The mechanics initially dove for cover, then crawled out from behind machine parts for the toolbox on the floor. They dispersed their own machine guns to one another amongst the shower of toxic tranquilizer pellets. One mechanic fell, then another. The other two who hid behind machinery could be heard cocking their weapons.
But Scooter and Brauch made fast their charge on the enemy's flank. Both had surely seen more action than all four of the mechanics put together. Brauch and Scooter flanked the final two mechanics as Johnny and Bruno covered them. Standing up, the two mechanics let loose a volley of live rounds over the machinery. Johnny and Bruno hit the deck since they had little cover, but Scooter and Brauch were close enough to fire down on their assailants, only paces away; they couldn't miss. The toxic pellets burst on impact and vapor was inhaled. The mechanics pivoted on their knees, then collapsed, their guns clattering onto the floor.
No one moved for a few seconds, the thunder from the live rounds still ringing in their ears. Then Corban jogged up to the COIL jet as Rupert and Memphis emerged. June, though pale and trembling, was on their heels.
"Memphis, figure out what they did to the engine," Corban ordered. "Bruno, tie 'em up and separate 'em from one another. Rupert, find out who they are as soon as they come to."
"You got it." Rupert marched away from the plane, a smile on his face. Corban often sent new COIL agents to Rupert for interrogations. After a few hours of threats with Rupert, Corban knew each of his agents' breaking points. But they didn’t have hours today. That meant Rupert would have to work quickly as soon as they woke up.
Bounding up the jet's steps, Corban moved to the back of the cabin. He selected an NL-2 from a padded, silver case and stuck it into his waistband. Never again would he be caught unarmed, not on this mission. Exiting the jet, he found the mechanics bound, ankle and wrist. They wouldn't wake up for another fifteen minutes. That was plenty of time to prepare for departure before the prisoners awoke—assuming the jet's engine wasn't damaged from sabotage. Most of the mechanics' deadly rounds seemed to have passed out of the hangar's massive door and ricocheted off the tarmac outside. Johnny joined Memphis to examine the engine, fuselage, wings, and landing gear.
Bruno and Scooter dragged each mechanic to a different area of the hangar. As evening closed on France, there were no other airport personnel present in that section of the airport, but the team remained alert, prepared for anyone to happen upon them at any time.
Brauch gagged the last of the mechanics and stepped back as Corban was joined by Rupert. The Berlin chief handed Corban four identification cards, each with the man's picture.
"German IDs," Rupert pointed out. "Doesn't mean they're all German, though. Probably German-based. It's obvious enough that they underestimated us. They wouldn't have had identifications on them, otherwise."
Corban knelt next to the nearest mechanic. This one wore a gray, stained beret. He seemed different from the other three—more fit and hardened looking. The beret fell from his head to reveal that he was shaved. The other three had hair and were probably locals, Corban guessed. This bald one appeared more professional, probably sent from Xacsin to make sure the job in Paris went down without a hitch. Replacing the beret, Corban stood.
"Who are they?" June asked softly.
"Hey, Boss!" Memphis jogged up to Corban, smiled at June, and then focused. "We found an altitude detonator. Johnny says it's trinitro-something."
"Is that it?"
"Isn't that enough?"
"Memphis, search the whole plane. There might be something else." Nodding, Memphis jogged away. Corban turned to Brauch. "Handle that TNT, but salvage it. We might need it later for prosecution."
Brauch strode away without responding.
"TNT?" June gasped. "We were on that plane! What's Brauch going to do with that explosive, exactly? What're we going to do with these guys?"
"Rupert," Corban faced his German counterpart and switched to speaking German. "This guy's a pro. You won't get anything out of him. Talk to the other three. Find out who they are. Since we're letting them live, they'll be going straight back to their employer, so I don't want them to see anyone else's face close up."
"I can make a call, have them arrested."
"Not a bad idea, but not yet. Whatever we decide, if they're really Xacsin's men, he'll either bail them out or have them killed if he thinks they'll talk."
"You're sure they're from the castle?"
"Yes. The shaved head, the German IDs, the sabotage... Obviously, Xacsin suspects that we know what he's up to. The sooner we can get to Berlin and disappear, the better."
"Maybe we have a leak?"
"That's not impossible, but I've kept everything close to my chest. You and Chloe are the only two I've shared any of this with. Rather than a leak on our side, I'd say Xacsin is getting help from Abaddon. And we must remember, we're not working entirely with flesh and blood here. Like all of our missions, we fight against principalities, and darkness, and powers of the air. The devil knows we're coming, and if Xacsin is as close to that darkness as I think he is, he's got an advocate bigger than us. But not bigger than Jesus Christ. We need to keep our hearts pure as we move forward. First, work on these three. I recognize one of them from the London rooftop."
"I'll do what I can."
It was ten more minutes before the explosives were removed from the fuel tank on the starboard side and the jet was deemed safe to board. All except Rupert sat down in the jet's swivel seats. June sat next to Corban and looked out a port window as Corban and Brauch admired the brick of TNT and the altitude component. Memphis and Johnny Wycke readied the jet for departure. Bruno and Scooter did inventory of the gear and reloaded the NL weapons.
"This is digital," Brauch explained to Corban in German. He pointed at an LED screen the size of a watch face. Wires strung from it to a small battery, then a blasting cap—all planted in the explosive compound. "It's set for five thousand feet. An altimeter is planted behind the face panel. The needle sinks, the pulse goes boom. I've built similar ones before. Nothing too fancy, but your men missed it on their first check. The components are Russian. The TNT, of course, is Czech. Even though it's not special ops, the maker was no dummy."
"Thanks. Stow it. And be careful. I sense danger close."
Brauch moved away to deal with the bomb. June pointed out the window.
"What's he doing out there? What won't you let me see?"
"Rupert was once a Gestapo trainee. He's scaring one of the mechanics right now, I suspect." Corban chuckled. "But he won't hurt anyone. It's been proven that the prospect of injury is worse than any physical torture during effective interrogation. And it's not that you can't watch. We'll be in Germany for quite some time. I don't want them seeing any of our faces, no more than they've already seen, to identify us down the road. Don't worry. You're not missing anything—just a grown man crying for his life, which isn't endangered in the least, anyway."
"If he talks, won't his buddies kill him? You didn't think of that, did you?"
"That's why we separated them, June," Corban explained patiently. "None of them will know who said what, if anything, and we're not going to expose the rat. It's basic interrogation."
She turned her face back to the window.
"Here he comes. Can you guys please talk in English so I can—"
"No."
Corban moved to the cockpit door and informed Johnny that they were ready to leave. Rupert spoke in hushed German to Corban.
"They're from the castle all right. Xacsin sent them. Apparently, there's some medical experiment or project going on, headed by some Estonian doctor. The guy who talked didn't know his name. Sounds like a biochemist, though. Older, like in his sixties maybe."
"So, our suspicions are true. The one you found naked in the town to the northwest of the castle was from the castle, and that's where Nathan is."
"Yeah, I agree." Rupert shook his head. "They are very racist men, I should add.
There is much
hatred in their hearts."
"I expect no less, Rupert. How's your French?"
"No better than yours."
"Go ahead and make that call. Convince the French police to hold them indefinitely, pending an investigation into a terrorist plot. Send them the TNT by courier."
"There's a guy I know in the French secret service," Rupert stated. "I'll take care of it, but like you said, they may still be released in a day or two. We may see them in a week at the castle."
"Do what you can. I don't want Xacsin to know too quickly that this attempt failed."
As soon as the jet was airborne and eastbound, Rupert called the French authorities. Corban sat among his men and studied a German law book, which only Rupert and Brauch could identify since no one else knew German.
"Excuse me, Boss," Scooter interrupted. "I can appreciate the confidentiality aspect, but I've been running all over Europe for over a week. Mind telling us what's going on?"
"I thought I was the only one in the dark," June said.
But Corban didn't look up from his book.
"Let's wait until we can all hear it together, Scooter."
Bruno handed everyone a snack-pack of cheese and crackers, and Brauch reviewed a few basic German greetings and phrases with the team. The flight was a short hop over the border. They'd barely reached cruising altitude when Johnny announced their descent.
Berlin was asleep when they touched down.
**~~~**
Chapter Nine
Nathan "Eagle Eyes" Isaacson lay curled into a ball on the floor of his cell. The captured COIL operative was naked except for the sackcloth blanket covering him from thigh to shoulder. The cloth didn’t seem to trap any of his body heat, but he dared not move, anyway. The rock beneath him shared his body heat, keeping him somewhat warm. He paced every few hours across his cell to keep up his strength and to work out his cramps, but he didn't dare to leave the rock for more than a few minutes. It took too long to heat up, otherwise.
Though his eyes were closed, Nathan was not asleep. His lips were moving. Only God could keep a man from going insane in here, he whispered to himself. The screams toward the morning hours attested to men who tried to survive by their own wits. Nathan hadn't screamed yet, but he hadn't been tortured yet, either. He knew his turn was coming, though. That's what he had learned from his neighbors, mostly Germans, in the cells next to his. They dared to speak only when the men in biohazard suits were not in the corridors. If they were caught communicating with one another, their meal for that day was forfeited.
The man in the cell to Nathan's right had gone for a blood test three nights prior. Nathan knew he was next.
In the six months he'd been in captivity since his abduction in England, Nathan had lost thirty pounds. It was the first time he'd weighed less than two hundred pounds since junior high. The sickly feeling of malnutrition scared him. But he could do nothing about it, other than eat the two cups of rice, or oatmeal, or noodles, or whatever else they were fed once a day. He'd even eaten a few bugs that had ventured under his steel door. Nathan had rescued enough prisoners around the world, and spoken to them, to know how to make the most of the days and months, but it was still only God whom he depended on to preserve him.
More than the weight loss, though, was the presence of something deeper and more sinister within his body. At first, Nathan had ignored it, even denied it, but the more he saw the men in white, biohazard suits, the more he knew he had been exposed or contaminated to a serious bug. He'd felt it in his lungs first—shortness of breath and sharp pains every few days if he happened to sneeze. Then the headaches had begun. Since they hadn't begun experiments on him directly, Nathan concluded he'd been contaminated by something airborne. The food or water could've been poisoned, too. Whatever it was, he knew it was all part of their testing.
Nathan's once-pronounced handlebar mustache had lost its form as a beard had overgrown his face. Even his eyebrows, from which he'd gotten his handle "Eagle Eyes," were shedding and thinning. The same thing was happening to the hair on his head. Amongst the lice, his hair was turning gray, though he was not yet thirty. Using a piece of straw, he picked at his teeth, but gingivitis had overtaken his gums. His teeth felt furry.
A heavy foot kicked Nathan's cell door. He jumped awake, not realizing he'd drifted off. Sitting up, he looked at the small window in the steel. A masked face stared at him. Nathan stared back. Unless they were dropping off the meal slop, he never saw these suited men. Though only a shadow of his former self, he was still Eagle Eyes, and he met this man's gaze without flinching.
"Come to the door!" a man ordered in German, his voice slightly muffled through the filtered mask. "Put your back to the door. You won't need your little blanket."
The food tray slot opened midway down the door. Obeying, Nathan backed up to the cold steel. His hands were cuffed tightly behind his back. He eyed his bed, nothing more than the rock space in the corner. Sorrowfully, he prayed it stayed warm and hoped he wouldn’t be gone long. He'd left his blanket, minus one corner, to cover the rock. That missing corner of the thin blanket had gone to the mute man who had escaped a week ago—or was it two weeks now? Nathan had lost track of time. Time didn't pass the same in the cells.
If the man had gotten out of the dungeon, it was still a far stretch that the cloth had made it into the right hands. Maybe his captors had caught the escapee and found the cloth corner, Nathan considered. They could easily match it to his blanket, or the cloth's message to his blood type. Nathan tried not to hope too much, but hope was all he had in this sea of despair. Hope and prayer.
Behind him, the steel door swung open on creaky hinges. A gloved hand gripped his arm securely. Though he was naked, Nathan wasn’t ashamed, nor was he trembling from the cold; he'd been cold for six months. Searching for the positive, he realized he was finally out of his cell. That was something new! Ever since leaving England, he'd wondered if anyone else from COIL was in the dungeon. In the first week, he'd discovered he knew no one on his level. But the other captives said there were other levels, though no one knew how many. Finally, he was getting a look around for himself. He praised God for this small blessing.
Nathan limped as his guard escorted him deeper into the dungeon. His leg had been lightly bandaged for the first month that he'd been there, but the bullet that had clipped the bone in the Malaysia operation had forced the limb to heal wrong. Calcium had grown over the damaged bone, interfering with ligaments, muscles, and tendons. The other bullet wound in his side had healed into a puckered scar, the bullet still somewhere deep inside. The scar matched a half-dozen others, though newer.
His escort led him down a flight of rock stairs, walked down another cell-lined corridor, then they descended to yet another level. The deeper they went, the worse the odor became. And Nathan started hearing whimpering, too. Here were those who had been receiving the worst treatment—having been there much longer than Nathan had. Now, it was his turn.
He suddenly halted, surprising his escort. Though he'd lost weight, Nathan still outweighed the man on his arm.
"God knows your pain, brothers!" Nathan yelled in German, his voice echoing off moist rock.
Someone cried out in response from a cell, but it was indiscernible.
"Try that again," Nathan's escort dared, "and I promise, you'll lose your tongue."
Smiling, Nathan felt a little taller as he was tugged forward. But whether smiling or not, Nathan's eyes were wet. The place was too horrible for him to comprehend.
They stopped at a door that buzzed and clicked open electronically. After moving through the door, it sealed with a hiss behind them. The next room was completely white, and by the look of the medical equipment, it doubled as a crude operating room. The room was heated, though, and Nathan relaxed in the warmth, knowing there was nothing else he could do, anyway.
There were two other men in biohazard suits in the room. Nathan could see through a mask that one was elderly with sunken cheeks and thick glasses. Beh
ind the glasses were deep-set, dark eyes, sunk into a narrow skull, which gave him an inhuman appearance. The man wore a smile, though, and he licked his lips as he admired his newest victim.
"Quite a specimen, yes?" the dark-eyed one observed. "Let's get him up on the table."
The second man stood behind the doctor, but Nathan didn't get a good look at him through his mask, as the doctor and the escort helped him onto the table. Though Nathan realized the older man was the doctor responsible for all the suffering, Nathan could do nothing more than whisper a prayer for preservation.
Taking off his handcuffs, they forced him to lie on the table. He was strapped down until he couldn't move, and partially covered with a clean white sheet. Then the doctor approached and stood over Nathan on a stool to examine him.
"You're a healthy one." The doctor referred to a clipboard. "Almost one hundred ninety days, and you still have a little muscle on your bones?" He pinched the inside of Nathan's leg where the bullet had left its mark. "Oh, yes. I do remember you now. You didn't come easy, so I don't expect you to go out easily, either. Working out, are you? Exercising? What are you doing? Pacing? Pushups? Yes, I know. There's so little for you to do in your rooms."
"You remember when I came in?"
"Sure." The doctor pulled a tray of syringes up to the table. "Though you were barely conscious, you still gave us a difficult time. Tell me: how is your health otherwise?"
"I'll tell you that if you tell me how many men arrived with me."
"No, no. I will give you no such news." The doctor squirted one needle into the air and tapped the syringe. "Tell me how you have been feeling."
DARK HEARTED (The COIL Series) Page 8
