“Pig farmer.”
Gilani cursed in Arabic as the sound of laughter erupted from behind him.
“His brains are scrambled. He doesn’t know what has happened to him!”
Mac didn’t recognize the second voice but assumed it was the owner of the pigs responsible for the smell that remained a noxious blanket over whatever God forsaken place he had managed to get himself dumped into. Gilani’s angry retort cut through the other man’s laughter.
“I don’t have time for jokes, Allid! Are your pigs ready?”
Allid Safarah was a forty-nine year old Lebanese immigrant who had come to the United States nearly ten years ago after learning his only uncle had left him a forty-acre pig farm some thirty miles north of Chicago. As a devout Muslim, Allid refused to eat pork, but he delighted in raising them, overseeing their breeding and butchering, though he had come to derive his greatest pleasure from their feeding. The pigs amazed Allid with their ability to devour almost anything left in their pen, especially if he starved them for a day or two. He had once watched them make an entire truck tire disappear.
It was five years earlier when, after having not fed them for three days, Allid watched as several of the strongest pigs suddenly turned on an older, arthritic sow who had been struggling to walk for months. Within the cacophony of shrieking hogs, Allid was mesmerized as he watched the other pigs tear into the sow, pushing her down into the mud and ripping her apart, their jaws covered in blood and muck as they happily gorged themselves on one of their own.
Soon Allid was throwing an assortment of other crippled animals into the pig pen and watching them be devoured as if the wretched creatures had never been there at all. The hogs’ appetite for flesh grew with every tasty morsel Allid brought to them.
He dreamed of feeding the animals a live human being, so much so it became an obsession. Allid found himself fantasizing to images of someone screaming as the pigs descended upon them, those cries soon turning to the wet smacking sounds of happy pigs enjoying another treat.
Fortune smiled upon him when a chance encounter at the largest Muslim mosque in Chicago brought Allid Safarah and Hamid Gilani together. Gilani had a very specific problem, one which Allid promised he could provide an equally specific solution to.
The CIA agent was near death when Allid dumped her body into the pen, but soon enough panicked realization of what was about to happen awakened her senses. She unleashed a wonderful chorus of terrified screams as the first few pigs tore into her and were then quickly joined by the rest of the drove.
It took no more than a half day for every bit of the CIA agent to disappear. Even her shoes and clothing were greedily devoured.
And now here is another American for my pigs! Allah continues to bless me!
“They were fed late yesterday, so may not be as hungry as they were the last time you were here, Hamid. You gave me no indication you would be arriving this morning so I’ve had no time to prepare them.”
Gilani was about to comment when his cell phone rang. He turned and walked several feet away from Allid to ensure the conversation could not be overheard.
“Hamid, where are you?”
Gilani glanced toward Allid and then turned away, keeping his voice to a whisper.
“At the farm, why?”
Ramtin was nearly shouting.
“Why? We have a situation here! The entire plan is at stake! Have you killed the suspected spy yet?”
“No, I just started to interrogate him.”
Gilani moved the phone away from his ear several inches as Ramtin unleashed a barrage of profanities.
“Kill him and be done with it! One of our Atlanta operatives has been detained by the authorities. I need you back here now!”
Gilani looked up to see Allid staring back at him as the pigs began to fight loudly among themselves.
“Ok, I will be there within the hour.”
Allid’s round fleshy face broke out into a wide, beaming smile. Gilani noted how the pig farmer had taken on an appearance very similar to that of the hogs he loved so much.
“They sense I have another meal for them! They grow restless.”
Gilani made his way back to Mac who had remained sitting in the mud, his back resting against the thick wire meshed fence that made up one of several pens the animals were rotated into throughout the large property. Mac’s pen was separated from one filled with a mass of pigs by a single wood and wire mesh gate.
“This gun of yours is military issue isn’t it?”
Mac knew the more he kept Gilani talking, the more time he would have to rebuild his own strength.
“Yeah, I was a SEAL.”
Gilani nodded in mock admiration.
“Ah, a tough guy, eh? Hmmm…you don’t look so tough. And what are you now, some kind of soldier for hire?”
Mac opened his eyes fully, ignoring how it worsened an already excruciating headache.
“Yeah, something like that.”
Gilani’s wide smile remained as he suddenly pressed Mac’s own weapon against his forehead while also holding Mac’s identification.
“It says here your name is Mackenzie Wallace. That isn’t your real name though, is it?”
Mac’s eyes closed and his chin dropped down against his chest, giving him the appearance of almost passing out again. He mumbled a reply.
“No.”
Gilani pressed the gun against Mac’s head with greater force.
“What’s your real name?”
Mac sat silent and unmoving. Galini took his left hand and slapped him across the face.
“Hey! I asked you your name!”
Mac’s eyes opened half way.
“Walker…Mac Walker.”
“Good, now we can talk honestly! So, Mac Walker, why were you on that rooftop last night?”
Mac cleared his throat and then tried to spit but succeeded in only producing a thick line of drool that hung off his lower lip.
“I was doing surveillance.”
Gilani leaned down more closely to Mac’s face and whispered his next question.
“Who were you watching? Be truthful and I promise you a quick and relatively painless death.”
Mac winced as another blinding shot of pain arced across his skull.
“Some guy named Armeen. I don’t know who he is. I was just hired by an overseas client to confirm he was in Chicago. That’s all I know. They gave me a photograph and I confirmed he was in the building. I called the client back and told him Armeen was in fact in Chicago. The job was done and then you got the drop on me and now I’m sitting here ass-deep in pig shit.”
Mac hid his own satisfaction as he saw doubt flash across Gilani’s eyes.
Go ahead, ask who hired me you terrorist prick.
“Who was the client, Mr. Walker? Who were you working for?”
Mac pushed his shoulders back against the pen’s mesh fence.
“I don’t know their name. They said they represented the Iranian government and were investigating a possible financial scandal. That’s all they told me. It was just a simple job – confirm the guy was in Chicago.”
Gilani appeared to be almost convinced Mac actually had nothing to do with trying to stop the next day’s planned terror cell attacks.
“Will you be contacting them again?”
Mac slowly moved his head with a weak nod, his voice sounding as if the formation of each word required absolute focus.
“Yeah, this afternoon I’m supposed to check in with them one last time.”
Gilani’s face was an increasingly confused map of uncertainty. He wanted to simply kill Mac and be done with it, but worried about possible repercussions if Mac’s Iranian information proved true. Ramtin feared few things in this world, but Gilani knew the billionaire to be increasingly wary of the Iranian government and its potential authority over a large portion of his company assets, assets essential to Gilani’s own goal of bringing never-ending and bloody jihad to the western world.
Gil
ani handed Mac’s SIG P226 to Allid.
“If he tries to get up, shoot him. I must return to Chicago but will be back this afternoon.”
Allid looked at Mac and then glanced over to the awaiting horde of increasingly agitated pigs in the pen adjacent to the one Mac sat in. The Lebanese pig farmer’s brow was furrowed as he shared his discontent over the idea of killing Mac outright.
“I want him alive when he’s fed to the pigs. It makes it more…interesting.”
Gilani didn’t bother to hide his disgust and contempt for the pig farmer.
“Fine, whatever, he is not to leave that pen though, understood? I may be returning with Mr. Armeen. This American may have information useful to him.”
Allid’s eyes grew wide.
“Ramtin Armeen is coming here, today?”
Gilani was already walking to his black Range Rover. He wanted very badly to be away from the stink of the pigs and the equally repulsive Allid.
“Perhaps, but regardless, the American is to remain in that pen until I contact you later, though if he attempts to escape, you are to kill him.”
Allid’s fleshy face looked down at Mac, his beady eyes shining with excitement over the prospect of another human feeding.
Mac Walker didn’t care about Allid’s plans for him. Every minute the former soldier remained alive was a minute stronger both his mind and body would become. Mac had fabricated his working for the Iranians of course. The ruse had succeeded in buying him needed time. It was a proverbial bullet in the dark which Mac was very happy to realize had most likely just saved him from an all too literal bullet to his own head.
What the smugly smiling pig farmer didn’t realize is that Mac had been steadily loosening the rope that bound his hands and using the mud that covered the ground beneath him to lubricate his wrists and further wet the rope, making it expand further. As Gilani’s vehicle disappeared on its journey back to Chicago, Mac Walker sat staring back at Allid with hands that were by then nearly free.
Adding to Allid’s unknown-to-him and increasingly precarious situation was the fact he was holding a weapon Mac Walker had personally customized for his own use. The SIG P226 came manufactured with already reasonable semi-automatic quick firing capabilities, but Mac had modified it to a fully automated weapon with a far lighter trigger-pull than its factory specs. That alteration required he also improve the sidearm’s safety features as well, an alteration Allid Safarah had no idea how to operate, thus rendering the gun in the Muslim pig farmer’s hands into little more than an intimidating looking paperweight.
“The last one of you I fed to my pigs screamed very loudly. You think you are tough, but you will scream too. Oh yes, you will scream and scream and scream. And the more you scream, the hungrier they become.”
The pounding inside Mac’s head was finally lessening. His body ached, his vision not yet fully recovered, but he was alive. Allid was fatally oblivious to how much danger a still living, breathing, Mac Walker posed to him.
He would know soon enough…
5.
Ray Tilley had seen his share of interrogation footage over the years, but this particular example left him increasingly unsettled given the multiple coordinated attacks he felt to be imminent. The suspected Atlanta terror cell operative remained far too calm, confident, and evasive throughout the three hour long process.
His name was Yusuf Erdogen, a twenty-five year old Turkish citizen staying in the United States on a student visa. Federal authorities videotaped Erdogen picking up four high powered assault rifles from a representative of a known illegal arms dealer based out of Miami. Yusuf was directly linked to three other Middle Eastern students attending the same college - three students who then disappeared after Erdogen was detained by the FBI.
The FBI operatives grilled Yusuf repeatedly on the location of the missing students but were given nothing by Erdogen to assist in their location, and to make matters worse, Yusuf was demanding he be released to the Turkish consulate in Atlanta, a demand that had Senator Jackson Elder, seated directly across from Tilley, red faced and cursing under his breath.
“The little son-of-a-bitch is demanding protection from the Turkish government! He named the consulate director, had the phone number for their Atlanta office…the kid knows exactly how to play our own system against us!”
Ray Tilley shared the senator’s concerns. Clearly this Yusuf Erdogen was far more than merely a student caught up in some conspiracy beyond his understanding. No, Erdogen was a willing participant in something that could prove as deadly and disruptive as the attacks of September 11th, 2001.
“What is Walker doing for us on this?”
Tilley shook his head.
“He’s doing his best, Senator.”
Senator Elder was not pleased by the response.
“His best? What the hell does that even mean? This thing is about to go off, Mr. Tilley. That boy in Atlanta is just a small part of what you and I both know is a much bigger operation.”
Tilley’s eyes returned to the screen showing the interrogation footage and then his office phone began ringing. The number indicated it was from his Atlanta contact.
This isn’t gonna be good.
Senator Elder sat silently as he watched and listened to Tilley’s brief phone conversation. By the time Tilley hung up, the senator already knew bad had gone to worse. Ray took a deep breath and then shared the new information.
“The FBI office in Atlanta just received a request from the Turkish consulate office there – from the consulate director himself.”
The senator’s mouth curled downward into a pronounced frown as he rolled his eyes.
“So what did they want? They expect us to give that kid over to them?”
Ray Tilley’s own disbelief came out in the form of a soft grunt.
“Pretty much, that’s exactly what they’re demanding. Apparently Yusuf Erdogen is a nephew by marriage to the Corum Province governor who in turn is friendly with the Turkish Prime Minister.”
The senator’s face quickly progressed to a deepening shade or enraged purple.
“I don’t give a shit if he’s the goddamn King of Siam! That kid right there on the screen is involved in a planned terrorist attack against this country! We need to hold his ass in a cell until he gives us the information we need to eliminate the impending threat!”
Tilley agreed, but also knew such a seemingly logical expectation was beyond his, or even the senator’s influence.
“I was told the FBI is handing the kid over to the Turkish consulate pending further investigation. Consulate officials are promising to cooperate fully with the investigation, though they did not agree to have Yusuf Erdogen remain in the United States during that time.”
Senator Elder covered his face with both his hands as his shoulders slumped. His voice betrayed the politician’s deepening fatigue and sense of betrayal.
“They’re doing it again, Mr. Tilley. Just like with the 9/11 attacks…all those students with links to the Saudi Royal Family were flown out of the United States. Any potential leads, information…gone. This is the same damn thing!”
Tilley knew the senator spoke the truth. Whether intentional or not, the American government was aiding potential terrorists in covering their own tracks, and by doing so, putting innocent lives at risk.
“We still have Mac Walker, Senator. We still have a chance to cut off the head of this snake before it bites.”
Ray Tilley withdrew his shadow cell and called Mac’s number. He felt his stomach progressively tighten with each successive ring that left that call unanswered.
C’mon Mac, pick up your damn phone…
Mac heard his shadow cell ringing inside the right side pocket of Allid Safarah’s jacket. The pig farmer withdrew the phone and glanced at it before looking up and smiling at his prisoner and then tossing the phone into the adjacent pen full of pigs. One of the larger sows grabbed it inside of her jaws and began crunching the device into oblivion.
“
See, they eat anything, and soon they will be doing the same to you!”
Mac’s face remained expressionless. He cared little about Allid’s childish attempts to mock him. Instead, Mac continued to carefully pull and twist against the rope that bound his wrists behind him. It had been nearly an hour since Gilani’s departure. Mac believed he had no more than another thirty minutes before Gilani and possibly others returned to the farm.
And when they do, I intend to be ready.
“You know America deserves what is coming, don’t you?”
Military Fiction: THE MAC WALKER COLLECTION: A special ops military fiction collection... Page 20