Allah's Scorpion

by David Hagberg

  “Insh’allah,” Graham replied, and he couldn’t help but chuckle as the Distal Volente disappeared.

  GULF OF SIDRA

  A large gray object popped to the surface a few meters from where Captain Subandrio was treading water. Other bits and pieces, the remains of his ship, appeared farther away in a widening trail of oil slick.

  He could just make out the humpbacked form of the submarine one hundred meters away, and although he had been raised in a Buddhist home to have tolerance and forbearance for his enemy, he swore he would have his revenge. For that he needed to survive, and to remember exactly what he’d witnessed out here tonight, and for the past days since Tunisia.

  There’d been four explosions, which he’d felt in his chest through the waterborne shock waves, and his ship had sunk in a remarkably short time.

  But Graham was an expert demolitions man; as ruthless as he was handy with all forms of weapons and things that went bang. His first act on coming aboard the Distal Volente was to kill one of his own men, to prove a point from the beginning, Subandrio supposed, that Graham was a serious man whose orders were to be obeyed without question.

  From what he’d been able to piece together over the past days, and from the sudden appearance of the submarine, Subandrio realized that the rumors about Graham working for al-Quaida were probably true. Now the fanatics had a terrible machine of war at their disposal with a highly trained submarine commander; a man who knew how to use such a warship to its greatest advantage.

  The water was reasonably warm, so Subandrio did not think he would have much trouble surviving this night, and possibly all day tomorrow. But after that his life would be in the hands of the capricious gods.

  He swam slowly over to the large gray object, conserving his strength, and keeping a wary eye toward the submarine in case someone came back in a rubber raft to search for him.

  As he approached he could see that it was a table from the crew’s mess. One end of it was blackened and twisted, while along one side was a broad streak of blood.

  The cold-hearted bastards had killed his crew, and for that, if for nothing else, there would be retribution. Rupert had been a man such as others, possessed by his own devils, but he had been like a son. This now was a betrayal of trust.

  There would be fishing boats out here during the day. Or, if he was lucky, perhaps a pleasure boat from Crete, maybe even a sailing vessel. He did not want to be picked up by anyone’s navy, especially the Libyans. He wanted to get ashore without entanglements and, as quickly and as anonymously as possible, call the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate and report what had happened. Perhaps even a reward could somehow be arranged.

  Subandrio gingerly pulled himself onto the table, but the balance was precarious and it tipped over, dumping him into the sea. He took a mouthful of contaminated water, and came up sputtering and coughing.

  In the very dim light he could see that a man’s limbs from the hips down had been snagged by a ragged edge. The man’s clothing had been blown away by the force of the blast, his skin horribly blackened.

  Subandrio vomited as he backed away, unable to take his eyes from the gruesome sight that he knew would stay with him for the rest of his life.

  SS SHEHAB

  “Bridge, ESMs, I have an inbound target, designated Romeo One,” Ahmad Khalia reported excitedly.

  Graham had been about to order them to get under way. He snatched the growler phone. “ESMs, bridge, what do you have?”

  “Captain, it’s low and slow, bearing one-two-five, range ninety-five miles, and closing at a rate of two-hundred-ten knots. I think it might be a Libyan patrol aircraft.”

  “That’s exactly what it is,” Ziyax said. “Someone wants to know if we’re still out here.”

  Graham switched channels. “Conn, bridge. Prepare to dive the boat.”

  “Conn, aye,” al-Hari responded crisply.

  “Clear the bridge, Captain,” Graham told Ziyax, who immediately scrambled down the hatch into the boat.

  For just a moment, Graham remained on the bridge, searching the dark sea where the Distal Volente had gone down. There was some debris, as he expected there would be, but not as much as he had feared. His men had done a fairly good job of securing anything loose on deck, and making sure all the hatches were dogged shut before they blew the bottom out of her.

  Subandrio was out there somewhere, or maybe it was his body floating in the sea. Whatever the case, there was no time to search for him.

  Graham slipped through the hatch, closing and dogging it behind him, and then descended into the control room.

  The boat stank of diesel oil, unwashed bodies, and what was probably a defective head that no one had bothered to repair. That, among other things, would change very quickly.

  “There is pressure in the boat,” al-Hari announced from his control panel near the helm station. “My board is green. We are ready in all respects to dive.”

  Graham went over to stand next to Captain Ziyax at the periscope pedestal. In addition to al-Hari, as the COB or Chief of Boat, the Libyan executive officer al-Abbas was temporarily acting as dive officer. Although he still had a major attitude, he seemed ready at the ballast control panel to execute Graham’s orders. One of the Libyan junior officers was seated at the helm, and two of Graham’s people were manning the navigation and weapons consoles. Just forward of the control room, one of his people and one of the Libyans manned the sonar displays, and just aft, Khalia manned the bank of ESMs instruments.

  “Very well, dive the boat,” Graham ordered.

  “Dive the boat,” al-Hari repeated the command.

  “All Ahead Flank,” Graham ordered. “Fifteen degrees down angle on the planes, make your depth—”

  Al-Hari repeated the orders, and the boat accelerated as it started its dive.

  Graham turned to Ziyax. “How much water do we have under our keel?”

  “Thirty-five hundred meters.”

  “Make your depth three hundred meters,” Graham ordered. He walked over to the navigation station where a chart of the Mediterranean Sea was spread out. He quickly plotted a course that would take them west, missing the island of Malta, while keeping well clear of Crete to the north and the African coast to the south.

  “Come left to course two-eight-five,” he ordered, and al-Hari repeated the command.

  Ziyax was at Graham’s elbow. “Where are you taking us?” he asked softly enough so that no one else in the control room could hear.

  “Gibraltar,” Graham replied indifferently. Running that bottleneck, which was more than 1,500 miles away, would be their first serious test. It gave him approximately 100 hours to mold his crew into a cohesive fighting force.

  For that he would need an incident.

  FORTY-SIX

  GUANTANAMO BAY

  Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Higgins was getting set to go over to the O Club for lunch when the phone on his desk rang. It was General Maddox’s secretary.

  “The general would like to have a word with you before you go to lunch.”

  “I’ll be right up.”

  Higgins grabbed his cap, and on the way out told his ops officer in the Watch that he was seeing the general, and afterwards was going to the club. “If the Cubans come over the fence, ring me on my cell so I can go home and pack a bag,” he said. It was a standing joke at Gitmo that any time the Cubans wanted to take the base back, there wouldn’t be much that could be done to stop them.

  Upstairs, the general’s secretary told him to go straight in. Maddox was studying something out his window with a pair of binoculars. When he turned around, Higgins got the impression he was on the verge of a famous Icewater explosion.

  “You wanted to see me, sir?” Higgins prompted when it seemed as if Maddox was too angry to talk.

  “They just landed across the bay,” the general said, his tone surprisingly mild.

  “Who would that be?” Higgins asked. A little alarm bell began to jingle softly at the back of his head.
>
  “The CIA. Same pair as last time, including the crazy bitch who beat the shit out of Tom Weiss. And we’ve got to cooperate one hundred percent this time.” Maddox shook his head as if he’d just said something that was utterly unbelievable. “I got that personally from Newt Peyton, who got it direct from LePlante.” Marine Major General Newton Peyton was boss of Gitmo, and Bob LePlante was the secretary of defense.

  “What do they want this time, did they say?” Higgins asked, though he had a fair idea why the CIA was back. They’d probably gotten a positive ID on the John Doe they’d sent down here after the Arlington Cemetery attack, and they were coming to lean on him.

  “They’ve got the names of four prisoners they want to interrogate,” Maddox said. “But apparently they’ve promised to make it real short this time.”

  “Do we have the list?”

  “It came in about an hour ago, but there’s a potential for trouble heading our way that I want you to personally handle,” Maddox said. “Whatever the hell happens, I want Tom Weiss out of sight until they’re gone. The crazy bastards would probably kill him if he opened his big mouth again.” Maddox handed him a message flimsy that had come from the CIA.

  Higgins smiled briefly. “From what I heard he might have deserved it.” The four men on the list included the John Doe, as he thought would be the case. No surprises yet.

  “I don’t care, Dan. I just want them in and out asap. I want you to give them anything they ask for, and I mean anything. And I want you to stick with them no matter what. I don’t want them back again because they didn’t get what they came for.”

  “I’ll handle it,” Higgins said. “You said something about trouble?”

  “I personally don’t give a flying shit how it’s done, as long as Weiss and his people get results, and as long as Amnesty International keeps out of it. I won’t have another Abu Ghraib. Not on my watch.”

  “I’m not following you, General,” Higgins said, mystified.

  “Drugs.”

  Higgins’s heart skipped a beat, but he nodded. “I’ll get Richardson over to do it, and we’ll need a translator.” Melvin Richardson was the chief medic for Delta, and had been the lead man on the Biscuit teams until they were discontinued on orders from the White House last year. If Amnesty International got wind of such a thing happening again, it would immediately go public, and a lot of heads would roll.

  “You have to keep a serious lid on this, Dan,” Maddox cautioned. “It could blow up and bite us all on the ass.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.”

  “Worrying is what they pay me to do,” Maddox said. “Just get the job done, and get them the hell out of here.”

  “I hear you, General,” Higgins said, and he went back down to his office, lunch forgotten for the moment. If McGarvey and the woman had just touched down, they would be at Delta within fifteen or twenty minutes.

  He reached Dr. Richardson just as the doctor was leaving the hospital. One of the nurses caught up with him and told him he had a phone call.

  “This is Richardson.”

  “Mel, I’m glad I caught you. This is Dan Higgins. I’ve got a rush job for you at Delta, and it’s the big leagues.”

  “What do you need?” the M.D. asked, obviously interested.

  “I’ll tell you when you get over here, but I need you right now.”

  “Okay.”

  “And Mel? Bring your Biscuit bag.”

  There was a momentary silence on the line. “I see,” Richardson said cautiously. “I’ll be up in ten.”

  “No word to anyone.”

  “What, do you think I’m crazy?”

  Higgins was waiting for McGarvey and Gloria in the Delta interrogation center, where one of the MPs from the main gate had escorted them the moment they’d shown up. This time there seemed to be no animosity whatsoever, and in fact McGarvey thought they were being treated too well.

  Someone had passed the word down, and although he was hoping to see Lieutenant Commander Weiss, he wasn’t surprised to see the chief intelligence officer instead, and a tall, slender full commander wearing medical insignia.

  “Welcome to Delta, Mr. McGarvey, Ms. Ibenez,” Higgins said. “Though I’m surprised you’re back so soon.”

  “We have a job to do,” McGarvey said. “If we can get to it, we’ll be out of here within a couple hours.”

  “Where’s Commander Weiss?” Gloria asked sweetly. “I hope he’s okay.” Higgins studied her for a moment as if he couldn’t quite figure out who or what she was. “He’s on the mend. I’ll tell him that you asked.”

  “Please do,” Gloria said.

  They were alone in the dayroom, and the television set was turned up high enough that it was unlikely their conversation could be picked up on tape. Nevertheless Higgins lowered his voice.

  “Your four people are here, in individual rooms. We didn’t know if you wanted them separated.”

  “That’s fine,” McGarvey said. “We’re going to give them sodium thiopental. We just have a couple of questions for them. So like I said, Commander, we can be out of your hair within two hours.”

  Higgins nodded toward Richardson. “This is Mel Richardson, he used to be head of our Biscuit teams. He’ll be your doc.”

  Richardson eyed McGarvey with obvious distaste. “I want to go on record right now that I’m dead set against this. Sodium thiopental is an anesthetic, which means it can be fatal. And it has the capability of scrambling brains. It’s happened before, and it’s permanent.”

  “About as permanent as 9/11 at the Trade Center?” Gloria asked.

  “Look, Doc, I understand,” McGarvey said. “Leave us some alcohol pads and we’ll do it ourselves. Our Agency people said the dosage is very low, so the risks will be minimal. Contrary to what you may have been told, we don’t want to screw up things here for you guys. But something very big is on the wind, and we don’t have a lot of time to fool around.”

  “You didn’t do so good preventing 9/11,” Richardson shot back.

  “No, we didn’t,” McGarvey admitted. “But we’ve learned a lot since then. Enough that we think we can stop them this time. Will you help?”

  Richardson looked to Higgins for backup, but the intel officer merely shrugged.

  McGarvey handed Richardson the small leather case. “You can give this to them now.”

  The doctor took out one of the needles. “This is a fucking veterinary syringe that they use on large animals. I’m not going to do this.”

  “Fine, we’ll do it ourselves, with or without the alcohol pads, because frankly I don’t give a shit what happens to the four son of a bitches we came to talk to. They’re the enemy.”

  “They’re combatants who’re protected by the Geneva Convention,” Richardson shot back.

  “No, Doctor. They’re terrorists who target innocent women and children. And whatever they’re up to this time has the potential of being worse than 9/11.”

  “I’ve heard that before—”

  “And you’ll keep hearing it until we beat the bastards,” McGarvey said, overriding him.

  “Mel, nobody likes this, so the sooner we get it done the sooner our guests will leave,” Higgins prompted.

  Richardson looked like a man who was trapped. “I’ll need some help, they’re likely to object.”

  “I’ll do it,” Gloria said, and she followed the doctor into the first interrogation room, leaving the door open. Ali bin Ramdi, one of the prisoners that McGarvey had leaned on the last time, was shackled to a bench. When he saw Gloria, and then McGarvey out in the dayroom, his eyes went wide.

  Chief Petty Officer Sayyid Deyhim came down the corridor in a rush, but pulled up short when he saw who was there. “Shit.”

  Higgins turned to him. “You will do your job, and keep your opinions to yourself. Clear on that, sailor?”

  “Yes, sir,” Deyhim replied. He avoided eye contact with McGarvey.

  Bin Ramdi grunted something, and a few moments later Ric
hardson and Gloria came out of the cell.

  “How long before it takes effect?” McGarvey asked.

  The doctor looked at him with distaste. “Just a few seconds for the drug to get to his brain. But if this is a low dose, the effect won’t last long.”

  McGarvey entered the cell and Deyhim took up a position next to him. Higgins came to the door, but remained outside.

  “Misae el kher,” McGarvey said in reasonably passable Egyptian Arabic. Good afternoon. He only knew a few phrases.

  Bin Ramdi mumbled something that McGarvey didn’t catch.

  “I didn’t understand that,” Deyhim said. “Do you want me to have him repeat it?”

  “No,” McGarvey said. “Ask him if he is a member of al-Quaida.”

  “Sir, we’ve already established—”

  “Just ask the question,” McGarvey said.

  Deyhim asked the question in Arabic, but he had to repeat it several times before bin Ramdi gave a slurred response.

  “Aywa.” Yes.

  “I got it,” McGarvey said. “Tell him that we know Osama bin Laden is hiding in the mountains near Drosh.”

  Deyhim made the translation.

  “Tell him that we know this for a fact.”

  Deyhim translated.

  “All I want is a confirmation.”

  Deyhim translated, but bin Ramdi was shaking his head drunkenly, and muttering something about Allah.

  “Repeat all of it,” McGarvey told Deyhim. “I want to make sure he understands.”

  Deyhim translated, but bin Ramdi only shook his head.

  It was the response that McGarvey had been told to expect. Sodium thiopental reduced the subject’s inhibitions, but it wasn’t the truth serum of fiction. Used in conjunction with a skillful interrogator, some useful information could be gained from some subjects some of the time. But whatever was said to them would definitely place a deep-seated suggestion in their brains, one they would not soon forget.

  “Sir, I think this guy is fried,” Deyhim said.

  “You’re right,” McGarvey agreed. “Let’s try the next one.”