by Dale Brown
The mines around the Sudanese army post where Tarid and the other prisoners were kept had been laid in a complicated pattern. They’d also been placed very close together. Most soldiers would have found it impenetrable; indeed, at least two would-be saboteurs and a smuggler had been blown up in the fields over the past twelve months.
But the Whiplash team had an advantage other infiltrators did not — the Voice had mapped the mines by looking at infrared satellite images from the past few nights. The mines were all slightly warmer than the surrounding ground when the sun went down, making them easy for the computer to spot. By watching Danny and the others move through the field with the help of an Owl, it gave him precise directions, warning him when he or one of his people was getting too close to a mine.
“Turn now,” said the Voice.
Danny dug his elbow into the dirt, marking the turn so it would be easy for Flash to find. As long as they all stayed in line, they’d be fine.
“We’re in position,” said Nuri over the radio circuit.
“Roger that. We’ve still got a ways to go.”
“The guard change is in ten minutes.”
“Roger. Ten minutes. We’ll be ready.”
Danny looked up. He was a good thirty yards from the perimeter fence, and they need to be inside it when Nuri began the “attack.” He started moving faster.
The prisoners were being kept in an open pen about thirty yards from the perimeter fence. Tarid was there. So was Tilia.
She’d been shot twice in the leg, but it wasn’t until she ran out of ammunition and passed out from the blood loss that the soldiers had captured her. They threw her in the back of a captured rebel pickup and drove her to the compound, unconscious; her leg was bound but otherwise left untreated. In a way, she was lucky — if she hadn’t been recognized as one of Uncle Dpap’s lieutenants, she would have been killed on the battlefield.
After being raped. So far, she had been spared that as well.
When Danny reached the fence, he pulled himself up into a crouch and looked back. To his horror, he saw that McGowan was off course by several feet.
“McGowan, stop,” he hissed. “Stop!”
Everyone stopped, not just McGowan.
“What’s wrong?”
“You went off course. Don’t move.”
Danny pulled out the control unit for the Voice and told the computer to plot the mines near McGowan.
“You went right between two mines,” he told him after studying the image. “You’re about six inches from the next mine. And there’s one right behind you.”
“You sure?”
“No asshole, he’s just trying to scare the crap out of you,” snapped Hera.
“All right. Let’s all relax. Flash, come on forward. Follow the lines I made.”
“It’s getting hard to see with the rain,” said Flash.
“Yeah, I know. Do it, though.”
Danny waited until Flash reached the fence before signaling Hera to continue. She crawled through the dirt and mud quickly, sliding her body through the markings he had left as if she were swimming an obstacle course.
“All right. You two get working on the fence,” Danny told them. “We’ll be right with you.”
He took off his rucksack, leaving it and his rifle on the ground near the edge of the minefield. Then he dropped to his hands and knees and started back for McGowan. The rain was becoming heavier, washing away the markings he and the others had left. The water also started to soak the field, making it more slippery. Even with the Voice to guide him, he had a difficult time staying on course.
“This isn’t good, huh?” asked McGowan when he finally got close.
“There’s a mine right here,” said Danny, pointing. “And one about six inches behind your right foot.”
“Can I go right?”
“No.” Danny pulled out the MY-PID head unit and stared at the screen. “Your best bet is to move to your left slightly.”
“How slightly?”
“Hold on.”
The cloud cover was making it harder and harder for the system to see McGowan from the Owl. Danny, on the other hand, was tracked by the satellites using his biomarker. He nudged right toward McGowan.
The Voice objected that he was going off the established trail.
“Affirmative,” he told it. “Guide me toward McGowan.”
“Subject cannot be definitively located.”
“He hasn’t moved.”
“Data insufficient to confirm.”
“Warn me if I’m too close to a mine,” Danny told it. He shifted right, crawled two feet to the right, then stopped at the Voice’s direction. He had to zig to the right then back before drawing parallel to his trooper.
“Get on my back,” Danny said.
“Huh?” said McGowan.
“The computer will tell me where to go. Rather than taking a risk and following me, I’ll just carry you out. It’ll be easier.”
“Hey, Colonel, I can do this.”
“Get on my back, soldier. That’s an order.”
“Yes, sir.”
* * *
While Danny was guiding his men through the minefield, Nuri and Boston were on the opposite side of the camp, preparing an assault. Or what would look like an assault to the men inside.
Nuri was on the north side of the road, Boston the south. They’d split the mercenaries between them. They didn’t have nearly enough men to take the camp, but they had more than enough to make it look as if they wanted to.
The rain continued to fall, blocking not only the Owl’s view, but making it hard to see with the night glasses as well. Nuri could barely tell where the machine-gun position was.
There were three minutes to go before the guards were due to change watch.
“Danny, you want us to delay the Catbirds?” Nuri asked. “You only have three minutes.”
“Stay on schedule. We want to hit while the guards are changing.”
“You sound like you’re straining.”
“I’ll explain later.”
* * *
Hera clipped through the last of the wire and pushed it back. Then she stepped through, holding it for Flash so he could get in.
“This way,” she said, pointing toward the prisoners’ pen.
Aside from some smaller lights on the buildings, the only illumination in the complex came from a pair of floodlights mounted on a telephone pole at almost the exact center of the camp. Their light formed an arc that took in about two-thirds of the prisoners’ area. The area between the two fences where Hera and Flash were was cast in a deep shadow.
Before the rain started, two guards had been watching the prisoners, walking back and forth in the area that was lit. The heavy rain had sent them into the trucks, though Hera and Flash couldn’t see them from where they were.
“What happened to the guards?” asked Flash.
“I’m looking,” said Hera.
“Maybe they’re up around on the other side.”
Hera saw the two trucks at the edge of the very small parade and assembly area off to her left.
“Maybe they’re in the trucks,” she suggested. “They can see the pen from there.”
“Could be.”
“You watch the truck,” she told Flash. “I’ll go cut the fence to the prisoners’ pen.”
“Go,” said Flash, trotting forward through the mud.
The rain kept coming harder. Flash felt it soaking into the pores of his skin, covering his whole body with a slimy film of water and sweat.
As annoying as it was, the rain was making their job considerably easier. Visibility was cut down for the defenders, and the foul weather lessened the chance of being spotted by a random patrol or a casual cigarette smoker.
Flash slipped a grenade round into his rifle’s attached launcher, ready to take out the truck quickly if necessary.
Danny had told him only to fire if the guards presented a clear danger — if they came to investigate or started s
hooting. This wasn’t only because he wanted to keep the casualties down. They were outnumbered, and the only way to even the odds was to use trickery. When Boston and Nuri attacked, so the plan went, the defenders’ attention would be drawn toward the front of the camp. Escaping out the back with the prisoners would be easy.
While Flash was watching the truck and the rest of the compound, Hera had slipped around the corner of the prisoners’ area. The rain had encouraged the prisoners to clump together at the southeast side of the pen, seeking shelter under a small tarp augmented by a collection of small blankets and other rags. They were all soaked, the water leaking in a constant drip on the prisoners below.
Hera began cutting the fence. She knew Farsi, but Danny thought it might make Tarid more suspicious and told her not to use it. He wanted to make it appear that they had come to free all of the prisoners. So she used Arabic after she got into the pen and started waking the prisoners.
“Time to go,” she said, first in a whisper, then more loudly. “Be quiet. The way is this way.”
The first man was so battered by his wounds that he simply stared at her. The one next to him was dead.
“Come on,” said Hera, shaking the third. She raised her voice. “Let’s go.”
The man turned his head toward her.
“What sort of devil are you?”
“Mr. Kirk sent us. Go through the fence. Stay low to the ground so they don’t see you. Go!”
The man raised his head, barely able to make her out even though it was raining. As Hera grabbed him to pull him upward, the ground heaved with an explosion, the night turning white. Two of the Catbirds had just struck the minefield in front of the machine-gun posts.
* * *
Danny and McGowan reached the safe area behind the minefield just as the Catbirds exploded.
“Take out the minefield,” Danny told McGowan, pushing him off his back. “I’ll hold the prisoners back.”
McGowan pulled off his rucksack and pulled out what looked like a misshapen football. He slid his thumb against a latch at the side, undoing the safety.
“Fire in the hole,” he yelled, rearing back and throwing the football toward the end of the minefield.
As it sailed through the air, the rear of the ball burst apart and a thin Teflon net expanded from the rear. The net was studded with microexplosives. These were more like powerful firecrackers than bombs, but had the same effect on the minefield, exploding in a coordinated pattern designed to create and accentuate a pulsing shock wave. The explosives set off six mines simultaneously, in turn igniting another two dozen nearby. Dirt, water, explosives, and metal roiled into the air. McGowan pushed his head down, protecting himself as the shrapnel settled.
An illumination flare shot up from the center of the compound. Its white phosphorus gave him a good view of the minefield. The explosion had cut only about a third of the way through. He took out a second football and tossed it closer. This time he was too close for comfort; pebbles pelted him as the mines finished exploding.
Inside the fence, Danny had grabbed the first escapee, corralling him while McGowan worked on the mines. He repeated the words for “stop” and “mines” in Arabic, but the man seemed simply bewildered, still half asleep and confused by the explosions. Danny pushed him down to the ground, then signaled to the man running behind him that he should hit the deck as well.
McGowan had one more football, and roughly half of the minefield to take out. The shower from the last blast convinced him that he had to throw it from shelter, so he ducked into the trench leading to the machine-gun post. This time more than a dozen mines ignited immediately, starting a chain reaction that zigged out through the rest of the remaining field.
He started to get up out of the trench to make sure the path was clear, and to mark it for the prisoners. But as McGowan started to his feet, he heard a shout and turned to see a Sudanese soldier pointing his rifle at him.
McGowan raised his hands in surrender.
* * *
As soon as the catbirds exploded, Nuri and Boston’s teams began firing at the machine-gun posts in front of them. The guards were taken completely by surprise. The man at the northeast post, in front of Nuri, began firing wildly into the minefield, his bullets setting off several mines. The other man fired a single burst before his gun jammed. Too shaken to clear it, he hunkered down behind the sandbags and waited for the gunfire to stop.
Behind them, troops poured from the barracks. Most ran toward the front of the camp where the battle was raging, either jumping behind sandbags or into the zigging defense trench just outside the perimeter. A good dozen, however, ran to the south side of the camp where the gunfire was less intense, either unable to sort out what was going on or simply out of fear. Their retreat took them to within ten yards of the prisoner pen.
They huddled there for several minutes, unsure what to do. Then an illumination flare ignited overhead, close enough to cast shadows from the moving prisoners. It looked to the soldiers that a fresh attack was coming from that direction, and two of them began firing.
Hera had just found Tarid inside the pen when the gunfire began. She cursed — in English — pushed him to the ground, and began returning fire.
“Go!” she shouted. “Crawl out of here. Get away.”
Tarid twisted back on the ground. “Who are you?” he asked.
“I’m with Kirk. Go! Get out!”
The gunfire intensified. Tarid began crawling toward the back of the compound. Others were gathered there, crouched down. One fell, then another. Suddenly, the rest of the crowd rose en masse and ran toward the hole at the back of the fence.
Danny grabbed one, trying to stop him, but the others bolted past, running toward the minefield with its cleared but unmarked path.
* * *
In the trench, McGowan tried to think of some way to escape. His rifle was at his feet, but he’d be dead by the time he got it in his hands.
“Now listen, you don’t want to shoot me,” he told the soldier.
The soldier heard the shriek of the men escaping and pulled the trigger. His first bullet struck McGowan at the very top of his armored vest, pushing him back.
The next bullets struck his forehead, killing him instantly.
* * *
There were too many prisoners for Danny to stop, and finally he just moved aside.
“McGowan, there’s a whole bunch of them coming out,” he said over the radio. “Is it clear? Mac?”
Unaware that McGowan was already dead, Danny crouched down, waiting for Hera and Tarid, and yelling at the prisoners to stop when they ran by.
The first sign that something had gone wrong came a few minutes later, when one of the escaping prisoners strayed out of the path the bombs had created and stepped on a mine. Danny saw the flash — red rather than white, a blossom of color and death.
He got up and went to find out what was going on.
The man who had killed McGowan was the machine-gunner posted to the southwest pillbox. He had abandoned his post in a panic. But his confrontation with McGowan had steeled him, and now the coward was a warrior, a bold lion who threw himself against the side of the trench and began shooting at his enemies.
He killed two before he had to stop and reload. Danny, crouching by the fence line, saw the muzzle flashes and guessed what was happening.
As soon as the gun stopped flashing, he rose and ran to the trench, jumping down and racing forward.
His lungs pressed against his chest. But unlike yesterday, there was no doubt in his mind, no second-guessing. A single thought filled his mind: He had to take out the person shooting, or most of the prisoners would die.
The Sudanese soldier, meanwhile, had slapped a fresh magazine into his gun and rose to fire again. He was so intent on the shadows in the minefield that he never saw Danny coming around the tight corner a few yards away.
Danny fired a single burst from his SCAR. The bullets sliced through the soldier’s neck, making neat holes on th
e way in and craters on the way out. The soldier died without knowing what hit him.
Worried there might be someone in the pillbox, Danny continued along the trench. He nearly tripped over McGowan’s body. He sidestepped him, kept going.
When he reached the machine-gun post, he pumped a grenade through the opening and ducked.
The explosion sounded like a can of beans popping in a fire.
There was no one in the pillbox. He pulled the bullets from the gun, threw it over on its mount, and began running back.
It was only then that the fear he’d felt the night before returned. This time the emotion focused on McGowan — it was a fear, a knowledge really, that his man was dead.
Danny had lost men in combat before. Not many, but enough to know that it was both necessary and inevitably sorrowful. He dropped down near the young man, still hoping that he had survived. But the wounds were obvious, and even the downpour couldn’t wash away all the blood that had spurted from the dead man’s skull.
Danny felt sick to his stomach. He held his breath a moment, then stooped down and pulled McGowan up onto his back.
He seemed much lighter than he had just a few minutes earlier, when Danny had carried him through the minefield.
* * *
Flash blew up the truck as soon as the passenger started to get out with his gun. Then he shot out the floodlights on the post above the compound and ran up along the fence to the prisoner pen, aiming to get an angle on the barracks door. By the time he reached it, however, the barracks were empty. All the soldiers had gone to the east side of the camp, where the battle seemed to be concentrated.
He crouched on one knee, hoping they wouldn’t come back, ready if they did.