by Daniel Kalla
“Noah...” Savard said, her voice rising in alarm.
“I know. I know,” he said. “We just need a couple of blood samples.”
The walls creaked.
“We don’t have time!” Gwen snapped. “The roof is going to collapse!”
“Go, Gwen!” Haldane waved at the door. “I’ll just be another moment.”
Gwen shook her head. “Not without you. Come on!” She grabbed for his arm and started to yank him away from the cage.
Haldane wriggled free, just as another pile of dust fell from the ceiling.
Paddy’s voice yelled from outside. “Gwen, Noah, get the hell out of there!”
Haldane turned and ran to the bullet-riddled cages.
“Now, Noah!” Gwen screamed and waved her arms wildly at him.
“I’m coming,” Haldane yelled. “Go.”
She dashed for the doorway, but Haldane didn’t follow. Instead, he fumbled with the door of one of the cages. But it was locked. With his elbow, he smashed a larger hole through the Plexiglas window.
“Come on, Noah!” Gwen yelled from where she stood at the doorway.
Hands trembling, he pulled away the rest of the plastic. He plunged both hands inside and grabbed hold of the dead monkey. He pulled it out and tucked it under his arm. “Go, go! I’m right behind,” he shouted at Gwen.
Gwen sprinted through both doors into the main lab. Haldane ran ten paces behind. Large chunks of plaster fell from the ceiling in the main lab area. The whole building creaked and moaned.
Halfway across the floor Haldane caught up with Savard. She no longer ran, but hobbled on her bad ankle. Haldane slowed to take hold of her arm. “I’m fine! Go ahead and lead the way out!” she shouted at him and wriggled free of his grip.
Haldane jogged beside her.
“Go!” she screamed. “Lead the way for me!”
He ran through the doors and out of the lab. Sprinting down the final ten yards of hallway, he felt the ground rocking and heard a rumbling sound. He lunged out of the open door, landing on top of the dead monkey and rolling over several times, catching his leg painfully on a sharp chunk of wood.
Just as he was pushing himself to stand, he heard and felt a thunderous crash and bits of rock and cement pelted his back. He climbed up to his knees. He looked from side to side, searching frantically, but there as no sign of Gwen.
And the building he had just emerged from was gone.
CHAPTER 36
HARGEYSA, SOMALIA
Gwen couldn’t see anything but smoke, dust, and white light. She didn’t think she was dead, but she had no idea where she was or what had happened. She remembered seeing Noah dive out the door. Then, just as her own foot reached the doorway, she heard a deafening boom and everything went black.
She felt a weight pressing into her chest, which made breathing next to impossible. She tried to call out, but she choked on the plaster dust in her mouth. The collapse had knocked her mask off, but she still wore her helmet Her left arm was pinned under the same weight that ran across her chest, but her right arm and her legs were free. With her loose hand, she reached up and grabbed hold of the sharp metallic edge of the object crushing her. It felt like a piece of sheet metal. She tried to pull it off her with one hand but couldn’t budge it. Patting along the top, she felt the chunks of plaster and wood that pinned the metal down on top of her.
She flailed her legs, attempting to rock herself free of the grip. No use. She noticed with growing panic that even shallow breaths were becoming impossible. She panted through an open mouth, but it didn’t lessen her air hunger. Scared and frustrated, she spat out the contents of her mouth and called out hoarsely, but her lungs were too empty to produce much more than a whisper.
Just as she reached up to grab frantically for the metal edge again, something seized her gloved hand. It took her a moment to realize it was another hand.
“Gwen!” Noah yelled and she squeezed his hand. “Help me! Over here! She’s alive!” he yelled out. He released her hand, which caused her a shudder of fear. She wondered if she would suffocate before they could clear the debris trapping her.
Gwen stopped moving in an attempt to conserve her oxygen. She continued to pant without relief. Just as she began to feel drowsy, but still awake enough to know what a bad sign the drowsiness was, she heard a loud scratching noise. Then she felt the object move.
“It’s okay, Gwen. We’ve got you.” Noah reassured with a yell. “Hang on. A few seconds, tops.”
Suddenly the object lifted off her chest. The moment she was freed she took a long desperate gasp followed by several more, before she spat the dirt from her mouth. The glare from a searchlight blinded her. She instinctively brought her left hand up to shield her eyes without even realizing that she could move it again.
Another weight pressed into her chest, but then she realized it was Noah. He wrapped his arm around her, hugging her and lifting her at the same time. “Gwen!”
“It’s okay, Noah,” she reassured, and then sputtered a cough. “I’m all right, I think.”
He held her in his arms, carrying her away from the pile of rubble that had imprisoned her. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” She wiped the sand and dirt away from her mouth. “You can put me down now, Noah.”
He bent forward and gently placed her feet on the ground. Then he pulled off his own mask, revealing bloodshot eyes and a relieved smile. “I thought you were gone,” he said with a shake of his head.
She held on to his shoulder as she tested her legs, not entirely trusting them. She was relieved to find that they supported her. She felt the pain of widespread cuts and scrapes along with a residual aching in her chest, especially with deeper breaths, but she was happy to realize that the worst pain came from the throb in her bum ankle. She laughed out of relief.
Noah joined in the laughter. He leaned forward, threw his arms around her, and gave her another hug. “I really thought you were gone,” he said.
“Ouch,” she said in response to the squeeze.
He broke off the embrace. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t—”
She smiled at him and then reached up and touched his cheek. “I think I’m just bruised.” She looked back at the pile of debris under which she had been pinned. She realized she must have been trapped under the tin roof’s overhang that used to sit above the entrance, which meant technically she had made it out of the building before it collapsed but was caught by a piece of the falling roof. She turned to Noah. “A millisecond earlier...”
“And there would have been a job opening for a qualified Bug Czar,” Haldane said.
She laughed again, still giddy with relief.
Another soldier joined the group around her. Paddy reached out and rested a hand on Gwen’s shoulder. “Gwen, you okay?”
She nodded.
“Sure?”
“Just scrapes and bruises.”
Paddy looked from Gwen to Noah, “Where are your masks?” he demanded.
“Trust me, it’s okay now,” Haldane said.
“Trust you after that stunt?” Paddy thumbed at the building. “Just put it on, okay, Chicken?” he sighed. He pointed several feet away to where two soldiers were bagging the dead monkey in a yellow bag emblazoned with a bright red biohazard insignia. “I sure hope that monkey was worth risking both your lives for.”
Lying on a medic’s stretcher, Gwen spent the flight back to Yemen in somber silence like everyone else aboard. Once they touched down, Paddy insisted on pushing Gwen’s stretcher to the base’s hospital himself. She ended up requiring fourteen stitches, an aircast for her ankle, and multiple bandages. When two hours later the X-rays came back as negative, she borrowed a new set of fatigues and signed herself out against medical advice.
A soldier dropped Gwen off at the main hangar. She found Noah and Paddy in the same canteen where she had originally met Paddy. The two men sat at a table lost in their own thoughts with untouched coffees in front of them.
Paddy sum
moned a smile for her. “You look all right, all things considered.”
“All things considered, I feel amazingly all right,” she said. She sat down beside Haldane. “What’s the news?”
“Operation Antiseptic is over,” Paddy said sadly. “Their leader is dead along with at least a hundred other terrorists. No one escaped. Mission accomplished.”
“At what cost?” she asked.
“We lost one chopper. Five soldiers died storming the building. And...”
Gwen swallowed away the lump in her throat. “And inside?”
Paddy shrugged. His eyes dropped to the table. “Fifty-five American soldiers were inside that complex when it caved in.”
Gwen looked over to Haldane. Before she could ask whether any of the soldiers survived, he closed his eyes and shook his head.
Paddy nodded to her. “At least we robbed the rubble of one victim,” he said, but he choked on the words and his eyes brimmed over. He wiped away the tears with his sleeve.
Gwen reached over and touched his other hand gently. “Your unit?”
“Yeah.” He nodded, and then cleared his throat. “I knew every one of those Rangers in there. Great kids. Great Americans.” Tears running down his cheeks, he stared hard into her eyes. “I hope you’ll tell the President.”
She met his gaze. “I will, Paddy.”
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Gwen fell asleep the moment her C37A took off from the base, and she didn’t wake up until they reached Andrews Air Force Base. With the change in time zone, they landed in Washington at 9:50 A.M., ten minutes before they had technically left Yemen. As the plane came to a halt on the ground, she stretched in her seat, sending a cascade of pain through her that started in her scalp and didn’t stop until it reached her toes. She knew how lucky she was not to be coming home in a box or worse, like the fifty-five young men and women buried under the rubble, so she swallowed three of the painkillers the doctors had given her, brushed her hair, and gritted her teeth.
When she turned to Noah, he was wide-awake and watching her, but he looked exhausted. She wondered how much of the flight, if any, he had slept, but she didn’t ask. Instead, spontaneously, she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, nuzzling against him for a few seconds and enjoying the rough feel of his warm stubble against her lips.
“Oh.” He grinned and eyed her in bewilderment “What’s that for?”
“To thank you for saving my life in that rubble,” she said, and then blushed slightly.
“Thank me?” He looked away. “I almost got you killed back there with my stubbornness. You should kick me in the groin, not kiss me.”
She feigned a scowl. “Wait to see what happens when the pilot turns off the fasten seat-belt sign.” They both laughed.
Noah didn’t offer her his arm when she hobbled down the steps of the plane, but he walked slowly beside her as she limped into the terminal building. Gwen suspected he was prepared to catch her at a moment’s notice.
“You ought to go home and get some rest,” Haldane advised.
“You need rest more than I do,” she said, surprised at how defensive she sounded to herself. “I had a great sleep on the flight. I’m good.”
The limo waited for them out front of the terminal. Staring out the windows, neither Noah nor Gwen spoke a word during their ride into the city. The driver dropped them off at Gwen’s office in front of the Nebraska Avenue Center. The security officer at the front door greeted Gwen with a warm smile, and she felt embarrassed that his first name slipped her mind.
In a duffle coat and a fur hat, McLeod met them in the lobby. He threw his arms around both of them, wrapping them in a warm embrace. When he finally released them, he wagged a finger reproachfully. “Shite! Why is it that I can’t leave you two alone for five minutes without a building falling on you?”
“Guess we’re lost without you, Duncan,” Gwen said, genuinely pleased to see him. “Anyway, how did you know about that?”
McLeod pointed at Haldane and grunted. “Him!” He shook his head. “Called me from the airport. The man can’t keep a secret.” He winked playfully at Gwen. “You know he kisses and tells, too.”
Gwen reddened slightly and cursed herself for reacting like a schoolgirl. She turned away from the others and limped over to the elevator.
Another security guard escorted them from the elevator into the Department of Homeland Security. Despite being a Sunday morning, Gwen was pleased to see that the department was half full. She led Haldane and McLeod down a corridor, past several empty cubicles, and into her private office. Once seated around her desk, Gwen and Noah took turns updating McLeod on the raid in Somalia and the result. With his coat on and hat in his lap, McLeod’s face contorted in rapt attention as he sat and listened.
After they were finished, McLeod said, “Kabaal is dead. Good riddance to him. But what about this Sabri fellow?”
“Hopefully, he was inside the building when it collapsed,” Gwen said.
“Hopefully,” McLeod echoed distantly.
Haldane nodded. “They’re collecting DNA from the scene, but we may never know if be was there or not.”
McLeod lifted his hat and put it back on top of his tousled red hair. “Or we might know soon.”
“Meaning?” Gwen demanded.
“Well, I think it’s safe to assume that, technically, you haven’t met the terms of the ultimatum from the Brotherhood of One Mean Bugger—or whatever the hell they call themselves,” McLeod said. “And if this Sabri bastard is still alive...”
Gwen’s jet lag was catching up to her. “I haven’t heard of any new viral outbreaks, yet,” she snapped.
“Me neither,” McLeod agreed. He adjusted his hat. “But you Americans are so damn secretive, you’d probably keep denying it until you were the last two left standing on this frozen continent.”
Haldane showed a tired grin, while Gwen looked as if she fought off a grimace. “What is the situation with the rest of the world?” Haldane asked.
“Surprisingly, not bad when it comes to the Gansu Flu,” McLeod said. “It’s quelled in the Far East. Neither London nor Vancouver has reported a new case in three days. The scattered outbreaks in Europe are contained. Even in Illinois, the news is better. I think there were only a handful of new cases yesterday.”
Haldane leaned forward and rapped his knuckles on Gwen’s oak desk. “Maybe, we’re winning for a change,” he said.
McLeod held up two sets of crossed fingers. “Providing the U.S. Army didn’t drive past an ‘army of martyrs’ heading the other way, Haldane, you could be right.”
With the same lights-flashing police escort as on their last trip, a limo picked up Haldane and Savard and rushed them over to the White House.
Two somber Secret Service men ushered them through the West Wing down to the same Situation Room where they had sat less than thirty-six hours earlier, but a much smaller group attended now. Aside from General Fischer and Andrea Home, only the Secretaries of State, Defense, and Homeland Security plus the Directors of the CIA and FBI were present.
Ted Hart frowned at Gwen as she walked into the room. “Gwen, I hear you came very close to getting yourself killed over there. That is the last time—”
Gwen raised a hand to cut him off. She brought the other to her chest. “I swear, Ted, never again.”
Appearing less than satisfied, he shook his head angrily. He opened his mouth to say something, but closed it again when the President strode into the room.
Without acknowledging any of the others, he sat down at the head of the table. “Thank you for coming,” he said, staring ahead at the far wall. “Before we begin I would like to request a moment of silence to recognize those brave young Americans who gave their lives this morning to protect the safety of all our citizens.” He bowed his head and closed his eyes, but he didn’t speak another word. Gwen knew that the quietly religious man was deep in prayer.
After a full minute of silence, he said, “Okay, thank you. Dr. Home will l
ead the discussion from here...”
“Mr. President,” Gwen spoke up from halfway down the table and all heads turned to her.
“Yes, Dr. Savard?” he asked with a mildly perplexed expression.
“I promised one of their comrades that I would tell you that the U.S. Rangers who died in Somalia were great Americans. Each and every one of them.”
He stared at her for several moments before his face broke into a paternal smile. “And you have my promise that I will recognize them as such. Each and every one of them.”
“Thank you, Mr. President,” Andrea Home began. “Most of us watched in this very room the video feed from Operation Antiseptic. Drs. Haldane and Savard were even on-site,” she said, and Gwen thought she caught a fleeting disapproving glance from the NSA. “I’ve asked General Fischer just to give us a short debriefing on the operation.”
Fischer climbed to his feet “Don’t know if ‘short debriefing’ is in my vocabulary, but I’ll try,” he said with a pained smile. He went on to give a concise review of the logistics of the operation and how it played out up until the point of storming the building.
“Once we had secured the immediate perimeter of the building, we had no choice but to go in,” Fischer drawled. “Our boys and girls would have been sitting ducks waiting outside the building any longer, taking on fire. Besides, you—” he said with slight implication in his tone, but looking at no one in particular—“wanted visual confirmation of their nest and laboratory.” He hung his head low. “As you know, the building was booby-trapped with high-potency explosives. Our people didn’t stand a chance once inside.” He looked up, his eyes burning with wounded pride. “But the Seventy-fifth Rangers Airborne Regiment and the rest of our military achieved the objective over there. We got their leader, and not one terrorist escaped the operation.”
“Thank you, General.” Home said earnestly. She turned to Ted Hart. “Mr. Secretary, can you enlighten us as to the state of Homeland Security?”