YOUSIF AL-SHOUM, STANDING in the hatch of his BMR, saw the smoking ruin of the quad-barrel Zeus as they entered the village. Clumps of junk littered the street in front of the Americans’ house, debris blown over from the demolished building of the jihad fighters, which burned with fury. The door to the Americans’ place had been splintered by the force of the blast and was hanging on a single hinge. The body of the soldier he had left on guard was sprawled dead beside the steps. He ordered both vehicles to a stop, and his men formed a perimeter.
“Mr. Logan, you come with me.” Logan wiggled from the hatch behind him and a soldier followed with a pistol at Logan’s back. “Call out to your friend,” Al-Shoum ordered.
“Hey, Collins! Jimbo! You in there? It’s me, Vic. Put down your weapon. We’re coming in.” Logan stepped to the doorway, but the officer cut in front of him with his pistol out.
“I will enter first.” He stepped around the sagging door and into the room. The body of Jimbo Collins was sprawled in a corner. Al-Shoum moved toward the back of the house.
Logan kept his hands above shoulder level as he went up the steps with the guard at his heels. It was now or never. Get the AK, spray the guard, and take the smarmy little officer as a hostage. When he cleared the doorway, Logan back-kicked the guard and sent him reeling. He reached up to snatch the AK-47 waiting above the door, but his hands closed on thin air and his palms slapped the empty wall. He looked up. The gun was gone. NOTHING! He lowered his hands.
The major spotted the pegs. “A weapon was hidden up there, wasn’t it, Mr. Logan? For emergencies… like this.” Al-Shoum smacked Logan’s head with the butt of his pistol and Vic staggered, seeing stars. “You were going to try to escape, and maybe shoot me in the process.” Two soldiers ran in, grabbing and punching Logan. “Try something like that again, and you will be as dead as your friend in the corner. Now where is the general?”
“Over there, that room behind that door.” Logan pointed. “Handcuffed to the bed.”
Al-Shoum opened the door, took a look, and stepped right back out. “No one is there. It seems that you have lost your most prized possession. So what about this magic computer? Where is it?”
Logan looked at the table where the laptop usually rested beside the secure telephone. The phone had been crushed, and both computers were gone. He began walking around the room, looking for a place where Jimbo might have hidden them. “It has to be here somewhere. When I find it, I’ll show you what we can do. Gates Global has a fantastic network.” He rummaged through the kitchen area and the meager belongings in the living quarters, his mind working fast. The damn things were obviously gone.
“And what is this!” The Syrian officer had opened the door to the second bedroom and seen the naked and tortured body of a young girl exposed on the bed, with flies feasting on the dried blood and cuts. Her wide, lifeless eyes stared toward the door and a wide strip of tape was on her mouth.
Logan pushed past him, ran into the room, and came to a stop beside the body. It was time for the performance of his life, or he was breathing his last breaths. He thought of Charles Bronson, but he needed emotion, some heavy Clint Eastwood. “Ohhh. Nooo! Jimbo, you fucking bastard!” he howled in mock outrage. He stormed back to the body of Jimbo Collins and kicked it hard in the ribs. Again. “You sick fucking bastard! Couldn’t keep your hands off her! I hope you rot in hell!”
Logan turned to the officer, panting and trying to appear shocked. “She was our cleaning girl, and Jimbo was always giving her the eye, saying what he wanted to do with the kid. He was a sick fuck with a record of sex crimes that got him thrown out of the army. I made him leave her alone because we were here to run an operation, not get involved with his sex fantasies. The sick asshole probably raped her this afternoon, and I didn’t know because I came in late. I didn’t even know she was in there!”
“A young Muslim woman has been defiled and murdered by you infidels,” the major said with stone in his voice. “You tried to find a hidden weapon, your computer has apparently been taken along with the missing general, and somebody is waging a one-man war out there.” He buried the barrel of his pistol into Victor Logan’s stomach, then pushed it up his chest and beneath his chin. “I have run out of reasons to keep you alive, Mr. Logan, other than to let the villagers kill you slowly for the death of that child. I’m sure they would be quite imaginative in the punishment. I will suggest that long knives play a part.”
For one of the few times in his life, Victor Logan felt fear. “I didn’t have anything to do with the girl!” he protested, now Charlie Sheen earnest, like in the movie when he was pitching for the Cleveland Indians. “I didn’t touch her. I swear, Major. Jimbo wanted her!”
“Stop lying!” The major cracked him with the pistol butt again. “We can smell the body rotting from out here. You did it yourself, or you let it happen. You are nothing but a piece of filthy trash. Either way, under our laws, you will be put to death. I can give you a bullet in the head right now, but I would prefer that you be gutted in public.”
Logan was sweating hard. “Come on, man. Don’t even think like that. You know that through Gates Global, I got a lot of resources. Let’s just get another computer and I can try to link up with my passwords. I’ll give you anything you want to know.” He was bartering for time again. Having both computers suddenly go missing had worked to his advantage because he did not have to deliver on his promise yet. And he didn’t think the officer was really all that upset over the whore. He had seen how Arabs treated women.
“That will take some time,” the Syrian replied. “There probably are no more computers in the entire village.”
“Yes, there is. I know of one,” Logan said, a desperate idea bouncing into his head. “There’s a Frenchman who was helping us. He lives just a few blocks away. I know that he uses a laptop for his business, and has wireless reception. Maybe I can rig that up to do the job.” He could always make it not work, and blame it on sand or poor construction, or some other problem. Anything to stop this little shit from killing him for a few more minutes.
“Really? In my opinion, we are wasting time. I want to go find your escaped general now.”
“Look, Major, I know you think I’m a fuckup, but there are other ways that I can still help you get him. Really, I can. The Marine who snatched the general has to be some sort of special ops dude, which means that he and I went through all of the same schools and training in the States, because I used to be a Navy SEAL. I can think like him! I know his limitations and his strengths and what his choices will be. I can help you find them.” Logan was just treading water now, grabbing at straws to stay afloat, to stay alive.
“We have plenty of people trained in special forces techniques. I don’t need you.”
“Are they right here? Right now? How many of them went to U.S. spec ops courses? I guarantee this guy would run rings around any of them.”
“Like in the mystery books, Logan? It takes a thief to catch a thief?”
“You got it. And I want this guy as badly as you do. I know that you will pop me if I don’t catch him. He’s my ticket out of here, right?”
“Maybe.” Al-Shoum told a couple of soldiers to go to the Frenchman’s house and fetch his computer. He had known Pierre Falais for a number of years and considered him one of the better sources of information from the outlying territories, although he played all sides of the street. But Falais obviously had not reported everything he knew about the kidnapping of the American. He made a mental note to have a talk with him a little later.
Al-Shoum dialed a number on his cell phone and got his office in command in Damascus, reporting in rapid Arabic that the Marine general had escaped, apparently with the assistance of a skilled American special forces operator. He paused, listening, and wrote in a notebook. He replied with some questions and listened to the answer with a frown, then closed the telephone.
“Our intelligence sources have come up with the name of the man behind all this,” he told Logan. “He is a U.S. Marine sniper named Kyle Swanson. Apparently he is very good, and sometimes does special work for the CIA. The bad news is that Damascus is pressing me to decide what our government should do.”
“You get to make that kind of decision?” Logan asked.
“I work in the Security Directorate as the director of operations, and rank is meaningless, because I have the authority to do anything I need to do. That means that I can have you killed at any time and no one will question it. Are we clear?”
Victor Logan nodded vigorously. Jesus H. Christ! Their top spook!
Al-Shoum turned on his heel, heading for the door. “I’m going to let you live a while longer, Logan. You will be my hound going after this fox. And you had better prove that you are very, very good at the job.”
Logan kept his face iron-straight. “Not to worry, General. I’ll get ‘em back.”
Another thunderous roar shook the village when the booby-trapped home of the Frenchman blew up three blocks away. Al-Shoum was flung against a wall, and a sharp piece of flying glass sliced the arm he threw up over his face to protect his eyes. Logan was tumbled to the floor and the table collapsed on top of him. Dirt poured from the ceiling, and windowpanes crinkled the floor with glass shards. The men looked at each other.
“Let me guess. The Marine visited the Frenchman’s house, too.” Al-Shoum got up and brushed himself off, casually pulling the fragment of glass from his arm, then stomped outside and watched the latest fire. A soldier rushed up to bandage the wound. “You are one pathetic operator, Logan.”
Behind him, Victor Logan suppressed a grin. There went that computer, too.