Ghost pos-1

by John Ringo

  “I’ll give you this. I won’t put you on that table, I won’t turn you over to the girls and I won’t do more than break your back in the lumbar region. But you don’t get the use of your dick. Take it or leave it.”

  “I will kill her,” the man said, angrily. “You don’t understand that?”

  “You are one lousy negotiator,” Mike said and put a round through his forehead. The knife nicked the girl’s neck and that was about it. The body slumped backwards. “Never bluff if you’re not even holding cards.”

  He walked over to the girl on the table, who even as fucked as she was looked pretty damned good, and looked her in the eye.

  “You probably don’t want to see guys at the moment or have them near you, so I’ll get one of the girls to let you go,” he said, nodding, then turned to the room. “Which one’s got the keys?”

  “The one that was holding Rachel hostage,” one of the girls in the front rank said, gesturing with her chin. “Who are you?”

  “A very bad man,” Mike said, stooping down and going through the guy’s pockets. “Who, in this one case, is willing to be a good guy for a while. But if I don’t get at least a blowjob out of this, I’m going to be mighty pissed.”

  One of the girls in the front rank, dropped her head and shook it.

  “How can you say something like that?” she shrieked. “You’re as bad as them!”

  “Yep, sure am,” Mike said, standing up and holding the keys. “I was in Class 201, you weak-kneed pussies! But if you want to get out of this fucking place alive, and not end up back where you are right now, you’d all better get really damned frosty, really damned quick. Quit fucking crying, quit bitching, quit quitting on me and get GOD DAMNED FROSTY. Because right now it’s just me. And I’m not going to be able to hold this damned place by myself. I’m going to need help. Even nekkid female help will do. And I’m not going to use these damned keys until I get a big ‘HOOWAH’ out of y’all. Because if I can’t get a big hoowah, then you’re totally fucking useless to me, and I’ll just god damned leave you to be raped. Am I CLEAR HERE? Now let me here you give me a big HOOYAH!”

  “What?” “What’s hooyah?” “Who? Us?”

  “HOO-YAH!”

  “Ah, now there was one solid hooyah out there. You all heard it. Now, all of you, give me one great big fucking hooyah, or I’m walking out the door!”

  “HOO-YAH!”

  “There were some wimpy ones in there,” Mike admitted. “But, overall, I’ll give you a sixty, with the curve that comes up to eighty.” He stepped off the dais and applied the key to the first rank on both sides and then stepped down the aisle.

  “Where was that solid hooyah?” he asked, looking at the girls.

  “Here,” Amy said, lifting her chin. “What are you, Ranger?”

  “Bite your tongue,” Mike said. He unchained that rank and looked at the girl on the far end. “Pull it through, honey. I needs this girl. I wants her and I needs her.

  “Okay,” he said, stepping back up on the dais. “Get this girl loose, do what you can for her. I have some errands I need to run. I’d like most of you to stay in your seats or sitting down at least. Do not open that door until I tell you. Some of you bigger girls, drag the bodies over by the door, we might need them later. Waste not, want not.”

  “What are you going to need bodies for?” a short-coupled blonde who had sidled past him to get to the girl on the table asked.

  “Barricades,” Mike said. “Other than sandbags, there’s not much better than a fresh dead body to use as cover.”

  “That is gross,” another girl snapped. “Could you quit being so…”

  “Mean?” Mike asked, angrily. “Hard? Macho? Male? Conservative? Overbearing? I just tracked you god damned wenches from the States by getting the bends in the unpressurized nose wheel of an airplane, getting busted up holding onto the underside of a damned truck, getting stuck in holes and getting touched by mustard gas! Not to mention killing about twenty of the fuckers that kidnapped you and were torturing you! Do NOT give me any of your whining PC liberal bullshit! This is why guys like me hate you fucking whiners! We don’t have time for you to go all weepy! Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, sir,” the girl said, meekly.

  “You,” Mike said, pointing at the solid hooyah. “Name.”

  “Amy,” the girl said. “Private Amy Townsend, Army ROTC.”

  “Amy will do,” Mike replied. “Call me Ghost. AKs,” he said, turning and pointing to the weapons with two fingers. “Can you use one?”

  “Yes, sir,” Amy replied, crossing to the weapons and picking one up. Then she suddenly bent over and gagged. “Sorry.”

  “Dead bodies do that,” Mike said, picking up some sort of big bone saw off the floor. “Cover the door.”

  He walked out and looked up and down the corridor. Still no sign of reaction. Good. He grabbed the second AK off the guard along with their web gear and slung one of the latter on. They not only had six magazines of ammo, the grenade pouches had fragmentation grenades in them. He shook his head at that. Frags were a good way to frag yourself; he hated the damned things.

  He put his mask back on and went in the viewing room. The tall man had quit twitching as had the rest. He pulled the rest of the “samples” out of the bag, and the Semtek, then took the knife to the terrorist’s neck, cutting off the head. It was still pretty drippy when he dropped it in the bag.

  He left the two AKs in the room, but took the ammo and went down the corridor to the door that had been a broom closet in the other one. Sure enough, there was a sink. He rinsed off the outside of the sample case, the AK he’d been using, the gas weapons, his gloves, and finally unmasked. The air had a faint tinge of mustard that made him gag, as much from his clothes he suspected as anything, but it was survivable.

  He walked back to the torture room and tried the room across from it. It was being used as a storeroom as well. Not much useable except more railroad flares. He realized that they must be used for emergency lighting if there was a power outage in the building.

  He put the case of them by the door, putting a few in his back pocket, and left it open. After that he walked back to the torture room. When he got back the room had, remarkably, organized itself. The girl had been taken off the table and was on the floor with two girls trying to staunch her wounds with more or less clean cloth taken from the bodies. The rest of the girls had mostly huddled by the walls, although a couple were puzzling over the video and computer equipment.

  “I’m the only one with any firearms experience,” Amy said. She’d put on one of the assault vests and Mike found the sight very fetching.

  “That look really suits you,” Mike said. “Really really suits you. Probably too well for my present lackanookie condition.”

  “Thanks,” Amy said dryly. “I don’t suppose there are any clothes around?”

  “Nope. Okay, ladies, listen up,” he continued, looking at the room. Most of the girls had seated themselves along the walls, as being more comfortable than the seats. “The good guys should be on their way soon. We have to hold this position for a few hours until they get here. We’re just going to hang out here and wait for the good guys. Of course, the bad guys are closer, so we’re going to have to engage them for a time. I need two girls who can run and one more that has guts and has played softball.”

  Some of the girls stood up and started forward but most sat down when there were other volunteers.

  “Who’s the runners?” Mike asked. “Amy, get the door open and cover down the corridor that way,” he said pointing behind him.

  “I can run, and I played softball,” one of the girls said. She was a strongly built brunette with a nice set of hooters that even without a bra stood high and firm. “And my eyes are up here.”

  “I’ve made my decision,” Mike said, continuing to stare at the tits for a second, then reaching into his harness and extracting a grenade. “Ever seen one of these?”

  “Grenade?” the girl a
sked.

  “Just like a baseball, with some differences,” Mike replied. “Safety pin. Actuating spoon. Place the web of your right thumb over the spoon, maintaining a firm grip,” he said, shoving the grenade into the girl’s hand in the correct manner. “Keep squeezing the spoon. Straighten the pin. Pull pin. Throw grenade. Remember, once the pin is out of Mr. Grenade, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend. Got it?”

  “Got it,” the girl said nervously.

  “Runners?” Mike asked the other two.

  “Yesss,” a slim blonde said.

  “Well, we’re probably going to be killing a few bad guys,” he said, pointing to the two dead guards on the floor. “And we’re going to need ammo to do it. Your job will be, when I tell you, to run to the bodies and retrieve ammo.”

  “Okay,” the brunette next to her said, looking at the bodies. “That’s not going to be fun, is it?”

  “Nope,” Mike said, looking at the three. “You’ve all probably got names like Jenny or Ashley or Chelsea or something. But I can’t keep track. So you’re getting team nicknames.” He looked at the thrower and nodded. “You’re Babe. For Babe Ruth. Blondie is Bambi and brownie is Thumper.”

  “I don’t like those nicknames,” Bambi said. “My name’s Britney.”

  “You’re fucking joking,” Mike said. “If you had better tits, you could be a dead ringer for her, too. But I don’t really give a rat’s ass if you don’t like your handle, right now, you’re nothing but meat, not even meat. Meat have at least been through BUDS. You’re nobody. I should call you meat one two and three! You have to do something to get a better one. I was Ass-boy for a year after being in 201, so don’t give me shit about handles.”

  “Ass-boy?” Amy asked from the door.

  “Don’t ask,” Mike said with a sigh. “It’s a long story. I kept trying for Winter born but nobody had a clue what I was talking about. Thumper,” he continued, taking the flares out of his pocket. “If the lights go out, your first job is to light those. Got it?”

  “Yes,” Thumper said. “Can I at least be Flower?”

  “No. You cannot be Flower. You are Thumper.”

  Mike walked out of the room and down the corridor to the doors he’d entered by. He could hold one end of the corridor, but not both. The door had a bolt on the inside but that was not going to hold against even a raghead assault. He knew what would, though, so he opened up the door and tossed the VX grenade through, quickly closing the door and bolting it. There was shouting from the far side, but it quit pretty quick. Then he trotted back to the torture room, cursing his aching knees, and went to the phone.

  “Need to make a call?” Amy asked. “And what was that you tossed through the door?”

  “You were supposed to be covering the other direction,” Mike said, picking up the phone and dialing a combination. He smiled faintly at the distant explosion. “And it was a VX grenade.”

  “A what?” Amy snapped. “You’re joking?”

  “Nope, welcome to WMD central,” Mike said, stepping out the door. “Now, the back way is pretty well blocked, what with the VX and the explosives I placed in the production area.” As he said that there was another, louder but deeper explosion. “Secondaries are always nice. But that way,” he said, pointing at the far end of the corridor, “leads, I think, to the surface. And we’re about to get company,” he finished as pounding footsteps were heard on the stairs. “Don’t look at their faces and don’t think of people. They’re just targets. Service the targets.”

  “Yes, sir,” Amy said.

  “Ghost,” Mike replied as the door opened and he serviced the first guy through the door. He was a muj like the two guards, black T-shirt and camouflage pants, and he dropped like a sack when hit in the chest. But there were more behind.

  Mike engaged two tangos in the doorway, one of whom got off some shots, and tracked to service another but he was already down. He heard Amy gagging again and shot one on the landing to stop the first wave.

  “Reload!” he snapped, covering the landing. He could hear Amy fumbling the reload but he wasn’t worried about it. “You’ve got rounds left. Toss that one in the room. If it’s dry it goes over your shoulder,” he said, flipping his own out and setting it in the room he was using for cover. “When you’ve got a couple partials, have some of the girls reload them for you. And lay out all your mags where you can reach them,” he added, pulling his own out. “And one frag. No more. Give the rest to Babe.”

  “Okay,” Amy said, setting out the magazines. “So, are the SEALs… what? How’d you find us?”

  “Like I said, I tracked you,” Mike responded. “I saw one of the snatches and tracked you the whole way. I’m not a current SEAL, I’m medically retired.”

  “For medically retired you’re doing pretty well,” Amy said, glancing over at him.

  “You should have seen me in my prime,” Mike said with a chuckle. “I would have worn you out.”

  “Well, let me get my head together about all this,” she said, gesturing over her shoulder, “and I’ll be the first in line to give you head so good it stops your poor old heart.”

  “You’re on, Amy,” Mike said, gesturing with his chin. “Company.”

  Chapter Ten

  Major Muhammed Tarzi had been looking forward getting off work. The word had gotten around that American bitches were being held in the bunker and that soldiers would be chosen by lot to go down and rape them. As an officer, of course, he had first choice and as soon as he got off duty he was going to head down and get a taste of stuck-up American bitch pussy.

  Major Tarzi had visited America several times and had even gone to the strip clubs that were everywhere. But he had never been able to get an American woman to fuck him. They seemed to fuck everyone else, flaunting and teasing in their short skirts and heavy makeup, but not him. He was planning on showing them what teasing got them and enjoying it immensely.

  That was until the thud from underground followed by shrilling chemical alarms. His office was in the administrative building, but the sound and vibration carried clearly through the ground.

  His first action was to panic as he realized he didn’t know where his gas mask was. So he screamed for his orderly.

  “Hasan! Where are you?”

  “Major,” the servant shouted, running in the room. “The alarms!”

  “I can hear!” he yelled. “Where are the masks?”

  “In your quarters, master,” Hasan shrilled, nervously.

  The quarters were all the way across the compound and the wind was usually from the northwest, which meant that gas might be drifting between him and the masks.

  “Go get them,” he ordered Hasan. “Then get back here with them. If I’m not here, find me.”

  “Yes, Major,” the servant said nervously, backing out of the room as Lieutenant El Kheir pushed by him.

  “The bunker,” the lieutenant gasped, “the president…”

  “What about the president?” the major asked. As the chief of security for the site, anything that happened to President Assad would fall on his shoulders.

  “There is firing,” the lieutenant said, finally getting his breath back. “The mujahideen tried to enter and were shot at. Someone is holding the passageway.”

  “Wake up the duty platoon,” Tarzi snapped. “Get them over there.” He reached for his phone and called the battalion orderly room. “Call out the battalion!” he screamed. “The president has been captured!”

  The second wave was soldiers and Mike engaged them on the landing. The first one stuck his head out to see what was going on and left a red splash on the wall of the landing. This occasioned some shouting and then a group of at least a dozen charged down the stairs, firing as they came.

  Mike and Amy engaged with single shots, filling the doorway with bodies, until the group broke and ran.

  “Bambi, Thumper!” Mike called. “Ammo run.” He flipped out his magazine, decided that a round or so wasn’t worth it, and tossed it over his shoulde
r in the corridor as the two girls ran down the corridor to the bodies. Bambi stopped half way and gagged, but then kept going.

  “Stay to the left side of the corridor on the way down and back,” Mike called. “And grab some of the grenades. Do not fuck with the pins or you will be two dead ammo grabbers.” He paused, considering the view as Bambi bent over to pull out a magazine from a pouch and sighed happily.

  “You okay?” Amy asked nervously.

  “Just admiring the view,” Mike admitted. “Dead bad guys and naked girls. It’s like an op in a titty bar. All I need is beer and steak, maybe some heavy metal or Goth music, and this would be perfect.”

  Bambi pulled magazines out until her arms were full, then ran back, dumping them by Amy. Thumper, meanwhile, dragged some of the ammo vests off the bodies and carried those, and some loose magazines, back to the room, the vests dripping red as she ran.

  “What, I don’t get any ammo?” Mike asked, plaintively. “After all I’ve done for you girls? Nobody loves me.”

  “Here,” Amy said, laughing and sliding some of the magazines across to him.

  “I think they might try grenades or satchels next,” Mike said as there was another distant thump. Suddenly, the lights went out to a series of screams from the girls in the room. “Thumper! Do you know where your flares are?”

  “Got it, Ghost,” Thumper called.

  “I call you, Bringer of Fire,” Mike yelled, triggering one of the flares and tossing it down the corridor. “But you’ll always be Thumper to me. Anyway, if it’s grenades, just flatten yourself into the doorway. If it’s a satchel charge, I’ll call ‘satchel.’ Roll all the way in the room, cover your ears and open your mouth, got it?”

  “Yeah,” Amy said. “Although my hearing’s already going from this damned AK.”

  “Speaking of which, the next ammo run we need to get Bambi and Thumper to get us some more guns,” Mike said. “There’s going to come a time when we won’t have time to reload.” He watched the stairs for a second and then rolled back. “Grenades!”