“Sir. The Tomahawks.” His radar technician pointed at the screen. “Right on time, General.” The missiles symbology coupled with the impressive speed leaders left no doubt as to the identity of the airborne contacts.
“No,” Arkady said immediately. “Those can’t be the Tomahawks. They’re off course — they’re antiair missiles.”
“General, the speed doesn’t fit,” the technician said, a puzzled expression on his face. “Antiair missiles go much faster.” He tapped the symbols on his screen. “These have to be the land attack missiles, sir.”
“You’re contradicting me?” Arkady snapped.
The technician turned pale. Every soldier in the camp knew what had happened to Spiros, and there was a silent pact among them all to never suffer the same fate. “General, my apologies. Clearly, I’m mistaken. Antiair rounds inbound on… uh…” The technician paused, at a loss.
“On the lead wave of the strike,” Arkady supplied. “They know that the first wave is composed entirely of Greek aircraft. This is clearly an attack by the American forces on our units.”
“On our aircraft,” the technician said eagerly.
“Warn them,” Arkady said. “In Greek, not English.”
The technician picked up his microphone, his thoughts whirling, and tried to compose a standard phraseology warning to his forces, but he couldn’t get his mind focused on the problem. Finally, he settled for, “Attention, all Greek aircraft. The Americans are firing antiair missiles at you from their ships. You are ordered to… General?” He looked up for guidance.
“Continue the mission as briefed, regroup at Point Delta, then destroy the American aircraft. They have committed a hostile act,” Arkady said. He listened while the technician repeated his words verbatim, then turned to his chief of staff. “Have the guards take all American military personnel into custody. And bring Admiral Magruder to me here.”
Xerxes had roused them an hour before first light. Three hours later, they made it to the camp. Pamela was exhausted. She was used to roughing it while reporting from the field, but at least she usually had a decent sleeping bag, sometimes a tent. A cold night curled up against a rock with a thin blanket for protection from the wind had left her exhausted. What little sleep the cold hadn’t stolen fell prey to her own speculations about whether or not the Macedonians intended to torture Murphy.
She’d tried talking about it with the Marine, but he’d refused to answer her questions. Whether it was exhaustion or his own dread of what the next day might bring, she couldn’t tell. When she persisted, Xerxes threatened to gag her.
When they’d finally made it to the secondary camp, untouched by any bombing run, Xerxes had had them separated immediately. An old, taciturn sergeant had silently showed her to a tent and taken up a guard position outside the front flap. When she’d tried prying up a back corner, exploring the possibilities for regaining her freedom of movement, he’d been there waiting for her. Finally, she gave in to the exhaustion and collapsed on the cot. For the first time in thirty-six hours, she was warm.
The noise outside had awoken her two hours later. She groaned as she crawled out of the sleeping bag, every injury aching anew. She pushed aside the tent flap to discover her guard was gone.
In the small clearing in the center of the camp, Murphy lay sprawled on the ground. She darted out and knelt down next to him, staring in horror at his bloody face. When Xerxes had said that Murphy would talk, she hadn’t wanted to acknowledge the menace underlying the words. Now, confronted by the bloody evidence of the Macedonian’s handiwork, she could no longer avoid it.
She turned to face Xerxes. “Torture.”
Xerxes shook his head. “He fell.”
“Right.”
He took two steps toward her and reached out one hand for her shoulder. She flinched back. An expression of disappointment and regret flashed across his face, to be immediately replaced by something colder. “I had thought more of you. Think this through. If we had truly resorted to torture, would I bring you here? Give you the opportunity to talk to him, to see what we’d done.” He shook his head.
“I can talk to him?” she asked cautiously.
“Go ahead.” Xerxes looked sullen now. “Ask him what happened.”
She knelt down beside the battered figure stretched out on the cot and touched his shoulder gently. Murphy groaned, then his eyes opened, staring out in the distance unfocused.
“Murphy? Can you hear me?” she asked.
He groaned again then tried to speak.
“Water,” Pamela snapped. Xerxes filled a plastic cup with water and handed it to her. She leaned over the cot and tried to prop him up while she held the cup to his mouth. He was just barely conscious enough to try to help her guide the cup. He sucked down two noisy gulps then paused to take a breath.
“More?” she asked. He nodded, his expression already clearly more focused. He levered himself up into a sitting position and took the cup with shaky hands. As he drank the second cup of water by himself, his eyes refocused and found Xerxes standing quietly in the corner. Murphy stared at her impassively as he slowly drained the cup.
“What happened to you?” Pamela asked after he declined more water.
“They caught me trying to depart their hospitality,” he said, his face still expressionless. “A couple of guards were trying to drag me back to camp. I wasn’t too wild about the idea.”
“They beat you?” she said, still not looking at Xerxes.
He shook his head reluctantly. “No. I tripped. Once I was down, one got handcuffs on me. Then the rest of them showed up and hog-tied me for the trip back. I got in a couple of licks though — kicked one guy in the face pretty hard.”
“And broke his jaw,” Xerxes said, speaking for the first time.
“Too bad,” Murphy said, no trace of remorse in his voice.
“And you,” Xerxes continued, crossing the room to tower over the Marine pilot. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m just peachy, thanks.”
“Good. Fit enough for a little hike?”
“Probably.” Murphy’s eyes were guarded now, as though he were trying to decide whether to admit it. “If the ribs hold up.”
“What’s wrong with your ribs?” Pamela asked. She reached out as though to examine him, and he flinched back.
“Cracked a couple in the ejection, maybe. Might be just a strain. It’s no big deal,” he said reluctantly. She got the impression that little would be more distasteful to him than admitting physical weakness.
“Good. You’ll let me know if they get too uncomfortable, then,” Xerxes said. “I’m sure we can arrange other transportation for you.”
She stood, feeling the pain in her knees as she did so. “Where are we going?”
“Somewhere else. I thought you would have learned by now not to bother asking that sort of question.”
“I always ask questions.”
“I don’t always answer them.”
For a moment, it was as though they were the only two people in the room. Murphy was forgotten as their eyes locked and something more passed between them than just a simple question for information and a refusal to give it. Finally, Pamela looked away.
“There’s likely to be another strike,” Xerxes said finally. “We’re moving camp.”
“You’ve got pretty good intell,” Murphy said. Xerxes didn’t answer.
Moving camp. Pamela glanced at Murphy and knew immediately why he’d minimized his injuries. Movement meant a degree of disorder, and maybe another chance to escape. He’d take that opportunity any time it presented itself, no matter how small the odds for success, no matter how many beatings they administered.
Just like the Marines would be back to get him. That was one of the primary tenets of their brotherhood, that no Marine left another.
So Xerxes was right. They’d be back, both to finish what the earlier strike had started and to look for Murphy.
