot wound and from the vein where an IV had been. Chunks of QuikClot had popped out of the wound and the dressing was soaked with blood. Keeping Ashland in his sight at all times, he pressed against the wound with his bio-hand and used his mechanical one to stop the blood loss from where the IV catheter had been ripped out.

  “Where the hell are we going?” Hunter yelled through the open cockpit door.

  “Got a man down. Stand by,” Iggy then made eye contact with Ashland. “Get me an IV now!”

  Ashland plowed through a medic kit and held out the IV to Iggy.

  “You know how to spike a vein?”

  “In theory.”

  “Forget it. Press here and here.”

  Ashland wrinkled his face.

  “Do it now you motherfucker or I’ll kill you.”

  Ashland kneeled down and gingerly placed his fingers over Iggy’s.

  “Harder,” Iggy said as he moved his bloody fingers away.

  In seconds, Iggy inserted the IV into one of GENGHIS’ veins and started the saline flowing. To hold it into place he slapped duct tape on it. He took over the bleeders from Ashland and ordered him to find blankets. Ashland had the bleeding from the vein under control, so Iggy quickly put a pressure bandage over it.

  “Hey, it’s your captain here. I’m taking destination requests,” Hunter said from the flight deck. “I’ve got to head somewhere.”

  “Fuel status?” Iggy said, then spoke to GENGHIS, “Come on, come on, buddy. Hang with me.”

  “We’re in good shape,” Hunter said.

  “Then circle the area and keep an eye out for anything that looks like a tango training camp. I couldn’t get overheads so this is going to be the only look we get.”

  Ashland covered GENGHIS with several blankets, carefully tucking them under his legs.

  Iggy took out scissors and a set of prepared sutures from the medic kit. He cut away the old soaked dressing, pulled out a big dark clump of QuikClot and several smaller ones and threw them onto the floor. He picked up a needle with his left hand and he stared at it. In the four years since he’d lost his right hand, his left had grown much more adept at everyday tasks, but the needle felt awkward. It was better than using his artificial one that lacked the fine motor coordination and the tactile feedback. He hated himself for not anticipating the need for one
-handed sewing and practicing it along with the billion other simple tasks which he had to master all over again. Asking for help wasn’t something he did easily, but he wouldn’t let his pride endanger a teammate. “Ashland, any chance you have experience tying off arteries?” He knew the answer before the question had left his mouth.

  “A button pops off my shirt, I donate it to charity.”

  “Then get your ass up front and help Stone search for the tango camp.” Iggy snarled at him. Stone could now take his turn babysitting him. “Find a camera. I want pictures.”

  “One of the guards was taking pictures on the flight over here,” Ashland said as he ruffled through a bag stowed in an overhead bin. “Here.”

  “Great. We’ll need all the shots you can get. Hurry it up,” Iggy said in a normal voice, as he checked on his sidearm. He then turned toward the flight deck and shouted. “Stone, how are you at suturing? I can do it left-handed if I have to, but I’d rather not.”

  “Can you fly?” Hunter said.

  “You don’t want that,” Iggy said. “Can’t you put it on autopilot?”

  “You don’t get it,” Hunter said. “I’m winging it here, trying to keep it between the ditches. This bird’s light years beyond anything I’ve ever flown before. I haven’t even figured out how to turn the autopilot on.”

  “Have a seat.” Hunter glared at Ashland as he walked onto the flight deck. The first officer’s body was pale, but it hadn’t abandoned its post. “Think you better pile him in the back. Take the captain, too, while you’re at it.”

  Hunter scanned the ground below while Ashland dragged the bodies away. He wanted to work him over, but knew he had to concentrate on keeping them in the air. Ashland returned with a blanket that he spread out over the bloody seat before he sat down on it.