“A what?”
“What a pretty coaster you have!” He couldn’t believe he hadn’t come up with something better than that.
“Yes. Yes! I always bring a coaster with me so I don’t damage furniture with my drinks.”
The guard turned it over and cocked his head. “Drinks?”
Marie flashed him her most charming, flirtatious smile. “No, silly. A coaster!” She daintily plucked the diskette from his hand and laid it on the table beside her. Then she took the guard’s drink and set it on top of it.
“There. You see? Isn’t that better?”
“It is worth nothing.” With that, he hurried off to the next passenger.
Marie quickly wiped it off and returned it to her purse.
Rob drew closer, keeping an eye on the guards. “How is it?”
“A coaster? Couldn’t you come up with anything better than that? I felt like an idiot!”
Rob smiled mischievously, mocking her performance, “You see? Isn’t that better?” He laughed as she scowled at him, trying her best not to smile, but she never could resist his charm. Huffily, she grabbed the children and joined the others.
A short time later, four large guards walked in and demanded that the captain accompany them. Well, Rob thought, it’s finally begun. Now maybe we’ll get some answers. They seemed to walk forever -- perhaps to the other side of the compound? -- to a small room with only a chair and a single light hanging from the ceiling.
“Sit here.”
“I’m fine right here.”
The guard caught him in the stomach with the butt of his rifle, sending him to the floor. An officer walked into the room from behind and stood over him. His uniform was different from the other military men he had seen so far. The guard pulled Rob to his feet and forcefully set him into the chair, cuffing his hands behind him.
“What do you want?” A fist caught him on his left cheek, sending him and his chair to the floor. He almost blacked out but managed to stay conscious.
The officer towered over him. His English was almost perfect. “I ask the questions here, understood?”
Rob nodded as the guards returned him to an upright position. He was beginning to put the pieces together. This officer was not like the others. The enormous chip on his shoulder. The different uniform. The perfect English he spoke. The short wiry frame. It was all adding up: this man wasn’t Iraqi! He must be somehow rejected in his own country and is now making everyone he meets pay for his misfortune.
The officer postured haughtily before him. He couldn’t have weighed much over a hundred twenty pounds, yet he carried himself as if he weighed two hundred.
Great, Rob thought. He’s some kind of sadistic sociopath.
“I want to know about the intelligence mission you were on. What countries are involved? Who do you report to?”
“We are a civilian fli...” Another blow, to his left cheek this time, sent him over the other direction. This time he did lose consciousness and awoke to find himself still lying on the floor.
Wasit Prison Facility
Wasit Territory, East Central Iraq
Prisoner Barracks
Logan sat down by Marie. “Don’t worry. We don’t know what they’re up to here, but if they were going to kill us, they would not furnish us with quarters, a bathroom, and pillows and blankets for the night. I think they’re planning to hold us here for a while, perhaps for some sort of ransom.”
“Why did they take Rob?”
“They want some answers, and Rob is the pilot. At least, that’s what they think. They’ll probably start by being very tough and accusing him of espionage. My guess is that they know we were hijacked, and they just want to get the details.”
“Will they let us go when Rob explains to them what happened?”
“Don’t count on it. Tensions are very high between the West and Iraq politically. Our hijacking took place at probably the worst possible time. Most people are not aware that it is very possible another war could break out at any moment.”
“If that happens, what will it mean for us?”
“Well... it won’t be good, of course. It’s hard to say, but I wouldn’t count on being released any time soon. Rob will be okay. They will probably beat him but only to hurt him. Their blows will be measured. They will attempt to find a weakness of his and exploit it. If beatings don’t work, they will try something else. It is absolutely imperative that, when they bring him back, you do not display marital affection, or the next thing they will use is you and your children against him.”
Marie stared at him, horrified. “What should I do?”
“They will be bringing him back soon. They have no intention of holding him this initial time for very long. Take the children to a corner and do not allow them to see your husband when they bring him back. We will care for him for you. Don’t worry. He is not alone, and neither are you.”
He stood up, smiling an indulgent smile at her before he turned to focus his attention on his next task. Grant was working on his laptop computer when he sat down next to him. “Nice-looking computer,” he said, examining it closely.
“Thanks,” Grant replied curtly.
“Four eighty-six or Pentium?”
“Pentium one twenty.”
“Wow! Lots of horsepower there. What do you use it for? Word processing?”
Grant stopped working. “Well, yes. But I have diagnostic tools on here, too.”
“Diagnostics! What are you? A hacker?”
Grant closed the laptop. “No, electrical engineer. My partner, Jason Katz, and I have a communications company. We design communications components.”
“Radio or TV?”
“Not that kind of communication. Network communications.”
“I see. Could you work with TV if you had to?”
“Oh, I suppose. There’s not that much difference in signal. Why? You got somethin’ in mind?”
“Oh, no.” Logan shook his head. “You see those cameras the film crew uses?”
“Yeah.”
“Could you work on them? I mean, could you, if necessary, hook something up to them? Fix them? Do work on them, like hooking something up to them?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. It depends on what it is and what equipment I had to work with. What d’ya have in mind?”
“Nothing! Nothing at all.” Logan smiled and rose to leave. He had all the pieces. Now if he could just get Rob to put it all together.
Wasit Prison Facility
Wasit Territory, East Central Iraq
Interrogation Room
As Rob regained consciousness, the guards again set his chair upright. He winced and tried to protect his tender ribs. His face was barely recognizable. He wiped the hot sticky blood from his nose and mouth.
His captor sauntered toward him. “Before this is over, I will have all the answers that I require, do you understand?”
Rob looked up into the cold, hard face. No matter what he said, he was going to be beaten anyway. The questions he was asked were designed to produce a beating. If he were a spy or a civilian pilot, he would not be able to give any information, but the officer did get what he wanted from this initial meeting: he set the rules! Rob put his head down again. “Yes, I understand.”
Wasit Prison Facility
Wasit Territory, East Central Iraq
Prisoner Barracks
Logan stared out the window. As best he could tell, they were about fifty miles southeast of Baghdad. Israeli Intelligence knew about this installation. It was originally built and manned by the French Foreign Legion and later turned into a prison because of its remote location. Until now, no one in the Israeli intelligence community knew that this installation had been reactivated.
He watched the sky with all the jet fighters and bombers coming and going overhead from the direction of the airbases around Baghdad. He needed to remember every detail he’d seen since his arrival. One never knew just what small detail might become of utmost importance.
>
Nancy, however, was only concerned with the passengers. She felt responsible for whatever would happened to them and wished she could do more. She stood by the doors and paced nervously. She kept looking over at Marie, thinking she should have demanded to go as well. Nancy made her way over to Marie and sat down. “I want you to know that I think you are an incredibly strong woman. You’ve done what most women would not: you gave up your husband for us. I don’t know if I could have done that.”
Marie’s eyes teared but she held herself together.
“I would love to give you a hug, but I don’t want them to start putting two and two together. I promise you this: I will do all that I can to help him as if I were you. Is that okay with you?”
Before Marie could answer, the doors opened, and Rob’s unconscious body was shoved into the room. Nancy caught Marie’s eyes, pleading silently for her to go and help him.
Grant and Katz helped him over to one of the center pillars. “Can we get these handcuffs off?” But the guards walked out and closed the door.
Rob actually looked worse then he felt. He scooted sideways until he made sure that Marie was out of the line of sight with the closed circuit camera, then winked. He knew that the officer he had just met would be watching him very closely. All the passengers had gathered around as if expecting him to tell them how it went, but, given his present condition, they were not quite sure they wanted to know.
He tried to make light of the situation. “I had a real good talk with their authorities. You’ll be happy to know that they agreed to all of our demands.”
Laughter broke out as the tension level dropped significantly.
Suddenly, his face was covered with bright camera lights. Rogers and Douglas started barraging him with questions about what had happened to him. He just shook his head and closed his eyes.
Wasit Prison Facility
Wasit Territory, East Central Iraq
Prison Commander’s Office
“Turn it off!” Colonel Esfandiari was disgusted with what he’d seen on the TV monitor in his office. “Turn it off now! I’ve seen all I need to see.” He spoke more to himself than to anyone else in the room. He turned and looked out the window.
Esfandiari was born in Egypt but educated in the West -- the United States, in fact. He had the opportunity to train with the American military through an officer exchange program that the U.S. offered to many of its allies. It was there that he developed a deep resentment for what he called “American arrogance.” His nationality gave him minority status among even the minorities, and, as such, he believed, was never given due respect for his military knowledge. Then, when he finally returned to Egypt, he was eventually expelled from the Egyptian army because of his strong ties to and sympathy for PLO terrorists.
It didn’t bother him much, though, since he quickly found a new home in the Iraqi army, an organization that was more geared to his politics. To him, his life was nothing more than a struggle through one barrier after another, and over the course of many years, he had become a man filled with great hate and rage.
I will kill that American pilot eventually, and then the other passengers, he told himself, but not until I get my satisfaction.
A tactician by nature, everything he did was carefully considered and planned. Every alternative was thoroughly explored and contingencies carefully mapped out. He was always thoroughly focused, causing him to have little patience or respect for the inadequate Iraqi military around him. He sat staring out the window with his elbows on the arm rests and his thumbs under his chin, slowly tapping his two index fingers together as he planned his next step.
USS Brittany Shore
Persian Gulf
From the bridge of the frigate USS Brittany Shore, Captain Neil Rainey listened to the General Quarters siren sound. His was the lead ship of a task force made up of surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missile frigates as well as supply and troop transports. But in order to get into the Persian Gulf, they would have to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, bordered on one side by Iran and the other by the United Arab Emirates.
In the middle of this strait were three small islands, seized by Iran, that had seen a significant military buildup in the past couple of years. Iran, though not friendly with Iraq, had claimed the Persian Gulf as a military free zone. That is, to everyone, of course, but itself. When the latest hostilities began between the U.S. and Iraq, Iran announced that it would not allow military ships to pass into the straits and immediately began to increase its already significant military force on the islands.
Rainey knew they had American-made Hawk surface-to-air missiles, Chinese Seer II surface-to-surface, about a dozen fast missile boats, and over eight thousand troops. The fast missile boats and the Seer II missiles concerned him the most. The boats had such a low profile and were so quick that they could be within seven miles before radar detected them. And the Seer II was a state-of-the-art medium-range sea-skimming missile containing a warhead capable of blasting a hole into even the most heavily armored vessels.
The Brittany Shore had at its disposal a broad list of weapons that, if used correctly, could defeat the Iranian weapons. She had a multi-purpose helicopter that could transport troops, search for submarines, or, in combat situations, be outfitted with air-to-surface or air-to-air missiles as required. There was a Phalanx, a twenty millimeter Vulcan cannon, located amid ship -- considered a last ditch defense against incoming missiles -- and a multi-purpose automatic one hundred twenty millimeter cannon at the front of the ship. Rainey was depending on the Sea Sparrow surface-to-air missiles. The compact missiles had shown superb performances against both enemy missiles and aircraft during simulated drills.
Rainey had taken command of his vessel eighteen months before. He had been commanding her since her shakedown cruise and had come to love her as if she were his wife. He had never been in actual combat before, but he did believe in himself and in his men. The men of the Brittany Shore had come to respect their young captain. He was always fair and honest and seemed to know each of his one hundred thirty crew members individually.
He gently stroked the console in front of him and remembered what his last captain told him several years ago when he served as first officer aboard a different ship: “Treat her right, son, and she’ll always bring you home.” From him, he learned that a captain earns respect from his crew by respecting them first.
It was time to let his crew know what was going on. He keyed his microphone. “As you all know, we are in a state of war. Within the next few minutes, we will be passing through a strait that Iran has illegally claimed as their territory. We are the lead ship heading into harm’s way. Behind us is a convoy of troops and supplies that must be delivered to Kuwait if our forces there are to continue to stand against the invading Iraqi army. Whatever gets past us gets through to the convoy. Remember men, it is not a question of whether we can pass through these straits up ahead, we must! Thousands of men are depending on us and on our success. It is absolutely imperative that we succeed, because... because no one else can. Trust me, your buddies, and this ship. Do your jobs, and do them just the way we drilled. If you do your best, as I know you will, that will be good enough. Finally, I want to thank every one of you for the pleasure of being your captain.”
Four miles ahead, hovering at five hundred feet, the Lance’s radar suddenly showed a small dot appearing and disappearing. The Lance was the Brittany Shore’s helicopter, the Navy derivative of the army Black Hawk and the latest multi-purpose helicopter in military production. The look-down radar was specially fitted to give it the ability to see sea skimming missiles and periscopes.
“The way the dot comes and goes... It’s gotta be a sea skimmer.”
The pilot contacted his home ship. “Brittany Shore, we are tracking a sea skimmer missile bearing zero-one-six at twelve miles from your position.”
“I’ve got some boats, now. It looks like six.”
The Lance carried two large long-range Harpoon
missiles. Its mission was to weave its way through the picket line of missile boats and Hawk missile batteries on the island and destroy the radar station that was tracking the fleet.
The Brittany Shore was not a primary target, but it had to be destroyed if the Iranian forces were to get to the fleet.
First Officer Dana Pitney was watching the radar on the ship. “Captain, we’re tracking a missile bearing zero-two-six at four miles. Lance has two more at six and ten miles.”
Rainey knew this meant that there were less than thirty seconds until impact with the first missile. “Launch a Sea Sparrow.”
The radar operator’s hands raced deftly over his console. “Oh, no! We just lost primary radar! I’ll have it reestablished in thirty seconds.”
Ron Schwartz - The Griffins Heart.txt Page 6