Countdown: The Liberators-ARC

by Tom Kratman

"No, ‘not a lot,'" she agreed. "Though I never imagined myself becoming a whore when I volunteered."

  "You're not a whore," the major said. "You're just a soldier who uses a different set of weapons. Hang on to that; because it's true."

  "Thank you, Major," she answered. She didn't sound convinced. "Questions?"

  "How do we get through the door to Yusuf's quarters if it's so stout? I mean, we have explosives but . . . "

  "There's a pad with a number control and a facial scan device." She smiled for the first time this night. "It knows me and I know the code."

  "Works. Let's go."

  People who had no business being there would have dashed across the open space between the wall and the ground floor door. People who belonged would have walked. Konstantin and his people walked. For added disguise, he pushed Lada's shoulder as she neared the door, causing her to stumble. It looked just as if she were going to be the main attraction at a gang bang somewhere inside.

  So well did her discipline hold that she didn't even whisper, "Asshole!"

  She thought it, though, even as she knew the major had done it only for effect.

  The door squeaked, causing all of them but Lada to wince. "Relax," she said. "When something becomes routine, and I assure you that squeaking doors around here are the essence of normal and routine, people simply don't hear them anymore."

  Konstantin knew that was true. Even so, he prodded everyone inside as quickly as possible without risking someone's tripping.

  "It stinks down here," Musin observed, wrinkling his Tatar nose. "Stinks" was something of an understatement. "Reeks" would have been an understatement.

  "What do you expect?" Lada answered. "Sixty-seven slaves, give or take, two toilets-Turkish type, and two showers that sometimes work and sometimes don't. And no laundry facilities except a utility sink. And the master wouldn't waste air conditioning on the slaves. His favorite camel? Sure. The slaves? Never. Of course it stinks."

  "And you've put up with this for . . .?"

  "About four months," she answered.

  Musin nodded and said, respectfully, "Honey, you do serve the motherland."

  Lada smiled for the second time that night.

  The woman walked on bare feet. The footgear for the men were boots, but soft ones more akin to very high topped sneakers. They made hardly a sound in the long corridor. Neither did they hear anything coming from the rooms, barring only some snoring.

  Konstantin shot a questioning look at Lada.

  "It's late," she replied, bitterly adding, "They're probably all done with their little boy bunging and little girl raping. Now hurry."

  The stench of the slaves' quarters ended as soon as they'd shut the door behind them. Konstantin formed them in a Y, with Musin and Kravchenko up front, himself behind them, and Lada behind himself.

  "You are the only way of getting into Yusuf's quarters quietly," he explained. "That won't matter if we run into somebody on the way, in a place we're not supposed to be, since massive shooting with unsuppressed firearms and quiet are pretty much mutually exclusive. But you may also be the only way of getting into the bastard's quarters at all, if the door is as stout as you've described."

  "Fine," she agreed. "Two full flights up then. Pay no attention to the last flight; it only goes to the roof."

  "Are there guards on the roof?" the major asked.

  Lada chewed her lower lip for a moment, then answered, hesitatingly, "Routinely? I don't know. I've never been permitted up there. Helicopters sometimes land up there. I've seen guards go up there then."

  The woman went first through the door that led from the staircase to the third floor. She walked down the corridor, with considerably more confidence than she, in fact, felt. Indeed, her heart was thumping against her chest enough for her to worry that the guards she knew she would meet when she entered the branch corridor would hear it or, at least, sense it.

  For a second, she had to stop and force herself to calm. Konstantin's team, following close, barely stopped in time to prevent ramming her from behind.

  A few deep breaths, a little act of will, and she nodded to herself, ready to proceed. A few feet ahead of the men, she turned the corner and uttered greetings to the guard, "Rashid, Abdul Rahman, sabah inuur." Then she stood in front of a small numeric pad and began to enter a code.

  "The master sent for me," she told them, by way of explanation.

  Konstantin heard the greetings to two men. Fine, he thought. Just right. He tapped Musin for attention, temporarily stuck his false beard back into place, then signaled for the Tatar to go first. In unconscious imitation of the girl, Musin forced himself to utter calm, then proceeded to walk down the corridor as if something on the very far end was his business, and nothing too close to where it branched off. His submachine gun was held with easy, practiced grace in both hands. True, if the inner guard looked they might well see that it was an unusual model. And the suppressor would surely seem strange, if they noticed the gun at all.

  "As-salama alaykum." Tim said, waving casually with one hand as he crossed the open area. The other hand remained curled around the pistol grip. The guards waved back, giving in return, "Wa alaykum essalamu."

  So the trick is don't give them a lot of time to think about it. As soon as he reached the far edge of the branch corridor, and thus could be reasonably sure Krav and the major were waiting to pounce, Tim spun counterclockwise, firing instantly at the guard farthest to the left as he faced the door. Simultaneously, or near enough as made no difference, Kravchenko presented and fired at the guard to the right of the door as he faced.

  Lada never heard a shot, so she never flinched from the keypad. While the bodies flopped to the floor, she hit "enter" and then stepped in front of a facial scanner.

  "NVGs, on," Major Konstantin ordered.

  At that moment, they heard a volley of fire coming from the yard, in the direction in which they'd left Galkin and Litvinov on guard. There came, too, the sound of a large and heavy door bolt being automatically thrown open.

  "Ignore it," the major ordered. "Through the door. NOW!"

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  PANDEMONIUM, n. Literally, the Place of

  All the Demons. Most of them have escaped into

  politics and finance, and the place is now used as a

  lecture hall by the Audible Reformer. When disturbed

  by his voice the ancient echoes clamor appropriate

  responses most gratifying to his pride of distinction.

  -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

  D-Day, MV Merciful

  Unlike Stauer, whose most useful post was on the ship, Sergeant Major Joshua didn't really have a most useful post. Stauer didn't need him for what he was doing. The operations staff was perfectly competent for their jobs and would resent his butting in. Intel? Shit, all I know about intel is what I get asked to find out and how to read a summary. And log? Forget log; Gordon's people have that well in hand.

  He'd stood at a distance, ready to pounce if necessary, for the boat load outward. He'd stood at a much farther distance for the flight deck operations, since I haven't clue one about that. He'd wandered the troop billets, mostly out of force of habit, to see if anyone was fucking off.

  He'd completely skipped the mess since, other than Sergeant Island and a couple of Chinese women, the cooks were all off humping mortars with the grunts.

  Admin? Hmmm . . . if we decide to issue our own Combat Infantry Badges, note to self: CIBs for the cooks with the mortars and all the jarheads. But that's for later.

  Ultimately, the sergeant major had ended up down by sick bay. Fortuitously, he'd ended up there just before the order came down: "Incoming wounded."

  He really hadn't a clue about the language that sounded vaguely Spanish, or the several slaps he heard after passing through the evac station.

  "You stupid cunt, Tatiana," Elena said, delivering a series of slaps. "Not only is that the sergeant major, the next thing to God, but he's old enough
to be your grandfather."

  "If my grandfather had been half that much of a man," Tatiana answered, ducking the slaps as best she could, "I'd have fucked him, too."

  "Bah!" Elena exclaimed in disgust. "You are a hopeless, useless, silly little tramp. You should have been left behind . . . "

  "Incoming wounded," came over the loudspeakers, interrupting the senior Romanian girl's tirade. "Three stretcher cases inbound on a CH-801. Two minutes out."

  "I'll beat you later, bitch," Elena said. "For now, get on a corner of a stretcher."

  ***

  Sergeant Major Joshua was impressed. Whatever indiscipline had been behind the slapping and shouting he'd heard, it seemed to have disappeared as soon as the call came. He followed three amazingly young female stretcher teams out the hatch and onto the flight deck in time to see a light airplane touch down about midway from bow to superstructure. Under positive control from one of the flight deck crew, wearing a yellow jersey, the plane stopped. More yellow jerseyed men came out of the woodwork and turned it around by main strength. From somewhere a crewman in purple ran out a fuel line and began pumping fuel in.

  All in all, considering it's nighttime, I'm kinda impressed, the sergeant major thought. Not that I'd ever let that on to a bunch of squids.

  The Romanian girls and their gurneys, wheeled stretchers, in other words, lined up neatly beside and behind the plane, one after the other. One of them, Joshua didn't know her name, seemed to be in charge and, so far as he or anyone could tell, really was in charge.

  The first man out was the one who'd come in sitting beside the pilot. He stepped off, took two steps, and promptly collapsed to the deck. One of the girls bent to the collapsed man. It was really too dark to make out her face. Which is a pity, the sergeant major thought, as anytime somebody five-two and female tries to do a fireman's carry on someone six foot and male, she ought be commended for at least trying. He went over to help, but did no more than required to get the man across the little female's shoulders. Be a shame to take the glory away from her, Joshua thought.

  They also had trouble with two of the wounded, the two who'd had to sit up in the plane for lack of space. The other, the one lying down on the back ramp, took eight of them get onto the stretcher, which they'd collapsed, and still eight to lift the collapsed stretcher straight up. These were all big men and the girls were . . .

  Well, they're little girls, Joshua thought. Even so, they mostly make up in gentleness what they lack in physical strength. And their teamwork and coordination are good. Might be a wash. At least on the flat deck of a ship.

  The last of the seated men was the hardest. He screamed when they tried to pull him out. At that, the sergeant major went over to help. He was tall enough to get his hands under the wounded trooper's armpits, and strong enough to simply lift. The man still screamed, but this time the screaming was worthwhile.

  One of the Romanian girls smiled something at him that Joshua hadn't seen in a very long time. He felt like the smile knocked twenty years of his age. Twenty? Hah! Forty!"

  Then the girls were racing off, getting their charges to OR as quickly as anybody could expect. After a brief glance at the twitching posterior of the girl who'd smiled at him, the sergeant major looked up at the windows fronting the bridge. He could see Stauer's outline there and was pretty sure Stauer was watching him. Joshua pointed at himself, then at the plane. The figure in the window nodded. The sergeant major then jumped into the plane and began strapping himself in. In seconds, the CH-801 was roaring down the strip, heading out to pick up another load of the lamed and maimed.

  D-Day, Bandar Qassim, Ophir

  Gutaale, still on the roof of his main residence, stood alone, still staring at the flames to the east. The scope, the scale, and the sheer ferocity of the attack had him about convinced that he had not only come under the baleful gaze of the United States, but that, for some inexplicable reason, they'd decided the gloves were off.

  Would they do this simply over the kidnapping of someone not even of their nation from their territory? That's hard to believe. But who else could do this kind of damage? My new air force; destroyed. My new armored force, bought so dearly from the Yemeni, Yusuf? Off of the air and probably destroyed. My palace by Nugaal; raided and burned, so the rumors say, and everyone in it killed. My personal guard ravaged just west of here.

  No word from my parents in Rako and no way to get word to them or from them. My brother under siege in Bandar Cisman and, while him I can communicate with, his message is one of despair.

  It's such an overreaction to a mere kidnapping that I just can't believe the Americans are behind it. But who else could be? Certainly no one here is capable of such monstrous mayhem.

  One of the underlings of before came in bearing a radio transceiver.

  "Chief," he said, "there are some problems at sea."

  D-Day, MV Merciful

  The two Hips carrying Terry Welch's much expanded party staggered in under an awful load. They touched down, and heavily, on the PSP flight deck. One landed about fifty meters shy of the bow and the other a similar distance from the superstructure. Cruz and the other pilot didn't even try to line them up with the ship before touching down. Rather, they waiting only until they were centered, albeit crosswise, and then set them down as quickly as practical, causing the things to bounce on their landing gear even more than usual. The blades nearly touched the deck, so heavy was the landing.

  The wide-eyed, standing, swaying, utterly terrified cargo didn't try to move inside the bouncing behemoths until they were ordered out. As they left, via the side troop doors, one of Terry's people was there to physically push their heads down out of the way of the rotors. Others were standing by to lead the lines toward the superstructure and then down into the mess deck, where they could be sorted before being billeted. Feeding would probably have to wait, though at least some water could be issued.

  Welch had been first off. He walked to a point between the choppers and watched the people unload, then follow their guides sternward. One tall woman from one of the groups burst free of the line and ran to stand before him. It was Ayanna, the ex-slave.

  "My . . . English," she began, "not . . . good. I try . . . tell. For freedom . . . anything."

  Then she threw herself into a highly embarrassed Terry's arms, and kissed him on the cheek, just in case he didn't understand.

  And I will not take advantage of that, he told himself, as she swayed away to rejoin the line. He sighed, Although she's awfully pretty and I wouldn't mind a date . . . or something like that. Haven't had so much chance to date . . . for quite a while now, come to think of it.

  Welch forced the image of the girl-all three images, including the imaginary one, the one by firelight . . . without clothing-out of his mind and watched out for the accountant. As soon as he saw Mr. Dayid emerge from the Hip he walked briskly over and said, "Sir, you have a date with our lawyer."

  Little by little, as portions of the force began filtering back to the ship or, at least, reporting that the hard parts were done, the almost unbearable stress and anxiety Stauer had been under began to lift. For this, he thanked both God and good subordinates. The news about Buckwheat Fulton was hard to take, but, Mourn later.

  Still no word from Phillie, but the last word from Reilly was that she was doing fine and, "You know, boss, you oughta think about marrying that girl."

  Which is pretty much a done deal. Note to self: One of these days, think about what changed you, or her, or the both of you, to finally make getting married seem like a good idea.

  See Bridges about a prenuptual agreement? Nah. That's bullshit. If you're not sure about the person you're marrying, you shouldn't get married.

  And I've come to be pretty sure about my Miss Potter.

  Happily whistling the riff from "Lawyers, Guns, and Money," Bridges was already waiting by a two-station battery of computers, in a semi-lighted container on the deck just forward of the mess deck. He smiled and rubbed his hands together a
s soon as Terry brought Mr. Dayid in. Lox was there, as well, in case it proved necessary to bypass some IT security system or other.

  "Sir," Bridges said, "it's a pleasure to meet you. Now, assuming Terry has explained . . . "

  "One percent of everything I recover to me and mine, the rest to you," Dayid said. "I am amenable."

  "I see that he has explained," Bridges said, smiling. "Very good. Now if you will have a seat and direct me to our first target . . . "

  "We should do this by size and liquidity and work our way down," Dayid said. "If you agree, the largest single liquid account is with Hottinger's, in Nassau." As Bridges began to pull up the already bookmarked website for the bank, Dayid added, "The account number is ABZ305697. The password is 30127. And since you have another computer, I can begin working on other assets of the less liquid sort . . . "

  Dayid stopped for a moment, then said, "I feel bad, you know, screwing my chief like this and leaving him vulnerable to the ravages of Khalid who is, I assure you, no saint either."

  Bridges shrugged. "Don't worry about that overmuch. Khalid stiffed us in minor ways on the contract. He thinks he owns some assets that he is going to discover he doesn't."

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  Kill one; terrify a thousand.

  -Sun Tzu, "The Art of War"

  D-Day, Yemen

  As the heaviest, Kravchenko tossed himself shoulder-first against the door, then fell to the floor, weapon aimed out, as the twin leaves burst open. Konstantin and Musin followed the slammed-open door, weapons to shoulders. Inside they found a large room, lavishly rugged and cushioned, with walls gilded in geometric shapes. Fully half a dozen doors opened onto the room, though all of them were closed. Whatever the layout of the place, it must have been well insulated as the sound of firing from outside almost completely disappeared once they were past the door.