by Dave Edlund
The doctor’s eyes were wide and his face had grown pale. Bull thought he might faint at any moment.
“You can’t do this to me. Your country outlawed torture. You have to take me prisoner.”
Jim turned to Bull. “Is that right? We aren’t allowed to torture any longer?”
Bull merely shrugged.
“I suppose you’re right, Doc.” Jim sighed. “In the U.S. we wouldn’t be allowed to torture you.”
The doctor nearly melted in Ghost’s grip. He would not have to answer these men, nor be forced to cooperate. How weak, he thought. When the roles had been reversed, as they were not long ago, Colonel Ming would have never conceded.
Jim examined the bottle again. “Potassium hydroxide… you know Doc, I was never very good at chemistry. But this…” he pointed to the label. “This sounds familiar, kind of like sodium hydroxide. It’s commonly used in resomation,” Jim explained. He turned to his team and added, “that’s a form of chemical cremation where strong alkali hastens the decomposition of bodily tissues and leaves only the bones and cartilage behind.”
The doctor was non-responsive.
“You know what, Doc. I just remembered something. We aren’t in the United States. In fact, I don’t even know exactly where we are.”
Jim turned to Bull again. “Doesn’t the rule book clearly state that we can’t torture any prisoner if we’re in the U.S.?”
Bull nodded, playing along. “Yes, sir.”
“So, I guess it’s a good thing we’re not at home.”
The doctor began to tremble. He was shaking his head. “No!”
“Ghost, you and Bull hold him tight. Magnum, take your knife and pry open his mouth. I’m going to pour in just a little bit of this white powder and then we’ll see how long before it starts to liquefy his tongue and mouth. Since he’s not going to talk, he doesn’t really need his tongue, does he?”
As Jim opened the bottle, Magnum produced his knife. He pushed open the doctor’s lips and wedged the knife tip against the doctor’s clenched jaws. Applying pressure, the tip pried the doctor’s teeth apart. Magnum pushed a little harder and the mouth popped open. He shoved the knife laterally across the teeth to keep them apart. A small trickle of blood appeared at the corner of the doctor’s mouth where the blade had cut his lip.
“Now we’re making progress.” Jim forced a stiff smile. “Magnum, keep his mouth open and I’ll pour a little of this powder in. Let’s go on three. Ready? One… two… three.”
The doctor struggled, but all he got for his effort were more lacerations on his lips and the corners of his mouth. Jim held the bottle over the doctor’s mouth and was making ready to tap out some of the white substance.
With eyes wide, suddenly the doctor grunted loudly and nodded his head slightly in the affirmative.
“Bull, I think Doc has something to tell us.”
Magnum removed his knife, but Ghost and Bull held their grip.
“All right! I’ll tell you!” the doctor cried.
“What are the different buildings in this compound used for?” Jim repeated.
The doctor took a deep breath as he tried to calm down.
“This building is our medical complex. This is where we perform the procedure. Sometimes we might autopsy deceased specimens in this lab.”
“You don’t even recognize them as people, do you?” Bull interrupted. The doctor ignored him.
“The nearest building to the right is the computer lab and communications center. That is also where the officer’s quarters are located. The remaining buildings are quarters for the soldiers, the mess hall and recreation center, and the holding cells for the Homothals.”
“You keep them in cells? As in prison cells?” Bull asked.
“They are… unpredictable; sometimes they are very violent and uncontrollable. It is for their own safety.”
“Yeah. You mean it’s for your safety,” Magnum retorted.
“Are you certain there are no records or communications equipment in those buildings?” Jim pressed. He had to be sure. If these other buildings really were as the doctor described, then they could avoid taking the time to demolish them and focus only on the medical and computer buildings.
“I am certain. Colonel Ming does not trust the Homothals or his enlisted soldiers. He insisted the records and communications equipment be centralized under his direct control.”
Jim considered the doctor for a moment. He had truly been terrified that he would be tortured. Under ideal circumstances, Jim would not trust information obtained by such means. But these were not ideal circumstances, and he simply did not have time, materials, or other options.
“Ghost, bind his hands behind his back and search him. Take his key card and anything else that might have value.”
Chapter 41
Darfur
June 14 0816 hours
“Bull, this is Homer… do you copy?” The squad net communicated the voice message across all headsets. Commander Nicolaou answered.
“Copy. This is Boss Man. Sit rep.” Jim requested. He needed to quickly get up to speed on their tactical situation.
“Glad to have you back, sir. I’m with the civilians overlooking the compound. We can provide cover fire to the south and east of the compound. But we have a problem… a new development.”
“What problem?”
“A new player is entering the field. Stealth insertion—looks like modified hang-gliders—they’re coming in from the south-east.”
From the southeast, thought Jim. That meant whoever was crashing the party would have the rising sun behind them. Heat seeking missiles are useless if aimed in the sun’s direction; they would most likely lock on to the big yellow orb rather than the intended target. In addition, it would be difficult to discern a small target against the bright sun.
“Roger. Stealth insertion—assume they are not invited. Observe and report. Do not… I repeat… do not reveal your position or presence. Is that understood?”
“Roger. Do not reveal presence or position. Will observe and report back when we have some news. Homer out.”
“Doesn’t sound good,” Bull admitted.
“If the job was easy someone else would be doing it,” Jim replied. He returned his attention to the task at hand.
The doctor had his hands cuffed behind his back and was sitting on the floor in clear sight. An SGIT soldier always had him in view, and they watched him closely. The last thing they needed was to have the good doctor escape; his knowledge of the compound could still prove useful.
“Magnum, follow me. Let’s see what we can find in the storage room that can be used to destroy this lab,” Jim said.
The shelves were packed with dozens of bottles of various solvents and reagents, mostly large four liter bottles.
“What are we looking for?” Magnum asked.
Jim was quickly scanning the labels, but without much class time in chemistry, he decided to get advice. “Homer, I need to talk to Peter.”
A few seconds later, Peter’s voice sounded in Jim’s ear. “I’m here. What can I do?” he said.
“We’re in a lab. The storeroom has a supply of solvents in four liter glass bottles and a variety of other chemicals. I need something, some method, to destroy this lab. It has computers, and probably notebooks too, but we’ve not located them yet. The problem is, I don’t know what I’m looking at.”
“I can help you. You’re in the storeroom now?”
“Yes.”
“Read the labels to me.”
“Dichloromethane. Toluene. Methanol. Cyclohexane. Nitromethane—”
“Stop. Are you sure—nitromethane?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Is that important?”
“Jackpot,” Peter said, his voice upbeat. “Everything you named is a fairly standard solvent for sample preparations and liquid chromatography. Most of them are flammable. But nitromethane is a high explosive under the right conditions.”
“Isn’t it a racing fuel, for drag
sters?” Magnum said.
“Yes, that’s right. When mixed with methanol it’s an excellent fuel; a lot of energy. How much do you have?”
The squad net was silent while Jim counted bottles. “Five bottles, each four liters.”
“That’s good. Now here’s the problem. Nitromethane is very difficult to detonate. Do you have any explosives?
“Magnum has some C4, but not a lot, and we may need it later.”
“Got it. If we can find a sensitizing agent, and add that to the nitromethane, it’ll be a whole lot easier to detonate. You said there are other chemicals in the lab?”
“Yeah, what are we looking for?” Jim said.
Peter thought for a moment, trying to organize the list in his mind, beginning with the most potent sensitizing agents. “Ammonium nitrate, ethylenediamine, or aluminum powder. These are all solid powders and are probably stored in small plastic or glass jars. They might be somewhere away from the solvent storage area.”
“Just a minute.” Jim and Magnum left the storeroom and returned to the benches where Jim had found the potassium hydroxide.
“Okay, we’re looking now,” Jim said.
“The labels will most likely be printed in English—it’s too expensive for chemical companies to customize labeling to different languages so English has become universal,” Peter explained.
“No ammonium nitrate or aluminum powder. Magnum, you’re in the E section?”
“Looking,” Magnum replied without taking his eyes away from the bottles. He was systematically checking each bottle, moving his lips as he said each chemical name.
“Bingo! Ethylenediamine. The label says 500 grams and it looks full.”
“Good,” Peter replied. “You’ll need to open each jug of nitromethane and add about two tablespoons of ethylenediamine. The exact amount is not important, so don’t worry. Pour in about two tablespoons, put the cap back on the jug, and shake it for 30 seconds. It’s okay if all the ethylenediamine doesn’t dissolve. When you’re ready, cluster all the jugs together. A standard blasting cap should initiate detonation, but to be safe, if you can spare a quarter pound of C4, that will do it for sure.”
“Roger that.”
“One more thing,” Peter said. “Those five jugs of nitromethane—that’s a lot of energy. Most likely it’ll level that room. Make sure you’re far away when it goes off.”
Magnum prepared the jugs of nitromethane according to Peter’s instructions. Once all five jugs were ready, he packed them in a cluster in the center of the lab where Ghost was piling up computers he had yanked off tables from around the lab. There were no servers or mainframes in the lab, so they concluded that the bulk of the computational hardware was in the next building. Jim hauled a dozen jugs of cyclohexane and toluene from the storage room and placed these around the nitromethane, knowing the flammable solvent would add to the destructive power of the detonation.
Magnum set to work placing a charge of C4 between three jugs of nitromethane. On Boss Man’s order, Magnum would insert a time-delay detonator in the C4.
“Doc, where are the lab notebooks kept?” Jim asked.
At first the doctor refused to answer. He just stared at Commander Nicolaou, eyes blank of emotion.
Jim sighed. “Need I remind you of our deal? You cooperate, and we don’t torture you. It’s that simple. Where are the laboratory notebooks kept?”
The doctor was entering a mild state of shock. Still, he comprehended the message, and he didn’t want to test these men again.
“Over there,” he nodded toward a desk and file cabinet across the lab.
Nicolaou walked over to the cabinet and tried to open the top drawer. Locked. He tried the next drawer down… also locked. Having run out of patience long ago, he called Bull over.
“Shoot the lock out.”
Bull placed the muzzle of his shotgun within an inch of the key lock and pulled the trigger. A ragged hole replaced the lock.
Jim opened the top drawer—it was full of bound notebooks. He took one out and opened it, verifying the contents.
It was written mostly in Chinese, but there was enough technical jargon and scientific notations, spaced between pages of tabulated numerical data, to convince him that these were lab notebooks. He opened the next drawer down and found more of the same style of books. He again examined a couple to make sure he was not being led astray. He did the same for the last two drawers—four large drawers in all, containing an estimated 150 laboratory notebooks. Each notebook had 300 numbered pages.
“Magnum, Ghost. Help me gather up these notebooks and throw them onto the pile as well. We have to destroy all of it.”
After carrying two armloads each, the SGIT team had emptied the file cabinet of its contents.
“Quickly check all the desk drawers and cabinets. Make sure we aren’t missing anything obvious, like CDs, DVDs, or thumb drives,” Jim ordered.
Within two minutes the three men had completely ransacked the lab. A small stack of papers in one of the desks and four thumb drives were all they found to add to the pile.
“Throw it all in.” The pile was easily six feet tall, spilling over the table and making a large mound on the floor, and at the base of it was the nitromethane bomb and the jugs of flammable solvents.
“Ghost, grab the good doctor. We may still need his services.”
Following one final quick look around the lab, Jim ordered Magnum to set the detonator. “Give us two minutes to get clear. If the blast is as big a Peter suggests, we need to put some distance between us and this lab.”
Magnum set the time delay and inserted the detonator into the chunk of C4, making one final quick inspection, then he pulled back to Commander Nicolaou and gave him a sharp nod.
“Let’s go, gentlemen. Move like you had a purpose!”
The team rushed out the door. No one wanted to be near the lab when the improvised bomb exploded.
Ghost pushed the doctor before him and the team turned to their left, toward the closest exit, when the squad net crackled to life again.
“Boss Man. The new kids are being engaged by approximately half a dozen enemy. Resistance is heavy. So far, it is confined to the open space to the northeast of our position.”
“Copy. Be advised, enemy combatants include a genetic hybrid between man and Neanderthal. They call it a Homothal.”
“Roger that.” Homer had dozens of questions swirling in his mind, but they would have to wait until later. At the moment he had more pressing issues at hand.
“Are the new kids being engaged by Homothals or Chinese soldiers?” Jim asked, still moving his team to the exit at the end of the hallway.
“Both, sir,” Homer replied. “Looks like Chinese officers or non-coms are directing the defenders.” There was a brief pause before Homer continued. “More Homothals and Chinese soldiers are now joining the battle.”
“Where did the reinforcements come from?” Jim asked.
“From the two buildings connected to the fenced yard.”
Jim wanted to be sure, so he asked for clarification. “Did any enemy combatants come from the building to our immediate right?”
“Negative, sir. The bad guys are pouring out of the far two buildings… must be barracks I’d guess.”
“Roger that. Our intel says you’re right.”
“Whoever the new guys are, looks like they’re going to get their butts kicked. There must be 50 or more Homothals and Chinese soldiers forming a broad line… and now they’re bringing out light machine guns. Those guys are going to be mowed down.”
“How many new kids in the party?” Jim needed to weigh the facts and make a decision.
Homer shifted his spotting scope to the right and assessed the situation. “Not enough. Maybe fifteen. And they don’t have any heavy weapons, just what they could carry in during their drop.”
Jim thought for a moment. Maybe Lady Luck finally took a turn and decided to smile favorably on his team.
“Homer, what’s the Di
llon’s status?”
“It’s operational sir. Peter rigged it up to put a partial charge on the battery, so the mule is mobile and we have a full ammo can fed into her. She’s hot to trot and positioned at the base of the ridge ready to cover your retreat.”
“We still have a job to do, but our friends just provided a much needed diversion.”
Homer didn’t understand. “Our friends?” he questioned.
“Haven’t you heard the Arabic proverb? An enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
Chapter 42
Darfur
June 14 0844 hours
“Use those Barretts to engage the Chinese and Homothals! Focus on the machine guns… buy as much time as you can for the new kids and try to pull fire away from them. Got it?” Jim was very short but direct.
“Yes, sir, but I can’t say I understand. These new players could also be gunning for us.”
“Yes, that’s a possibility. But we don’t know that yet, and since our immediate enemy considers them an enemy… well, that makes them our best ally… our only ally for the time being.”
Homer admitted his Commander’s logic made a certain amount of sense. “Roger, sir. Will engage and draw fire away from the new kids.”
“Get back to me in two minutes. I want to know how the battle is evolving. Boss Man out.”
Homer relayed the order to Peter, Todd, and Gary. “We are to engage the Homothals and Chinese soldiers—prioritize the machine gunners. View the new kids as friendlies.”
Peter had been studying the unfolding events through the highest magnification on his riflescope. He couldn’t make out the facial features on the men almost half a mile away. They were wearing uniforms that looked like camouflaged jumpsuits, but the coloring was a mix of blue, green, and two different shades of gray.
“I’m not an expert,” he offered, “but I’ve never seen uniforms like those before.”
Homer shifted his viewing angle just slightly so he could take in the closest men. They were beginning to receive machine gunfire. “Could be Chinese Airborne… paratroopers. But that’s not our concern right now. Take out those machine guns before they can do any real damage.”