'Collateral Damage' - Part Five
Authors: AeroGirl and Daenar
Disclaimer: See Part One Chapter Nine 1507 Local - 1037 ZULU
Mac and Gunny's house
Suburbs of Zaranj
Afghanistan Although I had ended the connection myself, I kept staring at the telephone in my hands, twirling it around, trying to mentally regroup. Five hours and 23 minutes to wrap things up and get the hell out of here. It sounded like an easy thing to do but I was sure Murphy would want a hand in this, too. I'd be foolish to hope that for once, a Webb operation would go smoothly. Harm was involved. No need to say anything else.

Had my concern for him not threatened to choke me, I would have laughed at the irony of the situation. He was ordered to carry out a mission that he knew well might easily kill me - if he wasn't be killed first by the missiles that I of all people had acquired for the people he was ordered to eliminate. Not even Webb could have made up a scenario like this. But, of course, the two of us were destined to end up in the middle of it. I had long since given up wondering if God would ever decide that we needed a break.

After a full three minutes and 18 seconds, I finally managed to get a grip and focus on what lay ahead. I needed to contact Gunny. ASAP.

Luckily, just like the military, the Red Half-Moon supplied its employees with sat phones. I knew I wasn't supposed to have a phone at home but Gunny and I had agreed that, should I ever need to call him, he would act as if I were a supply contact back in Isfahan. I dialed his number.

["Goshtasbi."]

"Gunny, it's me."

["Hello Abtin! How are things? When's the convoy due?"]

No one would have noticed the instant wariness that rang in my colleague's voice, probably not even our coworkers. But living under the same roof had taught me a few things about Victor Galindez: the adrenaline level in his blood had just about tripled.

"I got a call from Commander Rabb, Gunny. A squadron is coming in for the camp at 2030 tonight. We need to get clear and confirm once we reach the Canadians at Kadesh."

["Understood. I think I left it at home. I'll go get it and you can call me again in half an hour. Have a good trip!"]

The line went dead. Bless the Gunny for his quick thinking. He'd be here in ten and I was determined to have our evac packs ready by that time. I quickly changed into BDU pants, boots and a brown t-shirt, throwing into my backpack whatever I thought might be worth taking with me. When I came across the little prayer chain, I stopped, smiling despite the situation.

Anusheh Rabb.

Well, maybe not, but the pearls in my hand felt like little lucky charms. Perhaps, if I just believed it firmly enough, they would keep us safe tonight, Gunny and me, and Harm, somewhere up there. Quickly I wound the little chain twice around my left wrist and put on a long-sleeved sweater.

22 minutes later I was sitting on my bed, my Chador ready to be thrown over, two packed backpacks beside me, the house in neat order.

No sign of the Gunny.

It was then that I began to worry. Contemplating if I should try to call him again, I finally sighed and decided against it. It would be too obvious if he got two sat-phone calls within one hour without having been home in between like he had said he would.

But what the heck was taking him so long? Impatiently, I drummed a little salsa on my thighs with my hands.

There! The key in the lock. Finally...

I jumped to my feet, hoisted up all the baggage onto both my shoulders and staggered to meet Galindez in the doorw...

Jesus Christ! 'Please, God, don't let this happen! Not now!'

Galindez was standing in the corridor. He was bleeding from a gash above his right brow, as well as from his nose that was starting to swell. Two men were hovering behind him, pointing handguns at both his temples while three others were coming towards me, rage distorting their features.

What followed seemed to play out in slow motion. They got to me. I dropped the luggage and tried to fight them. They overpowered me. I got a breathtaking blow to my stomach. They bound my wrists. They gagged me. Then they dragged me up on my feet and in the direction of the door.

As I stumbled past Gunny, our eyes met, his expression mirroring mine. 'Too late.'


*****************************


All the way to wherever we were going, I was desperately contemplating just how much the terrorists had learned about our mission and - what was even more important - how much they knew about the imminent attack on their camp. I was sure that no one in the group spoke English. They wouldn't have let me - the woman - do their vital correspondence if any of them could have done it, or would they?

We'll watch your every move, Maryam...

They sure had made good on their promise. The sat-phone conversation must have been monitored, that much was self-evident. But which one? Harm's call or mine? Or both? How did they even know I had a sat-phone? Or had they monitored Gunny's? Or did they listen to just about everything that was broadcast to and fro throughout the region?

We were on the middle bench of an old van whose rear windows had been painted so that no one would be able to see what was inside. Gunny was sitting rigidly beside me while the man on the front passenger seat kept his gun trained on us, daring us to utter a syllable. I was starting to sweat profusely, but not solely because of the Chador they had wrapped me in. It was because, once again, I heard a clock ticking. But this wasn't the calm mental tick-tock I remembered from the day of little AJ's birth. This was the timer to a bomb, cruelly ticking away. An avalanche of sand streaming through a giant hourglass with a deafening roar. A cardiac monitor, mercilessly slowing down until the steady beep told me that a loved person's heart had gone into arrest...

Swallowing, I fiercely ordered myself not to panic. 1608. There was still time to escape and get a warning to the Seahawk. 'Think, Mackenzie. Think hard. Use that bloody brain of yours, dammit!'

When the van pulled to a rough stop, the sliding doors were yanked open and I became aware that we had been brought to the camp. The two men from the bench behind us dragged us out of the car and pushed us forward until we arrived at a small warehouse right at the center of the camp. There was nothing inside except a couple of metal chairs and various electronic communication items.

Instead of making us sit down, the guards made us stand against the backrests of two of the chairs and firmly tied our hands to it. Our legs were spread and the ankles tied to the chair legs. The gag in my mouth was causing me extreme nausea but I deliberately slowed my breathing and lifted my chin as the door opened once again and the Magharis slowly entered the room, together with Amal Faezi. All three stepped close to us and just stared at us, never saying anything. I admit that their stares were intimidating but I held my eyes up. If they wanted me down, they sure as hell would see me fight first.

The threesome didn't seem to be too interested in the Gunny. On the phone, I had told him what to do, that much was clear even from the tone of my voice. You didn't have to understand English to get the difference in rank. Apparently, a woman who, in her own country, had the power to order men like Vajih Goshtasbi around, was a lot more interesting than the man who accepted her as his superior. Besides, that very woman had obviously succeeded in fooling them. I mentally braced myself for what I was sure would be an experience to remember - if I would be given the chance to.

They started out with a heavy blow in my face.

Trying not to moan and ordering the stars in front of my eyes to stay in line, I glared back at Kourosh.

"I can't believe we let this happen," he mused in a thoughtful voice, more to himself, although I knew exactly that his words were meant for my ears. "We let our enemies operate right under our nose. I have to say, you are quite skilled. Impressive. It's a shame - you would have made a good warrior, even though you are a woman."

I waited, trying to guess where Kourosh would take this. In the meantime, I received another blow to my face, this time to the other side. I bit down my hiss.

"So, you told your friends about the ships, did you?" Kourosh's voice was as honeyed as it could ever be. "You were really lucky, you know that? From what we heard from our friends on the vessels, the fighters were almost in firing range when they broke off."

Damn those emotions. I could refrain from reacting when they struck me. But I couldn't stop my eyes from widening in shock when I learned just how close Harm had come to firing on the convoy. 'God Almighty...'

Kourosh's face distorted to an ugly grin, showing a row of yellow horse-like teeth. "Oh... sorry, didn't you know? Just a few minutes later and your sweetheart would have been desperately gasping for non-contaminated air... what a cruel death, Maryam... or should I say Sarah?"

Okay, that answered at least one of my questions. Harm's call had done the trick. Obviously, al Qaeda had facilities to intercept satellite communication, and they had been monitoring my surroundings, probably ever since the failed attack on the ships had been noticed. No wonder - I had been the one to have all the information, if not on the target, then on the coordinates and the planned time for the terrorist bombing. If our local 'friends' initially hadn't suspected me, Basra Base obviously had.

Kourosh reached out and, with a disgusted expression on his face, pulled the gag out of my mouth. I had a hard time refraining from spitting into his face. While Faezi removed the cloth from Gunny's mouth and angrily let his fist come down on Galindez' nose again, making him wince in pain, Kourosh stepped still closer to me until our noses were mere inches from one another. Still, I held the eye-contact.

Rokneddin approached me from the other side. Dangerously calm, he took over. "You decide, Sarah. Either you tell us what you know and we'll kill you quickly. Or you don't and you will meet Allah's wrath through our hands. Let's start with something simple. Who are you?"

Drawing a deep breath, knowing full well that it might be the last one I was ever to take without hurting, I squared my shoulders. I was going to answer his question, yes. But he would soon find out that he would get nothing further.

"Lieutenant Colonel Sarah Mackenzie, United States Marine Corps, service number 401-23-10, current duty station Wash..."

A powerful slap from Kourosh made me stop. This time, I couldn't refrain from sucking in my breath. Kourosh was wearing three rings on his hand that had made sharp contact with my cheekbone. "Enough! A Marine colonel. Fine. And who's your 'husband'?"

Preparing for the full impact of his anger, I glared at him.

"Lieutenant Colonel Sarah Mackenzie, United States Marine Corps, service..."

I had focused all my attention on Kourosh, so Rokneddin's kick to my stomach caught me totally off guard. I cried out and gasped, wanting desperately to press my hands where his foot had hit me.

"Again: who's he?"

Gunny spoke up, loud and clear. "Gunnery Sergeant Victor Galindez, United States Marine Corps, service number 108-24..."

He didn't get any further.

"No one asked you, weakling!" Faezi's precisely-aimed right hook effectively silenced Galindez as it hit the classic knock-out point. From the corner of my eye, I could see my colleague go down, making the chair he was tied to topple right over him. No one bothered to look.

Rokneddin pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and took his time to light one. I couldn't prevent myself from starting to tremble, but I never lowered my gaze.

"Who's that Commander Rabb you mentioned on the phone?"

"Lieutenant Colonel Sarah Mackenzie, United States..."

Swiftly, Rokneddin shoved the sleeve of my sweater up to my shoulder and extinguished his cigarette in the pit of my elbow. I gave a cry of excruciating pain, feeling tears sting in my eyes.

"Who is Commander Rabb?" Kourosh's question was accompanied by another kick to my stomach.

I was starting to lose my orientation, arching my body in all directions in vain attempts to ease the pain. I was sobbing now but I let the tears flow. I needed my strength to pull through. 1648. 'Still time to warn the Seahawk.'

"Lieutenant... Colonel... Sarah Mackenzie... United..."

Kourosh's left hook made me lose my footing. Just like Gunny, I hit the ground, taking the chair with me. Faezi stepped on my hip, applying his full weight, flattening me completely.

Rokneddin kneeled down in front of me, looking down into my eyes that I held raised to him. I would not back down.

"Your choice, Sarah." His voice was almost soothing. "We'll know how to make you talk, and - courtesy for our special friends - we'll even bring an interpreter so you won't have to bother speaking Farsi while being tortured." He drew a dramatic, pitying breath, reaching out and caressing my cheek. "It's a real pity, you know? For an American, you're almost handsome..." He sighed again, nearing his face to mine.

This time, I did spit him into the eye, making him swear in disgust. He gave the back of my head a rough strike. My already sore cheekbone hit the concrete, making me moan. Something warm and just a little sticky began to trickle down to my jaw. I tasted it as some of it ended up between my lips. My blood.

Rokneddin's stare had hardened. "So be it." Hearing his voice, I couldn't fight the impression that the room temperature had diminished by at least ten degrees. "Be sure of one thing, Sarah. Regardless of what you'll tell us or not - we know when to expect your friends. This... what was his name? Harm?"

The look in my eyes must have confirmed that he was remembering correctly. A thin grin spread on Rokneddin's lips.

"I see... Harm. He's your favorite client, right?"

"You goddamned mothe..."

My murmur was cut off by another kick to my side. I groaned, squeezing my eyes shut.

"Is there anything you'd like to tell me, Sarah?"

"Lieutenant... Colonel... Sarah..."

This time, Rokneddin kicked me himself. And he did it with fierce delight. His first hit made me roll to my side, gasping. As if he had waited for the opportunity, he then forcefully planted his foot where I was hoping I would one day carry Harm's child. This kick was my undoing. I broke down, sobbing silently.

Rokneddin got up. The sound of his voice alone revealed his opinion about women in combat. "Cry on... we'll leave you alone for a little while. You won't have much breath left to wail once we return and let you feel what it means to oppose yourself to Allah. Maybe you'll find some consolation in the prospect of meeting this... Harm... tonight - in Allah's eternal hell, after we pluck them down, one by one, as soon as they reach the Helmand River. See you later, Sarah."

I didn't have the power, nor the will, to lift my head. Their steps told me that they had turned and were leaving the room. The slamming of the door confirmed my perception.

1711.

The pain in my gut was driving me insane. But what was even worse was the awareness that Harm and his squadron were about to run into a trap. I had little more than three hours to save him.

Theoretically.

Looking at it realistically, I had no chance.

The tears started to flow afresh, kindled by this feeling of being lost and utterly helpless. The certainty of my own death didn't really register in my consciousness. It just didn't matter anymore.

Just before I gave in to my exhaustion, I somehow thought about the onyx pearls around my wrist. The feel of their polished surface against my skin seemed like a promise of what the future might hold in store for me. For us.

We've got a lot left to do in this world...

'Keep us safe, God, please, keep us safe.'

Then, the world slipped into darkness. Chapter Ten 1851 Local - 1451 Zulu
USS Seahawk - At a classified location in the Persian Gulf Christ Almighty ... I don't know if I can do this.

For the past few hours, I'd been clinging fiercely to ever word of every military mantra ever devised: "service before self" and "honor above all" and all the purple prose that they could cram into our heads in four years at Annapolis. I'd been trying to force myself to see only the mission, only my duty. And it wasn't working worth a damn.

"Pre-brief's about to start, sir."

I had to physically prevent myself from spinning around and knocking Bounce against the bulkhead for that innocent comment. Didn't he get it? No, of course he didn't. How could he? Somehow that was almost as frustrating as the suffocating silence from CIC. It was almost a sound unto itself, the silence: it penetrated every corner of my consciousness, seemingly growing louder as the minutes ticked by. She hadn't called in. And I no longer had the luxury of pretending that her call was coming at any moment.

On paper, the mission was practically ideal. A clearly defined target with minimum possibility of civilian casualties and maximum likelihood of ensuring that some reprehensible people would never hurt anyone ever again. The others were probably all thinking about how great it would look in their records, and how great it would sound to everyone in the wardroom or the bar back home. I remember days like that, back when these kids were still in high school. All it had taken was one mission, and an unexpected air-to-air engagement over the Gulf of Sidra, to cure me of that particular sort of ignorance. Seeing it resurface in my squadron, even from a harmless talker like Bounce, made me feel so incredibly ancient.

This isn't right. I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't have to do this.

And yet some part of me still believed what I'd told Coates a couple of hours earlier. If the mission had to launch without word from Mac or Gunny, then I needed to be the one going, if only because of the slightest chance that my Marine really did possess extrasensory powers of some kind. It wasn't much to pin my sanity to, but it was all I had.

A persistent, hideous thought kept creeping into my mind; the possibility that she was already dead. Each time it emerged, I savagely beat it back -- not because I was certain it wasn't true, but because I seriously doubted my ability to function rationally once I acknowledged the idea at all. But it wouldn't be deterred, and finally it wrested from me one of the most dire thoughts ever to take hold in my conscious mind.

If she's still in that camp when we blow it to pieces, assuming there's any justice in the world, there'll be a Stinger down there with my name on it.

I buried that thought quickly as well, out of guilt for its selfishness, and also because it scared the hell out of me. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Cash approaching with caution. I'd given him a brief synopsis of the situation after our target study session earlier, because a RIO deserved to have a clue about what was going on in his pilot's head. He hadn't expressed any reservations about flying with me, nor would I have expected any. Still, it was probably in his best interests not to mess with me right about now.

"Nothing yet, sir?"

I shrugged, not wanting to admit that aloud. "Depends on your definition of 'nothing.' The SEALs now have full control of all three ships. That's something."

"Yeah, gotta hand it to them. The crews must've known they'd be coming, and they still managed to get the drop on them." Cash shook his head. He was a lieutenant commander, one of the senior RIOs on the boat, and he'd been in the business long enough to have lost most of the rampant idealism that the others displayed. "CAG'll chew you a new one if you're late to pre-flight, sir. Doesn't matter how much the circumstances suck."

"Yeah, I know." I squared my shoulders and set my face into a mask of non-emotion. "Let's get this over with."

The pre-flight briefing held no surprises. We had four hard targets, corresponding to the main buildings of the camp, and a half-dozen possible soft targets, depending on how many vehicles were present and the amount of weaponry stockpiled in the area. The missiles that hung from our wings were GPS-guided: "fire and forget" weapons, as they say. Forget? Not likely in this case.

Because of our distance from the target, we'd be hitting a tanker both before and after the strike. The Air Force had a KC-135 equipped for Navy refueling in the area, which was convenient, since the carrier's Viking refueler had its own duties over southern Iraq. It all looked so straightforward on the board. Launch, tank, drop, tank, trap. If it worked out that way, I'd only have the rest of my life to deal with the consequences.

Come on, Mac, where are you?

We suited up and headed for the deck with little discussion. Pre-flight checks went without a hitch, and at last I had to mount up. The canopy slammed shut over my head with a sense of finality that tore all but the last vestiges of hope from my soul. I could no longer raise my eyes to the hatch, willing it to offer up some young seaman with news of a transmission from Afghanistan. From that point on, I had no choice but to concentrate fully on my aircraft and my mission, or the result would likely be the deaths of still more courageous officers.

With a silent prayer for forgiveness from both God and Sarah Mackenzie, I saluted the deck officer, and the force of the catapult drove me back into my seat.


******************


1957 Local -- 1527 Zulu
Approaching the southwestern border of Afghanistan "Echo Flight, this is Air Force eight-zero-three. Y'all looking for a floating gas station?"

"Roger that, Air Force. Slowing to approach."

Bounce snickered into his radio. "Nice to see that you blue-suiters finally wised up and decided to trade in some of your booms for hoses. What took you so long to figure out that the Navy got it right the first time?"

"Speak for yourself, Bounce," I told him calmly. "I ended up with stitches once because of a hose-whip that came through my canopy. The Air Force way doesn't look so bad by comparison."

I could hear the wide grin from the airman on the tanker. "Oh, I like you, sir! Just for that, you get to be first in the pattern."

"No, Air Force, he gets to be first in the pattern 'cause he's lead and outranks us all," Red commented, a wry smile in her voice.

"Fair enough, sirs and ma'am -- step right up, Echo Lead. Closure rate fifteen knots."

My probe engaged easily, and the fuel transfer light obediently came on. "Make sure you get what you paid for, sir," cracked Bounce. "I hear the price of gas has gone down since we came over here and started kicking -- "

"Lock it up, ladies and gentlemen." I'd had enough at that point. Staying loose en route to the target had its advantages, but there was a such thing as being too loose. "From here on in, we're all business, all right?"

"Copy that, sir," Red replied promptly, which quieted everyone down. I made a mental note, in a vaguely detached way, to thank her later if possible. She and I had flown together once or twice before this whole mess, and while I had her respect, I knew than she had the respect of the rest of the squadron. Lead or not, I was well aware of my outsider status. The others would jump if I asked, without hesitation: but if Red asked, the answer would have been "how high?"

Check that - it would have been "how high, ma'am?"

We did the aviation equivalent of treading water until all five aircraft had tanked, and offered our compliments to the genial airman as we departed the area.

"Question from the peanut gallery, Hammer," came the voice of Rocky, Buck's RIO. "How sure are we that these guys aren't ready for us?"

"Approximately as sure as we were when we launched," I answered. "Watcher, you want to update us on that?"

"That's affirm, Lead, nothing lighting up in the region so far." The Hawkeye's radio officer entered the conversation for the first time. "Best intel says that there's no sophisticated radar SAM capability down there."

"Then that's what we go with for the moment. But we all know what can happen when you depend too much on 'best intel'."

"Roger that."

We continued in silence for a while, each finding our way into the necessary frame of mind for the task ahead. This was the part of the job that "Top Gun" didn't cover: straight and level flight, getting from one place to another, with nothing but time to think, and far too much of it. In this case, the time was filled by a near-constant stream of memories playing across my mind: of courtroom battles and evenings spent strategizing over takeout food; of rainy Norfolk docks, doorways hung with mistletoe and warm spring nights on the admiral's porch; even of ferry rides and terrible misunderstandings.

God, how blind I'd been. And to think it had only taken a threat to everything I held dear to make me realize it.

After a few minutes, the Hawkeye radioed again. "Echo Flight, this is our stop. We'll maintain contact from here. Good luck and good hunting."

"Message received, Watcher. See you back here in a while." I tightened my fingers around the throttle. "Let's close it up, everybody. Two and two."

Through the last rays of daylight, already sinking out of view, I watched Buck's aircraft close the distance between his wing and mine to a matter of a few meters. If this mission had a point of no return, we were now approaching it at near-Mach speed.

All right, ninja-girl, here's your chance. Whatever that thing is that you do, whatever bizarre plane of existence you tap into to locate little girls and idiot aviators - crank it up, because the world's about to go crazy. To be continued...