A celebratory cry went up from the soldiers but quickly died back down to the solitary hum of the engines.
Sixty-four minutes after leaving Yemen, the C17 effortlessly touched down on the flare-lit runway in northern Somalia west of Hargeysa. Haldane noticed everyone aboard was strapping on masks and helmets, so he reluctantly followed suit and then he and Gwen joined the soldiers as they streamed out of the plane in two organized lines.
As in Yemen, planes lined either side of the runway, but tanks, HMMWVs, and other vehicles formed armored columns at the side of the road. Masked guards took up positions along the runway. A row of tanks protected the far end. Helicopters hovered above. Haldane thought he saw the glimpse of a sniper's gun barrel peeking out of one of the choppers, but he wasn't sure if he was imagining it.
Even though he felt no immediate danger, the urgency around him kept the adrenaline pumping. And in the equatorial desert night, he baked inside his HAZMAT suit. Jogging after Paddy, he could feel the clingy wetness of his sweat-soaked shirt.
Major Patrick O'Toole strode purposefully to the row of basic wooden huts at the far end of the runway. Two vans, resembling huge mobile homes, were parked near the huts. Painted black, satellite dishes lined their roofs. Haldane assumed they were the mobile command units Paddy had earlier mentioned. Paddy walked to the second van and climbed inside. Gwen and Noah followed him in.
The interior looked to Noah like a scaled-down version of mission control at NASA. Flat TV screens lined the walls. An electronic map of the region spanned the front wall. Complex consoles with multiple digital readouts and buttons stood below the TV screens. Two communications officers sat at the consoles and faced away from the door. Wearing bulky headsets, they worked feverishly at keyboards in front of them, their heads in constant motion as they glanced from the computer screens to the consoles and video screens above.
The officers gave no indication of noticing that Paddy and the two doctors had joined them. When Paddy tapped one of them on the shoulder, he turned his head and gave the three of them a single nod before turning his attention back to his computer.
Paddy removed his helmet and mask. "You can take these off in here," he said to the others. He rolled three chairs over, so that they could sit behind the soldiers and watch the video screens above.
Haldane had watched his share of war movies, but seeing the battle unfold on these close circuit TVs was nothing like what he had imagined. It took his eyes and stomach several minutes to adjust to the shaky, erratic video feed with their flickering imagery. A couple of the screens showed only blackness, as if switched off, but every once in a while the sudden bright flash of an explosion punctuated the darkness.
One of the screens showed a sky view of two attached buildings, taken from what Haldane assumed was a helicopter. The complex, which looked from above like a run-down tenement, was lit up in an incandescent greenish glow. Several objects, likely vehicles, sat immobile in the dirt behind the building. A number of ill-defined objects scattered the ground in front of the building. Haldane wondered if they were people, but they never seemed to move. The only time anything in the frame moved was when, after a series of explosions lit up the screen, the entire complex shook from the percussive force.
But the images that gripped Haldane most were the bank of three screens in the bottom row, which resembled something from a newsroom. Shot through night-vision lenses, the images were in constant motion. It took Haldane a few moments to realize that the soldiers somehow carried these cameras. He glanced at Paddy and pointed to the screens for an explanation.
"Helmet-cameras." Paddy tapped his own head in explanation. "Part of the advanced assault unit."
Transfixed, almost forgetting to breathe, Haldane watched the soldiers study their target as their helmet-cameras panned over the compound.
After two more minutes of surveillance, the three screens abruptly changed in unison when the soldiers wearing the helmet-cameras turned their heads away from the target. The cameras focused on several soldiers lying prone in the dirt with assault rifles held out in front of them. They remained completely still for several long seconds. Then one of the soldiers popped up to his knees. He frantically punched the sky with a finger extended in a "Go! Go!" sign.
"Godspeed, guys!" Paddy muttered.
Suddenly the screens burst into action.
His heart pounding in his throat, Haldane couldn't keep track of the various viewpoints. The feeds from the helmet-cameras became so jerky that it looked as if the whole complex was seesawing in front of them.
Haldane's eyes darted to the previously static sky view, which erupted with activity. The camera zoomed in on the action so that Haldane could now make out the small shapes of soldiers. With explosion after explosion rocking the compound and lighting up the screen, the commandos streamed in from three sides of the complex, advancing in what looked like a full run.
Aside from the tapping of the keyboards and the occasional comment spoken by the communications officers into their radios, the van was silent, but Noah could almost hear the deafening roar and feel the ground shake with each detonation as the commandos approached the complex.
"Shit!" Paddy muttered.
For a moment, Noah was confused by the outburst. Then he saw it. One of the helmet-cameras had darkened. When Haldane looked closer, he recognized stars through the blankness. The cameraman had gone down.
A lump in his throat, Haldane focused back on the sky view. Three or four other commandos lay on the ground, some still and others writhing, while their comrades stormed around them. Haldane watched with relief as the rest of the commandos made it to the edge of the complex without suffering further casualties.
Noah watched the two remaining helmet-cameras as they swept over the peeling paint of the sides of the complex. Their images had stabilized, so Haldane knew they were moving slower now. The cameras panned over the ground at their feet. Numerous bodies of men in dark robes, some with traditional headwear and others with bandanas or bare heads, sprawled on the ground with weapons lying on their chests or fallen beside them. Until he saw the bodies, Haldane had not realized so many enemy fighters had been guarding the building from the outside.
The helmet-cameras didn't linger long on the corpses; instead, they focused in on the other commandos standing in front of a door to the complex. Two of them leveled their rifles at it. The muzzles spat out red fire as they emptied their cartridges into the door. Then another soldier kicked it with the sole of his foot and it fell inward.
Haldane's pulse quickened as the screen darkened and the soldiers stepped into a hallway. The picture tinted even greener from the cameras' night-vision lenses. The commandos moved cautiously. At each doorway and bend in the hallway they formed the same assault pose with men poised on either side, rifles held low. Each time, Haldane held his breath.
Rounding the third corner, Haldane almost jumped from his seat when the screen flashed with fire and smoke. The cameras jerked in every direction before settling again. Then the image focused on a fallen commando, lying with arms twisted over his head. "Damn it!" Paddy said and rubbed at his eyes.
Another soldier knelt forward and struggled to drag his fallen comrade back toward the entrance. The camera swept from the soldier to the far end of the corridor where four robed men had collapsed. Three of them lay awkwardly on the ground, while the fourth sat propped against a wall, gun in his lap and head tilted off to the side like he had fallen asleep at his post but the gaping wound in his face suggested otherwise.
The cameras inched toward the fallen terrorists. Haldane felt his chest tighten with each step as if he were crawling along with the soldiers down the lethal hallway, but they made it past the bodies without further incident.
One of the helmet-cameras focused on a doorway. Two soldiers kicked at the door until it swung open. No one budged for several seconds. Haldane felt the sweat forming on his brow, but he stayed as motionless as the men on the screen.
One of the commandos in front waved his hand indicating to the others to follow. The camera moved into the large open room, which resembled a big classroom except it was scattered with rugs instead of desks. Haldane wiped his brow, relieved that the men were in a more open, safer-looking space than the dangerous hallway. But the soldiers moved with the same cautious urgency. They scrambled across the floor, assuming assault positions by another doorway on the far side of the room.
Just as the cameras caught up to the soldiers, the screen flashed a single brilliant white light and went totally black like someone had switched it off.
The communications officer sitting in front of Noah ripped off his headset, as if in pain, and threw it down on the console.
Stunned, Haldane did not at first understand what he had just witnessed. Then he heard the voice of Gwen beside him. "Oh, no, please, no..."
He glanced back to the sky view of the complex, which was now swallowed in flames. Smoke wafted up so high that soon the building was shrouded and Haldane could see nothing but ominous gray.
All eyes in the van watched the dead stillness.
Minutes later, when the smoke finally cleared enough to see, three-quarters of the complex had disappeared. Haldane felt his chest sink. Tears welled in his eyes.
"Damn it!" Paddy spat and dropped his face into his hands.
The longest half hour of Noah's life passed before the call came through on Paddy's radio. Paddy spoke into the radio for a moment, clipped it back on his belt, and then turned to Haldane and Savard. "Okay, the complex--" He paused to get his voice to cooperate. "At least what's left of it is secure."
Haldane didn't ask Paddy about the soldiers trapped inside the collapsed building, because he didn't want to have the last glimmer of hope snuffed out. He forced the bleak thoughts out of his mind, pulled on his helmet and mask, and then followed Paddy and Gwen out of the van.
Haldane noted with admiration that there was no trace of emotion in Paddy's demeanor as he assembled the site survey team in front of the two waiting HMMWVs. Aside from Gwen and Noah, there were four technologists, all members of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. They grabbed their equipment bags--loaded with test tubes, specimen containers, and swabs--and then climbed in the backs of the all-terrain vehicles, which took off into the dark smoky night.
It was a bumpy sixteen minutes later before the vehicles turned onto a dirt road. They passed soldiers and trucks, some heading in the opposite direction and others stationary at the side of the road. In the light of the trucks and spotlights ahead, Haldane caught his first glimpse of the still-smoking complex. Most of the structure had collapsed in on itself, but the formerly attached single-story building still stood at the far end of the complex.
They exited the HMMWV about thirty yards from the building. Haldane watched as numerous medics and other soldiers frantically rummaged through the pile of rubble that represented the central part of the complex. Several of the soldiers scrambled over the stacks, trying hopelessly to budge the blocks of cement while yelling to their comrades trapped inside. Haldane was overwhelmed with a familiar helplessness. He wanted to climb on top of the rubble and dig until his hands were raw, but he knew the gesture would be as useless as the shouts and cries of the soldiers standing on the pile.
Paddy waved him over to where he stood by the entrance of the lone building left standing. "Look!" he said, his voice muffled by the face mask. He pointed down. Two soldiers flashed a bright beam on the dead enemy fighter lying by the entrance.
Haldane knelt down to get a closer view of the robed man who lay on his back. Several bullet holes riddled his chest and abdomen. His hand still clutched a rifle. His face was covered in the dust and dirt from the building's collapse, but Haldane still easily recognized Hazzir Kabaal from the photographs CNN had run nearly twenty-four hours a day.
Paddy nodded somberly. "Good," he said, but there was no celebration in his voice. Paddy pointed to what was left of the building. "They didn't have time to detonate this part of the complex," he yelled over the noise of machinery and other people. "The engineers say we can have a quick look. We have to be careful. The explosion weakened its walls. Could go at any moment."
Two soldiers led the site survey team in through the building's back door and down a short hallway, which opened into a large lab. Stepping inside, Haldane was surprised at how big it was. But the place was a mess. Centrifuges, fridges, incubators, and electronic analyzers lay upturned or smashed on the floor. Lab hoods had toppled onto the floor, joining the broken glass and papers strewn all about. Haldane knew that humans, not explosives, were responsible for the room's upheaval. Why? he wondered, but he didn't have time to stop and consider.
A thick door at the far end of the room caught his attention. Grabbing his specimen collection bag, he tapped Gwen on the shoulder and pointed to the door. They hurried over to it. Haldane had to put his full muscle power into yanking open the heavy steel door that was wedged stuck. When the door finally gave way and flung open, it slammed into the wall beside. The memory of Paddy's warning flashed ominously to Noah's mind.