Secret Justice

by James W. Huston

  Banger nodded. “I’ll have to get the window out.”

  “Get it now,” Rat said. To the others, “You all know the plan. Any questions?” There weren’t any. “Let’s go.”

  Banger hurried to the backseat of one of the Land Cruisers, removed the rear window, and tossed it into the sand.

  The rest of Rat’s SAS team loaded quickly into their assigned seats. Groomer turned on his lights and accelerated down the road. The three Land Cruisers drove at a leisurely pace, mimicking the pace of a Sudanese Army patrol with no particular concerns. They crested the hill and could clearly see the intersection and the buildings. Rat scanned the area quickly looking for any changes. The guards were right where he expected them to be. They were clearly alarmed to see three approaching vehicles. One of the guards reached for the large binoculars on his chest. Good, Rat thought. Use those big lenses to read the Sudanese Army markings.

  The guard did. He pulled the binoculars over his head and handed them to the man next to him. Rat looked past them and saw the two men outside the main building, and the two men guarding the road on the other side of the cluster of buildings looking north for traffic. They too were now aware of the approaching vehicles.

  Groomer drove on, now less than a half-mile from the guards.

  Rat wanted to be able to get to the main building where the meeting was occurring without alerting those inside. “Up you go,” he said to Banger. “Take out the other road guards before you hit the two by the building.”

  “Give it a try, sir. They’re out there a bit. Can I hit them while we’re still moving?”

  “If you get a good shot. Use your sound suppressor.”

  Banger reached through the missing rear window, grabbed the back of the large roof rack, and pulled himself up onto the roof of the Land Cruiser. The other SAS team member handed him his M-25, a sniper rifle designed specially for the American Special Forces. He lay on top of the vehicle on a pad that had been lashed to the roof. He looked through his huge nightscope at the first group of guards to see if they were alerted and ready to do something about the approaching Toyotas. Their body language told him they were annoyed, confused, and not quite sure what to do about the Sudanese Army. Suddenly, the first guard, the one who had been wearing the large binoculars, said something to the second guard, who quickly nodded and broke into a jog toward the main building a hundred yards away.

  “Shit,” Rat said. He had wanted to preserve radio silence as long as he could. He transmitted quickly to Banger—but the entire team could hear—”Don’t let him report.”

  Directly over his head Banger had already formed the same conclusion and decided that the guards by the main building were going to have to go first. His sound-suppressed rifle coughed and the jogging guard pitched forward in the sand. The guards leaning against the wall of the main building laughed, thinking he had tripped. When he didn’t move or get up, they were confused. They had heard nothing. They pushed away from the wall and began walking toward the guard lying face down in the sand.

  Banger fired again and one of them went down in a heap. The other now realized what was happening and turned to warn those in the main building. Too late. Banger’s third shot reached him before he could cry out. The bullet slammed into his back then expanded as it tore through his heart.

  The guard with the binoculars was completely unaware of the bullets flying over his head. He was standing up tall, waiting for the Sudanese Army patrol to stop. He had prepared himself for such a moment, but hadn’t expected it to happen. He put out his hand to stop the vehicles as Groomer did what he was told, stopping a good ten paces from the guard, with his bright lights still on. He wanted the guard to come to him.

  Banger’s rifle jerked again, and one of the guards on the other side of the compound spun around and fell to the sand. As his partner bent over to determine what had happened, Banger fired again. The bullet hit him in the side, knocking him away from the first guard and tearing him open. He fell to the ground in agony, unable to speak.

  The guard with the binoculars approached the Land Cruiser. Rat wasn’t going to give him a chance to guess what was happening. Rat threw open his door and jumped out. He could see that the man was taken aback by the major’s insignia Rat was wearing on his Sudanese uniform. Rat took advantage of the surprise and yelled at him in his unaccented Arabic, “What is the meaning of this? Who the hell are you? What authority do you have to stop the Army? And why do you have an automatic weapon that you dare to show to the Army?”

  The guard didn’t know what to say. Rat lowered his MP5N with sound suppressor and fired a three-round burst into the guard’s chest. He fell to the ground, killed instantly.

  Rat looked around quickly. They were within a hundred yards of the main building and still had a chance of approaching without being discovered. He gave the “hold” sign and Groomer and Robby, another SEAL, put the Land Cruisers in park and climbed out. Rat wanted them to leave the engines running—it would now be more likely that someone would notice the new silence than a distant engine.

  Banger rolled off the top of the Land Cruiser as the others poured out. Rat began a steady jog toward the main building as the others spread out and followed him. Rat had given clear instructions—two men were to be taken alive at any cost: Acacia and Wahamed Duar. If they could capture others, like Lahoud, fine. But those two had to come out alive.

  Rat reached the outside wall of the main building. The others ran to cover the exits and the other buildings. Groomer stood by the door into the main building. Rat looked at the wall to determine its thickness. Robby knew what he wanted. He too had worked with Rat in Dev Group and was a communications and electronics specialist. He reached into his backpack and handed Rat a device slightly bigger than his hand. Rat nodded and placed the Ultra Wide Band Through-Wall Radar Transceiver against the wall. He activated it and waited as the electronic waves coursed their way through the wall and the room behind it and returned, generating a picture of the room and everything in it, including people. Almost every man in the room was holding a weapon, but in a nonthreatening position. Most had them at their sides, stocks resting on the concrete floor.

  The glint patch in Acacia’s pen identified him. Rat pointed at the shiny spot, which Groomer acknowledged. It was Groomer’s job to get Acacia out unscathed. Rat studied how the people were sitting and standing. He knew everyone would be facing and deferring to Duar.

  Rat motioned for the three squad leaders and watched the images for a few more seconds with them. They all knew where Acacia was in the room, and they knew to avoid the two at the table. Duar had to be one of the men sitting at the table, and the other almost certainly was Lahoud. Rat turned off the device and handed it back to Robby.

  Rat spoke softly into his microphone. “Ten seconds. Groomer’s second in.”

  The CIA team ensured their weapons were ready. Most carried H&K MP5Ns like Rat, a small submachine gun that weighed only six and a half pounds. Favored by the SEALs, they were reliable and accurate, and their 9-mm round was subsonic—they could use silencers. But this time Rat’s team was going in without silencers. Noise was a weapon against those who weren’t ready for it.

  Rat raised his hand. The others lined up behind him. He lifted the lever to the door and walked in slowly with his submachine gun on his hip and began speaking loudly in Arabic. “I am Major Wassoud of the Sudanese Army. Who is in charge here? Who told those men to stop our Army patrol?” Rat’s heart was pounding as he looked around the room. He immediately recognized Duar.

  Rat’s Sudanese desert camouflage uniform was perfect. He wore the shoulder badge of an officer of the southern security detail. The two men at the table looked at him in fury. Duar immediately suspected something. But Rat’s boldness gave him just enough time to get ten SAS team members into the room. They picked their targets quickly and pointed their weapons directly at them. The men in the room with Duar and Lahoud were reluctant to reach for their own weapons. Rat paused, then pointed his wea
pon at Duar and yelled in Arabic, “American Special Forces! Lay down your weapons!”

  Three of the men behind Duar quickly raised their AK-47s toward Rat and were immediately gunned down. The room erupted in pandemonium. Duar’s men tried to stand up and bring their automatic weapons to bear on the intruders. Several began shooting but were hit by American fire before they could even get their assault rifles to their shoulders. The sound of automatic weapons fire was deafening as muzzle flashes illuminated every corner of the room. The Americans trained for just such an event every day. Duar’s and Lahoud’s men were up trying to aim, looking for cover, falling to the floor to fire, and falling to the floor dead; blood was flying, bullets chipped the floor and walls, and men screamed in fear and agony.

  Groomer ran to Acacia and pulled him away from the wall. Lahoud saw the look in Acacia’s eye. He knew he had been betrayed. He stood and pulled a handgun out of the folds of his robe to shoot Acacia. Groomer fired quickly and the short square man dropped in a heap.

  Duar bolted toward the back of the room with two of his men covering his move. Rat saw him go through the door, but knew it led outside through a small hallway. Two of his men were waiting at the other end of that hallway. “Banger, coming your way.”

  “Roger.”

  Suddenly bullets zipped by Rat’s head as he moved left. The American next to him was hit twice in the face and spun to the floor, dead. Rat turned to the assailant, furious. He raised his weapon to kill the man who had just shot the American. The man threw down his AK-47 and held up his hands. He had a slight wound on his shoulder, but was otherwise fine. As Rat hesitated another man fired at him. Rat turned slightly and blew open his belly. Bullets flew wildly into the wall and out the top of the building as the man fell to the floor still clutching the trigger of his weapon.

  Rat glanced at the downed American. “Damn it!” he yelled. The firing died down, the clicky sounds of the AKs vanished, replaced by the deeper chop of the American weapons. The fight was over in less than a minute. Some men lay dead and others writhed on the floor, dying. The one he had spared sat in the corner with his superficial wounds. Three of the Americans rushed around the room disarming everyone and ensuring that there was no additional threat.

  “Everyone okay?” Rat asked.

  The others responded by number, through twelve, with number nine silent.

  “Somebody get over here and keep an eye on this son of a bitch. He shot Nubs in the face then threw his gun down. Banger, you get Duar? He charged out the back of the room.”

  “Didn’t come out this way, sir, “ Banger replied.

  Rat frowned and looked at Groomer, who had put Acacia on the floor near the door. Groomer grabbed one of the other members of the team. “Stay with him. Nobody touches him at all.”

  He nodded.

  Groomer followed Rat toward the door. Rat approached cautiously, confused by where Duar could have gone. He kept his weapon trained in front of him. Groomer was right behind him and to his left. “What we got here, Groomer? Where’d he go?”

  “Must be between us and the door, right?”

  “Must be a soft wall here somewhere.”

  “Or floor.” Rat stopped. “I don’t like this. They can hear us. Might shoot through a wall. Robby!”

  Robby ran to where they were.

  “Give me the Ultra Wide Band.”

  He took the device out of his backpack and Rat held it to the walls, then the floor. There was some ambiguity about what was behind them, some space, or odd construction, but no people. No stairways, no ladders, no obvious escapes. “What the hell,” he muttered to no one in particular. He turned the device off and handed it back to Robby. “I think I’ll ask that mother who shot Nubs where he is.”

  Groomer stopped and started backing out of the hallway. “And what if he doesn’t want to tell us?”

  “Post somebody here by the hallway entrance in case he or someone else comes back. If he left in a tunnel, he may have more men there.”

  “Will do,” Groomer replied.

  Rat reentered the main hall with its stucco walls and exposed beams. It was a well-constructed building. Rat wondered what it had been, and why it was abandoned. He looked at the dead men on the floor. He was completely unmoved. He had no sympathy for terrorists. They were subhuman to him. The bodies lay all over, bright red blood pooling around each of their bodies and going dark when exposed to the air for a few seconds. Each man had fallen in his own haphazard way. Several still had open-eyed surprised looks on their faces. The Americans stepped around them, making sure they were dead. Robby, one of the two black team members, was videotaping the entire scene with a miniature digital video camera. His radioman’s rating only scratched the surface of his vast capabilities—he was a technological wizard.

  Rat saw Robby videotaping. “You call in the helos?”

  Robby nodded. “Fifteen minutes.”

  Rat checked his watch and considered whether he had time. “Toad, take six men and check every inch within a hundred yards of this building. That asshole has an escape tunnel or some way out of here. Find out where he came out. If you find anything, any sign of life, let me know.”

  Toad nodded, grabbed five men, and hurried outside.

  “All right, where’s that live one?” Rat asked, stepping over a dead terrorist. “And where’s Acacia?” He came upon Nubs. “Damn it,” he said, stooping to examine his wounds. He pulled the desert scarf up. Nubs’s face was ruined. The two AK-47 bullets had entered just above the lower jaw on the left side of his face. The exit wounds in the back of his head were massive. Death had been instantaneous. “I’m going to rip somebody’s head off,” Rat said, marching to the only living terrorist in the room. He fought the building fury he felt, the white anger that occasionally got him in trouble.

  Acacia stood and followed Rat to the corner.

  Rat stared at the man on the floor. He waited for the man to look up at him.

  Rat glanced at the wooden table strewn with papers. “Somebody get all these papers. We’ll let intel take a look at those out on the ship.” He turned to Acacia and spoke in Arabic. “You okay?”

  Acacia looked him in the eyes. “Speak English. I don’t want him—” he said, indicating the surviving terrorist, “—to understand.” He went on in English. “What are you going to do with him?”

  “I came to get Duar. You know where he is?”

  “No.”

  “He was here, wasn’t he?”

  Acacia flared angrily. “I wouldn’t have sent the signal if he wasn’t. I am not stupid.”

  “Then where is he now?”

  “I don’t know.” He looked around the room at the dead men. “If he is not dead, you must have let him escape. But he cannot have gone far.”

  Rat regarded the prisoner. “I’m not leaving without Duar, even if we have to burn this building down. I think I’ll ask this one a few questions.”

  “And after you ask him questions?”

  “I’ll take him out to the ship with us so the pros can interrogate him. Robby, find me a bucket of liquid. Water, anything, coffee, goat’s milk, whatever. And two good-sized cups. Must be a kitchen around somewhere.”

  “You gonna water-board this guy, sir?” Robby asked, his eyes getting bigger.

  “If he makes me,” Rat replied.

  Robby left the room.

  Rat turned back to Acacia. “We’ve only got a few minutes.”

  “I was told everyone would probably be killed except Duar.”

  “This man surrendered. Can’t shoot him in cold blood.”

  “I can,” Acacia said, looking at the man.

  Rat stared at him, then understood. “He’ll be put away for so long he’ll forget all about you.”

  “He will get the word out that I betrayed them.”

  Rat didn’t reply.

  Acacia spoke quietly. “After you’re done, just turn your back for ten seconds. You can be furious with me afterward.” He paused.

  “S
orry,” Rat replied. “Can’t do that.”

  “Then you may have to stop me.”

  “I probably can do that.”

  The Jordanian’s anger was starting to show on his face. “You are more interested in protecting him than me?”

  “No, I’m not. But I’m not going to let you murder him.”

  Acacia turned his back and walked away.

  “Bring him over here,” Rat said loudly.

  The terrorist was brought to him.

  Rat spoke to him in Arabic. “What’s your name?” he asked.

  The man said nothing.

  Rat slapped him in the face with his open hand. He yelled, “What’s your name?”

  The man’s eyes flamed with anger. He spat, “Mazmin.”

  Rat looked at him intently and spoke softly. “I’m going to ask you some questions, and you are going to answer. Do you understand?”

  Mazmin was emboldened. “I will not answer any questions.”

  Rat replied quickly, “You may think you’re not going to answer, but I guarantee you that you will.”

  Mazmin shook his head.

  Rat asked, “Where is Wahamed Duar? Your boss?”

  Mazmin shook his head again, growing firmer with every passing second that he wasn’t shot.

  Acacia stood two steps behind Rat, fuming, fingering the trigger on the 9-mm semiautomatic handgun in his pocket.

  Rat stared at Mazmin.

  Robby came back into the room carrying a large, heavy animal trough full of water. He set it down carefully as some sloshed over the side and darkened the concrete floor.

  “Robby, help me with this table. We’ve got to make a water board out of it. Turn it over and rip the legs off.”

  They flipped the table over, laying it on the floor with the legs sticking up. Each gave a few sharp blows with the heels of their hands to two legs, splintering the legs off quickly.

  “Turn the table back over and put the legs under one end. I need some incline.” He looked up. “Groomer. I need you to hold his head. Get a shirt or something off one of the dead guys.”