Rick Newman was surprised. “What?”
“Your prisoner, sir. We’ll take her now.”
Newman looked over at Kyle Swanson and shrugged his shoulders. His brief situation report during the helicopter ride had somehow been read as the team bringing home a valuable enemy prisoner. Swanson had his face turned away from the soldiers but shook his head slightly.
“Afraid there has been a mistake, Lieutenant. We rescued a civilian who got caught in the middle of a firefight, that’s all. You can stand down. We will turn her over during our debriefing.”
The woman understood every word and pushed closer to Kyle as fear grew inside of her. She had heard how Americans interrogated prisoners.
“Sorry, Captain. I don’t know anything about that, but our orders are to bring her in immediately because she is a suspected terrorist.” The lieutenant waved his hand, and three MPs, two male and one female, moved forward.
While the officers had talked, Kyle had helped the Iranian girl from the helicopter and moved her in behind the MARSOC Marines, who appeared to be lounging about watching the episode with disinterest. When the MPs stepped forward, however, they were met by a solid wall of special ops warriors. Darren Rawls, Joe Tipp, and Travis Hughes stood between the MPs and their target. Kyle was close behind but did not want them to see his face.
“Okay, fellows, move aside,” ordered the lieutenant. “Your part of the mission is done, and now we have to deal with the captive.”
“Sorry. Can’t help you,” said Travis Hughes. “Sir.”
“Lieutenant, you can lead us to the debriefing room if you wish, but that is all,” snapped Rick Newman.
Lieutenant Zahn was not used to having his orders disobeyed. He squared up before Newman and sharpened his voice. “Captain! I am giving you a final warning. You and your men will stand aside and give us the enemy combatant or you will be placed under arrest.”
Darren Rawls grabbed the lieutenant and leaned into his face. “You want her? Well, you will have to come and take her. Sir.” The rest of the team formed a knot around the woman and Kyle. Then Rawls pushed the lieutenant so hard that the man sprawled on the helipad.
Newman stepped forward and extended his hand to the fallen officer and pulled him up. “Be careful there, Lieutenant. Easy to trip and fall around here. How about taking us over to the debriefing room now. You can’t have her because we won’t give her up. The woman is already in the custody of the CIA, and you don’t know shit about what is going on, so let’s cut the crap and get on with things before somebody gets hurt.”
Zahn brushed himself off. He made a mental note about that big black guy who shoved him and would settle that score later. “Yes, sir. This way, sir.”
The MARSOC team moved as a group toward a convoy of waiting vehicles that would take them over to another part of the base. The MPs posted themselves in a square at the front, back, and sides of that formation, as if taking the whole group to the brig.
“You are CIA?” the woman asked Kyle softly as they walked to the Humvees.
“No,” he said quietly. “But those people don’t need to know that. And don’t worry. You will be treated well here.”
“So who are you, then?”
“Me? I’m nobody.”
MAJOR JIM RILEY, A surgeon, was ready, scrubbed, and gowned as he pushed open a swinging door with his elbow and stepped into a bright, cool operating room of the 856th Combat Support Hospital. Sterilized implements gleamed on a steel tray, and everyone around him was also gloved and masked.
Before them lay a huge soldier with a bullet hole in the back. The patient had been stripped, cleaned, put to sleep, and thoroughly prepped. There was an IV of blood and another of a hydrating solution. The vital signs were being constantly measured and displayed on monitors.
Dr. Riley had been working in the hospital too long to be shocked by the condition of any patient, since there was a never-ending river of them. He studied the X-rays on the light board and moved over to the table. “Very well now. Everybody ready? Let’s save this guy’s life today.”
“MY NAME IS DELARA Tabrizi, and I teach at a girls’ school in Khorramshahr.” She sat at a small table in a well-lighted room with a cup of tea. Across the table were two intelligence officers who had been alerted about the unique circumstances and acted with respect and politeness. Adding to her comfort were Darren Rawls and Travis Hughes, still in combat gear and face paint, sitting beside the door to prevent a recurrence of the incident with the MPs at the helicopter. There was always somebody who did not get the word, and Captain Newman had ordered them to stay with her until final arrangements could be made. Delara was already considering them to be “her” Marines; she believed they would protect her against any rough interrogation and was ready to answer the questions of the officers.
She had already made up her mind. “I am now the only remaining member of my family,” she said. “Everyone has been murdered by the government and its brutes, because we were part of the educated, moderate class. I will tell you everything I can in exchange for political asylum. I know that if I return to Iran, I may be killed, but we must go back.”
“Why?” asked an interrogator.
“I know of another facility, such as the one from last night, and my brother may still be alive there.”
“Just tell us where and we will send in another team.”
She shook her head negatively. “No. It is near my home village in the north, and I can lead you there. You cannot find it on your own.”
The officer gave her a slight smile. “Believe me, Miss Tabrizi, when I say that our technology and satellites can find almost anything, anywhere.”
Delara returned the mirthless smile. “So, have you found it yet? No. You didn’t even know it existed until I just told you.”
The officer studied the young woman. Stubborn. Determined. Knows that if she is caught by the Iranians, she will be killed, and yet she is willing to lead a raid back into the country. “Let me discuss it with my bosses and see if they want to put together a mission. Meanwhile, we will put you up in a safe location and let you rest and clean up while we work this out.”
Delara said, “I want the same team that was used before.”
“We may not be able to do that. A fully capable and fresh team probably will be chosen.”
“No substitutes,” she insisted and turned to look at Rawls and Hughes, both of whom were nodding agreement. She remembered not only the rescue in Iran but also the confrontation at the helicopter. “I trust these men to bring me back alive.”
In another room in the same building, Kyle Swanson and Rick Newman were being debriefed, going over the mission step by step. Swanson handed in the bag of flesh samples he had cut from the dead body, and it was transferred to a secure biohazard container. The digital cameras with their documentation were sent off to be copied and analyzed.
“The place was burned to a crisp,” he told the intel officers. He described the construction of the underground laboratory complex. “Everything was destroyed. Looked as if they flooded it with gasoline or something, then popped some thermite grenades to set it all off. The heat would have been tremendous, certainly enough to burn off any evidence of chemicals or biologicals being produced there.”
“You found prisoners in there?”
“What remained of them. Way back in individual cells at the end of the tunnels. The poor bastards were probably guinea pigs for experiments and were disposed of like everything else.”
Newman described the sudden arrival of soldiers at the site and the ensuing ambush, and how Master Gunny Dawkins had been wounded. Swanson gave his version of the same subjects. The intelligence officers were running out of questions when one asked, “Why do you think the scientist who was assassinated in Baghdad gave up this
