The Midnight House jw-4

by Alex Berenson

  Snyder inched around the corner of the house and dropped to his hands and knees. Behind the house, the wheat stretched high in carefully cultivated rows. The village was a mess, but the fields were immaculate. The rain hissed down, and the river burbled a mile off. A dog barked in the distance. Snyder froze, waited. But he didn’t hear it again.

  He edged to the window, peeked inside. In the darkness he saw the outlines of a mattress on the floor, a thin sheet covering two pairs of legs. Now, at last, he heard breathing, steady and ragged.

  He leaned against the wall, unzipped his bag, pulled out a canister, as big around as a dinner plate, three inches high. A long rubber tube extended from a nozzle on the side of the canister, ending in what looked like a bicycle needle. The needle was the problem. If he threw the tube inside the house, the needle would clatter against the floor. Then Snyder saw the jagged hole in the wall, a foot above the ground, where a brick had crumbled into dust. He knelt down, poked a finger into the hole. It ran the width of the brick. He pushed the needle into the hole inch by inch, as carefully as a surgeon making the morning’s first cut, until he’d threaded the tip through. Then he pressed down the panel on top of the canister.

  The canister didn’t look like much, but its simplicity was deceptive. It had cost the CIA seven million dollars to develop. It held tubes of compressed nitrogen, an electronic flow meter, and two vials. The vials contained a mixture of propofol and fentanyl, two potent anesthetics that were normally given intravenously. Making the propofol inhalable had been the project’s most significant scientific hurdle. Propofol was liquid at room temperature, a chalky white fluid that anesthesiologists called “milk of amnesia.” Doctors had used it for decades to knock out patients for minor surgeries. A twentieth of a gram of propofol would put a man to sleep in seconds. Normally, it could only be given intravenously, but by attaching it to a chlorofluorocarbon compound, the agency’s scientists produced a chemical that was a gas at room temperature but retained propofol’s anesthetic qualities.

  Fentanyl, the other compound in the mix, worked more slowly than propofol but had a wider safety margin. Three agency scientists, all Ph.D.s in toxicology, had experimented with different combinations of the two drugs, seeking a safe mix that would work in less than five seconds. At first they’d tested the gas on dogs and monkeys. But eventually they needed to find out if the gas was safe for human use. Outsiders weren’t an option, since trying it on humans, even if they were volunteers and informed of the risks, would be unethical. The scientists organized a do-it-yourself study in their lab in the basement of the Old Headquarters Building, testing it on themselves a dozen or so times, with an agency doctor standing by. Aside from one minor incident — a three-hour coma — the stuff had worked. They’d declared it ready for battle.

  As Armstrong had pointed out to Maggs, the idea of knockout gases wasn’t new. In 2002, Chechen terrorists took eight hundred fifty hostages in an opera house in Moscow, promising to blow up the building if they were attacked. After negotiations failed, Russian special forces poured fentanyl and halothane, an older anesthetic, into the building’s ventilation system. The good news was that the soldiers retook the building without having to fire a shot. The bad news was that the gas killed at least 129 of the hostages.

  To reduce the risk of overdoses, Maggs and Armstrong had agreed to use the lowest possible dose, just enough to knock the family out for fifteen minutes. After that the people in the house would have to be, in the dry language of the mission, “mechanically restrained.” Bound and gagged.

  THE CANISTER HISSED SOFTLY as Snyder pressed the top panel. The engineers at the Directorate of Science and Technology had built it to work without mechanical parts, on the assumption that it would be used in places where silence was essential. The compressed nitrogen mixed with the fentanyl and propofol in a cylinder about the size of a small spark plug. Then the gas poured through the tube and into the needle, which was another marvel of engineering, designed to disperse the gas as widely and quickly as possible. After consulting with aerospace engineers from Boeing, the Langley engineers had designed a series of superfine titanium mesh sheets at the tip of the needle. The propofol and fentanyl molecules bounced wildly off the mesh, careening in every direction as they entered the open air. They filled a one-hundred-cubic-foot room — twelve feet by ten feet by eight feet three inches — in less than a minute.

  The hiss faded. A thumbnail-sized LCD on the side of the canister flashed yellow and then turned green, indicating that the gas was flowing freely, no blockages inside the canister or at the tip. Snyder peeked in the window, but nothing inside had changed. He was faintly surprised. He realized that he had expected to see or smell the gas, though he knew it was both odorless and invisible. Then the man in the bed kicked his legs convulsively. Seconds later his breathing changed, slowing and settling, and Snyder knew that the gas had hit him.

  He scuttled along the wall to the next window. He peeked inside, saw three pairs of skinny legs. Based on their size, two were children, one was a teenager. And at least one was awake.

  “Faisal? Faisal?” a boy said in Pashto, his voice small, querulous. “Do you hear it? Faisal?”

  An older boy answered grumpily. “Hush, Wadel. It’s thunder only. Don’t be a woman.”

  Snyder couldn’t find a crack in the wall. He pulled the second canister from the bag. He flicked a switch on the canister to set the pressure at high and pressed the panel and tossed the tube in the window.

  The tube slapped against the cement floor and the gas leaked out with a loud hiss. Inside, one of the kids rolled to his feet. “See it, Wadel?”Steps came toward the window. “There. The snake.”

  The tube went taut. Snyder imagined the boy must have grabbed it. He held tight, hoping the tube wouldn’t tear. The tube stretched—

  And then went slack as the boy collapsed, banging against the concrete as lifelessly as a sack of potatoes.

  “Faisal?” the second boy, Wadel, said. He stepped toward the window. “Faisal?” He wasn’t yelling, not yet, but his voice was rising. “Fath—”

  His voice ended. It didn’t trail off. It fell dead as suddenly as a radio being unplugged. A fraction of a second later, Snyder heard Wadel’s body thump against the floor beside his brother’s.

  “Guess it works,” Snyder whispered. He backed away from the house to be sure he wouldn’t get more than a whiff of the gas. He pressed the send button on his transmitter.

  “Echo One,” he said into his microphone. “This is Echo Five. Target is secure.”

  “Roger that,” Armstrong said.

  * * *

  THREE MINUTES LATER, the Nissan and Mitsubishi rolled up. The Deltas stepped out, popped the trunk of the Nissan, pulled two bags of gear. Two operatives hid themselves inside the Mitsubishi, their silenced Glocks at the ready. If a Talib patrol happened down the cart track and decided to investigate, they had orders to shoot on sight. The other three Deltas and Maggs ran around the house and joined Snyder.

  “Nice job, Chris,” Armstrong said.

  Snyder nodded. Nothing more needed to be said. The five of them pulled on specially made gas masks that had penlights embedded in the rubber above their eyes — enabling them to see without having to carry flashlights — and stepped through the window into the corner bedroom. It was unadorned, not even a rug, just a couple of faded blankets on the mattress. Neither husband nor wife stirred. They were breathing, but slowly, irregularly. Snyder was sure he could smell the gas, though he knew it was odorless. He was glad for his mask. Do androids dream of electric sheep?

  “Let’s get them out before they OD,” he said.

  They cuffed the man’s hands and feet together and taped his mouth shut and his eyes closed and carried him to the room that ran along the front of the house. They repeated the procedure with the woman and then moved into the boys’ room.

  “Damn it,” Snyder said.

  Faisal, the smallest boy and the one who’d gotten the biggest hit of gas
, seemed to have overdosed. His lips were faintly blue and his chest wasn’t moving. Snyder pushed back the boy’s eyelids and saw only white. He felt for a pulse and couldn’t find one. Finally he picked up a slow thump, barely thirty beats a minute.

  He picked up the boy and carried him out of the bedroom and set him next to his parents on a threadbare rug in front of a poster of the hajj, the great pilgrimage to Mecca, and began CPR, five chest pumps and three quick breaths, five and three, five and three, harder and harder. A rib cracked under him, but he didn’t stop. Come on, come on. He hadn’t killed this kid. He couldn’t have.

  Then Faisal coughed. His chest rose an inch, two inches, higher, his heart awakening even as his brain slept. His mouth opened and air leaked out, not a last breath but a first. Snyder pulled away and watched the boy breathe. Armstrong walked in.

  “He okay?” Armstrong said.

  “I broke his rib, but yeah.”

  “Then cuff him and tape his mouth.”

  Snyder wanted to argue, but Armstrong was right. They couldn’t let him scream. He laid duct tape over the boy’s mouth.

  “You watch ’em while we find this laptop,” Armstrong said.

  “Yessir.”

  Snyder closed his eyes and wobbled. He sat heavily on the couch and wondered if he’d somehow gotten a lungful of gas.

  “You might want to draw your weapon, Snyder.”

  Snyder reached for his pistol as Armstrong walked out.

  THE KITCHEN HAD A TABLE and six chairs, a wooden cabinet full of chipped plates and cups, a propane-fired stove, and—

  “Concrete,” Maggs said. “They had to have a concrete floor.”

  Compared to the rest of the house, the kitchen floor was magnificently built, a single solid slab. Henry Task, who at twenty-nine was the youngest member of the Delta team, grabbed pickaxes and hammers and chisels from his bag of gear. Armstrong pulled a metal detector from the second bag. Maggs wondered if a laptop held enough metal to trigger a detector under six inches of concrete. He checked his watch. Ten forty-five already, and they would need at least a few minutes to get through the concrete. They were cutting it close. They had to be over the bridge and out of Mingora by midnight.

  Armstrong made a sweep, stopped by the base of the cabinet. “Getting something.” Maggs and Task pushed the cabinet sideways. Armstrong waved the detector over the spot where it had stood. “Not much, but it’s there,” he said. “I hope.”

  Maggs and Task grabbed pickaxes and started swinging.

  IN THE FRONT ROOM, Dad woke up first. Not surprising, as he was the biggest and had gotten the smallest dose relative to his weight. He nodded his head sideways, the first hint of voluntary motion. A few seconds later, he turned on his side. Snyder tried to imagine the panic he must feel. He’d fallen asleep in his bed and woken up somewhere else, his hands and legs cuffed, blind and unable to speak, hearing men grunting in a language that wasn’t his. As Snyder watched, he flipped onto his back and thrashed, swinging his legs up and down, looking for any purchase.

  “Stop,” Snyder said.

  Armstrong ran into the room. He straddled the father and smacked him across the temple with the butt of his pistol, twice. The dull sound of metal cracking bone echoed off the concrete. The man groaned through his duct tape and his bound legs swung down.

  “Snyder,” Armstrong said. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “I’m sorry, Major.”

  Snyder didn’t know if he had taken a hit of the gas or was simply exhausted. He’d never failed on a mission before. Then again, he’d never been on a mission like this before.

  “Go into the kitchen and stay there.”

  “Yessir.”

  MAGGS AND TASK and Bruce Irwin, the fourth Delta in the house, were chipping steadily into the concrete, their pickaxes rising and falling as steadily as the arm of an oil pump. Then Task stopped. “Sir,” he said. “I think I felt something.”

  Maggs knelt down and saw the corner of a black plastic bundle peeking out of the edge of the hole they’d made.

  “No more axes. Be a damn shame to put a hole in the hard drive.” Maggs and Task lay on the floor and pounded away, trying to enlarge the hole with hammer and chisel. The clank of steel on steel ricocheted through the kitchen. Maggs wondered if the neighbors would hear. No matter, because it was 11:20 already. One way or another, they were leaving soon.

  Sweat poured down his face. He pulled off his mask, figuring the gas must have long since dissipated. He hammered away at a seam in the concrete, and the hole widened enough for him to slide his fingertips around the edges of the plastic. He tugged at it, wormed it forward inch by inch, no longer concerned it might be booby-trapped. This valley was its own trap. The bundle slid forward in his fingers, stopped, and then came free.

  “Let’s go.”

  Task began to pile the axes back into the bag, but Maggs grabbed his arm. “Forget it, Sergeant.”

  * * *

  IN THE LIVING ROOM, Maggs held up the bundle to Armstrong, who raised a fist in silent triumph. They stepped out the front door and piled into the Nissan and the van and rolled out. Through the village. Through Desai. Over the bridge. Onto the road that led out of the Swat Valley and over the mountains. With every mile, Maggs felt himself relax. They’d put their necks in the guillotine, and somehow the blade hadn’t dropped.

  Then they rounded a corner to start the long climb southwest. And they hit the roadblock.

  An extended-cab Toyota pickup sat astride the pavement two hundred yards ahead, a.50-caliber heavy machine gun mounted on a tripod in its bed. Three Talibs stood beside the gun, two more inside the cab. The militants apparently hadn’t been expecting to face anyone coming out of Mingora. The.50-cal — actually a Russian 12.7-millimeter TUV — was pointed up the road, away from the van. But as they rolled close, the Talibs swung it around until its muzzle faced them. A man jumped out of the pickup.

  “Halt! ”

  “Major—” Snyder said.

  Armstrong stopped the van, raised his hands, looked straight at the Talib. “Nothing fancy here,” he murmured in English. “We’re just gonna take them out. Maggs. You’re going out the back with your AK. You’ve got to hit the guys on the.50. I’ll floor it, crash into the side of the truck.”

  “Done,” Maggs said.

  “You ready, Chris?”

  “Yessir.”

  * * *

  SNYDER WASN’T AT ALL SURE he was ready. The TUV had a three-foot barrel and a range of nearly a mile. Up close, it had the power to vaporize skulls. And it was definitely up close. Snyder didn’t see how Maggs could get out the back and get a bead on the gunners before they took him and Armstrong out. He began to pray, silently, Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done.

  “Cool,” Armstrong said, his voice steady as a pilot warning of turbulence ahead.

  Behind them, Maggs dropped the safety on his AK, unlocked the doors of the van.

  THE TALIB RAN TOWARD THEM, his left hand raised, his right gripping his AK. From the back of the pickup, the gunner put a spotlight on them, its glare nearly blinding.

  “Turn back!” the Talib yelled.

  Armstrong eased off the gas, lowered his window. The van rolled forward. “Have mercy. We’re taking my father to Peshawar, the hospital!” he yelled in Pashto. “He’s very sick.”

  The Talib stood in front of them, lowered his AK. “No exceptions to the curfew. Take him home.”

  “Please. He won’t survive the night. He’s in the back. Talk to him. Inshallah, you’ll see.”

  As Armstrong spoke, Maggs opened the back door and stepped into the road behind the van. Armstrong touched the gas and the van inched forward.

  “I won’t tell you again. Turn around.”

  Maggs stepped sideways and fired a three-shot burst at the gunner on the TUV. As he did, Armstrong floored the gas. The Mitsubishi leapt forward at the Talib in the road. He fired three shots, missing high, and then disappeare
d with a grunt under the van. The Mitsubishi thumped over him, front wheels and then back, and roared forward.

  In the bed of the pickup, the gunner groaned and slumped forward just as he squeezed the trigger. The TUV’s burst missed high and wide. The Talib beside the gunner tried to push him aside, but Maggs laid out another burst. The rounds tore into the second man’s shoulder and knocked him into the bed of the pickup.

  In the passenger seat, Snyder could only watch through the windshield as the van closed on the pickup. He had the distinct feeling that he wasn’t actually in the van, that he was watching a movie of the scene rather than living it. At moments like this, time was supposed to slow, he knew. He was supposed to remember the great moments in his life. Instead, a groaning feeling of unreality overwhelmed him—

  The van rammed the pickup broadside and crumpled its passenger door, crushing the Talib in the passenger seat instantly. The impact tossed Snyder and Armstrong against their seat belts, which gave a few inches and then tightened and pulled them back. The van’s engine block was shoved backward, toward Snyder, as his seat popped forward, forcing his left leg up and out. The engine rammed Snyder’s leg and snapped his tibia and fibula as cleanly as wishbones.

  As Snyder screamed, the driver of the pickup opened the door and ran through the brush, down the side of the hill, toward Mingora. Armstrong lifted his pistol and shot through the front windshield at him but didn’t get him.

  Armstrong laid a hand on Snyder’s shoulder. “You okay.”

  “I can’t move, Major. My leg.”

  Armstrong looked down at Snyder’s leg, the ankle curled back under the calf in a pose even the best yoga instructor couldn’t have managed. Wounded Warrior Six. “We’ll get you out.”

  “Yessir.”

  Armstrong tried to pop his door open, but the frame of the Mitsubishi was bowed and the door wouldn’t come loose. He wriggled out the back of the van, the laptop in hand, as tendrils of smoke began to rise from the front of the Mitsubishi. Snyder shot out his window to get air. He hung his head out the side of the truck and coughed.