Seven Days From Sunday (MP-5 CIA #1) (23 page)

“Poison?” Richard asked.

“I imagine,” McKay said, keeping her answer vague. The man might be in Gonz’s loop, but she couldn’t be sure how large that loop was. “Tests haven’t been confirmed yet. At least, I haven’t heard.”

“So, how do we play it?”

“Let’s stick close to the truth. I’m a concerned doctor. Wanted to be sure there wasn’t anyone else out here sick.”

Richard nodded, putting the car in park. The three Basra city employees watched them as they got out.

“I’ll need to get inside the house,” McKay quietly told Richard as they approached the city workers.

The man who seemed to be boss asked something in Arabic and Richard answered. The discussion seemed to go forever in McKay’s mind as Richard and the city official went back and forth. Finally Richard said to her, “They’re going to block off the well, so no one can use it until it’s been tested.”

McKay nodded. As a doctor, she was glad to hear it. Who knew who might stumble upon these few homes and want a drink of water? She turned to Richard. “Tell them that the woman who lives here, her niece hasn’t been to the hospital for a couple days. We want to be sure she isn’t here and possibly sick, too.”

Richard quickly explained in his native tongue. A moment later the man nodded his head. Richard said something in reply, then with his hand at McKay’s back, propelled her toward the front steps of the aunt’s house.

After opening the front door, which was unlocked, McKay called out loudly, “Ghaniyah? Ghaniyah, you here?”

“What are we looking for?” Richard asked quietly.

McKay didn’t answer, going directly to the bedroom. Stepping inside, she suddenly stopped short. Every drawer of the dresser was pulled out, yet there were no clothes to be seen anywhere.

Richard joined her. “What?”

McKay shook her head. Finally she told him, “Ghaniyah said she was to go back to Baghdad with her aunt’s dresser.”

Richard walked over to the dresser. “Maybe her aunt’s clothes, clothes
in the dresser
, not the dresser itself.”

“No,” McKay insisted. “No, we’re missing it. Something’s wrong.” McKay carefully inspected each opened drawer, but like before, there was no hidden written message anywhere.

“What exactly did this woman say?” Richard asked.

McKay shrugged. “That was it. She was to come here to Basra, see how her aunt was doing and then take the dresser back to al Mudtaji.”

Richard thought for a moment. “She say this in English?”

“Well, I don’t speak Arabic.”

“Okay, but did she say it in Arabic first? Then someone translated it?”

“No,” McKay explained. “She wanted to talk to me and she’s fluent in English. Why, what are you thinking?”

“There a chest here? Trunk locker?”

“I don’t think so.”

Richard went back to the great room, McKay quickly following. “Sometimes words from Arabic to English and vice versa, they don’t translate exact,” Richard said. “In English, a dresser is a dresser. A footlocker is a footlocker. And a chest is a chest.”

“But not in Arabic?” McKay asked.

“No.” Surveying the floor, Richard immediately noticed the cleaner carpet spot near the far wall. “What was here?”

McKay thought hard. “A chair, I think. Pretty sad looking.”

Richard then noticed the four deep impression marks in the carpet nearby. He kneeled down, running his hand over the carpet. “This was it. Look.” McKay walked over, puzzled. He looked up at her. “This is about the right size for a footlocker type of chest.”

McKay shook her head. She couldn’t remember anything being there.

“Footprints from the chair are big. My guess? The big chair hid it. But there was a footlocker right here, I guarantee it.”

“And Ghaniyah’s now got it,” McKay said with dismay.

Adnan looked out the thick security glass window watching the activity three stories below. Two Americans, wearing T-shirts and shorts, stood on either side of the quiet street, tossing a Frisbee back and forth. Every once in a while a car or military truck would pass by. The two men didn’t let the vehicles disrupt their game, though. The Frisbee was usually arced directly over the passing cars, one time skimming just inches above the hood of a small Toyota, causing the startled driver to stomp on the brakes. A friendly wave from the Frisbee player and the car was on its way again.

Their casual game playing mesmerized Adnan. In the relative safety of the Green Zone, they could walk around nearly naked and play American games as they saw fit. A large Army truck slowly approached. The Frisbee player just below the window waited until the truck was close, then purposely tossed the Frisbee on the ground. A moment after it hit the pavement, the disc rose in the air toward the American on the other side. The man jumped in the air to catch it as the truck rumbled past.

Having seen enough, Adnan turned away. The room was small, holding a cot, a small desk and wood chair. To his left was a thick steel door with a small unbreakable glass window that allowed the Americans to look in on him. His back to the wall, he slowly sank to the floor, his mind still wondering if it could be true – Could Ghaniyah be a believer? Did she really believe in al Mudtaji’s call for jihad?

He tried to tell himself that the photos could be fakes. You could do anything with a computer these days. Maybe they had taken her picture when she had brought them the head, then overlaid her face on the real Jordanian woman that had been captured in the U.K. That was certainly possible. But then, she looked younger in the picture. Not a lot younger, but a few years younger which meant that the Americans were probably telling the truth about the photo.

But if the photo was real, what did that say about Ghaniyah? He knew in his heart that she wasn’t a jihadist. She hated al Mudtaji. She was locked in his terrorist cell against her own free will, just as he was now locked in this cell against his free will. But then, if it was true that Ghaniyah was no more a jihadist than he was, what about her arrest in England just a few years ago? Why hadn’t she told him about that? Was it because she had been with some lover? Or because she did believe in jihad?

His head spinning, he rested it against the cinder block wall, closing his eyes. Suddenly he heard some frantic shouts from somewhere outside his door, and he snapped his eyes open, staring at the door, waiting.

Then there was a horrific explosion.

Next thing he knew, he was curled up on the floor, in the fetal position. Something was on top of him, and it took him a minute to realize he was pinned underneath the desk. But he hadn’t moved. He was still underneath the window, which meant the desk had somehow been hurled across the room. Looking up, he could see the overhead light flicker for a moment, then go out.

He was suddenly aware of the pain that radiated from one shoulder and down his arm. He tried to see around the desk. See what had happened.

Then everything went black.

The explosion was powerful enough and close enough to Marco Polo 5 that Gonz had instinctively taken cover near a desk. Watching the lights overhead flicker and the computers automatically power down, the screens going black as a safety precaution, Gonz had yelled, “Go to auxiliary! Go to auxiliary!”

Peterson had quickly cut all electrical power streaming into the MP-5 complex, switching over to a powerful diesel generator that had been installed for just such emergencies. A moment later all the computers had came back to life while the overhead lights operated at a prearranged 50% power level, still providing ample light, yet saving most of the juice for the computer and telephone systems.

“Find out what the hell happened!” Gonz told Peterson as he rushed outside. Sirens wailed from all directions, and he could see smoke rising from the Camp Ward building, just a hundred yards away.

“Shit!” Gonz heard from behind him. He looked over his shoulder to see Heisman panting for breath as he stood with his hands on his knees. Just a few minutes earlier, Heisman had left for the mess hall, a good distance away, for some food. Gonz knew he must have sprinted back to MP-5 as soon he heard the explosion. “Our guy’s in there!”

Peterson quickly emerged from the building and hurried over to Gonz. “Sir, Checkpoint 2 reports a FROG missile. Unknown payload.”

Gonz nodded, watching the rising smoke as sirens screeched. So named by NATO, the FROG, or Free Rocket Over Ground missile, was an unguided Russian rocket that had been around since the mid-1950s. Saddam had bought numerous FROGs, using them in the Iran/Iraq war in the 1980s and in the Gulf War. Obviously, the Coalition Forces hadn’t rounded up all of them.

Gonz turned to Peterson. “Casualties?”

“Don’t know, sir.”

“Our guy’s in there!” Heisman repeated.

“We’re going over,” Gonz firmly told Peterson. “Get on the horn and tell whoever you can we got a priority one-four in there.” Peterson nodded, clearly frightened. “A one-four!” Gonz repeated, then took off down the street, running hard, Heisman right with him.

His head felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to it. While still pinned underneath the desk, Adnan used his left hand to feel the back of his head. He could feel the warm liquid on his fingers and wasn’t surprised to see blood when be brought his hand back in front of his face. His right shoulder felt like it was on fire, with any movement of his arm sending stabbing pains down to his fingers. Ignoring the agonizing pain in both his head and shoulder, Adnan gripped the desk with his left hand, took a deep breath, then pushed hard, howling in pain as his right shoulder felt like a thousand knives were impaling him. The desk moved more easily than he anticipated as he slid out from under it, letting it crash down with bang.

Breathing hard, Adnan finally sat up. He looked at where he had lain and saw a substantial amount of blood on the floor. He knew he probably needed stitches, but he was more concerned about his arm. Looking up for the first time, he saw that the security door was ajar. It wouldn’t be long before someone came to find him.

He had to move.
Now!

Smoke billowed from what remained of the top floor. Only a three-story building, Gonz could now see that the missile had sheared off half of the roof, flames licking the empty shell of the building’s walls.

“Where is he!?” Gonz yelled to Heisman. “What floor!?”

“Third!” Heisman called out.

Gonz cursed his luck. As they approached the west side of the building, the first casualty they saw was a young man lying on the grass wearing a T-shirt, shorts and running shoes. His head was covered in blood, chunks of the building’s cinder block wall scattered around him. Three others, a Marine, an Army lieutenant and another man in shorts and a T-shirt were huddled around him.

“Need a medic!?” Gonz shouted without slowing.

“On their way!” the Marine yelled. “There’s more inside!”

Gonz nodded, slipped on something, stumbled, and kept going. He looked back to see he had stepped on a Frisbee, its slick surface sliding out from under him on the thick grass. Heisman shot ahead of him now, going around to the front of the Camp Ward building.

The front entrance area was filled with officers and enlisted men, calling out instructions to each other. Gonz noticed one man had a two-way radio, and he could hear the man giving precise details of the damage to someone on the other end. Not speaking to any of them, Heisman dashed through the open front door, Gonz right on his heels.

The inside of the old building had been quite beautiful in its day, taking a page from ancient Rome with white marble floors and great Ionic columns rising from the floor to a second-level mahogany balcony that encircled the entire circumference of the building. A set of wide, carpeted stairs just to the right of the ornate entrance hall led to the upper floors.

An MP, his head bleeding badly, was the first person they saw. He was sitting about a third of the way up the stairs, a dazed look on his face. As Gonz and Heisman bound up the stairs, he simply gave them a blank look.

“I got a priority one-four in here!” Gonz told him, referring to a person that has been deemed a valuable asset, their allegiance not yet verified, which meant that the person had to remain locked up at all times. “A one-four! Third floor! You seen him?”

The man just stared at Gonz, as if he had asked the question in Chinese. Heisman grabbed Gonz by the arm. “He can’t hear you! C’mon!”

Mustering all his strength, Adnan stood up, bracing himself against the wall with his good arm. His head suddenly started to spin, his stomach violently unsettled. He stood there, catching his breath, waiting for the wave of nausea to pass.
Move!
He told himself.
Have to get out of here!

The door opened easily, held upright by only a single broken hinge. Stepping into the corridor, Adnan was surprised to find that just twenty feet away he could see the sky. The roof was gone, and he could see flames shooting up from somewhere below, smoke rising. He instinctively backed away from the blaze, tripping over something on the floor.

It was a soldier.

He was sprawled across the hallway, one leg clearly broken, the tibia protruding from his torn camouflage pants. The man was clearly surprised to see Adnan and tried to speak, but no words came out of his mouth.

Adnan just stared down at the man. “I’ll get help,” Adnan finally managed to tell the soldier in English. “I’ll get you help.”

He turned away and took another step before he was suddenly brought to a halt. He looked down. The soldier had grabbed him by his ankle. Adnan squatted down and with his left hand, pried the man’s fingers away from his ankle. He was surprised by the wounded man’s strength. “I’ll get you help,” Adnan said again. “I will.”

“Upstairs!” someone cried out from below.