Brad Taylor - Enemy of Mine

He was patting himself on the back when a wrenching scream punctured the air. Coming from inside the house. Then all hell broke loose.

Too late, the Ghost realized there was no convincing the men of his innocence. They weren’t looking for the truth. They were looking for a confession, and he feared soon they would get it. His body was racked in pain, his skin slick with sweat. He barely had the strength to raise his head, and they had just started.

One of the men applied the battery charger to his naked chest again, and his frame locked up in a rictus of agony, a screeching wail torn from his throat filling the air. As quickly as it came, the pain left.

“Tell us what you did. Who you are. My friend is losing patience and wants to start working below the waist.”

The Ghost looked at the man with his eyes barely open, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth where the electricity had caused him to bite his tongue.

Allah, deliver me from this pit. Help me on my path.

The torturer said, “Your choice. So you know, when we tire of the electricity, we begin with the real pain. With knives.”

He bent down and began yanking on a pant leg, giving the Ghost a clear view of the front door so far, far away. Freedom he would never see again. He was staring at the portal, transfixed at the thought of escape, when it shredded inward in a blinding flash.

The shockwave from the detonation flattened the torturer to his front and disoriented the others. Before they had even comprehended there had been an explosion, multiple men entered the room, firing wildly.

The man on the floor bear-crawled down a hallway while the other three began firing back. Caught in the middle, the Ghost simply hung like a rack of meat, praying he wouldn’t be hit.

He saw two men in uniform go down, but more poured through the doorway, while still others fired through the windows. The three torturers continued to shoot, until one by one they were silenced. After about a minute, all that he heard was the stomping of feet and the shouting of commands. Eventually, one of the men focused on him.

When questioned, he lied, saying he was a Saudi Arabian citizen who had been kidnapped. He stated it must have been for ransom. One of the police cut him free from the chains. As he was gathering his clothes he saw them bring in the primary torturer. Alive.

He knows the truth. The Ghost couldn’t allow the man to be taken for questioning, especially if it was questioning like he had just endured. The man would give him up in a heartbeat.

Only half-feigning rage, he screamed and raced across the room, picking up the broken iron hinge of the door as he went. Using it like a dull axe, he feverishly hammered the torturer in the skull, getting in three solid blows before he was pulled off and thrown to the floor, with all gun barrels now trained on him.

He screeched that the man had tortured him, then began to wail as if he was traumatized. A heated argument began about his fate. As he had hoped, some of the men sympathized with his actions. The commander looked at him with pity and ended the discussion. He was left alone, but the barrels all remained on him constantly now. He stared at his torturer, trying to catch a rise and fall of the man’s chest. He saw none. He watched the commander leave the room to the outside. He knew his mission was done, but was feeling some comfort in his ability to escape to fight another day.

He collected his dishdasha and felt the weight of the traitorous cell phone his contact had given him, along with his Saudi passport. He gave a silent prayer of thanks that he had left the Jordanian passport in the car. Having two passports of two different men would have been hard to explain. He then remembered where he had gotten the phone and felt a stab of fear. There was no telling who or what that cell had contacted, and eventually these men would take the phone from him and scan it. At the very least he needed to delete the call history. He pulled the phone out as surreptitiously as possible. And saw he had two missed calls and a text message.

Where are you? Call me soon. Your package is ready.

It was from the contact, and he’d called while the Ghost was being tortured. The boy didn’t know what had transpired. Didn’t realize the Ghost was now viewed as an enemy. And he’s built the explosives.

On the far side of his truck, Wilcox was nervously fidgeting with his weapon, trying to determine if the fight was over or just paused. He was in constant communications with his team sergeant in the truck to his rear, but neither could see anything except shadows moving through the windows.

It had taken all of his self-control not to run to the breach and begin coordinating the assault, especially when he saw the men he had trained wildly shooting through the windows from the outside. He had settled for simply taking cover behind his vehicle. His team sergeant had actually made it to the left side of the breach before being ordered back. Now, they waited in the silence. He knew he should hide in the truck again, but there was no way he would, given the danger.

Eventually, he saw Bashir exit the building, and he waved his team sergeant over.

Bashir said, “It’s a torture house. Inside are about fifteen men, all showing signs of terrible abuse. One was being tortured while we assaulted.”

Both Americans had witnessed plenty of such houses in Iraq and had no desire to enter this one. Seeing a circle of hell like this would live a long, long time in their dreams.

Wilcox said, “What about Khalid?”

“Not here. There were four men, all dead. One killed by a prisoner.”

Serves that bastard right.

“Well, let’s get ’em back, get ’em medical attention and question them. They’re all the intel we’re going to get.”

“We don’t have the space for that. We had planned on a maximum of five detainees. Not fifteen.”

“Call for transport. Get a bunch of trucks out here.”

Bashir said nothing for a moment.

“What? Why’s that a bad idea?”

“Because you are here. I’ll have to call an ordinary army unit, and they can’t see you. They don’t even know you’re in the country, and the word will spread rapidly.”

Bashir saw his expression and continued. “It doesn’t matter. They will have no information. I have seen this before. Most will be unable to describe much because of the torture, and the few that can will have nothing to offer. We have what we came for in the cell phones we found inside.”

Wilcox considered the information, trying to find a way around. Eventually, he acquiesced, with a caveat. “Okay. Here’s what we do. Go get a biometric profile of every one of them. See if any ping. If they do, we bring them along. If not, we add them to the database. When you’re done, call for the transport. Leave a team of guys here to guard them while the trucks are on the way.”

“I cannot leave a team here, in this town, without protection. It’s too dangerous. The insurgents may attack for revenge. Either we all stay, or none stay.”

Wilcox knew what he said was true, with insurgents attacking anyone in uniform throughout this area of Yemen. What went unsaid was that Bashir had no leadership beyond himself. There was no noncommissioned officer corps to speak of. Unlike Wilcox, he had no team sergeant to rely on to accomplish the mission.

He said, “All right, all right. Get the profiles, then leave as much food and water as you can, and tell them medical help is on the way. That’ll get ’em to stay until the army trucks get here. If they’re as beat up as you say, they’ll probably just sit for a while anyway.”

Bashir waited a beat, then nodded and began issuing commands.