“I figured you’re worth it.”
I suggested they join me and Shotgun for an early dinner. Doc was up for it, but Trace declined.
“The team is eating together tonight. It’s a morale building thing. And we have an early curfew. We have to be up early in the A.M. for the opening ceremonies.”
“You’re going to bed early?” asked Shotgun, who’d ambled down from the stands where he’d been ogling the women and eating Fritos — not in that order. “You’re not gonna sleep, are you?”
“What I do in bed is no business of yours, Shotgun. But for the record, yes.”
“Beauty rest,” said Doc.
“I can understand that,” said Shotgun.
Trace reared back and decked him.
Some things a boy has to learn on his own.
* * *
The rest of my evening passed uneventfully. The ambassador invited me over to the residence for a nightcap. I actually began to like him by the end of the night; he was one of the rare diplomats I’ve met with an actual brain. Whether he was allowed to use it or not was a separate question entirely.
These hours were the storied interlude, the downtime in between action that never makes it into books, not even (and especially not) mine. The truth is, most of war is two percent of high octane terror separated into tiny slivers by ninety-eight percent sheer boredom. Even in your typical Specwar operation, there may be only a few hours of “fun” amid days and days of monotony.
You do start to look forward to the calm moments though. The trick is to not be seduced by them into thinking there’s no more fun and games left.
* * *
One thing happened that evening that actually didn’t mean all that much to me at the time. In fact, it was kind of background noise in the midst of everything else. It did turn out to be somewhat critical, but damned if I realized it then.
As we just heard, Shunt still had access to the Special Squadron files and records. I set him to trolling through the various intel reports to see what he could come up with. Among other loose ends I was interested in tying up was the question of whether there was a traitor in the Special Squadron ranks.
At this point, we couldn’t even be sure, one way or the other. It would have explained how People’s Islam had such an easy time getting their people out of detention at the barracks. On the other hand, the alternative explanations — having planted the information about their rivals, all they really had to do was watch the base — made sense as well.
The data showed a tight connection between India for Islam and a member of the Pakistani intelligence service;32 Shunt theorized that this was how India for Islam had gotten the information about the nukes. He kept pushing the string in that direction to try to find other connections and details, though by the time he reported in via an encrypted e-mail, he hadn’t put anything together.
“A little more background on the two tangos who you brought back to India,” he wrote. “One of them, Yusef, went to RPI in the States and got a degree in chemical engineering. Other guy — Arjun — also studied chemistry in Great Britain. Pretty brainy — good grades. Even had a job for a while.”
I dismissed the information as something we already knew, even though Shunt supplied slightly more details. Neither man had a criminal record, though the one who had gone to RPI had run into trouble on campus for posting nude pictures of some sorority girls on a fake Facebook page. Apparently one of the young women had spurned his advances, and he was trying to get back at her.
Shunt’s notes were included in a list of other general information and updates, and at the time, the only thing I wondered was why Yusef hadn’t just drowned his sorrows in a couple of kegs of beer like the rest of us.
* * *
Trace did go to bed — and yes, for the record, by herself. She slept well, and didn’t even need the alarm to get up at quarter to five.
That was because she was woken five minutes before that by two gorillas standing over her bed with AK47s.
( V )
Trace’s first thought was that this was another drill. It would have been just like me — and therefore, she reasoned, Special Squadron Zero — to pull a last-second move like this to keep the security people on their toes.
“Up! Up!” barked one of the men.
“Into the hall,” said the other.
They went out quickly, not even bothering to peek at her jammies.
(Oversize sweatshirt and flannel shorts. Sorry to disappoint.)
Trace shuffled out into the hallway, probably a little groggy-eyed. Most of the other athletes were already there, more annoyed than scared — they’d been through this just a few days before.
There were two tangos at the far end of the hall, to Trace’s left as she came out the door. Like the men who had come into her room, they were wearing scarves across their faces. Dressed in coveralls that looked as if they belonged to the local sanitation crew, each had an AK47 in his hands, with a double bandolier of bullets strapped across their chests. She glanced at them, and immediately realized this wasn’t a drill. They were moving more than the men the other days had, jerking their shoulders and heads — nervous twitching was her interpretation.
For most of us, that wouldn’t be much to go on, but Trace has always completely trusted her instincts. You can blame women’s intuition or her Native American genes, whatever.
At the other end of the hall, several terrorists were trying to herd the athletes into the cafeteria — sound familiar? One of the women started mouthing off, advising the terrorist what he could do with his weapon.
Her suggestion would have been anatomically difficult. Rather than following it, he swung the butt end of the gun into her face, sending her to the floor. The terrorist next to him then raised his gun and fired a few rounds through the ceiling.
We all know that Trace sleeps with her teddy bear tucked under her pillow — teddy bear being her pet name for Kimber Compact 45, as cuddly a little piece of machinery as you’ll ever find. It was now under her sweatshirt.
Trace thought about taking it out, but the way the tangos were aligned, she would only have been able to remove half the problem before the other half began firing — not an acceptable situation under the circumstances. So she did as we had planned she would do: she looked at her watch.
“Running a little slow,” she muttered, pressing the buttons to adjust it.
And at the same time, sending me a signal that she had just been kidnapped.
* * *
Doc was upstairs with the rest of the coaches and trainers when the gunfire shook him out of bed. He jumped into his shoes, grabbed his own weapon — a classic Colt automatic, probably older than he was — then went out to find out what was going on. By the time he reached the hall, the face on his watch had lit up, set off by the system Trace had alerted.
It’s not clear whether the tangos intended on taking everyone in the building hostage and changed their plans when the girl acted up, or if they simply figured the women on the team were all they needed. In any event, when Doc reached the stairs, he found them filled with smoke. One of the tangos had tossed a smoke grenade below and the stairwell was now thick with it.
Doc covered his mouth and nose with a handkerchief, slowly coming down the steps. The first-floor door was locked. He could hear people moving in the hall, then a few gruff shouts. Not knowing what the situation was, he retreated upstairs and had just reached his floor when I got him on the phone.
“Trace pushed her alarm,” he said. “I heard gunshots. I don’t know what’s going on. The door to that level is locked.”
“I’ll meet you at the shaft to the service elevator,” I told him. “We’re a few minutes away.”
* * *
You’re wondering where all the extra guards are that the team brought in following our little demonstration.
Two are lying in the front foyer, dead. One is bleeding pretty heavily from his stomach near the back stairs; if someone doesn’t reach him in the
next ten minutes or so, he’ll bleed to death.
And the fourth didn’t show for work.
What? After your little demonstration they barely doubled the guard?
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
* * *
The tangos collected cell phones. Trace handed hers over grudgingly — covering for the gun, which of course she wasn’t about to give up. Then with the others she moved down the hall to the stairs, watching and assessing the terrorists from the corner of her eye.
There were a total of five men in the corridor, all armed with submachine guns. Their faces were covered, so she couldn’t really judge their ages, but the way their eyes darted and the way they moved and waved their arms and guns around reinforced her initial impression that they were young and scared.
In a way, that made them more dangerous than professional soldiers. They were much more likely to lose their heads and start shooting.
She suspected that there were more people involved; she would have run the operation with at least eight, and been happier with ten or twelve. But she didn’t spot any as the group made their way down to the cafeteria.
By now the rest of the athletes had realized this wasn’t a drill or a game. They moved sullenly, complying with the few barked orders directing them downstairs. One or two of the young women glanced at Trace, expecting her to do something. She made the slightest movement with her head, indicating that they should bide their time.
There was one other terrorist in the cafeteria. He wore an ill-fitting red-checkered Arab-style headdress. He seemed a little older — his mustache was visible beneath the scarf, and it was speckled with gray. But the person in charge seemed to be the man who had fired his gun downstairs. He spoke to the others in Arabic, giving quick, terse commands.
Trace’s immediate problem was the pistol — she needed to hide it in case they were searched, yet she wanted it available in case she got an opportunity to use it. The only thing she could think of was to hide it in the restroom when she got downstairs.
At first, the guards made no move to search anyone, and Trace considered keeping the gun. If the risk was strictly hers, she certainly would have. But with the other women there and the men spread out around the room, she felt she was risking too much to leave it beneath her waist.
The kidnappers began to confer. They stayed in small groups, no more than three together — an attack was still far too risky.
Trace went over to Colina, the young woman whose head had been bashed. She was bleeding lightly from the mouth, and of course her head hurt.
Trace checked her eyes, trying to see if she had a concussion. There weren’t obvious signs — her pupils both reacted to the light, though the eyes don’t always tell all.
“Let’s get you cleaned up,” she said, gently helping Colina from her chair.
“You! Stop!” said the man who had bashed the girl’s head in.
“She’s hurt,” said Trace. “She needs to be cleaned.”
“No!”
“We’re only going into the restroom.”
Trace took a step in that direction. One of the guards moved over to block her.
The one who had said no fired a burst from his gun.
Trace’s instincts screamed — pull out your gun and shoot the bastards.
One — two — she could get the men closest to her, and someone else might grab the rifle.
Might.
Might wasn’t good enough. The gun stayed under her sweatshirt.
“She needs help,” said Trace firmly. She looked at the man with the mustache, then at the one whom she had determined was the leader.
“In the name of Allah, who is the one just and holy God, praise and honor to Him,” she said, using a common Muslim formula, “you must show mercy on the injured and sick.”
He stared at her for a moment, then turned and barked something in Arabic to the man near the door. Apparently it meant step aside, for he did.
Trace put her shoulder under the other woman’s arm and started for the door. The leader barked something else — the man by the restroom stiffened, frowned, then went and opened the restroom door.
“You will wait,” the leader said. “He will check the room.”
Trace stopped.
The gunman went inside and stepped back out quickly, the briefest inspection of a room ever conducted. Clearly he didn’t want to be contaminated by female cooties.
The leader said something else in Arabic. The guard frowned again, and started to shake his head. The leader repeated what he said more forcefully.
“He will go in with you,” said the leader.
“Into the ladies’ room?” said Trace, summoning her most indignant tone.
“He will go with you.”
Trace turned to the man, who was standing by the door, shifting his legs up and down, almost as if running in place.
“Well if you enjoy watching women pee, then I suppose you’ll have a fun time,” Trace said to him.
Another of the men started to cross the room, but the leader made it clear that Ahmed — what he called the man by the door — was the one who was to go in. The little drama was all about him proving his position as leader; the women were, at best, secondary.
Which was just fine, as far as Trace was concerned.
She helped Colina inside. The room was spartan; aside from a small stool pushed against the wall at the far end of the washbasins and an open metal waste container, there were only fixtures and commodes set off in standard metal cubicles. The window was a narrow slit near the ceiling at the far end; Trace could have jumped and reached it, but the space was so slim she would have had a hard time squeezing through.
“Colina, here, sit on the stool,” said Trace, leading her across the room.
Trace sat her down and began running the water. The tango stayed by the door. He wasn’t particularly tall — maybe two or three inches taller than Trace, who on her tiptoes in her best high heels I don’t think tops five-four.
She had no doubt she could take him quickly. The problem was to do it quietly, and away from the door.
And then what?
* * *
After hanging up with me, Doc went to the freight elevator, making sure it was locked on to the top floor, where it was supposed to be parked every evening. Then he went and organized the rest of the staff, telling them to escape to the roof.
Automatically alerted by our alarm system, Indian police and military units were already on their way. Still waiting for me, Doc decided to call several of their officials personally and tell them this wasn’t a drill. That was probably a good move, though the local police department had already sent two cars over. One of the men got out of the car and ran up to the front steps, pulling open the front door — a serious mistake, as he discovered when the booby trap the tangos had placed there went off.
Shotgun and I were two or three blocks away, thick in the middle of traffic, when I heard the explosion.
“Urdu, we’re getting out,” I told the driver, opening the door. “Take the car and head to the far end of the field. Wait there in case we need you.”
We jumped out and started running toward the building. Cars up ahead had abruptly stopped. A tight circle of smoke rose from the school.
Wouldn’t you know it? My sat phone began ringing precisely at that moment. I pulled it out, expecting that it was Doc. But instead, I found myself talking to Shunt.
“Hey, Dick. Got a minute?”
“I’m a little busy right now,” I told him. I was about to click it off when he shouted at me.
“I found some more information out about those guys you rescued,” he said. “One of them did an internship at W.R. and D. Chemical.”
“That’s real nice, Shunt.”
“Here’s the thing about W.R. & D. — the account that paid for those cars that came down from Delhi also funded the purchase of two railroad cars full of ethanol, which were parked on the siding leading to the factory two da
ys ago.”
“Shunt, I really don’t need to know about a gasoline additive right now.”
“You ever hear of transester process?” he asked. “Abban did a paper on it in undergrad. You use a precursor to a complicated compound, combining it with something like ethanol to finish your chemical off. Oh, yeah, I figured out their real names. They’re not only on India’s watch list, but about twenty others, including ours and Pakistan’s. Those nom de guerre things they called themselves when they were caught weren’t even among their known aliases. Did I tell you that already? I got student IDs and shit. Shunar was the intern…”
Shunt prattled on, but I wasn’t listening anymore. I’d finally realized what the hell was going on.
I stopped so quickly Shotgun nearly bowed me over.
“Go help Doc get the hostages out,” I told him. “Then find out where the hell W.R. and D. Chemical is and meet me there.”
9
( I )
Let me be honest — to this day, I have no idea what a transester process is, or how it involves ethanol — which, besides being Iowa’s own personal stimulus package, is your basic woodgrain alcohol, aka white lightning.
Shunt’s detective work had just filled in the blanks in the middle of my essay question: why had People’s Islam used Special Squadron Zero to transport its two thugs south of the border?
Answer: because even Pakistan would have arrested the SOBs.
Bonus question: what could possibly make them so valuable?
Answer: their chemistry skills were in great demand.
“What are they going to do, Shunt?” I asked as I ran. “Is this going to be a fertilizer bomb?”
Shunt straightened me out, filling me in on his theory as I ran.
“If only. Fertilizer bombs are bad, but this is bigger. Big, big, big. W.R. and D. Chemical makes a bunch of stuff,” he said, “including these lighter things and matches and fungicides. They used to make gunpowder — ”
“Keep it relevant, Shunt,” I said.
“You sound like you’re hyperventilating.”
“I’m running.”
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