October 18th, 0150 Hours 7 miles north of Wana, South Waziristan, Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Pakistan.
Lee could hear shouting out in the compound and then blessedly he heard a diesel truck grinding and then starting. He must have passed out he realized. It still was dark out the window. They believed him. They were getting away, ahead of his conjured Taliban.
He wondered if they would take him or leave him. If they left him he rather hoped they would just kill him rather then leave him hanging here until he died. He decided that must make him a weak, capitalist infidel. He should hope for life. Maybe they would leave and he would get rescued. After a while he wouldn't be so sore and tired and cold and he would be glad he was alive. After all he thought, "there's got to be a morning after." He definitely needed to get some rest, when he started quoting hokey old lyrics to himself. He was done in.
He had to give Al-Qaeda credit once they made a decision they didn't waste any time. Too soon Al-Ash'ari was back with his knife. This time he used it to cut the rope holding Lee's arms over his head to the ceiling joist. Without the support Lee came down like a rag doll. Happily two of the Arab henchmen caught him before he hit the ground avoiding the inevitable concussion. The two men dragged him out of the room. He couldn't even pretend to move his legs and just let them drag him. Outside two other men grabbed his legs and they threw him into the back of one of the trucks. He felt something land on top of him. "Cover yourself," one of the guards said. "Have some modesty."
"Happy days are here again," he thought, "not dead yet." He wondered where this greatest hits thing was coming from. Was he too tired to think of his own words?
He heard the CNN reporter, David Craig, say, "looks like our goat herder is back. The whole gang is together now." Lee appreciated Craig telling him he was in the truck with the hostages and that they were all in the same truck. One more act to this little drama he thought.
He opened his eyes wearily and looked around at what he could see. The lights of the land rover behind their vehicle were illuminating the back of the truck, so he could see clearly. He tilted his head back as far as he could. Craig was sitting at the front end of the bench on the driver's side of the truck, about three feet from where a guard stood with his back to the cab of the truck, his AK-47 held at port arms, looking alert and quite capable. Lee thought he might be the gorilla with the strong punch. He decided he was Craig's problem. Opposite Craig on the other bench sat a second armed guard. Glancing at the tailgate end of the truck Lee watched as the two men who had carried him out jumped into the truck and sat down on opposite sides guarding the back.
Sitting on the passenger's side of the truck were the Senator and his aide and the pilot, Commander Gilroy. On Craig's side of the truck was only Mr. Lodhi. Lee decided it could be worse. He had Craig in the front of the truck, with the Commander next to the second front guard. The back of the truck though was his problem and he had the Senator's aide next to one guard and Mr. Lodhi next to the other. Not much help there.
He closed his eyes again and concentrated on getting the pain under control. He thought, fifteen minutes no more and they should be down the road and ambushed by the SEALS. If he could get through the next fifteen minutes then he could just lie on the floor of the truck and moan and shiver all he wanted. He just had to get through the next fifteen minutes. What was fifteen minutes, nothing, no time at all? He could do fifteen minutes.
He reached across his chest very slowly and toward his right arm where that last knife cut had gone. He wondered how much damage that cut had done, it had felt different than the others, deeper, meaner some how. He hesitated and then dropped his left hand back down to the truck floor. It didn't really matter what the damage was to his arm, it only mattered if he could move it, if he could use it for what he needed to do in fifteen minutes.
Fourteen minutes now he thought, an easy fourteen minutes. He opened his eyes again. Still in the back of the truck, still brightly lit by the Land Rover but only thirteen minutes more and he could close his eyes and sleep, close his eyes and just let the pain wash over him. But now he needed to concentrate, now he needed to get past the pain and do what he needed to do, complete his mission, do his duty. Come on Crane, get up from the floor, what's the matter with you lying around when there is work you need to be doing?
He spoke to Robert Carstairs, the Senator's aide in French, and asked him to help him up to the bench. Wanting Carstairs to haul him up so he ended up on that side of the truck, opposite from Craig and necessarily close to the guard on the crowded bench. Not unexpectedly the guard kicked him in the leg and asked him what he'd said, speaking Arabic.
"I asked him to help me up," Lee said petulantly, or as petulantly as he could, given he was stretched out flat on his back and shivering uncontrollably. "He's an infidel… he doesn't speak any civilized language… I asked him in French."
The guard reached down and grabbed Lee's left arm and hauled him up onto the bench dropping him down between himself and Carstairs. Perfect Lee thought.
"Thank you," he said as he fell back weakly against the wooden backrest. That had hurt. He guessed at this point everything was going to hurt. This was the part where a real man just sucked it up and got going. He closed his eyes again. Was just so hard to keep them open, they seemed to weigh a ton and kept closing of their own volition whenever he stopped thinking about keeping them open.
"Have you no modesty?" The guard said, reaching down and retrieving the shirt that had been thrown into the truck after Lee. The guard threw the shirt at Carstairs and shouted at him in Arabic.
Lodhi translated for Carstairs, "He says put the shirt on the man."
Carstairs draped the shirt over Lee's shoulders when Lee made no attempt to put it on. It was wet still from the bucket of water and he didn't want to risk getting tangled up in a long wet shirt. He sat with his head back against the side of the truck his eyes closed, concentrating on getting the pain under control. There was nothing he could do about the shivering. He thought once the action started and he began moving the adrenaline rush would take care of the shivering, for now he just shivered.
"Don't speak to the infidels," the guard said.
Lee made no comment. He figured once they pulled out he would have less then five minutes before the SEALS attacked at the sharp bend in the road. He also thought he would know when they approached the bend because the whole convoy would need to stop as each vehicle made the turn. If he were the SEAL team he would wait until the first truck was in the middle of the turn then he would take out the first and last vehicles with RPGs. Thus far he could see only the Land Rover behind the truck. So they were the second truck. As soon as the RPG took the Land Rover these guards would start shooting and Lee was pretty sure their orders were to kill the hostages, if it looked like they were going to be rescued. He and Craig were going to have to prevent that. He thought he now had perhaps ten minutes before he needed to some how go from shivering wuss to man of action. He continued to concentrate on isolating the pain and assessing his condition. How badly hurt was he? How much of the pain was burns he could ignore, shallow knife wounds he could ignore, cracked and broken ribs he could ignore and how much was real damage that would slow him, prevent him from doing what needed doing?
The headlights from the Land Rover lit up the back of the truck like a circus. He couldn't act until those lights went out. He was confident in the SEALS. They would take care of what they could see. That would be inside the Land Rovers and the drivers of the trucks. They would have no way to identify who was under the tarpaulins in the back of the two trucks.
Lee carefully stretched each leg up and out about six inches, and then he moved each arm away from his body a few inches. They all moved. His arms felt very weak and shaky, no doubt as a result of hanging from them for a few hours. He looked at his hands, his fingers felt like sausages and his hands were swollen from the constriction caused by the ropes around his wrists. However, his fingers didn't look as swollen as they felt. He thought he would be able to pull a trigger if he got a gun. He began flexing his fingers trying to get the blood flowing.
He looked down the truck toward Craig and met the other man's eyes. Craig shut both of his eyes and then opened them again, looking directly at Lee. Knowing that Craig's looking into the light from the Land Rover would make his response harder to see, Lee gave Craig a short nod. Craig would act when he saw Lee act. It wasn't going to take a rocket scientist to know when to act. An RPG is a pretty loud starting gun. Lee was just going to have to trust Craig to incapacitate the guard he was sitting next to. Lee couldn't possibly take out all four guards without at least one of them opening fire into the hostages.
He looked down at his hands again. They were screaming at him now as the circulation returned. It must have been the short break in the sheep barn, it had allowed his circulation to return before his second session with the rope. The half hour of suspension hadn't been enough to swell his hands too much.
His head jerked as the truck was put in gear and began to move. He tried moving his head from side to side to loosen up those muscles as much as he could. This was not going to be pretty. At least all that dancing on the end of the rope had kept his muscles from stiffening. He felt as weak as a baby but he would be able to move. Six or eight more minutes and he would be done.
With much backing and turning all of the vehicles finally managed to get turned and out the compound gate. Lee could see the inside of the truck clearly from the Land Rover headlights but the outside was lost in those same lights. It took about three minutes for the first vehicle to reach the turn. Lee moved his arms again crossing them slightly over his chest a couple of times trying to get the blood pumping as much as possible, trying to ignore the pain the movement caused.
He opened and closed his hands and tried shaking his arms a bit. Damn that hurt. He hoped he didn't pass out. That would be pretty lame, jump the guard and then faint. The truck slowed to a stop and then after a minute lurched forward and stopped again. Lee moved his feet further under the bench to gain more leverage.
The truck lurched ahead. That would be the second Land Rover making the turn. The truck lurched ahead again. Sometime in the next minute Lee figured, and lowered his hands to the bench and put his palms down flat against the wooden seat.
October 18th, 0230 Hours 10 miles north of Wana, South Waziristan, Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Pakistan.
The truck lurched forward again and the Land Rover behind them blew up with a deafening explosion. Lee threw himself sideways against the guard on his left, grabbing the middle of his AK-47 as he landed against him. Allowing his body to go limp Lee fell away from the guard backwards toward the bed of the truck letting his weight and gravity make up for his lack of strength. He used the momentum of their fall to roll as far forward toward the other side of the truck as he could holding desperately to the stock of the AK-47.
Letting go of the rifle, he reached for the guard on the opposite side of the truck. This second guard had apparently tried to stand up when the Land Rover exploded. He was half out of his seat facing the tailgate of the truck.
The illumination provided by the headlights of the Land Rover had been replaced by the bright flames of the now burning vehicle. Since some of his hearing had returned Lee could hear the sound of small arms fire. The sound of an MG3 in a front Land Rover was unmistakable, as was the answering fire of an American machine gun. He heard an M110 SEAL sniper rifle and then no more from the MG3 just as he grabbed the leg of the Arab guard. He grabbed the leg closest to the outside edge of the truck and pulled hard on it toward his chest. The guard over balanced and disappeared out the back of the truck. He was a SEAL problem now, and then he heard the sniper rifle fire again.
The sounds of the firefight had died down already. Most of the fire he heard was from AK-47s with an occasional sound of a 110 when a SEAL sniper had a target.
The sounds of the battle were registering remotely as his main attention was focused on the fight in front of him. Just as his second target disappeared to the sound of the M110 his first target had managed to roll a short distance away from him on the floor of the truck and was trying to bring his AK-47 around to bear on Lee. He ignored the muzzle of the gun and continued the move that had jerked the feet out from underneath the second guard, rolling and twisting across the truck floor so his hands hit the stock of the guards AK-47 driving the butt of the gun into the other man's chest. This brought the barrel of the gun down sharply, but following his hands with his head Lee took most of the impact of the barrel on his shoulder. Ignoring the weapon, Lee grabbed the front of the man's shirt and slammed the palm of his hand against the man's jaw slamming the guard's head back against the floor of the truck and putting him out of commission.
The momentum of the hand slam rolled Lee forward on top of the body of the guard. He kept rolling onto his back with the AK-47 in his hands and his head toward the tailgate, partially resting on the unconscious guard and facing the guard in the front of the truck on the passenger's side. He could see the pilot, Commander Gilroy, grappling with the man, both of them holding tight to the man's weapon. Lee could see that Craig had his man down on the floor of the truck as well.
Ignoring both of these fights, as at least both guards were occupied, if not totally out of action. Lee turned to acquire his next target. He saw that everyone was on the floor of the truck, except for the Senator who still sat on his seat, like a deer caught in the headlights.
In the front of the truck, he saw that Gilroy was now down and the guard was turning his AK-47 on the Senator. Lee moaned as he tightened his stomach muscles and pulled himself up from the floor. He reached across with his left hand and grabbed the Senator by the arm of his jacket and pulled him off the bench pushing against him so he fell to the floor and allowed himself to collapse back on top of the Senator. Bringing his weapon around with his right hand he shot Gilroy's guard twice in the head, aware as he did so of the man in the front passenger seat bringing his gun up. Lee locked eyes with the man as he felt the second round leave his rifle. He didn't think he was going to make it to the second target in time. The act of shooting the AK-47, as always, caused the barrel to want to rise slightly with the force of the departing shells. On the second shot he allowed the barrel to complete its rise and fired twice into the head of the guard in the front passenger's seat.
Almost made it he thought with some satisfaction as the man disappeared in a shower of glass and blood. The ceasing of firing in the confines of the back of the truck made the more distant sound of gunfire outside almost peaceful. "Everyone stay down on the floor," Lee said as loudly as he could. Wasn't very loud, but it was a small truck and everyone seemed to comply.
Lee laid flat on his back his shoulders on top of the Al-Qaeda guard he had attacked earlier and the Senator, the AK-47 still grasped firmly in his hands. He didn't think he could move, but he couldn't stand down yet either. After what seemed an eternity he manager to squirm a bit to his side so he could see out the back of the truck. Using the unconscious guard for support he pointed his rifle toward the burning Land Rover and waited for what ever came next. It wouldn't be long now. He was almost finished here. Soon he could close his eyes and let someone else have this problem of hostages and guards.
A black clad figure appeared back lit by the Land Rover fire, a navy SEAL with the unmistakable lumpy profile of night-vision goggles pushed up on the top of his head, his face covered with grease paint waving an MP5 at the back of the truck. "Stay down, don't move," he yelled, as a like clad figure jumped into the truck and began sorting through bodies. The dead guards were thrown out the back of the truck. Lee let go of his AK-47 and moved his arms away from his body as the man trained his MP 5 on him. "I'm Tamin," Lee said simply, "sailor home from the sea," his recognition code. The SEAL nodded very briefly, grabbed the AK-47 and threw it out the back of the truck and continued his check. You didn't stay a SEAL long if you weren't very careful all the time.
Lee guessed the same was true of ONI agents. He moved his left hand slowly down his body until he found the wet spot on the left side of his abdomen. He'd almost made that last shot in time, so close. But, of course, close only counted in 'horse shoes and hand grenades,' he thought as he closed his eyes. All done, he'd done his fifteen minutes, all done now. He let himself drift on the pain and the tired and the being done.
"EVERYONE STAY DOWN, EVERYONE STAY IN THE TRUCK," the SEAL said, in a loud voice. "We will have this truck moving shortly. NO ONE MOVE."
That said the SEAL moved to the rear of the truck and took a defensive position. Lee thought if he wasn't so cold this could be perfect. He was shivering uncontrollably again now that the adrenaline was wearing off. He could feel someone lying on the floor next to him. The Senator he thought. He wondered if the man would mind snuggling up a little closer?