Nomex suit that identified him as Crew Chief Jorgenson. “No doc on board though.” He took off his helmet and held it in the crook of his arm. He looked like a young Viking with his longish blond hair blowing in the cold breeze.
“You’re to accompany me, sir,” he said, all business. “We’re supposed to get you back to Asadabad ASAP.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way, Chief,” Quinn said. “I need to get my friend stabilized.”
Jorgenson nodded grimly. “We’re on a quick turnaround, sir, due to weather. You’ll have to do it on the bird.”
Quinn used the Chinook’s medical kit on Garcia as soon as they were all aboard. A new needle and catheter helped relieve the pressure. He put her on oxygen and had Hunt watch her while he went forward to meet the pilots.
Jorgenson handed him a green headset.
“Y’all are a long way from home.” Quinn stood behind the cockpit watching the jagged, snowcapped peaks shoot by the windows in a vibrating blur.
“We could say the same thing about you, Captain.” The pilot nodded. “Rod Jones, Eighty-second Combat Aviation Brigade. Bravo Company out of Kabul. Had to use the Fat Cow to get us out here and back.” He nodded over his shoulder at the extended-range fuel tanks in the rear of the bird. “You must have some juice with someone for them to send us this deep.”
Two desert tan Humvees idled on the ramp in Asadabad. One bore the red cross of a medical vehicle. The other had a fifty-caliber machine gun on top and bristled with soldiers dressed in full battle rattle.
“They don’t look very happy to see us.” Hunt’s breath puffed a circle of condensation against the Chinook’s round side window.
Quinn held Garcia’s hand, studying the waiting men through a cloud of blowing yellow dust. The Humvees seemed absurdly small against the expanse of rock strewn landscape of desert and barren mountains.
Both vehicles rolled toward the rear of the Chinook as the rotors whined down.
“Can you remember a number without writing it down?” Quinn looked at Hunt as the helicopter’s rear ramp began to lower.
“That’s what I do.” Hunt smirked. Her face went slack as she looked up and realized he was serious. “What’s going on?”
Quinn rattled off two phone numbers. “Jacques Thibodaux. He’s one of the few you can trust back home. Tell him what we found out about Dr. Badeeb. If you can’t get hold of him quickly, talk to Winfield Palmer.”
The ramp touched down on the desert floor and a squad of six men rushed forward, each with an M4 trained on the chopper’s interior. A side glance out the window told Quinn the Chinook’s pilots and crew had already exited through the front of the aircraft and waited outside to watch the show.
Hunt raised her hands. “The national security advisor? Why are you telling me all this?”
“Take care of Garcia,” Quinn whispered. He opened his mouth to explain more, but the twin barbs of a Taser struck him in the chest. He collapsed, writhing against the metal floor.
The voltage abated and his body fell slack. He was vaguely aware of the dark form of a soldier looming over him. There was a sharp pain in his neck-a rush of wind, then dreams.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Near Gettysburg
Quinn woke to nothingness. No light, no sound, no smell. He blinked, trying to clear his vision. Still nothing. Movement was hampered by some sort of harness around his waist. His arms were held wing-like by a similar strap, away from his sides. The faint taste of saline told him he was suspended in a warm-water bath-likely with Epsom salts to float him without effort.
A sensory deprivation chamber-an upright, coffin-like enclosure soundproofed and filled with enough warm water to leave only the victim’s head exposed. He’d spent some alone time in one during training. Some in his element had fallen victim to hallucinations less than an hour after going inside the box. Their instructor had pointed out that the more well-adjusted they were, the more quickly they would succumb. Quinn had lasted almost six hours, three times as long as any other member of his training element.
Every prospective combat rescue officer was sent to SERE-Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape-training in at Fairchild Air Force Base near Spokane, Washington. As a trained interrogator, CRO, and OSI agent, he’d attended advance training at Fairchild and at the Navy’s sister facility in Maine. Quinn was certain these two training cycles had taken at least a year off his life.
Having spent his youth in the wilds of Alaska, survival, escape, and evasion came easy to Quinn. There was little the enemy could throw at him during a pursuit that was more frightening than a nine-foot grizzly sow.
The R in SERE was a completely different story. The instructors had pointed out early in their training that the human mind was far more vulnerable to exploitation than the body. During times of extreme pain, the physical being simply shut down, in effect turning off its ability to feel inflicted stimuli.
Threaten pain and the mind takes over, filling in the blanks left by a skilled interrogator with all sorts of horrific details.
Quinn pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth, listening for the sound and feel of his own heartbeat. It was a technique he’d used to stay grounded when he’d been “captured” by PRONA-People’s Republic of North America-forces during training. There was a lot going on inside the human body and, with the mind turned inward, it was a pretty interesting place to visit.
Quinn had no idea how long he listened to his heartbeat and the gurgling of his own gut before the lid to the box came off. Harsh light clawed at his eyes and the heavy thump of a bass note assaulted his ears. Coming from an environment with no stimulation, the effect was like sandpaper on the skin. Hands grabbed at each shoulder and he was hauled out the top of the enclosure like a slippery fish only to be dropped unceremoniously on the ground.
Angry male voices barked opposing orders.
“Be still!”
“ON YOUR FEET!”
“Why are you here?”
“SHUT YOUR MOUTH!”
The shouting, combined with the pounding beat of the music, gave the impression of dozens of other men in the room. Quinn believed there were four. He recognized one of the voices and made a mental note of its position in the room.
Naked, he sat on the floor and did his best to ignore the screaming. He saw nothing but blinding white light. He focused, working to control his breath.
The blaring music suddenly stopped. A deep, disembodied voice came across some sort of loudspeaker.
“SIT!”
Quinn scanned the room and found a gray metal chair directly in the center of the glaring pool of light. Before he could move, the voice boomed out again.
“I SAID SIT DOWN!” Without warning a shadow strode from the wall of light and struck him across the thigh with a length of rubber hose.
Quinn scrambled for the chair, his leg on fire.
“TELL US YOUR NAME!”
Quinn coughed. Arms on the chair, he hung his head. If they knew who he was, he wondered why they hadn’t restrained him.
“You know my name.”
The rubber hose caught him across the left shoulder this time, coming from another direction. Quinn didn’t even try to deflect it.
