Black Ops #1

by William W. Johnstone

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Send two MPs to the BOQ. Have them bring Colonel Jensen to this court, under guard.”

  “Yes, sir,” Nighthorse answered.

  “This court will stand in recess until 1300 hours,” Brisbane said. He looked at Kinnamon. “At which time, your client had better be present, or when we do find him, he will be kept in confinement for the duration of this trial.”

  The judge and board of officers exited the room. Kinnamon, who was still at the defense table, took his cell phone from the briefcase and turned it on. Once more, he dialed Art’s cell number, and, as before, he got no answer.

  Frustrated by his inability to contact Art, Kinnamon dialed Art’s father.

  “Cal Jensen.”

  “Cal, Asa here.”

  “Asa, how is the trial going?”

  “It isn’t.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Art didn’t show up this morning.”

  “What? Why not? Where is he?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me that.”

  “No, I don’t have any idea,” Cal said. “I haven’t heard from him.”

  “Cal, he wouldn’t . . . uh . . . what I mean is, Art isn’t the kind who would . . .” He let the question hang.

  “Run away?” Cal replied. “Come on, Asa, you know him better than that. There has been no suggestion that he is AWOL, has there?”

  “He is AWOL,” Kinnamon replied. “The only thing left to decide is whether he is purposely absent, or if he is absent for reasons beyond his control.”

  “I don’t like the sound of this,” Cal said.

  “No, neither do I,” Kinnamon said.

  Kinnamon had just clicked off the phone when Nighthorse came back inside.

  “You weren’t talking to Colonel Jensen, were you?” Nighthorse asked, nodding toward Kinnamon’s cell phone.

  “No, I was talking to his father.”

  “Does he know where Colonel Jensen is?”

  “No. Look, I’m sure there’s nothing to it. He probably just overslept.”

  “Colonel Jensen, oversleeping?” Nighthorse replied. He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  Nighthorse’s phone rang then, and he answered it.

  “Colonel Nighthorse.”

  Kinnamon could hear the voice on the other end, but he couldn’t hear it well enough to understand what Nighthorse’s caller was saying.

  “Very well,” Nighthorse said. “Come on back.”

  “Was that the MPs?” Kinnamon asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Did they find him?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t mind telling you, Colonel, I’m a little worried about this.”

  “You should be,” Nighthorse answered. “If Colonel Jensen has taken off, he is just making the situation much worse.”

  “I’m not worried about that,” Kinnamon said. “I know he hasn’t run away, and I think you know it too. And if he didn’t run away, that means that he is absent by reasons beyond his control.”

  Nighthorse sighed. “Yes,” he agreed. “I’ve considered that possibility as well. Colonel Jensen has been very much in the spotlight lately. I would think he might be a tempting target for some terrorist operation.”

  Royal quarters at the Qambari Arabia consulate,

  New York City

  Azeer viewed the videotape of the captured American colonel. It showed hooded and armed men standing on either side of the prisoner. The prisoner sat on a chair, staring at the camera. Something about the way the prisoner was staring at the camera disturbed Azeer. Then he realized what it was. For Azeer’s purposes, the prisoner needed to be frightened, and that fear needed to be obvious.

  But the expression on the prisoner’s face was not one of fear. It was one of defiance.

  “Colonel, do you have anything to say?” an off-camera voice asked.

  “Yeah, I’ve got something to say. Do any of you assholes ever take a bath? You smell like shit.”

  Another figure stepped into the picture then, and slapped the prisoner in the face.

  The third figure stepped back and the camera zoomed in on the prisoner, showing the red mark from the blow just administered.

  “Ask your government to pull its troops out of Iraq and, perhaps, we will spare your life,” the off-camera voice asked.

  “Go to hell,” the prisoner said.

  Again, the prisoner was slapped hard, in the face. This time his left eye began to swell shut, and a little trickle of blood started from his nose.

  “Surely, Colonel Jensen, you have something to say to the American people.”

  “Yes,” Art said.

  “Ahh, that’s more like it. I thought we could make you come around. What do you have to say to your fellow countrymen ?”

  “Put your money on the St. Louis Cardinals. They are going all the way this year.”

  “I do not understand.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  The video ended with the last exchange.

  Azeer looked at Hamdi. “What does he mean when he says put your money on the St. Louis Cardinals? What is that?”

  “I believe that is a baseball team, Al Sayyid,” Hamdi said. “You know how the Americans are with their childish games.”

  For a moment, Azeer was confused as to how mention of a baseball team would turn up on the videotape, but then he realized what the prisoner was doing. He was making certain that the videotape could not be used as a propaganda tool.

  “He is mocking us,” Azeer said.

  “Yes, I believe he is,” Hamdi agreed.

  “He is a most unusual man.”

  “What sort of man would mock his own death?” Hamdi asked.

  “A very brave man,” Azeer replied. “Foolish, but brave. Such a man could be dangerous to us. We must kill him. I want video of his head being severed, and I want the video posted on the Internet for all to see.”

  “I will inform Naji,” Hamdi said.

  As Hamdi started toward the telephone, Azeer happened to see a copy of today’s newspaper. The headline glared boldly from the top of the page. HIGH-PROFILE DEFENDANT IS AWOL.

  Azeer picked up the paper and began reading.

  Authorities did not want to believe that a soldier with Lieutenant Colonel Art Jensen’s record would actually go AWOL.

  “Out of deference to his rank and service, we did not keep him in custody,” the JAG officer from Fort McNair said. “But in retrospect, we should have.”

  Jensen, who is being tried for murder of an Iraqi prisoner, failed to show up for a court appearance on the second day of his court-martial. “By his absence,” Colonel Brisbane said, “he has brought discredit to himself, the U.S. Army, and the effort of the coalition forces in the war against terror.”

  Colonel Brisbane is the law officer of the army’s case against Jensen. In a court-martial the law officer is the same as the judge in civil courts.

  “Hamdi, wait!” Azeer called.

  “Yes, Al Sayyid?”

  “Tell them not to kill the colonel,” Azeer said, as he continued to read the paper.

  “I beg your pardon, Al Sayyid. You do not want Jensen killed?” Hamdi asked.

  “No. If we kill him, we will have a martyr. If we keep him alive, we will have a man whom the authorities believe is running away from his obligations.” He tapped the newspaper. “According to this story, Colonel Jensen, alive and absent, is a humiliation for America. Let’s keep him alive for a while longer. Better for us that he is a live coward than a dead hero.”

  “Very good, Al Sayyid,” Hamdi said.

  “The American press is a wonderful thing for us, Hamdi,” Azeer said, smiling at the article he had just read. “They take great delight in reporting stories that makes their country look bad.”

  “Yes, I have noticed that,” Hamdi replied. “But I’ve never been able to understand why.”

  “Controversy, my dear Hamdi. Controversy,” Azeer said. “Controversy sells newspa
pers. Patriotism does not.”

  Somewhere in Washington, D.C.

  “We are to keep him alive,” Dawud said, hanging up the phone.

  “Alive? I thought we were to behead him.”

  “We were, but apparently he has become an embarrassment to the Americans. They do not know that we have captured him. They believe he has run away to avoid the trial.”

  “They think he is a coward?”

  “Yes. That is why the prince wants him kept alive.”

  “Silence, you fool!” Naji said, cutting a glance toward the other room of the two-room apartment they were occupying. “You know better than to refer to him in that way.”

  “The door is closed. I do not think he can hear us,” Dawud said. “Anyway, even if we keep him alive, he will never be free to tell anyone about Prince Azeer.”

  “You had better pray to Allah that he does not,” Naji said. “Otherwise, you may find your own head severed.”

  “I’m not worried,” Dawud said.

  Naji looked at his watch. “What is keeping Osman? He should have been here with the food before now.”

  “And the beer. He is bringing beer too, is he not?” Dawud asked.

  “You know that beer is against our religion,” Naji replied.

  “Yes, but we are in America now. And we are doing Allah’s work. I think Allah will turn a blind eye to a few sins,” Dawud said with a broad smile.

  “I will go see what is keeping Osman,” Naji said. “You check on our prisoner,” he ordered. “It is even more critical that we keep him now.”

  They were keeping Art in a bedroom of the two-bedroom apartment. His arms were behind him, and his wrists were manacled to the back of a ladder chair. When Dawud went into the room where they were keeping him, he was surprised to see that the American was sitting in the chair with his head drooped forward.

  “Are you awake, Jensen?” Dawud asked.

  Art didn’t answer.

  “Jensen, wake up,” Dawud said, moving closer to him.

  Art still made no response.

  “Do not die on us, American dog,” Dawud said. He chuckled. “It seems now that you will serve us better alive than dead. Your countrymen think you are a traitor and a coward. They believe that you are running away.”

  Art still didn’t answer.

  Dawud began to get concerned. Prince Azeer had specifically ordered that the prisoner be kept alive. What would happen to him if the prisoner died?

  They had not fed Jensen, nor supplied him with water, since they captured him. He knew a person could go without food for several days, but he wasn’t sure how long one could go without water.

  The prisoner had been complaining of thirst. Had he died of dehydration?

  “Open your eyes, Jensen,” Dawud ordered. “Open your eyes and I will bring you water.”

  When Jensen still failed to open his eyes, Dawud grew even more concerned and he walked over to stand very close to him.

  “Jensen,” he called sternly. “Jensen, wake up!”

  Dawud leaned over so that his head was but an inch from Jensen’s head. “Are you alive, you American dog?”

  Suddenly, and totally unexpectedly, Art Jensen snapped his head up, then forward, butting heads with the terrorist. When Dawud went down, Art, who had broken the ladder rail around which his hands were manacled, leaped up from the chair, then threw himself upon Dawud’s prostrate body.

  “Here! What are you—?” Dawud started, but that was as far as he got with words. What followed next was a scream.

  Art opened his mouth and bit Dawud on the neck. Dawud’s scream turned quickly into a gurgling sound as Art bit deeply into the flesh. He found the jugular, feeling the warm gush of blood as he did so. With a mighty jerk of his head, Art ripped the jugular and the windpipe from Dawud’s throat.

  Dawud, his eyes opened in shock, tried, desperately, to breathe. His efforts were futile and within seconds he was dead.

  Art raised himself up with a large piece of bloody flesh hanging from his mouth. Satisfying himself that Dawud was dead, Art spat the flesh out, then lay down beside him, with his back next to the body. Feeling about with his manacled hands, he located the key to his handcuffs. Finding it, he unlocked the cuffs and was just reaching for Dawud’s gun when Naji and Osman came into the room. Osman was carrying a couple of boxes of pizza.

  “Dawud, I hope you like—” Osman started. Then, like Naji, he stopped in his tracks and looked on in shocked horror at the scene displayed before them. Dawud was lying motionless on the floor with his eyes open and unseeing, and a huge, gaping, bloody hole where his throat should have been. The prisoner was standing before them with his mouth and chin covered with blood.

  “Allah’s beard!” Osman shouted in alarm, dropping the two pizzas and pointing at the bloody apparition. “It is Satan himself!”

  Both men stared at Art in horror for a brief moment, trying to comprehend what they were seeing. That moment was all the time Art needed to react, and he grabbed Dawud’s gun.

  Naji, who was carrying a weapon, realized quickly what was happening, and he tried to bring his gun up, but it was too late. Art pulled the trigger twice, sending two bullets into Naji’s heart. He fell back, dead before he hit the floor.

  Art turned his pistol toward Osman then, pulling the trigger twice more. In less time than it would take to describe it, he had killed both men.

  Holding the still smoking gun, Art went into the bathroom and washed the blood away from his face and hands. Then he put his mouth under the faucet and drank deeply.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Grabbing one of the cell phones, Art called Kinnamon, then remained in the apartment with the three men he had just killed. He was eating pizza when both the military and civilian police arrived. He gave his statement as to what happened, even describing how he had killed Dawud.

  One of the younger policemen, watching Art eat pizza as he calmly recited how he killed a man by ripping open his throat with his mouth, grew sick and threw up. A few of the others blanched.

  Once all the reports were taken, Art accompanied the MPs back to the base, where he learned he was being put into “protective” custody.

  Although a few of the initial news reports reported Art’s escape in a favorable light, as more exact details began to surface as to how he killed Dawud, he became less a hero and more a psychopathic killer.

  Within a couple of days after the event, the World Enquirer, a supermarket tabloid, had a full front-page artist’s conception of Colonel Jensen’s escape. The artist depicted him with glaring, wild eyes, flared nostrils, and a bloody backbone hanging from his mouth. The headline read: VAMPIRES IN THE AMERICAN ARMY!!!

  World Cable News Studios, Atlanta, Georgia

  “We’re coming live in five seconds,” the floor manager said.

  Bill Jacoby, the host of World Cable News Sunday, made a last-minute primp of his hair, then stared into the camera. The floor manager held up his hand with five fingers extended, then brought them down one finger at a time. When the last finger came down, the red light on the camera came on. The monitor showed a tight one-shot.

  “Good morning and welcome to World Cable News Sunday. I’m Bill Jacoby, and our guest today is John Williams.”

  The camera pulled back for a two-shot to include John Williams in the picture.

  “The entire nation, indeed the world, is following the trial of Colonel Art Jensen. And, of course, it took on a rather bizarre twist recently, when Colonel Jensen, evidently taken hostage by terrorists, affected his own escape in a bloody killing spree of all three of his captors. Our guest today knows Colonel Jensen better than just about anyone, having seen him up close and personal. John was embedded with Colonel Jensen during some of the fiercest fighting in Iraq.

  “In fact, it is with some justifiable pride, I think, that we here at WCN can say that it was our correspondent John Williams’s reporting of the killing in the mosque that has brought about the trial we are following today. John
, as I said in the introduction, you know Colonel Jensen as well as just about anyone. What can you tell us about him?”

  “I believe we could say that Colonel Jensen is a trained, and very efficient, killing machine,” Williams replied. “He is a man with a total disdain for human life. We saw this in the way he shot and killed the Iraqi prisoner.”

  “But to be fair, John, he hasn’t been found guilty of that yet,” Jacoby said.

  “He hasn’t been found guilty of the charge of murder, or manslaughter,” Williams corrected. “But there is no doubt that he did shoot the prisoner. The video clearly shows that.”

  “Allow me to play the devil’s advocate here, John. I would suggest that shooting an enemy soldier in time of war does not mean that he has a total disdain for human life,” Jacoby said.

  “Yes, but there is a difference between soldiers who kill because they are forced to, and someone like Colonel Jensen, who enjoys it.”

  “How do you know that he enjoys killing?”

  “Because he has made a point, in fact, I believe he takes pride, in being expert at it. He has turned murder into an art form. He knows a hundred ways to kill a man without using a weapon, and he can do it without blinking an eye.”

  The interviewer nodded attentively. “But isn’t this exactly the kind of soldier we want on our side?”

  “Perhaps, during an all-out war,” Williams agreed. “But I would like to remind you, as well as all our viewers, that our government insists that the war is over. That means we are now trying to win the peace. You don’t win the peace by using your teeth to rip out the throats of your fellow human being.”

  “And yet, it was a daring escape, was it not?” Jacoby asked. “In fact, one might even call it a courageous and heroic act.”

  “Courageous, perhaps, but certainly not heroic. Heroism denotes a degree of nobility. It is a manifestation of righteousness. But, with Jensen, I think his escape speaks more to his evil than to his gallantry,” Williams replied.

  “Necessity,” the host added.